Friday, December 10, 2010
The White House's case for the tax-cut deal in one graph
By Ezra Klein
They're circulating this around the Hill:
It's also worth noting that those numbers could end up looking a lot better -- say, if the payroll-tax cut gets extended next year, which many think likely – or, if Democrats let their big tax cut expire in 2011 and then cave in to Republican demands in 2012, a lot worse.
Tax Deal Discussed on MSNBC
MSNBC_12-09-2010_17.02.02
Clearly in the United States Senate, there need to be a bipartisan agreement in order to move forward. Harry Reid didn't have the votes to move forward without Republicans and so, discussion was essential. And frankly, Chris, desirable. We want to have a bipartisan agreement on this issue. We passed a bill of course over to the Senate which incorporated what we thought was the priority in making sure there was unemployment insurance available and secondly, that middle income taxpayers did not get any increase in their taxes on January 1st. That has not moved in the Senate as you know..
Reid: Republicans Should Stop Hiding Behind Process And Support Our Troops Including Repeal Of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
December 9, 2010
Washington, D.C. — Nevada Senator Harry Reid delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor this afternoon as Republicans continue to play political games with critical national security needs and ignore the advice of our military leaders, who are urging Congress to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
“Discrimination has never served America well. When it applies to those who serve America in the Armed Forces, it is both disgraceful and counterproductive.
“The theory behind ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a thing of the past, and we should put the policy behind us too. It’s obsolete. It’s embarrassing. It weakens our military and it offends the very values we ask our troops to defend.
“We need to match our policy with our principles and finally say that in the United States, everyone who steps up to serve our country should be welcomed.
“If that were the only argument – that it is the right thing to do – it would be enough. But that’s not the only reason we should repeal it.
“Repealing it will make our military stronger. It doesn’t make America safer to discharge troops with critically needed skills – and that is exactly what has happened. This policy is responsible for the discharge of nearly 14,000 highly qualified servicemen and -women. And we will never know how many wanted to sign up but stayed away because of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
“It doesn’t make us stronger to limit military readiness of an all-volunteer force. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ doesn’t help morale; it hurts it.
“The other side may feel passionately that our military should sanction discrimination based on sexual orientation, but they are clearly in the minority. And they have run out of excuses.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supports repealing it. So does the Secretary of Defense. The vast majority of the military said it would accept its repeal. The majority of Americans support repealing it, too.
“And there is simply no evidence and no justification – legal, military or otherwise – for keeping this policy in place. There is no reason to keep American citizens from fighting for the country they love because of whom they love.
“The next Speaker of the House has asked why we would get into this debate during a time of two wars and ongoing security concerns. I think wartime is exactly the right time to do everything we can to strengthen the military.
“What opponents of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ really don’t want to ask is what this policy tells us about the equality between our principles and practices. We can no longer ask our troops to die for a flag that represents justice and ask them to be false to themselves while they do it.
“The other side knows it doesn’t have the votes to take this repeal out of the Defense Authorization Act, so they’re holding up the whole bill.
“But when they refuse to debate it, they also hold up the many other good, important and urgently needed parts of that bill.
“The bill before us contains an across-the-board pay raise for all the members of our military. More than just that, it reauthorizes over 35 different bonuses and special pay incentives that our troops depend on to make ends meet.
“Let me be clear: failure to pass this bill means our troops will lose these benefits.
“The bill also contains provisions that would expand health care for troops and their families and significantly enhance mental health care for service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It would fund critical troop protection needs, such as MRAPs and up-armored Humvees, which are desperately needed on the battlefield.
“And it would support critical missions in Afghanistan, including expanding intelligence collection efforts, disrupting Taliban finances, and building the Afghan National Army so that Afghanistan can take responsibility for their own security.
“These are not minor or unimportant issues. These are life-and-death matters for real Americans risking their lives in our defense.
We ask our troops to trust us, and fight for us, and to be brave enough to stand in the line of fire.
“When we send our troops into battle, we do so because we believe strongly enough that we stand on the right side of history. We have to believe that, because we know the consequences of war, and the terrible burdens its carries.
“There is a cemetery just two miles southeast of where we stand right now, on the banks of the Anacostia River. It’s the final resting place of veterans of every war this nation has fought. It is also where 19 United States Senators, more than 70 Congressmen, a former Speaker of the House and a former Vice President are buried.
“One tombstone there belongs to an Air Force Sergeant who fought in Vietnam. He became famous shortly after that war ended when he tried to be in the military and out of the closet at the same time. He lost that fight.
“His tombstone reads: ‘When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.’
“America is better than that. When it comes to equality in the military, we know which side is the right side of history. The only question is whether we’re brave enough to stand there.
“In a few moments, I will move to reconsider the motion to proceed to this bill. This legislation is critical for our troops, and it would be unconscionable to leave here without passing it.
“I have bent over backwards to find a way to get this bill done. But it is clear that Republicans – led by a couple of Senators who simply do not want to have a vote on repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – are doing everything they can to stand in the way.
“They want to block a vote on this issue at all costs, even if it means we do not pass a Defense Authorization bill for the first time in 48 years. And even if it means our troops do not get the funding and the protections they need.
“What we have gone through to try to get this bill to the floor reminds me of a story from when I was a boy, about eleven years old.
“I had never been anyplace – certainly not more than about 50 miles from Searchlight. My brother Dale, who was ten years older than me, graduated from high school and got a job in Ashfork, Arizona.
“I went and stayed with him for a few days. He had a girlfriend, so I ended up spending most of the time I was there with her little brother.
“We played a lot of games, but every game we played, I never beat him, because he kept changing the rules. I think that’s about what’s happened here with this bill.
“I have already tried to bring the bill to the floor twice this year. In fact I offered to bring it up this summer with no restrictions. But Republicans refused this request.
“Because my friends on the other side of the aisle blocked both of these attempts, we are now trying to get this bill done in a lame duck session, when everybody knows we still have much to do and that we do not have time for unlimited debate.
“But I have tried my best to find a way forward that would ensure a fair and reasonable opportunity for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to offer and vote on amendments.
“Over the last twenty years, we’ve had roll call votes on an average of 12 amendments during consideration of the Defense Authorization bill.
“So, in an effort to be as fair as possible, I made clear to my colleagues that I am willing to vote on 15 relevant amendments of their choosing, with 10 from the Republican side, and 5 from the Democratic side, with ample time for debate on each amendment.
“Now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are demanding even more time. The time that they know isn’t available. There are not enough days in this calendar year to do what the minority is asking, and they know this.
“They want the tax and the spending bills done before they will allow us to move to the Defense bill.
“At the same time they say we need to wait, they say they need as much time as possible to consider this bill. It isn’t possible to do both.
“It’s quite clear they are trying to run out the clock and just don’t want to get this bill done.
“I want to be clear that my remarks should in no way be taken as a criticism of my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins. Quite the contrary.
“I have tremendous respect for Senator Collins, who is often the only Republican willing to work with us to try to move forward on many of our nation’s top priorities. She has been trying her best. But at the same time members of her Caucus are working equally as hard to defeat this measure at all costs.
“In my effort to get this done, I don’t know how I could have been more reasonable.
“But despite the critical importance for our troops, for our nation, and for justice that we get this bill done, we have not been able to reach an agreement.
“And I regret to say that it is our troops who will pay the price for our inability to overcome partisan political posturing.”
“Discrimination has never served America well. When it applies to those who serve America in the Armed Forces, it is both disgraceful and counterproductive.
“The theory behind ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a thing of the past, and we should put the policy behind us too. It’s obsolete. It’s embarrassing. It weakens our military and it offends the very values we ask our troops to defend.
“We need to match our policy with our principles and finally say that in the United States, everyone who steps up to serve our country should be welcomed.
“If that were the only argument – that it is the right thing to do – it would be enough. But that’s not the only reason we should repeal it.
“Repealing it will make our military stronger. It doesn’t make America safer to discharge troops with critically needed skills – and that is exactly what has happened. This policy is responsible for the discharge of nearly 14,000 highly qualified servicemen and -women. And we will never know how many wanted to sign up but stayed away because of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
“It doesn’t make us stronger to limit military readiness of an all-volunteer force. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ doesn’t help morale; it hurts it.
“The other side may feel passionately that our military should sanction discrimination based on sexual orientation, but they are clearly in the minority. And they have run out of excuses.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supports repealing it. So does the Secretary of Defense. The vast majority of the military said it would accept its repeal. The majority of Americans support repealing it, too.
“And there is simply no evidence and no justification – legal, military or otherwise – for keeping this policy in place. There is no reason to keep American citizens from fighting for the country they love because of whom they love.
“The next Speaker of the House has asked why we would get into this debate during a time of two wars and ongoing security concerns. I think wartime is exactly the right time to do everything we can to strengthen the military.
“What opponents of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ really don’t want to ask is what this policy tells us about the equality between our principles and practices. We can no longer ask our troops to die for a flag that represents justice and ask them to be false to themselves while they do it.
“The other side knows it doesn’t have the votes to take this repeal out of the Defense Authorization Act, so they’re holding up the whole bill.
“But when they refuse to debate it, they also hold up the many other good, important and urgently needed parts of that bill.
“The bill before us contains an across-the-board pay raise for all the members of our military. More than just that, it reauthorizes over 35 different bonuses and special pay incentives that our troops depend on to make ends meet.
“Let me be clear: failure to pass this bill means our troops will lose these benefits.
“The bill also contains provisions that would expand health care for troops and their families and significantly enhance mental health care for service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It would fund critical troop protection needs, such as MRAPs and up-armored Humvees, which are desperately needed on the battlefield.
“And it would support critical missions in Afghanistan, including expanding intelligence collection efforts, disrupting Taliban finances, and building the Afghan National Army so that Afghanistan can take responsibility for their own security.
“These are not minor or unimportant issues. These are life-and-death matters for real Americans risking their lives in our defense.
We ask our troops to trust us, and fight for us, and to be brave enough to stand in the line of fire.
“When we send our troops into battle, we do so because we believe strongly enough that we stand on the right side of history. We have to believe that, because we know the consequences of war, and the terrible burdens its carries.
“There is a cemetery just two miles southeast of where we stand right now, on the banks of the Anacostia River. It’s the final resting place of veterans of every war this nation has fought. It is also where 19 United States Senators, more than 70 Congressmen, a former Speaker of the House and a former Vice President are buried.
“One tombstone there belongs to an Air Force Sergeant who fought in Vietnam. He became famous shortly after that war ended when he tried to be in the military and out of the closet at the same time. He lost that fight.
“His tombstone reads: ‘When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.’
“America is better than that. When it comes to equality in the military, we know which side is the right side of history. The only question is whether we’re brave enough to stand there.
“In a few moments, I will move to reconsider the motion to proceed to this bill. This legislation is critical for our troops, and it would be unconscionable to leave here without passing it.
“I have bent over backwards to find a way to get this bill done. But it is clear that Republicans – led by a couple of Senators who simply do not want to have a vote on repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – are doing everything they can to stand in the way.
“They want to block a vote on this issue at all costs, even if it means we do not pass a Defense Authorization bill for the first time in 48 years. And even if it means our troops do not get the funding and the protections they need.
“What we have gone through to try to get this bill to the floor reminds me of a story from when I was a boy, about eleven years old.
“I had never been anyplace – certainly not more than about 50 miles from Searchlight. My brother Dale, who was ten years older than me, graduated from high school and got a job in Ashfork, Arizona.
“I went and stayed with him for a few days. He had a girlfriend, so I ended up spending most of the time I was there with her little brother.
“We played a lot of games, but every game we played, I never beat him, because he kept changing the rules. I think that’s about what’s happened here with this bill.
“I have already tried to bring the bill to the floor twice this year. In fact I offered to bring it up this summer with no restrictions. But Republicans refused this request.
“Because my friends on the other side of the aisle blocked both of these attempts, we are now trying to get this bill done in a lame duck session, when everybody knows we still have much to do and that we do not have time for unlimited debate.
“But I have tried my best to find a way forward that would ensure a fair and reasonable opportunity for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to offer and vote on amendments.
“Over the last twenty years, we’ve had roll call votes on an average of 12 amendments during consideration of the Defense Authorization bill.
“So, in an effort to be as fair as possible, I made clear to my colleagues that I am willing to vote on 15 relevant amendments of their choosing, with 10 from the Republican side, and 5 from the Democratic side, with ample time for debate on each amendment.
“Now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are demanding even more time. The time that they know isn’t available. There are not enough days in this calendar year to do what the minority is asking, and they know this.
“They want the tax and the spending bills done before they will allow us to move to the Defense bill.
“At the same time they say we need to wait, they say they need as much time as possible to consider this bill. It isn’t possible to do both.
“It’s quite clear they are trying to run out the clock and just don’t want to get this bill done.
“I want to be clear that my remarks should in no way be taken as a criticism of my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins. Quite the contrary.
“I have tremendous respect for Senator Collins, who is often the only Republican willing to work with us to try to move forward on many of our nation’s top priorities. She has been trying her best. But at the same time members of her Caucus are working equally as hard to defeat this measure at all costs.
“In my effort to get this done, I don’t know how I could have been more reasonable.
“But despite the critical importance for our troops, for our nation, and for justice that we get this bill done, we have not been able to reach an agreement.
“And I regret to say that it is our troops who will pay the price for our inability to overcome partisan political posturing.”
Preview: Rep. Boehner's Deficit Pledge
December 9, 2010 1:19 PM
60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl interviews Rep. John Boehner, the man who will lead the U.S. House of Representatives beginning next month, this Sunday, Dec. 12, at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.
White House White Board
White House White Board: Tax Cuts, Unemployment Insurance & Jobs
Posted by on December 9, 2010 at 7:00 AM EST
In this edition of White House White Board, Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, discusses the President’s compromise framework on tax cuts, unemployment insurance & job creation.
White House White Board: CEA Chair Austan Goolsbee Explains the Tax Cut Fight
Posted by on September 30, 2010 at 5:30 AM EST
Today we're trying out something new -- White House White Board, in which one of our key players on the White House team will cut through the political back-and-forth you hear every day and break down an issue affecting American families into simple, understandable terms. Today, Austan Goolsbee, the new Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers here at the White House, tackles the tax cut fight and what it means that Congressional Republicans are "holding middle class tax cuts hostage" as the President has said:
Statement by the President on the Passing of Elizabeth Edwards
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 07, 2010
Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Elizabeth Edwards. This afternoon I spoke to Cate Edwards and John Edwards, and offered our family’s condolences. I came to know and admire Elizabeth over the course of the presidential campaign. She was a tenacious advocate for fixing our health care system and fighting poverty, and our country has benefited from the voice she gave to the cause of building a society that lifts up all those left behind.
In her life, Elizabeth Edwards knew tragedy and pain. Many others would have turned inward; many others in the face of such adversity would have given up. But through all that she endured, Elizabeth revealed a kind of fortitude and grace that will long remain a source of inspiration. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.
In her life, Elizabeth Edwards knew tragedy and pain. Many others would have turned inward; many others in the face of such adversity would have given up. But through all that she endured, Elizabeth revealed a kind of fortitude and grace that will long remain a source of inspiration. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.
A warning at climate talks: Glacier melt speeding up
Updated 2d 7h ago
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CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — The lives and livelihoods of people in South Asia are at "high risk" as global warming melts glaciers in the Himalayas, sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady water sources, U.N. and other international experts reported Friday.
Worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increase in global mean air temperatures," the U.N. Environment Program said.
Glaciers in southern South America andAlaska's coastal mountains have been losing mass faster and for longer than glaciers elsewhere in the world, it said.
The new U.N. assessment of recent glacier research was issued at annual climate talks, where delegates were expected, once again this year, to fail to reach agreement on long-term mandatory action to rein in emissions of global warming gases.
USA TODAY INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: What causes global warming
"These alarming findings on melting glaciers underline the importance of combating climate change globally," said Norway's environment minister, Erik Solheim, whose government supports the glacier research. "It sends a strong message to us as politicians and climate negotiators in Cancun."
In their second and final week, a spirit of compromise seemed to have settled over the talks, but negotiators were expected, at best, to agree only on secondary tools for coping with global warming, laying the groundwork, for example, for a "green fund" of $100 billion a year by 2020.
Financed by richer nations, the fund would support poorer nations in converting to cleaner energy sources and in adapting to a shifting climate that may damage people's health, agriculture and economies in general.
The Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan will need such support, as they try to cope with melting glaciers by siphoning off water from swelling glacial lakes. The work is costly and difficult in remote, high-altitude locations,UNEP said.
The experts said the incidence of "glacial lake outburst floods" has grown over the past 40 years, accounting for some of the 5,000 Asian deaths each year from flash floods. More broadly, the swift depletion of glacial waters may leave tens of thousands of farmers without irrigation water.
"The risk to lives and livelihoods in the fragile Hindu Kush Himalayan region is high and getting higher," said Madhav Karki of the Nepal-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development.
The periodic climate talks earlier this year were marked by open sniping between the U.S. and China, but that friction was not in evidence on Monday.
"There were heated discussions at Copenhagen. Here the atmosphere is relatively mild," China's climate chief, Xie Zhenhua, told reporters.
He was referring to the intense talks in the Danish capital last December that failed to produce a hoped-for binding pact requiring substantial cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, agricultural and transport gases blamed for global warming.
Cancun's spirit of compromise may be most needed in the coming days' debates over limited gestures proposed in the area of emissions reductions, as environment ministers and other negotiators from the 193 nations of the U.N. climate treaty work to wrap up their talks by Friday.
The U.S. has long refused to join the rest of the industrialized world in the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 add-on to the climate treaty that mandates modest emissions reductions by richer nations, and whose commitments expire in 2012. The U.S. complained Kyoto would hurt its economy and should have mandated actions as well by such emerging economies as China and India.
For their part, those poorer but growing nations have rejected calls that they submit to Kyoto-style legally binding commitments — not to reduce emissions, but to cut back on emissions growth. Their first obligation, these governments say, is to develop their economies, not hobble them.
"We still have 150 million people under the poverty line," Xie told reporters Monday.
In a nonbinding Copenhagen Accord last December, an agreement not accepted by all treaty parties, the U.S. and other industrial nations announced targets for reducing emissions by 2020, and China and some other developing nations set goals, also voluntary, for cutting back on the growth of their emissions.
Many parties now want to have those voluntary targets "anchored" more formally in a document emerging from the Cancun talks. At the same time, developing countries are pressing for the industrial nations to commit in Cancun to a second Kyoto period, further mandatory cutbacks beyond 2012 — a demand resisted by Japan, Russia and others who won't submit to more legally binding emissions cuts until the U.S., China and some others take on binding targets under treaty.
In one development on emissions, a policy-setting British government body unveiled a plan here Tuesday to slash greenhouse gases by almost half over the next 20 years, largely abandoning fossil fuels for power and vehicles.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Cancer could not conquer Elizabeth Edwards' spirit
 |  | |
 Enlarge | By Chris Graythen, Getty Images | |
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| John Edwards waves to the crowd with his daughters Cate, center, and Emma Claire, left, son Jack and wife Elizabeth after announcing that he is withdrawing from the 2008 presidential race on Jan. 30, 2008 in New Orleans. | ||
Elizabeth Edwards relished the rough-and-tumble of politics, but in the end it was her personal struggles — with the death of a teenage son, with the humiliation of an unfaithful husband and with a diagnosis of incurable cancer — that forged a connection with millions of Americans.
The estranged wife of John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, died Tuesday at her home in Chapel Hill, N.C. She was 61.
LIFELINE LIVE: Celebrities react
GALLERY: Elizabeth Edwards in the public eye
ON POLITICS: Family, friends react
CANCER FORUM: Readers reflect on Edwards' legacy
LEARN MORE: Living with breast cancer
The title of her memoir couldn't have been more apt: Resilience.
"The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered," she wrote in a note posted Monday on Facebook, after doctors told her she had at best weeks to live. "We know that. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful."
She was never a stereotypical political spouse. She called herself an "anti-Barbie" and acknowledged her struggles with her weight, and she let her role in her husband's political ambitions show. When Edwards began arranging dinners with national political reporters before launching his bid for the 2004 Democratic nomination, she was at the table, chiming in. When USA TODAY had an interview with Edwards at a diner during his first trip to New Hampshire as a candidate in 2003, she automatically slid into the seat next to him.
After the primaries in that campaign, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry had won the nomination, but he picked Edwards as his running mate.
The day after Election Day 2004, however, she discovered she had breast cancer. In 2007, as John Edwards was preparing for a second bid for the presidency, the cancer recurred. Then he acknowledged an affair with a campaign videographer, at first denying and then admitting he had fathered her child.
"It's incredibly difficult to go through the death of a child, cancer and the infidelity of a husband — that would be trying to any human being," says Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. "To then have to do it with the kind of a scrutiny of being a public figure and not misstep while doing it is pretty extraordinary. She went through this in the public eye with a good deal of grace. I suppose graceful would be the word I would use if I had to boil down Elizabeth Edwards into a single word."
"There was a lot of sympathy for her, but I don't think anyone ever looked on her particularly as a victim," says Myra Gutin, a professor at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., who has studied first ladies.
Defiance amid diagnosis
Elizabeth Edwards' candor about her cancer and her defiance in the face of its grim diagnosis made her something of a hero to breast-cancer survivors who would mob her at book signings and as she campaigned in 2008.
"Something she told me is so true: When she meets another breast cancer survivor, she instantly knows her better than she knows some of her best friends," says Brenda Coffee of Boerne, Texas. Coffee wrote a book titled Breast Cancer Sisterhood, and Elizabeth Edwards contributed an essay for it. "I agree. We're total strangers who become instant sisters who understand and mirror one another's deepest hopes and fears before we've even said hello."
President Obama, Vice President Biden, senators and others offered tributes Tuesday night.
"I came to know and admire Elizabeth over the course of the presidential campaign," said Obama, whose mother died of breast cancer. "In her life, Elizabeth Edwards knew tragedy and pain. Many others would have turned inward; many others in the face of such adversity would have given up. But through all that she endured, Elizabeth revealed a kind of fortitude and grace that will long remain a source of inspiration."
Like many military brats, Mary Elizabeth Anania grew up moving from place to place. Her father was a Navy pilot, her mother a stay-at-home mom.
She was born in Jacksonville, Fla., on July 3, 1949. At one point, the family lived in Japan. Last summer, she took her children there to show them where she had spent part of her childhood.
She graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and stayed on to study English and then law. It was in law school that she met John Edwards. They married in 1977.
Elizabeth Edwards practiced law until 1996, when her son Wade lost control of his Jeep while driving to the family's beach house. It was swept off the highway and rolled over. He was killed.
In a long season of grieving, she would go to her son's grave every day and read to him.
The Edwardses decided to have more children, a process that required difficult hormone treatments. At age 48, she had Emma Claire, and when she turned 50 in 2000, she had Jack. The towheaded children were seen frequently on the campaign trail in 2004 and 2008, often being minded by older sister Cate.
Throughout the 2004 race and during her husband's 2008 presidential bid, she was known as his toughest and closest adviser and political strategist.
Campaign focus groups discovered that her presence was a considerable asset for him: Her down-to-earth manner and wholesome looks helped counter the impression among some in focus groups run by his campaign that he was too young and too slick to be president.
And she was an indefatigable campaigner. In Game Change, an insiders' account of the 2008 campaign, authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin portray her as mercurial and demanding, at odds with the serene and warm presence that she conveyed on camera.
Behind the scenes, their marriage was strained by allegations in The National Enquirer that John Edwards was having an affair with his campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter.
In 2010, long after the last campaign ended, he finally admitted what he had denied for two years: that he not only had an affair with Hunter but also had a child, Frances Quinn Hunter, with her.
Edwards already had been battling her cancer for years. She and her husband had wowed the political establishment and the electorate with what seemed like an uncommonly brave showing in the face of a grim diagnosis. The couple said John Edwards' campaign would go on.
At the time, Republican pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick told USA TODAY that the family's challenge "serves as a stark reminder that these are not simply candidates with issues, platforms, but people with families and struggles. It reminds people of the personal factor."
On Tuesday, Biden noted Edwards' gift for connecting with the public.
"She was an inspiration to all who knew her," he said in a statement after learning of her death, "and to those who felt they knew her."
Her battle with cancer
She first found a lump in her breast in 2004 while her husband was campaigning for the vice presidency.
After a cancer diagnosis was confirmed, she announced that she would undergo chemotherapy, followed by surgery and radiation. When doctors administer chemotherapy before surgery, it is typically in the hope of shrinking the tumor so they can perform a less-invasive surgery — a lumpectomy — instead of a full mastectomy.
"The same day our campaign ended at Faneuil Hall" in Boston, Kerry said in a statement issued Tuesday night, "we saw Elizabeth head off to Mass General to confront this terrible disease. America came to know her in a different and even more personal way as she fought back with enormous grace and dignity."
Three years later, Edwards made an even more somber announcement, revealing that the cancer had returned in her bones.
In a televised news conference with her husband by her side, she matter-of-factly described how the recurrence was discovered.
She had tried to pick up a chest of drawers and hurt her back. Then her husband came home and hugged her. It hurt, and when she pulled away from him, they both heard a pop from her rib cage. An X-ray showed a fracture and a suspicous area on a rib on her right side.
Tests found a malignant tumor on the bone.
"I consider all of those circumstances unbelievably fortuitous," she told reporters, because it allowed doctors to spot the cancer at an early stage and begin the treatments that would allow her to live 3½ more years.
Edwards' battle with cancer shows both the successes and the limitations of the latest cancer therapies that patients endure.
Advanced breast cancer is treatable, but it is not curable, says Hal Burstein of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institutein Boston. Doctors can use a number of relatively new drugs — including hormone treatments, conventional chemotherapy and an antibody called Herceptin — to keep tumors under control and buy patients more time while keeping a relatively good quality of life.
When one drug regimen fails, doctors can try another, Burstein says. Most women with advanced breast cancers undergo five or six different lines of chemotherapy, stretching out survival to a median of three or four years, he says.
Even when cancer spreads to the liver, as it did with Edwards, doctors can opt to treat the metastases with chemotherapy, which can keep cancer under control for some time, says breast cancer expert Sandra Swain, medical director of the Washington Cancer Institute at Washington Hospital Center.
Eventually, however, patients may become so weakened by disease that chemotherapy is no longer useful, says Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
No additional therapies
On Monday, Edwards announced that her doctors had recommended no additional anti-cancer therapies.
"There are lots of chemotherapies and late-stage treatments," Byock says. "But people have to be strong enough to benefit from them. If a person is just weak from the ravages of an illness, it makes no sense to put them through those invasive procedures."
Pam Schmid, a fellow breast cancer survivor from Edwards' home state of North Carolina, struggles to keep from crying when talking about Edwards, whom she met briefly at a meeting of LIVESTRONG, Lance Armstrong's cancer advocacy group.
"It breaks our hearts," Schmid says, "because it could be us."
Take a look at the @WashingtonPost interactive carbon emissions chart. Very informative.
Nice Interactive Map that is A must to see and investigate
INTERACTIVE: GLOBAL EMISSIONS
Explore changes in carbon emissions from fossil fuels for G-20 countries, selected developing nations and others critical to the climate debate.
The Climate Agenda
Policy, Science and the Search for Solutions
INTERACTIVE: GLOBAL EMISSIONS
Explore changes in carbon emissions from fossil fuels for G-20 countries, selected developing nations and others critical to the climate debate.
Country Profiles
Select a country to view emissions over time from G-20 countries, selected developing nations, and others important to the climate debate:
Tax Deal a 'Disaster'
December 6, 2010
President Obama on Monday announced agreement with congressional leaders on extending Bush administration tax cuts for two years for the wealthiest Americans. Appearing on MSNBC before the announcement, Sen. Bernie Sanders said, “It is an absolute disaster and an insult to the vast majority of the American people to be talking about giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, driving up our deficit, and increasing the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. Millionaires and billionaires do not need huge tax deductions. That`s the simple truth.”
Also on http://edschultzshow.com/
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