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"WASHINGTON -- President Obama, determined to show he understands middle-class struggles, is offering new initiatives meant to help people pay bills and save for retirement. Obama was ready to announce the new steps Monday in a partial preview of his State of the Union address. The proposals to be unveiled by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House include a doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; a $1.6 billion increase in federal funding for child care programs and a program to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income above "a basic living allowance." His initiatives also include expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and increasing aid for families taking care of elderly relatives. That program would also require all employers to provide the option of a workplace-based retirement savings plan. Obama is seeking to offer some attractive options to taxpayers, mindful of recent setbacks including the loss of a traditionally Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts to Republican Scott Brown. Monday's rollout is designed to show sympathy with a frustrated public. "We are fighting every single day to put Americans back to work," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. The proposals are the result of the work of a middle class task force that Biden had headed. The White House says the proposals are aimed at the "sandwich generation" -- Americans struggling to care for both their children and their parents. The proposals fit into the economic message of his prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday, one that is likely to cover financial regulations, energy, education, immigration and a push to change the political tone in Washington. White House advisers see Wednesday's State of the Union speech as a key opportunity for Obama to recalibrate his message to better connect with the public and to reset his presidency after stinging setbacks. Obama has promised a sharper focus o

"Reporting from Washington - President Obama, speaking today from the pulpit of a church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sometimes spoke, called on the congregation to rally around the spirit that had helped their ancestors pursue a long road to freedom. "It's that progress that allowed me to be here today," said Obama, the first African American president. The president, who doesn't frequently attend Sunday church services in Washington and has not found a permanent congregation for his family in the capital, joined in the services this morning at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church. The president arrived with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha. The church, founded in 1866 by seven freed slaves, originally was known as the Fifth Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. "It feels like a family," Obama told the congregation. There are at least a couple of occasions that might have prompted today's outing: the deaths of tens of thousands of Haitians in an earthquake that has shaken all of the Americas, as well as the birthday of the slain civil rights leader King, which is celebrated on Monday with a national holiday. "We gather here on the Sabbath at a time of extreme difficulty for our nation and the world," the president said, speaking much like a preacher from the pulpit. "We are not here just to ask the Lord for his blessing. We're also here to call on the memory of one of his servants, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." Obama said he had come to a "a church founded by freed slaves . . . whose congregants set out for marches . . . from whose sanctuary King himself would sermonize from time to time." This was as much of a sermon as it was a speech. King "trusted God," the president said. "He had faith that God would make a way out of now way. . . . "Folks ask me sometimes, 'Why do you look so calm?' " Obama said on a particularly personal note, with his voice rising."

"No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it. There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA. The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to t

"On Christmas Day, a Nigerian-born terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger airplane. Only the bravery of a fellow passenger prevented the catastrophe. President Obama called the terror attempt a "systemic failure" on the part of American national security agencies. In particular, he blamed the CIA for the foul-up. There is no doubt that the CIA should have done something more to prevent this attack. But, then again, President Obama has been keeping them busy-with global warming. Seriously. According to the New York Times on Jan. 5, just a few days after Obama excoriated the CIA publicly, "The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets-including spy satellites and other classified sensors-to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change." This project, the Times reported, "has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends …" While missing a potentially catastrophic terror attack is problematic, it's good to know that we've got the inside dossier on the mating habits of polar bears. This isn't a shock coming from the "watermelon" Obama White House-green on the outside, red on the inside. The simple truth is that the Obama administration believes that the solution to global warming is the same as the solution to terrorism: Marxist-style global redistributionism."

"WASHINGTON - The U.S. health care system is in serious need of changes, but the Democratic plan to overhaul it is badly flawed and should be repealed and replaced, the Senate Republican leader says. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Saturday in the GOP radio and video address that "nobody is satisfied with the health care system as it is." Costs are out of control and "people are being squeezed out of the market," he said. But he said the health care bill signed by President Barack Obama this week doesn't solve those problems and undermines what is best about health care in this country - a wide variety of medical options and innovations. The main health care law and a companion "fix-it" measure aim to crack down on insurance industry abuses and to reduce federal deficits by an estimated $143 billion over a decade. Most Americans would be required to buy insurance for the first time or face penalties. McConnell was emphasizing a new GOP political approach opposing Democrats' health care measures that proposes "repealing and replacing" the bill rather than just repealing the new health care law. Republicans say they can push for parts of the health care overhaul without adopting elements they don't like, such as tax increases. "We can do better," he said. "We can expand access to people with pre-existing conditions. We can keep people from being kicked off their plans. We can lower costs and premiums. We can do all of these things without undermining the things we do best and without raising taxes that kill jobs in a bad economy." Republicans want to appeal to tea party supporters and other conservatives upset at the size and scope of the legislation, while acknowledging that many people, including moderate Republicans and independents, want to see changes in American health care. Obama said this week that he welcomes a political fight with Republicans over efforts to repeal the bill. Repeal is highly unlikely because Repu

"Obama had his National Security meeting and press conference today. His statement contained 1,346 words. He used the word "I" 22 times and the word "my" 5 times. Guess what word's he didn't use. This is my favorite passage. Via whitehouse.gov: So we have to do better - and we will do better. And we have to do it quickly. American lives are on the line. So I made it clear today to my team: I want our initial reviews completed this week. I want specific recommendations for corrective actions to fix what went wrong. I want those reforms implemented immediately, so that this doesn't happen again and so we can prevent future attacks. And I know that every member of my team that I met with today understands the urgency of getting this right. And I appreciate that each of them took responsibility for the shortfalls within their own agencies. (emphasis added) For what it's worth, he used the word "terrorist" five times. While Obama was holding his press conference, China was telling us they are not really interested in our sanctioning Iran idea. Via Fox News: The U.S. and its allies want tougher U.N. sanctions, while Iran's major trading partners, China and Russia, oppose the move. The Obama administration and European allies set a deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran to accept a U.N. proposal that Iran exchange most of its enriched uranium, which the West fears could be used for automic weapons, for low-enriched nuclear fuel for energy purposes. Over the last couple of years, the Security Council has passed three resolutions against Iran for refusing to suspend nuclear enrichment and cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, but instead of compliance, the Islamic Republic has increased nuclear activity."

"The Obama administration says the internal unrest in Iran and signs of unexpected delays in their nuclear program make the Iranian government especially vulnerable to swift and serious sanctions, the New York Times reported on Sunday. An administration official said current circumstances "give us a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear program isn't worth the price tag." Despite the political unrest, Iran's political and military leaders are remaining steadfast in their determination to develop nuclear weapons, advisers to U.S. President Barack Obama said. But the unrest coupled with the Iranian government's internal turmoil has caused a deceleration in production of nuclear fuel in recent months. Advertisement The White House is interested in focusing new sanctions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is thought to be the driving force behind the country's nuclear weapons program. The Obama government believes that Iran's bomb making efforts were hurt following the exposure of a secret uranium enrichment plant three months ago in the city of Qum. The plant's exposure prevents Iran from enriching uranium at the high levels necessary for creating fuel for a nuclear weapon. Nuclear inspectors report that in Iran's plant in Natanz, the operation of centrifuges has dropped by 20 percent since the summer, which experts attribute to technical problems. "

"A California judge today tentatively scheduled a trial for Jan. 26, 2010, for a case that challenges Barack Obama's eligibility to be president based on questions over his qualifications under the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If the case actually goes to arguments before U.S. District Judge David Carter, it will be the first time the merits of the dispute have been argued in open court, according to one of the attorneys working on the issue. In a highly anticipated hearing today before Carter, several motions were heard, including a resolution to long-standing questions about whether attorney Orly Taitz properly served notice on the defendants, which she had. In a second ruling, Carter ordered that attorney Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation can be added to the case to represent plaintiffs Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson, who had been removed by an earlier court order. Drake, the vice presidential candidate for the American Independent Party, and Robinson, the party's chairman, also were restored to the case. Want to know for certain where Obama was born? Demand the truth by joining the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate! But the judge did not immediately rule on Taitz' motion to be granted discovery - that is the right to see the president's still-concealed records. Nor did Carter rule immediately on a motion to dismiss the case, submitted by the U.S. government, following discussion over Taitz' challenge to the work of a magistrate in the case. The judge did comment that if there are legitimate constitutional questions regarding Obama's eligibility, they need to be addressed and resolved. Carter ordered a hearing Oct. 5 on the motion to dismiss and ordered arguments submitted on the issue of discovery. If the case survives that challenge, a pretrial hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 11 and the trial for two weeks later. The case would be the first time, accor

"As Barack Obama enters his second year in office amid an enduring economic downturn, voters are less optimistic about his ability to succeed and no longer clearly favor keeping the Democrats in control of Congress, according to the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. A surprising win by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts has the Democratic Senate majority. The News Hub parses the implications for the Obama administration's agenda. The trends point to an increasingly difficult political climate for President Obama as he hopes to push his domestic agenda beyond health care this year and preserve his party's majorities in the House and Senate. The severity of that climate, in fact, was promptly underscored by Democrats' surprising loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts Tuesday. The seat of the late Edward Kennedy went to a conservative Republican, Scott Brown, in one of the nation's bluest states. That may not be an anomaly. Nationally, the new survey finds, voters now are evenly split over which party they hope will run Capitol Hill after the November elections-the first time Democrats haven't had the edge on that question since December 2003."

"# Saudi TV: 'America Will be Destroyed' # America Wake Up! # News Roundup: Obama Spinning The Stimulus, Hillary... # Haiti judge to free some detained US missionaries # Obama appoints Muslim envoy # Netanyahu: Ezekiel 37 fulfilled # Menasha attorneys distance themselves from 'Impeac... # Report: France exposed soldiers to radiation # Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship # Taliban step up attacks in besieged Afghan town # What is Planned Parenthood really doing in Haiti? # The Next Climate-gate? # Telegraph UK Reports Construction Of A New Nuclear... # One-World Currency Spells Global Economic Disaster... # Washington, Beijing And Some Interesting Parallels... # DEBKAfile, Syria slips Hizballah missiles for dest... # Federal funds aim to clean up nuclear wasteland # H1N1 virus' death toll as high as 17,000, CDC esti... # 10 Rockets Strike American-Iraqi Base; 2 Injured # Obama Poised to Use Executive Power to Muscle Thro... # Blizzards heat up warming debate # Detroit Mayor: "This city will not survive without..."

"A little-discussed executive order from President Obama giving foreign cops new police powers in the United States by exempting them from such drudgery as compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is raising alarm among commentators who say INTERPOL already had most of the same privileges as diplomats. At David Horowitz's Newsreal, Michael van der Galien said the issue is Obama's expansion of President Ronald Reagan's order from 1983 that originally granted those diplomatic privileges. Reagan's order carried certain exemptions requiring that INTERPOL operations be subject to several U.S. laws such as the Freedom of Information Act. Obama, however, removed those restrictions in his Dec. 16 amendment to Executive Order 12425. That means, van der Galien wrote today, "this foreign law enforcement organization can operate free of an important safeguard against government and abuse." Get "Hope of the Wicked: Master Plan to Rule the World" from the WND Superstore! "'Property and assets,' including the organization's records, cannot be searched or seized. Their physical locations are now immune from U.S. legal or investigative authorities," he wrote. Obama's order said he was removing the Reagan limitations on INTERPOL:"

"Taking advantage of the ado surrounding the failed airliner bombing and the new prominence of the al Qaeda peril, the Obama administration has finally given up its sanctions strategy for averting the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was tasked with the public announcement: "The Obama administration wants to keep the door to dialogue open with Iran," she said Jan. 4, then added a remark which let Iran off completely of the American hook: "…although the United States has avoided using the term deadline, it cannot wait indefinitely to hear form Iran." Her words explicitly backtracked on statements by other senior administration officials, including National Security Adviser James Jones, in recent interviews that Tehran's deadline for responding to international proposals expired on Dec. 31. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Tehran sees Washington as so eager to reach the negotiating table that it is falling back from effective penalties step by step, including an embargo on refined oils and benzene, and even willing to forgive Iran's failure to meet a highly publicized international deadline. "Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guards elements without contributing to the suffering of Iranians," Clinton explained. Threatening Iran's Revolutionary Guards instead of its regime is nothing but a feeble face-saver, our Iranian sources maintain, since the IRGC, whose financial operations and its management of Iran's nuclear program subsist on alternative "black market" economic mechanisms is hardly vulnerable to international sanctions."

"China has said relations with the United States will be seriously undermined if President Barack Obama holds a meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. A senior Chinese communist party official has said Beijing will take action if the meeting goes ahead. The White House has indicated that President Obama intends to meet the Dalai Lama, who is due in Washington later this month, but no date has been announced. China's ties with the US have become more strained in recent months over a variety of issues, including planned US arms sales to Taiwan and accusations by the internet company Google of systematic attempts originating in China to hack into its computer systems. China has for many years tried to isolate the Dalai Lama by asking foreign leaders not to meet him."

"President Obama came to a Fairfax County elementary school Tuesday morning to announce that he will seek a $1.35 billion expansion of his signature Race to the Top initiative for improving public education, including provisions that will allow individual school systems to compete for the coveted federal grants. "We're going to raise the bar for all our students and take bigger steps toward closing the achievement gap," Obama said, speaking to a group of sixth graders at Graham Road Elementary, a Falls Church school where a heavy concentration of students from immigrant and low-income families achieves high standardized test scores. Race to the Top was launched last year to raise student performance by offering $4.35 billion to states and the District in exchange for adopting elements of the president's reform program. Those include more challenging academic standards; better testing to measure what students know; rigorous evaluation systems for teachers and principals; plans for turning around failing schools; and cutting edge data systems to track progress. "

Reform Program?

"Atlanta Almost 1-1/2 years since she shook up American politics with her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is set to headline another landmark political event: the first-ever Tea Party Convention next month in Nashville, Tenn. On its face, the gig would seem a step down for Ms. Palin, one of conservative America's most popular and polarizing figures (not to mention major thorn in the side of the Obama White House). But with an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll ranking a generic "Tea Party" as more popular than either Democrats or Republicans, and Palin herself rivaling the charming Mr. Obama in poll popularity, many experts see the Tea Party event as a potential milestone for a mounting, even transformational, force in US politics. "[W]ith two wars, a continuing terror threat, huge federal deficits, and a major healthcare overhaul in the works, there is no shortage of disaffection out there … and that could prove to be political dynamite," writes the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. Against that backdrop, writes Mr. Kurtz, "The tea types can either blossom into a Perotista-style third-party movement or be subsumed to some degree by the GOP.""

"Britain and the US have agreed to intensify efforts to tackle the "evolving threat" from Islamist groups in Yemen, Downing Street has announced. Officials said the UK and the US were funding a counter-terrorism police unit in Yemen. The news follows an alleged airline bomb attack over Detroit. Barack Obama has sent his top Middle East general to meet Yemen's president. The US president has alleged that the Christmas Day bomb suspect was trained by a Yemen-based al-Qaeda offshoot. Gen David Petraeus - who is responsible for US Middle East and Central Asian operations - reportedly said the US was keen to support Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda. On Saturday, Mr Obama for the first time publicly accused an offshoot of al-Qaeda, based in Yemen, over the alleged attempt by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an airliner over Detroit. "

"LONDON (Reuters) - China and India sharply raised defence spending in 2009 despite the economic crisis but most European NATO members face a squeeze on defence budgets as they rein in gaping deficits, a report said on Wednesday. The impact of the global financial crisis on defence and security spending varied across regions and countries, the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank said in its annual report "The Military Balance". U.S. defence spending almost doubled under former President George W. Bush but President Barack Obama had signalled that the need to tackle a big budget deficit would require "a dramatic reprioritisation within defence spending," it said. Obama asked Congress this week to approve a record $708 billion in defence spending for fiscal 2011 -- including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget -- but said he would continue his drive to eliminate wasteful programmes. A sharp recession had led the Russian government effectively to abandon a comprehensive military re-equipment plan due to run from 2007-15 and to replace it with a new 10-year plan starting in 2011, the report said. "In contrast to developments in advanced economies, both India and China have maintained their recent trend of double-digit increases in defence spending," it said. India boosted defence spending by 21 percent in 2009 after the 2008 Mumbai attacks killed 166 people, it said."

"BOSTON - Republican Scott Brown, fresh from a stunning Massachusetts Senate victory that shook the power balance on Capitol Hill, declared Wednesday that his election had sent a "very powerful message" that voters are weary of backroom deals and Washington business-as-usual. Democrats scrambled to explain the loss, which imperils President Barack Obama's agenda for health care and other hard-fought domestic issues. Republicans greeted their victory with clear glee. "The president ought to take this as a message to recalibrate how he wants to govern, and if he wants to govern from the middle we'll meet him there," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Obama said the Massachusetts vote reflected the mood around the country. "People are angry, and they're frustrated," he said in an interview with ABC News. Democrats still exercise majority control over both the House and Senate. But Tuesday's GOP upset to win the seat long held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy - following Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey last fall for gubernatorial seats that had been held by Democrats - signals challenges for Democratic prospects in midterm elections this year. Even when the economy is not bad, the party holding the White House historically loses seats in midterms. "If there's anybody in this building that doesn't tell you they are more worried about elections today, you should absolutely slap them," Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri told reporters at the Capitol. "Of course everybody is more worried about elections. Are you kidding? It's what this place thrives on." Brown, in his first meeting with reporters after the special election, portrayed his victory as less a referendum on Obama or the president's health care proposal and more of a sign that people are tired of Washington politics and dealmaking. He said his victory sends "a very powerful message that business-as-usual is just not going to be the way we do it." "I t

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Desperately needed aid from around the world slowly made its way Thursday into Haiti, where a leadership vacuum left rescuers scrambling on their own to save the trapped and injured and get relief supplies into the capital. President Barack Obama announced that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti, with thousands of troops and a broad array of civilian rescue workers flying or sailing in to aid the stricken country - backed by more than $100 million in relief funds. To the Haitians, Obama promised: "You will not be forsaken." The nascent flow of rescue workers showed some results: A newly arrived search team pulled a U.N. worker alive from the organization's collapsed headquarters. He stood, held up a fist in celebration, and was helped off to a hospital. Planes carrying teams from China, France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport with searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies - with more promised from around the globe."

"U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama. "Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It's a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse," Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber's outlook for 2010. Donohue said the lawmakers should not let former President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of year and lambasted Democratic efforts on healthcare and financial regulatory reform as well as climate change."