Obama News

The Obama administration, in seeking $4 trillion in spending cuts in a debt limit deal, has put major changes to Social Security and Medicare on the table if Republicans agree to increased tax revenues.

The offer caters to both sides in the debt limit negotiations and according to the Washington Post, President Obama will urge congressional leaders on Thursday to seize the opportunity to act. The compromise, however, still puts both Republicans and Democrats in tough spots.

Democrats have vowed to protect Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans still argue that tax increases are not realistic legislativobama funny, e proposals. If leadership from both parties agree to the Obama’s compromise, the next move will be to sell the plan to their respective bases and to members of Congress.

But Thursday’s meetings at the White House will reveal just how many concessions each party is willing to make.

The president has reportedly already privately discussed his plan with Speaker of the House John Boehner. Michael Steel, spokesperson for Boehner, though, told the Washington Post “there are no tax increases on the table.”

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Taliban outreach key to Afghan solution,says Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has said that Washington's "preliminary outreach" to the Taliban was part of a necessary but displeased attempt to achieve a political solution in Afghanistan.





Mrs Clinton told the Senate that the US is backing a diplomatic surge complementing the military surge that President Barack Obama has begun to wind down with the planned withdrawal of 10,000 troops this year.

"It is diplomatic efforts in support of an Afghan-led political process that aims to shatter the alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the insurgency, and help to produce more stability," she said.

She repeated that the Taliban insurgents must meet the US "red lines" of renouncing violence, abandoning support for al Qaeda, and supporting the Afghan constitution, which includes protections for women.

Taleban bomber targets Afghan governor, kills 2

KABUL, JUNE 21: A Taleban suicide bomber targeted a provincial governor in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding another two, the interior ministry said. The attack struck the usually peaceful province of Parwan, when the bomber tried to enter the compound of governor Basir Salangi.
“At around 10:45am (0615 GMT) Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated himself in front of the gate of the Parwan governor’s compound. As a result, two civilians including a women were martyred and two others injured,” the ministry said.
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said it was not immediately clear why the attacker hit the entrance but that he may have been targeting a car coming out of the compound which he mistakenly thought was the governor’s.
The attack came one day before US President Barack Obama is to announce the size of a drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan, mapping out an endgame for a 10-year war that has exacted a fearsome human and financial toll.
The Taliban, leading a nearly 10-year insurgency against the Kabul government and the 130,000 US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing. The militia is traditionally active in southern and eastern parts of the country but attacks are increasing in the north and west. In May, the region’s police commander, General Mohammad Daud Daud, was killed along with two German soldiers.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, three policemen were killed by a landmine blast while out on patrol Monday in the southern province of Uruzgan, said Amanullah Hotaki, the chief of the local provincial council.
Also Monday, two men — one a shopkeeper and another a foreign forces contractor — were shot dead in the southern city of Kandahar, police said.

Obama warns of fresh tactical spats with Israel

WASHINGTON, June 21:: President Barack Obama warned that new “tactical” disagreements loomed between Israel and Washington, but vowed to leverage his administration’s “creative powers” in the cause of peace. Obama, who has had a testy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke at length on the stalled peace process at a fundraiser for his 2012 reelection campaign grouping Democratic friends of Israel.
He said on Monday that as a difficult, challenging time loomed in the Middle East over the next few years, one inviolable principle was that the bond between the United States and Israel “isn’t breakable.”
“What is also going to be true is that both the United States and Israel are going to have to look at this new landscape with fresh eyes,” Obama said, arguing the Arab Spring had changed the context of regional diplomacy.
“It’s not going to be sufficient for us just to keep on doing the same things we’ve been doing and expect somehow that things are going to work themselves out.
“We’re going to have to be creative and we’re going to have to be engaged.  We’re going to have to look for opportunities where the best impulses in the Middle East come to the fore and the worst impulses are weakened.”
“There are going to be moments over the course of the next six months or the next 12 months or the next 24 months in which there may be tactical disagreements in terms of how we approach these difficult problems,” Obama said, vowing to bring to bear his administration’s “creative powers” for peace.
The president said that Israel and the United States were united on a broader vision for a secure Jewish state able to live in peace with its neighbours “where kids can get on the bus or go to bed at night and not have to worry about missiles landing on them.”