WBEZ | President Barack Obama

At Argonne, Obama calls for Energy Security Trust

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:30:00 -0500

President Barack Obama visited Argonne National Laboratory Friday (full text of his speech here) to tour its research facilities and call on Congress to flag oil and gas money for research that could help wean the nation’s vehicles off oil.

The idea is a clearer vision of the Energy Security Trust he outlined in his most recent State of the Union address. Obama proposed diverting $2 billion over 10 years from oil and gas leases on federal land to pay for clean fuel research.

Citing an Environmental Protection Agency report released Friday, Obama recounted recent gains in fuel efficiency. The President responded to recent price spikes at the gas pump, touting a jump in fuel-economy standards under his administration and a downward trend in CO₂ emissions from vehicles since 2005.

Argonne is a major research center for fuel efficiency and advanced batteries. The Department of Energy recently named the lab a national hub for advanced energy storage technology.

Though the Energy Security Trust idea was hatched from a bipartisan team with support from business leaders, its passage through Congress remains uncertain. Securing America’s Future Energy, the group that drafted the policy report, notes that federal funding for energy technology research and development in 2012 was less than half what it was in the late 1970s.

The plan attempts to bridge a political gap between Obama’s professed “all-of-the-above” energy policy, which involves ramping up fossil fuel production, and environmentalists who expect decisive action on climate change. In lieu of comprehensive legislation to curb carbon dioxide emissions, Obama positioned the Trust as part of his economic strategy. It could also potentially supplement clean energy research currently suffering from the expiration of stimulus funds and the mandatory spending cuts known as the sequester.

Obama addressed the effects of the sequester on basic scientific research. He joked that the sweeping budget cuts could be to blame for a lack of chairs in the audience, but also said the cuts “don’t trim the fat; they cut into muscle and into bone.” This week Eric Isaacs, Argonne’s director, co-authored an article in The Atlantic decrying deep cuts that he said would cancel all new research initiatives for at least two years.

“In a time where every month you’ve got to replace your smartphone, imagine what that means when China, Germany and Japan are pumping up basic research and we’re just sitting there doing nothing,” Obama said Friday.

Environmentalists also traveled to southwest suburban Lemont to protest the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The polarizing fossil fuel project did not come up during the President’s address.

Obama: Nation stronger, GOP should back his plans

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:46:00 -0600

Uncompromising and politically emboldened, President Barack Obama urged a deeply divided Congress Tuesday night to embrace his plans to use government money to create jobs and strengthen the nation's middle class. He declared Republican ideas for reducing the deficit "even worse" than the unpalatable deals Washington had to stomach during his first term.

"We have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is strong," Obama said in an hour-long address — the first since his re-election — to a joint session of Congress and a television audience of millions.

Obama broke little new ground on two agenda items he has pushed vigorously since his victory in November, both of which have been closely watched in the Chicago area: overhauling the nation's fractured immigration laws and enacting tougher gun control measures in the wake of the horrific massacre of school children in Newtown, Conn. Yet he pressed for urgency on both, calling on Congress to send him an immigration bill "in the next few months" and insisting lawmakers hold votes on his gun proposals.

"Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress," he said. "If you want to vote no, that's your choice."

Numerous lawmakers in attendance wore green lapel ribbons in memory of those killed in the December shootings in Connecticut. Among those watching in the House gallery: the parents of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, shot and killed late last month in a park just a mile from the president's home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, as well as other victims of gun violence.

Illinois U.S. Rep. Danny Davis said that Pendleton’s parents, who were guests of the Obamas at Tuesday’s address, served as living examples of the pain that gun violence inflicts on American families.

“We are the poster child,” said U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Chicago. “I don’t think it sheds a light on Chicago that is negative. I think it sheds a light that he recognizes the problems and needs of the city.”

Davis said he’s confident new gun control measures will come up for a vote in his Republican-controlled chamber, as Obama urged lawmakers. But Illinois U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, seemed less confident.

“I think we need to have conversations, but not put everybody’s expectations at a certain level,” Kinzinger said, adding that he wanted to take a comprehensive look at the causes of gun violence rather than focusing on new gun ownership restrictions.

With unemployment persistently high and consumer confidence falling, Obama spent a good measure of his address on the economy, which remains a vulnerability for the president and could disrupt his plans for pursuing a broader agenda, including immigration overhaul, stricter gun laws and climate change legislation.

Still, fresh off a convincing re-election win, Obama made clear in his remarks that he was determined to press his political advantage against a divided, defensive and worried Republican Party. Numerous times he urged Congress to act quickly on his priorities — but vowed to act on some issues on his own if they do not.

Obama also announced new steps to reduce the U.S. military footprint abroad, with 34,000 American troops withdrawing from Afghanistan within a year. And he had a sharp rebuke for North Korea, which launched a nuclear test just hours before his remarks, saying, "Provocations of the sort we saw last night will only isolate them further."

In specific proposals for shoring up the economy in his second term, an assertive Obama called for increased federal spending to fix the nation's roads and bridges, the first increase in the minimum wage in six years and expansion of early education to every American 4-year-old. Seeking to appeal for support from Republicans, he promised that none of his proposals would increase the deficit "by a single dime" although he didn't explain how he would pay for his programs or how much they would cost.

In the Republican response to Obama's address, rising GOP star Marco Rubio of Florida came right back at the president, saying his solution "to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more."

Sen. Rubio said presidents of both parties have recognized that the free enterprise system brings middle-class prosperity.

"But President Obama?" Rubio said. "He believes it's the cause of our problems."

Still, throughout the House chamber there were symbolic displays of bipartisanship. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., arrived early and sat with Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., just returned in January nearly a year after suffering a debilitating stroke. As a captain in the National Guard, Duckworth lost both her legs while serving in Iraq in 2004.

A few aisles away, the top two tax writers in Congress, Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., sat together.

But as a sign that divisions still remain, three of the most conservative Supreme Court justices skipped Obama's speech. Six of the nine attended. Missing were Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.

Jobs and growth dominated Obama's address. Many elements of his economic blueprint were repacked proposals from his first term that failed to gain traction on Capitol Hill.

Standing in Obama's way now is a Congress that remains nearly as divided as it was during the final years of his first term, when Washington lurched from one crisis to another.

The president implored lawmakers to break through partisan logjams, asserting that "the greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next."

"Americans don't expect government to solve every problem," he said. "They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can."

Yet Obama offered few signs of being willing to compromise himself, instead doubling down on his calls to create jobs by spending more government money and insisting that lawmakers pay down the deficit through a combination of targeted spending cuts and tax increases. But he offered few specifics on what he wanted to see cut, focusing instead on the need to protect programs that help the middle class, elderly and poor.

He did reiterate his willingness to tackle entitlement changes, particularly on Medicare, though he has ruled out increasing the eligibility age for the popular benefit program for seniors.

Republicans are ardently opposed to Obama's calls for legislating more tax revenue to reduce the deficit and offset broad the automatic spending cuts — known as the sequester — that are to take effect March 1. The president accused GOP lawmakers of shifting the cuts from defense to programs that would help the middle class and elderly, as well as those supporting education and job training.

"That idea is even worse," he said.

On the economy, Obama called for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 by 2015. The minimum wage has been stagnant since 2007, and administration officials said the increase would strengthen purchasing power. The president also wants Congress to approve automatic increases in the wage to keep pace with inflation.

Looking for common ground anywhere he could find it, Obama framed his proposal to boost the minimum wage by pointing out that even his GOP presidential rival liked the idea. He said, "Here's an idea that Gov. Romney and I actually agreed on last year: Let's tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on."

Obama also renewed his calls for infrastructure spending, investments he sought repeatedly during his first term with little support from Republicans. He pressed lawmakers to approve a $50 billion "fix it first" program that would address the most urgent infrastructure needs.

Education also figures in Obama's plans to boost American competitiveness in the global economy. Under his proposal, the federal government would help states provide pre-school for all 4-year-olds. Officials did not provide a cost for the pre-school programs but said the government would provide financial incentives to help states.

Among the other initiatives Obama is proposing:

— A $1 billion plan to create 15 "manufacturing institutes" that would bring together businesses, universities and the government. If Congress opposes the initiative, Obama plans to use his presidential powers to create three institutes on his own.

— Creation of an "energy security trust" that would use revenue from federal oil and gas leases to support development of clean energy technologies such as biofuels and natural gas

— Doubling of renewable energy in the U.S. from wind, solar and geothermal sources by 2020.

— Launching negotiations on a free trade agreement between the U.S. and European Union

Obama also called on Congress to tackle the threat of climate change, another issue that eluded him in his first term. The president pledged to work with lawmakers to seek bipartisan solutions but said if Capitol Hill doesn't act, he'll order his Cabinet to seek steps he can take using his presidential powers.

Taking a swipe at those who question the threat of global warming, Obama said, "We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science - and act before it's too late."

Tackling voters' rights issues, Obama announced the creation of a commission that will seek to make it easier and faster for people to cast ballots on Election Day. He used as an example the story of 102-year-old Desiline Victor, a Florida woman who waited in line to vote for several hours during the November election. Victor attended Tuesday's speech as a guest of the first lady and was applauded heartily by the lawmakers.

Obama also called on Congress to pass legislation giving the government more power to combat the rapidly growing threat of cyberattacks. And, as a down payment on that, the president announced that he has signed an executive order to fight electronic espionage through the development of voluntary standards to protect networks and computer systems that run critical infrastructure.

— WBEZ reporter Alex Keefe contributed to this report

Swing state calls, the day before the election

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:18:00 -0600

We’re down to the wire. I’m not going to pretend to call this thing in its totality, especially because there are appear to be all sorts of last minute variables with GOP shenanigans in Ohio and Florida. But here are my swing state calls, and you can do the math -- let me know what you think!

Ohio: Pretty darn close, and the one state I’m least confident about. The GOP secretary of state just pulled a Hail Mary stunt and got half of what he was going for, effectively getting to suppress votes in certain areas. The President might get help here from an unlikely source; Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, is polling near 5 percent, probably stealing more Republican than Democratic votes. I’ll say Barack Obama wins here, but I wouldn’t stake a Klondike bar on it. The caveat is this: Superstition aside, Obama doesn’t actually need Ohio if he holds on to Virginia. He can even lose Florida and Ohio and still win. But that would be the ugliest of all scenarios. Electoral votes: 18.

Florida: The second state I’m least confident about. Mitt Romney has been ahead here since the Denver debate, but Obama tightened it over the weekend. Gov. Rick Scott is spreading mayhem in a way that suggests concern. If the Puerto Ricans along the central corridor of the state show up, Obama could squeak through. But they don’t have a great history of making it to the polls. I say Romney. Electoral votes: 29.

Virginia: Obama won here by only 14,000 votes, but the Dems have registered more than 100,000 new Latino votes this time. The polls say they’re tied, but I’m going to bet that Latinos aren’t properly represented and they’re Obama’s edge. Electoral votes: 13.

Colorado: Tied, but I think the evangelicals for Romney will win the day over the newly registered Latinos for Obama. Electoral votes: 9.

Iowa: Obama. Electoral votes: 6.

Nevada: Obama. Harry Reid will win the day here. Electoral votes: 6.

New Hampshire: Obama. Electoral votes: 4.

North Carolina: Romney. Electoral votes: 15.

Wisconsin: Obama. Electoral votes: 10.

Two states not considered swing that could be in play are Pennsylvania and Arizona. Obama leads in Pennsylvania but the gap has been narrowing and Romney’s been hitting it this weekend. Romney leads in Arizona but that gap has become razor thin, and there’s a Latino, Richard Carmona, running for senate who could drive a higher Latino vote than the polls are suggesting. Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes -- if Romney gets them, the election could be over. Arizona has 11. For Obama, every little bit helps.

'Ode to Joy': Undecided voter finally makes up her mind

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:36:00 -0500

53-year-old Bridget Kerans almost didn’t have time for an interview before Election Day.

After all, she’s got her job at a suburban library, online college classes, family obligations – not to mention practice time.

“I’ve wanted to do the violin for years,” Kerans said once I’d finally buttonholed her (and her violin) at a Starbucks in Schaumburg, where she lives. She even played a few notes of “Ode to Joy” before starting to talk politics.

Kerans has been one of three undecided voters WBEZ has been following over the past few weeks, to document how they make their final decision about whom to vote for in the 2012 presidential race.

To recap: Kerans was the die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter from 2008 Democratic Parimary, who never got on board with President Barack Obama.

In 2012, she has been pretty gung-ho about Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul, a Libertarian icon. She recently emailed me a handmade poster she’d taped to her house, featuring a cartoon Paul dressed in a Superman outfit.

But during the recent presidential debates on TV, Kerans says she saw something in Republican Mitt Romney – something she hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m looking at the face, I’m looking at the eyes. I honest-to-God swear I can see him thinking,” she said as we met over coffee earlier this week. “The gears are going, you know? … And he really – the last time, he made me feel proud.”

Kearns says she was drawn in by Romney’s “Five Point Plan” to right the economy, which his campaign says would cut back on taxes, regulation and government spending.

It’s a big issue for Kerans, who said she still remembers what it felt like to get laid off when her long-time job was outsourced a few years ago.

“I had to start over again in my forties – late 40s,” she said. “And now, you know, I have to do everything, so you just don’t wanna go down that road again.”

Kerans says she’s counting on Romney’s business experience to help create jobs. And she’s also hoping he’ll make the GOP more moderate.

So what happened to Ron Paul?

“I wish he was the one. I really do. I want him so bad,” Kerans said, laughing.

But not bad enough to write in Paul on Tuesday’s ballot, she said. And by the time the coffee’s gone, it sounds like she’s finally made her decision.

“Well, it’s gotten much easier and it’ll be Romney,” she said, when I ask who she’d vote for if she had to decide just then.

Now that she seems to have decided her presidential vote, Kerans can spend more time on other pursuits – like the violin.

Romney's shameless last-minute lie

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:35:00 -0500

As most of the country focused on Superstorm Sandy’s assault of the East Coast, Mitt Romney’s campaign hit new shameless lows in Ohio this week.

In spite of promises to lay off politics for a few days while folks were dealing with Hurricane Sandy, this is the loathsome radio ad he’s running in Ohio as of Tuesday:

Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry. But for who? Ohio, or China? Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs. But they are planning to double the number of cars built in China — which means 15,000 more jobs for China.

And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making jeeps in — you guessed it — China. What happened to the promises made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio — the same hard-working men and women who were told that Obama’s auto bailout would help them?

Mitt Romney grew up in the Auto Industry. Maybe that’s why the Detroit News endorsed him, saying: ”Romney understands the industry and will shield it from regulators who never tire of churning out new layers of mandates.” Mitt Romney. He’ll stand up for the auto industry. In Ohio, not China.

This is not only a flat out lie, but Romney knows it’s a lie. It’s a deliberate attempt to play off people’s fears about their own livelihood — a totally baseless fear refuted by Sergio Marchionne, cheif executive of Jeep's parent companies Fiat and Chrysler, who said in response, “I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.”

In fact, as Marchionne explained in a letter published in Forbes specifically refuting Romney’s claims, the company plans to invest $500 million in the Toledo Assembly Complex, bringing another 1,100 auto jobs to Ohio.

"The ad is cynical campaign politics at its worst," Greg Martin, a spokesman for General Motors, added. “We think creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back in this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

What’s the real story here? Romney used this China line at a couple of campaign events last week, but refused to answer reporters’ questions about it. Then he began to air a TV ad with the same theme, which was widely panned.

But not even the absolute assurance of Jeep’s chief executive was enough to shame Romney into pulling that TV ad. Instead, he doubled down with the radio ad, toughening the language and making a more direct suggestion that Jeep plans to move its operation to China.

It’s true that Jeep plans to open new factories in China — to meet Chinese demand for its cars. What that means to Ohio, where Jeep builds a series of unique parts, is that there will be even more U.S. jobs.

And the Detroit News endorsement that Romney ad cites? Yeah, they really did endorse Romney — but not without calling him out on how wrong he was on the auto bailout. Here’s the part of the editorial Mitt will never reproduce:

Don't assume that it was a no-brainer for a conservative newspaper to endorse a conservative presidential candidate. We recognize and are grateful for the extraordinary contribution President Obama made to Michigan in leading the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Had either of those companies been allowed to go under, Michigan's economic maladies would have become fatal.

The president stepped up with the support the two automakers needed to keep themselves and their suppliers in business. We have said in past editorials that while Romney rightly advocated for structured bankruptcies in his infamous "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" New York Times op-ed, he was wrong in suggesting the automakers could have found operating capital in the private markets. In that article, Romney suggested government-backed loans to keep the companies afloat post bankruptcy. But what GM and Chrysler needed were bridge loans to get them through the process, and the private credit markets were unwilling to provide them. Obama put a rescue team to work and they were true to the task.

I’ll say it again: Romney’s lying, and he knows it. And he doesn’t really care — what he cares about is scaring auto workers in Ohio enough to flip their vote.

***

In other news, on Tuesday, I mistakenly gave Mitt Romney the benefit of the doubt: I said he’d learned his lesson during national crises and was mostly shutting up and collecting Red Cross donations.

On the surface, both of those things are true: At an event in Ohio, originally planned as a rally and then renamed a “storm relief" some or other, Romney did gather up canned goods and other donations for hurricane victims — except that the Red Cross, the intended recipient, doesn’t actually accept any of the things collected. What exactly will Romney do with that stuff? He hasn’t said.

Still, he managed to play his campaign video (campaign honcho Stuart Stevens can’t explain how that happened) and to come off awful rally-like.

He is keeping his mouth shut all right — ignoring any and all questions about what’d he do as president with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As a candidate in the primaries, he pledged to get rid of it. Fourteen times, that’s how often reporters directly asked Romney about this Tuesday; they were ignored each and every time.

As to FEMA, here’s the bottom line: But for one botched job (Katrina) during George W. Bush’s tenure, when FEMA was run by a man who had no business being its head, the agency has been indispensable in national emergencies.

If you have any doubt about Romney’s position, here’s a transcript from the debates:

JOHN KING: What else, Gov. Romney? You’ve been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Mo. I’ve been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it’s the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut — we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot . . .

KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

Sandy forces presidential campaigns to change tactics

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Don’t think for a minute that Superstorm Sandy has put the presidential campaign on hold.

Both President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney’s teams have merely pivoted from overtly political to less so. For both efforts, it’s crucial to look sympathetic and not opportunistic. And for both, the suspension of normal campaigning has serious risks.

For Obama, whose campaign depends on the ground game at this point, suspension of early voting in crucial East Coast states is a huge blow. Maryland suspended early voting completey, and sites in Virginia and North Carolina were forced to close.

He’s also been effectively shut down as a campaigner. Surrogates such as former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden are carrying the load, particularly in Ohio.

The president is, of course, haunted by what Katrina did to his predecessor and has turned the White House into a command center. Calling governors, promising whatever help is needed, Obama’s done a good enough job so far to earn praise from one of Romney’s top surrogates: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, where Sandy made landfall last night.

Obama signed a major disaster declaration for New Jersey, skipping a bunch of red tape to expedite aid. "I can't thank the president enough for that," Christie said. "Cooperation from the president of the United States has been outstanding. He deserves great credit."

In the meantime, Romney has learned the lesson of Benghazi and is mostly shutting up. At an Ohio event, he’s collecting donations for the Red Cross, not his campaign (this followed Obama’s lead Monday night, when he sent out a fundraising letter for the Red Cross through his campaign list).

Tone is crucial for Romney at this point but with the huge blackout, whatever he does might have little impact either way. In the meantime, the blackout means the last minute barrage of ads against the president are also useless.

If there’s a silver lining for Romney in this, it’s that there won’t be much viewership for coverage of his prior comments on disaster relief. You see, Romney is against funding a federal effort, preferring that states tackle natural disasters on their own. (Though nature does not respect state lines, that means that New York would do its own thing, and North Carolina its own thing ... )

"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction," Romney said at a debate last December. "And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

On the follow up specifically about disaster relief, he said this: “We cannot — we cannot afford to [have federal disaster relief] without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

In other words, to provide federal help during emergencies caused by nature instead of bringing down the debt is immoral.

As far as Romney's concerned, that black out might in fact not be so bad afte all.

What Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama can learn from television

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Being the leader of the free world doesn't leave a lot of free time, but President's still manage to participate in the great American past time of plopping down in front of the television and being whisked away to a fantasy land.

Along those lines, "I think it's pretty funny that Barack Obama loves combating terror so much that even when he goes home at night, he watches a show about it," said New York magazine television critic Margaret Lyons at The Paper Machete, on the President's admitted love of Showtime's Homeland. However, Lyons thinks Mitt Romney might want to check out Parenthood to "examine his white privilege." And both candidates should reevaluate their love for Modern Family, because "I hope they don't think that's an average family."

Read an excerpt below or listen above:

Mitt Romney came under fire[last week] for co-opting the Friday Night Lights slogan "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose." If you've ever watched Friday Night Lights you know that it's completely antithetical to everything Mitt Romney represents. And another person who knows that that's true is Friday Night Lights' creator and executive producer Peter Berg, who came up with the motto "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" and wrote a letter to Mitt Romney this week begging him to stop using it.

In the letter, Berg compared Mitt Romney to one and only one character in the show, Buddy Garrity, who is like the weird gregarious villain of the series; he's a car salesman who cheats on his wife and is horrible.

But it made me think a lot about what Friday Night Lights can teach us, and what lessons I wish Mitt Romney could have learned from watching Friday Night Lights. The whole show centers on coach and in the first few seasons, they live and teach in Dillon. The football team gets a huge fancy stadium and they have a jumbotron and they travel on luxurious buses, even though they're high school students. And all of that is supported by Buddy Garrity and his team of Panther boosters. It's all privately funded and great!

Mrs. Coach, in the first few seasons, is the school guidance counselor, and she's unable to provide services to a lot of her students who are poor because the school is publicly funded. So this tells us that when people get to donate their money to whoever they want, they might get to donate it to football jumbotrons; they probably will not donate it to drug counseling available to late literacy learners in high school.

Friday Night Lights focuses on the idea of group responsibility: no one of us is more important than the team. That's the message of Smash Williams, who is a great football player, but he's not better by himself, he needs everyone. That's the message of QB1 Matt Saracen, the hero of our show, who grows from nerd to quarterback with the help and guidance of those around him.

If anyone seems like Mitt Romney on Friday Night Lights, it's probably JD McCoy. He's the evil dad of the sad quarterback who's a jerk (because of his evil dad he becomes a jerk. I think that's how the world works, I'm pretty sure. Also he looks exactly like Mitt Romney).

The Paper Machete is a weekly live magazine at the Horseshoe in North Center. It's always at 3 pm., it's always on Saturday, and it's always free. Get all your The Paper Machete Radio Magazine needs filled here, or download the podcast from iTunes here.

Final presidential debate: Challenging each other face to face

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:40:00 -0500

President Barack Obama sharply challenged Mitt Romney on foreign policy in their final campaign debate Monday night, saying, "Every time you've offered an opinion you've been wrong." The Republican coolly responded, "Attacking me is not an agenda" for dealing with a dangerous world.

Romney took the offensive, too. When Obama said the U.S. and its allies have imposed crippling sanctions on Iran to halt nuclear weapons development, the Republican challenger responded that the U.S. should have done more. He declared repeatedly, "We're four years closer to a nuclear Iran."

Despite the debate's stated focus on foreign affairs, time after time the rivals turned the discussion back to the slowly recovering U.S. economy, which polls show is the No. 1 issue for most voters.

They found little agreement on that, but the president and his rival found accord on at least one international topic with domestic political overtones — Israel's security — as they sat at close quarters 15 days before the end of an impossibly close election campaign. Each stressed unequivocal support for Israel when asked how he would respond if the Jewish state were attacked by Iran.

"If Israel is attacked, we have their back," said Romney — moments after Obama vowed, "I will stand with Israel if Israel is attacked."

Both also said they oppose direct U.S. military involvement in the efforts to topple Syrian President Bashir Assad.

The debate produced none of the finger-pointing and little of the interrupting that marked the presidential rivals' debate last week, when Obama needed a comeback after a listless performance in their first meeting on Oct. 3.

But there was no mistaking the urgency. The two men frequently sniped at one another even on issues where they agree, and reprised their campaign-long disagreements over the economy, energy, education and other domestic issues despite ground rules that stipulated the debate cover international affairs.

Obama and Romney are locked in a close race in national opinion polls. The final debate behind them, both men intend to embark on a final two-week whirlwind of campaigning. The president is slated to speak in six states during a two-day trip that begins Wednesday and includes a night aboard Air force One as it flies from Las Vegas to Tampa. Romney intends to visit two or three states a day.

Already four million ballots have been cast in early voting in more than two dozen states.

On the Middle East, Romney said that despite early hopes, the ouster of despotic regimes in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere over the past year has resulted in a "rising tide of chaos." He said the president has failed to come up with a coherent policy to grapple with change sweeping the Middle East, and he added ominously that an al-Qaida-like group has taken over northern Mali.

Anticipating one of Obama's most frequent campaign assertions, Romney said of the man seated nearby, "I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and taking on the leadership of al-Qaida. But we can't kill our way out of this. ... We must have a comprehensive strategy."

More than a half hour later, Obama returned to the subject, saying that Romney had once said it wasn't worth moving heaven and earth to catch one man, a reference to the mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks.

He said he had decided it was "worth heaven and earth."

Obama said he had ended the war in Iraq, was on a path to end the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan and has vowed to bring justice to the attackers of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last month — an assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

He also jabbed at Romney's having said during the campaign that Russia is the United States' No. 1 geopolitical foe.

"Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy you seem to want the policies of the 1980s, just like you want to import the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies in the 1920s," Obama said.

Obama was snippy after Romney, criticizing the administration's Pentagon budget, said disapprovingly the U.S. Navy has fewer ships than at any time since the end of World War I.

"I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them."

Romney offered unusual praise for Obama's war efforts in Afghanistan, declaring the 2010 surge of 33,000 U.S. troops a success and asserting that efforts to train Afghan security forces are on track to enable the U.S. and its allies to put the Afghans fully in charge of security by the end of 2014. He said that U.S. forces should complete their withdrawal on that schedule; previously he has criticized the setting of a specific withdrawal date.

The two men are locked in a close race in national opinion polls. The final debate behind them, they intend to embark on a final two-week whirlwind of campaigning. The president is slated to speak in six states during a two-day trip that begins Wednesday and includes a night aboard Air force One as it flies from Las Vegas to Tampa. Romney intends to visit two or three states a day.

Already four million ballots have been cast in early voting in more than two dozen states.

Barring a last-minute change in strategy by one campaign or the other, Obama appears on course to win states and the District of Columbia that account for 237 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The same is true for Romney in states with 191 electoral votes.

The battlegrounds account for the remaining 110 electoral votes: Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4), Iowa (6), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), Ohio (18) and Wisconsin (10).

The televised debate brought no cessation to other campaigning.

Obama's campaign launched a television ad in Florida that said the president ended the war in Iraq and has a plan to do the same in Afghanistan, accusing Romney of opposing him on both. It was not clear how often the ad would air, given the fall's overall focus on the economy.

Vice President Joe Biden, campaigning in Canton, Ohio, emphasized differences between the two candidates on the war in Afghanistan.

"We will leave Afghanistan in 2014, period. They say it depends," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen, like everything with them, it depends. It depends on what day you find these guys."

Romney's running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, was in Colorado. "We are in the midst of deciding the kind of country we're going to be, the kind of people we're going to be, for a generation," he said.

Whatever the outcome of the final face-to-face confrontation, the debates have left an imprint on the race. Romney was widely judged the winner of the first debate over a listless president on Oct. 3, and he has risen in polls in the days since. Obama was much more energetic in the second.

Monday night marked the third time in less than a week that the president and his challenger shared a stage, following the feisty 90-minute town-hall-style meeting last Tuesday on Long Island and a white-tie charity dinner two night later where gracious compliments flowed and barbs dipped in humor flew.

At the Al Smith charity dinner, Obama previewed his all-purpose fallback to criticism on international affairs.

"Spoiler alert: We got bin Laden," he said, a reminder of the signature foreign policy triumph of his term, the death at the hand of U.S. special operations forces of the mastermind behind the terror attacks on the United States more than a decade ago.

The president and his challenger agreed long ago to devote one of their three debates to foreign policy, even though opinion polls show voters care most about economic concerns.

Growth has been slow and unemployment high across Obama's tenure in the White House. Romney, a wealthy former businessman, cites his experience as evidence he will put in place policies that can revive the economy.

In recent weeks, the former Massachusetts governor has stepped up his criticism of the president's handling of international matters, although his campaign hasn't spent any of its television advertising budget on commercials on the subject.

In a speech earlier this month, Romney accused the president of an absence of strong leadership in the Middle East, where popular revolutions have swept away autocratic regimes in Egypt and elsewhere in the past two years. He has also accused Obama of failing to support Israel strongly enough, of failing to make it clear that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and of backing cuts in the defense budget that would harm military readiness.

Yet Romney has stumbled several times in attempting to establish his own credentials.

He offended the British when he traveled to England this summer and made comments viewed as critical of their preparation for the Olympic Games.

Democrats pounced when he failed to mention the U.S. troops in Afghanistan or Iraq during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in late August, and officials in both parties were critical of his comments about the attack in Benghazi while the facts were unknown.

Espo reported from Washington.

Presidential debate #3 live chat: Foreign policy

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:26:00 -0500

We're following the debates live, and featuring commentary from Chicago media's best and brightest, like TimeOut's Frank Sennett, WBEZ blogger Achy Obejas, PR strategist Veronica Vera, social media guru Scott Smith and DNAinfo's Jen Sabella. Monday's debate is the final presidential debate, and the first in the Town Hall format. It will be moderated by Chief Washington Correspondent for CBS News Bob Schieffer at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Tweets about "#BEZDebates"

Aggressive Obama, while Romney gives as good as he gets in town hall presidential debate

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 21:29:00 -0500

An aggressive President Barack Obama ripped into Mitt Romney's economic blueprint in a town hall style debate Tuesday night, accusing his rival of favoring only a "one-point plan" to help the rich at the expense of the middle class. The Republican protested the charge was way off the mark.

The truth, Romney said, is that "the middle class has been crushed over the last four years." It was the first of repeated highly charged moments of the 90-minute debate, the second of three between the campaign rivals three weeks before Election Day in a close race for the White House.

The president was feistier from the outset than he had been in their initial encounter two weeks ago, when he turned in a listless performance that sent shudders through his supporters and helped fuel a rise by Romney in opinion polls nationally and in some battleground states.

Obama challenged Romney on economics and energy policy, accusing him of switching positions and declaring that his economic plan was a "sketchy deal" that the public should reject.

Romney gave as good as he got.

"You'll get your chance in a moment. I'm still speaking," the former Massachusetts governor said at one point while Obama was mid-sentence. He said the president's policies had failed to jumpstart the economy and crimped energy production.

The open-stage format left the two men free to stroll freely across a red-carpeted stage, and they did. Their clashes crackled with energy and tension, and the crowd watched raptly as the two sparred while struggling to appear calm and affable before a national television audience.

The rivals disagreed about taxes, measures to reduce the deficit, energy, pay equity for women and health care issues. Immigration prompted yet another clash, Romney saying Obama had failed to pursue the comprehensive legislation he promised at the dawn of his administration, and the president saying Republican obstinacy made a deal impossible.

Under the format agreed to in advance, members of an audience of 82 uncommitted voters posed questions to the president and his challenger.

Nearly all of them concerned domestic policy until one raised the subject of the recent death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in a terrorist attack at an American post in Benghazi.

Romney said it took Obama a long time to admit the episode had been a terrorist attack, but Obama said he had said so the day after in an appearance in the Rose Garden outside the White House.

When moderator Candy Crowley of CNN said the president had in fact done so, Obama, prompted, "Say that a little louder, Candy."

One intense exchange focused on competing claims about whether energy production is increasing or slowing. Obama accused Romney of misrepresenting what has happened — a theme he returned to time and again. Romney strode across the stage to confront Obama face to face, just feet from the audience.

Both men pledged a better economic future to a young man who asked the first question, a member of a pre-selected audience of 82 uncommitted voters.

Then the president's determination to show a more aggressive side became evident.

Rebutting his rival's claim to a five-point plan to create 12 million jobs, Obama said, "Gov. Romney says he's got a five-point plan. Gov. Romney doesn't have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules."

"That's been his philosophy in the private sector," Obama said of his rival. "That's been his philosophy as governor. That's been his philosophy as a presidential candidate. You can make a lot of money and pay lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less."

"You can ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks for it. You can invest in a country, bankrupt it, lay off the workers, strip away their pensions and you still make money. That's exactly the philosophy that we've seen in place for the last decade," the president said in a scorching summation.

Unable to respond at length because of the debate's rules, Romney said the accusations were "way off the mark."

But moments later, he reminded the national television audience of the nation's painfully slow recovery from the worst recession in decades.

There are "23 million people struggling to find a job. ... The president's policies have been exercised over the last four years and they haven't put America back to work," he said. "We have fewer people working today than when he took office."

Economic growth has been slow throughout Obama's term in office, and unemployment only recently dipped below 8 percent for the first time since he moved into the White House. Romney noted that if out-of-work Americans who no longer look for jobs were counted, the unemployment rate would be 10.7 percent.

Both men had rehearsed extensively for the encounter, a turnabout for Obama.

"I had a bad night," the president conceded, days after he and Romney shared a stage for the first time, in Denver. His aides made it known he didn't intend to be as deferential to his challenger this time, and the presidential party decamped for a resort in Williamsburg, Va., for rehearsals that consumed the better part of three days.

Romney rehearsed in Massachusetts and again after arriving on Long Island on debate day, with less to make up for.

"The first debate was huge and we've seen our numbers move all across the country," his wife, Ann, said before joining her husband in New York.

Asked Tuesday night by one member of the audience how he would differ from former President George W. Bush, the last Republican to hold the office, Romney said, "We are different people and these are different times."

He said he would attempt to balance the budget, something Bush was unsuccessful in doing, get tougher on China and work more aggressively to expand trade.

Obama jumped in with his own predictions — not nearly as favorable to the man a few feet away on stage. He said the former president didn't attempt to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood or turn Medicare into a voucher system.

Though the questions were from undecided voters inside the hall — in a deeply Democratic state — the audience that mattered most watched on television and was counted in the tens of millions. Crucially important: viewers in the nine battlegrounds where the race is likely to be settled.

The final debate, next Monday in Florida, will be devoted to foreign policy.

Opinion polls made the race a close one, with Obama leading in some national surveys and Romney in others. Despite the Republican's clear gains in surveys in recent days, the president led in several polls of Wisconsin and Ohio, two key Midwestern battlegrounds where Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are campaigning heavily.

Barring a last-minute shift in the campaign, Obama is on course to win states and the District of Columbia that account for 237 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The same is true for Romney in states with 191 electoral votes.

The remaining 110 electoral votes are divided among the hotly contested battleground states of Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13) New Hampshire (4), Iowa (6), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), Ohio (18) and Wisconsin (10).

Obama has campaigned in the past several days by accusing Romney of running away from some of the conservative positions he took for tax cuts and against abortion earlier in the year when he was trying to win the Republican nomination.

"Maybe you're wondering what to believe about Mitt Romney," says one ad, designed to remind voters of the Republican's strong opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake.

Romney countered by stressing both in person and through his television advertising the slow pace of the economic recovery, which has left growth sluggish and unemployment high throughout Obama's term. Joblessness recently declined to 7.8 percent, dropping below 8 percent for the first time since the president took office.

Romney also has stepped up his criticism of the administration's handling of the terrorist attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, more than a month ago that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

So far, the Republican challenger has not aired any television advertising on the issue, a suggestion that strategists believe it dims in importance next to the economy.

But the attack sparked one of the sharpest exchanges in last week's vice presidential debate, when Ryan cited it in asserting that the administration's foreign policy was unraveling and Vice President Joe Biden accused his rival of uttering "a bunch of malarkey."

Biden also said that "we" had not been aware of a request for additional security at the facility, a statement that the White House later said applied to the president and vice president.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she accepted responsibility for the level of security assigned to the consulate.

Associated Press writers Julie Pace in New York, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Matthew Lee in Lima, Peru, contributed to this story. Espo reported from Washington.