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Reid Says a Deal Is Unlikely Before the Fiscal Deadline - New York Times

Posted: 27 Dec 2012 08:57 AM PST

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: December 27, 2012

WASHINGTON — Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, warned Thursday morning that there was scant time to put together a Congressional deal to avert the impending fiscal crisis and that no resolution was in sight.

"I have to be very honest," Mr. Reid said as the Senate convened Thursday in an usual session between Christmas and New Year's Day. "I don't know time-wise how it can happen now."

Mr. Reid offered his pessimistic assessment shortly before President Obama, cutting his vacation short, arrived back in Washington on Air Force One. White House officials said that before leaving Hawaii, Mr. Obama had spoken separately by phone with each of the four Congressional leaders about the status of negotiations, but they gave no details of the discussion.

On the Senate floor, Mr. Reid excoriated House Republicans for failing to consider a Senate-passed measure that would extend lower tax rates on household income up to $250,000. He urged House members, who remained away from Washington, to return to the Capitol to put together at least a modest deal to avoid the more than a half-trillion dollars in automatic tax increases and spending cuts set to begin in January.

"The American people are waiting for the ball to drop," Mr. Reid said, "but it's not going to be a good drop."

House Republicans planned a midafternoon conference call among members to discuss, among other things, their possible return this weekend; members were told they would be given 48 hours notice before any impending return. Republican Senators were also planning to convene at the Capitol — normally somnolent during Christmas week — to strategize.

A spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, confirmed that he had spoken with the president, and said that Mr. McConnell was "happy to review what the president has in mind." But the spokesman, Don Stewart, said Senate Democrats had not come ahead with a plan.

"When they do, members on both sides of the aisle will review the legislation and make decisions on how best to proceed," Mr. Stewart said.

Mr. Reid said that absent a move from Republicans, the Senate would move forward this week on the national security measure concerning espionage, as well as a bill to help states that have suffered hurricane damage, with multiple votes possible.

"We are here in Washington working," Mr. Reid said. "While the members of the House of Representatives are out watching movies and watching their kids play soccer and basketball and doing all kinds of things. They should be here."

Senators, frustrated, pessimistic and in some cases downright miserable, returned to Washington with no clear fiscal agenda. Senator Ben Nelson, a retiring Democrat of Nebraska, arrived shortly after midnight on Thursday on a flight that was delayed more than four hours. As he walked through the airport, he lamented the deteriorating political comity that he has observed during two terms in the Senate and two terms as a Democratic governor of a conservative state.

"There are folks who are elected who have come here with an agenda to do nothing and want to stop everything," Mr. Nelson said in an interview. "It may be the new norm – blocking everything."

For Mr. Nelson, who decided against seeking a third term, the looming fiscal crisis would be the final legislative act of a political career built around a bipartisan voting record. He said he was not confident that a real deal could be reached that would be acceptable to both sides, considering that Congress is filled with many people "who didn't accept the 2008 presidential election and haven't accepted the 2012 election either."

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

Ex-President George HW Bush in intensive care after suffering setbacks ... - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 27 Dec 2012 08:41 AM PST

HOUSTON — Former President George H.W. Bush is being treated in the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital after suffering "a series of setbacks," including a stubborn fever, his spokesman said.

In a brief email Wednesday, Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, said the 88-year-old former leader had been admitted Sunday to the ICU at Methodist Hospital. McGrath said Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, was alert and talking to medical staff.

He said doctors are cautiously optimistic about Bush's treatment and that the former president "remains in guarded condition." He said Bush was surrounded by family.

Early Thursday, McGrath told The Associated Press he had no new information on Bush's condition and that he would release another statement "when events warrant it."

Bush has been hospitalized since Nov. 23, when he was admitted for a lingering cough related to bronchitis after having been in and out of the hospital for complications related to the illness.

A fever that kept Bush in the hospital over Christmas had gotten worse and doctors had put him on a liquids-only diet Wednesday following "a series of setbacks."

"It's an elevated fever, so it's actually gone up in the last day or two," McGrath said. "It's a stubborn fever that won't go away."

But he said the cough that initially brought Bush to the hospital had improved.

Bush was visited on Christmas by his wife, Barbara, his son, Neil, and Neil's wife, Maria, and a grandson, McGrath said. Bush's daughter, Dorothy, arrived Wednesday in Houston from Bethesda, Md. The 41st president has also been visited by his sons, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.

He has also been visited by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a longtime confidant.

Bush and his wife live in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former president was a naval aviator in World War II — at one point the youngest in the Navy — and was shot down over the Pacific. He's skydived on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.

He suffers from a form of Parkinson's disease and in recent years has used a wheelchair to get around.

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Khamis, 27 Disember 2012