US President Barack Obama took questions on everything from the embattled firm AIG to immigration to a second term on Wednesday at a town hall meeting in California, where the recession has taken a heavy toll.
The event in Orange County marked Obama’s first appearance as president in a state he won convincingly last year. It was designed to highlight the job-creating benefits of the US$787 billion economic stimulus plan he pushed through Congress last month.
Another such meeting was scheduled in downtown Los Angeles yesterday, where he was also scheduled to tape an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Obama defended his ambitious plan to overhaul health care, energy, education, taxes and spending policies in the coming months.
“I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time: ‘our problem,’” Obama said.
“But that’s just not the way it works,” he told a crowd of 1,300 in a hot auditorium. “You don’t get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills.”
The administration must tackle multiple challenges at once, he said. Obama spoke for 21 minutes, then took eight questions. The first: Will he seek re-election in 2012?
“If I could get done what I think needs to get done in four years, even if it meant that I was only president for four years, I would rather be a good president — to take on the tough issues for four years — than a mediocre president for eight years,” Obama said.
Referring to the uproar over bonuses paid to executives of the largely nationalized AIG insurance company, Obama said: “I know Washington’s all in a tizzy, and everybody’s pointing fingers at each other and saying, ‘It’s their fault, the Democrats’ fault, the Republicans’ fault.’ Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president.”
One little curve ball came, however, on a topic Obama rarely mentions on his own: immigration. Before a crowd that seemed divided on the emotional, politically dangerous issue, Obama said he still supports “comprehensive immigration reform.”
The nation must find a way, he said, to strengthen its borders, while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.
“People who have been here for a long time and put down roots,” he said, should have “a mechanism over time to get out of the shadows” and achieve legal status, including citizenship.
In other news, the Senate approved Ron Kirk’s nomination as the nation’s top trade official of the last remaining Cabinet posts.
The former Dallas mayor was confirmed as US trade representative by 92-5 in the Senate. He became the first black American to hold the post.
Considered a centrist on trade issues, Kirk last month said the administration would focus on enforcing existing trade deals rather than pushing through new ones during the current economic crisis.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS