Obama: 'There may not be an appetite' to tackle immigration this year
By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2010
President Obama said late Wednesday that "there may not be an appetite" to overhaul the nation's immigration laws this year, even though he believes there is a pressing need to do so. "It's a matter of political will," Obama said during a rare visit to the press section of his presidential plane. " . . . This is a difficult issue. It generates a lot of emotions . . . I need some help on the Republican side." Obama has called repeatedly for comprehensive immigration reform, saying he wants to tighten control of the nation's borders but also chart a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are in this country illegally. Sen. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last week that he wanted to push forward with legislation regardless of whether lawmakers can forge a bipartisan compromise. But he later backed off that pledge, and Obama told reporters on the plane that he is willing to wait in order to work with Republican senators. On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that Reid and Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.) are forging a proposal that would call for more border security measures before expanding citizenship options. In his remarks to reporters, Obama cited the bruising battle over healthcare and the current debate on financial regulatory reform and an energy bill, as well as November's mid-term Congressional elections, as reasons an immigration bill might have to wait. "We've gone through a tough year, and I've been working Congress pretty hard," the president said. "So I know there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue." Obama applauded negotiations on immigration legislation between Schumer and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and said he would like to see a working group of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle craft "serious legislation that solves the border problem and solves the wide range of issues that we face under immigration reform in a way that can garner the support of the American people." He did not address the reported effort by Reid, Schumer and Menendez. Obama condemned a tough new immigration law signed last week by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), which criminalizes illegal immigration by defining it as trespassing and allows local law enforcement agencies to question people they suspect of being undocumented. "That carries a great amount of risk that core values that we all care about are breached," the president said. The White House and the Justice Department are weighing whether to sue Arizona in an effort to prevent the law from being implemented. At the same time, Obama said he could understand the frustration that many Americans feel about seeing large numbers of people enter this country without permission, especially during hard economic times and in…

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 Obama Outlines National Security StrategyBy PETER BAKERLuke Sharrett/The New York Times President Obama and the West Point superintendent, Lieutenant General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, during the National Anthem before the president delivered the commencement address on Saturday.11:03 a.m. | Updated WEST POINT, N.Y. – President Obama outlined a new national security strategy rooted in diplomatic engagement and international alliances on Saturday as he repudiated his predecessor’s emphasis on unilateral American power and the right to wage preemptive war.Eight years after President George W. Bush came to the United States Military Academy to set a new course for American security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Obama used the same setting to offer a revised doctrine, one that vowed no retreat against American enemies while seeking “national renewal and global leadership.”“Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system,” the president told graduating cadets. “But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation. We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice – so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don’t.” Mr. Obama said the United States “will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well” while also trying to “build new partnerships and shape stronger international standards and institutions.” He added: “This engagement is not an end in itself. The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times.”The president’s address was aimed not just at the 1,000 young men and women in gray and white uniforms in Michie Stadium who could soon face the perils of combat in Afghanistan or Iraq as second lieutenants in the Army but also to an international audience that in some quarters at least grew alienated from the United States during the Bush era.
The contrasts between Mr. Bush’s address here in 2002 and Mr. Obama’s in 2010 underscored all the ways a wartime America has changed and all the ways it has not. This was the ninth class to graduate from West Point since hijacked passenger jets destroyed the World Trade Center and smashed into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside. Most of those graduating on Saturday were 12 at the time. When Mr. Bush addressed their predecessors, he had succeeded in toppling the Taliban government in Afghanistan and victory of sorts appeared at hand, even as he was turning his attention to a new front in Iraq. Forecasting a new generation of threats, Mr. Bush vowed not to stand by as they gathered. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize,” he said then, “we will have waited too long.”As Mr. Obama took the stage on a mild, overcast day, the American war in Iraq was…

  Sandra Bullock in custody battle with porn starJohn Harlow in Los Angeles 30 CommentsRecommend? (41) America's sweetheart, the actress Sandra Bullock, is being dragged into an unpleasant legal battle to prove that she is a better parent than her husband’s former wife, the star of more than 100 pornographic movies. Bullock is backing claims by her husband Jesse James, the television celebrity, that they have made a good home for Sunny, his five-year-old daughter. His ex-wife Janine Lindemulder, 40, star of such video titles as Mrs Behavin’, Sleeping Booty and Dyke Diner, disagrees. She has just been released from a six-month prison sentence for tax evasion. When she was in jail in Oregon she reportedly sent her former husband a bitter text message that read: “U win. Sandra finally has her baby — congratulations.” The tattooed blonde remains in a halfway house in Los Angeles until the end of this year when she can seek custody of her daughter. James, 40, has launched a pre-emptive legal strike in wealthy Orange county, south of Los Angeles, where all three have beachside homes. He has asked a judge to rule on whether Lindemulder is a fit mother. “Good cause exists for the court to conduct a review to determine if [the girl] will be safe with [Lindemulder],” he said in a statement to the court. “She should be restrained from allowing the child around pornographers, drug addicts, guns and firearms, felons and other unsafe environments.” The judge is expected to rule soon on whether Lindemulder, James and Bullock will have to give evidence in person. James, a heavily tattooed motorbike mechanic who turned his business customising £60,000 bikes for sports stars into a Top Gear-style television programme, admits that he enjoys risky pursuits. These include riding with Hell’s Angels gangs and a taste for death-defying television stunts. But he says he keeps these far from his family, which includes two teenage children from an earlier marriage. Bullock denies that the couple, who married in 2005, enjoy a Hollywood lifestyle. “We do every mundane, normal thing that everyone else does. It’s about enjoying what we have,” she said. Bullock, 45, the star of Speed and Miss Congeniality who is estimated to be worth £100m, has said she wanted to have children, but her late mother persuaded her to put her career first. James married Lindemulder in 2002 in an episode of his television series Motorcycle Mania, after which she gave up her career. Lindemulder claimed to be “devastated” when he left her for Bullock while she was seven months pregnant with Sunny. She claimed the stress led her to get into trouble with her taxes. She recently told friends that she wants her child back as she rebuilds her life. Like many Californian custody cases the outcome may come down to money. James told the court he has a “very high income” while Lindemulder still has to repay £180,000 in taxes and earns £7.20 an hour as a…