Jewish & World News

In marking Holocaust Remembrance Day Monday, US President Barack Obama stressed the responsibility of remembrance and continuing to confront anti-Semitism. “We must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals,” he said, “not simply to pledge ‘never again,’ but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity.”

Washington - President Obama's job approval rating has taken another dive, putting him underwater for the first time in the latest Marist poll. Just 44% of the country approve of the work Obama is doing, while 47% don't like what they see. The tough reviews come as Americans still find the commander in chief likable, with 50% rating him favorably, and 44% viewing him negatively. And they still blame former President George W. Bush for the dismal economy. Only 29% of voters say the poor economy is Obama's fault; 62% agree that Bush left the problem on Obama's desk. "With this part of voters' mind-set, it's no wonder the White House would like to make 2010 a choice between President Obama and past GOP policies," said Lee Miringoff, director of The Marist Institute for Public Opinion.   Still, people think Obama's policies are not change they can believe in. Forty-seven percent of voters say Obama has not lived up to their expectations, with just 42% ...

Boston, Massachusetts - A federal immigration judge will decide Thursday whether President Barack Obama's aunt, who has been in the United States illegally for years, will be allowed to stay. Zeituni Onyango, 57, is the half-sister of the president's late father. She arrived at the court here in a wheelchair and testified before Judge Leonard Shapiro for two and a half hours about her asylum request, her representative Amy Cohn told CNN. Two doctors, including her personal physician, are also testifying on her behalf. Onyango's medical condition is part of her legal defense against expulsion. She applied for political asylum in 2002, citing violence in her native Kenya. Onyango was a legal resident of the United States at the time and had received a Social Security card a year earlier. But her asylum request was turned down in 2004. She appealed and was ordered to leave, but has lived in the United States illegally since then. Her immigration status came to li...

President Obama has written a letter of apology to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid regarding comments made Tuesday about trips to Las Vegas. In his letter, the president called Las Vegas "one of our country's great destinations". Read the President's Letter During the president's town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, he discussed the need to curb spending during tough economic times.  "When times are tough, you tighten your belts," the president said. "You don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college." His statement drew sharp criticism from Nevada lawmakers, including Senator Reid. "The President needs to lay off Las Vegas and stop making it the poster child for where people shouldn't be spending their money," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. "Las Vegas is suffering through one of the...

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh says he thanks God “every day” that he sees problems for President Barack Obama. In an interviewing airing Wednesday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Limbaugh said the country has lucked out each time one of Obama’s initiatives has failed. “The fact that his agenda has totally failed this year is the best thing that could have happened to this country,” Limbaugh said. “I thank God every day that it is going down the tubes.” Limbaugh added that he was thankful that “this Massachusetts election happened,” referencing Republican Scott Brown’s win in the Senate special election there last month. Limbaugh said that he watched Obama deliver his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress last week, but “gave up after 50 minutes.” “I heard it all before. There was nothing new in it. The only difference was the tone,” Limbaugh said, belittling Obama “a young inexperienced guy, who is just mad.” “This is the first time in his li...

Washington - President Obama has found another long-lost cousin: Scott Brown, the Republican state senator from Massachusetts who won the Senate seat long held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. The president and the senator-elect are 10th cousins, according to the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Brown's victory Jan. 19 over Democratic candidate Martha Coakley cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and may have jeopardized passage of Obama's top legislative priority -- a healthcare overhaul. Despite the political chasm that separates the two men, however, Obama and Brown have at least one solid family link. The New England genealogy experts report that Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown's mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descended from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Mass. He died in 1687 at 102. Obama descends from Singletary's eldest son, Jonathan, who later changed his last name to Dunham. Brown descends fr...

 At the House Republican retreat in Baltimore Friday, President Barack Obama and GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas disagreed on several key facts about the federal budget. Hensarling said that "what were the old annual deficits under Republicans have become monthly deficits under Democrats" and that Obama's first budget "triples the national debt." Obama said both of Hensarling's points were "factually just not true" and that he inherited "a $1.3 trillion deficit before I passed any law." The president challenged any "independent fact-checker out there to take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said." Fact Check: Is Hensarling correct when he says that Obama's first budget would have tripled the national debt and that his administration increased the annual deficit by a factor of 12? Is the president correct when he says he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit? – The non-partisa...

Washington - Former President George H. W. Bush returned to the White House for a rare Saturday morning meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, but administration officials said no specific issue was on the agenda. The former president was in town for the Alfalfa Club dinner on Saturday night and just wanted to sit down with Obama to talk, officials said. His son Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, accompanied him for the visit. When asked how the meeting went as they departed the White House, former President Bush called it a "good meeting." Another son, former President George W. Bush, returned to the White House for the first time since leaving office two weeks ago for a meeting with Obama and former President Bill Clinton on relief efforts for Haiti. President Obama will not be attending the Alfalfa Club dinner Saturday. The Alfalfa Club is a social organization of politicians and corporate executives that puts on an exclusive annual dinner, whic...

Washington - President Obama is speaking Friday to House Republicans vehemently opposed to the White House agenda. Obama is huddling with the GOP caucus as it holds its annual retreat in Baltimore, Maryland. The president accepted an invitation from House GOP leaders to address their caucus. At issue is whether it is possible for the Democratic president and increasingly conservative House Republicans to find a middle ground on a growing number of sharply divisive issues. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle also are struggling to bridge a trust gap. Democrats have pointed to near-uniform GOP opposition to most administration initiatives as evidence that Republicans are pursuing a strategy of total obstruction to maximize gains in the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats' tenuous ability to pass legislation on a strict party-line basis was undermined by last week's special election to fill Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts. GOP state Sen. Sc...

He hasn't been sworn into office yet, but Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown is confident he already has the president beat in at least one respect: basketball. The former state senate Republican, who shocked the political world with his upset victory last week that effectively ended the Democratic Party's 60-seat filibuster-proof hold in the U.S. Senate, told NBC's Jay Leno he also has the game to hand the president a defeat on the court. Brown, an avid athlete who also said he swims and bikes several miles a week, told Leno he's already issued the challenge to Obama. "It would certainly be a tough game," Brown said of the potential match up. "The only time I spoke to him was election night. And I did challenge him to pick his best." CNN Political Ticker

When President Obama called last month for a new tax break to spur job creation, critics blasted him for offering no specifics. On Friday, Obama plans to fill in the details: He wants to give businesses a $5,000 tax credit for each net new employee they hire this year. Job creation "must be our No. 1 focus in 2010," Obama said Wednesday night in his State of the Union address. "We should start where most new jobs do -- in small businesses." Obama will travel Friday to Baltimore, where the local unemployment rate is nearly 11%, to unveil his tax-cut road map. The $5,000 per-worker tax credit he's calling for would be available to businesses of any size, and would be retroactive to the start of the year. Startups launched in 2010 would be eligible for half of the tax credit. Obama is also proposing a reimbursement of the Social Security taxes businesses pay on increases in their payrolls this year. Firms could earn the credit by raising wages or increasing t...

CNN UPDATES 10:20 Address ends with Obama calling on Americans to "seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward and to strengthen our union once more" 10:18 Obama acknowledges that his administration has had political setbacks; says "some of them were deserved" 10:17 On discord in politics: "Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy" 10:13 Obama says he will work with Congress and the military to repeal "the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are" 10:08 Obama says the threat of nuclear weapons is "perhaps the greatest danger to the American people"   10:06 Obama details the challenges in Afghanistan: "There will be difficult days ahead. But I am confident we will succeed" 10:02 Obama mentions Massachusetts ...

President Barack Obama told a group of House Democrats not to fear big losses in the 2010 midterm elections similar to those in 1994, saying House Democrats didn't have him to lean on back then, Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR) told a newspaper Monday. Berry told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “I’ve been doing that [pointing out concerns about 2010] with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all. They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’" Berry did not reveal exactly when Obama made the remark or the tone in which it was made. Asked about the report at Monday’s White House daily press briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he had not talked to the president about it. “I hope it's not newsworthy to think that the president hopes and expects to be an effective campaigner in the midterm elections,” Gibbs...

President Obama will announce in Wednesday's State of the Union address that he's proposing to save $250 billion by freezing all nonsecurity federal discretionary spending for three years, according to two senior administration officials.   The proposed freeze, which could help position Obama in the political center by sharpening his credentials on fiscal discipline, would exempt the budgets of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, along with some international programs. The officials would not reveal the details of which domestic programs would be cut, as they prepare to face major pushback from liberals in the president's own party because popular education and health spending could be on the chopping block. The details will be officially unveiled February 1, when the president publicly releases his next budget blueprint for fiscal year 2011 -- which starts October 1 -- and beyond. "We've got to make some tough decisions,...

President Barack Obama's demand Thursday that Congress clamp down on the size of banks and their investments got major blowback from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said it could cause layoffs and hurt the city. It's a clash between the president and the mayor. President Obama wants to whittle away at the size of the financial services industry. "The American people will not be served by a financial system that comprises just a few massive firms," the president said. But Mayor Bloomberg said the banks and Wall Street are part of the bedrock of the city's economy, and efforts to slash their business just means less tax revenue for the city, which brings up the dreaded "L" word. "If that's the case then we'll have to lay off people because it will really hurt our industry," Bloomberg said. The mayor was so upset about the move -- and a suggestion that Wall Street bonuses be put in escrow, which means the money wouldn...

President Obama already was planning to put a heavy focus on jobs and the economy in next week's State of the Union address, but his top aides are signaling that pivot is going to be even sharper in the wake of the Democrats' stunning election defeat in Massachusetts. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted the president has been dealing with the financial crisis long before Tuesday's Senate race, but he acknowledged the administration could have done a better job of conveying that message to the public and will now redouble its efforts. "The president works each and every day on making our economy stronger and putting us in a position to where we're creating jobs, businesses are hiring again," Gibbs said. "I can certainly assure the American people that that is the chief focus of the president of the United States." That message, however, was at least partially obscured by Obama's heavy focus on overhauling health care for much of his fir...

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope. US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team. Then there was the last week of 2009, when a failed terror attack on a flight inbound for Detroit exposed major flaws in US efforts to identify and stop potential terrorists. This week, though -- a week when Obama should have been celebrating the first anniversary of his inauguration -- may have been the president's worst yet. Scott Brown, an almost unknown Republican member of the Massachusetts Senate, def...

The Republican win in the fight for the U.S. Senate seat of the late Edward Kennedy represents a major victory for opponents of U.S. President Barack Obama and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For nine months, Netanyahu held his ground against pressure by Obama, who enjoys a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. From now on, Obama will be much more dependent on support from his Republican adversaries, who are supporters and friends of Netanyahu. Netanyau keeps his moves in synch with political events in the United States like no other Israeli politician. He dragged his feet on negotiating with the Obama administration over a construction freeze in the settlements and then decided on a 10-month freeze, ending in September, very close to Congressional elections in which the Democrats are expected to lose seats. Netanyahu figures that he needs to hold on and not to buckle under to pressure until his right-wing supporters take back Capitol Hill and gain the ab...

 President Obama promised Wednesday that Democrats will not "jam" a health care bill through Congress and will wait until Republican Scott Brown takes his seat in the Senate before moving ahead. "Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table: The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated," the president told ABC News. "The people in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process." Obama said the tide that swept Brown into office Tuesday reflected a broader discontent in the country about the troubled economy, but he said comprehensive health care reform should not be defeated as a result. "Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," Obama said. "People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's...

As President Obama marks one year in the White House, an average of the most recent national surveys indicates that just over half of the public approves of how the president is handling his job. According to a new CNN Poll of Polls, 51 percent of Americans give Obama a thumbs-up when it comes to his performance as president, with 42 percent saying they disapprove of the job he's doing. The survey was released Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of Obama's inauguration. "Obama's average approval rating stayed above 60 percent until mid-June, and was at 55 percent as late as October," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But since November, his weekly approval rating, on average, has hovered around the 50 percent mark." Read More: CNN