Whitney Houston's Death "Teachable Moment" (Obama Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske)

White House drug czar says Whitney Houston's death is a 'teachable moment'

White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske called the death of singer Whitney Houston a "teachable moment" in addressing the problem of prescription drug abuse in the United States.

"I think it's what we might call a teachable moment, when someone passes. Particularly someone that was as highly thought of and was such an incredible performer as Whitney Houston," said Kerlikowske to CBS News in an online video released Monday.

Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Houston's passing puts a spotlight on the issue of prescription drug use. The superstar had opened up about in past interviews admitting to problems with substance abuse, however the Los Angeles County coroner however has still not ruled on the cause of her death.
Houston was found dead at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Los Angeles Saturday. The music icon was 48.

"We can use this a moment to help people understand and remember that there are literally billions of Americans suffering from this problem," he said.
The nation's top drug-policy enforcer told CBS that this type of drug use affects a "huge number" of people throughout the country and causes deaths in "very, very high numbers."

"They're coming right out of our medicine cabinets and yet these drugs are as addictive and dangerous as any other drug," he added.

Kerlikowske said that Houston's struggles with substance abuse highlight the fact that the issue spans all demographics and socioeconomic barriers.

He said that perception drug abuse needs to be recognized as a disease that can be managed and treated with the right help.

Kerlikowske said that when he took office the problem was "not on the public's mind," but after a review which revealed the significance of the problem, President Obama released a strategy to deal with the issue by coordinating state, local and federal involvement.

"We can use this a moment to help people understand and remember that there are literally billions of Americans suffering from this problem," he said.


Sources: CBS News, The Hill, Wikipedia

Obama Makes 15 Recess Appointments Despite GOP Objections

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Obama Makes Labor Board Appointment During Recess Over GOP Objections


Despite intense Republican objections, President Obama on Saturday used recess appointments to fill 15 administration posts without Senate confirmation, including Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

By filling the jobs while Congress is in recess, Obama gets around Senate confirmation. Obama justified the move by charging Republicans with playing politics with his administration nominees.

"The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis," he said in a written statement.

All 41 Senate Republicans wrote Obama this week urging him not to use a recess appointment for Becker, a former top lawyer with Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, whose nomination was rejected by the Senate last month, 52-43.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also wrote Obama on behalf of 20 business groups that opposed Becker's nomination and decried the recess appointment.

"This recess appointment disregards the Senate's bipartisan rejection of Craig Becker's nomination to the NLRB," Chamber Vice President Randel Johnson said in a written statement.

"Overriding the will of the Senate and providing this special interest payback contradicts the president's claim to change the tone in Washington," he said. "The business community should be on red alert for radical changes that could significantly impair the ability of America's job creators to compete."

But White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki cast the opposition of Becker's nomination as part of an "unprecedented level of obstruction in the Senate" that had left "key economic positions unfilled, especially at time when our country is recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

Psaki said the five-member labor board had been trying to operate with only two members.

"The roadblocks we've seen in the Senate have left some government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission impaired in fulfilling their mission," she said in a statement. "These agencies can now get back to working for the American people."

The Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid, welcomed Obama's move. "Regrettably, Senate Republicans have dedicated themselves to a failed strategy to cripple President Obama's economic initiatives by stalling key administration nominees at every turn," said Reid, the majority leader from Nevada.

But Republicans say Becker isn't working for all Americans.

"Craig Becker stands far outside the mainstream of NLRB nominees," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a written statement Thursday. "Given the bipartisan opposition to his nomination, the administration would be wise to not circumvent the will of the Senate by recess appointing him to the NLRB.

"There is no place on this powerful board for someone who believes that card check legislation -- getting rid of the secret union ballot -- can be enacted surreptitiously through regulation."

Sen. John McCain said the Senate has already delivered its verdict on Becker's ability to serve impartially on the labor board.

"If this administration chooses to recess appoint Mr. Becker, it would be just another example of putting the will of one special interest group over the will of the American people," he said.

Republicans wanted Obama to scrap Becker's nomination and appoint one Democrat, Mark Pearce, and one Republican, Brian Lewis, to the other vacant seats. Pearce was one of the 15 nominees appointed Saturday.

Democratic groups, such as the AFL-CIO, have said Becker's an experienced advocate for worker rights and have decried GOP "obstructionism."

But Obama didn't specifically address the controversy over Becker in his statement Saturday. Instead, he focused on the nominees still awaiting a vote in the Senate.

"At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months," he said. "I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government."

Obama noted that former President George W. Bush made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, "but he was not facing the same level of obstruction."

According to the White House, Bush had five nominees pending on the Senate floor by the same point in his first term compared with Obama's 77 nominees.


Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, WCNC

Van Jones Returns, Loves Glenn Beck, Pushes Green Jobs

Van Jones Returns, Sends Glenn Beck Love


Six months after leaving the Obama administration, former green jobs czar Van Jones is staging a public comeback, directing his love at the Republicans who helped pushed him out of the administration – whether they want it or not.

Jones, who left the administration last September amidst questions from Fox host Glenn Beck and others on the right about his politics before joining the administration, was finally pushed to resign after the emergence of a petition he'd signed supporting the Sept. 11 "truth movement."

His return to the public stage began Wednesday, when the founder of the advocacy group Green for All was named a senior fellow at the Green Opportunity Initiative at the progressive Center for American Progress, and separately appointed as a fellow at Princeton University, teaching environmental and economic policy.

Jones also took to the airwaves, visiting with some prominent African-American commentators to promote his green agenda.

His message: Republicans – who called for his head just six months ago and who, before accepting his White House job – could work with Democrats to promote a green jobs initiative.

"Conservatives should be really happy because we're talking about enterprise," Jones told Roland Martin of his green plans Sunday on TV One's "Washington Watch."

In an unexpected outpouring, Jones gave props to Beck at the NAACP Image Awards on Friday, delivering a message to his “fellow countryman” while accepting the President’s Award for his work on green initiatives.

“I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you and you cannot do anything about it. I love you and you cannot do anything about it,” Jones said. “Let’s be one country. Let’s be one country. Let’s get the job done.”

(Beck returned the love shot on Twitter: “I love you too,Glad to all live in one country.Will it be the founders country or the one you pushed when with storm?”)

Speaking the same day to Suzanne Malveaux on CNN, Jones recalled a recent speech of his that tea partiers attended, where someone “on the front row, like, you know, mad-dogging me and I started talking. I started talking about American jobs and the future and how we can be one country, and the guy's book starts getting lower and lower and lower, and at the end of the speech, he came up and asked me to sign Glenn Beck's book.

Asked what he wrote, Jones said, “We are one country, Van Jones.”

For weeks before Jones's resignation, Beck had led the charge against Jones, accusing him of being a communist because of his affiliation with a 1990s anti-war group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. Jones was the founder of a group, Color of Change, that had pushed for a successful advertising boycott of Beck's show after Beck had already twice criticized Jones on the air.

Jones repeatedly denied Beck's charges, but the talker has stuck to his guns. During the annual Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month, Beck repeated the charge that Jones is a "self-described" communist.

When Jones resigned last September, he released a statement acknowledging the right's role in his departure after Republicans aired several inflammatory comments he'd made over the years. In addition to the 9/11 petition question, Jones also drew fire for calling Republicans "a-holes."

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide," Jones said.

In an interview with PBS's Tavis Smiley Thursday, Jones revisited how he ended up signing a petition calling for an investigation of the Bush administration role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. During his interview with Smiley, Jones called the whole debacle a misunderstanding in which his name was put on a petition - one that he says he never actually saw.

Jones said some people approached him at a conference saying they represented 9/11 families and said, " 'Will you help us?' I said, 'Sure, whatever you want.'

"And then these people, I didn't know what their agenda was, they went and put my name on some abhorrent, crazy language they never showed me, I never saw. And it just sat there on this website for years," Jones said on the program.

On "Washington Watch," Jones reiterated that he willingly stepped down, saying that he felt that the controversy surrounding him was distracting attention away from the health care debate.

"I chose to resign because I was becoming a distraction," Jones said. "There were things I had said done in my past that were being confused."

Sources: Politico, Think Progress, NAACP, Twitter, Youtube

Howard A. Schmidt: Obama's Cyber Security Czar

Howard A. Schmidt Tapped To Be Obama's Cyber Security Czar


After months of wrangling and delays, President Barack Obama has chosen a national cyber security coordinator to take on the formidable task of organizing and managing the nation's increasingly vulnerable digital networks.

Obama has tapped Howard A. Schmidt, longtime computer security executive who worked in the Bush administration and has extensive ties to the corporate world, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement will not be made until Tuesday.

Schmidt's selection comes more than 10 months after Obama declared cyber security a priority and ordered a broad administration review.

The official said Obama was personally involved in the selection process and chose Schmidt after an extensive search because of his unique background and skills. Schmidt will have regular and direct access to the President for cybersecurity issues, the official said.

Obama released the findings of the cyber security review nearly seven months ago, vowing that the White House will name a cyber coordinator to deal with one of the "most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation."

Corporate computer security leaders have openly expressed frustration with the White House as movement on the job post stalled and questioned the administration's claims that the issue is a priority.

At the same time, cyber experts and potential job candidates have complained that the position lacks the budgetary and policy making authority needed to be successful. Schmidt will report to the National Security Council and closely support the National Economic Council on cyber issues.

"From the industry's perspective, a lot of people are starting to think that other pressing matters in Afghanistan and other issues put this on a back burner," said Roger Thornton, chief technology officer for Fortify Software, and a cyber security expert. "If it is, that's understandable but depressing."

Schmidt's selection suggests that economic and business interests in the White House held more sway in the selection process. Schmidt, president and CEO of the Information Security Forum, a nonprofit international consortium that conducts research in information security, has served as chief security officer for Microsoft and as cyber security chief for online auction giant eBay. He was reportedly preferred by NEC director Lawrence Summers.

Thornton praised Schmidt's choice, saying the coordinator has to be strong on many different dimensions.

He said Schmidt understands the technology, has broad management experience and also has worked well within the political arena, a key requirement for the White House post.

"I think he would be able to get people to compromise and move things forward," said Thornton.

U.S. government computer systems are constantly under assault, and are being attacked or scanned millions of times a day. Hackers and cyber criminals pose an expanding threat, using increasingly sophisticated technologies to steal money or information, while nation-states probe for weaknesses in order to steal classified documents or technology or destroy the networks that run vital services.

The nation's cyber security vulnerabilities have been underscored recent months, with a number of high profile assaults, including ones that breached a high-tech fighter jet program and the electrical grid, although no classified material was compromised.

Early last month, unknown hackers knocked a number of U.S and South Korean government Web sites off line in a widespread and unusually resilient computer attack.

Considered an expert in computer forensics, Schmidt's roughly 40-year career includes 31 years in local and federal government service, including a stint as vice chairman of President George W. Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. He also was for a short time an adviser to the FBI and worked at the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Congress members, business leaders and cyber security experts have called for a more coordinated effort by the federal government to monitor and protect U.S. systems and work with the private sector to insure that transportation systems, energy plants and other sensitive networks are equally protected.

Obama pledged that the new cyber coordinator will have "regular access" to the Oval Office. But critics worry that the coordinator will be mired in bureaucracy.

Rather than being a cyber czar, the person will be more of a "cyber peasant" said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "A lot depends on who the person is, but it's not a top tier position, not someone who reports directly to the president."

In a letter to Obama, TechAmerica – which represents about 1,500 companies – said the naming of a coordinator was urgently needed since " those that would seek to harm America by exploiting our digital infrastructure continue to increase their efforts."

With his administration struggling to pass a controversial health care overhaul, deal with a troubled and unpopular war in Afghanistan, and revive the stumbling economy, Obama has had little time to focus on what has become a cyber quagmire.


Sources: Huffington Post, AP