All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Attorney General Eric Holder defended on Wednesday his decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other terror suspects in a federal court in New York City.

At left: In this Feb. 25 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder listens during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. Holder testified Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee defending his decision to put the professed Sept. 11 mastermind on trial in New York.

Holder defended his decision and addressed critics while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Holder told senators that the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, just blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood, was "the venue in which we were most likely to obtain justice for the American people."

"For eight years justice has been delayed for the 9/11 attacks," Holder said during his testimony. "No more delay. It is time; it is past time to finally act."

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President Obama spoke to reporters Sunday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden about the House's passage of its health care reform bill late Saturday night and about the Iraqi parliament's approval of election legislation.

"Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this legislation, I know that this was with a courageous vote for many members of Congress," Mr. Obama said about the House health care vote. "I'm grateful to them and for the rest of their colleagues for taking us this far."

"Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people," Mr Obama said. "I'm absolutely confident that they will."

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State and local housing agencies would receive up to $35 billion under a plan being considered by the Obama administration, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal.

Under the plan, which could be announced as early as this week, the federal government would buy up to $20 million of new housing bonds in order to relieve pressure from government-run housing finance agencies. The specific buyers of the bonds include the Treasury Department and government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Another $15 billion would be available to help the agencies provide low-rate mortgages to first-time and low-income home buyers.

These agencies have been especially hurt by the economic downturn. Officials in the administration are already worried that they have stopped making new loans.

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Former President Clinton said Tuesday morning that changes in America's culture since his first term as commander in chief will help President Obama's campaign to reform the nation's health-care system.

"I believe he'll succeed because the fundamental culture of the country is different," Mr. Clinton told Russ Mitchell, news anchor for CBS' "The Early Show," "because the economic adversity, the burden that our manufacturers are carrying around is enormous."

The former president also referred to the rising cost of health coverage since he left office as a motivator for passing a reform package.

"Our average hourly wages in America have not increased while the cost of health care has tripled," Mr. Clinton said. "The wage increases that workers would have gotten has gone to pay the employer portion of their health care."

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Former President Clinton didn't firmly agree or disagree with former President Carter's recent statements that President Obama's race motivates critics to disagree with him. However Mr. Clinton did describe some of Mr. Obama's more extreme critics as "racially prejudiced."

Mr. Carter made his comments nearly a week after U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted "You lie!" at Mr. Obama during a joint session of Congress.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said Sept. 15, responding during a Q-and-A session at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

Mr. Clinton gave his perspective as a fellow white Southerner.

"I would say it in a different way," Mr. Clinton told Russ Mitchell, news anchor for CBS' "The Early Show."

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Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the once crusader against Wall Street greed who resigned from office in disgrace after being identified in a prostitution scandal, said the system that led to last year's economic disaster hasn't been changed and that President Obama needs to push for a larger reform effort in his speech Monday.

Maggie Rodriguez, co-anchor of CBS' "The Early Show," interviewed Spitzer on the one-year anniversary of investment baking giant Lehman Brothers' declaration of bankruptcy. Mr. Obama is expected to give a speech Monday afternoon from Federal Hall near the New York Stock Exchange calling on Congress to pass more financial regulatory reforms.

Spitzer gave a blunt assessment of the financial system one year after the collapse of Lehman.

"We are not doing well," Spitzer said. "We have not reformed the system. We still have a system based upon institutions that are too big to fail, institutions that have received billions — indeed one could argue trillions — of taxpayer dollars and are not investing that money back this to the system to create jobs for the future."

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A controversial Arizona minister who prays for the death of President Obama has attracted attention from the Secret Service to a small group of protesters who hold regular demonstrations outside his church.

The Rev. Steven Anderson quoted passages from the Old Testament to the congregation of his Faithful Word Baptist Church about the kinds of people God hates in Tempe Aug. 16. Anderson then told worshippers he interprets those passages to include Mr. Obama and that he prays for the president's death.

While Anderson didn't say he wanted his parishioners to attack the president, he did say the country would benefit from Mr. Obama dying.

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If there was a dearth of metaphors to describe what President Obama needs to accomplish during his health-care speech Wednesday night before a joint session of Congress, the senior senator from Minnesota took care of that problem Tuesday morning.

"This is his moment put some meat on the bones," Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told Co-Anchor Harry Smith on CBS' "The Early Show."

And meat is what most Americans are looking for from Mr. Obama's speech. As CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante reported Tuesday, a recent poll shows that 60 percent of Americans think Mr. Obama has not clearly explained his plans to change the nation's health-care system.

Klobuchar and fellow Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) didn't add much meat to the debate during their joint appearance on "The Early Show." While the senators both said they agreed the system needs to change, the inclusion of a government-backed insurance plan, or public option, was still the major division between the two parties.

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Although President Obama spoke at the AFL-CIO's annual Labor Day picnic — "America's biggest," the president said — and was broadcast on the cable news channels, some of his remarks might have directed at one senator.

While Mr. Obama is expected to address a joint session of Congress Wednesday to lay out his plan to reform the nation's health-care system, the president said Monday he hoped for "a marketplace" for health insurance that would "continue to hold down costs."

"I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help," Mr. Obama said.

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One day after announcing the resignation of his adviser on green jobs, President Obama will introduce his senior adviser on manufacturing.

CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller reports that Ron Bloom has traveled with Mr. Obama for his introduction at a manufacturing-friendly audience — the AFL-CIO's annual Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati.

Bloom isn't a stranger to unions, and this won't be his first position in Washington. Knoller reports that Bloom will continue to serve as a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's Auto Industry Task Force. Previously, Bloom served as a legal adviser to the president of the United Steelworkers Union.

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