CAR appeals for French help against rebels, Paris balks

BANGUI (Reuters) - The president of the Central African Republic appealed on Thursday for France and the United States to help push back rebels threatening his government and the capital, but Paris said its troops were only ready to protect French nationals.

The exchanges came as regional African leaders tried to broker a ceasefire deal and as rebels said they had temporarily halted their advance on Bangui, the capital, to allow talks to take place.

Insurgents on motorbikes and in pickup trucks have driven to within 75 km (47 miles) of Bangui after weeks of fighting, threatening to end President Francois Bozize's nearly 10-year-stint in charge of the turbulent, resource-rich country.

French nuclear energy group Areva mines the Bakouma uranium deposit in the CAR's south - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

The rebel advance has highlighted the instability of a country that has remained poor since independence from Paris in 1960 despite rich deposits of uranium, gold and diamonds. Average income is barely over $2 a day.

Bozize on Thursday appealed for French and U.S. military support to stop the SELEKA rebel coalition, which has promised to overthrow him unless he implements a previous peace deal in full.

He told a crowd of anti-rebel protesters in the riverside capital that he had asked Paris and Washington to help move the rebels away from the capital to clear the way for peace talks which regional leaders say could be held soon in Libreville, Gabon.

"We are asking our cousins the French and the United States, which are major powers, to help us push back the rebels to their initial positions in a way that will permit talks in Libreville to resolve this crisis," Bozize said.

France has 250 soldiers in its landlocked former colony as part of a peacekeeping mission and Paris in the past has ousted or propped up governments - including by using air strikes to defend Bozize against rebels in 2006.

But French President Francois Hollande poured cold water on the latest request for help.

"If we have a presence, it's not to protect a regime, it's to protect our nationals and our interests and in no way to intervene in the internal business of a country, in this case the Central African Republic," Hollande said on the sidelines of a visit to a wholesale food market outside Paris.

"Those days are over," he said.

Some 1,200 French nationals live in the CAR, mostly in the capital, according to the French Foreign Ministry, where they typically work for mining firms or aid groups.

CEASEFIRE TALKS

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement saying its members "condemn the continued attacks on several towns perpetrated by the 'SELEKA' coalition of armed groups which gravely undermine the Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement and threaten the civilian population."

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. embassy had temporarily suspended operations and the U.S. ambassador and other embassy personnel had left the country.

Officials from around central Africa are due to meet in Bangui later on Thursday to open initial talks with the government and rebels.

A rebel spokesman said fighters had temporarily halted their advance to allow dialogue.

"We will not enter Bangui," Colonel Djouma Narkoyo, the rebel spokesman, told Reuters by telephone.

Previous rebel promises to stop advancing have been broken, and a diplomatic source said rebels had taken up positions around Bangui on Thursday, effectively surrounding it.

The atmosphere remained tense in the city the day after anti-rebel protests broke out, and residents were stocking up on food and water.

Government soldiers deployed at strategic sites and French troops reinforced security at the French embassy after protesters threw rocks at the building on Wednesday.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said protecting foreigners and embassies was the responsibility of the CAR authorities.

"This message will once again be stressed to the CAR's charge d'affaires in Paris, who has been summoned this afternoon," a ministry spokesman said.

He also said France condemned the rebels for pursuing hostilities and urged all sides to commit to talks.

Bozize came to power in a 2003 rebellion that overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse.

However, France is increasingly reluctant to directly intervene in conflicts in its former colonies. Since coming to power in May, Hollande has promised to end its shadowy relations with former colonies and put ties on a healthier footing.

A military source and an aid worker said the rebels had got as far as Damara, 75 km (47 miles) from Bangui, by late afternoon on Wednesday, having skirted Sibut, where some 150 Chadian soldiers had earlier been deployed to try and block a push south by a rebel coalition.

With a government that holds little sway outside the capital, some parts of the country have long endured the consequences of conflicts in troubled neighbors Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo spilling over.

The Central African Republic is one of a number of nations in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local forces try to track down the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group responsible for killing thousands of civilians across four African nations.

(Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas and Louis Charbonneau; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Paul Simao)

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Abbas warns of disbanding PA if no peace talks

JERUSALEM: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas warned that he would disband his Palestinian Authority if there was no Israeli movement towards renewing peace talks after Israel's elections on January 22.

Abbas, in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, said that if such a situation arose he would hand full responsibility for the occupied West Bank to the Israeli government.

"If there is no progress even after the election, I will take the phone and call (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu," Abbas said.

"I'll tell him... Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority."

"Once the new government in Israel is in place, Netanyahu will have to decide -- yes or no," Abbas said in the interview published on the paper's website late Thursday.

This was not the first time that Abbas had resorted to such threats, but the Palestinian Authority has found itself in a grave situation over the past few months due to an unprecedented financial crisis.

Talks between the two sides have been on hold since September 2010, with the Palestinians insisting on a settlement freeze before returning to the negotiating table and the Israelis insisting on no preconditions.

Following last month's historic United Nations vote giving the Palestinians upgraded status in the world body, Israel announced a new spate of settlement building in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

In Thursday's interview, Abbas said that since then Israel had also reduced security coordination with Palestinian forces in the West Bank.

He said he would be willing to renew negotiations with Netanyahu after the election but would demand that Israel freeze further settlement construction while they are being held, renew the transfer of Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has been withholding and release some 120 long-term Palestinian prisoners.

"These are not preconditions, these are commitments Israel already took upon itself in the past," he told Haaretz.

The Palestinian Authority was set up in 1994 with the return to Gaza after 27 years in exile of Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Under the Oslo accords on Palestinian autonomy, it was due to rule for a transitory period ending in May 1999.

Headed by Arafat, who died in 2004, then by Abbas, the Authority has exercised executive and legislative authority and has theoretically been responsible for security in the West Bank.

Netanyahu called early elections for January 22 in Israel, with his right-wing coalition expected to win.

- AFP/al

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Retail sites see 27 percent traffic jump on Christmas Day

Following suit with other major holiday shopping days, Christmas Day also saw a jump in online traffic this year.

According to marketing firm Experian, the top 500 U.S. retail sites had 27 percent more online traffic on this year's Christmas Day compared with last year. A total of 115.5 million people in the U.S. visited sites like Target, BestBuy, Sears, and Apple's online store.

Looking at the past seven-week period, online retail traffic went up 10 percent over 2011, and each major shopping holiday had traffic increases this year, according to Experian. Thanksgiving had a 6 percent increase, while
Black Friday had a 7 percent jump, and Cyber Monday went up 11 percent.

Of the sites that saw the most traffic on Christmas Day, Amazon won out, with nearly 25 million visitors. It was followed by Walmart with more than 7 million visitors and Target with more than 3.5 million visitors. Amazon has also been the most visited site throughout the entire holiday season.

According to Experian, many of these shoppers were searching for tech gifts --
tablets topped the charts as the No. 1 most searched-for product. The marketer tracked traffic from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day and saw that visits to Apple's
iTunes store increased by 193 percent, while the store on Apple's Web site saw a 155 percent increase. The top product search terms people queried were iPod Nano, iPad Mini, and iPad 4. For Amazon, the top product search terms were Amazon Kindle, Kindle Fire, and Kindle.

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"Rescue Me" soul singer Fontella Bass dead at 72

ST. LOUIS Fontella Bass, a U.S. soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with "Rescue Me" in 1965, has died. She was 72.

Bass died Wednesday night at a St. Louis hospice of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, said. Bass had also suffered a series of strokes over the past seven years.

"She was an outgoing person," Mitchell said. "She had a very big personality. Any room she entered she just lit the room up, whether she was on stage or just going out to eat."

"Rescue Me" has been covered by many top artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Melissa Manchester and Pat Benatar. Franklin eventually sang a form of it, as "Deliver Me" in a Pizza Hut TV ad in 1991.

Bass was born into a family with deep musical roots. Her mother was gospel singer Martha Bass, one of the Clara Ward Singers. Her younger brother, David Peaston, had a string of R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Peaston died in February at age 54.

Bass began performing at a young age, singing in her church's choir at age 6. Her interest turned to R&B when she was a teenager. She eventually auditioned for Chess Records and landed a recording contract. Her duet with Bobby McClure, "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing," reached No. 5 on the R&B charts and No. 33 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1965.

She co-wrote and later that year recorded "Rescue Me," reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 4 on the Billboard pop singles chart. Bass's powerful voice bore a striking resemblance to that of Aretha Franklin, who is often misidentified as the singer of that chart-topping hit.

Bass haggled over royalty rights to "Rescue Me" for years before reaching a settlement in the late 1980s, Mitchell said.

Bass lived briefly in Europe before returning to St. Louis in the early 1970s. She recorded occasionally, including a 1995 gospel album, "No Ways Tired," that earned a Grammy nomination.

She is survived by four children.

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Utah Teachers Flock to Gun Training

The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns.

"We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark Aposhian told ABCNews.com today.

"That perception has been blown away now," he said. "It's been shattered and if there's one thing that parents across the country are united on, it's that they are committed to and serious about protecting their kids."

Aposhian spoke shortly before opening a weapons training class for teachers and school employees that drew more than 200 Utah educators organized by the USSC, a leading gun lobby group that believes that teachers should be able to fight back when faced with an armed intruder.

"One firearm in the hands of one teacher could have made the difference at Sandy Hook or Columbine, but they weren't allowed to carry in those schools," Aposhian said.

The USSC is waiving its normal $50 training fee today for teachers who wish to attend. Aposhian said the 200 person course was filled to capacity and said he plans on holding another session for people he may have to turn away today.

INFOGRAPHIC: Gun in America: By The Numbers

"We trust these teachers to be with our kids for 8 to 10 hours a day every day," Aposhian said. "I don't think it's a far reach to think that we could think that they would act responsibly and with decorum in protecting their own lives and the lives of the kids under their care."

Gun Owners Give Back: LA Residents Return Guns After Newtown Tragedy Watch Video

The idea of armed teachers has been part of a fiery debate on gun control following the rampage at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead on Dec. 14.

Utah is one of only a handful of states, including Oregon, Hawaii and New Hampshire, that allow people to carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools. It is not known how many Utah teachers carry guns in public schools because the records are not public.

But Aposhian said that he tells detractors that Utah has not had any school shootings or accidental shootings in the approximately 12 years the law has been in effect.

In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association is launching a pilot armed teacher training program in which 24 teachers will be selected to attend a three-day training class.

Arizona's Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed a state law amendment that would allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.

During today's six-hour training session, the educators will be taught about gun safety, loading and unloading, manipulating the firearm, how to clear malfunctions, use of force laws and state and federal firearm laws.

The training sessions normally draw about 15 to 20 people, Aposhian said, but many of the teachers who have signed up for today have expressed strong feelings about attending the class.

"I think it runs the gamut from passive desire to get a permit because they thought about it here and there to a fervor given the recent events," Aposhian said. "Perhaps they've had an epiphany of sorts and realized that that sanctuary they work in, or at least the perceived sanctuary, isn't all that safe."

The Utah State Board of Education Chair Debra Roberts released the following statement today on the matter:

"The Utah State Board of Education expresses sympathy to all involved in the recent school shooting in Connecticut. In the face of this terrible tragedy, as schools move forward in taking measures to ensure the safety of students and school personnel, we urge caution and thoughtful consideration."

The statement noted that its schools have emergency plans to handle such situations.

Carol Lear, the board's director of school law and legislation, was more blunt about Aposhian's gun training, telling the Associated Press, "It's a terrible idea...It's a horrible, no-good, rotten idea."

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Mental illness, poverty haunted Afghan policewoman who killed American

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan policewoman suspected of killing a U.S. contractor at police headquarters in Kabul suffered from mental illness and was driven to suicidal despair by poverty, her children told Reuters on Wednesday.

The woman was identified by authorities as Narges Rezaeimomenabad, a 40-year-old grandmother and mother of three who moved here from Iran 10 years ago and married an Afghan man.

On Monday morning, she loaded a pistol in a bathroom at the police compound, hid it in her long scarf and shot an American police trainer, apparently becoming the first Afghan woman to carry out such an attack.

Narges also tried to shoot police officials after killing the American. Luckily for them, her pistol jammed. Her husband is also under investigation.

Her son Sayed, 16, and daughter Fatima, 13, described how they tried to call their parents 100 times after news broke of the shooting, then waited in vain for them to come home.

They recalled Narges's severe mood swings, and how at times she beat them and even pulled out a knife. But the children said she was consistent in bemoaning poverty.

"She was usually complaining about poverty. She was complaining to my father about our conditions. She was saying that my father was poor," Sayid said in an interview in their damp, cold two-room cement house.

On the floor beside him were his mother's prescriptions and a thick plastic bag filled with pills she tried to swallow to end the misery about a month ago. On another occasion, she cut her wrist with a razor, Sayed said.

"My father was usually calm and sometimes would say that she was guilty too because it wasn't a forced marriage. They fell in love and got married."

There was no sign in their neighborhood of the billions of dollars of Western aid that have poured into Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, or of government investment.

RAW SEWAGE, STAGNANT WATER, DIRT ROADS

The lane outside their home stank of raw sewage.

Dirty, stagnant water filled holes in dirt roads nearby, where children in tattered clothes played and butchers stood by cow's hooves in shops choked by dust.

Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest nations, with a third of its 30 million residents living under the poverty line.

The sole distractions from the daily grind appeared to be a deck of playing cards and a compact disc with songs from Iranian pop singers, scattered on the floor of a room where Narges would lock herself in and weep, or sit in silence.

At times, Narges would try to focus on building her children's confidence, telling them to be guided by the Muslim holy book, the Koran, to tackle life's problems.

Sayed and Fatima said she never spoke badly of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Neighbor Mohammad Ismail Kohistani was dumbfounded to hear on the radio that Afghan officials were combing Narges' phone records to try to determine whether al Qaeda or the Taliban could have brainwashed her into carrying out a mission.

But he was acutely aware of her mental problems and often heard her scream at her husband, whose low-level job in the crime investigation unit of the police brought home little cash.

Kohistani, who operates a small sewing shop with battered machines, never imagined his neighbor could be accused of a high-profile attack that raised new questions about the direction of an unpopular war.

"I became very depressed and sad," said Kohistani, sitting on the floor few feet from a tiny wood-burning stove in Narges's home, alongside family photographs and a police training manual.

Fatima would often seek refuge in Kohistani's house when her mother's behavior became unbearable. "She did not hate us, but usually she was angry and would not talk to us," said Fatima, her eyes moist with tears.

Nevertheless, she missed her mother. The children were staying with a cousin.

"I ask the government to free my mother, otherwise our future will be destroyed," said Fatima.

Officials described it as another "insider shooting", in which Afghan forces turn on Westerners they are meant to be working with to stabilize the country. There have been over 52 such attacks so far this year.

The shooting at the police headquarters may have alarmed Afghanistan's Western allies. But some Afghans have grown numb to the violence.

Kohistani's 70-year-old father Omara Khan, who sports a white beard, sat twirling prayer beads beneath a photograph of Narges in a black veil beside one of her husband.

Asked what he thought of the attack, he laughed.

"This is common in Afghanistan," said Khan, who lived through decades of upheaval, including the 10-year Soviet occupation and a civil war that destroyed half of Kabul and killed some 50,000 civilians.

"People are killed every day."

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Exchange of unused expired parking coupons

SINGAPORE: Motorists are reminded that parking coupons valid up to Monday, 31 December can no longer be used from 1 January.

The Housing & Development Board (HDB) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said those with unused, expired coupons can exchange them for new ones from 2 January.

They can do so at all HDB branches and service centres, and the URA Customer Service Centre at Maxwell Road.

The parking coupons cannot be exchanged at other sales outlets such as petrol stations, shops and post offices.

- CNA/al

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Tap Twitter, control a cockroach

Too bad we can't control all cockroaches through Twitter. Yuck.

(Credit:
Brittany Ransom)

Next time you see a cockroach, don't scurry away faster than it can flee. In fact, if you're a lover of the weirder side of life, the intrusive insect could represent one heck of a science project.

For example, artist Brittany Ransom created Twitter Roach -- a discoid cockroach that can be controlled through tweets that it receives on the popular microblogging service.

As it turns out, humans can actually control cockroaches with a device called RoboRoach -- a tiny electronic backpack that attaches to a cockroach and stimulates the bug's antenna nerves, enabling the controller to turn the insect left or right with the press of a button.

Ransom built upon the Roboroach concept and added some Arduino hardware and custom-programmed software to link the bug to Twitter. While on display at the "Life, in some form" art exhibition by the Chicago Artists Coalition, visitors could send the @TweetRoach account commands such as "#TweetRoachLeft" and #TweetRoachRight."

The Tweet Roach sits while awaiting its next command.

(Credit:
Brittany Ransom)

Those of you concerned about insect welfare can rest easy; the roach didn't stay enslaved all day long. Ransom told Crave via e-mail that the bug "wears the backpack for short intervals" and "is only accessible to the Twitter community during designated times." To avoid a flood of commands, Ransom set the cockroach to receive no more than one tweet every 30 seconds.

Why would someone take on such a strange project? Ransom says she's exploring a kind of insectoid parallel to the digital overstimulation many of us experience today. She aims to see if the cockroach can learn to eventually learn to adapt and ignore the stimulating effects of her setup.

"At what point does its intelligence and ability take over? How much does it take before we are all desensitized to overstimulation? As we, as human beings, grow more cyborgian and interconnected through social media, this project helps us participate in discovering the answer," Ransom said in an e-mail about the project.

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Study: Cancer drug substitute linked to higher rate of relapse

(CBS News) Abby Alonzo was 10 when she was diagnosed in 2009 with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. With proper treatment, 90 percent of patients survive.

"It wasn't as hard for me as I think it as it was on my mom and my brother and my dad," Abby says.

Abby began a seven-drug regimen. But in 2010, doctors told Abby's mother, Katie, there was a nationwide shortage of one of the medicines -- mechlorethamine.

"I started to get a little hysterical, 'Why is it not available?'" says Katie.

In 2010, 23 cancer drugs had shortages. Reasons include manufacturing problems and low profit margins for the drugs, which became mostly generic, and therefore less expensive, than brand-name.

"There is really nothing you can do," Katie says. "You do what your doctor tells you to do, you take what medications your doctor tells you to take, and you pray that it works. And if one of those medications isn't available, you just take, you know, the next-best thing."

Doctors thought the next-best thing for patients like Abby was a drug called cyclophosphamide.

Life-saving cancer drugs for children stuck in federal legislative limbo

But a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed 88 percent treated with the original drug were cancer-free after two years -- compared to only 75 percent of those receiving the replacement drug.

"This is the first study to clearly show that when we substitute one drug for what we think is just an equally good drug, that's not always going to be the case. So it's demonstrating a negative impact on patients," says Dr. Richard Gilbertson, the director of cancer care at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Abby was one of the patients who relapsed. She then needed a bone marrow transplant, radiation and more chemotherapy. Right now, she shows no signs of cancer.

"What if I relapsed again? Or what if something else happens? You know, it is just really scary, that part," Abby says.

The original drug in the study is finally available again after almost three years. But there are still 13 drugs used in cancer therapy, and a total of 100 on the FDA shortage list.

Congress passed legislation last July giving the FDA more authority to deal with cancer drug shortages. That new law has made a big difference, and the key provision is the requirement that drug manufacturers let the FDA know when there's an impending shortage.

Since that law was passed, there has been a doubling of those notifications, so the FDA can increase imports from abroad and tell other manufacturers in the United States to step up production.

Another provision in that law is that the FDA set up a task force looking at other possible solutions to the drug shortage crisis, and they're required to submit that report to Congress by this coming July.

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WH Lashes Out at 'Congressional Stupidity'

With only days to come up with a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, the White House said “congressional stupidity” was damaging the economy but that an agreement could be reached if Republican leaders don’t get in the way.

President Obama cut his Hawaiian vacation short and headed back to Washington today while the Senate is scheduled to reconvene on Thursday. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said previously that he would give House members a 48-hour notice of any upcoming vote, which means that the soonest the House could consider a bill would be Saturday — just two days before a deadline to make a deal or trigger a rise in taxes and steep budget cuts.

Boehner and other GOP leaders issued a statement today following a conference call saying: “The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted. Those bills await action by the Senate.  If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House.”

While Boehner put the onus on the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a White House official used testy language to  put the responsibility back on Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“What we need is for the Senate Minority Leader not to block a vote and for Boehner to allow a vote,” a White House official told ABC News. “The hits to our economy aren’t coming from outside factors, they’re coming from congressional stupidity.”

Reid’s plan would serve as a Democratic counterpart to Boehner’s plan B, which failed to gain enough support for a vote last week. Boehner left the ball in the Senate’s court after withdrawing  his plan Thursday.

Any plan from Reid is expected to include extending the Bush tax cuts for Americans making $250,000 or less.

Related: What if Bush tax cuts expire?

This has been a sticking point for the left and the right throughout discussions. Democrats believe that lower- and middle-class families should keep the  tax cut, while letting it expire for households making more than $250,000. Republicans counter that no Americans should be forced to pay higher taxes come Jan. 1, though Boehner’s plan would have required those making more than $1 million to lose the cut.

Reid could also propose cuts to tax deductions to generate more federal revenue.

Related: Can the mortgage deduction survive the fiscal cliff?

Michael Ettlinger, vice president for economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said that would make his plan very similar to Obama’s.

“I think this is likely to go smaller more than bigger as they try to gather votes in the Senate,” Ettlinger told ABC News Wednesday. “The Democratic vision of things is fairly clear. Where the Senate Republicans are willing to go is less so. That’s going to be the issue.”

Dan Holler of conservative policy advocacy group Heritage Action for America expects the plan to include an extension of unemployment benefits, something he says would be “extremely counterproductive for the economy.”

Democrats “see it as one of the most stimulative things you can do,” Holler told ABC News Wednesday. “Heritage has great research to go ahead and say this doesn’t really help.”

Related: Fiscal Cliff negotiators search for cuts without sacrifice.

In addition to an immediate measure to stop taxes from going up, Holler suggested there would be a mechanism to compel leaders to do more further down the road, a method he said has not historically been effective at reducing the deficit.

“I think Republicans are going to look at the entire package skeptically,” Holler said of Reid’s expected plan.

Boehner press secretary Michael Steel told ABC News the speaker’s office “will take a look” at Reid’s proposal once he brings it up for a vote or shares his ideas with the House.

Garnering consensus among both parties will be difficult for any plan now. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is trying to bring D.C. politicians together with every coffee cup sold in the District.

Critics have called into question  Boehner’s ability to bring his own party together.

“It seems that, in the House now, Boehner has no control over his extreme right-wing faction,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on MSNBC Wednesday. “You have, over in the House, a situation where the Republicans are saying, ‘Hey, we don’t think billionaires should pay a nickel more in taxes, but we do think there should be devastating cuts in programs that are impacting working families who are already hurting as a result of the recession.’ So that’s the problem that we have.”

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