Northwest Herald / NWHerald.com
NATION
Friday, January 31, 2014 • Page A7
GOP debates next move on immigration Knox’s The ASSOCIATED PRESS CAMBRIDGE, Md. – House Republicans wrestled inconclusively with the outlines of immigration legislation Thursday night, sharply divided over the contentious issue itself and the political wisdom of acting on it in an election year. At a two-day retreat on the frozen banks of the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, GOP leaders circulated an outline that would guide the drafting of any House Republican legislation on the subject – a document that Speaker John Boehner told the rank and file was as far as the party was willing to go. It includes a proposed pathway to legal status for millions of adults who live in the U.S. unlawfully – after they pay back taxes and fines – but no special route to citizenship for them. Many younger Americans brought to the country illegally by their parents would be eligible for citizenship. “For those who meet certain eligibility standards, and serve honorably in our military or attain a college degrees, we will do just that,” the statement said. The principles also include steps to increase security at the nation’s borders and workplaces, declaring those a prerequisite for any of the other changes. Conservatives reacted negatively during the closed-door session in which rank and file debated the issue. “This is really a suicide mission for the Republican Party,” Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said. “While we’re winning in the polls, while
AP file photo
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaks Tuesday at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. ‘Obamacare’ is really dismantling, big government concepts of Democrats and Obama disintegrating, why in the world do we want to go out and change the subject and revive the patient?” Underscoring the complex political situation, some Democrats reacted hopefully to the principles, even though the proposal for legal status falls short of the full citizenship that was included in a bipartisan measure that cleared the Senate last year with the support of President Barack Obama. “We have gone from the Republicans saying ‘self-deportation’ and ‘veto the DREAM Act,’ to saying we need bipartisan solutions,” said Rep.
Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has long advocated an overhaul of existing laws. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was involved in drafting the bill that passed the Senate, added, “While these standards are certainly not everything we would agree with, they leave a real possibility that Democrats and Republicans, in both the House and Senate, can in some way come together and pass immigration reform that both sides can accept. “ The entire subject remains intensely controversial, particularly among conservatives in both houses. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who heads the Republican Study Conference, a group
of conservative lawmakers, repeatedly declined to say on Thursday whether there are any circumstances under which he would be able to support legislation that bestowed legal status on adults currently living in the country illegally. Another Republican, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, told reporters that his constituents “definitely have big concerns about legalization.” The drive to overhaul immigration laws flagged after the Senate acted, as House conservatives dug in. The House Judiciary Committee has approved four bills, but none has reached the House floor as conservatives have expressed concern about be-
ing drawn into an eventual compromise with the White House. One of those bills would toughen enforcement of immigration laws, including a provision that would permit local police officers to enforce them as part of an attempt to raise the number of deportations. It also would encourage immigrants in the United States illegally to depart voluntarily, an echo of Mitt Romney’s call for “self-deportation” in the 2012 presidential race. Other measures would create a new system for requiring employees to verify the legal status of their workers, establish a new temporary program for farm workers and expand the number of visas for employees in technology industries. The political drive for immigration legislation among Republicans stems from the party’s abysmal showing in recent elections among Hispanic voters. Yet many conservative House members are from congressional districts with relatively few Hispanic residents, and they have more to fear politically from a challenge from the right. Additionally, current polls suggest Republicans are well-positioned to retain control of the House and perhaps gain a Senate majority as well, so some strategists see even less reason for compromise on the issue than before. As the House Republicans gathered, a prominent opponent of the Senate bill, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala, circulated a detailed point-by-point rebuttal to the proposal that Boehner and the leadership have prepared.
U.S. prosecutors Bernanke’s final chapter unclear seek execution of marathon suspect The ASSOCIATED PRESS
By DENISE LAVOIE The Associated Press BOSTON – Federal prosecutors Thursday announced they will seek the death penalty against 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, accusing him of betraying his adopted country by ruthlessly carrying out a terrorist attack calculated to cause maximum carnage. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to press for Tsarnaev’s execution was widely expected. The twin blasts last April killed three peoDzhokhar ple and wounded more than Tsarnaev 260, and over half the 30 federal charges against Tsarnaev – including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill – carry a possible death sentence. “The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Holder said in a statement of just two terse and dispassionate sentences that instantly raised the stakes in one of the most wrenching criminal cases Boston has ever seen. Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set. In a notice of intent filed in court, federal prosecutors in Boston listed factors they contend justify a sentence of death against Tsarnaev, who moved to the U.S. from Russia about a decade ago. “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received asylum from the United States; obtained citizenship and enjoyed the freedoms of a United States citizen; and then betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people in the United States,” read the notice filed by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. Prosecutors also cited Tsarnaev’s “lack of remorse” and allegations that he killed an MIT police officer as well as an 8-year-old boy, a “particularly
vulnerable” victim because of his age. They also said Tsarnaev committed the killings after “substantial planning and premeditation.” In addition, they cited his alleged decision to target the Boston Marathon, “an iconic event that draws large crowds of men, women and children to its final stretch, making it especially susceptible to the act and effects of terrorism.” Tsarnaev’s lawyers had no immediate comment. In an interview with ABC, Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, who lives in Russia, said: “How can I feel about this? I feel nothing. I can tell you one thing, that I love my son. I will always feel proud of him. And I keep loving him.” Prosecutors allege Tsarnaev, then 19, and his 26-yearold brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia, built and planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the race to retaliate against the U.S. for its military actions in Muslim countries. The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a shootout with police during a getaway attempt days after the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded but escaped and was later captured hiding in a boat parked in a yard in a Boston suburb. Authorities said he scrawled inside the boat such things as “The US Government is killing our innocent civilians” and “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.” Killed in the bombings were: Martin Richard, 8, of Boston; Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford; and Lu Lingzi, 23, a Boston University graduate student from China. At least 16 others lost limbs. Tsarnaev is also charged in the slaying of the MIT officer and the carjacking of a motorist during the brothers’ getaway attempt. Campbell’s grandmother, Lillian Campbell, said she isn’t sure she supports the death penalty but fears Tsarnaev will “end up living like a king” in prison.
WASHINGTON – When Ben Bernanke puts on his coat and leaves his office Friday, he will close the door on a precedent breaking eight years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. What’s next? Bernanke has said he plans to stay in Washington to write books and give speeches. Liberated from the constraints of the Fed, he’ll have more time for his favorite pastime, reading. He’ll even get to drive a car for the first time in eight years. Bernanke took office on Feb. 1, 2006, more the shy Princeton professor than a likely combatant in Washington’s knock down political culture, though he’d served on the Fed’s board and for eight months as head of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. On his watch, the U.S. economy and financial system fell into their gravest crisis since the Great Depression. Suddenly, a quiet academic who had spent years studying the Fed’s mistakes in the 1930s faced pressure himself to help save the economy from freefall. As a student of the Depression, Bernanke felt policymakers then had been too hesitant to deploy the Fed’s powers. Under his leadership, the Fed invoked all its conventional tools. Once those were exhausted, Bernanke turned to extraordinary steps never before tried by the Fed. Besides cutting a key short-term interest rate to a record low near zero, Bernanke launched a bond buying program that drove the Fed’s balance sheet above $4 trillion to try to accelerate growth and shrink high unemployment. Here are highlights of his chairmanship:
HOUSING BOOM AND BUST: Bernanke and other regulators failed to foresee the risks that would flare once the prolonged housing boom went bust. The housing bubble was fueled by subprime mortgages sold to homeowners and then repackaged as securities. Once the bubble burst, those mortgages threatened financial institutions and investors.
AP file photo
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks Jan. 16 about the Federal Reserve’s first and next century at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Contagion raced through the financial system. The government was forced to seize mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It also had to rescue the largest banks and other institutions such as insurer American International Group. Bernanke had favored free market solutions over stricter regulation. Yet he tempered his views to back the financial overhaul Congress passed in 2010 to address the regulatory failings that contributed to the crisis. Bernanke also made the Fed a more proactive regulator. He helped pioneer stress tests, for example, to ensure that large banks hold enough capital to survive a severe recession. FINANCIAL CRISIS: Once the financial crisis erupted in 2008, Bernanke joined with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to craft an aggressive multi-pronged response. The Fed created emergency programs to spur lending and restore confidence in banks. These programs aimed to keep credit, the economy’s lifeblood, flowing. They soon covered everything from overnight business loans and money-market funds to credit card debt and mortgage bonds. Bernanke also helped persuade Congress to approve a $700 billion bank bailout fund. He warned lawmakers, in ominous terms, what could befall the economy if they didn’t
vote to provide support. They did. ECONOMIC SUPPORT: Bernanke used the Fed’s main policy tool, a short-term bank lending rate, to try to bolster growth. Fed officials cut their target for that rate to near zero in December 2008. They’ve left it there since. Bernanke also backed novel efforts to keep rates low through detailed guidance of future Fed action. The Fed began using thresholds to signal how low unemployment would need to fall before short-term rates might rise above record lows. In December, for instance, the Fed said for the first time that it expects to keep short-term rates low “well past” the time unemployment dips below 6.5 percent. The rate is now 6.7 percent. Critics argue that rather than help markets anticipate Fed action, such efforts have stirred confusion. Still, the Fed will likely keep experimenting with new guidelines to signal future actions. Janet Yellen, who will succeed Bernanke as Fed leader, favors this approach. Once the Fed had pushed short-term rates as low as they could go, Bernanke broke the mold: Using its power to essentially print money, the Fed bought trillions in Treasury and mortgage bonds to try to drive down long-term rates to stimulate consumer and business borrowing and accelerate growth.
murder verdict upheld By COLLEEN BARRY The Associated Press
FLORENCE, Italy – More than two years after Amanda Knox returned home to the U.S. a free woman, an Italian court Thursday reinstated her murder conviction in the stabbing of her roommate and increased her sentence to 28½ years in prison, raising the specter of a long, drawn-out extradition fight. Knox, 26, received word of the verdict in her hometown of Seattle. The former American exchange student called it unjust and said she was “frightened and saddened.” “This has gotten out of hand,” Knox said in a statement. “Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system.” Lawyers for Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who was also found guilty, vowed to appeal to Italy’s highest court, a process that will take at least another year and drag out a seesaw legal battle that has fascinated court-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic. After nearly 12 hours of deliberations Thursday, the appeals court in Florence reinstated the guilty verdicts first handed down against Knox and Sollecito in 2009 for the slaying of British exchange student Meredith Kercher. Those verdicts had been overturned in a second trial that ended in an acquittal in 2011, and Knox was released from prison after four years behind bars, returning to the United States. But Italy’s highest court ordered a third trial. The Florence court increased Knox’s sentence from the original 26 years and handed Sollecito 25 years. Kercher, 21, was found dead Nov. 2, 2007, in a pool of blood in the bedroom of the apartment she and Knox shared in the central Italian city of Perugia, where both were studying. Her throat had been slit and she was sexually assaulted. Knox and Sollecito denied any involvement in the killing, insisting they were at Sollecito’s apartment that night, smoking marijuana, watching a movie and making love. Prosecutors originally argued that Kercher was killed in a drug-fueled sex game gone awry – an accusation that gave the case a lurid cast that fascinated the European tabloids. But at the third trial, prosecutors argued instead that the violence stemmed from arguments between roommates Knox and Kercher about cleanliness and was triggered by a toilet left unflushed by the third defendant in the case, Rudy Guede. Guede, who is from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder. Legal experts have said it is unlikely that Italy would request Knox’s extradition before the verdict is final. If the conviction is upheld, a lengthy extradition process will probably ensue, with the U.S. State Department ultimately deciding whether to turn Knox back over to Italian authorities to serve her sentence. Her lawyers are likely to argue that she is the victim of double jeopardy, because she was retried after an acquittal.