Washed It!

Thousands of activists from groups that support the Democratic Party gathered for a march and rally on the National Mall on Saturday in a bid to rejuvenate the enthusiasm of more liberal voters and stave off an expected GOP comeback in next month’s midterm elections.

Organizers said the rally included more than 400 groups representing black, gay and lesbian, labor, environmental and civil rights activists who gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the “One Nation Working Together” rally. People from all 50 states attended the rally demanding improvements on jobs, justice and education.

“We bailed out the banks, we bailed out the insurance companies, now it’s time to bail out the American people. We need to re-build the infrastructure and provide jobs, and savings for the American people,” Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights activist, told the crowd.

After months of planning, the first groups of supporters arrived Saturday and festivities stretched well into afternoon. About 50 speakers and entertainers spoke at the rally including civil rights activists Rev. Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte, NAACP President Benjamin T. Jealous, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

“For the past two years President Obama has had to put up with the word no. Forty people, 40 people in the United States Senate have held down the working man of America. Forty Republicans have decided to say no.” liberal television and radio show host Ed Shultz said.

The progressive groups also focused on energizing democrats during the election season in which republicans and Tea Party activist continue gain momentum. It remains an open question of whether or not group organizers and activist can re-ignite democratic enthusiasm by November.

Laurie Christmas, traveled by bus from Toledo, Ohio to attended the rally. Christmas carried a sign that read “Health care. Not war fare,” on one side and a plea for green energy on the other. Christmas said she was excited to be surround by progressive thinkers but said she still has doubts about sparking progressive enthusiasm for the upcoming elections.

“Where are all the people who represented Obama in 2008,” Christmas asked as she pointed down the Mall. “There should be more people here.”

Cara MacDonald , a 21-year-old political science student from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va, sported her “I love pro-choice boys” T-shirt and said that even though democrats maybe frustrated this election, she does not believe they will shy away from the polls this November.

“It’s hard when people are riding the anti-Obama train,” MacDonald said. “But when democrats get people out to the polls, democrats win.”

The rally in part is a response to conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in August that drew thousands to hear a call to return to American values of liberty and faith. However, organizers said the “One Nation” rally had been planned since April.

A request to stop the One Nation rally was rejected by a Washington D.C. judge on Friday, according to Denise Gray-Felder, spokeswomen for. The request was filed by National Events, one of the companies that helped organized the Beck rally.

Beck has criticized the liberal response, in part because he said it includes members of socialist groups.
Terry Cardwell, 56 of Rome, N.Y., said she viewed the Beck rally as a “white revival,” and on Saturday she carried a sign that read, “Fear of diversity makes a bitter cup of tea.”

“I’m here to support what we started in 2008,” Cardwell said. “We can’t go back to what we’ve already had.”

jordan.steffen@latimes.com

Civil rights, labor groups rally on National Mall

The day after Jesse Kelly won the Republican primary in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, Democratic incumbent Gabrielle Giffords went on the air with a lacerating attack. Noting that Kelly said he ultimately wanted to eliminate Social Security, Giffords’ television ad warned that Kelly “is a risk we can’t afford.”

Kelly, a construction manager with no political experience, had made the mistake of venturing into the mine-strewn politics of Social Security. No matter that he said he would preserve benefits for current retirees. The fact that he once described it as “the biggest pyramid scheme in history” gave his rival the equivalent of cannon fodder in a district where nearly one-fifth of the population is older than 65.

Kelly is now running his own ad vowing to “honor our commitment to seniors,” trying to fend off a line of assault that Democrats are stepping up throughout the country. It’s one of the few consistent themes in Democratic campaign commercials in a year when the party has otherwise eschewed a national message.

Accusing Republicans of wanting to do away with Social Security is a well-worn trope for Democrats. But a slew of “tea party”-backed candidates who have called for privatizing or eliminating the program have given Democrats fresh ammunition at a time when they are on the defensive about healthcare reform and the economic stimulus.

The strategy allows Democrats to link their rivals to former President George W. Bush, who sought to allow younger workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

“And because it has also become a rallying cry among some of the tea party movement … it’s an indicator of how far to the right and how extreme a position the Republican candidates are taking,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has devoted the majority of its spots to slamming House GOP candidates on the topic.

Republicans, however, complain that their rivals are distorting their position.

“There have been numerous fact-checks and editorials calling out Democrats for their Social Security attacks,” said Paul Lindsay, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Democrats are desperately trying to scare seniors.”

“This is what a Democrat says when they’re losing an argument,” said Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform. “If they’re saying this, it means they don’t have anything else to say.”

Nevertheless, Norquist advises GOP candidates to steer clear of Social Security on the campaign trail: “It’s too easy to demagogue.”

Indeed, it’s a testament to the political thorniness of the subject that most Republicans are strenuously avoiding it now that the primaries have passed. While Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed personal retirement accounts for younger workers in his “Roadmap for America’s Future” economic plan this year, the GOP “Pledge to America” released last week does not address how to reform Social Security, whose outlays will regularly exceed its revenue beginning in 2016, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

But Democrats are still feeding off comments made by their GOP rivals earlier in the year. In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weaves it into nearly every spot he runs against Republican Sharron Angle, who has backed away from earlier statements that she would phase out Social Security. A commercial for Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) includes footage of GOP rival Ken Buck calling Social Security “a horrible policy,” words Buck later said he regretted.

A commercial for Rep. Baron P. Hill (D-Ind.) spotlights a clip of GOP challenger Todd Young calling the program “a Ponzi scheme.” And a new ad by Democratic challenger Tarryl Clark argues that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) views seniors as addicts, noting that she said she wants to “wean everybody off” Social Security.

“In the past, the Democrats had to strain and work hard to convey the risk of a Republican victory to Social Security,” said Lawrence Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota who studies the program. “This year, it’s low-hanging fruit … because there are prominent Republicans running for the Senate and House who have very publicly and clearly raised questions about future of Social Security.”

But in some races, Democrats have taken more generic comments by GOP candidates as evidence of their antipathy to the entitlement. In Wisconsin, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has run three ads asserting that former prosecutor Sean Duffy, the GOP nominee for an open House seat, supports a plan to privatize Social Security. “Sean Duffy may not be worried about his retirement security, but the rest of us are,” stated one, featuring images of the onetime star of MTV’s “The Real World” climbing into a purple SUV.

As evidence, the committee cited Duffy’s endorsement of Ryan’s “Roadmap” plan. But Duffy has never explicitly voiced support for personal accounts, and on his campaign website he states, “I have not and will not endorse privatizing Social Security.” The Democrats’ campaign committee said Duffy was merely trying to backtrack.

It remains to be seen whether the Democratic fusillade will pay off for them at the ballot box. Evan Tracey, president of Campaign Media Analysis Group, a division of Kantar Media that tracks political advertising, said the party was hitting Social Security particularly hard in this cycle because the passage of healthcare reform took away one of their traditional critiques of the GOP.

“The Democratic message is — let’s face it — fear-based and designed to get seniors worried about their Social Security check,” he said. “That’s as common as Republicans calling Democrats liberals. I don’t know if anybody has presented a real argument that’s going to connect with voters.”

matea.gold@latimes.com
Democrats campaign on GOP threats to Social Security

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel debated Monday whether to endorse the safety of genetically engineered salmon, but instead urged the agency to require more studies to demonstrate the fish’s safety.

The North Atlantic salmon developed by AquaBounty Technologies Inc. of Waltham, Mass., would be the country’s first genetically engineered food animal.

The Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee did not vote on the FDA’s preliminary findings that the fish was safe for people to eat and did not pose a significant environmental risk. Instead, the panel offered a series of recommendations aimed at fleshing out information, including the possibility that the fish could trigger allergies or other health problems in some consumers.

The panel’s chairman, David Senior of Louisiana State University, said he thought members generally believed the fish was safe to eat, but were concerned that some studies had a small sample size.

One panelist, Greg Jaffe of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, predicted after the meeting that the FDA would eventually approve the salmon, “but I don’t think the agency’s going to go quickly on this.”

The salmon is produced by taking a portion of the gene that protects the ocean pout fish against freezing, transplanting it into the growth gene of a Chinook salmon and transferring the blended genetic material into the fertilized eggs of a North Atlantic salmon.

The resulting fish grows during the winter months as well as the summer, unlike an ordinary salmon.

Several panelists raised concerns about the fast-growing fish, saying there were not enough data to answer key questions about allergens and other potential risks.

“There are questions that have not been answered by the data that has been presented,” said panelist James McKean, a veterinarian and professor at Iowa State University.

But other panelists argued there was no difference between the altered salmon and its natural counterpart.

“I would not feel alarmed about eating this kind of fish,” said Gary Thorgaard, a professor and fish researcher at Washington State University.

The panel’s conclusions are not binding, but the FDA usually heeds its recommendations.

The hearings continue Tuesday, when the FDA will hear testimony about what labeling, if any, should be required if the salmon was approved.

azajac@latimes.com

Reuters contributed to this report.

FDA advisors urge more study of genetically altered salmon

Rob Canty heard the news on TV Sunday morning at his home in St. Tammany Parish, La.: The wild oil well that changed his life — and the lives of thousands of others along the Gulf Coast — was sealed up, safely and permanently, thanks to an injection of cement 18,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.

After nearly five months of heartache, misery and worry, the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico was dead.

The news was “real good,” said Canty, a 31-year-old shrimper, but it wasn’t likely to change his life back immediately. His shrimp boat is still contracted out indefinitely to BP, he said, and for the time being, he expects to remain among the 25,200 people hired to finish cleaning up the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

“We’re ready to try to go back fishing, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Canty said. “We still got oil out there.”

Sunday’s announcement of the successful “bottom kill” of the BP well was met with relief, but only muted fanfare, as nearly all the players in the drama — including President Obama, outgoing BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, and a number of Gulf Coast residents — emphasized that the story was far from over, and that much more work remained to be done.

“Today, we achieved an important milestone in our response to the BP oil spill,” Obama said in a statement, adding that members of his administration “remain committed to doing everything possible to make sure the Gulf Coast recovers fully from this disaster.”

“This road will not be easy,” he said, “but we will continue to work closely with the people of the gulf to rebuild their livelihoods and restore the environment that supports them.”

Hayward — whose gaffes during the spill resulted in his ouster, effective Oct. 1 — declared that the well “no longer presents a threat to the Gulf of Mexico,” adding that BP’s commitment to repair the damage “remains unchanged.”

The final plugging of the well was a somewhat underwhelming denouement to one of the great engineering challenges in modern times. After a number of missteps, BP was able to seal the well in mid-July with a temporary custom cap. Once the oil had stopped flowing, experts embarked on a slow, careful, multistep process to ensure that it would be shut in for good: In early August, the seal was improved with a shot of drilling mud and cement from the top. Later, crews swapped out the old blowout preventer — the safety device that failed during the April 20 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing 11 workers — with a newer, stronger cap.

Throughout the process, Thad Allen, the federal spill response chief, asserted that the well could be considered dead only when the outer ring of the well, called the annulus, was also plugged with cement from deep underground.

After testing to ensure that they would do no harm, crews on Thursday drilled into the annulus nearly 18,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, then began filling it with cement to ensure that oil would never again flow from the reservoir below.

Pressure tests were conducted late Saturday night that showed the cement job had been a success. On Sunday morning, Allen declared the well “effectively dead.”

“From the beginning, this response has been driven by the best science and engineering available,” Allen said in a statement Sunday. “We insisted that BP develop robust redundancy measures to ensure that each step was part of a deliberate plan, driven by science, minimizing risk to ensure we did not inflict additional harm in our efforts to kill the well.”

That was about as happy as anyone allowed themselves to be, at least in public. Even on the drilling rig some 50 miles off the Louisiana shore, the Associated Press reported that crews wouldn’t celebrate much. They’d treat themselves to prime rib on news of a job well done, but Rich Robson, the offshore installation manager, said the mood was bittersweet.

“To a lot of people, the water out here is a cemetery,” he said.

With the cement job completed, oversight of the well will shift from the National Incident Command, which was set up to deal with spill-related issues, to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which regulates offshore oil drilling.

BP plans to complete the abandonment of the well, removing portions of casing and further securing the well. The company will also begin dismantling and recovering the various equipment used in the effort to plug the well that has gathered around the wellsite over the months.

The more complicated work, however, is the ongoing effort to find and clean up the remaining oil, and measure and mitigate its effects on the environment.

Before it was capped, the well spewed 205.8 million gallons of oil. Much of it remains at sea.

According to the federal government, about 110 miles of shoreline are experiencing “moderate to heavy oil impacts,” most of it in coastal Louisiana.

Of great concern to scientists is the huge amount of oil — about a quarter of the total — in droplet form that is floating in vast clouds in the deep water. The long-term effect of these clouds, and the ability of bacteria to break them down naturally, is not clear.

Aaron Viles, campaign director of the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental nonprofit in New Orleans, said the sealing of the well gave him a sense of “trepidation.”

“Because I know that as that news comes out — that it’s the ‘final seal of the well’ — it’s kind of the final real attention this issue’s going to get, in the world’s eyes at least.

“I do think that, while we’re likely at the end of the big telegenic story, the more challenging piece remains,” he added. “Which is quantifying the impact and responding in the most effective way to ensure these resources can recover.”

richard.fausset@latimes.com

Blown-out BP well is declared dead

A New Zealand air force plane made a rare wintertime landing on an ice runway in Antarctica on a mercy mission Tuesday to evacuate an American worker in serious medical condition, officials said.

Blizzard conditions eased to allow the Orion aircraft with three medical staff aboard to land at the U.S. McMurdo Station science base on the north Antarctic coast before refueling and returning on a seven-hour flight back to Christchurch, New Zealand.

An initial rescue bid on Sunday was forced to turn back because of blizzards. Temperatures at the base have been about minus 32 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days.

Air force spokesman Squadron Leader Kavae Tamariki said the plane landed around midday during a brief period of daylight and clear weather, and spent about an hour and a half on the ground before taking off with the patient.

“It’s going fine so far,” Tamariki told The Associated Press. He said the patient was stable and would be admitted to a hospital in Christchurch after the plane arrived.

The man’s identity, exact condition and occupation have not been disclosed. He works for the U.S. company Raytheon, which provides support services — such as supplies, transportation and accommodation — for the U.S. National Science Foundation at McMurdo.

“The medical advice is to get him out of there as soon as possible for hospital care,” said Raytheon Polar Services New Zealand operations manager, Kerry Chuck.

The U.S. has more than 500 staff that spend the bleak winter — from October through March — at McMurdo each year. Flights are usually only made during the summer months, when most scientists are ferried in and out of the station. Icebreaker ships are used to bring in fuel.

A few winter evacuations of sick workers have been undertaken from Antarctica, including a dramatic midwinter flight in 1999, with blazing fuel barrels to light the runway, to pick up a U.S. woman doctor at a South Pole station who contracted breast cancer.

Last September, an American working at McMurdo Station who suffered cardiac problems was evacuated to New Zealand by air force plane in a serious but stable condition.

A broad range of scientific research is conducted at the station, including studies of the Antarctic sea and its marine life, the annual fight for survival of the world’s largest penguin colonies, and the depletion of the ozone layer.
New Zealand air force evacuates American from Antarctic base

Afghanistan’s attorney general denied Sunday that a prosecutor investigating allegations of corruption in the upper reaches of the government had been fired, saying the official simply had reached the point when retirement was mandatory.

Atty. Gen. Mohammad Ishaq Aloko said during an interview in his Kabul office that prosecutor Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar stopped working Thursday in accordance with Afghan law after 40 years of service. The rules state that officials must step down if they are older than 65 or have served for four decades, he said.

The prosecutor was not forced out because of any conflict with President Hamid Karzai, Aloko said. Faqiryar’s claim Saturday that he had been fired “is absolutely groundless,” he said. “He wants to be admired by the public and the media. His retirement has no relation with corruption.”

Faqiryar’s exit from his post comes amid growing concern in Washington that billions in U.S. taxpayer money have been pocketed by Karzai’s inner circle. At the same time, some U.S. officials fear that pushing the shaky government too hard on corruption could undermine the wider war effort.

A senior State Department official said Sunday that the facts of the prosecutor’s case seemed unclear and that he was unaware whether anyone in the administration was raising the issue with the Karzai government. “We are watching this very closely,” he said.

Another U.S. official said an open fight with Karzai probably would make him more intransigent and complicate relations ahead of parliamentary elections and major military operations scheduled for the coming weeks. “It’s not worth the potential trouble over one prosecutor where the facts aren’t entirely clear,” the official said.

Both officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

In an interview Sunday in his modest Kabul apartment, Faqiryar disputed Aloko’s account, saying he was authorized to work past 65. Like many Afghans, he doesn’t know his exact birthday but says he’s about 72. He also said he had worked only 39 years and five months, not counting schooling and five years under Taliban rule when he was off the government clock.

The prosecutor, who was also deputy attorney general, said his relations with the Karzai administration turned sour last year when he briefed a closed-door session of parliament regarding about 25 corruption cases the attorney general’s office was working on, naming governors, ministers and ambassadors who were targets of investigation.

The attorney general quickly expressed his unhappiness with the move, Faqiryar said, “so from that time, our relations went bad.”

Faqiryar said this rather tense atmosphere carried on until he sent a midlevel prosecutor to speak about corruption on a television station this month. After that, he said, his retirement was fast-tracked.

Faqiryar said he’d watched legal cases involving powerful officials delayed, sidelined and dismissed or the parties ruled not guilty. “We can implement the law on poor people,” he said, “but not on rich and influential people.”

Analysts said the Karzai administration appeared to be following a strategy used by other rulers in South Asia of diverting state resources to secure personal loyalties.

“It’s not aimed at using government money to make a good society but, rather, to cement alliances,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political science professor at Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences and the author of a book on war, ethnicity and governance in Afghanistan. “It’s a very heartbreaking story in Afghanistan.”

This month, Karzai stepped in to stop the prosecution of a close aide, Mohammed Zia Salehi, who according to investigators was heard on a wiretap demanding a bribe from another Afghan hoping to foil a corruption investigation.

The Salehi case was still under investigation, Aloko said Sunday, but there was no risk of his escaping since “he’s working in a high post.” He added that Salehi would remain free until his case was in the investigation process.

In many parts of the country, the government only recently has gained a foothold amid security concerns, Aloko added, and, although many lower-level officials have been prosecuted, cases involving ministers have not gone ahead since, under the constitution, they need to be tried in special courts, which have not yet been established.

“Corruption is greatly reduced compared with before,” he said. “Today, rule of law is revived, everyone fears the law and being prosecuted, and we have made progress.”

.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Times staff writer Magnier reported from New Delhi and special correspondent Yaqubi from Kabul. Times staff writers David S. Cloud and Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Hashmat Baktash in Kabul contributed to this report.

Prosecutor investigating Afghan corruption wasn’t fired, official says

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s electoral commission said Friday that hip hop artist Wyclef Jean cannot run for president of this Caribbean nation, ending his outsider’s bid to lead a country struggling to recover from the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Jean, who faced a challenge to his candidacy in the Nov. 28 elections because he has not lived in Haiti for the past five years as required, issued a statement urging his supporters to remain calm and respond “peacefully and responsibly to the disappointment.”

“Though I disagree with the ruling, I respectfully accept the committee’s final decision, and I urge my supporters to do the same,” he said.