Washed It!

The Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to quickly set aside a judge’s order that bars enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, saying the judge’s “extraordinary decision” went too far, too fast.

The 25-page motion says the appeals court should lift the judge’s order Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Southern California, acting on a suit brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, declared the “don’t ask” policy unconstitutional last month. On Oct. 12, she then ordered the Pentagon to stopping enforcing the policy, which it did.

The Justice Department said it has a duty to defend the laws enacted by Congress, even though President Obama is urging Congress to repeal the law and to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

The government said the “sweeping injunction against a duly enacted Act of Congress” was wrong as a matter of law. It is “at odds with basic principles of judicial restraint requiring courts to limit injunctive relief to the parties before the court, and is contrary to decisions of other courts, which have sustained the constitutionality of the statute.”

Moreover, the judge’s order suspending enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask” policy has caused “confusion and uncertainty” at the Pentagon and among gays and lesbians in the ranks, the government said.

If an appeals court reverses the judge and affirms the constitutionality of the law, it “would create tremendous uncertainty about the status of service members who may reveal their sexual orientation in reliance” on the judge’s order suspending the law, the government said.

For all these reasons, it said a three-judge panel should issue an emergency order lifting the injunction.

If the 9th Circuit refuses to lift the judge’s order, the government could then seek an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

david.savage@latimes.com
Justice Department asks appeals court to overturn ‘don’t ask’ injunction

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The military is accepting openly gay recruits for the first time in the nation’s history, even as it tries in the courts to slow the movement to abolish its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

At least two service members discharged for being gay began the process to re-enlist after the Pentagon’s Tuesday announcement.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in California who overturned the 17-year policy last week was likely to reject the government’s latest effort to halt her order telling the military to stop enforcing the law.

The Justice Department will likely appeal if she does not suspend her order.

The Defense Department has said it would comply with U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ order and had frozen any discharge cases. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said recruiters had been given top-level guidance to accept applicants who say they are gay.

Recruiters also have been told to inform potential recruits that the moratorium on enforcement of the policy could be reversed at any time, if the ruling is appealed or the court grants a stay, she said.

Gay rights groups were continuing to tell service members to avoid revealing that they are gay, fearing they could find themselves in trouble should the law be reinstated.

“What people aren’t really getting is that the discretion and caution that gay troops are showing now is exactly the same standard of conduct that they will adhere to when the ban is lifted permanently,” said Aaron Belkin, executive director of the Palm Center, a think tank on gays and the military at the University of California Santa Barbara. “Yes, a few will try to become celebrities.”

An Air Force officer and co-founder of a gay service member support group called OutServe said financial considerations are playing a big role in gay service members staying quiet.

“The military has financially trapped us,” he said, noting that he could owe the military about $200,000 if he were to be dismissed.

The officer, who asked not to be identified for fear of being discharged, said he’s hearing increasingly about heterosexual service members approaching gay colleagues and telling them they can come out now.

He also said more gay service members are coming out to their peers who are friends, while keeping their orientation secret from leadership. He said he has come out to two peers in the last few days.

“People are coming out informally in their units,” the officer said. “Discussions are happening right now.”

An opponent of the judge’s ruling said confusion that has come up is exactly what Pentagon officials feared and shows the need for her to immediately freeze her order while the government appeals.

“It’s only logical that a stay should be granted to avoid the confusion that is already occurring with reports that the Pentagon is telling recruiters to begin accepting homosexual applicants,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington that supports the policy.

The uncertain status of the law has caused much confusion within an institution that has historically discriminated against gays.

Before the 1993 law, the military banned gays entirely and declared them incompatible with military service. There have been instances in which gays have served, with the knowledge of their colleagues.

Twenty-nine nations, including Israel, Canada, Germany and Sweden, allow openly gay troops, according to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group and plaintiff in the lawsuit before Phillips.

The Pentagon guidance to recruiters comes after Dan Woods, the group’s attorney, sent a letter last week warning the Justice Department that Army recruiters who turned away Omar Lopez in Austin, Texas may have caused the government to violate Phillips’ injunction. Woods wrote that the government could be subject to a citation for contempt.

Military recruiters told to accept gay applicants, as gov’t appeals court decision

President Obama laid out a broad case Saturday for rejecting Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, accusing his political opponents of cynically refusing to cooperate in difficult times while accepting help from secretive special-interest groups pumping millions of dollars into various campaigns.

Obama spoke at a rally for a longtime political ally and friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is locked in a tough reelection campaign against Republican Charlie Baker. The president also spent part of his quick trip to Boston at a fundraising event for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. A Democratic official said people paid up to $30,400 apiece to attend a VIP reception and have their picture taken with the president.

With unemployment at nearly 10% and people anxious about job security, Obama has struggled to articulate a single compelling message for keeping Democrats in power. At the Patrick event, he rolled out a range of arguments for voting against Republicans on Nov. 2.

While he and fellow Democrats labored to fix the economy, he said, the Republican leadership watched from a safe distance, hoping they would founder.

Speaking to more than 15,000 people at the Hynes Convention Center, Obama said that Democrats were enmeshed in the “grinding, frustrating work of delivering change inch by inch, day by day.”

Republicans, in turn, made the “tactical decision” that if they stay “on the sidelines and don’t lift a finger to help … they figured they could ride people’s anger and frustration all the way to the ballot box,” Obama said.

Obama reverted to a favorite metaphor, saying he and other Democrats had been down in the ditch trying to get the battered car going while Republicans fanned themselves and enjoyed Slurpees.

Now that the metaphorical car’ is on the mend, “they can get in and ride with us if they want, but they’ve got to get in the back seat,” Obama said.

The president’s speech was interrupted by hecklers who shouted their disapproval over his AIDS funding policies. That touched off a counter-chant of “four more years” from supporters of Obama and Patrick.

Obama, wearing a jacket but no tie, stared at the demonstrators, who held up a sign that read, “Keep the promise.”

“Take a look at what the Republican leadership has to say about AIDS funding,” the president challenged.

Obama renewed a charge that special-interest groups aligned with the Republicans were spending huge sums of money in the campaign without revealing their donors. Because the source of funds is unknown, “foreign-controlled corporations” could be underwriting the TV ad buys, Obama said.

“They don’t even have the courage to stand up and disclose their identity,” he said. “They could be insurance companies, they could be banks, they could even be foreign-controlled corporations — we will never know.”

The White House has faced a backlash over such attacks. Critics have said that Democrats have yet to produce concrete evidence that foreign money is fueling campaign attack ads.

They’ve also said that with the economy in such wretched shape, Obama is distracting voters from deeper problems by focusing on campaign finance disclosure.

Obama’s visit to Boston testifies to his special connection to the Massachusetts governor.

Patrick worked in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, yet when it came time to endorse a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008, he chose Obama over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A recent poll by Suffolk University showed Patrick leading Baker by 7 points.

Partisan emotions were strong at the rally. Before Obama spoke, the audience heard from Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Markey, in a reference to Delaware Senate Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell, said, “We have gone from Democrats who say, ‘Yes we can!’ to Republicans who say, ‘Yes, wiccan.’”

O’Donnell has said that when she was young, she “dabbled” in witchcraft.

With election day about two weeks away, Obama is stepping up his campaign travel, flying across the country to raise money and stump for Democratic candidates. On Sunday he and First Lady Michelle Obama are attending a rally at Ohio State University in what will be the president’s 11th visit to the perennial swing state since he took office.

On Wednesday he leaves the White House for a three-day Western swing that includes stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Portland, Ore.

peter.nicholas@latimes.com
Obama says GOP accepts special-interest money while refusing to cooperate in government

Seven more Western troops were killed in attacks across Afghanistan on Thursday, military officials said, bringing the two-day fatality toll for the NATO force to 13 and illustrating the war’s widening reach.

Combat deaths are running at their highest levels of the 9-year-old war. This year has already been the most lethal for Western troops’ since the U.S. invasion that toppled the Taliban movement.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force released few details about the latest fatalities. It did not even disclose the nationalities of those killed, and provided only general details about where the deaths occurred.

The largest single fatal incident Thursday was reported in the west of the country, where three troops were killed by a single roadside bomb. National contingents serving in the west, near the Iranian border, include Americans and Italians.

Three more of Thursday’s deaths occurred in the country’s south, two in an insurgent attack and another in a roadside bombing. Yet another fatality took place in Afghanistan’s east, where insurgents often infiltrate from Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. The majority of the troops in the east are American, but several other NATO nations have forces there as well.

A day earlier, four service members were killed by a single IED, or improvised explosive device, in Afghanistan’s south, considered the insurgency’s heartland. IEDs — low-tech, but sometimes effective even against well-armored vehicles — are the No. 1 killer of Western troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan now stands at about 100,000, bolstered by a surge ordered by President Obama last December. The bulk of the American forces are in the south, where NATO is attempting to stifle the Taliban in volatile Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

Even as the fighting pushes ahead, so do efforts by the government of Hamid Karzai to broker some kind of political settlement with the Taliban. While no formal negotiations have begun, contacts have been taking place for months.

NATO officials say the Western military is helping to facilitate the informal talks by granting a measure of freedom of movement to Taliban leaders involved.

Meanwhile, the head of a newly formed government council tasked with overseeing any negotiations with the Taliban and other insurgent groups said he believed the reconciliation effort would move forward.

“We are taking our first steps,” former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani told a news conference in Kabul.

laura.king@latimes.com
Seven Western troops killed in Afghanistan

Just a day after 33 Chilean miners were freed from their underground prison, they were in good health overall, officials said Thursday, with some of the men set to be released from the hospital by the end of the day. As Chilean President Sebastian Pi

Democrats and their allies, moving to counter millions of dollars flowing to Republican campaigns from groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have accused the international business organization of using foreign money to influence American elections.

The effort to paint conservative political groups as fronts for multinational corporations and foreign billionaires gathered steam this week after an affiliate of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress charged that the chamber was using funds from foreign corporations to finance its political operations in Washington.

Foreign spending in U.S. elections is against the law. Tita Freeman, vice president of communications at the chamber, called the Center for American Progress report “unfounded and completely erroneous.” The foreign companies cited in the report “pay nominal dues” that “do not support U.S. chamber political activities,” Freeman said.

The liberal group MoveOn.org planned a rally outside the chamber’s Washington headquarters Thursday to bring attention to the charges.

The issue of campaign fundraising is casting a shadow over this year’s races after a Supreme Court ruling in January allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations, labor unions and interest groups — some of which are not required to disclose their funding sources.

Corporations and interest groups, operating outside official political party committees, have provided a potent source of cash for Republicans. Democratic-allied groups have attempted to match the spending but lag far behind.

The liberal organization Think Progress said on its website that an investigation found that dues and fees collected from the chamber’s overseas chapters and foreign business members goes into the same account used to fund its political activities.

Freeman called the allegation “an attempt to silence businesspeople, to silence those who support free enterprise, and an intentional diversion in advance of the midterm elections.”

The chamber and two new groups cofounded by Republican strategist Karl Rove — American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS — are expected to spend more than $100 million on media campaigns in the final month before election day. Allies of Democrats have attempted to counter the overwhelming budgets of right-leaning groups with their own meager but pointed ad buys.

On Wednesday, Campaign Money Watch, a Democratic-leaning group that advocates for public financing of elections, took out a $750,000 ad to oppose the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado. The move came a day after American Crossroads spent about the same on ads opposing the Democratic incumbent.

Also Wednesday, the National Education Assn. committed to spending $15 million this cycle and began airing television ads for Democratic incumbents in Arizona and Ohio.

But with less than one month to go, the big money still trended in Republicans’ favor.

On Tuesday, Crossroads GPS spent more than $1 million on advertising against Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate for President Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Meanwhile, two nonpartisan groups that advocate stricter campaign finance controls urged the Internal Revenue Service this week to investigate Crossroads GPS. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 said the Rove group is organized in a way that “allows its donors to evade the public disclosure requirements” that otherwise would apply if the organization was registered differently.

kim.geiger@latimes.com
Liberal groups say foreign funds aid Republicans

In the latest blow to Mideast peace talks, Palestinian leaders said Saturday that they had lost hope in U.S. efforts to find a solution to the settlement construction standoff and repeated their threat to quit direct negotiations unless Israel agrees to halt building in the West Bank.

After a three-hour meeting in Ramallah, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee and the Fatah party’s Central Committee stopped short of announcing their withdrawal from the discussions and indicated they would continue to talk in the coming days to U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell, who left the region Friday after making little progress in crafting a compromise.

A final decision could be announced after an Arab League meeting scheduled for Friday.

But in their bluntest terms yet, the Palestinians blamed Israel for refusing to renew its partial freeze on West Bank settlements and said they had no confidence in Washington’s ability broker a deal.

“The U.S. tried to find a formula, but it failed because Israel would not respond,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “All efforts have reached a deadlock. There is no breakthrough, and conditions will be at a stalemate for a long time.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far rebuffed calls from the U.S., U.N., European Union, Russia and Japan to extend the moratorium, which expired Sept. 26. Netanyahu, who is worried about a backlash from his conservative coalition government, has rejected a U.S. offer to provide advanced military equipment, the diplomatic backing in the U.N. and other concessions in exchange for a two-month extension, according to Israeli media.

In a statement Saturday, Netanyahu urged Palestinians to remain in the talks.

“The way to achieve an historic peace agreement between our two nations is to sit around the negotiating table, seriously and continuously, and not to leave it, because that is the place where the divisions between us will be resolved,” Netanyahu said.

If talks collapse, Palestinians say they may appeal to the U.N. Security Council for a resolution calling for Israel to stop all settlement activities, said Bassam Salhi, a PLO member.

“The government of Israel bears full responsibility for the current impasse in the peace process,” said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, secretary-general of the PLO’s Executive Committee. “Stopping settlements is the tangible evidence of the seriousness of the negotiations and the entire political process.”

Special correspondent Abukhater reported from Ramallah and Times staff writer Sanders from Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders threaten to quit Mideast peace talks

Hundreds of people filled a church near South Los Angeles and spilled out into the streets for an emotional Mass on Wednesday celebrating the life of a popular fifth-grade teacher at Miramonte Elementary School who committed suicide in the Angeles National Forest.

Tearful relatives, colleagues and students remembered Rigoberto Ruelas as a dedicated educator, who steered children away from gangs, helped them overcome academic difficulties and inspired them to aim for college.

“He wasn’t just a teacher to me, he was a second father,” said 13-year-old Karla Gonzalez, who broke down and sobbed when she took her turn at the microphone. She said Ruelas helped her learn English when she arrived from Mexico and bought her books to read. “I will always be grateful to him,” she said.

Many of those at Presentation Catholic Church in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood expressed anger at The Times for posting on the Internet the rating he received in a database. The Los Angeles teachers’ union has said that it learned from Ruelas’ family that he was depressed about his score when he disappeared last week. His body was found Sunday in a ravine in the Big Tujunga Canyon area, about 100 feet below a bridge.

Using a system known as “value-added” methodology, the newspaper analyzed seven years of student test scores in English and math to determine how much students’ performance improved under about 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers. Based on The Times’ findings, Ruelas was rated “average” in his ability to raise students’ English scores and “less effective” in his ability to raise math scores. Overall, he was rated slightly “less effective” than his peers.

Ruelas’ brother, Alejandro, told “AirTalk” on KPCC 89.3 FM on Wednesday that it was unfair of The Times to post the information. “He’s not a mayor,” he said. “He’s not the president. He’s not a public worker.”

But when asked by radio host Larry Mantle what his brother had said about the scores, Ruelas indicated that was not the kind of subject Rigoberto discussed. “I don’t know if he felt he didn’t want to burden anybody,” said Alejandro Ruelas, who has declined to speak to The Times.

He said he was unaware of any personal problems in his brother’s life. Asked whether he believed that Ruelas took his life out of frustration with the scores, he said the family was still gathering information from his colleagues.

“The little feedback that we are getting right now is that that school wasn’t the healthiest place to be working,” Ruelas said. “The people who are supposed to be helping them as far as administrators, principals are using this kind of scores also to bully and harass.”

Miramonte Principal Martin Sandoval said Monday that he gave little credence to the method used by The Times and had not discussed ratings with his staff.

“Numbers come and go,” Robert Lopez, a former Miramonte principal, said at Wednesday’s memorial Mass. “I have a completely different impression of what value-added means. It means coming in early and opening up the door, allowing students to come in for help when they need it.”

Ruelas’ mother, Rita, spoke for the family when she offered impassioned thanks to all those who attended the service. “He was your son, he was your brother,” she said. “He was there with you for all of those years.”

Many then walked to the nearby school for a candlelight vigil in front of an improvised memorial wall decorated with handwritten messages, drawings, flowers and balloons.

A funeral Mass will be held Tuesday at St. Emydius Catholic Church in Lynwood.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

carla.rivera@latimes.com
Hundreds celebrate life of L.A. teacher who killed himself

The ranks of the working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty.

The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.

The poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.

The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent — or 50.7 million people — mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address the rising numbers of uninsured people, but its main provisions will not take effect until 2014.

In a statement, President Barack Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.

“Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families — and especially those most in need — millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year,” Obama said.

The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power in the House and Senate or turn to Republicans.

The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. It was lower than predicted by many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year’s skyrocketing unemployment. Many had predicted a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.

Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 23.1 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and Georgia. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 7.8 percent.

Analysts said the full blow of lost incomes was cushioned somewhat by increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.

David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau’s household economics division, estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 3.3 million people out of poverty last year.

The 2009 poverty level was set at $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps.

Another 7.8 million people would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were included as income, Johnson said.

Last year saw the biggest single-year increase in Americans without health insurance, lifting the total number to the highest since the government began tracking the figures in 1987. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans declined from 176.3 million to 169.7 million, although those losses were partially offset by gains in government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare.

Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said additional increases in the uninsured are probable in the short run.

In 2014 under the new health law, Medicaid will be expanded to pick up millions more low-income people, and the government will offer tax credits for many middle-income households to use to buy coverage through new online insurance markets in each state.

By 2019, the government has estimated that nearly 93 percent of the U.S. population will have health insurance, roughly a 10 percentage point increase from today’s level.

Other census findings:

–Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 64, poverty rose from 11.7 percent to 12.9 percent. That puts it at the highest since the 1960s, when the government launched a war on poverty that expanded the federal role in social welfare programs from education to health care.

–Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but stood at higher levels for blacks and Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent; for blacks it increased from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent.

–Child poverty rose from 19 percent to 20.7 percent.
1 in 7 Americans live in poverty, Census Bureau reports

A violent protest that left dozens of people injured in the Afghan capital Wednesday points to concerted efforts by the Taliban to keep alive the controversy over an American pastor’s discarded plans to burn copies of the Koran, Afghan authorities said.

White Taliban flags flew above a crowd of about 800 people who burned tires, shouted anti-American slogans and pelted security forces with stones. Police fired assault rifles into the air to break up the early-morning protest on the outskirts of Kabul.

At least 35 police officers and about 15 demonstrators were injured in the melee, the Interior Ministry said.

The demonstrations, which have persisted for days after the abandoning of plans by a small Florida church to burn the Muslim holy book, suggest an orchestrated campaign that could continue for some time, perhaps disrupting Saturday’s parliamentary elections.

The Taliban movement has already threatened to attack voters and polling places, and some districts are considered too dangerous for balloting to take place. The Taliban website this week carried a fresh denunciation of the Koran-burning plan, calling it part of a larger Western assault on Islam.

Afghan authorities say the insurgents are seeking to tap into the outrage generated by the church’s threat to whip up fury against Western forces and President Hamid Karzai. Wednesday’s rally featured fiery speeches denouncing the Afghan government and the presence of foreign forces, which now number about 150,000.

The organizing of a protest in the capital itself appears to mark an escalation from previous demonstrations, most of which have taken place in rural areas.

The demonstrations’ organizers are also able to exploit the fact that in a country where illiteracy is widespread, many people were unaware that Florida pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville did not carry out his plans, which had been condemned by the Obama administration and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of Western troops in Afghanistan.

Gen. Zahir Khan, head of the crime investigation department for the Kabul police, said that at this point the threatened Koran-burning was little more than a pretext to rally anti-government sentiment.

“This was a very violent protest,” he said. “And the Taliban were in the crowd.”

laura.king@latimes.com
Dozens injured in Kabul protest over Koran-burning threat