Director of film about Obama’s war on whistleblowers weighs in on AP phone records

President Obama addresses the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, April 27, 2013. (Getty Images)

Robert Greenwald was not terribly surprised to hear that the Department of Justice had secretly obtained two months of telephone records from Associated Press reporters and editors.

"It is consistent with a national security state," Greenwald, a documentary filmmaker whose recently-released "War on Whistleblowers" focuses on the White House's ongoing assault on press freedom, told Yahoo News. "This is a result of a series of policies put in place by this administration. It is systemic. It is not a one-off. It is not an accident. It is an effort to keep whistleblowers silent. And it's unfortunate."

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP CEO Gary Pruitt described the seizure as "a massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather news. Greenwald agreed.

"In terms of the size and scope, it may be unprecedented," he said. "It's a classic fishing expedition."

Greenwald, whose next film (tentatively titled "Drones Exposed") is focused on the White House's controversial drone program, declined to compare Obama to Richard Nixon. But, Greenwald said, "it's very clear this administration is exerting extraordinary pressure [on the press], and it certainly dispels the notion that this is the 'most transparent administration' on national security issues."

[Related: White House: Obama is no Nixon]

The director, perhaps best known for his 2004 film "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," called press freedom a non-partisan issue.

"You don't try to intimidate the press for doing its job," he said. "You don't encourage suppression and, frankly, scare journalists."

Greenwald said there are similarities between the secrecy of the drone program and the DOJ's apparent explanation for the seizure of phone records.

"It's this strange 'Alice in Wonderland,' Kafkaesque state," Greenwald said. "[The White House] will say, 'we can't talk about the drone program because it's classified, but we can tell you we killed 20 al-Qaeda members in a drone strike.' Well, how do you know they were all bad guys? 'We can't give you that information.'"

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Obama's case against war in Syria

President Barack Obama during his new conference April 30. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)Under what circumstances would President Barack Obama unleash U.S. military might into Syria’s civil war?

Obama and senior aides set a high bar even higher in recent days. The same president who widened America’s drone war, ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and led NATO into the conflict in Libya without congressional authorization isn’t likely to go to war against strongman Bashar Assad anytime soon.

Sure, recent media reports have described the Obama administration as almost-but-not-quite-there on sending deadly weaponry to rebels fighting to oust Assad. Obama has said the Syrian leader's use of chemical weapons in the conflict would be a "game changer," and White House officials have said the likelihood of providing U.S. aid to the opposition has been “on an upward trajectory.”

But virtually the same news stories could be found in December 2012. And the president has been warning that “the window is closing” on Assad—one way or another—since at least March 2012.

Obama himself redrew his "red line" for action in a White House press conference on Tuesday.

He had previously said proof that Assad's forces had used chemical weapons against the rebels would be a "game changer" that might lead him to consider the use of force. On Tuesday, he changed that standard, saying: "If I can establish in a way that not only the United States but also the international community feel confident is the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, then that is a game changer."

Would that mean U.S. military action, a reporter asked. "I mean that we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us," Obama replied.

Put differently: To reshuffle the deck, Obama would need to somehow convince skeptical Russian leaders—who've historically had close ties to Assad—to affirm that the Syrian strongman had used chemical weapons against opposition forces.

The questions persisted Wednesday. Would Obama arm the rebels, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jay Carney. "I’m not ruling that out, I’m just not ruling it in, either," Carney said. Not exactly a clarion call for action.

So what is the president thinking?

First, Obama has what supporters call a pragmatic (detractors might call it cold-blooded) assessment of core American interests in the conflict.

Current and former aides told Yahoo News that the president has been personally affected by the rising death toll in Syria, now estimated to run over 70,000. "The human cost is not lost on the president," former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo. "He wants to do more and he wants to prevent an escalating humanitarian disaster."

But Obama's top national security concerns in the conflict with Syria, two administration officials confirmed privately, are ensuring Israel's security, preventing the Assad regime from handing its chemical weapons arsenal to terrorists, and safeguarding the stability of other allies like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. If Assad's forces—or events in Syria generally—posed a threat to those priorities, the president might order a unilateral military response, a senior administration official told Yahoo.

"Those are absolutely red lines," said Vietor.

The United States has provided aid to Turkey and Jordan to help manage the flow of refugees fleeing Syria. And Israel seems to be rejecting claims it is eager for U.S. military action in Syria.

A second thing holding Obama back is that American intervention might not achieve the goal of halting violence and toppling Assad, while trapping the U.S. in a protracted conflict. "There is the very real possibility that we could still have 70,000 or more Syrians dead, but now also have some number of American men and women alongside them, and still no resolution," a senior administration official told Yahoo.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey, the nation's highest ranking uniformed officer, made a similar argument on Tuesday. Dempsey told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that establishing a no-fly zone over Syria, as called for by Republican Sen. John McCain and others, won't be easy. And it might encourage Syria and its allies to strike at U.S. interests far from the regional battlefield. And it might pull the U.S. further into the conflict. And it might ... not work.

"Whether the military effect would produce the kind of outcome I think that not only members of Congress but all of us would desire—which is an end to the violence, some kind of political reconciliation among the parties and a stable Syria—that’s the reason I’ve been cautious, is the right word, about the application of the military instrument of power: Because it’s not clear to me that it would produce that outcome,” Dempsey said.

Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert who has served under Democratic and Republican presidents, described Syria as a trap.

"Despite the moral, humanitarian and strategic arguments for intervention, Syria is a trap that threatens to suck external powers in and shackle them with responsibility for war-making, peacekeeping and a reconstruction effort that could eventually involve thousands of boots on the ground and billions of dollars in assistance," Miller wrote on CNN. "And it's been clear from the beginning that Obama has no intention of getting stuck with the check."

Or, in Vietor's more pithy formulation: "The risk of dipping your toe in the water and being yanked under is enormous."

Third problem: The international community is more divided on Syria than it was on Libya. Obama has sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Russia, but officials don't expect a major breakthrough. Obama's style has been to act with allies when possible (Libya) and alone when necessary (bin Laden). But aides point to shrinking military resources, a possible looming conflict with Iran over its nuclear program and potential regional repercussions as reasons to act only if other world powers agree.

Close allies Britain and France have pressed Obama to arm the rebels, as have Gulf states. But American and Israeli concerns that deadly weapons might find their way into the hands of extremists—possibly even al-Qaida-affiliated fighters—have held back that approach.

Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that, when it comes to telling moderate rebel military groups apart from radicals, it’s “actually more confusing on the opposition side today than it was six months ago.”

Carney concurred. "The general's comments are certainly correct, that this is one of the reasons why we need to make very careful evaluations about the opposition," the spokesman said Wednesday.

Fourth, Obama aides frequently mention the lessons of the Iraq war, from the flawed case for the March 2003 invasion to the challenges of the occupation.

Obama, whose opposition to that war was one of the central tenets of his 2008 presidential campaign, doesn't want to repeat what he sees as his predecessor's errors. Aides worry about nailing down the intelligence. They point to sectarian violence that still tears at the fabric of Iraq. And they say the war highlighted the need to build more effective international coalitions."

The question the president may be forced to address, soon, is whether those concerns can withstand the certain tide of outrage if it turns out that Assad's forces truly did use chemical weapons—weapons of mass destruction—against the opposition.

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Did Syria cross Obama's 'red line'?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House declared Thursday that U.S. intelligence indicates Syrian President Bashar Assad has twice used deadly chemical weapons in his country's fierce civil war, a provocative action that would cross President Barack Obama's "red line" for a significant military response. But the administration said the revelation won't immediately change its stance on intervening.

The information, which has been known to the administration and some members of Congress for weeks, isn't solid enough to warrant quick U.S. involvement in the 2-year-old conflict, the White House said. Officials said the assessments were made with "varying degrees of confidence" given the difficulty of information gathering in Syria, though there appeared to be little question within the intelligence community.

As recently as Tuesday, when an Israeli general added to the growing chorus that Assad had used chemical weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration was continuing to monitor and investigate but had "not come to the conclusion that there has been that use."

The Syrian civil war has persisted, with an estimated 70,000 dead. Obama has so far resisted pressure, both from Congress and from within his own administration, to arm the Syrian rebels or get involved militarily. He has, however, declared the use of chemical weapons a "game changer" that would have "enormous consequences."

The White House disclosed the new intelligence Thursday in letters to two senators, but had Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announce it to reporters traveling with him in the United Arab Emirates. The letters were sent in response to questions from senators of both parties who are pressing for more U.S. involvement, and it marked the first time the administration has publicly disclosed evidence of chemical weapons use.

"Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin," the White House said in the letters, which were signed by Obama's legislative director, Miguel Rodriguez. He went on to write that "given the stakes involved," the U.S. was still seeking "credible and corroborated facts" before deciding how to proceed.

Two congressional officials said the administration has known for weeks — and has briefed Congress — that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have evidence of two incidents of sarin gas use.

A U.S. official said intelligence agencies have had indications of chemical weapons use since March and reached the conclusions made public Thursday about two weeks ago. The two incidents are believed to have occurred around March 19 in the Syrian city of Aleppo and suburbs of Damascus, the official said.

The officials commented only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly by name.

The White House described the attacks as "small scale," but the full extent of the chemical weapons use and resulting casualties was not immediately known.

Even as Assad has ratcheted up the attacks on his own people, Obama has limited U.S. assistance to non-lethal aid, including military-style equipment such as body armor and night vision goggles. However, he has repeatedly said that the use of chemical weapons, or the transfer of the stockpiles to a terrorist organization, would change things.

"That's a red line for us," he said in August. "There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly."

A senior defense official said the White House letters were not an "automatic trigger" for policy decisions on the use of military force. The official alluded to past instances of policy decisions that were based on what turned out to be flawed intelligence, such as the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq after concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Lawmakers from both parties sounded less than patient.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a member of the Democratic leadership, was asked what should be done about Assad crossing the "red line." He said, "That's up to the commander in chief, but something has to be done."

And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, "I think it's pretty obvious that that red line has been crossed. Now I hope the administration will consider what we have been recommending now for over two years of this bloodletting and massacre and that is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate, to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons to people in the resistance who we trust."

Other lawmakers questioned whether a cautious U.S. response to the newly disclosed intelligence would only strengthen Assad's resolve to keep a grip on power.

"If Assad sees any equivocation on the red line, it will embolden his regime," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The White House disclosure put the U.S. in line with Britain, France, Israel and Qatar, key allies who have cited evidence of chemical weapons use. The four countries have also been pressing for a more robust response to the conflict.

U.S. commanders have laid out a range of possible options for military involvement in Syria, including establishing a "no-fly zone" or secured area within Syria where citizens could be protected, launching airstrikes by drones and fighter jets or even sending in tens of thousands of ground forces to secure the chemical weapons caches. But the military has made it clear that any action would likely be either with NATO backing or with a coalition of nations similar to what was done in Libya in 2011.

Following the U.S. disclosure, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said, "There would doubtlessly be a very strong reaction from the international community if there were evidence that chemical weapons had been used."

Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the Syrian National Coalition opposition group's executive body, called the U.S. assertion an "important step," and he said that America had a "moral duty" to follow it with action.

The White House said the current intelligence assessments of sarin use are based in part on "physiological samples." U.S. officials said that could include human tissue, blood or other body materials, in addition to soil samples.

Sarin is an odorless nerve agent that can be used as a gas or a liquid, poisoning people when they breathe it, absorb it through their skin or eyes, or take it in through food or water. In large doses, sarin can cause convulsions, paralysis and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people usually recover from small doses, which may cause confusion, drooling, excessive sweating, nausea and vomiting.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult used sarin in attacks in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed 12 people and sickened thousands.

The White House said it was still seeking to confirm the "chain of command" that led to the chemical weapons use. But officials said they were confident attacks were initiated by the Assad government, not rebels, given that they see no evidence of Assad losing control of the stockpiles.

The U.S. said the completion of a stalled U.N. investigation would be critical in confirming the use. But it's unclear whether U.N. inspectors will ever be able to conduct a full investigation in areas where there is the most evidence of chemical weapons use.

The Syrian government has so far refused to allow the U.N. experts to go anywhere but Khan al-Assal, where Assad's government maintains the rebels used the deadly agents.

Officials said the U.S. was consulting with allies and looking for other ways to confirm the intelligence assessments.

___

AP National Security Writers Robert Burns in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and Lara Jakes in Washington, as well as AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, and AP writers Lolita C. Baldor and Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Obama's Guantanamo policy hit by violence, force-feeding

By Jane Sutton and Matt Spetalnick

MIAMI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A violent weekend clash between guards and prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the release of harrowing accounts by inmates of force-feeding of hunger strikers threw a harsh spotlight on President Barack Obama's failure to close the camp.

Sharpening the focus further on the plight of inmates, the majority of an independent task force will recommend on Tuesday that Obama shut the prison by the end of 2014 and either try the remaining 166 prisoners, repatriate them to home countries or transfer them to U.S. jails, a commission member told Reuters.

David Gushee, an ethics expert on the panel created by The Constitution Project think tank in Washington, said the task force would unanimously condemn force-feeding as prisoner abuse.

Many terrorism suspects captured abroad after the September 11, 2001, attacks have been held in legal limbo - without charge or trial - for over a decade and some despair of ever leaving.

"Instead of a swift execution, we are being subjected to a cruel, slow and cold-blooded death," Musa'ab al Madhwani, a Yemeni hunger striker wrote in a recent court affidavit dictated to his defense lawyer.

"Gitmo is killing me" was the headline of a New York Times op-ed on Monday written by another Yemeni man, who described in dramatic detail being strapped down and force-fed intravenously.

The hunger strike to protest against indefinite detentions at Guantanamo escalated into violence between guards and prisoners during a weekend raid aimed at halting it.

Guards swept through communal cells and forcibly moved prisoners into individual cells, firing off four rounds of small, rubber pellets against those who resisted or fought back with makeshift weapons.

The White House defended the raid, which highlighted weeks of mounting tensions with prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. But it pointed the finger at Congress for blocking Obama's efforts to close down the prison, which has become an enduring symbol of widely criticized Bush-era counterterrorism practices.

"We've been monitoring of course the situation at Guantanamo closely," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when asked about the weekend raid. He said the prisoners were moved to "ensure their health and security."

Carney said Obama, who originally promised to close the prison within a year of taking office in 2009, remained committed to shutting it. But the president has offered no new path to doing so in his second term. "Obstacles have been raised by Congress and that remains a reality," Carney said.

Obama has approved military tribunals to try some of the most dangerous suspects. But only nine of the current prisoners have been charged or convicted of crimes.

U.S. lawmakers have blocked Obama from bringing Guantanamo prisoners to American jails, saying they would pose a security risk, and made it difficult to repatriate others.

The U.S. government will not send some back to their homelands because of instability or concerns over mistreatment, and most countries are reluctant to accept them for resettlement when the United States itself will not take any.

Some legal experts say Obama could take action to close Guantanamo using his executive powers. If he were to do so, he would face opposition from both sides of the political aisle.

The situation at Guantanamo, which was opened by Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, to hold foreign terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001, attacks, will again be cast in a critical spotlight on Tuesday with the release of the task force's report in Washington.

But the panel - co-chaired by former Republican undersecretary of homeland security Asa Hutchinson and former Democratic congressman James Jones - will also underscore divisions among Americans on what to do about Guantanamo.

Gushee, a professor at Mercer University in Atlanta, said most of the panel's 11 members opposed indefinite detention at Guantanamo and would recommend the closing of the camp by the end of 2014.

They will propose a combination of civilian and military trials to deal with as many of the inmates as possible. Those who cannot be tried or transferred to their homelands would be moved to jails on the U.S. mainland, he said.

These goals would be hard to achieve because of legal and political hurdles, and Gushee said some of task force members will even call for maintaining the status quo at Guantanamo.

Obama's original promise to shutter Guantanamo was part of an effort to turn the page on the Bush era, when the invasion of Iraq and the harsh treatment of mostly Muslim terrorism suspects damaged America's image in the Islamic world.

FORCE-FEEDING

The prisoners' accounts of their treatment and those of their captors have always been at odds. Prisoners and their lawyers say more than 100 men are taking part in the hunger strike, which began two months ago.

But the military counts only 43 prisoners as being on a hunger strike. It says about a dozen have lost enough weight that they are being force-fed via tubes inserted in their noses and down into their stomachs - a method that human rights advocates strongly oppose as a violation of personal dignity.

But U.S. military officials have said repeatedly that they have a duty to safeguard prisoners in their custody and that "No detainee will be allowed to harm himself or to endanger his health."

The military doctors say the process is done gently, that the feeding tubes are lubricated before insertion - one said he used olive oil - and that the prisoners can choose which flavor of Ensure liquid meals they want.

The military has acknowledged that prisoners are sometimes strapped into restraint chairs, with their head and limbs immobilized to keep them from removing the tubes.

"It's a problem in terms of medical ethics," Gushee said. "It's very invasive."

Yemeni hunger striker Samir Najal al Hasan Moqbel gave a harrowing account of his force-feeding in the New York Times.

Moqbel said he had lost about 30 pounds (14 kg) since joining the hunger strike on February 10. He said that in March, the Extreme Reaction Force, Guantanamo's version of a SWAT team in riot gear, burst into his cell, took him to the camp hospital and tied his hands and feet to the bed.

"They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray."

Madhwani said he had lost so much weight since joining the hunger strike that he had to use a rubber band to keep his pants from falling down. He said guards had tried to break the hunger strike by denying prisoners access to drinkable water, and by cranking up the air conditioning so high they shivered.

Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the detention camp, called those allegations "absolutely false."

Moqbel and Madhwani have both been held at Guantanamo for more than 11 years but said they had no affiliation with al Qaeda and had done nothing wrong. They were sent to Guantanamo from Afghanistan and surrounding nations where they were swept up in counterterrorism operations.

Moqbel said the U.S. military had initially accused him of being a guard for Osama bin Laden but that, "They don't even seem to believe it anymore. But they don't seem to care how long I sit here, either."

Eighty-six prisoners have been cleared for release but are among the 166 men still held at Guantanamo. Most are Yemenis and the United States halted repatriations to that country in 2009 after a Yemeni-trained al Qaeda operative tried to set off a bomb concealed in his underwear aboard a U.S.-bound plane.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton and Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

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Analysis: Obama's climate agenda may face setbacks in federal court

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's plan to use federal agencies, and the Environmental Protection Agency in particular, to drive his second-term climate change agenda might be in peril if he cannot fill vacant seats on the federal court that has jurisdiction over major national regulations, legal experts say.

Obama is the first full-term president in more than a half century not to have appointed a single judge to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The court, considered the second most important in the nation, decides cases challenging agency regulations such as those involving the EPA's Clean Air Act and often serves as a feeder to the Supreme Court.

New York attorney Caitlin Halligan, Obama's first nominee to fill one of four vacant seats on the 11-judge bench, announced her withdrawal on Friday after Republicans twice blocked her nomination over concerns about a 2001 case in which she represented New York state and argued that gun manufacturers had created a "public nuisance" under state law.

Obama said in a statement on Friday that he was "deeply disappointed" that a minority of senators continued to block an up-or-down vote on her nomination after two and a half years.

Meanwhile, Obama's second pick, former corporate lawyer Sri Srinivasan, will have a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the next few weeks after being delayed in 2012 by Republican requests for more information about his role in the settlement of a housing act case as a U.S. deputy solicitor general.

While some fault Republicans for slow-walking the appointment of judges that would shift the balance of the court to Democrat-appointed judges, others fault Obama for not taking advantage of the now-four open seats and making judicial appointments a political priority. Two of the four vacant seats have been open since Obama came into office in January 2009. The seat Halligan was nominated for has been vacant since 2005.

Some legal experts warn that under the status quo - four Republican appointees and three Democratic appointees among active judges - Obama's plan to bypass a deeply partisan Congress to address climate change using existing authorities will not be easy.

"There is really no moving forward with regulation without going to the DC Circuit and the decision of the court could really have major consequences," said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University's law school.

The court hears all challenges to government agency regulations.

And regardless of the political balance, some warn the short-staffed court will have a hard time handling a growing case load of challenges to increasingly complex EPA regulations.

"There is a reason why there are 11 judges on that court of appeals," said John Cruden, director of the Environmental Law Institute. "They (cases) will take longer to resolve than they are right now because they are more complicated and they require and demand a lot of attention."

A former D.C. circuit judge on the court from 1979 to 1999 last month termed the ongoing vacancies a cause of "extreme concern" because the court lacks the manpower to carry out its "weighty mandate," which includes cases ranging from environmental protection to civil rights to national security.

Patricia Wald, who was an appointee of Democratic President Jimmy Carter, wrote in a February 28 op-ed in the Washington Post that the number of pending cases per judge has grown to 188 today from 119 in 2005.

Although the court's six senior status judges can hear cases, they cannot participate in re-hearings. Five of those six judges are Republican appointees.

AUTOMATIC CHALLENGE

Obama said in his February State of the Union address that he would direct his cabinet to take steps to curb carbon emissions if lawmakers fail to enact legislation - a likely outcome in the deeply divided Congress.

The EPA is expected to be at the center of Obama's climate efforts. It is due this year to finalize emissions standards for new power plants and industrial facilities. After that, it will set a standard for the country's power plants and industrial sources that account for nearly 40 percent of domestic emissions.

The proposed regulations will almost certainly be challenged by industry, including electric utility companies and manufacturers, who argue the agency is wrongly interpreting the Clean Air Act to write its standards.

"He (Obama) can lean as heavily as he wants on the EPA and its all for nothing if he gets the wrong panel reviewing what they do," said Tom McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas law school in Austin, who specializes in environmental and administrative law.

Three-judge panels are assigned randomly to resolve cases brought to the court. With just seven active judges, many of the same judges will deliberate similar EPA challenges.

Some analysts say the court has become more polarized on these issues, making the outcome largely dependent on the panel that gets selected - a roll of the dice.

Some also expect delays or revisions to the EPA's proposed standard for new power plants beyond an April 13 deadline as the agency anticipates inevitable challenges in the DC circuit and uncertainty about how the judges will rule.

"It's certainly possible that the EPA has recognized that it needs to be a little less aggressive in its interpretation and implementation of its authority," said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Recent setbacks in the DC circuit might have reminded EPA that its technical and legal analysis needs to be bullet proof.

One such loss was the court's 2-1 decision in August to strike down an EPA rule to curb sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants that cause acid rain and smog across state lines. The decision called on the agency to rewrite the rules, a process that could take years.

Two of the three judges ruling on the case said the EPA exceeded its "jurisdictional limits" in interpreting the Clean Air Act. The EPA asked for a full-court hearing in January but it was denied.

The court ruled more favorably for the EPA in June, though, when it upheld agency rules on greenhouse gas emissions, including the scientific justification to regulate them because they endanger public health.

But new standards for power plants, mercury and hazardous materials, ozone rules and other controversial regulations will face uncertain fates in the court if the status quo continues.

NYU's Livermore said that, while recent decisions on the EPA's interpretation of the Clean Air Act have been mixed, the court has clearly demonstrated it is not afraid to strike down rules and send the agency back to the drawing board.

"This is not a court that is afraid to act and use its powers. There is no getting around these guys. It is small, so one or two judges can make a big difference in the ultimate decision," he said.

Observers say Obama needs to make more nominations for the court or broker a deal with Republicans to get at least some of his judicial picks confirmed, or he will risk missing out on a chance to leave his mark on the court.

"If we continue on the current path of invalidating critically important rules, the DC circuit will be the graveyard for all programs, initiatives that are being pushed by the Obama administration and will affect all of us," said Nan Aron, president of the judicial rights group Alliance for Justice.

"The DC circuit has that much power."

(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici.; Editing by Ros Krasny and Andre Grenon)

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Insight: Community colleges' cash crunch threatens Obama's retraining plan

PALATINE, Illinois (Reuters) - Some schools rally around a football team. Harper College has rallied around a number.

When President Barack Obama called for 5 million more community-college graduates by the end of the decade to boost U.S. competitiveness, this commuter school 30 miles northwest of Chicago figured out it would need to produce 10,604 additional graduates to do its part.

It won't be able to count on much government help.

Even as Harper and many of the nation's 1,200 other two-year community colleges try to deliver on Obama's vision of a revitalized manufacturing sector and a better-skilled work force, support from the federal and state governments is eroding.

"I've been in this business for 42 years. I've never seen anything like this - the pressure on the business model, the pressure on the whole institution of higher education," Harper College President Ken Ender said in an interview.

The problem is especially acute in Obama's home state of Illinois, where decades of mismanagement have led to a fiscal crisis that is squeezing state spending on education.

State funding covered 5.8 percent of Harper's budget last year - a record low and down from 13.3 percent a decade ago. Next year is likely to be worse, Ender says.

It reflects a trend in Illinois and across the nation that threatens to make education less affordable to millions of students at two-year colleges, which can provide a start for those working toward a four-year bachelor's degree or enable older workers to learn the skills needed for new careers.

Since he took office in 2009, Obama has lavished attention on two-year schools; last year he visited 10 community college campuses. Last month, he flew to North Carolina after his State of the Union speech to Congress to highlight a manufacturer that was working with a local school to train workers.

The attention hasn't translated into more financial support.

Obama's efforts to expand spending on education, job training and other elements of what he has termed an "innovation agenda" have fallen flat as Republicans have pushed for spending cuts to rein in trillion-dollar budget deficits.

Deficit-reduction efforts, including the across-the-board "sequester" cuts that kicked in on Friday, have fallen largely on the discretionary part of the federal budget that funds these areas, rather than the health programs that are projected to drive up the nation's debt in the decades to come.

Obama won $2 billion for community-college training programs when his Democrats controlled Congress in 2009, but last year's $8 billion proposal went nowhere.

He has had more success expanding the Pell grants that help nearly half of all community-college students pay tuition. But budget pressures have led to cutbacks in that program as well.

Meanwhile, state and local governments have slashed their higher-education spending during recession-induced budget crises. As a result, students have been forced to pay more for their education.

According to the American Institutes for Research, the average annual community-college tuition rose by 41 percent, to $3,269, from 2000 to 2010. The average subsidy per student received by community colleges fell by 24 percent during that period, to $6,223 per year.

Public funding for four-year public colleges has ebbed as well, but the trend has been most pronounced at the community-college level, the nonprofit group found.

As tuition has climbed, students have taken on more debt, and there are signs that many may not be able to keep up. Student debt has nearly tripled since 2004 and loan delinquency rates have been climbing, the Federal Reserve of New York says.

Businesses that consider community colleges to be an essential source of skilled workers view the trend with alarm.

"We need to continue to have government funding for these vocational schools," Natalie Schilling, vice president of human resources at aluminum giant Alcoa Inc, said during a recent panel discussion in Washington.

Like other manufacturers, Alcoa relies on community colleges to replace its aging work force and produce students who can operate the computer-controlled machines that are increasingly common in U.S. factories.

"We can't do it alone - it's got to be a shared responsibility among the public and private sector," Schilling said.

NEW FINANCIAL REALITY

In Illinois, the state's fiscal crisis has put its pension fund $98 billion in the red and dropped its bond rating to one of the lowest among U.S. states.

Since fiscal 2008, pension costs have grown from 8 percent to 20 percent of state revenue, according to the State Budget Crisis Task Force, an independent research group co-chaired by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. State spending on the government-run Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled has doubled since 2000.

Meanwhile, state spending on higher education in Illinois has dropped by an inflation-adjusted average of 3.3 percent per year over the past 10 years.

Community colleges in less affluent areas have been hit especially hard in a pattern that could undermine some of Obama's efforts to help the nation's poor work their way into the middle class.

The president of Southeastern Illinois College in rural Harrisburg worries that continued tuition increases could drive students away as state contributions shrink from 45 percent of the college's budget to 35 percent in the next several years.

"At some point, depending on your demographic and your tuition charge, you're going to push students off the cliff," Jonah Rice said. "We're doing the best we can, but it's tough when the rubber band is stretched."

Nestled in Chicago's high-cost suburbs, Harper College has been somewhat shielded from the state's fiscal crisis because it can rely on local property taxes for about half of its operating costs. Schools in areas where property values are low, like Southeastern, are more exposed.

Budget woes, however, have not stopped Harper from forging ahead on its goal to boost graduation rates, which have jumped in the past two years.

Education groups point to Harper as a model for how to train a generation of tech-savvy manufacturing workers, and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney praised its manufacturing program during a campaign stop last year.

"To say we can't do things because there's no money is frankly unacceptable," Ender said. "There is no money. So that means we're not ever going to do anything?"

Harper has set up an outreach program with local high schools to try to reduce the number of incoming Harper students who need to take remedial math and reading courses.

Guidance counselors work with students to keep them on track toward their goals, whether that is a welding certificate or a transfer to a four-year college.

'WHEN IS THIS GOING TO STOP?'

Harper also has set up a paid internship program with local manufacturers that allows students to earn money while they learn - an important consideration for many.

"When I found out it was affordable, I jumped in. Every other type of training I've been looking at has not been affordable," said Peter McManus, 47, who is interning at a nearby packaging plant as part of the school's advanced-manufacturing program.

Like many others at Harper, McManus doesn't fit the mold of a traditional college student.

Seeking a career change after his job as a technical theater director was eliminated, McManus learned about Harper's manufacturing program through his teenage son. When he's not in class, McManus works at Transparent Container Company Inc. as he pursues a degree in automation.

"I grew up a mechanic's son and a tinkerer. To me, this is just another lab to tinker in," he said as he gazed at Transparent's $500,000 machines that stamp out plastic packaging.

Harper has gotten some recent government help: The school won a $13 million grant from the U.S. Labor Department last fall to expand its manufacturing internship to other community colleges in the region.

Nevertheless, Harper has been forced to raise tuition rates steadily as state funding has receded. Full-time students will pay $3,735 in the next academic year, an inflation-adjusted increase of 16 percent since the 2008 school year.

The college aims to keep tuition increases in line with inflation, and Ender says the school remains affordable for most.

Students who live with their parents should be able to cover tuition by working full-time in the summer and part-time during the school year, while less affluent students can apply for Pell grants to cover tuition, he says.

Still, 25 percent of students who drop out of Harper do so for financial reasons, said Maria Moten, the school's enrollment dean. Student leaders say they're worried that further tuition hikes will squeeze out more students.

"Most people at community colleges are working full-time jobs and coming to school. They're paying rent; some are paying for children," said Scott Leitzow, a member of the school's student senate. "When is this going to stop? I don't think it ever will."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Paul Simao)

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Senate panel approves Obama's CIA pick

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Tuesday to approve President Barack Obama's pick to lead the CIA after winning a behind-the-scenes battle with the White House over access to a series of top-secret legal opinions that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects, including American citizens.

John Brennan's installation at the spy agency has been delayed as Senate Democrats and Republicans have pressed the Obama administration to allow a review of the classified documents prepared by the Justice Department. The senators have argued they can't perform adequate oversight without reviewing the contents of the opinions, but the White House had resisted requests for full disclosure.

The intelligence committee's chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday that the committee voted 12-3 to send Brennan's nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. The panel's deliberations were held behind closed doors. Feinstein did not identify the senators who voted against Brennan.

Although Brennan has made it out of the committee, Republicans have threatened to hold up his nomination unless the White House supplies them with classified information, including emails among top U.S. national security officials, detailing the Obama administration's actions immediately following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed during the raid.

Feinstein said the full Senate should act quickly confirm Brennan, who spent 25 years at the CIA before becoming Obama's top counterterrorism and homeland security adviser in the White House.

"He draws on a deep well of experience — 25 years as a CIA analyst, chief of station, manager, head of counterterrorism efforts and White House homeland security adviser," Feinstein said of Brennan.

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Budget fight becomes Obama's big gamble

ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON - President Obama's budget gamble has only gotten bigger, even as Washington's response to the self-inflicted crisis has gotten smaller.

Now that the sequester has gone into effect - bringing on the spending cuts Obama once guaranteed would never happen - the president is in the awkward place of rooting for it be felt as he and his administration has predicted.

At stake is the president's credibility in the latest round of the seemingly endless budget wars, which seem poised to dominate if not subsume his second term. Even before the cuts began, the president and his top aides were caught stretching the truth of their impact a few times, feeding his critics' argument that the nation can afford budget trims.

Beyond that, the president's vision for governance is being put to an extraordinary test. With the two sides drained and declaring something of a weary truce, the president's entire strategy for restoring the latest cuts depends on the public rising up and rejecting cuts to government services.

"The question is, can the American people help persuade their members of Congress to do the right thing?" Obama said Friday, in announcing that the once-unthinkable sequester cuts had become unavoidable.

Politicians Settle in for Sequestration Long Haul

If pressure forces the GOP-led House to capitulate, the president may yet win the war with tea party forces that have irrevocably altered the course of his time in office. Get the public engaged in this fight enough to convince Republicans who've worked with the president on virtually nothing, and that's a bright spot in a beleaguered Washington.

If he loses this battle, though, he'll find himself locked in perpetual spending crises at least through next year's congressional elections. The president may ultimately have to cater to Republican demands for even deeper spending cuts, with new tax revenues all but off the table.

That's where the president's awkward position comes in. As leader of the federal government, he of course wants to mitigate the real-world impact of budget cuts, to make sure people feel as little disruption as possible in their day-to-day lives.

Sequester: What Will Happen

But the $85 billion in cuts that are now coursing their way through the federal bureaucracy will have real impact. The fact is the president needs that to be the case, to exert the kind of political pressure on Republicans over spending cuts that hasn't been there to date.

"My belief is that as this pain starts to gradually spread to communities affected by military spending, to children who need mental health services, to people who care about our border security, I believe that more Republican colleagues who are concerned about this harm to their constituents will choose bipartisan compromise on revenue raising tax reform with serious entitlement reform," White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Republicans have their own problems when it comes to the sequester, both on the substance and in messaging. House Speaker John Boehner has raised alarms about the sequester's impact on Defense spending, and in an interview that aired today said he wasn't sure whether it would "hurt the economy or not."

Sen. Kelly Ayotte Keeps Door Open for 'Big Agreement' on Budget

Other Republicans, meanwhile - including many aligned with the tea party - see the sequester as an important step toward what they say is fiscal sanity. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., last week called the sequester "a big victory" for the GOP.

The one thing Republicans aren't budging on is taxes. That would seem to close out avenues of compromise; any plan to replace the sequester, the president is saying, must include ridding the tax code of loopholes that primarily benefit the wealthy.

The president's Friday news conference included an extraordinary admission: that he lacks the direct powers to do much about the current state of affairs in Washington.

"What more do you think I should do?" he asked reporters, not entirely rhetorically.

There are no easy answers to that question. So, with a policy in effect that was designed to be so awful as to force an alternative, all he and his critics can do is wait.

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