Tag Archives: house

Obama girds for Supreme Court fight

President Obama has started arming for the possibility of a major Supreme Court nomination battle, pulling a longtime Democratic power player into the White House to help run the confirmation process, senior administration officials told CNN. Stephanie Cutter is leaving the Treasury Department, where she has served as one of Secretary Timothy Geithner’s most senior advisers during the financial crisis, to be the point person for mobilizing public support for Obama’s pick to replace retiring Justice David Souter, three senior administration officials said. Administration officials say Obama is likely to name Souter’s replacement in late May or early June, before the president leaves for Egypt to deliver a speech to the Muslim world.

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Myanmar junta to try opposition leader and her American visitor

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and an American man who recently swam to her lakeside home are scheduled to stand trial Monday. John Yettaw is charged with immigration violations and trespassing into a restrictive area, charges that carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He is accused of staying overnight in Suu Kyi’s lakeside home earlier this month, violating the conditions of her house arrest, according to the country’s ruling military junta, which rarely grants her visitors

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American who swam to Suu Kyi’s home faces 3 charges

Three charges have been filed against a Missouri man who is accused of swimming across a lake and sneaking into the home of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest, a U.S. Embassy official said Friday. A hearing for John Yettaw was held Friday at Insein Prison near Yangon, where Suu Kyi also is being held.

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Neighbors describe man at center of Myanmar political scandal

Tucked away in the woods of central Missouri, obscured by tall trees and broken-down cars, is the mobile home of the man at the center of a political scandal rocking the nation of Myanmar. Journalists have been flocking to John Yettaw’s modest residence in the unincorporated community of Falcon for insight into the man who allegedly swam across a lake and sneaked into the home of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest. Yettaw was charged Thursday in Myanmar on two criminal counts: entering the country illegally and staying at a resident’s home without government permission, according to a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s political party

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Pelosi accuses CIA of misleading her on use of waterboarding

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused CIA officials Thursday of misleading her in 2002 about the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been described by critics as torture. Pelosi reiterated an earlier claim that she was briefed on such techniques only once — in September 2002 — and that she was told at the time that the techniques were not being used. A recently released Justice Department memo says that the CIA used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda leader imprisoned at U.S

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