When Governor Mark Sanford walks out of the woods tomorrow, he’s sure for a big surprise.

The governor of South Carolina went hiking on the Appalachian Trail last Thursday to clear his head after a tough legislative session, according to his aides. Nothing odd in that - politicians need time off as much as anyone. Trouble is, when Sanford left he didn’t tell his aides where he was going. He didn’t tell the state’s lieutenant governor either. Or his wife.

His disappearance sparked speculation about his whereabouts, although Fox News reported he did call to check in two days into the trip. Tomorrow he is due to emerge from the trail and return to work and he will doubtless face many questions. For a possible presidential candidate in 2012, the distraction could prove awkward.

And it won’t help that the father of four sons was away from home on Father’s Day.

PHOTO CREDIT: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst: South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford arrives for a dinner held for the National Governors Association at the White House in Feb. 22, 2009.

Even with enormously difficult to pass legislation on healthcare and climate change topping the Obama administration’s agenda, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believes he can still muscle through a bill to overhaul U.S. immigration policies later this year.

President Barack Obama has said he wanted immigration reform done this year, although his own spokesman acknowledged on Monday that they may only be able to begin the debate on the issue.  “I can see the president’s desire for it to happen, but understanding that … currently where we sit, the math makes that more difficult than the discussion,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

But that hasn’t stopped Reid, who caught a lot of people off guard a few weeks ago when he predicted the Senate would act this year.

“I’ve said right here that we have to finish healthcare.  We have to do energy before we get to immigration reform.  But being third on the list is pretty good,” Reid told reporters on Tuesday. He denied that rising unemployment, expected to top 10 percent amid a deep recession, would slow reform efforts.

“What is impacting doing comprehensive immigration reform is getting floor time to do it.  I think the votes are there to do it,” he said.

On Thursday, Obama will host a closed-door meeting with key lawmakers to discuss the issue and Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, plans on Wednesday to outline his principles for legislation he will offer.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Henry Romero (protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Mexico)

“Heartbreaking.”

That was President Barack Obama’s response to a video showing the death of Neda, a young woman who has come to symbolize the uprising against the Iranian government.

The video shows the woman, identified as Neda Agha Soltan, on the ground after apparently being shot, blood streaming over her face as she dies.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Obama said at a news conference. “And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust about that.”

He quoted civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King’s expression “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

“We have to believe that ultimately justice will prevail,” Obama said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Ho New (Frame grab from YouTube shows woman identified as Neda Agha-Soltan)

Senate Democrats will take up healthcare again today after a tough week.

Republican opposition is building after independent auditors estimated their initial efforts could cost more and cover fewer than initially hoped, reducing the chance of winning the bipartisan support that could ensure that any reforms will last.

Republican Sen. John McCain gave Reuters a grim prognosis last Friday and said the next few days will determine whether the effort succeeds or fails.

But Democratic Sen. Max Baucus still thinks he can get a bipartisan bill to President Obama by the end of the year.

Today, the Senate Health Committee, which is working on a bill that is likely to be less Republican-friendly than Baucus’s effort, will resume work on its bill at 3 p.m.

Folks at the White House have healthcare on the agenda today as well.

President Obama will sign a bill that establishes significantly tougher tobacco regulations in a Rose Garden ceremony.

And Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and two other White House officials appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to rebut Republican claims that their plan will lead to greater bureaucracy and a reduced level of care.

photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Obama apeaks tothe American Medical Association in Chicago, June 15)

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(Dawn front page for Sunday, 21 June 2009)

Almost two million people have inexplicably disappeared from the estimates of the U.S. Muslim population that President Barack Obama has given recently. In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4, he spoke about "nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today." On Sunday, the Karachi daily Dawn published an interview with him where he said "we have five million Muslims."

There was no explanation for the change, but his reason for citing the figure seemed to be the same. Shortly before his Cairo speech, Obama told the French television channel Canal Plus that "one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." He cited no figure there but mentioned seven million in Cairo three days later.

Many blogs, FaithWorld included, questioned that figure and noted that estimates of the U.S. Muslim population range from 1.8 to 7-8 million. The U.S. Census Bureau cannot ask about religion on a mandatory basis but refers on its website to a Pew Forum study pegging Muslims at 0.6% of the population. The CIA World Factbook uses the same percentage figure. It translates into about 1.8 million.

Speaking to Dawn, Obama lowered his estimate but made his original point again. He said: "We have Muslim Americans who are doing extraordinary things. In fact, their educational attainment and income is generally above the average here in the United States. We have Muslim members of Congress. And, in fact, we have 5 million Muslims, which would make us larger than many other countries that consider themselves Muslim countries."

The downsizing puts the U.S. even lower on the this Wikipedia list of countries according to the size of their Muslim population, from 32nd place (after Kazakhstan and before the current #32 Tajikistan) to 38th (between Chad and Turkmenistan).

In the interview, Obama also spoke a bit about his visit to Pakistan as a student in 1981 that caused some confusion and speculation in the end phase of the 2008 campaign. Dawn's Washington correspondent Anwar Iqbal asked Obama if he planned to visit Pakistan soon and the president responded:

'I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their mothers taught me to cook,' said Mr Obama.

‘What can you cook?’

‘Oh, keema … daal … You name it, I can cook it. And so I have a great affinity for Pakistani culture and the great Urdu poets.’

‘You read Urdu poetry?’

‘Absolutely. So my hope is that I’m going to have an opportunity at some point to visit Pakistan,’ said Mr Obama.

President Barack Obama poked fun at his close relationship with the press on Friday and teased radio and TV correspondents their industry “was more relevant than ever,” despite more and more Americans turning elsewhere for news.

Obama said he had trouble coming up with fresh jokes after delivering a similar routine just five weeks ago at the annual White House correspondents dinner, a glitzy affair attracting big Hollywood stars.

“The jokes may not be as good, but neither is the guest list,” Obama said at the Radio and Television Correspondents  Associations Dinner. “For me, there’s no contest. Why bother hanging out with celebrities, when I can spend time with the people who made me one?”

“A few nights ago, I was up tossing and turning trying to figure exactly what to say. Finally, when I couldn’t get back to sleep, I rolled over and asked (NBC News anchor) Brian Williams what he thought,” Obama said.

Williams recently hosted a gushing two-night special that took viewers “Inside the Obama White House,” and featured such hard-hitting spots as the president firing up his motorcade to pick up hamburgers for his staff. “The truth is, Brian Williams is actually a terrible house guest. He put an empty milk carton back in the fridge. He leaves his wet towels all over the Roosevelt room. We’re pretty sure he clogged the toilet and didn’t tell anybody,” Obama said to roars from the crowd.

Obama joked was he spending much of his time rescuing failed banks and auto companies, but “you probably wouldn’t understand the concept of troubled industries working as you do in radio and television.”

When that joke got a tepid response, Obama sensed he had hit a sore spot and added: “Ho ho. We don’t joke about that. That’s not funny.”

“Despite the flood of new media, I think your programing is more relevant than ever before at least that’s the impression I get when I read the blogs every day,” Obama said.

(Additional reporting by Wendell Marsh)

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

The Texas billionaire had a slightly awkward gait when he arrived in the Richmond, Virginia, courtroom.

It seemed a bit out of place with his tall, straight posture, until he sat down at the table and the shackles around his ankles were revealed.

For Allen Stanford, who stands accused of an elaborate $7 billion pyramid scheme to defraud investors, it was the first court proceeding that he had to face since a criminal indictment was returned a day earlier.

He sat spine straight, elbows on the table, chin on clasped hands, sometimes biting a knuckle or forming a steeple with index fingers, as prosecutors and defense attorneys argued whether he was a flight risk.

Wearing an open collared white shirt and dark pants, Stanford, who has salt and pepper hair and a mustache, politely said “yes ma’am” when asked questions by the judge.

His attorney argued that Stanford was not a flight risk because the government has known where to find him all along — at the home of his fiancee in Virginia.

“He takes the train up to D.C. every day” to meet with lawyers, voluntary surrendered his passport, and all of his assets are frozen, one of his attorneys said. ”He has no money.”

Prosecutors of course painted an entirely different picture, calling Stanford “the mastermind” and primary beneficiary of a scheme to defraud others.

 ”We were not certain where the defendant was until we found him last night,” said a prosecutor, who noted that about $1 billion remained unaccounted for and Stanford had “strong ties” to Antigua and no spouse in the United States.

The judge sided with the prosecution and ordered a detention hearing but gave Stanford the choice of location: Virginia or Texas.

The Texas billionaire picked his home state.

Photo credit: Reuters/Joe Skipper (Texan billionaire Allen Stanford speaks during an interview in Miami on May 1, 2008)

President Barack Obama will take time out on Friday from unrest in Iran and a suddenly endangered healthcare overhaul on Capitol Hill to focus on fathering.

Ahead of Father’s Day on Sunday, Obama plans several events at the White House and in suburban Virginia designed to highlight fatherhood and mentoring. Obama also wrote an essay that will appear in Parade magazine on Sunday and will have a Father’s Day interview with CBS News.

Obama, abandoned by his father at age 2, last saw him when he was 10 years old and frequently talked during the campaign about fatherhood and his experience growing up. He will visit a program in suburban Arlington, Virginia, that provides one-year intensive training for urban young adults, then hold an event in the East Room of the White House to discuss fatherhood and mentoring and host young men from local schools at a South Lawn event.

If you ever wondered what Illinois and Iran might have in common, here’s one answer: President Obama is most definitely not picking sides in their elections.
 
So insists the White House.
 
“Our response … on this has been, from the very beginning, consistent,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a briefing Thursday when asked about the post-election turmoil in Iran.
 
“The American people and this government are not going to pick the next leader of Iran,” he said. “That’s something that the Iranians have to do.”
 
That doesn’t mean they won’t tsk-tsk loudly from the sidelines as the opportunity permits.
 
The administration has voiced concern about how the election was conducted, but shied away from suggesting any fraud was involved in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defeat of challenger Mirhossein Mousavi.
 
They say they don’t favor either candidate, but insist the challenger’s supporters have a right to continue their protests a week after the vote.
 
“We have to ensure that we express our views, as I’ve said, about ensuring that people can demonstrate, have their causes and concerns heard,” the White House spokesman said.
 
Obama’s also steering clear of the U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Gibbs said, even though he met last Friday with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
 
Chicago papers say the Obama administration is pushing her to run for the president’s former U.S. Senate seat in 2010, but the White House begs to differ.
 
“Let me be explicit,” Gibbs said. “The president is not going to pick a candidate in the Illinois Senate race.”
 
And the meeting at the White House with Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarret? Why, Madigan and Obama are just old friends and Obama has “enormous respect for what she accomplished,” Gibbs said.
 
And oh, by the way …
 
“I think she’d be a terrific candidate. But we’re not going to get involved in picking that candidate in Illinois.”
 
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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama speaks at a fundraiser Thursday night)

Chrysler LLC, having sold off all its best assets to the “New Chrysler” owned by Fiat, its union and U.S. and Canadian governments, is now going by a new name in bankruptcy court: Old Carco LLC.

On court dockets, the company is now referred to Old Carco LLC (f/k/a Chrysler LLC). The name, while not exactly subtle, refers to the eight plants and various old obligations the new company didn’t want and decided to leave in bankruptcy. Creditors of the Old Chrysler are not expected to recover much from those assets and some even said in court last month that they assumed those assets have “no value.”

It’s quite typical in bankruptcy for companies to change their name once they sell their assets. For example Department store Boscov’s became BSCV Inc and retailer Sharper Image Corp became TSIC Inc.

 But now that “Old Carco” is taken, we’re taking suggestions. If General Motors successfully sells itself in bankruptcy court later this month,  what should the “Old GM” be called?