US lawmaker wields budget ax over China
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A Republican lawmaker is looking to make the Obama administration pay a price for what he sees as its defiance of Congress in pursuing cooperation with China in science and space technology.

A proposal by Rep. Frank Wolf, a fierce critic of Beijing, would slash by 55 percent the $6.6 million budget of the White House's science policy office. The measure was endorsed by a congressional committee this week, but faces more legislative hurdles, and its prospects are unclear.

President Barack Obama has sought to deepen ties with China, which underwrites a major chunk of the vast U.S. national debt and is emerging a challenge to American military dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. Among the seemingly benign forms of cooperation he has supported is in science and technology. Last year NASA's administrator visited China, and during a high-profile state visit to Washington by China's President Hu Jintao in January, the U.S. and China resolved to "deepen dialogue and exchanges in the field of space."

Wolf, R-Va., argues that cooperation in space would give technological assistance to a country that steals U.S. industrial secrets and launches cyberattacks against the United States.

He says Obama's chief science adviser, John Holdren, violated a clause tucked into budget legislation passed this year that bars the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA from technological cooperation with China. He says Holdren did so by meeting twice with China's science minister in Washington during May.

"I believe the Office of Science and Technology Policy is in violation of the law," Wolf told The Associated Press, adding that cutting its budget is the only response available to him. Wolf chairs a House subcommittee that oversees the office's budget.

The punishment he proposes reflects his deep antipathy toward China, which he accuses of persecuting religious minorities, plundering Tibet and supporting genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan by backing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He described the Obama administration's policy toward the Asian power as a failure and railed against the president for hosting Hu at the White House.

Caught at the sharp end is Holdren's office, whose mandate is to develop sound science and technology policies by the U.S. government and pursue them with the public and private sectors and other nations.

Holdren told a Congressional hearing chaired by Wolf days before his May meetings with Chinese Science Minister Wan Gang that he would abide by the prohibition on such cooperation with China, but then spelled out a rather large loophole: that it did not apply in instances where it affected the president's ability to conduct foreign policy.

At another Congressional hearing shortly afterward, Wolf's annoyance was clear. He threatened to "zero out" Holdren's office.

Space cooperation between the two world powers like the U.S. and the Soviet Union pursued in the Cold War still seems a long way off. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. visited China in a little-publicized trip in October and discussed "underlying principles of any future interaction between our two nations in the area of human space flight," but no specific proposals.

China sent an astronaut into space in 2003, and plans to send the first building block of a space station into orbit this year, but it still has comparatively limited experience. Another constraint on cooperation is that its manned space program is dominated by its military, whose other capabilities — most clearly demonstrated by a 2007 test that destroyed an orbiting satellite — have alarmed American officials.

But one benefit of basic forms of cooperation, such as sharing data and basic design criteria, could be to learn a little more about China's opaque space program. Since 1999, the U.S. effectively banned use of its space technology by China. That also has a commercial downside for American producers in an increasingly globalized marketplace.

"Renewing civil and commercial space cooperation with China ... is not a blank check and need not provide China with sensitive technologies," wrote James Clay Moltz of the Naval Postgraduate School in testimony at a congressional hearing on China's civilian and military space programs in May.

Wolf has included the prohibition on cooperation with China by NASA and the White House science policy office in the bill approved Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill budgets $50.2 billion for a raft of federal agencies involved in law enforcement, trade promotion, space and science for the fiscal year starting in October. The 55 percent reduction faced by the science policy's office far exceeds the overall 6 percent cut in spending across all government agencies covered by the bill.

Holdren's office could not be reached for comment Friday. The bill now goes to the Republican-led House of Representatives for approval. A version also must pass the Democrat-led Senate, and the two bills would have to be reconciled before legislation can be sent to Obama to be signed into law.

___

July 15, 2011 08:46 PM EDT

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Inside AJC.COM

Theodore Roszak, defined 1960s counterculture; 77

By Douglas Martin
New York Times / July 14, 2011

NEW YORK - Theodore Roszak, who three weeks after the Woodstock Festival in 1969 not only published a pivotal book about a young generation’s drug-fueled revolt against authority but also gave it a name - “counterculture’’ - died July 5 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 77.

His wife, Betty, said he had been treated for liver cancer and other illnesses.

Dr. Roszak’s book “The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society’’ had gone to press months before the music festival was held in August that year, displaying the exuberance and excesses of a generation rebelling against war and seeking new ways to be and think. But in serendipitously timely fashion, the book provided what many regarded as a profound analysis of the youth movement, finding its roots in a sterile Western culture that had prompted young people to seek spiritual meaning in LSD, exotic religions, and even comic books.

“This is a sophisticated Roman candle of a book,’’ the Christian Science Monitor said.

The book contended that science-dominated modern society was ugly, repressive, and soulless; that youthful dissent was coherent enough to be termed a culture; and that this antirationalist “counterculture’’ - a term Dr. Roszak popularized and may have invented - might offer the foundation of a new visionary civilization.

He saw the seeds of a new future in campus rebellions, the civil rights movement, and even a popular button that said, “I am a human being; do not mutilate, spindle, or tear.’’ As he phrased the generation’s quest, “We are outward bound from the old corruptions of the world.’’ Its destination, he said, was “the Holy City.’’

These were themes Dr. Roszak expanded on in a succession of books, most influentially in “Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society,’’ published in 1972. It, like the counterculture book, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

In the New York Times, Anatole Broyard devoted two book review columns to “Wasteland.’’ He called it “nothing less than a State of the Union Message on the condition of the human soul.’’

As Dr. Roszak continued to extol what he saw as new human possibilities, some reviewers questioned his distaste for reason and others his optimism. In reviewing “Unfinished Animal: The Aquarian Frontier and the Evolution of Consciousness’’ in 1975, Pete Hamill said that the luster of the counterculture had by then been extinguished by the shooting of students at Kent State University, Charles Manson’s murderous band, and other traumatic events. The counterculture, Hamill said, had become “just another media fraud.’’

But Dr. Roszak continued to be the generation’s cheerleader, writing a book when the first of the baby boomers reached 50 and several more as they approached old age. He wrote that the idealistic values of the 1960s would inspire millions of baby boomers in their last years.

“The future belongs to age, not youth,’’ Dr. Roszak said in an interview on NBC’s “Today’’ show in 1998.

Dr. Roszak was born in Chicago. His father was a carpenter.

He earned a degree in history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate from Princeton. He taught for 35 years at what is now California State University, East Bay, retiring in 1998.

He leaves his wife, the former Betty Greenwald; a daughter, Kathryn Roszak; and a granddaughter.

Dr. Roszak wrote and edited about 20 books, many of which, he said, furthered his reputation as “a leading spokesman for antiscience and as a neo-Luddite crusader.’’

But he preferred to write fiction, which he used to make broad points. In one of his half dozen novels, partly as a comment on sexism, he reimagined Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein, making the narrator not Victor Frankenstein but his half-sister and fiancee. Another tells the tale of a San Francisco-based gay Jewish writer who becomes trapped in a fundamentalist Bible college in Minnesota during a snowstorm.

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Debt talks grind on, clock ticks toward default
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Budget talks between President Barack Obama and his GOP rivals are at a frustrating standstill, leading a top Republican to launch a long-shot proposal to give Obama sweeping new powers to muscle through an increase in the government's debt limit without the approval of a bitterly divided Congress.
Lawmakers return to the White House for another negotiating session Wednesday. A two-hour session Tuesday produced no progress after a day of poisonous exchanges between Democrats and Republicans.
Saying he didn't see a path to an agreement so long as Democrats insist on revenue increases, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered a backup plan that would, in effect, guarantee Obama requests for new government borrowing authority unless Congress musters veto-proof majorities to deny him.
McConnell's plan immediately ran into stiff opposition among tea party conservatives and seemed unlikely to pass the House, but neither the White House nor House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, dismissed it out of hand.
"I think everybody agrees there needs to be a backup plan if we can't come to an agreement," Boehner said in a Fox News Channel interview Tuesday afternoon. "And frankly, I think Mitch has done good work."
Under McConnell's proposal, Obama could request — and likely secure — increases of up to $2.5 trillion in the government's borrowing authority in three separate installments over the coming year as long as he simultaneously proposed spending cuts of greater size.
The debt limit increases would take effect unless blocked by Congress under special rules that would require speedy action — and even then Obama could exercise his authority to veto such legislation. But the president's spending would have no guarantee of receiving a vote.
"The American people elected (McConnell) to serve as a check on Obama's appetite for out-of-control spending, not to write him a blank check to continue the binge," said conservative activist Brett Bozell. "It's these sort of shenanigans that got Republicans thrown out of power in 2006."
McConnell made his proposal public a few hours before Obama presided over his third meeting in as many days with congressional leaders searching for a way to avoid a default and possible financial crisis.
Democratic officials who participated in the session said Obama did not reject McConnell's idea, but said it's not his preferred approach. A statement issued later by press secretary Jay Carney said the president "continues to believe that our focus must remain on seizing this unique opportunity to come to agreement on significant, balanced deficit reduction."
McConnell's plan was hatched out of frustration that Congress and Obama are deadlocked as the clock ticks toward an Aug. 2 deadline for a market-rattling default on U.S. obligations.
"I had hoped all year long that the opportunity presented by his request of us to raise the debt ceiling would generate a bipartisan agreement that would begin to get our house in order," McConnell said. "I still hope it will. But we're certainly not going to send a signal to the markets and the American people that default is an option."
Republicans are demanding $2 trillion-plus in budget cuts as the price for a commensurate increase in the government's ability to continue to borrow more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends. Both Republicans and Obama see the politically toxic debt limit vote as a way to seize an opportunity to cut future deficits — a move that would seem to be to the political benefit of both sides.
But GOP refusals to consider devoting any new revenue from closing tax loopholes — like those enjoyed by oil and gas companies — to cutting the deficit has led Democrats to withhold further spending cuts beyond a handful tentatively agreed to during several weeks of talks led by Vice President Joe Biden in May and June. For their part, Republicans say the White House is offering minuscule spending cuts in the near term and is pulling back from some tentative agreements on topics like requiring federal workers to contribute more to their pensions.
Obama himself upped the stakes Tuesday, telling CBS News anchor Scott Pelley that more than $20 billion in Social Security checks could be held up.
"I can't guarantee that the checks will go out Aug. 3 if we haven't resolved this," Obama said. "There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Casey Anthony Found NOT GUILTY
By Lizette Alvarez NY TIMES

ORLANDO - Casey Anthony, the young mother whose seeming heartlessness at the disappearance of her daughter transfixed America for three years, was found not guilty yesterday of killing 2-year-old Caylee Marie.

After nearly six weeks of testimony, a jury of seven women and five men decided that Anthony did not murder Caylee by dosing her with chloroform, suffocating her with duct tape, and dumping her in a wooded area, as prosecutors claimed. They did, however, find her guilty of lesser charges, including providing false information to law enforcement officers. The jury did not ask to review any evidence.When the verdict was read, Anthony, 25, who faced a possible death sentence, cried.

The verdict vindicates the defense, which argued from the start that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool and that the death was concealed by her panicked grandfather, George Anthony, and his daughter.
It also drove home just how circumstantial the prosecution’s case proved to be. Forensic evidence was tenuous, and no witnesses tied Anthony to her daughter’s death. Investigators found no trace of DNA or solid signs of chloroform or decomposition inside the trunk of Anthony’s car, where prosecutors said Anthony stashed Caylee before disposing of her body.

The prosecution was also hurt because nobody knew how Caylee died; her body was too decomposed to pinpoint a cause of death.All of this allowed Jose Baez, Anthony’s lawyer, to infuse enough reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds to get Anthony acquitted of murder.


“They throw enough against the wall and see what sticks,’’ Baez told the jury, “right down to the cause of death.’’

Caylee was last seen June 16, 2008. Her remains were found six months later in a wooded area near the Anthony home. Despite her daughter’s disappearance, Anthony failed to report Caylee missing for 31 days and created a tangle of lies, including that a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee, to cover up the absence.

The defense conceded Anthony’s lies but said they happened for one reason: She had been sexually abused by her father and had been coached to lie her entire life.
“I told you she was a liar the first day,’’ Baez told the jury.

Despite a vivid portrait of Anthony’s seemingly callous and deceitful behavior after Caylee’s disappearance, jurors decided that the leap from uncaring mother to killer proved too much.
Prosecutors argued that Anthony killed her child so she could carouse with her boyfriend, go clubbing, and live the “bella vita’’ - beautiful life - as her tattoo, done after Caylee’s disappearance, proclaimed.

“Whose life was better without Caylee?’’ Linda Drane Burdick, one of the prosecutors, asked jurors. “That’s the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead.’’With that, Drane Burdick ended her closing statement with a dramatic flourish, leaving behind a split screen image: One side was a photograph of the tattoo, the other was of a smiling Anthony partying with friends after Caylee’s death.
One prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, called it absurd that Anthony’s father, a former homicide detective, would find Caylee dead in the swimming pool and, rather than call 911, cover up the drowning, wrap dead Caylee’s face with duct tape, and dump her body.
“It is a trip down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love their granddaughters find them drowned and do nothing,’’ Ashton said. “Where men who love their granddaughters take an accident, a completely innocent act, and make it look like a murder for no reason.’’

With Caylee’s grandparents in the back of the courtroom, prosecutors spoke forcefully about the pain the grandparents felt when they realized Caylee was missing and their daughter was the chief suspect. Anthony’s father grew so despondent after the death that he attempted suicide in 2009, leaving behind an eight-page suicide note.
George Anthony, who had testified tearfully during the trial, denied abusing his daughter Casey and denied finding Caylee floating in the pool.
As for motive, prosecutors said Caylee’s murder was hastened by the fact she was beginning to string together words and would soon be able to reveal her mother’s lies.Prosecutors also used jailhouse recordings of Anthony and photographs of her reveling with friends to show she was clearly not grieving for a daughter who had supposedly drowned.

Baez did little to bolster his initial defense during the trial, but he successfully hammered away at the relatively weak forensic evidence.

Tenderloin gets trendy, apparently on the way up

C.W. Nevius

The Tenderloin and environs have been called many things, including dangerous, dirty and unmanageable. But lately locals are rolling out an unlikely new term - trendy.

The anecdotal evidence is the number of young hipster types roaming the streets with snap brim fedoras, Chrome-brand messenger bags and fixie bikes. But the real barometer of change can be found in the storefronts.

Cult coffee shops, quirky eating places and designer cocktail bars have not only set up shop, they're thriving. Kinani Ahmed opened Jebena, his coffee and tea place on Polk, a year ago. Doubters looked at his menu - featuring more than 60 types of loose-leaf tea - and asked him if he knew what neighborhood he was in.

"People actually thought I was crazy," he said. "But we are seeing more of a young crowd now, a coffee-savvy crowd."

Ahmed has a prediction. The area around the Tenderloin, he says, "is becoming the next Mission."

That's not as far-fetched as it sounds. The young crowd moved to the Mission for the cheap rent, gritty vibe and innovative restaurants. Check, check and check in the new Tenderloin area.

"The Mission is too expensive," said Alex Kladitler, who moved to the Tenderloin three months ago. "This is one of the few places where you can afford a studio apartment. I like it here. It's entertaining, and it's safe enough."

If anything, the newcomers celebrate the grit. Brenda Buenviaje opened Brenda's, her Cajun Creole restaurant on Polk above the Civic Center in 1997. There was such demand for crawfish beignets and watermelon iced tea that she expanded and opened a new dining room.

"I got a little flak that the room was too neat," said the New Orleans native. "I feel like the expectation here is that they expect a little funky."

Let's be clear, this is no theme park. This month David Williams will celebrate his first anniversary at Hooker's Sweet Treats. Who knew you'd need to go to lower Hyde to score some awesome hand-dipped, sea-salted caramel candies? But there have been a few Tenderloin moments, like the woman who hit Williams in the face with her purse. That began when he asked her to move along.

"You're just hassling me because I'm black," the woman said.

"No, it's because you're smoking crack in my front door," Williams replied.

Certainly the Turk and Golden Gate corridors near Market are no-go zones. A good rule of thumb is to stay above Ellis, an area known as the "Tendernob," because it creeps up toward Nob Hill.

"People try to say it is kind of Nob Hill. But no, actually it is the Tenderloin," said Jordan Langer, a partner and general manager of Jones, a dinner and custom cocktail spot with a huge rooftop deck on Jones Street, just off Geary.

Jones, which opened in February, is almost too cool for the Tenderloin. Mixed drinks are $10, there's an extensive list of wines - none of them Thunderbird - and the place has such an insider vibe that there's only a small sign next to the entrance. But last Saturday, Langer says, they had more than 1,000 customers, including the dinner and drinks crowd, with 800 for cocktails after 10 p.m.

So there is a market for a high-end foodie experience. If you go to Brenda's, which doesn't take reservations, expect to wait 20 minutes to an hour. But having that much traffic in the area has improved the street - even if crack dealers use her storefront lights to sort product. It is all part of the urban adventure.

"There's a certain charm to parking your car and wondering if it will be broken into," Langer says.

If that sounds charming, head down to the 'Loin. If not, just wait.

It seems, after all the attempts to improve the neighborhood, we may have finally hit on some effective agents of change. The surprise is they turned out to be hand-poured coffee, praline shortbread cookies and Cajun gumbo.

C.W. Nevius' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail him at cwnevius@sfchronicle.com.

Romney under fire

Conservative groups launch campaigns to derail Romney's prominence in GOP primary

MARK VISER BOSTON GLOBE

WASHINGTON - Joe Miller, a former US Senate candidate from Alaska, has been spending his days in his law offices in Fairbanks with an almost singular focus: making sure fellow Republican Mitt Romney does not win his party’s presidential nomination.

Miller, through a little-known group called the Western Representation PAC, is planning a $500,000 ad campaign with a chief goal of dirtying up the national front-runner - in terms that are far more personal and aggressive than Romney’s rivals for the nomination have used.

“Right now [our focus] is making sure that Romney, who’s very clearly a RINO, doesn’t walk away with the nomination,’’ said Miller, using the acronym for Republican In Name Only. “We’re trying to save the country. And with Romney at the helm, it’s not going to get saved. Romney is just going to be a disaster for this country.’’

Three conservative groups within the Republican Party and a conservative radio talk-show host are raising alarms about the former Massachusetts governor, trying to knock him off a pedestal he has built through a campaign network, fund-raising base, and name recognition that exceeds any of his current rivals.

The strongly divergent views of Romney illustrate some of the fissures within the GOP - between the party establishment and the newer Tea Party movement - and they threaten to divide the party in a way that could have larger ramifications. Some are already worried that there would be a third-party candidacy if Romney wins the nomination. The developments demonstrate both why Romney is such a shaky front-runner and why there is still a yearning within some Republican quarters for candidates who might have a better shot at uniting the party to enter the race.

It is not unusual to have bitter primary fights - something Democrats are known for more than Republicans - but in the past the infighting was largely driven by a candidate who embodied the angst within a party. Ronald Reagan, for example, challenged President Gerald Ford in 1976. But what is happening now is that these groups, not any one candidate, are becoming the vessels for dissatisfaction with Romney.

“Since there isn’t anybody taking the fight to Romney for them, they’re doing it themselves,’’ said Linda L. Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College. “In that sense, what you’re seeing is different from other intraparty factional fights that we’ve seen in the GOP.’’

The Romney critics do not pull their punches. “On some of the key issues that are so fundamentally important, Mitt Romney’s not only wrong but consistently wrong and unwilling to reconsider his position,’’ said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative group that helped launch the Tea Party movement. “He’s got the establishment, he’s got name ID, he’s got money. But he doesn’t have the hearts and minds of the grassroots activists that are going to win campaigns.’’

Romney’s campaign declined to respond directly to the attacks, but a spokeswoman said he would attempt to connect with various segments within the Republican Party.

“Governor Romney, over the course of the primary, is going to go out and talk to voters, and hopes that they like his message of creating jobs and fixing the economy,’’ said Gail Gitcho, the campaign’s communications director.

In several polls, Romney has received support from those who say they identify with the Tea Party movement, perhaps an indication that while Romney is not trusted by the more visible Tea Party activists, he is more widely accepted by those who self-identify with the movement.

Romney’s fellow contenders have largely avoided direct attacks on him so far. In the debate last month in New Hampshire, for example, several candidates passed on chances to directly critique Romney’s record on issues such as abortion and health care.

But as Romney has continued to quietly build his campaign network - and as polls show him in the lead - some in the party fear that Romney will become so formidable that the primaries will not be competitive.

Some have problems with Romney’s past positions and his political flexibility. Others worry about his belief that humans contribute to global warming. Much of the opposition is coming from those who are active in the Tea Party movement.

“The engine of the Tea Party is really about authenticity - that is what the Tea Party smells, almost at a genetic level,’’ said Michael Graham, a conservative talk radio personality at Boston-based 96.9-FM who several months ago started a website called AnyoneButMitt.com. “The only thing that is authentic about Mitt Romney is his inauthenticity.’’

Graham said that if Romney were the nominee, a third-party candidate would emerge, which could split the conservative vote and make an easier path for President Obama’s reelection.

Others who have had it out with Romney include the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which is highly influential in Republican politics and has written that Romney might as well be Obama’s running mate, given his position on health care.

The antitax Club for Growth has written a blistering summary of Romney’s fiscal positions, saying “he has developed an unshakeable reputation as a flip-flopper’’ and that he “supports big government solutions to health care and opposes progrowth tax code reform - positions that are simply opposite to those supported by true economic conservatives.’’

FreedomWorks does not yet have plans to target Romney, but the group is putting together a report card of how candidates fare on 10 issues. Romney will fail on at least three of those issues, Kibbe said.

So far, the Western Representation PAC appears to be the only GOP group that is committing money to target Romney.

The political action committee was started in 2008 by Roger Stockton, a firefighter from Carson City, Nev., and his son, Dustin, a sporting-goods-store manager. They formed the group to try to defeat Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

In March, the Western Representation PAC hired Miller to be its chairman. Miller, who ran with both Tea Party support and the backing of the state’s former governor Sarah Palin, made national news last year when he defeated incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary.

Murkowski then ran a write-in campaign, narrowly defeating Miller in the general election.

Miller said his group’s focus in the GOP presidential contest right now is taking down Romney, not in recruiting someone else into the field.

“Right now we’re taking on the frontrunner, the person with the largest war chest and the highest likelihood of winning the nomination because he’s not the answer for the country,’’ Miller said. “We certainly are not going to comment on the quality of the other candidates.’’

Miller said the PAC opposes Romney for several reasons, but he never focused on health care during a 30-minute conversation. Instead, he emphasized Romney’s changed positions on several issues and the fees that he raised in Massachusetts.

Some activists feel the time is now to start pointing out some of the problems with Romney.

“It’s important to point out some of these fundamental problems with Romney now and try and shake up the field a little bit so there can be a more competitive process,’’ Kibbe said. “There should be a real concern among Republicans that Mitt Romney simply can’t win because he can’t hold the coalition together.’’

“It’s going to make for a really interesting battle,’’ he added. “It’s going to be more competitive than we’re used to, and that enfranchises a lot of voters that have been left out in the past.’’

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.