Page 4A
POLITICS
East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Boehner in line for third term as speaker
Boehner’s election, but that was
far short of the number needed to
place his election in jeopardy. One
lawmaker, Rep. Lou Barletta of
Pennsylvania, said Boehner “de-
serves a chance” to try and pass a
conservative agenda in coopera-
tion with the Senate under Repub-
lican control.
The speaker’s spokesman, Mi-
chael Steel, said Boehner “was
selected as the House Republican
Conference’s choice for speaker
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON — House
Speaker John Boehner’s prospects
for a new term appeared secure
Monday despite grumblings from
tea party-aligned dissidents on
the eve of a Republican takeover
of Congress, while GOP leaders
in both houses pointed toward a
swift veto showdown with Presi-
dent Barack Obama over the long-
stalled Keystone XL pipeline.
Senate Republicans, winners
of a majority in last fall’s elec-
tions, began laying down markers
reform should not be used as an
-
ican people,” wrote Sen. Orrin
Hatch of Utah, who will become
Finance Committee. “Any such ef-
fort is a needless distraction,” he
added, pointedly rejecting a long-
held view of the White House and
many Democrats.
-
get as congressional veterans and
newcomers alike looked ahead to
a day of pomp and ceremony be-
neath the Capitol Dome.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McCo-
nnell’s ascension Tuesday to the
post of Senate majority leader was
automatic following his approval
last year.
That wasn’t the case in the
House, where the election of a
speaker is the main event on any
opening day’s agenda. Reps. Lou-
AP file photo
In this Dec. 11, 2014 file photo, House Speaker John Boehner of
Ohio arrives for a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.
of Florida put themselves forward
as challengers, and the Tea Party
Patriots tweeted out a request for
-
port one or the other.
Roughly a dozen Republicans
have announced they will oppose
elected by the whole House this
week.”
Nor did any of the rebels predict
they would succeed in toppling the
65-year-old Ohioan. Instead, they
said the current high command
wasn’t conservative enough.
Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who
defeated former Majority Lead-
er Eric Cantor in a primary last
summer, said the Republican
leadership has “strayed from its
own principles of free market,
limited government, constitution-
al conservatism. We are at a cru-
cial turning point in our country’s
history.”
Two years ago, Boehner was
faced with similar criticism, and
sweated out his election to a sec-
ond term.
His hand is considerably stron-
ger this year as a result of the
sweep of the Republican electoral
triumph. The party will hold 246
House seats in the new Congress,
to 188 for the Democrats, the big-
gest GOP majority in nearly 70
years.
It would have been bigger
Grimm’s resignation took effect
one day before the new Congress
convened. He pleaded guilty last
The intra-party leadership
struggle underscored the political
peril facing Republicans as they
looked ahead to two-house con-
ability to pass Keystone pipeline
legislation showed their potential
to advance an agenda.
The legislation passed the
House but died in a Democrat-
last year. Now, Republican lead-
ers intend to push the bill through
the House late this week, and ap-
pear to have more than enough
votes to clear it through the Sen-
ate as well, given the Republican
pickup of nine seats in the elec-
tions.
While Obama has not said if
he will reject the measure, White
House spokesman Josh Earnest
outlined a series of concerns with
the measure before adding, “I’m
not prepared at this point to issue a
piece of legislation.”
But Republicans stand ready
to cast the measure as a bipartisan
jobs bill of the type that should be
signed into law.
“There’s a lot we can get done
together if the president puts his
famous pen to use signing bills
rather than vetoing legislation his
liberal allies don’t like,” McCon-
nell said late last year.
Big threat for Obama’s climate efforts from GOP-run Congress
By JOSH LEDERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Barack Obama’s deter-
mined efforts to combat glob-
al warming face their biggest
trial yet as Republicans take
full control of Congress this
week. The GOP vows to
move fast and forcefully to
roll back his environmental
rules and force his hand on
energy development.
business: the Keystone XL
pipeline. The Republican-led
House has repeatedly passed
legislation to approve the
pipeline, which would carry
tar sands oil from Canada
deep into the United States.
The bills died in the Senate
when Democrats were in
control, but that will change
Wednesday when a Repub-
lican-led Senate committee
holds a Keystone hearing.
“The president is going to
see the Keystone XL pipeline
on his desk and it’s going to
be a bellwether decision by
the president whether to go
with jobs and the economy,”
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.,
said Sunday.
Success for Republicans
on the climate front would
jeopardize a key component
of Obama’s legacy. And the
ricochet far beyond the Unit-
ed States.
Later this year, nations
are supposed to sign a ma-
jor global climate treaty in
Paris. Aggressive action by
the U.S. under Obama has
upped the pressure on other
governments to get serious
about climate change, too.
But if Obama can’t make
good on his commitments at
home, it’s unclear whether
poorer nations will still feel
compelled to act.
“The American govern-
ment has been responsible for
sending very strong political
and economic signals with
what they have announced so
-
ident Felipe Calderon, now
a global climate leader, said
in an Associated Press inter-
view. “I know that there is a
risk that those will be over-
come by the new political
reality in the U.S.”
Obama has made clear he
will use his veto power if Re-
publicans succeed in getting
hostile bills to his desk — es-
pecially on climate change.
“I’m going to defend gains
that we’ve made on environ-
ment and clean air and clean
water,” he has said.
And Sen. Brian Schatz,
D-Hawaii, says the Republi-
cans aren’t likely to overturn
his veto. That would require
a number of Democrats to
vote against the president.
“There’s reason to be
concerned, but I don’t think
there’s reason to be pan-
icked,” Schatz said.
NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
AP file photo
Page 5A
BRIEFLY
Jury selection begins
in Boston Marathon
bombing
BOSTON (AP) — Some
of the prospective jurors
who could decide Dzhokhar
look Monday at the young man
accused of bombing the Boston
Marathon, and they seemed
shaggy-haired 21-year-old.
Tsarnaev, for his part, rose
to his feet and nodded, slightly
and awkwardly, as he was
about 200 citizens.
So began what could be
weeks of jury selection in the
nation’s most closely watched
terror trial since the Oklahoma
City bombing two decades ago.
Security was tight, with
stationed inside and outside the
federal courthouse along with
The potential jurors seemed
riveted by Tsarnaev and by
U.S. District Judge George
the gravity of what they will be
asked to do if they are picked:
They must decide not only
whether the former college
student is guilty or innocent,
but also what his punishment
will be if he is convicted — life
Police seek attacker
who wounded three,
stole baby
LONG BEACH, Calif.
(AP) — Police say they don’t
know why a gunman wounded
three members of a California
family and stole a 3-week-old
baby girl who was later found
dead in a trash bin near the
At a news conference
Monday afternoon, Long Beach
Police Chief Robert Luna
called pleaded for public help
President Barack Obama addresses the Climate Sum-
mit, at United Nations headquarters in September.
East Oregonian
Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors will offer a $10,000
reward for information leading
to an arrest and conviction.
The body of Eliza Delacruz
was found Sunday in a trash
bin behind a strip mall in
Imperial Beach, about 120
miles south of where her father,
mother and uncle were shot a
day earlier.
The mother and uncle
are hospitalized in critical
condition.
Authorities are looking for
a man, but his description is
vague and they have no leads.
However, police say they don’t
believe the attack was random.
Judge orders suspect
to stand trial in state
trooper ambush
MILFORD, Pa. (AP) — A
judge on Monday ordered
a survivalist who called for
revolution to stand trial on
charges he fatally shot a
Pennsylvania state trooper and
wounded another outside their
barracks, a case his attorneys
to defend.
The ruling came after a
preliminary hearing for Eric
Frein, 31, who is charged with
offenses in the Sept. 12 ambush
that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson
and critically wounded Trooper
they found the murder weapon
along with a journal in which
Frein described shooting the
troopers.
After the hearing, a defense
lawyer, Bill Ruzzo, said his
primary goal is to save Frein’s
life. Prosecutors are seeking
the death penalty.
“It’s a battle,” said
another defense attorney,
Michael Weinstein, adding
that Frein “understands his
circumstances.”
Lebanon limits entry
civil war
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon
turned back Syrians trying to
cross the border Monday under
strict new visa regulations,
saying it simply cannot handle
any more people displaced by
the ongoing civil war.
The policy, requiring
Syrians to obtain visas that
sharply limit the time they can
stay in Lebanon, effectively
narrows one of the few escape
has displaced a third of Syria’s
pre-war population and shows
no sign of ending.
Humanitarian groups
dealing with Syrian refugees
say authorities should not close
the doors on people who are
desperate to leave.
By KRISTIN J. BENDER
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Two men
are roughly halfway through what has
been called the hardest rock climb in
the world: a free climb of a half-mile
-
Tom Evans, a climber and photog-
rapher, has been chronicling Kevin
Jorgeson. 30, of Santa Rosa, Califor-
nia, and Tommy Caldwell, 36, of Es-
tes Park, Colorado, as they scale their
way using only their hands and feet.
El Capitan, the largest monolith of
granite in the world, rises more than
The men eat, stretch and sleep in
hanging tents suspended to El Capi-
tan’s Dawn Wall. They don’t have the
creature comforts of home, but they
have kept in touch with the outside
world thanks to social media --tweet-
ing, posting on Facebook, feeding
information for blogs and keeping in
touch with a bevy of supporters on
the ground.
“The guys are doing great,” said
Josh Lowell with Big Up Produc-
tions, which has been chronicling
“(Monday) they are resting and trying
so they can continue to do battle with
the hardest climbing sections, which
involve grabbing tiny, razor-sharp
edges of rock,” Lowell said.
If all goes as planned, the duo
could be at the top as soon as Friday
or Saturday, Lowell said.
“But that’s best-case scenario.
It could take several more days just
where they currently are. If any
weather moves in, that could also de-
lay things, but the forecast is looking
AP Photo/Ben Margot, File
This 2004 file photo shows the climbing face of El Capitan in Yosem-
ite National Park.
good for now,” he said.
Many have climbed Dawn Wall
climb” the section using ropes only
climber reached El Capitan’s summit
in 1958, and there are roughly 100
routes up to the top.
Evans said the two have a cell-
phone on their ascent, but they
weren’t taking calls Monday because
they were resting and “want no dis-
tractions while on the cliff.” The two
also weren’t answering emails from
roughly 1,500 feet above the ground.
These practices may not seem un-
usual, but the climbers have relied
heavily on social media to document
their adventure. Both update their
Facebook pages regularly and tweet
from the Dawn Wall, which has been
called “as smooth as alabaster, as
steep as the bedroom wall.”
Last Friday, Jorgeson hosted a live
question-and-answer session from
the wall.
Caldwell’s wife’, Becca, has also
been blogging about their trip daily
and wrote this post last weekend:
“Being up on the wall for over a
week and the hard climbing Tommy
and Kevin have done up until now
of the hard climbing they have to do,”
she wrote. “Imagine performing your
very best after not walking for one
week. I know Tommy has made an
effort to try and do stretching, push-
ups, (and) yoga in the (hanging tent)
hoping this might combat the unusual
circumstances of living like veal be-
tween their climbing. So let’s hope
-
nitely won’t be over until it’s over,
but I believe it’s possible. Let’s go
boys!!!”
Flu season continues to worsen, could peak this month
in all but seven states, and
hospitalization rates match
the dismal season two years
fear this will be an unusually
bad year, it’s too soon to say.
-
leased Monday by the Cen-
ters for Disease Control
and Prevention show the
the 43 states where the ill-
ness was widespread. But
Michael Jhung said.
It’s not clear yet how bad
ing roughly 24,000 a year,
on average.
in populous states like Cal-
are worried because the nas-
ty bug that’s making most
people sick isn’t included in
this year’s vaccine. Prelim-
inary data on how well the
vaccine is working is still
weeks away. Among infec-
-
sidered one of the nation’s
leading causes of death, kill-
makes predictions more
-
son hit hard in December
— earlier than usual. But
The report is for the week
of Christmas, and it shows
similar track as the last two,
later than mid-January. Per-
haps that will happen this
winter, too, the CDC’s Dr.
-
pitalization rates are simi-
lar to the harsh season two
years ago, which was dom-
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