NATION/WORLD
Thursday, July 23, 2015
East Oregonian
Page 7A
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WASHINGTON (AP) —
When Barack Obama visited
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30 years ago, he was aston-
ished that an airport worker
recognized his last name.
It was a striking experience
for a young man — and future
American president — strug-
gling to understand how a
country he had never seen and
a Kenyan family he barely
knew had shaped his identity.
“My name belonged
and so I belonged, drawn
into a web of relationships,
alliances, and grudges I did
not yet understand,” Obama
wrote in his memoir, “Dreams
From My Father,” about the
airport encounter.
This week, Obama will
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as U.S. president, a trip that
will bear little resemblance to
the 1988 one, when he arrived
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his luggage got lost. Now, Air
Force One will take Obama
to a country where children,
roads and schools now bear
his name, and the world
leader is seen as a local son.
Yet traveling with the
trappings of the presidency
appears likely to diminish
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father’s homeland.
“I’ll be honest with you,
visiting Kenya as a private
citizen is probably more
meaningful to me than
visiting as president because
I can actually get outside of
a hotel room or a conference
center,” he said last week,
adding that his trip still would
be “symbolically important.”
Security concerns and the
logistics of presidential travel
will keep Obama at a distance
from most Kenyans. He will
skip a visit to Kogelo, the
rural village in western Kenya
where his father was born and
buried, and where his step-
grandmother and other family
AP Photo/Ben Curtis
A man walks away after leaning his bicycle against a mural of President Barack Obama, created by the Kenyan
graffiti artist Bankslave, at the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday.
AP Photo
A vendor selling flags, caps and t-shirts, and wearing
a T-shirt showing President Barack Obama with words
in Luo reading “Father has reached home,” sells his
wares near Kisumu, in Kenya Saturday.
members still live.
Obama’s two days of
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Nairobi, the capital where he
will meet with Kenyan Pres-
ident Uhuru Kenyatta, attend
the Global Entrepreneurship
Summit, and speak to civil
Contenders scramble to adjust to Trump
Associated Press
AIKEN, S.C. — Donald
Trump is on his way to
the Mexican border, the
latest event in a presidential
campaign some of his rivals
would like to dismiss as a
sideshow — a “carnival act,”
as one puts it. But he’s been
stealing their thunder for days
and left them scrambling to
adjust to a race dominated by
a bombastic longshot.
The billionaire developer
and reality TV host will be in
Laredo, Texas, on Thursday,
highlighting his unyielding
stance on immigration. The
trip will revisit a topic that
has stirred criticism that
has now grown into open
hostility from some Repub-
lican contenders.
From party heavyweights
like Jeb Bush to recently
announced candidates like
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
and Ohio Gov. John Kasich,
the contenders are confronted
by Trump’s hair-trigger habit
of calling out his critics by
name, vilifying the GOP
establishment and roiling the
debate over immigration and
more.
In Washington, former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry
was asked about Trump’s
planned trip on to Laredo.
He snapped, “I hope he can
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not sure he’s ever been there
before.”
This,
after
Perry
denounced
Trump’s
campaign as a “cancer on
conservatism” and “barking
carnival act” in a speech
that laced into “Trumpism:
a toxic mix of demagoguery,
mean-spiritedness
and
nonsense that will lead the
Republican Party to perdition
if pursued.”
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between Trump and his
critics have been caustic.
Sen. Lindsey Graham called
him a “jackass” and Trump
responded by calling Graham
an “idiot” and giving out the
senator’s cellphone number,
jamming his voice mail.
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been more measured, though
showing signs of growing
exasperation. Bush, in partic-
ular, has conspicuously tried
to avoid alienating Trump’s
supporters — “good people”
with “legitimate concerns”
— even while branding
Trumps’ rhetoric “ugly.”
The feud is unfolding as
the candidates prepare for the
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which the top 10 in national
AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks
at his South Carolina campaign rally kickoff in Bluff-
ton, S.C., Tuesday.
“Trumpism: a toxic mix of dem-
agoguery, mean-spiritedness
and nonsense that will led the
Republican Party to perdition.”
— Rick Perry,
Former Texas governor and current GOP candidate
polling will be invited out
of a swollen lineup of 16.
Although they are all accom-
plished, few are well known
nationally, and “Trumpism”
isn’t making it easier for
them to get their messages
out at a time when mere
name recognition can drive
popularity in polling.
Trump, a longtime celeb-
rity, is almost guaranteed a
spot in the debate.
Bush, in South Carolina
on Wednesday, said he
wasn’t approaching the
debate thinking about Trump
or any rival who might be on
the stage. “My objective with
this is to, wherever I can,
share my record,” he said.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
addressed the Trump feud
almost serenely, expressing
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campaign would “get beyond
the novelty of a reality TV
star.”
And Walker, campaigning
in Tennessee, said he used to
run track and “I realized there
were some folks sprinting
out ahead. I made sure I was
ahead at the end of the race
when it really mattered.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
likened Trump to Barack
Obama, a president with
“no class” who Rubio said
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appearance on “The Daily
Show.”
On Fox News, Rubio said
of Trump: “I don’t think the
way he has behaved over
the past few weeks is either
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society leaders. On Sunday,
he will go to Ethiopia.
Despite the limits on
Obama’s movement and
interactions with the Kenyan
people, his visit is highly
anticipated in the East African
nation. Even as a U.S. senator,
he was greeted by cheering
crowds when he made his last
visit to Kenya, in 2006.
Ahead of Obama’s arrival
Friday, some Kenyans have
adopted a rousing segment
of an Obama speech as their
cellphone ringtone. U.S. and
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leading from Nairobi’s main
airport.
Obama’s visit is like “a
brother coming back,” said
Nelly Ngugu, customer
relations manager at a Nairobi
cafe.
Before Obama’s travel
plans were announced, there
had been some disappoint-
ment that the U.S. president
who has written and spoken
emotionally of his Kenyan
roots had not returned since
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black president was missing
an opportunity to give Africa
more prominence in U.S.
foreign policy.
Much of Obama’s interna-
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was on strengthening ties with
Asia and trying to reset U.S.
policy in the Middle East.
His only visit to sub-Saharan
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stop in Ghana.
At the time, there was
persistent and inaccurate
speculation that he was born
in Kenya, not the United
States. Some political oppo-
nents tried to use the rumors to
undercut Obama’s eligibility
for president. As late as 2011,
a CBS/New York Times poll
VKRZHGWKDWRQHTXDUWHURIDOO
Americans believed Obama
was not born in the U.S.
Obama’s re-election raised
renewed hopes for a visit to
Kenya, but the political situ-
ation there complicated those
plans.
Kenyatta, the son of the
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elected president in 2013,
but faced charges in the
International Criminal Court
stemming from his alleged
role in stoking ethnic violence
following Kenya’s troubled
2007 election.
“The timing was not right
for me as the president of the
United States to be visiting
Kenya when those issues
are still being worked on
and, hopefully, at some point
resolved,” Obama said of his
decision to pass over Kenya
in favor of South Africa,
Tanzania and Senegal during
a 2013 trip to Africa.
The charges against
Kenyatta were ultimately
dropped, clearing the way
IRU2EDPDWR¿QDOO\YLVLWKLV
father’s home country as pres-
ident. With his arrival now
imminent, the disappointment
appears to have faded, over-
taken by anticipation and
national pride.
In Kogelo, the Obama
family’s home village, the
family’s aging matriarch said
even she would not feel bad if
the president did not visit her.
Sarah Obama, who Obama
referred to as “Granny” in his
memoir, said the president
was coming to Kenya “to
discharge his duty.
BRIEFLY
Social Security
disability fund to
run dry next year
Carolina, was motivated by
racial hatred and a desire
to commit a “notorious
attack” when he opened
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WASHINGTON
of worship last month,
(AP) — The 11 million
according to a federal grand
Americans who receive
jury indictment issued
Social Security disability
Wednesday that makes
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him eligible for the death
next year, the government
penalty.
said Wednesday, handing
The 33-count federal
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indictment charges Dylann
political crisis in the middle Roof, 21, with hate crimes,
of a presidential campaign.
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The trustees who
obstructing the practice
oversee Social Security and of religion in the June
Medicare said the disability 17 shootings at Emanuel
trust fund will run out of
African Methodist
money in late 2016. That
Episcopal Church.
would trigger an automatic
The charges announced
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Wednesday by Attorney
unless Congress acts.
General Loretta Lynch
The average monthly
are in addition to state
EHQH¿WIRUGLVDEOHGZRUNHUV murder charges brought
and their families is $1,017. against Roof days after the
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shooting.
would see a reduction of
The Justice Department
$193 a month.
has not decided whether it
In more bad news for
will seek the death penalty
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against Roof, nor whether
project there will be no
its prosecution will come
cost-of-living increase in
prior to the state’s case.
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But in mounting a federal
year. It would mark only
case, Justice Department
the third year without an
prosecutors made clear that
increase since automatic
they consider the killings
adjustments were adopted
rooted in racial hatred and
in 1975.
the type of attack that their
Separately, about
hate-crime statutes are
7 million Medicare
designed to cover.
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Because South Carolina
monthly premium increase
has no state hate-crime law,
of at least $54 for outpatient federal charges were needed
coverage, an increase of
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more than 50 percent.
defendant who “decided
The annual report card
to seek out and murder
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African-Americans because
of Social Security and
of their race,” Lynch said.
Medicare shows that the
The state’s case has so
federal government’s largest far been sparse in its details,
EHQH¿WSURJUDPVDUHIHHOLQJ but the federal grand jury
the strain of aging baby
indictment accuses Roof
boomers.
— who is white and had
Medicare turns 50 at
appeared in photos waving
the end of the month and
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Social Security turns 80 two setting his sights for months
weeks later. Together, the
programs accounted for
more than 40 percent of
federal spending.
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Trump remains unbowed.
“I’m called a jackass,” he
said Wednesday on CNN.
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back. Everyone’s pushing
our country around. We can’t
allow that.”
Meanwhile, federal regu-
lators made public records
that show, as he has said, that
he is rich.
He has assets of at least
$1.4 billion and debt of
at least $240 million, the
regulators said in a report
with such broad categories
that his wealth could well
be much greater. His precise
fortune isn’t pinpointed, but
the disclosures underscore
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power in the race and his
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— or muzzles — of the
deep-pocketed Republicans
who bankroll campaigns.
On Thursday, he plans
to hold a news conference
at the U.S-Mexico border,
Charges include
meet members of the union
hate crimes for
that represents U.S. Customs
accused shooter
and Border Patrol agents and
speak to law enforcement
WASHINGTON
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(AP) — The man
said. The border became
accused of killing nine
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black church members
debate when Trump branded
in Charleston, South
Mexican immigrants rapists
and drug-bearing criminals.
After that episode came
Final Days
a broadside against Arizona
Sen. John McCain, who Saager’s Shoe Shop
earned Trump’s ire by saying
his remarks about immigrants
Milton-Freewater, OR
had brought out “crazies.”
Up to 50% Off
on murderous attacks on
blacks because of their race
and of wanting to carry out
violence in a black church.
Ferguson hires
black police
commander as
interim chief
FERGUSON, Mo.
(AP) — Ferguson leaders
introduced a new interim
police chief Wednesday,
tasking the black police
commander from Arizona
with building trust
between residents of the
predominantly black St.
Louis suburb and its mostly
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since Michael Brown’s
death roiled racial tensions.
Andre Anderson, a
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century in law enforcement,
starts in Ferguson on
Thursday, essentially on
six-month loan from the
Phoenix suburb of Glendale,
Arizona. Anderson had an
inside track for his new,
albeit interim gig — Ed
Beasley, a black man
recently hired as Ferguson’s
interim city manager — had
been Glendale’s city
manager.
Touted for his knack
for community outreach
in policing, Anderson
arrives in Ferguson as it
is still working to get its
law enforcement house
in order after a scathing
U.S. Department of Justice
report in March.
pressed for reforms.
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policing as well as a
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targeted blacks, who make
up about two-thirds of
Ferguson’s populace.