Obama names budget chief his choice of successor for Sebelius
President Barack Obama praised outgoing Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for helping to steer his health care law #39;s comeback after a rocky rollou...
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Obama names budget chief his choice of successor for Sebelius - Video
Striving to show action on jobs, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are hitting the road to trumpet $600 million in new competitive grants to spur creation of targeted training and apprenticeship programs that could help people land well-paying jobs.
They were making the announcement Wednesday at the Community College of Allegheny County West Hills Center in the western Pennsylvania borough of Oakdale.
Administration officials say they hear from too many businesses that they cannot find skilled workers for jobs they need to fill. On top of that, officials say many people who are looking for work may be open to learning new skills but need assurance that a job will be waiting for them at the end of a training program.
Obama and others in the administration often say community colleges are among the best sources for job training and say learn-on-the-job apprenticeship programs provide some of the most direct paths to well-paying jobs.
Although the economy is improving, unemployment remains stubbornly high at 6.7 percent and Obama says more must be done to create jobs.
The programs that Obama and his Pennsylvania-born vice president are announcing do not need approval from Congress because they will be paid for with money that lawmakers have already authorized for spending. In response to stiff resistance to his agenda from Republican lawmakers, Obama has made it a goal this year to take smaller steps on his own, without support from Congress, to benefit the economy, workers and others, and Wednesday's program fits that script.
The larger of the two grant programs will put nearly $500 million toward a job training competition run by the Labor Department that is designed to encourage community colleges, employers and industry to work together to create training programs that are geared toward the jobs employers need to fill. Applications will be available starting Wednesday.
The training is part of an existing competitive grant program for community colleges that prepare dislocated workers and others for jobs.
A priority will be placed on partnerships that include national entities, such as industry associations, that pledge to help design and institute programs that give job seekers a credential that will be recognized and accepted across a particular industry, signaling to an employer what kind of work the holder can do.
The Labor Department is also making an additional $100 million available for grants to reward partnerships that expand apprenticeship programs.
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Obama, Biden to Announce $600M for Job Grants
President Barack Obama told religious leaders Tuesday that he has no plans to make unilateral changes to the nation's immigration laws while there's still a window for Congress to pass legislation.
Obama met in the Oval Office with six religious leaders. Following the meeting, the president of the Hispanic faith-based organization Esperanza, Luis Cortes, said the president told them that "he would not be doing anything to change the law as it currently exists."
A White House official later said that Obama does not foresee acting unilaterally while there is still an opportunity for Congress to pass more sweeping changes to the nation's fractured immigration laws.
Legislation has stalled on Capitol Hill, and Obama has come under pressure from advocates to take executive actions to halt some deportations.
The White House said Obama told the leaders that while his administration can take steps to administer immigration laws, only Congress can permanently fix the broken system.
WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama is looking for convicts worthy of his rarely used power to commute sentences.
Obama has directed the Justice Department to improve its clemency recommendation process and recruit more applications from convicts, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said Tuesday.
Most recently, Obama reduced the prison time for a man facing longer time behind bars because of a typographical error. The commutation of Ceasar Cantu's sentence from 15 to 11 years demonstrates "the importance of clemency as a fail-safe mechanism" for those who run out of options, Ruemmler said.
"The president believes that one important purpose can be to help correct the effects of outdated and overly harsh sentences that Congress and the American people have since recognized are no longer in the best interests of justice," Ruemmler said Tuesday at New York University's law school. "This effort also reflects the reality that our overburdened federal prison population includes many low-level, nonviolent offenders without significant criminal histories."
Cantu is only the 10th inmate Obama has granted a commutation. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering after prosecutors said he used his Houston trucking company to help move tons of marijuana from Mexico through Texas and into Virginia.
He was sentenced in Danville, Va., in 2006 by U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, who based his decision on a pre-sentencing report that had a critical error in "base offense level" that takes into consideration the crime's severity and the defendant's criminal history to come up with a sentencing guideline. The report correctly listed Cantu's level at 34 in one part, but incorrectly listed it at 36 in the portion that calculated a recommended sentence of up to nearly 22 years.
Kiser noted at sentencing that although Cantu didn't have a criminal record, the quantity of drugs involved in his case deserved a sentence within the recommended guidelines. The judge told Cantu the best he could do was sentence him at the bottom of the guideline. But if the calculation had been correct, the bottom of the guideline would have been 3 years less.
The White House said Obama decided to grant clemency because it was the only way to correct the mistake.
Obama commuted only one sentence in his first term, causing critics to charge that he was being too stingy with his power. Last December, Obama cut time for eight defendants sentenced under old guidelines that treated convictions for crack cocaine offenses more harshly than those involving the powder form of the drug. Critics blamed the disparity for longer sentences being handed to black convicts, and Obama changed the sentencing standards for future cases beginning in 2010.
Ruemmler said the administration believes there is a larger pool of meritorious candidates for both pardons and commutations, and encouraged both types of applications. A pardon forgives a crime without erasing the conviction, typically after the sentence has been served. A commutation leaves the conviction and ends the punishment.
Kathleen Sebelius resigns, Obama announces replacement
Obama bids farewell to Kathleen Sebelius and appoints Sylvia Matthews Burwell as her replacement. Athena Jones reports.
By: CNN
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Kathleen Sebelius resigns, Obama announces replacement - Video