Political Memo: After Snips to Budget, a Thicket Looms

With time growing short before an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the federal debt limit, Republican and Democratic lawmakers meeting with Mr. Biden behind closed doors are just beginning to weigh the big fiscal trade-offs necessary for a compromise that could clear the way for a Congressional vote.

An accelerated schedule of meetings for next week will test whether the six members of the House and Senate talking with the White House are willing to entertain the serious political concessions and to make the hard choices needed to cut a deal in time.

In the colorful phrasing of Mr. Biden, the moment has arrived to find out who is willing to trade their side’s bicycle for the other side’s golf clubs.

“The really tough stuff that is left are the big-ticket items,” Mr. Biden said Thursday at the conclusion of the week’s third bargaining session, meetings that took lawmakers and administration officials to every corner of the federal budget in a search for consensus on ways to save federal dollars.

Lawmakers and aides say the negotiators quickly gobbled up low-hanging fruit like trimming agriculture subsidies and selling more of the telecommunications spectrum to generate revenue. There is a general consensus that federal workers are going to have to contribute more to their pensions, though the details are still to be determined. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will collect higher fees from stable companies, and some idle federal property could be up for sale.

But those actions are not going to produce anywhere near the $2 trillion or more in savings that both sides agree is the level required to win a debt limit increase while putting the government on course to save $4 trillion over the next decade — a goal set by Mr. Biden.

To get there, negotiators are going to have to make some excruciating choices about federal health care and safety-net programs, as well as the tax structure. At the same time, they need to reach a deal that not only can be sold to a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate, but also is credible enough to assure investors worldwide that Washington is getting serious about taking care of its financial health.

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee and a participant in the talks, said one reason for setting three-hour meetings four times next week is to gauge whether he and his fellow budget bargainers can ever come to terms.

“We are picking up the pace in a big way, recognizing that we’ve got to determine whether we can reach agreement in principle or recognize that we are not able to bridge our differences,” he said.

Watching the clock, Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, on Friday called on the negotiators to keep working through the Fourth of July recess if necessary.

To Democrats, a major impediment is the Republican position against relying on any significant new revenues as part of the deal, insisting that most of the $2 trillion or more come from cuts in federal spending — although not from Pentagon spending, a major potential source of savings.

Democrats say they will never be able to sell a compromise without some new revenue to their colleagues in the House and Senate. They say the most affluent Americans should contribute to the debt limit deal through new taxes on hedge fund operators or by phasing out tax deductions for those at the highest levels of earnings.

But Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader who is representing House Republicans in the talks, on Thursday reiterated the deep Republican opposition to higher taxes.

“Our side will not support any attempt to raise the debt ceiling that is not accompanied by the kinds of cuts necessary or reforms necessary,” he said. “Nor will we support an attempt to raise the debt limit that raises people’s taxes. That, we don’t want to do.”

Republicans want to see Democrats embrace more changes in Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health programs for older Americans and the poor.

Democrats have so far pushed for modest changes like allowing the government to negotiate prescription prices with drug companies and to require drug industry rebates for people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid — a proposal that could potentially generate tens of billions of dollars. But Democrats will not support any major Medicare overhaul, saying they believe that they have the political high ground on the issue at the moment.

To get a deal, lawmakers on both sides are going to have to bend considerably and back unpopular positions. They are then going to have to sell the plan to their rank and file on the grounds that they need to avert the economic disarray that could result from a failure to raise the debt ceiling.

Both sides say that all those in the talks want to reach a compromise. “There is no principal in that room that doesn’t want to get agreement,” Mr. Biden said.

Yet that is no guarantee that the deal will be done.

“I’m confident,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, another top Democrat in the talks. “But I’ve been confident before and come up short.”

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In Singapore, Political Campaigning Goes Viral

SINGAPORE — This tightly controlled city-state has taken a step into the unknown in advance of its parliamentary elections on Saturday, loosening its grip on political discourse in the unruly world of the Internet, where Facebook, Twitter and other social media have amplified a clamor of voices and points of view.

In a nation where government opponents are often sued over defamation and where carefully vetted public speech has been permitted only in a little park called Speakers’ Corner (which has been shut down during the campaign), experts say the new opening, if only in the virtual world, appears to be a redefinition of what are known here as “out-of-bounds markers.”

Following recent changes to the Constitution and election laws, Internet election advertising is now permitted throughout cyberspace — on podcasts, videocasts, blogs, instant messaging, photo-sharing platforms like Flickr, social networking sites and electronic media applications like those found on mobile phones.

For the first time, election campaign recordings can be posted as long as they are not “dramatized” or published “out of context.” Video taken at an election rally can be uploaded onto the Web without being submitted to the Board of Film Censors.

“Social media have lowered the barriers of entry into political discourse everywhere,” said Mark Cenite, an assistant professor of communication and information at Nanyang Technological University. “But that’s particularly significant in Singapore because here the barriers to entry into political discourse and the accompanying risks have been so high.”

Despite the changes to Internet regulations, demonstrations and public speech still require permits in Singapore. Political speech is restricted to candidates. Opposition politicians and news media face the possibility of defamation suits. The mainstream news media are tightly controlled and have not acted as a check on the government, experts say.

During the last parliamentary campaign, in 2006, a small number of current events blogs were the main forum for online citizen participation. Political speech was technically illegal and demanded a greater level of risk and commitment.

“Now that the barriers to entry to political dialogue have fallen, the effect has been electric,” Mr. Cenite said. “Government critics are able to easily identify and support one another without making a headlong commitment to politics and take the accompanying risks.”

All of this has contributed to an intense campaign in which opposition parties — which now hold just 2 of 84 elected seats — are drawing bigger crowds to rallies, fielding more candidates and, in contrast to the past, contesting all but one constituency. In the last election, opposition parties contested just half the constituencies.

Analysts say it is impossible to know whether this enthusiasm will translate into votes against the People’s Action Party, or P.A.P., which has governed Singapore since 1959.

But the campaign itself has been transformed as social media give smaller, poorer parties a wider audience, bringing greater inclusiveness and competitiveness to political debate.

Rather than trying to suppress online political organizing, as China and Vietnam have done, Singapore is taking a gamble on making it part of the legal campaign system.

“I don’t think they had a choice,” said Kin Mun Lee, known on his blog as Mr. Brown, who said he skirted the law in the last campaign by avoiding explicitly political comments. “Before, it was a very limited kind of provision for online speech. Definitely they had to change the rules because of the proliferation and availability of options.”

Opposition Web sites and Twitter accounts are being used to urge people to attend election rallies. They also send out streams of comments from rallies, hugely increasing their audience. The site Gothere Maps plots out the locations of rallies on a map.

The site Party Time aggregates conversations about the elections and graphically represents who is getting the most buzz online.

Facebook is estimated to have up to three million members in Singapore, whose population is more than five million. All seven competing parties have their own sites, as do many of the candidates.

By one estimate, there are 900,000 local users of Twitter.

Online coverage has pushed the main pro-government newspaper, The Straits Times, to publish fuller and not always critical news and photographs of opposition campaigns, said Alex Au, a prominent blogger.

“In the present era, with the ubiquitous cellphone camera and rapid distribution channels that are well beyond blogs, the old editorial policy is no longer viable,” he said on his blog. “If the newspaper does not publish such pictures, others will, and its credibility can only suffer.”

The Straits Times has dedicated a portal on its Web site to extensive electronic election coverage, and it is now aggregating online comments from the social media on a page it calls Buzz, which gives a flavor of some of the newly energized online commentary:

“The opposition can make ferocious speeches, but can they deliver?”

“Is it true that civil servants will be ostracized if they vote for the opposition?”

“If the opposition is sincere in serving the people, it would have been on the ground in the last 4 years, not starting their engines only when the whistle is blown.”

“Why must we be so dogmatic about democracy and stability being mutually exclusive?”

View the original article here

In Singapore, Political Campaigning Goes Viral

SINGAPORE — This tightly controlled city-state has taken a step into the unknown in advance of its parliamentary elections on Saturday, loosening its grip on political discourse in the unruly world of the Internet, where Facebook, Twitter and other social media have amplified a clamor of voices and points of view.

In a nation where government opponents are often sued over defamation and where carefully vetted public speech has been permitted only in a little park called Speakers’ Corner (which has been shut down during the campaign), experts say the new opening, if only in the virtual world, appears to be a redefinition of what are known here as “out-of-bounds markers.”

Following recent changes to the Constitution and election laws, Internet election advertising is now permitted throughout cyberspace — on podcasts, videocasts, blogs, instant messaging, photo-sharing platforms like Flickr, social networking sites and electronic media applications like those found on mobile phones.

For the first time, election campaign recordings can be posted as long as they are not “dramatized” or published “out of context.” Video taken at an election rally can be uploaded onto the Web without being submitted to the Board of Film Censors.

“Social media have lowered the barriers of entry into political discourse everywhere,” said Mark Cenite, an assistant professor of communication and information at Nanyang Technological University. “But that’s particularly significant in Singapore because here the barriers to entry into political discourse and the accompanying risks have been so high.”

Despite the changes to Internet regulations, demonstrations and public speech still require permits in Singapore. Political speech is restricted to candidates. Opposition politicians and news media face the possibility of defamation suits. The mainstream news media are tightly controlled and have not acted as a check on the government, experts say.

During the last parliamentary campaign, in 2006, a small number of current events blogs were the main forum for online citizen participation. Political speech was technically illegal and demanded a greater level of risk and commitment.

“Now that the barriers to entry to political dialogue have fallen, the effect has been electric,” Mr. Cenite said. “Government critics are able to easily identify and support one another without making a headlong commitment to politics and take the accompanying risks.”

All of this has contributed to an intense campaign in which opposition parties — which now hold just 2 of 84 elected seats — are drawing bigger crowds to rallies, fielding more candidates and, in contrast to the past, contesting all but one constituency. In the last election, opposition parties contested just half the constituencies.

Analysts say it is impossible to know whether this enthusiasm will translate into votes against the People’s Action Party, or P.A.P., which has governed Singapore since 1959.

But the campaign itself has been transformed as social media give smaller, poorer parties a wider audience, bringing greater inclusiveness and competitiveness to political debate.

Rather than trying to suppress online political organizing, as China and Vietnam have done, Singapore is taking a gamble on making it part of the legal campaign system.

“I don’t think they had a choice,” said Kin Mun Lee, known on his blog as Mr. Brown, who said he skirted the law in the last campaign by avoiding explicitly political comments. “Before, it was a very limited kind of provision for online speech. Definitely they had to change the rules because of the proliferation and availability of options.”

Opposition Web sites and Twitter accounts are being used to urge people to attend election rallies. They also send out streams of comments from rallies, hugely increasing their audience. The site Gothere Maps plots out the locations of rallies on a map.

The site Party Time aggregates conversations about the elections and graphically represents who is getting the most buzz online.

Facebook is estimated to have up to three million members in Singapore, whose population is more than five million. All seven competing parties have their own sites, as do many of the candidates.

By one estimate, there are 900,000 local users of Twitter.

Online coverage has pushed the main pro-government newspaper, The Straits Times, to publish fuller and not always critical news and photographs of opposition campaigns, said Alex Au, a prominent blogger.

“In the present era, with the ubiquitous cellphone camera and rapid distribution channels that are well beyond blogs, the old editorial policy is no longer viable,” he said on his blog. “If the newspaper does not publish such pictures, others will, and its credibility can only suffer.”

The Straits Times has dedicated a portal on its Web site to extensive electronic election coverage, and it is now aggregating online comments from the social media on a page it calls Buzz, which gives a flavor of some of the newly energized online commentary:

“The opposition can make ferocious speeches, but can they deliver?”

“Is it true that civil servants will be ostracized if they vote for the opposition?”

“If the opposition is sincere in serving the people, it would have been on the ground in the last 4 years, not starting their engines only when the whistle is blown.”

“Why must we be so dogmatic about democracy and stability being mutually exclusive?”

View the original article here

Taliban Prison Break May Lead to Military and Political Setback

The plan for the prison break , which led the prisoners through a tunnel dug over more than five months and equipped with electricity and air pipes, was so closely held that one young Taliban fighter who got out said he knew nothing of it until a fellow inmate tugged his sleeve to wake him in the night and led him to the three-foot-wide tunnel, which ran more than half a mile from a hole in a cell’s floor, under security posts, tall concrete walls and a highway, and came up in a nearby house. From there, a waiting car took the fighter a few miles away, where he hailed a taxi to safety.

“I was just praying to God that he would free me,” said the fighter, Allah Mohammed Agha, 22, recounting his escape from Sarposa Prison, where he had been held for 28 days. “Last night was the night that my dream was made true.” He spoke by phone from Spinbaldak, near the Pakistani border.

The Afghan government called the breach a disaster. The breach called into question the extent of the gains made against the Taliban in 18 months of hard fighting in Kandahar Province, and whether any progress would be sustainable once NATO troops began to reduce their numbers as planned this summer, members of Parliament, tribal leaders and Western officials said in interviews.

Some worried that the jailbreak might strengthen the Taliban in the coming weeks as the spring fighting season began. Having so many fighters back in circulation — possibly including hard-core commanders — also threatened to undermine efforts to bring Taliban fighters over to the government side, Afghan officials and former Taliban said.

There is no doubt that the incident demonstrated the ability of the Taliban to organize such an elaborate operation, even after they were driven largely underground in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces, and despite police and prison guards, prison visits by NATO mentors, and sophisticated NATO surveillance in Kandahar.

The prison break comes after four recent attacks by the Taliban, in which they used suicide bombers, often disguised as police officers or soldiers, to penetrate secure buildings, including an Afghan army corps’ headquarters in Laghman Province and the Ministry of Defense headquarters in the capital, Kabul.

Members of Parliament and others were scathing about the lapses. Some questioned whether the prison guards or police officers were bribed not to notice the tunnel’s construction.

“It’s a big achievement for the Taliban and shows a big failure and weakness in the government,” said Muhammad Naiem Lalay Hamidzai, a Parliament member from Kandahar and chairman of the internal security committee.

“The Taliban gain two things from this jailbreak,” he said. “First, coming after the incidents in Kunduz, Laghman, Kandahar and at the Ministry of Defense headquarters, it sends a message that they can do whatever they want, even at the heart of the most secure and important jail, and it allows them to strengthen their ranks with more manpower.”

The Afghan government was reeling Monday as details of the escape emerged. “This is bad news for the government and the people of Afghanistan,” the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, Waheed Omar, said at a news conference. “This shows a vulnerability on the part of the government.” He called the prison break a disaster.

One unexplained question was why the cells where prisoners were supposed to sleep were left open so that they could make their way to the cell with the tunnel. It also seemed that none of the guards checked on the prisoners during the night, even though Afghan intelligence officials and Western military officials said that there had been intelligence about the possibility of a security breach.

“This is absolutely the fault of the ignorance of the security forces,” said the Kandahar provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa. “This was not the work of a day, a week or a month of activities. This was actually months of work they spent to dig and free their men.”

Clearly embarrassed, Afghan officials had little else to say, other than to acknowledge that the prison break showed unexpected weaknesses in security. Since the Taliban engineered a major break at the same prison in 2008 — freeing 1,200 prisoners — Canadian forces have mentored the Afghans who run the prison and NATO countries have spent several million dollars upgrading and training the prison administration, according to a Western official in Kabul.

“There are a lot of people asking questions today,” said a NATO officer at the coalition’s headquarters in Kabul.

There was no official comment from the NATO command. Two Western officials described the break as “at least partially an inside job,” but both said they could not be named because of the delicacy of the situation.

Of the 488 men who escaped, fewer than 20 were from the criminal section of the prison; the rest were security detainees believed to be Taliban fighters and commanders.

An escapee, who asked not to be identified, said that among those freed were two shadow governors and 14 shadow district governors. The Taliban have a shadow government that has varying influence in different provinces.

However, Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai, a deputy justice minister, said that the government did not yet know who had escaped. “The detainees included all kinds of people,” he said, and he promised to have more information on Tuesday.

Mr. Wesa, the Kandahar provincial governor, said a manhunt was on and that 26 escapees had been captured by late afternoon.

The security section of the prison was eerily empty on Monday when reporters were shown around. Prisoners’ belongings were strewn about, but appeared heaped in the cell with the tunnel in an effort to obscure the entrance. A second tunnel branched off to the criminal side of the prison, according to the warden, Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar, and Mr. Wesa.

Now, with so many Taliban back in the fight, it will be even harder to convince Taliban fighters that they will be safe if they defect to the government, a former Taliban commander said.

“The prison break will slow down the peace process,” said Mullah Noorul Aziz Agha, a Taliban member who recently decided to lay down his arms and work with the government. “I was talking to Taliban on the phone to try to persuade them to come over, but now with this, how can we promise them that we can offer them security and protection?”

Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan. Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.

 

Democrats Sue to Force U.S. Election Agency to Reveal Political Donations

 

The lawsuit seeks to close “a major loophole” that allows private companies and nonprofit groups to operate “under a veil of anonymity” in raising money for political work, said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who brought the lawsuit along with lawyers for several liberal groups.

In another push for greater disclosure, President Obama is considering issuing an executive order that would require contractors with federal business to report their political donations. “His goal is transparency and accountability,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

A surge in corporate spending on political causes — the result of a Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January 2010 — became a major issue in the Congressional races that year and promises to be important in the 2012 presidential race.

Some Democrats attributed their loss of the House majority in November to the flood of largely anonymous spending by conservative groups. They have been unsuccessful in rolling back aspects of the Citizens United decision in the courts or in Congress, where Senate Republicans last year blocked a measure known as the Disclose Act, which Mr. Van Hollen sponsored.

As a result, Democrats are turning to other regulatory and executive branch measures — tactics that conservatives said Thursday smacked of political desperation as the presidential election nears.

“This is a sign of weakness by a group that’s afraid they’re going to lose, and lose big,” said Bradley A. Smith, a conservative lawyer and former Federal Election commissioner who leads the Center for Competitive Politics, a conservative advocacy group.

“Again and again, you see evidence that their real purpose is to try to shut down their political opposition,” Mr. Smith said. He and other conservatives argue that disclosure requirements pushed by Democrats amount to a chilling of free speech.

Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview that the lawsuit reflected an effort to use “all available options” to reduce the influence of anonymous corporate money.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Van Hollen noted that a number of the most prominent conservative nonprofit groups spent a total of more than $65 million on political activities in the 2010 races without disclosing any of the donors who financed their activities.

He singled out, among others, Crossroads GPS, a conservative group tied to Karl Rove, who was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush; Americans for Prosperity, financed by the billionaire brothers who lead Koch Industries; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has increased its political spending significantly in the face of threatened regulatory restrictions on American businesses.

The chamber charged Thursday that the lawsuit, along with Mr. Obama’s consideration of disclosure rules for contractors, were part of a “witch hunt” by Democrats meant to punish their “political foes.”

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to reverse a 2007 Federal Election Commission regulation requiring companies and groups to name only those donors who gave at least $1,000 specifically for the purpose of financing political activity. Mr. Van Hollen said the agency overstepped its authority in enacting the regulation because it “gutted” disclosure requirements that Congress had put in place in 2002.

The commission declined to comment on the lawsuit.

 

Democrats Sue to Force U.S. Election Agency to Reveal Political Donations

 

The lawsuit seeks to close “a major loophole” that allows private companies and nonprofit groups to operate “under a veil of anonymity” in raising money for political work, said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who brought the lawsuit along with lawyers for several liberal groups.

In another push for greater disclosure, President Obama is considering issuing an executive order that would require contractors with federal business to report their political donations. “His goal is transparency and accountability,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

A surge in corporate spending on political causes — the result of a Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January 2010 — became a major issue in the Congressional races that year and promises to be important in the 2012 presidential race.

Some Democrats attributed their loss of the House majority in November to the flood of largely anonymous spending by conservative groups. They have been unsuccessful in rolling back aspects of the Citizens United decision in the courts or in Congress, where Senate Republicans last year blocked a measure known as the Disclose Act, which Mr. Van Hollen sponsored.

As a result, Democrats are turning to other regulatory and executive branch measures — tactics that conservatives said Thursday smacked of political desperation as the presidential election nears.

“This is a sign of weakness by a group that’s afraid they’re going to lose, and lose big,” said Bradley A. Smith, a conservative lawyer and former Federal Election commissioner who leads the Center for Competitive Politics, a conservative advocacy group.

“Again and again, you see evidence that their real purpose is to try to shut down their political opposition,” Mr. Smith said. He and other conservatives argue that disclosure requirements pushed by Democrats amount to a chilling of free speech.

Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview that the lawsuit reflected an effort to use “all available options” to reduce the influence of anonymous corporate money.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Van Hollen noted that a number of the most prominent conservative nonprofit groups spent a total of more than $65 million on political activities in the 2010 races without disclosing any of the donors who financed their activities.

He singled out, among others, Crossroads GPS, a conservative group tied to Karl Rove, who was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush; Americans for Prosperity, financed by the billionaire brothers who lead Koch Industries; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has increased its political spending significantly in the face of threatened regulatory restrictions on American businesses.

The chamber charged Thursday that the lawsuit, along with Mr. Obama’s consideration of disclosure rules for contractors, were part of a “witch hunt” by Democrats meant to punish their “political foes.”

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to reverse a 2007 Federal Election Commission regulation requiring companies and groups to name only those donors who gave at least $1,000 specifically for the purpose of financing political activity. Mr. Van Hollen said the agency overstepped its authority in enacting the regulation because it “gutted” disclosure requirements that Congress had put in place in 2002.

The commission declined to comment on the lawsuit.

 

Political Memo: Mixed Feelings for Blagojevich Retrial, None of Them Happy

For some Chicagoans, fatigued by the former governor’s often circuslike legal travails, the notion of a new trial inspired only shrugs this week. Yes, they explained, Mr. Blagojevich, whose political unraveling had mortified an entire state and brought government to a standstill, ought to be tried on charges that he tried to sell the United States Senate seat that once belonged to President Obama. But no, they did not really care to watch it. Not again.

For some in this state’s Democrat-leaning political universe, the worries and threats of such a trial against a fellow Democrat also seemed to have faded. The election of Gov. Patrick J. Quinn, who served as lieutenant governor during Mr. Blagojevich’s administration, was sealed last fall. And Democrats held onto their control of both chambers of the state legislature.

Still, the possibility that new details might emerge of Mr. Blagojevich’s political dealings and from his phone conversations, secretly recorded by federal authorities, posed risks.

A new trial — and Mr. Blagojevich’s return to the headlines — certainly were not part of the inauguration script for Rahm Emanuel, a fellow Democrat and a former White House chief of staff who takes over as mayor of Chicago next month.

Mr. Emanuel, who had telephone conversations with Mr. Blagojevich and with Mr. Blagojevich’s chief of staff shortly after Mr. Obama’s election as president in 2008, received a subpoena to appear at Mr. Blagojevich’s first trial but was never called to testify.

A White House report found that Mr. Emanuel had indeed provided the names of some possible replacements to fill the Senate seat Mr. Obama would be giving up (an appointment assigned, by law, to the governor). But the report said he did not discuss Governor Blagojevich’s getting anything?in exchange for appointing a particular person.

Yet, if Mr. Blagojevich, 54, a former member of Congress and of the legislature, has shown anything since his arrest at his North Side home in December 2008 and his impeachment, it is that he defies the predictable behavior of a criminal suspect. (Since his troubles, he has sold his autograph at a comics convention, performed an Elvis Presley song at a block party and peddled pistachio nuts in a commercial.)

“You don’t know what he’s going to say,” said Kent Redfield, a political scientist at the University of Illinois. “If Blagojevich takes the stand this time, he could dirty some people up. If anybody has vulnerability to that, it’s probably Emanuel.”

Some grumble about the new trial as “a rerun,” though it will look different. Mr. Blagojevich’s legal team has shrunk. The charges have shrunk a bit, too. After a jury deadlocked on 23 of 24 counts against him last August, prosecutors streamlined the case to 20 counts, including attempted extortion and bribery, the most serious counts carrying maximum penalties of 20 years in prison.

Mr. Blagojevich’s first jury convicted him of one of the least serious charges — lying to federal agents, a conviction that could carry up to five years in prison.

Some people are hoping that the initial fury doesn’t fade entirely.

“It’s understandable that people sort of want him to just disappear,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which has pressed for campaign finance reporting and increased access to public records. “What concerns me is that there’s a sense on the part of some that this incredible outrage has died down, so let’s just edge back a bit on reforms.”

Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.

 

Yemen Police and Protesters Clash as Deal Is Sought to End Political Crisis

The violence came as the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional group, sought to broker an end to the political crisis. Yemen’s Saba news agency said government officials were meeting with the council in Abu Dhabi after similar meetings with opposition representatives on Sunday.

Gunfire erupted in the capital on Tuesday as government supporters threw rocks and beat protesters with sticks while security forces used tear gas and a water cannon to push back a march in the center of the city. “First they used the water cannon on us, then tear gas, then as we were running away they shot at us,” said Talal al-Azany, a protester who works with a local human rights organization.

One protester died of a gunshot wound to the head, and doctors said 10 others were wounded; it was unclear whether security forces or plainclothesmen had opened fire. A witness said a protester threw a gasoline bomb at the water cannon.

At a mosque turned medical clinic inside the demonstration area in Sana, about 100 men lay on the floor, some wounded, some beaten, some suffering from tear gas. “You see how our government works,” said Dahan Ali, an older protester using crutches after being shot in the leg during a clash on Sunday

Canisters of the tear gas used against protesters in Yemen show expiration dates as many as 10 years past. Many protesters have severe reactions to the gas, including seizures and foaming at the mouth. Yemeni doctors believe that these reactions prove that the gas has some sort of nerve agent in it, though the leftover canisters bear labels saying CN gas and CS gas, used for crowd control.

On Sunday night, one man had to be held down to the floor by four others as his body spasmed. “The victims convulse in ways that is not normal for tear gas,” said a doctor at the makeshift clinic, Tarek Noman. He said he treated exposure with Pralidoxime, a medicine used to counter nerve gas and phosphorus pesticides.

In Taiz, the violence broke out as demonstrators tried to march along a central street and were confronted by security forces, who began shooting after protesters began to burn barricades in the street, Reuters reported. Taiz is home to the country’s longest sit-in, with protesters claiming a central area since mid-February and demanding the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A video posted online Tuesday showed a member of the security forces firing from a moving car in Taiz, though it was unclear when the video was taken. Protesters there have said that both security forces and plainclothes government supporters have repeatedly shot at them over the last two weeks.

According to a plan backed by Western nations, Mr. Saleh would hand over presidential powers to his vice president and then leave office a month later under a guarantee of immunity from prosecution for himself and his family. Presidential elections would be held after 60 days, in accordance with the country’s Constitution. The plan is seen as a compromise between what the ruling party and the opposition have been seeking.

Yemen’s opposition coalition, known as the Joint Meetings Parties, has indicated its support for the plan; Mr. Saleh has yet to respond.

A high-ranking Yemeni official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said Mr. Saleh was seeking a guarantee that leading figures from the opposition, notably Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, would leave Yemen for a set period of time if Mr. Saleh agreed to step down. The official described such an arrangement as a tribal method of settling scores and meant to ensure that the president saved face.

Youth protesters are planning marches for Wednesday in cities throughout the country in memory of the first protester killed in this uprising, Mohammed al-Alwani, who died Feb. 16 in the southern port city Aden.

The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to meet on Tuesday over the worsening political situation in Yemen, a country riven by tribal conflict in the north and a separatist movement in the south that has become a haven for Al Qaeda. Counterterrorism officials say the unrest has allowed the terrorist group to operate more freely and plot attacks against Western targets.

Laura Kasinof reported from Sana, and J. David Goodman from New York.