White House denies alien contact

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8 November 2011 Last updated at 11:05 GMT Astronomers are listening to the cosmos; but no evidence exists yet for alien life The US government has formally denied that it has any knowledge of contact with extraterrestrial life.

The announcement came as a response to submissions to the We The People website, which promises to address any petition that gains 5,000 signatories.

Two petitions called for disclosure of government information on ETs and an acknowledgement of any contact.

The White House responded that there was "no evidence that any life exists outside our planet".

More than 17,000 citizens joined the two petitions, and the White House has since amended the requirements for response to a minimum of 25,000 signatories.

"The US government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," wrote space policy expert Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

"In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye."

The post went on to outline the efforts that are underway that may add evidence to the debate, namely the space missions Kepler and the Mars Science Laboratory.

Kepler is searching for Earth-like planets around far-flung stars, and the Mars Science Laboratory will sample the Red Planet's geology looking for the building blocks of life - though it will not explicitly look for life itself.

Perhaps the most famous effort in the hunt for alien life is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti), once funded in part by US space agency Nasa, which continues to listen to and look around the cosmos for signs of intelligent civilisations elsewhere.

Mr Larson summarised the numbers game that a hunt for ETs necessarily entails.

"Many scientists and mathematicians have looked... at the question of whether life likely exists beyond Earth, and have come to the conclusion that the odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the Universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life," he wrote.

"Many have also noted, however, that the odds of us making contact with any of them - especially any intelligent ones - are extremely small, given the distances involved."

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Longtime CBS White House correspondent dead at 86

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NEW YORK | Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:52pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Journalist Robert Pierpoint, 86, a former White House correspondent for CBS News who covered six presidents, has died, CBS News said on Sunday.

Pierpoint, a resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., who retired in 1990 after four decades with CBS News, died on Saturday after complications from hip surgery, the network said in a news release.

He reported -- on television and radio -- on the Korean War, and he was a White House correspondent from the Dwight Eisenhower administration in 1957 through the Jimmy Carter administration in 1980.

His favorite president to cover was John F. Kennedy, CBS News said, and he was in Dallas the day Kennedy was killed there.

Pierpoint, who wrote a 1981 book called "At the White House" about covering presidents, reported on Watergate and the Pentagon Papers and, later as a State Department correspondent, the Iran hostage crisis.

"Bob was a great friend to me and he taught me many a lesson on how to develop sources," CBS News' chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer said on Face the Nation on Sunday.

Schieffer, that show's host, told viewers that Pierpoint got many stories while playing tennis.

"One Saturday, he came directly from the court to film a report on the White House lawn," Schieffer said. "Viewers saw him only from the waist up -- but those who saw him full frame figured out quickly where he got the story."

Pierpoint, a native of Redondo Beach, Calif., is survived by his wife of 52 years, Patricia, as well as a sister, four children and five grandchildren.

(Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan in Austin, Texas, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

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The Grand Tradition of the White House State Dinner

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White House state dinners are Washington's quintessential social events and a way to practice classy diplomacy. The dinners can honor a good relationship with a foreign leader, like Thursday's dinner for South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and first lady Kim Yoon-Ok, or they can be an attempt to patch over a bad one.

[Check out this slide show of state dinners throughout history.]

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle's fifth official state dinner followed Congress's approval of free-trade agreements with Korea, Columbia, and Panama, which had been languishing since they were introduced in 2007 under President George W. Bush.

The visit also apparently inspired Republican Sen. John Kyl to, at the last minute, stop blocking the nomination of the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim. The Senate confirmed Kim­­—who will be the first Korean-American ambassador to Seoul—minutes before President Lee addressed a joint session of Congress.

Past dinners have also been a way to further U.S. foreign policy. In September 2001, for example, Mexico's President Vicente Fox marked his growing relationship with Bush during a state visit. The two were looking for ways to cooperate on the fight against drug trafficking and find a solution to illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Experts close to the issue believe some kind of path to citizenship was imminent, but the 9/11 attacks changed everything, pushing the immigration discussion immediately to enforcement.

During the Cold War, there were a few visits by Soviet leaders, which kept up the delicate diplomatic dance the two countries practiced. In 1990, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa visited with President George H.W. Bush. Gorbachev disregarded the black-tie dress code and wore a business suit, as he had done during his previous state dinner with Reagan in 1987.

[Read: After 9/11, immigration became about enforcement.]

In 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was the first Soviet leader to visit the United States. During the state dinner, he and President Dwight D. Eisenhower talked openly about the tricky relationship between the two nuclear powers. Eisenhower said, "Because of our importance in the world, it is vital that we understand each other better."

Khrushchev agreed, acknowledging the need "to come to an agreement on the improvement of our relations, because our two countries are much too strong and we cannot quarrel with each other. ... If we quarrel, then not only our countries can suffer colossal damage but the other countries of the world will also be involved in a world shambles."

The dinners have also marked cultural events close to the heart of the American people, like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Kennedys had scheduled a state dinner for West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, but after Kennedy was shot a month before the dinner, the responsibility fell to President Lyndon Johnson. Since the nation was still mourning Kennedy's death, Johnson moved the state dinner to his Texas ranch for a less formal barbecue.

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Winery Auction Set for White House Gate Crashers

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White House gate crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi, once drunk on the fame of crashing President Obama's first state dinner in November 2009, are hosting a very sober bankruptcy auction Saturday, a major move to bring normalcy back to their lives.

At noon at their Oasis Vineyards winery in Hume, Virginia just east of the Shenandoah Valley, auctioneers will kick off a day-long sale of wine-making equipment, some 8,000 bottles of vino, trucks, and even corks. A viewing is being held Friday. [Check out photos of Obama behind the scenes.]

The bankruptcy auction ends a long battle over ownership of the vineyard that got tangled in their fame,  capped recently when the blonde Michaele appeared on Bravo's Real Housewives of D.C. But Tareq has said it might mark the beginning of a new stage of their lives that could actually begin by making wine again at the vineyard, which is not up for auction.

The equipment to be sold off by N.T. Arrington Auctions is mostly wine, wine-making equipment and catering goods. The Salahis have suggested that it is in bad condition, but most of it looks fine in the auction house's photos.

Wine makers and booze sellers are expected to flock to the sale. To buy wine, a special ABC license will be required. The auctioneer has also issued a demand that nobody can make bid over $3,000 without first charging their credit card.

[See editorial cartoons about President Obama.]

As proof the couple plans to make a comeback, the Oasis website reveals that they are planning to renovate the facility and renting it out for weddings. "Now taking wedding reservations for 2012 Season," says the site.

They are also using the website to shoot down rumors that the whole winery has gone belly up and is being auctioned off. [See cartoons about the Democrats.]

At one point, the winery was popular and highly ranked, offering sparkling wine for up to $300 a bottle. According to the winery:

"Oasis Winery is a premium boutique winery, rated top 10 in the world, and can be found in select premium locations, such as Relais & Chateuax properties, 5 star hotels, as well as your local wine merchant—and in most instances exclusively available at the winery. The Oasis setting is majestic and breathtaking—the visitors center and vineyards overlook the US National Park/Skyline Drive. Oasis is one of the oldest vineyards in the state, offering visitors both a romantic and comfortable retreat, in addition to facilities to host meetings, lunches, dinners, and special events. The view from the winery is like a mural painted by Mother Nature; its vista sets row after row of vineyards atop gently rolling hills, with a beautiful water fountain centering out of the lake. The entire scene is framed by the majestic mountains towering behind, offering the cool gentle breezes required in Oasis' award-winning viticultural practices."

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White House Confident of Supreme Court Win on Healthcare

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The Obama administration's quick appeal to the Supreme Court in defense of its signature healthcare law clearly displays White House confidence that it will ultimately prevail in the case, experts say. Whether that confidence is well-placed, though, remains a matter of opinion.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice and the White House announced that the government is asking the Supreme Court to take up the case from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in August that the Affordable Care Act's mandate requiring all Americans to buy insurance or face a fee is unconstitutional, though could be separated from the overall law. Earlier Wednesday, the government's adversaries in the case—a coalition of 26 states as well as the National Federation of Independent Business—also filed with the high court, asking for a complete invalidation of the law. But the administration is determined the law will survive. "We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional," White House senior adviser Stephanie Cutter blogged Wednesday. "We are confident the Supreme Court will agree."

[Check out a roundup of political cartoons on healthcare policy.]

The government could have dragged its feet in appealing to the Supreme Court—the final deadline to file was actually November, and it also could have asked for a full court review from the 11th Circuit since the case was decided by a three-judge panel (though the conservative court was unlikely to return a better verdict)—but experts say filing now displays the administration's assurance, and any delay tactics might have been exploited by Republicans as cowardly. "If you don't think you have a winning hand, then sometimes it makes sense to see if the landscape changes," says Ian Millhiser, a constitutional and judiciary analyst with the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "They clearly think, if they are going to pull the trigger now, that they stand to gain from pulling the trigger."

Tom Goldstein, the publisher of SCOTUSblog who has argued 22 cases before the Supreme Court, says filing now indicates the administration wants the case heard this term. "The technical deadline to file the petition was November, but the practical deadline if you want to get a case heard this term was much sooner," he says, adding that he believes the Supreme Court will announce sometime around Thanksgiving that it will hear the case. "The point wasn't that they had a deadline to ask the Supreme Court; they had a deadline to ask the Supreme Court if they were going to get a ruling."

[See a slide show of 10 ways the GOP can take down Obamacare.]

Goldstein adds that the main reason for pursuing quick action is most likely a common-sense one: The government needs an answer. "Delay was just going to make it too hard as a practical matter," he says. "They just need an answer so [the Department of Health and Human Services] in particular knows whether it should be issuing regulations, and whether people should be getting ready or not."

This development means, however, that a ruling would come amid presidential election fever, a gamble for the administration since the controversial law will be a key political issue with plenty of media coverage, either way the high court rules. If the law—considered Obama's landmark accomplishment by supporters—is struck down, Republicans would probably consider it a huge, motivating win, potentially demoralizing the president's base. However, Republicans could suffer politically from taking away popular provisions of the law, like free preventive care and allowing kids to stay on parents' insurance plans until age 26. If the law is upheld, Obama will probably look stronger, but vehement opponents of the law might see that ruling as a rallying cry to once again push for congressional repeal—and to get out the vote for repeal-friendly Republicans running for Senate.

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