Reuters - A top Republican senator on Thursday said a bill that would limit how terrorism suspects are detained and prosecuted gives the Obama administration flexibility it wants, but he was willing to make more changes.

Daily Caller - In the first congressional hearing on federal cloud computing on Thursday, representatives from government agencies and the private sector agreed that even with considerable security questions — particularly from risks posed by foreign nations — moving federal data storage from server farms to the “cloud” would be inevitable.

AP - The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday defended a congressional move to require military custody for many terror suspects and insisted that the Obama administration's opposition is misguided.

AP - Britain's chief prosecutor on Thursday blocked an attempt to serve visiting Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni with an arrest warrant.

AP - The uproar over the name of a hunting camp once leased by the family of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry reached the House floor on Thursday, as lawmakers derailed an effort to demand that Perry apologize.

Reuters - Barack Obama needs to make good on the promises that won him the Nobel Peace Prize, fellow laureate and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on Thursday.

Reuters - Barack Obama needs to make good on the promises that won him the Nobel Peace Prize, fellow laureate and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said Thursday.

The Ticket - Vice President Joe Biden likened the protesters who have camped out on Wall Street in New York City to the tea party movement Thursday, citing anger over the federal program that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bail out private banks in 2008. "There's a lot in common with the tea party," Biden said [...]

AP - There is no clear set of conditions in Libya that will trigger an end to the combat mission, but the operation should continue so long as serious fighting and threats to the population continue, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Reuters - European Union moves to shore up ailing banks moved into higher gear on Thursday as U.S. President Barack Obama urged European leaders to act faster to tackle a sovereign debt crisis that threatens global economic recovery.

AP - The European Union is moving to widen its sanctions against Syria because of the Arab state's brutal crackdown on protesters, officials said Thursday, adding that Syria's largest commercial bank is a target.

AP - Concerns over Wall Street practices and economic inequality that have led to sit-ins and rallies in New York and elsewhere reverberated up to the White House on Thursday, with President Barack Obama saying the protesters are expressing the frustrations of the American public.

Reuters - President Barack Obama said on Thursday China has been hurting the United States by manipulating its currency to help its exports, but he stopped short of backing a bill in Congress that could punish Beijing.

Daily Caller - President Obama hit familiar themes as he once again pushed his $447 billion jobs plan in a press conference Thursday.

AP - American troops who remain in Iraq after the end of this year must be granted immunity from local prosecution, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Reuters - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said President Barack Obama has "given up on the country" to focus on his re-election rather than working with Republicans to boost the economy.

Reuters - President Barack Obama on Thursday said his legislation intended to create jobs would provide the jolt the economy needs right now and called for an end to political gridlock in Congress.

Daily Caller - If you’re looking for an incentive to switch carriers, Sprint gave a good reason Thursday morning, announcing that they will become the first carrier to offer unlimited data (Internet access) with their new iPhone 4S.

AP - The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that France did not violate George Soros' rights when convicting him of insider trading, defeating a years-long effort by the billionaire financier to clear his name.

AP - NATO's bombing campaign in Libya, now in its seventh month, will continue despite the collapse of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, alliance officials said Thursday.

The supercommittee, tasked with formulating a plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years has been meeting behind closed doors, the details of its discussions largely unknown, at least to most ordinary Americans.

In a wrinkle that we’ll have to file under “figures,” deep-pocketed lobbyists have been privy to the details of the supercommittee’s talks while the American public have been, for all intents and purposes, shut out.

We’ve written a couple of times before about how the supercommittee would be under unprecedented pressure from lobbyists intent on preserving funding for their clients. The hope of course was that lobbyists wouldn’t have a seat at the table, but rather that the panel would come to a bipartisan agreement to reform our unsustainable spending and put the economy back on a path toward recovery. After all, Washington’s insiders on both sides of the aisle got us here, if they operate as Washington as usual, where will that get us?

Politico reports:

Want the inside scoop on the supercommittee? Ask a lobbyist.

K Streeters with deep ties to supercommittee members and congressional leadership say senior staffers have given them readouts from closed-door committee meetings. For example, senior aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who is on the panel, met with several Republican lobbyists on Thursday and among the topics discussed was the prospect for a grand deal. Two days earlier, Kyl and the rest of the committee answered no questions as they brushed past a gaggle of reporters who had waited outside the private, six-hour meeting.

The Thursday meeting with lobbyists isn’t an isolated case. Democratic and Republican lobbyists say they continue to get corporate clients with interests before the committee face time with members and staff.

In this type of high-stakes environment, the K Street power set is at its best — offering clients in the pharmaceutical, defense and other industries, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, a shot at staying out of the committee’s line of fire. It also confirms that these so-called access lobbyists, who charge retainers of $30,000 to $50,000 a month, still have plenty of political currency, despite familiar calls for reform and greater transparency that flared in the past election.

There is increased skepticism that the group will be able to reach a so-called “grand bargain” in the range of $3 to $4 trillion in deficit reduction. Have we put too much faith in the supercommitte?  We’ll withhold judgment until the committee releases its recommendations (due Nov. 23), but one thing is clear: the group cannot just go along with the “business as usual” mindset. Our economy faces enormous hurdles; a bold plan is necessary to clear them.

Politico - Her unannounced Thursday trip to the mega-retailer in Alexandria, Va., creates buzz and complaints.  

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Florida radio station WLRN Thursday that voters should blame President Obama for the bad economy, not President Bush.

ATKINSON, Neb. -- In a sometimes raucous collision of values and political passions, farmers, ranch owners, union laborers, students, politicians and environmentalists descended on a local high school here on Thursday to give representatives of the U.S. State Department -- and each other -- a piece of their minds on a controversial oil pipeline.

The issue at hand -- whether the Obama administration should grant a crucial permit for the so-called Keystone XL pipeline -- was distilled at varying moments as a referendum on jobs and dearly needed economic activity; on the fragility of the climate and the importance of a green economy; on landowner rights and the real threat of eminent domain; on states' rights versus those of the federal government; and even on the primacy of American interests over those of a foreign corporation.

But perhaps more than anything else -- at least here atop one of the world's largest and most pristine aquifers -- this was a referendum on water.

"The people of Holt County should not have to sacrifice their drinking water for some short-term economic boosts, or to provide jobs for people living outside the area," said Cindy Myers, a nurse and lifelong resident of the area, referring to the 150 or so union laborers who had been bused into the meeting from outlying areas, their orange shirts signaling their unified support of the pipeline.

Myers and the vast majority of the nearly 1,000 landowners and residents who crowded into the gymnasium of West Holt High School wore Nebraska red. "A contamination plume in our groundwater could very well destroy the livelihood and jobs of several people around here," she said.

Daniel Hendrix, of the Pipeliner's Union local 798 out of Tulsa, Okla., said pipeline projects are always "met with the same opposition and the same 'what ifs?'" But the odds of accidents can be minimized "through proper planning and advanced engineering."

"Let's build it," he said, "but build it right."

The controversial project has become a cause celebre among environmental groups opposed to anything that would further develop Canada's energy-intensive and environmentally destructive oil resources.

The meeting here was the most recent in a round of public hearings being sponsored by the State Department in states along the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry heavy crude from on oil patch in the Canadian province of Alberta across the U.S. border in Montana, then wend its way through South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma before terminating at refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

U.S. federal officials issued a final economic impact statement on the project at the end of August. The meetings, which will include a final hearing in Washington D.C. on Oct. 7, represent the last opportunity for public debate before the State Department (which has province over infrastructure that would cross an American border) to render a so-called "national interest" finding and grant a permit for the pipeline.

Among the increasingly murky issues being raised is just what rights states would have after that.

The question has become particularly acute here in Nebraska, where even the Republican governor, Dave Heineman, has come out in opposition to the pipeline's proposed route across a portion of the massive Ogallala aquifer -- a substantial source of drinking and irrigation water in America's breadbasket -- known as Sand Hills.

The water table beneath the Sand Hills is so close to the surface that the sandy soil is sometimes said to undulate like waves.

Those who depend on the aquifer fear oil leaks, which, no matter how well the system is built, are a functional inevitability. The State Department and TransCanada have said that any spill would cause minimal damage and be quickly contained. Supporters of the pipeline also point out that there are already natural gas and a small number of hazardous liquid pipelines crossing the Sand Hills region -- though the Keystone XL would be the first to carry oil.

Critics argue that it's not just any oil that would flow through the pipeline, but rather a thick from of crude called bitumen that is diluted with benzene and a variety of other potentially toxic additives.

Even so, many of the citizens gathered at Thursday's meeting said they supported the pipeline -- they just wanted it moved.

"I am not opposed to jobs," declared Nebraska State Sen. Annette Dubas. "But I am opposed to the route it will take through Nebraska's most sensitive ecological area."

James Osborne, a representative of the Teamsters Local 554 out of Omaha, agreed. "These pipe-fitters are as good as gold," he said, "but I can't sell out the Ogallala aquifer."

The crowed erupted in applause.

The State Department has issued mixed signals on where its authority ends. In its final environmental assessment of the proposal, the department noted that many alternate routes were submitted by TransCanada, but the route through the Sand Hills was the least destructive. Yet it has also asserted in public statements that its power does not extend to siting. A Congressional Research Service report on the Keystone XL proposal, published at the end of August, stated, "Ordinarily, the U.S. government does not have permit authority for oil pipelines, even interstate pipelines."

The confusion prompted Heineman to tell the Omaha News-Herald on Wednesday that he wasn't sure what authority Nebraska had to force a re-routing of the line should the State Department issue a permit.

Myers called that waffling. "I'm afraid that he's backing off his opposition," she said, "and that always makes me wonder if politics is at play."

Unlike neighboring Montana and South Dakota, Nebraska lacks specific laws regarding pipeline siting, though several state lawmakers have called for a special session of the legislature to pass provisions ahead of any State Department decision, which is expected before the end of the year.

"This is about Nebraska water, which is our most important resource in this state," said Democratic State Senator Ken Haar.

A TransCanada representative, Shawn Howard, said such a move would send a chilling message to companies seeking to do business in Nebraska.

"It suggests that they're going to change the rules in the middle of the game. Moving the pipeline is not really an option," he said. "You can't go around the aquifer; it covers seven states." Howard also said he believed that local residents were being stirred and driven by well-organized outsiders bent on frustrating all oil interests -- particularly those tied to the tar sands.

TransCanada long ago issued orders for pipeline and other equipment -- rolling the dice in anticipation of approval. Some of that material has already been delivered, and preliminary work is already being done at the Hardisty terminal in Alberta.

"Are we confident that we'll win approval? Yes," Howard said. "Be we're also not at the finish line."

When asked if legal action was an option should things not go TransCanada's way, Howard said, "I don't know. I'm not a lawyer."