House approves ObamaCare bill despite veto threat

The House voted Thursday to curb a provision in ObamaCare that some lawmakers say is hurting the job market, as the new Republican-controlled Congress moved quickly to challenge the administration on several fronts. 
The House voted 252-172 for the ObamaCare bill, which tweaks the law's definition of full-time workers who must be offered employer-provided health care. Twelve Democrats sided with Republicans in approving the first Affordable Care Act-related legislation of the new Congress. 
The bill changes the full-time worker threshold from 30 hours weekly to a 40-hour minimum. Critics claim defining full-time employees as those working at least 30 hours is pressuring firms to save money by cutting workers' hours below that and, in turn, the number of full-time jobs. 
The White House, though, already has vowed to veto the bill, drawing jeers from GOP leaders. 
"You say you care about low-income workers, about working women and small businesses?" House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., taunted Obama. "Show it and sign this bill." 
The White House, just days into the 114th Congress, also has threatened to veto two other Republican-sponsored bills, including one forcing approval of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline. 
The House is planning to vote on that bill Friday, while a Senate panel on Thursday approved the legislation - teeing up debate on the Senate floor for next week. 
On both bills, GOP leaders would face uphill fights mustering the two-thirds House and Senate majority votes they would need to override Obama vetoes. But both measures had some support from Democrats, and Republicans could use them to portray themselves as championing bipartisan legislation, only to be thwarted by Obama and his Democratic congressional allies. 
"Given the chance to start with a burst of bipartisan productivity, the president turned his back on the American people's priorities," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday, adding, "We were taking our oath of office when they were issuing veto threats. Come on." 
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would sustain Obama's vetoes on both bills and said it was Republicans who have blocked progress. 
"The president has always extended the hand of friendship. Some say too much," she told reporters. 
She also said Democrats would uphold a promised Obama veto on a third measure rolling back some regulations on the financial industry enacted after the 2008 economic crash. That bill fell short in the House this week but is expected to pass on a revote next week. 
Obama's 2010 health care law, a perennial GOP target, is phasing in a requirement that companies with more than 50 full-time workers offer health care coverage or face penalty payments to the government. 
House Republicans say boosting the standard to 40 hours would protect those workers and named their bill the "Save American Workers Act." They cite a study by the conservative Hoover Institution saying that 2.6 million workers are at risk of having their hours reduced by the 30-hour minimum, including disproportionately high numbers of female, low-income, younger and less-educated workers. 
The White House and Democrats, with support from labor and liberal groups, mock the measure as the latest attempt by Republicans to scuttle Obama's health care law. The House has voted more than 50 times to repeal or roll back parts of that law since Republicans took control of the chamber in 2011. 
Democrats say changing the full-time threshold from 30 to 40 hours would make fewer workers eligible for employer-provided health coverage and put more of them at risk of losing that coverage from companies looking to cut costs. 
The measure's fate is less clear in the Senate, where majority Republicans will need at least six Democratic votes to get the 60 needed to overcome Democratic delaying tactics. Senate GOP leaders have not said when the bill will be debated.

California newspaper office vandalized over use of 'illegal' immigrant label

A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term.
The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper's director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the country illegally.

"It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally."- Statement from Santa Barbara News-Press

"The vandalism and the damage speak for itself, as well as the motivation behind it," Santa Barbara Police Officer Mitch Jan said. "At this point in time, I don't really have any suspect information. Without cameras or an eyewitness, we really don't know who would be responsible."
In addition to the writing on the building, graffiti espousing a no-borders mentality was scribbled on the walkway through Storke Placita and the sidewalk near Santa Barbara City Hall. Police were braced for a protest in front of the paper later this week. Jan said hundreds could show up, and the Police Department is aware of the call for a protest.
"There is a plan underway," he said. "There is extra staffing on board for it."
In a statement, the newspaper said it has no plans to drop its style in describing illegal immigrants.
"It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as “illegals” regardless of their country of origin," the statement read. "This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of “undocumented immigrants,” one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.
"It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally," the statement added.
The debate over how to label people who are in the U.S. without permission has raged at news organizations across the nation in recent years. In 2013, both The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times banned the phrase after employing it for decades, saying it "lacked precision," according to Pew Research Center.
The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal all use the phrase, although only The Wall Street Journal uses “illegal immigrant” to refer to people who not only criminally enter the U.S. without the proper documentation, but also those who overstay their visas.
FoxNews.com's policy is to describe immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as "illegal immigrants."

Obama proposes free community college program, cost details unclear

WASHINGTON –  President Obama on Thursday proposed making community college free for all Americans who are "willing to work for it," though the administration has not revealed the price tag or how exactly it would be paid for. 
In a video posted on Facebook, the president previewed his plan, which will be formally announced during a trip to Tennessee Friday. The president said he wants to provide free community college for two years, by covering enough tuition to get students who keep their grades up an associate's degree or halfway to a bachelor's. 
"It's not for kids," Obama said. "We also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits." 
On a conference call with reporters, however, administration officials were vague on the details. 
They said the funding details would come out later with the president's budget. They estimated 9 million students could participate and save an average of $3,800 in tuition per year. 
That suggests an annual cost in the tens of billions of dollars. The White House said the federal government would pick up 75 percent of the cost and the final quarter would come from states that opt into the program. 
The proposal drew an immediate critical response from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose spokesman said, "with no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan." 
The idea was reminiscent of Obama's 2013 State of the Union proposal to provide universal preschool, which Congress did not take up because of cost issues. Obama policy adviser Cecilia Munoz pointed out that even without federal action, many states are taking up the idea and expanding preschool. 
Last year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a scholarship program that provides free community and technical college tuition for two years to the state's high school graduates. About 58,000 of the state's roughly 62,000 seniors have applied to participate this fall. 
But Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black said her state's plan, called Tennessee Promise, is paid mostly with lottery funds, while the federal funding source for Obama's plan is unclear and states will have to help pick up the tab. "Ultimately, any efforts to reboot Tennessee Promise as a one-size-fits-all nationwide approach will be met with heavy skepticism from Congress," Black said. 
Under the president's new plan, students would be required to maintain a 2.5 GPA while in college, and must make steady progress toward completing their program in order to have their tuition eliminated, according to the press release. 
"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who is willing to work for it," the president said.

2 reported dead in 2nd hostage situation as police pin massacre suspects north of Paris

French police were confronting two separate -- but apparently related -- hostage situations Friday, after a jihadist couple suspected of killing a cop a day earlier stormed a Paris deli, killing two and taking as many as five prisoners even as the suspects Wednesday's massacre at a Paris satirical magazine were holed up in a printing plant 25 miles north of the city, authorities said.
Authorities feared all four suspects, who may know one another, are bent on going out as martyrs, and potentially killing hostages and police officers in the process. The fast-moving developments came as nearly 90,000 police and military personnel were deployed to bring the terror crisis that has gripped the European nation since late Wednesday morning, when a pair of brothers conducted a bloody commando-style raid on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical magazine that had angered Muslim radicals by repeatedly publishing images of Prophet Muhammed.
"Even though these guys are a bunch of savages, the negotiators are going to be trying to calm things down ... the less volatile things are, the safer it is for everybody," James Alvarez, who has worked as a consultant for Scotland Yard and the New York Police Department, told Sky News as the dueling situations unfolded.
The hostage takers in the second case, at a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris, were identified by police as Amedy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene, a couple suspected in the murder Thursday of Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city. Authorities believe the case is related to Wednesday's attack, which 12 people, including two cops, dead at the publication Charlie Hebdo, which has angered Muslim radicals by publishing images of Prophet Muhammed.
The Islamist brothers suspected of killing 12 people in an attack on a French satirical magazine were holding at least one hostage inside a printing house surrounded by police northeast of Paris Friday morning, and at least two people were reportedly dead in a separate, but likely related hostage situation in Paris. 
Hundreds of French security forces backed by a convoy of ambulances streamed into Dammartin-en-Goele, a small industrial town 25 miles outside the capital in a massive operation to seize the men suspected of carrying out France's deadliest terror attack in 54 years. The suspects reportedly told police negotiators they were ready to "die as martyrs."

"France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty -- and thus of resistance -- breathed freely."- French President Francois Hollande

Meanwhile, two people were reportedly dead in connection with a separate hostage situation in a kosher grocery on the east side of Paris, where a gunman armed with AK-47s was believed to be holding as many as five hostages, including women and children. The gunman in that case is believed to be the same person who shot a Paris policewoman on Thursday. Authorities believ the second hostage situation is related to Wednesday's massacre and the ongoing standoff involving the suspects in Wednesday's massacre at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
The two suspects in the massacre, identified as brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, were holed up Friday inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte. Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, and town hall spokeswoman Audrey Taupenas, said there appeared to be one hostage inside the printing house.

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Police identified Hayat Boumeddiene and Amedy Coulibaly as the suspects in a second hostage situation unfolding in Paris.

Christelle Alleume, who works across the street, said that a round of gunfire interrupted her coffee break Friday morning.
"We heard shots and we returned very fast because everyone was afraid," she told i-Tele. "We had orders to turn off the lights and not approach the windows.
Officials told Fox News that there were four people inside the business when the gunmen went inside, but three people were somehow able to leave the area. 
The Associated Press reported that at least three helicopters were seen hovering above the town. At nearby Charles de Gaulle airport, two runways were briefly closed to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff, but were later reopened. Schools went into lockdown.
Earlier Friday, a French security official told the AP that shots were fired as the suspects stole a car in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite in the early morning hours. French officials told Fox News that the suspects threw the car's driver out at the side of the road. The driver, who recognized the suspects, then called police and alerted them to the suspects' whereabouts. 
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that 88,000 security forces have mobilized to find the brothers after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday.
On Thursday, U.S. government sources confirmed that Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp. The other brother, Cherif, had been convicted in France of terrorism charges in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq. The sources also confirmed that both brothers were on a U.S. no-fly list. 
Fox News was told the investigators have made it a priority to determine whether he had contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen's leadership, including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.
French President Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country's worst terrorist attack since 1961, in the middle of the conflict over Algerian independence from France.
"France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty -- and thus of resistance -- breathed freely," Hollande said.
Nine people, members of the brothers' entourage, have been detained for questioning in several regions. In all, 90 people, many of them witnesses to the grisly assault on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, were questioned for information on the attackers, Cazeneuve said in a statement.
The minister confirmed reports the men were identified by the elder brother's ID card, left in an abandoned getaway car, a slip that contrasted with the seeming professionalism of the attack.
A third suspect, 18-year-old Mourad Hamyd, surrendered at a police station Wednesday evening after hearing his name linked to the attacks. His relationship to the Kouachi brothers was unclear.
Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State's leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.
Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack.

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Jan. 9, 2015: A Police helicopter circles over Dammartin-en-Goele, France, as part of an operation to seize two heavily armed suspects. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler)

Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper.
Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those slain, "symbolized secularism ... the combat against fundamentalism," his companion, Jeannette Bougrab, said on BFM-TV.
"He was ready to die for his ideas," she said.
Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria -- headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda have threatened France -- home to Western Europe's largest Muslim population.
The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.

Boehner Cartoon

Saudi connection? Lawmakers up pressure on Obama to release secret 9/11 documents

Congressional lawmakers on Wednesday ramped up efforts to get President Obama to release 28 top-secret pages from a 9/11 report that allegedly detail Saudi Arabia's involvement in the terror attacks. 
Lawmakers and advocacy groups have pushed for the declassification for years. The effort already had bipartisan House support but now has the backing of retired Florida Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman whom supporters hope will help garner enough congressional backing to pressure Obama into releasing the confidential information. 
“The American people have been denied enough,” North Carolina GOP Rep. Walter Jones said on Capitol Hill. “It’s time for the truth to come out.” 
Jones has led the effort with Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch, among the few members of Congress who have read the 28 redacted pages of the joint House and Senate “Inquiry into Intelligence Activities Before and After the Terror Attacks,” initially classified by President George W. Bush. They introduced a new resolution on Wednesday urging Obama to declassify the pages. 
Jones and other lawmakers have described the documents' contents as shocking. 
That 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian citizens is already known. But Graham and the congressmen suggested the documents point to Saudi government ties and repeatedly said Wednesday that the U.S. continues to deny the truth about who principally financed the attacks -- covering up for Saudi Arabia, a wealthy Middle East ally. 

'The Saudis know what they did'- Former Sen. Bob Graham

“The Saudis know what they did. We know what they did,” said Graham, who for more than a decade has pushed to get to the bottom of the attacks. He made clear he was referring to "the Kingdom," and not just Saudi operatives inside the country. 
He argued that failing to disclose the truth will spur Saudi Arabia’s continued or “accelerated … financial support for institutions carrying out extreme forces of Islam.” Graham argued Saudi Arabia has been a hotbed for such extremist groups as Al Qaeda, al-Shabaab and now the Islamic State. 
Lynch called Jones “relentless” in his efforts to publicize the pages and reveal the truth about Saudi Arabia’s connection to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including who financed the terrorists who hijacked and brought down four passenger jets, killing nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil.  
“We're going to keep pushing,” Lynch said. “The release of this report will influence national security and foreign policy.” 
When pressed by reporters, the lawmakers said they couldn’t and wouldn’t reveal the exact contents of the pages, as it remains classified. But they said the release of the information has the potential to change foreign policy and national security while posing no risk to U.S. intelligence agents or methods -- and Obama should make the details public.
Saudi officials have said they have nothing to hide and also have called for the declassification of the pages.
The press conference took place just hours after masked gunmen killed at least 12 people in Paris, at a publication that had mocked the Prophet Mohammed. Prince Khaled bin Bandar, the Saudi intelligence chief, also was in Washington this week to talk about joint efforts to fight ISIS.
Jones and Lynch last year submitted a House resolution on the document issue and filed another on Tuesday. They acknowledge the difficulty in getting sponsors for the release of a document few have seen but vowed to keep trying, in large part because of the families who lost relatives in the attacks.
“They are the reason we are here,” Lynch said.
The effort has garnered support from an array of advocacy groups including 28pages.org and 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism.
“We all know Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11,” said Terry Strada, a group co-chairwoman whose husband, Tom, died in the attacks. “But that is only half of the truth. The other half lies in the 28 pages.”

Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Kelvin Cochran was five-years-old when he realized that he wanted to be a firefighter.
“My family was very, very poor,” Cochran told me. “We were living in a shotgun house in an alley – three big brothers, two little sisters.”
One Sunday afternoon the Cochran children heard a fire truck stop across from their neighbor’s home. Miss Maddie’s house was one fire.

“It’s a frightening day in the United States when a person cannot express their faith without fears of persecution following,” White told me. “It’s persecution when a godly fire chief loses his job over expressing his Christian faith.”

“That’s the day that God convicted me in my heart that I wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up,” Cochran said. “All I thought about growing up in Shreveport was not being poor and being a firefighter.”
And God granted Kelvin Cochran the desires of his heart. The little boy in the shotgun shack grew up to become the fire chief of Shreveport. He was named the Atlanta fire chief in 2008 – a position he served until 2009 when was called to serve in the Obama Administration as a fire administrator. In 2010 he returned to Atlanta where he was unanimously confirmed to once again be the city’s fire chief.
But now Chief Cochran’s storied career is up in smoke – all because of a book he wrote for a men’s Bible study group at his Baptist church.
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Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced Tuesday that Cochran had been fired. The announcement came on the same day Cochran was supposed to return to work following a 30-day suspension. 
“The LGBT members of our community have a right to be able to express their views and convictions about sexuality and deserve to be respected for their position without hate or discrimination,” Cochran told me in an exclusive interview. “But Christians also have a right to express our belief regarding our faith and be respected for our position without hate and without discrimination. In the United States, no one should be vilified, hated or discriminated against for expressing their beliefs.”
Cochran had been suspended in November because of a passage he wrote about homosexuality in a book titled, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” The book’s theme is about biblical morality.
“This is about judgment,” Mayor Reed said during a Tuesday press conference. “This is not about religious freedom. This is not about free speech. Judgment is the basis of the problem.”
Last November the mayor posted a public condemnation of the fire chief on his official Facebook page.
“I profoundly disagree with and am deeply disturbed by the sentiments expressed in the paperback regarding the LGBT community,” the mayor wrote. “I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration.”
The mayor went on to inform the public that Cochran had been suspended without pay and was ordered to complete a sensitivity training class. 
“I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the Administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens -- regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs,” Mayor Reed wrote.
So what in the world did Cochran write that was so offensive to the mayor and the LGBT community?
According to the GA Voice, a publication that covers the LGBT community, there were two items that caused concern: 
“Uncleanness – whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, all other forms of sexual perversion.”
“Naked men refuse to give in, so they pursue sexual fulfillment through multiple partners, with the opposite sex, the same sex, and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways which defile their body – temple and dishonor God.”
Cochran said he referenced homosexuality on less than a half a page in the 160-page book.
“I did not single out homosexuality,” he said. ‘I simply spoke to sex being created by God for pro-creation and He intended it to be between a man and a woman in holy matrimony – and that any other sex outside of that is sin.”
Cochran told me that someone within the department obtained a copy of the book and took it to openly-gay city council member Alex Wan.  
Wan released a statement supporting Cochran’s termination and said it “sends a strong message to employees about how much we value diversity and how we adhere to a non-discriminatory environment.”
The book caused a firestorm within Atlanta’s LGBT community and there were many calls for him to be fired – a decision the mayor finally agreed to.
“I guess they got what they asked for,” Cochran said.
Georgia Equality Executive Director Jeff Graham told GA Voice Cochran’s “anti-gay” views could result in a hostile work environment.
“This is not about his religious views but his about his ability to lead a diverse work force,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that this had to happen. I feel the mayor has done the right thing to ensure all employees are treated fairly.” 
The allegations against Cochran amount to a he-said, he-said between the fire chief and the mayor.
Reed said that he had no knowledge that Cochran was writing a book. However, Cochran said the director of Atlanta’s ethics office had not only given him permission to write the book, but to also mention in his biography that he was the city’s fire chief.
Cochran said he gave a copy of the book to Mayor Reed in January, 2014 and the mayor told him he planned on reading it during an upcoming trip.
Cochran also admitted that he gave copies of the book to several members of the fire department – individuals with whom he had personal relationships.
The mayor also took issue with Cochran speaking publicly about his suspension. However, Cochran said he honored the mayor’s guidance and did not speak to the media. He did, however, share his testimony in several churches.
“I did not dishonor him in the process,” Cochran told me.
Cochran wants to make clear that he does not hate anyone.
“The essence of the Christian faith is a love without condition, sir,” he told me. “I have demonstrated that love in the fire service for 34 years. There’s not any person of any people group that has interacted with me for any measure of time that can say I have hate or disregard or discrimination in my heart for any people group.”
Cochran’s plight has drawn condemnation from a number of religious groups across Georgia including the influential Georgia Baptist Convention.
“This is appalling,” said Robert White, president of the Georgia Baptist Convention. “This has everything to do with his religious beliefs.”
White told me he believes the mayor succumbed to pressure from the city’s LGBT community.
“It’s a frightening day in the United States when a person cannot express their faith without fears of persecution following,” he told me. “It’s persecution when a godly fire chief loses his job over expressing his Christian faith.”
And the fire chief’s firing could spark public protests and demonstrations from the state’s Christian community.
“We’re past the point of taking a public stand,”  White told me. “Christians must stand up for their rights.”
Cochran told me he is considering his legal options – but one thing is certain. He has no desire to get his old job back.
“I believe God has greater things for me,” the father and grandfather said. “I love the fire services. It’s a childhood dream come true.”
And don’t go feeling sorry for Chief Cochran.
“I’m not discouraged and I’m not downtrodden,” he said. “This is a God thing and He’s going to do great things and He will vindicate me publicly.”

Off to a bad start? McConnell blasts Obama for early veto threat on Keystone

WASHINGTON –  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted President Obama on Wednesday for vowing to veto the first bill of the new, Republican-controlled Senate -- legislation to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. 

In his first major floor speech as majority leader, the Kentucky Republican pushed for bipartisan cooperation on major issues but said it could "only be achieved if, if, President Obama is interested in it." 
He added: "And I assure you, threatening to veto a jobs and infrastructure bill within minutes of a new Congress taking the oath of office -- a bill with strong bipartisan support -- is anything but productive." 
McConnell's top lieutenants echoed his concerns, with Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, calling the "premature" veto threats "deeply irresponsible and troubling." 
The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto two pieces of legislation being produced by the new Congress -- one related to ObamaCare and the economy, and the other on the Keystone pipeline. On Wednesday, the White House issued formal statements vowing to veto the bills. 
On the Keystone bill, the White House claimed the legislation would prevent "the thorough consideration of complex issues that could bear on U.S. national interests." 
The Obama administration wants to let a separate State Department review process play out, though pipeline supporters complain that process already has been underway for years. 
The veto threat over Keystone sets up a looming showdown between Obama and the GOP-controlled Congress, while underscoring the deep tensions likely to persist as majority Republicans challenge the president's agenda during his final two years in office. 
As the Senate moves ahead with its own legislation -- with sponsors claiming to have more than enough votes to pass it -- the House is set to vote on its version on Friday. 
One of the sponsors, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Fox News he expected a veto threat but predicted: "We're going to win on the merits." 
If the legislation passes and Obama vetoes, supporters in Congress would need to muster a two-thirds majority to override -- or try and attach the measure to a separate piece of legislation. 
The $8 billion oil pipeline would run from Canada's oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. It has become a symbol of divisions over the country's energy and environmental policy. 
Republicans argue that the project would create jobs and reduce U.S. dependency on oil from the Middle East. 
Obama downplayed the potential benefits of pipeline in late December and claimed it would not lower gas prices for Americans -- but instead would help Canadian oil companies. 
The 1,179-mile project is proposed to go from Canada through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. 
Despite the disagreement over Keystone, McConnell seemed optimistic that both parties in the Senate could work together on other measures such as strengthening Medicare and Social Security, revamping tax laws and working "to balance the budget and put our growing national debt on a path to elimination." 
Meanwhile, the White House threatened to veto legislation that would increase his health care law's definition of a full-time worker from 30 to 40 hours per week. 
Republicans say the health law's 30-hour requirement is encouraging companies to cut workers' hours. The White House said in statement Wednesday there is no evidence the law has caused a broad shift to part-time work. The House plans to debate the measure this week as one of its first orders of business in the new Congress. 
The White House argues the bill would reduce the number of Americans with employer-based health insurance coverage and create incentives for employers to shift employees to part-time work. 
House Speaker John Boehner, like McConnell, lamented the early veto threats. 
"Unfortunately, by threatening two of these bipartisan jobs bills, the president essentially is telling the American people he really doesn't care what they think," he said. 
Amid the dispute over veto threats, Obama visited a Ford assembly plant in Michigan on Wednesday to tout the auto industry's recovery -- as part of the run-up to his State of the Union address. 
Obama declared the worst of the financial crisis "is behind us" and touted that auto companies have repaid taxpayers for the crisis-era bailout. 
"The auto industry has proved that any comeback is possible," Obama said.