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ByJuliePace The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama is finding himself with few friends in Washington. His former Pentagon chief is criticizing his for- eign policy. Longtime polit- ical advisers are question- ing his campaign strategy. And Democrats locked in tough midterm campaigns don't want Obama any- where near them between now and Election Day. The disenchantment with Obama is in part a reflection of inevitable fa- tigue with a president en- tering his final years in of- fice. But some Democrats say it is also a consequence of the president's insular approach to governing and his preference for relying on a small cadre of White House advisers, leaving him with few loyal allies on Cap- itol Hill or elsewhere. "This president is su- premely independent," said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and longtime ad- viser to President Bill Clin- ton. "In many ways that is a very good thing. He prob- ably came to the presidency owing less to other people than any president in mem- ory. The risk is that inde- pendence can morph into isolation." While White House offi- cials dispute the notion of an isolated or weakened president, there's little doubt that Obama's stand- ing with the American peo- ple and his own party has fallen since his resounding re-election in 2012. Battered by a flurry of crises at home and abroad, the president's approval rating has hov- ered near record lows for much of the year. His party is at risk of losing the Sen- ate in the November mid- terms and not one Demo- crat locked in a close race has chosen to make a cam- paign appearance alongside the president thus far. It's against that back- drop that some of Obama's longtime advisers have be- gun levying unsparing criti- cism, most notably Leon Pa- netta, the widely respected former congressman who served as CIA director and defense secretary in Obama's first term. In a new memoir and a series of in- terview, Panetta has taken aim at both Obama's for- eign policy decision-mak- ing and overall leadership skills. Panetta writes that as Pentagon chief, he feared that Obama's withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in late 2011 could put that country at risk of be- coming "a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S." The U.S. is now launching airstrikes against a militant group in Iraq, as well as Syria, that Obama administration offi- cials warn could ultimately pose a threat to the West. But Panetta's most scath- ing critique is reserved for Obama's leadership style. Writing about Obama's in- ability to stop deep bud- get cuts at the Pentagon, Panetta said the episode reflected the president's "most conspicuous weak- ness, a frustrating reti- cence to engage his oppo- nents and rally support for his cause." "Too often, in my view, the president relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader," Panetta added. Former President Jimmy Carter chimed in with his own critique Tuesday, tell- ing a Texas newspaper that it was hard to figure out ex- actly what Obama's policy is in the Middle East. "It changes from time to time. I noticed that two of his secretaries of defense, after they got out of office, were very critical of the lack of positive action on the part of the president," Carter told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, referring to both Panetta and Rob- ert Gates, Obama's first de- fense secretary. Gates lev- ied his own criticism of the president in a book earlier this year. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, also spent much of the summer promoting a book in which she sought to distance her- self from some of the pres- ident's decision-making in the Middle East. The public critiques have also extended to the presi- dent's political skills. After Obama said last week that his economic policies were on the ballot in November, his longtime political ad- viser David Axelrod cast that strategy as "a mistake." "I wouldn't put that line there," Axelrod said on NBC's "Meet the Press." White House advisers and others close to the pres- ident have dismissed the flood of criticism and the distance from Democrats as part of the natural arc of the presidency. "This is very much the product of the six-year itch," said Anita Dunn, Obama's former White House com- munications director. "If you're sitting in the White House, you put your head down and you do your job and realize that at the end of the day, you still have two more years to do a great deal." But Jim Manley, a for- mer senior adviser to Sen- ate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that job may only get harder if Dem- ocrats in Washington turn even further away from the president as the race to re- place him gets underway. "The fact of the matter is the president and his team have done a pretty poor job of trying to build of a group of loyal Democrats," Manley said. "They don't have too deep of a well to dip into anymore." ANALYSIS Ob am a al li es g et ti ng h ar de r to fi nd t he se d ay s JACQUELYNMARTIN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS President Barack Obama attends a meeting with senior military leaders at the Pentagon on Wednesday. The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Obama administration unveiled a new version of Health- Care.gov on Wednesday, with some improvements as well as at least one early mistake and a new chal- lenge. Officials also said that HealthCare.gov won't dis- play premiums for 2015 until the second week of November. Open enroll- ment season runs Nov. 15 through Feb. 15. Coverage can start as early as Jan. 1. On the plus side, the health insurance web- site will feature a stream- lined application for most of those signing up for the first time. Seventy-six screens in the online appli- cation have been reduced to 16, officials said. The site has been also optimized for mobile devices. The goof is a mistrans- lation in large type on the home page of the Span- ish-language version of the site. It's the very first word on the page. Trying to translate "get ready," someone came up with the wrong word in Spanish. The Spanish-language site had lots of problems last year, ranging from technology issues to clunky translations that left some native speakers puzzled. The administration strug- gled to sign up Hispanics, the nation's largest minor- ity and more likely to be uninsured than other eth- nic groups. This time, the website designers translated "get ready" as preparase. It should have been prepa- rese — with an "e" instead of an "a." The same mis- take appears three times on the Spanish home page, which is supposed to be a mirror-image of Health- Care.gov. Such a promi- nent error can uninten- tionally send a message that the site was not de- signed to professional standards. HealthCare.gov is the online portal to subsidized private health insurance for consumers who don't have access to a job-based plan. It served 36 states last open enrollment sea- son, while the remaining states ran their own insur- ance exchanges. The feds as well as some states ex- perienced crippling techni- cal problems, and officials are vowing things will be different this time. "Where we are focus- ing in on is a success- ful consumer experi- ence," said Andy Slavitt, a tech industry executive brought in by the Health and Human Services de- partment to oversee the relaunch. Insurers say one big challenge for next year will involve millions of return- ing customers. It's not re- ally a technology issue, but a time crunch that also co- incides with the Thanks- giving and Christmas hol- idays. Those returning cus- tomers will have just one month — until Dec. 15— to go back into their existing accounts and update their financial information. Act- ing by that date will ensure that they are getting the right amount of financial assistance with their pre- miums at the very start of the new plan year. WEBSITE White House unveils new edition of HealthCare.gov By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press WASHINGTON Scientists are moving closer to an ar- tificial hand that can feel: Implanted electrodes al- lowed some amputees to tell by touch how gently to grasp, letting them pluck fruit without crushing it. The two men told re- searchers at Case Western Reserve University that wir- ing some of their remaining nerves to a robotic arm — albeit only during visits to a lab — felt more like grasp- ing objects with their own hand than with a tool. "This feels like normal sensation," one of the men, Igor Spetic of Madison, Ohio, said in an interview. W hen researchers touched different spots on his artificial hand, "some- times it felt like a cotton ball," he said. "Sometimes like sandpaper." An unexpected benefit: The phantom pain both men have felt since losing their limbs in industrial accidents has nearly disap- peared since they began the experiment, the researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Science Transla- tional Medicine. It will take years of ad- ditional research before ro- botic hands really let peo- ple feel what they touch. But the new research is an important step, said Dr. Mi- chael Boninger, who directs the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's rehabilita- tion institute and wasn't in- volved with the experiments. Beyond better function, getting feedback from the limb "would be a spectacu- lar thing to be able to have, that you feel like the arm is your own," he said. People with natural limbs take for granted the intu- itive control that a sense of touch allows. Reach for something and your hand naturally grasps with just enough force to hang on. But users of prosthetic hands have to watch care- fully every motion, judg- ing by eye how tightly to squeeze so they don't either drop something or crush it. Consequently, many ampu- tees abandon prosthetic hands, or don't use them as much as they'd like. Here's how it works: The team at Case Western and the Cleveland Veterans Af- fairs Medical Center im- planted electrodes around three nerves in the stump of the men's arms. Wires snake from under the skin. During monthly visits to a lab, scientists hook themenuptoamachinethat sends electrical signals be- tween the stump and a pros- thetic hand. Sensors on the hand can convey a sense of touch from 16 to 19 spots. At first, it just felt like electrical tingles, Spetic said. But as researchers ad- justed the pattern and in- tensity of those signals, he started to feel pressure in his missing fingers, and even different textures. The real test was when the men tried plucking grapes and cherries from their stems. Blindfolded, they crushed a lot of fruit until the sensory feedback was switched on and they could gentle their grasp. "We can change what they're feeling and how they're feeling it," said Case Western biomedical engi- neer Dustin Tyler, who led the research. 'NORMAL SENSATION' Scientists report progress toward artificial hand with sense of touch THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Igor Spetic, of Madison, Ohio, holds a tomato he picked it up without losing a drop of juice in this image provided by Case Western Reserve University. 8049 Hwy 99E, Los Molinos, CA 1 Day 1 Day Meat Meat Bonanza Bonanza Saturday, October 11, 2014 8am-5pm Beef Tri-Tips (Untrimmed, In the Bag) $ 3.99 lb. Top Sirloin (In The Bag) $ 3.99 lb. 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