U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged that U.S. economic prescriptions for Latin America have not reduced poverty, and he pledged openness to new ideas.
"The benefits of growth don't seem to be reaching all the people," Paulson told reporters this week during a flight to Lima, Peru, from Guatemala City.
"People are going to have to try some new ideas. I have some views. I want to do some more listening."
WASHINGTON - Stepping back from previous assertions that Fidel Castro was near death, U.S. officials say that the image of an increasingly revitalized Castro is impeding the island's day-to-day leadership from making major changes.
Thomas Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told McClatchy Newspapers in an interview that Cuba was in a period of "suspended animation" as Castro exerted a "controlling political presence" on the island.
While Shannon did not directly contradict previous statements from U.S. officials that suggested Castro was close to death, his comments suggest that the Bush administration is more cautious in its assessment of whether Castro will return, and in what capacity.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he'll join the 2008 presidential race. The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he's not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he...
WASHINGTON - The inquiry into the firing of eight federal prosecutors threatened Wednesday to widen into a constitutional confrontation as a House panel authorized subpoenas requiring Karl Rove and senior Bush administration officials to testify under oath.
The White House dug in against the demand, although Democrats in Congress held out hope for a compromise. "Who knows where it will lead?" said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Members of a House judiciary subcommittee approved the subpoenas for Rove and four others, but they did not issue them, saying they hoped to avoid a showdown over separation of powers.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- During a congressional showdown over illegal immigration last spring, Justice Department officials found themselves scrambling to answer Republicans' pointed questions about low immigration-related prosecution rates by U.S. attorneys on the southwest border. Republicans, including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had honed in on Southern California's U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, demanding to know why they were hearing she had refused to prosecute illegal immigrants unless they had...
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's top leader warned Wednesday his country will pursue "illegal actions" if the U.N. Security Council insists it halt uranium enrichment, an apparent reference to nuclear activities outside international regulations. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also warned the United States that Iran would fight back with "all its capacities" if attacked. "Until today, what we have done has been in accordance with international regulations," Khamenei said. "But if they take illegal action...
Washington is a city that lies on the bank of the Potomac River. That is true whether you are looking at it or listening to it.
That was painfully apparent on March 16. It was the last day of Sunshine Week, a reform-minded push for government openness and truth ? and the Washington sky was dark and gloomy, first menacing and then delivering.
Soon Washington was awash in rain and sleet and a Bush administration reign of lies ? the last of which infuriated congressional Republicans every bit as much as the Democrats.
Ohio ended the $2.1 million contract because the nonprofit didn't answer the state's questions.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
COLUMBUS — The state of Ohio terminated its 20-month, $2.1 million contract with We Care America, a non-profit hired to administer grants to faith-based and community organizations serving the needy.
The airlines lost her luggage and left her stranded for the night without a bed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. But veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas spared no energy Wednesday in savaging the Bush administration for its handling of the war on terror.
"We have no right to be in Iraq. It's wrong, it's illegal," she told a large crowd at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg. The 86-year-old White House press conference fixture was the paid speaker at the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce's 2007 Women's Symposium. Most of the content, including several laugh lines, was Thomas' standard lecture circuit material.
Despite strafing the Washington establishment, Thomas was grandmotherly grace with her fans in signing copies of her latest book, Watchdogs of Democracy? The book takes the press to task for what she deems insufficient skepticism after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Never has so much been made by so few over so little.
Congressional Democrats, perhaps frustrated by their inability to force their will on the executive branch over Iraq, have been sniffing all over the woods for a "scandal" that will stick.
Now they think they have the president treed, and have pushed the federal government to the brink of crisis over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys - which the Democrats and everyone else acknowledge is perfectly legal for the nation's chief executive to do for any reason.
American justice is becoming an oxymoron to a substantial number of U.S. friends abroad. Few of them will delve deeply enough into Gonzalesgate or the perjury conviction of Scooter Libby or "renditions" by the CIA to see any silver linings in the leaden clouds now smothering the Bush administration.
Beneath the clouds of scandal, however, the U.S. legal system and its civil libertarians are alive, well and functioning in a robust at times even excessive fashion. Think of it, as Alexis de Tocqueville did, as the healthy "clamor" that defines and preserves American democracy.
The outcry over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' ham-handed sacking of eight U.S. attorneys last year provides the latest evidence that far-left or libertarian hyperbole about the rise of "fascism" in an American "police state" is wildly off the mark. So does the conviction by 11 standard-issue citizens of Libby, the most powerful staffer for the most powerful vice president in history. Some police state.
President Bush seems to be inviting a constitutional confrontation with Congress over whether Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will testify in public and under oath before congressional committees on the politically motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee voted Wednesday to issue subpoenas for Rove, the president's chief political adviser, and Miers, the former White House counsel. The Senate is expected to follow suit today. E-mail exchanges suggest that both top presidential advisers were involved in the firings. For Congress to get to the bottom of the matter, lawmakers need to question both Rove and Miers under oath.
However, the president is suggesting that the administration will defy the congressionally issued subpoenas, claiming a most elastic defense of "executive privilege." This is no surprise. This president has routinely put secrecy above the public's right to know. And Bush has routinely asserted executive power that he does not have.
This alternative minimum tax mess can be fixed just as fast and easily as the Bush administration messed it up.
Consider this: The AMT was originally written to assure that the wealthiest taxpayers pay income tax because there have always been tax-avoidance schemes in which only the wealthiest taxpayers could afford to invest. People with intelligence wrote the original AMT law to make sure these schemes wouldn't allow those taxpayers to pay no tax.
It would certainly be harder to find this level of intelligence in Washington right now, but there must be some who are bright enough to adjust the AMT law so it can fulfill its original purpose without snaring middle-class taxpayers. While other adjustments would be necessary to fine-tune the AMT, the two major changes are very simple and straightforward:
WASHINGTON - Payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging would continue for five more years under a deal announced Tuesday by Senate Democrats.
The deal, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Western senators, would authorize about $2.8 billion to extend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act through 2011.
Another $1.9 billion would be directed to rural states through a proposal to fully fund the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, which reimburses state and local governments for federally owned property.
WASHINGTON ? Republicans and Democrats alike sternly warned the FBI on Tuesday that it risks losing its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists because of rampant abuses of the authority.
The threats were the latest blow to the embattled Justice Department and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is already on the defensive and fighting to keep his job over the firings of federal prosecutors.
The warnings came as the department's chief watchdog, inspector general Glenn A. Fine, told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue national security letters, which resulted in illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign has snagged one of New Hampshire's top political operatives.
Bill Shaheen, husband of former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, will serve as co-chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign.
"I am supporting Hillary because I trust her, because she's honest and intelligent," Shaheen said in an e-mail sent to Clinton supporters. "She has the experience, wisdom and courage we desperately need in our next president. She has faced the toughest tests time and time again, and she has always remained true to herself, emerging stronger and more prepared to handle the challenges that come her way."
Dueling Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are veering onto collision course over Iraq, as the war which ripped schisms in U.S. politics now tears at the 2008 White House race.
As the two senators join their party's bid to crank up political heat on President George W. Bush with the conflict grinding into a fifth year, their campaigns are, in the words of one Obama aide, "savaging" each other on the war.
The building confrontation, which has already sparked several rounds of shadow boxing between the rivals, is a sign the war will have a potent impact on early skirmishes of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Charleston’s Jack Sanders Sr. stirred some JG/T-C online comment with his prediction in a letter published on this page Friday, March 16, that “Scooter” Libby would be pardoned by President Bush.“Libby will stay out of prison on appeals until Bush is in his last days in office, at which time Bush will pardon him. And, there is not one thing the people of this country can do to prevent one criminal from pardoning another,” Sanders wrote.I’m inclined to agree th...
Washington ?- President Bush and Congress clashed Tuesday over an inquiry into the firing of federal prosecutors and appeared headed toward a constitutional showdown over demands from Capitol Hill for more information about internal White House deliberations.
Under growing political pressure, the White House offered to allow members of congressional committees to hold private interviews with Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff; Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel; and two other officials. It also offered to provide access to some e-mail messages and other communications about the dismissals, but not those between White House officials.
Democrats promptly rejected the offer, which specified that the officials would not testify under oath, that there would be no transcript of what they said and that Congress would not subsequently subpoena them.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan today took center stage today in Democrats' opposition to the Bush administration on multiple fronts, blasting the FBI for misusing so-called national security letters "to invade the privacy of law-abiding Americans outside the law and proper legal process," and threatening to subpoena top White House aides involved in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
The Detroit Democrat, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called a hearing today to look closely at an independent report by the Justice Department's Inspector General that found repeated errors in the FBI's use of national security letters. The high-profile hearings were held as pressure mounts on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the separate controversy over whether the firings of eight federal prosecutors were politically motivated.
The letters at the center of today's hearing are essentially secret subpoenas that enable law enforcement to quickly gather such information as phone and financial records without court order or court review. While the FBI had authority to use such letters before September 11, the USA Patriot Act passed shortly thereafter greatly expanded their use.
WASHINGTON The Bush administration is easing access to Medicaid for infants whose parents are not citizens.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will change the documentation requirements to allow all babies born in the United State to be treated equally, even if their births were covered through emergency Medicaid.Previously, the parents of babies born under those situations had to abide by their state's requirements on proof of citizenship and identity. Judith Solomon -- a senior fell...
UNITED NATIONS The U-N's top envoy to Afghanistan is calling on the international community to do more to counter a resurgence of the Taliban.Tom Koenigs told the Security Council it needs to help develop Afghanistan, improve security there, and eradicate the poppy trade. Experts warn that Afghanistan's poppy crop will top last year's record-setting levels, and the profits will be used to fuel terrorism and increase the Taliban threat.Koenigs said progress had been made in northern Afghanistan, ...
WASHINGTON - In response to concerns that some babies may be missing out on essential health care, the Bush administration will issue a rule making it easier for the infants of non-citizens to gain access to services covered through Medicaid.
WASHINGTON - Republicans and Democrats alike sternly warned the FBI on Tuesday that it risks losing its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists because of rampant abuses of the authority.
The threats were the latest blow to the embattled Justice Department and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is already on the defensive and fighting to keep his job over the firings of federal prosecutors.
The warnings came as the department's chief watchdog, inspector general Glenn A. Fine, told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue national security letters, which resulted in illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners.
WASHINGTON - President Bush fought back Tuesday in the controversy over eight fired federal prosecutors, defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, refusing to let his aides testify publicly and demanding that Democrats "drop the partisanship."
"The initial response by Democrats, unfortunately, shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts," Bush said in a hastily arranged late-afternoon White House appearance. "There is no indication that anybody did anything improper."
The president's counterattack put the White House and Congress on a collision course over investigations into the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys last year. Democrats say they are increasingly convinced that at least some of the prosecutors were fired because they resisted political interference into their investigations, which, if true, could be obstruction of justice.
FORGETFULNESS has become an infectious disease in the Bush administration, now faced with yet another embarrassing fiasco.
This time the subject is the suspicious removal of certain U.S. attorneys. As White House press secretary Tony Snow explained late last week: "At this juncture, people have hazy memories."
The most interesting part of that sentence is its opening phrase: At this juncture. We can take it from Snow, then, that these same memories were in better working order at some other point in time.
WASHINGTON – President Bush and Congress clashed Tuesday over an inquiry into the firing of federal prosecutors and appeared headed toward a constitutional showdown over demands from Capitol Hill for more information about internal White House deliberations.
Under growing political pressure, the White House offered to allow members of congressional committees to hold private interviews with Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff; Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel; and two other officials. It also offered to provide access to some e-mail messages and other communications about the dismissals, but not those between White House officials.
Democrats promptly rejected the offer, which specified that the officials would not testify under oath, that there would be no transcript of what they said and that Congress would not subsequently subpoena them.
CAPITOL HILL (AP) - The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to end the Bush administration's ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies.
The 94-to-2 vote reverses a provision in the Patriot Act.
It allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.
Comments about Iraq (etc.) from across the ideological spectrum. . .
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the terrorist leader of al-Qaida in Iraq: "The American people.voted for something reasonable in the last elections."
Republican Sen. John McCain: "We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement - that's the kindest word I can give you - of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. . . . I think that Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."
Well, huzzah-huzzah-huzzah! Scooter Libby, former chief aide to Vice President Cheney, has at long-last, based upon a publicly identified liar in the person of Joe Wilson (husband of the never-was a covert CIA operative Valerie Plame) been convicted by a Washington, D.C., jury. Among those pristine citizens on the jury were a neighbor of Tim Russert, who testified in the trial, a co-worker of Bob Woodward at the Washington Post who has declared post-verdict that he is writing a book about the tr...
No one was ever charged with a crime during this two-year, expensive, investigation by Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald. Richard Armitage was known to be the source who identified Ms. Plame as a ClA operative -- again, NOT COVERT operative -- to Robert Novak. Scooty Libby, for whatever reason, did not have clarity of recall as to certain dates and discussions and honestly so stated. For that "grievous sin," he now faces up to 30 years in prison. Let's review some actual facts forthwith:
1. The Washington press corps and the DNC propaganda machine, aka the "major media," have openly stated that their real target was VP Cheney and ultimately President Bush. Thank God for the left-wing lunatic fringe! 2. The British intelligence reports have been confirmed as accurate insofar as their stated claim that Iraqi operatives had been attempting to obtain yellow cake uranium from Chad and other entities in Africa in 1999. 3.
There's really no good way to complete that thought. And even if someone made one up, you wouldn't read it here. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has it right when he calls adults who would sexually abuse children "monsters."
"Not in Texas," he says.
Yet that doesn't mean Mr. Dewhurst and the Legislature should rewrite Texas law to punish these monstrous acts with the death penalty, a punishment reserved for the most heinous crimes that result in a victim's death.
WASHINGTON -- Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more forthcoming about the White House role in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.
And today, the Justice Department plans to turn over documents that could provide more details of what role agency officials -- including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- as well as top White House officials played in planning the dismissals.
While that unfolds, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy says he's sick and tired of what he calls "half-truths" and plans to subpoena White House personnel to force them to testify about the firings in public.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama brought his Democratic presidential campaign to Oklahoma for the first time Monday with a promise to end the war in Iraq and change the culture of political gamesmanship in Washington. "We've got a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged," Obama said as a crowd of more than 1,000 people erupted in cheers and applause. Obama said the Iraq war, which enters its fifth year Tuesday, has diminished the natio...
Let's start with the relatively minor. In his statement to Congress, Gonzales acknowledges it would be wrong to remove prosecutors for political reasons. It is so wrong, he tells Congress, that he would never, ever do such a terrible thing.
And yet he did.
Since that statement, the evidence has become overwhelming that some if not most of the attorneys were ousted for political reasons, with considerable input from the White House. One of the eight, for example, was removed as U.S. attorney in Arkansas despite glowing performance reviews. Why? So an aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove could get the job.
WASHINGTON (AP) Two of the major players in the ouster of federal prosecutors last year were themselves considered for U.S. attorney jobs, according to documents and interviews.
Kyle Sampson, who helped orchestrate the firing of eight prosecutors as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, was the Bush administration's pick to fill Utah's vacant U.S. attorney post last spring.
Pat Rogers, an Albuquerque, N.M., attorney who has represented the state Republican Party and party officials for several years, raised his concerns about his state's U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, with high-level Justice Department officials, among others.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is doubling the amount of money it is spending this year on a project to deepen 103 miles of the Columbia River, an Oregon congressman said Monday. A spokesman for Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said the White House will announce this week that it is spending $30 million in the current budget year for the dredging project, up from $15 million initially approved by Congress. The additional money will be spent by Sept. 30 and will allow work to continue on...
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday as the Justice Department released e-mails with new details about the firings of federal prosecutors. The White House said it hoped Gonzales would survive the tumult.
Asked if the attorney general had contained the political damage from the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, "I don't know."
Documents released Monday night by the Justice Department show that Gonzales was unhappy with how Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained the firings to the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February.
WASHINGTON – Sen. John Cornyn has proved himself time and again to be one of President Bush's fiercest defenders. It's endeared him to conservatives, but the cachet of being the president's man in Congress isn't what it used to be.
Last week, Mr. Cornyn broke ranks. He criticized the attorney general over the handling of politically tinged firings of prosecutors. And he took on the president on education policy, pushing a No Child Left Behind overhaul that would undo federal testing requirements at the heart of a signature Bush program.
Is he trying to put an unpopular president at arm's length as he gears up for his next campaign?
Dubai group in talks on U.S. aviation assets: source
2007-03-19
One can only hope that the current administration is not planning to go to war with Iran, but all signs indicate differently.
The administration has chosen saber rattling over diplomacy and negotiation. As our vice president says, all "options are on the table." What he meant was all options are on the table except for "negotiation and diplomacy."
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow voted in favor of a failed U.S. Senate proposal for the nation to begin withdrawing military forces from Iraq within 120 days, with the goal of a total pullout by March 2008. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote Thursday was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage. Senate Democrats promptly said they would try again to force...
The letter to the editor, "Update property assessments; dump homestead exemption" (Feb. 21) is right on.
The recent proposal to increase the sales tax by 2.5 cents is stupid, and is typical of state legislators trying to fix the problem by adding more taxes. Oh, by the way, give $60 million to the Marlins so they can build a new stadium.
The correct and equitable way to fix the real-estate tax issue is to get rid of the Save Our Homes and homestead exemptions. Or, tax assessments should be based on real assessed values and not on potential values. All homeowners and businesses should be taxed at the same rate based on a realistic annual budget and five-year plan.
WASHINGTON - Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more straightforward about the White House's role in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.
"I've told the attorney general that I think this has been mishandled, that by giving inaccurate information ... at the outset, it's caused a real firestorm, and he better get the facts out fast," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the committee, pledged to get the public testimony of White House officials involved in the case whether they want to testify or not.
WASHINGTON - White House leaders warn that House Democrats' plan to pull troops from Iraq is unlikely to become law and sure to threaten national security if it did. Despite those bleak warnings, the House seems ready to approve its bill this week.
That means a standoff over war funding is looming, just as the battle to secure Baghdad intensifies and the war enters its fifth year.
President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday that House Democrats will assure failure in Iraq and waste the sacrifice of U.S. soldiers with their legislation to remove troops. The House's war spending bill includes a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008.
BERLIN (AP) The United States objected to key parts of a discussion on climate change at a meeting between G-8 environmental officials and representatives from five influential developing nations, Germany's environment minister said.
The conference ended with consensus on several points, including a general acceptance of the scientific explanation for the causes of global warming and that industrialized nations need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions more than mandated by current agreements, said German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who hosted the meeting Saturday.
Officials also agreed that industrialized countries have been responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions in the past and for the need to help developing countries control their emissions today, Gabriel said.
Earlier this month, the House Armed Services Committee got a classified briefing about U.S. military readiness. Details were disturbing, but the implication was jaw-dropping: The U.S. armed services are literally at the breaking point. This is not hyperbole or partisan rhetoric. It is stark reality - and it requires immediate attention.
That's why Congress must reassert its constitutional responsibility to provide for America's armed services. This begins with the Armed Services Committees, which have already begun hearings on the 2008 National Defense Authorization bill.
The readiness challenges facing the U.S. military today are immense. Consider these facts supplied to Congress:
In response to Chuck Novotny's letter of March 12, President Bush could have done many great things after 9/11.
What he did was:
1. Absolutely nothing until he was sure that the attack was complete.
The wife and I went to the beach at 15th Avenue South in Naples as we often do to watch the sunset.
The other night there must have been close to a thousand seagulls of various kinds sitting on the sands.
A few minutes after we sat down, a couple of grandparents, a mother and father and two young children arrived.