Schwarzenegger rushes Rush

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned a radio face-off Wednesday with conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh into a lengthy explanation of his own proposals, asserting that his plans to extend health care to the uninsured and raise the minimum wage improve people's lives.

The Republican governor barely let Limbaugh speak on his own program, a fact the radio host acknowledged after the 15-minute appearance. Limbaugh said that he had previously blamed First Lady Maria Shriver, a Democrat, for shifting the governor's views but noted that "after this interview I'm not sure Maria gets a word in edgewise."

Schwarzenegger was on Limbaugh's program after calling the host "irrelevant" on NBC's "Today" show one day earlier. The conservative radio icon later retorted that Schwarzenegger was "selling out" his Republican principles.

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Dems Seek Votes to Order Pullout From Iraq

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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House To Vote On Iraq Troop Withdrawal

Thursday, March 22, 2007

CAPITOL HILL -- A vote could come on Thursday in a Senate committee on a revived pullout plan. The $122 billion spending measure that urges a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq within a year. It declares that U.S. troops "should not be policing a civil war."

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans a vote on Friday on an even bigger funding bill that would require a pullout by September 2008.

The vote is expected to be very close, with Democratic party officials predicting a razor-thin margin of approval. Republicans are almost unanimously against the bill, charging it micromanages the war effort.

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House: Make phone spoofing a felony

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) The House voted Wednesday to make phone "spoofing," the use of fake caller ID information to defraud people, a felony subject to up to five years in prison.

The vote was 413-1.

"Spoofing is not just annoying. It is the latest tactic for committing identity fraud and other types of fraud that cost victims thousands or many times hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

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Giuliani: Give Gonzales benefit of doubt

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney in New York, said Thursday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should get "the benefit of the doubt" in the uproar over the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The president has addressed it," Giuliani said. "The attorney general's an honorable man. He's a decent man. He should be given a chance to explain and everybody should sort of give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to explain."

Republicans and Democrats alike have questioned Gonzales' leadership and some have called for him to resign as Congress investigates whether the firings of nine prosecutors over the past year were politically motivated.

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House set to vote on Iraq troop withdrawal

Thursday, March 22, 2007

CAPITOL HILL Congress is headed toward showdown votes on Iraq.A vote could come today in a Senate committee on a revived pullout plan. The 122 (b) billion-dollar spending measure that urges a withdrawal of U-S forces from Iraq within a year. It declares that U-S troops, quote, "should not be policing a civil war."In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans a vote tomorrow on an even bigger funding bill that would require a pullout by September 2008. The vote is expected to be very close, with Democ...

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Presidential privilege dispute may divide Congress, White House

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - In forbidding his top aides to testify publicly and under oath on the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors, President Bush faces a potential legal battle with Congress that he may not be able to win, experts say, making a compromise more likely.

With the House Judiciary Committee authorizing subpoenas for the testimony of Bush's top advisers on Wednesday and the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared to do the same Thursday, the White House insists that preventing Karl Rove and other key officials from providing sworn public testimony is a matter of executive privilege.

Yet the Supreme Court, while recognizing the right of the president to assert a constitutional confidentiality in many instances, has said there is no such thing as "absolute privilege."

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Security Council strengthens stance against Iran's nuclear program

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - As the UN Security Council nears a vote this week on a new package of sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment program, other developments are creating greater optimism among many opponents of Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The Security Council appears more unified against Iran's ambitions, and some are encouraged that a deal with North Korea signals the Bush administration is taking a more flexible approach to international negotiations. But perhaps most important, Russia - one of five permanent members of the Security Council and previously a protector of Iran - is taking a harder line against its economic ally.

"Iran had become adept at splitting the international community over the years," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Now, with Russia taking a harder stance and China likely to follow its lead, Iran may feel like it's facing a brick wall and recalculate its options."

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McCain warns of spreading socialism in Latin America during Florida campaign swing

Thursday, March 22, 2007

MIAMI Republican presidential candidate John McCain is warning that socialism is spreading in Latin America. And he says the war in Iraq has distracted the U-S from paying attention to growing problems in the region.The Arizona senator says he'll put a new emphasis on Latin America if he's elected.In Miami, McCain met with veterans of the failed "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba, pledging that he'll keep the U-S embargo in place against Cuba until there is real change on the island.Recent polls hav...

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McCain Warns Against Spread of Socialism

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned on Wednesday against the spread of socialism in Latin America and pledged to give the region renewed U.S. attention if elected.

Appearing in Little Havana, McCain carefully avoided criticism of President Bush but said the Iraq war "has diverted attention from our hemisphere and we have paid a penalty for that" in the form of a growing leftism embodied by leaders Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

In a speech to veterans of the ill-fated, CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, McCain said his first trip if elected to the White House in 2008 would be to Mexico, Canada and Latin America "to reaffirm my commitment to our hemisphere and the importance of relations within our hemisphere."

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Senators press regulators on mortgages

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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Gore Urges Fast Action on Global Warming

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Al Gore, a Democratic favorite for the presidency despite pronouncements that he's not running, spoke out on his signature issue Wednesday, warning of a "true planetary emergency" if Congress fails to act on global warming.

In a return he described as emotional, Gore testified before House panels that it is not too late to deal with climate change "and we have everything we need to get started." By turns folksy and prescriptive, he urged the Democratic-controlled Congress to adopt an immediate freeze on greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Gore's return to Congress marked the first time he had been in the Capitol since January 2001 when he was the defeated Democratic nominee still presiding over the Senate in his role as vice president.

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Democrats Seek Votes on Iraq Pullout

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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House mulls giving D.C., Utah new seats

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) The House on Thursday prepared to take up legislation, shadowed by a presidential veto threat, that would for the first time give the half-million people of the District of Columbia a vote in the chamber.

The bill would also create a new at-large seat for Republican-leaning Utah, offsetting what would be a safe Democratic seat in D.C., and increasing House membership to 437. The House has had 435 voting members since 1960.

The House bill, a bipartisan effort by D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., is likely to pass the House in a vote scheduled for later Thursday.

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Senate Democrats rewrite budget plan

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are striving to stay united during debate on a $2.9 trillion budget outline for 2008 that already has tested their fragile majority.

Moderate Democrats favoring tax cuts have forced a rewrite of the plan, pushing through an amendment Wednesday that would pave the way to extend a variety of popular tax cuts that are to expire at the end of the decade.

Across the Capitol, House Budget Committee Democrats held ranks in resisting a GOP-led drive to keep alive tax cuts enacted during President Bush's first term but scheduled to expire in 2010. The Democratic-led budget panel worked into the night toward a party-line vote, though debate by the full House next week promised to be a sterner test.

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Edwards, Wife Schedule Press Conference

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife plan to hold a news conference in their hometown Thursday to discuss her health.

Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

Campaign officials are refusing to answer any questions about what the couple learned at a doctor's appointment or how it might affect his candidacy.

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Iraq reconstruction audit to be released

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government must learn from its multi-million-dollar mistakes of poor contract oversight and bad planning in its Iraq reconstruction effort or risk repeating them there and elsewhere, investigators say.

The audit released Thursday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the first to list in one place the series of mistakes, delays and missed opportunities in a four-year-old Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion.

Characterizing the U.S. effort as chaotic and poorly managed, Bowen found the Bush administration's rebuilding effort riddled with problems - from a lack of strategy and unclear lines of authority to confusion and disarray between the Defense and State Departments.

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Democrats set Iraq deadline in war bill

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Senate Democrats on Wednesday revived legislation urging President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq in a year, attaching the plan to a $122 billion measure needed to fund the war.

The move puts Democrats on track for another confrontation with Bush over the increasingly unpopular war and with Republicans, who are expected to try to block the measure.

House Democratic leaders are pushing a similar measure that would require that troops leave by the fall of 2008. Party officials predicted the House would pass it on Friday, albeit by a razor-thin margin.

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Bloomberg Seeks to Reopen 9/11 Fund

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The mayor of New York City asked Congress on Wednesday to reopen the government fund for victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks - and spare his city the prospect of losing billions of dollars in related lawsuits.

The fund closed in December 2003, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Senate panel that federal help is needed for those sickened years after the attacks.

"The mere fact that their injuries and illnesses have been slower to emerge should not disqualify them from getting the help that they need," Bloomberg said.

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Showdown looms in attorney firings probe

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress careened closer to a full-blown legal showdown over the firing of federal prosecutors Wednesday as a House subcommittee voted subpoenas for top administration officials in defiance of the White House."After two months of stonewalling, shifting stories and misleading testimony, it is clear that we are still not getting the truth about the decision to fire these prosecutors and its cover-up," said Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.In res...

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Imus Coos Richardson Over School Project

Thursday, March 22, 2007

It's kiss and make up for Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson and acerbic broadcaster Don Imus. All because of $600,000 in New Mexico money. Imus unleashed a tirade against the governor and his staff last month on his nationally syndicated show because the governor hadn't put up state money to renovate an old school and convert it into a community center for a village near Imus' New Mexico ranch.

Imus called Richardson a "fat sissy" and a "fat baby" and then, in Spanish, invited the governor to kiss his rear end - "Beso mi culo!"

All that changed after Richardson got the state legislature to provide $600,000 for the renovation project. The money was part of a more than $600 million capital improvement financing measure the governor signed into law last week.

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Early Voting Could Upend 2008 Primaries

Thursday, March 22, 2007

SALEM, Ore. --Early voting poses an under-the-radar challenge to Iowa and New Hampshire's long-prized status as the first in the nation to decide presidential preferences.

Voters in a number of the states that are circling the Feb. 5 presidential primary date - including California, Oregon and Montana - could begin casting ballots as early as Jan. 5, nine days before the Iowa caucuses.

In at least 10 of the possible Feb. 5 primary states, estimates are that more than 30 percent of voters cast their ballot before Election Day in November 2004, some in person at county elections offices, and some via mail-in ballots.

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New York Senate Endorses Feb. 5 Primary

Thursday, March 22, 2007

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York legislature overwhelmingly approved a measure Wednesday to move the state's presidential primary up to Feb. 5, a move designed to help its favorite political son and daughter — Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton — in the 2008 race.

Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer is expected to sign the measure that would put New York with California and a host of other states opting for the new Super Tuesday showdown.

The New York primary had been set for March 4, but the earlier date was sought by Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, and also supported by Sen. Clinton. The two New Yorkers lead national polls in the race for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

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Mystery Creator of Anti-Clinton Ad ID'd

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama.Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.De Vellis, 33, said he resigned from the firm on Wednes...

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Gore implores Congress to save planet

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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...

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Dems Embrace Tax Cuts in Budget Revision

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Vice President Cheney's Federal Income Tax Return

Interactives

Game: Balance a State Budget Yourself

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Payment limits may affect rich farmers

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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Veterans Care

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON Mold, leaking roofs and even a colony of bats.Those are some of the maintenance problems cited in a new internal report about the 14-hundred health clinics and hospitals run by the U-S Department of Veterans Affairs. A copy of the report was provided to The Associated Press.The report found that 90 percent of the eleven-hundred cited problems were deemed to be routine. They included worn-out carpet, peeling paint, dead bugs and mice sightings.The other ten percent noted by the review ...

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Tom DeLay's book only deepens feud with Armey

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Texas Republicans Tom DeLay and Dick Armey had an uneasy alliance for years, and the feud between the former House majority leaders escalated Wednesday with Armey blasting DeLay over a new tell-all book that depicts him as an incompetent who put ambition above conservative goals.

"People retire from Congress and they basically write a book that says, `I was a true and honest, hardworking, honorable guy and everybody around me was a bunch of slugs,'" Armey said when asked about the scathing critique.

The former lawmaker from Flower Mound, now a lobbyist and conservative activist, has made no secret of his disdain for DeLay, arguing that his ethical scrapes and reliance on social wedge issues cost Republicans.

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Company behind pet food recall can't explain why product may be fatal

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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U.S. to slash Palestinian security aid package over Hamas concerns

Thursday, March 22, 2007

CAPITOL HILL Just before a Mideast trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is recommending a deep slash in a proposed 86 (m) million-dollar security assistance package to the Palestinian government.It's an attempt to prevent money from ending up with forces loyal to the radical Hamas movement.Rice didn't provide specifics, but a U-S official says she would cut about 36 (m) million dollars from the original package.Rice -- speaking to a House committee that oversee foreign aid -- said the revis...

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Maytag, Samsung washing machines recalled

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON The Maytag repairman may have to get to work.The company has announced the voluntary recall of 250-thousand front-loading washing machines because they can catch fire when water leaks into an electrical connection, igniting a circuit board. Samsung has also recalled 20-thousand machines.The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the machines were made in South Korea and sold nationwide from April of 2005 through August of 2006.Consumers are advised to stop using the machines immediately unless told otherwise.

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Dietary supplement for Parkinson's eyed

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government scientists want to know if a dietary supplement thought to boost muscles might boost the brains of Parkinson's patients. The National Institutes of Health began a major study Thursday to see if creatine might help preserve the nerve cells that die off in Parkinson's, and thus slow the disease's worsening. The study will enroll more than 1,700 people with early-stage Parkinson's - using doses higher than usual with today's over-the-counter brands, said Dr. Debra ...

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Supreme Court hears Missouri death sentence case

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - When a St. Louis County jury considered whether to give William Weaver the death penalty after his 1987 conviction for murder, the prosecutor compared jurors to soldiers and said imposing the death penalty was like having the courage to kill in wartime.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether those and other remarks in the Missouri case unfairly inflamed the jury and violated Weaver's constitutional rights.

The court is reviewing a ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, which found the prosecutor's remarks improper and upheld a federal judge's decision to throw out the death sentence. The Missouri Supreme Court had previously denied any claim of unfairness and affirmed Weaver's sentence.

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Sex Assault Reports Rise in Military

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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AP: Mold, Leaky Roofs Beset VA Clinics

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Veterans Affairs' vast network of 1,400 health clinics and hospitals is beset by maintenance problems such as mold, leaking roofs and even a colony of bats, an internal review says. The investigation, ordered two weeks ago by VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, is the first major review of the facilities conducted since the disclosure of squalid conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A copy of the report was provided to The Associated Press.

Democrats newly in charge of Congress called the report the latest evidence of an outdated system unable to handle a coming influx of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Investigators earlier this month found that the VA's system for handling disability claims was strained to its limit.

"Who's been minding the store?" said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "They keep putting Band-Aids on problems, when what the agency needs is major triage."

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Analysis: White House Likes Its Secrets

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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House Panel Targets Hospital Work

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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Bush to meet with top automakers

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WHITE HOUSE President Bush will meet with U-S auto executives at the White House Monday as part of his effort to build momentum for his energy plan.A spokesman says the session will focus on Bush's support for gasahol-using flex-fuel vehicles and on his goal of reducing gas consumption by 20 percent over ten years.Bush last met with the auto chiefs in November, promising continued conversations on trade, health care and other issues.

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House Panel OKs Subpoenas For Bush Aides

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON -- A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

By voice vote, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president's top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.

The White House has refused to budge in the controversy, standing by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and insisting that the firings were appropriate. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that in offering aides to talk to the committees privately, Bush had sought to avoid the "media spectacle" that would result from public hearings with Rove and others at the witness table.

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John Edwards to discuss wife's health

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards accompanied his wife, Elizabeth, who has been treated for breast cancer, on a doctor's visit Wednesday. His campaign said they would hold a news conference in their hometown Thursday to discuss her health. Campaign officials refused to answer any questions about what the Edwardses learned at the doctor's appointment or how it might affect his candidacy. Edwards had cut short a trip to Iowa Tuesday night to be with his wife Wed...

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Sex assault reports in military increase by 24 percent in 2006

Thursday, March 22, 2007

PENTAGON A new Pentagon report shows reported sexual assaults involving members of the military jumped about 24 percent last year. And more than twice as many offenders were punished than in 2005.The report says nearly three-thousand sexual assaults were reported in 2006. That compares to 24-hundred for the previous year. Actions were taken against 780 people, ranging from courts-martial and discharges to other administrative remedies.The cases include those in which military members were either...

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NIH studies dietary supplement for Parkinson's

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON Government scientists hope to find out if a dietary supplement thought to boost muscles might help those who suffer from Parkinson's.The National Institutes of Health has launched a major study to see if creatine might help preserve the nerve cells that die off in Parkinson's, and thus slow the disease's worsening.The study will enroll more than 17-hundred people with early-stage Parkinson's _ using doses higher than usual with today's over-the-counter brands. It's not something to be...

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Apple '1984' ad gets political makeover

Thursday, March 22, 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? Whether Apple Inc. likes it or not, its classic "1984" Macintosh television ad, which aired only during the Super Bowl that year, has been reincarnated with a political veneer and is becoming one of the latest hits on Google Inc.'s YouTube.

A copy of the original commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, has been remade into a satirical attack piece against presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, replacing the Big Brother figure with the Democratic senator from New York instead. It then ends with a message supporting her opponent Sen. Barack Obama and a fruity Apple-like logo that has been converted into an "O." The woman runner in the commercial has also been modified so that she's wearing an iPod.

The creator of the so-called online video mash-up is unknown, and Obama's campaign has denied being behind it.

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Bloomberg to Congress: Reopen 9/11 fund

Thursday, March 22, 2007

CAPITOL HILL New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is asking Congress to re-open a compensation fund for Nine-Eleven victims.He told a Senate panel that if the fund stays shut, the city could lose (b) billions of dollars in lawsuits.The September Eleventh Victim Compensation Fund created by Congress had seven (b) billion dollars to distribute among victims' families. Intense debate developed among recipients and politicians over distribution. It closed in December 2003.Bloomberg says some people deve...

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Counties hit by Katrina slow to repopulate

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON Experts say the pace of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has slowed, leaving New Orleans and some other Gulf Coast areas with less than half the people they had before the storm.And they say some of the hardest hit might never regain their population.The latest Census Bureau estimates, to be released Thursday, say that ten months after the hurricane, Orleans Parish in Louisiana had slightly less than half the people it did before the storm. Nearby St. Bernard Parish had less than a ...

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House passes 3 bills to help veterans

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The House on Wednesday directed the Veterans Affairs Department to develop a program dealing with suicide among veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other depression issues.

Legislation passed 423-0 orders the VA to set up a program to train staffers and screen veterans, including the elderly, who receive medical care at a VA facility for suicide risk factors and refer at-risk veterans for counseling and treatment.

It says the program should include research into suicide prevention and create a 24-hour hotline for veterans wanting to discuss their problems.

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House panel authorizes subpoenas in the U.S. attorneys controversy

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - A House subcommittee authorized subpoenas for top White House aides Wednesday amid new questions about President Bush's involvement in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Internal administration e-mails show that the Justice Department postponed the firings for nearly three weeks late last year while awaiting White House approval. The final approval came on Dec. 4, four days after President Bush returned from an overseas trip, once several senior White House aides signed off on the plan. It's not known if Bush himself did.

Harriet Miers, then White House counsel, had warned in a Nov. 15 e-mail to the Justice Department that approval of the firings would be delayed if Bush had to OK the plan.

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U.S. recognizes that Castro continues to exert control over Cuba

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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.

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House prepares for debate on spending bill

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - An emergency spending bill that calls for pulling troops out of Iraq by August 2008 could reach the House floor Thursday, congressional Democrats say, setting up what could be one of the closest and - for some lawmakers - most agonizing votes so far this year.

Leaders of both parties, including some liberal Democrats who oppose the bill because they want tougher provisions on an Iraq pullout, have spent the week lobbying lawmakers for their votes.

Lehigh Valley area lawmakers are split along party lines. Democrats Patrick Murphy, 8th District, and Allyson Schwartz, 13th District, plan to support the measure, and Republicans Jim Gerlach, 6th District, and Charlie Dent, 15th District, oppose it.

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Gore urges bold action on global warming

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer refereed a blistering verbal assault on Al Gore by the leading Republican skeptic on global warming Wednesday as the former vice president returned to Capitol Hill to call for immediate congressional action to save the planet.

Gore, whose documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" recently won an Academy Award, had a heated exchange with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who tried to paint the Tennessee Democrat as an overzealous hypocrite when Gore ducked a question about whether he would sign a pledge to have his household cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The testy exchange came in an otherwise laudatory hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Boxer heads.

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Consumer group knocks cloned food report

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) Federal health officials used a flawed analysis when they gave preliminary approval to food from cloned animals, a consumer group charged Wednesday.

In its report, the Center for Food Safety said the conclusions the Food and Drug Administration drew late last year were based on "scant data from few peer-reviewed studies" and failed to consider possible side effects of cloning.

"There isn't the science to show that these foods are safe," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the Washington-based center and author of the report. "I think the agency was heavily influenced by the biotechnology industry."

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Clinton, Obama Campaigns Clash Over Iraq War

Thursday, March 22, 2007

NEW YORK Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is defending against accusations that his Senate record doesn't match his repeated opposition to the Iraq war.Obama said in a conference call today that his Senate vote to continue funding the conflict reflected his belief that the U-S has "to make the best of a bad situation."On the Senate floor today, Obama also reminded colleagues of a speech he gave in 2002 warning against invading Iraq.Accusations of contradiction have been made by the...

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Bill offers temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants

Thursday, March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Bipartisan legislation to be unveiled Thursday in the House of Representatives would offer temporary legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants but would require them to leave the country before they could be eligible for permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.

The bill by Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is the first major immigration legislation to be introduced in the current session of Congress, as lawmakers address the status of more than 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally.

A comprehensive Senate immigration bill died in the previous, Republican-controlled Congress amid intense opposition from Republican members, who rebuffed President Bush's call for a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws. With Democrats in control of Congress, Bush again has made immigration a centerpiece of his domestic agenda and thinks he has a strong chance to succeed now.

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Immigration conflict raised in firings

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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 homed 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 previously been convicted of two felonies.

Internal e-mails released as a part of a congressional investigation show Justice Department officials conceded among themselves that they had "some concerns about asserting that the SO Cal U.S. attorney's office has a strong record in this area."

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Clinton, Obama campaigns clash over Iraq war

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

NEW YORK - The Iraq war, a defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, has turned into a proxy fight between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over credibility and leadership.

Obama has cast his early and forceful opposition to the war as a key test of presidential judgment. The Clinton team has begun openly challenging his claim of political purity and authenticity on the volatile issue.

The matter came to a head Monday at a forum at Harvard University, where Clinton strategist Mark Penn squared off with Obama adviser David Axelrod over the Illinois senator's voting record on the war. But beneath the squabble lay an acute recognition of the depth of voter anger over Iraq, especially among Democratic primary voters.

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Intrigue grows over 'Hillary' video

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Just who is ParkRidge47 - the mystery figure who introduced an Internet political attack ad that has stirred the press and political junkies tuned into the early presidential campaign - and what doe