EU starts probe into Apple's iTunes By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 3:24 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The deals Apple Inc. struck with record labels to stock its European iTunes stores may violate EU competition rules, regulators said Tuesday.
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Apple and the record companies were notified of an investigation into their agreements after regulators built up a "very strong case," said European Union spokesman Jonathan Todd.
People can only download singles or albums from the iTunes store in their country of residence — a policy that amounts to unlawful "territorial sales restrictions," the Commission said.
"Consumers are thus restricted in their choice of where to buy music and consequently what music is available, and at what price," the Commission said in a statement.
But Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company wanted to operate a single store for all of Europe, but music labels and publishers said there were limits to the rights they could grant to Apple.
"We don't believe Apple did anything to violate EU law," he said. "We will continue to work with the EU to resolve this matter."
Investigators have been gathering evidence on Apple's deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC for the past two years, after Britain's Consumers' Association filed a complaint with the Commission in 2004.
"We do not believe we have breached European competition law and we will be making that case strongly," said Amanda Conroy, a spokeswoman for EMI in London.
Sony spokeswoman Sylvia Shin offered no immediate reaction to the investigation and a call made to Universal Music was not immediately returned.
Apple and the record companies have two months to answer questions in the "statement of objections" from regulators. If found guilty, a company could face hefty fines, which in theory could total up to 10 percent of the company's worldwide annual revenue.
The cost of buying a single song across the 27-nation bloc varies among the available iTunes stores in EU nations. For example, downloading a track in Britain costs $1.56, in Denmark $1.44, while in countries using the euro such as Germany and Belgium, a single costs $1.32.
Consumer groups welcomed the EU's move.
"As I can go from the U.K. to Germany to go into the shop to buy a CD there, which is cheaper or more expensive than in the U.K., I should have the same opportunity online; that is what we are asking for," said Cornelia Kutterer, senior legal adviser at the European consumer group BEUC.
The EU investigation comes amid moves by consumer rights groups in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Nordic countries to force Apple to change the rules it imposes on its online music store customers.
The groups are demanding Apple lift limits preventing consumers from playing their downloads on digital players other than Apple's iPod. In February, Norway, which is not a member of the EU, declared those limits illegal and gave Apple until Oct. 1 to change its compatibility rules or face legal action and possible fines.
The EU investigation does not deal with these concerns, however.
Apple has said it is willing to open iTunes to players other than iPods if the world's major record labels moved to change their anti-piracy technology.
Apple and EMI announced a deal on Monday that would allow EMI's music to be sold on iTunes minus anti-piracy software that limits its use on some players. The move is expected to be watched — and likely followed — by other record labels.
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EU price probe into Apple iTunes at BBC, Apr 03 EU Sues Record Labels Over Pricing PC World via Yahoo! News, Apr 03 Opinion & Editorials
Europe's Microsoft Case Goes Too Far BusinessWeek via Yahoo! News, Apr 03 Iran tests EU unity at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 29
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Microsoft sues student software sellers By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Business Writer
Tue Apr 3, 3:25 PM ET
REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. has filed five new lawsuits against U.S. companies and individuals it claims sold deeply discounted Windows and Office software intended for students.
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The company filed the suits Monday evening in federal courts in California, Nevada and Florida, alleging the parties infringed on Microsoft's copyright by importing and distributing versions of Windows and Office that were not meant to be sold through the retail channel.
"The defendants in these lawsuits and others are charged with profiting from selling clearly marked educational software to unsuspecting retail customers who were not licensed to use it," Bonnie MacNaughton, senior attorney at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Named in the lawsuits are EEE Business Inc., doing business as eBusZone.com; Eric Chan and Ruhui Li, both doing business as LCTech; and Intrax Group Inc. of California. Also named were Global Online Distribution LLC of Las Vegas and Big Boy Distribution of Florida.
"We're not selling counterfeit or stolen software," said Mike Mak, owner of Intrax, which is based in San Jose, Calif. "We bought software from legitimate sources in the U.S."
Mak said his company sold the discounted "Student Media" software, but stopped after Intrax learned about the lawsuit Tuesday morning.
"When we sell it, we disclose exactly what it is to our customers. We tell them it is academic software, that it may require a separate license," Mak said. He said that as far as he's concerned, that's not illegal.
He added that it's impossible for his business to sell boxed retail versions of Microsoft software and still make a profit. Instead, he said, "you try to seek out alternatives that are legal," including Student Media programs.
Dale Harelik, managing director of Global Online Distribution, said his company has never sold the discounted students-only software. He said the company received a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft in January, and that he spoke by phone with the software maker's lawyers, who assured him Global Online Distribution was not a target of an ongoing investigation.
"We're not the bad guys," Harelik said. "We agreed with Microsoft. We complied with Microsoft."
Lillian Shan, a manager at EEE Business, said the company had not seen the legal filings, and did not want to comment without having reviewed them. Big Boy Distribution did not return a call for comment.
Microsoft has pinpointed a handful of companies, including one in Jordan and one in Latvia, as sources for the discounted Student Media software sold illegally on U.S. Web sites, MacNaughton said in an interview Monday.
These education-only copies of Office and Windows, which universities around the world buy from academic resellers and offer to students at a fraction of the retail price, are a prime target for fraud, MacNaughton said.
"We knew we had to try to do something to maintain the integrity of our academic programs," she said.
MacNaughton said Jordan-based Educational Solutions had a contract to sell 150,000 copies of Windows and Office to Jordan's education ministry. It received the software from Microsoft but never paid for it, she said. Instead, it resold the disks to software retailers in the U.S., making between $3 million and $4 million in profit.
MacNaughton said a company in Latvia perpetrated a similar scam, but declined to give the company's name.
Microsoft also said Monday that EDirectSoftware.com, which it claimed was one of the largest sellers of the discounted student software, agreed to settle a lawsuit out of court. EDirectSoftware.com said it no longer sells Microsoft products, but would not comment on the settlement.
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Bush calls Dems 'irresponsible' on Iraq By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush denounced "irresponsible" Democrats on Tuesday for going on spring break without approving money for the Iraq war with no strings. He condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s trip to Syria, too, accusing her of encouraging a terrorism sponsor.
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With Congress out of town, Bush tried to take the upper hand over Democrats who are making increasing forays into foreign policy as his term dwindles and his approval ratings remain low.
Democrats, buoyed by recent Republican defections from Bush on Iraq, shot back that they are the ones pursuing effective solutions overseas in response to a national desire for change from his approach.
"We are not going to allow the president to continue a failed policy in Iraq. We represent the American people's vision on this failed war," Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said at a ceremony for a new Nevada National Guard armory near Las Vegas. "We have said time and time again the troops will have everything they need."
Speaking a day before he heads out of town for six days for events in the West and an Easter break at his ranch, the president said Democrats are failing their responsibility to the troops and the nation's security by leaving for their own recess after passing bills to fund the war that contain timelines for American withdrawal.
Given his promised veto of anything containing a deadline — and the likelihood that his veto would be sustained on Capitol Hill — Bush said Democrats are merely engaging in games that "undercut the troops."
"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," Bush said. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership — Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds."
Nearly two months ago, Bush asked for more than $100 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Congress has approved the money, but the Senate added a provision also calling for most U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. The House version demands a September 2008 withdrawal.
These bills still must be reconciled before legislation can be sent to the president.
"They need to come off their vacation, get a bill to my desk, and if it's got strings and mandates and withdrawals and pork I'll veto it," the president said. "And then we can get down to the business of getting this thing done."
Not so fast, Democrats responded.
"Americans want compromise, not a cowboy-style showdown," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C.
Fresh from a briefing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the president sought to put pressure on Democrats by detailing ways that delaying the money could harm troops and their families.
After the current $70 billion war appropriation runs out in mid-April, Bush said, the military would have to consider cutting back on equipment, repairs and training for National Guard and reserve forces. After mid-May, he said, more steps would be considered, such as delaying or curtailing the training of some active duty forces.
Despite Bush's warnings, dire consequences can be avoided even after the money starts to run out. It has become routine in recent years for Pentagon accountants to move money around in the department's half-trillion-dollar budget to make sure operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not disrupted. The money is repaid, usually with minimal disruption, when the president signs a new war spending bill.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Bush and Congress have about three months to resolve their standoff before Iraq operations would actually be affected.
Democrats told Bush to stop blaming them for being the ones to keep money from soldiers, and to start negotiating.
"If President Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he will be the one who is blocking funding for the troops. Nobody else," said presidential candidate John Edwards.
On another topic, the president took issue with a two-day stay in Syria by Pelosi that began Tuesday.
As the speaker donned a head scarf and mingled with Syrians at a mosque and a market in Damascus' Old City, preparing for meetings Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Bush said she was sending dangerous signals. State-run newspapers in Syria published news of the visit on their front pages, with one daily publishing a photograph of Pelosi next to the headline: "Welcome Dialogue."
Bush said meetings with many high-level Americans have done nothing to persuade Assad to control violent elements of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, to halt efforts to destabilize Lebanon or to stop allowing "foreign fighters" from flowing over Syria's border into Iraq.
"Photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror," he said.
When she visited Lebanon on Monday, Pelosi noted that Republican lawmakers had met Assad on Sunday without comment from the Bush administration.
"I think that it was an excellent idea for them to go," she said. "And I think it's an excellent idea for us to go as well."
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended that the U.S. begin direct and extensive talks with Syria and Iran over Iraq. The Bush administration has long rejected that idea, but recently agreed to allow U.S. representatives to talk with Syrian officials at an international conference in Baghdad.
Pelosi's office said her trip was appropriate.
"The Iraq Study Group recommended a diplomatic effort that should include 'every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq,'" said deputy press secretary Drew Hamill. "This effort should certainly include Syria."
On other matters, Bush:
_Said his administration "had a right to remove" eight U.S. attorneys. Bush added a note of concern about damage to the prosecutors' reputations: "I'm sorry it's come to this," he said.
_Refused to say whether he believes homosexuality is immoral, a characterization made recently by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I will not be rendering judgment about individual orientation," he said.
_Rejected any "quid pro quo" to win the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran, such as exchanging five Iranians arrested by the U.S. military in Iraq in January. At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said there was no link "as far as we know" between the captured Britons and the release Tuesday of an Iranian diplomat missing for two months in Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Journalist or Activist?
Video blogger Josh Wolf is free from jail. For Wolf, it's the end of a record-setting prison term. But the debate over his role as a journalist continues.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Apr 3, 10:58 PM ETEmail Story IM Story
SAN FRANCISCO -- Whether he is a journalist or not, as many debate, Josh Wolf believed strongly enough in the journalistic principle of protecting his sources that he was willing to spend seven and a half months in a federal prison being faithful to it.
Tuesday afternoon, he walked out of the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution in California a free man.
Wolf was in prison for refusing to hand over video he shot during a protest in San Francisco in 2005. In a deal brokered between his lawyers and federal prosecutors, Wolf posted the uncut video of the protest on his site, JoshWolf.net, gave prosecutors a copy, told them he had not witnessed any crimes and was released.
In interviews preceding his release, Josh Wolf's family and peers discuss his situation. » View
In exchange, prosecutors acceded to Wolf's key contention: that he not be made to appear before the grand jury and identify those on his videotape.
"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' Wolf told reporters outside the gates of the prison. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''
Just as Wolf became a poster boy for the debate of whether bloggers are actually journalists and deserving the same legal protections, his status as an Internet icon may get another boost as likely the first federal prison inmate to be released for posting a video to his website.
Wolf, who calls himself and activist and anarchist on another one of his sites, "The Revolution Will Be Televised," filmed a July 2005 San Francisco protest against the World Trade Organization which turned violent. A police officer suffered a fractured skull and there were allegations of attempted arson.
Wolf provided some of the footage to local television stations, but refused to give the raw outtakes to a grand jury.
The standoff led to Wolf being jailed and sparked a heated debate about whether an activist blogger deserved the same protections as a professional journalist.
I spoke to Wolf by telephone while he was still in prison a few weeks ago and asked him if his advocacy made him selective in what he videotaped at the protest. Would he turn off the camera to protect his friends? A partial transcript of our conversation follows (Listen to the full interview).
Kevin Sites: If there had been a situation where you saw a protestor beating up a police officer, or you saw them committing arson, would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: I wasn't there to shoot that.
Kevin Sites: No, but would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: That's a question I would have made in that moment...
Kevin Sites: Well, that's what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you're asking for the protection of journalism yet you're also seeking to be an activist.
"My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability."
— Josh Wolf
Josh Wolf: Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist for the Declaration of - or the independence of America and also...
Kevin Sites: But I would say that he would not be claiming to be journalist, he would be claiming to be an activist. That's all I'm asking you to do, is take sides. Are you claiming to be an activist or a journalist?
Josh Wolf: I don't. I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism.
Kevin Sites: Right, but as an advocate, you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections, you know, from those consequences. That's why I'm asking you, you know, which side do you want to step on at this point.
Josh Wolf: My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability.
Kevin Sites: But that truth is through, as you said, a prism of your own political convictions.
Josh Wolf: The truth is biased by everyone's convictions, whether it's a corporate conviction of your employer, your own personal convictions that are left politically based from mainstream press perspective, or a more biased perspective [because of] which you won't be as open about as a journalist who does not put forward an impression that they are trying to be objective. If you watch the videotape, you'll see there are many things that make the protestors look bad and there are things that make the cops look bad. It is essentially a balanced report of what I saw. It's a bird's eye view.
Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, applauds Wolf's dedication, but doesn't believe he should be called a journalist.
"I think that you can be a blogger and be a journalist," Saunders tells me from her office at the Chronicle. "There are people who fit that [description], but when you're an activist cavorting with the people you're chronicling, then you are not a journalist."
Her own newspaper disagrees with that assessment and has supported Wolf on the Chronicle's opinion pages.
"The fact that Josh Wolf has strong political views does not disqualify him from being a journalist any more than the fact that I am an editorial page editor and have opinions disqualifies me from being a journalist," says John Diaz of the Chronicle. "The fact is, he was out at that rally, collecting information to disseminate to the public. I think that makes him a journalist."
Ultimately, Saunders says, it won't be journalists and bloggers who decide the issue, but the government.
"The courts are going to end up deciding who journalists are, because, unfortunately, this administration is really pushing the envelope in jailing journalists, and it won't end with the Bush administration," Saunders says. "It will get bigger as people point fingers in many ways, and that means the courts are going to decide who journalists are. You may not like it, but that's the way it is."
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Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Democrats should pressure President Bush to agree to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq rather than concede that he will veto such a plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.
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Bush has promised to veto House and Senate versions of a war spending bill that includes timetables for drawing down troops, but Democrats shouldn't give up, said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
"I'm not ready to concede that," Clinton said. "We're actually back into a bipartisan government where we have a Democratic Congress and a Republican president. What has historically happened is there has to be some negotiation and compromise and we may not get it, but I'm not willing to concede."
Clinton, speaking with reporters during a campaign stop in Iowa, said she hadn't decided whether to support legislation calling for a cutoff in war funding — a move that would force withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"I'm looking at that," Clinton said. "I don't know anything about it."
Also campaigning in Iowa, Rudy Giuliani, the GOP front-runner in national polls, appeared to back Bush, and said he had reviewed the Constitution earlier in the day.
"Congress has to have power to declare war. Congress has the power of the purse. The president has the sole power to direct the war," Giuliani said at a stop in Cedar Rapids. He added that he hoped Congress and the president would "all get together and figure out how to kind of do it the way" the founding fathers wanted.
"This idea that I find the most difficult is this idea of announcing your retreat. I just think it's fundamentally irresponsible. I've never heard of a retreating army giving their enemy a schedule for retreat. I just doesn't make any sense to me," the former New York City mayor told reporters.
Clinton said that before taking on the funding question, Congress should pressure Bush to go along with the budget bills already approved.
Republican National Committee spokesman Chris Taylor said Clinton in the past has opposed setting a deadline for pulling out troops, and he was taken aback by her apparent support.
"It must be confusing for the voters of Iowa," said Taylor.
Clinton said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, managed to work with a Congress often opposed to his proposals.
"I saw a lot of what happened when my husband had a Republican Congress," said Clinton.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination on a two-day trip to Iowa, said Congress should assert its authority
"I've challenged the president not to veto this, but to sit down and work with a bipartisan, representative sampling of the House and Senate and see whether we could figure out what we're going to do going forward."
Democrats took control of Congress largely due to their opposition to the war, Clinton said, and the party must push that agenda.
"I'm challenging the president not to veto the will of the American people," she said.
Clinton also criticized Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, whom she said have questioned the patriotism of war opponents.
"They have been very vocal in impugning the patriotism of members of Congress and citizens who disagree with them, and I don't think that's a very useful approach to take," said Clinton.
Clinton said she's launched a petition drive to gather signatures calling for Bush to go along with Congress.
Democrats will suffer if they don't assert themselves after winning control of Congress, she argued.
"We are now a Democratic majority and we are continuing in a very responsible manner to make it clear to the president that we are a coequal branch of government," said Clinton.
On her Iowa trip, Clinton was joined by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie, both of whom have endorsed Clinton's presidential bid. Clinton started her day with a breakfast at Vilsack's Mount Pleasant home, mingling with local activists and sounding an anti-war theme.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_iraq
Britain calls for direct talks with Iran By TARIQ PANJA, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
LONDON - Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff.
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In a statement late Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said there had been "further contacts" between the two countries, including with chief international negotiator Ali Larijani.
"The UK has proposed direct bilateral discussions and awaits an Iranian response on when these can begin," Blair's office said. "Both sides share a desire for an early resolution to this issue through direct talks."
British officials say there has been intense diplomatic activity, including meetings in London with Iran's ambassador. But reports of contacts with officials in Tehran have been sketchy. The Downing Street statement did not say whether the contact with Larijani came in person or by phone.
Blair said earlier in the day that the next 48 hours would be "fairly critical" to resolving the standoff over the British personnel, who have been held by Iran since March 23.
The call for talks came hours after Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was freed by his captors in Iraq. He had been seized Feb. 4 by uniformed gunmen in Karradah, a Shiite-controlled district of Baghdad.
His release raised hope for an end to the standoff and suggested the possibility of a de facto prisoner swap — something both Tehran and London have publicly discounted.
Iran alleged the diplomat had been abducted by an Iraqi military unit commanded by U.S. forces — a charge repeated by several Iraqi Shiite lawmakers. U.S. authorities denied any role in his disappearance.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said the Iraqi government had exerted pressure on those holding Sharafi to release him — but he would not identify who had held Sharafi.
But another senior government official said Iraqi intelligence had been holding him. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.
Sharafi was a second secretary at the Iranian Embassy involved in plans to open a branch of the Iranian national bank. U.S. officials allege that Iran provides money and weapons to Iraqi Shiite militias.
Sharafi was abducted a month after the U.S. military arrested five other Iranians in northern Iraq. The U.S. described one of those captives as a senior officer of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said his government also was working "intensively" for the release of the five other Iranians to "help in the release of the British sailors and marines."
Neither Iran nor Iraq nor Britain has said explicitly that a prisoner swap was in the works. Iran has denied it seized the Britons to force the release of Iranians held in Iraq, and Britain has steadfastly insisted it would not negotiate for the sailors' freedom.
In Washington, President Bush signaled the same. "I also strongly support the prime minister's declaration that there should be no quid pro quos when it comes to the hostages," Bush said.
It was unclear whether the Iraqis had won Sharafi's freedom on their own initiative to encourage a settlement, which would ease tension without endangering their own claim to the waters where it occurred.
Nevertheless, the release of Sharafi and efforts to free the five other Iranians suggested that the parameters of a deal might be taking shape.
Iran maintains the British sailors had encroached on Iranian territory when they were seized by naval units of the Revolutionary Guards on March 23. Britain insists its sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters and has demanded their unconditional release.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted First Vice President Parviz Davoodi as saying that "Britain should accept that it has invaded Iranian waters and guarantee that it will not be repeated."
"The violation was clear and obvious and all evidences and documents were suggesting occurrence of the violation," Davoodi added. "Britain has recently changed its approach and shifted toward legal and diplomatic negotiations."
With the standoff at a sensitive stage, Britain reacted with caution to the release Tuesday of new pictures of the British captives on the Web site of Iran's Fars News Agency. The images showed six sailors sitting on a carpet in a room, wearing blue, black and red tracksuits. Two sailors were shown playing chess.
Faye Turney, the only woman among the captured, was shown without a head scarf. She had worn one in initial images released of the Royal Navy crew.
Britain has expressed outrage over the airing of earlier videos in which Turney and others "confessed" to violating Iranian territorial waters.
The latest pictures did not show any further confessions. And as tensions have escalated, the Iranians have appeared to back off somewhat.
Larijani's suggestion Monday of talks over territorial disputes in the Persian Gulf had offered the hope of an end to the crisis, the British premier acknowledged. But if negotiations to win the quick release of the 15 sailors and marines stalled, Britain would "take an increasingly tougher position," Blair said.
Larijani said Monday that Iran sought "to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels" and proposed having a delegation determine whether British forces had strayed into Iranian territory in the Gulf. He did not say what sort of delegation he had in mind.
Larijani told Britain's Channel 4 news Monday through an interpreter that Iranian officials believed there was no need for any trial of the navy crew.
___
Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Robert H. Reid in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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On Iran streets, diverse views on clash over British captives The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News, Apr 03 U.S. strategy on Iran may have backfired at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 03 News Stories
British captives need not be tried, Iranian says at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 03 U.S. Sends Query to Iran About Ex-FBI Agent's Disappearance at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Apr 03 Opinion & Editorials
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Couple fights to name baby 'Metallica' Tue Apr 3, 4:15 PM ET
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl.
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Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child after the legendary rock band.
"It suits her," Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name. "She's decisive and she knows what she wants."
Although little Metallica has already been baptized, the Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word "metal."
Tomaro said the official handling the case also called the name "ugly."
The couple was backed by the County Administrative Court in Goteborg, which ruled on March 13 that there was no reason to block the name. It also noted that there already is a woman in Sweden with Metallica as a middle name.
The tax agency appealed to a higher court, frustrating the family's foreign travel plans.
"We've had to cancel trips and can't get anywhere because we can't get her a passport without an approved name," Tomaro said.
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Pet owners making own dog and cat food By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago
ATLANTA - Some dog and cat owners frightened by a contamination scare are forsaking the pet-food aisle and grinding up meat in their own kitchens instead. Sales of pet food recipe books have also shot up since the nationwide pet-food recall began two weeks ago.
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Amy Parish, 40, stopped giving her two aging chow chows canned food. Instead, Parish mixes dry food with a mash of chicken, rice, oatmeal and cottage cheese that she prepares twice a week.
"I'm very suspicious of any large-brand manufactured dog food," said Parish, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Tucker.
But veterinarians warn that making balanced meals for pets can be complicated and should only be a temporary remedy until the scare passes.
Nearly 100 store and major-brand pet foods were recalled by manufacturer Menu Foods Inc. on March 16. Three other companies have recalled some foods since then.
Food and Drug Administration testing found that wheat gluten imported from China was contaminated with a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics. The FDA has confirmed about 15 pet deaths, and anecdotal reports suggest hundreds of cats and dogs may have died.
Some pet owners are not taking any chances.
After Hills Pet Nutrition Inc. recalled one of its cat products, John Slavens, 41, of San Diego, started making homemade food for his two border collies.
He spent five hours in the kitchen Sunday, grinding beef and boiling potatoes and pasta for a week's worth of stew, supplemented with an all-in-one vitamin-mineral powder.
"These dogs are my family," Slavens said.
The FDA and the American Veterinary Medical Association are urging pet owners to switch brands if they are worried. The veterinarian group also warned that many common foods are not safe for pets, including salt, garlic, onions, grapes and chocolate.
Making pet food at home is "kind of like canning: You have to think about bacterial contamination. And how do you make sure it's nutritionally appropriate and balanced for the animal?" said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza. She added: "We wouldn't object. We'd say be knowledgeable about what you need."
On Amazon.com, the cookbook "Real Food for Dogs" moved into the list of top 200 best-sellers this week. Other authors were finding instant success, too.
Dr. Donald Strombeck said the Amazon.com sales rank for his book "Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative" jumped from below 60,000 to about 1,000 after the recalls.
The retired professor of veterinary nutrition at the University of California, Davis, challenged the common assertion that owners should not feed their pets table food.
When he began practicing veterinary medicine in the 1950s, he said, most pet owners fed their pets scraps from the table, keeping the risk of contamination low.
"The pet food industry doesn't want people competing with them," Strombeck said. "An animal can basically eat the same things we eat. They're not going to develop a deficiency."
Robert Van Sickle, co-owner of the Polka Dog Bakery in Boston, said he has received many inquiries from customers on advice for making their own dog food. For his German short-haired pointer, Van Sickle blends carrots, spinach, salmon oil, apple cider vinegar and whatever meat is in his freezer.
"What this scare has shown me is that it's amazing how many people don't know what they are feeding their dogs," he said. "The bright side, for me, as someone interested in animal wellness, is people are asking questions now."
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Bridges in Washington, Jesse Harlan Alderman in Boston, and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
FDA pet food recall information: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_re_us/homemade_pet_food
Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Tue Apr 3, 8:21 AM ET
Parents fork over billions of dollars for CDs, DVDs, toys and other products that promise to make their babies smarter - and governments invest in programs to maximize children's brain development from birth through age 3. But many efforts to build "brighter babies" are doomed to failure because they are built on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, a report says.
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"While neural connections in babies' brains grow rapidly in the early years, adults can't make newborns smarter or more successful by having them listen to Beethoven or play with Einstein-inspired blocks," says Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst with Education Sector, a centrist Washington think tank.
That a baby's first three years are key for brain development is beyond dispute; scientists know that babies' brains change rapidly, growing and pruning synapses. But Mead says a few early childhood advocates have misinterpreted or misused research to suggest that if parents don't sufficiently stimulate children's brains before age 3, they'll do irreparable harm. There is no evidence that the first three years "are a singular window for growth that slams shut once children turn 3," Mead says.
She says researchers don't know enough about brain growth to say whether educational toys or lessons help: We are "far from knowing how to build a better brain."
But that hasn't stopped parents from spending billions on infant brain-building products. In 2005, the market was $2.5 billion, according to Fortune.
It also hasn't stopped lawmakers from getting involved. In 1998, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller persuaded hospitals to send home classical music CDs with every newborn. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt persuaded lawmakers last year to spend $2 million to support Parents as Teachers, a non-profit that publishes a curriculum for children as young as newborns.
Such efforts teach parents helpful skills, says Jonathan Plucker, professor of cognitive science at Indiana University. "People are starting to almost universally acknowledge that those years are critically important."
But there's no evidence that playing your baby a Mozart CD or sitting her down in front of a Baby Einstein DVD makes a difference, he says. Research suggests stimulation is essential for early brain development, but "we don't know nearly enough to be applying it."
Officials from Baby Einstein and The Smart Baby did not respond to interview requests.
Tammy Mann, a clinical psychologist and deputy director of Zero to Three, an early-childhood advocacy group, agrees that it's an overstatement of brain research to say we can make babies smarter. But she says evidence shows that good, intensive programs, such as Early Head Start, which was developed for at-risk infants, toddlers and preschoolers, yield solid, cost-effective results.
"There is something to say about investing earlier when you're talking about children who are in particularly high-risk situations," she says.
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Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate USATODAY.com via Yahoo! News, Apr 03 Brain Can Learn Fear By Seeing Others' Fears LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, Mar 20 Playing Music Makes You Smart LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, Mar 19 Controversial New Idea: Nerves Transmit Sound, Not Electricity LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, Mar 17 Feature Articles
How does human memory work? at USATODAY.com, Mar 12 Technology Review: Fueling Brain Research at Technology Review, Feb 06 Opinion & Editorials
Fighting memory loss through brain games, exercise and rest at Seattle Times, Feb 06 Perhaps this 'miracle drug' can wake brain-damaged patients. But what kind of life awaits them? at The Guardian (UK)., Nov 23
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Keith Richards: 'I snorted my father' 16 minutes ago
LONDON - Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.
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"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."
Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.
Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.
"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.
"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky.
"I was No. 1 on the `who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," Richards said.
___
On the Net:
Rolling Stones:
http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php
NME:
http://www.nme.com/
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FCC says 'no' to cell phones on planes By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 7:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights.
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The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral.
"These days it's impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone, invading the private space of everyone around them," one member of the public wrote in an e-mail to the FCC. "That's bad enough when one can get off in 10 minutes. To have to suffer through HOURS of such torture, with nowhere to go and miserably cramped conditions — someone is going to explode."
The agency has been considering lifting its ban on cell phone usage on airplanes since 2004. Unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which bans the use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices for fear they will interfere with navigational and communications systems, the FCC's concern is interference with other cell phone signals on the ground.
Airphones installed in cabins use a special FCC frequency that operates outside the range of regular cellular phones.
In an order released Tuesday, the agency noted that there was "insufficient technical information" available on whether airborne cell phone calls would jam networks below.
Regardless of the reasoning, some passengers are no doubt pleased with the agency's decision. In an e-mail to the FCC, one person related the story of a "dimwitted young lady" who had a "most inane conversation" after his flight had landed.
"The idea of a person being a captive audience to someone yapping on the phone is simply a recipe for a lot of anger and a fair share of conflicts," he wrote.
The phones have been snapped shut for now, at least as far as the FCC is concerned. But the issue may come up again. The agency said it may "reconsider this issue in the future if appropriate technical data is available for our review."
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Question: Do phone chargers waste power? AP, Tue Apr 3, 7:01 PM ET FCC kills plan to examine use of phones on planes Reuters, Tue Apr 3, 6:55 PM ET Feature Articles
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Article Collection March 17
China TV airs "Prison Break" for English study Thu Mar 15, 11:44 PM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - A television station in eastern China which flouted a national ban on U.S. drama "Prison Break," said it aired the popular serial on its children's channel for "English training" purposes, state media reported on Friday.
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Like other shows with crime-related content, "Prison Break," a drama about fugitives' on the run after escaping jail, is banned in China, as part of a 2004 order "to protect the living environment of non-adults," the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The ban has failed to stop the show from becoming hugely popular in China, where pirated copies of the first season are sold openly for less than $10 in DVD shops and on street corners.
An editor at Jinan TV, a station in China's eastern Shandong province, said excerpts of "Prison Break" had aired on its children's channel as part of a regular program called "Watch Movies, Learn English," the paper reported.
"The program would show some scenes, then the host would explain the meaning of some of the words used and how they would apply in real life," the paper quoted the editor surnamed Zhang as saying.
Zhang said the show had only aired for three or four days before they were reminded by "relevant parties" not to "push the line."
"We also feared causing an intellectual property dispute, so we stopped airing it," Zhang said, adding that the show had been sourced from "English enthusiasts."
"Many TV stations have played the whole series, and also with advertisements. So, as far as we're concerned, this has become a bit of beat-up."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070316/tv_nm/china_tv_prison_break_dc_1
New York artists sue NBC over "Heroes" concept Sat Mar 17, 12:07 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two artists sued NBC Universal and the creators of the network's superhero drama "Heroes" in U.S. district court this week, claiming their work had been wrongfully copied on the television show.
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New York-based artists Clifton Mallery and his wife Amnau Karam Eele charged in a suit filed on Thursday in Manhattan that "Heroes" creators based their plot line -- about an artist who can paint the future -- on a short story, a painting series and a short film the couple exhibited in 2004 and 2005.
A spokesman for NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., said in a statement the network believes the suit is without merit. "We intend to defend it vigorously and expect to prevail."
The artists said in the lawsuit that two people who identified themselves as writers from NBC's "Crossing Jordan," which also developed by "Heroes" creator and executive producer Tim Kring, attended an April 2005 exhibition of their work at Hunter College in New York City. The two were believed to have taken copies of the couple's work, the lawsuit said.
The artists said their work focused on an artist who paints the future and who specifically paints the destruction of two landmark buildings in New York City. They alleged this was "strikingly similar" to the character of Isaac Mendez on "Heroes," whose paintings of the future depict an explosion in New York City.
"Heroes," a serial thriller about a group of ordinary people who discover they have special abilities, has been credited with helping to boost NBC's ratings this season.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070317/tv_nm/nbc_heroes_lawsuit_dc_1
Passport requests flood State Department By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
Fri Mar 16, 10:51 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand, the State Department is warning would-be travelers to brace for lengthy delays in getting U.S. passports, even when they pay a hefty fee to speed their applications.
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The department has hired hundreds of employees to process passport requests over the past two years as tougher immigration rules have taken effect. Even so, the department says a crush of new applicants — more than 1 million a month — has inundated its staff and caused delays of up to a month-and-a-half at the peak January-to-April season when many people are preparing to travel over the spring and summer.
In addition, a regulation that took effect this year requiring Americans to have passports when traveling by air to any country, including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean "has increased passport demand and production to record levels," the department said in a statement this week.
Applications received between October and this March have risen 44 percent over the same period in 2005-2006, the department said in a notice sent Thursday to lawmakers. Some members of Congress have received complaints from constituents about delays.
According to the notice, routine passport processing could take 10 weeks instead of the previous six, and expedited processing could take four weeks instead of two weeks.
About 12 million passport applications were processed in 2006 and as many as 17 million are expected this year, the department said.
For adults getting their first passport, the routine processing fee is $97 with an additional $60 charge for expedited service. Passport renewals for adults cost $67, with the same expedited fee.
The department said by the end of 2008 it plans to have hired 400 passport adjudicators since 2004.
The agency's 16 production facilities are also working overtime, including 24 hours-a-day in three shifts at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire. A new center capable of making as many as 10 million passports a year is to open in Arkansas in April, it said.
Some 74 million Americans have valid U.S. passports.
___
On the Net:
State Department information on passports:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070316/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_us_passports;_ylt=Ak1wUDMPAN4.PfXSNqXf3IPMWM0F
3 'Jeopardy' contestants end up tied Sat Mar 17, 4:16 AM ET
NEW YORK - All those years of answers and questions, and it's never happened before on "Jeopardy!" What is a three-way tie, Alex?
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The three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.
"We've had a lot of crazy things happen on `Jeopardy!' but in 23 years I've never seen anything like this before," host Alex Trebek said.
The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening — one in 25 million.
The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Fla.; Anders Martinson of Union City, Calif.; and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Md; were all declared champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_tv/tv_three_way_tie
Secret of horror writer's lineage broken By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 17, 7:32 PM ET
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Joe Hill knew it was only a matter of time before one of the publishing industry's hottest little secrets became common knowledge. He just wished he could have kept it under wraps a bit longer.
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But when Hill's fantasy-tinged thriller, "Heart-Shaped Box," came out last month, it was inevitable that his thoroughbred blood lines as a writer of horror and the supernatural would be out there for all to see.
After 10 years of writing short stories and an unpublished novel under his pen name, Hill knows that the world is now viewing him through a different prism — as the older son of Stephen King.
Hill, 34, took on his secret identity to test his writing skills and marketability without having to trade on the family name.
"I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits," he said over breakfast in this coastal city. "One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private."
The moniker he chose did not come out of the blue. He is legally Joseph Hillstrom King, named for the labor organizer whose 1915 execution for murder in Utah inspired the song, "Joe Hill," an anthem of the labor movement. His parents, who came of age during the 1960s, "were both pretty feisty liberals and looked at Joe Hill as a heroic figure," he said.
"Heart-Shaped Box," a title drawn from a song by the rock group Nirvana, is a fast-paced tale of another man with dual identities. Judas Coyne, born Justin Cowzynski, is an over-the- hill heavy metal rocker with a strange hobby: amassing ghoulish artifacts.
When Coyne learns that a suit purportedly haunted by a ghost is up for grabs on an online auction site, he can't resist adding it to his creepy collection. Things turn ugly fast after Coyne learns that the suit's occupant is a spooky spiritualist bent on vengeance following the death of his stepdaughter.
The book has drawn good reviews, with The New York Times' Janet Maslin calling it "a wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty tale of horror" that is "so visually intense that its energy never flags." And with its cinematic, and bloody, ending, Warner Bros. snapped up movie rights six months before the book hit the market.
As excitement percolated about "Heart-Shaped Box," so, too, did lingering questions about its author. Inklings about Hill's family background started appearing in online message boards in 2005 when his collection of short stories, "20th Century Ghosts," was published in Britain.
Similarities in subject matter and appearance — Hill has his father's bushy eyebrows and the dark beard he sported decades ago — were enough to stir suspicion among followers of the horror genre.
"It got blogged to death," Hill recalled. But only when his identity was trumpeted in Variety last year did he realize that the secret was gone for good. "That was really the nail in the coffin," he said.
Still, his pen name had a good ride. The editor of "Heart-Shaped Box" was unaware of the King connection and Hill's agent remained in the dark for eight years before the author spilled the beans two years ago.
Hill's decision to follow his father's career should come as no surprise. His mother, Tabitha King, has been turning out novels for decades. His younger brother, Owen King, came out in 2005 with a well-received novella and short story collection that is more literary than horrific and laced with absurdity.
Like Hill, Owen King wanted to cut his own path and his book did not mention his parentage. But he decided against a pen name, figuring it would be too much trouble to try to go by an alias when meeting people or having an agent, manager, publicist or personal assistant handle details of his professional life.
The only sibling who has yet to make it into print is Naomi King, oldest of the three, who has switched careers from restaurateur to Unitarian minister. But Hill said his sister is working on a nonfiction project: a book-length study of the sermon as literary text and its place in American culture.
The King children's interest in books and writing took root early on. "It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch," Hill recalled. "This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least."
In an era of celebrity worship, the family has prided itself on being able to maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible despite Stephen King's fame and fortune. Hill and his brother attended public high school in Bangor, Maine, before going on to Vassar College, where they overlapped for one year.
After graduation, Hill and Owen King collaborated on a couple of screenplays. They sold one, but it has yet to be made into a movie.
The first half of "Heart-Shaped Box" is set in New York's Hudson Valley, the area around Vassar, where Judas Coyne lives with his latest Goth girlfriend, who 30 years his junior, and two devoted German shepherds.
At first, Hill envisioned his tale of a suit with a ghost attached as grist for a short story. But as he added depth and back story to his characters, it ballooned into a novel 10 times longer than what he originally planned.
The choice of title was pure serendipity. Hill's initial idea, "Private Collection," went by the wayside when the 1993 Nirvana song popped up on iTunes as the author was getting ready to write the episode in which UPS delivers the haunted suit to Coyne. It was then that Hill decided to package the suit in a heart-shaped box.
"Coyne is fiction and (Kurt) Cobain was a real guy," he said, "but I felt that the song fit very well with the book. The song is about a guy who feels trapped and desperate, and the book is about how someone uses music as a hammer to beat at the bars of his own cage."
Hill and his wife, whom he met at Vassar, live in southern New Hampshire with their three children. He is reluctant to say much about his private life, recalling how a crazed fan broke into his family's home in Bangor in 1991 and threatened his mother, a frightening episode that evoked the plot of King's earlier best seller, "Misery."
Stephen King declined a request for comment on his son's novel. "He's trying to go along with Joe's wishes and let him do this on his own," said his spokeswoman, Marsha DeFilippo.
But at a recent panel discussion in New York, King told a questioner that he wouldn't rule out a collaborative book project with his son.
"I guess anything's possible," he said. "I took them on my knee, read them stories, changed their diapers, and now they're all grown up and they have become writers, of all things. I am really proud of them. I guess we'll see what happens down the road."
___
Associated Press Writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.joehillfiction.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_ot/books_joe_hill
3 children killed in Thai school attack 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
BANGKOK, Thailand - A deadly attack on an Islamic school in Thailand's restive south that left three students dead and seven injured sparked hundreds of Muslim villagers to rioted Sunday in protest.
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Police blamed the attack in the southern province of Songkhla on Muslim insurgents, but villagers said they didn't believe Muslims were behind the violence.
More than 500 protesters gathered outside the school, parading the dead children's bodies through the crowd and setting fire to two buildings at a nearby government-owned school. Some hurled stones at police.
The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pondok school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri.
Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, Thammasak said.
He said police believe Muslim insurgents staged the attack and hoped to convince local residents that authorities were behind it — a ploy to win villagers over to the insurgents' cause.
But the protesting villagers said Sunday morning they didn't believe that Muslims had staged the attack.
"The villagers are accusing paratroopers of attacking the school," Thammasak said.
Thailand's three Muslim provinces have hundreds of religious Islamic schools, some of which authorities have accused of harboring insurgents and serving as a training ground for violence.
Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and increasingly in the neighboring province of Songkhla.
Gen. Virote Baucharoon, the army commander in charge of the restive provinces, said that security forces had recently raided an Islamic school and confiscated an M-16 assault rifle, bullets, a computer with suspicious material on the hard drive and other documents believed to be linked to the insurgency.
"This leads us to believe that religious schools are involved with the ongoing violence," he said.
Though Buddhist teachers have been targeted in the past, children have largely been spared.
The victims of Saturday's violence were identified as a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds. Injured students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were being treated for gun wounds and other injuries, Thammasak said. More than 75 students were in the school's dormitory at the time of the attack.
Violence in the south has increased since a military-installed government took power in September following a coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/thailand_southern_violence
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U.N. worker injured in Afghan ambush 54 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.N. mine-clearing worker was wounded by suspected Taliban militants during an ambush on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces north of Kabul, the coalition said Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Afghan and coalition forces on Saturday in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, said a statement from the coalition.
The U.N. vehicle carrying the mine-clearing worker, which was traveling separately from the convoy in the opposite direction on the same road, was hit in the attack.
No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded or killed in the attack, it said.
Denise Duclaux, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan, said the Afghan deminer was traveling from the work site back to his base camp when the vehicle he was in drove into the firefight.
He was hit in the shoulder and treated by a paramedic traveling with him, Duclaux said, adding that his condition is stable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/afghan_violence
BEIJING (Reuters) - A television station in eastern China which flouted a national ban on U.S. drama "Prison Break," said it aired the popular serial on its children's channel for "English training" purposes, state media reported on Friday.
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Like other shows with crime-related content, "Prison Break," a drama about fugitives' on the run after escaping jail, is banned in China, as part of a 2004 order "to protect the living environment of non-adults," the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The ban has failed to stop the show from becoming hugely popular in China, where pirated copies of the first season are sold openly for less than $10 in DVD shops and on street corners.
An editor at Jinan TV, a station in China's eastern Shandong province, said excerpts of "Prison Break" had aired on its children's channel as part of a regular program called "Watch Movies, Learn English," the paper reported.
"The program would show some scenes, then the host would explain the meaning of some of the words used and how they would apply in real life," the paper quoted the editor surnamed Zhang as saying.
Zhang said the show had only aired for three or four days before they were reminded by "relevant parties" not to "push the line."
"We also feared causing an intellectual property dispute, so we stopped airing it," Zhang said, adding that the show had been sourced from "English enthusiasts."
"Many TV stations have played the whole series, and also with advertisements. So, as far as we're concerned, this has become a bit of beat-up."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070316/tv_nm/china_tv_prison_break_dc_1
New York artists sue NBC over "Heroes" concept Sat Mar 17, 12:07 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two artists sued NBC Universal and the creators of the network's superhero drama "Heroes" in U.S. district court this week, claiming their work had been wrongfully copied on the television show.
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New York-based artists Clifton Mallery and his wife Amnau Karam Eele charged in a suit filed on Thursday in Manhattan that "Heroes" creators based their plot line -- about an artist who can paint the future -- on a short story, a painting series and a short film the couple exhibited in 2004 and 2005.
A spokesman for NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., said in a statement the network believes the suit is without merit. "We intend to defend it vigorously and expect to prevail."
The artists said in the lawsuit that two people who identified themselves as writers from NBC's "Crossing Jordan," which also developed by "Heroes" creator and executive producer Tim Kring, attended an April 2005 exhibition of their work at Hunter College in New York City. The two were believed to have taken copies of the couple's work, the lawsuit said.
The artists said their work focused on an artist who paints the future and who specifically paints the destruction of two landmark buildings in New York City. They alleged this was "strikingly similar" to the character of Isaac Mendez on "Heroes," whose paintings of the future depict an explosion in New York City.
"Heroes," a serial thriller about a group of ordinary people who discover they have special abilities, has been credited with helping to boost NBC's ratings this season.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070317/tv_nm/nbc_heroes_lawsuit_dc_1
Passport requests flood State Department By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
Fri Mar 16, 10:51 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand, the State Department is warning would-be travelers to brace for lengthy delays in getting U.S. passports, even when they pay a hefty fee to speed their applications.
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The department has hired hundreds of employees to process passport requests over the past two years as tougher immigration rules have taken effect. Even so, the department says a crush of new applicants — more than 1 million a month — has inundated its staff and caused delays of up to a month-and-a-half at the peak January-to-April season when many people are preparing to travel over the spring and summer.
In addition, a regulation that took effect this year requiring Americans to have passports when traveling by air to any country, including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean "has increased passport demand and production to record levels," the department said in a statement this week.
Applications received between October and this March have risen 44 percent over the same period in 2005-2006, the department said in a notice sent Thursday to lawmakers. Some members of Congress have received complaints from constituents about delays.
According to the notice, routine passport processing could take 10 weeks instead of the previous six, and expedited processing could take four weeks instead of two weeks.
About 12 million passport applications were processed in 2006 and as many as 17 million are expected this year, the department said.
For adults getting their first passport, the routine processing fee is $97 with an additional $60 charge for expedited service. Passport renewals for adults cost $67, with the same expedited fee.
The department said by the end of 2008 it plans to have hired 400 passport adjudicators since 2004.
The agency's 16 production facilities are also working overtime, including 24 hours-a-day in three shifts at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire. A new center capable of making as many as 10 million passports a year is to open in Arkansas in April, it said.
Some 74 million Americans have valid U.S. passports.
___
On the Net:
State Department information on passports:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070316/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_us_passports;_ylt=Ak1wUDMPAN4.PfXSNqXf3IPMWM0F
3 'Jeopardy' contestants end up tied Sat Mar 17, 4:16 AM ET
NEW YORK - All those years of answers and questions, and it's never happened before on "Jeopardy!" What is a three-way tie, Alex?
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The three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.
"We've had a lot of crazy things happen on `Jeopardy!' but in 23 years I've never seen anything like this before," host Alex Trebek said.
The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening — one in 25 million.
The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Fla.; Anders Martinson of Union City, Calif.; and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Md; were all declared champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_tv/tv_three_way_tie
Secret of horror writer's lineage broken By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 17, 7:32 PM ET
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Joe Hill knew it was only a matter of time before one of the publishing industry's hottest little secrets became common knowledge. He just wished he could have kept it under wraps a bit longer.
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But when Hill's fantasy-tinged thriller, "Heart-Shaped Box," came out last month, it was inevitable that his thoroughbred blood lines as a writer of horror and the supernatural would be out there for all to see.
After 10 years of writing short stories and an unpublished novel under his pen name, Hill knows that the world is now viewing him through a different prism — as the older son of Stephen King.
Hill, 34, took on his secret identity to test his writing skills and marketability without having to trade on the family name.
"I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits," he said over breakfast in this coastal city. "One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private."
The moniker he chose did not come out of the blue. He is legally Joseph Hillstrom King, named for the labor organizer whose 1915 execution for murder in Utah inspired the song, "Joe Hill," an anthem of the labor movement. His parents, who came of age during the 1960s, "were both pretty feisty liberals and looked at Joe Hill as a heroic figure," he said.
"Heart-Shaped Box," a title drawn from a song by the rock group Nirvana, is a fast-paced tale of another man with dual identities. Judas Coyne, born Justin Cowzynski, is an over-the- hill heavy metal rocker with a strange hobby: amassing ghoulish artifacts.
When Coyne learns that a suit purportedly haunted by a ghost is up for grabs on an online auction site, he can't resist adding it to his creepy collection. Things turn ugly fast after Coyne learns that the suit's occupant is a spooky spiritualist bent on vengeance following the death of his stepdaughter.
The book has drawn good reviews, with The New York Times' Janet Maslin calling it "a wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty tale of horror" that is "so visually intense that its energy never flags." And with its cinematic, and bloody, ending, Warner Bros. snapped up movie rights six months before the book hit the market.
As excitement percolated about "Heart-Shaped Box," so, too, did lingering questions about its author. Inklings about Hill's family background started appearing in online message boards in 2005 when his collection of short stories, "20th Century Ghosts," was published in Britain.
Similarities in subject matter and appearance — Hill has his father's bushy eyebrows and the dark beard he sported decades ago — were enough to stir suspicion among followers of the horror genre.
"It got blogged to death," Hill recalled. But only when his identity was trumpeted in Variety last year did he realize that the secret was gone for good. "That was really the nail in the coffin," he said.
Still, his pen name had a good ride. The editor of "Heart-Shaped Box" was unaware of the King connection and Hill's agent remained in the dark for eight years before the author spilled the beans two years ago.
Hill's decision to follow his father's career should come as no surprise. His mother, Tabitha King, has been turning out novels for decades. His younger brother, Owen King, came out in 2005 with a well-received novella and short story collection that is more literary than horrific and laced with absurdity.
Like Hill, Owen King wanted to cut his own path and his book did not mention his parentage. But he decided against a pen name, figuring it would be too much trouble to try to go by an alias when meeting people or having an agent, manager, publicist or personal assistant handle details of his professional life.
The only sibling who has yet to make it into print is Naomi King, oldest of the three, who has switched careers from restaurateur to Unitarian minister. But Hill said his sister is working on a nonfiction project: a book-length study of the sermon as literary text and its place in American culture.
The King children's interest in books and writing took root early on. "It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch," Hill recalled. "This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least."
In an era of celebrity worship, the family has prided itself on being able to maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible despite Stephen King's fame and fortune. Hill and his brother attended public high school in Bangor, Maine, before going on to Vassar College, where they overlapped for one year.
After graduation, Hill and Owen King collaborated on a couple of screenplays. They sold one, but it has yet to be made into a movie.
The first half of "Heart-Shaped Box" is set in New York's Hudson Valley, the area around Vassar, where Judas Coyne lives with his latest Goth girlfriend, who 30 years his junior, and two devoted German shepherds.
At first, Hill envisioned his tale of a suit with a ghost attached as grist for a short story. But as he added depth and back story to his characters, it ballooned into a novel 10 times longer than what he originally planned.
The choice of title was pure serendipity. Hill's initial idea, "Private Collection," went by the wayside when the 1993 Nirvana song popped up on iTunes as the author was getting ready to write the episode in which UPS delivers the haunted suit to Coyne. It was then that Hill decided to package the suit in a heart-shaped box.
"Coyne is fiction and (Kurt) Cobain was a real guy," he said, "but I felt that the song fit very well with the book. The song is about a guy who feels trapped and desperate, and the book is about how someone uses music as a hammer to beat at the bars of his own cage."
Hill and his wife, whom he met at Vassar, live in southern New Hampshire with their three children. He is reluctant to say much about his private life, recalling how a crazed fan broke into his family's home in Bangor in 1991 and threatened his mother, a frightening episode that evoked the plot of King's earlier best seller, "Misery."
Stephen King declined a request for comment on his son's novel. "He's trying to go along with Joe's wishes and let him do this on his own," said his spokeswoman, Marsha DeFilippo.
But at a recent panel discussion in New York, King told a questioner that he wouldn't rule out a collaborative book project with his son.
"I guess anything's possible," he said. "I took them on my knee, read them stories, changed their diapers, and now they're all grown up and they have become writers, of all things. I am really proud of them. I guess we'll see what happens down the road."
___
Associated Press Writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.joehillfiction.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_ot/books_joe_hill
3 children killed in Thai school attack 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
BANGKOK, Thailand - A deadly attack on an Islamic school in Thailand's restive south that left three students dead and seven injured sparked hundreds of Muslim villagers to rioted Sunday in protest.
ADVERTISEMENT
Police blamed the attack in the southern province of Songkhla on Muslim insurgents, but villagers said they didn't believe Muslims were behind the violence.
More than 500 protesters gathered outside the school, parading the dead children's bodies through the crowd and setting fire to two buildings at a nearby government-owned school. Some hurled stones at police.
The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pondok school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri.
Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, Thammasak said.
He said police believe Muslim insurgents staged the attack and hoped to convince local residents that authorities were behind it — a ploy to win villagers over to the insurgents' cause.
But the protesting villagers said Sunday morning they didn't believe that Muslims had staged the attack.
"The villagers are accusing paratroopers of attacking the school," Thammasak said.
Thailand's three Muslim provinces have hundreds of religious Islamic schools, some of which authorities have accused of harboring insurgents and serving as a training ground for violence.
Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and increasingly in the neighboring province of Songkhla.
Gen. Virote Baucharoon, the army commander in charge of the restive provinces, said that security forces had recently raided an Islamic school and confiscated an M-16 assault rifle, bullets, a computer with suspicious material on the hard drive and other documents believed to be linked to the insurgency.
"This leads us to believe that religious schools are involved with the ongoing violence," he said.
Though Buddhist teachers have been targeted in the past, children have largely been spared.
The victims of Saturday's violence were identified as a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds. Injured students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were being treated for gun wounds and other injuries, Thammasak said. More than 75 students were in the school's dormitory at the time of the attack.
Violence in the south has increased since a military-installed government took power in September following a coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/thailand_southern_violence
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U.N. worker injured in Afghan ambush 54 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.N. mine-clearing worker was wounded by suspected Taliban militants during an ambush on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces north of Kabul, the coalition said Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Afghan and coalition forces on Saturday in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, said a statement from the coalition.
The U.N. vehicle carrying the mine-clearing worker, which was traveling separately from the convoy in the opposite direction on the same road, was hit in the attack.
No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded or killed in the attack, it said.
Denise Duclaux, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan, said the Afghan deminer was traveling from the work site back to his base camp when the vehicle he was in drove into the firefight.
He was hit in the shoulder and treated by a paramedic traveling with him, Duclaux said, adding that his condition is stable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/afghan_violence
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Heritage Foundation Education Articles
ISSUES > Education
Education
Build a new vision for America's 21st century schools in which every child has access to excellence in a competitive market of public, private, charter, and home schools.
Research for the last 12 months
9 Items for the last 12 months | View: All Papers200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198519841983198219811979
20 February 2007
A Better Answer for Education: Reviving State and Local Policymaking Authority
By the Honorable John Cornyn and the Honorable Jim DeMint
Heritage Lecture #994
The A-PLUS Act of 2007 would restore federalism to public education by allowing states flexibility in spending their federal education dollars while still requiring an accountability system to provide parents and taxpayers necessary information. The states should have the option to stay under the No Child Left Behind regime or accomplish the same goals in a different way.
16 February 2007
Utah's Revolutionary New School Voucher Program
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
WebMemo #1362
Utah has created the most comprehensive school choice program in the nation.
16 January 2007
Halving Student Loan Interest Rates Is Unaffordable and Ineffective
By Brian M. Riedl
WebMemo #1308
Reducing interest rates on student loans does not increase college access for prospective students, but merely subsidizes loan repayments after college.
12 January 2007
The Real Costs of Federal Aid to Higher Education
By Richard Vedder, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #984
New federal spending on student aid is unlikely to improve college access. The increase in access in higher education in America largely came before massive federal involvement in student financial aid programs.
6 December 2006
The Charter State Option: Charting a Course Toward Federalism in Education
By Dan Lips, Evan Feinberg, and Jennifer A. Marshall
Backgrounder #1987
Congress should embrace a charter state option, allowing states to choose between the status quo and an alternative contractual arrangement with the federal government. Under a charter contract, elected state officials would have broad authority to consolidate and refocus their federal funds on state initiatives in exchange for monitoring and reporting academic progress.
18 September 2006
School Choice: 2006 Progress Report
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
Backgrounder #1970
School choice programs have been shown to increase parental satisfaction, improve academic achievement of participating children, and improve public school performance through competition. Already in 2006, eight states have enacted new initiatives or expanded existing private school choice programs. State and federal policymakers should implement student-centered reforms to give all parents the ability to direct their children's education.
1 September 2006
Are Public or Private Schools Doing Better? How the NCES Study Is Being Misinterpreted
By Shanea Watkins
Backgrounder #1968
A recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics is being used in an effort to discredit private school voucher programs, but its results should be interpreted cautiously. Studies based on better methods show that students who attend private schools through a voucher program experience greater achievement gains than do their public school counterparts.
30 May 2006
America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids: School Choice for Students in Underperforming Public Schools
By Dan Lips
Backgrounder #1939
The Bush Administration's America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative would provide real school choice to American parents. In addition to helping children trapped in failing schools, it would provide a model for how federal, state, and local policymakers can provide better educational opportunities for America's disadvantaged students through student-centered reforms.
18 April 2006
School Choice and Supplemental Services: Administration Slow to
http://www.heritage.org/research/education/
Education
Build a new vision for America's 21st century schools in which every child has access to excellence in a competitive market of public, private, charter, and home schools.
Research for the last 12 months
9 Items for the last 12 months | View: All Papers200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198519841983198219811979
20 February 2007
A Better Answer for Education: Reviving State and Local Policymaking Authority
By the Honorable John Cornyn and the Honorable Jim DeMint
Heritage Lecture #994
The A-PLUS Act of 2007 would restore federalism to public education by allowing states flexibility in spending their federal education dollars while still requiring an accountability system to provide parents and taxpayers necessary information. The states should have the option to stay under the No Child Left Behind regime or accomplish the same goals in a different way.
16 February 2007
Utah's Revolutionary New School Voucher Program
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
WebMemo #1362
Utah has created the most comprehensive school choice program in the nation.
16 January 2007
Halving Student Loan Interest Rates Is Unaffordable and Ineffective
By Brian M. Riedl
WebMemo #1308
Reducing interest rates on student loans does not increase college access for prospective students, but merely subsidizes loan repayments after college.
12 January 2007
The Real Costs of Federal Aid to Higher Education
By Richard Vedder, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #984
New federal spending on student aid is unlikely to improve college access. The increase in access in higher education in America largely came before massive federal involvement in student financial aid programs.
6 December 2006
The Charter State Option: Charting a Course Toward Federalism in Education
By Dan Lips, Evan Feinberg, and Jennifer A. Marshall
Backgrounder #1987
Congress should embrace a charter state option, allowing states to choose between the status quo and an alternative contractual arrangement with the federal government. Under a charter contract, elected state officials would have broad authority to consolidate and refocus their federal funds on state initiatives in exchange for monitoring and reporting academic progress.
18 September 2006
School Choice: 2006 Progress Report
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
Backgrounder #1970
School choice programs have been shown to increase parental satisfaction, improve academic achievement of participating children, and improve public school performance through competition. Already in 2006, eight states have enacted new initiatives or expanded existing private school choice programs. State and federal policymakers should implement student-centered reforms to give all parents the ability to direct their children's education.
1 September 2006
Are Public or Private Schools Doing Better? How the NCES Study Is Being Misinterpreted
By Shanea Watkins
Backgrounder #1968
A recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics is being used in an effort to discredit private school voucher programs, but its results should be interpreted cautiously. Studies based on better methods show that students who attend private schools through a voucher program experience greater achievement gains than do their public school counterparts.
30 May 2006
America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids: School Choice for Students in Underperforming Public Schools
By Dan Lips
Backgrounder #1939
The Bush Administration's America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative would provide real school choice to American parents. In addition to helping children trapped in failing schools, it would provide a model for how federal, state, and local policymakers can provide better educational opportunities for America's disadvantaged students through student-centered reforms.
18 April 2006
School Choice and Supplemental Services: Administration Slow to
http://www.heritage.org/research/education/
Wall Street Journal March Archive
Monthly Archive - March 2007March 7, 2007, 6:30 pm
WSJ/NBC News Poll Shows Giuliani's Strength
Giuliani
Americans are already paying close attention to the 2008 presidential race, and they are giving new traction to one rising star in each party.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that among Republicans, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has climbed into a solid lead for his party’s nomination for the White House. Boasting support across his party’s ideological spectrum, Giuliani leads Arizona Sen. John McCain by 55% to 34% in a head to head match of the two top Republican candidates.
Among Democrats, the Journal/NBC poll shows, Barack Obama continues his improbable rising in the White House race after just two years as a U.S. senator from Illinois. Obama trails Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton by a relatively narrow 47% to 39% in a match between two candidates who could make history. Clinton, a New York senator and former First Lady, could become America’s first woman president; Obama could become the first African-American president.
The telephone poll of 1,007 adults, conducted March 2-5 by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Read more. –John Harwood
Readers: In your opinion, who’s the strongest Republican candidate?
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 7, 2007, 4:52 pm
Obama: Default Position?
Obama
Sen. Barack Obama, on the hot seat for a couple of investments in companies backed by big donors, told reporters today, “At no point did I know that stocks were held, and at no point did I direct how those stocks were invested.”
At the end of a press conference on immigration, the Illinois Democrat and presidential hopeful, said he didn’t want investments “that potentially would create conflicts with my work here,” and explained that his broker bought the stocks as part of a quasi-blind trust. “Obviously, the thing didn’t work the way I wanted it to.”
Could it be that when it comes to controversies, Obama’s emerging default position is the claim that he has no idea what people around him are doing on his behalf? Last month, when the fight broke out between the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps over cutting remarks about the Clintons by Hollywood mogul and Obama supporter David Geffen, Obama distanced himself from the fight — particularly from a fusillade from his campaign aide Robert Gibbs — saying he had been on a plane, got a haircut and took his daughters to school while the mud fight erupted.
We’re waiting to hear what Obama says next, since he is certain to get more questions on the investment matter, first reported by the New York Times. It involves purchases of stock in AVI Biopharma and Skyterra Communications; a major investor in both was Obama friend and contributor George W. Haywood. Also, back in 2005, another Skyterra investor Jared Abbruzzese, an Albany, N.Y., area businessman, and his wife, Sherrie, contributed $10,000 to Obama’s political action committee, the Hope Fund.
Abbruzzese is now part of a public corruption investigation in Albany. For the Abbruzzeses, the donation to the Obama PAC was a deviation. The Center for Responsive Politics shows they gave $75,000 to the Republican National Committee in the 2005-2006 election cycle, $10,000 to the 21st Century Freedom PAC, headed by former New York Gov. George Pataki. Former New York Rep. John Sweeney, who lost his re-election bid last November amid questions about domestic violence, got $6,100 from the couple, and Sen. Bob Corker, the newly elected Republican senator from Tennessee, got $2,500. –Mary Lu Carnevale
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 7, 2007, 11:33 am
Gates Opposes Repeal of Estate Tax
Gates
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates told a Senate panel today that he opposes a repeal of the federal estate tax.
Tax-cut legislation enacted in 2001 reduced the estate tax rate and provided for 10 years of increasing exemptions. For 2007, the top estate tax rate is 45% and the exemption is $2 million. Under the law, the tax is fully repealed in 2010 but will be revived in 2011 with a top rate of 55% and an exemption of $1 million. Pending legislation proposes making the full repeal permanent.
Gates’s father, Bill Gates Sr., has launched a public campaign in opposition to such a repeal along with other financial beacons such as Warren Buffett.
Sen. Kennedy and Gates on Capitol Hill
Asked Wednesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, “How are you getting along with your dad?” Gates said he agreed with many of his father’s arguments. Gates said he hadn’t spoken much about the issue publicly, choosing instead to focus on issues such as competitiveness and global health. Gates said of his father’s efforts, “I think what he’s doing has a lot of merit.”
Gates has made similar comments in the past, but never in such a public forum, a Microsoft spokesman said. Gates was testifying on American competitiveness before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.
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Read more: Global, Budget, Spending and Taxes March 7, 2007, 12:15 am
As Doubts on Economy Grow, Stock Investors Stay Upbeat
Americans have become more pessimistic about the health of the economy, but investors remain confident about stocks despite recent market fluctuations.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of American adults shows a significant decline in economic confidence since the year began. About 31% of Americans now expect the economy to get worse over the next year, double the proportion who said so in January.
Yet a smaller group of Americans with some stock-market investments remains bullish. Among those who say they have at least $5,000 in the market, 46% expect the market to move higher over the next year, while just 16% expect the market to fall. One-third expect the market to stay the same. Read the full article.–John Harwood
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Read more: Global, Economy March 6, 2007, 7:11 pm
Clinton’s Focus on Women
Sen. Hillary Clinton is focusing her presidential campaign on women these days. At a lunchtime address to Emily’s List, she announced a new outreach to women — Women for Hillary — and she said she will reintroduce her bill aimed at shrinking the pay gap between men and women.
The numbers tell the story: In 2004, 54% of the votes were cast by women, and if Clinton can attract significantly more support among women than her opponents can, the effect could be decisive. Emily’s List, a political committee that raises money for Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, has already endorsed Clinton. Today, she promised the crowd of some 1,200 that “together, we can break the hardest and highest of glass ceilings,” by electing her in 2008.
In a “Hillcast” on pay parity, Clinton (this time wearing a blue jacket with a mandarin collar) said the Paycheck Fairness Act would give women greater ability to sue their employers for pay discrimination, bar employers from punishing employees for sharing salary information and enforce equal pay laws for federal contracts. But passage will be difficult. Similar bills have been introduced in the House and Senate every Congress since 1997.
To build support among younger women and their mothers, the Clinton campaign is preparing to launch a Web site next week: www.icanbepresident.com. –Dean Treftz
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 6, 2007, 5:30 pm
Case Closed?
“I do not expect to file any additional charges,” special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald declared at a news conference after a jury convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “We’re all going back to our day jobs.”
That would be one of the most remarkable outcomes of the government’s CIA leak investigation since any number of earlier independent counsel investigations have dragged on for years, winding up far afield from the original probe. (Think Whitewater, which began in 1993 as an investigation into a failed Arkansas land deal and ended in 2000 after delving into the White House travel office, the suicide of a White House lawyer, and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky – all at a cost to taxpayers of some $80 million.)
While Fitzgerald said that if new information materializes “we will take action,” he made it clear he wants to return to his “day job” as the U.S. attorney in Chicago. He was tapped for the CIA leak case in 2003 by then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey, a friend who gave him wide latitude as special prosecutor. When Fitzgerald started going after journalists, many thought he had little regard for the First Amendment. And when his investigation reached President Bush’s inner circle, conservatives cried foul. Still others thought he didn’t go far enough. Even today, juror Denis Collins, a former Washington Post reporter, said jurors wanted to hear from other Bush administration officials, including political adviser Karl Rove. “It was said a number of times [by jurors], ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’ ” Collins said. “It seemed like he [Libby] was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy.”
But details of how that came about might never become public. As a special prosecutor — and not an independent counsel — he doesn’t have to file a report on the on the probe. –John McCary
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Read more: Global, Courts March 6, 2007, 5:24 pm
A Little Respect
President Bush said “he respected the jury’s verdict,” much as “he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said after the former White House aide was convicted of perjury and related crimes. Vice President Cheney, however, had no word on respect for the jury or its verdict.
“I am very disappointed with the verdict. I am saddened for Scooter and his family. As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service,” the vice president said in a statement. Because Libby, who served as Cheney’s chief of staff, plans to seek a new trial or appeal his conviction, “I plan to have no further comment on the merits of this matter until these proceedings are concluded,” the vice president said. –Jess Bravin
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Read more: Global, Courts, White House March 6, 2007, 4:11 pm
A Teaching Moment for President Bush?
Days before President Bush begins a five-country tour of Latin America, the University of Nebraska sued to end the administration’s hold on a Bolivian professor originally slated to teach at the Lincoln campus in August 2005.
The university first petitioned for the historian, Waskar Ari, to receive a special worker visa nearly two years ago, paying extra fees to guarantee a decision within 15 business days. But the application has been delayed “for unspecified ’security checks,’” according to the Washington immigration firm handling the suit.
Ari’s lawyer, Michael Maggio, has said officials may have mistakenly linked his client to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has strongly criticized the Bush administration and, like Ari, is an Aymara Indian.
Ari received a Ph.D. from Georgetown University in May 2005 and returned to Bolivia for what he expected to be a brief visit before assuming his duties at Nebraska. Instead, officials summoned him to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz and canceled his visa. “I don’t understand. I am considered to be very pro-America in Bolivia,” Ari told the Washington Post last summer.
In another prominent case, the government denied a visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor and vocal supporter of Palestinians, to teach Islamic studies at Notre Dame. Decisions to deny a visa are not subject to appeal, though immigrants can sue government agencies to fully process their applications.
Bush will arrive in Brazil on Friday, followed by visits to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Washington Wire noted Monday that Bush plans to meet with ordinary people “to counter a rise in leftist sentiment symbolized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez .” –Ben Winograd
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Read more: Global, Foreign Policy, White House March 6, 2007, 3:14 pm
White House Doesn’t Rule Out Pardon for Libby
The White House said it wouldn’t comment on the Libby case.
Well, OK, maybe just a little.
Notably, the administration refused to rule out a pardon for the former senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, convicted today of perjury and obstruction of justice. At a lively daily briefing for reporters, spokeswoman Dana Perino said in response to questions that “there’s a process in place for all Americans if they want to receive a pardon from a president.” She added that she wasn’t characterizing Libby’s prospects of getting clemency if he eventually does apply. “I don’t think that speculating on a wildly hypothetical situation at this time is appropriate,” she said.
Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada had immediately called for President Bush to pledge that he wouldn’t pardon Libby, who now faces a prison term. Some legal observers thought Libby put himself on a track to ask for a pardon by not calling Cheney as a witness or rehashing many potentially embarrassing or incriminating events.
Perino also described Bush’s whereabouts when the verdict was announced (he was in the Oval Office with Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and senior adviser Dan Bartlett) as well as his reaction (sadness for Libby and his family). She added that the president respected the jury verdict. In response to questions, she also disagreed with the suggestion that the verdict reflected a culture of corruption in the administration or a cloud on the vice president’s office. And she acknowledged that it can be “frustrating” to go through such a lengthy investigation into “unpleasant” issues.
She initially said it was appropriate for Reid to make his comments about the verdict, but when asked why it then wasn’t appropriate for the White House to comment, too, she said she wasn’t “going to make a judgment on Sen. Reid.” –John D. McKinnon
Vote: Do you agree with the guilty verdict?
Readers: Was the White House’s response appropriate?
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Read more: Global, White House March 6, 2007, 2:21 pm
Libby Juror Has His Say
Scooter Libby juror Denis Collins, in a lengthy news conference on the courtroom steps, said the least convincing argument presented in the trial was that “Mr. Libby was working so hard that he could just forget everything. Our conclusion was, yeah, he worked hard and had some memory problems… But you don’t forget what you know.”
Still, the 57-year-old former Washington Post reporter, said the jury felt sympathy for Libby, his wife and children. “It’s not like I would vote for Mr. Libby if he ran for office,” said Collin, “but we all felt for him…the unpleasantness of passing judgment was palpable.”
As for a pardon, he said, “Personally, I wouldn’t be upset a bit… I just don’t have any anger toward Mr. Libby.” Collins, who said he’s a registered Democrat, said politics didn’t enter into the jury’s verdict.
Evaluating the lawyers’ performances, Collins said both Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (whom he described as “a light heavyweight, straight ahead” fighter) and Theodore Wells, Libby’s lead attorney, (“He kinda jumped around”) both were first-rate. “We just thought Fitzgerald was given a lot more to work with.” –Mary Lu Carnevale
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Read more: Global March 6, 2007, 1:14 pm
Democrats Applaud Verdict in Libby Case
Libby
Democratic leaders quickly weighed in on the jury’s guilty verdict against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, issued a statement, saying, “I welcome the jury’s verdict. It’s about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics.”
He went on to say that Libby “has been convicted of perjury, but his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney’s role in this sordid affair. Now, President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the trial “provided a troubling picture of the inner workings of the Bush Administration. The testimony unmistakably revealed — at the highest levels of the Bush Administration — a callous disregard in handling sensitive national security information and a disposition to smear critics of the war in Iraq.”
The Democratic National Committee, meantime, put a picture of Libby and a banner headline “GUILTY” on its Web site. The first comment, was simply: “MERRY FITZMAS!!!!”
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, in a news conference outside the courtroom, told reporters that “any lie under oath is serious… The truth is what drives the judicial system.”
Libby attorney Theodore Wells told reporters that the defense team plans to file a motion for a new trial and if that’s rejected, will appeal. “Despite our disappointment in the jurors’ verdict, we believe in the American justice system and we believe in the jury system,'’ he said. –Mary Lu Carnevale
UPDATE: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) said Libby’s conviction “underscores what happens when our foreign and national security policies are subverted by politics and ideology. Leaks and innuendo in pursuit of a flawed policy lead to shameful episodes such as this. It should never happen again.”
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D., Mass.) said the “entire intelligence community was chilled by this politically-motivated outing by White House operatives. While the White House was saying “trust us” to the American people, it simultaneously was saying to the American intelligence community “if you tell the truth, we’ll threaten your family.” This deception is now catching up with them.”
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Read more: Global, White House March 6, 2007, 10:17 am
Labor Takes on Bush Trade Agenda
The labor community is stepping up opposition to the Bush trade agenda.
AFL-CIO leaders are signaling their intention to challenge efforts to renew the president’s trade-negotiating authority, which expires at the end of June. The authority gives the president the ability to negotiate trade deals and submit them to Congress for approval without amendment. It’s a top priority of the White House, and would give the administration added time to finish a deal in the Doha Round of world-wide trade talks.
At a news conference today, leaders of the AFL-CIO are expected to urge the Democratic-controlled Congress to embrace an “alternative vision” for trade policy, one that strengthens the role of Congress in negotiations and puts greater emphasis on worker rights and environmental standards, among other things. The challenge posed by the AFL-CIO will raise pressure on Democratic leaders not to compromise with the White House on trade.
In recent weeks, top Democrats, including House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), have talked with the Bush administration about elevating labor rights in pending U.S. trade deals with Peru, Colombia and Panama, as well as the president’s broader negotiating authority. The AFL-CIO supports greater protections for worker rights but is skeptical that the White House will ever agree to a level of protection acceptable to the labor movement. Moreover, the AFL-CIO has a number of additional concerns with the Bush trade agenda, such as the patent protections sought for U.S. pharmaceuticals. –Greg Hitt
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Read more: Global, Business, Trade March 6, 2007, 8:46 am
Global Economy 'as Strong as I've Seen,' Paulson Says
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Tuesday said the world economy is very strong amid substantial growth in Japan, China, the U.S. and developing countries around the world. “The global economy is more than sound: it’s as strong as I’ve seen in my business lifetime.” Paulson, who is meeting with Japanese officials on the first day of a four-day visit to Asia, downplayed the long-term impact of the global stock market decline.
“Markets very seldom move in a straight line,” Paulson said to reporters after a meeting at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “You are always going to have volatility.” Paulson told reporters the U.S. economy is strong, supported by low inflation, growing employment, and higher wages. He noted that U.S. home sales and prices have slowed over the past year. –Elizabeth Price
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Read more: Global, Economy March 6, 2007, 8:30 am
Fed Official Sees Plenty of Liquidity
Despite last week’s turmoil in the financial markets, liquidity is not “in short supply,” says Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
Warsh told the Institute of International Bankers in Washington today that while “risk premiums” – the additional return investors demand to hold a risky asset – “rose some last week, markets are functioning well… and overall liquidity does not appear to be in short supply.” But he cautioned that it’s too soon for a “comprehensive” assessment.
Stocks world-wide fell sharply last week and yields on risky debt, such as bonds backed by subprime mortgages, rose sharply. Futures markets priced in a higher probability that the Fed would cut interest rates this year because of the Fed’s history of easing monetary policy in response to disorderly market conditions, and because weaker stock prices and higher risk premiums often foreshadow economic weakness.
But in the last week, Fed officials have struck a confident tone, even arguing that periods of such volatility are healthy safeguards against investor complacency. That suggests little inclination as yet to cut rates.
Fed Governor Randall Kroszner told a community bankers’ meeting in Washington that “the outlook for the U.S. economy has not materially changed.” And William Poole, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said in Santiago, Chile, that it would be wise for the Fed not to respond to the trouble through its monetary policy “until you have a better idea of what’s actually happening.”
Warsh said that judging from liquidity alone, “it would be hard to conclude that monetary policy has been restrictive.” He said liquidity has multiple definitions, but he defined it as investors’ confidence in their ability to buy and sell with ease because they can quantify risks. In conditions like those of recent months, when investors believe the economic outlook is “benign” and more damaging possibilities remote or easy to measure, he said, liquidity is “plentiful.”
Warsh, a former investment banker, said investor overconfidence could not be “ruled out,” but he cited fundamental explanations for low risk premiums. The economy is less volatile, there are many new financial products for spreading risk and investors such as hedge funds to buy them, and emerging markets are sending excess savings to developed countries, he said. Even if there is a shakeout, risks will remain easier to disperse and hedge, he said. –Greg Ip
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Read more: Global March 6, 2007, 8:15 am
Libby Trial: Defining 'Humanly Possible'
On the ninth day of jury deliberations in the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial, jurors posed this question to Judge Reggie Walton: “We would like clarification of the term ‘reasonable doubt.’ Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?'’
The question led to nearly an hour of discussion among the judge, the prosecution and the defense. Walton replied, via note, that the jurors should reread his earlier instructions, and he had a question for them, too: What did they mean by “humanly possible.'’
Reporters trying to read the tea leaves have come up with their own pastime: a pool on the timing of the verdict. But even that isn’t running smoothly. Votes had to be recast today since most of those in the pool figured the decision would come this past Friday. Odds now favor Wednesday or Thursday. –John McCary
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Read more: Global, Courts, White House March 5, 2007, 5:30 pm
Bush Calls Latin American Poverty a 'Scandal'
Bush
Just as he’s acknowledging economic inequality in the U.S., President Bush also is talking more about the vast gulf between rich and poor in Latin America.
In a speech today outlining his message for this week’s trip to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, Bush called poverty in the region a “scandal” — an unusual admission for the normally upbeat president. Since a speech on Wall Street in January, Bush also has been talking more about inequality in the U.S.
Bush’s trip to Latin America will include several stops where he’ll meet with ordinary people, in what aides acknowledge is a new White House effort to demonstrate his sensitivity to the region’s poverty as well as its potential. Bush is trying to counter a rise in leftist sentiment symbolized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday, Bush will take part in a roundtable at the Meninos do Morumbi community center, located in a neighborhood where very wealthy people live near some of the city’s poorest street kids. On Sunday in Colombia, Bush will take part in a roundtable with Afro-Colombians who’ve benefited from U.S. and Colombian educational initiatives. And in Guatemala, Bush will visit an agricultural cooperative, the Labradores Mayas packing station, which provides jobs for indigenous farmers and has been benefiting from trade liberalization.
Bush said today that prosperity in Latin America too often has depended on accidents of birth, a veiled reference to the disparity that exists between European and non-European groups in the region. Still, the White House made no dramatic new aid announcements. Instead, the trip is focused broadly on doing a better job of convincing Latin Americans that democracy and free-market trade bring benefits, a senior White House official said. –John D. McKinnon
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Read more: Global, Foreign Policy, White House March 5, 2007, 5:03 pm
It Takes a Commission
Sen. Judd Gregg, (R., N.H.), said the last time Congress was on the verge of dealing with Social Security reform, Monica Lewinsky interfered, throwing Congress into chaos and squelching lawmakers’ ability to push through a bipartisan bill. This time, he fears Vice President Dick Cheney may have gotten in the way.
Gregg and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) have been working behind the scenes to build support for a bipartisan commission to deal with reforming entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare, and tackling tax reform as well.
They plan to introduce legislation this week establishing a 16-member commission, made up equally of Democrats and Republicans and chaired by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The commission would be required to take action by October. Gregg says everything would be on the table for discussion, including benefit cuts and tax increases as Congress looks for ways to restrain the costs of Social Security and Medicare, which are ballooning and could eventually swamp the federal budget. That jibes with comments made by Paulson, who has told lawmakers that he wants a discussion without “preconditions” that would cover everyone’s ideas, including taxes.
“Everybody was pretty comfortable with it, then some comments were made that caused people to be skittish,” says Gregg. Those comments included ones made by Cheney, who said that while President Bush wants a discussion on entitlement reform without preconditions, “we don’t believe a tax increase is necessary.”
Those remarks struck a sour note with Democrats, who don’t trust the White House to take seriously anything that includes a tax increase. House Democrats are now said to be wary of backing the commission.
Gregg said the vice president “undercut” the efforts of lawmakers to tackle entitlement reform. “It was a statement that he was directed to make in order to shore up the folks who are concerned about the [tax] rate issues,” he says.
Meanwhile, Paulson is eager to get lawmakers to the table to discuss reform in private and out of the public eye. While he doesn’t necessarily think legislation is necessary to create a commission, people familiar with the matter said he’s willing to participate should a commission be formed.
“We welcome discussions on this issue,” a Treasury spokeswoman said. —Deborah Solomon
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Read more: Global, Congress, Budget, Spending and Taxes, Domestic Policy March 5, 2007, 3:49 pm
Norquist: Romney Introduced, Not Endorsed
Romney
Conservative leader (and Americans for Taxpayer Reform founder) Grover Norquist may have introduced presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this past week, but that doesn’t mean he’s endorsed him.
“It was an introduction, not an endorsement,” Norquist told WSJ editors and reporters today. Norquist says he called all of the nominees to let them know he’d be introducing Romney at the CPAC conference and why: he was the first 2008 Republican presidential nominee to sign the Americans for Taxpayer Reform pledge not to raise taxes.
Two other Republican hopefuls — Rudy Giuliani and John McCain — haven’t signed the pledge yet, but Norquist expects they will by the summer. Republican Mike Huckabee signed the pledge Friday, after getting hammered by the conservative Club for Growth, which released a paper detailing how he raised taxes while governor of Arkansas.
When will Norquist endorse a candidate? Not until every candidate has either signed the tax pledge or made it clear he won’t (which would, obviously, make that person likelier to win the Democratic presidential nomination than get Norquist’s seal of approval). The candidates will be asked to make some more detailed pledges on tax reform before he makes his choice, says Norquist, who added that he hopes to make his choice this summer. He also figures there could be room for his friend (and former House speaker) Newt Gingrich in the Republican race — if Giuliani, McCain or Romney falter. –Amy Schatz
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Read more: Global, Budget, Spending and Taxes, Campaign 2008 March 5, 2007, 2:46 pm
Encouraging Investments From Abroad
With Congress moving to tighten U.S. scrutiny of foreign investment, the Bush administration is launching an initiative to encourage fresh flows of capital from abroad.
Under the initiative to be announced Wednesday, the Commerce Department will head a special task force charged with promoting the U.S. as an attractive destination for foreign investment. The task force will be led by Commerce Undersecretary Franklin Lavin.
Just last week, the House voted 423-0 for legislation to increase U.S. scrutiny of overseas-led business deals — a move that puts pressure on the Senate to act. Among other things, the bill would require the administration to conduct a 45-day investigation of most deals involving foreign governments, give intelligence agencies a formal role in the review and increase disclosure to Congress. –Greg Hitt
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Read more: Global, Business, Trade March 5, 2007, 2:33 pm
High Court Rejects Colorado Map Case
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court found no constitutional problem when the Texas Legislature redrew congressional districts seven years ahead of the next census so as to give Republican candidates a leg up. On Monday, the court — citing different legal issues at play – reached the opposite result in Colorado, rejecting an appeal that sought to advantage a Republican candidate through a map redrawn years ahead of schedule by a Republican-controlled legislature.
Unlike Texas, Colorado’s state constitution limits redistricting to once per census. The state gained a seat after the 2000 census, but the legislature, split between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House, deadlocked on a new map. That threw the issue into state court, which imposed a Democratic-proposed map that put the new seat in Denver’s competitive north suburbs rather than in the Republican-dominated area south of the city.
Republicans took back the state Senate in 2002 and, although Republican Bob Beauprez had narrowly won the new seat, redrew the lines to strengthen their party’s hold in the 2004 elections. In December 2003, however, the Colorado Supreme Court barred the redrawn map from taking effect, citing the state constitution’s limit of one redistricting per census.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 refused to hear a Republican appeal, but four Colorado citizens not party to that case then filed their own suit, alleging that the Colorado court’s decision ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that the “legislature” of each state “shall” prescribe the “manner of holding elections for senators and representatives.”
In its unsigned opinion today, the high court didn’t discuss the merits of the citizen claim. Instead, it said the citizens had no standing to bring the claim in the first place.
“The only injury plaintiffs allege is that the law — specifically the Elections Clause — has not been followed. This injury is precisely the kind of undifferentiated, generalized grievance about the conduct of government that we have refused to countenance in the past,” the justices said, distinguishing the appeal from voting rights cases where individuals alleged that state action had impaired their own ability to cast effective ballots.
As it happens, Beauprez won re-election in 2004, but gave up his seat to run for governor last year, losing to Democrat Bill Ritter. Democrat Ed Perlmutter picked up Beauprez’s old district, giving the Democrats a 4-3 edge in Colorado’s congressional delegation. –Jess Bravin
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Read more: Global, Congress, Courts March 5, 2007, 9:35 am
CPAC Votes for Reagan
Ronald Reagan is alive and well — at least, he was at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend. In a straw poll of conference participants, 79% said they would support “a Ronald Reagan Republican” for president, while only 3% said they would support a “George W. Bush Republican.” Still, 82% said they favor the president’s strategy in Iraq.
The conservative vote remained split, with no candidate a clear favorite. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the straw poll for president with 21%, followed by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 17% of the votes from those attending the annual conference — a must-stop for candidates seeking the support of the party’s social conservative wing. Full results of the poll are at CPAC’s Web site. –June Kronholz
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Read more: Global March 5, 2007, 9:27 am
White House Tussles on Doha
As angst over the shaky state of the U.S. trade agenda grows, tensions are emerging within President Bush’s inner circle over how best to get the stalled Doha round of world trade talks moving. The chairman of the National Economic Council, presidential friend Allan Hubbard, and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley have privately voiced frustration with the tortured pace of action in the latest stage of comprehensive talks.
Launched in Doha, Qatar, soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the talks had as their primary aim better integrating poor nations into the global trading system. Hubbard and Hadley have pressed for a bolder U.S. offer in an effort to encourage other countries to compromise.
In one heated meeting among top Bush aides just before Christmas in the Old Executive Office Building, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab opposed the idea of a grand offer. Schwab, who had seen a similar move by her predecessor flop, pushed instead for “quiet negotiations” focusing on details to build trust among Doha’s participants.
Bush sided with Schwab, and has continued to back her. But she is now at risk of being overshadowed — some fear undercut — by new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is moving deeper into the public debate on Doha and trade. Read more. –Greg Hitt and Deborah Solomon
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Read more: Global, White House, Trade
WSJ/NBC News Poll Shows Giuliani's Strength
Giuliani
Americans are already paying close attention to the 2008 presidential race, and they are giving new traction to one rising star in each party.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that among Republicans, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has climbed into a solid lead for his party’s nomination for the White House. Boasting support across his party’s ideological spectrum, Giuliani leads Arizona Sen. John McCain by 55% to 34% in a head to head match of the two top Republican candidates.
Among Democrats, the Journal/NBC poll shows, Barack Obama continues his improbable rising in the White House race after just two years as a U.S. senator from Illinois. Obama trails Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton by a relatively narrow 47% to 39% in a match between two candidates who could make history. Clinton, a New York senator and former First Lady, could become America’s first woman president; Obama could become the first African-American president.
The telephone poll of 1,007 adults, conducted March 2-5 by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Read more. –John Harwood
Readers: In your opinion, who’s the strongest Republican candidate?
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 7, 2007, 4:52 pm
Obama: Default Position?
Obama
Sen. Barack Obama, on the hot seat for a couple of investments in companies backed by big donors, told reporters today, “At no point did I know that stocks were held, and at no point did I direct how those stocks were invested.”
At the end of a press conference on immigration, the Illinois Democrat and presidential hopeful, said he didn’t want investments “that potentially would create conflicts with my work here,” and explained that his broker bought the stocks as part of a quasi-blind trust. “Obviously, the thing didn’t work the way I wanted it to.”
Could it be that when it comes to controversies, Obama’s emerging default position is the claim that he has no idea what people around him are doing on his behalf? Last month, when the fight broke out between the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps over cutting remarks about the Clintons by Hollywood mogul and Obama supporter David Geffen, Obama distanced himself from the fight — particularly from a fusillade from his campaign aide Robert Gibbs — saying he had been on a plane, got a haircut and took his daughters to school while the mud fight erupted.
We’re waiting to hear what Obama says next, since he is certain to get more questions on the investment matter, first reported by the New York Times. It involves purchases of stock in AVI Biopharma and Skyterra Communications; a major investor in both was Obama friend and contributor George W. Haywood. Also, back in 2005, another Skyterra investor Jared Abbruzzese, an Albany, N.Y., area businessman, and his wife, Sherrie, contributed $10,000 to Obama’s political action committee, the Hope Fund.
Abbruzzese is now part of a public corruption investigation in Albany. For the Abbruzzeses, the donation to the Obama PAC was a deviation. The Center for Responsive Politics shows they gave $75,000 to the Republican National Committee in the 2005-2006 election cycle, $10,000 to the 21st Century Freedom PAC, headed by former New York Gov. George Pataki. Former New York Rep. John Sweeney, who lost his re-election bid last November amid questions about domestic violence, got $6,100 from the couple, and Sen. Bob Corker, the newly elected Republican senator from Tennessee, got $2,500. –Mary Lu Carnevale
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 7, 2007, 11:33 am
Gates Opposes Repeal of Estate Tax
Gates
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates told a Senate panel today that he opposes a repeal of the federal estate tax.
Tax-cut legislation enacted in 2001 reduced the estate tax rate and provided for 10 years of increasing exemptions. For 2007, the top estate tax rate is 45% and the exemption is $2 million. Under the law, the tax is fully repealed in 2010 but will be revived in 2011 with a top rate of 55% and an exemption of $1 million. Pending legislation proposes making the full repeal permanent.
Gates’s father, Bill Gates Sr., has launched a public campaign in opposition to such a repeal along with other financial beacons such as Warren Buffett.
Sen. Kennedy and Gates on Capitol Hill
Asked Wednesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, “How are you getting along with your dad?” Gates said he agreed with many of his father’s arguments. Gates said he hadn’t spoken much about the issue publicly, choosing instead to focus on issues such as competitiveness and global health. Gates said of his father’s efforts, “I think what he’s doing has a lot of merit.”
Gates has made similar comments in the past, but never in such a public forum, a Microsoft spokesman said. Gates was testifying on American competitiveness before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.
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Read more: Global, Budget, Spending and Taxes March 7, 2007, 12:15 am
As Doubts on Economy Grow, Stock Investors Stay Upbeat
Americans have become more pessimistic about the health of the economy, but investors remain confident about stocks despite recent market fluctuations.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of American adults shows a significant decline in economic confidence since the year began. About 31% of Americans now expect the economy to get worse over the next year, double the proportion who said so in January.
Yet a smaller group of Americans with some stock-market investments remains bullish. Among those who say they have at least $5,000 in the market, 46% expect the market to move higher over the next year, while just 16% expect the market to fall. One-third expect the market to stay the same. Read the full article.–John Harwood
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Read more: Global, Economy March 6, 2007, 7:11 pm
Clinton’s Focus on Women
Sen. Hillary Clinton is focusing her presidential campaign on women these days. At a lunchtime address to Emily’s List, she announced a new outreach to women — Women for Hillary — and she said she will reintroduce her bill aimed at shrinking the pay gap between men and women.
The numbers tell the story: In 2004, 54% of the votes were cast by women, and if Clinton can attract significantly more support among women than her opponents can, the effect could be decisive. Emily’s List, a political committee that raises money for Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, has already endorsed Clinton. Today, she promised the crowd of some 1,200 that “together, we can break the hardest and highest of glass ceilings,” by electing her in 2008.
In a “Hillcast” on pay parity, Clinton (this time wearing a blue jacket with a mandarin collar) said the Paycheck Fairness Act would give women greater ability to sue their employers for pay discrimination, bar employers from punishing employees for sharing salary information and enforce equal pay laws for federal contracts. But passage will be difficult. Similar bills have been introduced in the House and Senate every Congress since 1997.
To build support among younger women and their mothers, the Clinton campaign is preparing to launch a Web site next week: www.icanbepresident.com. –Dean Treftz
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Read more: Global, Campaign 2008 March 6, 2007, 5:30 pm
Case Closed?
“I do not expect to file any additional charges,” special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald declared at a news conference after a jury convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “We’re all going back to our day jobs.”
That would be one of the most remarkable outcomes of the government’s CIA leak investigation since any number of earlier independent counsel investigations have dragged on for years, winding up far afield from the original probe. (Think Whitewater, which began in 1993 as an investigation into a failed Arkansas land deal and ended in 2000 after delving into the White House travel office, the suicide of a White House lawyer, and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky – all at a cost to taxpayers of some $80 million.)
While Fitzgerald said that if new information materializes “we will take action,” he made it clear he wants to return to his “day job” as the U.S. attorney in Chicago. He was tapped for the CIA leak case in 2003 by then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey, a friend who gave him wide latitude as special prosecutor. When Fitzgerald started going after journalists, many thought he had little regard for the First Amendment. And when his investigation reached President Bush’s inner circle, conservatives cried foul. Still others thought he didn’t go far enough. Even today, juror Denis Collins, a former Washington Post reporter, said jurors wanted to hear from other Bush administration officials, including political adviser Karl Rove. “It was said a number of times [by jurors], ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’ ” Collins said. “It seemed like he [Libby] was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy.”
But details of how that came about might never become public. As a special prosecutor — and not an independent counsel — he doesn’t have to file a report on the on the probe. –John McCary
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Read more: Global, Courts March 6, 2007, 5:24 pm
A Little Respect
President Bush said “he respected the jury’s verdict,” much as “he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said after the former White House aide was convicted of perjury and related crimes. Vice President Cheney, however, had no word on respect for the jury or its verdict.
“I am very disappointed with the verdict. I am saddened for Scooter and his family. As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service,” the vice president said in a statement. Because Libby, who served as Cheney’s chief of staff, plans to seek a new trial or appeal his conviction, “I plan to have no further comment on the merits of this matter until these proceedings are concluded,” the vice president said. –Jess Bravin
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Read more: Global, Courts, White House March 6, 2007, 4:11 pm
A Teaching Moment for President Bush?
Days before President Bush begins a five-country tour of Latin America, the University of Nebraska sued to end the administration’s hold on a Bolivian professor originally slated to teach at the Lincoln campus in August 2005.
The university first petitioned for the historian, Waskar Ari, to receive a special worker visa nearly two years ago, paying extra fees to guarantee a decision within 15 business days. But the application has been delayed “for unspecified ’security checks,’” according to the Washington immigration firm handling the suit.
Ari’s lawyer, Michael Maggio, has said officials may have mistakenly linked his client to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has strongly criticized the Bush administration and, like Ari, is an Aymara Indian.
Ari received a Ph.D. from Georgetown University in May 2005 and returned to Bolivia for what he expected to be a brief visit before assuming his duties at Nebraska. Instead, officials summoned him to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz and canceled his visa. “I don’t understand. I am considered to be very pro-America in Bolivia,” Ari told the Washington Post last summer.
In another prominent case, the government denied a visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor and vocal supporter of Palestinians, to teach Islamic studies at Notre Dame. Decisions to deny a visa are not subject to appeal, though immigrants can sue government agencies to fully process their applications.
Bush will arrive in Brazil on Friday, followed by visits to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Washington Wire noted Monday that Bush plans to meet with ordinary people “to counter a rise in leftist sentiment symbolized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez .” –Ben Winograd
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Read more: Global, Foreign Policy, White House March 6, 2007, 3:14 pm
White House Doesn’t Rule Out Pardon for Libby
The White House said it wouldn’t comment on the Libby case.
Well, OK, maybe just a little.
Notably, the administration refused to rule out a pardon for the former senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, convicted today of perjury and obstruction of justice. At a lively daily briefing for reporters, spokeswoman Dana Perino said in response to questions that “there’s a process in place for all Americans if they want to receive a pardon from a president.” She added that she wasn’t characterizing Libby’s prospects of getting clemency if he eventually does apply. “I don’t think that speculating on a wildly hypothetical situation at this time is appropriate,” she said.
Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada had immediately called for President Bush to pledge that he wouldn’t pardon Libby, who now faces a prison term. Some legal observers thought Libby put himself on a track to ask for a pardon by not calling Cheney as a witness or rehashing many potentially embarrassing or incriminating events.
Perino also described Bush’s whereabouts when the verdict was announced (he was in the Oval Office with Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and senior adviser Dan Bartlett) as well as his reaction (sadness for Libby and his family). She added that the president respected the jury verdict. In response to questions, she also disagreed with the suggestion that the verdict reflected a culture of corruption in the administration or a cloud on the vice president’s office. And she acknowledged that it can be “frustrating” to go through such a lengthy investigation into “unpleasant” issues.
She initially said it was appropriate for Reid to make his comments about the verdict, but when asked why it then wasn’t appropriate for the White House to comment, too, she said she wasn’t “going to make a judgment on Sen. Reid.” –John D. McKinnon
Vote: Do you agree with the guilty verdict?
Readers: Was the White House’s response appropriate?
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Read more: Global, White House March 6, 2007, 2:21 pm
Libby Juror Has His Say
Scooter Libby juror Denis Collins, in a lengthy news conference on the courtroom steps, said the least convincing argument presented in the trial was that “Mr. Libby was working so hard that he could just forget everything. Our conclusion was, yeah, he worked hard and had some memory problems… But you don’t forget what you know.”
Still, the 57-year-old former Washington Post reporter, said the jury felt sympathy for Libby, his wife and children. “It’s not like I would vote for Mr. Libby if he ran for office,” said Collin, “but we all felt for him…the unpleasantness of passing judgment was palpable.”
As for a pardon, he said, “Personally, I wouldn’t be upset a bit… I just don’t have any anger toward Mr. Libby.” Collins, who said he’s a registered Democrat, said politics didn’t enter into the jury’s verdict.
Evaluating the lawyers’ performances, Collins said both Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (whom he described as “a light heavyweight, straight ahead” fighter) and Theodore Wells, Libby’s lead attorney, (“He kinda jumped around”) both were first-rate. “We just thought Fitzgerald was given a lot more to work with.” –Mary Lu Carnevale
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Read more: Global March 6, 2007, 1:14 pm
Democrats Applaud Verdict in Libby Case
Libby
Democratic leaders quickly weighed in on the jury’s guilty verdict against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, issued a statement, saying, “I welcome the jury’s verdict. It’s about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics.”
He went on to say that Libby “has been convicted of perjury, but his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney’s role in this sordid affair. Now, President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the trial “provided a troubling picture of the inner workings of the Bush Administration. The testimony unmistakably revealed — at the highest levels of the Bush Administration — a callous disregard in handling sensitive national security information and a disposition to smear critics of the war in Iraq.”
The Democratic National Committee, meantime, put a picture of Libby and a banner headline “GUILTY” on its Web site. The first comment, was simply: “MERRY FITZMAS!!!!”
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, in a news conference outside the courtroom, told reporters that “any lie under oath is serious… The truth is what drives the judicial system.”
Libby attorney Theodore Wells told reporters that the defense team plans to file a motion for a new trial and if that’s rejected, will appeal. “Despite our disappointment in the jurors’ verdict, we believe in the American justice system and we believe in the jury system,'’ he said. –Mary Lu Carnevale
UPDATE: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) said Libby’s conviction “underscores what happens when our foreign and national security policies are subverted by politics and ideology. Leaks and innuendo in pursuit of a flawed policy lead to shameful episodes such as this. It should never happen again.”
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D., Mass.) said the “entire intelligence community was chilled by this politically-motivated outing by White House operatives. While the White House was saying “trust us” to the American people, it simultaneously was saying to the American intelligence community “if you tell the truth, we’ll threaten your family.” This deception is now catching up with them.”
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Read more: Global, White House March 6, 2007, 10:17 am
Labor Takes on Bush Trade Agenda
The labor community is stepping up opposition to the Bush trade agenda.
AFL-CIO leaders are signaling their intention to challenge efforts to renew the president’s trade-negotiating authority, which expires at the end of June. The authority gives the president the ability to negotiate trade deals and submit them to Congress for approval without amendment. It’s a top priority of the White House, and would give the administration added time to finish a deal in the Doha Round of world-wide trade talks.
At a news conference today, leaders of the AFL-CIO are expected to urge the Democratic-controlled Congress to embrace an “alternative vision” for trade policy, one that strengthens the role of Congress in negotiations and puts greater emphasis on worker rights and environmental standards, among other things. The challenge posed by the AFL-CIO will raise pressure on Democratic leaders not to compromise with the White House on trade.
In recent weeks, top Democrats, including House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), have talked with the Bush administration about elevating labor rights in pending U.S. trade deals with Peru, Colombia and Panama, as well as the president’s broader negotiating authority. The AFL-CIO supports greater protections for worker rights but is skeptical that the White House will ever agree to a level of protection acceptable to the labor movement. Moreover, the AFL-CIO has a number of additional concerns with the Bush trade agenda, such as the patent protections sought for U.S. pharmaceuticals. –Greg Hitt
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Read more: Global, Business, Trade March 6, 2007, 8:46 am
Global Economy 'as Strong as I've Seen,' Paulson Says
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Tuesday said the world economy is very strong amid substantial growth in Japan, China, the U.S. and developing countries around the world. “The global economy is more than sound: it’s as strong as I’ve seen in my business lifetime.” Paulson, who is meeting with Japanese officials on the first day of a four-day visit to Asia, downplayed the long-term impact of the global stock market decline.
“Markets very seldom move in a straight line,” Paulson said to reporters after a meeting at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “You are always going to have volatility.” Paulson told reporters the U.S. economy is strong, supported by low inflation, growing employment, and higher wages. He noted that U.S. home sales and prices have slowed over the past year. –Elizabeth Price
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Read more: Global, Economy March 6, 2007, 8:30 am
Fed Official Sees Plenty of Liquidity
Despite last week’s turmoil in the financial markets, liquidity is not “in short supply,” says Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
Warsh told the Institute of International Bankers in Washington today that while “risk premiums” – the additional return investors demand to hold a risky asset – “rose some last week, markets are functioning well… and overall liquidity does not appear to be in short supply.” But he cautioned that it’s too soon for a “comprehensive” assessment.
Stocks world-wide fell sharply last week and yields on risky debt, such as bonds backed by subprime mortgages, rose sharply. Futures markets priced in a higher probability that the Fed would cut interest rates this year because of the Fed’s history of easing monetary policy in response to disorderly market conditions, and because weaker stock prices and higher risk premiums often foreshadow economic weakness.
But in the last week, Fed officials have struck a confident tone, even arguing that periods of such volatility are healthy safeguards against investor complacency. That suggests little inclination as yet to cut rates.
Fed Governor Randall Kroszner told a community bankers’ meeting in Washington that “the outlook for the U.S. economy has not materially changed.” And William Poole, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said in Santiago, Chile, that it would be wise for the Fed not to respond to the trouble through its monetary policy “until you have a better idea of what’s actually happening.”
Warsh said that judging from liquidity alone, “it would be hard to conclude that monetary policy has been restrictive.” He said liquidity has multiple definitions, but he defined it as investors’ confidence in their ability to buy and sell with ease because they can quantify risks. In conditions like those of recent months, when investors believe the economic outlook is “benign” and more damaging possibilities remote or easy to measure, he said, liquidity is “plentiful.”
Warsh, a former investment banker, said investor overconfidence could not be “ruled out,” but he cited fundamental explanations for low risk premiums. The economy is less volatile, there are many new financial products for spreading risk and investors such as hedge funds to buy them, and emerging markets are sending excess savings to developed countries, he said. Even if there is a shakeout, risks will remain easier to disperse and hedge, he said. –Greg Ip
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Read more: Global March 6, 2007, 8:15 am
Libby Trial: Defining 'Humanly Possible'
On the ninth day of jury deliberations in the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial, jurors posed this question to Judge Reggie Walton: “We would like clarification of the term ‘reasonable doubt.’ Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?'’
The question led to nearly an hour of discussion among the judge, the prosecution and the defense. Walton replied, via note, that the jurors should reread his earlier instructions, and he had a question for them, too: What did they mean by “humanly possible.'’
Reporters trying to read the tea leaves have come up with their own pastime: a pool on the timing of the verdict. But even that isn’t running smoothly. Votes had to be recast today since most of those in the pool figured the decision would come this past Friday. Odds now favor Wednesday or Thursday. –John McCary
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Read more: Global, Courts, White House March 5, 2007, 5:30 pm
Bush Calls Latin American Poverty a 'Scandal'
Bush
Just as he’s acknowledging economic inequality in the U.S., President Bush also is talking more about the vast gulf between rich and poor in Latin America.
In a speech today outlining his message for this week’s trip to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, Bush called poverty in the region a “scandal” — an unusual admission for the normally upbeat president. Since a speech on Wall Street in January, Bush also has been talking more about inequality in the U.S.
Bush’s trip to Latin America will include several stops where he’ll meet with ordinary people, in what aides acknowledge is a new White House effort to demonstrate his sensitivity to the region’s poverty as well as its potential. Bush is trying to counter a rise in leftist sentiment symbolized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday, Bush will take part in a roundtable at the Meninos do Morumbi community center, located in a neighborhood where very wealthy people live near some of the city’s poorest street kids. On Sunday in Colombia, Bush will take part in a roundtable with Afro-Colombians who’ve benefited from U.S. and Colombian educational initiatives. And in Guatemala, Bush will visit an agricultural cooperative, the Labradores Mayas packing station, which provides jobs for indigenous farmers and has been benefiting from trade liberalization.
Bush said today that prosperity in Latin America too often has depended on accidents of birth, a veiled reference to the disparity that exists between European and non-European groups in the region. Still, the White House made no dramatic new aid announcements. Instead, the trip is focused broadly on doing a better job of convincing Latin Americans that democracy and free-market trade bring benefits, a senior White House official said. –John D. McKinnon
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Read more: Global, Foreign Policy, White House March 5, 2007, 5:03 pm
It Takes a Commission
Sen. Judd Gregg, (R., N.H.), said the last time Congress was on the verge of dealing with Social Security reform, Monica Lewinsky interfered, throwing Congress into chaos and squelching lawmakers’ ability to push through a bipartisan bill. This time, he fears Vice President Dick Cheney may have gotten in the way.
Gregg and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) have been working behind the scenes to build support for a bipartisan commission to deal with reforming entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare, and tackling tax reform as well.
They plan to introduce legislation this week establishing a 16-member commission, made up equally of Democrats and Republicans and chaired by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The commission would be required to take action by October. Gregg says everything would be on the table for discussion, including benefit cuts and tax increases as Congress looks for ways to restrain the costs of Social Security and Medicare, which are ballooning and could eventually swamp the federal budget. That jibes with comments made by Paulson, who has told lawmakers that he wants a discussion without “preconditions” that would cover everyone’s ideas, including taxes.
“Everybody was pretty comfortable with it, then some comments were made that caused people to be skittish,” says Gregg. Those comments included ones made by Cheney, who said that while President Bush wants a discussion on entitlement reform without preconditions, “we don’t believe a tax increase is necessary.”
Those remarks struck a sour note with Democrats, who don’t trust the White House to take seriously anything that includes a tax increase. House Democrats are now said to be wary of backing the commission.
Gregg said the vice president “undercut” the efforts of lawmakers to tackle entitlement reform. “It was a statement that he was directed to make in order to shore up the folks who are concerned about the [tax] rate issues,” he says.
Meanwhile, Paulson is eager to get lawmakers to the table to discuss reform in private and out of the public eye. While he doesn’t necessarily think legislation is necessary to create a commission, people familiar with the matter said he’s willing to participate should a commission be formed.
“We welcome discussions on this issue,” a Treasury spokeswoman said. —Deborah Solomon
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Read more: Global, Congress, Budget, Spending and Taxes, Domestic Policy March 5, 2007, 3:49 pm
Norquist: Romney Introduced, Not Endorsed
Romney
Conservative leader (and Americans for Taxpayer Reform founder) Grover Norquist may have introduced presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this past week, but that doesn’t mean he’s endorsed him.
“It was an introduction, not an endorsement,” Norquist told WSJ editors and reporters today. Norquist says he called all of the nominees to let them know he’d be introducing Romney at the CPAC conference and why: he was the first 2008 Republican presidential nominee to sign the Americans for Taxpayer Reform pledge not to raise taxes.
Two other Republican hopefuls — Rudy Giuliani and John McCain — haven’t signed the pledge yet, but Norquist expects they will by the summer. Republican Mike Huckabee signed the pledge Friday, after getting hammered by the conservative Club for Growth, which released a paper detailing how he raised taxes while governor of Arkansas.
When will Norquist endorse a candidate? Not until every candidate has either signed the tax pledge or made it clear he won’t (which would, obviously, make that person likelier to win the Democratic presidential nomination than get Norquist’s seal of approval). The candidates will be asked to make some more detailed pledges on tax reform before he makes his choice, says Norquist, who added that he hopes to make his choice this summer. He also figures there could be room for his friend (and former House speaker) Newt Gingrich in the Republican race — if Giuliani, McCain or Romney falter. –Amy Schatz
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Read more: Global, Budget, Spending and Taxes, Campaign 2008 March 5, 2007, 2:46 pm
Encouraging Investments From Abroad
With Congress moving to tighten U.S. scrutiny of foreign investment, the Bush administration is launching an initiative to encourage fresh flows of capital from abroad.
Under the initiative to be announced Wednesday, the Commerce Department will head a special task force charged with promoting the U.S. as an attractive destination for foreign investment. The task force will be led by Commerce Undersecretary Franklin Lavin.
Just last week, the House voted 423-0 for legislation to increase U.S. scrutiny of overseas-led business deals — a move that puts pressure on the Senate to act. Among other things, the bill would require the administration to conduct a 45-day investigation of most deals involving foreign governments, give intelligence agencies a formal role in the review and increase disclosure to Congress. –Greg Hitt
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Read more: Global, Business, Trade March 5, 2007, 2:33 pm
High Court Rejects Colorado Map Case
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court found no constitutional problem when the Texas Legislature redrew congressional districts seven years ahead of the next census so as to give Republican candidates a leg up. On Monday, the court — citing different legal issues at play – reached the opposite result in Colorado, rejecting an appeal that sought to advantage a Republican candidate through a map redrawn years ahead of schedule by a Republican-controlled legislature.
Unlike Texas, Colorado’s state constitution limits redistricting to once per census. The state gained a seat after the 2000 census, but the legislature, split between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House, deadlocked on a new map. That threw the issue into state court, which imposed a Democratic-proposed map that put the new seat in Denver’s competitive north suburbs rather than in the Republican-dominated area south of the city.
Republicans took back the state Senate in 2002 and, although Republican Bob Beauprez had narrowly won the new seat, redrew the lines to strengthen their party’s hold in the 2004 elections. In December 2003, however, the Colorado Supreme Court barred the redrawn map from taking effect, citing the state constitution’s limit of one redistricting per census.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 refused to hear a Republican appeal, but four Colorado citizens not party to that case then filed their own suit, alleging that the Colorado court’s decision ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that the “legislature” of each state “shall” prescribe the “manner of holding elections for senators and representatives.”
In its unsigned opinion today, the high court didn’t discuss the merits of the citizen claim. Instead, it said the citizens had no standing to bring the claim in the first place.
“The only injury plaintiffs allege is that the law — specifically the Elections Clause — has not been followed. This injury is precisely the kind of undifferentiated, generalized grievance about the conduct of government that we have refused to countenance in the past,” the justices said, distinguishing the appeal from voting rights cases where individuals alleged that state action had impaired their own ability to cast effective ballots.
As it happens, Beauprez won re-election in 2004, but gave up his seat to run for governor last year, losing to Democrat Bill Ritter. Democrat Ed Perlmutter picked up Beauprez’s old district, giving the Democrats a 4-3 edge in Colorado’s congressional delegation. –Jess Bravin
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Read more: Global, Congress, Courts March 5, 2007, 9:35 am
CPAC Votes for Reagan
Ronald Reagan is alive and well — at least, he was at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend. In a straw poll of conference participants, 79% said they would support “a Ronald Reagan Republican” for president, while only 3% said they would support a “George W. Bush Republican.” Still, 82% said they favor the president’s strategy in Iraq.
The conservative vote remained split, with no candidate a clear favorite. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the straw poll for president with 21%, followed by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 17% of the votes from those attending the annual conference — a must-stop for candidates seeking the support of the party’s social conservative wing. Full results of the poll are at CPAC’s Web site. –June Kronholz
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Read more: Global March 5, 2007, 9:27 am
White House Tussles on Doha
As angst over the shaky state of the U.S. trade agenda grows, tensions are emerging within President Bush’s inner circle over how best to get the stalled Doha round of world trade talks moving. The chairman of the National Economic Council, presidential friend Allan Hubbard, and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley have privately voiced frustration with the tortured pace of action in the latest stage of comprehensive talks.
Launched in Doha, Qatar, soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the talks had as their primary aim better integrating poor nations into the global trading system. Hubbard and Hadley have pressed for a bolder U.S. offer in an effort to encourage other countries to compromise.
In one heated meeting among top Bush aides just before Christmas in the Old Executive Office Building, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab opposed the idea of a grand offer. Schwab, who had seen a similar move by her predecessor flop, pushed instead for “quiet negotiations” focusing on details to build trust among Doha’s participants.
Bush sided with Schwab, and has continued to back her. But she is now at risk of being overshadowed — some fear undercut — by new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is moving deeper into the public debate on Doha and trade. Read more. –Greg Hitt and Deborah Solomon
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Read more: Global, White House, Trade
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