Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, dies By Donny Kwok
Wed Apr 4, 7:07 AM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, has died of an unspecified illness after reports she had been battling cancer, leaving unanswered questions over her estimated $4.2 billion (2.1 billion pound) fortune.
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Known for her signature pigtails and nicknamed "little sweetie" by the local media, Wang, 69, won a court case in 2005 for her late husband's business empire in a case filled with tales of adultery, kidnapping and murder.
The Hong Kong heiress, whose maiden name was Kung, was reported by local newspapers to be suffering from cancer, but that was never officially confirmed.
"Chinachem Group's chairwoman Nina Wang Kung passed away on April 3 and the details of the funeral will be announced later," her personal assistant, Ringo Wong, told Reuters by telephone.
Wang's company, Hong Kong's largest private property developer, Chinachem Group, confirmed in a statement that she died on Tuesday.
Wang, ranked by Forbes Magazine as Asia's 35th richest person, had no children but is survived by at least one brother and reportedly other siblings.
Lawyer Wong Tak-sing said under Hong Kong law Nina Wang's brothers and sisters could apply to inherit her fortune if she did not have a will. Wang's nieces or nephews could share the wealth as well if their parents had died.
Wang successfully battled her father-in-law for a multi-billion dollar estate left by her late husband Teddy Wang, a property tycoon who vanished more than a decade ago.
KIDNAPPED
Central to the marathon probate case was a handwritten will that Wang said was penned and signed by Teddy in March 1990, a month before he was kidnapped and never seen again. Some reports at the time said Teddy was gagged and bound and thrown out to sea from a Chinese "sampan" boat.
Teddy was also kidnapped in 1983 when his car was hijacked, and only released -- left in an iron box at the side of a road -- after Nina paid an $11 million ransom.
Born in Shanghai, Wang went to Hong Kong in 1955 to rejoin Teddy, who ran a pharmaceuticals and vinyl business before starting to dabble in property. By the 1980s the couple were part of the booming city's glitterati.
Hong Kong newspapers reported late last year that Wang had ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver and other organs, and had been admitted to hospital for chemotherapy.
Two firms, in which Nina Wang held stakes, saw their stock prices fall on Wednesday. Fashion retailer ENM Holdings dropped 14 percent, while China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. lost 2.63 percent.
Wang was also a strategic investor in CITIC 1616, which jumped 67 percent on its market debut the day she died, and was up 1.86 percent on Wednesday.
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Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
9/11 Mastermind Confesses
Al Qaeda suspect admits organizing 9/11 By Andrew Gray
Thu Mar 15, 5:48 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed he organized the September 11 attacks on the United States and a string of others, according to the transcript of a military hearing at the U.S. detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released on Wednesday.
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"I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z," Mohammed, speaking through a personal representative, said according to the transcript of the hearing on Saturday at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
Mohammed, a Pakistani national, also said he was responsible for a 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center, a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, an attempt to down two American airplanes using shoe bombs and other attacks.
During the hearing, held to determine whether he meets the U.S. definition of an enemy combatant, Mohammed also seemed to indicate he had been mistreated in U.S. custody.
Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by U.S. authorities as "high-value" terrorism suspects and transferred to Guantanamo last year from secret CIA prisons abroad.
U.S. officials have said Mohammed, arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and handed over to U.S. custody, was the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
Mohammed spoke both on his own and through his representative, a member of the U.S. military.
"I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama (Osama) Bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation," he said through his representative.
Mohammed's full statement claimed responsibility for 28 separate attacks or plots. It also said he shared responsibility for three other plots, including one to assassinate Pope John Paul in the Philippines and another to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The transcript of the closed hearing had been edited by U.S. officials, a practice the Pentagon said was necessary to remove sensitive security information.
EXPRESSES SOME REGRET
Mohammed, in a long statement in broken English, appeared to express some regret at the deaths caused by the September 11 attacks but suggested they were justified as part of a war against the United States.
"I'm not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even," he said.
"The language of any war in the world is killing. I mean the language of the war is victims."
Mohammed also referred to U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, killed in Pakistan in 2002, but his comments were unclear.
Mohammed is a prime suspect in Pearl's murder and Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf wrote in a memoir published last year that Mohammed executed Pearl.
The president of the three-member military panel conducting the hearing referred to a written statement "regarding alleged abuse or treatment that the detainee received."
No details of the treatment were revealed, although the president said Mohammed described it as torture and it would be reported for "any investigation that may be appropriate."
Mohammed, however, said his statement at Saturday's hearing was not made under any duress or pressure, according to the transcript.
He also compared al Qaeda leader bin Laden to George Washington, the first president of the United States.
"He is doing (the) same thing," he said. "He is just fighting. He needs his independence."
No immediate decision is made at the hearing, known as a combatant status review tribunal. A senior Pentagon official ultimately decides whether Mohammed is an enemy combatant.
The Pentagon posted the transcript on the Internet at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/transcript_ISN10024.pdf.
It also released transcripts of hearings for two others of the 14 detainees transferred last year, Ramzi bin al Shaibah, a Yemeni also accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks, and alleged senior al Qaeda figure Abu Faraj al Libi of Libya.
Neither man attended his hearing, according to the transcripts which can be seen at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Combatant_Tribunals.html.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/guantanamo_mohammed_dc
Thu Mar 15, 5:48 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed he organized the September 11 attacks on the United States and a string of others, according to the transcript of a military hearing at the U.S. detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released on Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z," Mohammed, speaking through a personal representative, said according to the transcript of the hearing on Saturday at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
Mohammed, a Pakistani national, also said he was responsible for a 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center, a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, an attempt to down two American airplanes using shoe bombs and other attacks.
During the hearing, held to determine whether he meets the U.S. definition of an enemy combatant, Mohammed also seemed to indicate he had been mistreated in U.S. custody.
Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by U.S. authorities as "high-value" terrorism suspects and transferred to Guantanamo last year from secret CIA prisons abroad.
U.S. officials have said Mohammed, arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and handed over to U.S. custody, was the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
Mohammed spoke both on his own and through his representative, a member of the U.S. military.
"I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama (Osama) Bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation," he said through his representative.
Mohammed's full statement claimed responsibility for 28 separate attacks or plots. It also said he shared responsibility for three other plots, including one to assassinate Pope John Paul in the Philippines and another to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The transcript of the closed hearing had been edited by U.S. officials, a practice the Pentagon said was necessary to remove sensitive security information.
EXPRESSES SOME REGRET
Mohammed, in a long statement in broken English, appeared to express some regret at the deaths caused by the September 11 attacks but suggested they were justified as part of a war against the United States.
"I'm not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even," he said.
"The language of any war in the world is killing. I mean the language of the war is victims."
Mohammed also referred to U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, killed in Pakistan in 2002, but his comments were unclear.
Mohammed is a prime suspect in Pearl's murder and Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf wrote in a memoir published last year that Mohammed executed Pearl.
The president of the three-member military panel conducting the hearing referred to a written statement "regarding alleged abuse or treatment that the detainee received."
No details of the treatment were revealed, although the president said Mohammed described it as torture and it would be reported for "any investigation that may be appropriate."
Mohammed, however, said his statement at Saturday's hearing was not made under any duress or pressure, according to the transcript.
He also compared al Qaeda leader bin Laden to George Washington, the first president of the United States.
"He is doing (the) same thing," he said. "He is just fighting. He needs his independence."
No immediate decision is made at the hearing, known as a combatant status review tribunal. A senior Pentagon official ultimately decides whether Mohammed is an enemy combatant.
The Pentagon posted the transcript on the Internet at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/transcript_ISN10024.pdf.
It also released transcripts of hearings for two others of the 14 detainees transferred last year, Ramzi bin al Shaibah, a Yemeni also accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks, and alleged senior al Qaeda figure Abu Faraj al Libi of Libya.
Neither man attended his hearing, according to the transcripts which can be seen at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Combatant_Tribunals.html.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/guantanamo_mohammed_dc
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Daniel Tammet, Human Calculator
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News Home > 60 Minutes > Health & Science > Brain Man
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Brain Man
Meet Daniel Tammet, a 27 year-old math and memory wizard. He can do things with numbers that will truly amaze you. He is a savant. . . with a difference. Unlike most savants, he shows no obvious mental disability, and most importantly, he can describe his own thought process. Join correspondent Morley Safer as he explores the extraordinary life and mind of Daniel Tammet.
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Rate this segment:
Average (66 votes)
Web Exclusive
Human Calculator
Meet Daniel Tammet » Watch Clip
View Video
Memorizing Pi
Only 22,514 numbers to remember » Watch Clip
View Video
Numbers Magic
Morley puts Daniel to the test » Watch Clip
View Video
Learning Icelandic
He did it in a week! » Watch Clip
View Video
From The Archives
Real Life Rain Man
Meet George Finn >>Watch Clip
DID YOU KNOW?
Savants are usually mentally handicapped or autistic people whose brain somehow possesses an island of brilliance - or even genius.
It's estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today.
Daniel Tammet is unique among savants, because he is blessed with all of the spectacular ability of a savant, but with very little of the disability.
Great Gifts, Great Challenges "289 Is An Ugly Number" » Watch Clip View Video
Origin Of A Gift » Watch Clip View Video
Bullied » Watch Clip View Video
A Compulsion To Count » Watch Clip View Video
CommentsSound off on this segment. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.
11 - 10 of 1145 First < Previous Next > Last
That guy's brain is absolutely incredible!!! 22,514 numbers and didn't miss a one!!! It really goes to show what the human brain is capable of . I found his discription of his thought process in "289 is an ugly number" incredibly fascinating. I wish him much success and somehow doubt he'll have any problem.
Posted by laneofpain on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:13 PM ET
2
I agree that Daniel is remarkable. This article does however wrongly define the word savant which has always been used to refer to any learned scholar or person of profound or extensive learning. Only 50 savants living in the world today? I hope not!
Posted by synaestheticmonkey on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:37 PM ET
3
Wow, laneofpain is right, it does show what our brain is capable of. One thing many people get wrong is that Daniel is not smart. Yes he has amazing memory and can do any math problem anyone can think about, but it is a natural ability just like us breathing or using a computer.
Posted by ericeng91 on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:58 PM ET
4
It is interesting that his gift is actually the result of a neurological malfunction. A friend of mine has senescence and can see people in colors. My color is orange. She said the majority of people are blue. I wonder if he has some form of this.
Posted by dustofangelsten on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:06 PM ET
5
The article does not wrongly define the word savant. Morely Safer simply did not use the full term he meant to, because it does not apply to Daniel. The term he is refering to is "idiot savant," a term which denotes a person with amazing skill in one focused area (math, music, etc) but suffers from some form of mental disability. Autisic individuals and those with Asperger's Syndrome (like Daniel) may have been termed idiot savants much more regularly in Morely Safer's youth, however, now it is not a politically correct term.
Posted by kodiak339 on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:09 PM ET
6
He is not the only one. Please take a look into Ms Shakuntala Devi and you will be amazed as well.
Posted by to_rahuls on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:11 PM ET
7
awesome...
Posted by nixjones on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:12 PM ET
8
It is hard to believe that we have existed as long as we have, yet have only evolved to know more about others and not ourself.
Posted by raclamp on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:14 PM ET
9
I watched a documentary on savants and this individual was featured in the documentary among many others. I have not really seen anything to date that empiracally substantiates the claims surrounding his abilities, along with the other savants. Fluent in a foreign language in a week? I doubt it.
Posted by piracyofficer on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:15 PM ET
10
I saw a show on Discovery Science channel about Mr. Tammet a month or two ago. He really is remarkable. And the fact that scientists can ask him questions and get insight into just how the brain of a savant works is a giant leap forward into understanding the human brain. I can't recall the title of the show, but if you get Discovery Science, I highly recommend it.
Posted by coolcelticmomma on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:23 PM ET
1 - 10 of 1145 First < Previous Next > Last
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Associate Producers: Katy Textor, Rebecca Chertok
Graphic Designer: Robert Corujo
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http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/44/brain_man
New User? Sign UpNews Home -HelpNavigation:
News Home > 60 Minutes > Health & Science > Brain Man
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Brain Man
Meet Daniel Tammet, a 27 year-old math and memory wizard. He can do things with numbers that will truly amaze you. He is a savant. . . with a difference. Unlike most savants, he shows no obvious mental disability, and most importantly, he can describe his own thought process. Join correspondent Morley Safer as he explores the extraordinary life and mind of Daniel Tammet.
60 Minutes Logo
Rate this segment:
Average (66 votes)
Web Exclusive
Human Calculator
Meet Daniel Tammet » Watch Clip
View Video
Memorizing Pi
Only 22,514 numbers to remember » Watch Clip
View Video
Numbers Magic
Morley puts Daniel to the test » Watch Clip
View Video
Learning Icelandic
He did it in a week! » Watch Clip
View Video
From The Archives
Real Life Rain Man
Meet George Finn >>Watch Clip
DID YOU KNOW?
Savants are usually mentally handicapped or autistic people whose brain somehow possesses an island of brilliance - or even genius.
It's estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today.
Daniel Tammet is unique among savants, because he is blessed with all of the spectacular ability of a savant, but with very little of the disability.
Great Gifts, Great Challenges "289 Is An Ugly Number" » Watch Clip View Video
Origin Of A Gift » Watch Clip View Video
Bullied » Watch Clip View Video
A Compulsion To Count » Watch Clip View Video
CommentsSound off on this segment. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.
11 - 10 of 1145 First < Previous Next > Last
That guy's brain is absolutely incredible!!! 22,514 numbers and didn't miss a one!!! It really goes to show what the human brain is capable of . I found his discription of his thought process in "289 is an ugly number" incredibly fascinating. I wish him much success and somehow doubt he'll have any problem.
Posted by laneofpain on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:13 PM ET
2
I agree that Daniel is remarkable. This article does however wrongly define the word savant which has always been used to refer to any learned scholar or person of profound or extensive learning. Only 50 savants living in the world today? I hope not!
Posted by synaestheticmonkey on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:37 PM ET
3
Wow, laneofpain is right, it does show what our brain is capable of. One thing many people get wrong is that Daniel is not smart. Yes he has amazing memory and can do any math problem anyone can think about, but it is a natural ability just like us breathing or using a computer.
Posted by ericeng91 on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 8:58 PM ET
4
It is interesting that his gift is actually the result of a neurological malfunction. A friend of mine has senescence and can see people in colors. My color is orange. She said the majority of people are blue. I wonder if he has some form of this.
Posted by dustofangelsten on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:06 PM ET
5
The article does not wrongly define the word savant. Morely Safer simply did not use the full term he meant to, because it does not apply to Daniel. The term he is refering to is "idiot savant," a term which denotes a person with amazing skill in one focused area (math, music, etc) but suffers from some form of mental disability. Autisic individuals and those with Asperger's Syndrome (like Daniel) may have been termed idiot savants much more regularly in Morely Safer's youth, however, now it is not a politically correct term.
Posted by kodiak339 on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:09 PM ET
6
He is not the only one. Please take a look into Ms Shakuntala Devi and you will be amazed as well.
Posted by to_rahuls on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:11 PM ET
7
awesome...
Posted by nixjones on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:12 PM ET
8
It is hard to believe that we have existed as long as we have, yet have only evolved to know more about others and not ourself.
Posted by raclamp on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:14 PM ET
9
I watched a documentary on savants and this individual was featured in the documentary among many others. I have not really seen anything to date that empiracally substantiates the claims surrounding his abilities, along with the other savants. Fluent in a foreign language in a week? I doubt it.
Posted by piracyofficer on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:15 PM ET
10
I saw a show on Discovery Science channel about Mr. Tammet a month or two ago. He really is remarkable. And the fact that scientists can ask him questions and get insight into just how the brain of a savant works is a giant leap forward into understanding the human brain. I can't recall the title of the show, but if you get Discovery Science, I highly recommend it.
Posted by coolcelticmomma on Wed, Feb 28, 2007 9:23 PM ET
1 - 10 of 1145 First < Previous Next > Last
Sign in to post a comment ADVERTISEMENT
Most Popular Segments
ViewedLove In The 21st Century
Barack Obama
Dixie Chicks
The Most Beautiful Woman
Howard Stern
Battling Depression
EmailedBrain Man
Dog Nut
Extraordinary Elephants
Dixie Chicks
The Most Beautiful Woman
Battling Depression
RecommendedGet Me The Geeks!
Helen Mirren
The Duke Case Part II
Working 24/7
Aishwarya Rai. . . The Most Beautiful Woman in the World
President Bush
Can't Wait?
Get an alert whenever a new segment is added to 60minutes.yahoo.com.
More From CBS News
News Stories
Bush Won't Say The C-Word: "Chavez"
U.S. And Iranian Envoys Talk In Iraq
Sick Infant Stolen From Texas Hospital
News Video
Captain America Killed Off
Talks Held On Iraq's Security
Debate Over Use Of Drugs
Featured
CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
Couric & Co. Blog
Podcast
CBS News 60 Minutes Podcast
More Episodes
Andy Rooney
Remembering Ed
Barack Obama
The Oscar Nominees
Kenny Chesney
Love in the 21st Century
More On The Web
Daniel Tammet's Official Website
Yahoo! Health: more about autism
Yahoo! Health: More about Asperger's Syndrome
Senior Producer: Debbie De Luca Sheh
Producers: Deirdre Naphin, David Rubin
Associate Producers: Katy Textor, Rebecca Chertok
Graphic Designer: Robert Corujo
Yahoo! News
U.S. Business World Entertainment Sports Tech Politics Science Health Travel Most Popular Kevin Sites Also On Yahoo!
360 Autos Finance Games Groups Health Hot Jobs Mail Maps Movies Music My Yahoo! News Shopping Sports Tech Travel TV » All Y! Services Things To Do
Buy Movie Tickets Set My TiVo Check Stock Quotes Check Sports Scores Lose Weight Listen to Music
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright/IP Policy Terms of Service Help
NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our » Privacy Policy
http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/44/brain_man
5-day-old Girl Baby-Napped
3-day-old baby seized at Texas hospital By BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 51 minutes ago
LUBBOCK, Texas - A woman posing as a medical worker kidnapped a 3-day-old girl from a hospital early Saturday, police said.
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Mychael Darthard-Dawodu was last seen at 1:20 a.m. at Covenant Lakeside Hospital when a woman wearing blue and flower-print hospital scrubs and a gray hooded jacket took her and drove off in a pickup truck, police said.
Hospital surveillance video showed the woman with the jacket hood pulled around her head and holding a purse as she walked out of the building through the lobby.
It wasn't immediately clear if the kidnapper was wearing a hospital name badge, Gwen Stafford, senior vice president of Covenant Health System, said at a news conference.
"I don't think that our staff had ever seen her," she said.
The baby was jaundiced but he did not have any other information on her medical condition, Lt. Scott Hudgens said. Jaundice is a common complication in newborns in which a buildup of pigment in the blood causes yellowing of the skin.
The parents, Caisha Darthard and Michael A. Dawodu, and other family members declined to comment Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman said.
"At this point we don't have any reason to believe that the family knew the suspect," Hudgens said.
The woman may have had a male accomplice, Hudgens said.
The suspect had gone into the mother's room several times before the baby was taken, telling the mother the baby needed treatment, Stafford said.
Hudgens said the mother alerted someone that her baby was gone within about 15 minutes.
Police said they received tips about the abduction from across the country Saturday, but none had yet panned out. "There's no telling where they went," Hudgens said.
The newborn was wearing a monitoring device but it was not clear if the device included a global positioning system beacon.
Stafford said the hospital has "a very good and sophisticated security" system.
Later she declined to describe the system used with newborns. "I don't want to compromise the security system," Stafford said.
The mother is "distraught, and like us, praying for the safe return of her little girl," Stafford said.
It was the second hospital abduction in Lubbock in less than a year. In June, a newborn at a different hospital was taken by a woman who had visited the baby's mother. A tip led to the woman's whereabouts the next day and she took police to the 5-day-old girl.
1 hour, 51 minutes ago
LUBBOCK, Texas - A woman posing as a medical worker kidnapped a 3-day-old girl from a hospital early Saturday, police said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mychael Darthard-Dawodu was last seen at 1:20 a.m. at Covenant Lakeside Hospital when a woman wearing blue and flower-print hospital scrubs and a gray hooded jacket took her and drove off in a pickup truck, police said.
Hospital surveillance video showed the woman with the jacket hood pulled around her head and holding a purse as she walked out of the building through the lobby.
It wasn't immediately clear if the kidnapper was wearing a hospital name badge, Gwen Stafford, senior vice president of Covenant Health System, said at a news conference.
"I don't think that our staff had ever seen her," she said.
The baby was jaundiced but he did not have any other information on her medical condition, Lt. Scott Hudgens said. Jaundice is a common complication in newborns in which a buildup of pigment in the blood causes yellowing of the skin.
The parents, Caisha Darthard and Michael A. Dawodu, and other family members declined to comment Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman said.
"At this point we don't have any reason to believe that the family knew the suspect," Hudgens said.
The woman may have had a male accomplice, Hudgens said.
The suspect had gone into the mother's room several times before the baby was taken, telling the mother the baby needed treatment, Stafford said.
Hudgens said the mother alerted someone that her baby was gone within about 15 minutes.
Police said they received tips about the abduction from across the country Saturday, but none had yet panned out. "There's no telling where they went," Hudgens said.
The newborn was wearing a monitoring device but it was not clear if the device included a global positioning system beacon.
Stafford said the hospital has "a very good and sophisticated security" system.
Later she declined to describe the system used with newborns. "I don't want to compromise the security system," Stafford said.
The mother is "distraught, and like us, praying for the safe return of her little girl," Stafford said.
It was the second hospital abduction in Lubbock in less than a year. In June, a newborn at a different hospital was taken by a woman who had visited the baby's mother. A tip led to the woman's whereabouts the next day and she took police to the 5-day-old girl.
101-year-old Mugged
Attack on NYC woman, 101, caught on tape 1 hour, 37 minutes ago
NEW YORK - For a moment, the man in the grainy video looks like a good Samaritan holding the door open for an elderly neighbor. Then he turns and delivers three sharp punches to the 101-year-old woman's head.
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"The next thing I knew, I had a big bang on the side of my face," said Rose Morat, who suffered a fractured cheekbone and lost her purse and $33 to the mugger.
The attack was captured by a surveillance camera in the lobby of her Queens apartment building last Sunday.
"I'm quite sure that if it had happened when I was younger, I would have been after him," she said. "I'm a very strong woman. I've been that way my whole life."
Police said the same man is believed to have later attacked a second elderly woman in the neighborhood. Investigators were searching for a suspect Saturday.
"We are pulling out all the stops to find him," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. "We want to stop him before he strikes again."
Morat said she was headed to church when she met the man in her lobby. He offered to help her make her way out, but she declined.
"I know how to handle myself," she said.
As Morat maneuvered her walker through the building's small vestibule, the man slowly put his bicycle against the wall, turned, and attacked her, the security video showed.
Her hat flew off, but she remained on her feet as the man removed her bag and felt her coat pockets.
Then, before making his escape, he punched her in the head again and shoved her to the ground.
Morat spent three days in the hospital.
The 85-year-old woman believed to be the mugger's second victim, Solange Elizee, told police she was punched and pushed to the floor outside her apartment door by a man who had initially offered to help her get home.
"I like to help old people," he said before turning violent, according to Elizee.
The man took her purse and got away with $32, police said.
"God saved my life," she said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_on_re_us/elderly_robbed;_ylt=Anngb.lH9Nqe.O_X7do4678XIr0F
NEW YORK - For a moment, the man in the grainy video looks like a good Samaritan holding the door open for an elderly neighbor. Then he turns and delivers three sharp punches to the 101-year-old woman's head.
ADVERTISEMENT
"The next thing I knew, I had a big bang on the side of my face," said Rose Morat, who suffered a fractured cheekbone and lost her purse and $33 to the mugger.
The attack was captured by a surveillance camera in the lobby of her Queens apartment building last Sunday.
"I'm quite sure that if it had happened when I was younger, I would have been after him," she said. "I'm a very strong woman. I've been that way my whole life."
Police said the same man is believed to have later attacked a second elderly woman in the neighborhood. Investigators were searching for a suspect Saturday.
"We are pulling out all the stops to find him," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. "We want to stop him before he strikes again."
Morat said she was headed to church when she met the man in her lobby. He offered to help her make her way out, but she declined.
"I know how to handle myself," she said.
As Morat maneuvered her walker through the building's small vestibule, the man slowly put his bicycle against the wall, turned, and attacked her, the security video showed.
Her hat flew off, but she remained on her feet as the man removed her bag and felt her coat pockets.
Then, before making his escape, he punched her in the head again and shoved her to the ground.
Morat spent three days in the hospital.
The 85-year-old woman believed to be the mugger's second victim, Solange Elizee, told police she was punched and pushed to the floor outside her apartment door by a man who had initially offered to help her get home.
"I like to help old people," he said before turning violent, according to Elizee.
The man took her purse and got away with $32, police said.
"God saved my life," she said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_on_re_us/elderly_robbed;_ylt=Anngb.lH9Nqe.O_X7do4678XIr0F
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Rising Elitism at CUNY
Higher education and the poor
The City University of New York
Jan 19th 2006
From The Economist print edition
FOR America's colleges, January is a month of reckoning. Most applications for the next academic year beginning in the autumn have to be made by the end of December, so a university's popularity is put to an objective standard: how many people want to attend. One of the more unlikely offices to have been flooded with mail is that of the City University of New York (CUNY), a public college that lacks, among other things, a famous sports team, bucolic campuses and raucous parties (it doesn't even have dorms), and, until recently, academic credibility.…
Unfinished. Look up on Nexis
The City University of New York
Jan 19th 2006
From The Economist print edition
FOR America's colleges, January is a month of reckoning. Most applications for the next academic year beginning in the autumn have to be made by the end of December, so a university's popularity is put to an objective standard: how many people want to attend. One of the more unlikely offices to have been flooded with mail is that of the City University of New York (CUNY), a public college that lacks, among other things, a famous sports team, bucolic campuses and raucous parties (it doesn't even have dorms), and, until recently, academic credibility.…
Unfinished. Look up on Nexis
CCNY Drops Lacrosse
By Michael Spinner
The City College of New York (CCNY) dropped its men's lacrosse program only weeks before its first game of this 2004 season.
You heard me right. After nearly 120 years fielding a mediocre to bad varsity lacrosse program, CCNY finally decided to give it up this week. In their defense, CCNY probably had the worst winning percentage in the NCAA since the 1970's. Only a handful of CCNY laxers in recent memory had ever held a stick before joining the team, let alone played competitively. The fact that most opponents cleared their benches only minutes into each game alone might be justification for ending a tradition that was almost as old as college lacrosse itself.
But worse than all that, even worse than their team name, the Violets, was that it seemed to take the CCNY players forever to finally get out of school and get a job. Believe it or not, most members of this team took 5, 6, and 7 years to graduate. Sometimes more! With so many members of the team taking the better part of a decade to earn their degrees, the administration's call to "put down" this program would seem only logical. That is, if they weren't taking so long to graduate because they were BUSY BECOMING DOCTORS! They were studying to become Engineers. They were earning PhDs.
Let me back track for a moment: If you look into the annals of lacrosse history and the lacrosse Hall of Fame, you will locate the fact that the second oldest college lacrosse team in the United States was at the City College of New York, better known as CCNY. They started in 1888 (just after Stevens Tech I believe), and considering that lacrosse has as much of a following in New York City as Ice Hockey has in Guam, fielding a team there for so many years was quite an accomplishment.
In fact, for a better part of its earlier history, CCNY not only fielded a team but regularly played games against Army, Johns Hopkins, the Ivy League programs, and all of the other powerhouses - and if you don't believe me, the Media Guides of any major program who fielded a team before 1960 will show regular annual games against CCNY. CCNY played these programs for a better part of last century. They didn't win too many of these games, but the fact that they played such legendary programs shows that CCNY lacrosse meant something to many people.
Chief Leon A. Miller was one of those people. You can read all about Chief Miller at the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Chief Miller was the Head Coach at CCNY from 1932-1960 and was an early lacrosse legend, beating regularly the top teams like Navy and Mt. Washington between 1900 and 1905 as a star player at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Talk about tradition - this is a man who helped invent the modern game and he did much of it at CCNY.
George Baron is another one of those people. George was a First Team All-American goalie at CCNY in 1947 and played in the College North-South game that year before embarking on a lifelong dedication to lacrosse that continues to this day. He founded New York City's first program at Jamaica High School during the 1980s and coached there for many years. Now in his 80's, Coach Baron is still coaching as he helps out several High School programs and summer lacrosse camps. His speech on the history of the lacrosse stick is simply amazing to see and if you happen to have the pleasure to meet Coach Baron you would be amazed by what the guy knows. He has seen it all and I could listen to him talk lacrosse all day. Coach Baron is in the Long Island Lacrosse Hall of Fame even though he did not play lacrosse on Long Island, and should be in the National Hall of Fame for his 60 years of dedication to our sport, but like everything else involving Long Island Lacrosse, there are brutal politics. There are many Division I Lacrosse programs to have First Team All-Americans in their history, but many more that do not. CCNY has one.
CCNY went through a lot of changes as an institution over the years. There was a time when CCNY was basically a Harvard for the working man and was considered about as fine of a college as existed at the time. Colin Powell is a CCNY grad. There are hundreds of PhDs, Doctors, Lawyers, Rhodes Scholars, etc., who have a CCNY diploma. Like the rest of the City University of New York system, CCNY's demographic changed considerably during the latter part of the last century, but its academic strength remained the same. People of all colors, religions and nationalities began to become doctors, lawyers and engineers at CCNY, and each year the team still played and represented the whole student body. To be blunt, in a sport that struggles to be less homogenous, CCNY was accomplishing more than anyone without lowering a single academic or athletic standard. To this day CCNY regularly draws the finest New York City kids who cannot afford to go to an expensive private school and offers them a top quality education for pennies on the dollar. Want more info - check out the Sophie Davis Medical Program there. It ranks with the world's elite.
During the latter part of the last century, CCNY's teams were pretty weak, but the program was strong. The lacrosse alumni were such a success as a group that they donated a beautiful Astroturf stadium to the college. The team regularly had 20-25 guys who were not lacrosse players, but they were athletes who played the game hard. They had a coach and volunteer webmaster, Hector Munoz, who was about as classy of a gentleman who ever walked the sidelines. In 1999, I had the opportunity to coach against CCNY, and even though the score was ugly in our favor, Hector was as upbeat as ever and talked about how proud he was of his team. They lost with class, they played hard, and all of them are going to get jobs better than the guys who played for my team because they were mainly Pre-med and Engineering at CCNY.
Not long ago, a new Athletic Director took over at CCNY. His name is Robert Coleman. I don't know Mr. Coleman personally, but I could tell you that his cranial capacity does not possess or allow much room for lacrosse knowledge because at the end of the 2003 season, he fired Hector Munoz after 17 years at the CCNY helm because he felt he needed a Coach who would recruit better players and win some more games. He never considered that a school with a 100% commuter population, located in a less-than-flattering area of New York City, where there are only a handful of High School teams has almost no chance of ever recruiting High School seniors to play lacrosse. Coleman needed only to browse the program's won-loss record before making his decision.
He must have thought, "This program does not win - we need a new coach." It didn't matter that the lacrosse alumni were so successful in life. He wanted wins. So, he hired a new Coach, Frank Romeo. Romeo was the Head Coach at New York Maritime during the mid 1990s … and we all know what a powerhouse NY Maritime was back then. Of course, he was "the right man for the job."
Barely six months on the job, Romeo had accomplished so much that two weeks before a full slate of 2004 games was to begin the program was dropped. Next year, they might be a club team, but maybe not.
So, let's look at the progress here. 116 years of producing men of character who were accomplishing in life well above what the average college lacrosse program was producing. 116 years of alumni who have utilized their overall experience at CCNY to become wealthy, successful, and proud of their institution - and anybody who ever attended a CCNY alumni game knows exactly what I am talking about. 116 years later, they fire a coach who was doing a great job and always fielded a team to hire a guy who could not accomplish as much and may have ruined the program.
Am I missing something here?
Detractors will say that the CCNY program absolutely stunk on the field and that is true. And, chances are that CCNY would have never fielded a top quality college lacrosse program. But, is that the point? Is this ALL about winning and losing? Is the sole purpose of fielding a college team of any kind to win? Or is it to provide a student-athlete with the opportunity to play a sport, represent the school and develop their bodies and minds in and out of a crowded New York City classroom?
If the purpose of college athletics, especially on the Division III level at an urban commuter campus with high academic standards, is less about winning and more about education, than the CCNY program for 116 years was about as successful as any program in the country even while losing so many times. And the fact that they had a coach for 17 years who preached dignity, class, and enthusiasm meant that the athletes were being educated even in losing. And now, the tradition is over because an administrator thought he knew best when he was simply ignorant. In a sport that values and honors tradition as lacrosse does, we all will feel some sense of loss when we learn of the program's demise, even though the sport itself will not be impacted by the lack of a program at CCNY. It will, however, impact the young men who, each year, won't be experiencing lacrosse's competitiveness, commitment, camaraderie, and loyalties on that turf field which represented 116 years of CCNY doing it right. Now it is over because of an administrator who could not have done things more wrong.
To what ends do they aspire? St. John's University, Baylor University, Iowa State University and the University of Colorado are all more accomplished on the courts, fields, television airways and ticket offices than CCNY teams could ever dream of being. Are they more successful programs?
St. John's basically had to end their season because a bunch of players decided to go to a strip club and then brought a woman back to their hotel and had a sex party. Underage players at a strip club after curfew meant big-time suspensions and even expulsions but the program will be back at full strength next season.
Iowa State University's Basketball Coach Larry Eustachy was fired a little more than a year ago because he was drinking with college kids, and not on only one occasion. He was the highest paid state employee in Iowa but could not find anybody to party with. The poor guy is gone but the program lives on.
The Colorado Football program has its own special prosecutor appointed by the Colorado State's Attorney's Office. The 4 year scandal, highlighted by six allegations of rape, an insensitive and sexist rant in public by the now-suspended coach Gary Barnett and many accusations of recruiting parties featuring paid strippers and prostitutes, will not stop the grand tradition of Buffaloes football. And, of course, the dollars are too attractive and addictive. The fact that most Colorado football players never actually earn a degree won't be considered for a moment and there is a pretty good chance that Barnett will be back on the sidelines in the fall with a damn good team.
While the Baylor University basketball team was beating Texas A&M this week, the schools independent investigation accused last year's already-fired coach of allowing improper payments to students, including a player who was killed last summer by a jealous teammate.
We have reached the point in college athletics where you can get away with everything even murder as long as your team wins, but if your team is losing or unprofitable, you are out - regardless of the educational value of the athletics experience. In the new college athletics culture, the kids do not matter. Integrity and education do not matter. Tradition does not matter. It's all about the W's and the dollars, even after 116 years of proving otherwise. CCNY's current administration inherited a great wealth that belonged to the sport and the state, but they did not value it or understand it. They entrusted it carelessly and then tossed it in the trash when they broke it. And they were ashamed of losing ball games?
Oh, and by the way, the members of the CCNY Lacrosse teams I watched over the years never lost a game no matter what the scoreboard said. They won at life and are very much enjoying victory to this day.
Team and Alumni photos from the CCNY Lax web site.
February 28, 2003
YOUR MAIL
First of all thanks for the article. The last two seasons at CCNY were the hardest for me, especially the last one. It was due mainly to the many battles my assistant (Brad Meetze, Oswego) and I had in order to field a team. Would you believe that Brad and I shoveled snow off the turf after the first snow storm in order to have a small area to practice on. When we were hit by the second snow storm there was too much snow for us to remove. The "03" team was least prepared team I have ever fielded at CCNY due to lack of quality practices. Practicing on a small side court for basketball does not teach a team, defense, offense, transition, riding and clearing for a game that is played on a field the size of a soccer field. We had no scrimmages because of the snow. So you can see why the team had difficulties.
I really want to write about one of the e-mails written to you by Brett Smith. In his e-mail he wrote, "In fact, Mr. Munoz had been disassociated with the program for a long time before Mr. Romeo accepted the position." The fact is that I was informed that I would not be re-signed in the middle of May. During the fall I was in contact with some of the players to find out how things were going with team and in contact with Doug Marino and George Baron, who have been involved with saving the program since my release. Just last week I was at City, met the new coach, spoke to the lacrosse players on helping the coach to recruit athletes on campus while he recruits off campus. I made it quite clear that the lacrosse alumni is working very hard for the team, but their help is needed. While I was there three young men showed up to speak to the coach about joining the team and one of them had played in high school. I feel that Mr. Smith is not aware that I am an alumnus of CCNY. So how can I disassociate myself from my alma mater. Maybe Mr. Smith should have done some research on his part before writing the above statement.
I have never met Mr. Frank Romeo and I have no idea what kind of a person he is. The one thing I can tell you about him, if he were the coach right now I would have done the same thing for him that I did for the new coach. I was there for the players and the program.
Once again thank you for the article,
Hector, Sr.
IN DEFENSE OF FRANK ROMEO
Michael,
I read with great dismay your article of February 28, 2004 regarding the CCNY lacrosse program. Not only is your derogatory tone overtly supercilious and unnecessary, you repetitively contradict yourself and make misinformed statements. I have followed many family members and close friends in the lacrosse world on e-lacrosse for years. Never have I found the site so lacking in class as I did upon reviewing your article.
Your respect and friendship for Coach Munoz is apparent and no reader can fault you for this. Surely, Coach Munoz did a wonderful job if was able to teach pride and diligence to his athletes. You stoop too low is your blatant defamation of Mr. Romeo, however. CCNY is certainly a difficult place to recruit given its "less-than-flattering area of New York City" and "100% commuter population" as you so respectfully state. What can one expect from ANY coach inheriting such a program in late August? I challenge you to turn the eye inward and seriously ponder if you are able to produce anything different given similar circumstances? Mr. Romeo was, in fact, only "six months on the job." How dare you make such an attack against anyone. Your implications are that a better coach could have produced more. Do you seriously believe this to be true? Perhaps one of the top-five D-I coaches would have been more suited for the challenge? Would they have been able to recruit more players in the FALL when 99.9% of the student population is attending a college of their choice?
You make no mention of the position being part-time. You make no mention of the lack of facilities and support athletics receive at the school. You make no mention of the FACT that Mr. Rome had SIX eligible players on his roster. You fail to mention the FACT that Mr. Romeo inherited a program with myriad problems and that he had NOTHING to do with the termination of Mr. Munoz. In fact, Mr. Munoz had been disassociated with the program for a long time before Mr. Romeo accepted the position. You do not mention Mr. Romeo's extensive knowledge of the game or passion to help young people grow and mature. No, these do not support your personal crusade to help a friend in a time of shame. Of course, this type of information requires speaking to Mr. Romeo. This you failed to do.
Michael, I cannot express enough my total disgust in your obvious defamation of perhaps the most honest, hard-working, genuine man I know. Perhaps if you took the time to COMPLETE your research and actually speak to ALL parties involved in the story, your journalism would be more representative of the truth. I hope you will realize your error in slandering Frank Romeo's name. I think many people expect you to correct this misrepresentation with a few words on your classy website. This is not too much to ask considering Mr. Romeo has done nothing but try to help a staggering program.
I wish you well in your future endeavors to present the truth to your readers. That is what journalism is about, right?
Brett Smith
p.s.- Your derogatory implication of Division III athletics did not go unnoticed.
Mike,
Just read your article regarding CCNY Lacrosse....I found it very informative and really liked the fact that you stood up for a program that never won (on the field). I do however question one part of the article, your accusation that Frank Romeo ran the program into the ground. I personally have known Frank since our freshman year at Roanoke College (played together for four years) ...the way it was explained to me from Frank a few weeks ago.... he was dealt a program in ruin and had little chance of getting enough kids to participate to field a team. I'm sure there are two sides to every story but I think Frank should have the right to defend himself before the story is posted on e-lacrosse. Like I said before I really did enjoy your article I just do not want this to affect Frank's ability to do something he trully cares for (staying involved in the sport of lacrosse).
Thanks,
Colin McGahren
Mike,
Hope all is well with you. Things here at Roanoke are fine except it is pouring down rain today and we have a game at 3:30! I guess it is better than snow!
I read your recent article about CCNY dropping lacrosse. Like you, I hate to see any program drop from varsity to club status. I was especially interested in your article because Frank Romeo, the CCNY coach, played for me here at Roanoke College.
It appears that you did a tremendous job investigating the events at CCNY except for your assertions that Frank Romeo may have somehow caused the program to be dropped from varsity status. I have spoken to Frank on several occasions about the situation at CCNY and you should have spoken to him yourself before writing the article. I don't know anyone at CCNY and cannot make assumptions or lay blame on anyone up there. I do however, know Frank Romeo and he is a fantastic person who only accepted the job at CCNY as a "labor of love" for lacrosse. He wanted to have a team in place and was prepared to do so but tremendous obstacles stand in his way. He is a great lacrosse person, willing to accept little pay for late nights, long hours and much heartache coaching, playing, teaching the game we love. From what Frank has told me, he did everything possible to have a team in place this Spring and in the future but was offered little assistance or encouragement.
I know that Frank is upset about some of your statements in the article and I am enclosing his email address in the event you want to reach out to him for some more information on the situation at CCNY.
Thanks for reading my note and see you soon.
Coach Pilat, Roanoke College
THE LATEST
E-Lacrosse,
I spoke with Mr. Coleman today and he informed me that the team is still playing only at a club level. I guess this is better then no team at all. He has received soo many emails regarding this issue.! I hope the team gets reinstated next year.
Thanks for all you do for lacrosse
Neil Solloway
VIOLET'S ARE BLUE…
I must congratulate you on your great article. (The team name, however, is the Beavers, (Violets are NYU). CCNY colors are Black & Lavendar).
I did read it with a trembling heart, though. It was the first I heard that my Lacrosse team had been ended!
I played at CCNY from 1965 to 1971. We fielded respectable teams (of course our record seems to improve over the years). My closest friends are my teammates from almost 40 years ago! We are in a variety of professions: medical, education, social services, business….. We have been in close contact with the lacrosse program throughout the years. Lacrosse alumni were the major contributors to the athletic field at the college. (A bit of ancient history: Felix Frankfurter, a former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court was a CCNY Lacrosse player.) Alumni have served as mentors to varsity players and have assisted them in starting their careers.
Being a member of a team made my attendance at this large university more personal. I had connections with teammates and coaches (George Baron and Sy Kalman). My fervor for the college kept me active in the Alumni Association and I served as its President for two years.
As an education administrator, I have been interviewed for a variety of positions. I always included the statement "As a member of a team, I know when to be a contributing part of a team and when to step forward to be the team leader". I learned this from my team participation. I hope that this program, filled with rich tradition, can be reinstated.
Jon DeLise, CCNY 1971
NICE JOB
Mike,
I want to thank you for the article on CCNY. This is what sports should be about in this day and age. It is not about the "W" in the win column but the fact that they come together each and every day as a team. I think that CCNY officials missed the boat on this program by dismantling it. They should have realized that they where graduating well rounded proud citizens into the community from this program. This is shown by the gift of the Astroturf field that the alumni purchased for the program. They might not have been the best skilled players but they had heart and dedication to a team and a game.
The administrators at this school and any school talk about how they stress academics over anything else. What they don't realize is that with out the focus of team building skills from sports they loose the well rounded aspect of the student athlete. I know this first hand being a past student athlete. I was part of the lacrosse program at Radford University which was also dismantled do to a college president's lack of understanding. I am proud to be Radford University lacrosse alum, and I am fighting to get a program back there. They have club but that is not good enough. I think people need to be aware that even though Lacrosse is not a money sport it still builds off of the same principles as well as ideals that are set forth by the NCAA. The bottom line is college president's need to be educated about the sports that build character, not the schools bank account.
Thanks again for the article
Chris Munz
E-Lacrosse,
What a fantastic story. As a native New Yorker who never saw a lacrosse game until I played baseball out on the Island and now a transplanted Marylander whose son played at Western Maryland under Coach Keith Reitenbach for 4 years, it hurts to see tradition die. College sports today have gone off the deep end. Teams recruiting using strippers. Teams with more criminals on the team then are in the local jail. If they want to maintain the credibility of the process they need to eliminate special preference to jocks and make them compete to get into school to prepare for life in the real world. Obviously CCNY does that everyday. This was a school whose basketball teams were incredible until they were rocked by a scandal. They now have things in the right perspective. Thank you for the story!
James F. Coleman
Mike,
That is indeed a wonderful article about CCNY! I do hope that the new AD Robert Coleman reads the article. You have touched on the many positives that lacrosse brings our student-athletes no matter the school, nor the season record!
Thank you!
Brooks Singer, Head Coach Catholic U (Men's D3, Washington, DC)
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Is Petro Gambling With the 2003 Schedule
The Landon Cheating Scandal
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Division II Comes of Age
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college Lacrosse: What's The Big Story of 2003?
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The Goggles Are Coming!
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A New Conference?
Pro Lax at Lacrosse Roads.
The DIII Debacle.
Does The Punishment Fit The Crime?
Philly Gets The Nod.
National Development Program
2004 Punditry & Predictions
CCNY Drops Lacrosse
http://www.e-lacrosse.com/2004/spin/28.html
The City College of New York (CCNY) dropped its men's lacrosse program only weeks before its first game of this 2004 season.
You heard me right. After nearly 120 years fielding a mediocre to bad varsity lacrosse program, CCNY finally decided to give it up this week. In their defense, CCNY probably had the worst winning percentage in the NCAA since the 1970's. Only a handful of CCNY laxers in recent memory had ever held a stick before joining the team, let alone played competitively. The fact that most opponents cleared their benches only minutes into each game alone might be justification for ending a tradition that was almost as old as college lacrosse itself.
But worse than all that, even worse than their team name, the Violets, was that it seemed to take the CCNY players forever to finally get out of school and get a job. Believe it or not, most members of this team took 5, 6, and 7 years to graduate. Sometimes more! With so many members of the team taking the better part of a decade to earn their degrees, the administration's call to "put down" this program would seem only logical. That is, if they weren't taking so long to graduate because they were BUSY BECOMING DOCTORS! They were studying to become Engineers. They were earning PhDs.
Let me back track for a moment: If you look into the annals of lacrosse history and the lacrosse Hall of Fame, you will locate the fact that the second oldest college lacrosse team in the United States was at the City College of New York, better known as CCNY. They started in 1888 (just after Stevens Tech I believe), and considering that lacrosse has as much of a following in New York City as Ice Hockey has in Guam, fielding a team there for so many years was quite an accomplishment.
In fact, for a better part of its earlier history, CCNY not only fielded a team but regularly played games against Army, Johns Hopkins, the Ivy League programs, and all of the other powerhouses - and if you don't believe me, the Media Guides of any major program who fielded a team before 1960 will show regular annual games against CCNY. CCNY played these programs for a better part of last century. They didn't win too many of these games, but the fact that they played such legendary programs shows that CCNY lacrosse meant something to many people.
Chief Leon A. Miller was one of those people. You can read all about Chief Miller at the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Chief Miller was the Head Coach at CCNY from 1932-1960 and was an early lacrosse legend, beating regularly the top teams like Navy and Mt. Washington between 1900 and 1905 as a star player at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Talk about tradition - this is a man who helped invent the modern game and he did much of it at CCNY.
George Baron is another one of those people. George was a First Team All-American goalie at CCNY in 1947 and played in the College North-South game that year before embarking on a lifelong dedication to lacrosse that continues to this day. He founded New York City's first program at Jamaica High School during the 1980s and coached there for many years. Now in his 80's, Coach Baron is still coaching as he helps out several High School programs and summer lacrosse camps. His speech on the history of the lacrosse stick is simply amazing to see and if you happen to have the pleasure to meet Coach Baron you would be amazed by what the guy knows. He has seen it all and I could listen to him talk lacrosse all day. Coach Baron is in the Long Island Lacrosse Hall of Fame even though he did not play lacrosse on Long Island, and should be in the National Hall of Fame for his 60 years of dedication to our sport, but like everything else involving Long Island Lacrosse, there are brutal politics. There are many Division I Lacrosse programs to have First Team All-Americans in their history, but many more that do not. CCNY has one.
CCNY went through a lot of changes as an institution over the years. There was a time when CCNY was basically a Harvard for the working man and was considered about as fine of a college as existed at the time. Colin Powell is a CCNY grad. There are hundreds of PhDs, Doctors, Lawyers, Rhodes Scholars, etc., who have a CCNY diploma. Like the rest of the City University of New York system, CCNY's demographic changed considerably during the latter part of the last century, but its academic strength remained the same. People of all colors, religions and nationalities began to become doctors, lawyers and engineers at CCNY, and each year the team still played and represented the whole student body. To be blunt, in a sport that struggles to be less homogenous, CCNY was accomplishing more than anyone without lowering a single academic or athletic standard. To this day CCNY regularly draws the finest New York City kids who cannot afford to go to an expensive private school and offers them a top quality education for pennies on the dollar. Want more info - check out the Sophie Davis Medical Program there. It ranks with the world's elite.
During the latter part of the last century, CCNY's teams were pretty weak, but the program was strong. The lacrosse alumni were such a success as a group that they donated a beautiful Astroturf stadium to the college. The team regularly had 20-25 guys who were not lacrosse players, but they were athletes who played the game hard. They had a coach and volunteer webmaster, Hector Munoz, who was about as classy of a gentleman who ever walked the sidelines. In 1999, I had the opportunity to coach against CCNY, and even though the score was ugly in our favor, Hector was as upbeat as ever and talked about how proud he was of his team. They lost with class, they played hard, and all of them are going to get jobs better than the guys who played for my team because they were mainly Pre-med and Engineering at CCNY.
Not long ago, a new Athletic Director took over at CCNY. His name is Robert Coleman. I don't know Mr. Coleman personally, but I could tell you that his cranial capacity does not possess or allow much room for lacrosse knowledge because at the end of the 2003 season, he fired Hector Munoz after 17 years at the CCNY helm because he felt he needed a Coach who would recruit better players and win some more games. He never considered that a school with a 100% commuter population, located in a less-than-flattering area of New York City, where there are only a handful of High School teams has almost no chance of ever recruiting High School seniors to play lacrosse. Coleman needed only to browse the program's won-loss record before making his decision.
He must have thought, "This program does not win - we need a new coach." It didn't matter that the lacrosse alumni were so successful in life. He wanted wins. So, he hired a new Coach, Frank Romeo. Romeo was the Head Coach at New York Maritime during the mid 1990s … and we all know what a powerhouse NY Maritime was back then. Of course, he was "the right man for the job."
Barely six months on the job, Romeo had accomplished so much that two weeks before a full slate of 2004 games was to begin the program was dropped. Next year, they might be a club team, but maybe not.
So, let's look at the progress here. 116 years of producing men of character who were accomplishing in life well above what the average college lacrosse program was producing. 116 years of alumni who have utilized their overall experience at CCNY to become wealthy, successful, and proud of their institution - and anybody who ever attended a CCNY alumni game knows exactly what I am talking about. 116 years later, they fire a coach who was doing a great job and always fielded a team to hire a guy who could not accomplish as much and may have ruined the program.
Am I missing something here?
Detractors will say that the CCNY program absolutely stunk on the field and that is true. And, chances are that CCNY would have never fielded a top quality college lacrosse program. But, is that the point? Is this ALL about winning and losing? Is the sole purpose of fielding a college team of any kind to win? Or is it to provide a student-athlete with the opportunity to play a sport, represent the school and develop their bodies and minds in and out of a crowded New York City classroom?
If the purpose of college athletics, especially on the Division III level at an urban commuter campus with high academic standards, is less about winning and more about education, than the CCNY program for 116 years was about as successful as any program in the country even while losing so many times. And the fact that they had a coach for 17 years who preached dignity, class, and enthusiasm meant that the athletes were being educated even in losing. And now, the tradition is over because an administrator thought he knew best when he was simply ignorant. In a sport that values and honors tradition as lacrosse does, we all will feel some sense of loss when we learn of the program's demise, even though the sport itself will not be impacted by the lack of a program at CCNY. It will, however, impact the young men who, each year, won't be experiencing lacrosse's competitiveness, commitment, camaraderie, and loyalties on that turf field which represented 116 years of CCNY doing it right. Now it is over because of an administrator who could not have done things more wrong.
To what ends do they aspire? St. John's University, Baylor University, Iowa State University and the University of Colorado are all more accomplished on the courts, fields, television airways and ticket offices than CCNY teams could ever dream of being. Are they more successful programs?
St. John's basically had to end their season because a bunch of players decided to go to a strip club and then brought a woman back to their hotel and had a sex party. Underage players at a strip club after curfew meant big-time suspensions and even expulsions but the program will be back at full strength next season.
Iowa State University's Basketball Coach Larry Eustachy was fired a little more than a year ago because he was drinking with college kids, and not on only one occasion. He was the highest paid state employee in Iowa but could not find anybody to party with. The poor guy is gone but the program lives on.
The Colorado Football program has its own special prosecutor appointed by the Colorado State's Attorney's Office. The 4 year scandal, highlighted by six allegations of rape, an insensitive and sexist rant in public by the now-suspended coach Gary Barnett and many accusations of recruiting parties featuring paid strippers and prostitutes, will not stop the grand tradition of Buffaloes football. And, of course, the dollars are too attractive and addictive. The fact that most Colorado football players never actually earn a degree won't be considered for a moment and there is a pretty good chance that Barnett will be back on the sidelines in the fall with a damn good team.
While the Baylor University basketball team was beating Texas A&M this week, the schools independent investigation accused last year's already-fired coach of allowing improper payments to students, including a player who was killed last summer by a jealous teammate.
We have reached the point in college athletics where you can get away with everything even murder as long as your team wins, but if your team is losing or unprofitable, you are out - regardless of the educational value of the athletics experience. In the new college athletics culture, the kids do not matter. Integrity and education do not matter. Tradition does not matter. It's all about the W's and the dollars, even after 116 years of proving otherwise. CCNY's current administration inherited a great wealth that belonged to the sport and the state, but they did not value it or understand it. They entrusted it carelessly and then tossed it in the trash when they broke it. And they were ashamed of losing ball games?
Oh, and by the way, the members of the CCNY Lacrosse teams I watched over the years never lost a game no matter what the scoreboard said. They won at life and are very much enjoying victory to this day.
Team and Alumni photos from the CCNY Lax web site.
February 28, 2003
YOUR MAIL
First of all thanks for the article. The last two seasons at CCNY were the hardest for me, especially the last one. It was due mainly to the many battles my assistant (Brad Meetze, Oswego) and I had in order to field a team. Would you believe that Brad and I shoveled snow off the turf after the first snow storm in order to have a small area to practice on. When we were hit by the second snow storm there was too much snow for us to remove. The "03" team was least prepared team I have ever fielded at CCNY due to lack of quality practices. Practicing on a small side court for basketball does not teach a team, defense, offense, transition, riding and clearing for a game that is played on a field the size of a soccer field. We had no scrimmages because of the snow. So you can see why the team had difficulties.
I really want to write about one of the e-mails written to you by Brett Smith. In his e-mail he wrote, "In fact, Mr. Munoz had been disassociated with the program for a long time before Mr. Romeo accepted the position." The fact is that I was informed that I would not be re-signed in the middle of May. During the fall I was in contact with some of the players to find out how things were going with team and in contact with Doug Marino and George Baron, who have been involved with saving the program since my release. Just last week I was at City, met the new coach, spoke to the lacrosse players on helping the coach to recruit athletes on campus while he recruits off campus. I made it quite clear that the lacrosse alumni is working very hard for the team, but their help is needed. While I was there three young men showed up to speak to the coach about joining the team and one of them had played in high school. I feel that Mr. Smith is not aware that I am an alumnus of CCNY. So how can I disassociate myself from my alma mater. Maybe Mr. Smith should have done some research on his part before writing the above statement.
I have never met Mr. Frank Romeo and I have no idea what kind of a person he is. The one thing I can tell you about him, if he were the coach right now I would have done the same thing for him that I did for the new coach. I was there for the players and the program.
Once again thank you for the article,
Hector, Sr.
IN DEFENSE OF FRANK ROMEO
Michael,
I read with great dismay your article of February 28, 2004 regarding the CCNY lacrosse program. Not only is your derogatory tone overtly supercilious and unnecessary, you repetitively contradict yourself and make misinformed statements. I have followed many family members and close friends in the lacrosse world on e-lacrosse for years. Never have I found the site so lacking in class as I did upon reviewing your article.
Your respect and friendship for Coach Munoz is apparent and no reader can fault you for this. Surely, Coach Munoz did a wonderful job if was able to teach pride and diligence to his athletes. You stoop too low is your blatant defamation of Mr. Romeo, however. CCNY is certainly a difficult place to recruit given its "less-than-flattering area of New York City" and "100% commuter population" as you so respectfully state. What can one expect from ANY coach inheriting such a program in late August? I challenge you to turn the eye inward and seriously ponder if you are able to produce anything different given similar circumstances? Mr. Romeo was, in fact, only "six months on the job." How dare you make such an attack against anyone. Your implications are that a better coach could have produced more. Do you seriously believe this to be true? Perhaps one of the top-five D-I coaches would have been more suited for the challenge? Would they have been able to recruit more players in the FALL when 99.9% of the student population is attending a college of their choice?
You make no mention of the position being part-time. You make no mention of the lack of facilities and support athletics receive at the school. You make no mention of the FACT that Mr. Rome had SIX eligible players on his roster. You fail to mention the FACT that Mr. Romeo inherited a program with myriad problems and that he had NOTHING to do with the termination of Mr. Munoz. In fact, Mr. Munoz had been disassociated with the program for a long time before Mr. Romeo accepted the position. You do not mention Mr. Romeo's extensive knowledge of the game or passion to help young people grow and mature. No, these do not support your personal crusade to help a friend in a time of shame. Of course, this type of information requires speaking to Mr. Romeo. This you failed to do.
Michael, I cannot express enough my total disgust in your obvious defamation of perhaps the most honest, hard-working, genuine man I know. Perhaps if you took the time to COMPLETE your research and actually speak to ALL parties involved in the story, your journalism would be more representative of the truth. I hope you will realize your error in slandering Frank Romeo's name. I think many people expect you to correct this misrepresentation with a few words on your classy website. This is not too much to ask considering Mr. Romeo has done nothing but try to help a staggering program.
I wish you well in your future endeavors to present the truth to your readers. That is what journalism is about, right?
Brett Smith
p.s.- Your derogatory implication of Division III athletics did not go unnoticed.
Mike,
Just read your article regarding CCNY Lacrosse....I found it very informative and really liked the fact that you stood up for a program that never won (on the field). I do however question one part of the article, your accusation that Frank Romeo ran the program into the ground. I personally have known Frank since our freshman year at Roanoke College (played together for four years) ...the way it was explained to me from Frank a few weeks ago.... he was dealt a program in ruin and had little chance of getting enough kids to participate to field a team. I'm sure there are two sides to every story but I think Frank should have the right to defend himself before the story is posted on e-lacrosse. Like I said before I really did enjoy your article I just do not want this to affect Frank's ability to do something he trully cares for (staying involved in the sport of lacrosse).
Thanks,
Colin McGahren
Mike,
Hope all is well with you. Things here at Roanoke are fine except it is pouring down rain today and we have a game at 3:30! I guess it is better than snow!
I read your recent article about CCNY dropping lacrosse. Like you, I hate to see any program drop from varsity to club status. I was especially interested in your article because Frank Romeo, the CCNY coach, played for me here at Roanoke College.
It appears that you did a tremendous job investigating the events at CCNY except for your assertions that Frank Romeo may have somehow caused the program to be dropped from varsity status. I have spoken to Frank on several occasions about the situation at CCNY and you should have spoken to him yourself before writing the article. I don't know anyone at CCNY and cannot make assumptions or lay blame on anyone up there. I do however, know Frank Romeo and he is a fantastic person who only accepted the job at CCNY as a "labor of love" for lacrosse. He wanted to have a team in place and was prepared to do so but tremendous obstacles stand in his way. He is a great lacrosse person, willing to accept little pay for late nights, long hours and much heartache coaching, playing, teaching the game we love. From what Frank has told me, he did everything possible to have a team in place this Spring and in the future but was offered little assistance or encouragement.
I know that Frank is upset about some of your statements in the article and I am enclosing his email address in the event you want to reach out to him for some more information on the situation at CCNY.
Thanks for reading my note and see you soon.
Coach Pilat, Roanoke College
THE LATEST
E-Lacrosse,
I spoke with Mr. Coleman today and he informed me that the team is still playing only at a club level. I guess this is better then no team at all. He has received soo many emails regarding this issue.! I hope the team gets reinstated next year.
Thanks for all you do for lacrosse
Neil Solloway
VIOLET'S ARE BLUE…
I must congratulate you on your great article. (The team name, however, is the Beavers, (Violets are NYU). CCNY colors are Black & Lavendar).
I did read it with a trembling heart, though. It was the first I heard that my Lacrosse team had been ended!
I played at CCNY from 1965 to 1971. We fielded respectable teams (of course our record seems to improve over the years). My closest friends are my teammates from almost 40 years ago! We are in a variety of professions: medical, education, social services, business….. We have been in close contact with the lacrosse program throughout the years. Lacrosse alumni were the major contributors to the athletic field at the college. (A bit of ancient history: Felix Frankfurter, a former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court was a CCNY Lacrosse player.) Alumni have served as mentors to varsity players and have assisted them in starting their careers.
Being a member of a team made my attendance at this large university more personal. I had connections with teammates and coaches (George Baron and Sy Kalman). My fervor for the college kept me active in the Alumni Association and I served as its President for two years.
As an education administrator, I have been interviewed for a variety of positions. I always included the statement "As a member of a team, I know when to be a contributing part of a team and when to step forward to be the team leader". I learned this from my team participation. I hope that this program, filled with rich tradition, can be reinstated.
Jon DeLise, CCNY 1971
NICE JOB
Mike,
I want to thank you for the article on CCNY. This is what sports should be about in this day and age. It is not about the "W" in the win column but the fact that they come together each and every day as a team. I think that CCNY officials missed the boat on this program by dismantling it. They should have realized that they where graduating well rounded proud citizens into the community from this program. This is shown by the gift of the Astroturf field that the alumni purchased for the program. They might not have been the best skilled players but they had heart and dedication to a team and a game.
The administrators at this school and any school talk about how they stress academics over anything else. What they don't realize is that with out the focus of team building skills from sports they loose the well rounded aspect of the student athlete. I know this first hand being a past student athlete. I was part of the lacrosse program at Radford University which was also dismantled do to a college president's lack of understanding. I am proud to be Radford University lacrosse alum, and I am fighting to get a program back there. They have club but that is not good enough. I think people need to be aware that even though Lacrosse is not a money sport it still builds off of the same principles as well as ideals that are set forth by the NCAA. The bottom line is college president's need to be educated about the sports that build character, not the schools bank account.
Thanks again for the article
Chris Munz
E-Lacrosse,
What a fantastic story. As a native New Yorker who never saw a lacrosse game until I played baseball out on the Island and now a transplanted Marylander whose son played at Western Maryland under Coach Keith Reitenbach for 4 years, it hurts to see tradition die. College sports today have gone off the deep end. Teams recruiting using strippers. Teams with more criminals on the team then are in the local jail. If they want to maintain the credibility of the process they need to eliminate special preference to jocks and make them compete to get into school to prepare for life in the real world. Obviously CCNY does that everyday. This was a school whose basketball teams were incredible until they were rocked by a scandal. They now have things in the right perspective. Thank you for the story!
James F. Coleman
Mike,
That is indeed a wonderful article about CCNY! I do hope that the new AD Robert Coleman reads the article. You have touched on the many positives that lacrosse brings our student-athletes no matter the school, nor the season record!
Thank you!
Brooks Singer, Head Coach Catholic U (Men's D3, Washington, DC)
The latest Spin on E-Lacrosse: Past Columns
Spinner on 360 and Joining E-Lacrosse
Title IX After 30 Years
Are Camps Out Of Control?
Go west, Young Fan.
Promoting the Pros: A Major League Circus
Grades and Sports: Powell's Not The Problem.
Thoughts on September 11, 2002
Women's Lacrosse: Farewell to the Stall
2002 Yale Fall Tournament
A Good Year For "Timmy Mac"
Is Petro Gambling With the 2003 Schedule
The Landon Cheating Scandal
Red Storm Rising
2002 Review & 2003 Punditries and Predictions
Is Football the New Enemy?
Fear and Loathing in Lacrosse Retail
Division II Comes of Age
California Dreamin': Whittier Has To Win The Title
college Lacrosse: What's The Big Story of 2003?
Bergey for Tewaaraton & final-Four Observations
The Goggles Are Coming!
What In The World Is Going On At Duke?
A New Conference?
Pro Lax at Lacrosse Roads.
The DIII Debacle.
Does The Punishment Fit The Crime?
Philly Gets The Nod.
National Development Program
2004 Punditry & Predictions
CCNY Drops Lacrosse
http://www.e-lacrosse.com/2004/spin/28.html
Bush Approval Ratings
WSJ/NBC Poll
in Politics
Fascinating couple of data points on some recent polling on the President, Congress and the political parties:
"In the Journal/NBC poll, approval of Mr. Bush's job performance inched up to 39% from 37% last month, but a 56% majority disapproves of the president's job performance. Congress fares even worse, with 25% approval and 60% disapproval. The telephone survey of 1,010 adults, conducted July 21 to 24, has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
More threatening to Congress's Republican majority is the public's desire for a change in direction. By 48% to 38%, voters say they prefer that Democrats win control of Congress this fall; by identical proportions, voters say it is time to "give a new person a chance" in Congress. By 38% to 21%, they say their vote will register opposition to Mr. Bush rather than support.
Underlying those sentiments is a public mood that Mr. Hart labels "as...depressing as I can remember" in more than three decades of polling. By 60% to 27%, Americans say their nation is headed "off on the wrong track" rather than "in the right direction."
John Harwood says both Republicans and Democrats received low approval ratings in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.That stems largely from the Iraq war. Amid sectarian violence that in recent days has caused American and Iraqi officials to shift security strategy, 58% of Americans call themselves "less confident" that the war will end successfully; 32% say they are "more confident." Though Americans say stabilizing Iraq should be Mr. Bush's top foreign-policy priority, just 34% approve of his handling of the matter.
Approval of Mr. Bush's handling of the economy edged up to 41% from 38% in June. Yet by 38% to 14%, Americans expect the economy to get worse rather than better in the next year; 45% say it will stay the same. More than seven in 10 Americans across all income groups say they are "uneasy" about the economy, with 65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today."
Interesting take on the public sentiment.
Fascinating stuff . . .
>
Source:
Both Parties Post Low Approval Ratings in Poll
Iraq, Economy Top Worries As Public Disenchantment With Lawmakers Persists
JOHN HARWOOD
July 27, 2006; Page A4
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115394837951418255.html
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Underlying those sentiments is a public mood that Mr. Hart labels "as...depressing as I can remember" in more than three decades of polling. By 60% to 27%, Americans say their nation is headed "off on the wrong track" rather than "in the right direction."
I hate this question. I voted for Bush, but I would be lumped in with the 60% who think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. Not that I regret my vote at all (Kerry should have been hanged in 1971 for treason for his trip to Paris), but the right/wrong track doesn't measure accurately my sentiment that President Bush and Congress aren't conservative enough in their policies.
Posted by: DH | Jul 27, 2006 6:32:29 PM
yeah, really, DH, that's what i call real conservatism: hanging john kerry for being correct about the war in vietnam. pathetic.
as a serious matter, if you look at presidential approval by party affiliation, you'll discover that the "he's not conservative enough" critique in the sense you mean it (as opposed to the sense that bill buckley meant it a couple of days ago) is a very small body of opinion: otherwise, there'd be a lot more republicans bailing on bush.
meanwhile, barry, this is how people feel with a still-strong housing market, adequately good economic growth, and dow 11,000: imagine if (when) those go south....
Posted by: howard | Jul 27, 2006 7:08:21 PM
I just hope the net result of dissention on the Iraq issue does not lead to more douche bags like the councilman from Chicago that was on Kudlow tonight. The last thing we need is move towards socialism and retarded economic policy.
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 7:18:40 PM
---
The last thing we need is move towards socialism
---
Socialism? You mean government operating to maximize the public good?
And doesn't the military provide a service in pursuit of the public good? Courts too, it would seem.
Which makes the military and court system socialist, I guess. And any party that supports the military and courts would be socialist as well.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 7:26:22 PM
How do you equate justice and defense with socialism? No one would argue that a capitalist system requires the rule of law and freedom.
No, socialism is the Chicago City Council mandating a minimum wage that is almost double the national statute for a handful of employers. Chicago politicians obviously do not believe in free markets. They believe in mama government, economic stagnation, and high unemployment.
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 7:35:02 PM
---
How do you equate justice and defense with socialism?
---
Conservatives have this habit of labeling anything they don't want the government to do 'socialist'.
Maybe you could provide your favorite definition of socialist so I know what you mean.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 7:45:10 PM
I'm eager to see how the Chicago big box law works out. One official in favor of it said it would not keep the stores out of the city because those stores are saturated in most markets and they need to enter urban markets to keep growing (as wall st demands). Interesting take.
Of course, the incremental pay that floor workers will get could easily be offset if top execs weren't payed so excessively. Damn "mama directors".
Regardless, Chicago just did what should be done at the federal level: increase the minimum wage.
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=361
Posted by: 23 | Jul 27, 2006 7:55:52 PM
our government is a corrupt group of cronyists all feeding off the big business trough that feeds them. they're long ago stopped supporting the citizens of this country in favor of power and one upsmanship. sad indeed.
Posted by: Richard | Jul 27, 2006 8:09:44 PM
hmm. Speaking out against an unpopular war -- treason, punishable by hanging. Outing an active CIA officer -- the pinnicle of patriotism, I presume? worthy of the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Gosh, this compassionate conservatism thing is really tough to swallow.
Posted by: noname | Jul 27, 2006 8:11:36 PM
I know, Barry, that you heart is in the right place but just for the record:
There's no point in preaching to the choir. The choir may be too polite to complain, but they don't like it -- the just want to sing, get a few mild compliments, go home and watch the game.
People who care enough to not hang up on pollsters are unhappy with (yawn) the President and (yawn) Congress, and (yawn) the "war." More (yawn) than (yawn) ever. Out with the old bastards, (yawn) in with (yawn) the new bastards.
Yawn. If typing "(yawn)" wasn't so strenuous, I'd be asleep by now.
Don't care. Wake me when I can sell my TIE way deep in the money way out there calls for a huge profit.
"Chicago big box law"?
Jim B.
Posted by: Jim Bergsten | Jul 27, 2006 8:14:04 PM
What we should be focusing on is how these sentiment polls could affect Wall St. which does not want to see the Democrats take back the house.
Posted by: Craig H | Jul 27, 2006 8:28:28 PM
Speaking out against an unpopular war
Ok noname, that's what I said, and not for his meeting with the enemy in Paris .....{/sarcasm}
Link for those who don't want to Google it for themselves
Posted by: DH | Jul 27, 2006 8:32:55 PM
Dems in office = Higher minimum wage, roll back of cap gains and dividend tax cuts and increase in income taxes for higher wage earners. Regardless of affiliation, someone try to explain to me how these mechanisms are good for business.
I can't remember if I saw this quote on this board or not, but it bears repeating. The story is of a blue collar worker making a very modest living. Asked if he was in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy, he responded: "Hell no." Why not he was asked. "Because no poor man has ever offered me a job."
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 8:50:39 PM
you think things are bad now, God forbid if the Dems/sh!tfux win the house in November.
Posted by: one way stox | Jul 27, 2006 8:52:06 PM
ML writes: "No one would argue that a capitalist system requires the rule of law and freedom."
The Chinese would. They've demonstrated that you can have a booming capitalist system in which you're only as free as the government says you can be, and the rule of law is decidedly shaky.
I frankly think the US is headed in that direction.
Posted by: Jon H | Jul 27, 2006 9:11:26 PM
"you think things are bad now, God forbid if the Dems/sh!tfux win the house in November."
Yeah, god forbid we ditch the imbecile-in-chief and go back to the sensible policies, booming business environment, good economy, and budget surpluses of the 90s. God, that sucked.
Posted by: Jon H | Jul 27, 2006 9:12:53 PM
---
"Because no poor man has ever offered me a job."
---
You know those government guys who collect the taxes?
They *hire* people. Lots of 'em during the Bush II administration.
Check the BLS stats some time.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:18:16 PM
Barry, please compare, dollars-to-dollars, which era has been better economically: the Enron/CMGI-type economy with its bullsh!t earnings, global stock mkt collapses, or, this, the XOM/Real Estate/gold/-type? With the highest tax revs in history, real corporate profits their highest in history, ...I'll take this one.
Budget surplusses? Those were phony numbers were the LUs/ENEs/WCOMs...and it led to 23 straight months of over 400,000 in the unemployment lines.
What did Clinton do while bin laden was blowing up US embassies? He got his dick sucked by some pig in blue dress.
Posted by: One Way Stox | Jul 27, 2006 9:24:00 PM
I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . .
As to the markets, historically, the best returns are out of divided government (Pres/Congress) Reagan/Dems, Clinton/GOP, Eisenhower/Dems
Centrist policies with Paygo is ideal for markets
Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | Jul 27, 2006 9:29:51 PM
---
Those were phony numbers were the LUs/ENEs/WCOMs...and it led to 23 straight months of over 400,000 in the unemployment lines.
---
If Bush had those numbers you guys would have his face on the dollar bill and Mt. Rushmore.
The slow ramp up from recession was exacerbated by Bush's stimulus program which was built on the notion of cash for the top .1% and cheap debt for everyone else.
And that debt overhang is going to make the Bush recession much longer and more painful than the last one.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:37:00 PM
does "65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today." strike anyone else as a ghoulish kind of schadenfruede?
How many of those folks voted for the s.o.b.?
And, yes, any withering of our kids prospects are DIRECTLY tied to the econ policies of this heckuvajob administration.....
Posted by: brion | Jul 27, 2006 9:39:57 PM
---
I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . .
---
Yeah, you naively thought that just providing the data with no personal comment would allow you to escape a flame war.
You must be new to the internets thing.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:42:25 PM
---
"65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today."
---
Bush has a plan for that; make 'today' so hellish that there's nowhere to go but up.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:47:21 PM
Conservative slogans never balanced a budget.
It takes taxes to run a government, and it takes honest patriotism to realise this.
Today those in power, the codpiece conservatives, the chickenhawks, and those who support them, the fighting keyboarders and the wingnutteries rhetorical warriers all bloviate about the need for a stronger military. But they are silent about the need to raise taxes to pay for it.
But that is just one example. of the fecklessness of those in charge. A distain for science, a fetish for Armegennon, along with corruption, graft, and mendacity are all prominately on display as if to challenge the the fates to set things right.
Is all this good for the economy? I don't think so. Never before in human history has a society as unbalanced as ours is today escaped its foolishness without the invisible hard hand stricking it down. Hard.
Posted by: ken | Jul 27, 2006 9:50:25 PM
After reading all the comments two things come to mind.
1) Websters Definition of socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Key word I noticed is "owned"
2) Is the polls reflect reality or what people percieve? Does it come down to are you better off now than you where 4 years ago. I'd say if you were the top 2% you would say yes, the rest might have a different opinion.
My 2 cents.
Posted by: mDave | Jul 27, 2006 9:51:31 PM
Higher min wage would result in more retail spending. At the margin, a poor person is much more likely to spend extra income than a wealthy person. Fact. Given that retail makes our economy go round...you do the math.
You say a dem agenda is bad for business. Tell me how a republican congress and president running enormous deficits, handing out pork like candy on halloween, and dumping $300B on a bullshit war that creates more terrorists than it kills and adds $20/bbl to the price of oil is good for business. Good for GD, HAL, UTX, and XOM's business maybe. For the rest of us...umm not so much. It's like maxing out the credit card for a 3 day bender in Vegas. Only problem is the cc bill eventually comes due, the coke makes you paranoid, and you have to figure out how to get rid of the dead hookers.
But what do you expect from the same assclowns who still peddle the bullshit line "but,but, but the tax cuts pay for themself!" Laffer indeed...or I should say laugher.
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 27, 2006 10:02:07 PM
---
Key word I noticed is "owned"
---
Bingo.
Wage regulations are not 'socialism' any more than banking regulations are 'socialism'.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:04:20 PM
per BR:
"I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . ."
I was wondering about that, Barry, but since you did and it brought out the Wingers-
_I can smell the fear in the posts from them.
_The only socialism that I see in this country is Corporate Socialism. Nothing can survive now without the govt either thru direct contracts or by subsidies in the form of tax cuts against unfunded spending (read corporate handouts) to prop up the military-industrial complex and the media-govt complex.
_The Chicago Big Box thing is a feeble attempt to bypass a Congress that was sold at auction to become part of the Corporate State.
_There aren't any "free markets" there are just markets in which little guys are permitted to enter against big guys if they have the guts to survive long enough to be bought out.
_Mussolini's granddaughter (who is in the Italian Parliament and is a former pr0n star) must awake every morning convinced that Benito was simply ahead of his time.
_I always find it amusing and sad when people start ranting about Vietnam when it has nothing to do with anything. I don't know who "DH" is, but my guess is that he was never there and is just parroting some Hate Radio talking points.
_Clinton got in office by agreeing to let the formation of the Corporate State that Raygun and the Adult Bush started proceed and that is his real shame.
But the bottom line is that the bills have to be paid sooner or later. If you try to spend yourself out of debt, you bankrupt. If you commit war crimes in the name of democracy, you die in prison. Pretty simple.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 27, 2006 10:05:18 PM
None of this discussion today really matters. If you follow the trend you win, regardless of who is in Congress, the Senate or the White House.
In the next day or two you will have one of your best shorting opportunities since 2000. Bet on it!
Posted by: LarryC | Jul 27, 2006 10:11:31 PM
---
you have to figure out how to get rid of the dead hookers.
---
Enter them in an Ann Coulter lookalike contest?
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:12:45 PM
Newsflash dudes, Republicans are socialists too. They've got their own version of the New Deal: Pork, ag subsidies, pork, defense spending, and pork. They love big government. Love it love it love it. Can't get enough. They have absolutely nothing to do with the unrecognizable corpse of conservatism.
Please Jesus, if you still give a fart about the USA, please give us divided government again.
I'm fascinated by this 30-35% percent of people who'll always show up on the Bush side of the ledger on pretty much any question.
"Though Americans say stabilizing Iraq should be Mr. Bush's top foreign-policy priority, just 34% approve of his handling of the matter."
Who are these people?
Posted by: Brian | Jul 27, 2006 10:22:14 PM
---
If you follow the trend you win, regardless of who is in Congress, the Senate or the White House.
---
Part of the reason I'm short right now is that I'm banking on the notion that the market will be terrified at the prospect of a Democratic house; subpoenas, pursestrings and all.
So if the market drops in anticipation of a Dem takeover... fine with me.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:22:41 PM
You're killing me eightninetoodamnlongnamedude. I would enter our 3yr apaloosa mare in a coulter lookalike. Hey Ann, something wrong? Why the long face? Bwahahaha! Whada skank.
Whipsaw: Sing it brother. Testify.
At least you folks may have some decent options to vote for. Up here we get "Uncle" Ted Stevens, pork commander supreme and general fucking idiot, Don Young...your run of the mill wingnut, and Lisa "Thanks for the Senate seat, Dad" Murkowski. And her dipshit dad is Gov, cutting undercover deals insecret with the O&G sector ala the Cheney energy task force.
But we do have some colorful 3rd parties. Alaska Independence Party (loony libertarian secessionist types), Green Party has a sizeable following (dirty granola hippies), Constitution Party (who knows, they're incoherent to me), and of course the std Libertarian party (rigid idelogues), Dems (GOP-lite), and a large collection of independent marginally insane people who enjoy running for office just to get attention and have a platform to spew nonsense.
But it could be worse...I used to live in Utah. HAW!
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 27, 2006 10:40:50 PM
All these polls remind me of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006. Hmmm What do those dates have in common. Too bad polls can't cast votes. Maybe it will be different this time. Wait a minute, isn't doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results the definition of ????
Posted by: Tom in Indy | Jul 27, 2006 10:46:55 PM
---
Wait a minute, isn't doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results the definition of ????
---
Bush's Iraq strategy????
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:57:32 PM
Barry, boy did you bring out some emotions. My hubby and I are fine financially, not rich but we will do okay no matter what happens. I guess some of the commentors would call me a "socialist" since even though I am personally fine, I fear for my country. I am afraid of what kind of country we are leaving my grandchildren. I know that we cannot continue on this fiscal tract without horrible results - sooner or later. I believe in the economic therory of "There is no such thing as a free lunch".... and so I am afraid.
I worry about our country in regards to freedoms that we take for granted now. Because of the fear mongering, people are ready to give up freedom for what they perceive to be safety.... not realizing that once given up, it will be difficult to get back. I wouldn't be surprised that since I go to some of those awful liberal blogs, I'm on a list somewhere.
I am angry too. I am angry at my son because he
voted for Bush twice - even when realizing that the Bush economic policies would hurt him and his blue collar family - he voted for him anyway because of his stand on abortion. I'm angry at my son-in-law, the business man, who freely admits that Bush is an idiot, and doesn't agree with him on the social issues, but voted for him anyway because he is a business man.
Last but not least, I am outraged over the incompetence that permeates our foreign policy, and the money, lives, and ruined lives it has cost us.
I try and educate myself, and learn, (thus I come here as well as the liberal blogs) and have become sort of an activist in my later years. But in my 60 some years, I have NEVER been as discouraged for afraid for the future. So if the pollsters called people like me, I can understand where they came from their conclusions.
Posted by: JWC | Jul 27, 2006 10:57:40 PM
per Alaskan Pete:
"Whipsaw: Sing it brother. Testify.
At least you folks may have some decent options to vote for."
I really didn't want to get started about the Bushists here, but anyway...
Unfortunately, here in Georgia the choices are basically God's Own Party if you are in a white district or a Democrat if you are in a black district. The Dope Smoker/Pirate Capitalist Alliance (libertarians) shows up for the big ones, but is as impotent as ever.
I will give our current Republican governor credit for having twice wept publicly over our GA NG losses in Iraq which have been high. Then again, nobody should have been sent there to begin with, let alone with half-assed equipment.
At some point, even the purely selfish will swing around and this nonsense will stop. Either that or the career military officers who have seen everything that they swore an oath to go to hell will straighten it out.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 27, 2006 11:19:16 PM
And so what will the market do with news that nobody is leaving Iraq anytime soon? http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060728/wl_afp/usiraqmilitarytroops;_ylt=AuegLFx62Eph6Pj4m6dPDISs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-
Anybody with an ounce of military understanding already knew that long ago, but what about the MM's and other vampires? Did they really believe all of the propaganda? If so, look for a big drop tomorrow even if they somehow manage to view GNP numbers in a good way,
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 28, 2006 12:22:36 AM
Hmph -- wow, is anybody going to say anything about the post?
So for those of us who are data oriented, notice the big 15% or so spike in popularity around .... you guessed it the invasion of Iraq. This pattern in american voters, large support for the use of military force under, in fact, any circumstances is far and away one of the most predictable effects in american politics. This lesson has not been lost on Karl Rove. Though what the'll do for 2008 I'm sure I don't even want to think about. By the way the subsequent withdrawl of support by the populace when they discover that why, how, in what manner, and what circumstances and for what goals you use force does matter, is also an extremely typical (though not as solid) American electoral voter response. Fascinating how the Republicans managed to Tarnish the Democrats with that, calling the 'cowardly, and un-patriotic' when the real problem is a violence prone, but fairly stupid citizenry.
Posted by: Mike | Jul 28, 2006 12:39:41 AM
Tom in Indy, those 2000 polls on Iraq were something else, weren't they?
christ almighty: bush is polling worse today than clinton polled in 2000, or than he himself polled in 2002 or 2004.
there were no iraq polls, of course, in 2000 or 2002, but the polls are much worse than they were in 2004.
feelings about the economy and the overall direction of the country are worse today than they were in 2000, 2002, or 2004.
i'd have to look and see how congressional approval compares, but for someone as ill-informed as you, i don't bother to make the effort.
Posted by: howard | Jul 28, 2006 12:46:29 AM
Dems in office = peace and prosperity. Eight years of it, and the conservatives couldn't stand it.
Hey, but corporate welfare is just fine with them. Tell you what, get Walmart to pay people enough to get their employees off government assistance, and I might consider shopping there again. But hey, if the WalMart heirs want to make billions and live in huge gated mansions with bunkers, that's just fine with you, huh DH?
Good grief that attitude makes me ill.
Posted by: donna | Jul 28, 2006 12:46:34 AM
I wonder what Barry's GayBoy buddy Cody thinks of the fine economic mess we find ourselves in now. He's probably still posing in his N'Sync leather jacket and pushing tech stocks. LMAO!!
Posted by: Doby | Jul 28, 2006 12:57:00 AM
Whipsaw, I grew up in the Atlanta burbs (gwinett co). I hear ya. Of course those were the days of Sen Sam Nunn and Zell Miller before he went insane, flipped parties, and started challenging people to a duel on national television. Is Monica Kaufman still on the local (Channel2?) news? Man, she was a fixture for decades.
I bet I can give you tomorrow's traffic report for ATL: We've got slowing on the top end perimeter from Ashford Dunwoody to Peachtree Industrial. GA400 is backed up past Northridge. It's stop n go on the downtown connector and on 85 it's a 20 min ride from Jimmy Carter Blvd to Buford Hwy. You're getting some sunshine slowdown on 20 eastbound all the way in.
So glad to get out of there back in the 90s.
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 28, 2006 1:08:22 AM
Barry,
As a so called conservative (whatever the hell that means anymore), the worst vote I ever cast was for Bush's first term. I will never forgive myself for being such a sucker.
A short list for consideration: Centralized this. Centralized that. Fear this. Fear that. Subsidize this. Subsidize that. Spying on citizens. Torture. The free press as the "enemy". The belief that Government knows best. Bigger government programs. Big Brother on all fronts. Services for all. Wars of aggression and occupation.
None of the above are American traits. These are old Soviet era traits. How did it go to hell so quickly?
We have a superb Constitution and we can and will do better as a nation. However it is going to take some time to heal these self-inflicted wounds.
Bush may have had good intentions, but this is now irrelevant. The fact is that the the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Posted by: some kind of conservative, maybe | Jul 28, 2006 1:22:19 AM
per Alaskan Pete:
"Whipsaw, I grew up in the Atlanta burbs (gwinett co). I hear ya. Of course those were the days of Sen Sam Nunn and Zell Miller before he went insane, flipped parties, and started challenging people to a duel on national television. Is Monica Kaufman still on the local (Channel2?) news? Man, she was a fixture for decades."
Yeah I think Monica is still around (don't watch much local TV, sorry). And Sam Nunn was something of a hero of mine for opposing Oil War I altho I disagreed with him at the time and it probably cost him a good shot at the presidency. Unfortunately, I think he is a lobbyist now.
As far as Zell goes, I assume that he is now in some kind of rehab or "helping center." He wasn't bad as governor for 2 terms and senator for 1 term, but completely snapped in term 2 and was simply an embarassment.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 28, 2006 2:32:58 AM
---
The last thing we need is move towards socialism
---
Socialism? You mean government operating to maximize the public good?
And doesn't the military provide a service in pursuit of the public good? Courts too, it would seem.
Which makes the military and court system socialist, I guess. And any party that supports the military and courts would be socialist as well.
____________________________________
Really don't think that anyone has to worry about
socialism hitting the US anytime soon, the US is well
on their way of concentrating the wealth even more
towards a fewer % of the population,,, which is a definition of capitalism.
Posted by: rick | Jul 28, 2006 7:09:45 AM
I wonder if a person could do a technical analysis of charts like this. Do you think that similar patterns emerge as with securities?
Posted by: Dan Green | Jul 28, 2006 7:57:32 AM
Gov't central planning for the good of the Corporate Elite is Fascism not Socialism. Mussolini's Fascist gov't was widely (and correctly) hailed back in the 1920's as the wave of the future. (since that is what we have today.)
...great lead in since today is opening day for Russo's Film.
Posted by: tjofpa | Jul 28, 2006 9:43:39 AM
"last thing we need is move towards socialism and retarded economic policy."
It is retarded. Al this worry about Dems and this has been the most one sided pro buisness governmennever, and what do you do? Did you share. Hell no, just line the CEO pockets and send the jobs overseas. Anyone that thinks the last 5 years have been good for anyone but the super rich is retarded, not compasionate. Even the market hasn't budged an inch under the most favorable condtions ever, government by Chamber of Commerce.
Maybe 90% of the people would actually favor some saftey net for health and pensions rather than toss people in the street and "hang" them.
Posted by: me | Jul 28, 2006 10:45:16 AM
Howard,
Congress scores the lowest of all. Try taking a graduate level statistical analysis course before trusting any poll. Bush has always scored miserably in 'polling' data and the press has reported it like it was newsworthy. Yet he wins elections and manages to put most of his agenda through Congress. If you want to hang your hat on polling data, go right ahead, my friend. I fear you will be bedeviled with unmet expectations yet again.
Posted by: Tom in Indy | Jul 28, 2006 5:41:21 PM
nice
http://www.skincareinfo.us/
Posted by: skin care | Oct 30, 2006 7:29:45 PM
in Politics
Fascinating couple of data points on some recent polling on the President, Congress and the political parties:
"In the Journal/NBC poll, approval of Mr. Bush's job performance inched up to 39% from 37% last month, but a 56% majority disapproves of the president's job performance. Congress fares even worse, with 25% approval and 60% disapproval. The telephone survey of 1,010 adults, conducted July 21 to 24, has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
More threatening to Congress's Republican majority is the public's desire for a change in direction. By 48% to 38%, voters say they prefer that Democrats win control of Congress this fall; by identical proportions, voters say it is time to "give a new person a chance" in Congress. By 38% to 21%, they say their vote will register opposition to Mr. Bush rather than support.
Underlying those sentiments is a public mood that Mr. Hart labels "as...depressing as I can remember" in more than three decades of polling. By 60% to 27%, Americans say their nation is headed "off on the wrong track" rather than "in the right direction."
John Harwood says both Republicans and Democrats received low approval ratings in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.That stems largely from the Iraq war. Amid sectarian violence that in recent days has caused American and Iraqi officials to shift security strategy, 58% of Americans call themselves "less confident" that the war will end successfully; 32% say they are "more confident." Though Americans say stabilizing Iraq should be Mr. Bush's top foreign-policy priority, just 34% approve of his handling of the matter.
Approval of Mr. Bush's handling of the economy edged up to 41% from 38% in June. Yet by 38% to 14%, Americans expect the economy to get worse rather than better in the next year; 45% say it will stay the same. More than seven in 10 Americans across all income groups say they are "uneasy" about the economy, with 65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today."
Interesting take on the public sentiment.
Fascinating stuff . . .
>
Source:
Both Parties Post Low Approval Ratings in Poll
Iraq, Economy Top Worries As Public Disenchantment With Lawmakers Persists
JOHN HARWOOD
July 27, 2006; Page A4
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115394837951418255.html
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Underlying those sentiments is a public mood that Mr. Hart labels "as...depressing as I can remember" in more than three decades of polling. By 60% to 27%, Americans say their nation is headed "off on the wrong track" rather than "in the right direction."
I hate this question. I voted for Bush, but I would be lumped in with the 60% who think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. Not that I regret my vote at all (Kerry should have been hanged in 1971 for treason for his trip to Paris), but the right/wrong track doesn't measure accurately my sentiment that President Bush and Congress aren't conservative enough in their policies.
Posted by: DH | Jul 27, 2006 6:32:29 PM
yeah, really, DH, that's what i call real conservatism: hanging john kerry for being correct about the war in vietnam. pathetic.
as a serious matter, if you look at presidential approval by party affiliation, you'll discover that the "he's not conservative enough" critique in the sense you mean it (as opposed to the sense that bill buckley meant it a couple of days ago) is a very small body of opinion: otherwise, there'd be a lot more republicans bailing on bush.
meanwhile, barry, this is how people feel with a still-strong housing market, adequately good economic growth, and dow 11,000: imagine if (when) those go south....
Posted by: howard | Jul 27, 2006 7:08:21 PM
I just hope the net result of dissention on the Iraq issue does not lead to more douche bags like the councilman from Chicago that was on Kudlow tonight. The last thing we need is move towards socialism and retarded economic policy.
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 7:18:40 PM
---
The last thing we need is move towards socialism
---
Socialism? You mean government operating to maximize the public good?
And doesn't the military provide a service in pursuit of the public good? Courts too, it would seem.
Which makes the military and court system socialist, I guess. And any party that supports the military and courts would be socialist as well.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 7:26:22 PM
How do you equate justice and defense with socialism? No one would argue that a capitalist system requires the rule of law and freedom.
No, socialism is the Chicago City Council mandating a minimum wage that is almost double the national statute for a handful of employers. Chicago politicians obviously do not believe in free markets. They believe in mama government, economic stagnation, and high unemployment.
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 7:35:02 PM
---
How do you equate justice and defense with socialism?
---
Conservatives have this habit of labeling anything they don't want the government to do 'socialist'.
Maybe you could provide your favorite definition of socialist so I know what you mean.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 7:45:10 PM
I'm eager to see how the Chicago big box law works out. One official in favor of it said it would not keep the stores out of the city because those stores are saturated in most markets and they need to enter urban markets to keep growing (as wall st demands). Interesting take.
Of course, the incremental pay that floor workers will get could easily be offset if top execs weren't payed so excessively. Damn "mama directors".
Regardless, Chicago just did what should be done at the federal level: increase the minimum wage.
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=361
Posted by: 23 | Jul 27, 2006 7:55:52 PM
our government is a corrupt group of cronyists all feeding off the big business trough that feeds them. they're long ago stopped supporting the citizens of this country in favor of power and one upsmanship. sad indeed.
Posted by: Richard | Jul 27, 2006 8:09:44 PM
hmm. Speaking out against an unpopular war -- treason, punishable by hanging. Outing an active CIA officer -- the pinnicle of patriotism, I presume? worthy of the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Gosh, this compassionate conservatism thing is really tough to swallow.
Posted by: noname | Jul 27, 2006 8:11:36 PM
I know, Barry, that you heart is in the right place but just for the record:
There's no point in preaching to the choir. The choir may be too polite to complain, but they don't like it -- the just want to sing, get a few mild compliments, go home and watch the game.
People who care enough to not hang up on pollsters are unhappy with (yawn) the President and (yawn) Congress, and (yawn) the "war." More (yawn) than (yawn) ever. Out with the old bastards, (yawn) in with (yawn) the new bastards.
Yawn. If typing "(yawn)" wasn't so strenuous, I'd be asleep by now.
Don't care. Wake me when I can sell my TIE way deep in the money way out there calls for a huge profit.
"Chicago big box law"?
Jim B.
Posted by: Jim Bergsten | Jul 27, 2006 8:14:04 PM
What we should be focusing on is how these sentiment polls could affect Wall St. which does not want to see the Democrats take back the house.
Posted by: Craig H | Jul 27, 2006 8:28:28 PM
Speaking out against an unpopular war
Ok noname, that's what I said, and not for his meeting with the enemy in Paris .....{/sarcasm}
Link for those who don't want to Google it for themselves
Posted by: DH | Jul 27, 2006 8:32:55 PM
Dems in office = Higher minimum wage, roll back of cap gains and dividend tax cuts and increase in income taxes for higher wage earners. Regardless of affiliation, someone try to explain to me how these mechanisms are good for business.
I can't remember if I saw this quote on this board or not, but it bears repeating. The story is of a blue collar worker making a very modest living. Asked if he was in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy, he responded: "Hell no." Why not he was asked. "Because no poor man has ever offered me a job."
Posted by: ML | Jul 27, 2006 8:50:39 PM
you think things are bad now, God forbid if the Dems/sh!tfux win the house in November.
Posted by: one way stox | Jul 27, 2006 8:52:06 PM
ML writes: "No one would argue that a capitalist system requires the rule of law and freedom."
The Chinese would. They've demonstrated that you can have a booming capitalist system in which you're only as free as the government says you can be, and the rule of law is decidedly shaky.
I frankly think the US is headed in that direction.
Posted by: Jon H | Jul 27, 2006 9:11:26 PM
"you think things are bad now, God forbid if the Dems/sh!tfux win the house in November."
Yeah, god forbid we ditch the imbecile-in-chief and go back to the sensible policies, booming business environment, good economy, and budget surpluses of the 90s. God, that sucked.
Posted by: Jon H | Jul 27, 2006 9:12:53 PM
---
"Because no poor man has ever offered me a job."
---
You know those government guys who collect the taxes?
They *hire* people. Lots of 'em during the Bush II administration.
Check the BLS stats some time.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:18:16 PM
Barry, please compare, dollars-to-dollars, which era has been better economically: the Enron/CMGI-type economy with its bullsh!t earnings, global stock mkt collapses, or, this, the XOM/Real Estate/gold/-type? With the highest tax revs in history, real corporate profits their highest in history, ...I'll take this one.
Budget surplusses? Those were phony numbers were the LUs/ENEs/WCOMs...and it led to 23 straight months of over 400,000 in the unemployment lines.
What did Clinton do while bin laden was blowing up US embassies? He got his dick sucked by some pig in blue dress.
Posted by: One Way Stox | Jul 27, 2006 9:24:00 PM
I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . .
As to the markets, historically, the best returns are out of divided government (Pres/Congress) Reagan/Dems, Clinton/GOP, Eisenhower/Dems
Centrist policies with Paygo is ideal for markets
Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | Jul 27, 2006 9:29:51 PM
---
Those were phony numbers were the LUs/ENEs/WCOMs...and it led to 23 straight months of over 400,000 in the unemployment lines.
---
If Bush had those numbers you guys would have his face on the dollar bill and Mt. Rushmore.
The slow ramp up from recession was exacerbated by Bush's stimulus program which was built on the notion of cash for the top .1% and cheap debt for everyone else.
And that debt overhang is going to make the Bush recession much longer and more painful than the last one.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:37:00 PM
does "65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today." strike anyone else as a ghoulish kind of schadenfruede?
How many of those folks voted for the s.o.b.?
And, yes, any withering of our kids prospects are DIRECTLY tied to the econ policies of this heckuvajob administration.....
Posted by: brion | Jul 27, 2006 9:39:57 PM
---
I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . .
---
Yeah, you naively thought that just providing the data with no personal comment would allow you to escape a flame war.
You must be new to the internets thing.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:42:25 PM
---
"65% predicting "life for our children's generation" won't be better than today."
---
Bush has a plan for that; make 'today' so hellish that there's nowhere to go but up.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 9:47:21 PM
Conservative slogans never balanced a budget.
It takes taxes to run a government, and it takes honest patriotism to realise this.
Today those in power, the codpiece conservatives, the chickenhawks, and those who support them, the fighting keyboarders and the wingnutteries rhetorical warriers all bloviate about the need for a stronger military. But they are silent about the need to raise taxes to pay for it.
But that is just one example. of the fecklessness of those in charge. A distain for science, a fetish for Armegennon, along with corruption, graft, and mendacity are all prominately on display as if to challenge the the fates to set things right.
Is all this good for the economy? I don't think so. Never before in human history has a society as unbalanced as ours is today escaped its foolishness without the invisible hard hand stricking it down. Hard.
Posted by: ken | Jul 27, 2006 9:50:25 PM
After reading all the comments two things come to mind.
1) Websters Definition of socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Key word I noticed is "owned"
2) Is the polls reflect reality or what people percieve? Does it come down to are you better off now than you where 4 years ago. I'd say if you were the top 2% you would say yes, the rest might have a different opinion.
My 2 cents.
Posted by: mDave | Jul 27, 2006 9:51:31 PM
Higher min wage would result in more retail spending. At the margin, a poor person is much more likely to spend extra income than a wealthy person. Fact. Given that retail makes our economy go round...you do the math.
You say a dem agenda is bad for business. Tell me how a republican congress and president running enormous deficits, handing out pork like candy on halloween, and dumping $300B on a bullshit war that creates more terrorists than it kills and adds $20/bbl to the price of oil is good for business. Good for GD, HAL, UTX, and XOM's business maybe. For the rest of us...umm not so much. It's like maxing out the credit card for a 3 day bender in Vegas. Only problem is the cc bill eventually comes due, the coke makes you paranoid, and you have to figure out how to get rid of the dead hookers.
But what do you expect from the same assclowns who still peddle the bullshit line "but,but, but the tax cuts pay for themself!" Laffer indeed...or I should say laugher.
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 27, 2006 10:02:07 PM
---
Key word I noticed is "owned"
---
Bingo.
Wage regulations are not 'socialism' any more than banking regulations are 'socialism'.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:04:20 PM
per BR:
"I guess I should have known better than to post something political only 4 months before a mid-term election . . ."
I was wondering about that, Barry, but since you did and it brought out the Wingers-
_I can smell the fear in the posts from them.
_The only socialism that I see in this country is Corporate Socialism. Nothing can survive now without the govt either thru direct contracts or by subsidies in the form of tax cuts against unfunded spending (read corporate handouts) to prop up the military-industrial complex and the media-govt complex.
_The Chicago Big Box thing is a feeble attempt to bypass a Congress that was sold at auction to become part of the Corporate State.
_There aren't any "free markets" there are just markets in which little guys are permitted to enter against big guys if they have the guts to survive long enough to be bought out.
_Mussolini's granddaughter (who is in the Italian Parliament and is a former pr0n star) must awake every morning convinced that Benito was simply ahead of his time.
_I always find it amusing and sad when people start ranting about Vietnam when it has nothing to do with anything. I don't know who "DH" is, but my guess is that he was never there and is just parroting some Hate Radio talking points.
_Clinton got in office by agreeing to let the formation of the Corporate State that Raygun and the Adult Bush started proceed and that is his real shame.
But the bottom line is that the bills have to be paid sooner or later. If you try to spend yourself out of debt, you bankrupt. If you commit war crimes in the name of democracy, you die in prison. Pretty simple.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 27, 2006 10:05:18 PM
None of this discussion today really matters. If you follow the trend you win, regardless of who is in Congress, the Senate or the White House.
In the next day or two you will have one of your best shorting opportunities since 2000. Bet on it!
Posted by: LarryC | Jul 27, 2006 10:11:31 PM
---
you have to figure out how to get rid of the dead hookers.
---
Enter them in an Ann Coulter lookalike contest?
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:12:45 PM
Newsflash dudes, Republicans are socialists too. They've got their own version of the New Deal: Pork, ag subsidies, pork, defense spending, and pork. They love big government. Love it love it love it. Can't get enough. They have absolutely nothing to do with the unrecognizable corpse of conservatism.
Please Jesus, if you still give a fart about the USA, please give us divided government again.
I'm fascinated by this 30-35% percent of people who'll always show up on the Bush side of the ledger on pretty much any question.
"Though Americans say stabilizing Iraq should be Mr. Bush's top foreign-policy priority, just 34% approve of his handling of the matter."
Who are these people?
Posted by: Brian | Jul 27, 2006 10:22:14 PM
---
If you follow the trend you win, regardless of who is in Congress, the Senate or the White House.
---
Part of the reason I'm short right now is that I'm banking on the notion that the market will be terrified at the prospect of a Democratic house; subpoenas, pursestrings and all.
So if the market drops in anticipation of a Dem takeover... fine with me.
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:22:41 PM
You're killing me eightninetoodamnlongnamedude. I would enter our 3yr apaloosa mare in a coulter lookalike. Hey Ann, something wrong? Why the long face? Bwahahaha! Whada skank.
Whipsaw: Sing it brother. Testify.
At least you folks may have some decent options to vote for. Up here we get "Uncle" Ted Stevens, pork commander supreme and general fucking idiot, Don Young...your run of the mill wingnut, and Lisa "Thanks for the Senate seat, Dad" Murkowski. And her dipshit dad is Gov, cutting undercover deals insecret with the O&G sector ala the Cheney energy task force.
But we do have some colorful 3rd parties. Alaska Independence Party (loony libertarian secessionist types), Green Party has a sizeable following (dirty granola hippies), Constitution Party (who knows, they're incoherent to me), and of course the std Libertarian party (rigid idelogues), Dems (GOP-lite), and a large collection of independent marginally insane people who enjoy running for office just to get attention and have a platform to spew nonsense.
But it could be worse...I used to live in Utah. HAW!
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 27, 2006 10:40:50 PM
All these polls remind me of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006. Hmmm What do those dates have in common. Too bad polls can't cast votes. Maybe it will be different this time. Wait a minute, isn't doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results the definition of ????
Posted by: Tom in Indy | Jul 27, 2006 10:46:55 PM
---
Wait a minute, isn't doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results the definition of ????
---
Bush's Iraq strategy????
Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5 | Jul 27, 2006 10:57:32 PM
Barry, boy did you bring out some emotions. My hubby and I are fine financially, not rich but we will do okay no matter what happens. I guess some of the commentors would call me a "socialist" since even though I am personally fine, I fear for my country. I am afraid of what kind of country we are leaving my grandchildren. I know that we cannot continue on this fiscal tract without horrible results - sooner or later. I believe in the economic therory of "There is no such thing as a free lunch".... and so I am afraid.
I worry about our country in regards to freedoms that we take for granted now. Because of the fear mongering, people are ready to give up freedom for what they perceive to be safety.... not realizing that once given up, it will be difficult to get back. I wouldn't be surprised that since I go to some of those awful liberal blogs, I'm on a list somewhere.
I am angry too. I am angry at my son because he
voted for Bush twice - even when realizing that the Bush economic policies would hurt him and his blue collar family - he voted for him anyway because of his stand on abortion. I'm angry at my son-in-law, the business man, who freely admits that Bush is an idiot, and doesn't agree with him on the social issues, but voted for him anyway because he is a business man.
Last but not least, I am outraged over the incompetence that permeates our foreign policy, and the money, lives, and ruined lives it has cost us.
I try and educate myself, and learn, (thus I come here as well as the liberal blogs) and have become sort of an activist in my later years. But in my 60 some years, I have NEVER been as discouraged for afraid for the future. So if the pollsters called people like me, I can understand where they came from their conclusions.
Posted by: JWC | Jul 27, 2006 10:57:40 PM
per Alaskan Pete:
"Whipsaw: Sing it brother. Testify.
At least you folks may have some decent options to vote for."
I really didn't want to get started about the Bushists here, but anyway...
Unfortunately, here in Georgia the choices are basically God's Own Party if you are in a white district or a Democrat if you are in a black district. The Dope Smoker/Pirate Capitalist Alliance (libertarians) shows up for the big ones, but is as impotent as ever.
I will give our current Republican governor credit for having twice wept publicly over our GA NG losses in Iraq which have been high. Then again, nobody should have been sent there to begin with, let alone with half-assed equipment.
At some point, even the purely selfish will swing around and this nonsense will stop. Either that or the career military officers who have seen everything that they swore an oath to go to hell will straighten it out.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 27, 2006 11:19:16 PM
And so what will the market do with news that nobody is leaving Iraq anytime soon? http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060728/wl_afp/usiraqmilitarytroops;_ylt=AuegLFx62Eph6Pj4m6dPDISs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-
Anybody with an ounce of military understanding already knew that long ago, but what about the MM's and other vampires? Did they really believe all of the propaganda? If so, look for a big drop tomorrow even if they somehow manage to view GNP numbers in a good way,
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 28, 2006 12:22:36 AM
Hmph -- wow, is anybody going to say anything about the post?
So for those of us who are data oriented, notice the big 15% or so spike in popularity around .... you guessed it the invasion of Iraq. This pattern in american voters, large support for the use of military force under, in fact, any circumstances is far and away one of the most predictable effects in american politics. This lesson has not been lost on Karl Rove. Though what the'll do for 2008 I'm sure I don't even want to think about. By the way the subsequent withdrawl of support by the populace when they discover that why, how, in what manner, and what circumstances and for what goals you use force does matter, is also an extremely typical (though not as solid) American electoral voter response. Fascinating how the Republicans managed to Tarnish the Democrats with that, calling the 'cowardly, and un-patriotic' when the real problem is a violence prone, but fairly stupid citizenry.
Posted by: Mike | Jul 28, 2006 12:39:41 AM
Tom in Indy, those 2000 polls on Iraq were something else, weren't they?
christ almighty: bush is polling worse today than clinton polled in 2000, or than he himself polled in 2002 or 2004.
there were no iraq polls, of course, in 2000 or 2002, but the polls are much worse than they were in 2004.
feelings about the economy and the overall direction of the country are worse today than they were in 2000, 2002, or 2004.
i'd have to look and see how congressional approval compares, but for someone as ill-informed as you, i don't bother to make the effort.
Posted by: howard | Jul 28, 2006 12:46:29 AM
Dems in office = peace and prosperity. Eight years of it, and the conservatives couldn't stand it.
Hey, but corporate welfare is just fine with them. Tell you what, get Walmart to pay people enough to get their employees off government assistance, and I might consider shopping there again. But hey, if the WalMart heirs want to make billions and live in huge gated mansions with bunkers, that's just fine with you, huh DH?
Good grief that attitude makes me ill.
Posted by: donna | Jul 28, 2006 12:46:34 AM
I wonder what Barry's GayBoy buddy Cody thinks of the fine economic mess we find ourselves in now. He's probably still posing in his N'Sync leather jacket and pushing tech stocks. LMAO!!
Posted by: Doby | Jul 28, 2006 12:57:00 AM
Whipsaw, I grew up in the Atlanta burbs (gwinett co). I hear ya. Of course those were the days of Sen Sam Nunn and Zell Miller before he went insane, flipped parties, and started challenging people to a duel on national television. Is Monica Kaufman still on the local (Channel2?) news? Man, she was a fixture for decades.
I bet I can give you tomorrow's traffic report for ATL: We've got slowing on the top end perimeter from Ashford Dunwoody to Peachtree Industrial. GA400 is backed up past Northridge. It's stop n go on the downtown connector and on 85 it's a 20 min ride from Jimmy Carter Blvd to Buford Hwy. You're getting some sunshine slowdown on 20 eastbound all the way in.
So glad to get out of there back in the 90s.
Posted by: Alaskan Pete | Jul 28, 2006 1:08:22 AM
Barry,
As a so called conservative (whatever the hell that means anymore), the worst vote I ever cast was for Bush's first term. I will never forgive myself for being such a sucker.
A short list for consideration: Centralized this. Centralized that. Fear this. Fear that. Subsidize this. Subsidize that. Spying on citizens. Torture. The free press as the "enemy". The belief that Government knows best. Bigger government programs. Big Brother on all fronts. Services for all. Wars of aggression and occupation.
None of the above are American traits. These are old Soviet era traits. How did it go to hell so quickly?
We have a superb Constitution and we can and will do better as a nation. However it is going to take some time to heal these self-inflicted wounds.
Bush may have had good intentions, but this is now irrelevant. The fact is that the the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Posted by: some kind of conservative, maybe | Jul 28, 2006 1:22:19 AM
per Alaskan Pete:
"Whipsaw, I grew up in the Atlanta burbs (gwinett co). I hear ya. Of course those were the days of Sen Sam Nunn and Zell Miller before he went insane, flipped parties, and started challenging people to a duel on national television. Is Monica Kaufman still on the local (Channel2?) news? Man, she was a fixture for decades."
Yeah I think Monica is still around (don't watch much local TV, sorry). And Sam Nunn was something of a hero of mine for opposing Oil War I altho I disagreed with him at the time and it probably cost him a good shot at the presidency. Unfortunately, I think he is a lobbyist now.
As far as Zell goes, I assume that he is now in some kind of rehab or "helping center." He wasn't bad as governor for 2 terms and senator for 1 term, but completely snapped in term 2 and was simply an embarassment.
Posted by: whipsaw | Jul 28, 2006 2:32:58 AM
---
The last thing we need is move towards socialism
---
Socialism? You mean government operating to maximize the public good?
And doesn't the military provide a service in pursuit of the public good? Courts too, it would seem.
Which makes the military and court system socialist, I guess. And any party that supports the military and courts would be socialist as well.
____________________________________
Really don't think that anyone has to worry about
socialism hitting the US anytime soon, the US is well
on their way of concentrating the wealth even more
towards a fewer % of the population,,, which is a definition of capitalism.
Posted by: rick | Jul 28, 2006 7:09:45 AM
I wonder if a person could do a technical analysis of charts like this. Do you think that similar patterns emerge as with securities?
Posted by: Dan Green | Jul 28, 2006 7:57:32 AM
Gov't central planning for the good of the Corporate Elite is Fascism not Socialism. Mussolini's Fascist gov't was widely (and correctly) hailed back in the 1920's as the wave of the future. (since that is what we have today.)
...great lead in since today is opening day for Russo's Film.
Posted by: tjofpa | Jul 28, 2006 9:43:39 AM
"last thing we need is move towards socialism and retarded economic policy."
It is retarded. Al this worry about Dems and this has been the most one sided pro buisness governmennever, and what do you do? Did you share. Hell no, just line the CEO pockets and send the jobs overseas. Anyone that thinks the last 5 years have been good for anyone but the super rich is retarded, not compasionate. Even the market hasn't budged an inch under the most favorable condtions ever, government by Chamber of Commerce.
Maybe 90% of the people would actually favor some saftey net for health and pensions rather than toss people in the street and "hang" them.
Posted by: me | Jul 28, 2006 10:45:16 AM
Howard,
Congress scores the lowest of all. Try taking a graduate level statistical analysis course before trusting any poll. Bush has always scored miserably in 'polling' data and the press has reported it like it was newsworthy. Yet he wins elections and manages to put most of his agenda through Congress. If you want to hang your hat on polling data, go right ahead, my friend. I fear you will be bedeviled with unmet expectations yet again.
Posted by: Tom in Indy | Jul 28, 2006 5:41:21 PM
nice
http://www.skincareinfo.us/
Posted by: skin care | Oct 30, 2006 7:29:45 PM
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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