1901 - U.S. President William McKinley Assassinated
From Jennifer Rosenberg,
Your Guide to 20th Century History.
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U.S. President William McKinley Assassinated (1901): On September 6, 1901, U.S. President William McKinley spent the morning visiting Niagara Falls with his wife before returning to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in the afternoon to spend a few minutes greeting the public.
By about 3:30 p.m., President McKinley stood inside the Temple of Music building at the Exposition, ready to begin shaking the hands of the public as they streamed into the building. Many had been waiting for hours outside in the heat for their chance to meet the President. Unbeknownst to the President and the many guards who stood nearby, among those waiting outside was 28-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz who was planning to kill President McKinley.
At 4 p.m. the doors to the building were opened and the mass of people waiting outside were forced into a single line as they entered the Temple of Music building.
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The line of people thus came up to the president in an organized fashion, with just enough time to whisper a "Nice to meet you, Mr. President," shake President McKinley's hand, and then be forced to continue along the line and out the door again.
President McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was a popular president who had just started his second term in office and the people seemed clearly glad to get a chance to meet him. However, at 4:07 p.m. Leon Czolgosz had made it into the building and it was his turn to greet the President.
In Czolgosz's right hand, he held a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson revolver, which he had covered by wrapping a handkerchief around the gun and his hand. Although Czolgosz's swaddled hand was noticed before he reached the President, many thought it looked like it covered an injury and not that it was hiding a gun. Also, since the day had been hot, many of the visitors to see the President had been carrying handkerchiefs in their hands so that they could wipe the sweat off their faces.
When Czolgosz reached the President, President McKinley reached out to shake his left hand (thinking Czolgosz's right hand was injured) while Czolgosz brought up his right hand to President McKinley's chest and then fired two shots.
One of the bullets didn't enter the president - some say it bounced off of a button or off the president's sternum and then got tucked into his clothing. The other bullet, however, entered the president's abdomen, tearing through his stomach, pancreas, and kidney. Shocked at being shot, President McKinley began to sag as blood stained his white shirt. He then told those around him, "Be careful how you tell my wife."
Those in line behind Czolgosz and guards in the room all jumped on Czolgosz and started to punch him. Seeing that the mob on Czolgosz might easily and quickly kill him, President McKinley whispered either, "Don't let them hurt him" or "Go easy on him, boys."
President McKinley was then whisked away in an electric ambulance to the hospital at the Exposition. Unfortunately, the hospital was not properly equipped for such a surgery and the very experienced doctor usually on premises was away doing a surgery in another town. Although several doctors were found, the most experienced doctor that could be found was Dr. Matthew Mann, a gynecologist. The surgery began at 5:20 p.m.
During the operation, the doctors searched for the remains of the bullet that had entered the President's abdomen, but were unable to locate it. Worried that continued searching would tax the President's body too much, the doctors decided to discontinue looking for it and to sew up what they could. The surgery was completed a little before 7 p.m.
For several days, President McKinley seemed to be getting better. After the shock of the shooting, the nation was excited to hear some good news. However, what the doctors did not realize was that without drainage, an infection had built up inside the President. By September 13 it was obvious the President was dying. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, 1901, President William McKinley died of gangrene. That afternoon, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States.
After being pummeled right after the shooting, Leon Czolgosz had been arrested and taken to police headquarters before nearly being lynched by the angry crowds that surrounded the Temple of Music. Czolgosz readily admitted that he was the one who had shot the President. In his written confession, Czolgosz stated, "I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none."
Czolgosz was brought to trial on September 23, 1901. He was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. On October 29, 1901, Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted.
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Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Students Not Politics-Illiterate?
To Students, Congress Tops ‘American Idol’
College students are regularly criticized as being ignorant, self-absorbed and interested only in pop culture. But a new national study — conducted by Tufts University researchers — found that students know more about politics and civic life than many fear they do, and more than those in the same age group who are not in college.
Related stories
Slap on the Wrist at Columbia?, March 28
Unusual Mix of Prayer and Politics, March 8
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Dumb and Dumber, Oct. 27, 2005
E-mail
Print
The survey was conducted of people aged 18-24 who are not in the military. Half of those surveyed were in college full time and half were not. Demographics matched the population as a whole.
Among the findings:
Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.S. senators. In contrast, only about 15 percent of the young people knew the name of the most recent winner of “American Idol” and about 10 percent knew the winner of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Approximately 79 percent of college students and more than 73 percent of non-college students said they had voted in the November 2006 elections, but only 10 to 12 percent of respondents reported ever voting in “American Idol” and significantly fewer had voted in “Dancing with the Stars.”
At least some of students’ Web activity is political. On average, college students belonged to almost four Facebook advocacy groups. According to the Tufts study, Facebook tends to be used more for advocacy of Democratic political candidates and liberal or Democratic causes than for Republican candidates or conservative or Republican causes.
More than 61 percent of college students had participated in online political discussions or visited a politically oriented Web site.
Of college students, 58.6 percent reported being somewhat, moderately or very involved in their communities, compared with 36.7 percent for non-students of the same age. More than 47 percent of college students reported involvement with community service organizations compared with slightly more than 24 percent of non-students.
To be sure, surveys abound about the ignorance of college students on key facts of American history and civic life, and the Tufts survey wasn’t trying to find out if students stay up at night arguing over the most significant of the Federalist Papers.
But Tufts researchers were encouraged by the findings. “Young people seem to know more about politics than they know about popular culture,” said Kent E. Portney, project director and professor of political science, in a statement. “This level of political knowledge stands in stark contrast to the image of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government.”
— Scott Jaschik
Comments
American Idol? Dancing with the Stars?
I’m a college senior and I don’t know a single other student who regularly watches American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. (I also live in DC and don’t have a senator or a real representative so I guess they would have me there.)
Jack, at 10:01 am EDT on April 5, 2007
I always thought it was ridiculous to think that college students were politically apathetic. While it is stupid to watch TV or care about popular culture, in some ways caring too much about politics might hinder a student’s ability to learn analytical skills that would help them later on.
Larry, at 10:25 am EDT on April 5, 2007
No excuses
With the proliferation of information available to students today, we should have the most informed youth in the history of the world. With satelite TV, Radio and the internet, people are inundated with information, both substantive and non-substantive, 24/7.Now, if I could just get my students to identify where there classes are we would have a winner.
Cynic Professor, at 10:26 am EDT on April 5, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/05/tufts
College students are regularly criticized as being ignorant, self-absorbed and interested only in pop culture. But a new national study — conducted by Tufts University researchers — found that students know more about politics and civic life than many fear they do, and more than those in the same age group who are not in college.
Related stories
Slap on the Wrist at Columbia?, March 28
Unusual Mix of Prayer and Politics, March 8
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Dumb and Dumber, Oct. 27, 2005
The survey was conducted of people aged 18-24 who are not in the military. Half of those surveyed were in college full time and half were not. Demographics matched the population as a whole.
Among the findings:
Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.S. senators. In contrast, only about 15 percent of the young people knew the name of the most recent winner of “American Idol” and about 10 percent knew the winner of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Approximately 79 percent of college students and more than 73 percent of non-college students said they had voted in the November 2006 elections, but only 10 to 12 percent of respondents reported ever voting in “American Idol” and significantly fewer had voted in “Dancing with the Stars.”
At least some of students’ Web activity is political. On average, college students belonged to almost four Facebook advocacy groups. According to the Tufts study, Facebook tends to be used more for advocacy of Democratic political candidates and liberal or Democratic causes than for Republican candidates or conservative or Republican causes.
More than 61 percent of college students had participated in online political discussions or visited a politically oriented Web site.
Of college students, 58.6 percent reported being somewhat, moderately or very involved in their communities, compared with 36.7 percent for non-students of the same age. More than 47 percent of college students reported involvement with community service organizations compared with slightly more than 24 percent of non-students.
To be sure, surveys abound about the ignorance of college students on key facts of American history and civic life, and the Tufts survey wasn’t trying to find out if students stay up at night arguing over the most significant of the Federalist Papers.
But Tufts researchers were encouraged by the findings. “Young people seem to know more about politics than they know about popular culture,” said Kent E. Portney, project director and professor of political science, in a statement. “This level of political knowledge stands in stark contrast to the image of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government.”
— Scott Jaschik
Comments
American Idol? Dancing with the Stars?
I’m a college senior and I don’t know a single other student who regularly watches American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. (I also live in DC and don’t have a senator or a real representative so I guess they would have me there.)
Jack, at 10:01 am EDT on April 5, 2007
I always thought it was ridiculous to think that college students were politically apathetic. While it is stupid to watch TV or care about popular culture, in some ways caring too much about politics might hinder a student’s ability to learn analytical skills that would help them later on.
Larry, at 10:25 am EDT on April 5, 2007
No excuses
With the proliferation of information available to students today, we should have the most informed youth in the history of the world. With satelite TV, Radio and the internet, people are inundated with information, both substantive and non-substantive, 24/7.Now, if I could just get my students to identify where there classes are we would have a winner.
Cynic Professor, at 10:26 am EDT on April 5, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/05/tufts
Saturday, March 24, 2007
House Passes Withdrawal Deadline
Dems challenge Bush with Iraq timetable By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House voted Friday for the first time to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year and pushing the new Democratic-led Congress ever closer to a showdown with President Bush.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 218-212 vote, mostly along party lines, was a hard-fought victory for Democrats, who faced divisions within their own ranks on the rancorous issue. Passage marked their most brazen challenge yet to Bush on a war that has killed more than 3,200 troops and lost favor with the American public.
He dismissed their action as "political theater" and said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk. The Senate is about to take up its own version.
The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 — or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."
Just over an hour following the vote, Bush angrily accused Democrats of playing politics and renewed his promise to veto the spending legislation if it included their withdrawal timetable, despite administration claims that the money is needed next month by troops.
"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen," he said.
Congress so far has provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to begin debate Monday on its own war spending bill, which also calls for a troop withdrawal — and also has drawn a Bush veto threat.
The Senate's $122 billion measure would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with a non-binding goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.
These bills "offer a responsible strategy that reflects what the American people asked for in November — redeploying our troops out of Iraq and refocusing our resources to more effectively fight the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.
While Friday's House vote represented the Democrats' latest intensifying of political pressure on Bush, they still face long odds of ultimately forcing him to sign such legislation.
In the Senate, Democratic leaders will need 60 votes to prevail — a tall order because that would mean persuading about a dozen Republicans to join them.
And should lawmakers send Bush a measure he rejects, both chambers would need two-thirds majorities to override his veto — margins that neither seems likely to muster.
Voting for the House bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed it, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
Those opposing Democrats included seven of the party's more conservative members, including Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall (news, bio, voting record), Tennessee Rep. Lincoln Davis (news, bio, voting record) and Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), who say they do not want to tie the hands of military commanders.
The other seven dissenters were members of a liberal anti-war caucus who routinely oppose war spending and would accept only legislation that would bring troops home immediately.
Fearing that other liberals would join them and tip the scales, Pelosi had spent days trying to convince members that the bill was Congress' best shot at forcing a new course in Iraq — an argument that was aided when the Democrats added more than $20 billion in domestic spending in an effort to lure votes.
Pelosi received a boost this week when several of the bill's most consistent critics said they would not pressure members to vote against it, even though they would oppose it themselves.
The vote was considered a personal victory for the new speaker, whose husband watched the debate Friday from the gallery overlooking the House floor.
Anti-war groups remained divided on whether passage of the bill was a good thing, and protesters tried to disrupt debate Friday and pressure members to oppose the bill.
"This is just the beginning of the beginning of the end of this war," said Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., among those who opposed the bill.
The emotional debate surrounding the bill echoed clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago.
"We're going to make a difference with this bill," bellowed Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran who helped write the legislation.
"We're going to bring those troops home. We're going to start changing the direction of this great nation," he said, bringing a standing ovation and hugs from his colleagues.
Republicans countered that the bill would be tantamount to conceding defeat.
"The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success," said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo.
Sens. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), I-Conn., and Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., said they planned to try to strip the withdrawal language from the Senate bill — which would probably require a difficult-to-achieve 60 votes.
"We're not prepared to tell the enemy, 'hang on, we'll give you a date when we are leaving,' said McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:
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Full Coverage: Iraq
Off the Wires
Logistics problems slow Iraqi forces AP, 23 minutes ago Iraq, immigration threaten McCain bid AP, 41 minutes ago Feature Articles
Reconstruction in Iraq criticised at BBC, Mar 23 Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 News Stories
Shiite clash in Basra injures 9 at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 23 House OKs Timetable for Troops in Iraq at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Opinion & Editorials
Retreat and Butter at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Peanut politics at Charlotte Observer, Mar 23
Dems challenge Bush with Iraq timetable By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House voted Friday for the first time to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year and pushing the new Democratic-led Congress ever closer to a showdown with President Bush.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 218-212 vote, mostly along party lines, was a hard-fought victory for Democrats, who faced divisions within their own ranks on the rancorous issue. Passage marked their most brazen challenge yet to Bush on a war that has killed more than 3,200 troops and lost favor with the American public.
He dismissed their action as "political theater" and said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk. The Senate is about to take up its own version.
The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 — or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."
Just over an hour following the vote, Bush angrily accused Democrats of playing politics and renewed his promise to veto the spending legislation if it included their withdrawal timetable, despite administration claims that the money is needed next month by troops.
"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen," he said.
Congress so far has provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to begin debate Monday on its own war spending bill, which also calls for a troop withdrawal — and also has drawn a Bush veto threat.
The Senate's $122 billion measure would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with a non-binding goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.
These bills "offer a responsible strategy that reflects what the American people asked for in November — redeploying our troops out of Iraq and refocusing our resources to more effectively fight the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.
While Friday's House vote represented the Democrats' latest intensifying of political pressure on Bush, they still face long odds of ultimately forcing him to sign such legislation.
In the Senate, Democratic leaders will need 60 votes to prevail — a tall order because that would mean persuading about a dozen Republicans to join them.
And should lawmakers send Bush a measure he rejects, both chambers would need two-thirds majorities to override his veto — margins that neither seems likely to muster.
Voting for the House bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed it, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
Those opposing Democrats included seven of the party's more conservative members, including Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall (news, bio, voting record), Tennessee Rep. Lincoln Davis (news, bio, voting record) and Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), who say they do not want to tie the hands of military commanders.
The other seven dissenters were members of a liberal anti-war caucus who routinely oppose war spending and would accept only legislation that would bring troops home immediately.
Fearing that other liberals would join them and tip the scales, Pelosi had spent days trying to convince members that the bill was Congress' best shot at forcing a new course in Iraq — an argument that was aided when the Democrats added more than $20 billion in domestic spending in an effort to lure votes.
Pelosi received a boost this week when several of the bill's most consistent critics said they would not pressure members to vote against it, even though they would oppose it themselves.
The vote was considered a personal victory for the new speaker, whose husband watched the debate Friday from the gallery overlooking the House floor.
Anti-war groups remained divided on whether passage of the bill was a good thing, and protesters tried to disrupt debate Friday and pressure members to oppose the bill.
"This is just the beginning of the beginning of the end of this war," said Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., among those who opposed the bill.
The emotional debate surrounding the bill echoed clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago.
"We're going to make a difference with this bill," bellowed Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran who helped write the legislation.
"We're going to bring those troops home. We're going to start changing the direction of this great nation," he said, bringing a standing ovation and hugs from his colleagues.
Republicans countered that the bill would be tantamount to conceding defeat.
"The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success," said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo.
Sens. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), I-Conn., and Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., said they planned to try to strip the withdrawal language from the Senate bill — which would probably require a difficult-to-achieve 60 votes.
"We're not prepared to tell the enemy, 'hang on, we'll give you a date when we are leaving,' said McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:
Average (39 votes)
» Recommended Stories
Full Coverage: Iraq
Off the Wires
Logistics problems slow Iraqi forces AP, 23 minutes ago Iraq, immigration threaten McCain bid AP, 41 minutes ago Feature Articles
Reconstruction in Iraq criticised at BBC, Mar 23 Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 News Stories
Shiite clash in Basra injures 9 at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 23 House OKs Timetable for Troops in Iraq at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Opinion & Editorials
Retreat and Butter at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Peanut politics at Charlotte Observer, Mar 23
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070324/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House voted Friday for the first time to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year and pushing the new Democratic-led Congress ever closer to a showdown with President Bush.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 218-212 vote, mostly along party lines, was a hard-fought victory for Democrats, who faced divisions within their own ranks on the rancorous issue. Passage marked their most brazen challenge yet to Bush on a war that has killed more than 3,200 troops and lost favor with the American public.
He dismissed their action as "political theater" and said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk. The Senate is about to take up its own version.
The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 — or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."
Just over an hour following the vote, Bush angrily accused Democrats of playing politics and renewed his promise to veto the spending legislation if it included their withdrawal timetable, despite administration claims that the money is needed next month by troops.
"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen," he said.
Congress so far has provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to begin debate Monday on its own war spending bill, which also calls for a troop withdrawal — and also has drawn a Bush veto threat.
The Senate's $122 billion measure would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with a non-binding goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.
These bills "offer a responsible strategy that reflects what the American people asked for in November — redeploying our troops out of Iraq and refocusing our resources to more effectively fight the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.
While Friday's House vote represented the Democrats' latest intensifying of political pressure on Bush, they still face long odds of ultimately forcing him to sign such legislation.
In the Senate, Democratic leaders will need 60 votes to prevail — a tall order because that would mean persuading about a dozen Republicans to join them.
And should lawmakers send Bush a measure he rejects, both chambers would need two-thirds majorities to override his veto — margins that neither seems likely to muster.
Voting for the House bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed it, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
Those opposing Democrats included seven of the party's more conservative members, including Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall (news, bio, voting record), Tennessee Rep. Lincoln Davis (news, bio, voting record) and Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), who say they do not want to tie the hands of military commanders.
The other seven dissenters were members of a liberal anti-war caucus who routinely oppose war spending and would accept only legislation that would bring troops home immediately.
Fearing that other liberals would join them and tip the scales, Pelosi had spent days trying to convince members that the bill was Congress' best shot at forcing a new course in Iraq — an argument that was aided when the Democrats added more than $20 billion in domestic spending in an effort to lure votes.
Pelosi received a boost this week when several of the bill's most consistent critics said they would not pressure members to vote against it, even though they would oppose it themselves.
The vote was considered a personal victory for the new speaker, whose husband watched the debate Friday from the gallery overlooking the House floor.
Anti-war groups remained divided on whether passage of the bill was a good thing, and protesters tried to disrupt debate Friday and pressure members to oppose the bill.
"This is just the beginning of the beginning of the end of this war," said Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., among those who opposed the bill.
The emotional debate surrounding the bill echoed clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago.
"We're going to make a difference with this bill," bellowed Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran who helped write the legislation.
"We're going to bring those troops home. We're going to start changing the direction of this great nation," he said, bringing a standing ovation and hugs from his colleagues.
Republicans countered that the bill would be tantamount to conceding defeat.
"The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success," said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo.
Sens. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), I-Conn., and Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., said they planned to try to strip the withdrawal language from the Senate bill — which would probably require a difficult-to-achieve 60 votes.
"We're not prepared to tell the enemy, 'hang on, we'll give you a date when we are leaving,' said McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:
Average (39 votes)
» Recommended Stories
Full Coverage: Iraq
Off the Wires
Logistics problems slow Iraqi forces AP, 23 minutes ago Iraq, immigration threaten McCain bid AP, 41 minutes ago Feature Articles
Reconstruction in Iraq criticised at BBC, Mar 23 Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 News Stories
Shiite clash in Basra injures 9 at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 23 House OKs Timetable for Troops in Iraq at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Opinion & Editorials
Retreat and Butter at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Peanut politics at Charlotte Observer, Mar 23
Dems challenge Bush with Iraq timetable By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House voted Friday for the first time to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year and pushing the new Democratic-led Congress ever closer to a showdown with President Bush.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 218-212 vote, mostly along party lines, was a hard-fought victory for Democrats, who faced divisions within their own ranks on the rancorous issue. Passage marked their most brazen challenge yet to Bush on a war that has killed more than 3,200 troops and lost favor with the American public.
He dismissed their action as "political theater" and said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk. The Senate is about to take up its own version.
The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 — or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."
Just over an hour following the vote, Bush angrily accused Democrats of playing politics and renewed his promise to veto the spending legislation if it included their withdrawal timetable, despite administration claims that the money is needed next month by troops.
"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen," he said.
Congress so far has provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to begin debate Monday on its own war spending bill, which also calls for a troop withdrawal — and also has drawn a Bush veto threat.
The Senate's $122 billion measure would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with a non-binding goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.
These bills "offer a responsible strategy that reflects what the American people asked for in November — redeploying our troops out of Iraq and refocusing our resources to more effectively fight the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.
While Friday's House vote represented the Democrats' latest intensifying of political pressure on Bush, they still face long odds of ultimately forcing him to sign such legislation.
In the Senate, Democratic leaders will need 60 votes to prevail — a tall order because that would mean persuading about a dozen Republicans to join them.
And should lawmakers send Bush a measure he rejects, both chambers would need two-thirds majorities to override his veto — margins that neither seems likely to muster.
Voting for the House bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed it, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
Those opposing Democrats included seven of the party's more conservative members, including Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall (news, bio, voting record), Tennessee Rep. Lincoln Davis (news, bio, voting record) and Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), who say they do not want to tie the hands of military commanders.
The other seven dissenters were members of a liberal anti-war caucus who routinely oppose war spending and would accept only legislation that would bring troops home immediately.
Fearing that other liberals would join them and tip the scales, Pelosi had spent days trying to convince members that the bill was Congress' best shot at forcing a new course in Iraq — an argument that was aided when the Democrats added more than $20 billion in domestic spending in an effort to lure votes.
Pelosi received a boost this week when several of the bill's most consistent critics said they would not pressure members to vote against it, even though they would oppose it themselves.
The vote was considered a personal victory for the new speaker, whose husband watched the debate Friday from the gallery overlooking the House floor.
Anti-war groups remained divided on whether passage of the bill was a good thing, and protesters tried to disrupt debate Friday and pressure members to oppose the bill.
"This is just the beginning of the beginning of the end of this war," said Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., among those who opposed the bill.
The emotional debate surrounding the bill echoed clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago.
"We're going to make a difference with this bill," bellowed Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran who helped write the legislation.
"We're going to bring those troops home. We're going to start changing the direction of this great nation," he said, bringing a standing ovation and hugs from his colleagues.
Republicans countered that the bill would be tantamount to conceding defeat.
"The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success," said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo.
Sens. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), I-Conn., and Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., said they planned to try to strip the withdrawal language from the Senate bill — which would probably require a difficult-to-achieve 60 votes.
"We're not prepared to tell the enemy, 'hang on, we'll give you a date when we are leaving,' said McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
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Logistics problems slow Iraqi forces AP, 23 minutes ago Iraq, immigration threaten McCain bid AP, 41 minutes ago Feature Articles
Reconstruction in Iraq criticised at BBC, Mar 23 Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 News Stories
Shiite clash in Basra injures 9 at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 23 House OKs Timetable for Troops in Iraq at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Opinion & Editorials
Retreat and Butter at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Mar 23 Peanut politics at Charlotte Observer, Mar 23
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070324/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Article Collection March 17
China TV airs "Prison Break" for English study Thu Mar 15, 11:44 PM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - A television station in eastern China which flouted a national ban on U.S. drama "Prison Break," said it aired the popular serial on its children's channel for "English training" purposes, state media reported on Friday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Like other shows with crime-related content, "Prison Break," a drama about fugitives' on the run after escaping jail, is banned in China, as part of a 2004 order "to protect the living environment of non-adults," the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The ban has failed to stop the show from becoming hugely popular in China, where pirated copies of the first season are sold openly for less than $10 in DVD shops and on street corners.
An editor at Jinan TV, a station in China's eastern Shandong province, said excerpts of "Prison Break" had aired on its children's channel as part of a regular program called "Watch Movies, Learn English," the paper reported.
"The program would show some scenes, then the host would explain the meaning of some of the words used and how they would apply in real life," the paper quoted the editor surnamed Zhang as saying.
Zhang said the show had only aired for three or four days before they were reminded by "relevant parties" not to "push the line."
"We also feared causing an intellectual property dispute, so we stopped airing it," Zhang said, adding that the show had been sourced from "English enthusiasts."
"Many TV stations have played the whole series, and also with advertisements. So, as far as we're concerned, this has become a bit of beat-up."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070316/tv_nm/china_tv_prison_break_dc_1
New York artists sue NBC over "Heroes" concept Sat Mar 17, 12:07 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two artists sued NBC Universal and the creators of the network's superhero drama "Heroes" in U.S. district court this week, claiming their work had been wrongfully copied on the television show.
ADVERTISEMENT
New York-based artists Clifton Mallery and his wife Amnau Karam Eele charged in a suit filed on Thursday in Manhattan that "Heroes" creators based their plot line -- about an artist who can paint the future -- on a short story, a painting series and a short film the couple exhibited in 2004 and 2005.
A spokesman for NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., said in a statement the network believes the suit is without merit. "We intend to defend it vigorously and expect to prevail."
The artists said in the lawsuit that two people who identified themselves as writers from NBC's "Crossing Jordan," which also developed by "Heroes" creator and executive producer Tim Kring, attended an April 2005 exhibition of their work at Hunter College in New York City. The two were believed to have taken copies of the couple's work, the lawsuit said.
The artists said their work focused on an artist who paints the future and who specifically paints the destruction of two landmark buildings in New York City. They alleged this was "strikingly similar" to the character of Isaac Mendez on "Heroes," whose paintings of the future depict an explosion in New York City.
"Heroes," a serial thriller about a group of ordinary people who discover they have special abilities, has been credited with helping to boost NBC's ratings this season.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070317/tv_nm/nbc_heroes_lawsuit_dc_1
Passport requests flood State Department By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
Fri Mar 16, 10:51 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand, the State Department is warning would-be travelers to brace for lengthy delays in getting U.S. passports, even when they pay a hefty fee to speed their applications.
ADVERTISEMENT
The department has hired hundreds of employees to process passport requests over the past two years as tougher immigration rules have taken effect. Even so, the department says a crush of new applicants — more than 1 million a month — has inundated its staff and caused delays of up to a month-and-a-half at the peak January-to-April season when many people are preparing to travel over the spring and summer.
In addition, a regulation that took effect this year requiring Americans to have passports when traveling by air to any country, including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean "has increased passport demand and production to record levels," the department said in a statement this week.
Applications received between October and this March have risen 44 percent over the same period in 2005-2006, the department said in a notice sent Thursday to lawmakers. Some members of Congress have received complaints from constituents about delays.
According to the notice, routine passport processing could take 10 weeks instead of the previous six, and expedited processing could take four weeks instead of two weeks.
About 12 million passport applications were processed in 2006 and as many as 17 million are expected this year, the department said.
For adults getting their first passport, the routine processing fee is $97 with an additional $60 charge for expedited service. Passport renewals for adults cost $67, with the same expedited fee.
The department said by the end of 2008 it plans to have hired 400 passport adjudicators since 2004.
The agency's 16 production facilities are also working overtime, including 24 hours-a-day in three shifts at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire. A new center capable of making as many as 10 million passports a year is to open in Arkansas in April, it said.
Some 74 million Americans have valid U.S. passports.
___
On the Net:
State Department information on passports:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070316/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_us_passports;_ylt=Ak1wUDMPAN4.PfXSNqXf3IPMWM0F
3 'Jeopardy' contestants end up tied Sat Mar 17, 4:16 AM ET
NEW YORK - All those years of answers and questions, and it's never happened before on "Jeopardy!" What is a three-way tie, Alex?
ADVERTISEMENT
The three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.
"We've had a lot of crazy things happen on `Jeopardy!' but in 23 years I've never seen anything like this before," host Alex Trebek said.
The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening — one in 25 million.
The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Fla.; Anders Martinson of Union City, Calif.; and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Md; were all declared champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_tv/tv_three_way_tie
Secret of horror writer's lineage broken By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 17, 7:32 PM ET
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Joe Hill knew it was only a matter of time before one of the publishing industry's hottest little secrets became common knowledge. He just wished he could have kept it under wraps a bit longer.
ADVERTISEMENT
But when Hill's fantasy-tinged thriller, "Heart-Shaped Box," came out last month, it was inevitable that his thoroughbred blood lines as a writer of horror and the supernatural would be out there for all to see.
After 10 years of writing short stories and an unpublished novel under his pen name, Hill knows that the world is now viewing him through a different prism — as the older son of Stephen King.
Hill, 34, took on his secret identity to test his writing skills and marketability without having to trade on the family name.
"I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits," he said over breakfast in this coastal city. "One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private."
The moniker he chose did not come out of the blue. He is legally Joseph Hillstrom King, named for the labor organizer whose 1915 execution for murder in Utah inspired the song, "Joe Hill," an anthem of the labor movement. His parents, who came of age during the 1960s, "were both pretty feisty liberals and looked at Joe Hill as a heroic figure," he said.
"Heart-Shaped Box," a title drawn from a song by the rock group Nirvana, is a fast-paced tale of another man with dual identities. Judas Coyne, born Justin Cowzynski, is an over-the- hill heavy metal rocker with a strange hobby: amassing ghoulish artifacts.
When Coyne learns that a suit purportedly haunted by a ghost is up for grabs on an online auction site, he can't resist adding it to his creepy collection. Things turn ugly fast after Coyne learns that the suit's occupant is a spooky spiritualist bent on vengeance following the death of his stepdaughter.
The book has drawn good reviews, with The New York Times' Janet Maslin calling it "a wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty tale of horror" that is "so visually intense that its energy never flags." And with its cinematic, and bloody, ending, Warner Bros. snapped up movie rights six months before the book hit the market.
As excitement percolated about "Heart-Shaped Box," so, too, did lingering questions about its author. Inklings about Hill's family background started appearing in online message boards in 2005 when his collection of short stories, "20th Century Ghosts," was published in Britain.
Similarities in subject matter and appearance — Hill has his father's bushy eyebrows and the dark beard he sported decades ago — were enough to stir suspicion among followers of the horror genre.
"It got blogged to death," Hill recalled. But only when his identity was trumpeted in Variety last year did he realize that the secret was gone for good. "That was really the nail in the coffin," he said.
Still, his pen name had a good ride. The editor of "Heart-Shaped Box" was unaware of the King connection and Hill's agent remained in the dark for eight years before the author spilled the beans two years ago.
Hill's decision to follow his father's career should come as no surprise. His mother, Tabitha King, has been turning out novels for decades. His younger brother, Owen King, came out in 2005 with a well-received novella and short story collection that is more literary than horrific and laced with absurdity.
Like Hill, Owen King wanted to cut his own path and his book did not mention his parentage. But he decided against a pen name, figuring it would be too much trouble to try to go by an alias when meeting people or having an agent, manager, publicist or personal assistant handle details of his professional life.
The only sibling who has yet to make it into print is Naomi King, oldest of the three, who has switched careers from restaurateur to Unitarian minister. But Hill said his sister is working on a nonfiction project: a book-length study of the sermon as literary text and its place in American culture.
The King children's interest in books and writing took root early on. "It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch," Hill recalled. "This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least."
In an era of celebrity worship, the family has prided itself on being able to maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible despite Stephen King's fame and fortune. Hill and his brother attended public high school in Bangor, Maine, before going on to Vassar College, where they overlapped for one year.
After graduation, Hill and Owen King collaborated on a couple of screenplays. They sold one, but it has yet to be made into a movie.
The first half of "Heart-Shaped Box" is set in New York's Hudson Valley, the area around Vassar, where Judas Coyne lives with his latest Goth girlfriend, who 30 years his junior, and two devoted German shepherds.
At first, Hill envisioned his tale of a suit with a ghost attached as grist for a short story. But as he added depth and back story to his characters, it ballooned into a novel 10 times longer than what he originally planned.
The choice of title was pure serendipity. Hill's initial idea, "Private Collection," went by the wayside when the 1993 Nirvana song popped up on iTunes as the author was getting ready to write the episode in which UPS delivers the haunted suit to Coyne. It was then that Hill decided to package the suit in a heart-shaped box.
"Coyne is fiction and (Kurt) Cobain was a real guy," he said, "but I felt that the song fit very well with the book. The song is about a guy who feels trapped and desperate, and the book is about how someone uses music as a hammer to beat at the bars of his own cage."
Hill and his wife, whom he met at Vassar, live in southern New Hampshire with their three children. He is reluctant to say much about his private life, recalling how a crazed fan broke into his family's home in Bangor in 1991 and threatened his mother, a frightening episode that evoked the plot of King's earlier best seller, "Misery."
Stephen King declined a request for comment on his son's novel. "He's trying to go along with Joe's wishes and let him do this on his own," said his spokeswoman, Marsha DeFilippo.
But at a recent panel discussion in New York, King told a questioner that he wouldn't rule out a collaborative book project with his son.
"I guess anything's possible," he said. "I took them on my knee, read them stories, changed their diapers, and now they're all grown up and they have become writers, of all things. I am really proud of them. I guess we'll see what happens down the road."
___
Associated Press Writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.joehillfiction.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_ot/books_joe_hill
3 children killed in Thai school attack 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
BANGKOK, Thailand - A deadly attack on an Islamic school in Thailand's restive south that left three students dead and seven injured sparked hundreds of Muslim villagers to rioted Sunday in protest.
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Police blamed the attack in the southern province of Songkhla on Muslim insurgents, but villagers said they didn't believe Muslims were behind the violence.
More than 500 protesters gathered outside the school, parading the dead children's bodies through the crowd and setting fire to two buildings at a nearby government-owned school. Some hurled stones at police.
The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pondok school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri.
Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, Thammasak said.
He said police believe Muslim insurgents staged the attack and hoped to convince local residents that authorities were behind it — a ploy to win villagers over to the insurgents' cause.
But the protesting villagers said Sunday morning they didn't believe that Muslims had staged the attack.
"The villagers are accusing paratroopers of attacking the school," Thammasak said.
Thailand's three Muslim provinces have hundreds of religious Islamic schools, some of which authorities have accused of harboring insurgents and serving as a training ground for violence.
Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and increasingly in the neighboring province of Songkhla.
Gen. Virote Baucharoon, the army commander in charge of the restive provinces, said that security forces had recently raided an Islamic school and confiscated an M-16 assault rifle, bullets, a computer with suspicious material on the hard drive and other documents believed to be linked to the insurgency.
"This leads us to believe that religious schools are involved with the ongoing violence," he said.
Though Buddhist teachers have been targeted in the past, children have largely been spared.
The victims of Saturday's violence were identified as a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds. Injured students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were being treated for gun wounds and other injuries, Thammasak said. More than 75 students were in the school's dormitory at the time of the attack.
Violence in the south has increased since a military-installed government took power in September following a coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/thailand_southern_violence
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U.N. worker injured in Afghan ambush 54 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.N. mine-clearing worker was wounded by suspected Taliban militants during an ambush on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces north of Kabul, the coalition said Sunday.
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The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Afghan and coalition forces on Saturday in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, said a statement from the coalition.
The U.N. vehicle carrying the mine-clearing worker, which was traveling separately from the convoy in the opposite direction on the same road, was hit in the attack.
No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded or killed in the attack, it said.
Denise Duclaux, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan, said the Afghan deminer was traveling from the work site back to his base camp when the vehicle he was in drove into the firefight.
He was hit in the shoulder and treated by a paramedic traveling with him, Duclaux said, adding that his condition is stable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/afghan_violence
BEIJING (Reuters) - A television station in eastern China which flouted a national ban on U.S. drama "Prison Break," said it aired the popular serial on its children's channel for "English training" purposes, state media reported on Friday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Like other shows with crime-related content, "Prison Break," a drama about fugitives' on the run after escaping jail, is banned in China, as part of a 2004 order "to protect the living environment of non-adults," the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The ban has failed to stop the show from becoming hugely popular in China, where pirated copies of the first season are sold openly for less than $10 in DVD shops and on street corners.
An editor at Jinan TV, a station in China's eastern Shandong province, said excerpts of "Prison Break" had aired on its children's channel as part of a regular program called "Watch Movies, Learn English," the paper reported.
"The program would show some scenes, then the host would explain the meaning of some of the words used and how they would apply in real life," the paper quoted the editor surnamed Zhang as saying.
Zhang said the show had only aired for three or four days before they were reminded by "relevant parties" not to "push the line."
"We also feared causing an intellectual property dispute, so we stopped airing it," Zhang said, adding that the show had been sourced from "English enthusiasts."
"Many TV stations have played the whole series, and also with advertisements. So, as far as we're concerned, this has become a bit of beat-up."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070316/tv_nm/china_tv_prison_break_dc_1
New York artists sue NBC over "Heroes" concept Sat Mar 17, 12:07 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two artists sued NBC Universal and the creators of the network's superhero drama "Heroes" in U.S. district court this week, claiming their work had been wrongfully copied on the television show.
ADVERTISEMENT
New York-based artists Clifton Mallery and his wife Amnau Karam Eele charged in a suit filed on Thursday in Manhattan that "Heroes" creators based their plot line -- about an artist who can paint the future -- on a short story, a painting series and a short film the couple exhibited in 2004 and 2005.
A spokesman for NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., said in a statement the network believes the suit is without merit. "We intend to defend it vigorously and expect to prevail."
The artists said in the lawsuit that two people who identified themselves as writers from NBC's "Crossing Jordan," which also developed by "Heroes" creator and executive producer Tim Kring, attended an April 2005 exhibition of their work at Hunter College in New York City. The two were believed to have taken copies of the couple's work, the lawsuit said.
The artists said their work focused on an artist who paints the future and who specifically paints the destruction of two landmark buildings in New York City. They alleged this was "strikingly similar" to the character of Isaac Mendez on "Heroes," whose paintings of the future depict an explosion in New York City.
"Heroes," a serial thriller about a group of ordinary people who discover they have special abilities, has been credited with helping to boost NBC's ratings this season.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070317/tv_nm/nbc_heroes_lawsuit_dc_1
Passport requests flood State Department By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
Fri Mar 16, 10:51 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand, the State Department is warning would-be travelers to brace for lengthy delays in getting U.S. passports, even when they pay a hefty fee to speed their applications.
ADVERTISEMENT
The department has hired hundreds of employees to process passport requests over the past two years as tougher immigration rules have taken effect. Even so, the department says a crush of new applicants — more than 1 million a month — has inundated its staff and caused delays of up to a month-and-a-half at the peak January-to-April season when many people are preparing to travel over the spring and summer.
In addition, a regulation that took effect this year requiring Americans to have passports when traveling by air to any country, including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean "has increased passport demand and production to record levels," the department said in a statement this week.
Applications received between October and this March have risen 44 percent over the same period in 2005-2006, the department said in a notice sent Thursday to lawmakers. Some members of Congress have received complaints from constituents about delays.
According to the notice, routine passport processing could take 10 weeks instead of the previous six, and expedited processing could take four weeks instead of two weeks.
About 12 million passport applications were processed in 2006 and as many as 17 million are expected this year, the department said.
For adults getting their first passport, the routine processing fee is $97 with an additional $60 charge for expedited service. Passport renewals for adults cost $67, with the same expedited fee.
The department said by the end of 2008 it plans to have hired 400 passport adjudicators since 2004.
The agency's 16 production facilities are also working overtime, including 24 hours-a-day in three shifts at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire. A new center capable of making as many as 10 million passports a year is to open in Arkansas in April, it said.
Some 74 million Americans have valid U.S. passports.
___
On the Net:
State Department information on passports:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070316/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_us_passports;_ylt=Ak1wUDMPAN4.PfXSNqXf3IPMWM0F
3 'Jeopardy' contestants end up tied Sat Mar 17, 4:16 AM ET
NEW YORK - All those years of answers and questions, and it's never happened before on "Jeopardy!" What is a three-way tie, Alex?
ADVERTISEMENT
The three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.
"We've had a lot of crazy things happen on `Jeopardy!' but in 23 years I've never seen anything like this before," host Alex Trebek said.
The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening — one in 25 million.
The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Fla.; Anders Martinson of Union City, Calif.; and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Md; were all declared champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_tv/tv_three_way_tie
Secret of horror writer's lineage broken By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 17, 7:32 PM ET
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Joe Hill knew it was only a matter of time before one of the publishing industry's hottest little secrets became common knowledge. He just wished he could have kept it under wraps a bit longer.
ADVERTISEMENT
But when Hill's fantasy-tinged thriller, "Heart-Shaped Box," came out last month, it was inevitable that his thoroughbred blood lines as a writer of horror and the supernatural would be out there for all to see.
After 10 years of writing short stories and an unpublished novel under his pen name, Hill knows that the world is now viewing him through a different prism — as the older son of Stephen King.
Hill, 34, took on his secret identity to test his writing skills and marketability without having to trade on the family name.
"I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits," he said over breakfast in this coastal city. "One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private."
The moniker he chose did not come out of the blue. He is legally Joseph Hillstrom King, named for the labor organizer whose 1915 execution for murder in Utah inspired the song, "Joe Hill," an anthem of the labor movement. His parents, who came of age during the 1960s, "were both pretty feisty liberals and looked at Joe Hill as a heroic figure," he said.
"Heart-Shaped Box," a title drawn from a song by the rock group Nirvana, is a fast-paced tale of another man with dual identities. Judas Coyne, born Justin Cowzynski, is an over-the- hill heavy metal rocker with a strange hobby: amassing ghoulish artifacts.
When Coyne learns that a suit purportedly haunted by a ghost is up for grabs on an online auction site, he can't resist adding it to his creepy collection. Things turn ugly fast after Coyne learns that the suit's occupant is a spooky spiritualist bent on vengeance following the death of his stepdaughter.
The book has drawn good reviews, with The New York Times' Janet Maslin calling it "a wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty tale of horror" that is "so visually intense that its energy never flags." And with its cinematic, and bloody, ending, Warner Bros. snapped up movie rights six months before the book hit the market.
As excitement percolated about "Heart-Shaped Box," so, too, did lingering questions about its author. Inklings about Hill's family background started appearing in online message boards in 2005 when his collection of short stories, "20th Century Ghosts," was published in Britain.
Similarities in subject matter and appearance — Hill has his father's bushy eyebrows and the dark beard he sported decades ago — were enough to stir suspicion among followers of the horror genre.
"It got blogged to death," Hill recalled. But only when his identity was trumpeted in Variety last year did he realize that the secret was gone for good. "That was really the nail in the coffin," he said.
Still, his pen name had a good ride. The editor of "Heart-Shaped Box" was unaware of the King connection and Hill's agent remained in the dark for eight years before the author spilled the beans two years ago.
Hill's decision to follow his father's career should come as no surprise. His mother, Tabitha King, has been turning out novels for decades. His younger brother, Owen King, came out in 2005 with a well-received novella and short story collection that is more literary than horrific and laced with absurdity.
Like Hill, Owen King wanted to cut his own path and his book did not mention his parentage. But he decided against a pen name, figuring it would be too much trouble to try to go by an alias when meeting people or having an agent, manager, publicist or personal assistant handle details of his professional life.
The only sibling who has yet to make it into print is Naomi King, oldest of the three, who has switched careers from restaurateur to Unitarian minister. But Hill said his sister is working on a nonfiction project: a book-length study of the sermon as literary text and its place in American culture.
The King children's interest in books and writing took root early on. "It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch," Hill recalled. "This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least."
In an era of celebrity worship, the family has prided itself on being able to maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible despite Stephen King's fame and fortune. Hill and his brother attended public high school in Bangor, Maine, before going on to Vassar College, where they overlapped for one year.
After graduation, Hill and Owen King collaborated on a couple of screenplays. They sold one, but it has yet to be made into a movie.
The first half of "Heart-Shaped Box" is set in New York's Hudson Valley, the area around Vassar, where Judas Coyne lives with his latest Goth girlfriend, who 30 years his junior, and two devoted German shepherds.
At first, Hill envisioned his tale of a suit with a ghost attached as grist for a short story. But as he added depth and back story to his characters, it ballooned into a novel 10 times longer than what he originally planned.
The choice of title was pure serendipity. Hill's initial idea, "Private Collection," went by the wayside when the 1993 Nirvana song popped up on iTunes as the author was getting ready to write the episode in which UPS delivers the haunted suit to Coyne. It was then that Hill decided to package the suit in a heart-shaped box.
"Coyne is fiction and (Kurt) Cobain was a real guy," he said, "but I felt that the song fit very well with the book. The song is about a guy who feels trapped and desperate, and the book is about how someone uses music as a hammer to beat at the bars of his own cage."
Hill and his wife, whom he met at Vassar, live in southern New Hampshire with their three children. He is reluctant to say much about his private life, recalling how a crazed fan broke into his family's home in Bangor in 1991 and threatened his mother, a frightening episode that evoked the plot of King's earlier best seller, "Misery."
Stephen King declined a request for comment on his son's novel. "He's trying to go along with Joe's wishes and let him do this on his own," said his spokeswoman, Marsha DeFilippo.
But at a recent panel discussion in New York, King told a questioner that he wouldn't rule out a collaborative book project with his son.
"I guess anything's possible," he said. "I took them on my knee, read them stories, changed their diapers, and now they're all grown up and they have become writers, of all things. I am really proud of them. I guess we'll see what happens down the road."
___
Associated Press Writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.joehillfiction.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_en_ot/books_joe_hill
3 children killed in Thai school attack 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
BANGKOK, Thailand - A deadly attack on an Islamic school in Thailand's restive south that left three students dead and seven injured sparked hundreds of Muslim villagers to rioted Sunday in protest.
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Police blamed the attack in the southern province of Songkhla on Muslim insurgents, but villagers said they didn't believe Muslims were behind the violence.
More than 500 protesters gathered outside the school, parading the dead children's bodies through the crowd and setting fire to two buildings at a nearby government-owned school. Some hurled stones at police.
The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pondok school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri.
Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, Thammasak said.
He said police believe Muslim insurgents staged the attack and hoped to convince local residents that authorities were behind it — a ploy to win villagers over to the insurgents' cause.
But the protesting villagers said Sunday morning they didn't believe that Muslims had staged the attack.
"The villagers are accusing paratroopers of attacking the school," Thammasak said.
Thailand's three Muslim provinces have hundreds of religious Islamic schools, some of which authorities have accused of harboring insurgents and serving as a training ground for violence.
Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and increasingly in the neighboring province of Songkhla.
Gen. Virote Baucharoon, the army commander in charge of the restive provinces, said that security forces had recently raided an Islamic school and confiscated an M-16 assault rifle, bullets, a computer with suspicious material on the hard drive and other documents believed to be linked to the insurgency.
"This leads us to believe that religious schools are involved with the ongoing violence," he said.
Though Buddhist teachers have been targeted in the past, children have largely been spared.
The victims of Saturday's violence were identified as a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds. Injured students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were being treated for gun wounds and other injuries, Thammasak said. More than 75 students were in the school's dormitory at the time of the attack.
Violence in the south has increased since a military-installed government took power in September following a coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/thailand_southern_violence
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U.N. worker injured in Afghan ambush 54 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.N. mine-clearing worker was wounded by suspected Taliban militants during an ambush on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces north of Kabul, the coalition said Sunday.
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The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Afghan and coalition forces on Saturday in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, said a statement from the coalition.
The U.N. vehicle carrying the mine-clearing worker, which was traveling separately from the convoy in the opposite direction on the same road, was hit in the attack.
No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded or killed in the attack, it said.
Denise Duclaux, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan, said the Afghan deminer was traveling from the work site back to his base camp when the vehicle he was in drove into the firefight.
He was hit in the shoulder and treated by a paramedic traveling with him, Duclaux said, adding that his condition is stable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/afghan_violence
Monday, March 12, 2007
Moore Exposed in Manufacturing Dissent
Documentary questions Moore's tactics By CHRISTY LEMIRE, AP Movie Writer
Sun Mar 11, 6:02 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas - As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked up to Michael Moore.
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Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him — and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films.
The result is "Manufacturing Dissent," which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut "Roger & Me," but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut.
The husband-and-wife directors spent over two years making the movie, which follows Moore on his college tour promoting 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The film shows Melnyk repeatedly approaching Moore for an interview and being rejected; members of Moore's team also kick the couple out of the audience at one of his speeches, saying they weren't allowed to be shooting there.
At their own premiere Saturday night, the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening, but it turned out to be a tame affair.
"It went really well," Melnyk said. "People really liked the film and laughed at the right spots and got the movie and we're really happy about it."
Moore hasn't commented publicly on "Manufacturing Dissent" and Melnyk thinks he never will. He also hasn't responded to several calls and e-mails from The Associated Press.
"There's no point for Michael to respond to the film because then it gives it publicity," she said.
"(President) Bush didn't respond to `Fahrenheit 9/11,' and there's a reason for that," Caine added.
The two were and still are fans of all his movies — including the polarizing "Fahrenheit 9/11," which grossed over $119 million and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival — and initially wanted to do a biography on him. They traveled to his childhood home of Davison, Mich., visited his high school and traced his early days in politics and journalism.
"The fact that he made documentaries entertaining was extremely influential and got all kinds of people out to see them," said Melnyk, whose previous films with Caine include 1998's "Junket Whore." "Let's face it, he made documentaries popular and that is great for all documentary filmmakers."
"All of these films — `Super Size Me,' `An Inconvenient Truth' — we've all been riding in his wake," said Caine. "There's a nonfiction film revolution going on and we're all beneficiaries of that. For that point alone, he's worth celebrating."
But after four months of unsuccessfully trying to sit down with Moore for an on-camera interview, they realized they needed to approach the subject from a different angle. They began looking at the process Moore employs in his films, and the deeper they dug, the more they began to question him.
The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in "Manufacturing Dissent." Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
Since then, in the years since "Roger & Me" put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten.
"It was shocking, because to me that was the whole premise of `Roger & Me,'" Melnyk said.
She and Caine also had trouble finding people to talk on camera about Moore, partly because potential interview subjects assumed they were creating a right-wing attack piece; as self-proclaimed left-wingers, they weren't.
Despite what they've learned, the directors still appreciate Moore.
"We're a bit disappointed and disillusioned with Michael," Melnyk said, "but we are still very grateful to him for putting documentaries out there in a major way that people can go to a DVD store and they're right up there alongside dramatic features."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_en_mo/film_manufacturing_dissent
Sun Mar 11, 6:02 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas - As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked up to Michael Moore.
ADVERTISEMENT
Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him — and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films.
The result is "Manufacturing Dissent," which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut "Roger & Me," but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut.
The husband-and-wife directors spent over two years making the movie, which follows Moore on his college tour promoting 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The film shows Melnyk repeatedly approaching Moore for an interview and being rejected; members of Moore's team also kick the couple out of the audience at one of his speeches, saying they weren't allowed to be shooting there.
At their own premiere Saturday night, the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening, but it turned out to be a tame affair.
"It went really well," Melnyk said. "People really liked the film and laughed at the right spots and got the movie and we're really happy about it."
Moore hasn't commented publicly on "Manufacturing Dissent" and Melnyk thinks he never will. He also hasn't responded to several calls and e-mails from The Associated Press.
"There's no point for Michael to respond to the film because then it gives it publicity," she said.
"(President) Bush didn't respond to `Fahrenheit 9/11,' and there's a reason for that," Caine added.
The two were and still are fans of all his movies — including the polarizing "Fahrenheit 9/11," which grossed over $119 million and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival — and initially wanted to do a biography on him. They traveled to his childhood home of Davison, Mich., visited his high school and traced his early days in politics and journalism.
"The fact that he made documentaries entertaining was extremely influential and got all kinds of people out to see them," said Melnyk, whose previous films with Caine include 1998's "Junket Whore." "Let's face it, he made documentaries popular and that is great for all documentary filmmakers."
"All of these films — `Super Size Me,' `An Inconvenient Truth' — we've all been riding in his wake," said Caine. "There's a nonfiction film revolution going on and we're all beneficiaries of that. For that point alone, he's worth celebrating."
But after four months of unsuccessfully trying to sit down with Moore for an on-camera interview, they realized they needed to approach the subject from a different angle. They began looking at the process Moore employs in his films, and the deeper they dug, the more they began to question him.
The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in "Manufacturing Dissent." Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
Since then, in the years since "Roger & Me" put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten.
"It was shocking, because to me that was the whole premise of `Roger & Me,'" Melnyk said.
She and Caine also had trouble finding people to talk on camera about Moore, partly because potential interview subjects assumed they were creating a right-wing attack piece; as self-proclaimed left-wingers, they weren't.
Despite what they've learned, the directors still appreciate Moore.
"We're a bit disappointed and disillusioned with Michael," Melnyk said, "but we are still very grateful to him for putting documentaries out there in a major way that people can go to a DVD store and they're right up there alongside dramatic features."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_en_mo/film_manufacturing_dissent
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
AAMC on Current Status of the Higher Education Act
Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act
Related Resources
Compilation of Federal Education Laws (House Education and Workforce Committee)
May 26, 2004, ACE Letter to the House on Reauthorization
H.R. 609
S. 1614
AAMC Documents
AAMC Letter on Accreditation Provisions of HEA Reauthorization (PDF, 3 pages - 49KB)
AAMC Letter to the Senate on HEA Reauthorization (PDF, 3 pages - 47KB)
Medical Educational Costs and Student Debt: A Working Group Report to the AAMC Governance (PDF, 17 pages - 1.52MB)
This page contains documents in Portable Document Format (PDF). The Adobe Acrobat® Reader® is required to view PDF documents. Download Acrobat® Reader®.
Current Status
Current authority for the Higher Education Act (HEA) expired on Sept. 30, 2003, however several extensions have been enacted, making no policy changes but allowing uninterrupted administration of the programs. President Bush Sept. 30 signed the "Second Higher Education Extension Act of 2006" (P.L. 109-238) to extend temporarily HEA through June 30, 2007. The House and Senate education committees are expected to resume consideration of HEA reauthorization in 2007.
The President Feb. 8, 2006, signed the "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005" (S. 1932, P.L. 109-171), which includes many of the student loan provisions from HEA reauthorization (H.R. 609, S. 1614). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the changes to the higher education programs in P.L. 109-171 will generate a net $11.9 billion in savings between 2006 and 2010 and $29.0 billion in savings between 2006 and 2015. While the law's provisions mandate savings of over $20 billion between 2006 and 2010 from higher education programs, $9 billion is recycled back into student aid. A majority of the savings are generated through increases to borrowers' interest rates and changes to lender-yield formulas.
Of particular interest to medical schools, the new law:
extends authority for Family Federal Education Loan Program (FFELP) through 2012;
expands the loan eligibility for the federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) loan program to include graduate and professional students;
increases annual unsubsidized Stafford loan limits for graduate and professional students from $10,000 to $12,000;
increases the interest rate for a PLUS loan in the FFELP from 7.9 percent to 8.5 percent;
creates a parallel fee structure for the FFELP and Direct Loan (DL) programs, incrementally reducing net borrower loan fees in both the FFELP and DL over the next 5 years to 1 percent in 2010;
prevents reconsolidation of previously consolidated loans under both the FFELP and DL programs unless they are being consolidated with additional student loans;
repeals spousal and in-school consolidation of FFELP and DL loans;
limits "School as Lender" programs to Stafford Loans to graduate and professional students;
allows the one time cost of obtaining the first professional credentials to be included in total cost of attendance for students enrolled in a program requiring professional licensure or certification;
disqualifies students from eligibility for FFELP or DL student aid if they have committed a crime involving fraud in obtaining Title IV funds and have not fully repaid those funds; and
limits the suspension of eligibility for students convicted of drug offenses to those that occurred during the period the student received FFELP or DL student aid.
The President June 15 signed a FY 2006 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill (H.R. 4939), repealing the single-holder rule. The single-holder rule restricted consolidation of loans under the Federal Family Educational Loan Program (FFELP) by prohibiting borrowers whose FFELP loans are currently with a single lender from consolidating under different lenders.
Congressional Activity
The House March 30 approved the College Access and Opportunity Act of 2005 (H.R. 609), which reauthorizes HEA through 2012. The night before its consideration on the House Floor, House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chair Howard "Buck" McKeon struck two provisions from the bill. One provision would have revised the formula used to allocate funds for the government's campus-based student-aid programs. The other would have allowed the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General to audit the financial records of institutions that repeatedly raise their tuition by more than twice the rate of inflation.
H.R. 609 includes two studies on medical education. A provision introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), an orthopedic surgeon, requires the "Secretary of Education to conduct a study of the indebtedness of medical students, asking the question of whether the cost of medical school is becoming prohibitive and whether the best and brightest individuals are not choosing careers in medicine because of the potential debt burden." Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), a heart surgeon, and Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) sponsored a second study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate and determine reasons for the decline in the number of medical school graduates entering residency programs lasting more than 5 years.
Rep. Boustany and Rep. Andrews also sponsored an approved amendment that adds "medical specialists" to a new loan forgiveness program for service in "areas of national need." Eligible medical residents must be enrolled in a residency program that requires more than 5 years of graduate medical education training and has fewer US medical school graduate applicants than the total number of training and fellowship positions available. Participants in the loan forgiveness program will be eligible for $5,000 each year of training after their 5th year.
H.R. 609 also requires that accrediting associations or agencies enforce standards that "consider the stated missions of institutions of higher education, including religious missions."
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions unanimously approved without amendment its version of HEA reauthorization Sept. 8, 2005. It is unclear whether this bill will be considered for a Senate vote this year.
AAMC Activity
With the high debt levels of medical school graduates, many medical students come up against the annual and even the aggregate limits for federal Stafford education loans. Because the current limits have not been raised in over a decade, the Association believes that these limits should be adjusted to have at least kept up with the cost of inflation. Additionally, the unique nature of residency training makes repayment of these high debt burdens difficult in the years immediately following medical school graduation. Specifically, the AAMC advocacy agenda for the HEA reauthorization has been to support increasing the annual limit on subsidized Stafford loans from the current $8,500 to at least $12,000, and to extend the Economic Hardship Deferment throughout the initial residency period for individuals that continue to qualify. The Association also supports including all school-certified educational debt in the calculation used to determine eligibility for the deferment.
The AAMC sent a comment letter Nov 15, 2005, to the House and Senate Education Committees expressing concerns regarding the accreditation provisions of the HEA reauthorization bills (H.R. 609, S. 1614). The letter focuses on several changes in accrediting bodies' reporting requirements and recommends that public disclosure of sensitive findings remain at the discretion of the institution. Additionally, the AAMC recommends the deletion of provisions that require accrediting associations or agencies to enforce standards based on the institution's mission.
Contact
Matthew Shick, Legislative Analyst
AAMC Office of Governmental Relations
mshick@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
Related Resources
Compilation of Federal Education Laws (House Education and Workforce Committee)
May 26, 2004, ACE Letter to the House on Reauthorization
H.R. 609
S. 1614
AAMC Documents
AAMC Letter on Accreditation Provisions of HEA Reauthorization (PDF, 3 pages - 49KB)
AAMC Letter to the Senate on HEA Reauthorization (PDF, 3 pages - 47KB)
Medical Educational Costs and Student Debt: A Working Group Report to the AAMC Governance (PDF, 17 pages - 1.52MB)
This page contains documents in Portable Document Format (PDF). The Adobe Acrobat® Reader® is required to view PDF documents. Download Acrobat® Reader®.
Current Status
Current authority for the Higher Education Act (HEA) expired on Sept. 30, 2003, however several extensions have been enacted, making no policy changes but allowing uninterrupted administration of the programs. President Bush Sept. 30 signed the "Second Higher Education Extension Act of 2006" (P.L. 109-238) to extend temporarily HEA through June 30, 2007. The House and Senate education committees are expected to resume consideration of HEA reauthorization in 2007.
The President Feb. 8, 2006, signed the "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005" (S. 1932, P.L. 109-171), which includes many of the student loan provisions from HEA reauthorization (H.R. 609, S. 1614). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the changes to the higher education programs in P.L. 109-171 will generate a net $11.9 billion in savings between 2006 and 2010 and $29.0 billion in savings between 2006 and 2015. While the law's provisions mandate savings of over $20 billion between 2006 and 2010 from higher education programs, $9 billion is recycled back into student aid. A majority of the savings are generated through increases to borrowers' interest rates and changes to lender-yield formulas.
Of particular interest to medical schools, the new law:
extends authority for Family Federal Education Loan Program (FFELP) through 2012;
expands the loan eligibility for the federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) loan program to include graduate and professional students;
increases annual unsubsidized Stafford loan limits for graduate and professional students from $10,000 to $12,000;
increases the interest rate for a PLUS loan in the FFELP from 7.9 percent to 8.5 percent;
creates a parallel fee structure for the FFELP and Direct Loan (DL) programs, incrementally reducing net borrower loan fees in both the FFELP and DL over the next 5 years to 1 percent in 2010;
prevents reconsolidation of previously consolidated loans under both the FFELP and DL programs unless they are being consolidated with additional student loans;
repeals spousal and in-school consolidation of FFELP and DL loans;
limits "School as Lender" programs to Stafford Loans to graduate and professional students;
allows the one time cost of obtaining the first professional credentials to be included in total cost of attendance for students enrolled in a program requiring professional licensure or certification;
disqualifies students from eligibility for FFELP or DL student aid if they have committed a crime involving fraud in obtaining Title IV funds and have not fully repaid those funds; and
limits the suspension of eligibility for students convicted of drug offenses to those that occurred during the period the student received FFELP or DL student aid.
The President June 15 signed a FY 2006 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill (H.R. 4939), repealing the single-holder rule. The single-holder rule restricted consolidation of loans under the Federal Family Educational Loan Program (FFELP) by prohibiting borrowers whose FFELP loans are currently with a single lender from consolidating under different lenders.
Congressional Activity
The House March 30 approved the College Access and Opportunity Act of 2005 (H.R. 609), which reauthorizes HEA through 2012. The night before its consideration on the House Floor, House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chair Howard "Buck" McKeon struck two provisions from the bill. One provision would have revised the formula used to allocate funds for the government's campus-based student-aid programs. The other would have allowed the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General to audit the financial records of institutions that repeatedly raise their tuition by more than twice the rate of inflation.
H.R. 609 includes two studies on medical education. A provision introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), an orthopedic surgeon, requires the "Secretary of Education to conduct a study of the indebtedness of medical students, asking the question of whether the cost of medical school is becoming prohibitive and whether the best and brightest individuals are not choosing careers in medicine because of the potential debt burden." Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), a heart surgeon, and Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) sponsored a second study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate and determine reasons for the decline in the number of medical school graduates entering residency programs lasting more than 5 years.
Rep. Boustany and Rep. Andrews also sponsored an approved amendment that adds "medical specialists" to a new loan forgiveness program for service in "areas of national need." Eligible medical residents must be enrolled in a residency program that requires more than 5 years of graduate medical education training and has fewer US medical school graduate applicants than the total number of training and fellowship positions available. Participants in the loan forgiveness program will be eligible for $5,000 each year of training after their 5th year.
H.R. 609 also requires that accrediting associations or agencies enforce standards that "consider the stated missions of institutions of higher education, including religious missions."
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions unanimously approved without amendment its version of HEA reauthorization Sept. 8, 2005. It is unclear whether this bill will be considered for a Senate vote this year.
AAMC Activity
With the high debt levels of medical school graduates, many medical students come up against the annual and even the aggregate limits for federal Stafford education loans. Because the current limits have not been raised in over a decade, the Association believes that these limits should be adjusted to have at least kept up with the cost of inflation. Additionally, the unique nature of residency training makes repayment of these high debt burdens difficult in the years immediately following medical school graduation. Specifically, the AAMC advocacy agenda for the HEA reauthorization has been to support increasing the annual limit on subsidized Stafford loans from the current $8,500 to at least $12,000, and to extend the Economic Hardship Deferment throughout the initial residency period for individuals that continue to qualify. The Association also supports including all school-certified educational debt in the calculation used to determine eligibility for the deferment.
The AAMC sent a comment letter Nov 15, 2005, to the House and Senate Education Committees expressing concerns regarding the accreditation provisions of the HEA reauthorization bills (H.R. 609, S. 1614). The letter focuses on several changes in accrediting bodies' reporting requirements and recommends that public disclosure of sensitive findings remain at the discretion of the institution. Additionally, the AAMC recommends the deletion of provisions that require accrediting associations or agencies to enforce standards based on the institution's mission.
Contact
Matthew Shick, Legislative Analyst
AAMC Office of Governmental Relations
mshick@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
Heritage Foundation Education Articles
ISSUES > Education
Education
Build a new vision for America's 21st century schools in which every child has access to excellence in a competitive market of public, private, charter, and home schools.
Research for the last 12 months
9 Items for the last 12 months | View: All Papers200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198519841983198219811979
20 February 2007
A Better Answer for Education: Reviving State and Local Policymaking Authority
By the Honorable John Cornyn and the Honorable Jim DeMint
Heritage Lecture #994
The A-PLUS Act of 2007 would restore federalism to public education by allowing states flexibility in spending their federal education dollars while still requiring an accountability system to provide parents and taxpayers necessary information. The states should have the option to stay under the No Child Left Behind regime or accomplish the same goals in a different way.
16 February 2007
Utah's Revolutionary New School Voucher Program
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
WebMemo #1362
Utah has created the most comprehensive school choice program in the nation.
16 January 2007
Halving Student Loan Interest Rates Is Unaffordable and Ineffective
By Brian M. Riedl
WebMemo #1308
Reducing interest rates on student loans does not increase college access for prospective students, but merely subsidizes loan repayments after college.
12 January 2007
The Real Costs of Federal Aid to Higher Education
By Richard Vedder, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #984
New federal spending on student aid is unlikely to improve college access. The increase in access in higher education in America largely came before massive federal involvement in student financial aid programs.
6 December 2006
The Charter State Option: Charting a Course Toward Federalism in Education
By Dan Lips, Evan Feinberg, and Jennifer A. Marshall
Backgrounder #1987
Congress should embrace a charter state option, allowing states to choose between the status quo and an alternative contractual arrangement with the federal government. Under a charter contract, elected state officials would have broad authority to consolidate and refocus their federal funds on state initiatives in exchange for monitoring and reporting academic progress.
18 September 2006
School Choice: 2006 Progress Report
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
Backgrounder #1970
School choice programs have been shown to increase parental satisfaction, improve academic achievement of participating children, and improve public school performance through competition. Already in 2006, eight states have enacted new initiatives or expanded existing private school choice programs. State and federal policymakers should implement student-centered reforms to give all parents the ability to direct their children's education.
1 September 2006
Are Public or Private Schools Doing Better? How the NCES Study Is Being Misinterpreted
By Shanea Watkins
Backgrounder #1968
A recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics is being used in an effort to discredit private school voucher programs, but its results should be interpreted cautiously. Studies based on better methods show that students who attend private schools through a voucher program experience greater achievement gains than do their public school counterparts.
30 May 2006
America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids: School Choice for Students in Underperforming Public Schools
By Dan Lips
Backgrounder #1939
The Bush Administration's America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative would provide real school choice to American parents. In addition to helping children trapped in failing schools, it would provide a model for how federal, state, and local policymakers can provide better educational opportunities for America's disadvantaged students through student-centered reforms.
18 April 2006
School Choice and Supplemental Services: Administration Slow to
http://www.heritage.org/research/education/
Education
Build a new vision for America's 21st century schools in which every child has access to excellence in a competitive market of public, private, charter, and home schools.
Research for the last 12 months
9 Items for the last 12 months | View: All Papers200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198519841983198219811979
20 February 2007
A Better Answer for Education: Reviving State and Local Policymaking Authority
By the Honorable John Cornyn and the Honorable Jim DeMint
Heritage Lecture #994
The A-PLUS Act of 2007 would restore federalism to public education by allowing states flexibility in spending their federal education dollars while still requiring an accountability system to provide parents and taxpayers necessary information. The states should have the option to stay under the No Child Left Behind regime or accomplish the same goals in a different way.
16 February 2007
Utah's Revolutionary New School Voucher Program
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
WebMemo #1362
Utah has created the most comprehensive school choice program in the nation.
16 January 2007
Halving Student Loan Interest Rates Is Unaffordable and Ineffective
By Brian M. Riedl
WebMemo #1308
Reducing interest rates on student loans does not increase college access for prospective students, but merely subsidizes loan repayments after college.
12 January 2007
The Real Costs of Federal Aid to Higher Education
By Richard Vedder, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #984
New federal spending on student aid is unlikely to improve college access. The increase in access in higher education in America largely came before massive federal involvement in student financial aid programs.
6 December 2006
The Charter State Option: Charting a Course Toward Federalism in Education
By Dan Lips, Evan Feinberg, and Jennifer A. Marshall
Backgrounder #1987
Congress should embrace a charter state option, allowing states to choose between the status quo and an alternative contractual arrangement with the federal government. Under a charter contract, elected state officials would have broad authority to consolidate and refocus their federal funds on state initiatives in exchange for monitoring and reporting academic progress.
18 September 2006
School Choice: 2006 Progress Report
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
Backgrounder #1970
School choice programs have been shown to increase parental satisfaction, improve academic achievement of participating children, and improve public school performance through competition. Already in 2006, eight states have enacted new initiatives or expanded existing private school choice programs. State and federal policymakers should implement student-centered reforms to give all parents the ability to direct their children's education.
1 September 2006
Are Public or Private Schools Doing Better? How the NCES Study Is Being Misinterpreted
By Shanea Watkins
Backgrounder #1968
A recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics is being used in an effort to discredit private school voucher programs, but its results should be interpreted cautiously. Studies based on better methods show that students who attend private schools through a voucher program experience greater achievement gains than do their public school counterparts.
30 May 2006
America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids: School Choice for Students in Underperforming Public Schools
By Dan Lips
Backgrounder #1939
The Bush Administration's America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative would provide real school choice to American parents. In addition to helping children trapped in failing schools, it would provide a model for how federal, state, and local policymakers can provide better educational opportunities for America's disadvantaged students through student-centered reforms.
18 April 2006
School Choice and Supplemental Services: Administration Slow to
http://www.heritage.org/research/education/
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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