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FBI Seeks 2 Mysterious Men on Ferry
The FBI is seeking two men who have been seen on Washington state ferries exhibiting what the agency calls "unusual behavior.” The FBI’s Seattle field office released photographs of the two men and asked the public for help identifying them. "We had various independent reports from passengers and ferry employees that these two guys were engaging in what they described as unusual activities on the ferries," Special Agent Robbie Burroughs, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington state, told FOXNews.com. "They felt that these guys were showing an undue interest in the boat itself, in the layout, the workers and the terminal, and it caused them enough concern that they contacted law enforcement about it.” The two men were photographed by a ferry employee and the photographs were distributed to ferry workers several weeks ago. Meanwhile, ferry service on one Seattle ferry line was halted during the Wednesday morning commute when a crewmember found a suspicious package in the passenger area. Investigators determined the package did not pose an immediate threat and service was resumed after about an hour. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Publisher: Conservatives Do Read As Much As Liberals
Former congresswoman and uber-liberal Pat Schroeder - president of the American Association of Publishers - claims that liberals read more books than conservatives because the latter "just want a couple of slogans: ’No, don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes’...on every page." Schroeder was commenting on an AP-Ipsos poll that, according to her, "found [that] people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives." Replies Eric M. Jackson, author of "The PayPal Wars" and CEO of World Ahead Media, "It’s an ill-advised statement by Schroeder, given that she’s the head of a theoretically non-partisan trade organization that should not be alienating a large percentage of the country’s population."
"Conservatives certainly do read," Jackson continues. "Of course, since liberals face the ever-present imperative of establishing their own intellectual superiority despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it’s easy to understand why Schroeder shot off her mouth over this poll. But when one takes a moment to study it, problems with her flippant interpretation become apparent." Here are just some of those problems: 1. Self-identified Republicans are just as likely to be book readers as self-identified Democrats. 2. The average self-identified conservative book reader consumes about the same number of books per year (eight) as the self-identified liberal (nine). Given the poll’s small sample size, there is likely not much statistical difference in these averages. 3. The breakdown Schroeder cites doesn’t control for children. Parents are more likely to be conservative than adults who don’t have children, and raising kids cuts into reading time. 4. Similarly, the poll’s breakdown doesn’t control for religion. 5. The poll can’t surmise cause and effect. Liberals likely consume more media that conveys a left-wing editorial perspective. And, if the big New York publishers crank out a disproportionate number of liberal books, doesn’t it follow that liberals will disproportionately buy them? "Simply put," Eric M. Jackson concludes, "the poll results Schroeder cites simply don’t support the clumsy conclusion she is advancing. But she sure is liberal in interpreting the data to fit her own worldview!" Jackson's World Ahead Media is the West Coast’s leading publisher of conservative books. Editor's note:
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Romney Shrugs Off Mormon History Film
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney says he won't be attending "September Dawn," a movie about the killing of 120 unarmed Arkansas pioneers by Mormon settlers in Utah in 1857. Romney's ancestors include Parley Pratt, a prominent Mormon murdered in Arkansas several months before the massacre at Mountain Meadows on Sept. 11, 1857. "That was a terrible, awful act carried out by members of my faith," Romney said during an interview Wednesday. "There are bad people in any church and it's true of members of my church, too." "I hope on average we're better than we would have been as a faith group by virtue of our religious teachings," he said. "But there certainly can be some extremes, some very bad people." Romney rejected the claim by some that Brigham Young, then the president of the Mormon church, shared direct responsibility for the attack. The Mountain Meadows massacre is one of the darkest moments in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The depth of the church's involvement in the massacre has been debated in dozens of books from historians and by the descendants on both sides. "September Dawn," an independent feature film from director Christopher Cain, stars Jon Voight, Terence Stamp and Lolita Davidovich. Cain has said he made the movie not to blame anyone but to show the consequences of religious fanaticism. He said the movie is not meant to offend nor be a portrait of Mormons in general. Cain co-wrote the screenplay with Carole Whang Schutter, weaving together historical accounts from nonfiction works and original Mormon sources with a fictional love story between a girl from the wagon train and the son of the church leader who orchestrates the killings. Mormon church officials have termed the movie a work of fiction. The church, which erected a memorial on the massacre site in 1999, maintains that Young had no role in the event and in fact sent word through a messenger that the wagon train should pass undisturbed.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Bob Grant to Return to Radio
Legendary radio host Bob Grant is returning to the airwaves on WABC in New York, he announced on Sean Hannity’s radio show on Wednesday afternoon. "The Bob Grant Show” will air weeknights from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the 50,000-watt flagship station beginning on Thursday, Aug. 23. Grant, 78, was fired by WABC in 1996 and was replaced by Hannity. Grant moved to WOR, where his show aired until January 2006. He continued to do brief commentaries on WOR until September 2006. He told Hannity he found it hard dealing with being off the air after "the novelty wore off,” and he "felt an emptiness” that eventually drove him to seek a return to the radio.
He also said liberals "hate” and "fear” right-leaning talk show hosts, and that talk radio is the "only outlet that has leveled the [political] playing field.” As for his firing by WABC in 1996, he denied that he was canned for the stated reason: A comment he made about an airplane crash involving Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Grant said his hunch was that Brown is the one survivor "because at heart I’m a pessimist.” Rather, he said he was fired because there were "forces arrayed out there” who were "gunning for” him. Grant began working in radio in the 1940s. His WABC show premiered in 1984 and consistently dominated the ratings in the highly competitive afternoon drive time slot in New York. In 2002, industry magazine Talkers ranked Grant as the 16th greatest radio talk show host of all time. This year, he was nominated for induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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Carville Seeks Perfect '08 Bumper Sticker
Political pundit James Carville has sent out a mass e-mail on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee seeking "the bumper sticker slogan that will carry us through the 2008 elections.” Carville – lead strategist for Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign – said the slogan will be used on the DSCC’s Web site, on campaign literature and on the "bumpers of jalopies from coast to coast.” The e-mail to presumed Democratic supporters states: "We need a turn of phrase that really jumps out and tells you right off the bat what this election is all about. In 1992, it was ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid.’ In 2006, Democrats simply said, ‘Had Enough?’ "We got a few ideas … Take a look and then, do us the favor of voting for one of our top picks. But if you got something better, we’ll throw that in the mix too.”
The four bumper sticker slogans offered by the DSCC are:
Carville opines: "What I look at 2008, I’m telling you that Democrats have almost everything we need to send another wave of Republican Senators out to pasture…. "But we’ve still got to stay sharp. We’ve got to stay ready. We have to constantly remind people of the stakes involved, and the choice they have. "And that is what this bumper sticker campaign is all about.” © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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Taliban: Osama Is Alive
A top Taliban commander said in a newly released video interview that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is alive and well. "All praise be to Allah, he is extremely healthy and active,” the commander, Mansour Dadullah, said in the interview, according to a transcript of the video’s English subtitles released Tuesday by IntelCenter, which monitors extremist publications. Dadullah, whose brother Mullah Dadullah was also a top Taliban commander and was killed earlier this year, said he had been contacted by bin Laden, according to Agence France-Presse. "I received a message from him in which he advised me that I ‘must follow Mullah Dadullah and continue the same activities so that the mujahedeen may not weaken,’” he said in the interview.
Bin Laden has appeared in a number of video and audio clips since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but has not been heard from since May 2006. An Internet video showing bin Laden was posted on July 15, but the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group said the footage was old. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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Club for Growth Optimistic on Romney
The conservative Club for Growth has released its presidential white paper on Republican candidate Mitt Romney — and the organization is "reasonably optimistic” that a President Romney would pursue a pro-growth agenda. Club for Growth's philosophy is lower taxes and reduced government spending through legislative involvement. The former Massachusetts governor’s economic record "contains a mixture of pro-growth accomplishments and some troublesome positions that beg to be explained,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. "While his record on taxes, spending, and entitlement reform is flawed, it is on balance, encouraging; especially given the liberal Massachusetts legislature.” The Club for Growth release admonishes Romney: "Romney’s strident opposition to the flat tax; his refusal to endorse the Bush tax cuts in 2003; his support for minor tax hikes; and his once-radically bad views on campaign finance reform all cast some doubts on the extent and durability of his commitment to limited-government, pro-growth policies.” Nevertheless, Toomey said, "given his overall record as governor and the strong pro-growth positions he has taken on the campaign trail, we are reasonably optimistic that, as President, Mitt Romney would generally advocate a pro-growth agenda.” The release from the Club for Growth praises Romney for passing a bill preventing his state’s capital gains tax from being applied retroactively, and for providing property tax relief to seniors. But it chides him for opposing a ballot question to eliminate the state income tax. On spending, the Club lauds his $343 million in cuts to cities, healthcare, and state agencies, and states: "While there is no question that Governor Romney’s initial fiscal discipline slacked off in the second half of his term, he imposed some much-needed fiscal discipline on a very liberal Massachusetts legislature.” The white paper offers a generally positive view of Romney’s accomplishments and positions on free trade, entitlement reform, government regulation, school choice, and tort reform. But it has a mixed view of the universal healthcare plan Gov. Romney helped craft in Massachusetts, saying he "deserves credit for proposing . . . a plan that encourages individually-owned health care insurance,” while cautioning that the Massachusetts plan "is not a model upon which a national plan should be built.” The Club for Growth paper concludes: "As Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney’s record on economic issues was generally good. "He demonstrated a willingness to take on his legislature and deserves credit for many pro-growth measures he advocated and the modest reforms he was able to achieve . . . "His record on trade, school choice, regulations, and tort reform all indicate a strong respect for the power of market solutions.”
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White House: We're Not Subject to FOIA
Opening a new front in the Bush administration's battle to keep its records confidential, the Justice Department is contending that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The department's argument is in response to a lawsuit trying to force the office to reveal what it knows about the disappearance of White House e-mails. The Office of Administration provides administrative services, including information technology support, to the Executive Office of the President. Most of the White House is not subject to the FOIA, but certain components within it handle FOIA requests. Last year the Office of Administration processed 65 FOIA requests. However, the Justice Department maintained in court papers filed Tuesday that the Office of Administration has no substantial authority independent of President Bush and therefore is not subject to the FOIA's disclosure requirements. The office has prepared estimates that there are at least 5 million missing White House e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005, according to the lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private advocacy group. The White House has said it is aware that some e-mails may not have been automatically archived on a computer server for the Executive Office of the President. The e-mails, the White House has said, may have been preserved on backup tapes. "The Office of Administration is looking into whether there are e-mails not automatically archived; and once we determine whether or not there is a problem, we'll take the necessary steps to address it," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. The first indication of a problem came in early 2006 when special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald raised the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation involving the outing of Valerie Plame could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House. The issue came into focus early this year amid the uproar over the firing of U.S. attorneys. It turned out that aides to Bush improperly used Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts for official business and that an undetermined number of e-mails had been lost in the process. The Justice Department Web site, which lists all FOIA contacts inside the government, identifies seven units inside the Executive Office of the President as responding to FOIA requests, including the Office of Administration. The Office of Administration "has certainly acted like an agency in the past," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, a private group advocating public disclosure of government secrets. Fuchs' organization filed a request in February 2006 after Fitzgerald revealed that e-mails might be missing. When the Office of Administration finally denied the private group's request in June of this year, the office said it was not an "agency" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act and was therefore not subject to the law's requirements. The administration has been resisting disclosure of information on an array of fronts. In September 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer instructed the Secret Service that it "shall not retain any copy" of material identifying visitors to the vice president's official residence. The lawyer, Shannen Coffin, wrote the letter as The Washington Post sought copies of Cheney's visitors. The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service when questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff. That agreement, which didn't surface publicly until late last year, said White House entry and exit logs were presidential records not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. When the agreement was signed in May 2006, a number of private groups and news organizations had filed FOIA requests with the Secret Service in an effort to identify how many times Abramoff or members of his lobbying team visited the White House.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Cheney Has NSA Documents, Will Fight to Keep Them
Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged it has documents that "may be responsive" to an investigation into a secret eavesdropping program, although it indicated it would not turn over the papers without a fight. Lawyers speaking on behalf of both President Bush and Cheney asked the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday for more time to respond to subpoenas involving a wiretapping program that Democrats in Congress have harshly questioned. In a letter to committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Cheney's counsel Shannen W. Coffin, reported that the vice president's office had identified more than 40 "Top Secret/Codeword Presidential Authorizations" and memoranda from the Justice Department that may respond to the subpoena. The documents cited in the letter spanned a time frame from Oct. 4, 2001 - not long after the Sept. 11 terror attacks - to Dec. 8, 2006. "We continue our efforts to identify further documents that may be responsive to the subpoena and renew the request made in our letter of Aug. 10, 2007 for an extension of time," Coffin wrote. Cheney's counsel, however, did not indicate whether the vice president's office was willing to hand the documents without a struggle. The letter did indicate that Cheney would follow the lead of the president if Bush decided to assert executive privilege in refusing to turn over documents. Leahy was not happy with the administration's response, threatening to hold key officials in contempt for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for the eavesdropping program. "When the Senate comes back in the session, I'll bring it up before the committee," the Vermont Democrat said. "I prefer cooperation to contempt. Right now, there's no question that they are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress." Leahy's committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program. White House lawyer Fred Fielding, in a separate letter to Leahy, said the administration needed more time. "A core set of highly sensitive national security and related documents we have so far identified are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege and that a more complete collection and review of all materials responsive to the subpoenas will require additional time," Fielding said. Congress, before it left for its August recess, approved an update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing the government to eavesdrop on terror suspects overseas without first getting a court warrant. The overhaul was the result of a recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling that banned eavesdropping on foreigners when their messages were routed though communications carriers based in the United States. The provisions expire after six months, but the White House wants them made permanent. "For Congress to legislate effectively in this area, it has to have full information about the executive branch's interpretations of FISA," Leahy said. "We cannot, and certainly, we should not legislate in the dark, where the administration hides behind a fictitious veil of secrecy."
© 2007 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
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New Romney Ad Targets Illegal Migrants
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney criticizes "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants — and by implication Republican rival Rudy Giuliani — in a new radio ad. "Immigration laws don't work if they're ignored. That's the problem with cities like Newark, San Francisco and New York City that adopt sanctuary policies," an announcer says in the ad, which runs in New Hampshire and Iowa. "Sanctuary cities become magnets that encourage illegal immigration and undermine secure borders." Romney and Giuliani have jabbed over illegal immigration in recent weeks. The former Massachusetts governor says Giuliani promoted New York as a haven for illegal immigrants when he was mayor. Giuliani aggressively denies it, insisting he cracked down on lawlessness of every kind. "Legal immigration is great," Romney says in the new ad. "But illegal immigration, that we've got to end. And amnesty is not the way to do it." In so-called sanctuary cities, government employees are not required to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Some, such as San Francisco, have declared themselves sanctuaries or refuges. Others, like New York, have never adopted the name. New York's policy, begun by Democratic Mayor Ed Koch in 1988, is intended to make illegal immigrants feel that they can report crimes, send their children to school or seek medical treatment without fear of being reported. An estimated half-million illegal immigrants live in New York, and only a fraction are deported each year. Romney has pledged to cut federal funds from cities that adopt what he calls sanctuary policies and ignore federal immigration laws. The ads also say that as governor Romney ordered state police to enforce existing immigration laws, opposed driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and insisted children be taught English. Last week, Giuliani began running a radio ad that highlights his support for building a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. He says that as mayor he unsuccessfully tried to get federal help to deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes. He also tells voters that as president he would require new immigrants to learn English, deport criminal suspects and enact tougher visa standards. Campaigning Tuesday in Nevada, Romney dodged questions about his stance on the construction of a nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The state and most of its voters oppose the project at Yucca Mountain. The former Massachusetts governor suggested that he might be sympathetic to their fight, but he fell short of taking a firm stance. "I'm a federalist, I believe in the authority of states, and clearly Nevadans have a lot to say about this and other policies," Romney told reporters in Las Vegas. "My position is I'm not going to do anything that puts the health or well-being of Nevadans at risk," he said. "It's something I'm going to look at further as the results of the study that's ongoing are provided." Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said that his identification with Nevada's large and politically active Mormon community might be a factor in his lead in the polls there. "Well, you know, it's probably not been considered a plus for my campaign to be a member of my church, but I certainly hope it's going to be plus in Nevada," he said. "I don't know, I think most people vote based upon their political perspective of the issues of the day." © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Giuliani and Thompson in Gun Battle
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign took aim at Fred Thompson, after the former senator posted a blog on his Web site criticizing New York City gun-control laws and singling out Giuliani by name. "When I was working in television, I spent quite a bit of time in New York City,” Thompson wrote, according to The Hill newspaper. "There are lots of things about the place I like, but New York gun laws don’t fall in that category. "Now, the same activist federal judge from Brooklyn who provided Mayor Giuliani’s administration with the legal ruling it sought to sue gun makers, has done it again. Last week, he created a bizarre justification to allow New York City to sue out-of-state gun stores that sold guns that somehow ended up in criminal hands in the Big Apple.” Giuliani’s campaign reacted on Tuesday: "Those who live in New York in the real world - not on TV - know that Rudy Giuliani’s record of making the city safe for families speaks for itself,” Katie Levinson, Giuliani's communications director, said in response to press questions. "No amount of political theater will change that.” Editor's note:
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Bush Lashes Out at War Critics
President Bush offered a tepid endorsement of the Iraqi government on Tuesday, yet brushed off a Democratic senator's call for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bush acknowledged his frustration with Iraqi leaders' inability to bridge political divisions, but he said only the Iraqi people can decide whether to sideline the troubled prime minister. "Clearly, the Iraqi government's got to do more," Bush said at the close of a two-day North American summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. The Sept. 15 deadline for Bush's next progress report to Congress is fast approaching, leaving the president little time to show that his U.S. troop buildup is succeeding in providing the enhanced security the Iraqi leaders need to forge a unified way forward. In a speech Wednesday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Mo., Bush will argue that the troop buildup is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against al-Qaida and clearing terrorists out of heavily populated areas. "Our troops are seeing this progress on the ground, and as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" Bush says in his prepared remarks. The White House released excerpts of the speech Tuesday evening. On Monday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there is broad frustration with inaction from Iraq's central government. Levin, who recently returned from Iraq, urged the Iraqi Parliament to oust al-Maliki and replace his government with one that is less sectarian and more unifying. And Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a former Armed Services Committee chairman and an influential voice on military affairs, joined with Levin in issuing a statement saying that while Bush's military buildup in Iraq had "produced some credible and positive results," the political outlook was dim. Bush spoke at a news conference in Montebello, Quebec, with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper before flying back to the United States to visit Minneapolis for a fundraiser and update about the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. In his VFW speech Wednesday, Bush will compare today's war against extremists with the militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam. In a speech next Tuesday at the annual American Legion convention in Reno, Nev., the president will put the war in Iraq in the regional context of the Middle East. In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it was naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy, Bush will tell the VFW conventioneers. He said critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from communist invasion. And in Vietnam, Bush said, people argued that the real problem was America's presence there, "and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end." "The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we have seen in Asia — if we show the same perseverance and sense of purpose," Bush said. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in a response issued Tuesday night, said the comparisons ignored a key difference: "Our nation was misled by the Bush administration in an effort to gain support for the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, leading to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history. While the president continues to stay the course with his failed strategy in Iraq, paid for by the taxpayers, American lives are being lost and there is still no political solution within the Iraqi government." The president's address at the convention is preceded by a parade of presidential hopefuls and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, are to report to Congress before Sept. 15 about the impact of the troop buildup that Bush ordered in January. Their report will provide the basis for Bush's decisions about the way forward in Iraq in terms of troop levels and tactics. Over the past year, Bush has tempered his endorsement of al-Maliki. When they met in Jordan last November, the president called al-Maliki "the right guy for Iraq." Now, he continually prods al-Maliki to do more to forge political reconciliation before the temporary military buildup ends. "I think there's a certain level of frustration with the leadership in general, inability to work — come together to get, for example, an oil revenue law passed or provincial elections," Bush said. While the Iraqi parliament has recessed for the month of August, the president said lawmakers already had passed 60 pieces of legislation and have a budget process that distributes money from the central government to provinces. He stressed U.S. commitment in Iraq, yet laid the political problems at Baghdad's doorstep. "The fundamental question is, Will the government respond to the demands of the people? And, if the government doesn't demand — or respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. That's up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians." Trying to underscore the administration's commitment to al-Maliki, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters that Bush continued to have confidence in the prime minister and that his level of support had not changed. "President Bush believes that Prime Minister Maliki and the presidency council are going to be able to come together and reach some sort of political accommodation," Johndroe said. "He certainly urges them to do so every time he speaks with them." © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Ratings for Pelosi’s Congress Sink Further
While Democrats rejoice over President Bush's dismal popularity ratings, the popularity of the Congress they control has plummeted to the lowest point since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress in 1974. According to Gallup News Service, just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007 Gallup Poll. That matches the low recorded in March 1992, when a check-bouncing scandal was one of several besetting Congress, which had a similarly low 19% approval rating during the energy crisis in the summer of 1979. Gallup explained that Americans elected the Democrats as the majority party in Congress in November 2006's midterm election in large part due to frustration with the Iraq war and an ineffective and scandal-plagued Republican-led Congress.
But, the polling firm wrote "any hopes that the elections would lead to change have not been realized as Democrats' repeated attempts to force a change in Iraq war policy have been largely unsuccessful due to presidential vetoes, disagreements within their own party, and the inability to attract Republican support for their policy proposals. "Also, many of the Democratic leadership's domestic agenda items have not become law even though some have passed one or both houses of Congress. The poll also showed a record 72% of Americans saying the economy is "getting worse." © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Dan Rather Shocked by Katie Couric Pep Rally
With Katie Couric’s "CBS Evening News” floundering in the ratings, staffers resorted to dancing to Michael Jackson’s "Thriller” at a recent pep rally held by executive producer Rick Kaplan – a move former anchor Dan Rather found rather bizarre. "To say I’m surprised would be understated,” Rather told Fox News Channel’s "Your World.” "But if they think it will help them, God bless them.” Rather also said Couric will remain in the anchor chair as long as CBS chief Les Moonves retains his post, noting: "Katie Couric was his hire.” But more bad news looms for Couric. As NewsMax’s Insider Report revealed, the author of an upcoming book about the anchor promises it will expose a "dark side” of Couric and says she is already "freaking out” about the book. Ed Klein, author of the bestseller "The Truth About Hillary,” told mediabistro.com: "Beneath the public image of the blithe spirit, there is a life story of great tumult, confusion, conflict, ambition, over-reaching, diva-like behavior and romantic relationships gone bad.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Amnesty International Becomes a Pro-Choice Organization
In a move that has upset many Christians, the human rights group Amnesty International has abandoned its position of neutrality on abortion and will now actively campaign for pro-choice measures. The organization’s executive committee decided in April to support access to abortion – "within reasonable gestational limits” – for women in cases of rape, incest or violence, or where the pregnancy jeopardizes a mother’s life or health. Delegates gave the decision overwhelming support at its mid-August conference in Mexico. Amnesty International has been working in countries where rape has been used as a weapon of war, and in nations where women seeking abortions can be severely punished, BBC News reports. Kate Gilmore, AI’s executive deputy secretary-general, said in a statement: "Amnesty International’s position is not for abortion as a right but for women’s human rights to be free of fear, threat and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human rights violations.” Christian organizations have threatened to withdraw support from the group in the wake of its decision on abortion. Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told the National Catholic Reporter that AI had "betrayed its mission.” He wrote: "To selectively justify abortion, even in the cases of rape, is to define the innocent child within the woman as an enemy, a ‘thing’ that must be destroyed.” In England, Catholic Bishop Michael Evans, a 31-year member of AI, said he was resigning from the organization. And in the U.S., Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, said: "Amnesty International was founded to protect human rights, yet it now treads upon the most fundamental human right, the right to life. To fail to protect the right to life renders suspect one’s advocacy of any other human right.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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Sen. Levin: Vote Iraqi Regime Out
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government should be voted out because it has failed to use the U.S. military buildup in that country to reach a political solution to end the war, a key U.S. lawmaker said on Monday. "I hope that the Iraqi assembly, when it reconvenes in a few weeks, will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and a more unifying prime minister and government," said Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin and Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, just completed a two-day visit to Iraq. The two senior lawmakers issued a joint statement saying that while the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq has given Iraqi politicians some breathing room, they have failed to make the compromises needed to bring peace to that war-torn nation. "We are not optimistic about the prospects for those compromises," the Levin and Warner said in their joint statement. Levin in a teleconference with reporters went a step further, suggesting the Iraqi parliament have a vote of no confidence and replace the Maliki government, which he said is built too much upon sectarian allegiances and connections. "There's a consensus that there is no military solution and there is only a political solution, and that's truer now than it has ever been, and the gridlock has got to end in that government if there's going to be a political solution," Levin said. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Iraqi leaders were currently meeting to try to reach a political settlement. "We believe that Prime Minister Maliki and the Presidency Council will be able to get this important work done, work that is being done on the local level where we see bottom-up reconciliation taking hold," Johndroe said. Levin said he and Warner met with Gen. David Petraeus, who is to make a report on progress in Iraq in September. The White House said on Monday, the general will likely testify to Congress around September 11 or September 12. Johndroe said the hearing date was not related to the anniversary of the 2001 attacks. The September 15 deadline for the report falls on a Saturday, making it necessary to testify earlier in the week, he said. The September progress report is seen in Washington as a pivotal milestone in assessing whether the Pentagon's so-called "surge" strategy has worked. That strategy has aimed to establish enough security to allow Iraqi politicians to move toward reconciliation.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
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Homeland Secutiry Cash for Bingo, Limos
This article was written by Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com Staff Writer The 9/11 Commission Report warned that when handing out homeland security grants, "Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel." However, an analysis of the grants going to state and local governments suggests that some of them are pork barrel projects; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) apparently has failed to issue grants based entirely on need, and it has little oversight on how the grant money is used. For example, some "homeland security" funding has been doled out for office space, a bus, a bingo hall, and limousine service, among other "projects." Though the House and Senate passed a bill, signed by President Bush, to fully implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission from 2004, an analysis by the conservative Heritage Foundation concluded that the new law makes it easy in some cases for Congress to distribute the grants as pork, not as necessary projects. Further, the report says the grant programs aren't "matching grants." Thus, the grants don't provide incentives for states to invest their own money in further domestic security. "While federal spending on homeland security has increased exponentially since 9/11, state spending on homeland security has remained almost flat as a percentage of total state appropriations," the report said. "Federal funds should be used to supplement, not supplant, state and local spending."
The 9/11 bill "included language prohibiting the use of grant funds to supplant state or local funds," Dena Graziano, spokeswoman for the House Homeland Security Committee told Cybercast News Service. She said the bill also has safeguards, such as requiring each local agency to submit a report to the administrator on how the grant is being used to assure accountability. Last month, DHS announced $1.7 billion in grants for state and local governments. However, there is virtually no oversight to prevent the funds from being spent on matters unrelated to security, said the Heritage report, written by James Carafano of Heritage and Matt Mayer of Provisum Strategies. Earlier this year, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter ordered a review that found the state's homeland security structure was inadequate. This came after a 2005 state audit found 13 percent of the state's $15.8 million in homeland security grants had been misspent on such things as office space, a bus and other items. California has received $20 million since 2003 for health preparedness. However, according to the Trust for America's Health, a non-profit organization, California tied with Maryland, Iowa, and New Jersey for the lowest score among the 50 states in health preparedness. Other federal grants meant for security in 2005 and 2006 went to protect a bingo hall, a limo service, a homeless shelter, and a missing persons' initiative. (See Related Story)
In 2006, Florida received more homeland security grants than any other state, 79.6 billion, followed by Texas with $34.5 billion, and Louisiana with a total of $20.1 billion, according to OMB Watch. New York - arguably the most at-risk state - ranked ninth at $4.5 billion. But the most recent round of grants, which included $55 million for New York's transit and port security, shows things are improving, said Amy Bonanno, spokeswoman for the New York State Office of Homeland Security. "It was quite obvious in 2005 and 2006 that we were getting a much smaller portion than we deemed appropriate, considering we face the highest threat," Bonanno told Cybercast News Service. "DHS is implementing the changes needed. It is making strides with more supplemental grant funds." The Department of Homeland Security does not agree with Heritage's conclusions, said DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner. "We support a risk-based approach to grant funding," she told Cybercast News Service. "We're supporting not just the highest risk urban areas, but it's important to continue funding cities not in the top tier." "New York is obviously the largest terrorist target. But where did the second largest terrorist attack in the United States take place? Oklahoma City," said Keehner. "Some members of Congress believe we should only fund the tier one cities. Our argument is that would have left Oklahoma City without any funding." © CNS News.com. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Obama Calls for Easing Cuba Embargo
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leaping into the long-running Cuba debate by calling for the U.S. to ease restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit the island or send money home. Obama's campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families. "Senator Obama feels that the Bush administration has made a humanitarian and a strategic blunder," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail. "His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans." Obama was explaining his position in an op-ed piece Tuesday in The Miami Herald. While the U.S. embargo has limited who can travel to the communist island and what can be sent there since the early 1960s, restrictions added by the Bush administration in 2004 made visiting and shipping gifts to Cuba more difficult. Most Cubans in the U.S. can only visit the island once every three years and can only send quarterly remittances of up to $300 per household to immediate family members. Previously, they could visit once a year and send up to $3,000. The U.S. also tightened restrictions on travel for educational and religious groups. The Cuban-exile vote is considered key to winning Florida, and top presidential candidates have generally followed the recommendations of the community's most hard-line and vocal leaders, who support a full embargo against Fidel Castro's government. Castro, 80, is in poor health and turned over temporary power last year to his brother Raul. But sentiment in the Cuban-American community is changing. Unlike the early waves of immigrants who brought their entire families, often by plane, to the U.S., most Cubans now flee by boat and are forced to leave relatives behind. Fewer of these immigrants were overt political opponents of the government, and they want to be able to visit loved ones and to send money home. Many Cuban exiles are also frustrated with the U.S. embargo, which has failed to yield fruit after nearly 45 years. And with the specter of an ailing Castro and a possible change in leadership, they are more open to changing U.S. policy. Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party came out against the restrictions. Obama will speak at a fundraiser for the chapter Saturday at the Miami-Dade Auditorium, the same Little Havana site where Ronald Reagan won over many in the Cuban-exile community more than two decades ago. Joe Garcia, the group's chairman, praised Obama's proposal. "It shows courage, and it shows commitment to move beyond the status-quo politics of rhetoric, which is all the Cuban-American community has received from any party for the last half century," said Garcia, a former head of the Cuban-American Foundation, a leading exile group. None of the other top presidential candidates have sought to ease the restrictions. In May, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton said she opposed immediate changes in Cuba travel but added that there may be need for change in the next presidency if Castro is no longer in power. Such a change would be contingent on commitments to human rights and more openness from the Cuban government, the New York senator said. Clinton must contend with her husband's legacy on U.S.-Cuba relations, particularly when he authorized U.S. agents to return young Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, alienating many exiles. Mauricio Claver-Carone, a spokesman for the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Pact, which supports full sanctions, said Obama's statement could hurt U.S.-Cuban relations at a crucial time. "I'm sure he's well intentioned," Claver-Carone said, but he added that with the death of Castro possibly approaching and the potential for change on the island, such a statement could send the wrong message. "It entrenches the regime at this historic time," Claver-Carone said.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: 106
Obama Calls for Easing Cuba Embargo
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leaping into the long-running Cuba debate by calling for the U.S. to ease restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit the island or send money home. Obama's campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families. "Senator Obama feels that the Bush administration has made a humanitarian and a strategic blunder," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail. "His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans." Obama was explaining his position in an op-ed piece Tuesday in The Miami Herald. While the U.S. embargo has limited who can travel to the communist island and what can be sent there since the early 1960s, restrictions added by the Bush administration in 2004 made visiting and shipping gifts to Cuba more difficult. Most Cubans in the U.S. can only visit the island once every three years and can only send quarterly remittances of up to $300 per household to immediate family members. Previously, they could visit once a year and send up to $3,000. The U.S. also tightened restrictions on travel for educational and religious groups. The Cuban-exile vote is considered key to winning Florida, and top presidential candidates have generally followed the recommendations of the community's most hard-line and vocal leaders, who support a full embargo against Fidel Castro's government. Castro, 80, is in poor health and turned over temporary power last year to his brother Raul. But sentiment in the Cuban-American community is changing. Unlike the early waves of immigrants who brought their entire families, often by plane, to the U.S., most Cubans now flee by boat and are forced to leave relatives behind. Fewer of these immigrants were overt political opponents of the government, and they want to be able to visit loved ones and to send money home. Many Cuban exiles are also frustrated with the U.S. embargo, which has failed to yield fruit after nearly 45 years. And with the specter of an ailing Castro and a possible change in leadership, they are more open to changing U.S. policy. Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party came out against the restrictions. Obama will speak at a fundraiser for the chapter Saturday at the Miami-Dade Auditorium, the same Little Havana site where Ronald Reagan won over many in the Cuban-exile community more than two decades ago. Joe Garcia, the group's chairman, praised Obama's proposal. "It shows courage, and it shows commitment to move beyond the status-quo politics of rhetoric, which is all the Cuban-American community has received from any party for the last half century," said Garcia, a former head of the Cuban-American Foundation, a leading exile group. None of the other top presidential candidates have sought to ease the restrictions. In May, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton said she opposed immediate changes in Cuba travel but added that there may be need for change in the next presidency if Castro is no longer in power. Such a change would be contingent on commitments to human rights and more openness from the Cuban government, the New York senator said. Clinton must contend with her husband's legacy on U.S.-Cuba relations, particularly when he authorized U.S. agents to return young Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, alienating many exiles. Mauricio Claver-Carone, a spokesman for the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Pact, which supports full sanctions, said Obama's statement could hurt U.S.-Cuban relations at a crucial time. "I'm sure he's well intentioned," Claver-Carone said, but he added that with the death of Castro possibly approaching and the potential for change on the island, such a statement could send the wrong message. "It entrenches the regime at this historic time," Claver-Carone said.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Obama Calls for Easing Cuba Embargo
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leaping into the long-running Cuba debate by calling for the U.S. to ease restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit the island or send money home. Obama's campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families. "Senator Obama feels that the Bush administration has made a humanitarian and a strategic blunder," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail. "His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans." Obama was explaining his position in an op-ed piece Tuesday in The Miami Herald. While the U.S. embargo has limited who can travel to the communist island and what can be sent there since the early 1960s, restrictions added by the Bush administration in 2004 made visiting and shipping gifts to Cuba more difficult. Most Cubans in the U.S. can only visit the island once every three years and can only send quarterly remittances of up to $300 per household to immediate family members. Previously, they could visit once a year and send up to $3,000. The U.S. also tightened restrictions on travel for educational and religious groups. The Cuban-exile vote is considered key to winning Florida, and top presidential candidates have generally followed the recommendations of the community's most hard-line and vocal leaders, who support a full embargo against Fidel Castro's government. Castro, 80, is in poor health and turned over temporary power last year to his brother Raul. But sentiment in the Cuban-American community is changing. Unlike the early waves of immigrants who brought their entire families, often by plane, to the U.S., most Cubans now flee by boat and are forced to leave relatives behind. Fewer of these immigrants were overt political opponents of the government, and they want to be able to visit loved ones and to send money home. Many Cuban exiles are also frustrated with the U.S. embargo, which has failed to yield fruit after nearly 45 years. And with the specter of an ailing Castro and a possible change in leadership, they are more open to changing U.S. policy. Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party came out against the restrictions. Obama will speak at a fundraiser for the chapter Saturday at the Miami-Dade Auditorium, the same Little Havana site where Ronald Reagan won over many in the Cuban-exile community more than two decades ago. Joe Garcia, the group's chairman, praised Obama's proposal. "It shows courage, and it shows commitment to move beyond the status-quo politics of rhetoric, which is all the Cuban-American community has received from any party for the last half century," said Garcia, a former head of the Cuban-American Foundation, a leading exile group. None of the other top presidential candidates have sought to ease the restrictions. In May, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton said she opposed immediate changes in Cuba travel but added that there may be need for change in the next presidency if Castro is no longer in power. Such a change would be contingent on commitments to human rights and more openness from the Cuban government, the New York senator said. Clinton must contend with her husband's legacy on U.S.-Cuba relations, particularly when he authorized U.S. agents to return young Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, alienating many exiles. Mauricio Claver-Carone, a spokesman for the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Pact, which supports full sanctions, said Obama's statement could hurt U.S.-Cuban relations at a crucial time. "I'm sure he's well intentioned," Claver-Carone said, but he added that with the death of Castro possibly approaching and the potential for change on the island, such a statement could send the wrong message. "It entrenches the regime at this historic time," Claver-Carone said. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
111
Story Continues Below
'Obama Girl' No Hit With Obama's Girls
Obama girl has upset Obama's girls. The Web video of a scantily clad actress pledging her affection for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been a hit online, but not in his own home. Obama says his 6-year-old daughter Sasha has noticed news coverage of the video. "Sasha asked Mommy about it," Obama said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "She said, 'Daddy already has a wife' or something like that." "I Got A Crush On Obama" stars an aspiring model and actress named Amber Lee Ettinger, aka Obama Girl. Her song, which has lines like "Universal health care reform, it makes me warm," has gotten more than 3 million hits and nearly 10,000 comments since being posted two months ago on YouTube, the online video-sharing site. Sen. Obama, D-Ill., said he knows the video was meant to be lighthearted, but he wasn't smiling when asked about it in the interview. "I guess it's too much to ask, but you do wish people would think about what impact their actions have on kids and families," Obama said during the interview, held in the den of a supporter who just had hosted a campaign stop on her front lawn attended by about 120 people. "This is part of the process of politics that can be difficult, (that) is making sure that your kids and your wife and your family are insulated from both things like this and what I suspect will be at some point some negative campaigning," Obama said. When the campaign gets negative, Obama said, he'll be able to be tough without being inconsistent with his call for a new politics of hope. "I feel pretty comfortable about the tone that we've taken during the course of this campaign," Obama said. "I think I've been respectful of all the candidates. I would challenge anyone to find a statement that I've made that has been personal as opposed to a substantive difference with a candidate." He said calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's refusal to negotiate with rogue foreign leaders "Bush-Cheney lite" didn't cross the line. Clinton responded to that earlier comment by asking, "What's ever happened to the politics of hope?" "The Clinton campaign reacted as, `Oh, whatever happened to the politics of hope. That's negative campaigning,'" Obama said. "If you actually look at the quote, I wasn't accusing her of being Bush." "If Senator Clinton thinks that we should to continue with that type of approach of setting preconditions before we meet as opposed to preparation, then that is a light version of that policy," he said. "So that wasn't a sort of personal attack or an ad hominem attack. That was a very specific argument about the need to break away from some of this administration's policies. That is inevitable. Otherwise we're not going to be having any conversations during the course of this debate, other than a bunch of platitudes." Obama said he understood the view of a New Hampshire voter who warned him last week to avoid public spats with his Democratic rivals or risk becoming part of politics as usual. "Listen, I understand and am sympathetic to her view," Obama said. "And I do think that we've got to be careful not to fall into those habits. The way that I try to balance in my own mind is we should respond rapidly and aggressively to attacks that are made, but our responses should be truthful." © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
111
Bloomberg: I Can't Win White House
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said - again - that he's not running for president, adding in a television interview that he wouldn't win anyway. "Nobody's going to elect me president of the United States," he told Dan Rather for a program that will air Tuesday on cable's HDNet channel. "What I'd like to do is to be able to influence the dialogue. I'm a citizen." The billionaire left the Republican Party recently to become an independent, throwing into overdrive the speculation that he will make a run for the White House. Bloomberg likes to throw water on the rumors while simultaneously keeping them alive behind the scenes. His aides are not bashful about promoting the idea that he could jump into the race next year as a self-financed independent candidate. Bloomberg told Rather he has no interest in higher office and owes the next two and a half years of his final term to the people of New York. "My job is to represent them and put that ahead of any of my own personal aspirations," he said. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Body Fat Linked to Virus
A common virus caused human adult stem cells to turn into fat cells and could explain why some people become obese, U.S. researchers said on Monday. The research builds on prior studies of adenovirus-36 - a common cause of respiratory and eye infections - and it may lead to an obesity vaccine, they said. "We're not talking about preventing all types of obesity, but if it is caused by this virus in humans, we want a vaccine to prevent this," said Nikhil Dhurandhar, an associate professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System. The virus adenovirus-36 or Ad-36, caused animals to pack on the pounds in lab experiments. "These animals accumulated a lot of fat," Dhurandhar said in a telephone interview. Dhurandhar also has shown that obese people were three times more likely to have been infected with Ad-36 than thin people in a large study of humans. Now, researchers in Dhurandhar's lab have shown that exposure to the virus caused adult human stem cells to turn into fat-storing cells. Dr. Magdalena Pasarica, who led the study, obtained adult stem cells from fat tissue of people who had undergone liposuction. Stem cells are a type of master cell that exist in an immature form and give rise to more specialized cells. Half of the stem cells were exposed to the virus Ad-36. After a week, most of the infected stem cells developed into fat cells, while the uninfected cells were unchanged. Pasarica presented her findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. "The virus appears to change their commitment to a fat storing cell," Dhurandhar said, adding that Ad-36 is just one of 10 pathogens linked to obesity and that more may be out there. He acknowledged that some people might find it hard to believe that a virus could be responsible for obesity. "Certainly overeating has something to do with gaining weight. No doubt about that. But that is not the whole truth," Dhurandhar said. "There are multiple causes of obesity. They range from simple overeating to genes to metabolism and perhaps viruses and infections." Long term, he said he hoped to develop a vaccine and perhaps treatments for the virus. But first, he and colleagues need to better understand the role of Ad-36 in human obesity, he said. Globally, around 400 million people are obese, including 20 million children under age 5, according to the World Health Organization. © Reuters 2007. Editor's note:
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Sen. Lieberman Says Syrian Airport Is Terror Hub
Sen. Joe Lieberman says the great majority of foreign fighters who become suicide bombers in Iraq enter the country from Syria – and most arrive there by landing in the Syrian capital at Damascus International Airport. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Lieberman asserts that cutting off the flow of terrorists traveling through Damascus is a key to success in Iraq. "Al-Qaida in Iraq is sustained by a transnational network of facilitators and human smugglers, who replenish its supply of suicide bombers – approximately 60 to 80 Islamist extremists, recruited every month from across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and sent to meet their al-Qaida handlers in Syria, from where they are taken to Iraq to blow themselves up to kill countless others,” Lieberman writes. Up to 80 percent of those extremists enter Iraq via Syria, according to Lieberman, "because of the permissive environment for terrorism that the Syrian government has fostered.” Most U.S. intelligence estimates are that the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters reach Syria "by flying into Damascus International Airport, making the airport the central hub of al-Qaida travel in the Middle East, and the most vulnerable chokepoint in al-Qaida’s war against Iraq and the U.S. in Iraq.” That airport has also long been the central transit point for Iranian weapons intended for Hezbollah, Lieberman writes in the Journal. The Connecticut Senator declares it is "time to demand that the Syrian regime stop playing travel agent for al-Qaida in Iraq,” and he says the U.S. government should develop a range of options to take against Damascus International if the Syrian government does not take appropriate action soon. One option, he said, would be to ask "responsible air carriers” that fly there, such as Alitalia and British Airways, to stop flights into Damascus International. Lieberman concludes: "Simply put, for the U.S. and our Iraqi allies, defeating al-Qaida in Iraq means locking shut Syria's ‘Open Door’ policy to terrorists. It is past time for Syria to do so.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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Democrats Fear Positive Iraq Report
Democrats are warily anticipating a September report on the Iraq war, realizing that opponents will use any upbeat assessment to portray them as defeatists just as glimmers of hope appear. While many of their party colleagues find the notion fanciful, they acknowledge that top Republicans hope the report will show just enough progress in Iraq to persuade millions of Americans to be patient about troop withdrawals and less critical of how the war is being run. Democratic candidates for president and Congress, the GOP argument goes, would then be stuck with their Iraq-is-lost stance, appearing irresolute and beholden to liberal activists just as things are looking better. Many Democratic strategists consider it highly unlikely that a Bush administration report could convince voters the war is improving in a meaningful way. Polling data suggest most Americans are unlikely to change their views about the war based on a new report from the administration. Still, some Democrats worry that credible reports of even slight improvements in the military situation in Iraq could hurt their party's momentum, built largely on public disenchantment with President Bush and his handling of the war. The administration is writing the September update while consulting with Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker. Both men will testify before Congress. In late July, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said an upbeat assessment from Petraeus would carry significant weight with his party's most conservative members. They would "want to stay the course, and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn told The Washington Post. Republicans pounced on the remark, claiming Democrats see any progress in Iraq as a political setback. They also trumpeted a July 30 op-ed article in the New York Times by two Brookings Institution military scholars just back from Iraq. "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms," wrote Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. "We were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with." Some Democratic lawmakers have drawn similar conclusions, putting new strains on party solidarity. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., recently returned from Iraq and said he no longer supports a hard deadline for troop withdrawals. "I have come to believe that calls for premature withdrawal may make it more difficult for Iraqis to solve their problems," Baird told The Columbian newspaper. The Democratic Party leadership "may be in a different place than I am right now," he said. Bush's allies hope more good news will come from next month's administration report to Congress, even though no one expects a thoroughly optimistic assessment. U.S. military leaders have said some Iraqi regions _ such as the area around Mosul in the north and Al Anbar province in the west _ may be stable enough to let U.S. troops redeploy elsewhere. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, responding in writing to a reporter's question, said: "Democratic leaders made a political calculation in January and it is proving to be dead wrong." "Ignoring American successes in favor of advocating failure is not leadership," he said. With few exceptions, top national Democrats have called the war a mistake. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in April he believed that "this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything." Reid was referring to the roughly 30,000 troops and support personnel sent to Iraq this spring. Of the party's major presidential contenders, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has opposed the war from the start; former Sen. John Edwards has apologized for his 2002 vote to authorize the war; and Sen. Hillary R. Clinton says Americans want "a leader who will end the war in Iraq." Yet all three have cautioned against a hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops that could lead to greater sectarian violence in Iraq. Several conservative commentators, anticipating the September report, say Democrats have climbed out too far on a dangerous limb. "Democrats, who have been pandering to their anti-war base, will increasingly see that they have... 'a problem,"' William Kristol wrote this month in the Weekly Standard, alluding to Clyburn's remarks. Not true, says Steve Elmendorf, a former Democratic congressional aide who now lobbies in Washington. "At the end of the day," he said in an interview, "the report gets filtered through the White House and Bush apparatus, and they don't have any credibility," he said. A recent CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll found Americans almost evenly split when asked if the U.S. military is making progress in ending violence in Iraq. But by 53 percent to 43 percent, most said they do not trust the top U.S. commander there, Petraeus, to report what is truly happening when he briefs the president and Congress. Moreover, 72 percent of all respondents said a positive report would not affect their view of the war, while 28 percent said it would make them likelier to support it. Most polls show six in 10 Americans still oppose Bush's handling of the war, think the war is going badly and favor cutting troop strength in Iraq. Among them is Carol Cross, a political independent who lives in West Fargo, N.D. The war "seems like it's spinning its wheels, it's going nowhere," she said in a phone interview after answering poll questions. An upbeat report from Petraeus and the administration would not change her mind, said Cross, who is retired. "I think it's time for them to come home," she said, "no matter what."
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Jane Fonda’s Radio Network Tanks
The "feminist” radio company whose founders include Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem failed to attract an audience and it signed off the air for good on Friday. When the talk-radio network, called GreenStone, officially launched in September 2006, NewsMax reported that it was a "new left-wing radio network that plans to appeal to women listeners and counter the dominance of conservative talk radio.” GreenStone claimed it would deliver "de-politicized, de-polarized talk radio by women hosts for female listeners,” and Steinem said it would offer an alternative to current radio talk, which she described as "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very much male-dominated.” She also said radio was "overbalanced toward the ultra-right.” But "Greenstone Media’s brand of tepid liberalism didn’t appeal to women,” Carrie Lukas, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism,” writes in the New York Post.
Greenstone offered interviews with such liberals as Ralph Nader, as well as segments on parenting and relationships. But its programming was picked up by only eight affiliates in small to mid-sized markets, and its backers have now pulled the plug. GreenStone’s CEO Susan Ness deplored the end of GreenStone as a loss for women. But Lukas observes: "Perhaps Ness should use her time off to tune in to other stations. She’ll find there are many prominent women on the airwaves – they’re just not saying what she thinks they should.” Lukas pointed to Laura Ingraham, who is heard on 340 stations and has an audience of more than 5 million, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, with some 7.75 million listeners. To attract large numbers of female listeners, "it will take more than having ‘all-female’ programming from an ‘all-female’ network,” Lukas opines. "Women want to be entertained and engaged. We don’t listen to radio or (Hillary backers take note) vote out of solidarity.” © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Ted Nugent May Run for Gov. of Michigan
Ted Nugent is exuberantly excited most of the time, but he grows even more animated when asked if he ever tires of playing "Cat Scratch Fever," the 1977 hit he's played thousands of times in a 40-year career. He shouts repeated obscenities, then picks up a guitar and plays part of both "Cat Scratch Fever" and his 1975 song "Stranglehold" with unbridled enthusiasm. "When I get on stage, I know what it means to people, I know what it means to me. It's a timeless masterpiece guitar song, how can I not play that?" he said in his dressing room before a recent concert at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. At age 58, Nugent still brims with teenage enthusiasm for hard rock music. He is also one of the nation's most outspoken gun and hunting advocates. And he is considering a run for political office. Mixing the unbridled personality of actor Robin Williams with the vocabulary of an urban rapper, the father and grandfather still performs about 70 concerts a year in which his music stays true to his hard rock roots with a relentless beat. "I haven't lost the energy but I have learned how to better and more efficiently channel it." People close to Nugent confirm his manic ways. "He's pretty much that way all the time," said singer and guitarist Derek St. Holmes, who has played with Nugent since the 1970s. A board member of the National Rifle Association, Nugent says he spends about 200 days a year hunting, guiding clients to places such as his Michigan hunting preserve, as well as Alaska, Africa, California, Colorado, Texas, and Canada. He favors hunting many different species, including elephants, mountain lions and tigers, and only when pressed comes up with a few animals he believes should not be hunted, such as penguins. From Detroit and known as the "Motor City Madman," he has performed nearly 6,000 concerts in his career and releases his 32nd album, "Love Grenade," on September 4, which sticks with the sex and rock formula. GOVERNOR NUGENT? For all of his wild-man antics, the politically conservative Nugent is talking about following in the footsteps of celebrities such as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger or wrestler Jesse Ventura, who won gubernatorial races. "That would be beautiful," Nugent said when asked if he would run for governor of Michigan in 2010. "I have threatened to do so and I was sincere." Some of Nugent's antics make even Schwarzenegger's past outspokenness appear measured by comparison. "Michigan was once a great state. Michigan was a state that rewarded the entrepreneur and the most productive, work-ethic families of the state. Now the pimps and the whores and the welfare brats are basically the state's babies." Nugent refuses to mince words and often uses a racial epithet to describe blacks that normally would mean political suicide. He says his embrace of the word reflects his respect for the black contribution to rock and roll and has another expletive for anyone who disagrees with him. Heavy duty weapons decorate the stage during his concerts and at his Las Vegas performance he condemned Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Long a critic of drugs, Nugent wrote a recent opinion article for the Wall Street Journal condemning the widespread drug use during the Summer of Love in 1967. He drank just cold water before his Vegas concert. Nugent still embraces the carnal part of the sex, drugs and rock and roll formula and peppers his concert dialogue with a word describing women that many find offensive. He described the availability of sex earlier in his life like this: "It was like when carp breed. You walk across the stream and they are ... splashing in the shallows. Just jump in." Now Nugent says he is a one-woman man, living with his wife and youngest son in Crawford, Texas, near President George W. Bush's ranch. Life is "peaceful, barbecue every day, a lot of school activities with my son Rocco, a lot of charity work." Although Nugent appears younger than his 58 years (he says freshly hunted venison meat is one secret to longevity), loud music for decades has caused major hearing loss in one ear. "The ear's not too good, especially with background noise. That's a small price to pay," he said. "Believe me the journey was worth it."
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China Bans Reincarnation
The Chinese Communist dictatorship has now reached into the afterlife – authorities have banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. In what Newsweek calls "one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism,” China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a statement saying the new law is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” China’s true motive, however, is to squelch the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual and political leader. "By barring any Buddhist monks living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering,” Newsweek reports. That means that after the death of the current Dalai Lama – who has lived in exile in India since 1959 – there could be two successors, one chosen by China and the other by Buddhist monks.
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Muslim Congressman: I’m Not a ‘Crazy’
Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of the U.S. Congress, has just returned from his second trip to Israel – where he said he doesn’t understand Muslim "crazies” who see the Koran as a license to murder. "The murderers and the extremists are into something I don't know about," the first-term Minnesota Democrat told the Jerusalem Post. "I don't know how they read what they read and come out with what they do. They wouldn't consider me a Muslim because I'm American, because I believe in the unity of people and that we are all on the planet to work together. "The people who did 9/11 are hostile to everyone, and in fact if you are not the type of Muslim they want you to be, they would be happy to kill you too. I am not a Muslim in their eyes because I am for tolerance and inclusion, and they don't want an Islam that is inclusive." Ellison is also not "crazy” when it comes to local politics – his district has a large Jewish population and the Jewish newspaper in Minneapolis endorsed his candidacy, so trips to Israel sit well with the electorate. "The people in my district don't know me as a Muslim congressman, they know me as Keith,” the former state legislator told the Post. "I don't see myself as a religious leader or a religious scholar. I don't represent a religion. I don't represent the Muslims. I represent the Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Christians and those who don't follow anything in my district. "When you get to the bottom line, the main reason I'm here [in Israel] is to be able to talk to the people of the 5th Congressional District about something a lot of people care about - what happens here in Israel" and in the Palestinian Authority. Ellison was part of an 18-member Congressional delegation, brought to Israel by the American Israel Education Foundation, that met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
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Politics Now Top Media Story, Finds Study
Politics eclipsed the Iraq war as the top story in recent news coverage as U.S. media attention focused on the presidential race, according to a study released Monday. Campaign coverage that had paid more attention to Democrats than Republicans in the first three months of the year became more evenly split between the parties, the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism also found. Researchers examined more than 18,000 stories from 13 newspapers, eight radio outlets, five online sites, three cable-news channels and both morning and evening network newscasts. The center deemed its study "the most comprehensive ongoing audit of the American press." In April, May and June, coverage of the war and related issues made up just under 15 percent of news reports, compared to 22 percent for the first quarter. The study attributed the change to a falloff in policy coverage across all media that occurred after May 24, when Congress approved war funding without including troop withdrawal timetables. Reporting on events in Iraq made up 6.7 percent of the total so-called newshole, compared to 9 percent devoted to the 2008 campaign, the study found. Additional media attention was paid to the Iraq policy debate (6.6 percent) and the war's homefront effect (1.5 percent). There continues to be "clear differences in the news judgments" of the cable channels, the center said. As in the previous quarter, Fox News Channel devoted roughly half as much coverage to the war, 8 percent, compared to CNN's 18 percent and MSNBC's 15 percent. Calls to Fox seeking comment were not immediately returned. In overall political coverage by the media, the study found that Democrats and Republicans received nearly the same coverage, 42 percent vs. 41 percent, respectively, compared to the 64 percent-24 percent Democratic-Republican split the previous quarter. Barack Obama drew the most coverage among Democratic presidential contenders, taking the last-quarter lead from Hillary Rodham Clinton and with John Edwards a distant third. But mentions of Edwards rose while coverage of Obama and Clinton dropped. Coverage of leading Republican contenders John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney was more evenly split, the study said. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage made immigration the biggest topic on conservative talk radio in the second quarter with their opposition to a reform bill. Immigration came in as the fourth-biggest story for media in general, with 6 percent of coverage. Other top-10 stories included the Virginia Tech shootings at 5 percent of coverage and, at 2 percent each, the Don Imus controversy, Iran and the fired U.S. attorneys. The Palestinian conflict received 1 percent. "Paris Hilton is no Anna Nicole Smith," the center said, noting that her "jailhouse drama" was a largely one-week story that failed to make the list of most-covered events. That compares to the No. 8 first-quarter ranking earned by Smith's death and the dispute over her baby's custody. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, formerly affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, joined the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., last year.
© Associated Press.
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Survey: Policy Experts Oppose Iraq Surge
More than half of top U.S. foreign policy experts oppose President George W. Bush's troop increase as a strategy for stabilizing Baghdad, saying the plan has harmed U.S. national security, according to a new survey. As Congress and the White House await the September release of a key progress report on Iraq, 53 percent of the experts polled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress said they now oppose Bush's troop build-up. That is a 22 percentage point jump since the strategy was announced early this year. The survey of 108 experts, including Republicans and Democrats, showed opposition to the so-called "surge" across the political spectrum, with about two-thirds of conservatives saying it has been ineffective or made things worse in Iraq. Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the experts polled on May 23 to June 26 included former government officials in senior positions including secretary of state, White House national security adviser and top military commanders. The findings were published in the form of a Terrorism Index in the magazine's September/October issue, to be released on Monday. The magazine published similar indices in July 2006 and in February. Bush has deployed 30,000 additional U.S. forces in and around Baghdad to quell sectarian violence in a bid to foster political reconciliation between Iraqi's Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish communities. The strategy was announced early in the year but U.S. forces did not reach their intended strength in Baghdad until mid-June. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are due next month to provide Congress with a progress report that could prove vital in determining how long U.S. troops stay. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress say it is time to begin bringing troops home. Foreign Policy said seven of 10 experts supported the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq. Experts have increasingly cited the war as the root cause of what they believe to be U.S. failure to win in its war on terrorism. Ninety-one percent of those polled said the world has grown more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percent from February. More than 80 percent of the experts said they expected another September 11-scale attack on the United States over the next decade, despite what they described as significant improvements among U.S. security, law enforcement and intelligence agencies. A decade from now, the Middle East still will be reeling from the ill-effects of the Iraq war, particularly heightened Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in the region, 58 percent said. Thirty-five percent believed Arab dictators will have been discouraged from pursuing political reforms as a result. Only 3 percent believed the United States will achieve its goal of rebuilding Iraq into a beacon of democracy within the next 10 years.
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Rove's Hillary Strategy: '04 Redux?
Republican strategist Karl Rove will not let up in his attacks on Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the intriguing question is why. Is it a sign that Rove, who masterminded President George W. Bush's two presidential victories, is worried about Clinton? Or a calculation that the Repuplican attacks will get Democrats to rally to her side because the party would prefer not to take on Democrats John Edwards or Barack Obama? "The Democrats are going to choose a nominee. I believe it's going to be her," Bush's departing political adviser said Sunday, noting her negative rating with the public is very high. He appeared on three Sunday talk shows after announcing last week he was leaving the White House at the end of the month to spend more time with his family. Asked why he was helping Clinton by saying she would headline the ticket, Rove said: "Didn't know that I was. Don't think that I am." Then he harshly criticized Clinton, saying more people have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of the New York senator and former first lady. "She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll," Rove said. "It just says people have made an opinion about her. It's hard to change opinions once you've been a high-profile person in the public eye, as she has for 16 or 17 years." In a USA Today-Gallup poll this month, 49 percent viewed Clinton unfavorably compared to 35 percent unfavorable for Obama and 34 percent for Edwards. Rove might be revisiting his 2004 play book. Bush's re-election team aimed its harshest comments at Sen. John Kerry, the eventual nominee, because it wanted Bush to take on Kerry rather than Edwards, then a senator. The Los Angeles Times on Sunday reported that Bush's former pollster and strategist Matthew Dowd said at a 2004 Harvard University conference that Bush's re-election team went after Kerry because they were more afraid of Edwards. Asked whether he was attacking Clinton because the Republicans feared Obama, Rove replied: "I read that in the LA Times this morning. Those, those guys out in LA have got to get clued in. I mean, come on." Asked for his opinions on Obama, Rove demurred. "I've said enough," he said. Rove said his party's chances in 2008 may be helped by the high negative ratings for Clinton and for the Democratic-led Congress. Congress' approval in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month stood at 25 percent, compared with 35 percent for Bush. After Rove announced he was leaving the White House, he had traveled with Bush to his Texas ranch Monday, then left Friday after a barbecue for more than 300 big donors from around the United States. At a Democratic debate in Iowa on Sunday, Clinton responded to Rove's criticism. "I don't think Karl Rove is going to endorse me, but I find it interesting that he's obsessed with me," she said. She said no candidate will escape the "Republican attack machine," and added: "I know how to beat them." Last week, Clinton's campaign ran a television ad saying struggling families and U.S. troops are "invisible" to Bush. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino called that "unconscionable." Rove said that was laughable. On other issues, Rove:
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Story Continues Below
Obama: You're Picking on Me
Democrat Barack Obama on Sunday tried to portray his relative lack of national experience as a positive, chiding rivals for "conventional thinking" that led to war and divided the nation. In the latest Democratic debate, the candidates critiqued the first-term senator for recent comments on Pakistan and a willingness to meet with foreign leaders — including North Korea's head of state — without conditions. "To prepare for this debate I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair," Obama said to laughter and applause from the audience at Drake University. The debate capped an intense week of politicking in Iowa, an early voting state in the process of picking a nominee. The Iowa State Fair is a magnet for White House hopefuls each presidential election. This year was no exception, especially for Democrats who swept into the state after a GOP straw poll last week. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., directly addressing a question about Obama's relative inexperience, said: "You're not going to have time in January of '09 to get ready for this job." Dodd has served in Congress for more than 30 years. Former Sen. John Edwards said Obama's opinions "add something to this debate." But Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, said politicians who aspire to be president should not talk about hypothetical solutions to serious problems. "It effectively limits your options," Edwards said, drawing agreement from one rival, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Obama said he could handle the rigors of international diplomacy and noted that many in the race, including Dodd and Edwards and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden, voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002. "Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war," Obama said. "And it indicates how we get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has become the habit in Washington." The debate, hosted and broadcast nationally by ABC, took place less than five months before Iowa caucus-goers begin the process of selecting the parties' presidential nominees. The debate moderator was "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, a former aide in the Clinton White House. Touching on his recent criticism of Clinton as a divisive figure, Obama portrayed himself as the candidate who "can bring the country together around a common purpose and rally us around a common destiny." Clinton, a target of criticism from outgoing Bush counselor Karl Rove, said Rove is "obsessed with me." She presented a different view of politics than Obama did, arguing that negative campaigning is inevitable no matter who is nominated. The New York senator and former first lady said no one will escape the "Republican attack machine." She added, "I know how to beat them." Clinton said she and Obama, an Illinois senator, disagreed over how to conduct international relations with leaders who have been foes of the United States. Obama said at an earlier debate that he would have no qualms about sitting down with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran. "I do not think that a president should give away the bargaining chip of a personal meeting with any leader unless you know what you are going to get out of that," Clinton said. Obama also has said he would send U.S. troops into Pakistan if the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, failed to act on specific intelligence about terrorists. The U.S. intelligence director has said he thinks Sept. 11 mastermind Usama bin Liden is living in the border region of Pakistan, and Musharraf's attempt to broker a political solution with tribes had backfired by giving Al Qaeda room to regroup. Biden sidestepped criticism of Obama and blamed the Bush administration for failing to work with moderates in Pakistan, a country he called "potentially the most dangerous country in the world. "We don't have a Pakistan policy. We have a Musharraf policy," he said. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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John Edwards: Coulter is a 'She-Devil'
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards escalated his feud with author Ann Coulter by calling her a "she-devil" on a visit to Iowa. According to Editor & Publisher, Coulter had hurled a gay slur at Edwards earlier this year, and after more back and forth, his wife called her during a national TV appearance to ask some hard questions. Edwards had reminded the crowd today in Burlington, Iowa, that his wife had challenged Coulter to stop "personal attacks." He continued: "We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us personally," Edwards said, according to an ABC report. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter." Catching himself, he added: "I should not have name-called. But the truth is -- forget the names -- people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language." Editor's note:
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Rove Attacks Hillary Health Care Record
White House adviser Karl Rove attacked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's record on health care, saying Sunday she's "got one idea on health care, which is to let the government do it all." Appearing on "Meet the Press," Rove was responding to a question about a recent Clinton campaign ad.
"Most of the ad was devoted to health care, which really to me was a sign of defensiveness. She understands she’s got a weakness on this. "Hillary Clinton voted against providing seniors with a prescription drug benefit. "Hillary Clinton voted against allowing people to save tax free for their out-of-pocket medical expenses. "Hillary Clinton voted against medical liability reform so that docs are not forced out of practice by junk lawsuits. "She opposes leveling the playing field so that people who pay for health insurance out of their own pocket get the same tax break the big corporations get for providing health care benefits to their employees. "She’s against allowing people to shop for health insurance across state lines like we do with auto insurance so the consumers would have more choices and there’d be competition to get your business, give you more for less. "She is a person who now -- she was opposed to and voted against allowing seniors to have a choice of keeping their current doc and their current health care plan through a private form of Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and now she’s voting for penalizing seniors who have those private health care plans through Medicare. "This woman’s got one idea on health care, which is to let the government do it all, and she’s voted against all these very positive reforms which would allow the doctor and the patient to be in charge of health care." Editor's note:
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Rove: GOP Has Good Chance in '08
White House political adviser Karl Rove said Sunday he sees encouraging signs for the GOP in the public's strong negative opinions of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democratic-run Congress. "I do think the Republican Party is more in keeping with the attitudes and values of the American people," said President Bush's departing chief political strategist. Congress' approval in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month stood at 25 percent, compared with 35 percent for Bush. Rove has a vested interest in the outcome of the 2008 election, after predicting he could build a long-term Republican majority, only to watch as Democrats swept Republicans from power in Congress in voting last year. Rove disputed suggestions that his brand of politics was intended to divide. He said the White House won bipartisan support on issues ranging from education and tax cuts and the war in Iraq. But strong Democratic resentment of Bush blocked other efforts, he said. "There's some Democrats who never accepted him as president after 2000," Rove said. Rove defended his political tactics, which opponents have labeled as divisive. "The Democrats could routinely question the president's integrity," Rove said, but "when we call the Democrats for their statements and for their votes, somehow that's wrong. I don't get it." Rove announced last week he would leave the Bush administration by the end of August, return to Texas and spend more time with his family. Rove said the field of Republicans seeking to succeed Bush offers the GOP "an excellent chance to keep the White House." As Democratic hopefuls held a debate in Iowa, Rove appeared on three Sunday morning talk shows and stepped up his criticism of Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady. "She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll," he said. "It just says people have made an opinion about her. It's hard to change opinions once you've been a high-profile person in the public eye, as she has for 16 or 17 years." Clinton, at the debate, responded to Rove's criticism by saying: "I don't think Karl Rove is going to endorse me, but I find it interesting that he's obsessed with me." Rove evaded a question during the broadcast interviews about whether the GOP wanted Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. "It's going to be what it's going to be," Rove said. Top Republican strategists have said in the past that they aimed their harshest comments in 2004 at Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the eventual nominee, because they wanted Bush to take on Kerry rather than John Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina. Edwards ended up as Kerry's running mate. Rove disputed that strategy was behind his criticism of Clinton. Looking back to the 2006 elections, when Democrats took control of Congress, Rove said their success was not unexpected. "The 2006 election was a normal off-year election, if you look at the sweep of American history," he said. Rove disputed any suggestion that the president is a lame duck. "He is a bold leader who's going to be milking every single moment that he's got in this office," Rove said. "He came here to do things, and he's going to keep doing things right up to the moment that he leaves on January 20th, 2009." Rove's effect on American politics will be decided by "how the president is judged," said GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of those GOP presidential candidates. "And I think the president's going to be judged on what happens, to a large degree what happens in the war in Iraq." Rove appeared on "Fox News Sunday," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation," while McCain was on CBS. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Hillary: Negatives Won't Keep Me From Winning
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton acknowledged on Sunday that many voters do not like her, but she blamed it on years of Republican attacks and insisted she has a record of winning despite her negatives. Clinton's remarks came as the eight candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination debated in the critical early voting state of Iowa and just days after President George W. Bush's political adviser Karl Rove saying the former first lady was flawed for having high negative ratings. Clinton and top rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, came under fire early in the debate at Drake University when other candidates were invited to comment on their perceived weaknesses -- Clinton's high negative ratings in the polls and Obama's inexperience in foreign policy. "I don't think Karl Rove's going to endorse me. That becomes more and more obvious," Clinton told the audience at the debate, which was aired by ABC News' "This Week" program. "But I find it interesting he's so obsessed with me. And I think the reason is because we know how to win." She tackled the issue of her high negative ratings head-on, saying, "The idea that you're going to escape the Republican attack machine and not have high negatives by the time they're through with you, I think, is just missing what's been going on in American politics for the last 20 years." Polls have shown Clinton holding double-digit leads over Obama in their effort to be the Democratic candidate in the November 2008 election. But a recent CBS News poll showed 39 percent of all voters nationwide had an unfavorable view of Clinton, while only 20 percent viewed Obama negatively. Other polls have had Clinton's negative rating even higher. Obama, who had a narrow lead in ABC News' Iowa poll, was criticized for his recent comments on foreign policy, including saying he would meet with U.S. rivals without preconditions and suggesting he might authorize attacks inside Pakistan without that country's permission. "The only person that separates us from a jihadist government in Pakistan with nuclear weapons is President (Pervez) Musharraf," said Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. "I thought it was irresponsible to engage in that kind of a suggestion here." Clinton said she thought Obama was wrong in saying he was willing to meet without preconditions in his first year in office with U.S. adversaries such as Iran. Obama dismissed much of the criticism as political maneuvering and quipped "to prepare for this debate, I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair." But he tried to paint Clinton's criticism as outdated thinking. "I do think that there's a substantive difference between myself and Senator Clinton when it comes to meeting with our adversaries," he added. "I think that strong countries and strong presidents meet and talk with our adversaries. We shouldn't be afraid to do so. We've tried the other way. It didn't work." The candidates also clashed over ending the Iraq war, with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson arguing all U.S. forces should be removed and others cautioning that withdrawal from Iraq would be messy, difficult and time-consuming. "We have different positions here," Richardson said. "I believe that if you leave any residual forces, then none of the peace that we are trying to bring can happen." Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said withdrawing U.S. troops would be difficult to do quickly, but "I think we can responsibly and in a very orderly way bring our troops out over the next nine or 10 months." Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, while arguing for withdrawal, warned against leaving behind a country in turmoil. "If we leave Iraq and we leave it in chaos, there'll be regional war," he said. "The regional war will engulf us for a generation." © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Editor's note:
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Sen. Leahy Lands Role in Batman Movie
Holy Beltway, Batman! Sen. Patrick Leahy has a part in the next Batman movie. "I don't wear tights," the Vermont Democrat said. Leahy's scene was filmed this summer for "The Dark Knight" and involves Batman, played by Christian Bale, The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, and Alfred Pennyworth, played by Michael Caine. The longtime Batman fan would reveal little about his role other than he is called the "distinguished gentleman." "It's a pretty tense scene," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's going to be a very interesting one." He's done voice-overs on Batman cartoons, written the preface for a Batman book and had small roles in the last two Batman features. He said he will donate his earnings from the film to the Kellogg-Hubbard children's library in Montpelier, where the senator got his first library card. "The Dark Knight" is scheduled to be released next summer. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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Obama Cuts Back on Debate Appearances
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will curtail his participation in presidential debates, his campaign has announced. "Unfortunately, we simply cannot run the kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in the early states and February 5, if our schedule is dictated by dozens of forums and debates,” campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement. "Ultimately, the one group left out of the current schedule is the voters, and they are the ones who ask the toughest questions and most deserve to have those questions answered face to face. "We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom-up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race.” Obama will appear in the eight debates he has committed to. So far, he has participated in seven debates and 19 candidate forums. Editor's note:
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