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GOP Officials: Craig to Resign Saturday
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig will resign from the Senate amid a furor over his arrest and guilty plea in a police sex sting in an airport men’s room, Republican officials said Friday.
Craig will announce at a news conference in Boise Saturday morning that he will resign effective Sept. 30, four state GOP officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The announcement follows by just five days the disclosure that he had pleaded guilty Aug. 1 to a reduced misdemeanor charge arising out of his arrest June 11 at the Minneapolis airport.
The three-term Republican senator had maintained that he did nothing wrong except for making the guilty plea without consulting a lawyer. But he found almost no support among Republicans in his home state or Washington.
Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter appeared Friday to have already settled on a successor: Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, according to several Republicans familiar with internal deliberations.
Craig has been out of public view since Tuesday, but Republican sources in Idaho said he spent Friday making calls to top party officials, including the governor, gauging their support.
There has been virtually none publicly.
Asked Friday at the White House if the senator should resign, President Bush said nothing and walked off stage.
Republican officeholders and party leaders maintained a steady drumbeat of actions and words aimed at persuading Craig to vacate his Senate seat.
GOP lawmakers, hoping to get the embarrassment to the party behind them quickly, stripped Craig of leadership posts on Wednesday, one day after they called for an investigation of Craig’s actions by the Senate Ethics Committee. Craig complied with the request.
With his wife, Suzanne, at his side, he said he had kept the incident from aides, friends and family and later pleaded guilty “in hopes of making it go away.”
Craig, 62, has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter- century and was up for re-election next year.
Republican officeholders and party leaders wanted Craig to give up his seat in the Senate as soon as possible. Their preference, according to several officials, was for a successor to be selected and ready to take the oath of office when the Senate returns from its summer vacation next week.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Craig’s conduct “unforgivable” and acknowledged that many in the rank and file thought Craig should resign.
Republicans, worried about the scandal’s effect on next year’s election, suffered a further setback Friday when veteran Virginia Sen. John Warner announced he will retire rather than seek a sixth term. Democrats captured Virginia’s other Senate seat from the GOP in the 2006 election and have sought to line up former Gov. Mark Warner to run if the seat became open.
The contest for control of the next Senate was already tilted against Republicans, who must defend 22 of 34 seats on the ballot next year, before the Craig scandal and Warner’s announcement.
With a GOP candidate other than Craig, Republicans would stand a much better chance of keeping his Idaho seat in 2008.
Idaho is one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states. The GOP controls the statehouse and all four seats in Congress, and Bush carried the state in 2004 with 68 percent of the vote.
[AP]
‘Scarface’ Director Undermines War Effort in New Movie
I was disappointed to read that Hollywood director Brian De Palma’s latest work is a propaganda piece, highlighting the atrocities that a handful of U.S. soldiers committed in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah.
It’s ironic that someone like De Palma who is best known for directing ‘Scarface’ and ‘The Untouchables’ would be an anti-war liberal, but definitely not surprising.
At a time when our country and indeed Brian De Palma’s country is at war with radical Islam, it’s just a shame that he chose to do a film about U.S. soldiers raping and murdering an entire family in Iraq. He uses videos and images taken from the across Internet and from some soldiers’ own blogs to paint the U.S. military as a murderous band of thugs.
The film called ‘Redacted‘ will mainly be shown oversees with only limited release in America. I’m sure the radical elements in the Arab world will be overjoyed at the fresh propaganda they can use from the film to boost terrorist recruitment.
I don’t object to telling what happened in Mahmudiyah, not that it would matter if I did since literally thousands of stories have been printed in every national paper and discussed on every news program. Those involved in the incident are doing anywhere from 10 years to life in a Federal prison for there despicable crimes.
What isn’t fair is to give uninformed and frankly stupid people overseas the impression that our military is nothing but a bunch of rapists and murderers.
The reality is that when you put close to 200,000 people somewhere for any length of time, your gonna have a few thugs come out of the woodwork. What that small group of soldiers did was an absolute disgrace and in my opinion they should have been hanged on the battlefield.
The bottom line is that the horrible events that took place that day in Iraq have been told over and over again, and everyone involved met with swift justice. I just wish that those who are fortunate enough to be Americans would use there right to free speech in a more responsible manner.
Whether you like President Bush or not, the United States collectively is at war meaning it’s all of our war and we should be mindful of how the things we say and do are perceived in the Arab world.
I know raping and killing a family most certainly doesn’t play well in the Arab world or any other world for that matter, but American citizens like Brian De Palma needn’t stoke the flames of Islamic extremism that is already sweeping across the Middle East and Europe.
Being critical of your country’s policies and its leaders is as American as it gets, but deliberately trying to sabotage and undermine your own country is not American at all.
Written By Chris Jones
Editor-In-Chief
Karl Rove Op-Ed: ‘The Long View’
The Washington Post scorned President Truman as a “spoilsman” who “underestimated the people’s intelligence.” New York Times columnist James Reston wrote off President Eisenhower as “a tired man in a period of turbulence.” At the end of President Reagan’s second term, the New York Times dismissed him as “simplistic” and a “lazy and inattentive man.”
These harsh judgments, made in the moment, have not weathered well over time. Fortunately, while contemporary observers have a habit of getting presidents wrong, history tends to be more accurate.
So how might history view the 43rd president? I can hardly be considered an objective observer, but in this highly polarized period, who is?
However, I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.
President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.
He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.
Following the horrors of 9/11, this president changed American foreign policy by declaring terror sponsors responsible for the deeds of those they shelter, train, and fund. America, he said, will not wait until dangers fully materialize with attacks on our homeland before confronting those threats.
The president gave the nation new tools to defeat terrorism abroad and protect our citizens at home with the Patriot Act, foreign surveillance that works in the wireless age, a transformed intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security.
And this president saw the wisdom of removing terrorism’s cause by advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world, where authoritarianism and repression have provided a potent growth medium for despair and anger aimed at the West. He recognized that democracy there makes us safer here.
President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used America’s power for good.
While the world dithered, America confronted HIV/AIDS in Africa with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has supported treatment for more than 1.1 million people worldwide, over one million of them in Africa. While most of the globe ignored Sudan and Darfur or refused to act, this president labeled the violence there genocide — and pressed world leaders to take action.
A wide range of human-rights issues — from the repression in North Korea, Myanmar, and elsewhere to religious freedom to trafficking in persons — are kept on the international agenda in good part because of this president’s demands for action.
And President Bush met challenges with new institutions and methods. For example, the Proliferation Security Initiative confronts the transfer of dangerous material and information. And he has reformed America’s foreign aid to focus on results, accountability, transparency, and anti-corruption and pro-democracy requirements.
President Bush promotes economic growth and understands free markets provide the best path to a more hopeful tomorrow.
The president inherited an economy entering recession. It was further weakened by terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, natural disasters, and out-of-control spending with discretionary domestic spending increasing 16 percent in the last fiscal year of his predecessor. President Bush took decisive action, cutting taxes and ratcheting down this spending. The results? The net creation of 8.3 million new jobs since August 2003; higher after-tax income and greater incentives for firms to invest and expand; three years where America’s economic growth led the rest of the G7 economies; and a budget on path to surplus by 2012 — despite the increased spending invested in securing America’s safety by standing up the new Department of Homeland Security and fighting the Global War on Terror. In the four years since taxes were last cut in 2003, the U.S. economy has grown 13 percent in real dollars. The additional growth is larger than the entire size of the Canadian economy.
This president also understands our standard of living depends on selling to the globe. The 14 nations with which we have implemented free agreements represent 7.5 percent of the world’s GDP, but 43 percent of our exports. The growing number of free-trade agreements concluded and signed under this president helps explain why American exports have risen 27 percent between 2004 and 2006, creating jobs and prosperity here at home.
History will see President Bush as a reformer who focused on modernizing important institutions.
He is concerned with fundamental change that will — among other goals — strengthen the ways our children are educated and health care is provided.
In education, “No Child Left Behind” introduced accountability into our public-education system by ensuring every child’s progress is measured.
Parents now know whether or not their child is learning — in their own schools, and compared to other schools. This new focus on results helped lead to more improvement in reading scores in five years than in the previous 28 combined. This reform shows that measuring leads to results.
Medicare was modernized with a prescription-drug benefit, now used by 39 million seniors. Giving seniors the drugs they need helped them avoid expensive operations and long hospital stays. The result is better health care for seniors at a lower cost to them and at a lower cost than expected to taxpayers.
The president approached other tasks — such as legal reform, higher-education assistance, transportation, and conservation and forest policy — with the same reformist spirit. And he did so on issues which are controversial within his own party, such as comprehensive immigration reform, which he has championed since he first started running for governor of Texas in 1993.
He will be seen as an innovative conservative thinker with a positive, optimistic agenda for action.
For example, his proposals to reform health care are drawn from his understanding of the values of competition and markets. A standard tax deduction for health care — similar to the deduction homeowners get for mortgage interest — would level the playing field between those who get their health insurance from employers and those who pay for it out of their own pockets and expand the number of families with coverage.
People should be able to save tax-free for out-of-pocket health costs. The Health Savings Accounts the president signed into law are the first step toward this. HSAs will help move health care toward a consumer-driven model and away from a single-payer system. More than 4.5 million American families are benefiting from HSAs today.
More competition would be created by allowing insurance to be sold across state lines or small businesses to pool risk and would lower costs and increase access.
The president has a similar focus on bold changes when it comes to opportunity and poverty. He emphasizes policies, such as welfare reform, that promote ownership and encourage personal responsibility rather than dependence on government.
His faith- and community-based initiative is encouraging social entrepreneurship to confront poverty and suffering. Billions of federal dollars can now be accessed by such groups eager to serve a neighbor in need. Already, 34 Democrat and Republican governors and more than 100 mayors of all stripes have created faith- and community-based offices to build on the federal initiative.
On energy, the environment, and climate change, he is developing a new paradigm. Emphasizing technology, increased energy-efficiency partnerships, and resource diversification, his policies are improving energy security and slowing the growth of greenhouse gases without economy-breaking mandates and regulation. The president who won criticism by rejecting the failed approach of Kyoto has implemented policies that enabled the United States to grow its economy by 3.1 percent and reduce the absolute amount of CO2 emissions (by 1.3 percent).
In these and other areas, history will see President Bush drove policy in new directions, based on conservative principles.
He will be recognized as a strong advocate of traditional values.
He advanced a culture of life where every child is protected and welcomed.
He supported traditional marriage when it came under attack from the courts. He sought to strengthen families and encourage personal responsibility. And he understood the necessity of appointing judges who know the proper and limited role of courts and will provide impartial justice and faithful application of the Constitution.
President Bush had the political courage to confront the biggest economic challenge America faces.
The looming fiscal crises in Medicare and Social Security will result in either the impoverishment of the American people through higher taxes and lower growth or through the inability of government to deliver on its promises.
This president has worked to restrain the spending growth of entitlements, and to modernize Social Security and Medicare by injecting market forces and competition into their operation. He proposed Social Security reform that would solve the system’s long-term financial shortfall while giving younger workers the choice to put some of their own money into conservative stock-market investments.
He has made it impossible for future presidents and future Congresses to ignore this challenge. The president’s proposal will be the starting point for reform when it happens. When it does, Americans will be grateful President Bush made entitlement reform an issue and will be aware that valuable time was lost because of the obstructionism of his critics.
The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will color how history views the president.
History’s concern is with final outcomes, not the missteps or advances of the moment. History will render a favorable verdict if the outcome in the Middle East is similar to what America saw after World War II.
America’s persistence in Europe and Asia after that war helped Germany and Japan become democracies and allies in the struggle against Communism. If something similar happens in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will change the region and the world. For the first time, millions of citizens across the Middle East will see a working model of freedom in their region — and it will give them hope for a better future for their children by making America safer for them.
If the outcome there is like what happened in Vietnam after America abandoned our allies and the region descended into chaos, violence, and danger, history’s judgment will be harsh. History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken — as George McGovern was in his time.
Beyond his policies and actions, history will take the measure of the man.
I have known George W. Bush for nearly 34 years and have had the privilege of watching from nearby as history has placed its demands on him and our country. I know his humility and decency, his intelligence and thoughtfulness, his respect for every person he comes in contact with, his unwavering commitment to principle-based decision-making, and the quiet and compassionate hearts of the man and his graceful wife, Laura.
I have come to understand true leadership leans into the wind. It tackles big challenges with uncertain outcomes rather than taking on simple, sure tasks. It does what is right, regardless of what the latest poll or focus group says. History demands much of America and its leaders and I am confident it will judge the 43rd president as a man more than worthy of the great office the American people twice entrusted to him.
Written By Karl Rove
Sony introduces first U.S. video Walkman player
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer electronics maker Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday said it introduced a new U.S. version of its Sony Walkman that includes the ability to play digital video, the latest potential rival to Apple Inc.’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) dominant iPod media player.
The Japanese company, one of the world’s biggest electronics makers, said its NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series of Walkman digital music players would be available in September.
The devices will support an open platform — which means they will play a variety of music formats such as MP3 and Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) WMA, providing more choices for downloading and managing music and video collections online.
Sony added that it would pull the plug on its Connect Music Services, which distributes music in Sony’s proprietary ATRAC audio format in North America and Europe. Specific timing will vary, but the move will not occur before March 2008.
Sony said the models’ battery life allows up to eight hours of video playback for the NWZ-A810 series, which will sell for between $140 and $230. Battery life will be more than nine hours for the NWZ-S610 series, with prices ranging from $120 to $210.
The announcement comes amid speculation that Apple will next month introduce new versions of its ubiquitous line of iPod media players. Apple has distributed invitations to a September 5 event in San Francisco but did not specify what would occur at that time.
Apple rivals are lining up to take yet another shot at the iPod ahead of the holiday shopping season. Earlier this week, Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research), the world’s largest cell phone maker, unveiled an online music store, a gaming service and four new multimedia handsets.
[Reuters]
Ron Paul Grabs Attention of Alienated Voters
Computer engineer Jonathan Morey says, “I have never voted for a Republican, ever.” Nathan Hansen, a lawyer, says, “I’ve been a Republican all my life.” Yet a political meeting in St. Paul, Minn., brought the 31-year-old friends together for the first time — in support of presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Officially, Mr. Paul is a Republican, elected to Congress 10 times and now running for the party’s presidential nomination. But the party label hardly describes the obstetrician from south of Houston. And it certainly doesn’t explain his appeal to a growing, if still small, number of voters across the political spectrum, many of them much younger than their spry 72-year-old idol.
The iconoclastic “Dr. Paul” is a libertarian advocate of minimalist government, a foe of the Federal Reserve and anything else not explicitly allowed by the Constitution, and perhaps the most antiwar candidate in the race. Thanks to the unprecedented number of early debates, he has been able to share the stage with his better-funded Republican establishment rivals.
But it is the Internet that has amplified his message and introduced Mr. Paul to voters alienated from both parties. His rise, though modest, is testament as well to the power of his noninterventionist message, even in a party led by President Bush.
As polls track the public’s disaffection, political strategists are on alert for a third-party movement. Paulites insist their man can win the Republican nomination, though he has gone from zero to just 2% in polls. If he can’t, their fervor suggests they would push him to run independently. But having run as a Libertarian in 1988, when he took just 0.47% of the vote, Mr. Paul has discouraged such speculation.
The Web “is redefining what a grass-roots campaign looks like,” says Mr. Morey, the computer engineer. More than other candidates’ fans, Paul supporters take matters into their own hands, planning events and raising money in a decentralized process that parallels Mr. Paul’s vision of what government should be. Aside from his own Web site, there are free-lancers’ DailyPaul.com and RonPaulLibrary.org (“the world’s largest collection of writings by Ron Paul”), among others, MySpace “friends” groups and YouTube video-sharing.
It has meant $3 million to Mr. Paul, making him fourth among eight Republicans in fund raising and first among the five dark horses in cash on hand. But the netroots’ bottom-up energy poses challenges, too, for a campaign trying to channel if not control it. “We’re running a campaign, and we’d like to think we know what we’re doing,” says deputy campaign manager Joe Seehusen. “And then there’s this thing called the Internet, and that has a life of its own.”
Messrs. Morey and Hansen met late last spring at a local Paul gathering they had learned of through Meetup.com. Such social-networking Web sites have become an organizing and fund-raising tool for other campaigns, but they are particularly valuable for shoe-string operations such as Mr. Paul’s.
The men recall about 30 people at that meeting, a number that grew at subsequent gatherings to more than 200 before members began breaking into subchapters. The pair still occasionally attend Minneapolis-area gatherings, but mostly they have taken to acting independently. Though from different parties, they got behind Mr. Paul for similar reasons: They share his stands against what they see as an illegal war, erosion of individual rights and a government that is too big, secretive and corrupt.
Mr. Morey, who bikes to work in T-shirts he emblazoned “Who is Ron Paul?,” drove alone to Iowa in June, after learning online that Mr. Paul was being excluded from a Republican debate co-sponsored by the Iowa Christian Alliance and Iowans for Tax Relief. Organizers said Mr. Paul didn’t have enough support. In Des Moines, Mr. Morey joined about 1,000 others responding to online alerts. Outnumbering the debate audience, they marched past shouting “Ron Paul! Freedom!” and drew sympathetic media attention statewide.
In early August, on a lark, Messrs. Morey and Hansen drove south to Iowa State University for state Republicans’ straw poll, a traditional barometer of candidate strength in the state with the first nominating contest. The decisions of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson not to actively campaign for the poll raised the stakes for underdogs like Mr. Paul.
Rivals, especially wealthy former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, bought thousands of the $35 tickets that supporters need to vote. Paulites launched “Adopt an Iowan” online and raised more than $19,000 for tickets. While Mr. Romney had buses, hotel rooms and meals for his supporters, Messrs. Hansen and Morey came at their own expense, as did hundreds of others from as far as New York, Nashville, Tenn., and Seattle, even though only Iowans could vote.
Arriving on the Friday before the straw poll, the two headed to a live-music club on the campus for “Ronstock” — Paulites’ Woodstock of local bands, though the men were too late to catch Mr. Paul’s brief appearance. Mr. Paul punctuated his stump speech — “Regardless of what happens, the fight continues” for “national sovereignty and to defend our Constitution” — by urging supporters to have fun.
On Saturday, Messrs. Morey and Hansen pulled into a parking lot alongside Romney buses. As mostly older passengers marched off in line behind Romney aides holding “Follow Me” signs, the two men chuckled at the contrast with the free-thinking, free-lancing Paulites.
The Iowa Republican Party rented space to candidates. Mr. Paul had one of the smaller, most isolated locations, but his tent was among the most crowded despite scorching heat.
Unsure how to help, the friends drove to a Sam’s Club and spent $100 on bottled water. They walked around with a cooler in their “Who is Ron Paul?” T-shirts, doling out bottles to parched Republicans. That night, long after most people left, scores of Paulites stayed for the straw-poll results: Mr. Paul was fifth of 11 candidates, with 9.1% — nearly twice the tally of absentees McCain, Giuliani and Thompson combined.
On Aug. 23, the men learned from a Meetup group of a Minnesota straw poll, sponsored by Republican state legislators for $100 a ticket, to be held that night. “I was a little hesitant to go and spend a hundred bucks,” Mr. Morey said, “but I’d driven all the way to Iowa for a straw poll, so…”
They joined roughly 150 voters, he said, and Mr. Paul came in third with 16%, behind Mr. Thompson’s 21% and Mr. Romney’s 20%. Mr. Paul has placed high at a series of local party straw polls this summer, given such self-motivated fans, and has high hopes for tomorrow’s Republican straw poll in his home state.
Messrs. Morey and Hansen insist Mr. Paul “absolutely” has a shot at election. Mr. Morey says he used to lose sleep thinking of the country’s problems. “Now I sleep fine at night,” he says, “because I’m taking action.”
DOJ Investigating Gonzales Testimony
Though Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday, he is still is in the crosshairs of investigations by Congress and his own department.
A letter sent to Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine Thursday indicates that Gonzales is the subject of at least three separate ongoing internal investigations.
In an Aug. 16 letter to Fine, Leahy asked that his office “investigate and evaluate potential misleading, evasive, or dishonest testimony” by Gonzales. Gonzales had come under strident criticism from members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees for his testimony on the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and the administration’s legal basis for the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Fine responded to Leahy Thursday, writing, “You identified five issues and asked that we investigate whether the statements made by the attorney general were intentionally false, misleading, or inappropriate. The OIG has ongoing investigations that relate to most of the subjects addressed by the attorney general’s testimony that you identified.”
“The OIG is conducting a joint investigation with the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility into allegations regarding the removal of certain United States attorneys and improper hiring practices. We believe that through those investigations and other OIG reviews we will be able to assess most of the issues that you raise in your letter,” Fine wrote.
Terrorist Surveillance Program Review
It has previously been disclosed that the DOJ inspector general has been conducting a review of the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, along with a review of the use of national security letters. Controversy swirled in recent weeks over comments and testimony relating to the NSA’s intelligence program.
Gonzales’ past testimony differed from accounts of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and FBI director Robert Mueller, who both stated that in March 2004, Gonzales, then serving as White House counsel, visited Attorney General John Ashcroft while he was hospitalized, seeking reauthorization of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program. Then-White House Chief of Staff Andy Card accompanied Gonzales on the trip.
In May, Comey recounted the hospital run-in, testifying to Congress that he raced to the hospital to head off Gonzales and Card.
“I was angry,” Comey said of the encounter. “I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general.”
Asked if the visit was about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, Gonzales only acknowledged the visit was about “other intelligence activities.”
In a July 26 congressional hearing, lawmakers asked Mueller about the incident. Mueller simply stated, “I don’t dispute what Mr. Comey said.”
During that same hearing, a member of Congress asked Mueller if he had concerns about the NSA program Mueller simply replied, “Yes.” Gonzales had previously testified that no senior DOJ officials had concerns about the program.
The ‘Uncomfortable’ Conversation
The Justice Department also confirmed in June that an internal investigation into the firing of at least nine U.S. attorneys last year is also looking into a meeting between Gonzales and former DOJ White House liaison Monica Goodling, which she told Congress made her “uncomfortable.”
Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee in May that in her conversation with Gonzales, the attorney general wanted to discuss his role in the controversial U.S. attorney firings. Goodling’s account of the conversation appeared to contradict April testimony in which Gonzales told Congress, “I haven’t talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven’t wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations.”
DOJ expanded the internal probe into the U.S. attorney firings to include Goodling, after the former aide testified that she might have broken the law by using political considerations to hire career officials.
Dems’ Calls for Action
Fine’s letter comes one month after four Senate Democrats called for a special prosecutor to look into allegations that the attorney general lied to Congress under oath when testifying about the fired federal prosecutors debacle and terror surveillance programs.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. had asked the Justice Department’s Solicitor General Paul Clement to make the move.
DOJ regulations allow the attorney general or deputy attorney general to appoint special counsel, but Gonzales has recused himself from the ongoing U.S. attorneys investigation. Clement is the highest-ranking official at DOJ that was in his post while the process unfolded, though not involved to the firings. The White House also named Clement acting attorney general upon Gonzales’ Sept. 17 departure.
In what was seen as a largely symbolic move earlier in the summer, Democrats in the House had also called for a perjury investigation to be opened against Gonzales.
[ABC]
Mugabe orders wage freeze in inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe
HARARE (AFP) — Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has banned all pay rises without authorisation and given himself extra powers in a new bid to curb the world’s highest inflation rate, state media said Friday.
As part of the measures, all rents, school fees and service charges must be frozen for the next six months.
“No one in private or public sectors can now raise salaries, wages, rents, service charges, prices and school fees on account of increases or anticipated increases in the consumer price index, the official and unofficial exchange rates, or valued added tax and duty,” said the government-controlled Herald newspaper.
Increases in salaries or fees can only be made with specific approval from the national incomes and prices commission, a body headed by Mugabe, and without any link to the inflation rate which currently stands at over 7,600 percent.
“The net effect of the charges will be to push inflation down since all increases will be by less than the current inflation rate,” the report said.
“Those who breach the standards set by the commission when increasing pay, fees or prices can be fined … jailed for up to six months, or given both punishments,” it added.
The latest edicts come two months after the government effectively ordered retailers and businesses to halve their prices, resulting in widespread shortages and a strengthening of the black market in the southern African nation.
Retailers had previously been hiking their prices on a daily basis to keep pace with inflation. Employers had also been raising salaries every month in order to cope with the price rises, although the unemployment is currently running at 80 percent.
While the monthly rate of inflation did slow in July, economists say that the government cannot hope to improve the crisis by circumventing market forces.
Independent Harare-based economist John Robertson said the latest government move was a result of crumbling government revenues and warned that it could have repurcussions within the army which has so far stayed loyal to Mugabe.
“I just wonder when they will try and reverse the laws of gravity, because this does not work,” he told AFP.
“Many soldiers and teachers were now demanding salary reviews, but government has just dressed things up, pretending that it is protecting the private sector yet demands for salaries are coming from the civil servants.”
Thomas Mwsiti, an economist with 4Cast research, predicted that the ban on pay hikes would be impossible for the government to impose.
How can you freeze everything for six months? This does not make sense,” Mswiti said.
“What the government has to do to address is the supply side of things.”
Mugabe has blamed the country’s economic woes on limited sanctions imposed by the European Union and United States over claims that he rigged his 2002 re-election.
The 83-year-old, who is hoping to win a seventh term of office in elections next year, has also accused parts of the business community of siding with the opposition in order to topple his regime.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the wage freeze order was “a sign of desperation and lack of policy.”
“This was symptomatic of a regime which has run out of ideas,” he added.
[AFP]
Sadr May Revoke ‘Freeze’ on Militia
Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr told his followers Thursday that he would rescind his order “freezing” the operations of his powerful militia if military raids on his offices did not cease in the next few days, according to officials of Sadr’s organization.
Sadr’s message came the day after he issued a public statement to his Mahdi Army to cease its operations for up to six months so he could restructure the group. But Sadr was forced to reconsider after a raid Thursday by U.S. and Iraqi forces on his office in the southern city of Karbala led to the deaths of six Mahdi Army members and the arrest of 30 others, the officials said.
“When you see the enemy is attacking you, you have to defend yourself,” said Alaa Abid Jiaara, a Mahdi Army member in Sadr’s headquarters in Kufa, about 90 miles south of Baghdad. “Today we have seen the occupation forces and Iraqi forces violate the Sadr followers and their offices and holy symbols. This means it is the duty of the followers of Sadr to defend against them.”
Sadr had issued his edict on Wednesday, a day after battles between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, a rival Shiite group in southern Iraq, left at least 49 people dead. Sadr said the militia must be “restructured in a way that would retain for this ideological body its prestige.”
The Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization have warred for months in southern Iraq, with each group seeking control of the oil-rich region. The Badr group’s parent organization, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, controls the government in eight of nine southern provinces, but Sadr lives in the southern city of Najaf and commands a large following in the region.
On Thursday, some Mahdi Army members appeared to have heeded Sadr’s direction to stand down. Mahdi Army checkpoints around Sadr City, the vast Shiite district in eastern Baghdad, had disappeared by morning, but fighters there and elsewhere said not everyone had stopped patrolling or planning violence against Sunnis, Americans and rival Shiites.
“Some elements followed the instructions, some did not,” said Mustafa Ali, a Mahdi Army fighter in Sholah, in western Baghdad. “But the leaders are walking around explaining what the instructions mean and telling them that they should obey the leader because Moqtada knows what’s best for us.”
Iraqi and American military leaders said Sadr’s order was unlikely to stop all Mahdi Army activities because scores of men operating in semiautonomous cells carry out violence and coercion in the cleric’s name.
Meanwhile, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi announced plans for the release of prisoners being held without specific charges. Beginning this weekend, the government will release 50 prisoners each week, a number that Hashimi said would grow to 350 a week. About 1,700 prisoners are being detained without charges, a statement from his office said.
Sunni leaders, including Hashimi, have called for such releases, saying that the security forces of the Shiite-led government have unjustly detained many Sunnis. The releases are part of a package of reconciliation measures the country’s top five political leaders signed Sunday.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. military announced that two soldiers had been killed in separate incidents. One was killed Thursday during combat operations in western Baghdad, and another died Wednesday in Diyala province after a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle. The deaths brought the number of U.S. troops killed in August to 81.
Bush Spokesman Snow Resigns for Financial Reasons
White House press secretary Tony Snow is resigning Sept. 14, 16 months before the end of the Bush presidency in January 2009.
Dana Perino, 35, who grew up in Colorado and has been deputy press secretary since March 2006, will become President George W. Bush’s chief spokesman, said Tony Fratto, another deputy press secretary.
Snow, 52, who is battling a recurrence of colon cancer, cited financial reasons for his departure. Snow is paid $168,000 as White House press secretary.
“It’s not a health matter,” Snow said today in an interview. “It’s purely financial. I feel terrific.”
Snow was a television commentator for News Corp.’s Fox News before becoming Bush’s chief spokesman in April 2006. He is married and has said he wants to make more money before his three children are ready for college.
“I’ve already made it clear I’m not going to be able to go the distance, but that’s primarily for financial reasons,” Snow said in an interview with talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt on Aug. 15. “I’ve told people when my money runs out, I’ve got to go.”
Snow is the latest of top aides to President George W. Bush to leave before the president’s term ends. Political strategist Karl Rove announced Aug. 13 he was leaving by the end of August, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his departure on Aug. 27.
Several other top advisers have left since Democrats won control of Congress, including counselor Dan Bartlett, chief White House attorney Harriet Miers, budget chief Rob Portman, political director Sara Taylor, deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch and Meghan O’Sullivan, a deputy national security adviser who worked on Iraq.
Bush’s war support rising?
The White House believes it has made significant progress over the past month in swaying public and political opinion toward supporting a continued U.S. military effort in Iraq, one of President Bush’s closest advisers said in an interview.
“The end of the August feels a lot better than the beginning of August when it comes to where we are relative to perceptions of our Iraq policy and what is working,” said Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president.
Congress returns Tuesday from a monthlong recess that did not go according to plan for Democratic leaders and the antiwar movement, who were looking to September as a time to force Mr. Bush into changing course in Iraq.
That moment may still come. But August brought numerous reports from regional specialists and even Democratic members of Congress that the president’s surge of 30,000 troops is producing positive results.
“It is clear that the surge is producing significant results. And that does not seem to be an object of controversy really, significant controversy, anymore,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
Political reconciliation among Iraqi Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds remains problematic, but even there, all three factions reached a still-nebulous power-sharing agreement last weekend, which Mr. Gillespie cited as an improvement.
“Even [the lack of political reconciliation] has changed since last week. We are seeing progress now,” Mr. Gillespie said. “I do think there is a general view that the surge is having its desired effect.”
The latest poll by United Press International/Zogby Interactive showed that 54 percent think the war is not lost, with respondents splitting sharply along party lines on that question.
But a report from the congressionally controlled Government Accountability Office, to be delivered next week, will say that there is little progress on both military and political fronts, the Associated Press reported yesterday.
Democratic leaders yesterday seized on the GAO report and also criticized Mr. Bush for his plans to request $50 billion in Iraq spending, in addition to a roughly $460 billion fiscal 2008 defense budget.
“The president is demanding tens of billions more dollars for the war in Iraq despite nonpartisan conclusions, such as the draft GAO report and the recent National Intelligence Estimate, that the Iraqi government has failed to achieve required reforms,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat.
Mr. Snow acknowledged that “many” benchmarks have not been met but maintained that “what is significant is that there is progress toward a great number of them.”
The main White House response to the GAO findings and other reports has been to point to a progress report that they will issue next month in conjunction with testimony from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.
Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker will testify before Congress on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12.
Mr. Snow said these two men are “the folks who have a real grasp of ground truth,” but that “on the other hand, you’re going to take a look at all the input.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, again indicated that the report from Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker will do little to persuade him that he was wrong when he said in April, “This war is lost and … the surge is not accomplishing anything.”
“Democrats will continue to push for a new strategy to protect our troops and make America secure,” Mr. Reid said, pointing to the GAO report and voicing concerns that the Pentagon was pressuring the GAO to soften their critical findings.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that Defense Department officials “made some factual corrections” to the GAO report.
“We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from ‘not met’ to ‘met,’ ” Mr. Morrell said, declining to go into further detail.
White House and Pentagon officials argued that the GAO report graded progress in Iraq on a more rigid scale that allowed no room for partially completed objectives.
A White House report in July found that eight out of 18 benchmarks set up by Congress had been reached, and that partial progress had been made toward two other benchmarks. The GAO report found that only three out of 18 benchmarks had been met, and that two had been partially met.
“The standard that GAO has set is far more stringent — some might argue it’s impossible to meet,” Mr. Morrell said.
‘White power’ chanted during immigration discussion at high school
BROOMFIELD – It started with a simple question and ended with at least one student chanting “white power” in a classroom.
It happened Tuesday in a classroom at Holy Family High School, the Catholic school that sits at the corner of 144th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Broomfield.
The classroom discussion started with the question: Why do students need to learn Spanish?
According to the Archdiocese of Denver, the conversation soon became about immigration and it turned ugly.
“It became a heated discussion and some rhetoric was used that was inappropriate for the classroom,” said Jeanette DeMelo, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver.
At least one e-mail sent to 9NEWS said that at least one student started a chant of “white power” and some said that all Mexicans should go back to Mexico.
“Immigration is an explosive topic right now. It seeped into the classroom,” she said.
The Archdiocese says they did not expect something like this to happen in their system, which has embraced its Hispanic students. Archbishop Charles Chaput has come forward several times in support of the Mexican community.
“I think the teacher was a little bit unprepared for that type of discussion in a language classroom,” said DeMelo.
The archdiocese says the four students who instigated the whole thing have been talked to and supposedly are remorseful. The Spanish teacher also met with administrators.
An e-mail sent to 9NEWS states the Hispanic students in the class at the time asked to leave, but were forced to stay in the classroom.
Holy Family Principal Sr. Mary Rose Lieb, O.S.F. released a statement on Thursday evening about the incident:
“On Tuesday in a Spanish-language class at Holy Family High School, a single handful of students used heated and inappropriate rhetoric in a discussion on immigration. In a class of approximately 30 students, fewer than six students voiced strong anti-immigration opinions. The remaining two-thirds of the class were silent or voiced support for immigrants. At the end of the discussion, one student inappropriately said “white power,” two or three times. Most of the students in the class did not hear the comments. Contrary to media reports, there were no chants by more than one student. Two students, who were offended, asked to leave the classroom and were given permission to leave. However, the discussion ended when other students realized how these students were affected and all of the students remained until the end of class.”
“When the administration received a complaint regarding this discussion, interviews were conducted of the students in the classroom as well as the teacher. The student who acted inappropriately was disciplined and the situation has been addressed with the teacher.”
“The administration treated this situation as a teaching moment – an opportunity to reaffirm that respect and charity should be the foundation of every dialogue and encounter with another.”
“Holy Family High School is dedicated to being a family – through respect and charity for all its members. It’s always had a diverse student body. It values that diversity and strives to be a place of unity and respect for all. The distortion and inaccurate reporting of this situation is hurtful to a community that should be praised for how well they get along in their diversity.”
“In all archdiocesan Catholic schools there is ongoing in-services for administrators, teachers and staff on relevant topics such as immigration, historic justice, issues of bullying and respect.”
School leaders at Holy Family say their school is all about inclusiveness. It is in the school’s motto and in the spirit of their teachings.
“Holy Family is precisely what its name is: a family. And they’ve always prided themselves on the diversity,” said DeMelo.
Holy Family has a large Hispanic population and the archdiocese wants to make sure everyone is comfortable going to school.
“We are seeing the Hispanic population trust in the Catholic school system and in the diversity that exists there,” said DeMelo.
[9News]
FULL AUDIO OF SEN. CRAIG’S ARREST FOR BATHROOM INCIDENT
Take a listen to the full audio of Senator Larry Craig’s arrest for his alleged involvement in a sex sting that the Police setup in a Minneapolis public restroom.
The Senator agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct at the time of the incident in the hopes of keeping it quite. Senator Craig has vehemently denied that he is gay and says the incident was entrapment and a misunderstanding.
Here the Senator explain the incident in his own words by listening to the actual arrest!
Tell us what you think! Who do you believe? Simply respond in the comments section and give us your opinion.
