Archive for November 21st, 2006
Elder Bush takes on son’s Arab critics
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference in the capital of this U.S. ally.
“My son is an honest man,” Bush told members of the audience harshly criticized the current U.S. leader’s foreign policy.
The oil-rich Persian Gulf used to be safe territory for former President Bush, who brought Arab leaders together in a coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait in 1991. But gratitude for the elder Bush, who served as president from 1989-93, was overshadowed at the conference by hostility toward his son, whose invasion of Iraq and support for Israel are deeply unpopular in the region.
“We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world,” a woman in the audience bluntly told Bush after his speech.
Bush, 82, appeared stunned as others in the audience whooped and whistled in approval.
A college student told Bush his belief that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit at the expense of the rest of the world. Bush was having none of it.
“I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,” Bush said. “To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I think you need to go back to school.”
The hostile comments came during a quesion-and-answer session after Bush finished a folksy address on leadership by telling the audience how deeply hurt he feels when his presidential son is criticized.
“This son is not going to back away,” Bush said, his voice quivering. “He’s not going to change his view because some poll says this or some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the lady who feels deeply in her heart about something. You can’t be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you’re going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It’s not easy.”
Bush also told the audience its derisive hoots were mild compared to the reaction he got in Germany in the 1980s, after persuading the country to deploy U.S. nuclear missiles.
White House cuts economic growth forecast
Council of Economic Advisers says GDP to slow for remainder of year and in 2007, blaming weakness on housing.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy should experience slower growth than originally anticipated for the remainder of the year and in 2007, the White House said Tuesday.
The President’s Council of Economic Advisers projected that economic growth would be slower than forecasted last June, with real gross domestic product growing 3.1 percent for all of 2006 and 2.9 percent in 2007 before rebounding to a 3.1 percent gain in 2008.
The forecast said that the revisions reflect a weakening in the housing sector, but that other areas of the economy remain strong.
“The economic forecast clearly reflects the fact that the U.S. economy is moderating to more sustainable growth levels, firmer labor markets and steady inflation rates,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in accompanying remarks.
On Monday, the Census Bureau reported that new housing starts slipped nearly 15 percent in October to their lowest level in over six years, while a reading on builder’s confidence hit a nine-year low.
The government forecast, which will be used for the President’s fiscal year 2008 budget, projects that the unemployment rate will be 4.6 percent during 2006 and 2007 and that employers would add an average of 129,000 jobs per month.
Last month, the unemployment rate slipped to 4.4 percent, hitting its lowest level in five years, according to the Labor Department, while employers added 92,000 jobs.
Democrats Plan Series of Votes on Ethics Reforms
Despite divisions among Democrats over how far to go in revising ethics rules, House leaders plan a major rollout of an ethics reform bill early next year to demonstrate concern about an issue that helped defeat the Republicans in the midterm elections.
But they will do it with a twist: Instead of forwarding one big bill, Democrats will put together an ethics package on the House floor piece by piece, allowing incoming freshmen to take charge of high-profile issues and lengthening the time spent on the debate. The approach will ensure that each proposal — including banning gifts, meals and travel from lobbyists as well as imposing new controls on the budget deficit — is debated on its own and receives its own vote. That should garner far more media attention for the bill’s components before a final vote on the entire package.
“This will be the most significant ethics and lobbying reform that Congress has ever voted on,” promised Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), one of the point men on the effort.
The approach may be the first indication of how the Democrats plan to use their ability to control the House agenda as the majority power, setting the terms of debate while lifting the strict rules that Republicans used to curtail dissent.
And Democrats hope to show that they are attentive to issues of corruption that, according to exit polling, proved to be of major concern to voters on Nov. 7. House and Senate GOP leaders pledged early this year to pass major lobbying reforms in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal but never delivered on their promise.
NATIONAL BOYCOTT ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 24
National Boycott Everything on Black Friday!
Day after Thanksgiving!
REMEMBER GAS PRICES THIS SUMMER ?!
This is our chance to get back at the Corporate Controlled System as well as Gas Companies.
Don’t Shop for anything on the day after Thanksgiving..Stay Home!!!
PASS IT ON!!
News Corp. accused of hush money offer
NEW YORK – The O.J. Simpson book saga took another twist Tuesday when his former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused the media company behind the project of trying to buy her family’s silence for “millions of dollars.”
Simpson’s book, “If I did it,” was a sequel few had dared conceive, with Simpson — acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend but later found liable in civil court — describing how he would have killed them.
A spokesman for News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, confirmed that the company had conversations with representatives of Nicole Brown Simpson’s and Ron Goldman’s families over the past week and that the families were offered all profits from the planned Simpson book and television show, but he denied that it was hush money.
“There were no strings attached,” News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said.
Denise Brown told NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday that her family’s response was “Absolutely not.”
“They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’ money. But they were still going to air the show,” Brown said. “We just thought, ‘oh my god.’ What they’re trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us this money to keep our mouths shut.”
Any fascination with Simpson’s shocking return to public life was overcome by revulsion and disbelief from the public.
Even News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch, a media king with a famous taste for scandal, couldn’t stand it anymore. On Monday, he canceled the whole thing, less than a week after it was announced.
“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” Murdoch said. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”
“If I Did It” had been scheduled to air as a two-part interview Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, with the book to follow on Nov. 30. HarperCollins spokeswoman Erin Crum said some copies had already been shipped to stores but would be recalled, and all copies would be destroyed.
Simpson’s attorney, Yale Galanter, told The Associated Press: “We had known for three or four days that this was a possibility.”
Reno Files Challenge to Terror Law
WASHINGTON (AP) – Former Attorney General Janet Reno and seven other former Justice Department officials filed court papers Monday arguing that the Bush administration is setting a dangerous precedent by trying a suspected terrorist outside the court system.
It was the first time that Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, has spoken out against the administration’s policies on terrorism detainees, underscoring how contentious the court fight over the nation’s new military commissions law has become. Former attorneys general rarely file court papers challenging administration policy.
Suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is the only detainee being held in the United States.
The former prosecutors challenged the Justice Department’s right to bring al-Marri before a military commission.
A citizen of Qatar, he was arrested in 2001 while studying in the United States. He had faced criminal charges until authorities designated him an enemy combatant and ordered him held at a naval base in South Carolina.
The Justice Department said in court papers last week that a new anti-terrorism law strips detainees such as al-Marri of the right to challenge their imprisonment in court.
“The government is essentially asserting the right to hold putative enemy combatants arrested in the United States indefinitely whenever it decides not to prosecute those people criminally – perhaps because it would be too difficult to obtain a conviction, perhaps because a motion to suppress evidence would raise embarrassing facts about the government’s conduct, or perhaps for other reasons,” the former Justice Department officials said.
Some of the eight attorneys named in the document are now in private practice and represent detainees at the military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most served under President Clinton, though the list includes former U.S. Attorneys W. Thomas Dillard and Anton R. Valukas, who served under President Reagan.
“The existing criminal justice system is more than up to the task of prosecuting and bringing to justice those who plan or attempt terrorist acts within the United States – without sacrificing any of the rights and protections that have been the hallmarks of the American legal system for more than 200 years,” the attorneys wrote.
The al-Marri matter is before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and is one of three appeals court cases that will help determine the scope of the new military commissions law. That law allows the CIA to use tough – but undefined – interrogation techniques and says detainees may not use civilian courts to challenge their imprisonment.
Human rights groups have challenged the law. The former prosecutors wrote that they worried the government would increasingly use the law to avoid criminal trials “and the rights associated with them, such as the defendant’s right to counsel and the government’s obligation to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The government was standing behind its position, Justice Department spokeswoman Kathleen Blomquist said in a statement Monday night.
“These are complex and difficult legal issues, and while we respect the right of other legal minds to be heard on these issues, we believe we are on firm legal footing in this case as both the magistrate judge and district court concluded,” Blomquist said.
Last weekend, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the nation’s handling of the detainees. He said they are afforded more rights than required.
SUZIE-Q! 