Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Ex-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Rips Bush, White House in New Book

Former White Person House Press Secretary George C. Scott McClellan sweeps President Shrub on domestic and foreign issues, such as as Republic Of Republic Of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, in his approaching memoir saying Shrub was not "open and blunt on Iraq" and was slow in his response to Katrina.

Politico.com reported late Tuesday McClellan's rough words include allegations that two top Pluto held a secret Occident Wing meeting to acquire their narrative straight about the Central Intelligence Agency leak lawsuit at a clip when federal public prosecutors were after them, and that Shrub relied on "propaganda" to sell the warfare in Iraq, the Web land site reported.

He avers in his book "What Happened: Inside the Shrub White Person House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that I. Jerry Lee Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the frailty president’s then main of staff, and Karl Rove, the president’s then senior adviser, "had at best misled" him about their function in the revelation of former Central Intelligence Agency secret agent Valerie Plame’s identity, Politico.com reported.

Rove, now a fox News contributor, denied allegations he and Willard Frank Libby kept information from McClellan about Plame, adding what was reported on Politician doesn't sound like the McClellan have known for years.

Instead, Rove said it sounded more than like "a broad blogger."

In mention to Hurricane Katrina McClellan composes that the Shrub White Person House "spent most of the first hebdomad in a state of denial,” Politico.com reported.

“One of the worst catastrophes in our nation’s history became one of the greatest catastrophes in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the bungled federal response to it would largely come up to define Bush’s 2nd term,” helium writes, according to the Web site. “And the perceptual experience of this calamity was made worse by former determinations President Shrub had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be unfastened and blunt on Republic Of Iraq and rushing to warfare with inadequate planning and readying for its aftermath.”

Considered a Shrub loyalist, McClellan, who first served as gubernatorial spokesman for then-Texas Gov. Bush in early 1990, resigned from his White Person House station in April 2006.

White House spokeswoman Danu Perino, who is traveling with the president, told fox News Tuesday she didn't program to react immediately to the allegations.

"So I'll just allow it travel tonight. I haven't seen the full book," Perino told fox News.

The 40-year-old's 341-page memoir is scheduled to be published next week. Politico.com studies they purchased the book at a American Capital shop rather than delay for the embargo.

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Thursday, May 8, 2008

U.S. House Passes Anti-Foreclosure Bill Facing Bush Veto Threat

The U.S. House of Representatives
passed statute law to allow a federal federal agency see up to $300
billion in mortgages to assist householders debar foreclosure, a day
after the White Person House threatened to blackball the measure.

The House voted 266-154 yesterday to O.K. the housing
package offered by Bay State Democrat . The plan
would let the to insure
refinanced mortgages after loan holders hold to cut principal
to do payments affordable.

''We're in a recession and a major cause of that recession
is the subprime crisis,'' Frank, president of the , said on the House flooring before the vote. ''We make not see any options to this bill.''

Democrats in United States Congress are at likelihood with Republican lawmakers
and the Shrub disposal over attempts to stem foreclosures
amid the worst lodging slack in a one-fourth century. The White
House prefers a voluntary, industry-led programme to modify loan
terms and this hebdomad issued a veto menace against Frank's bill.

Republicans oppose using authorities funds, saying that
would honor loaners and investors who acted recklessly and is
unfair to householders who are keeping up with mortgage payments. Democrats including Frank state authorities support is needed to
preserve vicinities and assist householders who were steered into
loans they couldn't afford.

A huge bulk of Americans ''are now going to assume
responsibility for ill-advised fiscal determinations and
misjudgments of other people,'' said Representative of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Financial
Services Committee, on the House flooring before yesterday's vote.

Bernanke Support

Frank's Federal Housing Administration proposal would be $2.7 billion and assist about
500,000 homeowners, according to a Congressional Budget Office
estimate. Federal Soldier Modesty President indicated
support for the program during a May 5 address without explicitly
endorsing it.

The Democrats' lodging bundle also would spread out the FHA's
role in insuring mortgages and beef up inadvertence of Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-chartered companies that are
the greatest beginnings of money for U.S. mortgages. It includes a
provision that would screen loan-servicing companies that modify
mortgages from investor lawsuits.

Frank said the measure makes ''to some extent'' stand for a
bailout for borrowers who made errors and got in over their
heads.

''Some people do bad occupation picks -- we give them
unemployment compensation,'' Frank said yesterday in a Bloomberg
Television interview after the vote. ''We are in an
interconnected economy.''

The statute law didn't acquire the two-thirds bulk vote
necessary to overrule a presidential veto, he said.

Dodd Legislation

Frank's opposite number in the Senate, Banking Committee
Chairman , said he is working with co-workers on
the panel to go through similar legislation.

''The transition of this bipartizan measurement directs a clear
signal to Americans -- and the White Person House -- that United States Congress is
committed to helping people maintain their places and stabilise the
markets,'' Dodd, a Nutmeg State Democrat, said yesterday in a
statement.

The House yesterday also approved a measure that would create
a $15 billion loan-and-grant programme to assist states purchase and
rehabilitate foreclosed homes. Democrats said the measurement is
necessary to maintain vicinity places from falling in value and
to forestall the blight and law-breaking that vacant places attract.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in American Capital at
.

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Bush Attacks Democrats Over Surveillance Legislation (Update5)

President stepped up
his onslaught on House Democrats who support terrorism surveillance
legislation that would deny unsusceptibility from lawsuits to telephone
companies. The Democratic program presents a menace to the safety of
the U.S., the president said.

The Shrub disposal and House Democrats are deadlocked
over whether to immunize the companies from privateness lawsuits for
cooperating in the government's eavesdropping on suspected
terrorists without tribunal warrants.

The House bes after to see statute law tomorrow that lacks
the unsusceptibility shield. Democratic leadership agreed to a Republican
request to throw a secret session late today to discourse the
measure. Meeting in private volition license ''a blunt discussion
about the pressing demand to give our intelligence functionaries all the
tools they need,'' Republican leader of Buckeye State said
in a statement.

The Democratic House measure ''would sabotage America's
security,'' Shrub said in a statement he read today on the White
House lawn. ''Voting for this measure would do our state less
safe. The House measure may be good for class-action experimental lawyers,
but it would be awful for the U.S.''

The secret session would be the first since 1983 and the
third since 1825. The 1983 session was to let treatment about
aid to the Nicaraguan Rebels fighting that country's leftist
Sandinista government.

Congress is considering a projected alteration of the 30-year-
old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that sets procedures
for court-approved electronic eavesdropping. A temporary
surveillance law enacted last twelvemonth expired on Feb. 16, and the
administration reasons the oversight is putting the state at risk.

Protecting Telephone Companies

Bush states shielding the telephone companies from lawsuits would
ensure their continued aid in monitoring domestic and overseas
conversations of suspected terrorists. He again threatened today
to blackball any statute law that misses such as protection for the
companies.

''This measure is unwise,'' Shrub said. ''The House leaders
know that the Senate will not go through it. And even if the Senate
did base on balls it, they cognize I will blackball it.''

Senator , a Bay State Democrat, said
Bush is trying ''to tough the United States Congress and mislead the American
people.'' Helium said Bush's insisting on shielding the phone
companies for taking portion in ''his administration's illegal
activity'' is blocking advancement on the legislation.

The Senate, in a bipartizan 68-29 ballot last month, approved
an eavesdropping measurement that parallel bars harm claims against , and other telephone companies that
allegedly helped behavior surveillance after the Sept. 11
attacks. The companies confront some 40 lawsuits seeking millions of
dollars in amends for alleged privateness violations.

The House, vote 227-189 last November along mostly
partisan lines, refused to supply the legal protection for the
companies.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in American Capital at

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

House fails to overturn Bush veto

The United States House of Representatives have got upheld a presidential veto of a measure that would have prevented the Central Intelligence Agency from using rough question methods.

The techniques include water-boarding, which oppositions state amounts to torture.

The 225-188 ballot in the Democratic-led House drop short of the two-thirds bulk required to turn over the veto.

President Saint George Tungsten Shrub said the statute law would have got got taken away one of the most valuable tools in the "war on terror."

The vetoed statute law would have limited the Central Intelligence Agency to using the 19 question methods approved in the Army field manual.

Central Intelligence Agency 'ENHANCED INTERROGATION' TECHNIQUES

Water-boarding: prisoner jump to a board with feet raised, and cellophane wrapped unit of ammunition his head. Water is poured onto his human face and is said to bring forth a fearfulness of drowning

Cold cell: captive made to stand up bare in a cold, though not freezing, cell and doused with water

Standing: shackled captives stand up for 40 hours and more

Abdomen slap: a difficult smack to the tummy with an unfastened hand. This is designed to be painful but not to do injury

Source: Described to rudiment News by un-named Central Intelligence Agency agents in 2005

It would have got banned the Central Intelligence Agency from using not only water-boarding - which imitates drowning - but also centripetal want and other rough coercive techniques.

White House fourth estate secretary Danu Perino hailed the House vote, saying a successful turn over of the veto "would have got diminished the intelligence community's ability to protect our nation".

Earlier, Mister Shrub said the Central Intelligence Agency needed "specialised question procedures", although he did not advert water-boarding specifically.

The Central Intelligence Agency have admitted to using water-boarding on three people, including high-profile al-Qaeda detainee Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

However, it states it stopped using the technique in 2003.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Bush hammers Democrats on spending

NEW ALBANY, Ind. — President Bush, escalating his budget conflict with Congress, today vetoed a disbursement measurement for wellness and instruction programmes prized by congressional Democrats.


President Shrub moving ridges to the crowed after arriving in Louisville. - Michael Clevenger / The Courier-Journal

He also signed a large addition in the Pentagon's non-war budget although the White Person Person House complained it contained "some unneeded spending."The president's action was announced on Air Military Unit One as Shrub flew to New Albany, on the Buckeye State River across from Louisville, Ky., for a address criticizing the Democratic-led United States Congress on its budget priorities.The White House said the $606 billion instruction and wellness was loaded with 2,000 earmarks — lawmaker-sponsored projects that critics name pork-barrel disbursement — which Shrub desires stripped from the bill.It was 6th measure vetoed by Bush. United States United States Congress have overridden his veto only once, on a politically popular H2O undertakings measure.In extracts of his comments released in progress by the White Person House, Shrub hammered Democrats for what he called a tax-and-spend philosophy:"The Congress now sitting in American Capital throws this philosophy," Shrub said. "Their bulk was elected on a pledge of financial responsibility, but so far it is acting like a adolescent with a new recognition card."This twelvemonth alone, leadership in United States Congress are proposing to pass $22 billion more than than my budget provides," the president said. "Some of them claim this is not really much of a difference and the chilling portion is that they look to intend it."More than any other disbursement bill, the instruction and wellness measurement defines the differences between Shrub and bulk Democrats. The House drop three ballots short of winning a veto-proof margin as it sent the measurement to Bush.Rep. Saint David Obey, the Democratic president of the House Appropriations Committee, pounced immediately on Bush's veto."This is a bipartizan measure supported by over 50 Republicans," Obey said. "There have been virtually no unfavorable judgment of its contents. It is clear the lone ground the president vetoed this measure is pure politics."House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Shrub "again vetoed a bipartizan and fiscally responsible measure that computer addresses the precedences of the American people: instruction for our children, aid in paying skyrocketing energy costs, veterans' wellness care, and other pressing wellness research on malignant neoplastic disease and other serious medical problems. At the same time, President Shrub and his congressional allies demand 100s of millions of dollars for the warfare in Republic Of Iraq — none of it paid for."Since winning re-election, Shrub have sought to cut the labor, wellness and instruction measurement below the anterior twelvemonth level. But lawmakers have got rejected the cuts. The budget that Shrub presented in February sought almost $4 billion in cuts to this year's bill.Democrats responded by adding $10 billion to Bush's petition for the 2008 bill. Democrats state disbursement additions for domestic programmes are little compared with Bush's pending warfare petition totaling almost $200 billion.

1 Prime Minister -- Shrub rans into with Hoosier State community leaders President Shrub had a private luncheon today with a figure of local community leadership at Sam's Tavern in New Albany.

Among those joining Shrub were U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, former U.S. Rep. Microphone Sodrel, golf player Fuzzed Zoeller and Sandra Patterson-Randles, the premier at Hoosier State University Southeast.

Bush also greeted some other clients as he walked through the tavern.Bush said he talked to the community leadership about their concerns. He said he cognizes people are having to cover with high energy terms and that he appreciates "the spirit of entrepreneurship that exists" in the community.Protesters and protagonists of President Shrub shared the sou'-east corner of Depository Financial Institution and Market Streets in business district New Capital Of New York today, waiting for the president to get at the Thousand theater.Paul Sparks, a retired William Clark County homebuilder, held a mark while waiting for Shrub that said, "Support Our Troops. Remember Sept. 11, '01??"Sparks said he wanted to be on manus to demo support for Shrub and the warfare effort."I desire people to retrieve Sept. 11," he said. "We didn't begin that in New House Of York City."Carleen Hobson, a retired school bookkeeper from Jeffersonville, said she believes Shrub entered the warfare with good intelligence, and she said both Republicans and Democrats voted to come in the war. -- Associated Press

Earlier: Shrub on manner to talk to New Capital Of New York group LOUISVILLE, Ky. — President Shrub have arrived at the Louisville airdrome on his manner to talk before a concern grouping in New Albany, Indiana.

The president is to discourse the federal budget during the visit sought by One Southern Indiana, the economical development grouping for Floyd and William Clark counties.Bush have accused the bulk Democrats in United States Congress of failing to direct him delinquent appropriations measures because they've spent clip on less of import issues.Bush also traveled to New Capital Of New York in March, speaking at an simple school about renewing the federal No Child Left Behind Law.-- Louisville Courier-Journal

7:31 americium -- Against odds, concern grouping conveys Shrub to Indiana NEW ALBANY, Ind. -- President Shrub tax returns to southern Hoosier State today, thanks to a concern grouping that wanted to set down the greatest talker it could find.

One Southern Hoosier State invited the president to speak to its members respective calendar months ago, even though its leadership thought likelihood were slim. Shrub last visited in March, when he spoke at a New Capital Of New York simple school.

"We didn't believe we'd have got much of a shot at the president because he'd been here less than a twelvemonth ago," One Southern chief executive officer Michael Dalby said.

But White Person Person House staff contacted Dalby on Nov. Two and told him they accepted.

"They picked the clip and the date, and we just helped convey it all together," he said.

Bush will wing into Louisville, Ky., and then traverse the Buckeye State River to speak at The Grand, an old film house that was converted to a response hallway in New Albany.

The president is traveling the state to talk about the demand for United States Congress to go through "a fiscally responsible, pro-growth budget," White House spokesman Alex Conant have said.

One Southern Hoosier State is a concerted economical development council and chamber of commercialism for Floyd and William Clark counties. Dalby said he believes the focusing of his organization, which was founded last year, matched well with the president's topic.

The organisation invited its members to hear Shrub speak.

"We had 400 slots to fill," Dalby said. "We filled those in less than three hours time."

Dalby's grouping establish patrons willing to assist screen costs like providing backgrounds and television-quality lighting. It also establish space at The Thousand on short notice.

"Its difficult to state 'No' to the president," proprietor Tena Jonathan Edwards said. "We are honored that they asked us."

However, the presidential visit do for a feverish agenda there. Workers volition have got only hours after Shrub go forths to set up the room he utilizes for a 500-guest dinner Tuesday night.

"It's going to be a long day," Jonathan Edwards said.

This will be Bush's 3rd visit to southern Hoosier State since October 2006, when he attended a political campaign mass meeting in Sellersburg for former Republican U.S. Rep. Microphone Sodrel.-- Associated Press

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Monday, November 12, 2007

Bush Tax Cuts Exploded Clinton-Era Deficit Myth: Kevin Hassett

The argument over the Shrub taxation cuts is
heating up, and the Democrats aren't making any sense.

If you swan into a mass meeting for any of the Democratic
presidential candidates, you are certain to witnesser a lengthy
diatribe documenting the awful harm that President George
W. Bush's taxation policies have got done to the economy. Edmund Hillary Clinton
said in a recent debate, ''I set financial duty first... We have got to travel back toward a more than just and progressive tax
system and get once again to travel toward a balanced budget
with a surplus.''

If you listen to Clinton, the Restoration of ''fiscal
sanity'' and recommencement of higher taxation rates will have got a profound
positive impact on every corner of the economy.

Bill Clinton and her Democratic rivals have got a large problem. The facts don't back up their negative word picture of the
Bush taxation cuts. Indeed, everything Bush's oppositions said would
happen after taxations were reduced didn't happen.

Remember that protagonists of marginal-tax-rate reductions
argued that the less rates would bring on people and firms
to work more than than and take more risks. This heightened activity would
lift the economic system and, over time, even assist the Treasury
recapture a good spot of the gross lost when the rates were
initially cut.

Opponents warned that increased shortages would restrict or
even overmaster the personal effects of the taxation cuts by drive up
interest rates.

Both Right

Both schools of idea could, in theory, be correct. If
individuals don't react much to decreased taxation rates, but debt
markets react a good trade to growing deficits, then taxation cuts
would supply small benefit.

Back in 2001, when the first Shrub taxation cuts were being
debated, these statements were laid out by numerous economic experts on
both sides of the issue. One meme devising its manner through
Washington was the averment that a sustained addition in the
deficit relation to gross domestic merchandise of 1 percentage would
lift long-term interest rates by 50 to 100 footing points. That,
the narrative went, would countervail any positive stimulation from lower
marginal rates.

Looking back at more than than six old age of economical history
since the Shrub taxation cuts, two observations stand up out. First, the
deficit increased much more than than was expected at the clip Bush
took office.

Even after accounting for the taxation cuts, for example, the
Congressional Budget Office prognosis that there would be a
cumulative excess between 2001 and 2010 of $564 billion. Instead, including current projections, there was a shortage over
that time period of $3.7 trillion.

Rates Never Rose

Second, involvement rates never rose. Even though the change
in the financial state of affairs was at least twice as big as the
anticipated 1 percentage of GDP, involvement rates have got been lower
than they were in 2001 for almost Bush's full presidency. Bush
took business office on Jan. 20, 2001, a clip when the 10-year Treasury
bond yielded 5.17 percent. Today, it gives about 4.28 percent
and have been well below 5.17 percentage on norm every twelvemonth in
between.

Fine, a sceptic might say, but other things changed. True,
but they also changed in a way that would propose interest
rates should be higher. Inflation have surprised on the upside
because of high energy prices. gross domestic product growing during the past year
has been 2.6 percent, compared with 0.8 percentage in 2001.

Interest rates in the U.S. are low, of course, because
rates everywhere else are, too. Government debt from the U.S. is
a stopping point replacement for debt from many other countries, and their
rates move in tandem. A planetary nest egg oversupply and a flight to
safety are far more than of import determiners of U.S. interest
rates than the Shrub deficits.

Missing Link

One can only reason from such as grounds that the link
between swings in the U.S. financial state of affairs and involvement rates,
never very strong to get with, have go impossible to
detect. As Harvard University economic expert Kenneth Rogoff recently wrote in
the Financial Times, ''Explosive fiscal globalisation has
made U.S. federal budget policy far less of import as a
determinant of planetary existent involvement rates.''

But if we accept that planetary marketplaces have got mostly severed
the necktie between shortages and involvement rates, another question
emerges. Exactly how is it that the Shrub taxation cuts have got harmed
the economy?

Toilet Jonathan Edwards looks to be the first of the Democratic
candidates to look at the information and accept that shortages might
not be so bad. Edwards's policy director, Jesse James Kvaal, recently
commented, ''Investments inch wellness care, energy and education... are more than of import for our economy, even if that means
sustaining the shortage for a while.'' It shouldn't be long
before Bill Clinton and Barack Obama come up to the same conclusions.

Up, Up, Up

This agency if Democrats win, despite the vocalizations of the
presidential candidates, the shortage is going to travel up as tax
dollars are steered toward wellness attention and other Democratic
favorites. Taxes will travel up, too, as the Shrub taxation cuts expire,
and the economic system will suffer.

If, on the other hand, Republicans win, then they will
extend the Shrub taxation cuts, and the shortage will travel up. The
extension of the low edge taxation rates will supply continued
economic benefits.

Either way, you can be certain that the Bill Clinton-era dogma
about shortages and involvement rates will be a thing of the past.

(Kevin Hassett, manager of economic-policy surveys at the
American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He
is an advisor to Republican Senator Toilet McCain of Grand Canyon State in
his command for the 2008 presidential nomination. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

To reach the author of this column:
Kevin Hassett at

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Guns For Peace?

More weapons will help bring peace? When in the course of human history has building stocks of weapons ever led to a more peaceful world? The recent announcement by U.S. Secretary of State Rice to send more military aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries defies all logic and reason.

Our growing fear of Iran is used as the excuse to send more than $50 billion in military assistance and weapons in order to "stabilize" Iraq. They say that if we bolster the forces of moderation in the region that it will serve as a hedge against al Qaeda and Hezbollah. One cannot ask the obvious question as to where these more militant groups get their weapons and what is to prevent them from getting even more?

If history is any lesson this move must be labeled absurd. We gave the Taliban weapons to fight the former Soviet Union. We gave weapons to Panama's Noriega. Many U.S weapons are killing people in Darfur. Probably half of the arms in Africa are American made. What ever happened to the weapons we gave to the former Shah of Iran? The build up of weapons has never, in the long term, stabilized any place on the planet.

Iran is not particularly happy over the weapons increase and Israel, even though their military assistance from the U.S. will reach record numbers, is not particularly thrilled with the arms deals either. What is to prevent any of the nations to which weapons are being given from turning those weapons on the U.S.? Will the Saudi Monarchy last forever? Is Egypt really that politically stable? It would seem a much wiser course of action to try to eliminate the shipment of all arms to the Middle East rather then to add more ammunition, literally, to the most politically unstable place on the planet.

Much of the weapons package must be approved by the U.S. Congress. It will certainly be interesting to see the reaction from this Democrat controlled institution. Will they buy into the Bush Administration approach of guns, guns and more guns? Is it even remotely possible that the Congress might decide to use funding that would go to the crazed Middle East to help the victims from Hurricane Katrina? Victims that are little better off than they were several years ago. Instead of guns, is the Congress willing to invest in food aid, housing, better jobs and health care for all? How about using some of that money towards improving our capability to respond to future environmental disasters? In my new book, RAPING LOUISIANA: A DIARY OF DECEIT (to be released by Cambridge Books late fall), a first hand account is given of the overall government ineptitude in handling responses to large scale catastrophes. Given now accepted climate change scenarios, can any of this money for more bombs and missiles be used instead to reduce greenhouse gasses and support non-polluting and renewable energy?

The end result of building and supplying more weapons has historically been the use of those weapons. Oftentimes, they are used against the supplier. If Congress approves all of these arms deals, then perhaps we deserve the fruits of our labor.

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