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(02/24/09 3:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>WASHINGTON – Calling for fiscal restraint even while federal spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged to dramatically slash the annual budget deficit and announced $15 billion in Medicaid money to states from his $787 billion economic stimulus package.“We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end ... We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences,” the president said Monday. He said the government must both confront the current economic crisis and address skyrocketing deficits or “we risk sinking into another crisis down the road.”“I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay,” Obama declared.The president summoned allies, adversaries and outside experts to a White House summit to address the nation’s future financial health one week after signing into law the gargantuan stimulus measure designed to stop the country’s economic free fall and, ultimately, reverse the recession now months into its second year.By Obama’s own account, the new law will add to this fiscal year’s deficit, which the administration projects will be $1.5 trillion. Obama said he will cut that at least in half by the end of his first term in 2013.Earlier, he met with Republican and Democratic governors who are poised to benefit from his unprecedented emergency spending-and-tax cut measure.
(02/17/09 9:03pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>DENVER – President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a massive $787 billion package to revive the economy, saying the measure represented the "essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time."The stimulus plan of spending programs and tax cuts is at the heart of Obama's effort to turn the economy back into a job-creating machine. It comes with a huge price tag for taxpayers and lingering doubts about whether the plan's results will match all the lofty promises that its supporters have made.Obama signed the bill in Denver, the city where he accepted his party's presidential nomination last summer and a leader in the so-called "green" clean energy jobs that the legislation supports. The president now turns his attention to a plan to help struggling homeowners who are trying to fend off foreclosure."I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic troubles," Obama said before signing the legislation. "Nor does it constitute all of what we going to have to do to turn our economy around. But today does mark the beginning of the end."Meanwhile, the White House isn't ruling out a second economic plan, although none is in the works right now, spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.The legislation is the most sweeping economic overhaul plan put forth in decades.It pumps money into infrastructure projects, health care, renewable energy development and conservation, with twin goals of short-term job production and longer-term economic viability.There's a $400 tax break for most individual workers and $800 for couples, including those who do not earn enough to pay income taxes. It dishes out tens of billions of dollars to states so they can head off deep cuts and layoffs. It provides financial incentives for people to start buying again, from first homes to new cars.And it provides help to poor people and laid-off workers, with increased unemployment benefits and food stamps, and subsides for health insurance.Ahead of Obama's arrival in Colorado, the White House went live with a Web site, www.recovery.gov, that will allow people to track where the money is being spent. The White House press office also promoted the projected job growth for each state and congressional district.The failing economy continues to dominate Obama's time.Tuesday is when General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, which are living off a combined $13.4 billion in federal bailout loans, are due to hand in plans to the government about how they can remain viable. And on Wednesday in Arizona, Obama will unveil his plan to halt home foreclosures.The unemployment rate is now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years. Analysts warn the economy will remain feeble through 2009.Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, largely balked at the economic package. It drew no GOP votes in the House and only three in the Senate, albeit vital ones. Many Republicans said it was short on cutting taxes and the spending measures didn't target the vast sums of money well enough toward short-term job creation, which was the major goal of the bill.Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele derided the plan, saying in a statement that "the Democrat plan focuses on putting Americans on the public dole, while the Republican plan focuses on putting America back to work."But with the economy shedding jobs, there was widespread consensus in Washington for some sort of stimulus, and fast.Yet the government's action comes at a cost down the line.Many private economists are forecasting that the budget deficit for the current year will hit $1.6 trillion, including the stimulus spending. That's about three times last year's shortfall, and such year-to-year deficits contribute toward a mounting national debt.
(05/07/08 12:00am)
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton once again faced-off in crucial primaries as voters in Indiana and North Carolina crowded polls Tuesday seeking to settle the largest remaining contests in an epic Democratic presidential nomination struggle.\nObama was looking to shore up his position as the front-runner, while Clinton was seeking another victory to keep her candidacy competitive in a race that is likely to continue into June and perhaps to the Democratic National Convention in August.\nObama began the day by dropping in on the Four Seasons Family Restaurant in the Greenwood, Ind.\nHe walked around shaking hands, then sat at the counter and had an omelet, chatting with patrons on either side.\n"I feel good," Obama said when asked about the day's voting. "I think we've campaigned hard. I think it's going to be close. I'm seeing a lot of enthusiasm."\nClinton was more reticent.\n"We're just, you know, looking to see what happens," Clinton told reporters on her campaign plane late Monday. "Obviously we hope to do as well as we can."\n"We started out pretty far behind with some tough odds ... I never feel confident. I just try to do the best I can. You know, I don't make predictions because it's very unpredictable. And this has been, I think anyone would agree, a pretty unpredictable campaign season."\nMarion County Clerk Beth White said many voters already were in line when polls opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday.\n"We really do feel today is going to be a heavy voting day, and our inspectors are ready," said White, the clerk in Indiana's most populous county.\nObama, who was flying later to North Carolina to await election results in Raleigh, visited a polling place Tuesday morning at Hinkle Field House on the campus of Butler University.\nObama, who chatted with voters, said he had hoped to shoot a few baskets while there, but that the nets were up because of an upcoming commencement.\n"I might have to take one shot," Obama said, although he left without doing so.\nLike marathoners on their second wind, Obama and Clinton had raced for advantage until the final hours of the campaign for the primaries in the two states.\nClinton, at her scrappiest when her campaign is on the line — which it has been for weeks — brought a full-throated roar to a series of events Monday in a day of frantic travel spilling into the wee hours Tuesday.\nA wealthy inside-Washington veteran, the former first lady worked hard to make common cause with blue-collar voters crucial to Tuesday's outcome.\n"I do see you, I do hear you," she told supporters in Merrillville, Ind., speaking at a local fire station as a dozen firefighters looked down on her from the fire truck behind her.\nShe pressed her proposal for a federal gas tax holiday that Obama has dismissed as a gimmick, one of the few issues where the two Democrats clearly diverge.\n"It's a stunt," the Illinois senator said in Evansville. "It's what Washington does."\nObama's stance was backed up by 230 economists who released a letter Monday opposing the temporary tax break, which would take 18.4 cents off the price of a gallon if consumers got the full savings at the pump. The signers included four Nobel Prize winners and economic advisers to presidents of both parties.\nClinton shrugged off the blistering reviews from policy makers, industry experts and editorial writers.\n"I believe we should start standing up for the majority of Americans who are paying the outrageous gas prices," Clinton said. "I'm ready to take on the oil companies."\nObama hurtled from Indiana to North Carolina and back.\n"I want your vote. I want it badly," he pleaded on a factory floor in Durham, N.C., one of many settings drawing the working-class voters he needs.\nObama capped his Monday with a rain-soaked, get-out-the-vote rally in Indianapolis featuring Motown legend Stevie Wonder, followed by a visit to a factory for the midnight shift change.\nDual victories by Obama would all but knock Clinton out of the race. Polls, however, have found a small edge for the New York senator in Indiana. Obama remains the favorite in North Carolina, though his lead has shrunk.\nAltogether, 187 delegates are at stake in the two states, nearly half the pledged delegates left with eight primaries to go before voting ends in a month.\nNorth Carolina and Indiana cannot mathematically settle the nomination. A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to win, and Obama had 1,745.5 to Clinton's 1,608 Monday.\nThe key to the nomination is held by superdelegates, party leaders who aren't bound by the outcome of state contests. About 220 are still undecided.
(04/16/08 4:14am)
PITTSBURGH – Republican Sen. John McCain on Tuesday called for a summer-long suspension of the federal gasoline tax and several tax cuts as the likely presidential nominee sought to stem the public’s pain from a troubled economy.\nTimed for the day millions of Americans filed their tax returns, McCain offered some immediate steps as well as long-term proposals in a broad economic speech. The nation’s financial woes have replaced the Iraq war as the top concern for voters, and McCain, who has said economics is not his strongest suit, felt compelled to address the problems as he looks ahead to the November general election.\n“In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties,” McCain told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University. “Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose.”\nTo help people weather the downturn immediately, McCain urged Congress to institute a “gas-tax holiday” by suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. By some estimates, the government would lose about $10 billion in revenue. He also renewed his call for the United States to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and thus lessen to some extent the worldwide demand for oil.\nCombined, he said, the two proposals would reduce gas prices, which would have a trickle-down effect, and “help to spread relief across the American economy.”\nAides said McCain’s Senate staff was drafting a bill on the proposal. It’s likely to face strong opposition not only from Congress but the states. The federal gasoline tax helps pay for highway projects in nearly every town through a dedicated trust fund. In the past, such proposals for gas tax holidays have not fared well as lawmakers and state and local officials prefer not to see changes in their revenue source.\nMcCain’s effort to set his own economic course – and court independents – comes as the public is craving change. A new television ad airing in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio says “McCain will take the best ideas from both parties to spur innovation, invest in people and create jobs.”\nMcCain has faced criticism – fueled by Democrats as well as his own previous comments – that his policy strength is not economics. Democrats have argued that his free-market approach is out of step with people feeling the pinch. And, McCain has taken heat on taxes; he twice voted against cuts President Bush championed, but now advocates making them permanent because, he says, doing otherwise would amount to a tax increase.\nShortly before McCain’s speech, the Labor Department reported another worrisome sign for the economy: Inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been expected as the costs of energy and food both climbed rapidly. Oil prices hit a new high, rising to more than $113 a barrel.
(03/27/08 4:23am)
LOS ANGELES – Republican John McCain on Wednesday called for the United States to work more collegially with democratic allies and live up to its duties as a world leader, drawing a sharp contrast to the past eight years under President Bush.\n“Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed,” the likely presidential nominee said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. “We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies.” \nComing days after his trip to the Middle East and Europe, McCain’s speech was intended to signal to leaders abroad – and voters at home – that he would end an era of what critics have called Bush’s cowboy diplomacy. McCain never mentioned Bush’s name, though he evoked former Democratic Presidents Truman and Kennedy.\nIt was, in effect, a fresh acknowledgment from the Arizona senator that the United States’ standing on the world stage has been tarnished and that the country has an image problem under Bush. Critics at home and abroad have accused Bush of employing a go-it-alone foreign policy in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when the administration spurned internatiwonal calls for caution and led the invasion into Iraq.\n“The United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone,” McCain said, noting that the United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War or other conflicts in its history. Instead, he said, the country must lead by attracting others to its cause, demonstrating the virtues of freedom and democracy, defending the rules of an international civilized society and creating new international institutions.\nHe renewed his call for creating a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared values and defend shared interests, and said the United States must set an example for other democracies.\n“If we lead by shouldering our international responsibilities and pointing the way to a better and safer future for humanity ... it will strengthen us to confront the transcendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” said the four-term senator and member of the Armed Services Committee.\n“Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House, for he or she does not take seriously enough the first and most basic duty a president has – to protect the lives of the American people,” McCain added, suggesting that neither of his Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, understand the stakes at hand.\nDemocrats, in turn, chastised McCain as offering the same policies as Bush – even though McCain’s foreign policy pitch stood in contrast to Bush’s sometimes unilateral approach.\n“John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of George Bush’s failed policies,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.\nMcCain also staked out anew his position on Iraq, staunchly defending his support for a continued U.S. military mission as the war enters its sixth year and the U.S. death toll tops 4,000. He derided calls for withdrawal from Clinton and Obama.\nRecalling his father’s four-year absence after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his grandfather’s death a day after returning from war, and his own imprisonment in Vietnam, McCain said: “I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.”\nWithout naming them, McCain said both Democratic candidates “are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date.”
(02/08/08 5:37am)
WASHINGTON – John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his \nfaltering campaign. \n“I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,” Romney said in a speech Thursday. \n“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference \nin Washington.\nRomney’s decision leaves McCain as the top man standing in the GOP race, with Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul far behind in the delegate hunt. It was a remarkable turnaround for McCain, who some seven months ago was barely viable, out of cash and losing staff. The four-term Arizona senator, denied his party’s nomination in 2000, was poised to succeed George W. Bush as the GOP standard-bearer.\nRomney launched his campaign almost a year ago in his native Michigan. The former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist invested more than $40 million of his own money into the race, counted on early wins in Iowa and New Hampshire that never materialized and won just seven states on Super Tuesday, mostly small caucus states.\nMcCain took the big prizes of New York and California.\n“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters ... many of you right here in this room ... have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming president. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America,” Romney said.\nThere were shouts of astonishment, with some moans and others yelling, “No, No.”\nRomney responded, “You guys are great.”\nMcCain prevailed in most of the Super Tuesday states, moving closer to the numbers needed to officially win the nomination. Overall, McCain led with 707 delegates, to 294 for Romney and 195 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at this summer’s convention in St. Paul, Minn.\nBy suspending his campaign, Romney holds onto his delegates, at least until the party convention this summer.\nRomney claimed he was the true conservative in the race while McCain has been criticized by some on the right. McCain acknowledged the \nrocky relationship.\n“I am acutely aware that I cannot succeed in that endeavor, nor can our party prevail over the challenge we will face from either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, without the support of dedicated conservatives,” McCain said in prepared remarks to the same conference.\nRomney acknowledged the obstacles to beating McCain.\n“As of today, more than 4 million people have given me their vote for president, that’s of course, less than Senator McCain’s 4.7 million, but quite a statement nonetheless. Eleven states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he’s doing quite a bit better with the number of delegates he’s got,” Romney said.\nRomney’s departure from the race came almost a year after his formal entrance, when the Michigan native declared his candidacy on Feb. 12, 2007, at the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Dearborn, Mich.
(01/17/08 5:33am)
WASHINGTON – The race ever more chaotic, four Republicans are angling for superiority in a fast-approaching presidential primary in South Carolina, a state known for rough-and-tumble politics and predicting the outcome of the GOP nomination.\nAlthough Nevada holds caucuses Saturday as well, the spotlight is on the first-in-the-South primary; no Republican since 1980 has won the party nod without a South \nCarolina triumph.\n“Truly anything can happen,” Katon Dawson, the state party chairman, said Wednesday, hours after Mitt Romney won his native Midwestern state. “Michigan just shuffled the deck. It’s a whole new game in South Carolina, and, with the undecideds, it can go any way.”\nThe latest South Carolina polls show a close race. A flood of negative phone calls, hard-hitting mail and late-deciders could change that overnight.\nNot even two weeks into voting, three candidates each have one major win thanks to three different constituencies, a reflection of a deeply divided GOP and the absence of an obvious successor to President Bush.\nMike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister, prevailed in the Iowa caucuses with the support of fellow evangelicals. John McCain, the four-term Arizona senator, repeated his 2000 victory in New Hampshire with the overwhelming support of independents. And Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, rallied Republican loyalists to post his first major win in Michigan. Romney also won barely contested Wyoming.\nOn Wednesday, the three set their sights on South Carolina, where rival Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator, has been camping out with hopes of a surprise upset that would upend the race yet again.
(07/12/07 4:00am)
There's a new king of first-person shooters on Xbox 360 and it's called "The Darkness."\nBased on the comic book of the same name, "The Darkness" is the story of mob hit man Jackie Estacado, who on his 21st birthday discovers he is heir to an ancient power that can crush his enemies and summon demon-like entities, among other abilities.\nThe basic shooting mechanics are a little bland, but what really makes the game shine are the Darkness powers.\nKnocking out a few lights, summoning a kamikaze darkling to open up a new path and then sending a tentacle into the next room to rip out a mobster's heart is unlike anything you've done in a game before.\nThe Darkness creature pulsates around Jackie like some kind of ethereal black snake, and the whole thing takes place in one of the most beautifully gritty cities this side of "Grand Theft Auto."\nOn the downside, however, it's a little too easy to get lost and not know what you're supposed to do next.\nFor the completionist, there are 100 collectables to find, a ton of pop culture references (one near the beginning of the game to the Tool song "Rosetta Stoned" especially brought a smile to my face).\nAnd if searching for all the game's secrets ever gets boring, in a technical marvel, TVs throughout the game world play a handful of classic movies in their entirety, such as "To Kill a Mockingbird."\nTop that off with an atmospheric soundtrack that knows exactly when to sound like a horror film and when to sound like a mob epic, and you've got the total package.\n"The Darkness" is a ray of hope during the summer months when quality game releases tend to drop off. Definitely check it out.
(05/16/07 9:44pm)
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Republican presidential contenders agreed on the need for lower taxes and vowed to crack down on federal spending Tuesday night in a campaign debate. They pledged to reduce the massive federal bureaucracy.\n“We’ve had a Congress that’s spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a jab at the Democratic presidential hopeful’s penchant for $400 haircuts.\nHuckabee said he wanted to hang an “Out of Business” sign on the Internal Revenue Service, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said flatly, “I am not going to raise taxes.”\nSen. John McCain of Arizona said he would make sure President Bush’s tax cuts were made permanent, even though he opposed them in 2001.\n“I cut taxes when I was governor,” said Jim Gilmore, former governor of Virginia.\nFormer New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called for “Reagan-like budget cuts across the board” of 5 percent to 20 percent, and Tommy Thompson said he had cast many vetoes as governor of Wisconsin to hold down spending.\nThe 10 White House hopefuls differed only by degree in pledging fealty to Republican economic orthodoxy, although McCain and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo both said the GOP had recently abandoned its longtime tradition of controlling spending.\nLess than two weeks ago, the candidates shared a stage in Simi Valley, Calif., in the first Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.\nIraq and social issues dominated the discourse that night, a preview of Tuesday night’s event in South Carolina, where conservative Christians make up a large chunk of the state’s GOP primary voters.\nSince the California event, Giuliani has reaffirmed his support for abortion rights after his convoluted debate answer on whether he would welcome the Supreme Courtoverturning its landmark decision legalizing abortion. He personally opposes the procedure.\nAlso taking part in the debate were Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Reps. Ron Paul of Texas and Duncan Hunter of California.\nPaul, the Libertarian presidential nominee in 1988, voted against giving Bush the authority to wage war in Iraq in 2002. \nHours before the debate, candidates responded to the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist and Moral Majority founder who was a force in conservative politics.\nMcCain, who once called Falwell and people like him “agents of intolerance,” praised him in a statement as “a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country.” Romney described Falwell as “an American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith.”\nGiuliani told reporters after a tour of the debate site: “He was a man who set a direction. He is someone who is not afraid to speak his mind.”\nThe University of South Carolina’s Koger Center for the Arts was the setting for the debate, sponsored by the South Carolina Republican Partyand Fox News Channel. The channel’s Brit Hume was moderating.\nUnderscoring the dominant issues, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and the South Carolina Young Democrats sponsored a 20-foot mobile billboard to circle the debate site, bearing the phrases: “Republicans, Mission Accomplished?” and “McCain, Mission Accomplished?” Activists affiliated with Planned Parenthood also were holding an abortion-rights rally outside the hall.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – Republican John McCain officially entered the 2008 presidential race Wednesday, stressing his experience honed in war and Washington as he sought to revive his struggling campaign.\n“We face formidable challenges, but I’m not afraid of them. I’m prepared for them,” said the four-term Arizona senator, ex-Navy pilot and former Vietnam captive.\nIn a speech in the first-in-the-nation primary state, McCain stressed the wisdom he’s acquired over time rather than the decades themselves as he sought to make the case that he’s the most qualified to succeed President Bush amid challenges at home and abroad.\n“I’m not the youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced,” said the 70-year-old who could be the oldest first-term president, drawing cheers. “I know how to fight and how to make peace. I know who I am and what I want to do.”\nThe announcement, seven years after he lost the GOP nomination to George W. Bush, was no surprise; McCain’s intentions have long been clear as he has spent months campaigning in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere.\nStill, the event – and a planned four-day romp through early primary states and his Arizona home – gives McCain an opportunity to restart his campaign after a troubling four-month period. He went from presumed front-runner for the GOP nomination at year’s end to trailing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in national polls and ex-Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in money raised.\nAt the same time, McCain became perhaps forever linked to the Iraq war when he assumed the role of top pitchman for Bush’s troop increase. The decline in his popularity has mirrored the waning public support for the four-year-old conflict.\nWith little choice, McCain recently embraced the war with vigor and staked his candidacy to its outcome.\n“I’m not running for president to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things,” he said. “I’m not running to leave our biggest problems to an unluckier generation of leaders, but to fix them now, and fix them well.”\nHe acknowledged mistakes in Iraq, argued that the country was unprepared when it went to war and vowed never to repeat the errors.\nIn an unnamed criticism of both the Bush administration and GOP rival Rudy Giuliani, McCain said the nation “won’t accept that firemen and policemen are unable to communicate with each other in an emergency because they don’t have the same radio frequency,” a problem that led to scores of dead after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.\n“They won’t accept government’s failure to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies or rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity,” he said, a reference to the failings during Hurricane Katrina.\nTo launch his second White House bid with fanfare, McCain returned to the state of his surprising 18-percentage-point upset over Bush in the 2000 primary. Back then, the senator was a plucky upstart seeking to knock off the Texas governor backed by the GOP establishment. After trouncing Bush in New Hampshire, McCain lost to him in South Carolina in a bitter race and the senator’s campaign never recovered.\nNow, as McCain seeks to succeed where he once failed, he is courting the very Republican core he once spurned at nearly every turn, and hopes he can convince the GOP’s skeptical conservative base that he’s the most qualified to lead the country.\n“I know how the military works, what it can do, what it can do better, and what it should not do. I know how Congress works, and how to make it work for the country and not just the re-election of its members,” said McCain, who spent nearly two dozen years in the military – almost six of them as a prisoner in Vietnam – and two dozen more on Capitol Hill.\nIn contrast to his “Happy Warrior” persona, McCain was somber, and at times intense, as he sought to portray himself as the strong and serious leader that the nation needs in a critical time. He was casually dressed in a dark blue sweater.\nMcCain selected Prescott Park for his speech, with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard across the Piscataqua River in Maine – and the word Navy on a watertower – serving as a backdrop and a reminder of his military past. On a cloudy, breezy day, supporters gathered as a band played some warm-up tunes.\nHe offered a litany of the nation’s woes – from the dire financial outlook of Social Security and Medicare to U.S. dependence on foreign oil to substandard health care for veterans – and a repeated vow.\n“That’s not good enough for America. And when I’m president, it won’t be good enough for me.”\nFacing “a global struggle with violent extremists,” McCain said the United States must: “rethink and rebuild” the structure and mission of military intelligence sectors and law enforcement agencies; improve U.S. alliances and strengthen diplomacy with other nations; “marshal all elements of American power;” and “preserve our moral credibility, and remember that our security and the global progress of our ideals are inextricably linked.”\nA well-known deficit hawk, McCain also reiterated familiar themes in calling for curtailing wasteful spending and ending the U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources.\nSuggesting the country’s interests would come before his own political aspirations, McCain belittled “half measures and small-minded politics” as inadequate and promised to work with anyone who was sincere about solving the country’s problems.\n“When a compromise consistent with our principles is within reach, I expect us to seize it,” McCain added, a subtle suggestion that he would not be the same type of leader as Bush, who critics argue shows a stubborn refusal to bend.\nHe announced his bid the same day the Supreme Court heard arguments in Washington on the landmark campaign finance law that bears McCain’s name and that of a Democrat – Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. Conservative groups claim the law violates their free-speech rights but McCain and the Federal Election Commission dispute that assertion.\nUnwilling to let McCain grab all the spotlight, rival Romney lambasted the campaign finance reform law.\nThe McCain-Feingold law is the product of “Washington’s back-scratching political class,” and will restrict the political speech of special interest groups, Romney said, repeating previous criticism. “We step into dangerous territory when politicians start eviscerating our fundamental freedoms in the name of amorphous principles, like campaign finance reform.”
(02/27/07 5:00am)
WASHINGTON – Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani addressed his Democratic past on Monday and offered one reason for his political conversion – the economy and taxes.\n“I don’t think anything separates us more right now between Republicans and Democrats than how we look at taxes,” the former New York mayor said. “What we understand as Republicans is that, sure, the government is an important player in this, but we are essentially a private economy. What Democrats really believe ... is that it is essentially a government economy.”\nIn the days of President John F. Kennedy, Giuliani said, Democrats understood the concept of the private economy and cutting taxes. But Democrats have “kind of lost that,” he said.\n“It’s one of the reasons that I used to be a Democrat and I’m now a Republican,” Giuliani said before quoting Winston Churchill as saying: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart, but if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 40, you have no brain.”\nThe line prompted laughter from Giuliani’s audience, a few hundred people affiliated with the Hoover Institution, a public-policy center.\nAs he seeks the Republican nomination, Giuliani faces the challenge of winning over conservatives who make up the GOP’s base and view him skeptically because of his moderate views on social issues and his past allegiance to the Democratic Party. In 1994, Giuliani endorsed Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo over Republican challenger George Pataki.\nAddressing his political about-face, Giuliani said he once was a Democrat, then spent five years as an independent before finding a home with the Republican Party.\n“Ronald Reagan made only two changes. I was like Churchill – I made three,” he quipped.\nTurning serious, he said he struggled with his political identity while he was an independent.\n“I would say to myself, ‘Democrats care about the poor and Republicans don’t, and how can I join the party that doesn’t care about the poor?’” Giuliani said. “I finally came to the conclusion that we care about the poor more.”\nLater, when questioned on whether he had the foreign-policy credentials to be president, Giuliani sought to diffuse another potential stumbling block to the nomination.\n“What makes you think that the mayor of New York City doesn’t need a foreign policy?” Giuliani asked, as the crowd laughed and applauded.\nTurning serious, he said he traveled the world extensively since being out of office and grasped foreign-policy issues while mayor in the 1990s.\n“It’s something that I think I know, I think I know as well as anybody else who’s running for president, probably better than a lot,” Giuliani said.
(11/07/06 5:43am)
WASHINGTON -- With House control at stake, President Bush campaigned Sunday in endangered Republican districts across GOP-friendly middle America. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, hoping to become the first woman speaker, stumped for Democratic challengers in the left-leaning Northeast."Here's the way I see it," Bush told a crowd inside an auditorium in Grand Island, Neb. "If the Democrats are so good about being the party of the opposition, let's just keep them in the opposition." Republicans are hoping their party's acclaimed get-out-the-vote operation can prevent a Democratic rout in a campaign marked by voter fury over the Iraq war.\nPelosi, D-Calif., was cautiously optimistic about her party's chances Tuesday. \n"We are thankful for where we are today, to be poised for success," she said in Colchester, Conn. "But we have two Mount Everests we have to climb -- they are called Monday and Tuesday."\nHer party appears increasingly confident it can ride a wave of public disenchantment with the administration's policies to victory in the House and, possibly, the Senate.\nTwo days before the election, both parties focused on turning out voters. The numbers historically are low in nonpresidential year elections, with about 40 percent of U.S. citizens of voting age population casting ballots.\nRepublicans and Democrats have sent out thousands of volunteers in states with the most contested races to work phone banks and canvass neighborhoods. Both parties also have assembled legal teams for possible challengers in case of voting problems.\nCandidates were making their final pitches. Republicans repeated their assertion that Democrats would raise taxes and prematurely pull out of Iraq if they controlled Congress. Democrats pressed their case for change, arguing that Republicans on Capitol Hill blindly have followed Bush's "failed policy."\nUp for grabs are 435 House seats, 33 Senate seats, governorships in 36 states, and thousands of state legislative and local races.\nIn 37 states, voters will determine the fate of ballot initiatives, including whether to ban gay marriage, raise the minimum wage, endorse expanded embryonic stem cell research and -- in South Dakota -- impose the country's most stringent abortion restrictions.\nAlready, this is projected to be the most expensive election cycle ever, at $2.6 billion.\nIraq has dominated the campaign season, and Republicans and Democrats sparred over the war again Sunday following Saddam Hussein's conviction on crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to die by hanging; an appeal is planned.\n"To pull out, to withdraw from this war is losing. The Democrats appear to be content with losing," said Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who leads the Senate GOP's campaign efforts.\nInfuriated, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the Democrat in charge of the party's House campaign, shot back: "We want to win, and we want a new direction to Iraq."\nIn his sixth year in office, the president faces the likelihood of losing GOP seats in both the House and the Senate, as well as fewer GOP governors.\nVoters are agitating for change. They give both the president and GOP-controlled Congress low job performance ratings; they do not like the direction the country is headed; and they are particularly frustrated with the war as costs and casualties mount.\n"It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right," Vice President Dick Cheney said.\nCheney told ABC News' "This Week" that the administration would continue "full speed ahead" with its Iraq strategy.\nThat drew a sardonic response from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. "It's full speed ahead over a cliff!" she told supporters at a rally Sunday in Union Vale, N.Y.\nFurther complicating an already difficult environment for the GOP, the public also has been turned off by allegations of corruption in Washington and political scandals dogging the GOP.\n"There's wind in our face," acknowledged Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, the head of the Republican House campaign effort. But, he said, "I believe we have a great opportunity to hold the House by turning the vote out."\nSaid Emanuel, "I'd rather be us than them."\nRaces in more than 50 Republican-held districts are competitive.\nDemocrats initially targeted GOP-held seats left open by retiring Republicans as well as districts where the president won by close margins in 2004 -- many in the Northeast and Midwest. In recent weeks, Democrats have been able to expand the battlefield, making plays for seats long in Republican hands, such as in Wyoming and Idaho.\nThat offensive -- and Bush's unpopularity -- explains why the president was in the midst of a campaign swing in America's most Republican states. He was in Nebraska and Kansas on Sunday to fire up a dispirited conservative base in hopes of saving two seats.\nIn western Nebraska, GOP state Sen. Adrian Smith and Democrat Scott Kleeb are competing to replace retiring Rep. Tom Osborne in a district that last went Democratic 45 years ago. Bush won 75 percent of the district's vote in 2004.\nThe president also was appearing in Topeka, Kan., for Republican Rep. Jim Ryun, who is facing an unexpectedly tough challenge from Democrat Nancy Boyda. The race is a rematch. Ryun beat her two years ago by 15 percentage points.\nIn the increasingly close race for Florida governor, however, Republican candidate Charlie Crist decided to skip an appearance with Bush and instead spend Monday crisscrossing the state.\nPelosi, a Democrat from San Francisco, was appearing at separate events in Connecticut with Democrats Chris Murphy, Joe Courtney and Diane Farrell, Democratic challengers trying to oust GOP Reps. Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Christopher Shays -- three of the most at-risk Republican incumbents.\nRepublicans all but conceded six House seats or more are lost to the Democrats.\nStill, two public polls gave Republicans reason to be hopeful that they could stave off a Democratic takeover.\nRepublicans were posting higher marks among likely voters on the question of which party should control the House, a shift one poll attributed to the GOP making gains among independent voters and party faithful becoming more engaged. The independent Pew Research Center found that Democrats now have a four-point edge over Republicans, narrower than the 11-point advantage two weeks ago.\nCompared with the House, the Senate outcome is more of a question.\nDemocrats need to pick up six seats to win control and are expected to defeat Republican Sens. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island. The state of four races is less clear -- Sens. George Allen in Virginia, Conrad Burns in Montana, Jim Talent in Missouri and the Tennessee seat that Majority Leader Bill Frist is leaving to run for president.\n"We will hold the majority," Dole insisted.\nHer counterpart on the Democratic campaign committee, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said: "We're right on the edge of taking back the Senate. I wouldn't open up the champagne or do the high-fives, but we are feeling very good."\nCheney appeared on ABC's "This Week." Reynolds, Emanuel, Dole and Schumer were on "Meet the Press" on NBC.
(11/07/06 4:13am)
WASHINGTON -- A half-dozen Republican congressmen ushered into office in the 1994 GOP tidal wave that tossed Democrats from power may be swept out Tuesday, casualties of a Democratic surge fueled by voter anger over the Iraq war.On the eve of the midterm elections, Republicans are hoping their acclaimed get-out-the-vote operation will ensure majority control. But some say privately they have a slim chance of retaining the House after a grueling campaign centered on turmoil in Iraq, President Bush's sagging approval numbers, political scandals and corruption investigations.\n"It all gets down to Republicans turning out the vote," said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House GOP's election effort.\nSidelined for 12 years, Democrats appear poised to win the House in a shift that likely would elevate Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California to speaker, the nation's first woman to hold that office, and herald in at least two years of Democratic rule.\n"From the Iraq war to the economy to how the Congress does its work, the American people want a different direction -- and that's what Democrats offer," Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the head of the House Democrats' campaign committee, said Monday.\nAt least 50 Republican seats are endangered, many with incumbents facing fierce challenges from Democrats who have sought to capitalize on the public's intense disenchantment with one-party rule.\nAmong those GOP lawmakers in hard-fought races are several vying for seventh terms, first elected in the Republican revolution of 1994.\nBack then, the party gained 52 seats to end four decades of Democratic control with promises of balancing the budget and enacting term limits. Hankering for a change in the status quo, voters that year elected Newt Gingrich's hard-charging followers who proposed the vaunted Contract with America.\n"The Republicans came to power in 1994 to change Washington, and Washington changed them," Emanuel said Sunday, while he and Reynolds sparred on NBC's "Meet the Press."\nAs Reynolds shook his head in dissent, Emanuel criticized Republicans for adding to the national debt, scandals involving the GOP rank-and-file and losing their way on fiscal and moral issues.\nGingrich's disciples in the most competitive races this year include:\n• John Hostettler in Indiana, a leading voice for social conservatives who was among six House Republicans to vote against authorizing force in Iraq in 2002. He is all but certain to lose to Democrat Brad Ellsworth, a county sheriff, in the district dubbed the "bloody eighth" for it's razor-thin election victories.\n• Steve Chabot in Ohio, a lawyer from Cincinnati who is considered somewhat of a maverick in the party despite his conservative voting record. He faces a spirited challenge from John Cranley, a Cincinnati city councilman who failed to unseat Chabot in a challenge six years ago.\n• Barbara Cubin in Wyoming, a fifth-generation resident of the state and a conservative who champions its mining and agriculture industries. Wyoming hasn't elected a Democrat to Congress since 1976, and Cubin's race against Democrat Gary Trauner, a businessman, only recently became competitive.\n• Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota, who has an occasional independent streak. In the late 1990s, he concluded that Gingrich as speaker had been "a disappointment to everybody" and that the GOP revolution had been exaggerated. Democrat Tim Walz, a high school teacher, is challenging him.\n• Charles Bass in New Hampshire, a moderate who has focused on the environment and opposed the Bush administration's proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He is in a rematch with Democrat Paul Hodes, a lawyer who ran against Bass in 2004.\n• J.D. Hayworth in Arizona, a fierce critic of illegal immigration who advocates strong U.S. borders. He opposed the president's proposal for an expanded guest-worker program until border controls are improved. Former state Sen. Harry Mitchell, a Democrat, is trying to unseat him.\nTwo other members of the rebellious Republican class of 1994 had planned to run for re-election, but they recently resigned from Congress when they became ensnared in separate scandals.\nBob Ney of Ohio pleaded guilty in the influence-peddling investigation surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, while Mark Foley of Florida admitted having sent sexually explicit electronic communications to underage males who worked as House pages. Democrats are poised to win both of their seats.\nIn the minority, Democrats need to gain 15 seats to seize control of the House.\nOn the defensive, Republicans have spent months trying to beat back well-funded Democratic opponents in districts stretching from New Hampshire to California. In the campaign's homestretch, Democrats have widened the battlefield by going after Republicans in states that historically have been solid GOP territory, including Idaho and Kansas.\nClusters of GOP-held seats in the Midwest and the Northeast alone could give Democrats the pickups they need to rise to power.\nFive Republican incumbents in Pennsylvania and three in Connecticut -- more moderate areas of the country -- could end up fired. And in the traditionally conservative Ohio River Valley, four GOP congressman in Ohio and three in Indiana are fighting for their political lives.\nThe 2006 election has been likened to 1994, when backlash against the controlling party -- then the Democrats -- triggered a change in power and ushered in an era of new rulers.\nNow, the tables appear poised to turn -- with Democrats returning the favor to the Contract-With-America crew that booted them out of office.
(06/07/06 11:56pm)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush would get $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the first few months of next year, under a House bill a subcommittee approved Wednesday.\nOn a voice vote, the House defense appropriations subcommittee passed a $427 billion measure for the Pentagon budget year that begins Oct. 1, including operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.\nThe Senate has not yet completed its version of the annual bill.\nHouse lawmakers sliced about $4 billion from the president's spending request for the Pentagon because of what they said were other priorities within the budget and a soaring federal deficit.\n"We did the best we could with the money we had to work with," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the subcommittee. He provided some details of the bill after the panel approved it in a session that was closed to the public.\nOverall, Murtha said, the subcommittee went to great lengths to support the National Guard. The bill, he said, provides $500 million for the Guard to replace equipment tattered in war zones. And it states that the Pentagon plan to drop the number of Guard combat brigades from 34 to 28 is unacceptable, he said.\nHouse lawmakers consider the $50 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan the first installment of what they expect will be continued war costs through 2007, although no one would predict how much more money would be needed.\n"I don't think anybody can see without a crystal ball about next year," said Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., the subcommittee chairman.\nIf approved, the House bill would push total war-related dollars since 2001 toward a staggering half-trillion dollars.\nThe Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that writes reports for lawmakers, says that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, lawmakers already have provided $368 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other costs associated with the war on terrorism.\nAdditionally, a bill making its way through Congress now to pay for the rest of this year's war costs includes another $65.7 billion for the Pentagon, much of which will be used to pay for military operations, maintenance and personnel costs in the two war zones.\nLawmakers say the Pentagon is spending about $8 billion a month in Iraq and $1 billion a month in Afghanistan.
(03/09/06 5:30am)
WASHINGTON -- The White House has spent more than three weeks trying to calm bipartisan outrage in the House and Senate over a Dubai-owned company's efforts to operate some U.S. port terminals.\nBut opposition to DP World's plan has not just persisted -- it has grown.\nDefying President Bush, the GOP-run House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to block the United Arab Emirates-based firm from holding leases or contracts at American ports.\n"One of the most vulnerable situations facing America is our ports of entry," said Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) "Whoever's responsible for those ports of entry should be American."\nThe panel acted without awaiting the outcome of a 45-day review of the DP World takeover's potential security risks, which the administration had agreed to undertake in hopes of extinguishing a political furor.\nAcross the Capitol, Democrats maneuvered for a vote in the GOP-led Senate.\n"We believe an overwhelming majority will vote to end the deal," said Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, whose attempt to force the issue to the floor brought the Senate to a late-afternoon standstill.\nCongressional supporters of the deal "are few and far between," conceded Sen. John Warner, R-Va., an administration supporter.\nSenate Republican leaders are trying to block a vote on the ports deal through a procedural vote that could occur as early as Thursday. That tactic is likely to fail, which could prompt Republicans to temporarily pull a lobbying reform bill from the floor in order to avoid defeat on the ports measure.\nBush has promised to veto any such legislation Congress passes, but there is widespread public opposition to DP World's takeover and the GOP fears losing its advantage on the issue of national security in this fall's elections.\nThe White House said the president's position was unchanged.\nGOP Senate leaders hope to delay a quick showdown with Bush on the issue, but the House committee, led by members of Bush's own party, showed a willingness to defy him on a security issue in an age of terrorism.\nRaising the stakes, the panel attached the ports language to a must-pass $91 billion measure financing hurricane recovery and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The committee was to approve the entire bill late Wednesday and the full House could consider that measure as early as next week.\nWhite House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration was concerned that attempts to address the DP World deal in that bill could delay money needed for U.S. troops and for hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast.\n"We are committed to open and sincere lines of communication and are eager to work with Congress," she said.\nCongressional opponents of the deal hammered away at the security questions they said the ports deal raised.\n"This is a national security issue," said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and the chairman of the House panel, adding that the legislation would "keep America's ports in American hands."\nRep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio.) said allowing the DP World takeover to proceed -- and ignoring the public outcry over it -- would be irresponsible. "The American people elected us to do something when an issue like this comes up," she said.\nOnly Reps. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., and Jim Moran, D-Va., voted against the measure.\n"It is premature, we don't have enough information and ... it may turn out to be unnecessary," Moran said. Added Kolbe: "I just don't think this is the right thing to do."\nTwice, anti-war protesters interrupted the committee meeting. They shouted: "this war is illegal," "stop funding this war," and "the blood is on your hands."\nThe House and Senate developments underscored the extent to which the politically charged issue has come to dominate the agenda in recent days, with Republicans and Democrats competing to demonstrate the strongest anti-terrorism credentials in the run-up to midterm elections.\nRepublicans worked to prevent a vote in the Senate as an aide to Majority Leader Bill Frist said the Tennessean warned Treasury Secretary John Snow "the president's position will be overrun by Congress" if the administration fails to aggressively and clearly communicate with lawmakers during a 45-day review of security implications.\nThe aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private among Snow, Frist and several GOP committee chairmen. The Treasury Department oversees the multi-agency committee that initially approved the DP World takeover.\nRepublicans said it was possible senators would pass a simple symbolic statement in coming weeks that would put the Senate's view of the takeover on record without interfering with it.\nBut by mid-afternoon Wednesday, with the Senate debating legislation to respond to a corruption scandal involving lobbyists, Democrats signaled they wouldn't be satisfied with a weak provision.\nDemocratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters he was prepared to let the lobbying reform bill languish if necessary.\nSenate Republicans accused Schumer of subterfuge in the way he sought to inject the issue into the debate, pointing to a letter earlier this month in which he and other Democrats said they would refrain from seeking immediate legislation.\nSchumer and fellow Democrats brushed that aside, with Reid calling the maneuver "absolutely valid."\nThe political context was unmistakable. Democrats circulated a pollster's memo claiming that recent events had "dramatically reduced" the GOP advantage on national security.\nSome GOP senators accused the House of acting prematurely because of the heat Republicans were taking from their constituents.\n"To kill the deal without a comprehensive solution to port security is just living for the political moment," said Lindsey Graham, R-S.C\nOn the House floor, Democrats failed for the second time in a week to force a debate and vote on separate legislation to block DP World's entry into U.S. port operations. In the committee, Republicans defeated a broader Democratic amendment that would have changed the process the United States uses to approve such foreign investments.\nRepublicans and Democrats in Congress have been assailing the Bush administration for its decision to let DP World purchase Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, a British company that holds leases at several U.S. ports.
(11/18/05 3:49pm)
WASHINGTON -- An influential House Democrat who voted for the Iraq war called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, another sign of growing unease in Congress about the conflict.\n"It is time for a change in direction," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats. "Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region."\nHouse Republicans assailed Murtha's position as one of abandonment and surrender, and accused Democrats of playing politics with the war. "They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said in a statement.\nMurtha estimated that all U.S. troops could be pulled out within six months. A decorated Vietnam veteran, he choked back tears during his remarks to reporters.\nMurtha's comments came just two days after the Senate voted to approve a statement that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" to create the conditions for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.\nIn recent days, President Bush and other top administration officials have lashed out at critics of the war and have accused Democrats of advocating a "cut and run" strategy that will only embolden the insurgency.\nVice President Dick Cheney jumped into the fray Wednesday by assailing Democrats who contend the Bush administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq, calling their criticism "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."\nMurtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, angrily shot back at Cheney: "I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."\nReferring to Bush, Murtha added: "I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he criticized Democrats for criticizing them."\nThe top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Murtha has earned bipartisan respect for his grasp of military issues during three decades in Congress. He planned to introduce a resolution Thursday that, if passed by both the House and the Senate, would force the president to withdraw U.S. troops.\nMurtha could not say whether his caucus supports his position. And, although he is a close adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., she was absent from his news conference.\nLater Thursday, Pelosi said she supported his position that the president's policy is not working and must be changed, but she stopped short of endorsing his call for immediate withdrawal. "Mr. Murtha speaks for himself very eloquently and the district he represents," Pelosi said.\nFor months, Pelosi has pushed for the Bush administration to outline an exit strategy, although she has stopped short of calling for an immediate troop pullout. Some Senate Democrats have called for an immediate or phased withdrawal.\nMurtha voted to give the president authority to use force against Saddam Hussein in 2002 but in recent months has grown increasingly troubled with the direction of the war and with the Bush administration's handling of it.\n"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," Murtha said.\nRep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, said Murtha's call for withdrawal was "reprehensible and irresponsible."\n"It shows the Democratic Party has chosen a policy of retreat and defeatism which will only encourage the terrorists and threaten the stability of Iraq," Granger said.\nFirst elected to Congress in 1974, Murtha is known as an ally of uniformed officers in the Pentagon and on the battlefield. The perception on Capitol Hill is that when the congressman makes a statement on military issues, he's talking for those in uniform.\nKnown to shun publicity, Murtha said he was standing up because he had a constitutional and moral obligation to speak for the troops.\nHis voice cracked and tears filled his eyes as he related several stories of visiting wounded troops, including one who was blinded and lost both his hands but had been denied a Purple Heart because friendly fire caused his injuries.\n"I met with the commandant. I said, 'If you don't give him a Purple Heart, I'll give him one of mine.' And they gave him a Purple Heart," said Murtha, who has two.
(11/16/05 11:52pm)
WASHINGTON -- The GOP-controlled Senate rejected a Democratic call Tuesday for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but urged President Bush to outline his plan for "the successful completion of the mission" in a bill reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with his Iraq policies.\nThe overall measure, adopted 98-0, shows a willingness to defy the president in several ways despite a threatened veto. It would restrict the techniques used to interrogate terror detainees, ban their inhumane treatment and call for the administration to provide lawmakers with quarterly reports on the status of operations in Iraq.\nThe bill was not without victories for the president, including support for the military tribunals Bush wants to use to try detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet even that was tempered, with language letting the inmates appeal to a federal court their designation as enemy combatants and their sentences.\nThe Senate's votes on Iraq showed a willingness even by Republicans to question the White House on a war that's growing increasingly unpopular with Americans.\nPolls show Bush's popularity has tumbled in part because of public frustration over Iraq, a war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 American troops.\nSenate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the outcome was "a vote of no confidence on the president's policies in Iraq." Republicans "acknowledged that there need to be changes made," he said.\nBut Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., trumpeted the chamber's rejection of the Democratic call for a withdrawal timetable.\n"It is an absolute repudiation of the cut-and-run strategy put forward by the Democrats," Frist said.\nThe fate of the legislation is uncertain. The House version of the bill, which sets Pentagon policy and authorizes spending, doesn't include the Iraq language or any of the provisions on the detention, interrogation or prosecution of terrorism suspects.\nThe measure faces a veto threat from the administration over a provision that imposes a blanket prohibition on the use of "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody.\nEven so, the Senate's political statement was clear -- and made even more stinging when the vote was held with Bush abroad, in Asia, an embarrassing step Congress often tries to avoid. With Democrats pressing their amendment calling for a calendar for withdrawal, Republicans worked to fend off a frontal attack by Democrats by calling on the White House to do more.\nIn a 58-40 vote, Senate Republicans killed the measure Democratic leaders had offered to force GOP lawmakers to take a stand on the war.\nThe Senate then voted 79-19 in favor of a Republican alternative stating that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty," with Iraqi forces taking the lead in providing security to create the conditions for the phased redeployment of U.S. forces.\nLike the Democratic proposal, the GOP measure is purely advisory, a statement of the Senate's thinking. It does not require the administration to do anything.\nRather, it simply calls for the Bush administration to "explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq" and to provide reports on U.S. foreign policy and military operations in Iraq every three months until all U.S. combat brigades have been withdrawn.
(11/02/05 5:05am)
WASHINGTON -- Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, questioning intelligence that President Bush used in the run-up to the war in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue. "They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why," Democratic leader Harry Reid said.\nTaken by surprise, Republicans derided the move as a political stunt.\n"The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist. "They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas."\nIn a speech on the Senate floor, Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. The public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.\nReid's move shone a spotlight on the continuing controversy over intelligence that President Bush cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Despite prewar claims, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and some Democrats have accused the administration of manipulating the information that was in its possession.\nVice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted last Friday in an investigation that touched on the war, the leak of the identity of a CIA official married to a critic of the administration's Iraq policy.\n"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions," Reid said before invoking Senate rules that led to the closed session.\nLibby resigned from his White House post after being indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.\nDemocrats contend that the unmasking of Valerie Plame was retribution for her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly challenging the Bush administration's contention that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Africa. That claim was part of the White House's justification for going to war.\nSen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Reid was making "some sort of stink about Scooter Libby and the CIA leak."\nA former majority leader, Lott said a closed session was appropriate for such overarching matters as impeachment and chemical weapons -- the two topics that last sent the senators into such sessions.\nIn addition, Lott said, Reid's move violated the Senate's tradition of courtesy and consent. But there was nothing in Senate rules enabling Republicans to thwart Reid's effort.\nAs Reid spoke, Frist met in the back of the chamber with a half-dozen senior GOP senators, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas, who bore the brunt of Reid's criticism. Reid said Roberts reneged on a promise to fully investigate whether the administration exaggerated and manipulated intelligence leading up to the war.\nInside the Senate, Democrats sought assurances that Roberts would hold hearings into prewar intelligence. The Senate had been considering a budget bill when it went into closed session.
(10/20/05 3:45am)
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday refused to rule out U.S. troops still serving in Iraq in 10 years or the possibility that the United States could use military force against neighboring Syria and Iran.\nRice deferred to the decisions of President Bush and military commanders as Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pressed her for more specifics on the U.S. strategy in Iraq.\nAsked specifically whether the United States would have troops in Iraq in five or 10 years, Rice said: "I think that even to try and speculate on how many years from now there will be a certain number of American forces is not appropriate."\nAt the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan also would not rule out the possibility of a U.S. troop presence that far in the future.\n"In terms of decisions about troop levels, we've always said that we will look to our commanders on the ground, and they will be the ones who will make decisions based on circumstances on the ground," McClellan said.\nLawmakers also pressed Rice on strategy for dealing with Iran and Syria. U.S. officials have accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to flow across its borders into Iraq and Iran of supporting the insurgency.\nRice said the United States was using diplomatic means to urge a change in the behavior of both countries. \n"I'm not going to get into what the president's options might be," she said. "I don't think the president ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force."\nTestifying before the committee for the first time since February, Rice sought to reassure jittery lawmakers that the Bush administration had a plan for success: helping Iraqis clear out insurgents and build durable, national institutions.\nShe said the United States will follow a model that was successful in Afghanistan. Starting next month, she said, joint diplomatic-military groups -- Provincial Reconstruction Teams -- will work alongside Iraqis as they train police, set up courts, and help local governments establish essential services.
(06/16/05 1:58am)
WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter challenged Congress Wednesday to help define legal rights of terrorism-era detainees at Guantanamo Bay, bemoaning a "crazy quilt" system. Top Pentagon and law-enforcement officials defended current practices at the U.S. military prison camp.\n"It may be that it's too hot to handle for Congress, may be that it's too complex to handle for Congress, or it may be that Congress wants to sit back as we customarily do," Specter, R-Pa., said as his panel took testimony on practices and policies at the U.S. military camp at an American Navy base in Cuba.\n"But at any rate, Congress hasn't acted," Specter said.\nThe hearing came against a backdrop of growing reports of U.S. abuse of terror-war prisoners at the camp.\nSen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the committee, called the prison "an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals and remains a festering threat to our security."\nMilitary and Justice Department witnesses claimed that extraordinary steps were being taken to protect unspecified rights of prisoners and to process their cases.\nRear Admiral James M. McGarrah, who monitors the "enemy combatant" detention program for the Navy, told the panel that of the 558 detainees given hearings at Guantanamo, Cuba, 520 were "properly classified" as enemy combatants.\nOf the remaining 38, he said, 23 have been released so far.\n"Because of the highly unusual nature of the global war on terror, and because we do not want to detain any person longer than as necessary, we've taken this unprecedented and historic action to establish this process to permit enemy combatants to be heard while conflict is ongoing," McGarrah said.\nMichael Wiggins, deputy associate attorney general, told the committee that each Guantanamo detainee was given a formal hearing in front of a review panel to ensure they were all properly classified as enemy combatants.\nHe acknowledged that the detainees were not being held "for criminal justice purposes, and is not part of our nation's criminal justice system."\nTheir detention "serves the vital military objectives of preventing captured combatants from rejoining the conflict and gathering intelligence to further the overall war effort, and to prevent additional attacks against our country," Wiggins said.\n"Detainees enjoy some constitutional rights," he said. But he suggested it was hard to specify just which ones.\nSpecter said the "Congress has its work cut out for it" as it studies the procedures used with detainees being held indefinitely at Guantanamo outside the scope of the U.S. judicial system.\n"I think any fair analysis would say that we have a crazy quilt which we are dealing with here," said Specter, citing disappointment with his own past attempts at legislation to more clearly define rights and procedures for enemy-combatant detainees .\nPresident Bush last week appeared to leave open the possibility that the prison would be closed, but Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday he thought the prison would be needed for years to come. Rumsfeld said the military has no other facility that could accommodate that many prisoners.\nOn Wednesday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan appeared to try to tamp down talk of shutting down Guantanamo, saying that Rumsfeld was "talking for the administration" with his comments.\n"There are no plans, as we have said, for closing or shutting down Guantanamo Bay at this time," McClellan said. "But we're always looking about how best to keep America safe and how to deal with these detainees."\nAir Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway told the panel, "America is at war. It is not a metaphorical war. It is as tangible as the blood, the rubble that littered the streets of Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001."\nOf the detainees, "We are holding them humanely," Hemingway said.\nAsked how long they could be held, Hemingway said: "I think we can hold them as long as the conflict endures."\nLeahy questioned the administration's assertion that the prison camp was an essential part of the U.S.-led war on terror. "All of us know this war will not end in our lifetime," Leahy said.\nSen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, said the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo stained the nation's reputation on human rights, inflamed the Muslim world and had become "a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists."\n"Closing Guantanamo makes sense," Kennedy said.