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2008 Government
News History Archives
ARCHIVES NEWS
Government News History
Archives
Government
Archives
Jack
Abramoff
- Randy
Cunningham- Money
- Government
- Lawmakers
- History
- 2006
Election - California
- Maryland
- "Question
of Timing on Bush’s Push on Earmarks." ... "[Republican]
President Bush has never shown much distaste for Congressional pork." ...
"In the last seven years he has signed spending bills containing about
55,000 earmarks worth more than $100 billion for projects like a new lane
for a local road, a new facade for a town landmark or a weapons contract
for a company that happened to be a big donor to an influential lawmaker."
... "Such projects tucked into the endnotes of complex spending bills at
the request of individual lawmakers with almost no oversight have contributed
to a mounting pileup of waste and corruption, including sending the [Republican]
lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the former [California Republican] congressman
Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, to jail." ... "Mr. Bush was
notably silent on the subject until after his fellow Republicans lost control
of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections." ... "“When the president and
the Republican Congress had the power to address this, they did nothing,”
[Maryland Democratic Representative Chris] Mr. Van Hollen said." -By
David
D. Kirkpatrick -NYTimes
Safety
- Food
- Drug
- Medical
- Manufacturers
- Business- Investigation
- Lawmakers
- Science
- Politics
- "FDA
flawed on food, medical device safety: GAO: When
it comes to the safety of food and medical devices, the Food and Drug Administration
[FDA] has some work to do, government investigators reported to lawmakers
on Tuesday." ... ""FDA has opportunities to better leverage its resources,"
according to a Government Accountability Office [GAO] report presented
at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee.
"Efficient use of resources is particularly important at FDA because we
found that its food safety workload has increased in the past decade, while
its food safety staff and funding have not kept pace."" ... "FDA oversees
about 80% of the U.S. food supply, which includes $417 billion of domestic
food and $49 billion of imported food annually, according to GAO." ...
"In November, an advisory committee to the FDA found that the agency "suffers
from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current
or emerging regulatory responsibilities."" ... "Also Tuesday, the GAO said
FDA has not met its statutory requirement to inspect domestic manufacturers
of medical devices classified as high risk, such as pacemakers, or medium
risk, such as hearing aids, every two years." -By
Ruth Mantell -MarketWatch
Military
- Politics
- Government
- Money
- New
York
- "Army
Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum." ...
"Army officials in upstate New York instructed representatives from the
Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum
Army base with their military disability paperwork last year. That paperwork
can be crucial because it helps determine whether soldiers will get annual
disability payments and health care after they're discharged." ... "Now
soldiers at Fort Drum say they feel betrayed by the institutions that are
supposed to support them. The soldiers want to know why the Army would
want to stop them from getting help with their disability paperwork and
why the VA— whose mission is to help veterans — would agree to the Army's
request." ... "Cynthia Vaughan, spokeswoman for the Army surgeon general,
says the VA was not doing anything wrong by helping soldiers at Fort Drum."
... "She says the officers who asked the VA to stop helping Fort Drum's
soldiers were part of what the Army calls a "Tiger Team"— an ad-hoc group
assigned to investigate, in this case, medical disability benefits." -By
Ari Shapiro -NPR
Government
- Spy
- Intelligence
- Imagery
- Technology
- Communications
- California
- "U.S.
Spy Satellite, Power Gone, May Hit Earth." ... "A
disabled American spy satellite is rapidly descending and is likely to
plunge to Earth by late February or early March, posing a potential danger
from its debris, officials said Saturday." ... "Officials said that they
had no control over the nonfunctioning satellite and that it was unknown
where the debris might land." ... "Specialists who follow spy satellite
operations suspect it is an experimental imagery satellite built by Lockheed
Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in December
2006 aboard a Delta II rocket. Shortly after the satellite reached orbit,
ground controllers lost the ability to control it and were never able to
regain communication." ... ""It's not necessarily dead, but deaf," said
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics and an analyst of various government space programs."
-NYTimes
John
Edwards
- Consumer
- Marketplace
- Politics
- Government
- Law
- 2008
Election - North
Carolina - South
Carolina - "Health
Care Up to Public, Edwards Says." ... "[2008 Election
Democratic Presidential Candidate and North Carolina's] Former Senator
John Edwards does not discount the possibility that his health care proposal,
which would allow Americans to buy new government insurance packages modeled
on Medicare, could evolve into a federalized system like those in Canada
and many European countries. And if it does, Mr. Edwards said he would
be just fine with that." ... "But Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina, emphasized
in a 40-minute interview on health policy that the choice would be made
not in Washington, but by consumers in an open marketplace where private
insurance competes with government plans." ... "“American health consumers
will decide which works best,” Mr. Edwards said Wednesday afternoon while
traveling through South Carolina on his campaign bus. “It could continue
to be divided. But it could go in one direction or the other, and one of
the directions is obviously government or single-payer. And I’m not opposed
to that.”" ... "If the government is able to undercut private insurers
on price — by forgoing profit, reducing overhead, and maximizing economies
of scale — it theoretically could put the private system out of business
and become the de facto insurer for the nation." ... "Republican candidates
and policy strategists have raised the specter of “socialized medicine”
and depicted the Democratic plans as a back-door route to a so-called single-payer
government system." ... "Mr. Edwards brushed off that critique. “There
is nothing back-door about it,” he said. “It’s right through the front
door. We’re going to let America decide what health care system works for
them.”" (1, 2)
-By Kevin
Sack -NYTimes
Telecom
- Amnesty
- Corporate
- Government
- Intelligence
- Surveillance
- Wisconsin
- Nevada
- Connecticut
- "Feingold:
"I Really Do Disagree" With Reid On FISA." ... "A
long-debated provision over whether or not telephone companies would get
a free pass for aiding the U.S. [United States] government in warrentless
surveillance hits the Senate floor today. And it threatens to open up fissures
within the Democratic Party." ... "In an interview with the Huffington
Post on Thursday morning, [Wisconsin Democratic Senator] Sen. Russ Feingold,
who opposes granting immunity to those companies, expressed disappointment
that his party's leader, [Nevada Democratic Senator] Sen. Harry Reid, was
not doing more to help strike the provision from a newly considered version
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." ... ""Of course I have great
respect for the Majority Leader," said Feingold. "He is a good friend of
mine. But I really do disagree with his way of proceeding."" ... "At issue
is the likely passage of a version of FISA that contains retroactive immunity
over one that doesn't. Reid has said he supports the former, but legislatively,
the path has been paved for the passage of the latter. In addition, there
is debate over an amendment offered by [Connecticut Democratic Senator]
Sen. Chris Dodd, to strip immunity from any FISA bill. If that fails --
and it seems likely -- Dodd has threatened to filibuster the whole bill.
On Wednesday, Reid was interpreted as saying any such filibuster will be
the standing and talking variety as opposed to an agreed-upon 60-vote minimum
threshold. Feingold, who supports Dodd's stance, took slight issue with
that approach." ... ""We should have a normal process w[h]ere this is debated
based on a majority vote in the senate," said the Wisconsin Democrat. "That's
the way it should have been done and I regret that it's not being done
that way. Of course, I support Senator Dodd. He and I were principally
involved in making sure this didn't get jammed through before the holidays
and I will be supporting him again. But this decision does make it harder.""
-By Sam
Stein -HuffingtonPost.com
US
Immigration - Federal
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
- Arizona
- Minnesota
- Georgia
- Colorado
- "Immigration
officials detaining, deporting American citizens."
... "Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but
immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia."
... "Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks
in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country
he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was
an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota
birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded
that he was a U.S. [United States] citizen a year before it shipped him
to Arizona." ... "On Thursday, Warziniack was told he would be released.
Immigration authorities were finally able to verify his citizenship." ...
""The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack
said in a phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped
the ball."" ... "The story of how immigration officials decided that a
small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant
illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes
deports American citizens." ... "U.S. citizens who are mistakenly jailed
by immigration authorities can get caught up in a nightmarish bureaucratic
tangle in which they're simply not believed." ... "Unlike suspects charged
in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have
a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves.
Less affluent or resourceful U.S. citizens who are detained must try to
maneuver on their own through a complicated system."
-By
Marisa Taylor with contributions
by Tish Wells
-McClatchyDC.com
Dick
Cheney
- US
- Iraq
- Military
- Government
- Intelligence
- Politics
- Language
- Database
- History
- "Bush
Administration Lied 935 Times About Iraq Before Invasion:
Study: President [Republican President Bush] cited as most frequent liar,
with 259 false statements about weapons of mass destruction and more."
... "For years, the [Republican President] Bush administration has faced
charges that it bent the truth or flat-out misled the public about Iraq's
alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the
2003 invasion of the country. Now, a study by two nonprofit journalism
organizations claims that President Bush and top officials in his administration
issued nearly 1,000 false statements about the security threat posed by
Iraq in the wake of 9/11." ... "Relying on what it described as a "massive
database" of information that fed the results of the project, the authors
said their research was based on juxtaposing what President Bush and the
top officials in his administration said in public against what was known,
"or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis." The searchable database
includes public statements drawn from both primary sources like official
transcripts and secondary sources like the reporting of major news organizations
over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also used information
from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews."
... "An example given in the report is a portion of an address given at
the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on August 26, 2002,
during which Cheney said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing
them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." According
to the report, former CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Director George
Tenet later said Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments
at the time, and another CIA official, referring to the speech, told a
prominent journalist, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff
from?' "" ... "As for criticism that the report does not have any new information
but rather rehashes already-reported facts, [Center for Public Integrity
spokesman Steve] Carpinelli said, "The difference is that while there have
been many intelligence reports that came out that contradicted a lot of
statements from administration officials, there's been nothing that could
show you how it was a coordinated effort." The report is accompanied by
a bar graph that Carpinelli said shows how the false statements reached
their peak in the months prior to the March 2003 launch of the Iraq war
and how they tapered off soon after." -By Gil Kaufman
-MTV.com
US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Military
- Politics
- US_Debt
- Government-
"U.S.
war costs in Iraq up-budget report." ... "War funding,
which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to
$120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and [Republican] President
George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008, the nonpartisan office
[Congressional Budget Office: CBO] wrote." ... "Since the September 11,
2001, attacks on the United States, Congress has written checks for $691
billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities
as Iraq reconstruction, the CBO said." ... "Of the total, the CBO estimated
that $440 billion had been spent on fighting in Iraq launched with the
goal of ousting President Saddam Hussein from power and securing weapons
of mass destruction that were never found." ... "All of the Iraq and Afghanistan
war money -- about $11 billion a month -- is effectively being put on a
government credit card at a time when U.S. [United States] government debt
has skyrocketed to more than $9 trillion, up from around $5.6 trillion
when [Republican President] Bush took office in January 2001." ... "Bush
has opposed paying the cost of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan with
tax increases or other specific offsets." (1, 2,
3)
-By Richard Cowan with contributions by Howard Goller
and Doina Chiacu -Reuters
Iraq
- Law
- Politics
- Jobs
- Teachers
- People
- Police
- Government
- Military
- History
- US
- "Iraq's
New Law on Ex-Baathists Could Bring Another Purge."
... "Maj. Gen. [Major General] Hussein al-Awadi, a former official in Saddam
Hussein's Baath Party, became the commander of the Iraqi National Police
despite a 2003 law barring the party from government." ... "But now, under
new legislation promoted as way to return former Baathists to public life,
the 56-year-old and thousands like him could be forced out of jobs they
have been allowed to hold, according to Iraqi lawmakers and the government
agency that oversees ex-Baathists." ... ""This new law is very confusing,"
Awadi said. "I don't really know what it means for me."" ... "He is not
alone. More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. [United States] officials
and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews
that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of
U.S. hopes for the legislation. " ... "The very first decree of the U.S.-led
occupation government was to disband the Baath Party and purge its members
from the government. Issued May 16, 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority
Order No. 1 also banned the top four ranks of the Baath Party from public-sector
jobs." ... "U.S. officials believed the order would remove about 20,000
Baathists, or 1 percent of the 2 million people in Iraq said to be party
members, according to L. Paul Bremer, then the occupation administrator."
... "He blamed the Iraqi politicians who oversaw the de-Baathification
process in mid-2003 for going beyond the intention of the order and purging
thousands of additional people, including about 11,000 teachers." ... "The
Iraqis tell a different story. According to Ali Faisal al-Lami, executive
director of the de-Baathification commission, Bremer's order pushed 140,000
Iraqis out of their jobs." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Amit R. Paley and Joshua Partlow-WashingtonPost
Mitch
McConnell - Noteworthy
- Government
- Intelligence
- Surveillance
- Corporate
- Telecom
- Amnesty
- Politics
- Nevada
- Kentucky
- Vermont
- Connecticut
- Wisconsin
- "Your
Harry Reid-led Senate in action." ... "[Nevada Democratic
Senator] Harry Reid -- who has (a) done more than any other individual
to ensure that Bush's demands for telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping
powers will be met in full and (b) allowed the Republicans all year to
block virtually every bill without having to bother to actually filibuster
-- went to the Senate floor yesterday and, with the scripted assistance
of [Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell and [Vermont Democratic
Senator] Pat Leahy, warned [Connecticut Democratic Senator] Chris Dodd,
[Wisconsin Democratic Senator] Russ Feingold and others that they would
be selfishly wreaking havoc on the schedules of their fellow Senators (making
them work over the weekend, ruining their planned "retreat," and even preventing
them from going to Davos!) if they bothered everyone with their annoying,
pointless little filibuster." ... "To do so, Reid announced that, unlike
for the multiple filibusters from Republican colleagues, he would actually
force Dodd and company to engage in a real filibuster. This is what Reid
said:"
"[I]f
people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in
here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster
on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in
the openness of the Senate."
"That
is what Democrats have been urging Reid to do to the filibustering Republicans
all year -- in order to dramatize their obstructionism -- but he has refused
to make them actually filibuster anything, generously agreeing instead
that every bill requires 60 votes. Instead, he reserves such punishment
only for the members of his own caucus trying to take a stand for the rule
of law and the Constitution, those who are trying finally to bring some
accountability to this administration." -By Glenn
Greenwald -Salon
Alberto
Gonzales
- Pete
Domenici - Heather
Wilson - Criminal
- US
Attorneys - Politics
- Hatch
Act - Federal
- Law
- Civil
Rights - 2006
Election - 2008
Election - New
Mexico - Minnesota
- "Attorneys
probe deepens." ... "The federal investigation into
the firing of nine U.S. attorneys could jolt the political landscape ahead
of the November [2008] elections, according to several people close to
the inquiry." ... "Washington’s attention has been diverted from the scandal
since the August resignation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, and
has focused instead on Democrats’ efforts to hold White House officials
in contempt for ignoring congressional subpoenas to testify on Capitol
Hill about the firings." ... "But recent behind-the-scenes activity in
several investigations suggests that the issue that roiled Congress in
2007 could re-emerge in the heat of the [2008] election year. Two inquiries
by the House and Senate ethics committees are examining whether several
congressional Republicans, including one running for the Senate this year,
improperly interfered with investigations." ... "As potent as the congressional
probes might be, they appear to be far narrower than a sprawling inquiry
launched by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)
and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)." ... "Investigators
from these offices have been questioning whether senior officials lied
to Congress, violated the criminal provisions in the Hatch Act, tampered
with witnesses preparing to testify to Congress, obstructed justice, took
improper political considerations into account during the hiring and firing
of U.S. attorneys and created widespread problems in the department’s Civil
Rights Division, according to several people familiar with the investigation."
... "The internal Justice Department probe cannot bring charges but can
refer findings to a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia or a special
prosecutor, who could then pursue a criminal investigation." ... "[Former
New Mexico U.S. Attorney David] Iglesias’s case is in the crosshairs of
all three investigations. Testifying before Congress, he alleged last year
that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) pressured
him to accelerate an investigation of a Democratic politician in New Mexico
ahead of Wilson’s tight [2006] reelection bid. Iglesias said he did not
plan to bring charges before the November elections, and was fired in December
2006." ... "In a sign that the investigation has widened beyond the nine
fired attorneys, Justice last summer interviewed Thomas Heffelfinger, U.S.
attorney in Minnesota, who resigned before it was revealed that he was
targeted for dismissal." -By Manu Raju
-TheHill.com
Environmental
- Corporate
- Government
- Law
- Politics
- Investigation
- California
- Cars
- Emissions
- "EPA
won't give details on denying emissions waiver."
... "Invoking executive privilege, the [Republican President Bush run]
U.S. [United States] Environmental Protection Agency refused to provide
lawmakers Friday with a full explanation of why it rejected California's
greenhouse gas regulations." ... "The EPA informed [California Democratic
Senator] Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had
requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications
that would not be shared with Congress." ... "The refusal to provide a
full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into
why the EPA denied California permission to impose what would have been
the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport
utility vehicles." -AP
via -SFGate.com
Dick
Cheney
- Government
- Electronic
- E-Mail
- History
- Censorship
- Politics
- Presidential
Records Act - Archives
- Law
- Calif
- "White
House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone." ... "The
[Republican President Bush] White House possesses no archived e-mail messages
for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the
President and the Office of the Vice President [Dick Cheney], for hundreds
of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal
White House study that was disclosed yesterday by a congressional Democrat."
... "The 2005 study -- whose credibility the White House attacked this
week -- identified 473 separate days in which no electronic messages were
stored for one or more White House offices, said House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee Chairman [California Democratic Representative] Henry
A. Waxman (D-Calif.)." ... "Waxman said he decided to release the summary
after White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that there is "no
evidence" that any White House e-mails from those years are missing. Fratto's
assertion "seems to be an unsubstantiated statement that has no relation
to the facts they have shared with us," Waxman said." ... "The competing
claims were the latest salvos in an escalating dispute over whether the
[Republican President] Bush administration has complied with long-standing
statutory requirements to preserve official White House records -- including
those reflecting potentially sensitive policy discussions -- for history
and in case of any future legal demands." ... "The White House is required
by law to preserve e-mails considered presidential or federal records,
and it is the target of several lawsuits seeking information about missing
data and efforts to preserve electronic communications." (1, 2)
-By Dan Eggen and Elizabeth Williamson
-WashingtonPost
Government
- Computer
- E-Mail
- Archives
- Law
- Politics
- US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Videotapes
- Presidential
Records Act - "White
House Tape Recycling May Have Erased Controversial E-Mails."
... "The [Republican President Bush] White House has acknowledged in a
new court filing that it routinely recycled computer backup tapes containing
its e-mail records until October 2003, a practice that could mean that
many electronic messages from the first two years of the [Republican President]
Bush administration are lost forever." ... "The disclosure raises the possibility
that the White House effectively erased e-mail related to some of the biggest
controversies of the Bush administration, including the leak of a CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency] officer's name, the start of the Iraq war and the
CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes." ... "The backups are meant
to preserve records in case of a disaster. They also serve a role in ensuring
that federal record-keeping laws are met, according to administration officials
and records management experts. Two separate statutes require the White
House to preserve federal or presidential records." ... "In their lawsuit,
the two advocacy groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
and the National Security Archive, allege that millions of e-mail messages
are missing from White House servers between 2003 and 2005." -By
Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost
Corporate
- Government
- Louisiana
- 2008
Election - "Richard
Baker to leave Congress by Feb. 6." ... "The dean
of Louisiana's congressional delegation, [Republican Representative] Rep.
Richard Baker, has decided to step down from Congress after 22 years to
take a lucrative job in the private sector representing investors he has
spent a career regulating." ... "The announcement by the Baton Rouge [Louisiana]
Republican was not unexpected and makes him the third member of the state's
seven-member House delegation in the past two months to resign or announce
plans to resign." ... "Baker, 59, a senior member of the House Financial
Services Committee will take the helm of the Managed Funds Association,
the industry group that represents the $1.8 trillion hedge fund industry.
As president and CEO, his salary and benefits package is expected to exceed
$1 million a year." -By Bill Walsh
-NOLA.com
John
Edwards
- Hillary
Clinton
- Barack
Obama - Government
- Economy- Workers
- Families
- Alternative
Energy - Consumer
- 2008
Election
- "Responding
to Recession." ... "On the Democratic side, [2008
Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] John Edwards, although never
the front-runner, has been driving his party’s policy agenda. He’s done
it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus
turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including
aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments,
public investment in alternative energy, and other measures." ... "Last
week [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Hillary Clinton
offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes
aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a
clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The
Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus
if the economy worsens." ... "And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems
comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I’m sure the
Hillary-haters will find some reason that’s a bad thing, but there’s something
to be said for presidents who know what they’re talking about." ... "The
[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama campaign’s
initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry
to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the
long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what
we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer
spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax
cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting
measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?" ... "Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama
came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care
plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is
similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the
right." ... "I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but
he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy."
-By Paul
Krugman -NYTimes
John
Edwards
- Peoples
- Families
- Lawyer
- Corporate
- Government
- Drug
Companies - Health
Care - 2008
Election - "Corporate
elite fear candidate Edwards." ... "Ask corporate
lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients
and the answer is almost always the same -- [2008 Election Democratic Presidential
Candidate] Democrat John Edwards." ... "His stump speeches are peppered
with attacks on "corporate greed" and warnings of "the destruction of the
middle class."" ... "He accuses lobbyists of "corrupting the government"
and says Americans lack universal health care because of "drug companies,
insurance companies and their lobbyists."" ... "An Edwards campaign spokesman
said on Thursday that inside-the-Beltway operatives who fight to defend
the powerful and the privileged should be afraid." ... ""The lobbyists
and special interests who abuse the system in Washington have good reason
to fear John Edwards." ... ""Once he is president, the interests of middle
class families will never again take a back seat to corporate greed in
Washington," said campaign spokesman Eric Schultz." ... "Open attacks on
the business elite are seldom heard from mainstream White House candidates
in America, despite skyrocketing CEO pay, rising income inequality, and
a torrent of scandals in corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street." (1,
2,
3)
-By Kevin Drawbaugh with contributions by John Wallace
-Reuters
Opinion
- Government
- Money
- History
- "Moody’s
says spending threatens US rating." ... "The US [United
States] is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within
a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and
social security spending, Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said on Thursday."
... "The warning over the future of the triple-A rating – granted to US
government debt since it was first assessed in 1917 – reflects growing
concerns over the country’s ability to retain its financial and economic
supremacy. " -By Francesco Guerrera, Aline van Duyn
and Daniel Pimlott -FT.com
John
Ashcroft - Michael
B Mukasey
- Alberto
R Gonzales - Debra
Wong Yang - Criminal
- Corporate
- Government
- Lawyers
- US
Attorneys - Politics
- Medical
- New
Jersey - Indiana
- New
York
- Los
Angeles - California
- "Ashcroft
Deal Brings Scrutiny in Justice Dept.." ... "When
the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey [Christopher J. Christie] needed
to find an outside lawyer to monitor a large corporation willing to settle
criminal charges out of court last fall, he turned to [Republican] former
Attorney General John Ashcroft, his onetime boss. With no public notice
and no bidding, the company awarded Mr. Ashcroft an 18-month contract worth
$28 million to $52 million." ... "That contract, which Justice Department
officials in Washington learned about only several weeks ago, has prompted
an internal inquiry into the department’s procedures for selecting outside
monitors to police settlements with large companies." ... "The contract
between Mr. Ashcroft’s consulting firm, the Ashcroft Group, and Zimmer
Holdings, a medical supply company in Indiana, has also drawn the attention
of Congressional investigators." ... "The New Jersey prosecutor, United
States Attorney Christopher J. Christie, directed similar monitoring contracts
last year to two other former Justice Department colleagues from the [Republican
President] Bush administration, as well as to a former Republican state
attorney general in New Jersey." ... "Officials said that while there had
been no accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Christie or Mr. Ashcroft,
aides to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey were concerned about the appearance
of favoritism." ... "Mr. Mukasey, a former federal judge who was sworn
in as attorney general in November, has vowed to remove political considerations
from decision-making at the department in the wake of a series of scandals
under his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales." ... "In the Bush administration,
federal prosecutors have increasingly relied on out-of-court settlements
with large corporations in criminal investigations that in the past might
have resulted in indictments and trials." ... "Mr. Christie directed similar
contracts in settlements with other medical-supply companies to two other
former Justice Department colleagues — David N. Kelley, the former United
States attorney in Manhattan [New York], and Debra Wong Yang, his counterpart
in Los Angeles [California] — and to David Samson, the former Republican
attorney general in New Jersey." (1, 2)
-By Philip Shenon -NYTimes
Secretive
- Criminal
- Government
- Telephone
- Surveillance
- Intelligence
- Law
- Accounting
- US
- Foreign
- Terrorism
- Politics
- "FBI
Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills." ... "Telephone
companies have cut off FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] wiretaps used
to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures
to pay phone bills on time." ... "A Justice Department audit released Thursday
blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in
undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed
one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said." ... "In at least one case,
a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation
"was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA [Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act] wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive
and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected
terrorists or spies." ... ""We also found that late payments have resulted
in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established
to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence,"
according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine." -By
Lara Jakes Jordan -SFGate.com
John
Doolittle
- Jack
Abramoff
- Brent
Wilkes - Randy
Cunningham - Military
- Government
- Money
- Politics
- San
Diego - California
- "Lawmaker
Tied to Abramoff to Retire." ... "[Republican] Representative
John Doolittle of California, once a rising star in the Republican Party
but more recently under investigation in a scandal involving the disgraced
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, announced his retirement from Congress on Thursday,
declaring that it was time for a new chapter in his life." ... "He stepped
down last April from the powerful Appropriations Committee after he was
linked to three inquiries involving accusations that panel members accepted
bribes or campaign contributions in exchange for earmarking federal money
to certain projects." ... "Mr. Doolittle has also been under scrutiny for
the role that Mrs. Doolittle has played as a fund-raiser for her husband.
Under the arrangement, the Doolittles kept some of the contributions given
to his campaign committees, blurring the distinction between personal and
campaign contributions." ... "Finally, Mr. Doolittle is under investigation
for his ties to Brent Wilkes, a San Diego [California] military contractor
who was convicted in November of 13 felonies related to the bribery of
former Representative Randy Cunningham, another California Republican."
-By David Stout -NYTimes
US
- Iraq
- Blackwater
- Government
- Politics
- Human
Rights - Law
- Michigan
- "Blackwater
USA steps up lobbying efforts." ... "Private-security
contractor Blackwater Worldwide, which protects U.S. [United States] government
officials in Iraq and faces scrutiny over its role in the shooting deaths
of Iraqi civilians, has ramped up its lobbying representation on Capitol
Hill." ... "Law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice was tapped by
the company, whose chairman is Erik Prince, a Holland [Michigan] native.
They've been hired to lobby the government on contracting and other issues,
according to the form posted online Tuesday by the Senate's public records
office." ... "The company has attracted considerable congressional scrutiny
and criticism from the Iraqi government and human rights groups for its
involvement in several dozen shooting incidents." ... "Prince, a former
Navy SEAL, is a Holland native whose family fortune was made in the auto
parts industry. His sister, Betsy DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan
GOP [Grand Old Party=Republican], is married to Dick DeVos, a Republican
and Amway Corp. heir who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006."
-AP via -MLive.com