JERUSALEM (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.
"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.
Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.
The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.
"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said "I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."
Bush has consistently placed the blame for the conflict on Hamas, telling reporters on Monday that while he wanted to see a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza, it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire on Israel.
But you gotta admit, bush got some quick moves! That would have hit dead center if it was Cheyney, or Mccain!
Iraq faced mounting calls on Monday to release the journalist who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush, an action branded shameful by the government but hailed in the Arab world as an ideal parting gift to the unpopular US president.
Colleagues of Muntazer al-Zaidi, who works for independent Iraqi television station Al-Baghdadia, said he "detested America" and had been plotting such an attack for months against the man who ordered the war on his country.
"Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever... it expresses how Iraqis and other Arabs hate Bush," wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan's independent Al-Gahd newspaper. Hundreds of Iraqis joined anti-US demonstrations to protest at Bush's farewell visit on Sunday to Iraq, which was plunged into a deadly insurgency and near civil war in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
The Iraqi government branded Zaidi's actions as "shameful" and demanded an apology from his Cairo-based employer, which in turn called for his immediate release from custody.
Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" and threw two shoes at the US leader.
The shoes missed after Bush ducked and Zaidi was wrestled to the ground by security guards. He is currently being held by the Iraqi authorities, a source in Maliki's office said without elaborating.
Al-Baghdadia issued a statement demanding Zaidi's release "in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people."
"Any measures against Muntazer will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime," it added. But the government called for the channel to apologise, saying: "This action harms the reputation of Iraqi journalists and journalism in general."
Saddam Hussein's former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free.
"It was the least thing for an Iraqi to do to Bush, the tyrant criminal who has killed two million people in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Dulaimi.
"Our defence of Zaidi will be based on the fact that the United States is occupying Iraq, and resistance is legitimate by all means, including shoes."
Zaidi's colleagues in Baghdad, where he had worked for three years, said he had long been planning to throw shoes at Bush if ever he got the chance.
"Muntazer detested America. He detested the US soldiers, he detested Bush," said one on condition of anonymity.
Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers pelted it with their shoes.
But young Iraqi woman Oum Mina said she didn't consider Zaidi a hero.
"Bush is our enemy. But when you invite your enemy into your home, you don't treat him this way. This could destroy the image of Iraqis."
Protestors in Sadr City, the bastion of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, however, threw shoes at passing US military vehicles, while in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, the crowds chanted "Down with America."
"All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush," said Ali Qeisi, head of a Jordan-based Iraqi rights group.
"The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East," said Asad Abu Khalil, a popular Lebanese-American blogger and professor at Stanislaus University in California at angryarab.blogspot.com An Iraqi lawyer said Zaidi risked a miminum of two years in prison if he is prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state, but could face a 15-year term if he is charged with attempted murder.
"We fear for his safety," said Muzhir al-Khafaji, programming director for the television channel, adding that Zaidi had been arrested before by the Americans and that there were fears that more of its 200 correspondents in Iraq would be detained. But in Libya, a charity headed by Moamer Kadhafi's daugher Aisha announced it was going to award Zaidi an "order of courage" for his actions.
Mad Scramble to hook up his people before he leave the office....
Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts. The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.
Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.
Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants. Six political appointees to the Senior Executive Service, the government's most prestigious and highly paid employees, have received approval to take career jobs at the same level. Fourteen other political, or "Schedule C," appointees have also been approved to take career jobs. One candidate was turned down by OPM and two were withdrawn by the submitting agency.
The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.
UNITED NATIONS – Pakistan's president pressed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Wednesday to halt cross-border U.S. missile strikes targeting militants in his country's volatile tribal regions, the Pakistani foreign minister said.
"These drone attacks are unproductive, and they are contributing to alienation as opposed to winning people over," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview after briefing reporters on the 20-minute meeting between Rice and President Asif Ali Zardari.
The U.S. military is believed to have carried out at least 18 missile attacks on suspected militant targets close to the border in Pakistan since August. The missiles are believed to be fired from unmanned planes launched in Afghanistan, where some 32,000 U.S. troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban insurgency.
The strikes also should be halted to avoid the inadvertent deaths of civilians, Qureshi said. "In fact, what is required is more sharing of intelligence information. What is required is building Pakistan's capacity to deal with insurgency," he said.
State Department officials declined to comment on the meeting.
President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration presents a fresh opportunity for Pakistan to emphasize more dialogue and development, Qureshi said.
"We'll be discussing with them a more comprehensive strategy. Because Pakistan is of the view that military means is not the be-all and the end-all," he said.
The drone attacks topped the Pakistani concerns aired during the meeting between Rice and Zardari, he said. The two also talked about strategies for dealing with terror networks without inflaming anti-American sentiment and the financial crisis gripping Pakistan and the rest of the world, Qureshi said.
It was one of a series of high-level private talks at the U.N. on Wednesday. These bilateral meetings among world leaders, some including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, occurred on the sidelines of a high-level U.N. interfaith conference organized by the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Rice also met behind closed doors with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Saudi king, two U.S. diplomatic officials said. The State Department declined to comment on those meetings, too.
(WMR) -- WMR has learned from knowledgeable Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sources that the Bush administration is putting the final touches on a plan that would see martial law declared in the United States with various scenarios anticipated as triggers. The triggers include a continuing economic collapse with massive social unrest, bank closures resulting in violence against financial institutions, and another fraudulent presidential election that would result in rioting in major cities and campuses around the country.
In addition, Army Corps of Engineer sources report that the assignment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) to the Northern Command’s U.S. Army North is to augment FEMA and federal law enforcement in the imposition of traffic controls, crowd control, curfews, enhanced border and port security, and neighborhood patrols in the event a national emergency being declared. The BCT was assigned to duties in Iraq before being assigned to the Northern Command.
On April 3, 2008, WMR reported on a highly-classified document regarding the martial law scenario: WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources within the US financial community that an alarming confidential and limited distribution document is circulating among senior members of Congress and their senior staff members that is warning of a bleak future for the United States if it does not quickly get its financial house in order. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those who have reportedly read the document.
The document is being called the “C & R” document because it reportedly states that if the United States defaults on loans and debt underwriting from China, Japan, and Russia, all of which are propping up the United States government financially, and the United States unilaterally cancels the debts, America can expect a war that will have disastrous results for the United States and the world. “Conflict” is the “C word” in the document. The other scenario is that the federal government will be forced to drastically raise taxes in order to pay off debts to foreign countries to the point that the American people will react with a popular revolution against the government. “Revolution” is the document’s “R word.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way:
I am the head of the family , so call me The President .
Your mother is the administrator of the money, so! we call her the Government .
We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People .
The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class .
And your baby brother, we will call him the Future .
Now think about that and see if it makes sense.'
So the little boy! Goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him.
He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.
He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father,
'Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.'
The father says, 'Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.'
The little boy replies,
'The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit .
OK so I took the weekend off, amidst the decline of my own 401K and the feeling like the US economy has finally hit a brick wall, after the Government took away the seatbelt.......
Now for those that follow politics, and market regulation you understand that this was known to be coming, maybe quicker then we thought though.....
So in a nutshell, the Bush administration cut back on regulating wall street.... so when the cats away the mice hand out billions in risky loans, and stocks go through the roof for banks...... Fast Forward to the mortgage crisis, and now stocks and loans look pretty bad.......
AIG gets bailed out for 85 Billion....... enter CRISIS stage left....
Bush appointed Henry Paulson comes in to save the day....... Bush gives a quick speech, then walks away with no questions, then Paulson shows up and says to give him $700Billion dollars no strings attached.....to fix the issue....
The problem is no one has presented how this plan will work, or what happens if/when it fails.....
This plan is so bold faced even the Republican Party is not in support of it..... the administration is painting the democratic congress as holding off the key to this issue, but NO ONE believes this will work.....
In a statement from the Republican Study Committee..
The RSC will be putting out more information throughout the week, but in the meantime, attached is a document listing ten of the major conservative concerns with the Treasury Department's proposal.
TEN CONSERVATIVE CONCERNS WITH THE TREASURY BAILOUT
1) Fundamentally alters the nation's free-market system in that it broadly socializes firm's money-losing mortgage assets and places the U.S. on a slippery slope whereby profits will also be nationalized. Even if one accepts the idea that such a proposal could work, valid questions about whether such a cost is an acceptable trade-off for the market turmoil we are hoping to avoid must be raised.
2) Fails to penalize the debtholders and shareholders (including many of the executives themselves), who should bear the risk of any losses, and indirectly infuses capital onto the books of financial institutions with no recourse.
3) Cedes massive authority to Treasury, with virtually no accountability. The Presidential election is a mere six weeks away and a new Secretary will take office in January 2009. Lawmakers and taxpayers have no idea what individual will ultimately be exercising this vast new authority over the long-term.
4) What if it fails? The plan does not give any consideration to what would occur if this authority failed to solve the current crisis. Those reasons could potentially include risk from other private sector failures outside of mortgage-backed assets, international financial services failures, lack of willing sellers, lack of willing buyers, an understatement of the depth of the problem or the financial commitment needed to abate it, or even the fact that the program might work according to planned but produce no beneficial impact.
5) Forces Treasury to pay inflated prices for assets. Since there is nothing in the proposal that forces financial institutions to sell their assets at a discount rate, or even at all, many of these owners may simply wait out the government to increase their bid, leading to more inflated prices than the market would currently bear.
6) Increases the federal deficit and national debt. The new mandatory spending will cause a massive increase in the national debt and the federal deficit. These annual deficits are funded by selling government bonds purchased by a host of large investors, including foreign countries. There is a limit to the amount of bonds that a government can float without adverse financial effects.
7) Contains no taxpayer protections, such as requiring the cost of purchasing these assets to flow through the annual appropriations process or requiring a participation fee or premium so that firms have to "pay to play."
8) Insulates financial institutions that do not even pose a systemic risk. Some companies may truly pose a systemic risk to the entire market. However, there is no requirement under the proposal that a company truly be "too big to fail." Instead, any financial institution with mortgage-related assets would be eligible.
9) Contains no safeguards against favoritism. Treasury officials will have no criteria for which to prioritize which mortgage-related assets to purchase first, from who, and when.
10) Bails out foreign-owned banks. The latest incarnation of the proposal allows foreign-owned banks and their U.S. subsidiaries to participate. This change runs the risk of forcing taxpayers to subsidize the poor decisions of foreign companies at a time when their local governments are refusing to supply their own capital to make such a subsidy themselves.
I'm Alan Grayson, and I prosecute war profiteers in Iraq. In 2006, I ran for Congress in Orlando, and I lost the Democratic primary by 3000 votes. This year, I ran for Congress again, and I beat the same primary opponent by 7000 votes.
Here's why this time is different, not just for me, but for a lot of other candidates:
(1) People want solutions to their problems, and progressives offer solutions to them. In other years, Democrats supported "centrists," thinking that they could win that way. (Somehow, most Republicans never saw a need to do that.) This year, people want Democrats who are not afraid to be Democrats. They want Democrats with guts. They want Democrats who will stake out our position on what direction is good for America, and then move America in that direction. They want change.
(2) Because our problems are so severe, the last thing that people want to listen to are candidates who talk about themselves. You want to talk about what to do about the economy, health care, education, the war -- good. You want to talk about endorsements, where you're from, your loving spouse -- bad. Our formula was very simple: here's what's wrong, and here's what we're going to do about it. It's not about the candidate. It never is.
(3) The best campaign is one that involves people. Our staff and volunteers knocked on over 100,000 doors, and made over 100,000 phone calls. Our chief opponent ran a TV ad. That's a big difference. What people dislike most about elected officials is the sense that they are being ignored. When you run a campaign that touches people, and listens to them, then you're conveying the idea that you'll keep listening after the election is over.
(4) The best assurance that you can give to people that you'll do something good for them in the future is if you've done something good for them in the past. When I told people that I fight war profiteers in Iraq, it wasn't to make me look good. It was to give people a degree of comfort that I could be counted on to remain a progressive in Congress. And this opens up a wonderful possibility: that public-interest lawyers, and teachers, and social workers, and nurses -- and even documentary makers! -- will have a leg up when they run for public office, because the voters know that they will keep on doing good things for them. So, Robert Greenwald for Governor!
Ok so for the most part I have been giving you all a lot of anti Mccain stories, well here you go.... Just for those that thought the dems were gonna play too soft...... enter Joe Biden Stage left...
As a prelude to this I watched an early Primary, where I was still tossing up between Hillary and Obama on who's policies I liked better.... There was one lone voice I must shoutout that from the Gate stated
"Biden would be the best candidate..... He will chip' Mccain! But the dem's won't let him be on the ticket because he's "TOO REAL"......" ~R. London
Even when the cards were down for Biden, he continued and even educated me to Bidens past, stances, and once again how real he truely was....
Oh and way before the list of VP's was down to 4 or 5 he chanted OBiden' 08! (I told you to buy that website! LOL)
So what does the Biden Factor bring in reference to keeping it real???
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said earlier this week that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.
Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years.
When asked during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, whether he would "pursue the violations that have been made against our Constitution by the present administration", Biden answered in the affirmative.
"We will not be stopped from pursuing any criminal offence that's occurred," he continued, going on to praise congressional committees for the deliberate pace of their inquiries into alleged Bush administration misdeeds.
Members of Congress are "doing the right thing, they're not making false accusations about anything … they're collecting data, subpoenaing records, they're building a file", Biden said.
"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued – not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."
Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".
"[I]f crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. "You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."
When asked about his comments by Fox news today, Biden said he has no evidence that criminal charges would be warranted and no intention of pursuing action against the current president.
"What is true is the United States Congress is trying to preserve records on questions that relate to whether or not the law has been violated by anyone," Biden said, adding: "But, you know, there's been an awful lot of unsavoury stuff that's gone on. And the mere fact … that it occurred in a previous administration doesn't mean [a subsequent] Justice Department, if, in fact, there's evidence, shouldn't pursue them. "But I have no evidence of any of that. No one's talking about pursuing President Bush criminally."
Congressional Democrats have issued a flurry of subpoenas this year to senior Bush administration aides as part of a broad inquiry into the authorisation of torturous interrogation tactics used at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Three Bush White House veterans have been held in criminal contempt of congressional committees for refusing to respond to subpoenas in an inquiry on the firing of federal prosecutors: former counsel Harriet Miers, former political adviser Karl Rove, and current chief of staff Josh Bolten. The battle over Miers's and Bolten's testimony is currently before a federal court.
Story Highlights -Jack Cafferty: McCain gives shallow answers at Saddleback forum
-Why isn't McCain grappling with the complex moral issues we face? Cafferty asks
-Cafferty: We can't afford another president like George W. Bush
-World is too complex to entrust to someone who lacks intellectual curiosity, he says
By Jack CaffertyCNN
Editor's Note: Jack Cafferty is the author of the best-seller "It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America." He provides commentary on CNN's "The Situation Room" daily from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. You can also visit Jack's Cafferty File blog.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Russia invades Georgia and President Bush goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas, on vacation.
His time away from the Oval Office included the month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.
Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California. I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain didn't bother to show up. Now I know why.
It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.
Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not? Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day.
He was asked "if evil exists." His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to "the gates of hell." That was it.
He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich.
One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.
Where are John McCain's writings exploring the vexing moral issues of our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education, America's moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?
John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.
He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.
I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul. George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself. He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.
I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
So the Commander and Chimp has decided to lift the ban on off sure drilling....... The only problem is that every economist says that this will not help with gas prices anytime soon....
Bush agreed with one main argument for restricting drilling - that it would take years for the new supplies to come online. But still, he said that's no reason to not act.
Bush's speech comes at a time when the nation is focused on economic issues. While the economy is not technically in a recession, news on the economic front has not been good.
Home prices are down about 15% nationwide over the last year, according to a recent numbers from the Case/Shiller home price index. The economy has lost jobs for the last six months in a row. And Wall Street has moved into a bear market, with stocks trading 20% below recent highs.
"When will the economy turn around? I'm not an economist," said Bush, responding to a reporter's question. "But I do believe we're growing. I'm an optimist, and there are a lot of positive things about our economy."
Aren't we lucky that our president that has us in two wars now, with a possibility to attack Iran soon.... Highest levels of forclosure and approching $5 gas is optimistic? . . .
I wonder what Mccain's take on this oil crisis is??????
