Bill Clinton profits from company tied to felon, China
by Jim McElhatton
The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show. |
FBI Probes Growing Scandal at RNCC
by Dave McKinley
The FBI has confirmed for the New York Times that it is now investigating the actions of the former Treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee--who was appointed to that post by Western New York Congressman Tom Reynolds.Now those who seek to unseat Reynolds in Congress are making political hay of that fact. |
Highway blogger' found not guilty - Phillips accused of blocking city sidewalk
by Clarke Morrison
A judge today found Jonas Phillips, also known as Asheville's "highway blogger," not guilty in a trial today in Buncombe County District Court.Phillips, 36, of West Asheville, was charged with blocking a public sidewalk. On Aug. 15, he was arrested on the Haywood Road bridge over Interstates 240 and 26 after he displayed an "Impeach Bush, Cheney" sign on the bridge. |
Arrests of Homeland Security agents on bribery and drug charges have a top executive of the agency worried.
by Jay Weaver and Alfonso Chardy
Bribery. Drug trafficking. Migrant smuggling.U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes. Instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the ''disturbing events'' and the ``increase in the number of employee arrests.'' |
Court Order Sought in E-Mail Controversy
by Pete Yost
A private group told a federal court that the Bush administration made apparently false and misleading statements in court about the White House e-mail controversy.The group asked the judge on Thursday to demand an explanation regarding alleged inconsistencies between testimony at a congressional hearing last week and what the White House told a federal court in January. |
McCain's Nuclear Waste - How the Arizona senator doomed his own global warming legislation with billions in nuclear subsidies
by David Corn
On January 9, 2003—five years before he would become the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee—Senator John McCain strode to the Senate floor and began a speech by citing the National Academy of Sciences: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." He then pointed to a host of scientific studies that had outlined the negative consequences of global warming. "The United States must do something," he proclaimed, announcing that he and Senator Joseph Lieberman were introducing legislation that day to establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and set up a system for the trading of emissions credits. |
Employment Falls for Second Month
by Edmund L. Andrews
The worst fears of consumers, investors and Washington officials were confirmed on Friday, as deepening paralysis on Wall Street collided with stark new evidence of falling employment and a likely recession.In a report that was far worse than most analysts had expected, the Labor Department estimated that the nation had lost 63,000 jobs in February. It was the second consecutive monthly decline, and third straight drop for private-sector jobs. |
Obama vies to push back, stay positive - Hitting Clinton harder could imperil his message
by Scott Helman
As the Democratic primary race enters a new, critical phase, Senator Barack Obama's campaign is wrestling with how to respond forcefully to Hillary Clinton's recent attacks on his record without violating the positive, uplifting spirit at the core of his message. |
Blackwater pulls application for Potrero training center
by Anne Krueger
Blackwater Worldwide officials have announced they are pulling their application to build a training center on an 824-acre site in the East County community of Potrero.The North Carolina-based company dropped off a letter to the county planning department today notifying officials of their decision not to pursue plans for the project on a former chicken and cattle ranch. |
Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore - Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions
by Farah Stockman
Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven. |
U.S. Consumer Borrowing Rose, Led by Credit Cards (Update1)
by Vincent Del Giudice
U.S. consumer borrowing rose in January as Americans spent twice as much on their credit cards as they did a month earlier.Consumer credit increased by $6.9 billion to $2.52 trillion, the Fed said today in Washington. In December, credit gained $3.7 billion, less than a previously reported increase of $4.5 billion. The figures don't include borrowing secured by real estate, such as home-equity loans. |
U.S. troops buy own gear for safety, style
by Patrik Jonsson
Commando Military Supply on Victory Drive here is about as different from a musty Army surplus store as you can imagine.More REI than M.A.S.H., Commando is regularly jam-packed with deploying grunts and sergeants, poking around for custom gear including $200 flashlights, $150 Oakley protective sunglasses, $180 Thinsulate boots, and $20 thermal socks. |
The Politics of Fear---Again
by Ruth Rosen
Although I have supported Barack Obama in the primaries, I would not be devastated if Hillary Clinton should turn out to be the Democratic nominee. What does upset me, however, is how Clinton is employing the politics of fear and how much she emphasizes national security in order to mobilize support for her campaign. |
Bush Poised to Veto Waterboarding Ban - Move Could Reverberate in Campaign
by Dan Eggen
President Bush today will veto legislation meant to ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics and will argue that the agency needs to use tougher methods than the U.S. military to wrest information from terrorism suspects, administration officials said. |
Clinton: I've crossed commander-in-chief threshold
by Rick Pearson
In a Cabinet-style setting, surrounded by retired military leaders, Sen. Hillary Clinton said the public should ask whether Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has met the criteria needed to become the nation’s commander in chief.“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold,” the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant’s bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington. |
Rube Goldberg, Meet Rush Limbaugh
by E. J. Dionne Jr.
There they go again. Democrats have contrived a nominating contest that even Rube Goldberg would have considered too convoluted, too dysfunctional and too improbable to name as his own.The happiest people in the country right now are Hillary Clinton and Rush Limbaugh -- Clinton because she has survived, and Limbaugh, because he's eager for the contest to go on so Barack Obama can be "bloodied up." Talk about a vast and unexpected conspiracy. |
McCain Loses Cool With NYT Reporter
by Libby Quaid
Republican Sen. John McCain, showing a flash of the temper he is known for, repeatedly cut off a reporter Friday when asked whether he had spoken to Democratic Sen. John Kerry about being his vice president in 2004."Everybody knows that I had a private conversation. Everybody knows that, that I had a conversation," McCain told the reporter. "And you know it, too. No. You know it, too. No. You do know. You do know." |
International Women's Day: How and Why We Celebrate
by Sue Katz
It’s annoying that International Women’s Day gets a mere whisper compared to the retail shout-out that Mothers’ Day receives in this country. Although I’m not a big holiday/ritual/ceremony kinda girl (no, you can’t ignore my birthdays), I do think this particular annual event is special, so I try to celebrate each year. |
Political attacks trigger casualty - Obama aide quits over 'monster' remark
by Rick Pearson and John McCormick
The resignation Friday of a top adviser to Barack Obama for calling Hillary Clinton "a monster" came a day after Clinton's top spokesman likened Obama to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, marking a rise in tensions in a Democratic presidential campaign that has lasted longer and become far more grueling than expected. |
Clinton's experience claim under scrutiny - Hillary Clinton may have influenced foreign policy, but evidence is scant she played pivotal role
by Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons
Surrounded by military leaders in a Cabinet-style setting, Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has "crossed the threshold" of foreign policy experience to serve as commander in chief.Supporters of rival Barack Obama fired back immediately, arguing that the former first lady's trips abroad hardly constituted a practice run for managing global crises. |
A New Hope
by Jann S. Wenner
The tides of history are rising higher and faster these days. Read them right and ride them, or be crushed. And then along comes Barack Obama, with the kinds of gifts that appear in politics but once every few generations. There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline. It's not just that he is eloquent — with that ability to speak both to you and to speak for you — it's that he has a quality of thinking and intellectual and emotional honesty that is extraordinary. |
The Anxiety Election
by Paul Krugman
Democrats won the 2006 election largely thanks to public disgust with the Iraq war. But polls — and Hillary Clinton’s big victory in Ohio — suggest that if the Democrats want to win this year, they have to focus on economic anxiety.Some people reject that idea. They believe that this election should be another referendum on the war, and, perhaps even more important, about the way America was misled into that war. That belief is one reason many progressives fervently support Barack Obama, an early war opponent, even though his domestic platform is somewhat to the right of Mrs. Clinton’s. |
