Clinton role in health program disputed
by Susan Milligan
Hillary Clinton, who has frequently described herself on the campaign trail as playing a pivotal role in forging a children's health insurance plan, had little to do with crafting the landmark legislation or ushering it through Congress, according to several lawmakers, staffers, and healthcare advocates involved in the issue. |
Another One: Top Federal Judge Linked to Prostitution Ring
by Vic Walter
One of the country's top federal judges has been linked to an investigation of a Denver-based prostitution ring, according to federal officials.Edward Nottingham, the chief federal judge in Denver, Colo., was "implicated as a customer" in an ongoing IRS and Denver police investigation of an alleged prostitution operation called Denver Sugar/Denver Players, according to officials. |
House OKs Dems' surveillance bill
by Pamela Hess
The House on Friday approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government's eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States.The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213-197, largely along party lines. |
So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time
by Roger Stone
Welcome back to the Buzzflash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.You might not have heard of sleaze ball GOP operative Roger Stone, a sort of combination of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove with a penchant for swinging -- of the sexual kind.Over the years, he's shown up at the center of a lot of controversial Republican efforts to bring down Democrats in questionable ways. And that's why, it piqued our interest to read these paragraphs from a New York political reporter about a phone call with Stone concerning the unusual federal government prostitution sting operation (which ostensibly began as a money laundering investigation) against Eliot Spitzer: |
Feminists Celebrate National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers
by Feminist.org
Today, March 10th, feminists across the country celebrate the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. The celebration honors health care professionals who provide vital abortion services to women, despite facing harassment, intimidation, vandalism, and even violence from anti-choice extremists. |
New Poll: 12 Year Olds Know Congress Could Cut War Money, Adults Believe Congress Powerless to End Iraq Occupation
by David Swanson
A pair of new polls may suggest the power of falsehoods repeated ad infinitum on our televisions and in our newspapers. The first poll asked 2,000 American 12 year olds whether Congress has the power to end the occupation of Iraq. Minorities believed Congress did not, or believed it could do so if the Democrats had larger majorities. But a 61 percent majority of those polled believed that Congress could simply stop funding the occupation, and that the Democrats in Congress had sufficient majorities to accomplish this without any Republican assistance. |
President weakens espionage oversight
by Charlie Savage
Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. |
Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored?
by ABC News
ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online. |
Zogby Poll: McCain Bests Both Obama, Clinton in 3-Way General Election Tests
by Zogby.com
Riding high after locking up his party’s presidential nomination, Republican John McCain of Arizona has moved ahead of both of his potential Democratic Party rivals in a national general election test, the latest Zogby telephone survey shows.Perhaps profiting from the continuing political battle across the aisle, McCain would defeat Hillary Clinton of New York by six points and Barack Obama of Illinois by 5 points, the survey shows. Clinton and Obama are locked in a tight battle to win the Democratic Party nomination, a fight that has grown nasty at times recently and threatens to continue on all summer long until the party’s national convention in Denver this August. |
Afghanistan challenge romantic - Bush
by Tabassum Zakaria
President Bush spoke of his dream to work on the frontline in Afghanistan during a video conference with US military and civilian personnel in the war-torn country."I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said."If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. |
McCain Courts Another Anti-Catholic Leader of the Religious Right
by PFAW.com
Today, Republican presidential candidate John McCain distanced himself from the views of one anti-Catholic leader — John Hagee — while simultaneously seeking the support of another, Tim LaHaye. McCain was in New Orleans today to gain the support of the secretive right-wing Council for National Policy, whose co-founder LaHaye has a long history of religious intolerance, and specifically anti-Catholicism. |
Clinton: Delay the Delegate Count (Because I'll Lose)
by AP
The Hillary Clinton camp has tried every avenue to delay reporting on the delegates from the Texas primary. They tried to intimidate the Texas Democratic Party prior to the primary. That failed. On election night, they threw up a duststorm of objections about irregulatories. Now, the Clinton camp us urging the state party to delay the March 29 county and senate conventions, where details of how 67 delegates picked in the county caucuses will be announced. |
McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
by Motherjones.com
Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide." |
Heavy Presence of Chinese Police Quells Rioting in Tibet's Capital
by Jill Drew and Edward Cody
Chinese police flooded into the streets of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Saturday to smother riots that have destroyed scores of Chinese-owned businesses and left at least 10 people dead. Officials demanded that the rioters surrender by midnight Monday, and shopkeepers cowered in their stores as tourists fled the city. |
Military Women Report Harassment
by AP
One-third of women in the military and 6 percent of men said they were sexually harassed, according to the latest Pentagon survey on the issue.The figure for women was worse than the previous finding several years ago but better than a similar survey taken in 1995, the Defense Department said in a report Friday. |
Clinton Gets Her Irish Up
by Perry Bacon Jr.
Senator Hillary Clinton, facing criticism this week for allegedly overstating her role in some of the successes of her husband's administration, today defended campaign statements from her campaign that she helped along the peace process in Northern Ireland and the creation of a health care program for low-income children here in the U.S. |
Future unclear for Bush's Faith-Based Initiative
by Bill Berkowitz
The seventh anniversary of President George W. Bush's Faith Based Initiative passed quietly. Unlike the much ballyhooed launching of his faith-based initiative in January 2001, when a string of religious officials witnessed Bush sign executive orders bringing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI - website) into existence, this year the president was apparently occupied by more pressing matters; convincing the public that a recession wasn't looming, trumpeting so-called successes of the surge in Iraq, and no doubt wondering what else he's going to be doing until its time to scurry back to Texas next January. |
Clinton Won't Release Earmark Requests Like Obama
by John Riley
Close observers of yesterday's reports on the efforts of McCain and Obama to get Sen. Clinton to disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001 may have noticed a strange thing about the statement her office issued at the end of the day.It said all manner of things about earmarks, and moratoriums, and funding, and accountability. But it never said whether she would disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001. |
Keystone attacks
by Bill Adair
SUMMARY: Obama says Clinton parroted a Bush administration line in 2002 that al-Qaida was linked with Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. Clinton says Obama voted for "tax subsidies and giveaways" to oil companies. We check the facts.The Pennsylvania primary is almost six weeks away, but the Democratic candidates are trading charges so feverishly you'd think the election was tomorrow. The common theme in the attacks: accusing the other candidate of being too much like George Bush and Dick Cheney. |
NYT: Stolen oil profits keep Iraq's insurgency running
by Raw Story
While many US officials and politicians routinely point to jihadism or Islamofascism as key motivating factors for Iraq's insurgency, a growing number of officers on the ground are blaming economic conditions instead, according to an article slated for the front page of Sunday's New York Times. |
Obama expands delegate lead
by Mike Glover
Democrat Barack Obama expanded his fragile lead in delegates over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday, picking up at least seven delegates as Iowa activists took the next step in picking delegates to the national convention.Half the 14 delegates allocated to John Edwards on the basis of caucus night projections switched Saturday and Obama got most, if not all, of them. |
