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Obama, Clinton court working families
U.S. Legal News |
2008/05/01 16:26
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| Barack Obama teamed up with wife Michelle on Wednesday to court working families with a little kitchen table conversation about tax cuts. Rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hitched a ride in a pickup truck to a gas pump to illustrate the pain inflicted on ordinary families by skyrocketing prices. Clinton was underscoring her call for a summer-long hiatus on collecting the federal gas tax by pulling into an Indianapolis gas station with sheet metal worker Jason Wilfing, 33, who pumped regular unleaded. "Sixty-three dollars for just about half a tank," exclaimed Clinton. Wilfing told Clinton that the high price of gas means his family won't be able to take an annual summer trip to Lake Michigan. The Obamas headed to suburban Beech Grove, where they had lunch and chatted with Mike and Cheryl Fischer, hearing their stories of struggle. He's a machinist at a local Amtrak facility where 77 jobs are threatened this summer. "They say it's not personal," Fischer said. "Yes, it is very personal." Their tactics were different, but the goal for both Democratic presidential candidates was to connect with blue-collar workers who will play a key role in primaries Tuesday in Indiana and North Carolina. In addition to a frenetic campaign schedule, Obama is running about $2.8 million in ads in Indiana and about $2.5 million in North Carolina, oupacing Clinton's spending by about 2-to-1 in each state. Clinton began airing new ads in the states this week. One that is running in both states points out that she has called for a freeze in foreclosures and a summer-long suspension of the gasoline tax and that Obama has opposed both steps. She also is airing an ad in North Carolina featuring noted poet Maya Angelou and one in Indiana that invokes the memory of her parents and growing up in Illinois. Obama on Wednesday responded to Clinton's housing and gasoline price ad with a 60-second spot airing in both states. In the ad, Obama likens the benefits of a gas tax suspension to "half a tank of gas." Another ad in North Carolina focuses on education and urges parents to turn off the television set and read to their children. |
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White House challenges release of visitor logs
U.S. Legal News |
2008/04/22 16:54
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A federal appeals court sought compromise Monday between a liberal group demanding the names of White House visitors and the Bush administration, which says releasing the names would erode the president's power.
If released, the documents would show how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence, allowing a glimpse into how much influence they exerted on government policy.
White House calendars are not generally considered public records, but reporters and watchdog groups have used Secret Service documents, which normally are public, to report on White House visitors.
Rather than having those documents released on a case-by-casis basis, the Bush administration wants them considered White House documents, which would keep them from public view for more than a decade.
A federal judge rejected White House arguments in December and ordered the documents released. On appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, government attorneys said the president has a well-established right to seek advice privately.
Releasing lists of visitors would trample on that right, said Justice Department lawyer Jonathan F. Cohn, and the logs should be treated like other White House documents.
The judges were skeptical. They said they wanted to find a way to protect the president's rights without broadly prohibiting access to information that should be public.
"What in the documents are so quintessentially presidential?" asked Judge David S. Tatel.
"The name of the person going in to visit," Cohn replied.
"That's a public building," Tatel said. "You can stand out on 17th Street and watch who goes in and out."
"The Secret Service might have some qualms with that," Cohn responded.
"They might have some qualms but they couldn't stop you from doing it," said Chief Judge David B. Sentelle.
Rather than balancing the president's interest with the public's, Tatel said, the government was simply disregarding the Freedom of Information Act. He said the policy would allow the president to "draw a curtain around the White House."
Judge Merrick B. Garland said he was concerned the Bush administration's policy could extend to other White House agencies such as the budget office, which normally releases public records. Under the government's theory, Garland said, visits to the White House social planner, caterer and gardener would all be secret because the president needs to receive advice privately.
The judges seemed equally dissatisfied with the argument of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group seeking the documents. Sentelle and Tatel said the group was using the Secret Service as an end-run, a way to get documents that normally would not be public.
"I think Congress would be surprised that, by requiring the president to receive Secret Service protection, it was opening up his calendars," Tatel said.
Sentelle became frustrated and at one point put his head in his hands after pressing attorney Anne L. Weissman to acknowledge that the president must be allowed to seek advice privately. He repeatedly urged her to explain how to balance the two interests.
"I don't understand what you don't understand," Sentelle said. "You're not acknowledging the separation-of-powers problem."
The judges pressed both sides to offer a compromise that would strike the right balance. Government lawyers said they couldn't discern from the logs which meetings were presidential policy meetings and which ones might not be sensitive, such as a meeting with the White House gardener. Weissman bristled at the idea that the government's only solution was blanket secrecy.
"I haven't heard from you a counter-suggestion," Tatel told Weissman. "We've never had a case like this."
Garland seemed to search for a solution short of the government's blanket secrecy but that would not allow journalists and special-interest groups to regularly request the names of every visitor to the White House. Under that scenario, he said., the president could never ensure that any meeting was confidential, he said.
The court did not immediately rule on the case. |
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Paulson Urges Tighter Mortgage Oversight
U.S. Legal News |
2008/03/13 13:27
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| Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday that a presidential working group wants stronger regulatory oversight of mortgage lenders to avert the kind of credit crisis that is dragging the economy down. In a new Bush administration initiative that Paulson said is not about "finding excuses and scapegoats," a presidential working group set up in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash is calling for a series of actions designed to avert the kind of chilling housing and credit crunches that are threatening to throw the nation into recession — if it isn't there already. "The objective here is to get the balance right — regulation needs to catch up with innovation and help restore investor confidence but not go so far as to create new problems, make our markets less efficient or cut off credit to those who need it," said Paulson, who heads the working group. One recommendation calls for federal and state regulators to strengthen oversight of mortgage lenders and another urges state financial regulators to implement strong nationwide licensing standards for mortgage brokers, according to the group's report, released Thursday. |
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White House Denies Friction With Fallon
U.S. Legal News |
2008/03/12 11:42
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| The White House on Wednesday rejected charges that it quashes dissenting views in the military, an accusation brought to light by the resignation of Navy Adm. William J. Fallon as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. For Fallon, the perception of a disagreement with Bush's policies on Iran rather than an actual rift was enough reason to step down. "Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region," Fallon said in a statement Tuesday in which he announced his resignation as head of U.S. Central Command, arguably the most important in the U.S. military. Democrats seized on Fallon's resignation as an opportunity to criticize Bush. "Over the last seven Bush years, we've seen those who toe the company line get rewarded and those who speak inconvenient truths get retired," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said in a written statement. |
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Prostitution Scandal Threatens N.Y. Gov
U.S. Legal News |
2008/03/11 14:37
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| As Gov. Eliot Spitzer faced mounting calls to resign amid a prostitution scandal, a law enforcement official said Tuesday that the governor first came under suspicion because of cash payments from several bank accounts to an account operated by a call-girl ring. Spitzer was the initial target of the investigation and was tracked using court-ordered wiretaps that appear to have recorded him arranging for a prostitute to meet him at a Washington hotel in mid-February, the official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. The scandal surrounding the man who built his political reputation on rooting out corruption stunned the state. Calls for Spitzer's resignation began immediately and intensified Tuesday with the New York Daily News, New York Post and Newsday all demanding that he step down. Spitzer retreated from public view Monday afternoon, when he appeared glassy-eyed with his shellshocked wife, Silda, at his side and apologized to his family and the public, but did not directly acknowledge any involvement with the prostitute. |
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Bush vetoes U.S. bill outlawing CIA waterboarding
U.S. Legal News |
2008/03/08 19:10
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U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques. Lawmakers included the anti-torture measure in a broader bill authorizing U.S. intelligence activities. "Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added that the vetoed legislation "would diminish these vital tools."
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats would try to overturn Bush's veto and said U.S. moral authority was at stake.
"We will begin to reassert that moral authority by attempting to override the president's veto next week," Pelosi said.
Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts called Bush's veto "one of the most shameful acts of his presidency."
It is unlikely that Democrats, the majority party in Congress, could muster enough votes to overturn Bush's veto. The bill passed the House and Senate on partisan votes, short of the support needed to reverse the president.
The House approved the legislation in December and the Senate passed it in February despite White House warnings it would be vetoed.
CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress last month that government interrogators used waterboarding on three suspects captured after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The simulated drowning technique has been condemned by many members of Congress, human rights groups and other countries as a form of illegal torture. |
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