Transcript: Rice, Kaine on Meet The Press (8-17-08)

Condoleezza Rice appeared on the Meet The Press to tell the American people that the administration expects the Russians to do as they say not what they do. Also appearing was Obama's potential VP pick, Governor Tim Kaine. Read the entire transcript.

SEC'Y RICE: Well, I just know that the Russian president said several days ago Russian military operations would stop. They didn't. The Russian president told President Sarkozy that the minute that cease-fire was signed by President Saakashvili, Russian forces would begin to withdraw. They didn't. Now he has said that tomorrow, midday, Russian forces will withdraw and withdraw to their pre-August 6, 7 lines. This time I hope he means it. You know, the, the word of the Russian president needs to be upheld by his forces. People are going to begin to wonder if Russia can be trusted. I, I think it's really very much time for them to do what they say they're going to do.

MR. GREGORY: Well, given that lack of trust, as this was all coming together why didn't you go directly to Russia to look them eye to eye to broker this agreement, rather than simply going to Georgia?

[...]MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about the future of the separatist regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Who will control those regions now?

SEC'Y RICE: David, this has been a zone of conflict for well over a decade now, almost 20 years. And in fact, there has to be an international negotiation to determine the security and political and stability arrangements for these two regions. Those negotiations have gone on sporadically for the last several years. But those negotiations will begin from the premise that the territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected, that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are indeed part of--are, are within the internationally recognized boundaries of Georgia and that we will proceed from the basis of Security Council resolutions that recognize that.

MR. GREGORY: Well...

SEC'Y RICE: But there will have to be a negotiated solution to, to these two regions which have been in dispute for a long time.

MR. GREGORY: Will U.S. troops be part of those peacekeeping troops who will be responsible for ensuring that territorial integrity?

SEC'Y RICE: Well, what is first contemplated is that there will be monitors of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, that will go in now to make sure that the cease-fire is working. And the Russians also told the French that they are prepared to have those monitors come in immediately. So those monitors need to come in immediately. There will then have to be a negotiated solution a part of which will be to get international peacekeeping forces that will have to be neutral peacekeeping forces. And I think the European Union is likely to be one of the lead elements along with others, but that's for future negotiations.

Based on the following answers, it doesn't sound like Kaine will do much to help Obama on his perceived weakness, foreign policy:

MR. GREGORY: Let's get right to it. We both heard Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talking about the situation in Georgia, Governor Kaine. Senator Obama was criticized by the McCain campaign this week, particularly for his comments that there should be restraint on both sides after the invasion. Was he too weak in his initial response?

GOV. KAINE: I think the senator gave a very measured response, which is the tone that we should take. As the secretary made plain, the goal is to use diplomatic means to get Russia to live by the cease-fire. And if diplomacy is the strategy at this point, measured tones is the way to go. And I think that kind of balance is what the situation needs. It is very heartening to hear that there's going to be the--this withdrawal in a day, but we have to check and make sure that Russia lives up to its word.

MR. GREGORY: You don't hear really measured tones out of Secretary Rice. She's pretty tough this morning.

GOV. KAINE: Well, she is, you know, and I think this, this is an issue where there is, there is tough talk. The question is, has there been the kind of action on behalf of the United States over the last years that has been necessary to check Russia's ambitions? My, my significant concern is that we have, through an intensity of focus on Iraq, taken our eye off the ball in other parts of the world like Russia and its bordering states, like Afghanistan. And that is one of Senator Obama's main points, that we need to focus on the significant challenges of the world. And that's why the drawdown in Iraq is so important, so that we can focus and not be stretched so thin.

McCain, Obama at the Saddleback Church Forum (8-16-08)

John McCain and Barack Obama shared the stage briefly at a forum held by the Saddleback Church. It was largely a pro religious-right crowd. This from the NY Times:

• Asked what their biggest moral failings were, Mr. Obama referred to his “difficult youth” when, he said, he experimented with drugs and drank alcohol. “I trace this to a certain selfishness on my part,” he said. “I couldn’t focus on other people.”

  Mr. McCain pointed to his first marriage, which he almost never does publicly.

• Mr. Warren asked Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, which of the sitting Supreme Court justices he would not have appointed. Mr. Obama quickly named Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he was not qualified for the top court at the time.
  
  “I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of the Constitution,” Mr. Obama said.
  
  Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, named all the liberal judges on the court and noted that there might be several vacancies soon. “This nomination should be based on the criteria on a proven record of strictly adhering to the Constitution and not legislating from the bench,” he said.

• Asked what was the most significant issue he had changed his mind on in the last 10 years, Mr. Obama cited the 1996 welfare reform bill signed by President Bill Clinton. He said that he initially opposed it because he believed it would have “disastrous results,” denying millions of women economic support, but that he now believed the law had been largely successful.

  Mr. McCain pointed to offshore drilling. “We’ve got to drill now; we’ve got to drill here,” he said, and took a poke at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California, who opposes it. “I know there are some here in Cal-eee-fornia that disagree with that position,” he said, mimicking the governor’s accent.

• Mr. Obama skirted a question about when life begins, saying that determining such a thing was above his pay grade and sending murmurs throughout the audience. Mr. McCain said simply, “At the moment of conception.”

• Asked to define marriage, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain gave the same answer: that it is the union between a man and a woman.

• On abortion, Mr. Obama declared: “I am pro-choice, I believe in Roe vs. Wade, not because I’m pro-abortion but because ultimately I don’t think women make these decisions casually.” He also said, “I am in favor on limits on late-term abortion if there is an exception for the woman’s health.”
  
  Mr. McCain said he was “pro-life” and would be a “pro-life president.”

This from the Dallas Morning News:

• Mr. Obama said the biblical injunction to care for the disenfranchised “applies to poverty, it applies to racism and sexism, it applies to not thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people.”

  Mr. McCain recalled how his religious faith sustained him in the face of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

  “It took a lot of prayer,” he said.

• “If I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” he said.

• Asked their most difficult decision, Mr. Obama recalled his vote against the war in Iraq. Mr. McCain cited his decision to refuse early release as a POW.

• East Texas evangelist Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America Action, said Mr. McCain offered concise, conservative answers that should help win over religious voters.

  He took Mr. Obama to task for not answering when life begins.

  “This brilliant Harvard grad could not say the obvious,” said Mr. Scarborough. “He’s the most radically pro-abortion candidate our country has ever fielded.”

• Richard Land, who heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that although Christian conservatives are lukewarm about Mr. McCain, most will vote for him in November because they find Mr. Obama unacceptable.

Bush, McCain Uproar over Georgia: Political Opportunism

If you believe that the outrage by George Bush and John McCain over Russia's attacks on Georgia are motivated by humanitarian concern, I have some WMDs I'd like to sell you. It is the height of hypocrisy for Mr.Bush to berate the Russians for dealing with a country on it's border. What's to stop Putin from demanding that the U.S. pull out of Iraq? That was just as illegal and immoral. No, the outrage is about diverting attention from failing presidencies and campaigns, as the case may be. It is a desperate attempt to take attention away from Iraq, Afghanistan and the economy. It is also a way for McCain to look like a commander-in-chief and create a contrast with his opponent, Barack Obama. Let's not forget that Bush became very popular after 9-11 when it was he who failed to protect us from the al Qaeda attacks. The danger is that the exaggerated rhetoric from the White House could escalate into a serious rift between the U.S. and Russia. America is no position to picking another fight in the world.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama will be paying particularly close attention to the polls early next week to see what impact the Russia-Georgia crisis has had on the US presidential race. Most analysts expect that Mr McCain, who on Wednesday trumpeted "We are all Georgians now", will be the beneficiary.

Mr McCain's robust response at the start of the crisis eight days ago preceded by several hours what Mr Obama and, indeed, President George W. Bush had to say.

His statement, in which he warned Russia of "severe long-term negative consequences", also exceeded what either Mr Obama, who returned yesterday from a week-long holiday in Hawaii, or Mr Bush, who was attending the Beijing Olympics, could produce.

[...]Yet not everybody admires Mr McCain's confrontational stance towards Russia or, by extension, the position Mr Bush has now adopted. A number of Mr Obama's advisers privately express concern that their candidate has been railroaded by campaign politics into talking a similar - although more modulated - stance to Mr McCain on the crisis. "The whole tone is slipping much too easily into cold war rhetoric," says one.

[...]Given the prominent role both Mr McCain and Mr Scheunemann played in beating the drums for the invasion of Iraq, many cringed this week when the Republican contender said: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations."

McCain is exaggerating the significance of what is happening in Georgia. It isn't World War III.

Apparently John McCain thinks the Russian invasion of Georgia is "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." This is, pretty obviously, factually wrong, since you could trot out the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, the al-Aqsa Intifada, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq at a minimum as other serious international crises since the end of the Cold War. But in a way, that doesn't matter. What this demonstrates is McCain's urgent, deep-seated desire to believe that he, John McCain, is right smack in the middle of world historical events, a desire remarkably similar to one we've seen from George Bush since he took office. That temperament hasn't worked out so well for the past few years, and I'm not sure the country is ready for a repeat.

Bush's belligerent style could create a dangerous situation, much worse than he's made it over the last 7 years.

“Realist” diplomats from Henry Kissinger downwards are pointing out that America can’t do both because a contained Russia won’t be a cooperative Russia. However, if Georgia were to join Nato, the consequence could be a much more serious confrontation with Moscow, as the alliance works on the understanding that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Is the invasion of Georgia the first step towards an armed confrontation between America and Russia?

On Friday, Russia even threatened Poland with nuclear retaliation for agreeing to host US rockets as part of its antimissile shield.

Georgia didn't even exist in the media until recently. American's at this point do not care about what's happening in that control. We have too many things to worry about right now to even worry about what is happening along the Russian border. Don't we have enough problems along our own border? And there is another factor: oil. It was a major factor for the Bush/neocon invasion of Iraq.

In fact, that expectation of restraint by the Russians toward their 'independent' neighbor is what the U.S. has been counting on from the instance they decided to encourage and support the construction of the oil pipeline which runs through Georgia from Azerbaijan to Turkey. The expectation was that the West could have a potential control over the flow of oil out of the former Soviet state which supplies Russia's allies (like Bush's nemesis, China). That, undoubtedly, is what has the Bush administration so jazzed about the Russian military incursion.

Bigfoot Capture Hoax and the Press Coverage

The media can't pass up a good story regardless of how untruthful. Even from the earliest reports it was clear this was a hoax. The NY Times reported it this way:

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of Bigfoot, made public at a news conference in Palo Alto held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove the existence of the mythical half-ape and half-human creature.

[...]One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, said Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the analysis.

To MSNBC's discredit they have 3 references (as of 5:47pm) to this hoax, including:

• "Sasquatch hunters claim hairy corpse is Bigfoot"
• "Bigfoot 'Proof' Revealed In Palo Alto"

Of course, FOX has it on it's site. Their attempt at some journalism:

The much-anticipated Bigfoot press conference Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, Calif., revealed little more than two men — introduced by a self-styled Sasquatch seeker — claiming to possess the 7-foot "body" of a "bipedal creature" on ice in a secret location, awaiting an autopsy.

They shouldn't even mention these clowns names. But they do. I will not:

******** showed reporters two blurry photos, claiming one was the mouth of the "creature" while the other was another creature running through the Georgia woods. The men claimed they "stumbled on the creature," but would not reveal more because they were concerned about it being an "endangered species."

******** reiterated his invitation to FOX News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly to come to Georgia and view the body, and plugged his Internet radio show.

He said there wouldn't be anything more revealed Friday, but promised that he would "assemble" a group of scientists to examine the alleged corpse.

******** recounted how he and ******** found the "body," and said that more Bigfoots "paralleled" them as they were loading it onto a flatbed truck.

Here's the AP coverage:

Two men who claim to have stumbled across a Bigfoot corpse in the woods of northern Georgia indignantly stood by their story at a news conference in Palo Alto during which they offered an e-mail from a scientist as evidence and acknowledged they wouldn't mind making a few bucks from the "find" they have kept stuffed in a freezer for over a month.

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," predicted ********

[...]******** and ********, a former [...] announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site. Although they did not consider themselves devoted Bigfoot trackers before then, they have since started offering weekend search expeditions in Georgia for $499. The specimen they bagged, the men say, was one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods.

As they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans that included one curiosity seeker in a Chewbacca suit, the pair were joined Friday by ********, head of a group called ********. Other Bigfoot hunters call ******** a huckster looking for media attention.

Obama Outraises McCain 2 to 1 in July, Still Ahead in Polls

Despite every effort to cut into the lead of Barrack Obama, John McCain still trails his principal opponent in the polls and money race. And there is no indication that will change between now and election day in November.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid added more than 65,000 donors and raised more than $51 million in the month of July, the Obama campaign said in a statement released Saturday.

The Obama campaign recently announced that it has surpassed the 2 million-donor mark and said Saturday that it now has $65.8 million cash on hand.

For June, the Illinois senator's campaign reported raising $52 million, with more than $72 million cash on hand.

[...] Earlier Friday, the McCain campaign announced that it had raised $27 million in July, the presumptive Republican nominee's largest one-month fundraising total to date.

The campaign also said it had $21 million cash on hand, all of which must be spent before the party's convention in early September because of McCain's choice to accept federal campaign dollars.

Although Obama's poll numbers have dipped recently (according to Realclearpolitics.com), the bad news for McCain is that his numbers have also dropped - by even more. This despite the Democratic nominee being on vacation. Obama has dropped approximately 3 points since early July when he peaked at nearly 49%. McCain is now at the lowest point since the middle of July. He is also now lower than he was at the beginning of the year. Obama, on the other hand, is 2 points higher than he was at his lowest point, at start of the year. The trend is clear. McCain is not making up any ground. Only 1 poll has had McCain ahead during the last 3 months.

The Troops Support Obama over McCain

Now who would make a better commander-in-chief?

The Center for Responsive Politics has found that the bona fide war hero is garnering far less financial support from the troops than the Harvard-trained lawyer.

"Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely antiwar Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul," the report said.

The report also included this surprise: "Members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008. . . . Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel have gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama."

Chinese Cheating in Olympics: Lying About Gymnast Age

The question is whether something will be done. Will they be allowed to get away with stealing gold medals from Americans. You can bet U.S. politicians won't stand up for America on this issue.

Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, www.hb.xinhuanet.com

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics. She is also a favorite for gold in Monday's uneven bars final.

Yang was also on Wednesday's winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that rulers in Beijing will attempt to use heavy-handed tactics during the games.

A British journalist was detained today while covering a pro-Tibet protest near the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing.

John Ray, a correspondent for ITN, says he was "bundled away, pushed to the floor and pinned down" before being "manhandled into the back of a police van."

The Guardian has footage that shows uniformed police officers shoving other reporters and photographers, too.

In Ray's case, he says Chinese police officers ignored his press credentials and questioned him about his views on Tibet.

Clinton Supporters Plan to Disrupt Democratic Convention

The Clintons, despite claims to the contrary, are trying to get Obama defeated in the Fall so Hillary can run in 2012. They will do anything to sabotage the Democratic nominee. Of course, they will claim not to be behind the subterfuge. And the press will help them get away with it. You still have ignoramuses insisting that Obama needs Hillary as a running mate. He needs her like another hole in the head.

Still sore from an epic primary battle, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters aren't buying the unity theme planned for the Democratic National Convention.

They weren't mollified when nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama gave prime-time speaking slots to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Instead, they're itching for a fight and plan to wage one in Denver.

One group intends to paper the city with fliers, promote a video detailing what they contend were irregularities in the nominating process and unleash bloggers to give their take on the proceedings. Another group has purchased newspaper advertisements demanding that Clinton be included in a roll-call vote for the nomination.

"I am a very realistic woman," said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition. "I don't think that anything is going to change, but I do think it is important to be heard, and this is our way of doing it."

Hillary's mismanagement is to blame for her defeat, not sexism.

Maureen Dowd skewers Bill and Hillary in her column today. "Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that ‘demeaning portrayals of women ... dampen the dreams of our daughters.’ This, even though postmortems, including the new raft of campaign memos leaked by Clintonistas to The Atlantic — another move that undercuts Obama — finger Hillary’s horrendous management skills.”

“Besides the crashing egos and screeching factions working at cross purposes, Joshua Green writes in the magazine, Hillary’s ‘hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices ‘exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.’ It would have been better to put this language in the platform: ‘A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.’”

Home Foreclosures, Inflation Up Sharply in July

The economy continues to worsen dramatically (worst numbers in decades) with no indication that things will get better. Meanwhile, the politicians twiddle their thumbs.

U.S. foreclosure activity in July rose 55 percent from a year earlier as a slump in once-sizzling housing markets forced yet more borrowers to default on their mortgages, according to a monthly report.

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — rose 8 percent from June and 55 percent from July 2007 to 272,171, according to RealtyTrac, which records property in various stages of foreclosure.

That means one in every 464 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in July, the firm said. Bank repossessions (REOs) rose 184 percent year-over-year. Default notices were up 53 percent, and auction notices rose 11 percent.

Everything seems to doing poorly in the economy.

Consumer prices shot up in July at twice the expected rate, pushed higher by surging energy and food costs. The latest surge left inflation running at the fastest pace in 17 years.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose by 0.8 percent last month, twice the 0.4 percent gain that economists had been expecting.

It marked the third straight month of oversized inflation increases following jumps of 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in June and left inflation rising by 5.6 percent over the past year, the biggest 12-month gain since January 1991.

That inflation surge presents a major problem for the Federal Reserve, which could be forced to start raising interest rates even as the economy struggles to avoid a recession.

The big rise in inflation left consumers even more squeezed. The Labor Department said that average weekly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, fell by 3.1 percent in July compared to a year ago, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 1990.

Meanwhile, the number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week, indicating continued stress in labor markets from the weak economy.

Crime-Ridden Arkansas Town Expands 24-hour Curfew

A sign of things to come in America. A return to the bad ole days. Of course, the ACLU is up to it's old tricks.

Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

U.S. Refuses Israel weapons to Attack Iran: Report

Could it be that the Bush-leaguers have wised up and recognize that an attack on Iran would be catastrophic?

The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.

The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state's defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.

Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defence Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. "It would not be right to talk about these things," Barak said.

The West accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this and says its nuclear program is only to generate electricity. It has vowed to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.

Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, says a nuclear-armed Iran could threaten its existence.

The Haaretz report, by one of its senior columnists, did not specify what weapons systems Israel had requested. It said Washington had told Israel its aircraft would be denied permission to use Iraqi airspace to reach Iran.

McCain Aide's Firm Lobbied For Georgia

Once again the neocons are ready to go to war for oil. You didn't think the outrage from Bush and McCain had anything to do with concern over human rights?

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

[...]But ethics experts have raised concerns about former lobbyists for foreign governments providing advice to presidential candidates about those same countries. "The question is, who is the client? Is the adviser loyal to income from a foreign client, or is he loyal to the candidate he is working for now?" said James Thurber, a lobbying expert at American University. "It's dangerous if you're getting advice from people who are very close to countries on one side or another of a conflict."

At the time of McCain's call, Scheunemann had formally ceased his own lobbying work for Georgia, according to federal disclosure reports. But he was still part of Orion Strategies, which had only two lobbyists, himself and Mike Mitchell.

[...]As a private lobbyist trying to influence lawmakers and Bush administration staffers, Scheunemann at times relied on his access to McCain in his work for foreign clients on Capitol Hill. He and his partner reported 71 phone conversations and meetings with McCain and his top advisers since 2004 on behalf of foreign clients, including Georgia, according to forms they filed with the Justice Department.

Bush: Endangered Species Act Extinct

This President has not only declared war on countries but nature as well. Mr.Bush also wins the title of worst environmental President in American history.

Just months before President Bush leaves office, his administration is antagonizing environmentalists by proposing changes that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether subdivisions, dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered animals and plants.

The proposal, first reported by The Associated Press, would cut out the advice of government scientists who have been weighing in on such decisions for 35 years. Agencies also could not consider a project's contribution to global warming in their analysis.

Reaction was swift from Democrats and environmental groups.

The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Interior Department, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he was "deeply troubled." Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., head of the Senate's environment committee, said Bush's plan was illegal. Environmentalists complained the proposals would gut protections for endangered animals and plants.

"This proposed rule ... gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," Rahall said.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne defended the revisions, saying they were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of endangered species regulations since 1986 and accomplish through rules what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.

"We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good," Kempthorne said in a news conference arranged hastily after the AP reported details of the proposal. "It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species."

Obama Ad: "Celebrity" McCain from Washington

This is smart of the Obama campaign to turn the tables on McCain. He is a Washington celebrity.

Me? A celebrity? What about you, Sen. John McCain?

That's the gist of a TV ad that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign released Monday. Embrace is a response to two recent ads from McCain. Both McCain ads called Obama a "celebrity" and questioned whether he is ready to lead the nation. One compared his fame to that of Paris Hilton's and Britney Spears'.

The script

Narrator: "For decades, he's been Washington's biggest celebrity. John McCain. And as Washington embraced him, John McCain hugged right back. The lobbyists — running his low road campaign. The money — billions in tax breaks for oil and drug companies, but almost nothing for families like yours. Lurching to the right, then the left, the old Washington dance, whatever it takes. John McCain. A Washington celebrity playing the same old Washington games."

The images

Embrace begins as a spoof of McCain's ads. The narrator calls McCain "Washington's biggest celebrity." Images of the Arizona senator hugging President Bush, joking with late-night comedians and appearing on NBC's Saturday Night Live and ABC's The View flicker by.

Reality check

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center says McCain's plans would "primarily benefit those with very high incomes," while Obama would raise taxes "significantly" on that group. Obama would give larger tax breaks to lower-income groups than McCain, according to the center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Chinese Police Beat Christian Church Activist

Obviously Bush's presence and pro-freedom comments at the games did very little to stop the religious repression.

Police in Beijing on Tuesday denied claims by a Chinese Christian that he was beaten by police and warned off going to a church service attended by U.S. President George W. Bush on the weekend.

The allegations were made by the religious activist Hua Huiqi in a letter released by the U.S.-based group Human Rights in China.

Hua said in the letter that he and his brother were picked up near the church in Beijing early on Sunday morning.

He said they were beaten, dragged into two cars and then interrogated at a nearby building.

Hua quoted police officers as saying, "You are not allowed to go to Kuanjie Protestant Church because President Bush is going there today. If you go again, we will break your legs."

Hua said he managed to sneak out of the building when police were not watching and that he is now in hiding.

A spokesman for the Beijing Public Security Bureau told Kyodo News that police officers had "absolutely no contact" with Hua on Sunday and denied that he had been detained.

However, Hua's brother, Hua Huilin, told the Associated Press that he had received at least two phone calls from the Public Security Bureau saying Hua Huiqi had escaped and asking about his whereabouts.

"I haven't heard from him. We've been waiting here. We're so worried," Hua Huilin was quoted as saying.

Bush urged greater freedom of religion in China after visiting the government-approved Protestant church in Beijing on Sunday.

"Laura and I just had the great joy and privilege of worshiping here in Beijing," he told reporters. "It just goes to show that God is universal, and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion," he said.

All religious institutions have to be officially approved and come under some form of government control in China, but many Christians belong to illegal or "house" churches which do not submit to state authority.

Pakistan Impeachment of Musharraf: Bush Running Scared?

Could Bush be next to get impeached if his friend, Musharraf, should fall?

The lower house of the Pakistani Parliament was set to convene Monday as the governing coalition geared up to impeach President Pervez Musharraf.

Also Monday, provincial legislatures were to begin offering resolutions calling on Musharraf to step down or face impeachment.

On Sunday, a spokesman for the president said Musharraf had a "clean track record" and would not resign - despite a rising clamor among the governing parties and media for him to quit.

"Abdication is the only option," The Daily Times said in an editorial Monday.

Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999. But his foes swept elections in February to set up a new government and push the former army chief to the sidelines, just four months after he had won a new five-year term in a controversial vote by the previous Parliament.

The coalition announced its impeachment plans last week and said it was preparing a "charge sheet" with allegations against Musharraf including violation of the Constitution, economic mismanagement and political manipulation.

Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for the second-largest coalition party, said the impeachment motion would be filed after the provincial assemblies had passed their resolutions, which could continue into next week.

No president has been impeached in Pakistan's turbulent 61-year history. The coalition contends it can get the two-thirds majority required in a joint sitting of both houses in Parliament to strip Musharraf of the presidency.

Although Musharraf's allies dispute that and have urged the longtime U.S. ally to fight impeachment, they have advised the president against using his authority to dismiss Parliament and the prime minister. Such moves would be contentious and require support from the army, which has indicated it wants to stay out of politics.

The Iraq Government is Demanding a "Timeline"

Now the only people who still argue against a timeline for our troops to leave Iraq are Bush and McCain.

Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were "very close" to reaching a long-term security agreement that will set the rules for U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Zebari said the Iraqis were insisting that the agreement include a "very clear timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, but he refused to talk about specific dates.

"We have said that this is a condition-driven process," he added, suggesting that the departure schedule could be modified if the security situation changed.

But Zebari made clear that the Iraqis would not accept a deal that lacks a timeline for the end of the U.S. military presence.

"No, no definitely there has to be a very clear timeline," Zebari replied when asked if the Iraqis would accept an agreement that did not mention dates.

Differences over a withdrawal timetable have become one of the most contentious issues remaining in the talks, which began early this year. U.S. and Iraqi negotiators missed a July 31 target date for completing the deal, which must be approved by Iraq's parliament.

President Bush has steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to set a "general time horizon" for a U.S. departure.

Last week, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that American negotiators had agreement to a formula which would remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 with all combat troops out of the country by October 2010.

The last American support troops would leave about three years later, the Iraqis said.

But U.S. officials insist there is no agreement on specific dates. Both the American and Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing. Iraq's Shiite-led government believes a withdrawal schedule is essential to win parliamentary approval.

American officials have been less optimistic because of major differences on key issues including who can authorize U.S. military operations and immunity for U.S. troops from prosecution under Iraqi law.

The White House said discussions continued on a bilateral agreement and said any timeframe discussed was due to major improvements in security over the past year.

Meet The Press Transcript (8-10-08)

Read the complete transcript.

MR. BROKAW: Let me also say I know you're a sports fan of a certain age. Remember the old Joe Louis line about one of his opponents, "He can run, but he can't hide"? You can come all the way to Beijing, but you can't escape what's going on at home. So I'm going to share with you and with our viewers some of the more tough news that we've heard this week. Freddie Mac lost $821 million in the last quarter, and then Fannie Mae reported a loss of $2.3 billion. These are the government-sponsored mortgage agencies. On July 20th of this year, you told my friend Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation," "Well, I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period. Clearly, months. But remember, the long-term fundamentals are very solid." After what we heard from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae this week, have you changed your mind about how long it's going to take to get out of this?

SEC'Y PAULSON: No, I think what, what I said to Bob Schieffer is, is, is consistent what I, what I believe today. I, I believe that we, we have got some serious issues we're dealing with in our economy, and, as I said to him, I believe that it's going to take us well beyond the end of the year to work through the housing--all of the housing problems. But I think the key question is when will the largest part of this housing correction be behind us? Because until the biggest part of the housing correction is behind us, we're going to continue to have turmoil in our capital markets. And I think the housing correction is really at the heart of our economic problems as a, as a nation right now. So, again, I think given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are solely involved in housing--that's their sole business--and given the magnitude of the housing correction we've had, it, it, it's not a surprise to me to, to see those, those losses.

MR. BROKAW: You have the ability now to insert money into Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Do you think that that's going to become necessary, given the size of these losses?

SEC'Y PAULSON: Well, we have no plans to insert money in, in, in, in either of those institutions. I, I think it was very important that we get these temporary backup facilities because Fannie and Freddie are very important to our capital markets broadly. There's $5 trillion of securities that they have outstanding--$3 1/2 trillion in the U.S., a trillion and a half outside of the U.S.--and they're responsible for funding about 70 percent of the mortgages in the United States today. And so a key to our getting through this, this housing situation, this housing correction and getting some stability is that we continue to have mortgage financing available.

MR. BROKAW: Those two agencies were not well known to most taxpayers in this country...

SEC'Y PAULSON: Yeah, yeah.

MR. BROKAW: ...until the housing crisis hit.

SEC'Y PAULSON: Right.

MR. BROKAW: But we also know that they were caught in some significant accounting irregularities. They changed the management at the top; now they're both hemorrhaging money. You do have the authority to bail them out if it becomes necessary. But a lot of taxpayers are saying, "Why should I have to foot the bill for this?" I mean, there are wealthy investors who bought these bonds knowing that the government would not back them. Now, suddenly, they've got a fail-safe arrangement with the Treasury secretary.

SEC'Y PAULSON: Well, I've heard a lot of those same comments, and what I say to all those who make the comments to me is I say to them, you know, this was not a pleasant task for me to go to the Congress and ask for these backup facilities. Matter of fact, it was a very unpleasant task. But it was an easy one because it was better than the alternative. These institutions are right now critical to the stability of our capital markets, and they're critical to us getting through this, this housing situation.

And I would like to point something else out. In addition to these backup powers we have, these backup authorities, what we have now is a legislation calling for a strong new regulator with real powers to deal with, with capital adequacy, to deal with systemic risk. And the issue we've had, Tom, is, for some time, people in Washington have looked at these government-sponsored entities and on one side people have said they are really significant risks. Others said there weren't significant risks, and for, for, for many, many years nothing was done. And we now have a new regulator with very strong powers. The Fed is going to have a seat at the table. And so, in addition to working through this period of turmoil, we're in a position where the country will now be able to focus looking ahead at the systemic risk, and I, I think it's going to be very difficult for someone to argue there isn't systemic risk.

FOX News Sunday Transcript (8-10-08): McCain's Campaign Manager

Read the transcript here. Chris Wallace interviews McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis.

WALLACE: According to a recent poll — and let's put it up — people rate Obama's ads as positive by a margin of 38 percent to 13. But they view McCain's ads as negative 31 percent to 19.

Mr. Davis, why is the McCain campaign spending so much time and so much of its money attacking Obama?

DAVIS: Well, first of all, I don't think that we are spending that much time and money attacking Obama. And I would say Obama is spending exactly the same amount of time attacking us and, frankly, probably more money.

Obama started negative campaigning on John McCain long before we started punching back, and I think a lot of our effort is really to get back into this game, try and galvanize some of the public attention back onto this race, make sure everybody understands there's two people in this race, not just one, and I think we've been successful in doing that.

And you know, look. You could read a lot of polls right now, and it's August before a presidential election, and I really don't think that these polls are going to make a bit of difference come September.

WALLACE: All right. Let's take a look at one of your campaign's recent ads. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Life in the spotlight must be grand. But for the rest of us, times are tough. Obama voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Mr. Davis, especially that last sentence, isn't that misleading?

DAVIS: Nothing misleading about it. Barack Obama voted for a budget resolution that would have increased taxes on people, families, making $42,000. What's misleading about that?

WALLACE: Well, in fact, it only would be single people making $42,000. It would be families making over $60,000. But Obama — as you say, he voted for a non-binding budget resolution that overall talked about doing away with the Bush tax cuts.

In fact, he says, that's not his tax plan, that he supports a middle-class tax cut. And I want to put something up on the screen. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center says someone making $37,000 a year under Obama's plan would get a tax cut of $892. Under McCain's plan, they get a tax cut of $113.

DAVIS: Look, Obama wants to take away the current tax cuts that people now have. That includes a $1,000 child tax credit for people exactly in that category. It means doing away with the marriage penalty and many other things.

In the short period of time Barack Obama has been in the United States Senate, less than 300 working days, he has voted for 90 tax increases.

Now, we could have an ad on every tax increase he's voted on every single day between now and the election and still not get them all in. So I don't think anybody's going to question — who's going to raise your taxes as president of the United States? Barack Obama.

Who's going to cut your taxes and hold down spending as president of the United States? John McCain.

The Anthrax Witch Hunt: Ivins Only the Latest Victim

The more we learn the more we find out that the U.S. investigators are behaving more like the Gestapo or KGB rather than law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the Constitution.

When Perry Mikesell, a microbiologist in Ohio, came under suspicion as the anthrax attacker, he began drinking heavily, family members say, and soon died. After a doctor in New York drew the interest of the F.B.I., his marriage fell apart and his practice suffered, his lawyer says. And after two Pakistani brothers in Pennsylvania were briefly under scrutiny, they eventually had to leave the country to find work.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s path to Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who committed suicide late last month as federal officials moved closer to indicting him for the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, was long and tortuous. Before the investigators settled on Dr. Ivins — and his defenders still say the F.B.I. hounded an innocent man to death — they had focused on Steven J. Hatfill, another Army researcher, for several years.

But along the way, scores of others — terrorists, foreigners, academic researchers, biowarfare specialists and an elite group of Army scientists working behind high fences and barbed wire — drew the interest of the investigators. For some of them the cost was high: lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships.

At the Army biodefense laboratory in Frederick, Md., where Dr. Ivins worked, the inquiry became a murder mystery, the cast composed of top scientists eyeing one another warily over vials of lethal pathogens.

“It was not pleasant,” recalled Jeffrey J. Adamovicz, a former official there. “There was a general sense of paranoia that they were going to get somebody no matter what.”

Some critics fault the F.B.I.’s investigation as ignorant, incompetent and worse. Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who was a Princeton University physicist, said that the disclosures linking Dr. Ivins to the crime notwithstanding, the inquiry was “poorly handled” and “resulted in a trail of embarrassment and personal tragedy.”

[...]Early on, with more zeal than solid information, agents turned on three Pakistani-born city officials in Chester, Pa. One, Dr. Irshad Shaikh, was the health commissioner; his brother, Dr. Masood Shaikh, ran the lead-abatement program. The third, Asif Kazi, was then an accountant in the finance department.

Mr. Kazi was sitting in his City Hall office one day in November 2001 when F.B.I. agents burst in and began a barrage of questions.

“It was really scary,” Mr. Kazi recalled in an interview last week. “It was: ‘What do you think of 9/11? What do know about anthrax?’ ”

Across town, an agent pointed a gun through an open window at Mr. Kazi’s home while others knocked down the front door as his wife was cooking in the kitchen. At the Shaikh brothers’ house, agents in bioprotection suits began hunting for germ-making equipment and carted away computers.

None of the three men had ever worked with anthrax. But for days, they were on national television as footage of the searches ran on a video loop and news announcers wondered aloud if they were the killers.

The men were cleared after it turned out that a disgruntled employee had sought revenge by calling in a bogus tip. But for all three, trouble followed. The Shaikhs’ path to citizenship was disrupted, their visas ran out and both had to find work abroad, Mr. Kazi said.

- Related Posts:

• FBI Case Against Anthrax Scientist Ivins: Where's the Evidence?
• FBI Tried Coercing Ivins' Children into Accusing Their Father in Anthrax Attacks
• Bruce Ivins was a Scapegoat in the FBI Anthrax Investigation
• Another Victim of the Government Anthrax Witch Hunt?
• Scientist Is Paid Millions by U.S. in Anthrax Suit