Greenspan issues deficit warning
America's soaring federal budget deficits represent a major obstacle to long-term U.S. economic stability even though they have yet to put pressure on interest rates, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday.
May 06, 2004
More US torture pictures (updated 5/11/2004)
Mixed in with more than 1,000 digital pictures obtained by The Washington Post are photographs of naked men, apparently prisoners, sprawled on top of one another while soldiers stand around them. There is another photograph of a naked man with a dark hood over his head, handcuffed to a cell door. And another of a naked man handcuffed to a bunk bed, his arms splayed so wide that his back is arched. A pair of women's underwear covers his head and face.
May 01, 2004
British torture pictures
March 18, 2005: Removed because the pictures are believed to be fake.
April 30, 2004
US torture pictures
The torture pictures you'd normally see here were removed because Bravenet.com (the server for this website) requested it. I strongly disagree with their decision.
>April 30, 2004
Sinclair Censor's Nightline
Apr. 30 — At the end of one of the most deadly months since the military operation began in Iraq, ABCNEWS' Nightline will pay tribute to all the American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq by devoting the entire broadcast to reading their names and showing their photographs.
The program has sparked a war of words as critics claim the special 40-minute program is anti-war. While Nightline calls it a "tribute," Sinclair Broadcast Group, a Maryland-based media company whose holdings include 62 TV stations, is pre-empting Nightline on its eight ABC affiliates, including stations in Columbus, Ohio; St. Louis, Mo.; and Charleston, W.Va.
April 23, 2004
Forbidden Photo
The Last Salute
Last week, the Seattle Times ran the image that Americans haven't been allowed to see before: the flag-draped coffins bearing the remains of American soldiers killed in Iraq beginning their journey home.
April 19, 2004
Who's lying?
Daily Howlder --
BUSH (4/13/04): Now, in the, what's called the PDB, there was a warning about bin Laden's desires on America.
RICE (under oath 4/8/04): Commissioner, this was not a warning. This was a historic memo.
April 19, 2004
Powell spills goods on flawed war
American Progress -- The Bush administration trumped up intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to win public support for an ideological war in Iraq.
The war in Iraq diverted critical resources from the fight against al Qaeda.
The administration failed to plan for the aftermath of war and has created a terrorist front in Iraq where none existed before
April 17, 2004
Bush ordered Iraq War Plans in November 2001
April 17 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush ordered an Iraq war plan in November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and while the U.S. military was still trying to oust the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, according to excerpts of a new book.
``Let's get started on this,'' Bush recalled telling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Nov. 21, 2001, according to ``Plan of Attack,'' by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward. ``And get Tommy Franks looking at what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to.'' Army General Franks, now retired, led the U.S. Central Command from June 2000 to August 2003.
April 12, 2004
Scalia apologizes to reporters
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (search) has apologized for an incident last week in which a U.S. marshal erased reporters' recordings of a speech Scalia gave to high school students.
"I have written to the reporters involved, extending my apology," Scalia said in a letter to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
April 10, 2004
Text: President's Daily Brief on Aug. 6, 2001
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
...
CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
July 24, 2003
Impeachable Offense
Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11
2. Finding: During the spring and summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community experienced a significant increase in information indicating that Bin Ladin and al- Qa'ida intended to strike against U.S. interests in the very near future.
...
12. Finding: During the summer of 2001, when the Intelligence Community was bracing for an imminent al-Qa'ida attack, difficulties with FBI applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance and the FISA process led to a diminished level of coverage of suspected al-Qa'ida operatives in the United States.
April 08,
2004Panel's focus on August 06 PDB
USA Today -- "Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country?" commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a onetime Watergate prosecutor, said after Rice testified that the president had not been given specific warnings about such plots. "And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?"
Rice replied, "I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' "
It was a defining moment in the hearing, and it cut to the core of what Rice was there to answer: what the president and his team knew in the weeks and months before Sept. 11, 2001, and whether they did enough to respond to the growing threat from al-Qaeda.
March 16, 2004
Mistrust of US higher one year after Iraq War.
A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished. Opinion of the United States in France and Germany is at least as negative now as at the war's conclusion, and British views are decidedly more critical. Perceptions of American unilateralism remain widespread in European and Muslim nations, and the war in Iraq has undermined America's credibility abroad. Doubts about the motives behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism abound, and a growing percentage of Europeans want foreign policy and security arrangements independent from the United States. Across Europe, there is considerable support for the European Union to become as powerful as the United States.
March 08, 2004
Scalia addressed advocacy group before key decision
As the Supreme Court was weighing a landmark gay rights case last year, Justice Antonin Scalia gave a keynote dinner speech in Philadelphia for an advocacy group waging a legal battle against gay rights.
Scalia addressed the $150-a-plate dinner hosted by the Urban Family Council two months after hearing oral arguments in a challenge to a Texas law that made gay sex a crime. A month after the dinner, he sharply dissented from the high court's decision overturning the Texas law.
Feb 07, 2004
An Impeachable Offense
Bush ignored CIA caveats on Iraq
Washington Post -- In its fall 2002 campaign to win congressional support for a war against Iraq, President Bush and his top advisers ignored many of the caveats and qualifiers included in the classified report on Saddam Hussein's weapons that CIA Director George J. Tenet defended Thursday.
In fact, they made some of their most unequivocal assertions about unconventional weapons before the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was completed.
Jan 22, 2004
Rehnquist questioned on Cheney-Scalia trip
CNN--Two leading Democratic senators asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Thursday about the propriety of a hunting trip Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took with Vice President Dick Cheney while Cheney has a case pending before the high court.
January 17,
2004CBS rejects anti-Bush Super Bowl ad
LOS ANGELES -- The liberal online advocacy Web site MoveOn.org sought to place an ad that uses images of children working at adult jobs to criticize the federal budget deficit. The Super Bowl is traditionally the most-watched TV event of the year.
In a presidential election year, network airspace will soon be filled with pointed political messages. But CBS is required by law to accept ads for candidates and cannot change their message, Franks said." [editor's note: CBS is required by law to carry candidate ads.]
January 15,
2004Military lawyers criticize tribunal
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Five U.S. military lawyers assigned to defend prisoners captured in Afghanistan in a newly created military tribunal filed a sharply worded "friend of the court" brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, arguing against the tribunal's legitimacy, the detainees inability to appeal to a U.S. civilian court and the Bush administration's attempt to have the judicial branched "usurped."
The director of the National Institute of Military Justice, an organization that tracks and analyses military justice issues, called the brief a "watershed" event for the American military's legal community.
January 14,
2004Pentagon auditors seen prove into Haliburton contract
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Auditors have asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate information they received about suspected irregularities in a Halliburton contract to restore Iraqi oil and make fuel purchases, Pentagon officials.
It was unclear what information triggered the referral by the Defense Contracts Auditing Agency but a draft audit disclosed last month concluded that US government had been overcharged by some 61 million dollars for oil purchased through a Halliburton subcontractor in Kuwait.
"A referral made on January 13, 2004 by the Defense Contract Audit Agency basically resulting from information that they received is believed to warrant an investigation by the DoD (Department of Defense) inspector general," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
January 14,
2004Tests on Iraqi Shells show no chemical agents
OPENHAGEN, Denmark — Mortar shells found in southern Iraq by the Danish military do not appear to contain chemical weapon agents as originally suspected, Fox News has learned.
After a 16-man team from the Iraqi Survey Group was sent to the scene to examine the mortar shells, tests of five of them yielded no traces of chemical agent, a Danish military official told Fox on Wednesday.
January 13,
2004An Impeachable Offense
US accused of war crimes
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A top human rights group Tuesday accused the U.S. military of committing war crimes by demolishing homes of suspected insurgents and arresting the relatives of Iraqi fugitives.
"Assertions that the coalition is intentionally attacking homes as a matter of collective punishment are false," said Col. William Darley, a military spokesman. "People are not arrested because they are related to other suspects — people are detained because they themselves are suspects."
January 13,
2004O'Neill's war account confirmed by second source
an. 13— President Bush ordered the Pentagon to explore the possibility of a ground invasion of Iraq well before the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, an official told ABCNEWS, confirming the account former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill gives in his new book.
The official, who asked not to be identified, was present in the same National Security Council meetings as O'Neill immediately after Bush's inauguration in January and February of 2001.
January 13,
2004War College Report: Iraq war was a strategic error
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A report published by the Army War College calls the Bush administration's war on terrorism unfocused and says the invasion of Iraq was "a strategic error."
The research paper by Jeffrey Record, a professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, said the president's strategy "promises much more than it can deliver" and threatens to spread U.S. military resources too thin. Record also wrote that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq did not present a threat to the United States and was a distraction from the war on terrorism.
January 10,
2004An impeachable offense
Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9.11
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill charges in a new book that President Bush entered office in January 2001 intent on invading Iraq and was in search of a way to go about it.
O'Neill, fired in December 2002 as part of a shake-up of Bush's economic team, has become the first major insider of the Bush administration to launch an attack on the president.
He likened Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts from a CBS interview to promote a book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, "The Price of Loyalty."
January 08,
2004Powell: No Iraq link to al-Qaida
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging Thursday that he had seen no "smoking gun [or] concrete evidence' of ties between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
Powell's observation marked a turning point in administration arguments in support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq last spring. The assertion that Saddam and the terrorist network led by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden were working in concert was a primary justification for the war.
January 04,
2004IMF: US debt threatens world economy
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund.
Prepared by a team of I.M.F. economists, the report sounded a loud alarm about the shaky fiscal foundation of the United States, questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration's tax cuts and warning that large budget deficits pose "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world.
January 02,
2004Republican Congress takes power from states
WASHINGTON - Traditionally the champions of small government and states' rights, President Bush (news - web sites) and his allies in Congress have aggressively pursued policies that expand the powers of Washington in the schoolroom, the courthouse, the home and the doctor's office.
Sometimes over the objections of states — and often at the behest of business — Republicans have passed or are promoting legislation and regulations that make Washington the final arbiter on environmental standards, class-action lawsuits, medical malpractice cases and Internet taxes.
December 24,
2003Court suspends Bush pollution rules
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court on Wednesday halted a Bush administration plan to allow power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to make upgrades to aging plants without installing costly new air pollution control equipment.
A coalition of environmental groups and states sued to stop the new rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the policy changes violated the federal Clean Air Act and would result in more emissions being spewed into the air.
Emissions from coal-fired power plants and refineries can aggravate asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.
December 31,
2003Impeachable Offense
Special Prosecutor Appointed to uncover CIA leak
December 31, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The Bush White House will face a special prosecutor for the first time, as Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday removed himself from the probe into the administration official who leaked the name of a CIA operative.
Former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jim Comey, who is now Ashcroft's No. 2, will oversee the leaks investigation. Comey's first move yesterday was to assign Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, a veteran terrorism prosecutor who worked with Comey in Manhattan, as a special prosecutor in the case.
December 30, 2003
US supported Hussein's evil
The documents make it clear that were the trial of Hussein to be held by an impartial world court, it would prove an embarrassing two-edged sword for the White House, calling into question the motives of U.S. foreign policy. If there were a complete investigation into those who aided and abetted Hussein's crimes against humanity, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State George Shultz would probably end up as material witnesses.
It was Rumsfeld and Shultz who told Hussein and his emissaries that U.S. statements generally condemning the use of chemical weapons would not interfere with relations between secular Iraq and the Reagan administration, which took Iraq off the terrorist-nations list and embraced Hussein as a bulwark against fundamentalist Iran. Ironically, the U.S supported Iraq when it possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and invaded it when it didn't.
December 29, 2003
Iraqi Council flexes muscles
The council began flexing its muscles last month when it undertook a review of Bremer's gubernatorial appointments to each of Iraq's 18 provinces. It deemed four of the governors unfit for office, firing one and starting procedures to replace the others. Council members are challenging such regional appointments by Bremer, insisting they are better acquainted with the needs and values of Iraqis than an American making personnel choices under deadline pressure.
December 25, 2003
Court suspends Bush pollution rules
Under the EPA's planned rules, a facility, such as a power plant, could have replaced equipment without installing pollution controls as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of the plant.
When Congress wrote the new source review provision of the Clean Air Act in 1977, it assumed most of the aging coal-fired plants would be gradually replaced with new ones. Congress exempted plants operating at the time from stricter pollution controls, unless they launched a major renovation or expansion.
December 25,
2003Bush flip-flop: US gives North Korea aid AGAIN!
The United States will donate an additional 60,000 metric tons of agricultural commodities to North Korea through the U.N. World Food Program, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement.
The additional contribution brings total U.S. food aid to North Korea this year to 100,000 tons.
Dec. 20,
2003Condi Rice doesn't want to tesifty under oath
Poised to convene its first hard-hitting hearings in January, the federal commission investigating the 9/11 attacks continues to be at odds with the White House over access to key information and witnesses. Two government sources tell TIME that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground rules for her appearance in part because she does not want to testify under oath or, according to one source, in public. While national security advisers are presidential staff and generally don't have to appear before Congress, the commission argues that its jurisdiction is broader—and it's been requiring fact witnesses in its massive investigation to testify under oath. The exception: it may not seek to swear in President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Bill Clinton or Al Gore in the increasingly likely event they will be asked to speak to the commission. "I think that it is in their interest to meet with us," says GOP commission member John Lehman, saying that they should be invited, not subpoenaed, and be allowed to appear behind closed doors.
Dec. 20, 2003
CBO: Balanced budgets nearly impossible
WASHINGTON - Keeping the federal budget at or near balance over the next 50 years could require painful tax increases, spending cuts or both, the Congressional Budget Office says.
In a look at the government's long-term budget outlook, Congress' nonpartisan fiscal analyst offered possible combinations of tax and spending changes, all of which would leave lawmakers choosing among politically unpalatable options.
Dec. 19,
2003An Impeachable Offense
Courts rule against Bush
The Ninth and Second U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals ruled yesterday that the U.S. military cannot indefinitely hold prisoners without access to lawyers or the American courts.
The Ninth Circuit ruling involved one of 660 "enemy combatants' being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Second Circuit decision involved American citizen Jose Padilla, who was seized in Chicago in an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb' and declared an enemy combatant.
Dec. 17,
2003Arnold "the pig" Schwarzenegger's tax cut cause fiscal crisis
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Saying California's legislative leadership "refuses to act," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared California in a fiscal crisis, invoking one-time emergency powers to impose $150 million in spending cuts -- largely in social service programs -- without lawmakers' approval.
The cuts free up money lost when the Republican governor kept a campaign promise by rolling back an unpopular tripling of the state's car tax. The funds will be used for city and county governments that have lost more than $300 million since.
Dec. 18,
2003Deficits through 2009 and beyond
WASHINGTON - President Bush's goal of halving this year's projected $500 billion deficit by 2009 distracts from the more serious crunch the government faces later as the huge baby boom generation ages, critics say.
Dec. 18, 2003WH economic advisor Mankiw: Record deficit for 2004
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The CIA is discussing "next steps" in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with its leader David Kay, a US official said after the Washington Post reported Kay is planning to leave the Iraq Survey Group.
The CIA had no comment on the report which said Kay could leave as early as February, before the group's work is finished.
Dec. 18,
2003WMD search leader David Kay to resign
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top economic adviser said on Wednesday the United States would likely run a budget deficit of between 4 and 4-1/2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in fiscal 2004 -- or roughly $440 billion to $495 billion.
"Next year we will probably have a deficit in the ballpark of 4 percent of GDP, a little more -- maybe 4-1/2 percent of GDP," Mankiw told the Exchequer Club in answer to a question.
Dec. 17,
2003FEC Fines Ashcroft $110,000 for illegal contributions
The Federal Election Commission has determined that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's unsuccessful 2000 Senate reelection campaign violated election laws by accepting $110,000 in illegal contributions from a committee Ashcroft had established to explore running for president.
"The attorney general's office exhibited a distressing lack of care in issuing potentially prejudicial statements about this case," Rosen wrote in an opinion released Tuesday.
Dec. 17,
2003An Impeachable Offense
Judge admonishes Ashcroft for violating court order
DETROIT - A federal judge has admonished Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating a court order by making remarks about defendants in the nation's first major terror trial after Sept. 11.
"The attorney general's office exhibited a distressing lack of care in issuing potentially prejudicial statements about this case," Rosen wrote in an opinion released Tuesday.
Dec. 17,
2003Ill. Former Republican Governor Ryan Indicted
CHICAGO - Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of taking payoffs, gifts and vacations in return for government contracts and leases while he was governor and secretary of state.
Ryan, 69, a Republican known worldwide as a leading critic of the death penalty, gradually became the focus of a corruption investigation that began even before his 1998 election as governor. The scandal was a factor in his 2001 decision not to seek a second term.
Dec. 16,
2003Cardinal Martino: US treated Saddam like an animal
Cardinal Renato Martino, a leading critic of the war in Iraq, said he was moved to compassion as he saw images of "this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a beast," the BBC reported.
The Vatican has been a consistent opponent of the U.S.-led effort in Iraq.
Dec. 16,
2003Saddam's Arrest: rewriting history
At issue in how the capture of Saddam Hussein is understood, also, is the construction and reconstruction of history. The melodrama of the seizure should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Saddam Hussein, by this point in the war, had long since stopped being the crucial issue. Hussein was a bloody tyrant whose crimes should be adjudicated, but to assess the meaning of America's war in Iraq with that as the key justification would be like remembering Aug. 6, 1945, only with reference to the atrocities committed by the Japanese imperial army. The United States did not attack Iraq because of Hussein's wickedness (The world is rife with wicked tyrants). It did so because Hussein posed an imminent threat to his neighbors and America, and there was no other way to stop that threat. Additionally, Washington tied Hussein to 9/11 (an Al Qaeda-Iraq meeting in Prague), making the war against Iraq necessary to the war on terrorism.
It is already clear that these justifications were false. Even if Hussein now revealed a stock of chemical or biological agents, the question of "imminence" would remain, because post-invasion investigations have established that no weaponized agents were ready to use. And as for the Hussein connection with 9/11 (What meeting in Prague?), that has been exposed as fantasy.
Dec. 12,
2003EU Creates Independent Military Separate from NATO
BRUSSELS, Dec. 12 — The leaders of the 15-nation European Union approved a common security strategy on Friday that they said would enable Europe to "share in the responsibility for global security, and in building a better world."
The leaders, opening a two-day summit meeting to discuss a draft constitution for the union as it brings in 10 new members, most of them from Eastern Europe, also approved a plan for a joint military planning staff separate from NATO. The plan has aroused misgivings in Washington for fear that it would duplicate NATO institutions and damage trans-Atlantic cooperation on defense matters.
Dec. 12,
2003Pentagon: Halliburton overcharged US government in Iraq
Washington -- A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of the politically connected Halliburton Co. overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for gasoline delivered to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts, senior defense officials said on Thursday.
Dec. 15,
2003An Impeachable Offense
Another Cheney Lie: Cheney bypassed US intelligence agencies
THE MEMO, obtained by NEWSWEEK, suggests that the INC last year was directly feeding intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorism to one of Cheney's top foreign- policy aides. Cheney staffers later pushed INC info—including defectors' claims about WMD and terror ties—to bolster the case that Saddam's government posed a direct threat to America. But the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have strongly questioned the reliability of defectors supplied by the INC.
For months, Cheney's office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from the INC. But a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney's staff, as one of two "U.S. governmental recipients' for reports generated by an intelligence program being run by the INC and which was then being funded by the State Department.
Dec. 10, 2003US led Coalition Provisional Authority stops Iraqi body count
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)--Iraq's Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The order was relayed by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, but the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop, said Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department.
"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done."
Dec. 10,
2003One-third US trained Iraqi soldiers quit
WASHINGTON (AP) Plans to deploy the first battalion of Iraq's new army are in doubt because a third of the soldiers trained by the U.S.-led occupation authority have quit, defense officials said Wednesday.
Touted as a key to Iraq's future, the 700-man battalion lost some 250 men over recent weeks as they were preparing to begin operations this month, Pentagon officials said.
"We are aware that a third ... has apparently resigned and we are looking into that in order to ensure that we can recruit and retain high-quality people for a new Iraqi army," said Lt. Col. James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman.
Dec. 09,
2003Arnold "the pig" Schwarzenegger sued for defamation
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A Hollywood stuntwoman who claims she was sexually harassed by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger filed a lawsuit Monday alleging defamation by the governor and his campaign staff.
The day before Schwarzenegger was elected California's governor, Rhonda Miller spoke at a news conference alleging "outrageous acts" of sexual harassment by the bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-politician.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, repeats that claim and says his campaign spread lies that she was a convicted felon.
"Miss Miller has never been arrested in her life. She's never been convicted of anything," said her attorney, Paul Hoffman."
Dec. 08,
2003Justice Department hypes terrorism conviction rate
In the two years following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the federal government has dramatically increased the prosecution of crimes it says are related to domestic or foreign terrorism, and more than tripled its rate of convictions for those offenses compared with the two years before the attacks.
But the median sentence for those convicted of international terrorism during that time is just 14 days, while some convictions the government has labeled as related to counterterrorism resulted in a sentence of community service or drug rehabilitation, according to government data to be released by a private research group today.
Dec. 06,
2003Conservatives Criticize Bush on Spending
The Wall Street Journal editorial page accuses Bush of a "Medicare fiasco" and a "Medicare giveaway." Paul Weyrich, a coordinator of the conservative movement, sees "disappointment in a lot of quarters." Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist with the National Center for Policy Analysis, pronounces himself "apoplectic." An article in the American Spectator calls Bush's stewardship on spending "nonexistent," while Steve Moore of the Club for Growth labels Bush a "champion big-spending president."
"The president isn't showing leadership," laments Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, who calculates that federal spending per household is at a 60-year high.
Dec. 04,
2003Justice Department investigatess GOP bribes
The Justice Department said Thursday it would review complaints from political watchdog groups that Republican House leaders tried to bribe Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., to vote for a Medicare bill.
Smith voted against the bill despite what he described as threats against his son, Brad Smith, who is running for the House seat his father is vacating next year.
Nick Smith said his own party's leaders offered money for his son's campaign if he voted for the bill and that they threatened to support other GOP candidates for the seat if the congressman voted against the legislation.
Dec. 04,
2003Federal spending per household is most since WWII
Congress is set to end its session next week with a vote on an $820 billion appropriations bill, capping two years of record-level spending economists say has raised the per-household outlay to its highest since World War II.
Such programs as the No Child Left Behind education law have combined with wartime costs and a generous farm bill to increase government spending by 16 percent in the last two years, compared with an average of 3.5 percent a year during the 1990s. The recent passage of a $396 billion Medicare expansion and overhaul bill is expected to drive spending even higher in future years.
Feb 07,
2003Bush's Steel Tariffs cost 200,000 jobs
WSJ Online: Meanwhile, the tariffs imposed a toll on the rest of the economy--in particular on steel users. U.S. manufacturers that consume steel for products ranging from cars to toasters watched domestic steel prices jump by more than 30%. The International Trade Commission, which released a report at the tariffs' September midpoint, found that in their first year the levies inflicted a $680 million hit on the U.S. economy.
A study done earlier this year for the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition went further. It found that higher steel prices cost 200,000 American jobs and $4 billion in lost wages from February to November 2002. Those 200,000 jobs were more than the total number of people employed by the U.S. steel industry itself. That's one reason more than 200 companies and organizations representing steel-consuming and related industries sent Mr. Bush a letter last month begging for relief.
Dec 04,
2003Rush "the junkie" Limbaugh's medical records seized
A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said investigators searched Limbaugh's doctors' offices in Florida and New York.
A search warrant was served recently and a list of what was seized is expected to be filed with a court clerk's office in Palm Beach County, Florida, as early as Thursday, the source said.
Law enforcement sources tell CNN they are continuing to conduct a criminal investigation of the popular and outspoken talk show host as part of an ongoing investigation into the illegal sale of prescription painkillers.
Dec 03,
2003Mercury poisoning: EPA gives industry pollution allowance
Oxford LONDON (Reuters) - WASHINGTON Dec. 3 — The Bush administration on Wednesday defended a proposal to reduce mercury emissions by allowing power plants to trade emission credits. Critics say that could create mercury "hot spots" still harmful to public health.
The draft proposal would differ radically from the one offered by the Clinton administration three years ago, which would regulate mercury as a toxic substance through the use of "maximum achievable technology" at each of nearly 500 coal-fired power plants.
Dec 1,
2003Oxford Poll: 79% of Iraqi's distrust US Coalition
Oxford LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly 80 percent of Iraqis have little or no trust in U.S.-led occupying forces and most place their faith in religious leaders instead, according to a major survey published in Britain.
Some 57 percent of those questioned said they had no trust in the U.S.-led coalition and a further 22 percent said they had very little trust. Only eight percent said they had a great deal of confidence in the occupying force.
In contrast, 42 percent of Iraqis said they had a great deal of trust in Iraq's religious leaders and another 28 percent had "quite a lot" of trust. Only 11 percent had none at all.
Nov. 30,
2003Helen Thomas: Only dictators ban television news
WASHINGTON -- The raid by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East.
Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving it is intolerable.
The terrible irony here is that we pride ourselves on offering a model to the rest of the world on how to design -- and live by -- our constitutional freedoms. Journalists around the globe have been taught to emulate our approach to newsgathering, hopefully in an atmosphere free of government restraints.
Nov. 28, 2003GOP Watch: Spending escalates 13%
Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included. And he is poised to become the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement: the $400 billion Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs.
Oct. 02,
2003PM Howard censured for misleading public
Prime Minister John Howard was yesterday censured by the Senate for misleading the public in his justification for sending Australia to war with Iraq.
It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office.
The motion attacked Mr Howard for failing to adequately inform Australians that intelligence agency warnings about a war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack.
Aug. 24,
2003An impeachable offense
U.S. Air Force: Iraqi drones not usable as weapons
But the air force, which controls most of the American military's UAV fleet, didn't agree with that assessment from the beginning. And analysts at the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency said the air force view was widely accepted within their ranks as well.
Instead, the air force believed Iraq's UAV programs were for reconnaissance, as are most American UAVs. Intelligence on the drones suggested they were not large enough to carry much more than a camera and a video recorder, Boyd said.
Aug. 23, 2003
CBO projects worst budget shortfall in history
SFGate.com--The federal government faces another record deficit in 2004 -- possibly as high as $500 billion -- and will have a tough time trying to carve out a surplus while the country is saddled with the rising twin costs of war and homeland security.
The Bush administration's drive to pass new tax cuts and make existing tax breaks permanent, coupled with efforts to give seniors a Medicare prescription drug benefit and meet sharply rising defense costs, will eliminate the possibility for a return to surpluses in the next decade.
July 18, 2003, 2003
An Impeachable offense
Bush Uranium Lie Is Tip of the Iceberg
Aluminum tubes: In the State of the Union address and elsewhere, the White House has claimed that Iraq was seeking to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in processing uranium, tubes Bush said would be "suitable for nuclear weapons production."
Iraq/Al Qaeda links: When Bush announced the end of hostilities in Iraq in a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, he said of the defeated Iraqi regime: "We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda."
The trailers: Bush presented the discovery of two trailers in Iraq as proof that Iraq possessed banned weapons: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,"
Weapons Inspections: Bush has flagrantly misrepresented the history of the prewar conflict with Iraq over weapons inspections, telling reporters on July 14, "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."
July 16, 2003
BBC Global Poll: Bush viewed unfavorably by majority of world
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Fifty-seven percent of the more than 11,000 respondents in an international opinion poll view U.S. President George W. Bush in an unfavorable light
Fifty-six percent of the total pool of respondents felt the U.S. was wrong to attack Iraq.
The U.S. was considered more dangerous than Iran by those polled in Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil and South Korea - and more dangerous than Syria by respondents in all of the participating countries except the U.S., Australia and Israel.
May 29, 2003
Budget Deficits Hit Historic Levels
The government may spend $400 billion more this year than it takes in, dwarfing the previous record, the $290 billion deficit of 1990. To accommodate the imbalances, Bush signed a bill Tuesday adding nearly $1 trillion to the federal borrowing limit -- a record boost exceeding the total debt the government had accumulated in its history through 1980. Yet the resulting $7.38 trillion debt cap will probably suffice only until sometime next year.
April 15, 2003
War with Iraq had nothing to do with WMD
W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 — To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy.
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."
Jan. 18, 2003
Draft Articles of Impeachment
by Francis A. Boyle, professor of law, University of Illinois School of Law
January 18, 2003
"Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:"