| |
 |
Saturday, June 16, 2007 |
CommonDreams: "Watchdog groups say ties between a new White House aide and his former lobbying clients, including foreign governments, cast doubt on his ability to serve the American public.
The White House announced yesterday it had tapped Ed Gillespie, a high-powered GOP operative and lobbyist, to serve as counselor to the president, replacing Dan Bartlett who recently resigned."
NewsFromUnderground: "It apparently wasn't enough for the Bush administration to pack the Department of Justice with political operatives. The White House has now nominated one of the most meddlesome of those partisans, Hans von Spakovsky, to a powerful post on the Federal Election Commission.
This is the agency charged with making sure elections are fair - an especially ludicrous perch for Mr. Spakovsky. As a voting-rights appointee in the Justice Department, he promoted Republican initiatives to crimp the ballot power of minorities and the poor who typically favor Democrats.
In one of his party missions, Mr. Spakovsky overrode the recommendations of the department's staff professionals and approved a regressive law in Georgia that required voters to provide photo identification. The law, a voter suppression tool worthy of the Jim Crow era, was later blocked by the courts. A former G.O.P. county chairman in Georgia, Mr. Spakovsky failed to recuse himself from such an obvious conflict of interest. He also pushed for department approval of Tom DeLay's Texas gerrymandering plan - the plan that the Supreme Court ruled violated the Voting Rights Act."
Journalismus: "As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media.
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.
If a 'catastrophic emergency' - which could include a terrorist attack or a natural disaster - occurs, Bush's new directive says: 'The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.'
What about the other two co-equal branches of government? The directive throws them a bone by speaking of a 'cooperative effort' among the three branches, 'coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers'. The Vice-President would help to implement the plans."
11:20:22 AM 
|
|
YNetNews: "Many of the key players in the escalating British campaign to boycott Israel are Jewish or Israeli, the Jewish Chronicle revealed in an investigation published Thursday.
According to the investigation, the Jewish academics justify their stance as part of the struggle for Palestinian rights and ending Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories."
11:12:12 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2008.
|
|
|
|
|
