Monday, April 23, 2007
CNN Political Ticker AM
For the latest, breaking political news, check for updates throughout the day on the CNN Political Ticker. All politics, all the time. Compiled by Stephen Bach, CNN Washington Bureau
Making news today... "Millender-McDonald had announced last week that she was taking a leave of absence from the House because of her illness, her first public disclosure that she was battling cancer. Carson [CA] Mayor Jim Dear said Millender-McDonald had colon cancer that had metastasized to her liver." (Los Angeles Times) His comments "reflected a growing lack of support for Mr. Gonzales among key Republicans on Capitol Hill." (New York Times) Also, Newt Gingrich "chastised Bush on ABC's "This Week" for letting 'personal loyalty transcend service to the nation' by not forcing Gonzales to step down." (Los Angeles Times) President's Schedule: At 1:15 pm ET, Bush participates in a meeting on Medicare Part D in the Roosevelt Room, and at 3:15 pm ET, Bush greets the Indianapolis Colts on the South Lawn. Also on the Political Radar: "The President on Friday used the word 'progress' no fewer than ten times when he gave his Iraq update. "He said that while there were still horrific attacks in Baghdad and I quote 'The direction of the fight is beginning to shift.' In describing his escalation of American troops - what he calls a surge - he said, 'so far the operation is meeting expectations.' "The White House transcript says the President made those remarks in the State of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial." (Release) Tonight, McCain attends a fundraiser at the Belle Haven Club in Greenwich, CT. ================================================================= Political Hot Topics (Today's top political stories from news organizations across the country) AG'S FAILURE TO RESIGN "BAD FOR THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT," SAYS SPECTER: Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's failure to step down was "no doubt, bad for the Justice Department." Mr. Specter's comments, made on the television program "Fox News Sunday," reflected a growing lack of support for Mr. Gonzales among key Republicans on Capitol Hill as he faces accusations that the dismissals of eight United States attorneys were politically motivated. Only one Republican senator, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, has called outright for Mr. Gonzales to resign, though others made their anger at him clear in a blistering hearing over the dismissals on Thursday. In his testimony, Mr. Gonzales cited a faulty memory at least 50 times in responding to questions about the dismissals. New York Times: Specter Says Gonzales Presence Is 'Harmful' GINGRICH SAYS BUSH PUT "PERSONAL LOYALTY" ABOVE NATION'S INTEREST: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, chastised Bush on ABC's "This Week" for letting "personal loyalty transcend service to the nation" by not forcing Gonzales to step down. Gingrich reiterated his call, made earlier this month, for Gonzales to resign. Gonzales has worked closely with Bush in various capacities since the president began his political career as governor of Texas in 1995. Bush, in comments issued mostly through the White House media office, has stood by Gonzales. And the attorney general has given no indication that he intends to resign. Los Angeles Times: Gonzales remains in the spotlight SPECTER, SCHUMER SAY GUN CONTROL LAWS SHOULD BE CHANGED: In the wake of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that federal gun control laws should be changed to increase coordination between state and federal databases to prevent the sale of guns to those with mental health problems. Specter said on Fox News Sunday that, had there been better coordination between state and federal background repositories, a student with the mental health problems that Virginia Tech Seung-Hui Cho suffered from would not have been able to legally purchase guns... Schumer agreed with Specter and remarked that he will introduce legislation this week to require state databases to be update and coordinated with federal repositories. He also said tat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) will introduce companion legislation in the House. The Hill: Specter, Schumer call for gun law reform REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD DIES OF CANCER AT 68: Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, a Democrat whose House district encompassed Compton, Carson, much of Long Beach and parts of South Los Angeles, died of cancer Sunday. She was 68 and had served in Congress since 1996. The onetime Carson City Council member and state legislator capped a precedent-setting career earlier this year by becoming the first African American woman to head the House Committee on Administration, which oversees federal elections and the House's day-to-day operations... Millender-McDonald's chief of staff, Bandele McQueen, said the congresswoman died at her Carson home. Millender-McDonald had announced last week that she was taking a leave of absence from the House because of her illness, her first public disclosure that she was battling cancer. Los Angeles Times: Juanita Millender-McDonald, 68; Southland congresswoman FDA KNEW OF PROBLEMS, "RELIED ON PRODUCERS TO POLICE THEMSELVES": The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show. Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents. Congressional critics and consumer advocates said both episodes show that the agency is incapable of adequately protecting the safety of the food supply. Washington Post: FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food SHERYL CROW & LAURIE DAVID VS. THE ARCHITECT: Put celebrity environmental activists in a room with top Bush administration officials and a meeting of the minds could result. At least that is a theoretical possibility. The more likely outcome is that an argument will break out, as it did at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night between Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff, and the singer Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, a major Democratic donor and a producer of the global warming documentary featuring Al Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth." Ms. Crow and Ms. David, who have been visiting campuses in an event billed as the Stop Global Warming College Tour, approached Mr. Rove to urge him to take "a fresh look" at global warming, they said later. Recriminations between the celebrities and the White House carried over into Sunday, with Ms. Crow and Ms. David calling Mr. Rove "a spoiled child throwing a tantrum" and the White House criticizing their "Hollywood histrionics." New York Times: Bush Aide's Celebrity Meeting Becomes a Global Warming Run-In SOME DEMS "ALMOST APOLOGETIC" WHEN TALKING IMMIGRATION: In New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, the questions about immigration arise repeatedly -- and Democratic presidential candidates say they know they are alienating some of their strongest supporters by calling for legalization of illegal aliens. "It's a bad vote. It loses you votes. I've never found anybody that won on immigration," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said this month at a town hall forum at New England College. The issue has received far more attention among Republicans, but Democratic presidential candidates are facing the same polarizing questions. While some of the top Republican candidates have begun to change their positions to appeal to conservative voters, Democratic candidates remain firmly behind legalization of most illegal aliens. Still, they are almost apologetic as they make their pitches. Washington Times: United on immigration, Democrats divide voters ENOUGH WITH THE BIO, TIME TO TALK SUBSTANCE: Barack Obama is unleashing the fine print. In the political hothouses of town meetings and union gatherings, the Democratic presidential candidate has shared his soothing style and intriguing background. He's talked about bringing people together, banishing cynicism, serving as "a vehicle for your hopes and your dreams," as he put it this month in Portsmouth, N.H. Now his campaign is 10 weeks old. Enough with the niceties, the generalities, the story of his life. On Friday, the Illinois senator unveiled a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Today, he gives a speech on foreign policy. Next up, education and health care. It may seem early, given that it's nearly nine months until the first nominating contest. Yet Obama is playing catch-up with rivals. USA Today: Candidates hope ideas strike chords EDWARDS GETS A BOOST FROM HEDGE-FUNDERS: Two years ago, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, gearing up for his second run at the Democratic presidential nomination, gave a speech decrying the "two different economies in this country: one for wealthy insiders and then one for everybody else." Four months later, he began working for the kind of firm that to many Wall Street critics embodies the economy of wealthy insiders -- a hedge fund. Edwards became a consultant for Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based firm known mainly for its hedge funds, just as the funds were gaining prominence in the financial world -- and in the public consciousness, where awe over their outsize returns has mixed with misgivings about a rarefied industry that is, on the whole, run by and for extremely wealthy people and operates largely in secrecy. Washington Post: Hedge-Fund Ties Help Edwards Campaign CANDIDATES TALK ENERGY ON EARTH DAY: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took his campaign to Iowa's largest university campus Sunday to pitch tougher environmental policies and an anti-war message before thousands gathered on Earth Day. "We know that we've got an energy policy that is the absence of an energy policy," Obama said under a warm spring sun on the University of Iowa's campus. "It's an energy policy that sends $800 million a day to some of the most hostile nations on Earth, that leads us to fund both sides of the war on terrorism." But Obama (D-Ill.) was not alone among leading Democratic candidates in trying to convince potential voters of his environmental conscience in a state that will hold the first presidential voting in January. Chicago Tribune: Obama strong on environment McCAIN: GLOBAL WARMING NOT A "HOLLYWOOD INVENTION": Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is calling the United States' foreign-oil reliance and global warming twin threats the country must aggressively confront. "National security depends on energy security," the Arizona senator says in a speech he is to give Monday in which he suggests the country can't achieve either if it remains dependent on oil-rich Middle Eastern nations linked to terrorists. "Al-Qaida must revel in the irony that America is effectively helping to fund both sides of the war they caused. As we sacrifice blood and treasure, some of our gas dollars flow to the fanatics who build the bombs, hatch the plots, and carry out attacks on our soldiers and citizens," McCain says. "The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey." AP via Yahoo! News: McCain: Energy, warming are twin threats HE TRAVELS WELL: He's running for president, but some of Rudy Giuliani's campaign-trail hotels have been fit for a king. Giuliani, whose campaign boasts of having spent the least cash of all the Republican White House candidates, rented rooms at a string of high-end hotels as he stumped around the country over the last three months, his campaign filings show. They included the swank Fairmont San Francisco, the Arizona Biltmore hotel in Phoenix and the Hotel Andalucia in Santa Barbara, where the campaign paid $2,457 at the end of last month. Some $4,600 went to the Conrad Hotel in Indianapolis, a city where the candidate held a fund-raiser last month co-hosted by former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a policy adviser to Giuliani. Despite light campaign travel in January and February, Giuliani's three-month tab on out-of-town hotels was $48,500. New York Post: SUITE LIFE FOR RUDY |
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• Clinton on 'MyFace'• Pressure mounting for Gonzales to resign • Justice Department official: Gonzales in good spir... • New Hampshire voter tearfully appeals to Obama to ... • Vermont Senate adopts resolution seeking president... • GOP senator says Gonzales should consider resignin... • Administration officials: Gonzales may be convince... • MoveOn to air ad on McCain's 'Bomb Iran' joke • Clinton's campaign goes 'carbon neutral' for Earth... • McCain to critics: 'Lighten up' SUBSCRIBE
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