Liz Cheney open to political run
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon.
“It’s something I very well may do,” said Elizabeth “Liz” Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two Republican presidential campaigns.
Ms. Cheney, 44, has emerged as one of the strongest defenders of the effectiveness and legality of Bush-Cheney policies on enhanced interrogation methods. More recently, she and her father have become two of the most outspoken critics of President Obama’s position on terrorism and other national security issues, which has led Republicans to consider her a strong candidate for national political office.
Ms. Cheney told The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” that recent new reports that her father ordered the CIA to hide information from Congress and that a government probe could follow appears like political cover for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who have accused agency Director Leon Panetta of lying.
“It gets more and more appalling every day,” she said. “I think they’re very worried about Speaker Pelosi.”
Regina Benjamin, Obama’s Pick For Surgeon General
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama turned to the Deep South for the next surgeon general, choosing a rural Alabama family physician who made headlines with fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Dr. Regina Benjamin is known along Alabama’s impoverished Gulf Coast as a country doctor who makes house calls and doesn’t turn away patients who can’t pay _ even as she’s had to find the money to rebuild a clinic repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes and once even fire.
“For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what’s best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients,” Obama said Monday in introducing his choice for a job known as America’s doctor.
He said Benjamin will bring insight as his administration struggles to revamp the health care system:
Saying she “has seen in a very personal way what is broken about our health care system,” Obama said Benjamin will bring important insight as his administration tries to revamp that system.
Benjamin called the job “a physician’s dream,” and pledged to be a voice for patients in need _ and to fight the preventable diseases that claim too many lives each year, including nearly her entire family.
Her father died with diabetes and high blood pressure, her only brother of HIV, her mother of lung cancer “because as a young girl, she wanted to smoke just like her twin brother could” _ an uncle now on oxygen as a result, she noted.
Israel Block Aid to Gaza
June 26, 2009 by comrex
Filed under Federal, Guest Opinion, World
They Denied Us So They Wouldn’t Have to Ram Us
The Israelis are hopping mad. And they’re flexing their muscles in all the ugly places. They can’t ram us again without sparking an international uproar, so they’re trying to stop us from leaving the port at all. The Limasol, Cyprus Port Authority which controls the port of Larnaca also, sent their inspector to Larnaca with a letter saying that the boat failed inspection, only thing, the letter was written BEFORE he even arrived in Larnaca to do the inspection! Reuters is doing the story at this very moment saying that we were prevented from leaving due to Cypriot authorities. We just learned from a Cyprus government source that pressure is being applied by Israel to deny us departure credentials. It appears, then, that Israel is putting us into contortions because they don’t want us to take cement into Gaza. After white phosphorus, depleted uranium, DIME, cluster bombs, F16s, death, destruction, and mayhem. All of *this* over a few bags of cement. Can you believe???
1. Read the Haaretz article here, showing Israeli concern about us taking cement to Gaza
2. Hear the interview with Don Debar on the contortions we’re being put through by Cyprus Port Authority
3. Read the Reuters article here (interesting that the story broke in Israel and not Cyprus!!)
4. Individuals have already started to contact the Cyprus UN Mission and their DC Embassy to inquire why they are arbitrarily not allowing the Spirit of Humanity and the Free Gaza to set sail.
1. Here is the Ha’aretz article:
2. Hear Greta Berlin and I explain what is happening with the purposeful delay of our departure
http://www.livestream.com/wbaix
3. Read the Reuters article:
12:54 25Jun09 -Cyprus halts aid boats bound for Gaza Strip
LARNACA, Cyprus, June 25 (Reuters) – Cyprus stopped two
boats planning to carry aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of an
Israeli blockade from leaving port on Thursday, officials said.
The U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had been planning to take
33 activists to Gaza with medical supplies and cement, a
material that Israel does not allow into the Palestinian
territory devastated by a short war that ended early this year.
The Free Gaza Movement started sending regular aid voyages
from Cyprus to Gaza in August 2008, but one of its boats was
involved in a collision with an Israeli vessel in December, and
was turned back on another mission in January.
Cypriot shipping officials cited inspection requirements for
stopping the two vessels, a small ferry and a sailing boat, from
leaving port two hours before their scheduled departure.
Both vessels had travelled to Gaza before.
“One of the ships was only recently registered in Cyprus and
under Cyprus law it has to undergo inspection before being given
permission to sail,” said Serghios Serghiou, head of Cyprus’s
Department of Merchant Shipping. “(The second) … did not apply
for any inspections before sailing.”
Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza in 2007 after the
Islamist group Hamas took control of the enclave, a tiny sliver
of territory home to some 1.5 million people.
Israel bans imports of cement, steel or other building
supplies to Gaza, saying militants could use them for military
purposes. One of the vessels was to carry 15 tonnes of cement.
Israeli forces bombed then invaded Gaza in late December
2008 with a declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks
from the Hamas-ruled territory.
The war damaged infrastructure and hurt an economy already
hobbled by years of isolation.
(Writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Lin Noueihed)
((michele.kambas@thomsonreuters.com; 357 22469607; Reuters
messaging michele.kambas.reuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: PALESTINIANS ISRAEL/ACTIVISTS
Thursday, 25 June 2009 12:54:02
RTRS [nLO676773 ] {C}
ENDS
We are determined to depart, if not today, then tomorrow.
—
http://www.livestream.com/dignity
http://dignity.ning.com/
http://www.twitter.com/dignityaction
http://www.myspace.com/dignityaction
http://www.myspace.com/runcynthiarun
http://www.twitter.com/cynthiamckinney
http://www.facebook.com/CynthiaMcKinney
US Senate passes detainee photo bill
Senate passes detainee photo bill
Bill sponsor Lindsey Grapham says it will help protect American troops
By JAMES ROSEN – jrosen@mcclatchydc.com
WASHINGTON – Sen. Lindsey Graham urged the House on Thursday to follow the Senate in passing his bill prohibiting the release of classified photos showing abuse and humiliation of terror suspects held by the United States.
The Senate unanimously approved the Graham measure, co-sponsored by Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, late Wednesday
“They’re embarrassing, they’re inappropriate and they would be used by our enemies to put our troops in jeopardy,” Graham said of the photos.
Graham, R-S.C., said the photos were similar to those of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, which caused an international uproar when they were released in 2004.
“Passing this bill is essential to protecting our fighting men and women,” Graham and Lieberman said Thursday in a joint statement. “Each one of these photos would be tantamount to a death sentence to those serving our nation in the most dangerous and difficult spots like Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”
Obama initially supported releasing the photos – most of which Graham said depict detainees being held at U.S. prisons in Afghanistan – but changed course last month.
The Senate passed the Graham-Lieberman legislation banning the photos’ release as a stand-alone bill after Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, called Graham earlier Wednesday and asked him to stop blocking a broader war spending measure.
Graham had vowed to filibuster that $106 million supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq and Afghanistan and hold up other Senate bills after the House Democratic leadership removed a Graham-Lieberman amendment barring release of the detainee photos.
The Graham-Lieberman amendment and a separate provision providing $1 billion to the auto industry had delayed passage of the war spending bill for days.
Graham said Obama promised to issue an executive order if necessary to ensure the controversial photos weren’t released.
Graham and Lieberman agreed to remove the photo-release ban from the war-spending bill and to offer it as free-standing legislation, which the Senate approved by voice vote Wednesday evening.
Free of the detainee-photo issue, the Senate on Thursday passed the war spending bill by a 91-5 vote.
Graham voted for the $106 million measure, while Sen. Jim DeMint voted against it.
DeMint’s aides said he opposed the bill because it contains “a 108 billion IMF bailout” and the $1 billion to help automakers.
“It is wrong to use our troops as an excuse to force through runaway spending and bad policies,” DeMint said.
The measure provides only $5 billion in direct funding to the International Monetary Fund, as part of a credit line that could go higher.
The Graham-Lieberman bill prohibits the release of the detainee photos for three years, with the defense secretary or the president authorized to extend the ban an additional three years.
Graham said a bill passed by Congress and signed by the president would carry more weight than an executive order.
Graham said Speaker Nancy Pelosi must overcome resistance from Rep. Barney Frank and other Democrats for his measure to pass in the House.
James Rosen covers Washington for McClatchy newspapers in South Carolina.
Bailed-out firms spend Millions on Lobbying
By Dan Eggen
updated 22 minutes ago
GM, banks find cash to fund bids to sway lawmakers, Obama administration
Top recipients of federal bailout money spent more than $10 million on political lobbying in the first three months of this year, including aggressive efforts aimed at blocking executive pay limits and tougher financial regulations, according to newly filed disclosure records.
The biggest spenders among major firms in the group included General Motors, which spent nearly $1 million a month on lobbying, and Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, which together spent more than $2.5 million in their efforts to sway lawmakers and Obama administration officials on a wide range of financial issues. In all, major bailout recipients have spent more than $22 million on lobbying in the six months since the government began doling out rescue funds, Senate disclosure records show.
The new lobbying totals come at a time of mounting anger in Congress and among the public over the actions of many bailed-out firms, which have bristled at attempts to cap excessive bonuses and have loudly complained about the restrictions placed on hundreds of billions of dollars in government loans. Administration officials said this week that top officials at Chrysler Financial turned away a $750 million government loan in favor of pricier private financing because executives didn’t want to abide by new federal limits on pay.
The reports revived objections from advocacy groups and some lawmakers, who say firms should not be lobbying against stricter oversight at the same time they are receiving billions from the government through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.
“Taxpayers are subsidizing a legislative agenda that is inimical to their interests and offensive to what the whole TARP program is about,” said William Patterson, executive director of CtW Investment Group, which is affiliated with a coalition of labor unions. “It’s business as usual with taxpayers picking up the bill.”
But several company representatives said yesterday that none of the money borrowed from the government has been used to fund lobbying activities – though there is no mechanism to verify that. Financial firms have successfully quashed proposed legislation that would explicitly ban the use of TARP money for lobbying or campaign contributions.
‘Very complicated policy debates’
GM spokesman Greg Martin said that maintaining a lobbying presence is vital to ensure that the automaker has a say when major policy decisions are made. “We are part of what is arguably one of the most regulated industries, and we provide a voice in very complicated policy debates,” Martin said.
According to quarterly lobbying reports that were due Monday, more than a dozen financial firms and carmakers that have received TARP assistance spent money on lobbying during the first three months of this year. After Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, top lobbyists included American Express, Wells Fargo Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Most of the companies spent less on lobbying this year than they did during the first quarter of 2008. J.P. Morgan, for example, spent $1.43 million in early 2008, compared with $1.31 million this year. Others, however, showed increased spending, including Capital One Financial, which doubled its quarterly lobbying expenditures to more than $400,000.
The lobbying records do not yet include campaign contributions by corporate lobbyists. Bank of America, for example, which spent $660,000 on lobbying in the first quarter, also gave more than $218,000 in campaign contributions through its PAC, according to the Federal Election Commission.
The Citigroup lobbying report provides a glimpse of the troubled company’s interests in Washington, including credit card rules, student loan policies, and patent and trademark issues. Citigroup chief executive Vikram S. Pandit and other company officials lobbied fiercely against a House bill approved in March that would have placed a 90 percent tax on bonuses for traders, executives and bankers earning more than $250,000 at firms that had been bailed out by taxpayers. The proposal stalled in the Senate.
Citigroup spokeswoman Molly Meiners said the company “specifically prohibits the use of TARP funds for lobbying-related activities” and said the funds “are subject to an oversight and approvals process.”
Database editor Sarah Cohen contributed to this report.
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