WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday asked a former acting Justice Department civil rights chief to answer accusations that he was a central figure in a broad Republican strategy to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning minorities. The committee, which has been investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, asked Bradley Schlozman to appear voluntarily and describe his activities as a senior civil rights official and later as a U.S. attorney for Kansas City, Mo. Schlozman was a U.S. attorney there for one year. ‘We believe the committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration’s decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. attorneys,’ the panel’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the committee, wrote Schlozman. They noted that White House political guru Karl Rove voiced concern to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last year about voter fraud in three states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. After that conversation, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico was added to the list of top prosecutors to be replaced. Two other fired prosecutors – […]
Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly- elected president of France, on Sunday night declared his country was ‘back in Europe’ after voters gave him a thumping mandate to pursue reform. Turning out in record numbers, French voters swept the neo-Gaullist candidate into the Elysée palace with an estimated 53 per cent of the ballot. In his victory speech, the 52-year-old son of a Hungarian immigrant, who will take over as France’s head of state on May 16, vowed to act in the best interests of all the French, not just those who had voted for him. The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused. ‘Tonight is not a victory of one France over another. For me there is only one victory, that of democracy,’ Mr Sarkozy told jubilant supporters crammed into a Paris concert hall. However, Mr Sarkozy’s triumph was marred by sporadic violence on Sunday night as demonstrators took to the streets in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux to protest against the tough-talking former interior minister. In the southern city of Toulouse, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the town centre setting off smoke bombs […]
George W. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating in a generation, and the leading Dems beat every major ’08 Republican. Coincidence? It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups. Perhaps that explains why Republican candidates, participating in their first major debate this week, mentioned Bush’s name only once, but Ronald Reagan’s 19 times. (The debate was held at Reagan’s presidential library.) When the NEWSWEEK Poll asked more […]
The worst consequences of climate change can still be avoided — if humanity acts quickly. The IPCC has determined that doing so would cost just 0.1 percent of world GDP. But the rise in CO2 emissions would have to stop by 2015. The costs are not the problem — time is. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for a strict timetable to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. The IPCC issued its report ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ on Friday in Bangkok. The goal set by the climate experts is as follows: CO2 emissions need to be reduced by between 50 and 85 percent by 2050. That would require global CO2 emissions to begin sinking in 2015. If that’s achieved, the extent of global warming can probably be limited to an average temperature increase of between one and two degrees Celsius (1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. The costs would amount to 0.12 percent of the world’s total GDP — a small percentage but an enormous sum. But IPCC argues that investing in mitigation will pays off. The first two parts of the IPCC’s report show that the human contribution to global […]
Your children’s health, your health, everyone’s health is at risk. Each year, we gratefully celebrate International Nurses Week around May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale. But now the world needs more than a few days of flowers, cake and ice cream. We must accomplish something far larger and more sustaining to ensure and improve public health – everywhere, every day. Nursing shortages are now critical in the U.S. and other developed nations and epidemic worldwide. The shortage is adversely affecting health and well-being across the globe. A recent issue of Health and Medicine warned: ‘In communities across the country, the nursing shortage has become so severe that it threatens patient care and safety, health care costs and patient outcomes.’ The 59th World Health Report called attention to the crisis for the first time, noting that greater commitment to strengthen nursing and midwifery – 80 percent of the world’s health care workforce – is a global necessity. ‘Overcoming this crisis will require exceptional advocacy and leadership. … Addressing the magnitude of issues is not something any one organization can do alone,’ said Alan Gibbs, chairman of the Burdett Trust for Nursing, and Dr. Hiroko Minami, […]
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Remote Viewing the Year 2060
