From Jerry Holbert

Bush's Fortune Rests With GOP Congress

President Bush is not on the ballot in November, but he might as well be. Republican losses could make an already difficult situation in Congress almost untenable for him.

If his party loses control of one, or both chambers of Congress, the next two years could be a political nightmare for Bush and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill.

With poll numbers at the lowest of his presidency, Bush has had trouble enough winning support for his priorities in his second term even with a Republican-led Congress. That helped lead to a recent reshuffling of the White House staff.

Democratic control of either chamber could rearrange priorities. Bush's programs and spending requests would come under increased scrutiny. Congress could even take tentative steps toward bringing troops home from Iraq or reducing funds.

Democratic control of committees in either chamber could lead to investigative hearings on Iraq, awarding of government contracts, the role of lobbyists, fraud and abuse, Pentagon divisions, any number of activities.

History suggests the party holding the White House will loose congressional seats this year, even without Bush's basement poll ratings. Strategists in both parties are keenly aware of this trend.

Thus Democrats are portraying the November elections as a referendum on Bush, while Republicans are insisting it's a series of state and local races, each with different issues.

In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, some 56 percent of voters said the issue of party control would be a factor in their vote in the midterm congressional elections. "More independents, in particular, say partisan control will be a factor," said Carroll Doherty, Pew's associate director.

The Iraq war has become a drag on all Republican candidates. Bush seems less able to correct his listing presidency or rebound from a loss of the House or Senate as either Reagan or Clinton, analysts in both parties suggest.

Republicans hold 231 of the 435 House seats. Democrats have 201. There is one independent and two vacancies. In the Senate, Republicans have 55 seats to 44 for Democrats. There is one independent.

Ed Rogers, a GOP consultant, recognizes a GOP vulnerability this year. But he said Democrats "would have to draw an inside straight" to win back the Senate "when you look at it race by race." House races, meanwhile, are usually settled on local issues, although sometimes a national economic downturn can have an impact, Rogers said.

With gasoline prices recently rising to over $3 a gallon in some areas, it may be only a matter of time before soaring energy costs drag down other well-performing parts of the economy. And the summer driving season has yet to begin.

Democrats have seized on this to mount a new attack on Republican rule.

"It's very clear that it's America's number one issue today," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Bush's political reserve, meanwhile, is almost empty, even for many Republicans unhappy about his strained dealings with Congress, suggested Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.

The time to act is now. Register to vote and send the Republicans packing. There is a better way... vote Democrat for a stronger America.

Graffiti, Free Speech and Air Force One

Most of us know that Free Speech is a protected right as per the Constitution and Bill of Rights. However, not all of us have the ability to take advantage of this right and some of us over exploit what we have. For example, the President has Air Force One - the big plane that tax payers pay for and only a few of us ever get near too much less invited aboard. All the President has to do is show up in Air Force One and he has an instant backdrop of power. (Sadly, these power trips cost millions in fuel and other expenses, but that is a different story.)

Young people, on the other hand, do not have Air Force Ones but do have things they wish to express. They have as much right to express what they have to say as much as the President. As a result, some turn to less than legal avenues such as graffiti. Graffiti damage to public and personal property is illegal and should be punished. However, there are venues such as approved public advertising and solicited art where graffiti is legal. Graffiti is legal at home on walls of homes and fences provided that the property owners approve of it. However, the tools to create graffiti art and personal expression there from are in many cases legal to those only aged 21 or over. It's legal for an 18 year old to buy cigarrrets, drive a car and join the army but not to purchase cans of spray paint and broad tipped markers. What this tells teens is that it's ok to kill yourself with cigarettes and fight for your country but you cannot legally express yourself through graffiti. This is hardly fair.

To this end, Marc Ecko, an advocate of expression through graffiti art, created an elaborate hoax of him "tagging" Air Force One. He also created a video explaining the hoax and what it represents. The links below have the hoax and the explanation.

Marc Ecko Tagging Air Force One

Marc's Statement

From Robert Ariail

Sen. Clinton Blasts Bush's Budget Policies

The New York Democrat, a regular critic of President Bush's economic policies, frequently reminds audiences that her husband left the White House boasting of a budget surplus and that under Bush the country is running record budget deficits.

Clinton said Tuesday that she supports pay-as-you-go budget rules in the Congress where taxes can't be cut or money spent unless there are funds to pay for it. "A very old-fashioned idea but one which I hope we can begin to return to," she said.

"Over the long term ... red-ink fiscal policies will undermine America's competitiveness," she said.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ann Marie Hauser said in statement Tuesday night that "only Hillary Clinton would try to make lemons out of lemonade."

"Her eagerness to paint a negative picture of the economy despite the creation of five million jobs in three years is indicative of her willingness to manipulate an issue to her favor, without regard to the facts," Hauser said.

Clinton said the nation needs a better energy policy to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, increase technology into alternative energy resources and ultimately create more jobs. She also said that health care reform is "worth wading in again," and that the private sector should demand more accountability from the insurance industry.

Often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, Clinton didn't give a hint about whether she would run. When asked if she thought the country would see a woman president, she replied: "I hope so."

Earlier Tuesday, New York's Republican Party chairman suggested the former first lady could perhaps do better creating jobs in Chicago — she grew up in its suburbs — than she has in her adopted state of New York.

DeLay Supporters Crash Democrat's Event

Supporters of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay protested at an event Thursday held by the Democratic candidate for the congressman's seat, and the event quickly dissolved into a shouting and shoving match. Police were called, but made no arrests.

"I got pushed. I got hit. I got a sign wadded up in my face and my hat pulled down over my eyes," said Marsha Rovai, 69, a supporter of Nick Lampson. "They just did it to be nasty."

DeLay campaign manager Chris Homan said he organized the protest but DeLay, a Republican, didn't know about it.

"Mr. Lampson is going to have to get used to being confronted about his voting record the next seven months," Homan said.

DeLay, who is under indictment on campaign finance charges, announced this week that he will resign from Congress sometime before mid-June.

At the news conference, Lampson called on the governor to set a May 13 special election so the district would be represented after DeLay leaves.

But moments after the event began in DeLay's home town, Lampson and his supporters were surrounded by protesters who held up hand-written signs. Lampson was silenced by their chanting.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry later said that, unless DeLay offers him his resignation letter by the end of the week, the seat would not be filled until the November general election. The election of a Democrat now could give the Democratic Party a leg up in November.

Lampson represented an adjacent district for eight years until DeLay-engineered redistricting cost him re-election in 2004. He said the protest was nothing new.

Comment... The ugly side of the GOP raises its head again. These people have no shame if they are attacking 69 year old men. Shame on them. This is goes way beyond sour grapes... it's criminal. Then again, it was done for DeLay.

From Jerry Holbert

Bush Authorized CIA Intelligence Leak

Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

The disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for going to war.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the "certain information."

"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller — getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection," the papers added.

Libby is asking for voluminous amounts of classified information from the government in order to defend himself against five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame affair.

He is accused of making false statements about how he learned of Plame's CIA employment and what he told reporters about it.

Her (Valerie Plame's) CIA status was publicly disclosed eight days after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, Wilson had been dispatched to Africa by the CIA to check out intelligence that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger, and Wilson had concluded that there was no such arrangement.

Libby says he needs extensive classified files from the government to demonstrate that Plame's CIA connection was a peripheral matter that he never focused on, and that the role of Wilson's wife was a small piece in a building public controversy over the failure to find WMD in Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the new court filing that Libby's requests for information go too far and the prosecutor cited Libby's own statements to investigators in an attempt to limit the amount of information the government must turn over to Cheney's former chief of staff for his criminal defense.

According to Miller's grand jury testimony, Libby told her about Plame's CIA status in the July 8, 2003 conversation that took place shortly after the White House aide — according to the new court filing — was authorized by Bush through Cheney to disclose sensitive intelligence about Iraq and WMD contained in a National Intelligence Estimate.

The court filing was first disclosed by The New York Sun.

Has McCain Sold Out?

As Sen. John McCain prepares for a likely 2008 presidential race, Democratic and Republican critics are watching McCain's every move for signs he is forsaking his image as an independent-thinking maverick who named his 2000 campaign bus "The Straight Talk Express."

Some called it pandering when he campaigned on Bush's behalf in 2004 just four years after their bitter nomination fight. McCain said he was simply backing his party's leader.

Skeptics called it a flip-flop when the Arizona senator voted in February to extend Bush's tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, which he once had opposed. McCain said ending the tax cuts would be tantamount to raising taxes, something he has never done.

More recently, he made peace with Jerry Falwell, the controversial evangelist whom he had lumped in with other "agents of intolerance" in a 2000 campaign speech. "We agreed to disagree on certain issues," McCain said Sunday on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" program.

Dismissing the broader pandering charges, McCain said Tuesday: "People will continue to see I stand up for what I believe."

While his voting record is clearly right-of-center, McCain has not been afraid to tick off conservatives. His positions on immigration, torture and a political reform put him at odds with the GOP base.

He supports the war in Iraq, but has criticized Bush's handling of it.

The scrutiny is a far cry from 2000 nomination fight when McCain was an underdog candidate who emerged from below the radar to give Bush — that year's GOP front-runner — a scare. The difference this time is that McCain's plan for securing the GOP nomination in 2008 hinges on selling himself as the establishment candidate.

That means he needs to win the approval of conservative voters he alienated in 2000 and who never have quite trusted him.

The trick is doing so without destroying the one thing that sets McCain apart from most other politicians: his reputation for authenticity.

As conservative voters decide whether he's really one of them, the rest of the electorate will want to know whether McCain actually is a straight shooter.

"He's under a lot of pressure this time to appeal to the right," said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor. "But the danger is he could go from the Straight Talk Express to the same old obfuscation — to use a nice word for a barnyard epithet."

The actual epithet was hurled at McCain on Tuesday from a crowd of union activists who challenged him on immigration, Iraq and his support of organized labor.

His appearance before the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department was a colorful and contentious session, producing as many laughs as boos, that tested the limits of straight talk.

It began with a chorus of boos when McCain mentioned his support of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican. Shrugging off the reaction, McCain said somebody came up to him at the Schwarzenegger event and said, "Do people tell you look like John McCain?"

"Yes, they do."

"Doesn't that make you madder than hell?"

Later, the senator outlined his position on the Senate immigration debate, saying tougher border enforcement must be accompanied by guest-worker provisions that give illegal immigrants a legal path toward citizenship.

Murmurs from the crowd turned to booing. "Pay a decent wage!" one audience member shouted. McCain curtly threatened to cut the speech short, which quieted the crowd.
In the speech, McCain also argued that withdrawing U.S. troops prematurely from Iraq would turn terrorists loose on the United States.

That's when one audience member unleashed the barnyard epithet.

McCain got another laugh when he finished the speech and asked whether anybody had "questions, comments or insults." One audience member obliged with a pointed question on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain's job offer.
"I'll take it!" one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. "You can't do it, my friends."

Some in the crowd said they didn't appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

"I was impressed with his comedy routine and ability to tap dance without music. But I was impressed with nothing else about him," said John Wasniewski of Milwaukee.
"He's supposed to be Mr. Straight Talk?"

Others said McCain showed some moxie, if not the best political judgment.

"Most of us don't agree with him on immigration," said another man from Milwaukee, Chris Schoenbeck. "But I give him credit for trying."

Comment... As a Zonie I would very much like to be a McCain supporter. However, he is a GOP leader and has often backed up Bush on things that are just plain wrong. Bush campaigned as one who could bring all together. If you call bringing almost all together against him I would say he lived up to his promise. Would McCain as president result in 4 more years of the same? It sure is starting to look like that.

Republicans Increasingly Critical of Bush

From Iraq to deficits, from immigration to port security, some of the most pointed criticism leveled at President Bush is coming from within his own party. The rising GOP angst stems from Bush's deep slump in the polls and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war.

But it also reflects a political reawakening as Republicans follow their own political interests in this midterm election year and as would-be 2008 presidential contenders seek ways to set themselves apart — from each other and from Bush.

"It's open season on him. George Bush has lost trust on too many issues," said presidential historian Thomas E. Cronin of Colorado College. "We saw it happen with Johnson, we saw it with Nixon. And now, sadly, we're seeing it with Bush."

Listening to some of the recent GOP criticism, Bush has moved to reach out to Republicans in Congress. Last week, he accepted the resignation of Andrew Card as his chief of staff and gave the job to his budget director, Josh Bolten, who is popular on Capitol Hill.

Other staff changes were expected, including a possible reorganization of the White House congressional liaison office.

Bush also is doing more to keep GOP lawmakers informed, after they were blind-sided in February by the administration's support of a deal — since abandoned — to hand over management of six major U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates.

The Senate resumes work this week on a contentious immigration bill that pits Republican against Republican.

The bill would offer an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship and expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year. The president has said such a guest worker program is central.

But many conservatives favor a more restrictive measure passed by the House last December that would make it a federal felony to live in this country illegally and calling for a wall to be built along the border with Mexico. It does not contain a guest-worker provision.

While acknowledging the difficulty faced by lawmakers, Bush told reporters in Mexico on Friday: "I expect the debate to bring dignity to America, in recognition that America is a land of immigrants."

Some conservatives contend he really isn't really one of them.

They point to Bush's immigration stance, mushrooming government spending and soaring deficits on his watch and his failed attempt to put White House lawyer Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court. Some complain about the growing cost and attempted "nation building" of wartime Iraq.

"A lot of conservatives have had reservations about him for a long time, but have been afraid to speak out for fear that it would help liberals and the Democrats," said Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration. Such concerns are no longer very relevant, he said.

"I think there are growing misgivings about the conduct of the Iraq operation, and how that relates to a general incompetence his administration seems to have about doing basic things," said Bartlett, author of a scathing book titled, "Impostor: How George Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

Recent polls suggest the Republicans are losing their long-held lead over Democrats on national security.

Sectarian violence continues unabated in Iraq. The victory of Hamas militants in Palestinian elections raises questions about Bush's goal to spread democracy in the Middle East. And the administration seems short on options for keeping Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Republican leaders are still openly supportive, but they recognize there are limitations in such an overcharged political environment.

"Like any relationship, it's not going to be a honeymoon every day," says House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Some Bush supporters try to put the best face on the recent discontent.

"There have been some mistakes, but every administration makes mistakes," said veteran GOP consultant Charles Black. "The biggest problem the White House has, 90 percent of their problem, is Iraq.

"People don't see the war going well. And the president's got to keep going out virtually every day, talking about it and putting it in context. Personnel changes won't affect that. He's got to do that himself," Black said.