September 27, 2007 – Capitol Hill Blue

Bush’s billion bilking wars

September 27, 2007

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost at least $190 billion in 2008, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, making it the most expensive year in the conflicts since they were launched by President George W. Bush.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress to approve the funding after Bush this month beat back demands from Democrats for a quick end to the Iraq war and said the U.S. presence there would go on after he leaves office in 2009.

Judge knocks down part of Patriot Act

September 27, 2007

An Oregon judge on Wednesday ruled that two provisions of the Patriot Act violated the U.S. Constitution’s protection against unlawful searches and seizures.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled in favor of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer wrongly arrested by the FBI in 2004 for possible ties to the Madrid train bombings, who challenged the secret searches of his home and office.

Candidates plan spending spree

September 27, 2007

As they stuff millions of dollars more into campaign coffers ahead of a key fundraising deadline, 2008 White House hopefuls are plotting a campaign spending binge of unprecedented proportions.

National front-runners Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudolph Giuliani and their rivals are making a frenetic dash for cash, before the latest quarterly campaign fundraising period ends Sunday.

Bill Clinton still haunts Democrats

September 27, 2007

Halfway through an otherwise cordial debate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden raised an issue generally left unspoken by the other Democratic candidates: Bill Clinton’s complicated legacy as president and how it might affect Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning her own election to the White House.

“There’s a lot of very good things that come with all the great things that President Clinton did, but there’s also a lot of the old stuff that comes back,” Biden said. “When I say old stuff, I’m referring to policy — policy.”

Dems won’t commit on ending war

September 27, 2007

The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.

“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Bush’s selective amnesia

September 27, 2007

President Bush is banking on Americans’ short memories and the fact that most of them, having real lives, are not terribly engrossed in the congressional budget process.

That explains his brazenness in denouncing this Democratic-run Congress for failing to pass all or even most of the 12 funding bills for the government by the Sept. 30 deadline.

The Democrats complain that Bush, who couldn’t be prodded into vetoing anything when the Republicans were running Congress, is now threatening to veto 10 of these bills if they are passed.

It just wasn’t in the cards

September 27, 2007

In politics, as in poker, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.

That could explain why the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Ark., has decided not to stock a new set of satirical playing cards that portray Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as a less-than-flattering “ace of spades.”

The library’s gift shop has stocked California artist Peter Green’s “Politicards” for several years now. The 2004 edition still is a brisk seller, store manager Connie Fails reports.