Perino On Whether The Country Is In A Recession: ‘I Don’t Know’
Today, reporters questioned White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on whether the U.S. economy is now in a recession. Perino, however, was unable to answer and became frustrated when reporters continued to push her:
Q Do you think the U.S. economy is in a recession?
MS. PERINO: You know I don’t think that we know. … So I couldn’t say. The classic definition of a recession is not something that we could determine now, or forecast. It’s something that people look back on. […]
I don’t know — look, April, I don’t know if there’s — if we are in a recession right now. And in fact, there’s no one who could actually tell you if we precisely are in a recession right now. […]
But I don’t think anybody could tell you right now if we’re in a recession or not. Those are just — those are determinations that come later.
Watch it:
President Bush and his administration have long resisted admitting that the economy is in trouble by quibbling about the technical definition of “recession.” In April, when most economists were saying that the U.S. economy was in a recession, Bush was insisting that it wasn’t. In March, he inexplicably claimed that “when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they’ll recognize tax cuts work.”
Even though Perino said that “no one” can say whether the United States is facing a recession, a new National Association of Business Economists poll finds that two-thirds of economists “say the U.S economy is in recession or will be by the end of the year — up from a little over half of those surveyed in May.” Data also indicate that the United States is in a consumer recession and a labor market recession. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has reluctantly admitted this point, although he too has said that a recession is just “a technical term used by people who are economists and make these kinds of judgment.”
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Americans’ satisfaction drops to all-time low of 9 percent.
A new Gallup poll finds that just nine percent of the American public are “satisfied with the way things are going in the United States — the lowest such reading in Gallup Poll history. … The previous low point for Gallup’s measure of satisfaction had been 12%, recorded back in 1979, in the midst of rising prices and gas shortages when Jimmy Carter was president.”
Sixty-nine percent of Americans named the economy as the top issue affecting their outlook, far ahead of the second most important issue — the war in Iraq (11 percent).
Louisiana lawmaker stripped of health committee post for proposing to sterilize low-income women.
Louisiana lawmaker stripped of health committee post for proposing to sterilize low-income women.
Last month, Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) announced a plan “to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied,” along with “tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children.” He predicted that people would “get excited” about his idea. After intense public backlash, however, he was removed yesterday from his position as vice chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee. House Speaker Jim Tucker (R) said Labruzzo’s comments “impeded his abilities to help lead critical health-care reform.”
Iraqi women fear going public in elections.
Iraqi women fear going public in elections.
“Under heavy U.S. pressure to promote gender equality,” Iraq has adopted rules requiring that women make up at least a quarter of provincial councils. However, rampant violence and lingering gender inequality has led to a shortage of women willing to run for public office in the Jan. 31 elections:
In the past elections, names did not appear on the ballot—only numbers and symbols identified with political parties. …. In the new vote, the names of candidates must be presented to voters.
The change to a so-called open list has scared some qualified Iraqis from running, particularly women. Activists are worried there won’t be enough women to meet the 25 percent threshold, or that the parties will just find women to act as figureheads to fill the quota.
‘24′ Producer Pulls Endorsement Of Anti-Muslim DVD ‘Obsession’
‘24′ Producer Pulls Endorsement Of Anti-Muslim DVD ‘Obsession’
In recent weeks, newspapers reaching 28 million households nationwide (although primarily in swing states) have been carrying an advertising supplement containing the DVD “Obsession.” The film features “graphic images of terrorism, video of anti-American speeches from Mideast television and comparisons with Nazi Germany.” According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the people interviewed in “Obsession” “constitute a veritable who’s who of Muslim-bashers,” including someone who said last year, “Islam is not the religion of God — Islam is the devil.”
The “anti-Muslim” film has launched protests around the country. Although a few papers refused to carry the DVD, the ones who did have received hundreds of angry phone calls and cancellations over the propaganda. “It’s among the heaviest reaction I’ve gotten to anything,” said Ted Vaden, public editor for The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Protestors have picketed the Oregonian’s offices with signs reading, “Hate — Not in Our Town.”
A pro-Israel think tank, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, has already pulled out of the project. Now, Howard Gordon, the executive producer of the Fox show “24″ has announced that he is also withdrawing his endorsement of the film:
After being contacted by a number of people whose opinions I respect and after reviewing Obsession with their criticisms and concerns in mind, I have asked the film makers to remove my endorsement from the Obsession website and from any future promotional materials. While I remain committed to the film’s essential message — that the hate-mongering promoted by radical Islamism presents a real threat to western values of tolerance and pluralism — I also appreciate that the goal of co-existence and tolerance is not being served by films like Obsession.
A shadowy nonprofit called the Clarion Fund — whose purpose is to address “the most urgent threat of radical Islam” — has spent millions distributing “Obsession” in battleground states and refuses to disclose its board members or funding sources. This month, Clarion is set to release “The Third Jihad,” about “the threat of radical Islamists right here in America.”
Dow plunges to lowest level since 2004.
Dow plunges to lowest level since 2004.
Wall Street joined a “selloff around the world” today, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 400 points and falling to below 10,000 for the first time in four years. As the AP reports, the “markets have come to the sobering realization that the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue plan won’t work quickly to unfreeze the credit markets, and that many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash.”
Rep. Wilson: Any Criticism Of ‘American Policy’ Is Unpatriotic
Rep. Wilson: Any Criticism Of ‘American Policy’ Is Unpatriotic
Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) defended Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) new comments that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is “someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.” When host Bob Schieffer asked Wilson if she was therefore implying that Obama is “unpatriotic,” Wilson refused to disagree, noting that Obama has criticized “American policy”:
WILSON: Well, he has talked down about America. You know, we’ve always had this history of saying, “Well, you know, politics ends at the water’s edge.” It didn’t for Barack Obama. He’s been critical not only of the President but of American policy and hence has kind of a negative view of America in the world. That’s not unusual frankly among liberals in kind of post-Vietnam America, to say that America is the problem.
Watch it:
The Bush administration has been setting American policy for the past eight years. Therefore, any criticism of the Bush administration, according to Wilson, is unpatriotic. This category doesn’t just include Obama and other “post-Vietnam America” liberals, but also military officers, former Bush administration officials, the Supreme Court, and the majority of the American public who disapprove of Bush and his policies. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has tried to criticize Bush’s policies, in an effort to separate himself from the current administration.
Criticizing the Bush administration’s policies doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t believe America can be a “force for good,” as Wilson alleges. Instead, it recognizes that destructive policies over the past eight years have diminished America’s “exceptional” status. Countries around the world once held a predominantly positive view of the United States. Under Bush’s destructive policies, however, those views have plummeted.
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Months after Supreme Court ruling, detainee cases still unresolved.
Months after Supreme Court ruling, detainee cases still unresolved.
In its landmark habeas corpus decision in June, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees deserve to have their cases heard quickly because “the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody.” However, the New York Times reports that four months later, “none of the scores of cases brought by detainees have been resolved by any judge”:
Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling, lawyers for most of the 255 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have pressed ahead with habeas corpus lawsuits, yet most of those cases have been delayed by battles over issues like whether some court sessions will be held in secret, whether detainees can attend and what level of proof will justify detention. […]
Officials and lawyers inside and outside of the government say the new legal confrontation suggests that the Bush administration will most likely continue its defense of the detention camp until the end of President Bush’s term and is not likely to close the camp, as administration officials have said they would like to do.
Cheney: Wildlife Conservation Has Been A ‘High Priority’ Of Bush Administration
Cheney: Wildlife Conservation Has Been A ‘High Priority’ Of Bush Administration
Yesterday, Vice President Cheney spoke at the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy in Reno, NV, claiming that the Bush administration has championed wildlife preservation:
As all of you know very well, President Bush made wildlife conservation an early and a high priority of his administration. We’ve carried out that commitment in these eight years — and we’ve been proud to have people like you as partners in the enterprise.
The men and women in this room understand what conservation is all about. It means reverence toward creation, and a commitment to faithful stewardship. It means guarding our spectacular wildlife populations — not just for our own time, but for all time.
In fact, the League of Conservation Voters concludes that the Bush administration “has arguably been the most anti-environmental in our nation’s history.” Some highlights of officials putting special interests over wildlife:
– Rules proposed by the Bush administration would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act, no longer requiring federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project would harm an endangered species.
– Earlier this year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used his power to waive federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, in order to expedite building the U.S.-Mexico border fence.
– In September, a federal judge dealt the Bush administration a setback by ruling that its plan “to allow more than 500 snowmobiles a day into Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks was not in keeping with the National Park Service’s responsibility to protect the parks” and would disturb wildlife.
– Officials have repeatedly refused to acknowledge and protect wildlife threatened by global warming.
– In March 2007, Salon reported that the Bush administration had “granted 57 species endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a lawsuit. That’s fewer than in any other administration in history.”
– In a 2005 survey, Fish and Wildlife scientists reported that they had been “forced to alter or withhold findings that would have led to greater protections for endangered species.”
Bush had originally been scheduled to speak at the conference but sent Cheney instead at the last minute. “In my place I have sent my favorite hunter,” Bush explained, alluding to Cheney’s 2006 hunting accident.
Government hires contractors to investigate abuses by other contractors in Iraq.
Government hires contractors to investigate abuses by other contractors in Iraq.
ABC News reports that the State Department has hired the private firm U.S. Investigations Services “to fill positions in the newly created Force Investigation Unit (FIU),” which was created after last year’s deadly Blackwater shooting to investigate possible crimes committed by contractors in Iraq. However, it is illegal to hire contractors for jobs “considered to be inherently governmental functions” including “the direct conduct of criminal investigations.” Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has written to the State Department about these “highly troubling” hires but has yet to receive a response.