Daily News Channel
President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney offered competing views on how to keep America safe in back-to-back speeches Thursday. Obama said his administration is trying to clean up “a mess” left behind by the Bush administration. He defended his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, his ban on torture, the release of Bush-era interrogation memos and his objection to the release of prisoner photos.
Hurricanes and housing busts have already battered South Florida’s image as an earthly paradise. But Miami’s reputation for dysfunction is on display again this spring as the Obama Administration shifts health-care reform into high gear — and a spate of studies slams the Magic City as the poster child for exorbitant medical costs. This week the Milliman Medical Cost Index listed the 2008 average private-provider costs for a Miami family of four — $20,282 — as the highest among the 14 major U.S.
The last time this country undertook a serious debate over health-care reform, back when Hillary Clinton put together her proposal in 1993, the Republican strategy could have been summed up in three words: Just say no. This time around, however, the clamor for fundamental change of a system that covers too few and costs too much has grown to the point where the minority party knows that simple obstructionism is a dangerous route to take
President Obama has started arming for the possibility of a major Supreme Court nomination battle, pulling a longtime Democratic power player into the White House to help run the confirmation process, senior administration officials told CNN. Stephanie Cutter is leaving the Treasury Department, where she has served as one of Secretary Timothy Geithner’s most senior advisers during the financial crisis, to be the point person for mobilizing public support for Obama’s pick to replace retiring Justice David Souter, three senior administration officials said. Administration officials say Obama is likely to name Souter’s replacement in late May or early June, before the president leaves for Egypt to deliver a speech to the Muslim world.
A key Republican leader demanded Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi produce evidence to back up her assertion that she was misled by the CIA on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." Last week, Pelosi reiterated an earlier claim that she was briefed by the CIA on such techniques only once — in September 2002 — and that she was told at the time that the techniques were not being used. A recently released Justice Department memo, however, says the CIA used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda leader imprisoned at U.S. facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Nineteen demonstrators were arrested at Notre Dame University on Saturday as they protested against President Obama’s scheduled commencement speech Sunday, campus police said. The protesters were not students and they were arrested for trespassing when they stepped on the campus, which is private property, Notre Dame police spokesman Dennis Brown told CNN Radio
“A doctor’s appointment?” the woman in the high school attendance office asked when I reported that my daughter would be leaving early on Wednesday. “Nope.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused CIA officials Thursday of misleading her in 2002 about the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been described by critics as torture. Pelosi reiterated an earlier claim that she was briefed on such techniques only once — in September 2002 — and that she was told at the time that the techniques were not being used. A recently released Justice Department memo says that the CIA used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda leader imprisoned at U.S
The United States is rushing emergency aid to Pakistan — an initial $5 million — to help people uprooted by the fighting against extremists, according to the State Department. The United States urged the Pakistanis to launch the military action that in recent days drove hundreds of thousands of people from their villages.
Are you ready for Abu Ghraib, Act II? Five years ago, people around the world were sickened by photographs that surfaced showing U.S.