Bush administration

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Obama to Fill WMD Post Bush Ignored

Dem has long focused on stopping proliferation of nuclear, chemical arms

(Newser) - President-elect Obama will hire an official to oversee efforts to stop terrorists from gaining nuclear and biological weapons, the Boston Globe reports, a position the Bush administration approved but left unfilled. Such efforts are currently spread among many agencies, and a report predicting a deadly attack within 5 years using...

Rove: If We Knew the Truth, We Wouldn't Have Invaded

Contradicts president's past statements

(Newser) - If George Bush had known that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, Karl Rove said last night during a debate in New York. Were it not for the WMDs, the administration would have found “more creative ways to constrain him, like...

Obama Team Swarms Federal Agencies
Obama Team Swarms Federal Agencies
Dec 3, 2008 7:26 AM CST

Obama Team Swarms Federal Agencies

Preparation for handover has been under way for months

(Newser) - As Washington prepares for an Obama administration, 135 members of the president-elect's transition team are swarming into federal agencies to scrutinize budgets, interview civil servants, and prepare to take control of the government. Preparation for a smooth transition began months before Election Day, writes the Washington Post. The Obama teams,...

India Names Mumbai Plot Mastermind

US warned New Delhi of attack: American official

(Newser) - The lone surviving terrorist has identified Lashkar-e-Taiba head Yusuf Muzammil as the mastermind behind last week's Mumbai attacks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Mumbai police are demanding Pakistan turn over the militant leader, along with others in the group who called the terrorists days before their mission. Meanwhile, an American...

'Conscience' Rule Threatens to Reignite Abortion Battle

Bush's last-minute new rule for medical workers sparks controversy

(Newser) - An expanded "right of conscience" rule for medical workers planned by the Bush administration could hand Barack Obama a major battle over medical ethics, the Los Angeles Times reports. Doctors and nurses can already legally refuse to perform abortions, but the new rule would allow any health care worker...

Bush's Biggest Regret: Faulty Intelligence

But 43 says he plans to leave office with 'head held high'

(Newser) - President Bush's biggest regret of his presidency is receiving faulty intelligence before launching the Iraq war, the president told ABC News in a wide-ranging "exit interview." Bush declined to say whether he would have ordered the invasion if he had known Saddam Hussein didn't actually possess weapons of...

Rice Has Nothing Left to Prove
 Rice Has Nothing Left to Prove 
OPINION
Nov 27, 2008 10:41 AM CST

Rice Has Nothing Left to Prove

Rice focuses on being an educator, writing books

(Newser) - Condoleezza Rice is headed back to Stanford, ready for a new challenge and harboring no obvious regrets. "I'm an educator who took a detour," she tells Washington Post op-ed columnist David Ignatius, who hears echoes of Dean Rusk, LBJ's embattled secretary of state. "I have no desire...

Bin Laden's Driver Leaves Guantanamo

Convict transferred to Yemen to serve remainder of sentence

(Newser) - Salim Hamdan, the former driver of Osama bin Laden and one of only two suspected terrorists convicted at Guantanamo Bay, is being transferred to his homeland of Yemen. Hamdan was sentenced in August to just 5 months' detention on top of the 5 years he served at the prison camp,...

Score Card on Late White House Rules Changes

Bush administration pushes through midnight regulations

(Newser) - With the  Bush White House pushing through a raft of last-minute rules, the nonprofit journalism group ProPublica offers a running list, with the status of each:
  • Business-friendly safety regulations would loosen restrictions on exposure to toxic chemicals in the workplace.
  • Local police would get increased surveillance ability.
  • Loaded guns would
...

5 Ordered Freed From Gitmo on Feds' Lack of Evidence

Governments' classified case insufficient to justify further detention

(Newser) - A federal judge today ordered the release of five Guantánamo Bay inmates, ruling that the US government’s evidence was not enough to justify their continued detention, the New York Times reports. The men were among the inmates who won a Supreme Court verdict in June that found they...

Defense Lawyers Let Inside Secret Gitmo Camp

First-ever visit to undisclosed locale 'helpful:' defense attorney

(Newser) - Defense lawyers were allowed for the first time into a section of the prison at Guantanamo Bay so restricted that even its location on the US base is secret. The pair of military attorneys for an alleged Sept. 11 plotter went to Camp 7 to gauge the effects of the...

Companies Desperate to Roll Back Pension Support

A 2006 law requiring firms to replenish pension loses may be latest victim of meltdown

(Newser) - Wall Street’s meltdown has diminished the value of US pension funds by $250 billion and cash-strapped companies are asking lawmakers to give them relief from rules that require them to make up the losses, reports the New York Times. The rules, designed to strengthen the pension system in the...

Rule Protecting Anti-Abortion Staffers Sparks Furor

Obama, agencies protest Bush plan that gives more leeway to moral objections

(Newser) - A host of hospitals, pharmacists, state officials and lawmakers—including President-elect Barack Obama—have slammed a last-minute Bush administration rule to protect health care providers from having to perform procedures they find morally objectionable, the New York Times reports. The plan would block federally funded hospitals, drugstores, and other organizations...

White House Scrambles to Find Operatives Permanent Jobs

Bush appointees 'burrow' in at agencies

(Newser) - The Bush administration is racing to put its political appointees into permanent civil service jobs before the clock runs out, reports the Washington Post. Federal job protection rules will make it tough for the new administration to dislodge the Bush operatives once they are in, meaning that they may keep...

Auto Bailout Unlikely Until Obama Takes Office

Detroit automakers warn that next year may be too late for rescue

(Newser) - It’s looking unlikely that a new economic stimulus package and a Detroit bailout will happen this year, the Wall Street Journal reports. The proposals are facing stiff resistance from Republicans and may have to wait until the new, more heavily Democratic Congress convenes in January and Barack Obama takes...

Bailout Flip-Flop Diminishes Paulson
 Bailout Flip-Flop 
 Diminishes Paulson 
ANALYSIS
Nov 13, 2008 7:54 PM CST

Bailout Flip-Flop Diminishes Paulson

(Newser) - Henry Paulson’s recent about-face on his plans for the $700 billion bailout do not bode well for his legacy, write Bloomberg's Rebecca Christie and Matthew Benjamin. Perhaps most damaging is not the change of mind, but what it says about his initial plans. “This is a flip-flop,”...

Justice Dept. Math: Subtract Politics, Add Confidence

Obama needs to tread careful bipartisan line in cleaning up after Bush

(Newser) - Repairing a Justice Department heavily politicized by the Bush administration’s ideologically motivated hiring practices and controversial counterterrorism measures will be one of Barack Obama’s most daunting challenges, Carrie Johnson writes in the Washington Post. One key area is the secretive Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the government...

Bush Could Block Probes Even After He Steps Down

Soon-to-be ex-prez has Truman, Nixon precedents for keeping executive privilege

(Newser) - President Bush may be able to maintain his executive privilege to block investigations even after he leaves office, the New York Times reports. Harry Truman successfully claimed he had the right not to testify in 1953, nearly a year after he left office, and Richard Nixon later used Truman's case...

Obama Can Learn From Cheney's Management Style
Obama Can Learn From Cheney's Management Style
opinion
Nov 12, 2008 4:51 PM CST

Obama Can Learn From Cheney's Management Style

Its substance gave many fits, but VP's broad template got results

(Newser) - Barack Obama's “template” for exercising executive authority should draw from Dick Cheney, the most influential figure in the Bush administration, Steve Clemons writes in the Huffington Post. Cheney finessed followers “beholden to him” into positions throughout the vast intelligence and national-security bureaucracies, spreading his doctrine without needing “...

Dems Find End Run Around Late Bush Regs

Clinton-era law gives Congress power to overturn regulations

(Newser) - The Bush White House thought it was pretty clever rushing to get all its so-called midnight regulations finalized by Nov. 1 so they couldn't be immediately overturned by the next president, as many of Bill Clinton's parting gifts were. But congressional Democrats say they've found an obscure Clinton-era law that...

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