Questions for Rove & Miers about U.S. attorney firings?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Former top Bush aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have finally agreed to testify under oath before Congress about the firings of those U.S. attorneys.
In 2006, according to an e-mail from a former Justice Dept. official, U.S. attorneys were singled out and fired for not being “loyal Bushies.”
The Bush White House had fought attempts to force them to testify - citing executive privilege - but an agreement has now been reached between lawyers for Presidents Bush and Obama. Rove and Miers will appear before the House Judiciary Committee in closed depositions. The committee says it might also call on them for public testimony. Rove was President Bush's top political adviser for most of his presidency; and Miers was the top White House legal adviser for about two years.
The controversy goes back to those 2006 firings of federal prosecutors in nine cities and includes allegations of political interference. According to an e-mail from a former Justice Department official, some of these U.S. attorneys were singled out because they were not "loyal Bushies."
Committee chairman John Conyers says this is "a vindication of the search for truth." And for his part, Karl Rove tells Fox News that he's looking forward to telling the committee about his alleged role in the firing of federal prosecutors - although he says it could turn into a "show trial." Rove says Conyers probably has more interest in him than other former White House aides, stating "I understand they may be the hors d'oeuvres, but I'm the main course. Some Democrats would love to have me barbecued."
As documents continue to surface from the Bush era there's a hunger in some corners to set the record straight about the legality of a lot of stuff that happened over the past eight years.
Here’s my question to you: What would you ask Karl Rove and Harriet Miers about the firing of those U.S. attorneys?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
How worried are you about a full-blown depression?
This sculpture of a 1930s era bread line captures the hunger and desperation many Americans felt during the Great Depression. (PHOTO CREDIT: MANNY CENETA/GETTY IMAGES)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
There's a 20 percent chance the U.S. will sink into a full-blown depression according to a professor of economics at Harvard University who has studied the economic cycles of the last 139 years.
Robert Barro writes in the Wall Street Journal that the most serious concern these days is that our economic downturn will become something worse than the largest recession since World War II. And he comes to the conclusion that there's a one-in-five chance that America's GDP and consumption will fall by 10 percent or more - something we haven't seen since the 1930s.
Barro found in his research that knowing a stock market crash has occurred sharply raises the odds of a depression - not good news for us, considering what the market has done since the fall of 2007 when the Dow was above 14,000.
However, he writes that the bright side of all this is there's an 80 percent chance we can avoid a depression - pointing out how the U.S. had stock market crashes in 2000 and 1973 and both times only experienced mild recessions.
Nonetheless, in the 59 non war depressions Barrow studied across various countries, he found an average length of almost four years, which could potentially push back a recovery until 2012.
Here’s my question to you: How worried are you the U.S. will experience a full-blown depression?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Should Pres. Obama veto spending bill stuffed with pork?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Some Democrats are calling on President Obama to veto a $410 billion dollar spending bill because it's too expensive and includes too much pork.
Democratic Senators Russ Feingold (left) and Evan Bayh (right) say the $410 billion measure is too costly and contains too much pork.
Senators Russ Feingold and Evan Bayh both say they will vote against the measure. The bill - which would keep the federal government running through this fiscal year - includes $7.7 billion in more than 8,000 pet projects, or earmarks.
Bayh says the bill "requires sacrifice from no one, least of all the government." He calls the measure "tone deaf" and points to a disconnect between the belt-tightening average Americans are going through and what the government is doing. Feingold says Mr. Obama should veto the bill and tell Congress to "clean it up" and "do it over."
But other Democrats have defended the bill, saying it's necessary to counter the economic downturn and restore budget cuts made by President Bush. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has defended earmark request calling them "the congressional initiative process."
Meanwhile President Obama is expected to sign the bill once it gets to him. The White House says the legislation needs to be passed to finish "last year's business" and that the president will work with Congress to reduce earmarks in the future. At a meeting last week, the president reportedly urged Democratic leaders to "limit" future earmarks.
Here’s my question to you: Should President Obama veto the $410 billion spending bill in order to remove $7.7 billion in pet projects?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
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