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Iraq Restricts Air, Land Passages to Syria, Iran
From News Services and Staff Reports
Thursday, February 1, 2007
BAGHDAD, Jan. 31 -- Iraq indefinitely halted all flights to and from Syria and closed a border crossing with Iran as the government prepares for a security crackdown, a parliament member and an airport official said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
The airport official said that flights to and from Syria would be canceled for at least two weeks and that service had been interrupted on Tuesday, the AP said. Entire Article
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Economy Gained Strength In 2006
Growth Dispels Recession Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 1, 2007
The U.S. economy turned in a surprisingly strong performance last year, new data show, growing 3.4 percent despite higher interest rates, high oil prices and the sharpest housing downturn in 15 years.
The report from the Commerce Department, showing that economic growth picked up in 2006 from the 3.2 percent growth of 2005, dispelled any lingering doubts about the momentum of the economy going into this year. Many economists predict growth will slow this year, but gone are the recession worries of last summer. Entire Article
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Bush CentCom Nominee Pleads Ignorance
Admiral William Fallon, selected by President Bush to lead the US Central Command, which has responsibility for the war in the Iraq, yesterday testified before a Senate committee considering his nomination. NBC Nightly News reported Fallon "declined to take a position on the President's plan for a troop increase." Under the headline "I Don't Know The Details," the Washington Times says Fallon, "picked by President Bush to oversee his new strategy for Iraq testified yesterday that he does not know much about the plan that the administration says will determine whether the US wins the war." The Times also notes the nominee "specifically declined to endorse Mr. Bush's plan." USA Today, AP, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times also report the story.
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Cheney's Guy
He's barely known outside Washington's corridors of power, but David Addington is the most powerful man you've never heard of. Here's why:
By Chitra Ragavan
5/29/06
One week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush briefly turned his gaze away from the unfolding crisis to an important but far less pressing moment in the nation's history. The president signed legislation creating a commission to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling desegregating public schools. In a brief statement, Bush invited the various educational groups listed in the legislation to suggest the names of potential commissioners and also urged members of Congress to weigh in, as a "matter of comity." But in a little-noted aside, Bush said that any such suggestions would be just that--because under the appointments clause of the Constitution, it was his job, and his alone, to make those kinds of decisions.
This was what is known, in the cloistered world of constitutional lawyers and scholars, as a "signing statement." Such statements, in the years before President Bush and his aides moved into the White House, were rare. A signing statement is a legal memorandum in which the president and his lawyers take legislation sent over by Congress and put their stamp on it by saying what they believe the measure does and doesn't allow. Consumed by the 9/11 attacks, Americans for the most part didn't realize that the signing statement accompanying the announcement of the Brown v. Board commission would signal one of the most controversial hallmarks of the Bush presidency: a historic shift in the balance of power away from the legislative branch of government to the executive. The shift began soon after Bush took office and reached its apogee after 9/11, with Bush's authorization of military tribunals for terrorism suspects, secret detentions and aggressive interrogations of "unlawful enemy combatants," and warrantless electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects on U.S. soil, including American citizens. The Article
