Boehner: President makes Bush look like a piker

By Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
At a weekly press session, John Boehner (R-OH) says that there has been too much Republican spending over the last few years but, "if you begin to look at what has happened over the last month, and what's being proposed in the budget, the President is beginning to make President Bush look like a piker."

White House Briefing

Following the president's statement in the Rose Garden, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino and Director of the National Economic Council briefed the press on the government's increasing role in attempting to restore investor confidence to the struggling financial markets.

Hennessey outlined the steps that have been taken and those that the government would like to happen, "So we've got the conservatorship for Fannie and Freddie. Treasury and Fed worked over the last weekend, they were up in New York working with firms in the industry," he said. "We had the Fed taking steps just a couple days ago to prevent what they would call the disorderly liquidation of AIG, the insurance company. And then the Fed has been increasing significant amounts of liquidity into the financial system to keep things moving."

Hennessey reiterated statements made by President Bush about urging the Congress to pass legislation that would allow the federal government to buy illiquid assets from struggling financial institutions to further increase liquidity.

"The most obvious example of an illiquid asset is a mortgage asset, a mortgage-backed security that's probably lost value as the values of the homes that are underlying those mortgages have declined," he said. "And what's happening is, as those assets have lost value, people don't want to buy them, they become illiquid, it's hard for people to buy and sell them, and so they're stuck on the balance sheets of financial institutions."

Hennessey said that the White House would be in negotiation with congressional leaders over the weekend. Congress and the administration will need to hammer out the details of this authorizing legislation. Hennessey said that they would have to make "significant, substantive progress on the details" over the weekend.

"This is a very bold set of actions, we are calling on Congress to do something that is very big and that we believe needs to be done quickly," he said.

Today at Talk Radio News

Chief Pentagon Correspondent Meredith MacKenzie will cover a statement by President Bush at the White House. The Washington Bureau will also cover Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' remarks to the Global Summit, an address by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on "Colombia, a Success Story," and the National Endowment for Democracy's presentation on "Promoting Democracy in the Arab World: New Ideas for U.S. Policy."

The Pentagon becomes a place of remembrance

Seven years after the airborne attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York, President Bush, accompanied by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dedicated memorial to the memory of Pentagon employees and passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the building on Sept. 11, 2001.

"We claim this hallowed ground for peace and for healing. We claim it in the affirmation of our strongest belief as a people that every life is precious," said Gates. The memorial is a series of 184 silver metal benches spread out over a flat park of gravel. Beneath each bench a pool of water reflects the luster of the metal bench that stretches over it. For the ceremony each bench was draped in a blue flag, giving the appearance of a covered casket.

Quoting the poet Robert Frost, Rumsfeld spoke of Sept. 11 as a day that the United States "became acquainted with the night." Rumsfeld was lauded by the other speakers for his quick actions at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Speaking of those who died that day he said, "Make no mistake, it was because they were Americans that they were killed in this place."

Rumsfeld also spoke the the resolve of the American people and of the U.S. military, "We have been acquainted with the night, we have taken it's measure and in the darkest of times we stood together. In defiance our nation has pressed on toward morning...Our nation will force the dawn."

Admiral Mike Mullen the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also spoke to the families of those who died in the Pentagon, "We honor the heart wrenching sacrifice, the quite courage of those who called these souls dad, mom, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, friend."

Bush spoke about the wars that have followed the attacks on the Pentagon. "Since Sept. 11 our troops have taken the fight to the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home," he said. Shortly after the attacks the U.S. began military operations in Afghanistan to unseat the Taliban government which was harboring the al-Qaida terrorist group that planned and executed the attacks. Thanking the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, Bush noted, "There has not been another attack on our soil in 2,557 days."

With the newly dedicated memorial and the Pentagon behind him, Sec. Gates spoke of the new meaning of the Department of Defense's main building. "From this time forward the Pentagon will be more than a symbol of government, more than the seat of military power, it will also be a place of remembrance."

End the violence of white-collar crime, says Nader

Fill prisons with corporate criminals instead of non-violent drug offenders, said presidential candidate Ralph Nader at a press briefing at the Nader Gonzalez campaign headquarters. Nader called for a reversal of the War on Drugs, which unfairly targets minorities and the poor.

"Nader-Gonzales would shift the billions saved from the War on Drugs to a war on corporate crime," said Nader

Thousands of Americans die or are injured each year because of "preventable corporate violence," Nader said. 56,000 Americans die each year because of work-related diseases such as black lung and asbestosis.

Unlike presidential candidates Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Az.), Nader has a comprehensive plan to combat corporate crime and violence, according to Nader. With 2.1 million prisoners, the United States accounts for one-fourth of the world's prison population.

Nader's "12-point program" would increase power and resources for the Internal Revenue Service to chase down tax avoiders, grant shareholders of corporations the right to nominate and elect the board of directors, and impose a separation of commercial and investment banking services, which would prevent "conflicts of interest among financial entities." Nader's plan also asks publicly-traded corporations to unveil their tax returns to the public.

In 2004, Nader wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to grant clemency to 30,000 non-violent drug offenders incarcerated in American prisons. The letter recalled President Bush's use of cocaine and posited that if Bush had been imprisoned for his substance abuse, he would not have had such a successful career, Nader said.