The no-confidence resolution against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may not clear the Senate’s high procedural bar today. But nobody except President Bush, who called the effort “political,” seems willing to defend Gonzales these days. And it’s hard to argue with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., when he says, “If all senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is right about the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba: It should be closed. Yesterday. The detainees currently held there should be moved to U.S. prisons and tried in U.S. courts. “The concern was,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system is all about?” As he also said, despots around the world now point to Gitmo, fairly or not, to justify their own violations of the rule of law and human rights. “We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far more damage than any good we get for it,” Powell said.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ annual salary of $105,889 is $19,000 less than the national average for governors, notes a Topeka Capital-Journal blog. Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, observed that a "number of the people that work for her are making more than she is." Still, the top job pays even less in neighboring Nebraska, Colorado and Arkansas ($105,000, $90,000 and $80,848, respectively). Sebelius’ spokeswoman cited two of the perks that help offset the pay — great seats at college games and a backstage invitation to meet the Rolling Stones in Wichita last fall. Still, as Morris said, "at some point, you have to look at compensation."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Here’s a point to ponder about the challenges facing rural Kansas, made last week by Princeton cattle producer Bill Miller during a congressional hearing in Salina on farm issues: "In western Kansas, a man might bleed to death before he can get to a physician for medical attention. In east Kansas, the worst problem resulting from that same injury might be a headache and boredom suffered by his wife while he lays around the house five or six days recuperating."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
There’s no doubt that subprime lending practices have made home ownership available to many Americans who wouldn’t normally have qualified for mortgaged.
But the subprime market has been rocked by widespread foreclosures and bankruptcies, partly due to shady practices such as stated income forms or "liar’s loans," in which lenders simply accept borrowers’ statements about assets without verification.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., recently urged the Federal Reserve to adopt tighter rules for the subprime market that, at a minimum, require lenders to "fully evaluate a borrower’s ability to repay; requires escrows for taxes and insurance; and restricts the use of low- and no-documentation loans."
Posted by Randy Scholfield
