Approval rating for Bush at new low in California
32% say he is doing good job; worst was Nixon's 24% in '74

By John Marelius
Union-Tribune

April 13, 2006

The appraisal of the job President Bush is doing has reached a new low among California voters and is among the lowest of any president in modern history, according to a new Field Poll.

Only 32 percent of the registered California voters questioned by the nonpartisan public opinion survey said they approved of the job Bush is doing, compared to 62 percent who did not.

The lowest approval rating ever recorded by the Field Poll for a president was 24 percent for Richard Nixon in August 1974. Bush has dropped below the lowest mark of 37 percent for his father, former President George Bush, in July 1992 and Jimmy Carter whose low point was 33 percent in July 1980.

“They were just about to be voted out of office, or in the case of Richard Nixon, he was about to resign,” Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said. “Bush still has more than two years to go, so I think we're in somewhat uncharted territory.”

Support for the president's handling of the war in Iraq has also hit bottom with California voters registering more than 2-to-1 disapproval, 65 percent to 31 percent. Just after the invasion of Iraq in April 2003, public sentiment was almost the opposite, with California voters approving of the war, 60 percent to 37 percent.

Significantly, the poll shows the war continuing to lose support among members of the president's own party as only 41 percent of the Republicans approved of Bush's handling of the war compared to 56 percent who did not.

“What's happening over time is the Democrats have long been critical of the president and critical of the war,” DiCamillo said. “Now they're being joined not only by nonpartisans, but by Republicans.”

Congress, mired in ethical scandals and unable to act on major public concerns such as immigration, is held in even lower esteem.

Only 24 percent of the California voters polled said they approve of the job Congress is doing, compared to 66 percent who did not.

While Congress is seldom a popular institution, that is lower than at any point since 1992 when the nation was in a deep recession. At that time, 69 percent of the state's voters had an unfavorable regard for Congress.

Negative opinions about the legislative branch are across the board as Republicans do not regard the Republican-dominated Congress much more favorably than Democrats do. A solid majority of Republicans, 58 percent, said Congress is not doing a good job as did 73 percent of the Democrats and 66 percent of the nonpartisans.

The Field Poll is based on telephone interviews with 462 registered California voters conducted from April 3 to Friday. The poll has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.

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Arizona puts illegals under authority of trespass law

ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 13, 2006

PHOENIX – Two days after a big immigration march in Phoenix, the Arizona Legislature approved legislation yesterday to make illegal immigrants subject to the state's criminal-trespassing law.

The Senate approved the bill on a 17-12 vote and the House followed with a 33-27
Supporters of the bill contend that it would provide “a second line of defense” behind the Border Patrol by enabling state and local law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants who now are often released.

“This is a tool that law enforcement will use in a case-by-case basis,” state Sen. Chuck Gray said. “I do not envision large roundups.”

Another supporter, Republican Rep. Russell Pearce, said enactment of the measure might encourage illegal immigrants to leave or avoid Arizona, currently the busiest entry point along the U.S.-Mexico border. “Many of those folks will self-deport,” Pearce said.

The bill was sent to Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano. She declined yesterday to say what she will do with it, but her office later released letters from 12 law enforcement groups and officials, including sheriffs in three border counties, urging her to veto the bill.

The bill “represents an enormous unfunded obligation for state, county and local law enforcement,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada wrote.

Napolitano, who is running for re-election this year, vetoed a bill last year that would have given local and state law enforcement the ability to enforce federal immigration laws.

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Iran dismisses nuclear inspector - President refuses to stop enrichment

By Nazila Fathi and David E. Sanger
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

April 14, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran – A one-day trip to Iran by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, ended last night with no agreement by the Iranians to halt their production of enriched uranium.

European diplomats said Iran had shown inspectors evidence that they were preparing to double the size of their small-scale production facilities within weeks.

Before ElBaradei's arrival, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a taunt meant to erase any doubts about whether Iran was determined to plunge ahead with its fuel-making facilities in defiance of a warning from the United Nations.

“Our answer to those who are angry about Iran obtaining the full nuclear cycle is one phrase. We say: Be angry and die of this anger,” he said late Wednesday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

He left the job of meeting with ElBaradei to lower-ranking officials.

For the first time, Ahmadinejad also boasted that Iran was conducting what he called “research” on a next-generation of centrifuges, called the P-2, based on a Pakistani design.

Until now Iran has rebuffed most questions from the atomic energy agency about what kind of information concerning the advanced centrifuges that it had obtained from the illicit nuclear network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan of Pakistan.

Ahmadinejad made no estimate of when the more advanced equipment – which would enrich uranium several times faster than the equipment Iran has just put into operation – might be tested or installed.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the State Department yesterday, said that “when the Security Council reconvenes, there will have to be some consequence” for Iran's decision to defy the calls for a suspension of fuel production, “and we will look at the full range of options available.”

In Washington, Iran's efforts to create the impression that it was speeding ahead to make its nuclear program a fait accompli was countered by intelligence officials, who said the country's boasts had not altered Washington's assessment of how close the country was to obtaining a weapon. Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, said the official view of the intelligence agencies remained that Iran was unlikely to have nuclear weapons before 2010 at the earliest.

ElBaradei said the extent of Iran's nuclear program was uncertain: “We have not seen diversion of nuclear material for weapons purposes, but the picture is still hazy and not very clear.”

The Security Council has given Iran until April 28 to stop enriching uranium. But Iran has rejected the demand and announced Tuesday that, for the first time, it had enriched uranium with 164 centrifuges – a step toward large-scale production.

Iran's deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, said Wednesday that Iran intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, and then expand the program to 54,000 centrifuges.

China said yesterday it was sending its assistant foreign minister to Tehran to convey its concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

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Iran's defiance - Stiffing the Security Council deepens crisis

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

April 14, 2006

Iran's defiant boast that it has succeeded in enriching uranium, a key step toward achieving both civilian nuclear power and building nuclear weapons, is, for now, mostly technological hype. The best estimates are that this rudimentary research feat still leaves the Iranians at least several years away from the large-scale capability to enrich sufficient amounts of uranium to produce even a crude nuclear device.

Nonetheless, the political and diplomatic significance of Iran's announcement is huge, and a portent of grave danger ahead.

The United Nations Security Council had given Iran until April 28 to halt all uranium enrichment activity. Iran's answer was its declaration Tuesday, an act of flagrant defiance of the Security Council. To underscore the point, Iranian officials yesterday rebuffed a request for compliance and cooperation by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.

ElBaradei's visit to Tehran appeared doomed from the outset. Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, vowed that there was no room for “retreat or defeat.” That followed Ahmadinejad's declaration earlier this week that “today Iran is a nuclear country and enjoys the position of a powerful country.”

Beyond its defiance of the Security Council, Iran's unyielding position casts very serious doubt on whether diplomacy alone can prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Two years of determined diplomatic efforts by Britain, France and Germany failed to bring Iran into compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed many years ago. Parallel efforts by ElBaradei and the IAEA also failed, which led to the overwhelming IAEA vote to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible enforcement action.

Now, it seems, Iran has taken the Security Council's measure and remains undeterred. Presumably, the Iranians are counting on Russia and/or China to veto any significant Security Council sanctions to punish Iran for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Without at least the credible threat of political and economic sanctions, the Security Council's leverage with Iran would be fatally undermined.

If, in the end, diplomacy does fail – and that is far from assured even now – the alternatives are stark: military action to disrupt Iran's nuclear program, or acquiescing in a radical Iranian government obtaining nuclear weapons. The former carries obvious and ominous risks. The latter would destabilize the Middle East, pose a potentially mortal threat to Israel and present the United States with the frightening prospect of Iran's radical, profoundly anti-American regime, a proven state sponsor of terrorism, armed with nuclear weapons.

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Why it's time for Rumsfeld to go

DAVID IGNATIUS
THE WASHINGTON POST

April 14, 2006

With luck, Iraq will make a fresh start soon with the formation of a new government. The Bush administration should do the same thing by replacing Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld has lost the support of the uniformed military officers who work for him. Make no mistake: The retired generals who are speaking out against Rumsfeld now in interviews and op-ed pieces express the views of hundreds of other officers on active duty. When I asked an Army officer with extensive Iraq combat experience how many of his colleagues wanted Rumsfeld out, he guessed 75 percent. Based on my own conversations with senior officers over the past three years, I suspect that figure may be low.

But that isn't the reason he should be replaced. Military officers often dislike the civilians they work for, but in our system, strong civilian control is essential. On some of the issues where he has tangled with the military brass, Rumsfeld has been right. The Pentagon is a hidebound place, and it has needed the “transformation” ethic Rumsfeld brought to his job. And I'm dubious about the Pentagon conventional wisdom that we needed 500,000 American troops in Iraq. More troops were necessary, but they should have been Iraqi troops from an army that wasn't disbanded.

Rumsfeld should resign because the Bush administration is losing the war on the home front. As bad as things are in Baghdad, America won't be defeated there militarily. But it may be forced into a hasty and chaotic retreat by mounting domestic opposition to its policy. Much of the American public has simply stopped believing the administration's arguments about Iraq, and Rumsfeld is a symbol of that credibility gap. He is a spent force, reduced to squabbling with the secretary of state about whether “tactical” errors were made in the war's conduct.

The Bush administration has rightly been insisting that the Iraqis put unity first, and that in forming a permanent government, they remove ineffectual and divisive leaders and replace them with people who can pull the country together. The administration should heed its own advice. America needs leadership that can speak to the whole country, not just the people who already agree with the president.

Rumsfeld's replacement should be someone who can help restore a bipartisan consensus for a sensible Iraq policy. One obvious candidate would be centrist Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman. Another would be a centrist Republican with military experience, such as Sens. Chuck Hagel or John McCain. The administration would have to swallow its pride to take any of them on board, but that's the point: Without bold moves from the White House, support for the war will continue to slip away.

It now seems clear that Bush can't erase the Iraq credibility gap on his own. He has been trying to rebuild consensus for the war for months, in a series of speeches and strategy papers. But the poll numbers keep going down. His job approval ratings have fallen below 40 percent in all the latest polls, with ABC/Washington Post at 38 percent, CNN/USA Today/Gallup at 37 percent and Fox/Opinion Dynamics at 36 percent. Support for the war has crumbled even more sharply. The latest ABC/Post poll found that 58 percent of the country now feels the war wasn't worth fighting, compared with 27 percent back in April 2003.

If the Iraqis can form a unity government – and that's certainly a big “if” – they will need America's help in pulling the country back from civil war. America now has a better military strategy for Iraq, one that puts more responsibility on Iraqi forces and emphasizes counterinsurgency tactics. And it has a political strategy that is at last reaching out to all the different Iraqi communities – Sunni, Shiite and Kurd – rather than to a handful of exile leaders. This political-military strategy may fail, but it's too soon to make that call. To buy some time, the administration needs a new political base. If it continues with the same team, it will get the same result.

Rumsfeld is a stubborn man, and I suspect the parade of retired generals calling for his head has only made him more determined to hold on. But in staying in his job, Rumsfeld is hurting the cause he presumably cares most about. The president, even more stubborn that his Pentagon chief, is said to have rejected his offer to resign. If that's so, it's time for Rumsfeld to take the matter out of Bush's hands.

The administration needs to look this one clearly in the eye: Without changes that shore up public support in America, it risks losing the war in Iraq.

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Networks challenge FCC indecency ruling
Enforcement called vague, inconsistent

By Gary Gentile
ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 15, 2006

Four TV broadcast networks and their affiliates have filed court challenges to a March 15 Federal Communications Commission ruling that found several programs “indecent” because of language.

ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, along with their network affiliates and the Hearst-Argyle Television group of stations, filed notices of appeal in various federal courts, including in Washington, D.C., and New York.

Some were filed late Thursday, the rest yesterday morning.

The move represents a protest against the aggressive enforcement of federal indecency rules that broadcasters have said are vague and inconsistently applied. Millions of dollars in fines have been levied based on those rules.

The appeals challenge the FCC's finding that profane language was used on the CBS program “The Early Show,” in 2004, incidents involving Cher and Nicole Richie on the “Billboard Music Awards” shows broadcast by Fox in 2002 and 2003 and various episodes of the ABC show “NYPD Blue” that aired in 2003.

The FCC did not issue fines in those cases because the incidents occurred before a 2004 ruling that virtually any use of certain expletives would be considered profane and indecent.

While none of the cases involved NBC, the network filed a petition to intervene on behalf of the other networks.

Separately, CBS asked the FCC to reconsider a proposed record fine of $3.6 million against dozens of CBS stations and affiliates for a 2004 episode of “Without a Trace,” as well as a proposed $550,000 fine for the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl two years ago.

Yesterday was the deadline for the requests.

The networks and affiliate groups, representing more than 800 individual stations, issued a rare joint statement yesterday calling the FCC ruling “unconstitutional and inconsistent with two decades of previous FCC decisions.

“In filing these court appeals we are seeking to overturn the FCC decisions that the broadcast of fleeting, isolated – and in some cases unintentional – words rendered these programs indecent.”

The networks and stations said the FCC “overstepped its authority” and acted arbitrarily in not giving the networks a clear standard for what content is objectionable.

Tamara Lipper of the FCC said yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled more than 20 years ago that comedian George Carlin's monologue on the “seven dirty words you can't say on television and radio” was indecent.

“Today, Disney, Fox and CBS challenged that precedent and argued that they should be able to air two of those same words,” Lipper said. “We are reviewing their filings.”

In three of the cases being appealed, the FCC found that violations occurred during live broadcasts. A contestant from the CBS show “Survivor: Vanuatu,” for instance, used a variation of the “S” word when referring to another contestant on “The Early Show” in December 2004.

The FCC found the use “indecent,” but did not issue a fine because “our precedent at the time of the broadcast did not clearly indicate that the commission would take enforcement action against an isolated use of the 'S-word,' ” the FCC wrote in its March 15 order.

In the case of “NYPD Blue,” the FCC found that the show's use of a variation of the “S” word was indecent because the episode aired at 9 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones.

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Rumsfeld is a stubborn man, and I suspect the parade of retired generals calling for his head has only made him more determined to hold on. But in staying in his job, Rumsfeld is hurting the cause he presumably cares most about. The president, even more stubborn that his Pentagon chief, is said to have rejected his offer to resign. If that's so, it's time for Rumsfeld to take the matter out of Bush's hands.

You know, shockingly enough, like or hate Dubya and Rummy, I actually admire them in one respect. They don't pander to ever-changing public opinion polls and approval ratings. Unlike most politicians, they actually stand behind what they believe and don't change their positions based on which way the wind is blowing. Much like those fools at Moveon wouldn't change their mind on what they think about Dubya, he doesn't give a rats ass what they think about him. Well done.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

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Rumsfeld is a stubborn man, and I suspect the parade of retired generals calling for his head has only made him more determined to hold on. But in staying in his job, Rumsfeld is hurting the cause he presumably cares most about. The president, even more stubborn that his Pentagon chief, is said to have rejected his offer to resign. If that's so, it's time for Rumsfeld to take the matter out of Bush's hands.

You know, shockingly enough, like or hate Dubya and Rummy, I actually admire them in one respect. They don't pander to ever-changing public opinion polls and approval ratings. Unlike most politicians, they actually stand behind what they believe and don't change their positions based on which way the wind is blowing. Much like those fools at Moveon wouldn't change their mind on what they think about Dubya, he doesn't give a rats ass what they think about him. Well done.

You're right Rush, their ineptitude and avarice are unchanging.

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Police in Nepal attack marchers protesting power grab by king

ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 16, 2006

KATMANDU, Nepal – Baton-wielding police beat protesting Nepali journalists yesterday as thousands of people marched peacefully in the capital to demand the restoration of democracy.

Shops and businesses closed across much of the country as the opposition pressed a general strike. Tensions had eased in the previous two days because of the Nepali New Year's holiday.

Thousands of people marched for miles yesterday afternoon along the ring road encircling Katmandu, shouting: “Down with the monarchy! Salute the republic!”

“Life will be brought to a standstill,” said Subash Nemwang of the Communist Party of Nepal, one of the seven opposition parties organizing the strike and protests, which entered their 10th day yesterday.

About 200 journalists tried to march through Katmandu yesterday morning to demand more press freedom and the release of dozens of reporters detained since King Gyanendra seized absolute power 14 months ago.

Police blocked the rally and charged with batons, injuring seven people and detaining at least a dozen, organizers said.

“We will continue protests until all restrictions on the media are fully lifted,” said Bishnu Nisthuri of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists.

There were demonstrations against Gyanendra in numerous other towns and cities, officials and local media reported.

“There should be no constitutional monarchy. There should be pure democracy, because the monarchy has been very bad to the people of Nepal,” said Ujwal Dhakal, a 24-year-old agriculture student.

The Katmandu protest moved through neighborhoods in the capital that have been flash points for violence between protesters and police. It remained peaceful until demonstrators tried to enter the city center, where rallies are banned.

When police blocked the marchers' way across a small bridge, a brief melee broke out as officers beat them back with batons and fired tear gas. No one was injured in the skirmish, and the protest ended a short while later.

Gyanendra said he took control to restore political order and end a communist insurgency that has left nearly 13,000 people dead in the past decade.

His royal government has since banned criticism of the king, the government and security forces, along with independent reporting on the rebellion to abolish the monarchy and establish a communist state.

The protests, which began April 6, are the worst unrest Gyanendra has faced since his power grab in this mountain kingdom.

Though most demonstrations have been peaceful, some have degenerated into battles between brick-throwing demonstrators and security forces.

Four people have been fatally shot and hundreds have been beaten, fueling anti-royalist sentiment and prompting criticism from the United Nations.

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U.S. faces technology decisions on defense against nuclear threats

THE WASHINGTON POST

April 16, 2006

WASHINGTON – Beset by delays, cost overruns and technical problems, the U.S. government's quest to defend the nation against a smuggled nuclear weapon or radiological “dirty” bomb is approaching a crossroads.

In coming weeks, the Bush administration will award or initiate contracts worth $3 billion to develop a new generation of rugged and precise radiation monitors and imaging scanners designed to sniff out radioactive material at the nation's borders.

Authorities must choose in part between older, reliable technology of limited effectiveness and new, more costly, less proven devices that promise greater accuracy.

The stakes could hardly be higher: Securing U.S. cities from a catastrophic attack with a weapon of mass destruction is “the biggest threat we face today,” Vice President Dick Cheney said often during the 2004 campaign.

The government has stumbled repeatedly with similar choices, costing taxpayers billions. In the nearly five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration and Congress have poured more than $5 billion into homeland security detection systems, radiological and otherwise, only to find that the best available equipment at the time was often of limited use. It has spent $300 million on an early class of radiation monitors that couldn't tell uranium from cat litter and invested $1.2 billion in airport baggage screening systems that initially were no more effective than the equipment screeners used before.

“A lot of the money we threw out there was wasted because the technology was not so good,” said James Jay Carafano, senior fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.

Last month, congressional investigators reported that the United States is “unlikely” to meet its goal of installing 3,000 next-generation detectors by September 2009 and projected it will be about $342 million above its anticipated $1.2 billion cost. At the same time, initial testing of new technology produced “mixed” results, while costing more.

The struggle to complete what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff calls a “mini-Manhattan Project” provides a case study of America's challenges in dealing with the 21st-century perils of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

To skeptics, even some close to the administration, the focus on stopping a nuclear bomb hidden in a container at the border is a costly fixation on a scenario that – while nightmarish – is not supported by intelligence and is overshadowed by other threats.

But other analysts conclude otherwise. They say the country must consider its vulnerabilities and the consequences of the worst catastrophes, which in this case tip the scale toward action.

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