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Kimberley Fritts, longtime CEO of The Podesta Group, will be put in charge after company co-founder and chairman Tony Podesta stepped down on Monday. Fritts joined the company in 1995, according to her official bio. Her first big project for the firm was to create a TV content ratings system. “Bringing together 26 moguls from across the entertainment industry, the White House, trade associations and other third party interests, Kimberley led the unprecedented charge to produce a system of guidelines that today arms parents with clear information about the content and age-appropriateness of the programs their children are watching,” he...

Jay Carney, meet Jay Carney.In 2001, the then-Time magazine reporter wrote a snarky piece criticizing President George W. Bush's month-long vacation that was billed as a "Home to the Heartland" tour. But almost exactly 10 years later Carney, now the Obama White House's press secretary, is defending President Barack Obama's Midwest job-creation tour and vacation at Martha's Vineyard."I don't think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family," claimed Carney at a recent press briefing.But that's exactly what he, as a private citizen working for Time,

Facing the first real rough patch of his presidency, President Obama and his supporters are once again resorting to a tried-and-true tactic: attacking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In his White House press conference last week, Mr. Obama referred to the Bush era at least nine times, three times lamenting that he "inherited" a $1.3 trillion debt that has set back his administration's efforts to fix the economy.

Texas view on environment is 18 lanes wide-critics By Anna Driver Fri Jan 19, 8:45 AM ET HOUSTON (Reuters) - As President Bush readies a new plan on global warming, environmentalists say an 18-lane highway going up in Houston speaks volumes about how people in his home state of Texas view the planet. Between 2003 and 2009, $2.7 billion of state and federal money will have been plowed into expanding 23 miles of Interstate-10 in west Houston to as wide as 18 lanes in some stretches of the city's main east-west road."It is a concrete monstrosity," said Jim Blackburn,...

Iran blows away Bush's warm words at UN By Alec Russell in Washington and Harry Mount in New York (Filed: 20/09/2006) Iran's hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an unbridled attack last night on the foreign policies of Britain and America and in particular the invasion of Iraq. In remarks that will infuriate the Bush administration and London and were clearly aimed at the two allies, he said the United Nations Security Council was being abused "as an instrument of threat and coercion". America and Britain have been trying to rally the Security Council to confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions....

If we've got a missile, let's fire it into George Bush's window, say N Koreans Sergey Soukhorukov in Pyongyang and Colin Freeman (Filed: 25/06/2006) In a land where anti-Western propaganda is the norm, one might have expected a triumphant state broadcast - or, perhaps, a rallying denunciation of "American lies". But last week, as North Korea created a diplomatic storm over claims that it was preparing to test fire a missile that could hit the United States, television sets in Pyongyang were tuned into a rather different drama. North Koreans have long been urged to hate the United States Instead...

Musharraf insists: I'm not George Bush's poodle · General says US air strikes infringe sovereignty· President denies running military dictatorship Declan Walsh and Simon Tisdall in Rawalpindi Friday April 28, 2006 The Guardian (UK) General Pervez Musharraf, facing a surge of anti-American sentiment, yesterday warned that covert US air strikes against al-Qaida inside Pakistan were an infringement of national sovereignty. Admitting that his popularity was waning, the Pakistani president insisted he was "not a poodle" of George Bush and rejected accusations he was running a military dictatorship. Speaking to the Guardian at Army House in Rawalpindi weeks after a tense...

President Bush came to Washington with the goal of serving as a domestic reformer. In 2000, he became one of the few Republican candidates to focus less on defense and more on reforms to domestic social programs and public education. That was before 9/11, and the ensuing wars in the Middle East. Then, it appeared that the audacious Bush doctrine would set the pace for the ultimate legacy that will be George W. Bush. However, early into his second term, President Bush has another opportunity to leave behind a sturdy legacy in the form of the court system. In the...

In my daily perusal of the news, I caught two items that illustrate, quite clearly, how liberals view the role of the judiciary, thus revealing, in stark terms, how critically important is the battle over the judicial filibuster. First, I read about a commencement speech at Brandeis University by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justice who authored the opinion declaring same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts. Newsmax.com reported that Justice Margaret Marshall said, "Our courts function as a pressure valve to defuse political and social tension." Marshall equated criticism of "judicial activism" to a challenge to judicial independence and an effort...

Presidential Vote Certification Faces ObjectionWASHINGTON — When the joint session of Congress meets Thursday to certify the Electoral College votes that gave President Bush his second term, several Democratic House members are expected to contest the results.They may also find support from Sen. Barbara Boxer (search), D-Calif., whose participation under congressional rules would then require senators and representatives to recess to their respective chambers to debate certification.The action would be the first of its kind in 36 years, but most likely won't add up to more than a procedural delay of the inevitable.According to the choreography of the certification, after the...

George Gregory had never seen south Minneapolis until Tuesday. He hopes he won't ever need to see it again. "I've never been here before, and I'll never come again, either," said the 88-year-old retired Postal Service supervisor from Little Canada, a suburb on the other side of St. Paul.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) was set to step up attacks on George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq (news - web sites) war, as the president prepared to go to the United Nations (news - web sites) to unveil new proposals help rebuild the country. In a new television advertisement six weeks before the November 2 election, Kerry accused Bush of diverting resources needed at home to fight the war in Iraq. "Two hundred billion dollars. That is what we are spending in Iraq because George Bush (news - web sites) chose...

Bush's Pyongyang policy 'futile' By Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent in Washington The row centres on North Korea's nuclear facilities The architect of the Clinton administration's policy towards North Korea has told the BBC the current US approach to Pyongyang is going nowhere. Ambassador Robert Gallucci stressed the growing danger that North Korea might sell nuclear materials or even a bomb to a terrorist group. Ambassador Gallucci also urged a fundamental rethink of US policy. His comments come as a new round of six-party talks on the North Korea nuclear stand-off begin in Beijing. Proliferation threat Dealing with North Korea...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s father expressed confidence that his son would win this year's presidential election, even with a weak economy. "American elections are decided on the economy," the one-term former president told NBC television, adding that he believes the economy is strong this year and will be stronger by the November 2 election. "But even without that, I think the country is looking for a strong leader, and it's got one, and they're going to want (him) to serve more," said Bush, who went to war with Iraq (news - web sites)...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic White House challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) accused President Bush (news - web sites) on Thursday of manipulating fears about security and terror for political gain and said he would launch a new ad blitz to introduce himself to voters. At a morning fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites), Kerry said "on a fair playing field in this race we're going to win" and Republicans were in trouble if he raised enough money to counter ads defining him as a waffling, tax-and-spend liberal. Kerry, who is running even with...

<p>San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday he realizes his push to legalize same-sex marriage has made him radioactive to many of his fellow Democrats and will severely limit his role in the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, a longtime friend for whom the mayor and his father are raising tens of thousands of dollars.</p>

Daschle: Move Dem nominees By Geoff Earle Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is threatening to stall President Bush’s judicial nominees if the president does not take action soon to appoint more than a dozen Democrats to government boards and commissions. Daschle met privately with Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) shortly before Congress began its latest recess and warned that if ongoing negotiations don’t bring results, the movement to confirm the president’s judicial nominees — already stalled by Democratic opposition — could grind to a complete halt. “There has to be a reciprocal treatment of nominees,” Daschle said in a...

Bush's TV ally joins chorus of criticism By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 11/02/2004) A cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq apologised to Americans yesterday for supporting pre-war claims that Saddam Hussein harboured weapons of mass destruction. Bill O'Reilly, the host of the highest-rated talk show on US television and one of the most powerful conservative voices in the country, told viewers that he was sorry he had given the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt and promised to be more sceptical in the future. "I was wrong, I am not pleased about it at all, and I think...

Bush's 'anti-ambassadors' at global summit January 20 2004 at 10:16AM By Shaun Tandon Mumbai - For many anti-globalisation activists meeting here the United States is shorthand for all that is wrong with the world. But the Americans they are finding at the World Social Forum are just as angry at President George Bush. At panels and demonstrations throughout the annual convention of the anti-globalistion movement, the United States has been castigated left and right for everything from the occupation of Iraq to genetically modified agriculture. So what does an American feel when seeing posters portraying Bush alternately as a bloodsucking...