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Gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly said Friday he'll unleash an expanded team of auditors to "wring the inefficiency" out of state government and help close a $5 billion budget shortfall if he is elected California's top executive. In a meeting with The Bee's Capitol Bureau, Westly, the state controller and the new leading Democratic gubernatorial contender, came across as a candidate for accountant-in-chief as he sketched out financial charts and figures on an easel board. The former eBay executive proposed increasing the number of state auditors by nearly one-fifth - from 210 to 250 - and said he would seek additional...

Tell the Truth Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:48:12 -0500 Dear Stuck on Stupid, "Tell the truth. Fire the incompetents. Get out of Iraq. Have health care for all Americans. These are pretty simple messages, and they're worth fighting for today." That's what I said yesterday when I appeared on "Meet the Press" to push our call for two deadlines and an exit from Iraq. You and I both know it will take a massive citizen effort to force a President bogged down in this war to change his course - but doing so is our moral responsibility. I urge...

NEW YORK - Democratic Sen. John Kerry, a potential 2008 candidate, lashed out at former rival George W. Bush and his advisers on Friday, calling them incompetent and labeling the White House team "the Katrina administration." "These guys are the most incompetent people I've ever seen in Washington in all the time I've been in public life," Kerry said via teleconference to the National Action Network, an advocacy group founded by Al Sharpton. "The problem with it is their incompetence is hurting people, it's hurting real people." Kerry criticized a House bill that would punish those who aid illegal immigrants...

Artists Speak Out Against the War Michael Stipe, Bright Eyes, Steve Earle, Moby and more play New York anti-war event R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, Bright Eyes, Steve Earle, Rufus Wainwright, Fischerspooner, Moby, Peaches and Devendra Banhart all performed at Monday night's Bring 'Em Home Now! concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. The event, to benefit a number of anti-war groups, could be seen as an anti-war rally at the third anniversary of the United States' invasion of Iraq, bringing together an array of musical styles -- hip-hop, country, rock, pop, indie and electronica -- with one shared view: It's time...

DNC: Cheney Cherry Picks Iraq Facts 3/19/2006 2:41:00 PM To: National Desk, Political Reporter Contact: Karen Finney of the DNC Press Office, 202-863-8148 WASHINGTON, March 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Vice President Cheney today marked the third anniversary of the war in Iraq by using cherry-picked facts to paint a rosy picture that doesn't match the reality on the ground in Iraq. Echoing his claim three years ago that our troops would "be greeted as liberators" and his claim ten months ago that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its last throes," Vice President Cheney today said insurgents had "reached a stage...

Dean Criticizes GOP on Ports Security By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press Writer 31 minutes ago The chairman of the Democratic National Committee sought to capitalize Saturday on the recent divide between President Bush and congressional Republicans over ports security, arguing that the GOP has a "pre-9/11 mind-set" on ensuring safety at U.S. entries. In his party's weekly radio address, Howard Dean trumpeted the Democrats' success in helping to derail a plan for a Dubai-owned company to manage some operations at six U.S. ports. Bush strongly backed the deal involving the United Arab Emirates-based company, but many lawmakers, both Republicans and...

WASHINGTON, March 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today, Vice President Cheney is in South Florida to raise money for Republican Congressman Clay Shaw and the Collier County Republican Party. While in Florida, Cheney should explain President Bush's decision to short-circuit normal oversight of a deal that would outsource the operation of six American ports-including the port in Miami- to a foreign, state-owned company, and why the Bush Administration has refused to improve security at America's ports. Only five percent of cargo containers that enter America are searched for weapons of mass destruction and radiological detection screening is also extremely rare. "Instead...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson bashed President Bush at a church service, calling him a "wolf in sheep’s clothing” and accusing him of showing "two faces” to the public. "He comes smiling and showing himself to be friendly, then he goes to Washington and cuts Medicare and Medicaid,” Jackson said at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Ala. Jackson spoke at the annual observance of "Bloody Sunday” – the day in 1965 when law enforcement officers attacked civil rights proponents attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery. Jackson also urged those in the church – headquarters for the Selma voting rights...

“How low is 18 percent?” This was a headline in the Washington Post on March 5. The 18 percent is the support rate of vice president Dick Cheney from a public opinion survey conducted by CBS. The Washington Post included the support rates of notoriously famous people to prove how low 18% is. Michael Jackson, who was alleged of sexually harassing an underage boy, and American football player O.J. Simpson, who caused a huge clamor for being suspected of murdering his wife in 1994, each maintained 25 percent and 29 percent favorable impression rates, respectively. The paper pointed out that...

The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality [...] we've abandoned the principles of tariff-based trade that built American industry and kept us strong for over 200 years. The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Bush says the deal allowing an Arab company to take over six major U.S. seaports should go forward and he will veto any bill that would stop it.

Former President Clinton Speaks Out About Shooting February 20, 2006 2:30 a.m. EST Tera Hodges - All Headline News Staff Writer Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Former President Bill Clinton says the secrecy surrounding the vice president Dick Cheney's shooting accident is causing the media stir. Cheney has come under fire for waiting almost 24 hours to report the incident to the media. "I think the White House should have said something about it sooner," Clinton said Sunday on Good Morning America. "I think that it's gotten a little more light than it would have because the administration has an enormous...

What About the State of Our Health Care? Dear Friend, George Bush may have had an election year conversion about the importance of health care, but as I listened to his State of the Union Speech tonight, it's clear he still wants to take us in the wrong direction. I can tell you from the people I have spoken to, and the thousands of stories you have sent me concerning your health care struggles, that few Americans, if any, would find relief from the Bush assortment of flimsy band-aids and "private account" gimmicks. George Bush and his Republican allies want...

Sen. Hillary Clinton wasted no time blasting President Bush's State of the Union message Tuesday night, saying his speech made it clear that "he still wants to take us in the wrong direction." In an email sent out by her fundraising PAC minutes after the speech ended, Mrs. Clinton took the president to task for his comments on health care. "I can tell you from the people I have spoken to . . . that few Americans, if any, would find relief from the Bush assortment of flimsy band-aids and 'private account' gimmicks," she complained. Clinton said Bush's policies "offer...

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole! And there are many paths to tread First thread: New Zealander builds Hobbit holeSecond thread: The New Hobbit HoleThird thread: The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads! (Congratulations, we filled it up!) Fourth Thread: The Hobbit Hole IV - The Road Goes Ever On...Fifth Thread: The Hobbit Hole V - Where Many Paths and Errands Meet...Sixth Thread: The Hobbit Hole VI - And Whither Then? I Cannot Say...Seventh Thread: The Hobbit Hole VII - But not yet weary are our feet... Eighth Thread: The Hobbit Hole VIII - Still round the corner we...

NEW YORK - It's not hard to spot the common theme in three New York theater offerings this season that go by the titles "Bush is Bad," "Bush Wars: Musical Revenge" and "Laughing Liberally." The Web site for "Bush is Bad," which is subtitled "The musical cure for the blue-state blues," features a grand piano falling on the head of President George W. Bush. "Bush Wars" promises what it calls a counterattack on "the disgraceful agenda of the Bush administration." It features a dance number with Bush and Osama bin Laden taking their mothers to lunch at the same restaurant,...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's left-wing president, Hugo Chavez, joined U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Sunday to attack President George W. Bush and the Iraq war at the close of the World Social Forum. Chavez, a former soldier known by his supporters as "El Comandante," has become a voice for many opponents of Washington who are drawn by his self-styled socialist revolution and his close alliance with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. "Enough of imperialist aggression. We must tell the world, down with the U.S. empire," Chavez said hugging Sheehan, whose son died in the Iraq war, and the widow...

WASHINGTON — In an attempt to pre-empt President Bush’s State of the Union speech next week, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Thursday offered a scathing view of U.S. security at home and abroad under Republican leadership. From Iraq to health care, Republican leaders in the White House and Congress have misplaced priorities, Durbin told an audience at the National Press Club. "Too often, they have treated America’s urgent security challenges not as problems to be solved, but as opportunities for special interests," said Durbin, reiterating the Democrats’ accusation that Republicans have fostered a "culture of corruption" in Washington as...

WASHINGTON - House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says President Bush should have used his extensive authority under the law to monitor suspected terrorists rather than approve the National Security Agency's disputed monitoring program. "I would not want any president — Democrat or Republican — to have the expanded power the administration is claiming in this case," Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an interview with The Associated Press. Pelosi did not say the NSA's surveillance program was illegal. But she said the administration should follow the procedures in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows government lawyers to ask a secretive...

Mr. Chairman, the stakes in this nomination could not be higher. This is the vote of a generation. If confirmed, Judge Alito will have an enormous impact on our basic rights and liberties for years and even decades to come. After all, the Supreme Court is the guardian of our most cherished rights and freedoms. They are symbolized in the four eloquent words inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law." Those words are meant to guarantee that our courts will be an independent check on abuses of power by the other two branches of government....