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WASHINGTON -- State Department employees inappropriately examined the passport files of Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, a security breach that forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to apologize to Obama. Rice said Friday she apologized to Obama for a security breach in which three State Department contractors reviewed his file on three occasions earlier this year. Two of the employees were fired and a third disciplined. "I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed," Rice told reporters. Separately, Clinton issued a...

Bush administration is 8 years of failure Friday, March 14, 2008 11:41 AM EDT As the Bush presidency winds down we can reflect on what never should have been, like the Iraq war and the attack upon civil rights. But equally important is to consider what might have been, had this president met the needs of the nation.

Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 03/03/2008 Pelosi Statement on Oil Prices Reaching a World Record High Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today as the price of oil reached a world record high of $103.95 per barrel, higher now than in 1980, when adjusted for inflation: “Americans are now paying the price for years of a failed energy policy that has resulted in record energy costs, a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and the rising threat of global warming. The price of a barrel of oil is now four times higher than...

Who’d have thunk it? Since Super Tuesday, Barack Obama has not only won ten straight nominating contests against Hillary Clinton; he has absolutely crushed her in all of them. His average margin of victory in eight of those states was 32 percent, and his narrowest margin was 17 percent in Wisconsin. It took Democrats 16 years to figure out the Clintons are a fraud, but Obama has been on the national scene for only 16 months. Listening to the Demo “debate” in Texas last week, I marveled at how so much could be said without saying anything. I read the...

The recent criticism of hate speech on campus is entirely appropriate. But we ought to make one exception to this rule: the “religious right,” a retrograde coterie of unattractive common folk who seek to impose their irrational beliefs on the rest of us. These fundamentalists lie awake at night, plotting the imposition of the truths they have received by revelation from God. God has decreed the necessity of prohibiting abortion and gay marriage, lest the land be scourged by His wrath, so the unquestioning hordes of Jesus-freaks flood the polls on election day. The few who are at Yale (here...

<p>Woops, an errant email advisory sent to House Democratic members by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office had some unique suggested talking points for the upcoming "Read Across America" day. Basically, it said, just tell the kids and their teachers: blah, blah, blah.</p> <p>"Blah, blah, blah, blah Blah, blah, blah."</p>

U.N. Criticizes U.S. For Violating Human Rights Of Internally Displaced Hurricane Katrina VictimsUnited Nations Headquarters (AHN) - Long an advocate for poor internally displaced persons in third world countries, the United Nations on Thursday called on the United States government to halt demolition of low-income housing in New Orleans saying it violated the human rights of Hurricane Katrina victims and was driving them into "destitution." In a strongly worded statement posted on its news center website, U.N. experts on housing and minority rights called the Bush administration to task for its treatment of Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for a grand jury investigation into whether White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress. Pelosi is demanding that misdemeanor charges be pursued against Miers for refusing to testify to Congress about the 2006 firings of federal prosecutors, and against Bolten for failing to turn over White House documents related to the purge.

OSCAR winner Eva Orner has described the US Government as a "bunch of war criminals". The Australian filmmaker won an Academy Award for best feature documentary as co-producer of Taxi to the Dark Side, a film about the US Government's use of torture in its war against terror. The documentary features interviews with US soldiers who participated in the torture of suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Orner said she did not blame low-ranking soldiers for such behaviour. "Obviously, everyone's responsible for their own actions, but you put people in bad situations who are ill-equipped, not trained, under enormous...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 02/25/2008 Pelosi Statement on U.S. Troops Levels in Iraq Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Pentagon acknowledging that it will maintain a force of 140,000 troops in Iraq through July 2008—8,000 more than the pre-surge troop level in January of last year: “The statement from the Pentagon today on troop levels in Iraq is an admission that the President’s troop surge was not a temporary measure. There will be more U.S. troops in Iraq this summer than there were at the end of...

VATICAN CITY, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Serbia took its campaign against Kosovo's independence to the Vatican on Thursday when its ambassador told Pope Benedict that "moral principles" alone showed it was an injustice. But the Pontiff, receiving Serbia's ambassador to the Holy See, steered clear of the dispute and renewed his call for all sides to show restraint. "With regard to the current crisis in Kosovo, I call upon all interested parties to act with prudence and moderation, and to seek solutions that favour mutual respect and reconciliation," the Pontiff said. Sunday's declaration of independence by Kosovo, which has a...

"Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment? That’s right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques. But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party. Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed President Bush yesterday for saying in his State of the Union speech Monday night that the United States is winning the war in Iraq. The California Democrat also expressed doubts that political reconciliation in the war-torn country had been advanced by laws to share oil wealth among the country's sectarian groups and to allow members of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party to return to government jobs. "The president's comments last night in his speech were yet again another example of the lack of reality that he brings to this discussion," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters...

Americans Want a New State of the Union, Not a Third Bush Term January 28, 2008 While the president prepares to deliver his final State of the Union Address tonight, a speech that media reports say will offer no new ideas, it's clear the Republican presidential candidates are following in Bush's footsteps offering no new ideas of their own, only a third Bush term. [AP, 1/25/08] From the war in Iraq to denying health care to low income kids to the economy, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani offer more of the same failed Bush policies while...

<p>I finally figured out what that smirk is for. George Bush just can't keep saying his lines with a straight face.</p> <p>Tonight, he's giving his last State of the Union speech - finally! - and he's bound to claim that he's made American stronger, safer, bigger, and better. But after seven years of his failed policies, nothing could be further from the truth.</p>

A coronation is fine within a political party but not a battle between two of them. Americans deserve a meaningful choice. Most of this presidential election year will overlap with the Chinese Year of the Rat, which starts two days after 'Super Duper Tuesday' on February 5. As far as the Republican nomination is concerned, many commentators have implied, this is wholly appropriate. For who but a rodent would want to stand between the first female or first black President and the Oval Office? Besides which, the opposing field consists of a cast who can be and have been dismissed...

The Rev. Al Sharpton released a statement Friday chastising one “John Huckabee” for saying South Carolina should be able to decide whether it wants to fly the Confederate flag. Of course he meant Mike Huckabee — the GOP candidate who on the campaign trail Thursday said outsiders should not tell South Carolina what to do when it comes to that flag. Either way, as the controversy of race settles on the Democratic side, Sharpton said Republican Huckabee is now offending the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the midst of a national celebration of the life and teachings of...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 01/02/2008 Pelosi Statement on Oil Prices Topping $100 a Barrel Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today as the price of oil topped $100 per barrel: “For the first time, the price of oil has risen to more than $100 a barrel – almost four times the price when President Bush took office. “Last month, the New Direction Congress passed landmark energy security legislation that included a historic CAFE increase to boost fuel efficiency standards for our cars and trucks, a Renewable Fuels Standard to dramatically...

When a fire broke out in Vice President Dick Cheney's ceremonial office last week, reporters quipped that someone must be burning the videotapes of the CIA interrogation of two al-Qaida detainees. The joke was an allusion to the administration's admission that the CIA videotapes had been destroyed. The videotapes reportedly showed the harsh interrogations and waterboarding of the prisoners in secret prisons abroad­. One has to wonder what other forms of torture U.S. agents shamefully adopted as their own in their unfettered drive to question prisoners. The New York Times had reported that the pros and cons of destroying the...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 12/28/2007 Pelosi and Reid Condemn Bush Plan to Veto of Defense Authorization Bill Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement today criticizing President Bush's expected veto of H.R. 1585, the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, in response to assertions by the Iraqi government that one section could expose assets in U.S. banks to requests for compensation for American victims of Saddam Hussein. "Despite the Administration's earlier support for the Department of Defense authorization bill, it appears that President Bush...