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Powell: Bush Wants Legal Status for Millions of Illegal Aliens NewsMax.com Wires Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004 MEXICO CITY – Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that President Bush would place a high priority in his second term on granting legal status to millions of migrants who live illegally in the United States. Powell spoke at the inaugural session of the U.S.-Mexican Bi-National Commission, which annually brings together top officials from both sides to discuss a range of cross-border issues. Powell was joined here by five other members of Bush's Cabinet. "The president is committed to comprehensive immigration reform as...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) plans to ask Congress to spend more to crack down on undocumented workers and arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But he wants to fund only a fraction of the new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. Bush's budget plan will call for spending $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work site investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government official familiar with the spending plan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The money would be used to conduct audits on employers, investigate violations...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush plans to ask Congress to spend more to crack down on undocumented workers and arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But he wants to fund only a fraction of the new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. Bush's budget plan will call for spending $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work site investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government official familiar with the spending plan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The money would be used to conduct audits on employers, investigate violations and prepare cases....

I happen to believe that President Bush's inaugural speech was both a very big deal and not that big of a deal at all, a classic paradox. To be sure, President Bush laid out an idealistic foreign policy vision endorsing the transforming power of democracy and liberty. To be sure, he spoke expansively -- pun intended -- of freedom: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. But these words represent no departure from...

2,000 new border agents aren't part of budget, Ridge says President Bush (news - web sites) will not ask Congress for enough money to add 2,000 agents to patrol the nation's borders in his 2006 budget, even though he signed a bill last month authorizing the increase. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Monday that Bush's new budget, to be released in early February, will propose a "good incremental increase" in the number of agents. But he made it clear the number would not approach 2,000. The new agents were to be the first hires toward doubling the size of...

George W. Bush is, above all, an idealist. We saw it during his first term in his passionate advocacy of faith-based charity and in his ardent desire to reform education. This is not a leader who thinks small. Now, by inaugurating his second term with a sweeping declaration of ambition for world freedom, he has found the perfect mold into which to pour his vaulting idealism. Echoing the words from Leviticus that grace the Liberty Bell, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof," President Bush declared that those words have meaning still. "America, in this young...

Commandos Get Duty on U.S. Soil By ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before. As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were poised to act under a 1997 program that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the...

I have a confession to make. I liked President Bush’s Second Inaugural Address and even found parts of it moving. It was, I thought, carefully crafted to articulate a vision of what it means to be an American and what America means to the world. The President laid out an ambitious but nonetheless plausible agenda in both the foreign and domestic arenas, one that challenges us to live up to our principles and our promises. Roughly two-thirds of the speech focused on foreign affairs, purporting to reconcile the oft-noted tension between realism and idealism in American foreign policy. "America’s vital...

An Alternative Inaugural Address From the January 24, 2005 issue: What if George W. Bush weren't a compassionate conservative . . . by P.J. O'Rourke 01/24/2005, Volume 010, Issue 18 MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks together with the rest of us? Let them stew in Berkeley, Boston, and Ann Arbor. The media...

WASHINGTON -- As happy conservatives gathered in Washington last week to celebrate the presidential re-election of one of their own, haunting questions were raised for some of them. Now that George W. Bush never will have to face the electorate again, is he sidestepping toward the middle? Is he looking more like his father and less like Ronald Reagan? The inaugural address, which evoked lavish praise from many Republicans attending the ceremonies, sounded less conservative than neo-conservative in advocating a global crusade for democracy. But it was not the speech that generated unease among some of President Bush's staunchest supporters....

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. My fellow Americans, earlier this week I had the honor of taking, for the second time, the oath of office as your President. The inaugural ceremony is simple, yet its meaning is profound. Every four years, the American people hold an inauguration to reaffirm our faith in liberty, and to celebrate the democratic institutions that preserve it. To place one's hand on the Bible and swear the oath is a humbling experience, and a reminder of the high trust and great responsibility that the presidency brings. With deep appreciation for your support, and mindful of the...

Why is George Bush having to spend so much time defending a speech promoting freedom? It's amazing. Freedom is so unpopular around the world that you can't even stand up and deliver a speech extolling it's values and virtues without taking criticism from all corners. Such is the popularity of government-provided security. I ranted enough about this last Friday ... you can go to the archives for more. But, as I said, I just can't let it go. I grew up being told and actually believing that people love freedom. The biggest disappointment of my adult life may be the...

WASHINGTON The traditional way to start Inauguration Day is with a service at St. John's Episcopal Church across the street from the White House. But last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney preceded the sacraments with a seemingly sacrilegious visit with the roguish and ribald talk show host Don Imus. At the very least, the "Imus in the Morning" program on MSNBC was an odd place to find the vice president, whose preferred method of speaking to the public is through conservative news outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show. Although Mr. Imus's politics are more contrarian than...

Need all prayers recited on Inauguration Day for an ill friend who missed telecast.

'Hook 'em, 'horns' gesture lost in translation Associated Press OSLO, Norway — President Bush's "Hook 'em, 'horns" salute got lost in translation in Norway, where shocked people interpreted his hand gesture during his inauguration as a salute to Satan. That's what it means in the Nordics when you throw up the right hand with the index and pinky fingers raised, a gesture popular among heavy metal groups and their fans in the region. "Shock greeting from Bush daughter," a headline in the Norwegian Internet newspaper Nettavisen said above a photograph of Bush's daughter Jenna, smiling and showing the sign. For...

One of the (many) reasons George W. Bush infuriates Democrats: He's a great party leader. Last week's inaugural events at the Capitol and in the capital were designed to portray the president as a national leader. Presidents since Thomas Jefferson have used their inaugural moment to place the ceremony above party, and to place themselves above party. The president accomplished that. But he did one thing more. Amid the pomp that accompanied Inauguration Day, he also set out to reinforce his role as a party leader. Not all presidents succeed at that. Richard Nixon, uncomfortable with the very party leaders...

wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to be at a ball, a genuine inaugural ball with tuxedos and presidential-seal-emblazoned square napkins and succulent miniature crab cakes. Regrettably, we're a liberal magazine and, consequently, many of us are less than perfectly organized (although, at TNR, some of us prefer to think of ourselves as neo-disorganized)--and, well, I failed to honor certain press-credentialing deadlines. Now, instead, I would be covering "counter-inaugural events." As a result, last night I was sitting in a low-budget church on G Street in downtown Washington listening to speakers at an International Socialist Organization-sponsored gathering...

Tuesday Here I am in Easthampton, Massachusetts, standing in a drizzle, next to a football field where my son's team, Williston-Northampton, is playing their arch-rival, Suffield. This is a big game. Suffield is rated number one in the league. And our side is not rated number one. Nevertheless, we have a fine coach, Mr. Conway, and a hard working team, and a few parents on the sidelines. For some reason, there never seem to be any stands at these games so we have to stand on our own feet, in the sopping grass, and cheer and yell while holding umbrellas....

OP-ED COLUMNIST If you want to understand America, I hope you were in Washington on Thursday. I hope you heard the high ideals of President Bush's inaugural address, and also saw the stretch Hummer limos heading to the balls in the evening. I hope you heard the president talk about freedom as "the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul," and also saw the drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight. What you saw in Washington that day is what you see in America so often...

Editorial | Inaugural Ball Cancel this bash during a time of war Thank you, Claire Gawinowicz of Oreland. Her letter in yesterday's Inquirer made this excellent suggestion: Cancel inaugural balls for President Bush's next term as a show of sacrifice during a time of war. The President would make a powerful statement if he did so. Numerous presidents have shunned them since the first official ball was held in 1809 for James Madison. Franklin Pierce declined to celebrate while mourning the fresh loss of his son in 1853. Franklin D. Roosevelt skipped them during the Depression and World War II....