Fair Proxy Web

Foreign policy gaffes plague Huckabee

PELLA, Iowa (CNN) — A senior aide to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee admitted Friday that the former Arkansas governor had no foreign policy credentials after his comments reacting to the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto raised questions.

During an event Friday in Pella, Iowa, Huckabee said the crisis sparked by Bhutto’s death should lead to a crackdown on illegal immigrants from Pakistan.

The Huckabee official told CNN that when he said that, Huckabee was trying to turn attention away from scrutiny of his foreign policy knowledge.

Huckabee’s foreign policy credentials have been under a microscope since the candidate admitted that he was unaware of an intelligence report that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program earlier this month.

In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday, it’s interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border, Huckabee said Friday.

Americans might look halfway around the world and say, ‘How does that affect me?’ … We need to understand that violence and terror is significant when it happens in Pakistan, [and] it’s more significant if it can happen in our own cities. And it happens if people can slip across our border and we have no control over them.

The immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about people who could come with a shoulder-fired missile and could do serious damage and harm to us, Huckabee said, and that’s what we need to be worried about.

The Huckabee official said he told Huckabee that his reaction to the crisis in Pakistan will be the story for the next several days, and until he is briefed and up to speed on Pakistan, a good place for Huckabee to draw the line is on illegal immigration. Watch a report about the ’surprising tactic’

Why does Rudy Giuliani get more credentials on homeland security than you do? You’ve been a governor, the Huckabee campaign official said he told the candidate.

The campaign official admitted that Huckabee’s tough immigration talk is also aimed at helping him win male GOP voters in Iowa — a bloc the official concedes the campaign has been losing ground with.

Huckabee said 660 Pakistanis entered the country illegally last year. When asked by a reporter the source for that statistic, Huckabee appeared unsure, saying, Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing, and I believe they are CIA and immigration numbers. The Huckabee campaign later said the figure came from a March 2006 report by The Denver Post.

But the Border Patrol told CNN on Friday that it apprehended only a handful of illegal immigrants from Pakistan in 2007.

The number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan deported or apprehended is not mentioned in the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security/Office of Immigration Statistics. In 2005, the nation did not make the list of the top 10 sources of illegal immigrants. The previous year, Pakistan was the last country listed, but no specific numbers were given.

Huckabee is the GOP front-runner in Iowa, according to most polls. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll conducted December 20-23 and 26 has Huckabee leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 36 percent to 28 percent among likely caucus goers. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 7 percentage points.

As the campaigns enter the final stretch before the Iowa caucuses on January 3, Romney has gone on the attack against Huckabee, particularly focusing on his record on illegal immigration issues while he was Arkansas governor.

Huckabee’s Friday comments on immigration came after he appeared to make another gaffe Thursday, when he seemed to suggest incorrectly that Pakistan was under martial law. Watch Huckabee’s response to Bhutto’s assassination

While commenting on Bhutto’s death during an Orlando, Florida, press conference, Huckabee told reporters that the United States’ first priority should be to find the responsible parties.

But the most urgent thing to do is to offer our sincere sympathies and concerns to the family and to the people of Pakistan, and that’s the first thing we would be doing other than, again, trying to ascertain who’s behind it, and what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continued in Pakistan, suspension of the constitution, Huckabee said. Those are concerns that the United States certainly should have.

Later Thursday, at an event in West Des Moines, Iowa, Huckabee told CNN that it was not that I was unaware it was suspended, two weeks ago, lifted. …The point was, would it be reinstated, would it be placed back in? All of the aspects of martial law have not been completely lifted even now. There’s still a heavy hand Musharraf has used.

Conservative critics immediately pointed out that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf lifted the country’s state of martial law roughly two weeks ago.

The slip ought to be really bad news for Huckabee, said the National Review’s Jim Geraghty, writing on the magazine’s Web site. I’m not sure how big assassination-related news will play in the first primary states. Still, I think those misstatements will exacerbate the Huck/Not Huck divide in GOP circles. The National Review has endorsed Romney.

But CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said the debate over whether Huckabee has command of the nuances of the Pakistan crisis would have little impact on his support.

Mike Huckabee is a populist. His comments on Pakistan reflect a populist understanding of the crisis, which, is to say, not much, Schneider said. Sure, the political establishment is snickering, but I doubt that his misstatements bother his supporters much.
found here.

Prosecutors: Couple confess to killing family on Christmas Eve

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — After slaughtering their parents, Joseph McEnroe apologized to his girlfriend’s young niece and nephew before shooting both in the head to end a Christmas Eve massacre, prosecutors alleged Friday.

But even as they filed aggravated first-degree murder charges against McEnroe and Michele Anderson, prosecutors could not say what might have driven the couple in the violent killing spree.

In the end, what motive could you find that would make sense of the senseless slaying of the Anderson family? King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in announcing the charges.

Anderson and McEnroe, both 29, were each charged with six counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Authorities say they have confessed.

Conviction on aggravated first-degree murder in Washington is punishable only by death or life in prison without possibility of parole, and Satterberg said he would give serious consideration to the death penalty.

Telephone calls to public defender George Eppler, Anderson’s attorney, and Devon Gibbs, McEnroe’s lawyer, were not returned Friday.

According to court documents, Anderson said both of them shot her parents, brother and sister-in-law, while McEnroe killed the children. While long-standing bitterness and a perceived family debt might have been factors in the killings, the motive may never be known.

Court documents said McEnroe, a store clerk, and Anderson, who is unemployed, told detectives they armed themselves on Christmas Eve and went to her parents’ home near Carnation, about 25 miles east of Seattle. See a map of the area

There, they confronted Anderson’s parents, Wayne Anderson, 60, and Judy Anderson, 61, in their living room.

Michele Anderson told detectives her brother, a carpenter, owed her money she had loaned to him years earlier, and that she was upset with her parents because they did not take her side, documents say. She also said her parents were pressuring her to start paying rent for staying on their property, where she lived in a trailer with McEnroe.

Michelle stated that she was tired of everybody stepping on her, the court papers say. She stated that she was upset with her parents and her brother and that if the problems did not get resolved on December 24, then her intent was definitely to kill everybody.

Satterberg said Michele Anderson fired once at her father’s head but missed. McEnroe stepped in, leveled his gun and fatally shot Wayne Anderson in the head, documents said.

Judy Anderson heard the shots and ran from the back room where she had been wrapping gifts. She was shot by McEnroe, who apologized to her before shooting her again, this time in the head, the court documents said.

Satterberg said that the two dragged the bodies to a shed behind the house, used towels and carpets to sop up blood stains and awaited the arrival of Anderson’s brother, Scott. He was due for a Christmas Eve visit with his wife, Erica, and children Olivia, 6, and Nathan, 3.

Her brother and sister-in-law put up a brave struggle, according to the documents. Scott Anderson charged her when she pulled out the gun, and was shot up to four times, records say.

Michele then shot Erica Anderson twice, but she was able to crawl over the back of a couch to call 911, authorities said. McEnroe told detectives he tore the phone from Erica’s hands and destroyed it.

Huddling with her children, Erica Anderson pleaded with McEnroe not to shoot her, saying: You don’t have to do this.

Yes, we do, McEnroe was quoted as replying in the affidavit. He fired at her head, authorities said.

Satterberg said that McEnroe apologized to both of the children before he shot 6-year-old Olivia. He then turned to 3-year-old Nathan, who had picked up the batteries from the cordless phone his mother had used in her futile attempt to call for help, court documents said.

McEnroe than fired one last bullet through Nathan’s head, according to the affidavit. When asked why he shot Erica, Olivia and Nathan, McEnroe told detectives three times: I didn’t want them to turn us in.

After the killings, McEnroe and Anderson first drove north toward Canada, then south toward Oregon arriving at neither destination, then decided to go back and pretend to discover the bodies, Satterberg said.

When they arrived Wednesday, investigators were already there. Detectives, curious that neither McEnroe nor Michele Anderson asked what had happened at the bustling crime scene, began questioning them and they eventually confessed, according to the documents. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

found here.

Defense spending bill to die without becoming law

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) — President Bush on Friday rejected the defense spending bill passed by Congress earlier this month.

The president has concerns over a provision that would let victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime with legal claims in U.S. courts seek compensation from the Iraqi government.

He issued a memorandum of disapproval Friday that means the bill will die without becoming law.

He did not veto it outright, but killed the bill by failing to sign it within 10 days of Congress passing it.

When that happens and Congress is out of session, a bill dies without becoming law — a process known as a pocket veto.

If enacted, the White House said, the act would have permitted plaintiff’s lawyers immediately to freeze Iraqi funds and would expose Iraq to massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime.

The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States.

Among those who would have benefited from the provision are American prisoners of war from the 1991 Gulf War who were tortured and beaten by members of Hussein’s military.

The Gulf War POWs sought $959 million in compensation from the interim Iraqi government. They were opposed by the Bush administration, which argued Iraq has reformed and needs the money to rebuild.

The Supreme Court without comment refused in 2005 to intervene in the dispute, following a federal appeals court ruling that said Congress did not permit such lawsuits against foreign governments.

The suit was brought by 17 former POWs and their family members.

The pocket veto also blocks a 0.5 percent pay raise for members of the U.S. armed forces, but does not affect a 3 percent pay increase scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

The White House, however, said it hopes to reinstate the 0.5 percent pay raise, retroactive to Jan. 1, after working with Congress to remove the provision related to legal claims against Iraq.

Bush’s action Friday also blocks more money for veterans’ health care.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, criticized the president’s decision.

The defense bill passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming bipartisan margins and addresses urgent national security priorities, including the pay raise and money for veterans’ health care, Pelosi and Reid said in a written statement. It is unfortunate that the president will not sign this critical legislation.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, also expressed dismay at the president’s decision.

This bill is important to our men and women in uniform, Levin said. It is unfortunate that the administration failed to identify the concerns upon which this veto is based until after the bill had passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the president for signature.

I am deeply disappointed that our troops and veterans may have to pay for their mistake and for the confusion and uncertainty caused by their snafu.

The disputed legal claims provision in the defense bill prompted the Iraqi government to threaten to withdraw $25 billion in Iraqi assets from U.S. banks, White House officials told CNN.

The Democratic leaders said that Bush worked closely with Congress on the bill and gave no indication prior to its passage that one section of the bill could generate a presidential veto.
found here.

Mission begins to free FARC hostages

VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia (CNN) — – Two Venezuelan helicopters arrived in central Colombia on Friday as part of an operation to free three hostages from the jungles of Colombia.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela organized the operation to free hostages who have endured several years of captivity. Chavez reached a deal with their captors, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Spanish acronym by which the rebel group is known.

Chavez wore an olive drab military uniform and red beret as he watched the helicopters take off on their journey to Colombia. The helicopters carried the symbol of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The helicopters flew to the central Colombian city of Villavicencio. Other aircraft plan to follow.

The helicopters and airplanes will refuel in Villavicencio and wait for the FARC to direct the Venezuelans to a location in the Colombian jungle, where the rebels will relinquish custody of the hostages.

The aircraft are to then take the freed hostages to Villavicencio or one of several airports in Venezuela, depending on the location of the pickup site.

Three Venezuelan airplanes and two helicopters will carry medics and dignitaries from Venezuela to Colombia, said Luis Carlos Restrepo, the Colombian peace negotiator.

We hope that all goes according to plan, he told reporters Friday. We have been in constant communication with the Venezuelan government.

He said the Colombian authorities have given all necessary guarantees to ensure the mission’s success, an apparent reference to Colombia’s pledge not to pursue the rebels during the scheduled hostage handover.

About 100 indigenous Colombians, who live in the jungle, are on standby in a jungle town in the event of a problem with the helicopters, said Jorge Diaz, who is in charge of Colombian civil defense in the region around Villavicencio.

They could travel deep into the jungle on foot should the operation encounter unexpected difficulty, such as a mechanical problem with one of the helicopters, he said.

It’s unclear when the hostages will actually be free, but the Colombian government has set a tentative deadline of 7 p.m. Sunday (11.30 p.m. GMT) for the mission to be complete.

The hostages to be freed include Clara Rojas, who was kidnapped in 2002 while she managed the campaign of Sen. Ingrid Betancourt, a candidate for the Colombian presidency. They also include Rojas’ son, Emmanuel, who was born in captivity, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a former Colombian congressman.

Betancourt herself is perhaps the best-known captive in a country plagued by kidnapping.

The FARC holds her and dozens of other hostages, including three defense contractors from the United States who were seized after their plane crashed in 2003.

It has justified hostage-taking as a legitimate military tactic in a long-running and complex civil war that also has involved right-wing paramilitaries, government forces and drug traffickers. The fighting has waned but not stopped in recent years.

News of the planned release has stirred hope that the FARC could free others in captivity. Chavez said this week that he hopes the three hostages will be the first of several to be released.

Patricia Perdomo, daughter of Gonzales, told reporters in Caracas on Thursday that she views her mother’s impending freedom as a sign of things to come.

This sign that the FARC is giving us is very, very, very important because it opens the door for other hostages who are not returning now but who will return home one day, she said.
found here.

Search for cash turns into battle over art for Fisk University

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Fisk University, a historically black school on the brink financially, is sitting on a lottery ticket it can’t cash: A remarkable collection of 19th- and 20th-century art donated by the painter Georgia O’Keeffe.

Two years of legal battles have prevented Fisk from turning some of the valuable art into cash.

The latest battle — over Fisk’s proposed deal to share the 101-piece art collection with an Arkansas museum for $30 million — is scheduled for trial in February.

University officials acknowledge it could be years before any money changes hands, if ever.

In the meantime, Fisk is struggling. The 900-student school has mortgaged all its buildings and tapped all of its endowment not restricted to specific programs. As recently as October, a Fisk lawyer told a judge that the school would probably run out of cash before the end of the year.

The crisis eased somewhat earlier this month when the Mellon Foundation announced it would give the university up to $3 million in grants, with $1 million of that up front. But getting others to donate to Fisk to put it on a firm permanent footing could be difficult, because it has had to be rescued several times before.

Foundations who give serious money don’t give it to poorly managed institutions, said Davis Carr, a former member of the school’s board of trustees. I’m not saying Fisk is currently poorly managed, but if they’ve not been able to make it work over some long period of time, that sends a signal.

At issue is a collection of art that belonged to O’Keeffe’s husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. It includes what is considered one of O’Keeffe’s masterpieces, the 1927 oil painting Radiator Building — Night, New York, as well as works by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer and Charles Demuth.

O’Keeffe donated the art in 1949, choosing Fisk because the school, founded in 1866, educated blacks at a time when the South was segregated. She died in 1986.

To art historians, the collection has an appealing unity, because many of the American artists were part of O’Keeffe and Stieglitz’s circle of friends.

In 2005, Fisk’s trustees voted to sell off two signature pieces of the collection to help keep the school afloat. Those efforts became bogged down in court battles over whether the sale would violate the terms of O’Keeffe’s bequest, and no deal ever went through.

Then Fisk came up with a plan to sell a 50 percent stake in the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for $30 million. Under the arrangement, the collection would travel back and forth between Nashville and the Bentonville, Arkansas, museum founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.

But the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the legal representative of the artist’s estate, has asked a judge to disallow the deal, saying it was O’Keeffe’s wish that the collection not be sold. Also, the museum argues that Fisk is violating a condition of gift that the collection be displayed.

Fisk put the art into storage in 2005 because the gallery where it was exhibited was falling apart, and there were fears the works could get damaged.

Experts estimate the two paintings that the university wanted to sell two years ago — Radiator Building and Hartley’s Painting No. 3 — could fetch more than $45 million, and the entire collection could be worth well more than $100 million.

Art historians and others object strongly to attempts by cultural institutions to sell art just to pay the bills. Moreover, Fisk has gotten little sympathy from those who say the school waited too long to focus on fundraising because it was preoccupied with selling the art.

Why opt for the strategy of selling your art rather than developing a capital campaign? said Lucius Outlaw Jr., a Vanderbilt University professor and Fisk alumnus. The normal way of managing an institution is to have developed and implemented a plan for substantial fundraising to build an endowment.

The university had to borrow money in the late in 1970s and averted a shutdown in the early 1980s, thanks in large part to donations from Nashvillians and alumni. Fisk reported operating losses totaling more than $7 million in 2005 and 2006, according to GuideStar.org, which tracks nonprofit organizations.

Fisk President Hazel O’Leary set a goal earlier this month of raising $6.2 million by June 30 but has said that selling the artwork remains a key component of the school’s efforts.

While court filings have emphasized Fisk’s worsening finances, O’Leary and school officials have publicly downplayed the seriousness of the situation.

Fisk officials have not returned repeated calls from The Associated Press. But O’Leary acknowledged in an opinion piece in The Tennessean newspaper last month that the school has not done a stellar job of raising money.

She blamed the bleak fundraising performance on frequent turnover of university leadership and an understaffed fundraising team.

Saul Cohen, president of the O’Keeffe Museum, has said the museum’s overriding concern is the art, not Fisk’s financial condition.

But others have their doubts as to whether the museum is truly interested in protecting O’Keeffe’s wishes, noting that it tried to make a deal under which it would buy Radiator Building for $7.5 million and allow Fisk to sell the Hartley on the open market.

Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery, has called the O’Keeffe Museum officials the most hypocritical bunch of looters I’ve ever run across.
found here.