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June 21, 2005

George Bush Agrees to Visit Vietnam

President Bush has made it clear that he will be taking a trip to Vietnam in 2006. The current Prime Minister of Vietnam's trip to the United States is the first to be taken by from a leader of Vietnam since the Vietnam War ended almost 30 years ago. The trip was taken by the Vietnam Prime Minister because of the 10th year anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Bush mentioned the different issues and topic him and Vietnam's Prime Minister, Phan Van Khai discussed. Bush said they had discussed the problem of HIV and AIDS throughout the country of Vietnam. Along with the topics of security issues, and the desire for both countries to coordinate the war on terror.

Bush also stated that the two had signed a bill to give Vietnam's citizen more freedom of worship. Vietnam's Prime Minister seemed very pleased that they are moving the relations with the United States forward. He also explained that he was very happy with Bush supporting Vietnam to enter the World Trade Organization.

When Bush travels to Vietnam, it will only be the second visit to the country from a president, since the war ended. The first president to visit Vietnam was Bill Clinton in the year 2000.

Posted by Tuck at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Speaks on the Problems of Social Security

The system known today as Social Security was originally set up by Franklin Roosevelt. Many people across America depend on funding from Social Security to pay their daily costs of living.

According to Bush, people who are already getting checks from the Social Security system do not have to worry about eventually not recieving checks. He made it clear that the major Social Security problem will be for the youth of today when they are retiring.

When all of the baby boomers retire, that will be about 73 million retired Americans that today's younger people will have to pay for so that Social Security can support them. Currently, there are only about 40 million retired citizens in America, which means the amount of people Social Security will have to cover will almost double.

Another problem is the amount of workers paying for every retired person on the Social Security system. Around 1950, there had been about 16 employed people able to divide the cost to pay for every retired person on Social Security. Now there is only about 3 employed people for every retiree currently relying upon Social Security. And it is estimated that soon there will only be 2 employed workers paying for every retired person depending on Social Security.

Posted by Tuck at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2005

George Bush Nominates Chris Cox for Chairman of SEC

The Securities and Exhchange Commission's primary job is to make sure that American businesses are working honestly. The SEC investigates fraudulent activities committed by corporations and make sure that they are held responsible for their actions if they decieve clientele or employees.

The current chairman of the SEC, Bill Donaldson started his position with the SEC in February of 2003. As the chairman of the SEC, Donaldson attempted to crack down on unlawful practices through corporations. The number of actions filed by the SEC against corporations practicing unlawful business increased under Donaldson's leadership. But Donaldson was also criticized for trying to regulate the one trillion dollar hedge fund industry, which had never even been tried before by any SEC chairman. He has decided to resign on June 30th.

George Bush believes that Chris Cox is the next man to take over the responsiblities of being the chairman of the SEC. Chris Cox is a 52 year old Californian Republican. President Bush believes he is qualified for this position because Chris Cox is a graduate of Harvard Business and Law School with honors and has experience being a security lawyer. He also was an advisor to President Reagan before being elected to Congress.

The nomination for the SEC chairman has already been heavily criticized by many. A former Republican congressman named Vin Weber gave his own opinion on the SEC nomination, "I've known Chris Cox since he was elected to Congress in 1988 and I will be shocked if he's anything other than a very strong deregulator".

And the Associate General Counsel, Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO, the nation's biggest labor federation spoke out against the nomination, "If Cox had written our securities laws, the executives at WorldCom and Enron wouldn't have any legal troubles."

Posted by Tuck at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

Former President Clinton on Larry King Live

Former President Bill Clinton appeared on the Larry King Live show, which airs on CNN. Clinton discussed his views about Felt and mentioned that he believed Felt made the correct choice to leak the information to the press. When asked about his opinion on the ordeal, Clinton was quoted,"I think he did a good thing and I think it was under unusual circumstances."

Bill Clinton mentioned that in most situations, law enforcement agents should not leak information to the press but that in an event like this, Felt did the right thing. Clinton stated he has no problem at all with Felt coming out now.

On another note, Bill Clinton also spoke on the effect of religious groups on politics. Former President Clinton made it clear that President Bush should be concerned about the fact that the Christian conservative movement makes up a large amount of his voters. Clinton stated "Whenever religous people try to excercise political power in God's name ... that's always hazardous."

Clinton discussed his humanitarian project on the show. He directs a project which analyzes the needs of tsunami victims in Southern Asia, which is a project that is also associated with the United Nations. Clinton explained that he had just came back to the United States and that he had been to Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka.

Posted by Tuck at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Support For George Bush's Social Security Plan Falling

George Bush's plan to change Social Security to allow workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in private retirement accounts is currently becoming less and less popular, according to recent polls given by CNN, USA Today, and Gallup. 40 percent approved of President Bush's approach to Social Security and 53 percent disapproved.

Allies of President Bush have launched television advertisements in support of the revised Social Security plan brought forth by George Bush. Also, Bush has been traveling the country in an attempt to gain support for his new Social Security plan.

According to the Social Security Administration and the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security will start taking in less funds than it gives out in the next 12 to 15 years. Social Security's trust fund will be totally depleted in the next 40 to 50 years.

President Bush admits that private accounts are not the only thing that needs to be done to solve the problem of a depleted Social Security fund. But he has stated that it is a step towards fixing Social Security's financial problem that our nation faces.

Many believe that Bush's plan would force the nation to borrow trillions of dollars to pay off currently retired citizens on the Social Security program, and it is also speculated that guaranteed benefits might have to be cut as much as 40% under this plan.

Posted by Tuck at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

President Bush Visits Arlington National Cemetery - Memorial Day Weekend 2005

Memorial Day is a day of rememberance for those who have passed while serving our nation. During 2005's Memorial Day, President Bush visited the Arlington Cemetery. Bush had previously made a trip to Arlington in 2003. The Arlington Cemetery is designated officially as a military cemetery, veterans from all of our nation's wars are buried at Arlington.

During his recent visit to Arlington on Memorial Day, George Bush read off letters of soldiers who had been killed in combat.

Bush was quoted as saying, "We must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives", also in attendance along with Bush at the Arlington Cemetery were the families of soldiers who died in combat and also many soldiers who had been wounded fighting in Iraq.

Many of the letters that President Bush read throughout the Memorial Day address at the Arlington Cemetery were letters that were written by soldiers to only be opened if their lives were lost in combat.

The letters read by Bush during his Memorial Day deliverance drew large applauses and were the cause of tears from the audience in Arlington as they told tales of self sacrafice for a greater cause, such as the letter written by Michael Evans, "My death will mean nothing if you stop now. I know it'll be hard, but I gave my life so you could live, not just live, but live free."

The last time President Bush visited the Arligton National Cemetery in 2003 there had been 160 American soldiers killed in Iraq, by Memorial Day 2005 there are over 1,650 casualties. There are over 260,000 people buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Posted by Tuck at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

Watergate Scandal: Mark Felt Confirms Watergate Suspicions

Decades after the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal occurred, the anonymous source known as Deep Throat, who provided information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein has been identified and confirmed as Mark Felt.

Many had always suspected Felt as the source of the information throughout the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, because he was one of the few people that could have been in a position to know the details of Watergate. At the time the Watergate break in happened, Felt was the #2 official at the FBI. There were many other candidates that people had named over the years as to who was Deep Throat in Watergate.

Felt continued to deny that he was the source of any information about Watergate to the press. When interviewed about the Watergate scandal in 1999, Felt was quoted, "I would have done better, I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?"

Some believe that Felt is a hero for being one of the main reasons that the Nixon Watergate cover up was unraveled and revealed to the public, which lead to Nixon's resignation in 1974 and the convictions of forty government officials on felony charges. Others believe that Felt is far from heroic, and that he is in fact a coward for not approaching the top official at the FBI to make the Watergate scandal visible to the public eye.

Posted by Tuck at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)