Bush Administration

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush could be forcing President-elect Barack Obama to act almost immediately to curb global warming, after years of the Bush administration's fighting attempts to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions. In its final weeks, the Bush administration has moved to close what it calls "back doors" to regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It barred the Environmental Protection Agency from considering the effects of global warming on protected species.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration announced its "conscience protection" rule for the health care industry yesterday, giving everyone including doctors, hospitals, receptionists and volunteers in medical experiments the right to refuse to participate in medical care they find morally objectionable. "This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience," outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. The right-to-refuse rule includes abortion, but Leavitt's office said it extends to other aspects of health care where moral concerns could arise, including birth control, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research or assisted suicide.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA and that the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely. Cheney's remarks on Guantanamo appear to put him at odds with President George W. Bush, who has expressed a desire to close the prison, though the decision is expected to be left to the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as "waterboarding."

I warned them, but they didn't want to believe me. I understand the feelings of the people who consider themselves liberals or progressives and thought that electing Barack Obama would mean the establishment of an administration to their liking - replete with the appointments of actual liberals/progressives to top spots in his incoming administration - and who now are beginning to suspect they've been snookered. Welcome to the club of the politically disenchanted. I joined a few years back when it became apparent that the actuality of the Bush administration would be extremely different from the one promised.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama predicted yesterday that the U.S. economy would continue on its downward path, but he declined in a wide-ranging television interview to say how much his recovery plan would cost or whether he intended to raise taxes immediately on wealthy Americans to help pay for it. Obama said his economic advisers were still "crunching the numbers" for a post-inauguration economic stimulus package. In his weekend radio address Saturday, the president-elect had said the package would include a huge public-works program to build roads and other infrastructure projects.

WASHINGTON - In a sweeping defense of his record, President George W. Bush asserted yesterday that his administration is leaving the Middle East a "freer, more hopeful and more promising place" than when he took office. Bush said his administration is close to success in Iraq, has moved to counter Iran's nuclear program, and has "laid a foundation of trust" between Israelis and Palestinians. "At long last, the Middle East is closing a chapter of darkness and fear, and opening one written in the language of possibility and hope," Bush said in remarks to the Saban Forum in Washington, according to a transcript released by the White House.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama says he wants to lead an administration where strong-willed senior officials are ready to argue forcefully for differing points of view. It appears that in two months, he'll get his wish, and then some. Obama's new national security team is led by three veteran officials who have differed with each other - and with the president-elect - on the full menu of security issues, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions that President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on stem cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling, among other issues, members of the team said yesterday. While Obama prepared to make his first post-election visit to the White House today, his advisers were compiling a list of policies that could be reversed by the executive powers of the new president.

In its final weeks, the Bush administration is pushing changes that could decimate threatened Chesapeake Bay wildlife, along with 1,353 at-risk species across the nation. The Interior Department posted a proposal over the summer for sweeping changes to the 35-year-old Endangered Species Act. They would eliminate mandatory scientific review by experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service of all federally approved development projects that might affect endangered plants or animals.

In the waning months of the Bush administration, the Food and Drug Administration is asking the courts to extend the Republican Party's anti-regulatory zealotry well beyond the president's last day in office. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether a woman who lost an arm after being improperly injected with a drug could sue the company that manufactured it, and the administration was on exactly the wrong side of the issue. The case involved musician Diana Levine, who was given the anti-nausea drug Phenergan, made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, after she visited a Vermont clinic in 2000 seeking relief from a migraine.