Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers Monday urged President Bush to nominate a replacement for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who can restore confidence in the Justice Department.

Members of both parties were critical of Gonzales’ tenure Monday, leaving only a few voices defending him.

“Our country needs a credible, effective attorney general who can work with Congress on critical issues ranging from immigration to investigating terrorism at home and abroad,” said Sen. John Sununu, a Republican from New Hampshire.

Noting that he called for the attorney general to leave his post in March, Sununu added, “Alberto Gonzales’ resignation will finally allow a new attorney general to take on this task.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called the resignation “a positive step forward for the Department of Justice.” Read the rest of this entry »

A Republican senator pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to state criminal records.

Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Roll Call newspaper reported Monday that Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was apprehended June 11 by a plainclothes police officer investigating complaints of lewd behavior in an airport men’s room.

Roll Call reports on the U.S. legislature.

Craig denied any inappropriate conduct in a prepared statement, and said he now regrets his guilty plea.

“At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct,” he said. “I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.” Read the rest of this entry »

Clinton called for the removal of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — White House frontrunner Hillary Clinton called for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Wednesday afternoon, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in the embattled leader.

“The Iraqi government’s failures have reinforced the widely held view that the Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders,” the New York senator said in a statement given exclusively to CNN’s Jessica Yellin.

Clinton went on to say she “hope[s] that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks.”

Clinton’s comments come two days after Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, recently returned from Iraq, said he had lost confidence in the al-Maliki government. Levin is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Clinton also has a seat on the panel.

But President Bush expressed confidence in the Iraqi leader during a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention earlier Wednesday.

“Prime Minister Maliki’s a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him,” he said. “And it’s not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position.”

Clinton, who came under fire from some of her Democratic White House rivals earlier in the week for saying the surge policy was “working” in some areas, also reaffirmed her position that there is “not a military solution in Iraq.”

“Progress will only come from political reconciliation and compromise from the Iraqis themselves,” she said in the statement. “Given that reality, the President’s escalation strategy is not succeeding.”

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration’s stated goals of the war.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country’s nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren’t as “lofty” as they once had been.

“Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future,” said Brig. Gen. John “Mick” Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war’s major battlegrounds.

The comments reflect a practicality common among Western diplomats and officials trying to win hearts and minds in the Middle East and other non-Western countries where democracy isn’t a tradition. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) — As he awaits a crucial progress report on Iraq, President Bush will try to put a twist on comparisons of the war to Vietnam by invoking the historical lessons of that conflict to argue against pulling out.

On Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, Bush will tell members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that “then, as now, people argued that the real problem was America’s presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end,” according to speech excerpts released Tuesday by the White House.

“Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left,” Bush will say.

“Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields,’ ” the president will say. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Vibe magazine has dubbed him “B-Rock.” He’s getting shout-outs in some of the most popular hip-hop singles of the summer. He’s even had a high-profile meeting with Ludacris.

  Barack Obama might not be leading the Democratic presidential field in national polls, but the freshman senator has managed to capture the imagination of the hip-hop community, comprised mostly of rap artists, music industry professionals, activists and young fans of all races.

Despite Obama’s sometimes critical opinion of rap music, the candidate’s name is being dropped on iPods, car stereos and music Web sites across the country.

Take one of the summer’s biggest songs: In his new single “The People,” Common uses the lyric: “My raps ignite the people like Obama,” while the song’s music video flashes on an “Obama ‘08″ bumper sticker. Read the rest of this entry »

Some voices just deserve to be featured. http://www.tayzonday.com/index.html

Lyrics after the click Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser, will voluntarily step down from his White House post at the end of the month, senior administration officials said Monday.

“Obviously it’s a big loss to us, said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino. “He is a great colleague, good friend and a brilliant mind.”

Rove “wouldn’t be going if he wasn’t sure this is the right time to be giving more time to his family,” said Perino.

The president and Rove are expected to speak before boarding Marine One at the White House at 11:35 a.m. ET. Bush will head to his Crawford, Texas, ranch where he will remain for the rest of the week.

Rove, who has held a top position in the White House since Bush took office in January 2001, is to stand down on August 31. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. forces will probably be in Iraq for a “protracted period” to support the country’s year-old government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq appears to be paying dividends militarily.

“We anticipate trying to work out with the Iraqi government an arrangement whereby there would be a residual presence of U.S. forces at some fraction of the current level that would be a stabilizing and supporting force in Iraq for some protracted period of time,” he told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

“I think that that’s generally the view of almost anybody who is looking at this, that some kind of residual force for some period of time will be required beyond when we begin a drawdown.”

Last Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, predicted that U.S. forces would be needed in Iraq “for a few more years.”

Gates did not dispute that characterization Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Coalition troops killed the al Qaeda terrorist who masterminded the February 2006 attack on Samarra’s al-Askariya mosque and set off continuing violence and reprisal killings between Sunnis and Shiites, the U.S. military said Sunday.

var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger(\’cnnImgChngr\’,\’/2007/WORLD/meast/08/05/iraq.main/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html\’,2,1); //CNN.imageChanger.load(\’cnnImgChngr\’,\’imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html\’); Haitham Sabah al-Badri, the al Qaeda emir of greater Samarra, was killed by an airstrike Thursday east of Samarra, said Rear Adm. Mark Fox during a news conference.

“Eliminating al-Badri is another step in breaking the cycle of violence instigated by the attack on the holy shrine in Samarra,” Fox said. “We will continue to hunt down the brutal terrorists who are intent on creating a Taliban-like state in Iraq.”

Coalition forces Thursday raided four buildings outside Samarra that were associated with al-Badri, according to a U.S. military news release. During the raid, at least four armed men were seen leaving the buildings and setting up tactical fighting positions in an effort to ambush coalition forces, the release said.

The coalition forces called in close air support, killing al-Badri and the three others, the release said.

One of those killed was identified as a foreigner; al-Badri was identified by his close associates and relatives, the military said.

El-Badri’s death was first reported Saturday by a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official.

No one was injured in the attack on the Golden Mosque, one of the holiest Shiite sites, but thousands have been killed by the death squads and reprisal bombings that have ravaged Iraq in the 17½ months since the attack. Read the rest of this entry »