American Family Voices - Miriam V.

AM Feed - September 20, 2005

Hot Topics
List of 3 items
You might think that Hurricane Katrina taught President Bush a lesson about
appointing people with minimal experience to top government positions.
Sadly,
you'd be wrong. The Bush administration is pushing to install Julie Myers as
head of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, a division
of Homeland Security. Myers, the niece of departing chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, has held several jobs in the administration
over
the past four years, though none required such large bureaucratic
management. ICE has 20,000 employees and a budget of $4 billion.
[link]
A former Bush administration official was arrested yesterday on charges of
obstructing the investigation into lobbyist Jack Abramoff and lying to
investigators.
David Safavian was a senior White House budget official until his sudden
resignation late last week. It seems Safavian, a Bush appointee, lied about
his
presence on a golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff in 2002, and also made
false statements about his role in helping Abramoff acquire two pieces of
government-owned
property in Washington, DC.
[link]
Ex-Tyco executives Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz were sentenced to prison
yesterday after being found guilty of stealing $150 million from the
company.
Kozlowski, the former CEO, and Swartz, the former CFO, were each sentenced
to 8-1/3 to 25 years in prison. Both men were ordered to pay some $134
million
in restitution to Tyco and were assessed hefty fines by the state of New
York.
[link]
list end

Quote of the Day

"It appears she's [Julie Myers] got a tremendous amount of experience in
money laundering, in banking and the financial areas. My question is: Who
the hell
is going to enforce the immigration laws?" - Charles Showalter, president of
the National Homeland Security Council, a union that represents 7,800 ICE
agents, officers and support staff.