PUBLIC MARKS from jasontromm with tags news & bush

A WND interview in which Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called Miami a "Third World country" has ignited a war of words with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other lawmakers insulted by the remark, which is now being echoed in news media across America. "Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," Tancredo told WND in a Nov. 19 story as he lamented how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Some of Barbra Streisand's fans have some advice for the diva as she makes a rare U.S. tour -- shut up and sing. Not all members of her audience, who paid up to $250 (134 pounds) for a ticket, have appreciated her politics. During a performance at New York's Madison Square Garden this week, one concertgoer yelled out, asking if the concert was a fundraiser. Streisand replied: "Shut the f*** up!" ()() I couldn't agree more. Actors and singers don't have a right to push their views on people who pay to see them perform, not preach.

A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon. Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not realizing a microphone was recording what he said.

President Bush has lost his momentum, Americans' support for the Iraq war is dwindling, and opposition to Bush policies is hardening. That's according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll being covered as if it were a real news story.

A federal judge has ruled against a public school teacher who filed a lawsuit after administrators removed Christian-themed postings from his classroom, including a depiction of George Washington praying at Valley Forge and news clippings about the faith of President Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

But reporters still ignore free market advocates who predicted it. Media coverage of problems facing the new Medicare prescription drug plan focused on elderly patients left in the lurch by bureaucracy, producing what CBS’s Bill Plante called a “political headache” for the Bush administration. But in the Jan. 16 reports on the “Evening News” and “World News Tonight,” both networks ignored conservative critics who had argued the plan was doomed to fail because it was a typical big government solution that ignored the free market.

President Bush and many lawmakers have announced they are refunding or giving to charity some or all of the donations they or their political action committees received from once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his associates or clients.

Mary Mapes, the producer fired from CBS News for her role in the 60 Minutes story about President Bush’s National Guard service, has written a book to explain her side of the story. On today’s Good Morning America she talked to ABC’s Brian Ross about that book and the forged documents used in the Bush story.

President Bush on Monday nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, reaching into his loyal inner circle for another pick that could reshape the nation's judiciary for years to come.

A combative Michael Brown blamed the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him for the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina in a fiery appearance Tuesday before Congress. In response, lawmakers alternately lambasted and mocked the former FEMA director.