martinvisalaw
07-17 11:28 AM
In theory, you don't have to be in the US for any part of the permanent residence (PR)process. A company could do a labor cert and I-140 for you, and then you could complete the PR by interview at a consulate, and only then start working for the US employer. In practice, of course, that never happens. However, it is possible so that you can safely go to India.
wallpaper Super fat people takedebate
Blog Feeds
08-19 02:21 AM
Pakistani-born Somy Ali is a former Bollywood actress who is also a model and journalist as well as a purveyor of her own line of clothing. But she's getting a lot of attention these days for her work with No More Tears, an organization she founded in 2006 in South Florida to help immigrant women who are facing domestic abuse. Here's how the Miami Herald describes her work: Today, her four-bedroom Plantation home is the headquarters of No More Tears, a nonprofit Ali founded in 2006 to help immigrant women in South Florida escape domestic abuse. The women (46 so...
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2010/08/immigrant-of-the-day-somy-ali-actressrescuer.html)
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2010/08/immigrant-of-the-day-somy-ali-actressrescuer.html)
Milind123
07-21 11:26 PM
This might be little bit old, but I dont remember seeing a post on this. Employment-based immigrant visa fees almost doubled, Old fees $ 355, new fees $ 720 from July 13th. Does this mean USCIS will open the gates in Sept bulletin [to be released in August]?
New Consular Fees (http://travel.state.gov/news/news_5078.html)
Not applicable to most of us. You will pay $720 if you are doing your 485 through Consular Processing (I suppose).
New Consular Fees (http://travel.state.gov/news/news_5078.html)
Not applicable to most of us. You will pay $720 if you are doing your 485 through Consular Processing (I suppose).
2011 Hanging Coffins of Bo
glus
07-19 08:04 PM
This is a forum for those who play by the rules, and don't brake the law. Remove this post as soon as possible.
more...
nish2006
01-28 01:21 PM
Hi,
My employers are considering transfering me to another group company (different name) during the next 1-2 months. My job profile will remain unchanged, but the employer name/address (on paychecks, etc) will be different after the transfer. My I-140 is still pending (filed in Aug 2007 together with I-485 at NSC under EB-3).
I'd greatly appreciate anyone's advice on the following:
a) If I transfer before my I-140 is approved, do I need to notify USCIS in writing? If so, does any specific paperwork need to be filled out? My employers have assured me they will continue to support my I-140/485 under the original company name, for as long as required.
b) If I transfer after approval of I-140 (fingers crossed!), do I need to notify USCIS? Again, is any specific paperwork necessary?
Many thanks in advance.
My employers are considering transfering me to another group company (different name) during the next 1-2 months. My job profile will remain unchanged, but the employer name/address (on paychecks, etc) will be different after the transfer. My I-140 is still pending (filed in Aug 2007 together with I-485 at NSC under EB-3).
I'd greatly appreciate anyone's advice on the following:
a) If I transfer before my I-140 is approved, do I need to notify USCIS in writing? If so, does any specific paperwork need to be filled out? My employers have assured me they will continue to support my I-140/485 under the original company name, for as long as required.
b) If I transfer after approval of I-140 (fingers crossed!), do I need to notify USCIS? Again, is any specific paperwork necessary?
Many thanks in advance.
sreeanne
12-05 03:36 PM
Thank you.
more...
brick2006
07-07 10:57 AM
Question 33: Do you intend to study in US?
have a MS here..currently on 7th year H1..and currently pursuing a part time program..so should i say YES for this question?
anyone in the same boat?
have a MS here..currently on 7th year H1..and currently pursuing a part time program..so should i say YES for this question?
anyone in the same boat?
2010 coffin Fat People Coffins.
anishNewbie
10-26 03:55 PM
Hi every1,
I am on H1. I got married earlier this year :), my wife is on OPT which expires early next year. She is currently working for XYZ company which would not extend her OPT. We haven't been able to find a job(H1) for her yet.
Would any of below can cause any problem.
1. I don't have H1 stamping from my home country??
2. Her last name is not changed??
Thank u..
I am on H1. I got married earlier this year :), my wife is on OPT which expires early next year. She is currently working for XYZ company which would not extend her OPT. We haven't been able to find a job(H1) for her yet.
Would any of below can cause any problem.
1. I don't have H1 stamping from my home country??
2. Her last name is not changed??
Thank u..
more...
go_gussy
04-13 08:29 PM
We have filed an I-130 for our dependant child of my husband who is currently an alien resident. We are trying to figure out how to get a work authorization form started for our son as well as he is old enough to work. We can not figure out how to answer his eligibility catagory. Can anyone assist us??
hair chairs and bigger coffins#39;
rkthoka
06-11 03:45 PM
Hi
My Mother in law appeared at hyderabad US consulate and IO told her that she got visa but asked her to come up with new passport, becoz some letters in her current passort has faded out.
Is this happend with any one? and what we do in this situation after getting new passport?
I mean do we need another appointment or just go with new passport and drop?
Please through some thouts.
Regards,
Krishna.
My Mother in law appeared at hyderabad US consulate and IO told her that she got visa but asked her to come up with new passport, becoz some letters in her current passort has faded out.
Is this happend with any one? and what we do in this situation after getting new passport?
I mean do we need another appointment or just go with new passport and drop?
Please through some thouts.
Regards,
Krishna.
more...
GCBy3000
07-26 10:15 AM
Sending flower worked once. If we keep on sending flowers for each and every issue, then it will not have any value.
she ate her word and did not support skill bill, how about we send flower to her.
she ate her word and did not support skill bill, how about we send flower to her.
hot Caskets, allowing fat people
Waitingnvain
08-14 04:14 PM
Admin:
I missed the 2nd conference call. Could you please post the transcipt of the call.
Thanks
I missed the 2nd conference call. Could you please post the transcipt of the call.
Thanks
more...
house The Runner#39;s Coffin: An Answer
mannubhai
01-28 12:42 PM
Now a days VFS is not releasing appointment dates more than 2 - 2.5 weeks in advance. I am not aware of any specific time of the day when these become available.
tattoo people to quit smoking.
Macaca
11-28 07:49 AM
As Lott Leaves the Senate, Compromise Appears to Be a Lost Art (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702358.html) By Jonathan Weisman | Washington Post, November 28, 2007; A04
In January, as a dormant Senate chamber entered its fourth hour of inaction and a major ethics bill lay tangled in knots, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) took to the Senate floor with a plaintive plea.
"Here we are, the sun has set on Thursday. It is a quarter to 6. The sun officially went down at 5:13. We are like bats," the veteran lawmaker lamented to a near-empty chamber. "Hello, it is a quarter to 6. . . . I have called everybody involved. I have been to offices. I have been stirring around, scurrying around. Is there an agenda here?"
The next 10 months appear to have given him the answer. A major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws went down in flames. Just two of a dozen annual spending bills passed Congress, and one of those was vetoed. Repeated efforts to force a course change in Iraq ended in recrimination and stalemate. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) filed 56 motions to break off filibusters to try to complete legislation, a total that is nearing the record of 61 such "cloture motions" in a two-year Congress.
And on Monday, Lott, one of the Senate's consummate dealmakers, called it quits.
"Is he the most frustrated he's ever been? Probably not," said David Hoppe, Lott's longtime chief of staff, now with the lobbying firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates. "But frustration is cumulative."
Lott's departure from Capitol Hill in the coming weeks after 34 years in Congress -- 16 in the House, 18 in the Senate -- is further evidence that bonhomie and cross-party negotiating are losing their currency, even in the backslapping Senate. With the Senate populated by a record number of former House members, the rules of the Old Boys' Club are giving way to the partisan trench warfare and party-line votes that prevail in the House. States once represented by common-ground dealmakers, including John Breaux (D-La.), David L. Boren (D-Okla.), James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), are now electing ideological stalwarts, such as David Vitter (R-La.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
"The Senate is predicated on the ability of people being able to work together," said former senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who was majority whip for much of Lott's years as majority leader. "I'm not throwing rocks at anybody, but there's just been a lot less of that."
Former majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) agreed: "Senator Lott's resignation means the loss of one of the few Republicans in leadership who often excelled in finding compromise and common ground."
Lott has never been a policy moderate, inclined to reach agreement with Democrats on ideological grounds. But he has almost always been a pragmatist, relishing the art of the deal. Just last month, as he labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and for someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.
"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.' "
Such dealmakers still wander the Senate's halls: Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah.). And others could arise as a generation schooled in pragmatism -- such as John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) -- heads for the exits next year.
"Just because an individual leaves doesn't mean you're not going to find new centers to structure work in the United States Senate," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to former majority leader (R-Tenn.). Lott would "be the first to say that no individual is indispensable."
But with the Senate almost dysfunctional, those new power centers are difficult to find.
"The Senate is still a great deliberative body," Nickles said. "But it's a little less congenial and a little too partisan."
Lott made a career out of the art of the deal. In the summer of 1996, after then-Sen. Robert J. Dole resigned to pursue the White House full time, Lott took the reins of a Senate that had ground to a halt as Democrats moved to thwart GOP accomplishments ahead of the presidential election. Lott implored his colleagues to act.
In short order, Congress approved a major overhaul of the nation's welfare laws, cleared a bevy of other bills and cut a deal with the Clinton White House on annual spending bills. After the election, Hoppe recalled, Clinton called Lott to joke that had he not gotten the Senate back on track, the Democrats might well have recaptured a chamber of Congress.
The next year, White House Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin -- both wealthy Wall Street financiers -- sat huddled in Lott's office, as Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tried to cut a final deal on a balanced budget agreement that included a cut to the capital gains tax rate.
"There they were, two Democrats who had been very successful in business, squaring off with two Republicans who didn't have two nickels to rub together," Hoppe recalled.
They struck a deal: Cut the capital gains rate and create a major federal program to offer health insurance to children of the working poor.
After the 2000 election, which left the Senate deadlocked at 50 seats apiece, Lott again struck a deal that angered many in his party. Although Republicans technically had control of the Senate with the vote of newly elected Vice President Cheney, Lott and Daschle agreed to evenly divide the committees. Moreover, they agreed, if one party won a majority midstream, either through a party switch, a resignation or a death, the other party would agree to relinquish control without a fight.
Lott reasoned that the deadlocked Senate could waste the first months of George W. Bush's fledgling presidency in a process fight, or he could relent early and get to work.
But such deals are getting harder to come by.
On June 7, as Lott absorbed increasingly virulent attacks from conservatives for his support of a bipartisan immigration overhaul, he took to the Senate floor for another appeal.
"This is the time where we are going to see whether we are a Senate anymore," he intoned. "Are we men or mice? Are we going to slither away from this issue and hope for some epiphany to happen? No. Let's legislate. Let's vote."
Three weeks later, the immigration bill fell to a Republican filibuster, and Congress slithered away from the issue.
In January, as a dormant Senate chamber entered its fourth hour of inaction and a major ethics bill lay tangled in knots, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) took to the Senate floor with a plaintive plea.
"Here we are, the sun has set on Thursday. It is a quarter to 6. The sun officially went down at 5:13. We are like bats," the veteran lawmaker lamented to a near-empty chamber. "Hello, it is a quarter to 6. . . . I have called everybody involved. I have been to offices. I have been stirring around, scurrying around. Is there an agenda here?"
The next 10 months appear to have given him the answer. A major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws went down in flames. Just two of a dozen annual spending bills passed Congress, and one of those was vetoed. Repeated efforts to force a course change in Iraq ended in recrimination and stalemate. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) filed 56 motions to break off filibusters to try to complete legislation, a total that is nearing the record of 61 such "cloture motions" in a two-year Congress.
And on Monday, Lott, one of the Senate's consummate dealmakers, called it quits.
"Is he the most frustrated he's ever been? Probably not," said David Hoppe, Lott's longtime chief of staff, now with the lobbying firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates. "But frustration is cumulative."
Lott's departure from Capitol Hill in the coming weeks after 34 years in Congress -- 16 in the House, 18 in the Senate -- is further evidence that bonhomie and cross-party negotiating are losing their currency, even in the backslapping Senate. With the Senate populated by a record number of former House members, the rules of the Old Boys' Club are giving way to the partisan trench warfare and party-line votes that prevail in the House. States once represented by common-ground dealmakers, including John Breaux (D-La.), David L. Boren (D-Okla.), James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), are now electing ideological stalwarts, such as David Vitter (R-La.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
"The Senate is predicated on the ability of people being able to work together," said former senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who was majority whip for much of Lott's years as majority leader. "I'm not throwing rocks at anybody, but there's just been a lot less of that."
Former majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) agreed: "Senator Lott's resignation means the loss of one of the few Republicans in leadership who often excelled in finding compromise and common ground."
Lott has never been a policy moderate, inclined to reach agreement with Democrats on ideological grounds. But he has almost always been a pragmatist, relishing the art of the deal. Just last month, as he labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and for someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.
"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.' "
Such dealmakers still wander the Senate's halls: Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah.). And others could arise as a generation schooled in pragmatism -- such as John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) -- heads for the exits next year.
"Just because an individual leaves doesn't mean you're not going to find new centers to structure work in the United States Senate," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to former majority leader (R-Tenn.). Lott would "be the first to say that no individual is indispensable."
But with the Senate almost dysfunctional, those new power centers are difficult to find.
"The Senate is still a great deliberative body," Nickles said. "But it's a little less congenial and a little too partisan."
Lott made a career out of the art of the deal. In the summer of 1996, after then-Sen. Robert J. Dole resigned to pursue the White House full time, Lott took the reins of a Senate that had ground to a halt as Democrats moved to thwart GOP accomplishments ahead of the presidential election. Lott implored his colleagues to act.
In short order, Congress approved a major overhaul of the nation's welfare laws, cleared a bevy of other bills and cut a deal with the Clinton White House on annual spending bills. After the election, Hoppe recalled, Clinton called Lott to joke that had he not gotten the Senate back on track, the Democrats might well have recaptured a chamber of Congress.
The next year, White House Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin -- both wealthy Wall Street financiers -- sat huddled in Lott's office, as Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tried to cut a final deal on a balanced budget agreement that included a cut to the capital gains tax rate.
"There they were, two Democrats who had been very successful in business, squaring off with two Republicans who didn't have two nickels to rub together," Hoppe recalled.
They struck a deal: Cut the capital gains rate and create a major federal program to offer health insurance to children of the working poor.
After the 2000 election, which left the Senate deadlocked at 50 seats apiece, Lott again struck a deal that angered many in his party. Although Republicans technically had control of the Senate with the vote of newly elected Vice President Cheney, Lott and Daschle agreed to evenly divide the committees. Moreover, they agreed, if one party won a majority midstream, either through a party switch, a resignation or a death, the other party would agree to relinquish control without a fight.
Lott reasoned that the deadlocked Senate could waste the first months of George W. Bush's fledgling presidency in a process fight, or he could relent early and get to work.
But such deals are getting harder to come by.
On June 7, as Lott absorbed increasingly virulent attacks from conservatives for his support of a bipartisan immigration overhaul, he took to the Senate floor for another appeal.
"This is the time where we are going to see whether we are a Senate anymore," he intoned. "Are we men or mice? Are we going to slither away from this issue and hope for some epiphany to happen? No. Let's legislate. Let's vote."
Three weeks later, the immigration bill fell to a Republican filibuster, and Congress slithered away from the issue.
more...
pictures with Fat People Coffins.
kena123
09-14 12:35 PM
what about using N470? will it help?
dresses tattoo Fat People Coffins.
sambhajisgayake
01-09 07:24 PM
If anybody can mail me the procedure at sambhajisgayake@yahoo.co.in, i will highly your help.
more...
makeup Poverty drives people to
ram04
04-02 04:29 PM
Keep new approved H1 and all related documents with you for POE, also EVL.
I enered POE twice in similar situation as yours without new stamping.
Both times POE (Atlanta) experience was good for me.
I just entered even after new USCIS memo.
Good luck.
- Ram
I enered POE twice in similar situation as yours without new stamping.
Both times POE (Atlanta) experience was good for me.
I just entered even after new USCIS memo.
Good luck.
- Ram
girlfriend Coffins+for+fat+people
atlgc
04-26 09:45 AM
any one?
hairstyles We are that fat?
jacomonguy
03-16 05:49 AM
HI, i filed for my sons GC with an i-130. i received an I-797C saying it had been approved n a priority date of 02/26/2004. we have been waiting for years now i just checked the priority date and its already past that if im reading correctly its now at july 04...i am a US resident. i called the NVC but the automated service told me they are still processing visas from 1999?? What should i do?? can anyone give me decent advice on this? Thank you...
Blog Feeds
06-03 02:20 AM
What is a CAT? Not an animal, not a medical procedure, but a "Change of Attitude Transformation". The old INS may have morphed into the USCIS, the CBP and ICE, but the attitudes toward immigrants have not changed much since I worked there 30 years ago. As General Attorneys (Nationality) in the 1970s, our mantra was "when in doubt, send it out!" meaning that rather than recommend that a naturalization petition be granted, if we had the slightest degree of doubt, the safest course was to send the applicant's file to the investigations branch. Not to do so would risk...
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/carlshusterman/2009/06/immigration-officers-in-need-of-a-cat.html)
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/carlshusterman/2009/06/immigration-officers-in-need-of-a-cat.html)
Macaca
11-24 09:21 PM
In Bush’s Last Year, Modest Domestic Aims (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/washington/24bush.html) By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG | New York Times, November 24, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call “kitchen table issues” — small ideas that affect ordinary people’s lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.
Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law. Now, with little political capital left, Mr. Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, is using his executive powers — and his presidential platform — to make little plans sound big.
He traveled to the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to announce federal protection for two coveted species of game fish, the striped bass and the red drum. He appeared in the Rose Garden to call on lenders to help struggling homeowners refinance. He came out in favor of giving the Food and Drug Administration new authority to recall unsafe foods.
Just this weekend, thanks to an executive order by Mr. Bush, the military is opening up additional air space — the White House calls it a “Thanksgiving express lane” — to lessen congestion in the skies. And Mr. Bush’s aides say more announcements are in the works, including another initiative, likely to be announced soon, intended to ease the mortgage lending crisis.
With a Mideast peace conference planned for the coming week and a war in Iraq to prosecute, Mr. Bush is, of course, deeply engaged in the most pressing foreign policy matters of the day. The “kitchen table” agenda is part of a broader domestic political strategy — which some Republicans close to the White House attribute to Mr. Bush’s new counselor, Ed Gillespie — for the president to find new and more creative ways of engaging the public as his days in office dwindle and his clout with Congress lessens.
“These are issues that don’t tend to be at the center of the political debate but actually are of paramount importance to a lot of Americans,” said Joel Kaplan, the deputy White House chief of staff.
One Republican close to the White House, who has been briefed on the strategy, said the aim was to talk to Americans about issues beyond Iraq and terrorism, so that Mr. Bush’s hand will be stronger on issues that matter to him, like vetoing spending bills or urging Congress to pay for the war.
“It’s a ticket to relevance, if you will, because right now Bush’s connection, even with the Republican base, is all related to terrorism and the fighting or prosecution of the Iraq war,” this Republican said. “It’s a way to keep his hand in the game, because you’re only relevant if you’re relevant to people on issues that they talk about in their daily lives.”
Mr. Bush often says he wants to “sprint to the finish,” and senior White House officials say this is a way for him to do so. The president has also expressed concerns that Congress has left him out of the loop; in a recent press conference, he said he was exercising his veto power because “that’s one way to ensure that I am relevant.” The kitchen table initiatives are another.
Yet for a president accustomed to dealing in the big picture, talking about airline baggage handling or uniform standards for high-risk foods requires a surprising dip into the realm of minutiae — a realm that, until recently, Mr. Bush’s aides have viewed with disdain.
After Republicans lost control of Congress a year ago, Tony Snow, then the White House press secretary, told reporters: “The president is going to be very aggressive. He’s not going to play small ball.”
It was a veiled dig at Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Mr. Clinton, who, along with his adviser Dick Morris, developed a similar — and surprisingly effective — strategy in 1996 after Republicans took control of Congress. That approach included what Mr. Clinton’s critics called “small-ball” initiatives, like school uniforms, curfews for teenagers and a crackdown on deadbeat dads, as well as the use of executive powers to impose clean air rules, establish national monuments and address medical privacy.
“People in Washington laughed when Mr. Clinton would talk about car seats or school uniforms,” said John Podesta, Mr. Clinton’s former chief of staff. “But I don’t think the public laughed.”
Nor does the public appear to be laughing at Mr. Bush.
When the president sat down at a rustic wooden desk on the shores of the Chesapeake last month to sign an executive order that made permanent a ban on commercial fishing of striped bass and red drum in federal waters, people in the capital barely took notice.
But it was big news on the southwest coast of Louisiana, where Chris Harbuck, a 45-year-old independent financial planner and recreational angler, likes to fish with his wife and teenage children. Mr. Harbuck is also the president of the Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to conserving marine resources; Mr. Bush’s order is splashed all over his latest newsletter.
“We were very thrilled with what he did,” Mr. Harbuck said.
That is exactly the outside-the-Beltway reaction the White House is hoping for. Mr. Bush’s aides are calculating that the public, numbed by what Mr. Kaplan called “esoteric budget battles” and other Washington conflicts, will respond to issues like long airline delays or tainted toys from China. They were especially pleased with the air congestion initiative.
“You could just tell from the coverage how it did strike a chord,” said Kevin Sullivan, Mr. Bush’s communications counselor.
Yet some of Mr. Bush’s new initiatives have had little practical effect. Fishing for red drum and striped bass, for instance, is already prohibited in federal waters; Mr. Bush’s action will take effect only if the existing ban is lifted. And the Federal Aviation Administration can already open military airspace on its own, without presidential action.
Democrats, like Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, who runs the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee, dismiss the actions as window dressing. “It’s more words than substance,” said Mr. Dorgan said, adding he was surprised to see a president who has often seemed averse to federal regulation using his regulatory authority.
“He’s kind of a late bloomer,” Mr. Dorgan said.
Mr. Bush, for his part, has been using the kitchen table announcements to tweak Democrats, by calling on them to pass legislation he has proposed, such as a bill modernizing the aviation administration. The message, in Mr. Sullivan’s words, is, “We’re not going to just sit back because they’re obstructing things the president wants to accomplish. We are trying to find other ways to do things that are meaningful to regular people out there.”
Gillespie: Bush Shifts Approach As Legislative Window Closes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113000836.html) By Peter Baker | Washington Post, November 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call “kitchen table issues” — small ideas that affect ordinary people’s lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.
Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law. Now, with little political capital left, Mr. Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, is using his executive powers — and his presidential platform — to make little plans sound big.
He traveled to the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to announce federal protection for two coveted species of game fish, the striped bass and the red drum. He appeared in the Rose Garden to call on lenders to help struggling homeowners refinance. He came out in favor of giving the Food and Drug Administration new authority to recall unsafe foods.
Just this weekend, thanks to an executive order by Mr. Bush, the military is opening up additional air space — the White House calls it a “Thanksgiving express lane” — to lessen congestion in the skies. And Mr. Bush’s aides say more announcements are in the works, including another initiative, likely to be announced soon, intended to ease the mortgage lending crisis.
With a Mideast peace conference planned for the coming week and a war in Iraq to prosecute, Mr. Bush is, of course, deeply engaged in the most pressing foreign policy matters of the day. The “kitchen table” agenda is part of a broader domestic political strategy — which some Republicans close to the White House attribute to Mr. Bush’s new counselor, Ed Gillespie — for the president to find new and more creative ways of engaging the public as his days in office dwindle and his clout with Congress lessens.
“These are issues that don’t tend to be at the center of the political debate but actually are of paramount importance to a lot of Americans,” said Joel Kaplan, the deputy White House chief of staff.
One Republican close to the White House, who has been briefed on the strategy, said the aim was to talk to Americans about issues beyond Iraq and terrorism, so that Mr. Bush’s hand will be stronger on issues that matter to him, like vetoing spending bills or urging Congress to pay for the war.
“It’s a ticket to relevance, if you will, because right now Bush’s connection, even with the Republican base, is all related to terrorism and the fighting or prosecution of the Iraq war,” this Republican said. “It’s a way to keep his hand in the game, because you’re only relevant if you’re relevant to people on issues that they talk about in their daily lives.”
Mr. Bush often says he wants to “sprint to the finish,” and senior White House officials say this is a way for him to do so. The president has also expressed concerns that Congress has left him out of the loop; in a recent press conference, he said he was exercising his veto power because “that’s one way to ensure that I am relevant.” The kitchen table initiatives are another.
Yet for a president accustomed to dealing in the big picture, talking about airline baggage handling or uniform standards for high-risk foods requires a surprising dip into the realm of minutiae — a realm that, until recently, Mr. Bush’s aides have viewed with disdain.
After Republicans lost control of Congress a year ago, Tony Snow, then the White House press secretary, told reporters: “The president is going to be very aggressive. He’s not going to play small ball.”
It was a veiled dig at Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Mr. Clinton, who, along with his adviser Dick Morris, developed a similar — and surprisingly effective — strategy in 1996 after Republicans took control of Congress. That approach included what Mr. Clinton’s critics called “small-ball” initiatives, like school uniforms, curfews for teenagers and a crackdown on deadbeat dads, as well as the use of executive powers to impose clean air rules, establish national monuments and address medical privacy.
“People in Washington laughed when Mr. Clinton would talk about car seats or school uniforms,” said John Podesta, Mr. Clinton’s former chief of staff. “But I don’t think the public laughed.”
Nor does the public appear to be laughing at Mr. Bush.
When the president sat down at a rustic wooden desk on the shores of the Chesapeake last month to sign an executive order that made permanent a ban on commercial fishing of striped bass and red drum in federal waters, people in the capital barely took notice.
But it was big news on the southwest coast of Louisiana, where Chris Harbuck, a 45-year-old independent financial planner and recreational angler, likes to fish with his wife and teenage children. Mr. Harbuck is also the president of the Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to conserving marine resources; Mr. Bush’s order is splashed all over his latest newsletter.
“We were very thrilled with what he did,” Mr. Harbuck said.
That is exactly the outside-the-Beltway reaction the White House is hoping for. Mr. Bush’s aides are calculating that the public, numbed by what Mr. Kaplan called “esoteric budget battles” and other Washington conflicts, will respond to issues like long airline delays or tainted toys from China. They were especially pleased with the air congestion initiative.
“You could just tell from the coverage how it did strike a chord,” said Kevin Sullivan, Mr. Bush’s communications counselor.
Yet some of Mr. Bush’s new initiatives have had little practical effect. Fishing for red drum and striped bass, for instance, is already prohibited in federal waters; Mr. Bush’s action will take effect only if the existing ban is lifted. And the Federal Aviation Administration can already open military airspace on its own, without presidential action.
Democrats, like Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, who runs the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee, dismiss the actions as window dressing. “It’s more words than substance,” said Mr. Dorgan said, adding he was surprised to see a president who has often seemed averse to federal regulation using his regulatory authority.
“He’s kind of a late bloomer,” Mr. Dorgan said.
Mr. Bush, for his part, has been using the kitchen table announcements to tweak Democrats, by calling on them to pass legislation he has proposed, such as a bill modernizing the aviation administration. The message, in Mr. Sullivan’s words, is, “We’re not going to just sit back because they’re obstructing things the president wants to accomplish. We are trying to find other ways to do things that are meaningful to regular people out there.”
Gillespie: Bush Shifts Approach As Legislative Window Closes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113000836.html) By Peter Baker | Washington Post, November 30, 2007
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