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V IEWPOINTS 4A Monday, March 16, 2009 T HE D AILY C ITIZEN Jimmy Espy Executive Editor Serving Northwest Georgia since 1847 William H. Bronson III Publisher Unsigned editorials represent the view of The Daily Citizen. Members of the newspaper’s editorial board are William Bronson, Jimmy Espy, Wes Chance and Victor Miller. Columns and letters to the editor are the opinions of the authors. L E TTERS W ORDS OF W ISDOM Mark Pace Editor Emeritus Political opposition a patriotic duty Patrick Henry once proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death”. Did this mean that he wasn’t a man of virtue? Was he simply being too extreme? No, to the contrary,he was one of our greatest American patriots. America, I would like to inform you that there is an alternative plan and believe it or not, it is out there in the world of our political discourse, even if it isn’t considered or covered on the 6 o’clock news or by those who hold the majority view point in Washington. The alternative to the Obama federal power grab would simply be to reduce the size and cost of the federal government,while keeping taxes low as to allow commerce to develop without the shackles of higher taxation or restraint by the government. However, to consume the wealth created by those who came before us rather than preserving it is stealing from all who will follow. Socialism always fails and constitutionally limited government is the only answer to maintaining our Nation’s prosperity. How is that? Did you know that when we were faced with a very similar situation in the late 70s,early 80s Reagan dramatically cut taxes to foster growth and it worked. Unemployment was dramatically reduced! It worked so well that even with lower tax rates, federal revenue coming in more than doubled in Reagan’s eight years, all while the economy took off and the people of this country pulled us out of the quagmire of recession. However,what President Obama has chosen to do is to follow in the footsteps of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to use the opportunity and promotion of national crisis to grow the size and scope of the federal government. Contrary to today’s public opinion, FDR’s government growth policies were a failure, as unemployment remained in the teens and twenties from the time he took office even throughout his third term in office. It wasn’t until the mass private mobilization of free enterprise to produce materials and goods for the WWII that these numbers began to turn. That and the fact that a huge percentage of the work force was deployed to the European and Pacific theaters of war. Many today view the public discord and the public opposition to President Obama’s policies as being detrimental, or at least unproductive, but we should be reminded that to voice opposition against bad policy and to stand in opposition to leaders who seek to diminish our liberty with greater federal control and restraints, is the epitome of our patriotic duty. Chuck Payne Dalton First Steps needs community volunteers To the editor: There is always a need for volunteers in many different places. I taught school for 32 years and when I retired I thought I would now have time to travel, read, volunteer some and work more at my church. Then I received a phone call from the director of the former Northwest Georgia Council on Child Abuse about a part-time job which was to recruit and train volunteers for a program called First Steps. This program involves trained volunteers visiting moms at Hamilton Medical Center one day a week. The volunteer is a support person for these moms and gives them educational material about being a new mom and a community resource list plus other goodies. I spent some time thinking about doing this job and decided I would try it. Now the Northwest Council on Child Abuse has become a part of the Family Support Council. This First Steps program is a great volunteer opportunity as well as other programs that are under the Family Support Council. Since that time I have trained a lot of volunteers. It would be wonderful if they all wanted to volunteer forever but realistically that is impossible. Therefore, there is a constant turnover which leaves the program with about 5 to 10 volunteers per month. I am in desperate need for more volunteers who have one day each week or every two weeks that they could visit after they are trained. The schedule is very flexible for the amount of time. This First Steps program is a part of the Family Support Council which works to educate, intervene and prevent the cycle of child abuse. If you are interested in being a part of this wonderful Council — a United Way agency — please call me at (706) 272-7919 or visit us at 1529 Waring Road in Dalton. You will be amazed at the pleasure you receive by helping others as a volunteer. Your help is greatly needed, so think about it and give me a call. Rita Wagers Director, First Steps To suggest a Bible verse, call (706) 272-7735 or e-mail jimmyespy@daltoncitizen.com Bible Text: “ So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 Thought for Today: “Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.” Henry Miller American author (1891-1980) Evasive maneuvers Jacob Sullum Do not bother to tell me even if forensic historians incontrovertibly prove by DNA that Thomas Jefferson, when he authored the Declaration of Independence, was under the influence of performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals. Not this week, thank you. This is the opening of “March Madness,”when 65 men’s college basketball teams begin the play-off tournament that will eventually determine one national champion. More importantly,it is when just about the whole country seems to be consumed with the “office pool” and trying to predict the winner. The “office pool” is more than a celebration of spring. It is close to being a totally shared national experience. In businesses and institutions across the continent, co-workers and colleagues spend countless hours making their picks — or, more accurately, their guesses, investing a few dollars and then rooting for teams from schools the campuses of which they could not find on a map with the help of Google. In hopes of saving my gentle readers countless hours of researching the teams and players in this year’s tourney,I offer a few simple guidelines for winning the respect of your colleagues, if not the pool,itself. 1) When in doubt in choosing between two teams, pick the team that competes all season in the tougher conference. For example, the Big East Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference are much tougher conferences than are the Big South Conference and the Ivy League. Generally speaking, if a conference has five or more of its teams in the national tournament, then it is stronger than the conference that only has one team in the dance. 2) Favorites are favorites for a reason: Justice Department memos released last week paint a picture of a post-9/11 America where the military censors, searches and seizes people at will. Explaining why he sought to rationalize something akin to martial law, John Yoo, the memos’ main author, says he was asked “unprecedented questions under the most severe time pressures” during a period when many people feared more terrorist attacks were in the offing. Yet civil liberties do not mean much if they are abandoned whenever the government thinks it has a good reason to violate them. It is precisely in times of crisis, when politicians are most tempted to take legal shortcuts and the public is most inclined to go along, that constitutional protections are most needed. Although Attorney General Eric Holder claims to understand this, his embrace of Yoo-like rhetoric and reasoning suggests his differences with the former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyer may be a matter more of circumstance than of principle. In a March 7 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, says the recently released memos, which were written in 2001 and 2002, were part of an effort “to plan for worst-case scenarios.” But his argument that the military could pursue terrorists domestically without regard to the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures did not hinge on additional attacks, let alone a situation resembling invasion or open warfare. It was an invitation to reclassify all terrorismrelated l a w enforcem e n t activities as matters of national security and hand them over to the Pentagon, thereby avoiding inconvenient constitutional constraints. In an October 2001 memo, Yoo and OLC lawyer Robert Delahunty suggested that if the military does something, even something that looks like police work, it is ipso facto a military operation,not a criminal investigation. “Our forces,”they said, “must be free to ‘seize’enemy personnel or ‘search’ enemy quarters, papers and messages without having to show ‘probable cause’ to a neutral magistrate, and even without having to demonstrate that their actions were constitutionally ‘reasonable.’” As Yoo sees it, if the Defense Department searches Americans’ homes, reads their mail or listens to their phone calls,it is not carrying out an investigation; it is waging the War on Terror. “If the government’s heightened interest in self-defense justifies the use of deadly force,” Yoo wrote in a September 2001 memo, “then it certainly would also justify warrantless searches.” Likewise, according to Yoo,the military must be free to indefinitely detain anyone suspected of involvement with terrorism, including U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil, and neither Congress nor the courts have any business imposing limits on such detentions or dictating how the prisoners should be treated. In a gratuitous and therefore revealing aside, Yoo and Delahunty suggested that censorship aimed at defeating terrorism would be legal, too, since “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” The Obama administration is not likely to go as far as Yoo did in asserting the president’s unilateral, unconstrained authority to fight terrorism. The courts have rejected key aspects of Yoo’s position, and the OLC itself renounced some of his more alarming claims (rather belatedly — just five days before George W. Bush left office). Yet Attorney General Holder has endorsed Yoo’s view that the U.S. is engaged in a never-ending, omnipresent War on Terror that justifies extraordinary measures such as preventive detention. He also has continued the Bush administration’s efforts to suppress lawsuits related to rendition and warrantless wiretapping on state secrecy grounds. The day he released the OLC memos, Holder said viewing the fight against terrorism as “a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties” is “misguided.” I’m not sure about that. There is a tradeoff here, but it is better understood as a tradeoff between the dangers of terrorism and the dangers of tyranny. The Obama administration should be judged by how well it strikes that balance. ■ Jacob Sullum is senior editor at Reason magazine. That reason is that favorites win more often than do underdogs. Still, in the first round of the tournament No. 10 seeds often do defeat No. 7 seeds. It’s not a crazy idea to pick a No. 12 seed in that first round. 3) Do not get carried away with upsets. In the entire history of these national basketball tournaments, no team seeded eighth or lower has ever won the championship. 4) If you’re still stumped, make your picks (guesses) based upon the originality,appeal or humor of the schools’ basketball mascot. If this were the sole, determining criterion,anumber of teams that will not be asked to the tournament would be the overwhelming favorites, beginning with my personal pet mascot, the University of California at Santa Cruz’s banana slug. Nothing racially or ethnically offensive. No gratuitous violence. The banana slug was chosen,let it be noted, in a campuswide referendum at the university and succeeded the sea lion. For a real team mascot brimming with energy and enthusiasm, none can really compete with the Hawk of St. Joseph University in Philadelphia. It’s not the outfit,which is fine. It is that the St. Joe’s Hawk NEVER stops flapping its wings, or arms,from the beginning of the game until the end. Literally the Hawk’s wings are flapped thousands of times in a twohour game. But here are the outstanding mascots of teams in the 2009 tournament: T HE D AILY C ITIZEN T ODAY IN H ISTORY Winning ‘March Madness’ office pools Mark Shields Today is Monday, March 16, the 75th day of 2009. There are 290 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On March 16,1968, during the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre of Vietnamese civilians was carried out by U.S. Army troops; estimates of the death toll vary between 347 and 504. The same day, in Washington, D.C., Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. On this date: In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. In 1915, the Federal Trade Commission began operations. In 1926, rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled rocket, in Auburn, Mass. In 1935, Adolf Hitler decided to break the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany. Ten years ago: The Dow Jones industrial average briefly topped the 10,000 level, reaching a high of 10,001.78 before retreating. The entire 20- member European Commission resigned following publication of a critical report on sloppy management and cronyism. The Nebraska Cornhuskers beat Chicago State 50-3 in an NCAA baseball game. Five years ago: China declared victory in its fight against bird flu, saying it had “stamped out” all its known cases. One year ago: Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces; the Dalai Lama decried what he called the “cultural genocide” taking place in his homeland and called for an international investigation into China’s crackdown on demonstrators. Today’s Birthdays: Comedian-director Jerry Lewis is 83. Country singer Ray Walker (The Jordanaires) is 75. Game show host Chuck Woolery is 68. Actor Erik Estrada is 60. Actor Victor Garber is 60. Actress Kate Nelligan is 58. Rock singer-musician Nancy Wilson (Heart) is 55. Rapper-actor Flavor Flav (Public Enemy) is 50. Rock musician Jimmy DeGrasso is 46. Actress Lauren Graham is 42. Actress Brooke Burns is 31. a) Otto the Orange of Syracuse University. Literally a round orange — with human legs and a little Syracuse cap on top. A more chunky earlier model basically covered the legs with his costume, creating a striking resemblance to the huge fruit. In defiance of mascots and cheerleaders who perform cartwheels or make human pyramids, the laid-back orange often just rolls on the floor. b) The West Virginia Mountaineer. A student,selected on the basis of class performance, among other factors, dressed in coonskin hat,sporting a beard and carrying a long rifle. It works for West Virginia University. c) Chief Osceola of Florida State University. A fierce Seminole brave ready for real conflict whose existence has been officially sanctioned as not being offensive by Florida’s Seminole tribe. d) Western Kentucky University’s Big Red, which is a huge red blob that looks like it might be the issue of an illicit union between PBS’s Clifford and the architects and engineers that produce Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Still, Big Red is likable. e) Wake Forest University’s Demon Deacon, which qualifies on the basis of creative contradictions. This historically Southern Baptist school, long before there was a Jimmy Swaggart or a Jim Bakker or a Father Geoghan,had its own Elmer Gantry mascot. I like him. There you have the keys to the office pool and your sanity in “March Madness.” Don’t take my picks. Look those mascots over,and then make your own choices. Good luck. ■ To find out more about Mark Shieldss and read past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web site at www.creators.com.
T M T HE D AILY C ITIZEN Stores, food makers compete on prices B Y E MILY F REDRIX AND S ARAH S KIDMORE AP Retail Writers Retailers, who begrudgingly went along when food makers pushed up prices to recoup record-high costs, are flexing newfound muscle and demanding price cuts to match the recent steep retreat in ingredient costs. Food makers are resisting, saying the uncertain economy and volatile costs make price cuts unwise. But retailers aren’t backing down. Consumers — who responded to the higher prices by favoring grocers’ in-house products over national brands and by shopping more at discounters — may end up with fewer choices all around. “We don’t have to carry three brands,” Costco Wholesale Corp.’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti told investors earlier this month. “We can choose between brands that are going to be more aggressive, that help us help our members.” Costco has been lowering its prices, Galanti said, and is prepared to sacrifice profit margins and cut national brands that won’t negotiate on pricing — if that’s what it takes to drive sales. “We are not the only ones out there pressuring manufacturers,”he said. Steven Burd, president of grocery chain Safeway Inc., recently told investors that it has gotten some vendors to roll back their prices. Like many retailers,it is finding its new strength in its in-house brands, including Safeway Select, O organics and Primo Taglio deli products. “We’re going to chew them up on corporate brands,” S UBMITTED BY D ALTON S TATE C OLLEGE A Dalton State College club, “Students United for Peace,” will sponsor “The Cost of War: Six Years Later — A Speaking Tour on the Cost of the Iraq War” today at 12:15 p.m. in the Pope Student Center. The program will be presented by the American Friends Service Committee and Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, which is taking its speaking tour to college campuses across the state to mark the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War. “The goal of this tour is to educate Georgians on the ■ Michael Wayne Best, 33, 4731 S. Dixie Highway, Resaca, was charged Sunday by the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office with DUI and a turning violation. ■ Dusty Zane Hall, 25, 277 N. Henderson Bend, Calhoun, was charged Sunday by the Dalton Police Department with possession of methamphetamine and possession of tools for the commission of a crime. ■ Jared Patrick Henriquez, 26, 3793 Old Dixie Highway, Dalton, was charged Sunday by the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office with sale of cocaine, possession of cocaine, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, use of a community facility while committing a felony and possession of tools for the commission of a crime. ■ David Dewayne Isenhower, 29, 562 Jim Petty Road, Crandall, was charged T r ace y R . Dailey ,RPH 706- 226- 6000 Sunday by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office with simple battery, battery, false imprisonment and furnishing alcohol to a minor. ■ Carlos Cesar Ortega, 26, 2013 Brookhaven Drive, Dalton, was charged Sunday by the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office with DUI, driving too fast for conditions, driving without a license, littering and improper lane change. ■ Manuel de Jesus Ramirez, 27, 714 Olivia Drive, Dalton, was charged Sunday by the Dalton Police Department with possession of cocaine. ■ Tara Celestina Tibbs, 33, 1221 Nelson St., Dalton, was charged Sunday by the Dalton Police Department with possession of methamphetamine, failure to maintain lane, possession of tools for the commission of a crime and a child support arrest order. COME BE APART OFOUR FAMILY • A ll M a jo r P r e s c r ip t ion C a r d s A cce p t e d S h a w , M o h a w k , M e d ic a r e P a rt D , B lu e C r o ss, B lu e S hie ld & M a n y O t h e rs • F r ee C it y - W id e D e liv e r y • P r e s c r ip t ion L abe ls a n d P a t ie n t C ons u lt a t ion in E n g lis h o r S p a n is h ( S e H abla E s p a ñol) s r r Burd said of food makers that don’t lower prices. “And we’re just going to keep driving corporate brands.” The situation grew so tense last month that grocer Delhaize SA in Belgium said it would no longer stock at least 250 Unilever products because the food maker was making “unprecedented” demands that would force retail prices up 30 percent. The grocer,which operates Food Lion and Sweetbay stores in the U.S., said Unilever also was demanding it carry some products consumers did not want. The two companies apparently reached an agreement this month, though the terms are unclear. Food makers,which raised prices last year after fuel and DSC club to present Cost of war program human and economic cost of the war in Iraq,” said Kim Shaw, president of Students United for Peace. Raed Jarrar and Jason Hurd will lead the program. Jarrar was born in Baghdad and spent most of his life in Iraq. He has lived in the U.S. since 2005 and has worked on many Iraq-related projects as a translator, interpreter, consultant and political analyst. Hurd is the Southeast regional director of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The tour is free and open to the public, but daytime parking is limited. For more information, call (706) 272- 4469. Area arrests • M e d ic a l E q u ip m e n t , D iabe t ic S u pplie s A v a ilable • W e S t o c k H a r d - t o - F in d I t e m s • W e A cce p t M e d ic a id, A m e r iG r o u p P e a c h C a r e a n d W e llC a r e • W e M a t c h C omp e t it o rs’ P r ic e s • W e R e n t N e b u liz e rs M - F 9 a m - 7 p m , S a t . 9 a m - 2 p m C los e d S u n d a y 1100 E . W a lnu t A v e . , S u i t e 1 7 I n t he Valley P lace S hopping C ent e r some ingredient costs hit record highs in the summer, are leery of dropping their prices in case commodity costs come back up and pinch their profit margins. They say they’re still catching up with last year’s costs, even as they confront tougher competition from the retailers they rely on to sell their products. Producers are making some changes that can provide relief to both consumers and retailers,said Frank Luby, a partner with Simon-Kucher and Partners who consults with companies on pricing. Some are changing package sizes, often shrinking them while keeping prices steady so shoppers don’t pay more to remain with their favorite brands. But this tactic can make White House says economy is sound despite ‘mess’ B Y P HILIP E LLIOTT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — The economy is fundamentally sound despite the temporary “mess” it’s in, the White House said Sunday in the kind of upbeat assessment that Barack Obama had mocked as a presidential candidate. Obama’s Democratic allies pleaded for patience with an administration hitting the two-month mark this week, while Republicans said the White House’s plans ignore small business and the immediate need to fix what ails the economy. After weeks projecting a dismal outlook on the economy, administration officials — led by the president himself in recent days — swung their rhetoric toward optimism in what became Wall Street’s best stretch since November. During the fall campaign, Obama relentlessly criticized his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for declaring, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Obama’s team painted the veteran senator as out of touch and failing to grasp the challenges facing the country. But on Sunday,that optimistic message came from economic adviser Christina Romer. When asked during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if the fundamentals of the economy were sound, she replied: “Of course they are sound.” “The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, them targets of their competitors — as ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs learned when it announced recently that it will shrink some of its containers. Rival Ben & Jerry’s, owned by Unilever, said on its Web site — without naming Haagen-Dazs outright — that consumers are hurting just like food makers and they deserve a full pint of ice cream,not just 14 ounces. Another change food companies are making is to focus promotions — which they negotiate with grocers — on staples like dairy, cereal and soup, BMO Capital Markets analyst Kenneth Zaslow has said. Eggland’s Best Inc., the nation’s largest branded egg company,is asking supermarkets,“If we give you so many we have good technology,” she said. “We know that — that temporarily we’re in a mess,right? We’ve seen huge job loss, we’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a — in a bad situation.” Just a week ago, White House Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag declared that “fundamentally, the economy is weak.” Days later, Obama told reporters he was confident in the economy. “If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy,all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we’re going to get through this,” Obama said, striking a tone that his top aides mimicked. Despite the new enthusiasm at the White House and on Wall Street, there was little solid evidence to suggest an end was in sight to the severe recession that has already cost 4 million American jobs, driven down home values and sent foreclosures soaring. Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he was concerned about the safety of the estimated $1 trillion his country has invested in U.S. government debt. Obama sought to downplay the worries. “There’s a reason why even in the midst of this economic crisis you’ve seen actual increases in investment flows here into the United States,”Obama said Saturday in the Oval Office. “I think it’s a recognition that D o Y o u Hav e ALLERGIES? W e Hav e E ffe c t i v e T r e a t ment DaltonAllergy Clinic Dalton Ear Nose &Throat Dalton 706.226.2142 Calhoun 706.629.5000 AP FILE PHOTO Sean Meagher works on a vegetable display in the produce department of a Kroger store in Cincinnati in July of 2008. cents off, would you give that to the customer,” said Chief Executive Charlie Lanktree. At the same time, many retailers are increasing their promotions of house brands, Zaslow said. Some 64 percent of shoppers in 2008 said they often or always buy a store brand rather than a national one, according to the Food Marketing Institute, an industry trade group. That’s up from 59 percent the prior year. Kroger Co., owner of Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less and other chains in 31 states, saw sales of its inhouse brands hit a record 27 percent of total sales in the most recent quarter. The company’s CEO, David Dillon, said after its most recent earnings report that Kroger is pushing producers back on prices. But he also said high pricing of national brands is helping bring customers to store brands — “so we are quite happy in either scenario.” Food companies say they are cooperating with retailers to the extent they can. Both Kraft, maker of its eponymous macaroni and cheese and Jell-O, and General Mills expect their ingredient costs to remain volatile and neither is offering broad price cuts. Luby,the pricing consultant,said cost volatility is a big concern amid other variables, like weak consumer confidence and the stronger dollar, which has dragged down overseas sales by U.S. companies. “Every penny that I would want to roll back, I’d like to know what I’m going to get for it,”he said. “That’s a complicated question.” the stability not only of our economic system, but also our political system, is extraordinary.” The seesaw message from the new administration drew sharp criticism from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who said Obama’s team was exploiting the economic situation for political gain. “They’re taking advantage of a crisis in order to do things that had nothing to do with getting us into the crisis in the first place,”McConnell said. Democratic lawmakers promoted a potential plan to help move so-called toxic assets off bank ledgers. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said discussions were under way, but would not be rushed. “If they wait a week or two more, no one ought to get all in a twitter about that. It’s very important to do it right,”he said. Also Sunday, the president’s team largely rejected suggestions that officials were considering taxing employees’ health benefits. As a candidate Obama had called such a proposal a “multitrillion-dollar tax hike.” “I’m not leaving the door open,”said Austan Goolsbee, a senior White House economist with a broad portfolio and a personal friendship with Obama, responding to a report in Sunday’s New York Times. “The president has laid out a series of clear principles on the health plan that we will do whatever it takes to get affordable quality coverage to all Americans.” Monday, March 16, 2009 5A B riefs Child porn probe nets 25 suspects ATLANTA — A roundup of child porn suspects continues in Georgia, with the latest arrests in Cobb County. That brings the total number of arrests to 25 suspects in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s “Operation Shattered Innocence.” Police said 17-year-old Daniel Patrick Cohen, and 24-year-old Justin Croy, both of Marietta, surrendered to authorities Friday, and each was charged with computer pornography. Outrage expressed on AIG bonuses WASHINGTON — Leaders of the White House economic team and the Senate’s top Republican bellowed about bonuses at a bailed-out insurance giant and pledged to prevent such payments in the future. On Sunday talk shows, they tore into contracts that American International Group asserted had to be honored — about $165 million and payable to executives by Sunday — part of a larger total payout reportedly valued at $450 million. The company has received more than $170 billion in a federal rescue. Bomb kills 4 U.S. soldiers KABUL — A roadside bomb killed four American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday — new evidence of rising violence in a region where clashes and attacks in the first two months of 2009 more than doubled from the same period a year ago. The spike in violence along the border is an early indication that roadside bombs and other ambushes are likely to surge as thousands of new U.S. forces arrive in Afghanistan this year. Cheney: U.S. is less safe now WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that Americans are less safe now that President Barack Obama has overturned Bush terrorismfighting policies and that nearly all the Republican administration’s goals in Iraq have been achieved. “There is no prospect” that Iraq will return to producing weapons of mass destruction or supporting terrorists,Cheney asserted, “as long as it’s a democratically governed country,as long as they have got the security forces they do now and a relationship with the United States.” Associated Press Lifetime Investment! Kennedy JEWELRY 2012 East Main St. (423) 629-4996 Mon.-Fri. 9a.m. -5:30 p.m. Sat. 9a.m. -3p.m. (GIA) Graduate Gemologist on Staff www.kennedyjewelry.com
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