Section 1-2.113 Standards for Considering Commutation Petitions  

A commutation of sentence reduces the period of incarceration; it does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense, but simply remits a portion of the punishment. It has no effect upon the underlying conviction and does not necessarily reflect upon the fairness of the sentence originally imposed. Requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence. Nor are commutation requests generally accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding.

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.  

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."  

He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."  

Bush said he has told his administration to cooperate fully with the investigation and asked anyone with knowledge of the case to come forward.   

When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees, he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to bypass the very law he had just signed. 

This news came fast on the heels of Bush's shocking admission that, since 2002, he has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable federal law. 

And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants. 

All these declarations echo the refrain Bush has been asserting from the outset of his presidency. That refrain is simple: Presidential power must be unilateral, and unchecked.

Opposition to the Iraq war has reached a record high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a development likely to complicate President Bush's efforts to hold together Republican support as the Senate begins debate this week on Pentagon priorities.

Bush's approval rating has reached a new low: 29%. 

In the survey, taken Friday through Sunday, one in five Americans say the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq since January has made the situation there better. Half say it hasn't made a difference. 

More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April.

As the U.S. Senate begins a new debate this week on proposals for a withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. ambassador and the Iraqi foreign minister are warning that the departure of American troops could lead to sharply increased violence, the deaths of thousands of people and a regional conflict that could draw in Iraq's neighbors. 

Two months before Ryan Crocker, the ambassador, and the overall American military commander in Iraq are to make a pivotal assessment of the war to the White House and Congress in September, Crocker laid out a grim forecast of what could happen if the policy debate in Washington led to a significant pullback of American forces, perhaps to bases outside the major cities, or even withdrawal.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat. 

Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to assemble in the Situation Room to report on:  

What steps can be taken to minimize or counter the threat, 

And what steps are being taken to harden security for government buildings and personnel. 

"It suggests they have information that the cell or cells coming this direction want to attack a government facility," Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and ABC News consultant, said. 

U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida's apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. 

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a "gut feeling" about a new period of increased risk.

President Bush threatened to veto legislation setting a date for a troop withdrawal from Iraq on Tuesday despite growing bipartisan calls in Congress for an end to U.S. participation in the war and sharp criticism of the Iraqi government.

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday. . . .

"The facts are not in question," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. "The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report."

The politically sensitive Chinese trade surplus surged to a record $26.9 billion in June, potentially heightening tensions with the United States and increasing pressure on Beijing to allow its currency to appreciate. . . .  

The overall Chinese trade surplus for the first six months was $112.5 billion, up 84 percent from a year earlier. Its total trade surplus for 2006 was $177.5 billion. 

Export-driven growth is unusual for a major, continental economy like China. Similar economies usually rely more on domestic investment and consumption than on exports to stimulate growth. 

Goldman Sachs estimated that the Chinese export surplus in the first half of the year equaled about 8 percent of its gross domestic product in the same period. Its surplus in the first half of 2006 equaled 6.3 percent of gross domestic product. 

On the whole, China also depends more on domestic investment and consumption than on exports to generate its growth. But no large economy in recent history, including Japan in its productive heyday, has had such high trade surpluses relative to total output, Goldman said. 

"This level of trade surplus is unprecedented for China or any other major economy in the world," Hong Liang, an economist for Goldman in Hong Kong, said in a research note. "This again highlights the ineffectiveness of the policy tinkerings that have so far failed to tackle the root cause of China’s bloating trade surplus: the significantly undervalued currency."

Trade deficits also have a direct impact on wages, especially for non-college educated workers, who make up three-quarters of the U.S. labor force. [T]he average real wage for U.S. production workers peaked in 1978, declining more or less steadily through 1996. Real wages have begun to increase in the past 3 years. However, the small upturn increased real wages by only 4.5%, not nearly enough to offset a decline of more than 11% since the 1978, nor to return workers to the path of steadily rising wages they experienced from 1950 through 1973. 

What is responsible for the decline in U.S. wages? Trade is certainly one of the most significant causes, because it hurts workers in several ways. First, the steady growth in our trade deficits over the past two decades has eliminated millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs. As we showed in another recent EPI report, trade eliminated 2.4 million jobs in the U.S between 1979 and 1994 (Scott, Lee and Schmitt 1997). Growing trade deficits eliminate good jobs and reduce average wages in the economy. Since then, many more jobs have been lost to NAFTA and other sources of our trade problems, including China, and recently, Europe. 

The second way in which trade depresses wages is through the growth in imports from low wage countries. If the prices of these products fall, it puts downward pressure on prices in the U.S. Domestic firms are forced to cut wages or otherwise reduce their own labor costs in response. A third way in which globalization depresses wages is through foreign direct investment. When U.S. firms move plants to low wage countries, as they have done at an increasing rate in recent years, it has a chilling affect on the labor market. The mere threat of plant closure is often sufficient to extract wage cuts from workers. This tactic has also been used with increasing frequency in the 1990s and is effective even when plants don't move. 

Most economists now acknowledge that trade is responsible for 20 to 25 percent of the increase in income inequality which has occurred in the U.S. over the past two decades. However, existing research can only explain about half of the change in income inequality. Therefore, trade is responsible for about 40% of the explainable share of increased income inequality. The rest is due to forces such as declining unionization, and inflation-induced erosion in the value of the minimum wage.