Nothing to see here...

Yet another report, this time from MSNBC, that the war is going well. More than 46,000 people have come back home to Iraq in October, a rate described by the left-leaning MSNBC as "streaming home." Of course, expect liberals like John Dingell, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton to ignore this success and call for a 'change' from our current, successful strategy back, essentially, to the failed pre-2007 strategies.

Iraqis reportedly streaming home from abroad
Spokesman says more than 46,000 return; 17 bodies found in mass grave
MSNBC

BAGHDAD - The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army said 17 bodies were discovered in a mass grave northeast of Baghdad in an area troops have only recently been able to enter because of a downturn in violence.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for a U.S.-Iraqi military push to pacify Baghdad, said border crossings recorded 46,030 people returning to Iraq in October alone. He attributed the large number to the "improving security situation."

"The level of terrorist operations has dropped in most of the capital's neighborhoods, due to the good performance of the armed forces," al-Moussawi told reporters in the heavily-guarded Green Zone. Al-Moussawi did not give numbers of Iraqis returning home before October.

A shameful statistic

A quarter of the homeless in America are war veterans. This is absolutely unacceptable. Everything the government could possibly do to help these vets must be done. I hate taxes and I hate government spending, but we owe these man and women an incredible amount of appreciation and gratitude for their sacrifice, and we absolutely must do whatever is necessary to help them.

Study: 1 Out of 4 Homeless are Veterans
Out of Uniform and on the Street: Study Finds That Veterans Are a Quarter of the Homeless
ABC News

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a study to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its reports on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,252 out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.

ABC a part of the New Hampshire lovefest

ABC has a completely meaningless article with a ridiculous title: NH Could Turn GOP Race Upside Down. The article then goes on to point out that even though New Hampshire residents frequently vote for GOP contenders other than the front-runners, they never get the nominations. Examples include John McCain in 2000 winning New Hampshire and losing the nomination and Pat Buchanan winning the state in both 1992 and in 1996 before losing out to George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole, respectively. So, basically, the last three time the GOP nomination was contested, New Hampshire had exactly zero impact on the race -- in all three times, the favorite going into New Hampshire failed to win New Hampshire and still got the nomination. Nice!

NH Could Turn GOP Race Upside Down
NH Up in the Air, Could Turn Republican Presidential Race Upside Down
ABC News

New Hampshire is known for turning Republican presidential primaries upside down.

It could happen again this year.

"We're a tiny little state, but we get to go out and rub shoulders with all of the candidates, and be a big of the big decision," says Cindy Horvath, 46, an undecided Republican voter from Somersworth.

And, she added, have a big impact.

Polls show a tight race for the GOP nomination in the state. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are in strong contention. Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul could complicate an already muddled contest.

How dumb are thieves these days?

Five Washington, D.C. employees were arrested for stealing and laundering $16 million from the city. What blows my mind is that they stole an average of $3 million each and were still working for the city. I'm an honest man; however, if I were going to become a thief and managed to steal a few million dollars from the city, you can bet I wouldn't be spending it an Neiman Marcus - where defendant Harriette Walters is accused of spending more than $1.4 million. If I had just stolen $1.4 million, I'd be in a nice little villa in Bermuda with the money invested in some nice Bermuda insurance company making myself a ridiculous sum of money.

D.C. Hit by Costliest Corruption Scandal in History
City Employees Charged With Taking $16 Million; Using Money to Buy Luxury Goods
ABC News

Federal law enforcement and Washington D.C., city officials announced arrests and charges Wednesday in the costliest public corruption scandal to ever hit the district's government.

Five individuals are in custody for a scheme that allegedly defrauded the D.C. government out of more than $16 million. Charges against them include mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Officials say Harriette Walters, a manager of the D.C. Real Property Tax Administration Adjustments unit and Diane Gustus at the D.C. Office of Tax Revenue, were at the center of the operation. The pair allegedly approved and issued fraudulent property tax refund checks, that averaged $388,000 per check.

Investigators say the funds were used to buy luxury goods, including jewelry, homes and clothing. According to affidavits filed in the case, Walter's annual salary as a District of Columbia employee was $81,000. From September 2000 to the present, Harriette Walters spent more than $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus.

"They abused the trust the district placed in them," U.S. attorney Jeff Taylor of the District of Columbia said at a news conference announcing the charge.

Hillary could be innocent in this mess...

I really hate to say this, but I've done some digging on the accused terrorists from whom Hillary has taken money. In all fairness to her, I've run each of them and their organizations through publicly available software for checking against the Office of Foreign asset Control database. This database is the one in which financial companies such as banks, mortgage lenders, and insurance companies much check to ensure they aren't facilitating terrorism funding.

Not a single one of the individuals listed was found in the OFAC database, searched using the OFAC Watchdog software by Attus Technologies.

That being said, I think we really need to give Hillary and her organization a pass on this one. Assuming that she has implemented an OFAC check, these individuals would not raise flags for her organization. The bigger question is how closely she knew them, which is unclear at this point.

Hilary takes cash from terror suspects
Muslim donors targets of federal investigation
World Net Daily

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has taken thousands of dollars in cash donations from Islamists under federal investigation for terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud, WND has learned.

The Democrat senator over the past seven months has received $1,000 from M. Yagub Mirza and another $500 from M. Omar Ashraf, federal campaign records show. Federal agents raided the Virginia homes and offices of the Muslim donors after 9/11 for ties to terrorism.

Others tied to the still-active probe also have contributed money to Clinton, including one Muslim man who after 9/11 complained to the U.S. government should focus on changing its Mideast policies instead of killing Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists.

Mirza, who also has given to other candidates, including Republicans, is said to act on behalf of Saudi millionaire Yassin al-Qadi, who the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2001 blacklisted as al-Qaida financier.

Hard choices are sometimes required

Buried down in the bottom of a long, protracted, and intellectually void article written for Slate by Gary Kimaya, he claims incredulously that a 1% chance of our enemies obtaining and us using a nuclear weapon on our civilian population is insufficient grounds for attack.

Perhaps he lives in a different reality, but the one in which I live in looks at a 1% chance of millions of civilians killed as a pretty significant problem. From a very basic analysis, a 1% chance that a million civilians are killed in a nuclear attack by, say Iran, is about equivalent to a 100% chance that 10,000 Americans are killed in a war with Iran. It might seem a harsh calculus for a political party whose entire platform is built on the naive and childish notion that we can save everyone, everywhere but real leaders have to sit down and make that balance. If a war would cost 5,000 lives but has a 1% chance of saving a million, isn't that worthwhile? If the chances that Iran is, indeed, working towards a nuclear weapon that they would use against us are much greater than that - 10% or 15% - then what possible individual can rationally believe that it's not worth the sacrifice?

Is this an easy sacrifice? Of course not. However, when it comes to defending the lives and freedom of our country, we must sometimes have to make very difficult decisions and a real leader needs to sit down some times and realize that it might be worth sacrificing a few thousand to save a million.

Iraq taught us nothing
The U.S. establishment's acceptance of a possible war with Iran shows that the folly that led to Iraq still rules Washington
Current Opinion for Salon

The U.S. could attack Iran in the next few months.

Let's repeat that. The U.S> could attack Iran in the next few months.

The fact that this sentence can be written with a straight face proves that the Iraq debacle has taught us absolutely nothing. Talk of attacking Iran should be confined to the lunatic fringe. Yet America's political and media elite have responded to the idea of attacking Iran in almost the same way they did to the idea of attacking Iraq. Four and a half years after Bush embarked on one of the most catastrophic foreign-policy adventures in our history, the same wrongheaded, ignorant, and self-destructive approach to the Arab-Muslim world and to fighting terrorism still rules establishment thinking.

The disturbing thing is that we have no excuse this time. Five years ago, a wounded, fearful and enraged America was ready to attack anybody, and Bush waved his red cape and steered the mad bull toward Iraq. We now know that was folly. The completely unnecessary invasion has so far resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and almost 4,000 Americans, severely destabilized the region, cost billions of dollars, and increased the threat of terrorism. Yet today we are blithely considering attacking a much larger Middle Eastern country for equally dubious reasons, and mainstream politicians and the media are once again going along. The American people have signed off on the conventional "wisdom". In a recent poll, 52 percent of Americans say they would support attacking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This is surreal. It's as if we're back on Sept. 12 and Iraq never happened.

Back to their old tricks

Having found that they really have no interest in actually doing anything to address any topic of substance, the Democrats are back to what they do best: grandstanding and making a political show for the cameras. This time they (once again) are trying to charge Joshua Bolton and Harriet Miers with Contempt of Congress.

Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who heads the Congressional Judiciary Committee, is trying to avoid taking this to court. "I very much hope that we can similarly avoid a constitutional confrontation in this case," Conyers said. The reason, of course, is that a Constitutional challenge will clearly be lost by Congress.

Congress has no power to charge crimes or compel testimony. The only power they have regarding criminal behavior is impeachment.

What's particularly galling about this situation is that no one is even suggesting that anything illegal has taken place. There are only suspicions that something untoward - but perfectly legal - took place. The hope here is for John Conyers to put people close to the President under oath and desperately hope that they perjure themselves. Making the Administration look bad, of course, is more important than trying to renew S-CHIP or make sure our troops in Iraq are funded or fixing Social Security or coming up with a market-based solution to the health care problem that could draw bipartisan support.

House Democrats Push Bush on Subpoenas
House Judiciary Panel Head Tells White House to Answer Subpoenas to Presidential Aides
ABC News

House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush's key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department's purge of federal prosecutors last winter.

The White House shrugged off the ultimatum, saying the information is off-limits under executive privilege and that the aides in question White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton and former presidential counselor Harriet Miers are immune from prosecution.

"It won't go anywhere," predicted White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Congressional Democrats nonetheless submitted their 102-page report, and a Republican rebuttal, to the House clerk on Monday afternoon. The report accused Miers of contempt for failing to appear and testify as subpoenaed. She and Bolton were charged with failing to produce documents on whether the prosecutors were fired at the White House's behest.

Another reason to support Rudy

Anyone that the Angry Left hates this much must be worth voting for...

Hating Rudy
The Angry Left finds a new target
Opinion Journal

"Rudy Giuliani [is] probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency," Sen. Joe Biden declared during Tuesday's Democratic debate in Philadelphia. "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11."

The crowd roared with laughter, and liberal blogger John Marshall wrote, "Okay, I may have to endorse Biden after this tear against Rudy."

With the end of the dreaded Bush era approaching, Rudy Giuliani has slowly begun to supplant the president as the leading hate figure among liberals, a reality that will only help Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to overcome his differences with conservatives and win the Republican nomination.

Within the past month, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Washington Monthly have all run anti-Giuliani cover stories, with the last one declaring that, "as president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney."

Would term limits fix bad judgement?

Inexperienced governor? She's on her second term! She's been in office 6 years!!!

Would voters loosen term limits?
Legislature may ask, but hurdles loom
Detroit Free Press

Michigan voters were in a surly mood in 1992 when they voted overwhelmingly to limit the terms of the state's elected officials.

The thinking went something like: If we can't get them to behave, let's make them leave.

Fifteen years later voters appear surly again, in part because many people blamed the recent budget crisis on the chaotic performance of an inexperienced governor and legislators.

Consider that the top three leaders in the House today have less than 13 years of legislative experience among them, compared to 40 years for the same three positions in 1992.

Still, would voters change the law?

Joe Biden's version of history...

Glad to see we have Presidential candidates who either have no idea how the Iraq war started or are willing to lie to a bunch of fourth-graders. Nice!

Biden's History Lesson to Fourth-Graders
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - The words were a bit simpler but the answers none the shorter when Joe Biden, who has a reputation for being verbose, faced an audience of fourth-graders Thursday.

The Democratic presidential candidate encountered the group in the lobby of the New Hampshire statehouse on his way to filing his candidacy with he secretary of state's office.

Asked how long he had been in the Senate, the Delaware senator, who was elected in 1972, started talking about the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He then detoured into an aside about how his sister was pushed to be a nurse or teacher was he was encouraged to pursue any career he wanted despite grades worse than hers.

He also gave a detailed answer to a question adults don't often ask candidates: How did the war in Iraq start? Biden compared the war in Iraq with the invasion of Afghanistan.

Man tries to cure cancer in garage...and it works?

This just seems so strange...the idea that someone could build something like that in his garage and have it work is flabergasting.

Cancer Victim Invents Possible Chemo Alternatives
Suffering Under Chemotherapy, Retired Man Develops Radio-Wave Treatment
ABC News

This is the story of a man whose reaction to a cancer diagnosis was to go to his garage and invent something -- a machine that serious scientists are now taking seriously.

John Kanzius made his fortune owning radio stations in Pennsylvanis, then retired with his wife in Florida. Five years ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

While he was undergoing chemotherapy he decided there has to be a better way to fight this illness. And even though he wasn't a doctor, he figured he could figure it out himself.

Sudanese justice?

Memo to self: Do not go to any country ruled under sharia.

Facing 40 Lashes for 'Slur on Islam'
The Sun

The British teacher facing 40 lashes in Sudan for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Mohammed had told friends how she was loving her life in the country.

Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old described as "timid and polite," has been arrested and accused of blasphemy against Islam's prophet.

The teacher, from Liverpool, let her class of seven-year-olds choose the teddy's name as part of a project at Unity High School in Sudan's capital Kharourm.

She was said to be "deeply distressed" in a police cell last night after learning that she faces the barbaric lashing under the Muslim state's strict sharia law.

A question about driving...

If 70% of the nation's private car driving is due to commuting to work, what do you think the effect would be if we went from a 5 day, 8 hour per day work week to a 4 day, 10 hour per day work week? If we're cutting commuting by 20% and commuting makes up 70% of miles driven, even if we have a marginal increase of recreational driving on those days off, wouldn't we still be drastically cutting back on the total amount of driving being done?

Thank goodness Obama's got no chance...

Sen. Barack Obama has come out and said that if he's elected, he'd engage with Iran and make it clear that we will never, ever try to change their government and would never, ever attack. What a nice way to preemptively surrender!

I can't even go into this. I am just thankful that he's not going to be President. He's almost making Hillary Clinton look like a reasonable alternative.

Obama would engage Iran if elected, he says
International Herald Tribune

If elected president, Senator Barack Obama would meet with Iran's leaders and offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek "regime change" if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues.

In an hour-long interview on Wednesday, Obama made clear that forging a new relationship with Iran would be a major element of a broad effort to stabilize Iraq. And he vowed to engage in "aggressive personal diplomacy" with Iran and other regional powers as he withdrew American combat forces in Iraq.

Obama said that Iran had been "acting irresponsibly" by supporting Shiite militant groups in Iraq. He also stressed that Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program and its support for "terrorist activities" were serious concerns and that "we expect them to desist from those actions."

But Obama said that "changes in behavior" by Iran should be met with gestures by the United States, beginning with possible membership in the World Trade Organization.

Mule museum funding is part of $29 billion in Federal pork

We must have solved the Social Security problem because Representative Buck McKeon wants to take federal money to build a museum honoring mules. Nice!

Hey, we might have a war going on, tens of millions of uninsured Americans, millions of Americans in poverty, entitlement programs on the verge of financial disaster and a huge budget deficit but let's make sure we get the $29 billion in earmark spending approved.

Bucks for mule museum cause brays
CNN

In tiny Bishop, California, five hours north of Los Angeles, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California, wants to build museum honoring the mule.

McKeon has requested a $50,000 earmark to explore the possibility of building a museum in the town that every Memorial Day weekend holds the biggest mule celebration in the United States.

It might sound preposterous but McKeon is doing what many of his House colleagues are doing -- appropriating federal funds for pet projects back home.

McKeon has requested funds for studying the feasibility of building the museum and providing support for operations.

According to the Congressional spending watchdog group, Americans for Prosperity, House members this year alone seek to spend $13.7 million in tax dollars on 63 museum-related expenses.

We're spending what?

The Detroit News has a nice breakdown on the new Michigan budget.

One item - we've expanded health spending alone by an amount ($650 million) almost equal to the job-killing sales tax increase ($725 million).

Here's an idea: instead of killing jobs and moving people onto state assistance, why not create a few jobs so we can move people off of it?

Budget breakdown: Here's how 2007-08 spending plan is shaping up
The Detroit News

While the $43 billion 2007-08 state budget does not become law until Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs each of the 17 budget bills, she and state lawmakers have agreed to major pieces of the spending plan.

But it wasn't an easy task: Debate was long and acrimonious and spanned two seasons; annual taxes were raised by $1.5 billion; and parts of the state government shut down for a few hours Oct. 1.

Taxes

New this year

$770 million in higher income taxes; $725 million a year in taxes on services

Highlights

On Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, the Legislature narrowly approved an increase in the income tax and expanded the sales tax to a mixed bag of services.

The income tax already has increased from 3.9 percent to 4.35, projected to net about $770 million a year. That's an 11.5 percent increase. The average family of four will pay an additional $157 a year after typical deductions.

No more exclusive contracts for Comcast...

A victory for free and open trade comes from Washington. The FCC has banned exclusive agreements between cable television providers and apartment buildings, allowing open competition for the service of the residents. It's a great success for consumers. Now, what about that exclusive agreement between the NFL and DirectTV over NFL's Sunday Ticekt? If it's not okay to restrict choice via exclusive agreements between cable providers and apartment complexes, why is it okay to restrict choice via exclusive agreements between satellite providers and the NFL?

FCC OKs Cable Competition for Apartments
Federal Regulators Approve Ban on Exclusive Cable TV Contracts With Apartment Buildings
ABC News

Federal regulators on Wednesday approved a rule that would ban exclusive agreements that cable television operators have with apartment buildings, opening up competition for other video providers that could eventually lead to lower prices.

The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved the change, which Chairman Kevin martin said would help lower cable rates for millions of subscribers who live in apartment buildings and other multi-unit dwellings, or about 25 million households. He said the move would particularly help minorities who disproportionately live in multi-unit dwellings.

The rule would prohibit cable companies, such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc., from enforcing existing exclusive cable TV contracts with apartment managers and allow telecommunications companies, such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., to offer video services along with high-speed Internet access and phone service.

The cable industry, which had previously said it is unlawful for the government to invalidate existing contracts, said the deals provide apartment residents with better pricing and service.

Count every vote - until it's inconvenient...

A salon.com article details the anger that many voters in Florida are feeling over the DNC's decision to disenfranchise the primary voters of Michigan and Florida.

I'm not sure how the Democrats can really survive this. They've staked a tremendous amount of political capital on the idea of disenfranchising the voters of both Michigan and Florida. How can they expect to not take a pounding by the independents in both states when the general election comes around? It's not like we're talking about safely Democratic states, either. Both have been close states in each of the past two elections. Could the Democrats really afford to lose both states in a national election?

Another election fiasco in Florida?
The Democratic Party is doing battle - with itself over the state's role in the primaries. Some members say it could cost the party in November 2008.
Current News & Politics for Salon

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. - Amid the swimming pools and shuffleboards, a new sense of outrage is buzzing through condo land. Democratic activist Adele Berger began to hear about it at her regular, eight-deck rummy game in Century Village, an expansive, historically Jewish community of New York retirees. "People have been coming over and asking me, "What's going on, Adele? What's the purpose of voting if it won't be counted? And that's sad, that's sad."

The head of the community's Democratic club, Sophie Bock, is hearing the same thing, forcing her to reassure residents in the monthly newsletter that their presidential primary vote will count -- at least symbolically. "I am trying to make nicey-nicey, because I can't stand it when people say, "I don't want to vote. My vote won't be counted." Privately, however, she is as angry as her club members, so angry that she has even begun deleting fundraising e-mails from Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee before reading them.

Alienation of affection is about contracts, not property

An "alienation of affection" case has been appealed to the Supreme Court. Though, it's doubtful that the Supreme Court would pick up.

The essence of an alienation of affection case is that a third party who interferes in a marriage, breaking the marriage up, would be responsible to pay damages to the injured party. In this case, Sandra Valentine was married to Johnny Valentine when she had an affair with, and was impregnated by, Jerry Fitch, Sr. Mr. Valentine has sued Mr. Fitch and was awarded $750,000, including $112,000 in punitive damages. Mr. Fitch is only appealing the punitive award, not the actual-damages award.

What bothers me is the factually false statement by the unnamed ABS News author of this story, that these laws treat the adulterous woman in the case as property. This is not the case, nor is this the purpose of the laws.

In the U.S., for better or for worse, we have turned marriage into a legal contract. The essence of alienation of affection laws is that they deal with a third party stepping in and taking action to violate that contract. This really is not so different than if a homeowner has an exclusive contract with a real estate agent and then a second agent comes in to sell his home. The homeowner isn't property in any regards, the item of value is the contract which was broken. The law would require the second agent to compensate the original one and the alienation of affection laws follow this logic.

If a man and a woman are married and a third party steps in to break up the marriage and get involved with one party, it's not the adulterous party who is the item of value; it is the marriage contract. The property lost is not the adulterous spouse but rather the marriage itself.

Love Lost Lawsuit May Hit High Court
Plumber Won $750,000 Under Little used 'Alienation of Affection' Law
ABC News

A messy divorce that set off a bizarre lawsuit pitting a plumber against a Mississippi millionaire could now be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sandra Valentine had been married to plumber Johnny Valentine for four years when she began working for Holly Springs, Miss., businessman Jerry Fitch Sr.

Within a year, Sandra and Fitch, who was also married, began an affair. When Sandra got pregnant, Johnny, who suspected she was cheating, ordered a paternity test, which showed he was not hte father.

Johnny filed for divorce and then sued Fitch, claiming "alienation of affection," or, in other words, stealing his wife's love.

Edward's Big Plan

John Edwards is, once again, right on his priorities but ridiculously wrong on his policies.

He has correctly recognized the national shame that is the U.S.'s poverty rate. His solutions, though, are raising taxes, instituting minimum wage laws, and reducing incentives for investing in American business. The results will be higher employment, reduced growth in living conditions, and a dramatic decrease in economic growth.

What is disconcerting is that Edwards seems to be falling into the Socialist trap of viewing the resources traded in the worldwide economy as somehow being of a fixed quantity. The greatest contribution of Capitalism is to expand development of resources. When you are over0taxing those who are in a position to hasten the development of resources, you reduce the amount of resources in the system. When you disincentive investment and development, you reduce the ability to grow our resources.

The way to cure poverty is not through continued entitlement programs. Johnson started us on this track 40 years ago and we've spent tens of trillions of dollars and have gotten nearly nothing: poverty rate among working-aged adults has only gone down a tiny amount and the poverty rate among children has increased.

The way to cure poverty is by attacking the root causes of poverty while aggressively working to expand jobs.

Edwards plans big for presidency
Candidate: Sacrifice must be priority, too
The Concord Monitor

John Edward says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes.

Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."

"It is central to what I want to do as president to do something about economic inequality. I do not believe it is okay for the United States of America to have 37 million people living in poverty," he said in a meeting with Monitor reporters and editors this week. "And I think we need, desperately need, a president who will say that to America and call on America to show their character."

At every stop, Edwards said, he tells voters he'll ask them to sacrifice. Asked to describe what he means, he described his plan for increases in capital gains taxes, saying taxes on "wealth income" should be in line with those on work income.

"I think if we want to fund the things that I think are important to share in prosperity, then people who have done well in this country, including me, have more of a responsibility to give back," he said. Later, he added: "There are no free meals." Like other Democrats, Edwards named his top three priorities as ending the war in Iraq, enacting universal health care and and overhauling the American energy system. "Those are three things instantly I would do," he said.

Understatement of the Week

Understatement of the Week award goes to this comment by postdoctoral scientist Al Wanamaker: "For our work, it's a bonus, but it wasn't good for this particular animal."

Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal, Then Kill It
Fox News

British marine biologists have found what may be the oldest living animal - that is, until they kill it.

The team from Bangor University in Wales was dredging the waters north of Iceland as part of routine research when the unfortunate specimen, belonging to the clam species Arctica Islandica, commonly known as the ocean quahog, was hauled up from waters 250 feet deep.

Only after researchers cut through its shell, which made it more of an ex-clam, and counted its growth rings did they realize how old it had been - between 405 and 410 years old.

Another clam of the same species had been verified at 220 years old, and a third may have lived 374 years. But this most recent clam was the oldest yet.

What's fair about raising taxes on the poor to overpay the upper-middle class?

Patrick Devlin, Chief Executive of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, writes in a Detroit News editorial: "Michigan's Prevailing Wage Act ensures workers who build our roads, bridges and schools are paid a fair wage so they can contribute to the economy and provide for their families."

Mr. Devlin: There's nothing "fair" about fleecing working class Michiganders so that contractors working for the state can make 30% more than those in the private sector. There's nothing "fair" about raising taxes on poor Michiganders and prohibit competitive bidding in order to protect the disgustingly overpriced wages that state contractors are paid. There's nothing "fair" about a worker in the private industry having his net salary slashed by the state in order to keep the artificially inflated salary of a worker doing the exact same job for a government contract and making substantially more for it.

State's prevailing wage law ensures fair pay
The Detroit News

Michigan's Prevailing Wage Act ensures workers who build our roads, bridges, and schools are paid a fair wage so they can contribute to the economy and provide for their families.

However, lately it's become open season on workers here in Michigan. The latest episode as Chris Fisher's guest column in The Detroit News ("Killing wage law helps budget and creates jobs," Oct. 11).

When you pay Michigan workers measly wages with little to no benefits, everybody loses.

Remember, the hardworking construction and trade workers who are building Michigan's 21st century infrastructure are taxpayers, too. When you pay them a pittance, the economy shrinks.

Rep. John Dingell advocates Iraq withdrawal

Representative Dingell invokes the Iraq Study Group Report several times in his October 29th Opinion column wherein he calls for an unequivocal, immediate and complete retreat from Iraq. It is obvious that either he has not read that report or is being intentionally deceptive:

"A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions, leading to a number of the adverse consequences outlined above. The near-term results would be a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy. Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory. If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return. (Iraq Study Group Report, Page 20)."

In direct opposition to Representative Dingell's retreat plan, the Iraq Study Group foresaw a direct role for the U.S. military in Iraq in both combat and support roles. While most combat brigades would be removed from Iraq under the plan, U.S. military would remain in the country. The roles envisioned for the military would include embedding combat troops within Iraqi positions, anti-terrorist operations, and protection of American operations.

A complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will not result in the end of war in Iraq. It will only result in the temporary suspension of American action in Iraq. Without our military's presence, civil war would flare to full extent, foreign nations likely including Iran will expand military operations in the country, ethnic cleansing would occur, and genocide is a very likely result. The dishonest description of Representative Dingell's plan as either in accordance with the Iraq Study Group's report or as ending the war is reprehensible.

Let's end Bush's war before he leaves
The Detroit News

Recent news regarding the war in Iraq has made it increasingly clear that a change of strategy is desperately needed. The cost of the war is increasing at an unbearable rate, but the president has yet to announce any plan that would bring our troops home before his term ends.

As the Bush presidency enters its final year, it is increasingly likely that the difficult job of redeploying 140,000 troops from Iraq will be left to the next president. This is irresponsible. In an effort to address this issue, I recently introduced legislation that would require our troops be out of Iraq before President George W. Bush leaves office.

The president recently finalized a $196 billion spending request to fund the Iraq war for the next year. More than four years after the invasion of Iraq, it is alarming that the president requested more than half a billion per day in funding for our efforts there.

By the time President Bush leaves office, he will have spent an astounding $1 trillion in Iraq, which is more than the inflation-adjusted cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. Without a strategy change, these costs will continue to add up for the foreseeable future. The Congressional Budget Office this week released a report indicating costs related to the Iraq war could reach $2.4 trillion during the next decade, even if the number of troops is cut in half.

Interesting law...

In the London Telegraph, there's an oddly worded article discussing the Queen's stance in support of "the member of the Royal Family who has been targeted in an alleged gay sex and drugs blackmail plot." The specifics don't really concern me. I know plenty of people in the U.S. are interested in the goings-on of the Royal Family but I figure the Dingell aristocracy (Former Rep. John Dingell Sr., Rep. John Dingell Jr., and now State Senator Chris Dingell) is enough nobility for me to have to put up with.

What interests me about the article is the way in which they talk around the individual at the center of the allegations. It's fascinating that in the U.K. there is a law which prevents newspapers from discussing the identity of individuals being blackmailed. Now, I'm no fan of government censorship by any means. However, wouldn't it be great if in our country the newspapers would refrain from printing the identity of victims of blackmail as a matter of professional courtesy?

Queen stands by 'blackmail plot' royal
The Telegraph

The Queen has pledged her unswerving support for the member of the Royal Family who has been targeted in an alleged gay sex and drugs blackmail plot.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the Queen, who is very fond of her relative, is dismayed by the effect the revelation of an alleged £50,000 extortion attempt is having on him and his family.

While he cannot be named for legal reasons, there has already been speculation about his identity on the Internet.

The royal fears that he will be named in the foreign press, which is not covered by the reporting restrictions that apply to blackmail cases.

Beam me up?

I'm just not sure that a man who claims to have seen a UFO is in any place to question anyone else's intelligence.

Kucinich Questions Bush's Mental Health
Kucinich: Bush's World War II Comment Shows President's Mental Instability
ABC News

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Tuesday. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact.

Kucinich, known for his liberal views, trains far behind the leading candidates in most Democratic polls. He was in Philadelphia for a debate at Drexel University.

Bush made the remarks at a news conference earlier this month.