News

1. -01-10-07 President Bush's Speech to the Nation (CNN News)
   This is the text of President Bush's speech. 01-07
   
   
2. -01-11-07 Defense Secretary Recommends Adding 92,000 More Troops (MSNBC News)
   "At a briefing to add details about President Bush's new Iraq strategy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said he would recommend increasing the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops over the next five years."
   
   "The cost of the troop increase would be enormous." 01-07
   
   
3. -01-11-07 House Passes Stem Cell Research Bill (MSNBC News)
   "The Democratic-controlled House Thursday passed a bill bolstering embryonic stem cell research that advocates say shows promise for numerous medical cures." 01-07
   
   
4. -01-11-07 Media Pound Bush Plan to Increase Troops in Iraq (USNews.com)
   "Most media analysts greeted President Bush's new Iraq strategy with marked skepticism, if not outright hostility." 01-07
   
   
5. -01-11-07 Poll: Bush Plan Fails to Bolster Public Confidence (ABC News)
   "Americans broadly reject President Bush's plan for a surge of U.S. forces into Iraq, with substantial majorities dismissing his arguments that it'll end the war more quickly and increase the odds of victory, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds." 01-07
   
   
6. -01-11-07 Reports: Iraqi Security Forces Weak (USA Today)
   "President Bush's plan to secure Iraq by committing 21,500 more U.S. troops rests on a shaky foundation: the Iraqi military." 01-07
   
   
7. -01-11-07 Senators Debate President Bush's Plan for Iraq (PBS News)
   "We're joined now by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee."
   
   Sen. Boxer, who is not supportive of President Bush's plan: "And when you have the second-most-senior Republican on the committee saying, and I quote, that the surge is, quote, 'the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out' -- that's Senator Hagel -- that, to me, is the strongest of signals to this administration to change course and not go forward with this."
   
   "Sen. Graham, who is supportive of trying President Bush's plan: "I'm looking for Iraqis to turn in the people who are making the bombs. And they'll never turn those people in if they believe the police and the army can't protect them." 01-07
   
   
8. -01-11-07 U.S. Attacks Iran's Consulate (MSNBC News)
   "Iraqi officials said Thursday that the U.S.-led multinational forces detained five Iranians in an overnight raid on Tehran’s diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil." 01-07
   
   
9. -01-12-07 Republican Support for President Reduced After Speech (USNews.com)
   "On Capitol Hill, the President's plan was the object of strong attacks yesterday -- from both sides of the aisle. Some reports suggest the President's support among Republicans may be quickly collapsing." 01-07
   
   
10. -01-14-07 Bush Policies Reversed in New Plan (MSNBC News)
    "The plan unveiled by Bush last week calls for many people who lost their jobs under Bremer's de-Baathification decree to be rehired. It calls for more Sunnis, who were marginalized under the CPA, to be brought into the government. It calls for state-owned factories to be reopened. It calls for more reconstruction personnel to be stationed outside the Green Zone. It calls for a counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes providing security to the civilian population over transferring responsibility to local military forces."
    
    New overall coordinator of the American reconstruction effort, Timothy M. Carney, claims "such measures could have been effective three years ago. Today, he worries they will be too little, too late." 01-07
    
    
11. -01-17-07 Attorney General: Judges Unfit to Rule on Terror Policies (MSNBC News)
    "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases." 01-07
    
    
12. -01-17-07 Bush Administration Agrees to Oversight by Panel (MSNBC News)
    "The Bush administration has agreed to let a secret but independent panel of federal judges oversee the government’s controversial domestic spying program, the Justice Department said Wednesday." 01-07
    
    
13. -01-17-07 Ethics Legislation Sidetracked in the Senate (MSNBC News)
    "Democrats’ hopes of starting off their control of the Senate with a far-reaching commitment to ethics reform received a painful jolt Wednesday, their ethics and lobbying legislation sidetracked by a dispute with Republicans." 01-07
    
    
14. -01-17-07 U.S. House Takes on Big Oil (Christian Science Monitor)
    "A bill to be voted on Thursday would cut federal benefits by a third and give them to renewable-energy programs." 01-07
    
    
15. -01-18-07 House Approves Bill to Cut Student Loan Rates (CBS News)
    "The House overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday that would cut the interest rate on many student loans in half." 01-07
    
    
16. -01-18-07 Manual to Allow Executions Based on Hearsay (MSNBC News)
    "The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death."
    
    "Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and some Democrats have said the legislation will be shot down by the courts as unconstitutional because it bars detainees from protesting their detentions. Under the law, only individuals selected for military trial are given access to a lawyer and judge; other military detainees can be held until hostilities cease." 01-07
    
    
17. -01-18-07 Retired Generals Disapprove of Bush's Plan in Iraq (CBS News)
    " 'This administration's handling of the war has been characterized by deceit, mismanagement and a shocking failure to understand the social and political forces that influence events in the Middle East,' " former Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar said. Hoar "once commanded all American forces in the Middle East...." 01-07
    
    
18. -01-18-07 Senators Agree to Voice Opposition to Bush Plan in Iraq (CBS News)
    "A group of senators that includes a prominent Republican war critic announced agreement Wednesday on a resolution opposing President Bush's 21,500-troop buildup in Iraq, laying the groundwork for a major clash between the White House and Congress over the war."
    
    " 'It is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating U.S. troop presence in Iraq,' the resolution says." 01-07
    
    
19. -01-18-07 U.S. House on Schedule for 100-Hour Goals (MSNBC News)
    "The final piece was on deck for a vote Thursday: energy legislation that imposes billions in fees, taxes and royalties on oil and gas companies and uses the money to promote renewable fuels."
    
    "The items passed so far would:
    
     * Make the government negotiate for lower Medicare prescription drug prices. It passed last Friday.
     * Expand federally funded stem cell research. It passed Jan. 11.
     * Raise the federal minimum wage. It passed Jan. 10.
     * Seek to bolster terrorism-fighting efforts. It passed Jan. 9.
     * Change rules governing ethics, lobbying and the budget. These changes were passed on Jan. 4-5." 01-07
    
    
20. -01-18-07 U.S. Troops Going It Alone in South Baghdad (CBS News)
    " 'Ninety to 100 percent of the area's residents either actively or passively support the insurgency,' estimates Odom, who calls them well-armed and well-trained."
    
    " 'We can go in and clear any area but until there is an Iraqi security structure to come in behind us, and establish a long term presence, true progress in this area will be difficult to achieve,' said Garrett." 01-07
    
    
21. -01-21-07 A Majority of Americans Not Happy About Bush's Plans (MSNBC News)
    "In the latest NEWSWEEK poll Bush’s approval rating remains at its all-time low as his plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is met with widespread disapproval." 01-07
    
    
22. -01-21-07 What Is the "State of the Union" Speech? (BBC News)
    "The annual State of the Union address is the keynote speech by the president to Congress in which he sets out his agenda for the next year and highlights his accomplishments to the American people." 01-07
    
    
23. -01-22-07 Arab Supporters of U.S. War Now Resentful (MSNBC News)
    "And nearly four years after the invasion they [Arab supporters] backed, their sense of frustration, resentment and even betrayal speaks volumes about how withered American standing is in the Middle East today and how far the region itself has deteriorated, riven as it is by escalating conflicts, worsening sectarian tension and a simmering struggle with an ascendant Iran."
    
    " 'It's a success story for al-Qaeda, a success story for autocratic Arab regimes that made democracy look ugly in their people's eyes. They can say to their people: "Look at the democracy that the Americans want to bring to you. Democracy is trouble. You may as well forget about what the Americans promise you. They promise you death," ' said Salameh Nematt, a Jordanian analyst and the former Washington bureau chief for the Arabic-language daily newspaper al-Hayat." 01-07
    
    
24. -01-22-07 Poll on the State of the Union: Unhappy With Bush (ABC News)
    "President Bush faces the nation this week more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974." 01-07
    
    
25. -01-23-07 Bush's Own Republicans Not Swayed by the State of the Union Speech (ABC News)
    "Dozens of Republican leaders joined Democrats in taking aim at President Bush's State of the Union address last night." 01-07
    
    
26. -01-23-07 Bush's State of the Union Speech (CBS News)
    Provides the full text of President Bush's State of the Union Speech. 01-07
    
    
27. -01-23-07 Bush's State of the Union Speech - Democratic Response (CBS News)
    "Freshman Sen. James Webb, D-Va., delivers his party's response to President Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address." 01-07
    
    
28. -02-02-07 Bush to Request $245 Billion for War Costs (CBS News)
    "The Bush administration will ask for another $100 billion for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and seek $145 billion for 2008, a senior administration official said Friday."
    
    "The war costs come on top of a record request for the Defense Department's core budget, which is expected to reach about $480 billion in 2008.” 02-07
    
    
29. -02-02-07 Intelligence Report: Path for Iraq Is Headed Straight Down (CBS News)
    "The report, which is called a National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, says the problem is not just a civil war. Rather, Iraq is spiraling toward implosion, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin."
    
    " 'The NIE does a very nice job of making clear the trajectory that Iraq is on,' says former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollard. 'And that trajectory is straight down.' ” 02-07
    
    
30. -02-04-07 Massive Migration From Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "Nearly 2 million Iraqis -- about 8 percent of the prewar population -- have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The refugees include large numbers of doctors, academics and other professionals vital for Iraq's recovery." 02-07
    
    
31. -02-05-07 Iraqi's Blame U.S. for Massive Attack in Market (New York Times)
    "A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that the Americans had been slow in completing the vaunted new American security plan, making Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks."
    
    "In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders were either in hiding or under arrest, which was one of the plan’s intended goals to reduce sectarian fighting. But with no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites say, Sunni militants and other anti-Shiite forces have been emboldened to plot the type of attack that obliterated the bustling Sadriya market on Saturday, killing at least 135 people and wounding more than 300 from a suicide driver’s truck bomb." 02-07
    
    
32. -02-06-07 Funding Can Make Geothermal Competitive With Coal Plants (Christian Science Monitor)
    "With such funding, the cost of enhanced geothermal power could fall from 8 to 9 cents a kilowatt hour today to less than 5 cents as the technology is deployed, making it competitive even with big coal-fired power plants, the MIT report says. Because EGS emits little carbon dioxide, it could become competitive with coal power if regulation makes carbon emissions costly." 02-07
    
    
33. -02-07-07 Republican Strategists See Hillary's Election as Inevitable (CBS News)
    "What many conservatives regard as the nightmare scenario — President Hillary Rodham Clinton — is increasingly seen by veteran Republican politicians and strategists as a virtual inevitability." 02-07
    
    
34. -02-08-07 Doubts About Iran (MSNBC News)
    "President Bush insists that Iraq's neighbor is fueling the insurgency in Baghdad. Does the intelligence back him up?" 02-07
    
    
35. -02-09-07 FDA Approves a Device to Save the Limbs of Soldiers (MSNBC News)
    "A plastic shunt that can temporarily rejoin the severed blood vessels of soldiers wounded on the battlefield won federal approval Friday, following an expedited review." 02-07
    
    
36. -02-23-07 Obama and Clinton Conflict (New York Times)
    "After weeks of watching in frustration as Senator Barack Obama presented himself as a fresh face gliding above partisan politics, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has drawn Mr. Obama onto a muddy political field, engaging him in a back-and-forth that recalls the kind of Washington bickering Mr. Obama has decried." 02-07
    
    
37. -02-23-07 Withdrawing from Banks in Iraq (Washington Times)
    "There is nothing routine about a trip to the bank in Baghdad."
    
    "Confronted by criminal gangs on the streets and demands for bribes from tellers in the branches -- not to mention long lines, shortages of bank notes, and other inconveniences -- many Iraqis are opting simply to keep their savings at home." 02-07
    
    
38. -02-26-07 The "Fear Industrial Complex" (ABC News)
    Barry Glassner, author of "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things," said the fear industrial complex is composed of politicians, activist groups and corporations that all sell us on the idea that they can provide safety from the very dangers they are scaring us about."
    
    " 'Whenever somebody's trying to scare us, the question to ask is 'Are they benefiting from it, and in what way?' " said Glassner. 'If they're selling us a product, if they're selling us their political campaign or their cause or whatever it is, we should ask how big is the danger, really? Is it big, is it small, or is it just that they stand to benefit by making us scared?' " 02-07
    
    
39. -02-26-07 Woodruff, Injured in Iraq, Looks at the Human Cost of War (ABC News)
    "From chilling accounts of the roadside attack in Iraq that nearly took his life, to a shocking investigation into the plight of military families dealing with injuries to their loved ones, Bob Woodruff returns to ABC News Tuesday night with a hard-hitting look at the human cost of war."
    
    "Woodruff says that he and others at ABC News will continue to report on this story because 'the human cost of war is sometimes overlooked,' and injured veterans 'need support that matches their sacrifice.' " 02-07
    
    
40. -03-02-07 Army Secretary Fired in Veterans Scandal (CBS News)
    "Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." 02-07
    
    
41. -03-02-07 Gabbard Was a First, In Life and Death (CBS News)
    "In both life and death, Marilyn Gabbard was a first. She was the highest-ranking enlisted woman in the history of the Iowa National Guard, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports — and the first woman from there to die in combat." 03-07
    
    
42. -03-03-07 Scientist: We Are on the Path to a Catastrophe (CBS News)
    According to Michael MacCracken, chief scientist of the Climate Institute, " 'We're on a path to exceeding levels of global warming that will cause catastrophic consequences, and we really need to be seriously reducing emissions, not just reducing the growth rate as the president is doing.' " 03-07
    
    
43. -03-03-07 Value of Top Financial Firms Drops (Bloomberg.com)
    "Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Morgan Stanley, which earned a record $24.5 billion in 2006, suddenly have become so speculative that their own traders are valuing the three biggest securities firms as barely more creditworthy than junk bonds." 03-07
    
    
44. -03-05-07 Faith-Based Initiative Challenged in Supreme Court (Christian Science Monitor)
    "If you follow the normal rules that you have to be injured in some direct way before you can complain about what the government has done, the [prohibition against the] establishment [of religion] clause would never get enforced in the courts, Lupu says. "The government would put up crčches and crosses and menorahs and would spend money on religion, and nobody could challenge it because nobody is hurt in obvious ways by those kinds of activities.' "
    
    "Had the courts consistently enforced the rule on standing, establishment-clause cases filed by ordinary Americans would be rare to nonexistent. But in 1968 the Supreme Court carved out an exception that allows taxpayers to file establishment-clause lawsuits challenging congressional spending that benefits religion."
    
    "It is that 1968 exception that is at the center of Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. The Hein in the case is Jay Hein, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives." 03-07
    
    
45. -03-05-07 Generals Apologize for Reed Army Hospital Care for Injured Soldiers (PBS News)
    "Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was recently fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley apologized for substandard outpatient care at the medical center and vowed to improve the system at a House hearing Monday." Also see Iraq Veterans 03-07
    
    
46. -03-05-07 Grand Canyon Skywalk Near Completion (MSNBC News)
    "The concrete and steel pathway is being paved with 90 tons of toughened glass. It will be cantilevered 70 feet out over the lip of the rim to offer steely-nerved visitors a dizzying glimpse of the Colorado River valley almost a mile beneath their feet." 03-07
    
    
47. -03-05-07 Veterans Hospitals Unprepared to Treat Brain Injuries of Returning Soldiers (PBS News)
    "The Veterans Administration is unprepared to care for brain-injured Iraq war veterans once they leave rehabilitation centers and return home to VA hospitals, a new documentary reports. An advocate and the VA secretary discuss treating the injuries." Also see Iraq Veterans. 03-07
    
    
48. -03-06-07 Proposed Legislation Requires President to Gain Approval Before Going to War With Iran (Washington Times)
    "Freshman Sen. James H. Webb Jr. yesterday introduced legislation to force President Bush to seek congressional authorization before using force against Iran."
    
    "He said the measure is meant to restore a system of legislative checks on executive power that he thinks Mr. Bush has skirted since Congress approved the Iraq war in October 2002. Though Mr. Webb wants troops to come home from Iraq as soon as possible, he noted Congress' inability to block funding U.S. forces in that conflict." 03-07
    
    
49. -03-06-07 Vice-President's Former Chief of Staff Found Guilty (ABC News)
    "Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff is now a convicted felon."
    
    "I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby has been found guilty of four of five charges in the CIA leak case stemming from a three-year investigation and trial that revealed the innermost workings of the top levels at the Bush White House."
    
    "A jury found Libby guilty of charges claiming he lied to the FBI and a grand jury, and obstructed justice." 03-07
    
    
50. -03-07-07 The Battle Over Fired U.S. Attorneys (Christian Science Monitor)
    "The Bush administration's controversial firing of eight US attorneys sets up a major clash between the White House and the new Congress, as Democrats step up efforts to rein in new presidential powers."
    
    "At issue is whether the Justice Department's decision to replace these top federal prosecutors was a political purge and, if so, what Congress can do about it." 03-07
    
    
51. -03-08-07 Democrats: Bring Troops Home Next Year (CBS News)
    "House Democratic leaders vowed Thursday to pass legislation setting a deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, a challenge to President Bush's war policy that drew a blunt veto threat in return."
    
    "To make the overall measure more attractive politically, Democrats also intend to add $1.2 billion to Mr. Bush's request for military operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is expected to mount a spring offensive."
    
    "CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss reports the bill also includes a prohibition of any war against Iran unless Congress approves it first, a bar against torture, and more money for military and veterans' health care than the administration asked for."
    
    "As described by Democrats, the legislation will require Mr. Bush to certify by July 1 and again by Oct. 1. whether the Iraqi government is making progress toward providing for the country's security, allocating its oil revenues and creating a fair system for amending its constitution." 03-07
    
    
52. -03-08-07 Democrats: Bring Troops Home Next Year (Guardian Unlimited)
    Provides a British view of the proposed legislation. "If Congress approves the plan [to redeploy American troops in Iraq], Mr Bush faces a dilemma: he could veto the bill, but would then be without the funds to prosecute war. Although he has alternative sources, he would struggle to find $100bn. He appears intent on the US remaining in Iraq, at least until he leaves office in January 2009."
    
    "In their proposal, the Democrats suggest that the withdrawal deadline should be brought forward if the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, fails to deliver on promises to deploy more Iraqi troops and taking steps to reduce sectarian violence." 03-07
    
    
53. -03-09-07 FBI Illegally Used the Patriot Act (CBS News)
    The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday."
    
    "At issue are the security letters, a power outlined in the Patriot Act that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The letters, or administrative subpoenas, are used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers — without a judge's approval."
    
    
54. -03-12-07 "No EMail" Fridays (ABC News)
    " 'I'm announcing a ban on e-mail every Friday,' Ellison's memo read. 'Get out to meet your teams face-to-face. Pick up the phone and give someone a call. … I look forward to not hearing from any of you, but stop by as often as you like.' "
    
    "The no-e-mail-Friday idea landed with a thud." 03-07
    
    
55. -03-13-07 Controversy Over the Firing of Federal Attorneys (MSNBC News)
    "Justice Department officials, led by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told lawmakers under oath that the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys in December was made solely by the Justice Department and said the decision was based on performance, not politics."
    
    "E-mails released Tuesday, however, revealed that the firings were considered and discussed for two years by Justice Department and White House officials." 03-07
    
    
56. -03-13-07 Poll: Bush Not Doing Enough for Iraq Veterans (CBS News)
    "After a week of Congressional hearings investigating reports of shoddy treatment of veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, most Americans are critical of the Bush administration's efforts for the wounded soldiers returning from the Iraq War, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds." 03-07
    
    
57. -03-15-07 Pentagon: Mastermind of September 11 Attack Confessed (CNN News)
    "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, admitted to those attacks and numerous others during a U.S. military hearing on Saturday, according to an edited transcript of the hearing released by the Pentagon Wednesday." 03-07
    
    
58. -03-17-07 CIA Agent Plame: Outed for 'Political Reasons' (MSNBC News)
    "Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose outing led to the conviction of a top Bush Administration official, told Congress on Friday she believes her identity was disclosed for 'purely political reasons.' "
    
    "Plame, whose outing triggered a federal investigation, answered questions for the first time. She said that she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments but said she was surprised to be identified by her own government. 'My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department,' Plame testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 'I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained.' " 03-07
    
    
59. -03-17-07 Civilian Deaths from War in Iraq Hard to Calculate (BBC News)
    "More than 3,400 soldiers from the coalition have died so far, but US forces do not keep complete records of civilians killed in the conflict."
    
    "Nor does the Iraqi government have a precise figure, although estimates from the health ministry in November 2006 ranged from 100,000 to 150,000 dead."
    
    "This contrasts with a survey of Iraqi households published by the Lancet, which suggested that about 655,000 Iraqi deaths had occurred "as a consequence of the war", by July 2006. " 03-07
    
    
60. -03-18-07 Senior Officials: Abusive Interrogations Continued in Gitmo (MSNBC News)
    "Speaking publicly for the first time, senior U.S. law enforcement investigators say they waged a long but futile battle inside the Pentagon to stop coercive and degrading treatment of detainees by intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
    
    "In the end, the law enforcement investigators said, they were not able to stop abusive interrogations, but they were able to slow them." 03-07
    
    
61. -03-18-07 The True Costs of War in Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "But even though the war has turned out to be much more expensive than Bush administration officials predicted on the eve of the March 2003 invasion, it is relatively affordable — at least in historical terms."
    
    "Iraq eats up less than 1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, compared with as much as 14 percent for Vietnam and 9 percent for Korea."
    
    "In a study co-authored with Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Bilmes estimated that the real price of the Iraq war, when you add up spending to date, future costs and economic impacts such as elevated oil prices, is well over $2 trillion." 03-07
    
    
62. -03-19-07 California Moves Its Primary to February (PBS News)
    "After much speculation, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger officially moved the state's primary to Feb. 5, adding the delegate-rich behemoth to the list of states vying for more influence in the presidential nomination process." 03-07
    
    
63. -03-19-07 Public Support for War in Iraq Sliding Faster (Christian Science Monitor)
    "As the nation takes stock of a war it embarked on four years ago Tuesday, those who regret that decision now outnumber supporters by 14 percentage points. Accelerating the slide, say opinion analysts, were bipartisan criticisms of US war policy by the Iraq Study Group and concerns that the mission has been obscured by civil war." 03-07
    
    
64. -03-20-07 Japan Vows to Lead in Fight Against Global Warming (USA Today)
    "Japan aims to play a leading role in the post-Kyoto battle on global warming and will seek the full engagement of the USA and China, the world's top two polluters, officials said Tuesday."
    
    "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will ask his cabinet ministers to develop a package of proposals to present to next year's Group of Eight summit of world leaders which Japan will host, they said." 03-07
    
    
65. -03-20-07 Malaria-Resistant Mosquito Developed (CBS News)
    "Researchers have developed a malaria-resistant mosquito, a step that might one day help block the spread of an illness that has claimed millions of lives around the world." 03-07
    
    
66. -03-20-07 Postal Rates Set to Rise on May 14th (USA Today)
    "Americans will pay 2 cents more to mail a first-class letter beginning May 14, but they will be able to buy a new type of stamp that could shield them from future price increases." 03-07
    
    
67. -03-21-07 House Panel Votes to Supoena Bush Aides in Firings (MSBC News)
    "A House panel on Wednesday defied the White House and authorized subpoenas for President Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove and other top aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors."
    
    "By voice vote and without objection, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president’s top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings." 03-07
    
    
68. -03-21-07 Senate Revokes Bush's Authority to Replace Attorneys Without Approval (International Herald Tribune)
    "The Senate voted overwhelmingly today to revoke the authority it granted the Bush administration last year to name federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation."
    
    "By a vote of 94 to 2, the Senate restored the previous system for naming federal prosecutors." 03-07
    
    
69. -03-23-07 Documents Show the Attorney General Approved Firings (MSBC News)
    "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals." 03-07
    
    
70. -03-23-07 Report: Iraq's Humanitarian Crisis (MSBC News)
    "A new investigation obtained by NBC News says there is another humanitarian crisis in Iraq — displaced people inside the country — and gives the United States and United Nations failing grades for helping them with their most basic needs."
    
    " 'The future is dark, not only for my children, it is for the next generation if the situation stays the same,' Ghazi says."
    
    "Now they are among 1.9 million Iraqis displaced in their own land — in effect, by ethnic cleansing." 03-07
    
    
71. -03-25-07 Republican Support for Attorney General Erodes (MSBC News)
    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "has said he participated in no discussions and saw no memos about plans to carry out the firings on Dec. 7 that Democrats contend were politically motivated."
    
    "His schedule, however, shows he attended at least one hourlong meeting, on Nov. 27, where he approved a detailed plan to execute the prosecutors’ firings."
    
    "To Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Gonzales 'does have a credibility problem. ... We govern with one currency, and that’s trust. And that trust is all important. And when you lose or debase that currency, then you can’t govern. And I think he’s going to have some difficulties.' " 03-07
    
    
72. -03-29-07 Senate Votes to Withdraw Troops from the Civil War in Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "Senate Democrats ignored a veto threat and pushed through a bill Thursday requiring President Bush to start withdrawing troops from 'the civil war in Iraq,' dealing a rare, sharp rebuke to a wartime commander in chief." 03-07
    
    
73. -04-01-07 Fred Thompson, Actor, Likely to Run for President (MSNBC - Newsweek)
    "It looks as if Fred Thompson is getting ready to run for president. Friends of the former Tennessee senator turned actor (anonymous to protect their relationship) say he's increasingly tempted to enter the 2008 Republican primaries, fueled in part by new polls that show he's got a serious shot at the White House. A Gallup poll released last week found Thompson ranked No. 3 behind front runners Rudy Giuliani and John McCain with 12 percent support among Republicans—all before he's even formally launched a campaign." 04-07
    
    
74. -04-01-07 New Mark Set in Raising Funds for President (MSNBC News)
    "Shattering previous records, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton collected $26 million for her presidential campaign during the first three months of the year and transferred an additional $10 million from her Senate fundraising account, aides said Sunday." 04-07
    
    
75. -04-02-07 Democrats Lead With Budget Bill (Christian Science Monitor)
    "Before leaving town last week, the House and Senate passed plans to spend nearly $3 trillion in the next fiscal year."
    
    "At the heart of the new budget documents is commitment by both the House and Senate to get back to pay-as-you-go rules, which require lawmakers to find offsets for new spending or new tax cuts." 04-07
    
    
76. -04-02-07 Supreme Court Rejects Bush's Position on Pollution (ABC News)
    "For the first time in its history, the U.S. Supreme Court has waded into the political debate on global warming."
    
    "Under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA has argued that carbon dioxide and the like aren't pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and therefore, the agency has no power to regulate them."
    
    "In a sweeping 5-4 decision released Monday, the Supreme Court rejected that position, declaring that Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars." 04-07
    
    
77. -04-08-07 Military Commanders: More Time Needed to Determine Success (MSNBC News)
    "While Washington appears headed toward a political endgame on Iraq, with the White House and Congress sparring over benchmarks and pullout dates, the war on the ground is at an ebb tide. All sides -- including U.S. military strategists and Iraqi sectarian leaders and insurgents, as well as regional players such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- are waiting to see whether the new U.S. approach to make the Iraqi capital safer will work. Soldiers on the ground tend to see the Washington debate as irrelevant, and the perspective of many politicians in Washington is that the military schedule is simply too slow." 04-07
    
    
78. -04-08-07 Washington Post: Questionable Decisions of Bush Administration Exposed (MSNBC News)
    "The selection of [Bernard B.] Kerik in December 2004 for one of the most sensitive posts in government became an acute but brief embarrassment for Bush at the start of his second term. More than two years later, it has reemerged as part of a federal criminal investigation of Kerik that raises questions about the decisions made by the president, the Republican front-runner to replace him and the embattled attorney general." 04-07
    
    
79. -04-10-07 Is the "Surge" in Baghdad Working? (New York Times)
    New York Times reporters comment that "there is little sign that the Baghdad push is accomplishing its main purpose: to create an island of stability in which Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds can try to figure out how to run the country together. There has been no visible move toward compromise on the main dividing issues, like regional autonomy and more power sharing between Shiites and Sunnis."
    
    "For American troops, Baghdad has become a deadlier battleground as they have poured into the capital to confront Sunni and Shiite militias on their home streets. The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period, though it has stayed roughly the same over all, decreasing in other parts of the country as troops have focused on the capital." 04-07
    
    
80. -04-13-07 Controversy Grows for Wolfowitz at the World Bank (New York Times)
    "Paul D. Wolfowitz’s tenure as president of the World Bank was thrown into turmoil on Thursday by the disclosure that he had helped arrange a pay raise for his companion at the time of her transfer from the bank to the State Department, where she remained on the bank payroll."
    
    "The events injected a new ugliness into what had already been a bitter rift between Mr. Wolfowitz and many of the bank’s employees, who have questioned his suitability for the job as a former deputy secretary of defense and architect of the Iraq war, and have challenged many of his policies at the bank, especially those cracking down on corruption in which he suspended aid to several countries without consulting the board." 04-07
    
    
81. -04-14-07 Evidence Revealed of Possible U.S. War Crimes During Korean Conflict (CBS News)
    "Six years after declaring the U.S. killing of Korean War refugees at No Gun Ri was 'not deliberate,' the Army has acknowledged it found but did not divulge that a high-level document said the U.S. military had a policy of shooting approaching civilians in South Korea."
    
    "When asked last year, the Pentagon didn't address the central question of whether U.S. investigators had seen the document before issuing their No Gun Ri report. Ex-Army Secretary Louis Caldera suggested to The Associated Press that Army researchers may have missed it."
    
    The document said: " 'If refugees do appear from north of U.S. lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot,' the ambassador told Rusk, cautioning that these shootings might cause 'repercussions in the United States.' Deliberately attacking noncombatants is a war crime." 04-07
    
    
82. -04-14-07 U. S. Marshalls Serving in Iraq (USA Today)
    "In the 21st century, the nation's first lawmen have a broad global mission, capturing fugitives, protecting judges, running the Witness Protection Program, and even training Iraqis." 04-07
    
    
83. -04-15-07 Testing for Hidden Racial Bias (MSNBC News)
    "While Don Imus has apologized for his racial slurs, he insists he’s not a racist. But is it possible that virtually all of us have a hidden racial bias, hidden even from ourselves? Several years ago Dateline brought together two groups of volunteers, African-American and white, who agreed to take a test, scientifically designed to answer just that question." 04-07
    
    
84. -04-16-07 Legal Conflict Between Executive and Legislative Branches of Government? (Christian Science Monitor)
    "Whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remains in his job or not, the furor over fired US prosecutors seems set to continue for weeks to come."
    
    "The matter of the prosecutors has thus expanded from a narrow inquiry into a multiheaded investigation that could result in direct legal conflict between the legislative and executive branches of the US government." 04-07
    
    
85. -04-16-07 U.S. Soldier to Be Tried in Italy for Murder (BBC News)
    "A US soldier is due to be tried in a Rome court with the murder of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq in March 2005."
    
    "The agent, Nicola Calipari, was shot dead on his way to Baghdad airport."
    
    "He was escorting Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who had just been freed by kidnappers." 04-07
    
    
86. -04-18-07 At Least 183 Killed in Baghdad Explosions (MSNBC)
    "Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed at least 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago." 04-07
    
    
87. -04-18-07 Attorney General Contradicts His Own Testimony (ABC)
    "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned." 04-07
    
    
88. -04-18-07 Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Some Abortions (MSNBC)
    "The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench." 04-07
    
    
89. -04-19-07 How Smart Mobs Coped With a Massacre (MSNBC News)
    "College’s response to tragedy illustrated how wired world now works."
    
    "The way students and teachers passed along information during the Virginia Tech massacre — via cellphone videos and campus-watching Webcams, via text messages and Web bulletin boards — demonstrates how the wired world has changed in the 21st century, one of the prophets of the new age says." 04-07
    
    
90. -04-19-07 Report: Iraq's Oil Reserves May Be Double of Former Estimates (MSNBC News)
    "Iraq’s oil reserves could be nearly twice as large as previously estimated, containing more than 200 billion barrels, a new analysis of the war-torn country’s oil resources says." 04-07
    
    
91. -04-19-07 Senate Grills Attorney General (MSNBC News)
    "His job in jeopardy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted Thursday he played only a small role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. Skeptical senators reacted with disbelief."
    
    " 'We have to evaluate whether you are really being forthright,' Sen. Arlen Specter bluntly informed the nation's chief law enforcement officer."
    
    "The Pennsylvania Republican said Gonzales' description was 'significantly if not totally at variance with the facts.' " 04-07
    
    
92. -04-20-07 A Breach in Nuclear Security (Time Magazine)
    "New Mexico police got more than they bargained for last fall when they responded to a call about a domestic dispute in a trailer park near Los Alamos National Laboratory. Not only had they stumbled on paraphernalia for making the drug crystal meth; they also found thousands of pages of highly classified documents detailing the designs of U.S. nuclear weapons." 04-07
    
    
93. -04-21-07 Out-Sourcing the CIA (Time Magazine)
    "President Bush and Senate Republicans say they object to the Democrats' draft authorization because of provisions like making the overall intelligence budget public and creating a statutory inspector general for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Bush said last Thursday that unless these and other provisions that add Congressional oversight of the intelligence community are stripped from the authorization, he will veto it."
    
    "But does anyone seriously believe Osama bin Laden would be deterred from attacking the United States if he found out we are spending more on intelligence than everyone thinks? I called around to check with my former colleagues. 'Who cares whether the intelligence budget is $25 or $75 billion?' a recently retired CIA officer told me, bringing up only one real problem that bothers him. 'The entire budget is being flushed down the drain — into contractors' pockets.' "
    
    "He has a point. With contractors rumored to make up 50-60% of the CIA's workforce it is difficult to tell who is running the place." 07-06
    
    
94. -04-22-07 Albuquerque Journal: Senator Asked Bush to Fire New Mexico Attorney General (Albuquerque Journal)
    "Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned."
    
    "Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort."
    
    "In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out."
    
    "Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president." 04-07
    
    
95. -04-22-07 The Anatomy of Violence (MSNBC News)
    "Pathological genes, a disturbed mind, social isolation and a gun culture are not enough. Mass murderers also need the individual will to pull the trigger." 07-06
    
    
96. -04-25-07 Americans Siding With Dems Against Bush (MSNBC News)
    "As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats." 04-07
    
    
97. -04-25-07 Congress and President in a Constitutional Confrontation on Iraq War (Christian Science Monitor)
    "In a move that both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have anticipated for weeks, Congress and President Bush are heading into their first direct confrontation over funding the Iraq war."
    
    "At the heart of the dispute is a tension locked into the Constitution over who directs a war. As commander in chief, Bush says that he and generals on the ground determine the deployment of US forces, not members of Congress."
    
    "Democrats say that Congress must use its war-funding powers to force the president to change course on a war that most Americans no longer support."
    
    " 'Congress has a right to do what it's doing. We still have civilian supremacy in this country, which still includes Congress,' says Louis Fisher, an expert on presidential war powers at the Library of Congress." 04-07
    
    
98. -04-25-07 House Approves Supoena for the Secretary of State (MSNBC News)
    "In rapid succession, congressional committees Wednesday ramped up their investigations of the Bush administration by approving a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and granting immunity to a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales." 04-07
    
    
99. -04-25-07 House Passes Bill With Deadlines for Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "A sharply divided House brushed aside a veto threat Wednesday and passed legislation that would order President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1."
    
    "Passage puts the bill on track to clear Congress by week’s end and arrive on the president’s desk in coming days as the first binding congressional challenge to Bush’s handling of the conflict now in its fifth year." 04-07
    
    
100. -04-25-07 Senate Passes Bill With Deadlines for Iraq (BBC News)
     "The US Senate has voted to approve a bill which requires US troops to start withdrawing from Iraq by October." 04-07
     
     
101. -04-27-07 Former CIA Chief Claims No Known Serious Debate Before Invading Iraq (MSNBC News)
     "The book is highly critical of Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials, who Tenet argues rushed the United States into war in Iraq without serious debate — a charge the White House rejected Friday. Beyond that, he contends, the administration failed to adequately consider what would come in the war’s aftermath." 04-07
     
     
102. -04-28-07 Political Meetings at Federal Agencies Disclosed (MSNBC News)
     "The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said."
     
     "The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable."
     
     "Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes." 04-07
     
     
103. -04-28-07 U.S. Failed to Use Most of the Aid from Allies for Katrina Victims (MSNBC News)
     "Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent."
     
     "In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted." 04-07
     
     
104. -05-01-07 Bush Vetoes Iraq Spending Bill (MSNBC News)
     "President Bush used his veto pen for only the second time Tuesday after Congress sent him a war spending bill that would impose timelines to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, which he called a 'prescription for chaos.' "
     
     " 'With one stroke of his pen, President Bush has stubbornly ignored the will of the American people, the majority of Congress and, most disturbingly, the realities on the ground in Iraq,' said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill." 05-07
     
     
105. -05-01-07 Discussion of George Tenet's Book on Invading Iraq (PBS News)
     David Boren, former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee: "And it reminds me of just the opposite sort of situation we faced during the first Gulf War, when I went down to the White House to talk to the first President Bush. And I remember saying, 'Why don't we go on in? We pushed Saddam out of Kuwait. Why don't we go into Iraq right now?' "
     
     "He said three things: First, Senator, what's your exit strategy? Second, he said, Let's think about the Kurds, the Shias, the Sunnis. Let's think about the civil war that might take place. Let's worry about upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East and strengthening countries like Iran versus other friends and allies of ours in the region."
     
     "And, you know, that was the kind of thoughtful discussion that took place then. And what really comes across in this book [by the former Director of the CIA] is the absence of that kind of thoughtful discussion this time around."
     
     Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst: "He [George Tenet] was an excellent Senate staffer to Senator Boren. He did an excellent job on the Senate Intelligence Committee. But as a director of Central Intelligence, responsible for being the Dutch uncle to tell presidents and vice presidents uncomfortable truths, on that he failed, failed miserably, and American soldiers have paid a bloody price because of it." 05-07
     
     
106. -05-02-07 Congress and Bush in Stalemate Over Iraq (MSNBC News)
     "President Bush's veto of an Iraq war spending bill that set timelines for U.S. troop withdrawals puts new pressure on Democrats in Congress to craft a compromise even as their caucus grows more fractious on the topic."
     
     "[House leader] Pelosi, who was to join Republican and Democratic leaders from both houses in a meeting with Bush on Wednesday, told reporters after Bush's remarks: 'The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him."
     
     "Democrats will work with the White House, she said, "but there is great distance between us right now.' " 05-07
     
     
107. -05-05-07 Former Supervisor of Prosecutors Contradicts Attorney General (MSNBC News)
     "A former deputy attorney general lavished praise yesterday on most of the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired after he left the job, testifying that only one of them had serious performance problems."
     
     "The testimony from Comey, a highly regarded former prosecutor who is now general counsel for Lockheed Martin, further undermines claims by Gonzales and his aides that dissatisfaction with the prosecutors' work led to their dismissals. It also underscores the extent to which the firings, which originated in the White House, were handled outside the normal chain of command at Justice."
     
     "Top Justice officials first said that all but one of the prosecutors were fired for performance issues, but documents released by the department later showed that perceived loyalty to Bush and his policies was a major factor and that most had good job reviews." 05-07
     
     
108. -05-05-07 Poll: Bush Hits a New Low (MSNBC News)
     "It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him." 05-07
     
     
109. -05-11-07 House Votes for Funding War on an Installment Plan (MSNBC News)
     "The Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday night to pay for military operations in Iraq on an installment plan, defying President Bush’s threat of a second straight veto in a fierce test of wills over the unpopular war." 05-07
     
     
110. -05-11-07 Poll: Congress and Bush Share Low Approval (MSNBC News)
     "People think the Democratic-led Congress is doing just as dreary a job as President Bush, following four months of bitter political standoffs that have seen little progress on Iraq and a host of domestic issues." 05-07
     
     
111. -05-11-07 Resurgent Dallas to Have a New Mayor (New York Times)
     "Now the question is who will lead a resurgent Dallas. After five turbulent years, Laura Miller, perhaps the nation’s only investigative reporter turned big-city mayor, is not running again, setting off a wild scramble to head the nation’s ninth-largest metropolis, long troubled by crime, scandals, racial polarization and government gridlock." 05-07
     
     
112. -05-11-07 Stamp Prices Jump 2 Cents to 41 Cents (MSNBC News)
     "It will cost a bit more to mail letters and parcels starting Monday [May 14th, 2007]. A first-class letter will go up 2 cents to 41 cents." 05-07
     
     
113. -05-14-07 Congress and White House Negotiate on Conditions for War Funding (Christian Science Monitor)
     "It's almost 100 days after President Bush requested emergency funds for the Iraq war, and Congress and the White House are converging on a deal that includes benchmarks for progress for the Iraqi government, including a national oil law and provincial elections." 05-07
     
     
114. -05-14-07 Wolfowitz May Be Ousted as President of the World Bank (MSNBC News)
     Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president, may become "the first president dismissed in the 62-year history of the [World] Bank if its board of directors votes him out this week. Last week a special committee declared that he violated ethics rules by setting up his female companion, Bank employee Shaha Riza, in a high-paid State Department post. He is accused of doing this and then launching an internal-corruption probe, a seemingly hypocritical act that has many on the Bank's 10,000-person staff calling for his resignation." 05-07
     
     
115. -05-15-07 Moral Majority Founder Falwell Dies (MSNBC News)
     "The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73." 05-07
     
     
116. -05-15-07 New Position of "War Czar" Filled (MSNBC News)
     "President Bush has chosen Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the Pentagon's director of operations, to oversee the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a 'war czar' after a long search for new leadership, administration officials said Tuesday."
     
     "The White House has sought a war coordinator to eliminate conflicts among the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies. Lute will seek to cut through bureaucracy and deliver fast responses when requests come in from U.S. military commanders and ambassadors." 05-07
     
     
117. -05-15-07 Two Key Members of Bush Administration Resign (MSNBC News)
     "In a blow to the Bush administration, the deputy attorney general and the only Democrat on the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board have resigned." 05-07
     
     
118. -05-17-07 Minorities Now One-Third of U.S. Population (MSNBC News)
     "The number of people in the United States from ethnic or racial minorities has risen to more than 100 million, or around one third of the population, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday." 05-07
     
     
119. -05-17-07 Wolfowitz Resigns (Financial Times)
     "Paul Wolfowitz announced his resignation as president of the World Bank shortly after 6pm on Thursday, bringing to an end a turbulent two-year tenure as chief of the world’s leading development institution."
     
     "This follows the publication of a devastating report Monday into his handling of a secondment package for Shaha Riza, a bank official with whom he was romantically involved.
     
     "The report found that Mr Wolfowitz had broken the bank’s code of conduct, three staff rules and the terms of his contract." 05-07
     
     
120. -06-06-07 Democratic Debate: Is America Safer Now? (New York Times)
     "The Bush administration’s efforts to thwart terrorism at home have created a fissure among the three leading Democratic presidential candidates, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton coming under attack for saying that America is safer now than before 9/11 — contrary to a popular line of argument among some Democratic officials." 06-07
     
     
121. -06-07-07 Congress Passes Bill Supporting Stem Cell Research (MSNBC News)
     "The Democratic-controlled Congress passed legislation Thursday to loosen restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, but the bill’s supporters lacked the votes needed to override President Bush’s threatened veto." 06-07
     
     
122. -06-11-07 Bush Cannot Order Indefinite Military Detention (BBC News)
     "President George W Bush cannot order the indefinite military detention of a Qatari man accused of being an al-Qaeda agent, a US appeals court has ruled."
     
     " 'To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the president calls them "enemy combatants", would have disastrous consequences for the constitution - and the country,' the court opinion said." 06-07
     
     
123. -06-12-07 Cheap, Deadly Form of Heroin Aimed at Teens (CNN News)
     "A cheap, highly addictive drug known as 'cheese heroin' has killed 21 teenagers in the Dallas area over the past two years, and authorities say they are hoping they can stop the fad before it spreads across the nation."
     
     " 'Cheese heroin' is a blend of so-called black tar Mexican heroin and crushed over-the-counter medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, found in products such as Tylenol PM, police say. The sedative effects of the heroin and the nighttime sleep aids make for a deadly brew." 06-07
     
     
124. -06-14-07 Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger, Environmental Heroes? (Christian Science Monitor)
     "They're also doing big things. Specifically, they're doing big things that Washington has failed to do. In a time of federal policy paralysis, when partisanship-on-crack has made compromise almost impossible, when President George W. Bush's political adviser is a household name but his domestic policy adviser was unknown even in Washington until he was arrested for shoplifting, cities and states are filling the void. Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger happen to be the best examples of this phenomenon as well as the best known. Bloomberg is 65; the Last Action Hero is turning 60; they've got better things to do than bicker and posture. 'These are two exceptional and forceful guys who don't need the job at all; they had pretty damn good lives before they got into politics,' says their mutual friend Warren Buffett. 'They're in office to get things done. And they're doing that a lot better than anyone in D.C.' " 06-07
     
     
125. -06-14-07 Immigration Bill Revived (CBS News)
     "Key senators tentatively agreed on a plan to revive a stalled immigration bill on Thursday, aided by President Bush's support for a quick $4.4 billion aimed at 'securing our borders and enforcing our laws at the work site.' " 06-07
     
     
126. -06-15-07 Army Chief Was Forced Out (BBC News)
     "The US military's outgoing top commander, Gen Peter Pace, says he opposed the decision to replace him at the end of his first term." 06-07
     
     
127. -06-17-07 British Prime Minister Knew US Had No Post-War Plan (Guardian Unlimited)
     "Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, told The Observer: 'These frank admissions that the Prime Minister was aware of the inadequacies of the preparations for post-conflict Iraq are a devastating indictment.' "
     
     "Within a year Britain lost any hope of a proper reconstruction in Iraq when post-war planning was handed to the Pentagon at the beginning of 2003."
     
     "The failure to prepare meant that Iraq quickly fell apart. Greenstock adds: 'I just felt it was slipping away from us really, from the beginning. There was no security force controlling the streets. There was no police force to speak of.' " 06-07
     
     
128. -06-17-07 Interview With Iraq's Prime Minister Maliki (MSNBC News)
     "In a candid interview, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki talks about his struggles, relationship with President Bush and nation's future." 06-07
     
     
129. -06-17-07 States Preempt Federal Government on Immigration (Christian Science Monitor)
     "Frustrated by federal inaction, state and local governments are passing laws at a record pace." 06-07
     
     
130. -06-18-07 Democrats Propose to Support Renewable Fuels (New York Times)
     "Senate Democrats are seeking a major reversal of energy tax policies that would take billions of dollars in tax breaks and other benefits from the oil industry to underwrite renewable fuels." 06-07
     
     
131. -06-19-07 Bloomberg Switches Parties (CBS News)
     "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg switched his party status from Republican to unaffiliated Tuesday, WCBS-TV reports, a move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race." 06-07
     
     
132. -06-22-07 Court Gives Email Privacy Protection (Time Magazine)
     "In a startling decision this week, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ordered the feds to keep their mitts off e-mail stored with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like Yahoo! unless they notify the sender first or show that he doesn't consider the e-mail private. The ruling was based on the conclusion that most people think e-mail, like letters or phone conversations, is private, and protected under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable government searches and seizures."
     
     "That seems a pretty fair conclusion, but the amazing thing is that no court has ever reached it before. In other words, we've been living under a legal regime that essentially assumes we don't much care if, say, Alberto Gonzales sees our e-mails after they leave our outbox. So for a federal appeals court to upend that regime is a big deal, as experts like Professor Orin Kerr at George Washington University Law School will tell you."
     
     " 'If this case sticks around,' says Kerr, 'it's the most important decision involving the Fourth Amendment in a long time for new technologies.' " 06-07
     
     
133. -06-22-07 Psychological Trauma to U.S. Troops Rising (Guardian Unlimited)
     "Mr Gates was responding to concern by a Pentagon mental health taskforce report that incidence of psychological trauma is rising with prolonged combat duty: 38% of regular soldiers, 31% of marines, 49% of national guard, and 43% of marine reservists had symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems within three months of returning from active duty." 06-07
     
     
134. -06-27-07 Elizabeth Edwards vs Ann Coulter (MSNBC News)
     The wife of Presidential candidate John Edwards called in to "Hardball" to talk to Ann Coulter, a conservative commentator. "[Elizabeth] Edwards: You wrote a column a couple years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean's death, and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said ask me about my dead son. This is not legitimate political dialogue."
     
     "Coulter: Yeah why isn't John Edwards making this call?"
     
     "Edwards: I'm making this call as a mother. I'm the mother of that boy who died. My children participate -- these young people behind you are the age of my children. You're asking them to participate in a dialogue that's based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues and I don't think that's serving them or this country very well." 06-07
     
     
135. -06-27-07 Number 2 at Department of Interior Gets Prison Time (MSNBC News)
     "Former Deputy Interior Secretary James Steven Griles - who pleaded guilty in March to a single felony charge of obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff - was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to 10 months in prison and a fine of $30,000.00." 06-07
     
     
136. -06-27-07 Republican Support for the Iraq War Is Slipping (MSNBC News)
     "Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day."
     
     "After four years of combat and more than 3,560 U.S. deaths, two Republican senators previously reluctant to challenge President Bush on the war announced they could no longer support the deployment of 157,000 troops and asked the president to begin bringing them home." 06-07
     
     
137. -06-27-07 White House and Cheney Subpoenaed on Spying (CBS News)
     "The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years." Visitors sometimes misspell as supenaed or supoenaed. 06-07
     
     
138. -06-28-07 "We're Not Going to Kill Our Way to Victory" (CBS News)
     "Support grows for uprooting terror havens rather than relying on firefights."
     
     "It is not uncommon for a battle-ready Army special forces team to rumble into a remote village and spend most of its time painting mosques, drilling wells and running medical clinics."
     
     " 'It's basically anything that doesn't involve combat operations against terrorists,' said Andrew Feickert, a national defense specialist at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. 'As Admiral Olson has said, we're not going to kill our way to victory.' " 06-07
     
     
139. -06-28-07 Vice President Cheney's Real Power (CBS News)
     "BARTON GELLMAN, The Washington Post: Well, I don't think there's any doubt that he's the most powerful vice president there's been and that he is the dominant player among all the president's advisers and operators in this government wherever he chooses to play. He is influential across a much broader span of government policy than we knew going into this."
     
     "But he is not only clearly the president's closest adviser, what we found is maybe more meaningful, is that, in many cases, he is the one who is sifting the options."
     
     "He's the one who's sort of narrowing down the potential options for the president to a very small number. And so, when the president's deciding, for example, on Supreme Court nominees there are only five names that get to him. And those are the ones that have passed an extensive vetting by Cheney." 06-07
     
     
140. -06-28-07 White House Refuses to Answer Subpoenas (CBS News)
     "President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors." 06-07
     
     
141. -06-29-07 Grading the June Democratic Presidential Debate (Time Magazine)
     Time's Mark Halperin grades the candidates. "Obama and Clinton scored big at a forum focused on America's minority communities. But the most memorable — and odd — performance of the night went to Joe Biden." 06-07
     
     
142. -06-30-07 Poll: More Americans Want the US Out of Iraq (CBS News)
     "A CBS News poll shows Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war, President Bush and the Congress, as well as the overall direction of the country."
     
     "More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going badly, up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it's going very badly." 06-07
     
     
143. -06-30-07 Supreme Court Approves Student's Anti-Bush T-Shirt (CBS News)
     "The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal by the Williamstown school district of a ruling that it violated Guiles' rights by censoring his T-shirt." 06-07
     
     
144. -06-30-07 Supreme Court Rejects School Diversity Plans (Christian Science Monitor)
     "While the race of a student can be one of many characteristics taken into consideration to achieve diversity in the student body, it may not become the predominant criterion that determines which students are admitted to the most popular schools in a district."
     
     "Both of the challenged enrollment plans in Louisville and Seattle attempted to address de facto segregation tied in part to housing patterns. The voluntary desegregation programs were aimed at preventing the school districts from sliding into a starkly segregated environment with minority students isolated in inner-city schools and white students isolated in suburban schools." 06-07
     
     
145. -07-01-07 Obama Reports Record Amount in Donations (CBS News)
     "Sen. Barack Obama reported Sunday raising at least $32.5 million for his presidential campaign from April through June, a record for a Democratic candidate." 07-07
     
     
146. -07-02-07 Bush Spares Cheney's Aide From Prison Sentence (MSNBC News)
     "President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby from a 2˝-year prison term in the CIA leak investigation Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in the highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh." 07-07
     
     
147. -07-02-07 Buy a Hummer, Get a $25,000 Tax Break (ABC News)
     "It's one of the many loopholes buried within the fine print of the tax code: Business owners who purchase heavy luxury SUVs, those weighing over 6,000 pounds, get to take deductions up to $25,000."
     
     "Now some members of Congress are pushing to close the so-called Hummer Tax Loophole. Led by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., the Ways and Means Committee passed an energy bill last week that is expected on the House floor next month." 07-07
     
     
148. -07-02-07 The Golden Conspiracy in California (US News)
     "Each month, three or four steamships set sail from San Francisco loaded with millions of dollars' worth of gold, wealth that fueled the Union's economic engine during the Civil War. Even Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was grateful for California's contribution to the war effort. 'I do not know what we would do in this great national emergency were it not for the gold sent from California,' Grant once wrote. But all that cash could just as easily have gone to the other side. Though most history books glide over the role the West Coast played in the War Between the States, California came very close to being part of the South, a defection that could easily have altered the outcome of the conflict." 07-07
     
     
149. -07-03-07 Life in Iraq: Dating Difficult (Time Magazine)
     "Those still seeking love have fewer places to find it. Many once liberal university campuses are now policed by fanatical Shi'ite student groups associated with the hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They impose strict segregation of the sexes and beat up those who dare to fraternize. Parents concerned about the violence in the streets force their children, especially daughters, to remain indoors. Only the bravest go out for dinner, since restaurants are popular targets for suicide bombers." 07-07
     
     
150. -07-06-07 Court Dismisses Challenge to Domestic Spying (MSNBC News)
     "A federal appeals court ordered the dismissal Friday of a lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue." 07-07
     
     
151. -07-06-07 Live Earth in the USA (BBC News)
     "Washington DC has been added as a venue for the series of Live Earth concerts, organised by former US Vice-President Al Gore to highlight climate change."
     
     "Country couple Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood will be among the artists performing on The Mall in the US capital on Saturday."
     
     "Nine cities will stage gigs, including Sydney, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Hamburg, New Jersey and Rio de Janeiro." 07-07
     
     
152. -07-10-07 Registered Traveler Program Coming to Airports (Christian Science Monitor)
     "The registered traveler program, conceived after 9/11 as a way to speed frequent fliers through airports' long and unpredictable security lines, is finally gaining national momentum."
     
     "Though it isn't expected to be operational in enough airports to ease those jam-packed security lines for this peak flying season, it should help by next summer, when as many as 20 major airports are expected to have special security lanes for registered travelers." 07-07
     
     
153. -07-10-07 Report: Americans Become More "Adult-Centered" (Christian Science Monitor)
     "Americans' child-free years are expanding as empty-nest seniors live longer and more young adults delay – or skip – childbearing. In 1960, nearly half of all households had children under 18. By 2000, the portion had fallen to less than a third, and in a few short years it's projected to drop to a quarter, according to a report from the National Marriage Project." 07-07
     
     
154. -07-11-07 Behind McCain's Campaign Problems (Time Magazine)
     "Every serious candidate for President has his share of difficult days. But few are as horrendous, especially this many months before primary season begins, as the one John McCain suffered through Tuesday. Just an hour before he had to go to the floor of the Senate to defend President Bush's Iraq policy against a growing Republican rebellion, the onetime frontrunner for the GOP nomination accepted the resignation of his top two campaign staffers, manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver." 07-07
     
     
155. -07-11-07 Republican - Behind McCain's Campaign Problems (Time Magazine)
     "Every serious candidate for President has his share of difficult days. But few are as horrendous, especially this many months before primary season begins, as the one John McCain suffered through Tuesday. Just an hour before he had to go to the floor of the Senate to defend President Bush's Iraq policy against a growing Republican rebellion, the onetime frontrunner for the GOP nomination accepted the resignation of his top two campaign staffers, manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver." 07-07
     
     
156. -07-17-07 Tracking Candidate Support on Web Social Networks (TechPresident.com)
     Tracks support of presidential candidates on Facebook.com, MySpace.com, and YouTube.com. 07-07
     
     
157. -07-18-07 Replacing the Head of Veterans Affairs (Time Magazine)
     "President Bush has a job opening for the head of a department with a crushing backlog of work, a sharp increase in demand for services and a battered public image." 07-07
     
     
158. -07-19-07 YouTube.com Users Will Question the Candidates (MSNBC News)
     "In their next debate, Democrats will face video questions from voters." 07-07
     
     
159. -07-19-07 YouTube.com Users Will Question the Candidates (MSNBC News)
     "In their next debate, Democrats will face video questions from voters." 07-07
     
     
160. -07-25-07 Senators Consider Perjury Charges Against U.S. Attorney General (MSNBC News)
     "Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration."
     
     " 'It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,' four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement." 07-07
     
     
161. -07-26-07 FBI Fined for Withholding Evidence of Innocence (MSNBC News)
     "A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence." 07-07
     
     
162. -07-26-07 Spielberg Pressures Chinese on Dafur (ABC News)
     "Steven Spielberg, under pressure from Darfur activists, may quit his post as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, unless China takes a harder line against Sudan, a representative of the film director told ABC News."
     
     "China, Sudan's largest oil customer and perennial defender, has come under renewed scrutiny in the lead up to the Olympics, as the country juggles its need for cheap energy with its desire to host a trouble-free games." 07-07
     
     
163. -07-27-07 Senate Defies Bush on Homeland Security Bill (MSNBC News)
     "The Senate passed the first of 12 spending bills on Thursday night, smashing President Bush’s budget for border control and other homeland security programs."
     
     "The bill also greatly exceeds Bush’s request for homeland security grants to state and local governments for improving disaster planning and training, interoperable radio equipment, and paying for new fire and rescue equipment." 07-07
     
     
164. -07-28-07 Iraq Refuses to Take Over Reconstruction Projects (MSNBC News)
     "The Iraqi government has refused to take control of more than 2,000 U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, a move that could jeopardize the country’s credit line and cost American taxpayers, according to a report by an American watchdog agency."
     
     "The report, which was dated Wednesday, found that no completed projects had been transferred to the national government since June 30, 2006. It said 2,362 completed projects valued at $5.3 billion were pending as of May 31." 07-07
     
     
165. -07-30-07 Foreclosures Rise 58 Percent in 2007 (MSNBC News)
     "The number of U.S. homes facing foreclosure surged 58 percent in the first six months of the year, the latest sign of mounting problems in the mortgage industry, a data firm said Monday." 07-07
     
     
166. -07-31-07 US Credit Woes Ripple Across the Globe (Christian Science Monitor)
     "It's a good thing that the world economy had a head of steam going into this summer, because it now faces financial headwinds made in the USA."
     
     "On Monday, shares of the German industrial bank IKB plummeted as the bank announced its earnings would be hit hard by the rising default rate of American subprime home loans." 07-07
     
     
167. -08-01-07 Behind the Surveillance Debate (MSNBC News)
     "A federal judge's secret ruling restricting the intelligence community's surveillance powers helped spur a Capitol Hill bid to grant Bush new authority." 08-07
     
     
168. -08-01-07 Elections Officials Face New Rules (MSNBC News)
     "The state officials who run the nation’s elections — most with little oversight — are facing new efforts to limit what have been widely criticized as political and financial conflicts of interest." 08-07
     
     
169. -08-03-07 Interview with the Speaker of the House (PBS.org)
     "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has faced criticism over the Democrats' inability to force change on the Iraq war. In an interview, she talks about the Democratic war strategy and other issues." 08-07
     
     
170. -08-03-07 Senate Votes to Expand Eavesdropping Power (MSNBC News)
     "The Senate, in a high-stakes showdown over national security, voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists without court warrants."
     
     "The House, meanwhile, rejected a Democratic version of the bill." 08-07
     
     
171. -08-04-07 House Passes Changes to Spy Program (New York Times)
     "Under pressure from President Bush, the House on Saturday gave final approval to changes in a terrorist surveillance program despite serious objections from many Democrats about the scope of the executive branch’s new eavesdropping power." 08-07
     
     
172. -08-11-07 Billy Graham: Friend to Presidents (ABC News)
     "He's preached to every president since Harry Truman. It is one of the most unique series of friendships in modern politics, counseling these leaders under the tremendous stresses of war, politics and personal scandals. But evangelist Billy Graham simply refers to the last 11 presidents as his 'friends.' " 08-07
     
     
173. -08-11-07 Story Behind Expansion of the President's Spy Authority (New York Times)
     "At a closed-door briefing in mid-July, senior intelligence officials startled lawmakers with some troubling news. American eavesdroppers were collecting just 25 percent of the foreign-based communications they had been receiving a few months earlier."
     
     "By Aug. 2, the two sides seemed relatively close to a deal. Mr. McConnell had agreed to some increased role for the secret court, a step that the administration considered a major concession, the White House and Congressional leaders said."
     
     "But that night, the talks broke down. With time running out, the Senate approved a Republican bill that omitted the stronger court oversight. The next day, the House passed the bill." 08-07
     
     
174. -08-11-07 Subprime Contagion Is Spreading (Bloomberg.com)
     "The $2 trillion market for mortgages not backed by government- sponsored agencies is at a standstill. That's just the beginning. Other types of mortgages are suffering. So are firms and banks that package the debt for investors. The ripples were felt in Europe and Asia, where central banks offered cash to banks amid a credit crunch. And some corporations, from countertop makers to railroads, are blaming the mortgage meltdown and housing slump for earnings that fell short of analysts' estimates." 08-07
     
     
175. -08-13-07 Karl Rove to Resign in August (CNN News)
     "Karl Rove, U.S. President George W. Bush's senior political adviser, will voluntarily step down from his White House post at the end of the month, senior administration officials said Monday." 08-07
     
     
176. -08-14-07 How "Enemy Combatant" Designation Was Used Against a U.S. Citizen (CNN News)
     "By April 2003, Padilla had already spent 10 months in isolation at the brig. Ultimately, he was housed in the same cell, alone in his wing, for three years and seven months, according to court documents."
     
     " 'I'm not a psychologist, but if he is not profoundly psychologically disturbed from that experience then he is a stronger man than me,' says Steven Kleinman, a retired US Air Force Reserve colonel and former interrogator."
     
     "He [Padilla] has 'undergone a profound, tremendously prolonged psychological stress involving extended periods of utter isolation and deprivation,' the psychiatrist writes. Grassian's report concludes: 'Given the extensive research on this issue, much of it funded by the United States government, it follows necessarily that the United States government was well aware of the likely consequences of its conduct in regard to Mr. Padilla.' "
     
     "Officials have repeatedly said that the US doesn't use torture. 'The Department of Defense policy is clear – we treat all detainees humanely,' says Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman." 08-07
     
     
177. -08-16-07 American Padilla Found Guilty on Terrorism-Related Charges (CNN News)
     "The jury in the Jose Padilla terror trial has found the American guilty of conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas." 08-07
     
     
178. -08-16-07 E-Voting a Non-Starter (BBC News)
     "A group of researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice universities in the US got their hands on the source code of one of the most widely-used electronic voting systems, from Diebold Election Systems, and did a security audit on it."
     
     "The system they look at is called a 'direct election recording', or DRE, system. It runs on specially adapted touch screen systems in voting booths, but it is the software that would form the basis of an online voting system too."
     
     "DRE systems were available to over a fifth of people voting in the 2002 US congressional elections."
     
     "The researchers found dozens of security holes in the voting system. In order to vote, each person had to insert a special card, but the system did not check that the same person was not voting many times."
     
     "It was also possible to change the order that candidates were presented on the screen without changing the internal codes assigned to each one, so that voters could be tricked into voting for the wrong person." 08-07
     
     
179. -08-16-07 Petraeus: Surge Is Over (MSNBC News)
     " 'We know that the surge has to come to an end,' Petraeus said, according to the Associated Press. 'I think everyone understands that, by about a year or so from now, we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now. The question is how do you do that . . . so that you can retain the gains we have fought so hard to achieve and so you can keep going.' " 08-07
     
     
180. -08-16-07 Sunnis Leave Negotiations (PBS.org)
     Efforts to revise the constitution in violence-ravaged Iraq threatened to come off the rails when negotiations with key Sunni politicians ended after their largest bloc in parliament left the government Aug. 1." 08-07
     
     
181. -08-16-07 The Growing Role of China in the World (US News)
     "After years focusing on its own economy, China has begun to go global in influence as well as economics. With growing interests around the globe—from mines in Peru to peacekeepers across Africa to pipelines into Central Asia—China is finding it can no longer live by its doctrine of "nonintervention." In Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, China is beginning to use its influence in ways that may prove problematic for the United States." 08-07
     
     
182. -08-18-07 Reagan Advisor Dies (CBS News)
     "Michael K. Deaver, one of Ronald Reagan's closest White House advisers and the director of the president's picturesque and symbolic public appearances, died Saturday. He was 69." 08-07
     
     
183. -08-21-07 Warrantless Wiretaping Law Extension May be Reviewed (Christian Science Monitor)
     "The administration's warrantless wiretapping program looks set to be the subject of renewed and bitter wrangling between Congress and the White House when lawmakers return to Washington in September." 08-07
     
     
184. -08-22-07 Bush Reaffirms Support for Iraq Prime Minister (PBS.org)
     "President Bush reiterated his continued support of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a speech Wednesday after criticizing the embattled leader earlier this week. Experts discuss the president's relationship with the prime minister." 08-07
     
     
185. -08-22-07 CIA Report Identifies Missteps Before September 11 (New York Times)
     "The administration's warrantless wiretapping program looks set to be the subject of renewed and bitter wrangling between Congress and the White House when lawmakers return to Washington in September." 08-07
     
     
186. -08-24-07 Editorial: Bush's Risky Vietnam Comparison (Time.com)
     "Politically, President Bush has reached the point all gamblers fear: being so far down that higher stakes start to look worth the risk. Public support for his handling of the war in Iraq is already abysmal, with 70% against him and only 25% still in his camp. So perhaps he felt he had very little to lose when Wednesday, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, Mo., he effectively doubled down, arguing not only that America needs to stay in Iraq until a stable democracy can take root, but also implying we should have done the same in Vietnam a generation ago." 08-07
     
     
187. -08-25-07 Doctor Tells Why Patients Died During Katrina Flooding (MSNBC News)
     "Dr. Anna Pou was accused of murdering nine patients in a New Orleans hospital wracked by Katrina, but a grand jury declined to indict her. Now she gives her side of the story." 08-07
     
     
188. -08-27-07 Attorney General Gonzales Resigns (CNN News)
     "Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday in a brief statement at the Justice Department."
     
     "Bush will likely nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to the position, senior administration officials said." 08-07
     
     
189. -08-27-07 California's 911 Centers Overwhelmed (KTVU News)
     "California's emergency agencies are struggling to adapt to a surge in calls from cell phones that have overwhelmed the state's 911 system, leading to lost calls and long waits, according to a published report." 08-07
     
     
190. -09-08-07 Edwards Rails Against Lobbyists (Time.com)
     "In a raw populist appeal, Democrat John Edwards on Saturday accused presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of defending a lobbyist-driven political system that is 'rigged against regular Americans' and killed her plan for universal health care." 09-07
     
     
191. -09-08-07 Petraeus to Say Stay the Course (CBS News)
     "President Bush's top two military and political advisers on Iraq will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far, The Associated Press has learned." 09-07
     
     
192. -09-09-07 Politics Hang Over 9/11 Ceremony (MSNBC News)
     "Once again, the city will pause for four moments of silence to mark the attacks that killed more than 2,700 people. Family members will lay flowers where the twin towers fell, and the names of victims will be read."
     
     "But much will be different on the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, after tense arguments about where to hold the ceremony, whether a presidential candidate should be allowed to speak and if it's still fitting to put on such a large-scale commemoration." 09-07
     
     
193. -09-12-07 Senators Assess Petraeus Testimony (PBS.org)
     "Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker provided their assessment of the Iraq war to the Senate Tuesday. Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., give their reactions." 09-07
     
     
194. -09-13-07 Hillary Clinton Returns $850,000 in Donations Linked to Hsu (PBS.org)
     "New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced Monday Norman Hsu arrives at courtnight it plans to return an additional $850,000 worth of donations linked to disgraced Democratic fund raiser Norman Hsu." 09-07
     
     
195. -09-13-07 UN Adopts Treaty on Native Rights (BBC News)
     "The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples after 22 years of debate. The treaty sets down protections for the human rights of native peoples, and for their land and resources. It passed despite opposition from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. They said it was incompatible with their own laws."
     
     "There are estimated to be up to 370 million indigenous people in the world." 09-07
     
     
196. -09-16-07 Gates Urges Veto of Troop-Rest Bill (MSNBC News)
     "Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday he would recommend a veto of a Senate proposal that would give troops more rest between deployments in Iraq, branding it a dangerous 'backdoor way' to draw down forces." 09-07
     
     
197. -09-16-07 Greenspan Warns of "Turbulent" Times Ahead (ABC News)
     "Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan predicts in a new book out Monday that the Fed will have to raise interest rates to double-digit levels in coming years to thwart inflation."
     
     "In his 531-page book, the former Fed chairman sharply criticizes President Bush for not vetoing bloated spending bills and for continuing to focus on issues, such as adding prescription drug benefits to Medicare even though the budget surplus of just a few years ago had disappeared and deficits were mounting." 09-07
     
     
198. -09-17-07 Bush's Choice for Attorney General not a Loyalist (USNews.com)
     "He's not a Bush loyalist or a Washington insider, but it's precisely those qualities that helped catapult former federal Judge Michael Mukasey to President Bush's pick for the next attorney general." 09-07
     
     
199. -09-17-07 Iraq Pulls the License of U.S. Security Contractor (PBS.org)
     "The Iraqi government said it will no longer allow the U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA to work in the country, following an open-fire incident in a Baghdad neighborhood Sunday that killed at least eight civilians." 09-07
     
     
200. -09-19-07 Army Tests Soldiers' Brains Before Deployment (MSNBC News)
     "It’s all part of a fledgling Army program that records how soldiers’ brains work when healthy, giving doctors baseline data to help diagnose and treat the soldiers if they suffer a traumatic brain injury — the signature injury of the Iraq war." 09-07
     
     
201. -09-19-07 Dan Rather Files Lawsuit Against CBS (MSNBC News)
     "The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, claims the network intentionally botched the aftermath of the story about Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard and had Rather take the fall to 'pacify' the White House. He was removed from his job at 'CBS Evening News' in March 2005." 09-07
     
     
202. -09-19-07 Differing Views on Iraq (PBS.org)
     "A new Pew Research Center poll tracks changes in public opinion on the Iraq war following Gen. David Petraeus' testimony before Congress. Four editorial page editors discuss the public's perception in their regions."
     
     Frances Coleman of the Mobile Press-Register said "...the public is not dumb. They understand that Iraq and the Middle East are in our future for, if not centuries, at least decades to come. That's a critical region. They understand we have a role to play there. They understand that Iraq's new best friend will be Iran if we turn around and leave." 09-07
     
     
203. -09-19-07 Greenspan: Removing Saddam Essential for Global Oil Supplies (MSNBC News)
     "Clarifying a controversial comment in his new memoir, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he told the White House before the Iraq war that removing Saddam Hussein was “essential” to secure world oil supplies, according to an interview published on Monday." 09-07
     
     
204. -09-19-07 How Lowering the Federal Interest Rate Impacts Us (PBS.org)
     "Reacting to a tough housing market, job losses and weak retail sales in August, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a half point on Tuesday. The decision, which impacts the lending rate between banks, immediately cut the interest rate from 5.25 percent, where it has stayed since May 2006, to 4.25 percent. Our guest answered questions about how the rate cut and financial markets will affect your money." 09-07
     
     
205. -09-20-07 Troubling Incident of Student Tasered After Kerry Speech (BradBlog.com)
     Videos portraying a conflict between campus police and student Andrew Meyer are gaining heavy traffic. Meyer was stopped by campus police after he asked Senator John Kerry several questions. One question was why the Senator wasn't backing an impeachment of President Bush. The student also asked if Kerry had been a member of the Skull and Bones campus group. Police forcibly escorted Meyer from the auditorium after Meyer asked his questions and before Kerry could answer. In the process of moving the student out of the building, police tasered the student. This link, available on BradBlog.com, provides the official accounts of the incident by the police involved.
     
     Editor's Note: Some of the police accounts are not compatible with the various videos of the incident available on YouTube.com with key words like "student taser University Florida." Several of the police reported that the student was punching them with his fists as they attempted to remove him. However, the videos clearly show both of the student's hands, usually up in the air and with a book in one hand. The allegation was false. At least one claimed that the student was screaming profanities as they tried to escort him out. He was not. One police report claimed that the questioning of Senator Kerry was over and the student forced his way to the microphone and began interrupting the Senator. At least one video, however, showed Senator Kerry calling on the student to ask a question.
     
     One officer officially claimed that the student was detained for "inciting a riot and disrupting a school function." Some of the videos provide Kerry's voice saying that he wanted to answer the student's questions directly to the student. 09-07
     
     
206. -09-21-07 Questions of Bias in Jena 6 Case (Christian Science Monitor)
     "Despite a narrowing of the racial gap in the past decade, the average black juvenile remains far more likely to be arrested and convicted than his white counterpart. But researchers are divided on whether race or other factors, such as poverty, are the driving factor." 09-07
     
     
207. -09-23-07 Stalemate in Congress on Iraq (MSNBC News)
     "RICH LOWRY, Editor, National Review: Well, the key here, for a long time, has been the moderate Republicans who are discontented with President Bush's strategy in the war, but aren't willing to go over to where the Democrats are, mandating a timetable for withdrawal or even a cutoff for funds."
     
     "So unless Democrats get those Republicans, nothing is going to happen." 09-07
     
     
208. -09-25-07 Bush Likely to Veto Child Healthcare Bill (Christian Science Monitor)
     "With a popular children's health insurance program set to expire this week, US lawmakers who want to expand it are scrambling to find enough votes to withstand a probable veto of their legislation."
     
     "It's the first in what is shaping up to be a season of standoffs over funding. President Bush has threatened to veto nine of 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2008, as well as the proposed renewal of the 10-year-old State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP)."
     
     "Last week, House and Senate negotiators agreed to an increase for the S-CHIP program of $35 billion over five years, to be financed with a 61-cent tobacco tax increase. That increase will reduce the number of uninsured children by some 4 million, or about 10 million covered by the S-CHIP program overall." 09-07
     
     
209. -09-26-07 Senate Supports Dividing Iraq (AFP Google)
     "The US Senate approved Wednesday a Bosnia-style plan to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious lines, touted by backers as the sole hope of forging a federal state out of sectarian strife." 09-07
     
     
210. -09-26-07 Senate Urges Bush to Declare Iranian Guard a Terrorist Group (New York Times)
     "The Senate approved a resolution today urging the Bush administration to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, and lawmakers briefly set aside partisan differences to approve a measure calling for stepped-up diplomacy to forge a political solution in Iraq." 09-07
     
     
211. -10-01-07 Senate Authorizes More Funding for Wars (CBS News)
     "Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
     
     "The 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals." 10-07
     
     
212. -10-03-07 "The Elders" Visit Sudan (CBS News)
     "The visit by 'The Elders,' which is headed by Nobel Peace laureates Carter and Desmond Tutu, is largely a symbolic move by a host of respected figures to push all sides to make peace in Darfur." 10-07
     
     
213. -10-03-07 Bush Vetoes Child Health Insurance Bill (USNews.com)
     "President Bush today killed legislation, supported by members of both parties, that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance."
     
     Please see Health Insurance for more. 10-07
     
     
214. -10-03-07 Nation Preparing for Three Large Terrorism Simulations (CBS News)
     "The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever next week when three fictional 'dirty bombs' go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press." 10-07
     
     
215. -10-07-07 Hillary Clintion's Change in Approach (US News)
     "Hillary Clinton's no-compromise approach as first lady failed. Now she's taking a different tack in an attempt to return to the White House." 10-07
     
     
216. -10-07-07 Medicare Audit Reveals Problems (New York Times)
     "Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system’s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration, a review of scores of federal audits has found."
     
     "Medicare officials have required insurance companies of all sizes to fix the violations by adopting 'corrective action plans.' Since March, Medicare has imposed fines of more than $770,000 on 11 companies for marketing violations and failure to provide timely notice to beneficiaries about changes in costs and benefits."
     
     "The companies include three of the largest participants in the Medicare market, UnitedHealth, Humana and WellPoint."
     
     Also see Medicare. 10-07
     
     
217. -10-08-07 Largest Environmental Settlement in Justice Department History (CNN News)
     "In the largest environmental settlement in Justice Department history, American Electric Power has agreed to install $4.6 billion in equipment to sharply reduce emissions at coal-fired power plants in five states, sources said."
     
     "Government lawyers and scientists say 70 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions each year and 30 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions are produced by electric utility plants."
     
     "Environmental scientists have linked emissions from coal-fired power plants to forest degradation, waterway damage and reservoir contamination." 10-07
     
     
218. -10-09-07 Congress to Introduce Replacement Wiretap Bill (Time.com)
     "The Justice Department would have to reveal to Congress the details of all electronic surveillance conducted without court orders since Sept. 11, 2001, including the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, if a new Democratic wiretapping bill is approved." 10-07
     
     
219. -10-09-07 Republican Candidates for Presidential Debate (CBS News)
     "Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani clashed over tax and spending cuts Tuesday, each claiming greater commitment than the other in a debate in the nation's struggling manufacturing heartland."
     
     "Eight of the candidates support the continuing U.S. military presence in Iraq, but Rep. Ron Paul of Texas drew a loud round of applause when he loudly dissented. Paul posted a surprising $5 million in campaign donations for the three months ending Sept. 30." 10-07
     
     
220. -10-14-07 Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize (PBS News)
     "This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the former vice president and a U.N. panel of scientists for creating greater consciousness and a growing consensus about climate change and the dangers it poses." 10-07
     
     
221. -10-17-07 Mukasey Vows to Keep Politics Away from Justice Dept. (New York Times)
     "President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, pledged today to block political meddling at the Justice Department but did not make a similar promise to disown the Bush administration’s most controversial antiterrorism policies." 10-07
     
     
222. -10-20-07 Social Conservatives Are Divided on 2008 Elections (US News)
     "The stakes are high. With only a dozen weeks before the first votes are cast, conservative evangelicals, who compose about half of the born-again movement, are increasingly concerned about the GOP nominee. The kind of power they wielded in electing President Bush in 2004, when 78 percent of evangelicals helped give the president his second term, could be but a memory. Many have watched in dismay as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who supports legalized abortion and opposes a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, continues to lead Republican preference polls. Some evangelicals are openly disdainful of Giuliani, but others are counseling caution." 10-07
     
     
223. -10-25-07 Schwarzenegger Praised for Leadership (Time.com)
     "But if it's true that the Governor was lucky, it's also true that luck favors the well-prepared. Schwarzenegger was able to move those National Guard troops quickly because he had a plan in place to redeploy them in an emergency. The obvious competence of the emergency response — in stark contrast to the debacle of Hurricane Katrina — was the product of years of training, planning and drills." 10-07
     
     
224. -10-25-07 State Bureacracy Hampered Initial Response to Fire (MSNBC News)
     "As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy."
     
     "It took as long as a day for Navy, Marine and California National Guard helicopters to get clearance early this week, in part because state rules require all firefighting choppers to be accompanied by state forestry “fire spotters” who coordinate water or retardant drops. By the time those spotters arrived, the powerful Santa Ana winds stoking the fires had made it too dangerous to fly." 10-07
     
     
225. -10-25-07 U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Iran (MSNBC News)
     "The Bush administration imposed sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday — the harshest in nearly three decades — cutting off key Iranian military and banking institutions from the American financial system for Tehran’s alleged support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions."
     
     "But Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday quickly opposed the use of sanctions. 'Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?' Putin said. 'It's not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand.' " 10-07
     
     
226. -10-29-07 State Department Grants Immunity to Accused Guards (CBS News)
     "The FBI’s investigation into last month's killing of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater security guards has hit a stumbling block."
     
     "Law enforcement officials say the State Department granted them immunity from prosecution before taking their statements." 10-07
     
     
227. -10-30-07 State Department Grants Immunity Without Authority (New York Times)
     "The State Department investigators from the agency’s investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants [to Blackwater guards] even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added." 10-07
     
     
228. -11-02-07 Nonpartisan Study Challenges Bush's Counterterrorism Strategy (US News)
     "The Bush administration's 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism may rely too heavily on the benefits of democratization while ignoring some of the key factors driving terrorist violence, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service." 11-07
     
     
229. -11-03-07 Nonpartisan Study Challenges Bush's Counterterrorism Strategy (US News)
     "As it turns out, just a glance at pictures of two rival candidates is enough for the brain to make a pretty reliable prediction of which one will win. On average, a snapshot judgment is right about 70 percent of the time, clearly better than a coin toss. Maybe not as good as the professional political pundits, but not too shabby."
     
     "All of this may sound ugly for the future of political discourse, if two thirds of officials are getting elected based on split-second superficialities. But the correlation in this study raises more questions than it answers about the baffling process of candidate selection. As any self-respecting psychology major can testify, the correlation between two sets of results doesn't mean one is directly responsible for the other." 11-07
     
     
230. -11-05-07 Why American Diplomats Won't Go to Iraq (Time.com)
     "On Oct. 26, the State Department e-mailed 250 diplomats and told them that they might be ordered, whether they like it or not, to fill about 50 positions in Iraq next year. It was no secret the U.S. was considering compulsory Iraq service for its diplomatic corps, but the e-mails sparked outrage nevertheless."
     
     "The risk to life and limb is real. But the greater worry is that the risks and hardships will be in the service of a cause that is not only frustrating but potentially futile. 11-07
     
     
231. -11-20-07 Senate Moves to Stop Bush (Christian Science Monitor)
     "He and Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D) of Wisconsin say that they will not move another war-funding bill this year, unless it includes three conditions: a requirement that all troops deployed into combat be fully trained and equipped, a ban on torture, and a goal of getting out of a combat role in Iraq by December 2008. President Bush threatens to veto any bill that includes conditions that restrict the Pentagon and commander in chief."
     
     "Before the Thanksgiving nonrecess, the Senate rejected two war-funding bills. The Democratic version, which also passed the House, provided $50 billion toward Bush's $196.4 billion request, but with a 'goal' of completing a transition out of a combat role in Iraq by December 2008. It fell seven votes short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. A GOP version, which provided $70 billion without a timetable for withdrawal, failed 45 to 53." 11-07
     
     
232. -12-03-07 Treasury: Possible Freeze on Mortgage Loan Rates (MSNBC News)
     "A government proposal to freeze interest rates on millions of loans made to risky borrowers reflects political and financial realities of the housing market crisis, analysts say." 11-07
     
     
233. -12-04-07 Bush Responds to News that Iran Stopped Nuclear Arms Efforts in 2003 (MNBC News)
     "Bush spoke one day after a new national intelligence estimate found that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, largely because of international scrutiny and pressure."
     
     " 'To me, the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) provides an opportunity for us to rally the international community -- to continue to rally the community -- to pressure the Iranian regime to suspend its program,' the president said. 'What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program.' "
     
     "He also asserted that the report means 'nothing's changed,' focusing on the previous existence of a weapons program and not addressing the discrepancy between his rhetoric and the disclosure that weapons program has been frozen for four years." 11-07
     
     
234. -12-04-07 Candidates Respond to News that Iran Stopped Nuclear Arms Efforts in 2003 (MNBC News)
     " 'The juxtaposition of this N.I.E. with the president’s suggestion of World War III serves as an important reminder of what we learned with the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq,' said Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, in a statement. 'Members of Congress must carefully read the intelligence before giving the president any justification to use military force.' "
     
     "Neither Mr. Giuliani nor Mr. Romney seemed to address the idea that their past hawkish statements were based on intelligence that has proved flawed — reminiscent of the intelligence about unconventional weapons that led to the war in Iraq." 11-07
     
     
235. -12-05-07 Supreme Court Weighs Detainee's Rights (CBS News)
     "A lawyer for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay underwent a barrage of questions Wednesday from two conservative Supreme Court justices, with the attorney portraying the case as a fundamental test of the U.S. judicial system." 12-07
     
     
236. -12-07-07 CIA Destroys Requested Interrogation Tapes (CBS News)
     "A well informed source tells CBS News the videotapes of U.S. interrogations of two high level al Qaeda operatives were destroyed to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin."
     
     "A day after CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told agency employees the tapes were destroyed in 2005, members of Congress, human rights groups and lawyers for accused terrorists said the tapes may have been key evidence that the U.S. government had illegally authorized torture." 12-07
     
     
237. -12-09-07 Oprah's Endorsement of Obama (ABC News)
     Helen Kennedy: "But the Queen of All Media's first-ever foray into political campaigning is going to be one for the history and political science books, testing the limits of celebrity endorsements and setting primary-season crowd records."
     
     " 'She's going to electrify the campaign trail -- there's no question about it,' ABC's George Stephanopoulos said on 'Good Morning America' Thursday." 12-07
     
     
238. -12-18-07 Time's Top Ten Stories (Time.com)
     "The powerful, the profound, the painful and the peculiar: These are the most noteworthy news events of the year." 12-07
     
     
239. -12-20-07 Giuliani's Popularity Plummets (MSNBC News)
     "After a month’s worth of mostly negative media reports, his campaign’s decision to decrease his activity in the early nominating states and the rise of GOP rival Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani’s national standing has plummeted in the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, providing more evidence that the contest for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination is wide open." 12-07
     
     
240. -12-20-07 Giuliani's Unconventional Strategy (New York Times)
     "Mr. Giuliani’s decision to zag while the rest of the candidates zig reflects his unconventional campaign strategy: his team is concentrating on winning the Florida primary on Jan. 29 in the hopes that a victory there will position him to do well on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states, including Missouri, New York, New Jersey and California, go to the polls." 12-07
     
     
241. -12-22-07 Schwarzenegger: Bush Administration Position on Pollution Is Flawed (Time.com)
     The federal E.P.A. agency ruled that states cannot have standards against pollution that are stronger than federal standards. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: "When I look at that, the Environmental Protection Agency is the Environmental Destruction Agency. The name says it protects the environment. How can that protect the environment when you don't want to let anyone really move forward with this agenda? And [as for] the excuse that it is a national issue and therefore it must be handled at a national level — I say to myself, 'Wait a minute, let me think this through for a second,' which we always do, we think a little bit. If you have a national problem with hunger and starvation, do I say, 'Stop feeding people at the local level. We can't get involved. We have to have a policy nationally. No, we don't.' " 12-07
     
     
242. -12-22-07 When Motherhood Gets You Jail Time (Time.com)
     "Unwed and on welfare, Griffin, 28, walked into a Wisconsin court last May with one goal: She wanted to keep the man she says beat her throughout her pregnancy from winning joint custody of their son. Unwilling to listen to her own attorney, Griffin conducted her own clumsy, meandering cross-examination of the child's father, Ugandan citizen Matthew Sebuliba, and failed to convince the judge that the abuse had really occurred. Instead, she tried the patience of Judge Michael D. Guolee, who chided her for spurning Sebuliba, whom he called a good catch. 'We are going to force the mother to allow the father to be a father,' he said. 'Period. And if she doesn't, I will take the child away from you and give it to the father unless you totally cooperate.' " 12-07
     
     
243. -12-23-07 Two Different Views of Wealth (New York Times)
     "Like thousands of other Americans in a global, high-technology economy in which government was pulling back and wealth was being celebrated, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Romney used talent, hard work and — as both have suggested — luck to amass fortunes. They became a part of a rising class of the new rich."
     
     "Whether this class is a cause for concern — whether it deserves some blame for the economic anxiety felt by many middle-class families — has become a central issue in the 2008 presidential race. And Mr. Edwards and Mr. Romney are basing their candidacies in large measure on the very different lessons each has taken from his own success." 12-07
     
     
244. -Editorial: KSM's Confession About His al-Queda Role Rings False (Time Magazine)
     "KSM claims he was 'responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z.' Yet he has omitted details that would support his role."
     
     "The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of 'weak links,' mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards." 03-07
     
     
245. -Editorial: The Next War in Iraq (Time.com)
     "The next leader of Iraq and the shape of the next Iraqi government and its armed forces will probably be determined by how the Sadr-Hakim battle turns out, as will the decision about how or whether to reconcile with the Sunnis. The Kurds will prefer the aristocratic Hakims to the populist Sadrs, and so will we. But aristocrats seldom win battles of this sort; a strongman who is no fan of democracy or the West might emerge. In any case, the choice will be made by the Iraqis, not us." 08-07
     
     
246. -Editorial: The Wolfowitz Controversy Has a Subplot (New York Times)
     "When President Bush appointed Paul D. Wolfowitz as the president of the World Bank two years ago, the White House had to put down an insurrection among European nations that viewed the administration’s best-known neoconservative as a symbol of American unilateralism and arrogance." 04-07
     
     
247. 01-02-07 Oprah Opens School in South Africa (CSB News)
     "Oprah Winfrey headed a celebrity lineup that included Tina Turner and Spike Lee at the opening of her school for poor South African girls." 01-07
     
     
248. 01-03-07 For Longevity, Other Factors Pale in Comparison to "Education" (New York Times)
     "The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income."
     
     "And, health economists say, those factors that are popularly believed to be crucial — money and health insurance, for example, pale in comparison." 01-07
     
     
249. 01-03-07 Intelligence Chief Moves to State Department (New York Times)
     "Mr. Negroponte had been brought to the intelligence job to help restore credibility and effectiveness to agencies whose reputations were badly damaged by failures related to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and mistaken prewar assessments of Iraq’s illicit weapons. He has maintained a low public profile but provides Mr. Bush with a briefing most mornings." 01-07
     
     
250. 01-03-07 Report: Election Systems Still Unacceptable (VoteTrustUSA.org)
     "To ensure the health of our democracy, we must recognize and admit the inadequacies of the present systems and adopt pro-active corrective measures. The problems catalogued in this report cannot be rectified by a single corrective measure. Attention is required for all the diverse problems that have been exposed: confusion caused by the complexity of the computerized equipment; long lines at the polls; voter disenfranchisement; dependency on vendor involvement; and questionable outcomes." 01-07
     
     
251. 01-05-07 Bush Changes Iraq Leadership (New York Times)
     "Administration officials confirmed that Mr Bush would replace his two top generals in Iraq, both of whom have expressed unease about proposals to boost the number of troops in the country. Their places will be taken by generals whose track record points to a further hardening of the president's strategy in favour of combat, rather than withdrawal, as preferred by the newly resurgent Democrats." 01-07
     
     
252. 01-05-07 Execution Reverses Opinions About Saddam Hussein (New York Times)
     "In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe."
     
     "At the heart of the sudden reversal of opinion was the symbolism of the hasty execution, now framed as an act of sectarian vengeance shrouded in political theater and overseen by the American occupation."
     
     "In much of the predominantly Sunni Arab world, the timing of the execution in the early hours of Id al-Adha, which is among the holiest days of the Muslim year, when violence is forbidden and when even Mr. Hussein himself sometimes released prisoners, was seen as a direct insult to the Sunni world." 01-07
     
     
253. 01-06-07 Bush's New Military Leadership (MSNBC News)
     "Fallon’s nomination is part of a flurry of major appointments coming out of the Bush administration ahead of the president’s speech on a new Iraq strategy next week. The reshuffling of Bush’s top command is about much more than Iraq, Pentagon insiders say. It will set the course for the remainder of Bush’s presidency in the entire Mideast." 01-07
     
     
254. 01-06-07 Final Hours of Saddam Hussein (New York Times)
     "It is a story of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, trying to coerce second-tier American military and diplomatic officials into handing over Mr. Hussein, first on Thursday night, then again on Friday. The American push back was complicated by the absences of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top American military commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who were both out of Iraq on leave. The American message throughout was that rushing Mr. Hussein to the gallows could rebound disastrously, as it did." 01-07
     
     
255. 01-06-07 New Leadership Tries to Restrain Committee Chairs (New York Times)
     "Less than 24 hours after taking over as speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi summoned the new chairmen of five committees with responsibility for various aspects of Iraq policy to her office to review and coordinate plans for hearings and inquiries."
     
     "The gathering on Friday would have been unthinkable when Democrats last controlled the House." 01-07
     
     
256. 01-08-07 Leaders of Congress Appeal to Bush (MSNBC News)
     The leaders of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate wrote a letter to President George W. Bush to request that he begin deployment of soldiers from Iraq soon. "Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror. A renewed diplomatic strategy, both within the region and beyond, is also required to help the Iraqis agree to a sustainable political settlement. In short, it is time to begin to move our forces out of Iraq and make the Iraqi political leadership aware that our commitment is not open ended, that we cannot resolve their sectarian problems, and that only they can find the political resolution required to stabilize Iraq." 01-07
     
     
257. 01-08-07 The Science of Evil (ABC News)
     "Most of us have struggled to understand how seemingly ordinary people can sometimes do morally questionable things."
     
     "In 1961, social psychologist Stanley Milgram asked those same questions. That was the year Nazi Adolf Eichmann, on trial for his war crimes, denied responsibility for his actions by saying he was simply doing what his superiors told him to do."
     
     " 'Primetime' wanted to know if ordinary people today would still follow orders, even if they believed their actions were causing someone else pain. Would as many follow the seemingly dangerous and painful orders as in the original experiment?" 01-07
     
     
258. 01-09-07 Generation Y's Goal: Wealth and Fame (USA Today)
     "Eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll released today said getting rich is their generation's most important or second-most-important life goal; 51% said the same about being famous." 01-07
     
     
259. 01-10-07 ABC: The "Surge" in Iraq Has Already Started (ABC News)
     "President Bush's speech may be scheduled for tonight, but the troop surge in Iraq is already under way." 01-07
     
     
260. 01-10-07 California Plans Major Carbon Cut (Christian Science Monitor)
     "Now that California is on record as mandating a 25 percent cut in the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 - a move that made headlines worldwide four months ago - leaders here are starting to lay out how they intend to hit that ambitious mark. First up: requiring transportation fuels sold in California to contain less carbon, a major greenhouse gas." 01-07
     
     
261. 01-10-07 Response to President Bush's Speech by Democrats (CBS News)
     "President Bush's announcement of a military buildup in Iraq puts him on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress." 01-07
     
     
262. 01-11-07 Sen. Lieberman Gives Bush a Pass on Katrina (MSNBC News)
     "Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans." 01-07
     
     
263. 01-11-07 State Farm Insurance Found Liable in Katrina Case (MSNBC News)
     "A jury on Thursday awarded $2.5 million in punitive damages to a couple who sued State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. for denying their claim after Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could benefit hundreds of other homeowners challenging insurers for refusing to cover billions of dollars in storm damage." 01-07
     
     
264. 01-11-07 The Psychology of a Surge (Time Magazine)
     "There's a gravitational suck to sunk-cost behavior, one that makes it almost impossible to resist throwing fresh capital into the hole in the hope that lost capital will somehow come back out. Couples in a bad marriage who might be better advised to cut their losses will instead multiply them, buying a new house or having a new baby in the hope that that will bring them together again. Producers of a sinking movie will roll out a new ad campaign in the hope that that will get people to the box office. And, similarly, tacticians behind a floundering war will send living soldiers in to replace lost ones, even though stone cold reason tells them that troops killed on the battlefield today will not make the ones killed yesterday any less dead. 'Rationally, you know you should deal with the situation as it is at the moment,' says Stone, 'but that's hard to do when your sunk cost is lost life.' " 01-07
     
     
265. 01-12-07 The Battle for Haifa Street in Iraq (MSNBC News)
     "As American and Iraqi forces try (again) to take control of central Baghdad, they find ominous pointers of sectarian problems to come."
     
     "The bodies were dumped a week ago in a side alley off one of the main thoroughfares in Baghdad; they were apparently family members of an Iraqi police chief. The locals were too afraid to remove them, so Duke ordered his team to pick them up. That's about when the insurgents started to shoot from the high-rises at Duke's men, along with the Iraqi Army soldiers who were in the Haifa Street neighborhood." 01-07
     
     
266. 01-14-07 Beckham to Play for American Audience (ABC New)
     "International soccer superstar David Beckham is looking forward to the new challenge of playing before an American audience when he leaves Real Madrid at the end of the season for Major League Soccer's the Los Angeles Galaxy and a $250 million contract." 01-07
     
     
267. 01-14-07 Iraqi Minister Asks for Release of Iranians (MSNBC New)
     "The Iraqi foreign minister called Sunday for the release of five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in what he said was a legitimate mission in northern Iraq, but he stressed that foreign intervention to help insurgents would not be tolerated."
     
     "The two-pronged statement by Hoshyar Zebari highlighted the delicate balance facing the Iraqi government as it tries to secure Baghdad with the help of American forces while maintaining ties with its neighbors, including U.S. rivals Iran and Syria." 01-07
     
     
268. 01-15-07 MSNBC: Bush Losing Republican Support (MSNBC News)
     "Senior administration officials, who declined to speak on the record about private deliberations, say the president knows he has to show real improvements in Iraq within two or three months or risk losing even more GOP support." 01-07
     
     
269. 01-16-07 Eight Middle East Countries Welcome the Bush Promise for Inclusive Government (USA Today)
     "The joint statement 'welcomed the commitment by the United States … to defend the security of the Gulf, the territorial integrity of Iraq and to ensure an … inclusive political process that engages all Iraqi communities.' " 01-07
     
     
270. 01-18-07 Cancer Death Rates Decline for Second Year (Time Magazine)
     "Cancer deaths in the United States have dropped for a second straight year, confirming that a corner has been turned in the war on cancer." 01-07
     
     
271. 01-26-07 Testimony by Vice President Cheney Aide Damages Libby (International Herald Tribune)
     "The spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney told a jury Thursday that she informed Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., that the wife of a prominent critic of the invasion of Iraq worked for the CIA days before Libby contended he heard the information from a reporter."
     
     "Cathie Martin, who was Cheney's chief spokeswoman, was the fourth witness for the prosecution in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Libby, who is charged with lying during an investigation of who leaked the name of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson, and why. Unlike the previous three witnesses, who worked at the CIA and State Department, Martin provided an insider's perspective, one from directly inside the office of the vice president." 01-07
     
     
272. 01-30-07 A Test of the Legal Rights of U.S. Residents (Christian Science Monitor)
     "The open-ended detention of an Arab student suspected of being an Al Qaeda sleeper agent is setting the stage for the next major showdown over the scope of President Bush's authority to fight terrorism on American soil." 02-07
     
     
273. 02-01-07 CBO: Bush Estimate for Cost of "Surge" Is a Fraction of True Cost (CNN News)
     "A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment."
     
     "The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion."
     
     "The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase [in costs] but says, 'U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.' " 02-07
     
     
274. 02-01-07 Exxon Sets U.S. Record With Annual Profit of $39.5 Billion (MSNBC News)
     "Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $39.5 billion — even as earnings for the last quarter of 2006 declined 4 percent." 02-07
     
     
275. 02-01-07 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Completed (MSNBC News)
     "A long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, presented to President Bush by the intelligence community yesterday, outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control and there is a strong possibility of further deterioration, according to sources familiar with the document." 02-07
     
     
276. 02-01-07 Senators Want CIA Report on 9-11 Attack Made Public (MSNBC News)
     "Senators are renewing calls for the declassification of a CIA report documenting the agency’s mistakes in preventing the 2001 attacks." 02-07
     
     
277. 02-01-07 The True Cost of War (MSNBC News)
     Describes the lives of a dozen soldiers who died when a helicopter crashed in Iraq, one of the deadliest incidents for American troops since the war began. 02-07
     
     
278. 02-01-07 U.S. Lags on Family-Friendly Workplaces (CBS News)
     "The United States lags far behind virtually all wealthy countries with regard to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast-feeding, a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers says." 02-07
     
     
279. 05-07-07 Senate Fails to Pass Bill to Allow Prescription Drug Imports (CBS News)
     "In a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate on Monday killed a drive to allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from abroad at a significant savings over domestic prices." 05-07
     
     
280. 05-08-07 Report: Children Not Doing Well in Iraq (CBS News)
     "Grim tidings today from London and a new report that tells us something else about the tragedy that is Iraq:"
     
     " 'The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday that placed the country last in its child survival rankings.' " 05-07
     
     
281. 05-15-07 World Food Program Names Drew Barrymore Ambassador (MSNBC News)
     "“I can’t think of any issue that is more important than working to see that no schoolchild in this world goes hungry,” Barrymore said in a statement Wednesday. 'Feeding a child at school is such a simple thing, but it works miracles. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.' "
     
     "Founded in 1962, WFP provides food aid to an average of 90 million poor people, including 58 million hungry children in at least 80 of the world’s poorest countries. The United States said it provides nearly half the annual contributions to the Rome-based agency, which has an annual budget of just under $3 billion." 05-07
     
     
282. 05-17-07 Congress Adopts Budget Plan to End Deficit (MSNBC News)
     "Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a $2.9 trillion budget plan that promises big spending increases for education and health care and a federal surplus in five years." 05-07
     
     
283. 05-24-07 House Agrees to Fund Troops Without Deadline for Withdrawal (MSNBC News)
     "Republicans and Democrats alike are claiming victory as Congress moves toward passing this week a final Iraq spending bill that funds the war and does not order troops home." 05-07
     
     
284. 05-25-07 Clinton and Obama Vote Against Iraq Bill (MSNBC News)
     "Courting the anti-war constituency, Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both voted against legislation that pays for the Iraq war but lacks a timeline for troop withdrawal." 05-07
     
     
285. 05-26-07 Bush Signs Iraq Funding Bill into Law (MSNBC News)
     "President Bush signed a bill Friday to pay for military operations in Iraq after a bitter struggle with Democrats in Congress who sought unsuccessfully to tie the money to U.S. troop withdrawals." 05-07
     
     
286. 06-08-07 Immigration Bill Stalls (New York Times)
     "Within two hours, the centerpiece of President Bush’s remaining domestic agenda and what many people saw as the best chance to get a handle on the worsening immigration problem, was yanked from the floor. Two weeks of debate had failed to stem attacks from critics on the right and left; 38 Republicans, 11 Democrats and 1 independent rejected Mr. Reid’s call to limit debate and head toward a resolution." 06-07
     
     
287. 06-08-07 Passport Rules Relaxed for Summer (MSNBC News)
     "The Bush administration on Friday suspended some of its new, post-Sept. 11 requirements for traveling abroad, hoping to placate Congress and irate summer travelers whose vacations have been thwarted by delays in processing their passports." 06-07
     
     
288. 06-11-07 Original Administrators of the War Gone (Time Magazine)
     "With Defense Secretary Robert Gates's decision today to cashier Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the wholesale change in those running the Iraq war — with the notable exception of President Bush — is now complete." 06-07
     
     
289. 06-22-07 Unsanctioned 527 Groups Start Forming (MSNBC News)
     "A 527 is an independent political group not subject to federal campaign finance laws and therefore not held to donor limits. The "527" name simply refers to the federal tax code designation for these groups." 06-07
     
     
290. 06-25-07 Supreme Court Protects Corporations and Unions (Christian Science Monitor)
     "In an important decision upholding First Amendment protections of corporations and unions to engage in certain kinds of political activity, the US Supreme Court on Monday ruled 5 to 4 that a key portion of the McCain-Feingold law had been unconstitutionally applied to the group, Wisconsin Right to Life Inc." 06-07
     
     
291. 09-26-07 State Dept. Accused of Impeding Iraq Probe (CBS News)
     "Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the State Department had informed the committee that State employees could not discuss potential corruption in the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unless the information was treated as a national security secret."
     
     "Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based security contractor involved in the deaths of civilians in Iraq this month, has also claimed that the State Department had banned company communication with Waxman's investigators, the lawmaker said." 09-07
     
     
292. 10-04-07 Bush Administration Approved Harshest Techniques (New York Times)
     "When the Justice Department publicly declared torture 'abhorrent' in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations."
     
     "But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency." 10-07
     
     
293. 10-05-07 Has the Bush Administration Been Partisan in Enforcing the Law? (Time.com)
     "The controversy surrounding the case in Alabama is not that Siegelman went to prison and his Republican colleagues didn't. Without an investigation or even questions being asked, it's impossible to know whether any of them committed illegal acts. The issue is that some of the same allegations that led to Siegelman's indictment never merited so much as a follow-up when raised in connection with Republicans."
     
     "U.S. Attorney Canary has vigorously rejected the suggestion of any political influence on the case." 10-07
     
     
294. 10-05-07 Rice Issues New Rules for Blackwater USA (Ask.com)
     "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered federal agents on Friday to ride with Blackwater USA escorts of U.S. diplomatic convoys in Baghdad to tighten oversight after a shooting in which private guards are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians." 10-07
     
     
295. 10-09-07 Iraq Coalition Withers (MSNBC News)
     "Britain’s decision to bring half of its 5,000 soldiers home from Iraq by spring is the latest blow to the U.S.-led coalition. The alliance is crumbling, and fast: excluding Americans, the multinational force was once 50,000 strong — by mid-2008, it will be down to 7,000." 10-07
     
     
296. 10-09-07 Republican Candidates for President Debate (CBS News)
     "Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani clashed over tax and spending cuts Tuesday, each claiming greater commitment than the other in a debate in the nation's struggling manufacturing heartland."
     
     "Eight of the candidates support the continuing U.S. military presence in Iraq, but Rep. Ron Paul of Texas drew a loud round of applause when he loudly dissented. Paul posted a surprising $5 million in campaign donations for the three months ending Sept. 30." 10-07
     
     
297. 10-09-07 U.S. Military Abandons Southern Iraq (Time.com)
     "U.S. military officers in Iraq often wonder about the possible presence of Iranian operatives in cities south of Baghdad like Karbala and Najaf, two key strongholds for Shi'ite militias thought to have links to Tehran. Many soldiers believe those two cities, home to more than 1.5 million people altogether, are where Shi'ite militants gather, train and arm themselves with help from Iran for attacks against U.S. forces farther north. Some intelligence even suggests that Iran's elite military force, the Revolutionary Guard, has opened training camps in the area for Iraqi guerrillas. But getting a clear picture of the happenings there and in other cities in that region is hard for one simple reason: U.S. troops don't go there anymore."
     
     "With no evident plans to reenter southern areas, the U.S.-led coalition leaves the fate of some of Iraq's most important territory to others." 10-07
     
     
298. 10-14-07 Ex-Chief of U.S. Forces in Iraq: Unending Nightmare (CBS News)
     "The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday." 10-07
     
     
299. 10-14-07 White House Using Many Interim Appointments (CBS News)
     "With only 15 months left in office, President Bush has left whole agencies of the executive branch to be run largely by acting or interim appointees — jobs that would normally be filled by people whose nominations would have been reviewed and confirmed by the Senate."
     
     "Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said, 'In the long history of the country, I don’t think the Justice Department has been in such disarray.' "
     
     " 'You have top spots unconfirmed: unconfirmed attorney general, unconfirmed deputy, unconfirmed associate,' he said. 'You took a look at the organizational chart, there are many others who are unconfirmed among the assistant attorneys general ranks.' ” 10-07
     
     
300. 10-15-07 The Trouble With Terror Drills (Time.com)
     "But as we also learned from Katrina, which was preceded a year before by a comprehensive simulation dubbed Hurricane Pam, drills don't always translate into progress. If they're going to work, they have to be realistic — and therein lies the problem with TOPOFF. Guess who won't be invited to it? You and me, or many other average folks, for that matter. Sorry, the public and the media have never been allowed to fully participate in the nation's most elaborate counterterrorism drills. Which is sort of like holding a band practice without the drums, the bass or the sound system." 10-07
     
     
301. 10-20-07 Privatizing Our Roads (Time.com)
     "For states and cities looking to upgrade or replace aging infrastructure, partnering with private players is the biggest idea to come along since the interstate highway system started ribboning the country with asphalt in the 1950s. The appeal: governments can stop worrying about roads, bridges and tunnels, and companies get lucrative leases that allow them to collect money from drivers for generations. The craze is being driven by investors who crave the steady cash flow of decades' worth of tolls. There are 71 projects worth $104 billion being considered for private development by state and local governments, according to the publication Public Works Financing." 10-07
     
     
302. 10-21-07 Jindal Wins in Louisiana (Time.com)
     "In a widely expected victory Saturday night, Bobby Jindal, a 36-year old Republican congressman, won the Louisiana gubernatorial election, becoming the nation's first governor of Indian-American descent and the youngest chief executive of any state. Jindal took 54% of the vote in the state's off-year open primary, the first since Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, and became the first non-white politician to hold the state's highest office since Reconstruction. Jindal, one of the few young rising stars in the GOP ran on a strong reform platform." 10-07
     
     
303. 10-22-07 Bush Requests $42 Billion More for War (CNN News)
     "The Bush administration on Monday asked for an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion." 10-07
     
     
304. Bush's Progress Report on Iraq Sharpens the Debate (Christian Science Monitor)
     "Progress on the military front, not so much in the political arena: That is the shorthand of President Bush's assessment of the impact of the "surge" of US troops in Iraq that he sent to Congress Thursday."
     
     "In an analysis of the White House report card on the Iraq benchmarks, national security expert Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says 'the facts on the ground' demonstrate 'that the Iraqi government has not really met the Bush administration's benchmarks in any major area.' "
     
     "On the benchmark calling for Iraqi forces to provide 'even-handed enforcement of the law,' Cordesman rates compliance 'a failure in Baghdad and nationally.' " 07-07
     
     
305. Democrat - Barack Obama Gains Oprah's Endorsement (Time.com)
     Winfrey's endorsement — and her announcement that she will appear with Obama at campaign events in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire on December 8 and 9 — helps bring the following four things to Obama: campaign cash, celebrity, excitement and big crowds."
     
     "The four things that Obama has on his own in great abundance — without Winfrey's help — are campaign cash, celebrity, excitement and big crowds. "
     
     "But a more important event for his chances of winning might actually be taking place on Tuesday of this week, when he appears in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with some of his top foreign policy advisers for a forum with local residents." 12-07
     
     
306. Editorial: Hillary Clinton's Real Competition (MSNBC News)
     "Forget Obama and Edwards. As she readies her run for the White House, Senator Clinton’s biggest rival is the 42nd president." 02-07
     
     
307. News Related to Hillary Rodham Clinton (MSNBC News)
     "Hillary D. Rodham's senior thesis at Wellesley College, written in 1969, has been speculated about, spun, analyzed, debated, criticized and defended. But rarely has it been read." 02-07
     
     
308. Republican - Rudy Giuliani (Awesome Library)
     Provides biographical and news information on Rudy Giuliani. 12-07
     
     

Papers

1. -07-23-07 YouTube and CNN Democratic Debate (MSNBC News)
   "Campaigning by Democratic candidates was limited to brief photo opportunities Monday as their focus shifted to preparing for the first presidential debate in which the questions are posed by members of public via Internet videos." 07-07
   
   
2. -Editorial: Why Terrorists Aren't Soldiers (NYTimes.com)
   "Treating terrorists as combatants is a mistake for two reasons. First, it dignifies criminality by according terrorist killers the status of soldiers. Under the law of war, military service members receive several privileges. They are permitted to kill the enemy and are immune from prosecution for doing so. They must, however, carefully distinguish between combatant and civilian and ensure that harm to civilians is limited."
   
   Further, terrorists are "merely criminals, albeit criminals of an especially heinous type, and that label suggests the appropriate venue for dealing with the threats they pose."
   
   "We train our soldiers to respect the line between combatant and civilian. Our political leaders must also respect this distinction, lest we unwittingly endanger the values for which we are fighting, and further compromise our efforts to strengthen our security." 08-07
   
   
3. -Editorial: $40 Billion from Gates and Buffet May Change World Health (WorldPress.org - Akukwe)
   "The recent announcement by multibillionaire investor Warren Buffet that he will give a substantial part of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has the makings of a watershed moment in global health. By giving what Fortune magazine estimates to be $37 billion in today's value, Buffet is beefing up the already deep pockets of the Gates foundation, which had more than $30 billion as of June 2006. Since more than 60 percent of the Gates foundation programming is in the area of global health, the implications of a steady source of funds for many years to come cannot be overestimated." 07-06
   
   
4. -Editorial: A Question of Competence in Intelligence (MSNBC News)
   "As our esteemed senators fret over whether the NSA has violated their outdated 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, they are not paying enough attention to the competence issue. And no one seems to recall that the same Senate intelligence committee report from 2002 also criticized the 'NSA's cautious approach to any collection of intelligence relating to activities in the United States,' and its 'failure to address modern communications technology aggressively.' In recent years the agency tried to do so, but failed. To little notice, a giant $1 billion-plus program called Trailblazer that was to have brought the NSA up to date in data mining and pattern analysis—transforming the NSA's blizzard of signals intelligence into an easily searchable database—has turned into such a boondoggle that, one intelligence official says, "nothing can be salvaged out of it." " 'It’s a complete and abject failure,' says Robert D. Steele, a CIA veteran who is familiar with the program." 02-06
   
   
5. -Editorial: Americans Have a Right to Know the Standards the President Is Using (International Herald Tribune)
   "Americans have a right to know what standards their president has been applying to the treatment of prisoners. The image of the United States is at stake, as well as the safety of every man and woman who is fighting Bush's so-called war on terror." 11-06
   
   
6. -Editorial: Bush's View of President Not Supported by Constitution (International Herald Tribune)
   "President George W. Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed."
   
   "The Bush administration's disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the 'unitary executive.' The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory has no support in American history or the Constitution, and is a formula for autocracy." 06-07
   
   
7. -Editorial: Cost of War Borrowed from Future Generations (MSNBC News)
   "Iraq is the first major war that this country has fought by transferring the entire cost to future generations, including the generation fighting the war, through government debt. President Bush has never proposed raising taxes to pay for the conflict. Instead, he has presided over an increase in domestic spending and substantially cut taxes in 2003, an unprecedented step during wartime. "In every other major war ... we raised taxes," says Robert Hormats, author of The Price of Liberty, an authoritative and insightful recent book on how America has financed its wars. "This is the first major war where we have cut taxes ... and it is the first major war where we have increased domestic ... spending rather than cut it. As a result, the entire incremental cost of the war has been borrowed."
   
   "That cost is formidable. The Congressional Budget Office calculates that the Iraq war has already cost $600 billion. That bill is rising by $10.3 billion per month. Because all of that money has been borrowed, the interest on that additional debt might swell the price tag by another $600 billion over the next decade, the House Budget Committee estimates."
   
   "If Bush and McCain believe they can convince America that keeping many thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq is indispensable to our security, there is a simple way for them to prove it: Ask the country to pay for it." 04-08
   
   
8. -Editorial: Cousin Marriage Matters in Iraq (Christian Science Monitor)
   "Clan loyalty and nepotism strengthened by centuries of cousin marriage were always bound to undermine President Bush's fantasy of creating a truly national democratic government in Iraq. Never again should the US blithely invade a country knowing so little about its societal fabric." 12-06
   
   
9. -Editorial: Democrats Lay Down Markers (BBC News)
   "But she [Senator Hillary Clinton] made it clear at the same time - this message directed at the wider American public - that if America were to be attacked she would not shy from retaliation, 'a military response'."
   
   "She was the only candidate to grasp that this was a crucial (if vacuous) piece of political posturing if the charge that the Democrats are soft is to be repudiated." 04-07
   
   
10. -Editorial: Double Standard on Torture (Slate.com)
    "This [United States] double standard [on torture] is deeply flawed. Legal protections for fundamental rights of those we have locked up should not vary depending on the passport they hold. And this flaw raises a serious question not only about administration policy in the war on terror, but also about American constitutional doctrine."
    
    "The administration's treaty interpretation makes no sense. The Torture Convention is predicated on the principle that the conduct it prohibits is fundamentally incompatible with human dignity—and all human beings have equal dignity, regardless of their nationality, and regardless of where they are held. There is no evidence that Congress sought to limit the Torture Convention prohibition to conduct within our borders. Abraham Sofaer, who submitted the treaty to Congress on behalf of the first Bush administration, has written to Congress stating that the current administration's position is inconsistent with the original understanding of the convention and improperly turns an effort by Congress to give substantive definition to the terms "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" into a geographical loophole that frees U.S. officials to commit actions just short of torture when acting abroad." 11-05
    
    
11. -Editorial: How Iran Has Been Emboldened by U.S. Failures (International Tribune)
    "The Bush/Cheney build-up against Iran is taking shape. The terrible irony is that there are much more persuasive grounds for a full- scale confrontation, if not necessarily full- fledged war, with Iran than there were against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. And irony of ironies: the ability of the United States to lead a serious campaign against Iran's newly emboldened regime has been undermined significantly by the Bush administration's own failings and lack of strategic vision."
    
    "Briefly, five critical mistakes by the White House placed political and ideological aims ahead of the national interest, and left the United States in a weaker position to deal with Iran's growing assertiveness and lack of respect for U.S. power." 02-07
    
    
12. -Editorial: How Some Troops See the Iraq War (Christian Science Monitor)
    For Corporal Mayer, Iraq "is not solely a place of death and loss. It is also a place of hope. It is the hope of the town of Hit, which he saw transform from an insurgent stronghold to a place where kids played on Marine trucks. It is the hope of villagers who whispered where roadside bombs were hidden. But most of all, it is the hope he saw in a young Iraqi girl who loved pens and Oreo cookies."
    
    "In a business where life and death rest on instinctive adherence to thoroughly ingrained lessons, accomplishment is ticked off in a list of orders followed and tasks completed. And by virtually any measure, America's servicemen and women are accomplishing the day-to-day tasks set before them."
    
    "Yet for the most part, America is less interested in the success of Operation Iron Fist, for instance, than the course of the entire Iraq enterprise." 11-05
    
    
13. -Editorial: Ike Was Right About War Machine (CBS News - Rooney)
    "I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into."
    
    "Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China."
    
    "Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?"
    
    "I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment."
    
    "We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this: 'We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …' "
    
    "Well, Ike was right. That's just what’s happened." 9-05
    
    
14. -Editorial: Losses May Be Opportunity for Bush (MSNBC News)
    "The category 4 political hurricane of 2006 was more than a referendum on an unpopular war and president: it signals the end of the conservative tide that began rising 40 years ago; it's the end of a pernicious six-year experiment in "governing for the base," and in many ways it's a blessing in disguise for George W. Bush, who now has the opportunity to salvage something of his presidency." 11-06
    
    
15. -Editorial: Partisan Deadlock in Washingon (PBS.org)
    "Conservatives now comprise 80 percent of the Republican Party; 80 percent of Republicans call themselves conservatives, much higher than a generation ago. Half of Democrats call themselves liberals, not as high on the Republican side, but higher, again, than a generation ago."
    
    "Each side has been unified in a way that widens the distance between them, so even if the absolute level of disagreement in our society is not really larger than it's been in the past -- and I don't think it is -- the way the parties are organized makes it harder for them to bridge the differences that do exist."
    
    "The loss of the personal relationships and the regarding of somebody of a different point of view as a fellow American is what has poisoned our politics." 11-07
    
    
16. -Editorial: Republicans Have a Simple Message, Democrats Don't (CBS News - Meyer)
    "Democrats need to do two simple things: look at the 2005 party fundraising reports and read the speech Karl Rove delivered last Friday to the Republican National Committee. A whole lot will get real simple if they do that. They'll realize they need a boatload more money and some knockout punch lines for campaign debates."
    
    "The 2006 GOP/Rove platform can easily be put on an index card, if not a Post-it note. It reads something like this: we are at war against foreign terrorists who want to kill you and your society and we'll do what it takes to stop it and the Democrats won't; we will cut your taxes and give you money and Democrats won't. Every Republican candidate in the country can spit that one out." 01-06
    
    
17. -Editorial: Silencing a Skeptic (MSNBC News)
    "[Former Republican Congressman Dick] Armey had succumbed to Cheney's pressure. He had decided to be the good soldier, the loyal partisan. But this vote [to give President Bush the power to wage war with Iraq] weighed upon him. For weeks afterward, he would agonize about it and try to convince himself that he had not actually voted for a war. He wanted to believe that he had merely given Bush the option to use military force, to strengthen the president's hand in pursuing a diplomatic solution to the Saddam problem." 09-06
    
    
18. -Editorial: The Bush Administration Thoughtlessly Engineered a Civil War (MSNBC News - Zakaria)
    "The administration has never fully understood the sectarian nature of its policies, which were less 'nation building' than they were 'nation busting' in their effects. It kept insisting that it was building a national army and police force when it was blatantly obvious (even to columnists) that the forces were overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurdish, mostly drawn from militias with stronger loyalties to political parties than to the state. The answer to these fundamentally political objections was technocratic: more training. But a stronger Shiite Army made—makes—the Sunni populace more insecure and willing to support the insurgency."
    
    The Bush Administration "thoughtlessly engineered a political and social revolution as intense as the French or Iranian one and then seemed surprised that Iraq could not digest it happily, peaceably and quickly. We did not give them a republic. We gave them a civil war." 12-06
    
    
19. -Editorial: This Hole in the Ground (MSNBC News - Olbermann)
    "Five years later this country's wound is still open."
    
    "It is beyond shameful." 09-06
    
    
20. -Editorial: U.S. Combating Iran Through Economics (MSNBC News - Hirsh)
    "[Stuart] Levey, the undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, has been leading the U.S. campaign to isolate and slowly asphyxiate the Iranian economy." 01-07
    
    
21. -Editorial: What Went Wrong in Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "Mistake No. 1, the [Army's new field] manual instructs, is to 'overemphasize killing and capturing the enemy rather than securing and engaging the populace.' That pretty well describes what the Army has done in Iraq since the first improvised explosive devices began detonating." 01-07
    
    
22. -Editorial: Who Profits from Rising Gas Prices? (Mercury News)
    "Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, in July reported record net income of $15.5 billion for the first half of this year, a 38 percent increase over the same period a year ago. Other major oil companies reported similar fortunes." 9-05
    
    
23. -Editorial: Why Media Did Not Call the Iraq Conflict a "Civil War" (MSNBC News)
    "The reason the Bush administration doesn’t want this called a civil war isn’t hard to figure. Once that threshold is crossed, support for American involvement will fall further, as Americans ask why their sons and daughters should be killed and maimed as part of some other country’s family feud. The Bush argument that Iraq is the 'central front in the war on terror' rings hollow when the 'enemy' has become a bunch of Iraqi tribes that hate each other."
    
    "But why has the news media gone along with this fiction for so many months?" 11-06
    
    
24. -Editorial: Will America Protect the Kurds in Iraq? (International Herald Tribune)
    "Iraqi Kurds will badly need a friend. Their strong participation in the Iraqi military has not gone unnoticed by the many Arab Iraqis who see them as doing America's bidding. When America scales down its presence or leaves entirely, retribution will follow." 01-07
    
    
25. -Editorial: Will the U.S. Attack Iran? (Time.com)
    "Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy."
    
    "Strengthening the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC is the one obstacle to democratic and a friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking."
    
    "And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. 'IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran.' " 08-07
    
    
26. -Gates, Robert: Secretary of Defense (Wikipedia.org)
    "Robert Michael Gates, Ph.D. (born September 25, 1943) is the current United States Secretary of Defense." 12-06
    
    
27. Al Qaeda and the Taliban Are "Back" (MSNBC News)
    "After years in which Zawahiri seemed constantly on the run, his alleged orchestration of last week's attacks would be further evidence that Qaeda and Taliban forces are newly empowered and have consolidated control of a safe haven along the Pakistani border. A new National Intelligence Estimate out of Washington last week also concludes that Al Qaeda is resurgent in Pakistan—and more centrally organized than it has been at any time since 9/11. The NIE—a periodic intel assessment that is considered the most authoritative issued by the U.S. government—concluded Al Qaeda has 'regenerated key elements' of its ability to attack the United States." 07-07
    
    
28. Bolton Gets Praise (McClatchyDC.com)
    "Joshua Bolten, President Bush's bass-guitar-playing White House chief of staff, has been hitting the right notes lately, even with some of the administration's harshest critics."
    
    "Several Democratic lawmakers praised Bolten this week for helping to find pragmatic outsider Michael Mukasey to replace Bush's longtime inner-circle friend Alberto Gonzales as attorney general — and thus avoiding the fierce Senate confirmation fight that was expected if Bush had chosen another loyalist or ideologue." 09-07
    
    
29. Budget Office: War May Cost $2.4 Trillion (USA Today)
    "The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release Wednesday."
    
    "A previous CBO estimate put the wars' costs at more than $1.6 trillion. This one adds $705 billion in interest, taking into account that the conflicts are being funded with borrowed money." 10-07
    
    
30. Bush Job Approval Ratings (PollingReports.com)
    Provides the latest polls on job approval ratings of President George W. Bush. 10-07
    
    
31. Bush's Choice for Attorney General: A Profile (USNews.com)
    US News provides "10 Things You Didn't Know" about Michael Mukasey. 09-07
    
    
32. CIA Director: Iraq Instability "Irreversible" (MSNBC News)
    "Hayden said [in November of 2006] 'the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible,' adding that he could not 'point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around,' according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants." 07-07
    
    
33. Communities Help Iraq War Vets (ABC News)
    "Thanks to Senatore and the people of Wheaton, Ill., who helped her raise the money, one badly injured solider, Sgt. Joel Gomez, will receive a new home free of charge."
    
    While Senatore is proud of the way her community rallied to support this soldier of misfortune, she says she wonders why the need exists in the first place."
    
    "The VA is dealing with an increasing number of wounded troops without a commensurate increase in funding from Congress. Nearly 68,000 U.S. service personnel have suffered wounds in Iraq that were serious enough to prevent them from returning to action." "The VA's maximum home-building grant, for example, is $50,000. But Gomez's house — with technology geared to the disabled — costs almost $500,000."
    
    "John Gonsalves' Massachusetts-based organization, Homes for Our Troops, is also providing homes for badly disabled veterans. They've built five homes so far, but he expects hundreds more will be needed." 8-05
    
    
34. Corruption in Iraq Ministries (MSNBC News)
    "Desperate shortages of drugs and medical supplies in Baghdad's overcrowded hospitals are confronting the victims of violence. But the shortages are not because of a lack of money."
    
    "Medicines and supplies have been siphoned off and sold elsewhere because of corruption in the Iraqi government's Ministry of Health, according to a draft U.S. government report obtained by NBC News."
    
    "The report, written by U.S. advisers to Iraq's anti-corruption agency, analyzes corruption in 12 ministries and finds devastating and grim problems: 'Corruption protected by senior members of the Iraqi government,' the report said, 'remains untouchable.' " 07-07
    
    
35. Democrat - Al Gore Profile (Wikipedia.org)
    Provides a biography. 06-06
    
    
36. Democrat - Bill Richardson (RichardsonforPresident.com)
    Provides his official Web site. 03-07
    
    
37. Does the US Have Nuclear Bomb Evidence Against Iran? (MSNBC News)
    "The accusations come almost every day from U.S. officials: Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Sponsoring terrorism. Killing Americans in Iraq. Intent on Israel’s destruction. Yet, some officials add, its government will collapse if only given a push."
    
    "Does the U.S. have solid proof that Iran is guilty of such a long list of misdeeds? Or is the case against Iran — and the certainty of its ill intent — a bit fuzzy?" 11-07
    
    
38. Editorial: Bill Threatens "Unwritten Constitution" (FindLaw)
    "Last week, the Senate unanimously approved a defense authorization bill which, if approved by the House, will dramatically curtail the ability of prisoners held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention in federal court."
    
    "The Amendment's key provision would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to entertain habeas corpus petitions from Guantanamo Bay detainees--except in two circumstances."
    
    Editor's Note: The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to release a person from unlawful imprisonment. The writ addresses whether lawful procedures were used to imprison the person, not whether the person is guilty of a crime. 12-05
    
    
39. Editorial: Consequences of the Libby Guilty Verdict (USNews.com)
    "Republican insiders are deeply worried about the 'Scooter' Libby verdict's political effect–especially when combined with the rash of other bad news that has erupted recently concerning the Iraq war."
    
    "What the insiders are most worried about, in a political sense, is that Americans and members of Congress will stitch all these developments together and conclude that Bush has shown bad judgment and a lack of management ability–undermining his credibility even further and emboldening his critics to challenge him on Capitol Hill across the board." 03-07
    
    
40. Editorial: Ford's Long Shadow (MSNBC News)
    "The 38th president, who will be mourned at services this week in Washington and Michigan, helped shape America in two different centuries." 12-06
    
    
41. Editorial: How Bush Lost Sight of the Children (Time.com)
    "And he [President Bush] really did listen, more than Presidents often do. He also asked questions. One sounded lofty, yet it resonated with those of us seated around the room: 'How do I speak to the soul of America?' My answer to that was simple: Focus on the children. Their plight is our shame, I told him, and their promise is our future. Reach them and you reach our soul. Bush nodded in agreement. The conversation was rich and deep for more than an hour and a half."
    
    "And now, the President has vetoed a bipartisan measure to expand health insurance for low-income children. Most of his expressed objections to the bill have been vigorously refuted by Republican Senators who helped craft the legislation. Members of his own party have vowed to lobby their colleagues in an effort to override the veto. During his first presidential campaign, Bush chided conservative House Republicans for spending cuts accomplished on the backs of the poor. Now congressional Republicans are chiding him." 10-07
    
    
42. Editorial: The Scuffle Over Torture (MSNBC News)
    "So what do you call simulated drownings — waterboarding — and slapping and freezing, techniques that were approved in a 2005 secret Department of Justice legal opinion? If the Eighth Amendment prohibits American police from waterboarding suspects, common sense tells me it's illegal."
    
    "But legal or not, the important thing to remember is that torture doesn't work. When I was in the CIA I never came across a country that systematically tortures its citizens and at the same time produces useful intelligence. The objective of torture, invariably, is intimidation."
    
    "When Stalin asked the KGB to find out how to make an atomic bomb, the KGB didn't kidnap and torture American and British scientists. It recruited spies. And Stalin got his bomb." 10-07
    
    
43. Editorial: The War As We Saw It (New York Times)
    "As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)"
    
    "A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
    
    "As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event." 08-07
    
    
44. Editorial: We Are All Immigrants (MSNBC News)
    "Millions of undocumented immigrants pay income taxes using a special identification number the IRS provides. They pay into the Social Security system, too, even though they're not eligible to collect benefits. In fact, they may be helping to keep the system afloat, with $7 billion currently in a designated suspense file, much of which is believed to have come from undocumented workers."
    
    "In 2004 there was a backlog of more than 6 million unprocessed immigration petitions, a record high. So much for suggestions that immigrants are lax about regularizing their status. Clearly the laxity is at least partly federal." 05-06
    
    
45. Ex-Surgeon General: Bush Administration Put Politics Ahead of Science (MSNBC News)
    " 'Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,' Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee."
    
    " 'The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party' Carmona added."
    
    Editor's Note: Provides a short guide to stem cell research. 07-07
    
    
46. Extending the Bush Legacy (New York Times)
    "Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, a conservation group, said that the Bush administration is working on both formal regulations and a series of arcane procedural changes that have the effect of centralizing executive authority and making it difficult for Congress or a subsequent president to undo them."
    
    " 'If you want to have the regulations in place when you leave office in 2009, you have to start now,' Mr. Clapp said. 'It’s a way for an administration to have life after death.' " 09-07
    
    
47. Funding of Presidential Candidates (New York Times)
    Provides the amount and location by city or state of funding for the 2008 presidential election. 10-07
    
    
48. Green - David Cobb (Wikipedia.org)
    Provides a profile of a potential candidate for president in 2008. 03-07
    
    
49. Green - Winona LaDuke (Wikipedia.org)
    Provides a profile of a potential candidate for president in 2008. 03-07
    
    
50. Guantanamo's Innocents - After Release (ABC News)
    "Even after being cleared of any wrongdoing, five innocent men were kept captive at the detention center at Guantanamo. Today, these men who started out in China and ended up in Cuba are now free and in the Eastern European country of Albania, the only country that would take them. They spoke to the ABC News Law & Justice Unit in their first American interview." 06-06
    
    
51. How the War in Afghanistan "Went Bad" (New York Times)
    "At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials."
    
    "As defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed credit for toppling the Taliban with light, fast forces. But in a move that foreshadowed America’s trouble in Iraq, he failed to anticipate the need for more forces after the old government was gone, and blocked an early proposal from Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and Mr. Karzai, the administration’s handpicked president, for a large international force. As the situation deteriorated, Mr. Rumsfeld and other administration officials reversed course and cajoled European allies into sending troops." 08-07
    
    
52. Investigators: Video Shows Blackwater Fired First (MSNBC News)
    "Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident last week in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case had been referred to the Iraqi judiciary." 09-07
    
    
53. Iraq's Refugee Crisis Worsens (CBS News)
    "Every day, thousands of war-weary, frightened, and desperate Iraqis stream across the border into Syria - which, until now, has been one of the few countries that have opened their doors to the refugees." 09-07
    
    
54. Is Iraq Making Political Gains? (Christian Science Monitor)
    "With even General Petraeus saying in a letter to his troops that in this political objective the surge 'has not worked out as we had hoped,' the debate in the days ahead will revolve primarily around the Iraqis' political shortcomings and what that should mean for US policy."
    
    "That debate falls broadly into three camps:"
    
    "1) The political failures show that Iraq is in a civil war the US cannot stop, so US troops should come home."
    
    "2) US security interests are served by the surge's military successes, and the rug should not be pulled out from under local Iraqis, such as the Sunnis of Anbar Province, who are starting to act without the central government."
    
    "3) As a "middle way," the US should begin a token troop drawdown in coming months to pressure the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make political progress and to get the US on the road to an orderly disengagement." 09-07
    
    
55. Is the Iraq War Making the US Safer? (Time.com)
    "It took three hearings before General David Petraeus finally got asked the most important question: Is the Iraq war, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee inquired at Tuesday afternoon's session, 'making America safer?' Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was uncharacteristically uncertain. 'Sir,' he said, 'I don't know, actually.' For many watching, that answer was a stark indictment of the Bush Administration's conduct of the war over the past four years, and the logic behind it. It may also have been taken as a slap in the face by family members of the 3,774 Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice in this conflict." 09-07
    
    
56. Key Sunni Ally of U.S. Assassinated (CNN News)
    "A key Sunni sheik who united with U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda militants in Iraq was assassinated Thursday by a roadside bomb, officials said." 09-07
    
    
57. Leading Sunni Cleric Gives His Formula for Success in Iraq (Time.com)
    Harith al-Dari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's top Sunni cleric gives his view on how the civil war in Iraq can be ended: "For there to be any meaningful reconciliation, he says, the government must first dismantle the interior and defense ministries, which are currently controlled by Shi'ite parties, and bring back some senior officers from the old army. 'Once these ministries are under the control of professionals instead of sectarian interests, you will see peace returning quickly,' he says. 'And then the Americans can leave with their dignity and leave us with ours.' " 05-07
    
    
58. Palestinian Split Poses Quandary for USA (New York Times)
    "With the two Palestinian territories increasingly isolated from each other by a week of brutal warfare between rival factions, Israel and the United States seem agreed on a policy to treat them as separate entities to support Fatah in the West Bank and squeeze Hamas in the Gaza Strip." 06-07
    
    
59. Plan for Victory in Iraq (USConservatives.About.com)
    Provides President George W. Bush's plan for victory in Iraq, made public in 2003. He defines victory in three stages:
    
    "Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces."
    
    "Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential."
    
    "Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism." 12-05
    
    
60. Poll: Americans Split on Impeachment of Bush (AmericanResearchGroup.com)
    The question posed in the poll was: "Do you favor or oppose the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush?" 07-07
    
    
61. Reactions to Iraq Reports (PBS.org)
    David Brooks: "None of the candidates [for president] are asking any of the tough questions."
    
    "On the Democratic side, the question is, what happens if we leave and why, as Alissa Rubin said, do the Iraqis ambivalently want us to stay? And that's a tough question, and a president has to deal with that question, but a candidate doesn't."
    
    "On the Republican side, the tough question is, if we stick it out now, what makes us believe it will be better or more sustainable in six months or a year? And that's a tough question, and they're not dealing with it." 09-07
    
    
62. Report: Little Political Progress in Iraq (MSNBC News)
    "An independent assessment concluding that Iraq has made little political progress in recent months despite an influx of U.S. troops drew fierce objections from the White House on Thursday and provided fresh ammunition for Democrats who want to bring troops home." 08-07
    
    
63. Report: Pre-War Predictions by the Intelligence Agencies (MSNBC News)
    "Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and 'probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups in the Muslim world.' " 05-07
    
    
64. Republican - Rudy Giuliani (Forbes.com)
    "As a businessman, he's been mixing with a sketchier crowd. 11-06
    
    
65. Rice Asks Nuclear Watchdog Group to Back Off (CNN News)
    "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned the U.N. nuclear watchdog group Wednesday not to interfere with international diplomacy over Iran's alleged weapons program." 09-07
    
    
66. Steelworker Takes Spotlight in Debate (CBS News)
    "Every once in a while, a moment of truth breaks through during a political campaign event."
    
    "It happened Tuesday night during the AFL-CIO debate when Steve Skvara, a 60-year-old retired steelworker from Union Township, Ind., asked a question to resounding applause:"
    
    " 'Every day of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family and I can't afford to pay for her health care. What's wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?' " 08-07
    
    
67. Study: We Have Left-Wing Brains and Right-Wing Brains (LATimes.com)
    "Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.
    
    "Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work." 09-07
    
    
68. Teens Help Soldiers Call Home (USA Today)
    "At the holidays, for a soldier at war, there's nothing like a phone call home. Brittany and Robbie Bergquist have provided more than $1.4 million worth of them — 24 million precious minutes." 11-07
    
    
69. U.S. Report on Iran Branded "Misleading" by Regulatory Agency (BBC News)
    "The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it 'erroneous' and 'misleading'." 09-07
    
    
70. Videogame of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" Bashed for Intolerance and Violence (ABC News)
    " 'It's essentially faith-based killing,' [Tim] Simpson, [interim president of the Christian Alliance for Progress], says, arguing that the game twists the Gospel. 'The religious right envisions sitting down by the fireside — Mom and Dad, Johnny and Susie — killing all their non-Christian opponents inside the game and imagining this is what, in fact, God wants.' " 12-06
    
    

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