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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/27/politics/printable1843910.shtml
Bush Signs Child Predator Law
WASHINGTON, July 27, 2006
(AP) President Bush, joined by "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh,signed a new law Thursday that requires convicted child molesters to belisted on a national Internet database and face a felony charge for failingto update their whereabouts."Our nation grieves with every family that's suffered the unbearable pain ofa child whose been abducted or abused," Mr. Bush said in a bill-signingceremony in the Rose Garden. "This law takes an important step forward inthis country's efforts to protect those who cannot protect themselves."
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http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/wire/sns-ap-reynolds-smoking-bans,1,3196863.story?coll=sns-ap-investing-headlines
Reynolds Fights Anti-Tobacco Initiatives
By STEVE HARTSOE
Associated Press Writer
2:21 PM PDT, July 27, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - In Arizona, they're called the Non-Smoker ProtectionCommittee. In Ohio, it's simply Smoke Less Ohio. Anti-smoking advocates? Hardly. Both are staunchly pro-tobacco and supported in part by North Carolina-basedcigarette maker Reynolds American Inc., which is working hard this year todefeat proposed smoking bans in those states, as well as ballot efforts to raise cigarette taxes in California and Missouri. The nation's second-largest cigarette maker plans to spend $40 million todefeat all four measures, enough that company officials have warned investors the campaigns will affect the company's earnings in the second-half of 2006.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/28/ap/politics/printableD8J4NR600.shtml
House GOP Pressing Vote on Minimum Wage
WASHINGTON, Jul. 28, 2006
(AP) House Republican leaders, giving in to political reality, plan a voteto raise the $5.15 minimum wage before leaving Washington this weekend for afive-week recess."Whether people like it or not, we need to go ahead with it," said Rep. MikeCastle, R-Del., who supports the idea. "There's a general agreement amongRepublicans (opposing the raise) that "maybe we don't like it much, but weneed to move forward with it just for political reasons."The No. 3 House GOP leader, Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, said theplan was to have a vote before week's end. But Majority Leader John Boehner,R-Ohio, said Republicans leaders were working to pass the increase but that"no decisions have been made."
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15141030.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
The Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Jul. 28, 2006
Ned Lamont a true Democrat
By WAYNE MADSEN
www.onlinejournal.com
During much of the 20th century, Democratic Senate whips never hesitated to use the lash to ensure party discipline on crucial votes. Unfortunately, the current Democratic whip, Dick Durbin of Illinois, is no Captain Bligh.A prime example has been Durbin's failure to crack the whip on Sen. Joe Lieberman after the Connecticut Democrat's repeated votes supporting
President Bush's failed -- or failing -- policies in Iraq.As the Democratic whip, Durbin long ago should have demanded that Lieberman hew to the party line rather than creating even more fissures in a heavily fractured party.While intestinal fortitude is AWOL among the current Democratic leadership these days, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed a little spine by saying it would ''likely'' back the winner of the Aug. 8 Connecticut primary -- either Lieberman or his more progressive, Ned Lamont.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/business/worldbusiness/28auto.html?pagewanted=print
July 28, 2006
With $3 Gas, Detroit Pays for Its Past
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Four years ago, when Detroit's designers and engineers were working on new vehicles for the middle of the decade, they had only to look out their windows to see what was selling: sport utility vehicles and big pickup trucks.And little wonder, given gasoline prices of $1.36 a gallon on average. It seemed an easy choice for Detroit to stick with these vehicles - which, with their big profit margins, had become its economic underpinning.But in Japan, where engineers and designers were pulling up to gas stations that sometimes charged four times as much for fuel, the answer was to focus on fuel-efficient vehicles.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?pagewanted=print
July 28, 2006
For Hussein, a Long, Raucous Trial Ends in His Absence
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 27 - The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other former officials on charges of crimes against humanity ended after nine months on Thursday with closing arguments from the final two defendants. The chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, said he and four other judges would announce their verdict, which could carry the possibility of death by hanging for Mr. Hussein, on Oct. 16.The former Iraqi dictator and the seven others, mostly high-ranking officials of his Sunni Arab-led government and military apparatus, are charged with orchestrating the execution of 148 men and boys in the mostly Shiite village of Dujail in 1982.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/europe/28britain.html?ei=5094&en=d40143bee7fa76eb&hp=&ex=1154145600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
The New York Times
July 28, 2006
Bush and Blair to Hold Talks Today
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, July 27 - When Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Washington on Friday, he will find himself in a familiar position - a statesman abroad, and assailed at home as what his harshest critics call America's "poodle."Mr. Blair's journey will be his second in two months and his third direct encounter with President Bush in the same period, including an ill-starred conversation over an open microphone at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Russia. As in earlier crises since 9/11, Mr. Blair has stood resolutely with Mr. Bush on the current Middle East conflict, refusing to endorse calls in his own Parliament, in Europe and at the United Nations for an immediate
cease-fire.But his unequivocal support for the White House has left him open to growing
criticism. In an opinion survey in The Guardian on Tuesday, a majority of Britons polled said he should show more independence from the United States - mimicking the "Love Actually" moment from the movie of that name starring Hugh Grant as a British prime minister who breaks publicly with an American president.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15141029.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Courageous Democrat, proven leader
By LAWRENCE J. HAAS
http://gai.georgetown.edu
The antiwar insurgency behind Ned Lamont's challenge to Joe Lieberman makes no sense on policy or political grounds and, if successful, would haunt theDemocratic Party for years to come.
Lieberman is a proven leader who stands with his party on core economic,health, education and environmental issues and brings vital federal funds toConnecticut.Lamont is a political novice who has already shifted positions on hissignature issue (the war in Iraq), voted against families as a localofficial in Greenwich, and, in that capacity, sided with Republicans 80percent of the time.
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Gerald Eisman
July 26, 2006
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11877
In A Word - Bogeyman: Yes Virginia, there is such a thing. It's called the religious left.
Bogeyman: A terrifying specter; a hobgoblin.
Just when you think you have the moral high ground, up pops the most awful of specters, a ghost of unknown proportions, materialized to bring thebattle for moral high ground to those who felt they had the monopoly. Thereligious right, those wonderful people who decried gay marriage andabortion and vilified those cursed Democrats and Liberals as Godless, has come under a hail of brimstone of their own.Now it is they who are being attacked. Their enemy, the religious left.Bearing their own brand of a faith-based agenda, clergy from alldenominations are lobbying Congressmen and Senators, rallying for moderation and change and making their positions known to the public.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701220_pf.html
A War of Her Own
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, July 28, 2006; A25
Lebanon has now become Condi's war.
You can argue whether legal title to the tragic mess in Iraq properly belongs to Rummy or Cheney or to the Decider himself, but as far as Lebanon is concerned, it's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who has stepped front and center to handle the crisis and show the world who's boss.It was Rice who waited more than a week, giving Israel time to pound the daylights out of Lebanon, before finding time to visit Beirut and Tel Aviv and attend a crisis summit in Rome. It was Rice who spent her trip categorically ruling out a quick cease-fire, which made one wonder if she really needed to travel at all, since she could have just thumbed out a text
message: "2 soon 2 stop boom boom."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701222_pf.html
Pander and Run
By Peter Beinart
Friday, July 28, 2006; A25
After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay. It's jingoism with a liberal face. The latest example came this week when Democratic senators and House members demanded that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki either retract his criticisms of Israel or forfeit his chance to address Congress. Great idea.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701908_pf.html
Detainee Abuse Charges Feared
Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes Act
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; A01
An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of such detainees, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such "protections," according to someone who heard his remarks last week.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28rice.html?pagewanted=print
July 28, 2006
News Analysis
2 Steps Back: Rice's Careful Diplomacy Falters Under Renewed Assertiveness
by the U.S.
By HELENE COOPER
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Friday, July 28 - For the past year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has worked assiduously to resurrect the importance of traditional diplomacy and building consensus among world leaders after America's go-it-alone approach to Iraq.She has managed to hold together a fragile coalition of countries seeking to curb Iran's nuclear program by offering to end America's three-decade-long refusal to talk to Tehran if it suspends its uranium -enrichment program. And she has a similar coalition holding together on North Korea's nuclear efforts.But in the space of one hour in Rome on Wednesday, the public rewards of that hard work - the view around the world that the United States may now be more willing to play nice with others - may have been undone. Once again, it seemed, the United States had reverted to its my-way-or-the-highway approach, and Ms. Rice was on the defensive.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/opinion/28krugman.html?pagewanted=print
July 28, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Reign of Error
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Amid everything else that's going wrong in the world, here's one more piece of depressing news: a few days ago the Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans now believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded, up from 36 percent in February 2005. Meanwhile, 64 percent still believe that Saddam had strong links with Al Qaeda.At one level, this shouldn't be all that surprising. The people now running America never accept inconvenient truths. Long after facts they don't like have been established, whether it's the absence of any wrongdoing by the Clintons in the Whitewater affair or the absence of W.M.D. in Iraq, the
propaganda machine that supports the current administration is still at work, seeking to flush those facts down the memory hole.But it's dismaying to realize that the machine remains so effective. Here's how the process works.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/opinion/28fri3.html?pagewanted=print
The New York Times
July 28, 2006
Editorial
Chicago's Message
The anti-Wal-Mart movement collided with the growing national debate about minimum wages in Chicago this week. The city council passed an ordinance requiring big retailers to pay higher wages and benefits than other businesses must. Legal challenges are bound to follow, but the council's action should be taken as another sign that while Washington ignores the problem of living wages for workers, the rest of the country is growing very concerned.We sympathize with the frustration of local officials, whether in Chicago or Maryland, where state efforts to compel better health benefits from Wal-Mart were recently struck down by a federal judge. While the company's obsession with the bottom line has made it a huge international success, its meager
health benefits often leave public hospitals and government programs for the poor paying the bill instead. And as the giant retailer begins to saturate suburban neighborhoods and turn its attention toward cities, it is important to point out that urban residents cannot survive on the company's traditional low wages.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/opinion/28fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
The New York Times
July 28, 2006
Editorial
Still a Bad Deal
Many on Capitol Hill complained last year that the Bush administration got taken to the cleaners when it negotiated a nuclear cooperation deal with India. But with so much pro-India lobbying money sloshing around up there, hopes are fast fading that Congress will do anything to fix it.
The agreement will allow the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology and fuel to India for the first time since the mid-1970's, when India diverted civil technology to a secret weapons program. Bringing the world's most populous democracy - and 12th-largest economy - in from the nuclear cold isn't necessarily a bad idea. The problem is that the United States got very little for it. No Indian promise to stop producing bomb-making material. No promise not to expand its arsenal. And no binding promise not to resume nuclear testing. (The White House won't promise that either.)
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28arabs.html?ei=5094&en=d6633724ec1cf9d0&hp=&ex=1154059200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
The New York Times
July 28, 2006
Changing Reaction
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 - At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 15 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5585086
Politics
Poll Suggests GOP Control of House Is Tenuous
