NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST - July 07, 2008

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Doctors Press Senate to Undo Medicare Cuts
By ROBERT PEAR
Ads by the American Medical Association blame Senate Republicans for a 10.6percent cut in payments to doctors who care for older Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/health/policy/07medicare.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

-Suicide Bomber Kills 40 in Afghan Capital
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and ALAN COWELL 49 minutes agoWhile Afghan cities areno stranger to suicide attacks, the blast outside the Indian Embassy rankedamong the deadliest in Kabul itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/world/asia/08afghanistan.html?hp

-Cholesterol Screening Is Urged for Young
The nation's pediatricians are recommending wider cholesterol screening forchildren and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting asearly as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/health/07cholesterol.html?hp

-Behind the Bush Bust
BY PAUL KRUGMAN
Other politicians besides George W. Bush share the blame for the economicmess we're in - but most of them are Republicans. [...] And bear in mindthat John McCain has gone to great lengths to affirm his support forRepublican economic orthodoxy. So he'll have no reason to complain if, asseems likely, the economy costs him the election.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/opinion/07krugman.html?ref=opinion


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Conservatives Ready To Battle McCain on Convention Platform
Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. JohnMcCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping toprevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research andcampaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declarationof principles.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070602322.html?hpid=topnews

-Or the Joke's on Us
By Michael Kinsley
Why politicians with a sense of humor, like Minnesota Senate candidate AlFranken, deserve to be taken seriously. [...] Minnesota voters will haveto decide whether their dislike of professional politicians trumps theirenjoyment in taking umbrage, or vice versa. Coleman is a man of no interest,a run-of-the-mill professional politician who started out as a standardissue long-haired student rebel leader on Long Island in the 1960s andsurfed the zeitgeist until now. Today he is a standard-issue pro-war tax-cutRepublican. Franken, by contrast, needs no introduction and from Day Onewould be one of the most interesting people in the Senate. "Interesting," ofcourse, isn't the most important quality in a senator. "Honest," "smart" and(for my taste) "liberal" are more important. But "interesting" would benice.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070602126.html

-Ultimatum to the GOP
When House Republican leaders left Washington for the Fourth of July break,they felt good about having outwitted the Democratic majority. The feelingwas not shared 3,000 miles away, where conservative California Republicanactivists were drafting an ultimatum. The Lincoln Club of Orange County istelling the GOP leaders of both the House and Senate that it is too late torepent. They must go -- or else lose big money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070601766.html

-Guantanamo Crumbles
A federal court strikes another blow against the flimsy process used tojustify detentions of 'enemy combatants.' THE CASE OF Huzaifa Parhatprovides the clearest, most compelling evidence yet that the process used bythe Bush administration to justify holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay isdeeply and irreversibly flawed and must be discarded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070601715.html

-`Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights
Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't ejectyou for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on theInternet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rightsare anything but guaranteed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070700657_pf.html


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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Bush: Russia's new president is 'smart guy'
By DEB RIECHMANN
President Bush and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stood united Mondayon issues like Iran and North Korea. But for all their handshakes andsmiles, it is clear that thorny issues like missile defense are in a holdingpattern until a new U.S. president takes office. In their first sit down asheads of state, Bush called Medvedev a "smart" guy who is well versed inforeign policy. Medvedev casually referred to Bush as "George." Yet theyinched no closer on the missile defense issue during their more thanhour-long discussion on the sidelines of a summit here.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top12jul07,0,733849.story


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Express Gay News
http://www.expressgaynews.com/
Go to this link for the following articles:

-Sorry Mr. President, but Jesse Helms was NOT a "Kind, Decent, and HumbleMan," nor a "Great Patriot."
Jesse Helms has passed, and what should we say? We can extend ourcondolences to the Helms family, who are not responsible for his misdeedsand odious views.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-pollack/sorry-mr-president-but-je_b_111002.html


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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
www.dailyqueernews.com
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Poll: Many Clinton Backers not Switching
Arca Max Publishing
A growing number of supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., say theywill not vote for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president, a pollindicated. The poll - conducted by Opinion Research for CNN and releasedFriday - found that only 54 percent of those surveyed said they would notvote for Obama for president. Among registered Democrats, 43 percent saidthat they would prefer Clinton to be the party's nominee. In a similarsurvey in early June, 35 percent of Democrats backed Clinton and 60 percentof Clinton supporters planned to vote for Obama.
http://www.arcamax.com/politics/s-373457-840453


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Palm Beach Post
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Democrats may seize GOP states for Senate
Mississippi, one of the nation's most conservative states, has not elected aDemocratic senator in a quarter century. It has voted for Republicanpresidential candidates in the past seven elections. But this year, theres a chance that the state will send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/nation/epaper/2008/07/06/m1a_senate_0707.html


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Detroit News
http://detnews.com/

-McCain's health plan: A threat to employer plans?
There's a great unknown about Sen. John McCain's health plan: How manyemployers would drop insurance coverage for their workers because of his taxpolicies? The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting has proposed thateveryone buying health insurance get a refundable tax credit, $2,500 forindividuals and $5,000 for families. At the same time, he would treatemployer contributions toward health insurance like income, meaning workerswould have to pay income, but not payroll, taxes on it.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080707/POLITICS/807070340/1001/BIZ


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Fort Report
http://www.fortreport.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Old guy vs change: McCain, Obama images take shape
Now more than ever, it's the old guy against the agent of change. Askpeople to blurt out their first words about the two presidential candidatesand one in five say "change" or "outsider" for Barack Obama and "old" forJohn McCain, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll releasedMonday. Those are not only the top responses for each man but the ones usedmost often since January, when fewer than one in 10 volunteered thosedescriptions.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/07/old_guy_vs_change_mccain_obama_images_take_shape/

-Florida Bush donors trickle to McCain
The vaunted Bush money machine in Florida has yet to step up for JohnMcCain. Some of Florida's most elite Republican fundraisers quietly grumbleabout McCain, cite his campaign's lack of outreach or just gripe about thetough economy. Others say no candidate could match the financial performanceof Jeb and George Bush in Florida, while still more say the Bush familynetwork has been succeeded by a new, Charlie Crist generation ofmoney-raisers jumping enthusiastically behind McCain.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article669500.ece

-The Year of Passion
In this year's primaries, for the first time in many election cycles,Democrats were carried by inspiration, rather than political calculation.
Now that Barack Obama has secured his party's presidential nomination, it isa good moment to assess the extraordinary and improbable thing that theDemocrats have done. It was not intuitively obvious, particularly to thosewho saw the party's central task as winning back the Reagan Democrats, thatthe best way to retake the presidency would be to nominate an AfricanAmerican with an Islamic-sounding name. In the abstract, before Obamaemerged, that concept had not suggested itself, and some political insidersmay be excused for not immediately grasping its genius.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_year_of_passion

-CEOs' Pay Climbs While U.S. Economy Sinks
Survey: Median Pay Package For CEOs Close To $8.4 Million; 3.5 PercentHigher Than 2006
As the American economy slowed to a crawl and stockholders watched theirmoney evaporate, CEO pay still chugged to yet more dizzying heights lastyear, an Associated Press analysis shows.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/16/business/main4183487.shtml

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