According to Woodward, Tenet reassured the president that "it's a slam dunk case" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

In his CBS interview, Woodward said he "asked the president about this, and he said it was very important to have the CIA director, 'slam-dunk' is as I interpreted it, a sure thing, guaranteed."

The United States announced today that it would contribute an additional $188.5 million for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur in western Sudan.

The United States announced $188-million in aid over the next 18 months and diplomats said other countries also made offers to the closed-door meeting, but no figures were immediately available.

Below is the list of retired senior military flag officers who are advising John Kerry:

Adm. William Crowe (USN, Ret.) Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gen. John Shalikashvili (USA, Ret.) Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gen. Tony McPeak (USAF, Ret.) Former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff

Adm. Stansfield Turner, (USN, Ret.) Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Gen. Joseph Hoar (USMC, Ret.) Former Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command

Gen. Wesley Clark (USA, Ret.) Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Gen. Johnnie Wilson (USA, Ret.) Former Commander, U.S. Army Material Command

Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman (USA, Ret.) Former Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy

Lt. Gen. Kennedy (USA, Ret.) Former Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence

Vice Adm. Lee Gunn (USN, Ret.) Former Inspector General, U.S. Navy

Maj. Gen. Harry Jenkins (USMC, Ret.) Former Chief Legislative Liaison, U.S. Marine Corps

Bertrand Ramcharan, the UN acting high commissioner for human rights, raised the issue of protection. "Let me say it again: More than one million people are utterly vulnerable, living in a state of fear and without any means of protection... We know all this, we have no excuse for not knowing it: now is the time not to assess but to act," Ramcharan said in a statement.

He stressed that the humanitarian crisis was the direct consequence of a human rights crisis. "It is not impersonal, unswayable elements that are behind this tragedy: this tragedy is entirely man-made." It was the government's responsibility to resolve the crisis in line with its legal obligations, he added.

The Sudanese External Relations Ministry also issued a statement this week, affirming "the government's deep resolve" to abide by the N'djamena ceasefire accord, and stating that the government was keen to provide "more security, tranquillity and trust".

But ceasefire violations are being frequently reported. On 28 May, an Antonov aircraft and two helicopter gunships bombed a crowded market, killing at least 12 people in a village near Al-Fashir, Northern Darfur, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. "There have also been numerous credible reports of continuing attacks on civilians in displaced camps and settlements under government control," it added.

[edit]

Andrew Natsios, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said too few NGOs were operating in Darfur to deliver sufficient quantities of aid. Coupled with this was the fact that whereas the Sudanese government had removed permit requirements for NGOs, it had imposed new restrictions on vehicles and air transport, thereby effectively limiting the movement of NGOs to and within Darfur.

James Morris, the executive director of the World Food Programme, commented that the government needed to remove administrative roadblocks like visas, permits and laborious checks on basic necessities such as medical supplies.

... the most important political voice on talk radio this year may turn out to be not Franken but the usually apolitical "shock jock" Howard Stern.

Recent months have not been kind to Stern, who found himself a target of the backlash against indecency that followed the baring of Janet Jackson's nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show. In February the radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications dropped him from six of its affiliates for being "vulgar, offensive and insulting." The following month the FCC slapped him with a $27,500 fine for his on-air discussions of sexual techniques ... As Congress considers raising obscenity fines as high as $500,000, Stern is contemplating a move to satellite radio, where the FCC couldn't touch him.

The proudly boorish host has cast himself as the target of a Republican vendetta—sparked by his criticism of President Bush and spearheaded by Clear Channel (whose CEO is a Bush family friend). So Stern is fighting back, proclaiming "radio jihad" on Bush's re-election campaign ... "Remember me in November when you're in the voting booth," Stern tells listeners. "I'm asking you to do me one favor. Vote against Bush. That's it."

The idea of Howard Stern as presidential kingmaker may seem absurd on its face. But Stern has successfully dabbled in politics before. In 1994 he launched a Libertarian Party candidacy for governor of New York, only to quit the race and endorse George Pataki, a Republican, over the incumbent, Mario Cuomo. Stern was polling at six percent before he dropped out, and several political observers believed that his endorsement helped Pataki pull off a narrow win. The previous year Stern had endorsed the Republican candidate Christine Todd Whitman for governor of New Jersey, on the condition that Whitman name a rest stop after him if elected. Sure enough, Whitman upset the Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio -- and today the Howard Stern Rest Area graces Interstate 290 ...

Both those races took place within Stern's home market. But with eight million weekly listeners, Stern also has a larger national audience than any radio host other than Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Dr. Laura Schlessinger ... Stern could sway many undecided voters, according to Michael Harrison, of Talkers magazine, a nonpartisan periodical that surveys radio listener demographics.

Harrison says that Stern has "a gigantic audience of thirty- to fortysomethings, people who have grown up with him, people who are teachers, accountants, lawyers." Several million of them "would say they lean conservative ... but are on the fence" in this race. And the host has tremendous credibility with his listeners.

As many as 1 million people may die in the western Sudanese region of Darfur if sufficient international aid can't be sent there, U.S. Agency for International Development chief Andrew Natsios warned today.

"We estimate right now if we get relief in, we'll lose a third of a million people, and if we don't, the death rates be dramatically higher, approaching a million people,'' Natsios said after a United Nations aid meeting in Geneva, according to a U.S. government transcript.

Eric Reeves, who has written more than 600 articles on Sudan and testified before the U.S. Congress, said the dead are victims of a genocidal campaign by the Sudanese government that he said armed the so-called Arab Jenjaweed militia to destroy entire populations of Africans.

"When you destroy water sources, cattle, seed, food stocks, and only in African villages, you know you're looking at genocide,'' Reeves said. "When you concentrate people by the hundreds of thousands in the rainy season, which has now begun, you will see a huge uptick in epidemics'' such as malaria, cholera and measles, he said.

The death rate, now about 2,000 a week, may reach 3,000 a day by December, he said. Reeves, an English professor at Smith College in western Massachusetts, said it will be impossible to keep the death toll below 200,000 people, and 300,000 dead is very realistic unless conditions change immediately.

Jobs: Federal Government

VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. - Incumbent president looking to hire a sidekick to assist with various projects, including continued consultation with secret energy "task force" and delivering public speeches that tie the war in Iraq to al Qaeda. The ideal candidate will have have a right-wing voting record and will have the demonstrated ability to act like an effective surrogate in variety of circumstances and stick doggedly to a message regardless of how discredited it is. Strong ties to oil, coal or other energy companies is a plus. Knowledge of world history, culture and geo-political issues is not necessary. Person who has taken the time to vote in at least most of his/her local elections is preferred. Frequent travel required. No phone calls, please. Send resume and sample lies to:

Karl Rove
c/o White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20100

"We've been getting more letters critical of President Bush than those that support him. We're not sure why, nor do we want to guess. But in today's increasingly polarized political environment, we would prefer our offering to put forward a better sense of balance ...

"Since we depend upon you, our readers, to supply our letters, that goal can be difficult. We can't run letters that we don't have.

"If you would like to help us 'balance' things out, send us a letter, make a call or punch out an e-mail ... We'd love to hear from you."

Recently, much attention has been given to hatred and how it poisons the minds of our youth — race, religion, sexual orientation and the like. There is, however, another area that has far outdistanced all of the above and alarmed all true Americans because it is a real threat to the continued existence of our country.

The latest focus of hatred is directed at President George W. Bush. The continuous, venomous attacks against this man are, I believe, an indication that hatred has consumed the mind and spirit of these people in a manner very much akin to the terrorist suicide bomber who is willing to take his own life and those of his brothers in order to satisfy that hatred.

Whether they realize it or not, their hate-filled remarks are an offense to million of their brothers who elected him to office and continue to support his work.

These attacks are very similarity to the Nazis’ agenda of the 1930s, a constant stream of lying propaganda and hatred turning brother against brother and father against son.

We are hearing it daily, not only in the so-called news, but in much of our “entertainment.” It is all being done under the guise of First Amendment rights.

They are poisoning and dividing our country in a time of war and giving support and encouragement to the enemy who has vowed to kill us.

The media may think that all Americans are stupid and gullible so as to buy the biased material being pedaled, but in fact they are destroying the confidence of the “silent majority” who want to hear the unbiased truth in the news.

They should review the old story of the boy who cried “wolf.” If not, there will come a time when a legitimate message will be ignored because of past abusers.

Popular discussions about the advisability of recent tax cuts have frequently ignored a simple truism: someone, somewhere, at some time will have to pay for them. The payment may be in the form of increases in other taxes, reductions in government programs, or some combination of the two; the payment may occur now or later; it may be transparent or hidden. But iron laws of arithmetic and fiscal solvency tell us that the payment has to occur.

On average, the bottom four-fifths of households — households with income below about $76,400 — would lose more than they gain from the tax cuts once the necessary financing is taken into account. That is, once the need for financing is included, the 2001 and 2003 “tax cuts” are best seen as net tax cuts for the top 20 percent of households as a group, financed by net tax increases or benefit reductions for the remaining 80 percent of the population as a group.

[edit]

Under both of the financing scenarios, more than three out of every four households would ultimately lose more than they gain from the tax cuts. The net “losers” would be concentrated among low- and middle-income households. For instance, under the equal dollar burden scenario, nine of every 10 households in the middle fifth of the income distribution would lose more from the tax cuts than they would gain, and nearly all of the households in the bottom two-fifths of the income distribution would come out as net losers.

Conversely, high-income households would be net winners, and the gains among the highest-income households would be large. People with annual incomes of more than $1 million would gain an average of $59,600 a year — a 3.1 percent gain in after-tax income — under the proportional burden scenario and $135,000 a year — or 7 percent of income — under the equal dollar scenario.

THOUGHT RE TENET [KJL]
Last week, Al Gore near-tearfully asked for his resignation. I can picture it all now. The Tenet press conference with Howard Dean's group and MoveOn were he announces that Bush is a failed leader. The October surprise book where he blames everything wrong with intel on W., Condi & the Pentagon.

In truth, I really can't imagine he could. President Bush has been ridiculously (and ill-advisedly) loyal to him. But, if he did, it probably couldn't hurt the Anybody But Bush Kerry campaign, even if it comes from arguably (is it though?) Bush's worst Cabinent [sic] member.

I've had a chance to spend time with [President Bush] on a number of occasions, a couple of which were with my partner, and the president could not have been more gracious, could not have been more ingratiating and outgoing and demonstratively tolerant. So I'm still having a difficult time reconciling the man who, when you are in his company, personifies live and let live with the man who really believes in this constitutional amendment. I don't know who in the administration dreamed this thing up. I suspect it was the people who are responsible for the election strategy -- people rationalize all kinds of things in the name of winning.

Do you think the president really does believe in the amendment?

I'm having a hard time, frankly, believing that his heart is in this. I think the president has had a number of challenges with the conservative base -- with the growth of government during his tenure, with the out-of-control deficits during his tenure -- and I think this decision [on the gay marriage amendment] was too easy. That's what makes it even more disappointing.

Being thrown under the bus?

Yep.

Rioters broke into a U.N. base in Congo's capital Thursday and besieged peacekeepers opened fire, killing two. Tens of thousands of protesters mobbed the streets, blaming the United Nations for the rebel takeover of an eastern city.

The fall of the eastern border city of Bukavu threatens to plunge the Central African country back into civil war.

[edit]

Masses of Congolese flooded the streets on Kinshasa, marching on the main U.N. headquarters and other facilities. Rioters burned tires and grabbed clubs as they surrounded the buildings, while U.N. troops holed up inside fired tear gas and Congolese police shot into the air.

[edit]

Mobs broke down the door at the U.N. logistical base outside the city center, streamed inside and began to loot, U.N. Congo mission spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.

U.N. troops guarding the building opened fire, killing two protesters and wounding another, Toure said. "We regret this deeply because our mission was to establish peace in the country but we were left with no choice," he said.

The rioters blame the 10,800-strong U.N. force in Congo for failing to stop Wednesday's capture of the eastern border city of Bukavu by renegade commanders once allied with neighboring Rwanda.

The death toll in the humanitarian crisis in western Sudan's Darfur region could reach one million if international agencies cannot deliver aid there, a senior US official warned.

"We estimate right now if we get relief in, we'll lose a third of a million people, and if we don't the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people," said US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Andrew Natsios after a high-level UN aid meeting.

Had we tried to make a case against Jose Padilla through our criminal justice system, something that I, as the United States attorney in New York, could not do at that time without jeopardizing intelligence sources, he would very likely have followed his lawyer's advice and said nothing, which would have been his constitutional right.

He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and hope -- pray, really -- that we didn't lose him.

Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No. 27 man on the FBI's list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again. He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.

Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.

Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.

The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria - his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism.

She deflected questions about whether Bush had been asked to appear before a grand jury in the case.

Brahimi suggested that the United States had wielded considerable influence in the selection process [of the interim government] through the U.S.-led coalition and its chief administrator, L. Paul Bremer.

"I sometimes say, I'm sure he doesn't mind me saying that, Bremer is the dictator of Iraq," Brahimi told reporters. "He has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country."

Bush, the first president with a master's degree in business administration, has taken pride in his approach to management. "I put a lot of faith and trust in my staff," he wrote in his 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep."

"My job is to set the agenda and tone and framework, to lay out the principles by which we operate and make decisions, and then delegate much of the process to them," Bush wrote, adding that he sees holding people accountable as an essential ingredient.

This is Kerry Country. No, it is not Massachusetts. And it is not Ireland. It is Brittany, on the coast of France, where John Forbes Kerry's French roots go through this pretty seaside village called Saint Briac-by-the-Sea. It was here in 1908 that the wealthy Forbes family came over from England to buy a cliff-top mansion. It is where his American dad met his mother, and where a first cousin is still the mayor."

John Kerry Is French.
Vote Bush-Cheney.

Crawford may be the heart of Bush country, but the town's mayor says John Kerry is the best choice for president.

"I don't see where I'm better off than I was four years ago," Robert Campbell said Tuesday. "I don't see where the city is any better off."

The Kerry campaign recently listed Mr. Campbell as one of 100 black mayors around the country – seven of them Texans – who support the Massachusetts senator over President Bush. But the campaign has not focused particular attention on the endorsement.

“As the world pauses to recall in sorrow and regret the genocide that began ten years ago in Rwanda, we must act to prevent an enormous humanitarian tragedy in the Darfur region of Sudan, where fighting has led to the death and displacement of thousands in recent weeks.

“In neighboring Chad, a process of negotiation has begun between the government of Sudan and the rebels. It is imperative that all pressure be applied on the parties to negotiate an immediate ceasefire and allow access for humanitarian aid. Diplomatic pressure must be applied on the Sudanese government to stop the ‘janjaweed’ and allow monitoring in Darfur.

“The tragedy in Rwanda continues to give us pause. We must not forget the lessons of Rwanda, and we must demonstrate this by our leadership. We showed that kind of leadership in Bosnia and Kosovo, and it is needed now in Sudan to prevent a full-scale genocide and avoid the kind of broader destabilization that followed the tragic anniversary we mark today.

“I call on the President to demonstrate this kind of leadership in resolving the crisis in Sudan. We need to act now so that we never again find ourselves remembering our own failure to stop another genocide.”

LEHRER: But the reverse side of the question, Governor, that Vice President Gore mentioned for instance, 600,000 people died in Rwanda in 1994. There was no U.S. intervention. There was no intervention from the outside world. Was that a mistake not to intervene?

BUSH: I think the administration did the right thing in that case, I do. It was a horrible situation. No one liked to see it on our, you know, on our TV screens. But it's a case where we need to make sure we've got a, you know, kind of an early warning system in place in places where there could be ethnic cleansing and genocide the way we saw it there in Rwanda.

And that's a case where we need to, you know, use our influence to have countries in Africa come together and help deal with the situation. The administration it seems like we're having a great love fest now but the administration made the right decision on training Nigerian troops for situations just such as this in Rwanda. And so I thought they made the right decision not to send U.S. troops into Rwanda.

LEHRER: So what would you say, Governor, to somebody who would say, "Hey, wait a minute. Why not Africa? I mean, why the Middle East? Why the Balkans, but not Africa when 600,000 people's lives are at risk?"

BUSH: Well, I understand. And Africa's important, and we've got to do a lot of work in Africa to promote democracy and trade. And there's some the vice president mentioned Nigeria. It's a fledgling democracy. We've got to work with Nigeria. That's an important continent.

But there's got to be priorities. And the Middle East is a priority for a lot of reasons, as is Europe and the Far East and our own hemisphere. And those are my four top priorities should I be the president. It's not to say we won't be engaged nor trying nor should we you know, work hard to get other nations to come together to prevent atrocity.

I thought the best example of a way to handle the situation is East Timor when we provided logistical support to the Australians, support that only we can provide. I thought that was a good model.

But we can't be all things to all people in the world, Jim. And I think that's where maybe the vice president and I begin to have some differences. I am worried about overcommitting our military around the world. I want to be judicious in its use.

You mentioned Haiti. I wouldn't have sent troops to Haiti. I didn't think it was a mission worthwhile. It was a nation-building mission. And it was not very successful. It cost us billions, a couple of billions of dollars, and I'm not so sure democracy is any better off in Haiti than it was before.

Though the administration deserves credit for the breakthrough, it must urgently apply the lesson of this experience to another Sudan crisis, in Darfur, where U.S. officials are predicting about 350,000 Darfurians could be dead by December. That lesson is that humanitarian actions do not solve what are, at base, political problems; only by urgently applying high-level and sustained pressure on Khartoum will lives in Darfur be saved.

The stakes cannot be overstated. Some 30,000 Darfurians have already been murdered, and nearly 1.5 million have been ethnically cleansed from their villages and farms. Hundreds of thousands have been penned into concentration camps, which are patrolled by government-supported janjaweed militiamen who rape women nightly and murder men who try to leave to gather food for their families. Other displaced people roam the region in search of food and water. Meanwhile, Khartoum has blocked and manipulated international food aid.

Speaking out on the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in April, Bush rightly accused Khartoum of being "complicit in the brutalization of Darfur" and urged it to "immediately stop" the atrocities and "provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies." Nearly two months later, 1.5 million Sudanese victims of ethnic cleansing remain in grave peril, the killer militias continue their rampage and aid deliveries are still not flowing freely. The only difference, all these precious weeks later, is that it is no longer only the Sudanese who are complicit.

Recently, there was a signature on a document that took us a step closer toward achieving our objective. However, it is very important for the Sudanese government to understand we're watching very carefully, the hunger, the brutal human conditions in the western part of their country, and that we expect there to be an accommodation to the relief agencies as well as the American government to get aid to those people. We're closer to an agreement in Sudan, it's a very important agreement. And we will continue to work the issue really hard.

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction fiasco when they couldn't find them.

COULTER: Wait. We have found weapons of mass destruction...

O'REILLY: No we didn't, not to any great extent.

COULTER: That is an important point. We have found weapons of mass destruction. That is something the media is repeatedly lying about. We have not found stockpiles. We found the plants for manufacturing, we found the experiments, we found the room for human experimentation labs. We found lots of weapons of mass destruction.

O'REILLY: But not enough to justify what [Secretary of State Colin] Powell said at the U.N.

COULTER: He's the only one, by the way, it's enough to justify what Cheney, Rumsfeld, and President Bush said. The one guy in this administration who made the case that turns out to have been not completely correct, I don't think it was a lie, lie, Bush lied...

O'REILLY: No, but he took what the CIA gave him and he took it to the U.N. and it didn't work out.

COULTER: It's one guy and I note the one that the liberals like the most.

a) All 5 of them

b) 4

c) 3

d) 2

Question #2: Please tell us: If we plan to return Iraq to the Iraqis, why is the U.S. currently building fourteen permanent bases there?

Question #4: The sovereignty discussion has been focused mainly on the question of who will control the actions of what troops -- Iraqi or American -- in the coming months. But American advisers will be stationed in every Iraqi "ministry"; the new government will evidently be capable neither of passing, nor abrogating laws or regulations laid down by the occupying power; and the economy, except for oil, will remain open to all foreign corporate investors. Please tell us if this really strikes you as "full sovereignty"?

Question #10: On June 1, 2002, in your West Point speech enunciating your new doctrine of preventive war, you said there were 60 countries that were potential targets for regime change. Would you please list those 60 countries for us, and are you still determined in a second term to proceed down this list?

... public broadcasting has been subject to intense ideological pressure from conservatives. Ken Auletta's expose in this week's New Yorker "Big Bird Flies Right" points to ... "[t]he decision by CPB to fund two programs – one hosted by Tucker Carlson, who speaks for conservatives on CNN's 'Crossfire,' and one moderated by Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, at the same time that 'NOW with Bill Moyers,' which receives no CPB funds, is cut from an hour to 30 minutes ..."

To begin with, there is a huge problem with the CPB. Whether it is a Democratic or Republican President who appoints them, CPB board members tend to be big political donors who often come with specific ideological agendas. This seems particularly true of the current board.

For example, President George W. Bush's most recent CPB appointees, Gay Hart Gaines and Cheryl Halpern, have along with their families given more than $800,000 to the Republican Party and candidates since 1995. And both appointees have backgrounds that raise questions about their suitability to serve on the board.

During her confirmation hearing last fall, Halpern indicated that she would welcome giving CPB members the authority to intervene in program content when they felt a program was biased. Gaines chaired Newt Gingrich's (R-GA) political committee GOPAC. This is the same Gingrich who as House Speaker proposed cutting all federal assistance to public television.

The number of planned layoffs in the United States rose for the second month in a row in May, with the retail sector registering the highest number of job cuts, according to a report on Tuesday.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., said planned job cuts rose by 1.6 percent to 73,368 in May compared with 72,184 in April.

But the report showed monthly job cuts in May this year were 6.9 percent above those in May 2003, making this the first month since December that has seen a year-on-year increase.

With his creepy stare, skeletal frame and herky-jerky dance moves that make him look like he's fighting his way out of a straitjacket, Weiland is an unsettling frontman.

President Bush's re-election strategists plan to portray the November election as the first since the Reagan era to offer voters a stark choice between liberalism and conservatism.

[edit]

"Conservatives have for a generation yearned for an election in which there would be a very clear choice on the issues and a strong focus on grass roots," said Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman.

"This election will represent a clear choice, an ideological choice on the issues. And this campaign is totally committed to grass roots.

"So if you're a conservative Republican," he added, "this campaign is doing what you wanted."

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is "desperately serious" and urgently requires aid, Britain's International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said Monday.

A 15-month insurgency in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where fighting between the government and rebels has raised fears of ethnic cleansing of mainly African tribes by government-backed Arab militias, has made 1 million people homeless.

I've obtained a report by a U.N. interagency team documenting conditions at a concentration camp in the town of Kailek: Eighty percent of the children are malnourished, there are no toilets, and girls are taken away each night by the guards to be raped. As inmates starve, food aid is diverted by guards to feed their camels.

The standard threshold for an "emergency" is one death per 10,000 people per day, but people in Kailek are dying at a staggering 41 per 10,000 per day — and for children under 5, the rate is 147 per 10,000 per day. "Children suffering from malnutrition, diarrhea, dehydration and other symptoms of the conditions under which they are being held live in filth, directly exposed to the sun," the report says.

[edit]

Demographers at the U.S. Agency for International Development estimate that at best, "only" 100,000 people will die in Darfur this year of malnutrition and disease. If things go badly, half a million will die.

Conventional wisdom says that an incumbent president with a $200 million war chest cannot be defeated ... By this logic, the most destructively incompetent president since Andrew Johnson will be rewarded with a second term. That would probably mean a military draft and more wars in the oil countries and, under visionaries like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, a chance for the United States to emulate 19th-century Paraguay, which simultaneously declared war on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and fought ferociously until 90 percent of the male population was dead.

... I wish to God it didn't take Yale and a major American fortune to create a presidential candidate. The only current Democratic leaders who show me any courage are Nancy Pelosi and old Bob Byrd -- Hillary Clinton has been especially cagy and gutless on this war -- and John Kerry himself may leave a lot to be desired. He deserves your vote not because of anything he ever did or promises to do, but simply because he did not make this sick mess in Iraq and owes no allegiance to the sinister characters who designed it. And because his own "place in history," so important to the kind of men who run for president, would now rest entirely on his success in getting us out of it.

Kerry made a courageous choice at least once in his life, when he came home with his ribbons and demonstrated against the war in Vietnam. But Sen. Kerry could turn out to be a stiff, a punk, an alcoholic and he'd still be a colossal improvement over the man who turned Paul Wolfowitz loose in the Middle East.

The myth that there was no real difference between Democrats and Republicans, which I once considered seriously and which Ralph Nader rode to national disaster four years ago, was shattered forever the day George Bush announced his cabinet and his appointments for the Department of Defense.

I'm aware that there are voters -- 40 million? -- who don't see it this way. I come from a family of veterans and commissioned officers; I understand patriots in wartime. If a spotted hyena stepped out of Air Force One wearing a baby-blue necktie, most Americans would salute and sing "Hail to the Chief."

The most lavishly funded, most cynical, most sophisticated political campaign in human history will be out trolling for fools. I pray to God it doesn't catch you.

About 1,000 renegade soldiers in eastern Congo agreed Monday to halt their advance on the town of Bukavu after the army retreated from positions near a local airport, U.N. officials said.

At least 45 people, including a U.N. peacekeeper, have been killed since Wednesday in clashes between dissident soldiers and regular troops in and around Bukavu, casting a pall over a shaky peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congolese soldiers battled troops loyal to a renegade commander in eastern Congo on Tuesday, breaking a shaky cease-fire and spurring U.N. peacekeepers to try to negotiate an end to the violence, a United Nations spokesman said.

The antiterrorism agency that Congress rushed into existence just weeks after the September 11 attacks to protect America's planes, trains and trucks is shrinking, and could all but fade away.

The Transportation Security Administration, which hired some 65,000 employees and has spent more than $10 billion over 3 1/2 years, has been beset by complaints about its performance, leaving it vulnerable to congressional Republicans who want to reduce the size of government.

[edit]

Mica and other Republicans, who were never entirely comfortable with creating a new bureaucracy, want to return all airport security screener jobs to the private sector, where they were before September 11, 2001.

But many Democrats believe the federal agency is needed to protect travelers. They say Republicans set it up to fail by refusing to give it enough money.