"Eliminated from Iraq the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network ..."

CHENEY: Well, it's a terrible tragedy, what happened today, obviously. ... we don't know specifically about this attack yet. It has the hallmarks, in my opinion, of an attack orchestrated by a man named al-Zarqawi.

BLITZER: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

CHENEY: That's right. We've talked about him a lot before. He, at one point, ran a training camp in Afghanistan before we went into Afghanistan. He took refuge in Iraq ... He has recently written a letter to senior management of Osama bin Laden's group, al Qaeda, that we intercepted, where he talked specifically about his strategy in Iraq, and that includes, among other things, launching terror strikes against Shia in order to try to start sectarian --

BLITZER: So you see his fingerprints there.

CHENEY: And this looks very much like that kind of an attack.

Here's what he said at a rally in Oregon, according to a White House transcript:

Once again, last night, with a straight face, the senator said—well, shall we say, refined his answer on his proposed global test. That's the test he would administer before defending America. After trying to say it really wasn't a test at all, last night he once again defended his approach, saying, I think it makes sense. (Laughter.) The senator now says we'd have to pass some international truth standard. The truth is we should never turn America's national security decisions over to international bodies or leaders of other countries. (Applause.)

You heard that right. The president explicitly refuses "to pass some international truth standard." Because evidence is the fundamental test applied in France as well as in the United States, Bush thinks he shouldn't have to back up his claims or decisions with evidence.

[edit]

When Bush replied last night that he refuses to pass this "truth standard," there's really no other way to interpret his position. He's saying that he doesn't have to show you any evidence, because evidence is the sort of thing a Frenchman would ask for.

I know I've been hard on the president lately. I'd like to say something nice about him. I'd like to be "fair and balanced." But my first responsibility as a reporter is to the truth. When one candidate tells half the truth, and the other says the truth doesn't matter, it becomes irresponsible for me or any other journalist not to report that by that standard—the standard of respecting the truth standard—one candidate is head and shoulders above the other.

The United States on Friday ordered a freeze on assets of the militant group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control added Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group to its list of suspected terrorists and terrorism financiers.

KERRY: "... [President Bush] went to Cincinnati and he gave a speech in which he said, 'We will plan carefully. We will proceed cautiously. We will not make war inevitable. We will go with our allies.' He didn't do any of those things. ... And what we need now is a president who understands how to bring these other countries together to recognize their stakes in this. ... But this president hasn't even held the kind of statesman-like summits that pull people together and get them to invest in those states. In fact, he's done the opposite. He pushed them away ..."

BUSH: "... My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?"

(Moments later)

KERRY: "The United Nations, Kofi Annan offered help after Baghdad fell. And we never picked him up on that and did what was necessary to transfer authority and to transfer reconstruction. It was always American-run.
Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better."

MODERATOR: "Thirty seconds, Mr. President."

BUSH: "Well, actually, he forgot Poland. And now there's 30 nations involved ..."

... Poland said it planned to reduce the number of its troops in Iraq early next year, and will not remain there "an hour longer than is sensible." Poland has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and has often been cited by President Bush as an important contributor to the multinational coalition in the country.

Mary Cheney and her partner were an established couple and owned a house together in Colorado when her father was picked as Bush's running mate in 2000. Mary Cheney, who had run a gay and lesbian outreach program for Coors Brewing Co., wears a gold band on her left hand.

"Maybe Sen. Kerry didn't appreciate the sensitivity" of the subject, McCain told reporters on Air Force One. "Whether intended or not, it was very inappropriate."

[In recent weeks, Bunning has] stalked out of a news interview, compared his dark-complexioned opponent to one of Saddam Hussein's sons, and accused Mongiardo or a member of his campaign staff of roughing up Bunning's wife at an event over the summer.

Saying falsely that he was needed in Washington this week for Senate votes, Bunning tore up his own carefully crafted debate agreement and refused to return to Kentucky on Monday for his one scheduled debate with Mongiardo. It was to have taken place at 2:30 p.m. Monday in the Lexington, Ky., studio of WKYT-TV. Instead, Bunning insisted on "debating" via satellite from the womblike conditions of the Republican National Committee headquarters studio in Washington.

The senator refused to allow a member of the Kentucky media to be present at the RNC studio to monitor whether Bunning was receiving assistance with his answers, according to Mongiardo campaign manager Kim Geveden and WKYT news director Jim Ogle. And Bunning refused to engage reporters via satellite in a previously agreed upon post-debate news conference, insisting instead that his 15 minutes of answering questions occur by telephone, without accompanying video footage.

Thursday's exchange contrasts with the polite discussion of Mary Cheney's sexuality during the vice presidential debate last week.

Edwards at the time expressed “respect for the fact that (the Cheneys are) willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing.” Cheney thanked him for the “kind words.”

The Federal Elections Commission fined Alan Keyes' 2000 presidential campaign $23,000 Thursday, and an ethics group filed a new complaint alleging misconduct by his current U.S. Senate campaign.

The FEC found that Keyes took excessive contributions when he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. It ordered him to pay a fine and repay the government $95,302 in public funding that his campaign accepted.

His presidential campaign admitted accepting $168,200 worth of contributions over the individual donation limit, which in 2000 was $1,000 per person. It also acknowledged it had taken at least $15,000 in anonymous contributions, among other violations.

Also Thursday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an FEC complaint alleging that Keyes' current Senate campaign had improperly coordinated with a group running ads that target his opponent, Democrat Barack Obama.

Study: One in 100 adults asexual

LONDON, England (CNN) -- About one percent of adults have absolutely no interest in sex, according to a new study, and that distinction is becoming one of pride among many asexuals.
...
It was published in the latest issue of The Journal of Sex Research and is the focus of a report in this Saturday's issue of New Scientist.
...
[The study] offered respondent a list of options. One read: "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all." One percent said they agreed with the statement.

That response level is close to the percentage of gay people in the population, which is around three percent, the New Scientist report says.
...
Activists have already started campaigning to promote awareness and acceptance of asexuality, it reports.

The Asexual Visibility and Education Network has an online store that sell items promoting awareness and acceptance on asexuality.

Among the items is a T-shirt with the slogan, "Asexuality: it's not just for amoebas anymore."

HANNITY: [Kerry] is he is a modern day appeaser...

CLARK: He's not an appeaser.

HANNITY: He is weak on defense, he is weak on intelligence. And Saddam would still be in power.

CLARK: John Kerry was playing hockey when George Bush was cheerleader. John Kerry is not a weak.

HANNITY: Are you calling cheerleaders -- what are you saying -- what are you suggesting about cheerleaders? Was that an attack?

CLARK: I am suggesting John Kerry is a strong, decisive leader.

HANNITY: What are you saying about men that are cheerleaders? What are you suggesting? Just look in the camera, explain.

Lynne Cheney accused Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of pulling a "cheap and tawdry political trick," apparently for invoking her daughter's sexuality in his debate with President Bush.

[edit]

"Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man," she said.

"Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."

Q We have a battle here on this land, as well. And I would like to know, sir, from your heart -- I don't want to know what your advisors say, or even what your top advisor thinks -- but I need to know what do you think about homosexual marriages.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the question has come up obviously in the past with respect to the question of gay marriage. Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with. We have two daughters, and we have enormous pride in both of them. They're both fine young women. They do a superb job, frankly, of supporting us. And we are blessed with both our daughters.

The stories of those hiding in Darfur are heartbreaking. Zahra Mochtar Muhammad, from the village of Darma, saw the Janjaweed kill her husband. In the chaos of the gunfire and burning huts, she and her children ran in different directions, and she lost her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.

Later, she found her children's bodies where they had died of thirst. They were together - the older one had apparently tried to protect her brother.

Mr. Schieffer: Mr. President I want to go back to something Senator Kerry said earlier tonight and ask a follow-up of my own. He said, and this will be a new question to you, he said that you had never said whether you would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I'd ask you directly would you like to?

Mr. Bush: What he's asking me is will I have a litmus test for my judges. And the answer is no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution. But I'll have no litmus tests.

It is because of [those who died] that I am here today. You may kill as many people as you want or as you can. You cannot kill their memory. The memory is the most invisible and resistant material you can find on the earth. You cannot cut it like diamond, you cannot shoot at it because you cannot see it, nevertheless it is everywhere, all around you, plenty of silence, unsaid suffering, whispers, absent looks. Sometimes you can smell it and then the memory clearly speaks like the whisper of silence. Sometimes the smell is still unbearable, even when things have been forgotten for decades.

[edit]

War is destruction, negation of life. Humanitarian action works within this subtraction. It tries to reduce it. In case of a genocide, it may seem a stupid gamble, since it's well-known that genocidal logic is the complete negation of the humanitarian spirit and of the law.

Whenever you can reduce this negation it is a miracle. And the memory never forgets miracles.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

The mayor has requested more ballots for the Nov. 2 election, but the county executive has refused to provide them, citing concerns about voter fraud.

Mayor Tom Barrett complained that the 679,000 ballots the county agreed to print were less than the number prepared for elections in 2000 and 2002. He asked for almost 260,000 additional ballots, expecting a large turnout next month.

But in a letter, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker said he had "serious questions" about the need for that many ballots because the city reported having 382,000 registered voters in September. He said "chaos" could occur at understaffed polling places where voters could grab ballots.

Ed Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said public opinion polling shows the law is unpopular among older Americans. "No presidential candidate wants to risk being booed off stage by thousands of seniors. This drug benefit is not the victory for seniors the president plugs it to be and the president and his handlers know that to be true," said Coyle, a critic of the law.

"It was a perfect storm for pork, in that they added all these provisions that were really important to lawmakers in an election year,'' said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan public-interest group in Washington. "It will take days, if not months, to figure out everything that's in here.''

[edit]

Meanwhile, lawmakers pressed hard to win approval for pet tax breaks that had been lying around for years but rejected on previous occasions. Among the items that made it into the final bill were a $9 million tax reduction on bows and arrows; $27 million in tax breaks on gambling income of foreigners at American horse-racing and dog-racing tracks; and $11 million in reduced excise taxes on fishing tackle boxes, a longtime pet project of J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, whose district includes a big producer of tackle boxes.

Similarly, the final bill would also raise more than $60 billion by cracking down on major tax shelters and punishing companies that try to avoid American taxes by moving their headquarters outside the country. But in a gesture of mercy to a handful of oil service companies from Texas, House Republicans gave a green light to companies that moved offshore before March 4, 2003. The beneficiaries of that decision include the Noble Corporation, Weatherford International, Cooper Industries and Nabors Industries - all in or near the district of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

SEC. 211. RECOVERY PERIOD FOR DEPRECIATION OF CERTAIN LEASEHOLD IMPROVEMENTS AND RESTAURANT PROPERTY.
(a) 15-YEAR RECOVERY PERIOD.—Subparagraph (E) of section 168(e)(3) (relating to classification of certain property) is amended by striking ‘‘and’’ at the end of clause (ii), by striking the period at the end of clause (iii) and inserting a comma, and by adding at the end the following new clauses:

‘‘(iv) any qualified leasehold improvement property placed in service before January 1, 2006, and

‘‘(v) any qualified restaurant property placed in service before January 1, 2006."

The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney's wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed.

In June, during a routine update, the Education Department began distributing a new edition of a 10-year-old how-to guide called "Helping Your Child Learn History." Aimed at parents of children from preschool through fifth grade, the 73-page booklet presented an assortment of advice, including taking children to museums and visiting historical sites.

The booklet included several brief references to the National Standards for History, which were developed at UCLA in the mid-1990s with federal support. Created by scholars and educators to help school officials design better history courses, they are voluntary benchmarks, not mandatory requirements.

At the time, Lynne Cheney, the wife of now-Vice President Cheney, led a vociferous campaign complaining that the standards were not positive enough about America's achievements and paid too little attention to figures such as Gen. Robert E. Lee, Paul Revere and Thomas Edison. At one point in the initial controversy, Cheney denounced the standards as "politicized history."

In response to the criticism, the UCLA standards were heavily revised, most critics were mollified and the controversy faded -- but not for Cheney and her staff.

"How about John Kerry's suntan?"

House ethics committee Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said last week that Republican lawmakers have threatened him in the wake of his panel’s recent admonishments of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Asked what response he has received from House Republicans since two ethics committee admonishments were issued in a span of seven days, Hefley said, “I’ve been attacked; I’ve been threatened.”

Six months ago, I was forced to leave my home in the middle of the night when armed men from the Janjaweed came on horses and burned down our huts. I ran away with 200 other people in my village but 20 people were killed during the raid. My uncle was one of them. Lots of women and children were beaten.

"I think the entire world will breathe a sigh of relief if the U.N. finds that it is not genocide. Well, everyone except for the half-million people who were murdered there."

The federal government has rescinded an order that prohibited voting drives at Indian Heath Service clinics.

The issue first came to light when the Washington Post published a memo that revealed IHS officials refused to allow even non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts at their hospitals and clinics. The apparent reasoning was that since so many Native Americans vote Democrat, the drives would have amounted to partisan politicking. A law on the books prevents federal workers from using government resources for partisan work. Critics argued that the law was unfairly applied because the Department of Defense is allowed to conduct voting drives on military installations.

New Mexico Democrat Senator Jeff Bingaman, citing the military base rule, publicly called on Heath and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to repeal the IHS voting ban. Thompson agreed.

Bingaman said the victory was bittersweet. Several states with large Indian populations have already seen their voter registration deadlines come and go.

Bush explained that he would not pick judges who attempted to insert their personal opinions into constitutional interpretation. For example, he said, he would not nominate a judge who believed that the words "under God" could not be included in the Pledge of Allegiance. And then the president made this stunning statement: "Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges years ago said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all--you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America." What woeful ignorance of American history.

"The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react."

President Bush, talking with reporters on Oct. 27, 2003

The Bush Axiom:
Low Success = Low Casualties,
High Success = High Casualties.

Nor can we think of our goal in this war in the way Senator Kerry described it yesterday in The New York Times. Quote: "We have to get back to the place," he said, where terrorism is "a nuisance," sort of like -? and these are his comparisons -- sort of like gambling and prostitution. This is --

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: This is naive and dangerous, as was Senator Kerry's reluctance earlier this year to call the war on terror an actual war. He preferred to think of it, he said, as primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation. This is all part of a pre-9/11 mind set, and it is a view we cannot go back to.

The 9/11 attack was the worst ever on American soil. We lost more people that day than we lost at Pearl Harbor. Since then, we've seen attacks all over the world -- Madrid, Casablanca, Mombassa, Riyadh, Istanbul, Jakarta, Bali, Baghdad, Beslan in Russia, most recently in Egypt. This is a global conflict. If we fail to aggressively prosecute the war on terror, destroying terrorists where we find them and confronting governments that sponsor terror, the danger will only increase. The terrorists will escalate their attacks, both here at home and overseas, and the likelihood will increase that they will acquire weapons of mass destruction to use against us. Ultimately the cost of dealing with this threat will be far higher than confronting it now.

Something Senator Kerry said in the first presidential debate reveals the same mind set, the same lack of understanding of the danger we face. He said that before America acts, we must pass a "global test."

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The President and I know, even as we work to build international alliances around the world, that our job is not to conduct international opinion polls. Our job is to protect the American people. And we will never seek a permission slip to defend the United States of America. (Applause.)

When John Kerry suggests a global test, he goes right back to his beginnings in politics, when he ran for Congress the first time and he said he would only deploy troops under the authority of the United Nations.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

Nor can we think of our goal in this war in the way Senator Kerry described it yesterday in The New York Times. "We have to get back to the place," he said, where terrorism is "a nuisance," sort of like -? and these are his comparisons -- sort of like gambling and prostitution.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: This is naive and dangerous, as was Senator Kerry's reluctance earlier this year to call the war on terror an actual war. He preferred to think of it, he said, as primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation. This is all part of a pre-9/11 mind set, and it is a view that we cannot go back to.

The 9/11 attack was the worst ever on American soil. We lost more people than at Pearl Harbor. Since then, we've seen attacks all over the world -- in Madrid, Casablanca, Mombassa, Riyadh, Istanbul, Jakarta, Bali, Baghdad, Beslan in Russia, and most recently in Egypt. This is a global conflict. If we fail to aggressively prosecute the war on terror, destroying terrorists where we find them and confronting governments that sponsor terror, the danger will only increase. The terrorists will escalate their attacks, both here at home and overseas, and the likelihood will increase that they will acquire weapons of mass destruction to use against us. Ultimately the cost of dealing with this threat will be far higher than confronting it now.

Something Senator Kerry said in the first presidential debate reveals a similar mind set, the same lack of understanding of the danger we face. He said that before America acts, we must pass a quote "global test."

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The President and I know, even as we work to build international alliances around the world, that our job is not to conduct international opinion polls. Our job is to protect the American people. And we will never -- (Applause.) We will never seek a permission slip to defend the United States of America. (Applause.)

When John Kerry suggests a global test, he goes right back to his beginnings in politics, when he said as he ran for Congress the first time, he would only deploy troops under the authority of the United Nations.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

President Bush, waging a broad assault against Sen. John Kerry in two Western states crucial to success in November, ridiculed his Democratic rival Monday for comparing terrorism to "a nuisance" such as gambling and prostitution.

[edit]

Kerry had been quoted in an article published Sunday as saying: "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance.

"As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution," The New York Times Magazine quoted Kerry as saying. "We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."

Now, just this weekend, Senator Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to -- quote -- "nuisance" -- end quote -- and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling. See, I couldn't disagree more. Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorists, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world.

"I don't think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

"To the caller who said St. Mark's United Methodist Church was supporting the Democrats because the ACLU uses the building, they pay to use it like many other people do. The only candidate St. Mark's supports is Jesus."

"The state needs to downsize their [sic] employees. I worked for the state 24 years. There wasn't enough work to keep me busy, so one of the girls taught me how to crochet. I made my first afghan while working for the state."

"If the people of Charleston don't start shopping at Town Center, we are going to lose the mall and be forced to go to the Barboursville Mall."

Women and girls have suffered multiple forms of violence during attacks on their villages, including rape, killings, the burning of homes and pillage of livestock. Women have also been tortured during interrogation by security forces for being relatives of suspected rebels. I heard numerous accounts of continuing violence against the displaced women and girls allegedly by government-backed militia and security forces. In particular, rape and beatings take place when women and girls leave the IDP camps to fetch wood or other necessities. Consequently, many women and girls endure the trauma of rape and loss, health problems and heightened risk of HIV/AIDS infection, as well as domestic violence and poverty. The fact that women head the majority of the households in the camps exasperates their vulnerability to violence and exploitation.

The question is for President Bush, and the questioner is Robin Dahle.

DAHLE: Mr. President, yesterday in a statement you admitted that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but justified the invasion by stating, I quote, "He retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction and could have passed this knowledge to our terrorist enemies."

Do you sincerely believe this to be a reasonable justification for invasion when this statement applies to so many other countries, including North Korea?

BUSH: Each situation is different, Robin.

And obviously we hope that diplomacy works before you ever use force. The hardest decision a president makes is ever to use force. After 9/11, we had to look at the world differently. After 9/11, we had to recognize that when we saw a threat, we must take it seriously before it comes to hurt us.

In the old days we'd see a threat, and we could deal with it if we felt like it or not. But 9/11 changed it all.

Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?

BUSH: I suspect one of us will have a pick at the end of next year -- the next four years. And that's the kind of judge I'm going to put on there. No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution.

[edit]

I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words "under God" in it.

I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Here's what I would do precisely. I would try to provide all of the logistical support, all of the funding and leadership necessary to help the African Union be able to step in if necessary and feasible. But, if we were needed as a critical element, would I commit America's efforts to try to do that? I'd do everything possible to prevent a genocide from taking place, but we'd have to be in a position in Iraq and Afghanistan we we're able to do that.

Relatives mourn over the body of 1-year-old Ali, who died of malnutrition in a refugee camp in El-Geneina in the Darfur, Sudan.(AFP/File/Marco Longari)

But stories of battlefield heroics are getting harder to come by, as heightened concerns about medical privacy constrict information about wounded U.S. soldiers.

The latest barrier to full disclosure: a federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.

Military families, veterans groups and even members of Congress are discovering that the new privacy law makes it difficult to get details about America's mounting war casualties in Iraq.

[edit]

Implemented about a year ago, HIPAA prohibits hospitals and other health care providers from releasing information about a patient without consent from the patient or next of kin. It also is intended to give people more control over their health records.

[edit]

Now, military officials are citing the law in refusing to identify soldiers wounded in Iraq or disclose details about their injuries.