“He announced he was donating his $25,000 United States Olympic Committee bonus to Right to Play, a humanitarian organization based in Toronto that is focused on helping disadvantaged children through sports. … Since Cheek spoke up, Gap, the United States clothier, has pledged $25,000, joining others in a money chain that has surpassed $300,000.”

Neoconservative academic Francis Fukuyama: “Neoconservatism, whatever its complex roots, has become indelibly associated with concepts like coercive regime change, unilateralism and American hegemony. What is needed now are new ideas, neither neoconservative nor realist, for how America is to relate to the rest of the world.”

While the media has largely focused on the impact that Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, a suburban community to the east of New Orleans, befell a much worse fate. The entire area was wiped out and declared unliveable. This is their story.

Bush, 1/14/05:

We want to increase the Pell Grants by $100 a year over — $100 per year over the next five years.

Bush, 2/2/05:

[W]e’ll make it easier for Americans to afford a college education, by increasing the size of Pell Grants.

A year later, the president has completely backed away from his promises. The President’s FY ’07 budget freezes the Pell Grant for the fourth year in a row. The maximum Pell Grant remains $4,050.

Meanwhile, the costs of higher education continue to skyrocket. The maximum Pell Grant covers only 33% of the average cost of attending a 4-year public university. Between 2001 and 2010, 4.4 million low- and moderate-income academically-qualified students forgo college because of the prohibitive costs.

The administration should work to make college more affordable for all students. Until this goal can be achieved, we need to make federal, state and institutional aid more widely available, especially to those with the greatest financial need.

– Elena Rocha

“That the United States Senate has a body called the Intelligence Committee is an irony George Orwell would have truly appreciated. In a world without Doublespeak, the panel, chaired by GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, would be known by a more appropriate name “” the Senate Coverup Committee.”

LA Times: “Initially proposed by the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was created by the intelligence overhaul that President Bush signed into law in December 2004…More than a year later, it exists only on paper.”