Last month, President Bush conceded that an analogy between Iraq and Vietnam can be made. AP reports, “Amid an intensifying discussion at home about the future of the [Iraq] war, Bush gives the comparison debate another kick by walking among Vietnam War relics on a four-day visit to the communist nation created after American troops departed 33 years ago.”
Conservative staff members in the Senate have already started attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the incoming chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, as “radical,” “extreme,” and “out there.” In one of her first “extreme” moves, Boxer plans to hold hearings on global warming.
The Senate approved an amendment Tuesday to extend the work of the Iraq inspector general, who has “unearthed millions of dollars in waste and fraud associated with the rebuilding of Iraq.” Conservatives quietly tried to terminate the IG in a recent spending bill.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) are teaming up for a holiday-themed campaign with Wake-Up Wal-Mart criticizing Wal-Mart‘s “wages and benefits, as well as recently enacted attendance and salary policies, in a move timed to potentially disrupt the company’s holiday sales.”
“Iran’s president declared yesterday that his country’s nuclear program was nearing an important milestone,” the NYT reports, “even as international atomic inspectors reported that they had found unexplained traces of plutonium and that Tehran continued to be so uncooperative in answering questions that they had been unable to confirm earlier claims of progress.”
A congressionally-mandated study by Los Alamos scientists and others on plutonium finds the radioactive element, “which provides the immense explosive force in nuclear weapons, has a useful lifespan far longer than previously estimated.” The findings could undermine Bush’s “argument for manufacturing a new generation of warheads.”
Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff is scheduled to enter federal prison today “over the protests of prosecutors who wanted him to remain free to cooperate in an investigation that has threatened to implicate several members of Congress.”
Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner reports that mobile homes purchased by FEMA, worth up to $4 million, for people left homeless by Katrina have been damaged beyond repair because they were not properly protected.
Only three automakers — Toyota, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler — improved the fuel economy of their fleet from 1996 through 2005. Subaru “stayed the same during the period and fuel efficiency declined at nine other automakers.”
And finally: Excuse me, but I couldn’t quite understand your anti-immigrant message. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who has taken a “tough stance on immigration,” complained that his campaign callers had “thick enough foreign accents that the congressman himself said he couldn’t understand them.” Souder discovered this “after listening to a message left on his sister’s answering machine in which the only word he understood was ‘Hayhurst,’ the last name of his Democratic challenger, Tom Hayhurst.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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