ThinkFast: December 22, 2006

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said yesterday that “our society would benefit” from reinstating the draft to make the military more equal. “He later issued a statement saying his comments had been misconstrued and that he does not support bringing back the draft.”

The IRS has “cut deeply the time that it spends auditing the nation’s largest corporations.” New data shows the IRS “had reduced the time spent on each audit by 21 percent in the last five years, to 958 hours from 1,210 hours. At the same time, the number of actual audits, which had increased in the last two years, has fallen back to the level of 2002.”

“Four days before Christmas, President Bush granted pardons to 16 people, including a man convicted of dealing methamphetamine and another who, along with his family, donated to the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.”

Three U.S. servicement died in Iraq yesterday, “putting December on track to be among the deadliest months of the year.” The death toll of 2,959 “is now just 14 shy of the commonly accepted total of deaths in the U.S.” on 9/11. “At the current rate this month, the 9/11 figure could be eclipsed just before or on Christmas Day.”

“The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters,” but a newly released study — which the Interior Department held back for more than a year — shows the billions in incentives “cause only a tiny increase in production.”

“A federal grand jury has subpoenaed congressional records from Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) as part of an escalating Justice Department corruption probe aimed at determining whether Weldon used his influence to win favors for family members.”

“The Bush administration is increasingly at odds with some Republicans over its efforts to make journalists reveal confidential sources.” The tension will come to a head in 2007, when Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) “plan to reintroduce legislation limiting the government’s power to force journalists to disclose confidential sources.”

“The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study” — which the Interior Department held back for more than a year — “suggests that the government is getting very little for its money.”

The Washington Post writes a scathing editorial about Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA): “Bigotry comes in various guises — some coded, some closeted, some colossally stupid. The bigotry displayed recently” by Goode, “a Republican who represents a patch of south-central Virginia, falls squarely in the third category.”

And finally: Has the Senate laid down their arms in the War on Christmas? The Washington Examiner conducted a survey of Senate offices, and “found that a measly 30 out of 100 have Christmas trees. And of those, only half are the authentic, organic, needle-shedding variety. Forty-six offices had none, and 24 could not be reached or did not answer.”

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.