During the debate over FISA last week, DNI Mike McConnell told congressional leaders he was getting intense pressure from “the other side.” His changes of position left some members suggesting that he “had become a puppet for the White House.” Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) called McConnell’s role in the debate an “unsatisfactory, even embarrassing performance.”
“The Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a coalition that includes MoveOn, is mounting a multimillion-dollar campaign aimed at 23 senators and 70 representatives to chip away at support for Bush’s war strategy. The 10-week-long campaign includes nearly 100 organizers in 15 states.”
“Four U.S. military personnel and a British soldier have been killed in attacks [in Iraq], military officials said yesterday, raising the number of U.S. deaths in August to 19 in a possible sign that extremists are regrouping after a decline in U.S. casualties last month.”
The AP writes that President Bush “need only look in the mirror” to see the type of American who still supports him: “a conservative, white, Republican man, an evangelical Christian who goes to church regularly.” Bush’s approval rating is now at just 29 percent.
“Adults aged 19 to 29 are the biggest group of the newly uninsured,” composing “30 percent of the 45 million Americans without health insurance in 2005.”
FEMA “has done an about-face and will immediately stop using, buying and selling disaster-relief trailers because they could be contaminated with formaldehyde.”
“Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused far more dislocation to Louisiana’s population than previously estimated.” Previous studies of New Orleans suggested that 226,000 residents have left since the storm. The new study finds that about “246,000 left the city, about 50,000 moved from one house in the city to another, and about 20,000 moved in from elsewhere.”
And finally: “At a hearing Wednesday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight, Chairman Christopher Carney (D-Pa.) made an awkward foray into hip-hop parlance when he gave special props to one of the witnesses testifying before his panel. ‘Tip of the hat to the homies here,’ was his greeting to a subcommittee guest.”
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