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“Unable to garner enough Republican support, Senate Democratic leaders said yesterday that they are abandoning a bipartisan effort to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq by next spring.” Instead, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is expected to push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008. “It’s all definite timelines,” Reid said.
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) suggested yesterday that he may pull his support for Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) measure to give the overstretched armed forces more rest. Warner voted for the measure last July, but he now claims to be appeased by the administration’s token withdrawal. Call your Senators and demand their support for Webb’s pro-troop amendment.
29: President Bush’s approval rating in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, which is “below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March.”
“A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving” private security firm Blackwater USA says the company’s employees “were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant.” The Iraqi Interior Ministry says it has revoked Blackwater’s license over the incident.
The U.S. military has introduced “religious enlightenment” programs for Iraqi detainees. The commander of U.S. detention facilities said the effort is intended to “bend them back to our will.” It is also an effort to identify “irreconcilables” and “put them away” in permanent detention facilities.
Israel has enforced a news blackout on a recent air strike inside Syria. “The Israeli government has made no comment about the raid on what is believed to be a nuclear installation in Syria and Israeli newspapers have been forbidden to write anything on the subject.”
Iraq is the “bank robbery capital of the world,” holding the record for the “first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies.”
Yesterday, Maryland’s highest court overturned a lower court’s ruling and rejected same sex marriage. In a “sharp dissent,” Chief Judge Robert M. Bell “dismissed the majority view that gays are politically empowered” and therefore not entitled to “special protection from discrimination.”
And finally: Ellen DeGeneres “has been trying in vain to get CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on her show, even calling his studio during his broadcast.” On Monday, Blitzer said on The Situation Room, “Of course I’ll be on your show, and I’d love you to come on my show as well.” But that wasn’t enough. So yesterday, DeGeneres had MSNBC host Chris Matthews call in to her show, while the screen read, “Ellen’s on the phone with Chris Matthews because Wolf Blitzer wouldn’t take her call.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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