A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that the economy is voters’ top concern this year, with four in 10 citing it as the main issue; just 15 percent said the Iraq war. Pocketbook issues — “including the economy, jobs, gas prices and energy policy — were the leading concerns of more than half of those surveyed.”
The New York Times reports that a new Justice Department plan “allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps ‘without any basis for suspicion.’”
More than 325,000 people have signed a Planned Parenthood petition opposing a Bush administration proposal that could “stifle women’s access to reproductive health care” by altering the rules for federally funding health-care providers. The proposed rule “takes some forms of birth control and interprets them as abortion,” said Ellen Golombek, vice president of external affairs for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is backing off his 2000 and 2007 pledges to change the GOP abortion platform to grant exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. “There’s a process in place for the delegates to work on the platform and we are going to let that process work itself out,” said a McCain spokesman.
On the trail today: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is relaxing at his home near Sedona. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will join with Gov. Tim Kaine at an event in Chester, VA.
McCain is unsure how many homes he owned, telling Politico yesterday, “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you. … It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.” His staff confirmed McCain owned “at least four” houses, though other reports say he owns 10 luxury homes.
“Two dozen staffers of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee will head west this weekend to combat the media coverage” the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will draw, using the slogan “Not Ready ’08.” The conservatives plan to use a “parade of high-profile surrogates” and “a Web site touting new attack videos.”
An internal White House document reveals that “the White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003, and there is little likelihood that a recovery effort will be completed by the time President Bush leaves office.” The document “invites companies to bid on a project to recover the missing electronic messages.”
According to senior American officials and Iraq’s Deputy Foreign Minister, “U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq’s cities by next summer” with a goal of withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2011.
A confidential draft of a federal inspector general’s report says that Medicare’s top officials made “misleading” statements in 2006 when they claimed “that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency.” Though officials said they had reduced the cost of fraud in medical equipment to $700 million, the report found “about $2.8 billion in improper spending” in 2006.
And finally: According to documents obtained by the Colorado ACLU, the Denver Police Department is set to be “on the lookout for stock piles and caches of supplies that could be used by violent demonstrators” at the upcoming Democratic Convention. Certain suspicious items are obvious, such as “chemicals” and “gas masks.” Others — such as “maps,” “bicycles,” and “helmets” — raise some questions. According to the Denver police, bikes, for example, may be “used to slow down responding emergency vehicles.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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