500,000 people marched through Dallas, joining thousands of others in cities across the U.S. yesterday, to rally against a House measure that renders unauthorized migrants criminals and ineligible for any immigration status. As part of a national “Day of Action for Immigrant Justice”, approximately 2 million people from 100 cities are expected to participate in rallies nationwide today.
38 percent. Bush’s “career low” job approval rating, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Lt. General Greg Newbold, a former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, writes in Time: “I made no secret of my view that the zealots’ rationale for war made no sense. … But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat — al-Qaeda.” Newbold also became the third senior officer to call for Rumsfeld’s resignation.
The Army is facing a major officer shortage, expecting to fall short 2,500 captains and majors this year. “We’re ruining an Army that took us 30 years to build,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE).
The Pentagon’s latest propaganda campaign revealed: playing up the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will — made him more important than he really is, in some ways,” Col. Derek Harvey, one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues, told an Army meeting last summer.
The 17-year-old Christian Coalition is now is “more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors’ lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.” Meanwhile, close ties to Abramoff continue to dog the group’s former leader, Ralph Reed.
Four years after the federal investigation into Jack Abramoff’s Guam involvement began, the probe still leaves many questions unanswered. “Part of the reason the federal investigation into the Guam-Abramoff connection appears slow…is the possible discomfort in the Justice Department concerning the Guam investigation because of the possibility of insider involvement.”
Joining with Kurdish leaders, Iraq’s biggest Sunni Arab bloc has made a final decision to reject Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister.
“Freedom Agenda” update: “Analysts and officials say the political rise of Islamists, the chaos in Iraq, the newfound Shiite power in Iraq with its implication for growing Iranian influence, and the sense among some rulers that they can wait out the end of the Bush administration have put the brakes on democratization” in the Arab world.
Katrina voting begins: “Hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees from as far away as Texas and Georgia have signed up to board buses and return to Louisiana in order to vote on the future of New Orleans.”
And finally, R&B; singer Ernie K-Doe launches his bid to unseat Ray Nagin as Mayor of New Orleans. Ernie’s biggest challenge: he’s been dead for five years.
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