The incoming Senate — including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) — plan to revisit the issue of “what legal rights must be protected for detainees held in the war on terrorism.” Reid’s spokesman said the senator would “’would support attempts to revisit some of the most extreme elements of the bill’ including language stripping detainees of habeas corpus rights.”
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: “[G]overnment by the radical right has been an utter failure.”
The capture of Osama bin Laden is “a success that hasn’t occurred yet,” according to White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Frago Townsend.
According to a new AP-AOL News poll, Bush is the top villian of 2006, winning “by a landslide.” Bush “far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader in hiding; and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is scheduled for execution.” (Bush was also chosen as hero of the year, “by a much smaller margin.”)
Iraq “is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day,” but “plans to address the problem are minimal.” While “1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.”
A majority of adults in five European countries and the United States want troops out of Iraq.
And finally: Women in the new Congress may take up the “question of potty parity.” The members-only men’s restroom has a “shoeshine stand, fireplace and television tuned to floor proceedings” and “is nestled a few paces from the House chamber, beside the speaker’s lounge, flanked by Capitol police.” In contrast, reaching the women’s restroom “entails traversing a hall where tourists gather, or entering the minority leader’s office, navigating a corridor that winds past secretarial desks.”
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