Articles of Interest 10-3-07
401 Days until election day.
Quote of the Day:
“This entire package was delivered by Democrats.”
Andy Dillon, Democrat Speaker of the House
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/10/democrat-speake.html
MORNING UPDATE:
Democrats jammed the LARGEST TAX increase in the history of Michigan on the citizens of Michigan. The Governor promised more tax and spend policies…and delivered.
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/10/granholm-worst-.html
So, is government spending going up in Michigan since Governor Engler left office…or have we “cut billions and billions” of dollars:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/10/in-governmentwh.html
Who said they wouldn’t expand sales tax on service “during” the campaign…and didn’t mean it? I’ll give you a hint…she was a Democrat.
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/10/liar-liarpants-.html
THE REST OF THE STORY:
Mark Brewer and the Democrats are trying to “imply” this was a bi-partisan deal. The numbers speak for themselves:
We only lost 6 votes on both of the tax votes.
There are 148 legislators in the House and Senate…and a Democrat Governor.
67 Republicans voted NO
6 Republicans voted YES
69 Democrats voted YES
6 Democrats voted NO
Governor Granholm and the Democrats promised more spending programs and that government would do more without raising taxes…the taxpayers of Michigan ignored the realities and heard the rhetoric. The tax and spend Democrats delivered.
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/OPINION01/710030326/1022
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Opinion: Cuts, structural reforms hold key to state recovery
Expanding sales tax will turn off out-of-state employers
Tricia Kinley
Unfortunately, our state's budget crisis was essentially resolved through major tax increases on working families and job providers -- an unconscionable act at a time when Michigan's employers and struggling families are facing the highest unemployment in the nation.
Spending cuts and structural reforms in state government operations, not tax increases, hold the key to dealing with the state's budget challenges now and in the future. The Citizens Research Council of Michigan estimates that state government spending pressures will grow 6.5 percent per year compared with 2.8 percent growth per year in revenues unless significant changes are made in state spending priorities and tax policy.
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/10/business_owners_say_service_ta.html
Ann Arbor area business owners say service tax will hurt
Posted by Stefanie Murray and Tina Reed October 01, 2007 12:22PM
Categories: Breaking News
BY STEFANIE MURRAY and TINA REED
News Business Reporters
The expansion of the state's 6 percent sales tax to services like baby shoe bronzing, skiing and wedding planning has Doug Chapman hopping mad.
Chapman owns HyperfitUSA in Pittsfield Township, a personal training and group fitness facility, and said he's ready to move his business out of state. He said the new tax -- which covers personal fitness training -- will force him to rewrite all the contracts he has with clients to pass on the cost.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/71003001/1002
Businesses bristle over service tax
By Christopher Behnan
News of an expanded state sales tax on services such as ski tickets was just the latest financial blow for Mt. Brighton Ski Area, the facility’s general manager said Tuesday.
In addition to taxing ski tickets, the state Legislature early Monday approved extending the 6 percent sales tax — which takes effect Dec. 1 — to a long list of service-oriented businesses. including astrology services, baby-shoe bronzing, palm readings, psychics, escort services and phrenology services.
The tax extension was part of the deal to break the stalemate over Michigan’s $1.75 billion budget deficit that temporarily shut down the state government.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS06/710030404/1008
What's taxed is a taxing question
October 3, 2007
The goal of Gov. Jennifer Granholm and legislative supporters of a new tax on some services was to tax only services that weren't essential to daily living. But confusion seems to be growing over just what will be taxed and what won't.
A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Treasury, which collects taxes, said the department has been getting calls from businesses and is trying to sort out which businesses would be taxed -- and which wouldn't -- by later this week, when it hopes to release a new list.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS06/710030403/1008
Service tax repeal is plotted
Businesses unleash uproar
October 3, 2007
LANSING -- Business groups inflamed by the new sales tax on many services are plotting a campaign to repeal it, just days after it passed.
"There are a lot of discussions going on," said Todd Anderson of the Small Business Association of Michigan.
He said measures include a possible petition drive -- which could place the issue on a statewide ballot -- or merely lobbying the Legislature to rescind or make major changes in the new tax.
The tax on services is a key piece of the state budget deal lawmakers finished early Monday, hours after a deadline passed to shut down state government. It will generate about half the new tax revenues needed to help erase a $1.75-billion deficit.
http://www.mlive.com/news/chronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1191251837194630.xml&coll=8
Taxpayers face new burden
Monday, October 01, 2007
FROM LOCAL REPORTS
Residents will pay more taxes as Michigan's income tax rate rises from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent:
* A single individual making $42,000 a year would pay $173 more.
* A single individual making $73,000 a year would pay $313 more.
* A single individual making $100,000 a year would pay $434 more.
* A married couple earning $42,000 a year would pay $158 more.
* A married couple earning $73,000 a year would pay $297 more.
* A married couple earning $100,000 a year would pay $419 more.
* A married couple with two children and $42,000 in income would pay $121 more.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/710030325/1002
Ward: Income tax increase 'the right thing to do'
By Christopher Behnan
State Rep. Chris Ward said he voted to increase Michigan's income tax in order to prevent a monumental collapse of state services.
Ward, R-Brighton Township, voted in favor of the measure — a key component in working toward balancing a $1.75 billion state budget deficit — while fellow Republicans state Rep. Joe Hune, R-Hamburg Township, and Sen. Valde Garcia, R-Marion Township, did not.
http://blog.mlive.com/flintjournal/newsnow/2007/10/get_ready_to_shell_out_more_fo.html
Get ready to shell out more for that psychic and singing telegram, thanks to budget deal
Posted by Beata Mostafavi and Holly Klaft | The Flint Journal October 01, 2007 16:37PM
Categories: Breaking News, Politics
Want to get a psychic reading, find a love match, or send a singing telegram?
As of Dec. 1, they could all come with higher price tags.
The list of services impacted by a 6 percent sales tax the Legislature agreed to early this morning is getting quizzical looks from both businesses and the lawmakers who passed them.
On the list: Dating services, travel agents, and shoeshines. Off the list: Movies, sports tickets, and haircuts.
Granholm's legacy could rest on whether Michigan rebounds
10/2/2007, 6:50 p.m. EDT
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Jennifer Granholm this week put her political muscle behind the tax increase she has said for months was needed to solve Michigan's budget woes.
She got an income tax increase that restored the revenue lost under the tax cuts of her Republican predecessor, John Engler, and a 6 percent sales tax on some services. Together, they'll raise the $1.5 billion she wanted.
It was a different tack for a Democratic governor who refused during her first term to push for a general tax increase, although she — and the GOP-controlled Legislature — often balanced the books by raiding funds such as the tobacco settlement money and raising "sin taxes" on casinos and cigarettes.
Governor says Michigan is back on solid financial footing
10/1/2007, 4:18 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan's governor says a deal that solves the state's fiscal crisis through broad-based tax increases and spending cuts should help the state's image.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm says hiking revenue by nearly $1.5 billion sends a message to Wall Street that the state is on solid, stable footing again.
The state's bond rating has been battered in recent years as tax revenues have fallen below expectations and the economy has remained stuck in low gear. That makes deficits an annual problem.
I'll celebrate when state turns the corner
Monday, October 01, 2007
Even though a widespread state-government shutdown was averted early this morning when the Legislature reached a budget agreement that keeps state services running, we should not celebrate.
Michigan is limping along, crumbling under the weight of fiscal disaster -- in desperate need of a couple billion dollars that isn't there. So please don't celebrate. It would bring back memories of election-night parties that now seem so very long ago.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/710030338/1001/news
Published October 3, 2007
[ From Lansing State Journal ]
Future state lawmakers' benefits not among cuts
Teachers' health care cut; reforms for legislators 'lost in the shuffle'
Chris Andrews
Lansing State Journal
Michigan lawmakers have cut the retiree health care benefits of the next generation of teachers.
And for the lawmakers of the future?
Their superior benefits remain untouched.
Republicans insisted on school employee health care reforms as part of a deal that gave Democrats the tax increases they wanted.
Republicans argued that retired school employees' health care benefits are out of whack with the private sector and out of whack with what taxpayers can afford.
But here's the thing.
Retired lawmakers have a much better deal.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/OPINION01/710030322/1085/opinion
Published October 3, 2007
[ From Lansing State Journal ]
Keep at it: Lawmakers have much left to do on spending front
The Michigan Legislature and Gov. Jennifer Granholm kept the lights on late this past weekend. They even came up with a 2008 budget deal.
But they still have a great deal of work left to do because Michigan doesn't even have a 2008 budget yet. The new day has not yet dawned.
Granholm went before the media Monday to thank practically everyone in Lansing recently and state that Michigan's financial situation is stabilized. A report from her office referred to Monday's deal as a "comprehensive" solution.
Even with tax increases, programs could face tough budget times
10/1/2007, 9:17 p.m. EDT
By TIM MARTIN
The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Now that a temporary budget deal has been struck and a protracted partial shutdown of government avoided, Michigan lawmakers have 30 days to work out the specifics of the state's overall spending plan for the new fiscal year.
The debate started before the sun rose Monday, soon after lawmakers passed the final bills needed to secure an emergency budget extension and end a four-hour partial government shutdown.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/OPINION01/710030325/1008
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Tax hikes help balance state budget
Excerpts from other newspapers on the state budget deal:
Traverse City Record-Eagle: Let's hope Michigan lawmakers aren't self-delusional enough to expect praise for reaching a 13th-hour budget deal that kept state services running at the cost of two tax hikes and millions in teacher and state employee health care cuts. This was hardly a victory for statesmanship.
The double-barreled tax hikes -- a jump in the income tax rate from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent and expansion of the 6 percent sales tax to some services -- should close most of Michigan's revenue gap and allow the state to make appropriate investments in education and job creation.
http://noise.typepad.com/election_countdown/2007/10/and-so-it-begin.html
October 02, 2007
And so it begins... Recalls!
Recall procedures have been announced or begun against 21 House and Senate members a day after legislators passed two tax hikes which helped balance the 2007/08 budget.
The only area legislators on that list are Sen. Valde Garcia (R-Howell), Rep. Chris Ward (R-Brighton) and Rep. Dick Ball (R- Bennington Twp.). No area Democrats were targeted, though 13 of the 21 names on the list are Democrats.
Ball is the odd name on that list, because he voted for neither the income nor the sales taxes. Garcia was a driving force behind the sales tax, though he didn't vote for the income tax. Ward backed the income tax but declined to endorse the sales tax.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/POLITICS/710030388/1022
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Logjam blamed on term limits
Law puts novice legislators in charge, shifts focus to politics over policy, critics say.
Mark Hornbeck and Charlie Cain / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
LANSING -- Legislative term limits are blamed by their critics as a silent culprit in the budget impasse that nearly locked down most of state government this week.
The constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1992 has put inexperienced lawmakers into leadership positions, fostered distrust among officials and increased the focus on politics over policy, say former and current lawmakers, constitutional experts and seasoned capital watchers.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/OPINION01/710030327/1022
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Editorial: Budget debacle exposes the failure of term limits
The Detroit News
Given the circus that occupied the state Capitol over the last few weeks, it's understandable if Michigan residents are in a "throw the rascals out" mood and not interested in ideas to reform term limits so the rascals can stick around a little longer.
But Michigan would get better results out of its Legislature and more competent political leadership if lawmakers were allowed to gain more on-the-job experience.
No one is blaming lawmakers solely for the incompetence of the budget process. Gov. Jennifer Granholm's resistance to changing government also played a major role.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/710030308/1002
County home foreclosures skyrocketing
By Dan Meisler
The number of home foreclosures continues to skyrocket in Livingston County, but a statewide group of social service agencies is considering a push to get some help for homeowners who are under the gun.
According to the Livingston County register of deeds, there have been 734 foreclosures this year. That compares to 454 in the same period last year, and 206 in the first nine months of 2005, when the amount of foreclosures started rising
significantly.
The number has already surpassed last year's total of 616 for the entire year.
"It's just a sad state of affairs to see this many foreclosures," said Register of Deeds Sally Reynolds.
http://theoaklandpress.com/stories/100307/opi_20071003121.shtml
Paid petitioners foul air of true democracy
Web-posted Oct 3, 2007
EDITORIAL
Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is definitely onto something with her latest round of election reform proposals.
Land has asked the Legislature to consider a number of election law reforms. Among her proposals was a recommendation that paid petition circulators - those paid to collect signatures to force ballot questions - stop being paid for each signature they secure.
Instead, Land wants professional signature collectors to receive an hourly wage, and asked the Legislature to enact law to force that change.
http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/710030309/1002
Rep. Miller to take on Great Lakes levels
Studies report lower water depth this year
By BOBBY AMPEZZAN
In response to low water levels on the Great Lakes, U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, has requested a hearing in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
At the end of August, Lake Huron was 577 feet and 5 inches deep. It has lost about 5 inches of water since August 2006, and about 3 feet 9 inches of water in the last 10 years. Lake Superior, which feeds Lakes Huron and Michigan about 40% of their water, is 1 foot higher than its lowest recorded depth of 599 feet and 5 inches in 1926.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS06/710030349/1008
Immigration official indicted
Charges tie bribes to sex crimes, murder
October 3, 2007
A Detroit immigration official accepted cash, casino chips, jewelry, landscaping and hundreds of free meals to help immigrants enter and stay in the United States or avoid deportation, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The indictment said Roy Bailey, 54, of Romulus, a suspended acting field director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its predecessor, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, also fraudulently arranged for the release of immigrants who were being held pending deportation.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/POLITICS01/710030311/1022/POLITICS
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Waning evangelical clout may boost Giuliani
Michael Finnegan / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- Barely three months before voting for presidential candidates begins, the religious right has yet to unite behind a Republican, heightening concerns among evangelical leaders that social liberal Rudolph W. Giuliani will capture the party's nomination.
The splintering of religious conservatives, if it endures, would ease the way for New York's former mayor to emerge as the party's first nominee to explicitly support abortion rights since the Supreme Court legalized the procedure in 1973.
http://jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker100307.php3
Rudy, call home
By Kathleen Parker
Most experienced adults acknowledge at some point in their lives that love is a form of temporary insanity.
If only Rudy Giuliani would admit as much. Then we might shed a sliver of light on his profoundly odd habit of taking cell phone calls from his wife while in the midst of a speech.
Love at least has clouded his judgment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119127620102645595.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news
GOP Is Losing Grip
On Core Business Vote
Deficit Hawks Defect
As Social Issues Prevail;
'The Party Left Me'
By JACKIE CALMES
October 2, 2007; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.
New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity -- what strategists call its "brand." The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.
Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don't share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100207/content/01125107.guest.html
Why Conservatives Are Fed Up
October 2, 2007
RUSH: You know, it's sad to be told, ladies and gentlemen, by a wounded vet returning from the theater that I have challenged his legitimacy and his heroism and his service and called him phony when no such thing has ever been said. I really don't even want to accept the premise of this because that would mean it necessary to defend it, and there's nothing to defend here, because this is a smear and a false charge. I've been to Walter Reed, the amputee rehab unit. I have been to bases, combat bases in Afghanistan on troop visits.
http://townhall.com/columnists/TerenceJeffrey/2007/10/03/the_next_step_in_the_surge
The Next Step in the Surge
By Terence Jeffrey
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Antiwar sentiment ran high as bloody news arrived from the war zone day after day. The Democratic platform declared the war a "failure," demanding its end. It looked like a bad year for Republicans.
A young Republican congressman, a veteran who had won fame on the battlefield, stumped across all-important Ohio. He did not like the incumbent Republican president. But there was no way he wanted a Democrat elected.
"Why is the war a failure to them?" this congressman asked on the stump. "It is only a failure because if it succeeds they fail."
Does that raw rhetoric sound familiar? The year was 1864. The congressman was James Garfield, who as a young colonel had led Union forces on a victorious campaign in Kentucky, winning promotion to general. The quote from Garfield's 1864 stump speech is reported in "Garfield," Allan Peskin's biography of the man who later became our 20th president.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/POLITICS/710030339/1022
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Dems push tax to pay for Iraq war
Proposal for income tax surcharge draws little support from colleagues; criticism by Republicans.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Arguing it is unfair to continue to pass the cost of the war in Iraq to future generations, three senior House Democrats Tuesday offered a longshot plan to raise taxes to pay for the $150 billion bill for the war in 2008.
At the same time, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee announced they would delay action on the White House's war request for next year, saying he refuses "to continue the status quo."
The tax plan, unveiled by Reps. David Obey, D-Wis.; John Murtha, D-Pa.; and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., would require low- and middle-income taxpayers to add 2 percent to their tax bill. Wealthier people would add a 12 percent to 15 percent surcharge, Obey said.
Oct 3, 5:03 AM EDT
Report: Millions wasted on gov't travel
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period on business- and first-class airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt entitled to the perk, congressional investigators say.
A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, is the first to examine compliance with travel rules across the federal government following reports of extensive abuse of premium-class travel by Pentagon and State Department employees.
The review of travel spending by more than a dozen agencies from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, found 67 percent of premium-class travel by executives or their employees, worth at least $146 million, was unauthorized or otherwise unjustified.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298999,00.html
Limbaugh Broadcaster Comes to Radio Host's Defense
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
WASHINGTON — The owner of the company that airs Rush Limbaugh's show has come to his defense, telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that while he isn't certain to whom Limbaugh was referring when he used the term "phony soldiers," the radio talk show host has a long history of supporting U.S. troops.
Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's broadcast, on Tuesday responded to a letter signed by 41 Democrats that called on the network "to publicly repudiate" comments made by Limbaugh "that call into question" the service and sacrifice of troops who oppose the war in Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03ravitch.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Get Congress Out of the Classroom
By DIANE RAVITCH
Published: October 3, 2007
DESPITE the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable. The primary strategy — to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year — has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools.
Oct 3, 3:50 AM EDT
Bush to veto child health plan
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is ready to escalate his battle with Congress over children's health insurance, planning a veto of a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded the program.
It would be only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans fear could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections.
The White House sought as little attention as possible for the veto on Wednesday, saying the president planned to execute it behind closed doors without any fanfare or press coverage.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program is a joint state-federal effort that subsidizes health coverage for 6.6 million people, mostly children, from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford their own private coverage.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071003/EDITORIAL01/110030020/1013/EDITORIAL
Time for expediency
Tony Blankley
October 3, 2007
The likely rout of the GOP in next year's elections proceeds apace. Last week the Republicans, improbably taking their lead from President Bush, put down their marker against health care for America's kids. Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with the GOP policy. The SCHIP bill is a cynical effort to expand an unnecessary entitlement for middle income and even upper middle income (over $80,000 annual income) kids and young adults, funded by a tax on primarily blue-collar Americans (cigarette usage.)
But politics is a cruel business, and about 75 percent of the public, according to the most recent Washington Post poll, opposes the GOP position. Even allowing for possibly sneaky phrasing of the question, common sense tells one that the GOP will be badly on the losing side of the PR fight about kids' health care. And health care, remember, is the most important domestic issue to the public. When a party, such as the GOP has lost about 10 percent to 15 percent of market share in the last two years (from national affiliation rates in the higher 40 percent to the middle 30s), it's no time to stand on a principle the party cannot even persuasively explain to a majority of its own remaining party regulars.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-02mkb.html
Michael Knox Beran
Clarence Thomas, Created Equal
Liberal elites use the stigma of affirmative action to belittle a great justice.
2 October 2007
In September 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in which he pledged to free the Confederate slaves. Just over a year later he delivered the Gettysburg Address, in which he repudiated the paternalism of the slaveholders and affirmed America’s core belief that all men are created equal. In striking out against paternalism, Lincoln drew on arguments he advanced in an 1859 letter. Paternalist ideas, he charged in that letter, were a betrayal of the “definitions and axioms of free society,” a warmed-over defense of “classification, caste, and legitimacy,” the principles of the ancien régime.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/POLITICS/710030341/1022
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Justices weigh cocaine sentencing
Supreme Court to decide if federal judges must follow law setting tougher terms for trafficking in crack than powder.
Detroit News wire reports
WASHINGTON -- A government attorney told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a federal judge cannot ignore Congress' intent that trafficking in crack cocaine should carry tougher penalties than selling powder cocaine.
Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that a judge who ignores congressional will on the issue creates "a textbook example" of unreasonable sentencing.
The crack cocaine penalty case is one of two the court tackled Tuesday in an attempt to provide more clear direction in balancing the discretion given to judges with federal sentencing guidelines that the court declared in 2005 are advisory rather than mandatory.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/03/america/03missile.php
Missile defense system is up and running, military says
WASHINGTON: After a successful test last week, the tracking radars and interceptor rockets of a new American missile defense system can be turned on at any time to respond to an emerging crisis in Asia, senior military officers said Tuesday.
General Victor Renuart Jr., the senior commander for defense of United States territory, said that the antimissile system could guard against the risk of ballistic missile attack from North Korea even while development continues on a series of radars in California and the Pacific Ocean and on interceptor missiles in Alaska and California.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TERROR_EXERCISE?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 3, 4:55 AM EDT
Questions raised over terror exercise
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever next week when three fictional "dirty bombs" go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
Yet even as this drill begins, details from the previous national exercise held in 2005 have yet to be publicly released - information that's supposed to help officials prepare for the next real attack.
House lawmakers were expected to demand answers Wednesday, including why the "after-action" report from 2005 hasn't been made public. Congress has required the exercise since 2000, but has done little in the way of oversight beyond attending the actual events.
http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010683
The Realignment of Iraq
We're winning because the Iraqis want us to--Moqtada al-Sadr included.
BY BARTLE BULL
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The war in Iraq was always going to be won by the Iraqis, and so it has proven. But the Iraqis who have won it are on our side.
It was in the spring of 2004--a month or so before I first arrived in Baghdad in a taxi to stay in a small hotel--that the Sunnis launched their disastrous insurgency. Its defeat is becoming ever more clear this autumn as new reports reach us of the patriotic stand of the Anbar tribes, the pacification and nascent prosperity of Fallujah and Ramadi, the isolation of al Qaeda, and the peace overtures of defeated Baathists.
That first season of serious fighting also included the time of the original uprising by the poor Shiites of Iraq, led by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Six times during that fighting I drove with Iraqis through the so-called Death Triangle of Sunni towns south of Baghdad to cover the events in Najaf. Surrounded on the highway by pickup trucks carrying chanting Mahdi Army fighters and caskets bearing the dead from the Sadr City fighting, one would see the green and black flags of the Shiite saints atop houses and feel safe.