breakingpoint

AMDOM
* "Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee denying a request by nine committee Democrats seeking information about the Valerie Plame case." LINK

* btw - the media is jumping all over this -its-healthy-to-be-fat story from the cdc. if mcdonalds and pizzhut were big advertisers, id prolly get suspicious... it must be a battle royale between the medicare folk and the socsec folk. in the same vain, merck has been busted fabricating vioxx trials. i wonder if the socsec legal team is defending them, or praps media company lawyers.

* "ABC News in Chicago has yanked and replaced a story in which retiring Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) indicated that the attempt to impeach President Clinton came in retaliation for the move to impeach President Nixon because they felt the story was too opinionated... The affiliate also took down a video which included comments from Hyde." LINK
i tried to watch this video - but it was blank. these elephants sure have long memories...

* ""I get uneasy when the Vatican writes me letters when a death penalty case is about ready to take place in Florida. I'll be honest with you, that gives me pause. It makes me pray harder," (jeb) Bush told reporters in Rome on Saturday." LINK
thats the cultcha of life for you. he pauses. for a second. jeb08. yeehaw.

* krug: "Well, as the World Health Organization put it in a discussion of Western Europe, private insurers generally don't compete by delivering care at lower cost. Instead, they "compete on the basis of risk selection" - that is, by turning away people who are likely to have high medical bills and by refusing or delaying any payment they can... So we've created a vast and hugely expensive insurance bureaucracy that accomplishes nothing... It's perverse but true that this system, which insures only 85 percent of the population, costs much more than we would pay for a system that covered everyone." LINK

* " David Brooks lies in every column he writes. He brings to mind Mary McCarthy's famous remark concerning Lillian Hellman - "every word she writes is a lie - including 'and' and 'the.'"" LINK

* "The proposal, spelled out in three short sentences, would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the "Sunset Commission," which would systematically review federal programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs that are not "producing results," in the eyes of the commission, would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them."" LINK
social security?

* "Some members of both parties and analysts are uttering the words that no president wants to hear.
"We're in the lame-duck period," said John Zogby, an independent pollster. "Each day that passes, the duck gets lamer. The window (of opportunity) has passed. If he wasn't able to come off the voting (in Iraq) and turn it into more of a popular mandate, I don't know what he can do."" LINK
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11465659.htm
wowsers. talking about lame ducks with 42 months to go! its probably hyperbolic - but its not a great sign for the fadmin - altho as xymphora reminds us, "the last time we heard of problems in Bush's Presidency was in early September 2001"

* so the state.dept finally released the terror report. they just took the numbers out. it must be good to be king.
"Mr Waxman said: "There appears to be a pattern in the administration's approach to terrorism data: favourable facts are revealed while unfavourable facts are suppressed."" LINK
waxman is a superstar, but the only thing they'll let him do is the steroid nonsense.

* nypost: "Meanwhile, Kerry — and his outspoken wife Teresa Heinz Kerry — are increasingly claiming he was robbed last November and should have won." LINK
and apparently jonk wants to run in 08. apparently his wife is 'outspoken'

* " Shares of consulting firm BearingPoint Inc. slumped 32 percent to its all-time low on Thursday on a spate of bad news including a government probe, restatements and delayed filings... BearingPoint, which changed its top management in recent months, said that its financials for the previous two years are not reliable and will be restated." LINK
my brother started working with these people just this week... (i call them breakingpoint - but thats just projection)