International:
Axis of Evil update: Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an 'axis of evil' comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation."

Yesterday, North Korea set off a global panic when it announced it had successfully tested its first nuclear weapon. China, one of North Korea's closest supporters, called the test a "
flagrant and brazen" violation of international opinion.


Mohammed El Baradei, head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was a "clear setback to international commitments to move toward nuclear disarmament." President Bush reported that he had spoken with leaders from China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan, all of whom had agreed that the North Koreans' actions "unacceptable and deserve an immediate response." North Korea now possesses enough weapons-grade plutonium for as many as 13 nuclear weapons.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said the communist government could respond to U.S. pressure with "physical" measures.

"If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The statement didn't specify what those measures could be.

"We were compelled to conduct a nuclear test because of the U.S. nuclear threat and pressure of sanctions," the statement said. "We are ready for both dialogue and confrontation."

The statement was the first formal announcement from the North Korean government since KCNA reported the Monday test.

Was The Nuke Test A Bust?
A growing chorus of intelligence sources was leaning Tuesday toward the conclusion that North Korea's claim that it successfully detonated a nuclear weapon last Sunday may be more bluster than blast. Read more
here…

As I type this, AP news reports have come in about a strong earthquake in northern Japan on Wednesday that may have led the Tokyo government to suspect that North Korea had conducted a second nuclear test.


Things That Make You Go ….Hmmmmm
As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major strike group of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1st.

Conflict Of Interests?
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the only American to sit on the board of a company which six years ago sold two light water reactors to North Korea. "Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defense secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year."


While conservatives now fault President Clinton for selling the light water reactors to North Korea under the previous Agreed Framework, few cite Rumsfeld's role in the deal. Rumsfeld has never acknowledged that he knew the company was competing for the nuclear contract. In response to questions about his role in the reactor deal, the Defense Secretary's former spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told Newsweek in February 2003 that "there was no vote on this" and that her boss "does not recall it being brought before the board at any time." ABB spokesman Bjoern Edlund told Fortune magazine at the time that "board members were informed about this project." One former director who sat with Rumsfeld on the board said they were told about the contract. "This was a major thing for ABB," the former director said, "and extensive political lobbying was done." The director recalled being told that Rumsfeld was asked "to lobby in Washington" on ABB's behalf.


A few years after participating in the deal, Rumsfeld attacked the concept of selling reactors to North Korea. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Rusmfeld said, "Our present nuclear agreement with North Korea unfortunately does not end its nuclear menace. It merely postpones the reckoning, with no assurance that we will know how much bomb-capable material North Korea has."


National:
Failing To See Failure
OK, so you don’t understand the title. Here is the face the GOP is putting on before election day:
The case for continuing the GOP Majority
Republicans have a fair story to tell about what they've accomplished over the last two years, but their narrative has been interrupted by the trashy subplot of Mark Foley and his trolling for male House pages. Democrats are constantly changing their narrative when it fails to match reality.

Allen Troubled, but Ahead In Polls
In his past five annual Senate financial disclosures, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) failed to reveal stock options he received as a director of Commonwealth Biotechnologies and Xybernaut, two government contractors he worked with as Governor of Virginia. The disclosure reports are designed to inform the public over potential conflicts of interest. In 2001, owning 110,000 undisclosed Xybernaut options, Allen "asked the Army to resolve a lingering issue with Xybernaut" at Xybernaut's request. Allen called these options "worthless," but Bloomberg reports that they were worth as much as "$1.1 million at one point." Allen also had failed to promptly inform the SEC of two instances of insider trading while serving as director of the two companies.


In Other News...
Three national polls released today find the American public has deep concerns over Iraq. A USA Today poll found a 56 percent majority saying that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. A WP/ABC poll said only 35 percent approve of Bush's handling of Iraq. According to a NYT/CBS poll, only 3 percent are saying the war is going very well.


"Several hundred" civilians in Darfur may have died last August in attacks carried out with the "knowledge and material support" of the government. "The attacks," a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report said, "were massive in scale, involving a large number of villages, and were carried out over only a few days. Government knowledge, if not complicity, in the attacks is almost certain."


U.S. Gen. James Jones, the top NATO commander, last week "did not dispute" claims in Woodward's new book "saying he described the Iraq war as a debacle and considered resigning over the conflict."

Finally, today at a news conference, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) blamed the current predicament with North Korea on the Clinton administration. See video here...


From The Right:
Today we go to Rich Lowry and his opinion on post-9/11 Democratic foreign-policy. His article today is entitled A Blast at the Lamont Doctrine: North Korea’s response to today’s Democratic party. Read it here…


From The Left:
Randi Rhodes places some interesting info on her site in reference to our prosperous years under the GOP leadership. Dems have no need to celebrate either, believe me

1. AUDIO: Bob Woodward on 60 Minutes - Bush Sr. telling his former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft of his
agony and torment over the war in Iraq.



2. Bush family loyalist, former Chief of Staff and Sec. of State under Bush Sr., James Baker, says we need to talk with our enemies and is co-chairing a bipartisan group to create a redeployment timeline to get out of Iraq.



3. Former Bush Sr. National Security Advisor, Donald Gregg, sees W's strategy of doing nothing and talking to no one as a huge mistake.

Thought To Ponder:
Three of the recent books on impeachment include as an impeachable offense Bush's use of signing statements to announce his refusal to obey hundreds of laws passed by Congress. The American Bar Association has found the practice unconstitutional. It is, in fact, an open threat to the rule of law.


(Sources: Military.com, The Nation, National Review, Time, AP, NY Times, FOXNews, TownHall, WashingtonPost, AlertNet, Center For American Progress, CNN, USA Today, ABCNews, CBS, PoliticalCartoons.com, The Guardian, NewsHounds, Heritage Foundation, Bloomberg, Investment News, RandiRhodesShow, Boston Globe)