National:
Election Marketing Begins; 'Plan Of Attack'
– Cheney goes on Limbaugh’s show to say things are G-r-r-r-r-reat! (click link to hear)

– Bush on goes on O’Reilly’s show to blame the media (click link to hear)

The White House yesterday released a photo of President Bush meeting with right-wing radio hosts. The guests included:

– Sean Hannity (”Making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the House speaker is worth … dying for“)
– Neal Boortz (Islam is a “deadly virus“)
– Laura Ingraham (Sens. Biden and Boxer are “on the side of” Kim Jong-Il)
– Mike Gallagher (Gore and Hitler “brilliantly put together side by side” in campaign video)
– Michael Medved (”The subject of my conversation with the president of the United States was that Islam has a special violence problem.”)

Yet, the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group is starting to speak up about what to do in Iraq. Another member of the Iraq Study Group has weighed in on Iraq’s civil war and the need for an immediate course change.

Truth Or Consequence
Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law that created new rules for prosecuting and interrogating terror suspects, a move that Mr. Bush said would enable the Central Intelligence Agency to resume a once-secret program to question the most dangerous terrorists.

The president was surrounded at the bill signing by senior members of his administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director. Senior Republican lawmakers, among them Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who balked at the initial White House version of the bill and forced a much-publicized compromise, were also on hand. Hmmm…no John McCain?

Among the scope of the law, The President determines “the meaning and application” of the Geneva Conventions banning the torture of prisoners. [Act sec. 6(a)(3)(A)] t also has a provision for the War Crimes Act -the legislation would narrow the range of offenses prohibited under the War Crimes Act. This would protect civilians (such as CIA interrogators and White House officials) from being prosecuted for committing acts that would have been considered war crimes under the old definition. The change is retroactive to 1997, which means any crimes committed since 1997 would be prosecuted under the new standard, not the old one.

Newt Gingrich: 'Savior of Conservatives' in 2008?
(I know –I couldn’t believe it when I saw it –didn’t he fail in his promises w/ “Contract w/ America")?
"I believe that whatever the results of the November elections, Newt will become a major force in the GOP for 2008," a senior Republican Party strategist said. Read more here.

International:
Can You Understand The Words That Are Comin' Outta My Mouth?!
The United States is willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of North Korea's nuclear test, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday as she sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.

Rice spoke following discussions with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, the first stop on her crisis mission to respond to the threat posed by the North.

In the meantime, President Bush said Wednesday the United States would stop North Korea from transferring nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida and that the communist regime would then face "a grave consequence."

Bush refused to spell out how the United States would retaliate. "They'd be held to account," the president said in an ABC News interview.

"If we get intelligence that they're about to transfer a nuclear weapon, we would stop the transfer, and we would deal with the ships that were taking the — or the airplane that was dealing with taking the material to somebody," the president said.

North Korea now claims it is building a hydrogen bomb.
Last Week John Pike, founder and director of globalsecurity.org, offered his opinion that the nuclear test conducted by North Korea may have been neither a "first test," nor a test of a conventional fission bomb. Rather, Pike said that the North Koreans may have been testing a "trigger device" for a much larger hydrogen bomb. Read more here

From The Right:
Our author and article -W. Thomas Smith, Jr: Democrats don?t know how to fight
So why would anyone in their right mind believe that the Democrats could or would do any better in the prosecution of the war on terror than the Republicans?

From The Left:
Our other author and article -Joshua Holland: Part I: Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil Iraq is sitting on a mother lode of some of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on earth, and the rules that will determine who will control it and on what terms are about to be set. Bush's Petro-Cartel is about to take over control of Iraq's Oil.

Thought To Ponder:
What measures the progress in Iraq and why isn’t it celebrated more (if it exists)?

(Sources: AP, Library Of Congress, Rush Limbaugh, FOXNews, RandiRhodes, NY Times, Daily Telegraph, SF Chronicle, NewsMax, MediaMattersekly Standard, ThinkProgress)