Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* Stunning Reuters story<\/a>: “Iraqi deaths hit a new high in October and 100,000 people are fleeing abroad every month to escape worsening violence that is segregating the country on sectarian lines, a U.N. report said on Wednesday. Painting a grim picture of a population caught in the cross-fire between insurgents, militias, criminal gangs and security forces, the bimonthly report put civilian deaths in October at 3,709 — 120 a day and up from 3,345 in September.”<\/p>\n * It’s been Bush’s war for nearly four years, and Dems haven’t even convened the 110th Congress and already<\/i> we have House Republicans claiming<\/a> that “the Democrats may not want to own Iraq but they own it now as much as this President.”<\/p>\n * Janet Reno has been very quiet, and has resisted the temptation to criticize her successors in the Bush administration, which is why I was delighted to see that she’s “openly criticizing<\/a> the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism strategy — joining seven other former Justice Department officials in warning that the indefinite detention of U.S. terrorism suspects could become commonplace unless the courts intervene.”<\/p>\n * What kind of criminal robs the president’s daughter with Secret Service agents around? Apparently, a surprisingly successful one<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Al Gore is not yet satisfied<\/a> with what he’s heard from prospective presidential candidates when it comes to the environment. “I haven’t heard any of them make definitive and clear statements of a platform on this that I think is yet adequate,” Gore said. “But I’m confident that many of them will.” The first hint about a potential campaign?<\/p>\n * Scooter Libby’s lawyers submitted 17 questions<\/a> they’d like potential jurors to answer before his criminal trial begins in mid-January. As Tim Grieve noted, it’d be kind of fun to hear the president’s responses to all 17.<\/p>\n * How did the various polling firms do in advance of this year’s Senate races? Wall Street Journal broke it all down<\/a> for readers, but it looks like Rasmussen was probably the most accurate<\/a>. * In a new CNN poll, a clear majority of Americans believe that the war in Iraq has turned into a situation like the United States faced in Vietnam<\/a>, with 58% agreeing with the comparison, up six points since last month. Moreover, a whopping 63% of Americans now say they oppose the war in Iraq, while only 33% say they favor it.<\/p>\n * Jerry Falwell has said Mitt Romney’s Mormonism will “not be a factor<\/a>” in 2008. First, I think that’s what Falwell is willing to say publicly<\/i>, but I’d be quite surprised if that’s what he told his allies and followers privately. Second, people who share Falwell’s worldview appear to disagree<\/a>.<\/p>\n * I can’t believe Orlando had snow flurries<\/a> today.<\/p>\n * George Allen’s (R-Va.) final piece of legislation in the Senate? A bill to allow concealed handguns in national parks<\/a>. Talk about going out with a bang…<\/p>\n * Education Secretary Margaret Spellings became the first cabinet secretary to ever appear on Jeopardy last night. She came in second<\/a> to actor Michael McKean<\/a>. Conservatives are none too pleased<\/a> — she was apparently more than $20,000 behind<\/a> at the start of Final Jeopardy.<\/p>\n If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s edition of quick hits. * Stunning Reuters story: “Iraqi deaths hit a new high in October and 100,000 people are fleeing abroad every month to escape worsening violence that is segregating the country on sectarian lines, a U.N. report said on Wednesday. Painting a grim picture of a population caught in the cross-fire between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n* If both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama run for president in 2008, Rahm Emanuel has a plan: hide under his desk<\/a>.<\/p>\n