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TOP STORIES
'Gated Communities' For
the War-Ravaged
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201419.html
The U.S. military is walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent
neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents,
creating what officers call "gated communities" in an attempt to
carve out oases of safety in this war-ravaged city. The plan drew widespread
condemnation in Iraq this past week. On Sunday night, Prime Minister Nouri-al
Maliki told news services that he would work to halt construction of a wall
around the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, which residents said would aggravate
sectarian tensions by segregating them from Shiite neighbors. The U.S. military says the walls are meant to protect people, not further divide them in a city
that is increasingly a patchwork of sectarian enclaves. The military sees a
simple virtue in the barriers.
RELATED: 70 Iraqis killed; Maliki halts barrier
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-22-iraq_N.htm
Specter Says Gonzales
Is Hurting Justice Department
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201133.html
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary
Committee, said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is hurting the Justice
Department and the Bush administration by not resigning. Gonzales testified
before the committee last week, addressing questions about whether the Justice
Department dismissed federal prosecutors for partisan purposes. Specter did not
call directly for the attorney general to step down, but said Gonzales's
testimony "was very, very damaging to his own credibility. It has been
damaging to the administration." Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the
Judiciary Committee chairman, upped the stakes on the White House by saying on
CBS that it is not enough for Gonzales to resign; he must be replaced by
someone more independent.
RELATED: Bush Rebuffs GOP Pressure For Gonzales to Step Down
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002020.html
RELATED: Gonzales testimony damaged White House, Specter says
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704220308apr23,1,4608164.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
RELATED: Gonzales seeks GOP support
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-20-gonzales-prosecutors_N.htm
Electric deregulation
fails to live up to promises as bills soar
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-21-electricity_N.htm
This wasn't supposed to happen with deregulation. Electric bills were supposed
to go down. Instead, Ellie Dorchincez can almost see the dollars evaporating
every time she turns on the lights or opens the freezer at her small Farm Fresh
grocery store. Her electric bill, which used to be about $800 a month, has
jumped to $1,800. She's shut down a large freezer of frozen treats and now
closes the store an hour early to cut costs but fears she still may have to
raise prices and lay off some workers. "I'm just trying to figure any way
that I can right now to keep my business afloat," Dorchincez said.
"My life is at stake here." The cause of her distress is a common
problem: the failure of deregulation to deliver its promise of lower
electricity prices. In many states, it's had the opposite effect with sharply
higher rates — 72% in Maryland, up to 50% in Illinois. Not one of the 16 states
— plus the District of Columbia — that have pushed forward with deregulation
since the late 1990s can call it a success. In fact, consumers in those states
fared worse than residents in states that stuck with a policy of regulating
their power industries.
Medicaid Programs
'Severely Challenged,' Report Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042101019.html
State Medicaid programs, which provide health care to some of the nation's
poor, vary wildly in their eligibility criteria, the scope and quality of their
care, and the amount they reimburse physicians providing it, according to an
independent assessment published last week. Overall, the programs are
"severely challenged," with the best scoring the equivalent of a low
D and the worst way below an F. "This evaluation demonstrates a bleak
picture for millions of people in many states," wrote the authors of the
143-page evaluation, produced by Public Citizen's Health Research Group. The
top five programs, in order of rank, were in Massachusetts, Nebraska, Vermont, Alaska and Wisconsin. The bottom five, with lowest-ranked last, were in South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho and Mississippi. Maryland ranked 15, the District 27,
and Virginia 37.
Today’s complete national news
Colorado
U.S. gun culture back
in spotlight
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5728141
Across Denver, it was a week of painful memories and unanswered questions about
America's gun culture.
Ex-official slams BLM's
energy plans
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/23/4_23_1a_BLM_approach.html
When Ann Morgan was serving as Colorado state director of the Bureau of Land
Management between 1997 and 2002, she saw firsthand, she said, how President
George W. Bush’s administration immediately ordered the agency to make energy
development top priority on public land when Bush took office in 2001. The
change was swift and dramatic, Morgan said last week in her ninth-floor Wynkoop Street office in downtown Denver. She serves as the Wilderness Society’s vice
president of public lands. Before becoming the state BLM director in Colorado, she served in the same role in Nevada for three years. She testified Tuesday
before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources to send one message to a Congress scrambling to deal with the
long-range effects of America’s energy boom: The Bush administration’s bias
toward widespread energy extraction on our public lands is wreaking ecological
havoc throughout the Rockies.
House OKs creation of
ethics commission
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5496868,00.html
The House approved a plan Friday to create an ethics commission to decide what
gifts to lawmakers and state employees are legal, along with a companion
measure that asks the Supreme Court to rule on whether the plan is legal. House
Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, added an amendment that would delete any
portion of the new law if it is found to be unconstitutional, then voted with
the House to ask the state Supreme Court for a ruling on whether the proposal
is legal.
The plan itself now goes back to the Senate to consider the amendment.
RELATED: Amend. 41 endgame may be in sight
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5714924
Report bashes Ritter's
school funding plan
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5496865,00.html
Legislators should alter the state's school funding requirements instead of
trying to raise more money for education, the head of a free-market think tank
said Friday. "They're avoiding the problem," said Jon Caldara, the
director of the Golden-based Independence Institute. "It's like an
alcoholic who wants to blame everything else except the booze." Budget
analysts say the state education fund will be in the red by the 2011-12 school
year at current spending rates. Gov. Bill Ritter proposes to cancel scheduled
reductions in property tax rates to keep the fund solvent. A report released
Thursday by Caldara's group calls Ritter's proposal a tax increase because
businesses and homeowners would pay more than if current law is not altered.
The report also takes issue with attorneys for the legislature, who have said
in two opinions that Ritter's plan does not violate the tax limitation
amendment passed by voters in 1992, called the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. That
measure requires a referendum on all tax increases. Ritter's proposal
"clearly violates the spirit of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights," the
report says.
RELATED: Panel to hear education plan
http://www.gazette.com/articles/plan_21513___article.html/tax_fund.html
RELATED: School tax proposal heads to Legislature
http://www.cortezjournal.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/07/news070421_10.htm
Today’s complete Colorado news
Today’s complete daily news: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/042307.htm
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