Day: September 30, 2006

By JIM KUHNHENN

The images are searing, violent. Smoke and flames pouring from the World Trade Center towers. Bullets ripping through military protective vests.

The scenes are from this year’s campaign ad wars, waged outside the control of candidates or political parties.

Heading into the final weeks before the Nov. 7 elections, independent advocacy groups, many financed by a few wealthy donors, are spending millions on ads in some of the most contested states and congressional districts.

Democrats called on the White House on Friday to explain a congressional report showing many contacts with Jack Abramoff, but aides to President George W. Bush dismissed the notion the disgraced lobbyist wielded any influence.

The U.S. Senate on Saturday authorized $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly $463 billion for defense programs in the fiscal year that begins on Sunday.

Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book details the administration of President George W. Bush as a White House in turmoil, riddled with internal strife, torn by bickering among senior aides and rife with calls on Bush to fire embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Woodward’s book details what many already suspected: That Bush’s Presidency was out of control and in a major state of denial over its many failures in the doomed invasion of Iraq.

By ROB HOTAKAINEN
McClatchy Newspapers

The U.S. Senate on Friday overwhelmingly agreed to authorize construction of a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico, sending to President George W. Bush before the November 7 elections a bill that Republicans hope will showcase their efforts to stop illegal immigration.

By LISA HOFFMAN

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON

In a scandal guaranteed to anger parents, a prominent House Republican has resigned after the revelation that he exchanged raunchy electronic messages with a teenage boy, a former congressional page.

The evidence continues to mount that Virginia Senator George Allen is both a racist and a liar. Another former football teammate has come out from behind the wall of anonymity and confirmed that Allen used racial slurs in college.

In additions, confirmations have poured in from around the country from those who knew Allen in his college days and on the campaign trail: All say Allen used racial epithets.

The Senator, however, continues to claim he never, ever, used racial slurs and his campaign has tried to smear anyone who confirms that he did.