Day: December 21, 2006

When the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was formed in 1976, it had five congressmen and Puerto Rico’s commissioner as members. The running joke about their small number was they could hold meetings in a phone booth.

Established to set a Latino legislative agenda, the caucus’s Mexican-American, Cuban-American and Puerto Rican membership grew steadily to include 21 House members as it became increasingly influential.

Christmas is never more difficult or emotional than during wartime when the fate of many loved ones hangs like a lonely, forlorn ornament on a tree whose branches are shaken daily by violence. It is at this time that we who do not have to experience the ceaseless worry of having a son or daughter or husband or wife in harm’s way should not only recognize our good fortune but also understand our obligation to those who do.

By REG HENRY

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When it comes to pomp and circumstance, my appreciation of the formalities always depends upon the circumstances. As it was, the farewell to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon the other day, complete with 19-gun salute, marching bands and glowing speeches, left me unseasonably gloomy.

US political darling Barack Obama has received enthusiastic support for a possible 2008 presidential bid — except from fellow African-Americans, a group many believed would be among his staunchest backers.

In contrast to the effusive reception Obama has received from white Americans, many US blacks so far have been cool, saying that while they may share skin color with Obama, they do not have a common culture or history.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the rest of the Bush administration may be undecided on whether to send more troops to Iraq, but several soldiers he met with at Camp Victory here on Thursday morning here said extra forces would help.

"Sir I think we need to just keep doing what we’re doing," Spc. Jason T. Green, with the 101st Military Intelligence Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, told Gates during a breakfast session with about 15 U.S. soldiers.

He’s a bald, hefty rocker who plays a mean bass guitar, smacks around cupcakes for hockey pucks and uses blowtorches, power saws and drill bits for kitchen tools.

Martha Stewart, he’s definitely not. And to those who tune in regularly to watch his antics on national television, the anti-Martha persona is part of celebrity cake decorator Duff Goldman’s charm.

"I can be kind of a goofball," confesses Goldman, whose adventures in the kitchen are chronicled in the Food Network series "Ace of Cakes."

Acknowledging deepening frustration over Iraq, President Bush said Wednesday he is considering an increase in American forces and warned that next year will bring more painful U.S. losses. New Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Baghdad that a troop surge was an obvious option.

Bush was unusually candid at a year-end news conference about U.S. setbacks and dashed hopes in the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 2,950 U.S. military members.

President Clinton’s national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday.

The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.

The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information provided to The Associated Press.

The military’s request, if embraced by President Bush and approved by Congress, would boost this year’s budget for those wars to about $170 billion.

Military planners assembled the proposal at a time when Bush is developing new strategies for Iraq, such as sending thousands of more U.S. troops there, although it was put together before the president said the troop surge was under consideration.