by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.
In a largely partisan vote, the House approved legislation to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill’s enactment, which is highly unlikely since President Bush has vowed to veto it.
President Bush urged Congress and the American people for more patience for U.S. efforts in Iraq despite a Bush Administration progress report which showed at best mixed results in the war-torn nation.
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wrongly conflates the al Qaeda terrorist group that attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and the organization that uses the same name in Iraq, according to critics who say the president appears to be using the same misleading technique that paved the way for the U.S. invasion in 2003. Two key Republican senators are drafting legislation that would require the Bush Administration to plan for the eventual withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq.The U.S. military is taking the unprecedented step of collecting fingerprints and iris scans of Iraqi men to build a database to that it hopes will enable it to track insurgents.
The U.S.’s poorest households are facing tremendous housing difficulties, spending more than half of their incomes on rent and waiting for years for federally subsidized housing.
Presidential hopefuls, all but one of them Democrats, attended the NAACP’s annual convention and generally decried the Bush Administration’s attention to urban issues as they jockeyed for the favor of a minority group that may be critical to who becomes the Democratic nominee.
Surgeon General nominee James Holsinger Jr. disavowed his previously held views on gays and told Congress he would not allow ideology to trump science if he’s confirmed, an uncertain prospect since he has drawn criticism from both the right and the left.
Democrats on the presidential trail and on Congress are having difficulty arriving at a definition for who is truly wealthy.
Sales of the Plan B morning-after contraceptive doubled in the year since the Food and Drug Administration made the pill available over the counter.