memeorandum: House Intel Chair suspends staff member (Katherine Shrader/Associated Press)

10:35 AM ET, October 20, 2006

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Report: N. Korean Leader Regrets Test — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to a Chinese delegation and said Pyongyang would return to international nuclear talks if Washington backs off a campaign to financially isolate the country, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

Discussion: RightWinged.com, Dr. Sanity, In From the Cold, The Belmont Club, Ace of Spades HQ and Blue Crab Boulevard

Richard Spencer / Telegraph:
China tells Kim not to carry out second nuclear test

Discussion: AMERICAN FUTURE and Pajamas Media

Washington Post:

Major Change Expected In Strategy for Iraq War — The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war …

Discussion: Dick Polman's American Debate, Eschaton and Political Animal

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New York Times:

Bush Faces a Battery of Ugly Choices on War — The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war. — He can once again order a rearrangement …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Demagogue and Democratic Veteran

Jim Kuhnhenn / Associated Press:

GOP to Air Ad Warning of Terror Attacks — The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland. — The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Peking Duck, PoliBlog, All Spin Zone, DownWithTyranny!, Oliver Willis and Donklephant

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James Joyner / Outside The Beltway:
Vote Democrat And You Will Die

Discussion: NewsHog and GOP.com

Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:
Conservative voters likely to stay home

Discussion: Hot Air, Demagogue, Flopping Aces, Daily Pundit, Don Surber, WTF Is It Now?? and The Huffington Post

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Republican Woes Lead to Feuding by Conservatives — Tax-cutters are calling evangelicals bullies. Christian conservatives say Republicans in Congress have let them down. Hawks say President Bush is bungling the war in Iraq. And many conservatives blame Representative Mark Foley's sexual messages to teenage pages.

Discussion: TAPPED, LiberalOasis, Andrew Sullivan, Bull Moose, AMERICAblog and Taylor Marsh

Katherine Shrader / Associated Press:

House Intel Chair suspends staff member — WASHINGTON - House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra has suspended a Democratic staff member because of concerns he may have leaked a high-level intelligence assessment to The New York Times last month. — In a letter obtained …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Sister Toldjah, TigerHawk, Michelle Malkin, Roger L. Simon, RightWinged.com, The Jawa Report, The Belmont Club, Hot Air, The Strata-Sphere, Silent Running and Cold Fury

Agence France Presse:

Top US general says Rumsfeld is inspired by God — MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. — "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Discussion: NewsHog and The Agonist

Justin Rood / TPMmuckraker:

CQ: Facing Fed Probe, House GOP Spending Chief Axes Investigative Staff — My goodness. As TPMm readers know well, House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is under federal investigation for possible improprieties in how he oversaw Congress' spending of $900 billion annually.

Discussion: All Spin Zone

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USA Today: House committee dismisses bulk of investigative division

Karen DeYoung / Washington Post:

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases — Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds …

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Think Progress, CorrenteWire and Linkmeister

Daniela Altimari / Hartford Courant:

Close Race In 2nd District — Poll Finds Tiny Lead For Simmons Over Courtney — In the nationally watched struggle for the 2nd Congressional District, Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons and Democratic challenger Joe Courtney are locked in a statistical draw, according to a Hartford Courant/University …

Discussion: Connecticut Local Politics

Greg Sargent / electioncentral.tpmcafe.com:

So Who's Telling Truth — Karl Rove Or Ken Mehlman? — So how much is the GOP really going to spend between now and election day in a last-ditch effort to prevent their majority from slipping away? And which party — the GOP or the Dems — is going to spend more in the home stretch?

Stephen Slivinski / Cato Institute:

Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors: 2006 — Stephen Slivinski is director of budget studies at the Cato Institute and author of Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government (Nelson Current, 2006). — Executive Summary

Discussion: Cato-at-liberty, Hit and Run and Club for Growth

Austin Bay / TCS Daily:

The Exceptional Nation — If demography is destiny, then news of America's decline is (like Mark Twain's death) decidedly premature. — Statisticians tell us Oct. 17 (at 7:46 a.m. EDT, according to the Census Bureau's estimate) was the day America's population reached, then surpassed, 300 million people.

Discussion: Silflay Hraka

Jeffrey Zaslow / Wall Street Journal:

America's Next Top Pundit — What does it take to be a talking head? — Whenever news breaks — on the fall campaign trail, in North Korea, in the most trivial corners of Hollywood — thousands of pundits have something to say. What most of them don't have is somewhere to say it.

Discussion: Vox Popoli