Sen. Clinton's Empty Table  —  "THERE ARE basically only three options: We can raise taxes again, which no one wants to do because the payroll tax is regressive. . . We can cut benefits. . . Or we can work together to try to find some way to increase the rate of return."

Even Over A Penny  —  Sixteen years after he castigated the Senate Judiciary Committee for conducting a "high-tech lynching," Justice Clarence Thomas may relish the opportunity to tell his side of the story.  With his new book My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir hitting bookstores today …

Gotbaum kin's plea before dying: I'm not a terrorist!  —  BY SOO YOUN in Phoenix and ETHAN ROUEN and ADAM LISBERG in New York  —  The daughter-in-law of one of New York's top officials screamed, "I'm not a terrorist!" and fought with security officials in the Phoenix airport before being wrestled …

Burma: Thousands dead in the massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle  —  Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.  —  The most senior official to defect so far …

Giuliani Inspires Threat of a Third-Party Run  —  Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

Roddy Stinson: Passenger sitting behind soldier reports 'a very moving moment'  —  THE GOOD  —  Last Wednesday, while flying from Phoenix to the Alamo City on U.S. Airways Flight 207, a San Antonio man, Gil Anderson, witnessed something memorable.  —  Shortly before takeoff …

Fundraising: Fred's struggles  —  Here's something to compare Thompson's money to: the 1st Q numbers of his three main rivals: Romney raised 21.2M; Giuliani raised 16.6M; McCain raised 13M.  —  By comparison, Fred's $7-8M (or even $10 million) this quarter is not great.

Peace is Dangerous  —  As the level of American casualties in Iraq falls to its lowest level in more than a year, while Iraqi casualties fall as well, Erick at Red State notes that as tragic as the loss of life is, the final year of the Carter administration saw greater losses of life among U.S. soldiers …

High Court won't hear birth control case  —  WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to enter a church-state dispute over whether some religious organizations can be forced to pay for workers' birth-control health insurance benefits, a growing trend in the states.

The Usual Suspect  —  The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy  —  IN OCTOBER 2002, Osama bin Laden issued a statement in which he analyzed America's inexhaustible number of sins and prescribed ways of repenting for many of them.  The statement was, by the standards of bin Laden's cave encyclicals, unusually coherent.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths Plunge, Too  —  The BBC reports that the good news in Iraq isn't just limited to American troops.  The number of violent civilian deaths have dropped dramatically in September to less than half of August, by far the best month of the year: … The number of Iraqi troops and police killed also dropped.

HMMM  —  Yesterday at TPM I flagged Sy Hersh's new New Yorker article on the Cheneyite push for war with Iran — an article as depressing as it is unsurprising.  I want to focus in one passage from the piece about arch-Iran hawk Normam Podhoretz ...  So this is the threat.

Man with grenades stopped at embassy  —  Austrian police say he's a Bosnia native, had Islamic literature  —  VIENNA, Austria - Austrian authorities said they arrested a man on Monday after he tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna carrying a backpack with explosives.

Some in Fairfax Public Housing Make Six Figures  —  Hundreds of families living in housing subsidized by Fairfax County taxpayers exceed income caps designed to ensure that only the neediest receive assistance, a review of county records shows.  —  In the most extreme cases …

Earmark Recipients Come through for Chairman Reyes  —  Roll Call reports that a few months after Silvestre Reyes became chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he asked his brother to create a political action committee called BEST PAC.  That committee received tens of thousands in donations …