'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'  —  BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon.  At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb.

FEMA Official Apologizes for Staged Briefing With Fake Reporters  —  The Federal Emergency Management Agency's No. 2 official apologized yesterday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters while real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions.

Words spoken in funeral flag-folding draw flap  —  RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Flag-folding recitations by Memorial Honor Detail volunteers are now banned at the nation's 125 veterans graveyards because of a complaint about the ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery.

State Dept. To Order Diplomats To Iraq  —  As Many as 50 Positions Are Expected to Be Open  —  The State Department will order as many as 50 U.S. diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.

Dutch lawmakers offended by Rep. Lantos  —  WASHINGTON - Dutch lawmakers who visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat.  —  The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif. …

Facebook reveals the BBC as a liberal hotbed  —  The BBC has frequently been accused of having a liberal bias.  —  But now the corporation's own staff appear to have confirmed this by revealing their political views on the networking website Facebook.  —  A survey of BBC employees …

D'Oh: House Panel Screw-Up Reveals Whistleblower Email Addresses  —  Here's a whoops with a capital W.  —  This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department.  The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown …

Student Paper Upsets the Edwards Camp  —  In this rough-and-tumble campaign season, the major presidential campaigns have sought to leave no charge unanswered from wherever it may come.  Even, it now seems, if the fight takes them into the realm of student journalism.

"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser  —  This week, Slate.com's political/gossip blogger Mickey Kaus wrote: … In just 21 words, Kaus managed to elevate the topics he speculates wildly about to the level of the most famous case of presidential wrongdoing in U.S. history, and to equate his …

Why Democrats are afraid to raise taxes on the rich  —  New data from the Internal Revenue Service show that income inequality continues to widen.  The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn more than 21 percent of all income.  That's a postwar record.  The bottom 50 percent of all Americans …

Malkin & Co. target Soros, hit Bush pioneers  —  The St. Petersburg Times reported this week that WellCare Health Plans, a Florida-based company that provides managed-care plans for millions of Medicare and Medicaid participants, has come under federal investigation.

Dean lashes out at GOP over health plan  —  WASHINGTON - Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean on Saturday criticized Republicans in Congress for not supporting legislation to expand a popular children's health care program.  —  "The Republican leaders have made their choice.

Democrats Plan a Shorter Workweek  —  Shortly after winning a majority last year, Democrats triumphantly declared that they would put Congress back to work, promising an "end to the two-day workweek."  And indeed, the House has clocked more time in Washington this year than in any other session since 1995 …

The Mitt-Brownback spat carries on  —  Sam Brownback may be out of the race, but his very public dangling of an endorsement for Rudy is angering at least one prominent Romney backer.  To set the stage: These two camps, Brownback and Romney, are not fond of each other and did battle …