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In taking back control of the House, Democrats also are restoring the old names used for committees when they last headed them in 1994.Republicans swept into power in that year's midterm elections had created their own monikers for several committees. As part of the rules changes adopted this week, Democrats reclaimed the old names for several committee and created a new name for one other panel: • The Committee on Education and the Workforce was changed back to its pre-1995 name, Education and Labor. Tom Kiley, a spokesman for incoming chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said Miller "believed that the name...

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, a White House hopeful, said Thursday that the al-Qaida terrorist network clearly wants to strike the United States again, perhaps with an attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. "I believe they're planning something as large and complex as 9/11," Biden told an audience at the National Press Club four days before the fifth anniversary of the attacks. "If you look at their modus operandi, that's how they have proceeded. That's how they have worked. And, I believe that's what they're doing," said Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We have...

``The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family,'' Ken MacKenzie, uncle of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, told NBC's ``Today'' show. ``Because the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it with his life,'' he said..."

SAN DIEGO ---- When it comes down to dividing the spoils of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed $68 billion infrastructure bond, Sacramento likely will do that by formula rather than on the basis of a long list of specific projects, a San Diego County legislator said Friday. "There will be major resistance to trying to earmark," said Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego. "We're trying to set up a process that's fair and a formula that's fair, not a line item." Ducheny made the comments at a late Friday afternoon gathering of San Diego County's delegation of state lawmakers and elected local...

Prepare your mind and body for a trip into the Twilight Zone. Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives said yesterday that the Democrats will offer no unified position on Iraq in 2006. Despite claims by Democrats and the media that the Bush administration has no plan, Pelosi said that differing opinions within her party regarding Iraq are “a sign of strength.” In comments made to the Washington Post, Pelosi told reporters and editors that Democrats “should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual...

Let them rent limos One of the messages I've been receiving is that those people in New Orleans have only themselves to blame. They should have left when the evacuation was ordered. For some that is probably true. New Orleans is a laid-back city. But for many, being told to evacuate was like being told to flap their wings and fly. Nearly one in four residents is below the poverty line. Many don't have cars. Yet the evacuation plan was based on private autos. There was no mechanism to evacuate those without cars, much less those in nursing homes and...

SLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A television and radio campaign offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden hit the airwaves in Pakistan this week in a U.S.-government funded drive to get fresh leads about the al-Qaida leader. The 30-second television spot flashes photographs of bin Laden and 13 other top terror suspects, including his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with an emotional appeal for help in bringing them to justice. "Who are the people who are suffering from terrorism? Our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters! Who are those terrorists?...

Social Security: The Real Risks By Peter Ferrara on 10/20/2004 This op/ed was originally published in the New York Post. John Kerry's bitter denunciations of President Bush over Social Security are craven, opportunistic and false. Worse yet, Kerry's approach to the program's crisis risks disaster. Kerry charges that Bush secretly plans to cut benefits or hike Social Security taxes to fund his "scheme" to privatize the program. In fact, Bush has spelled out seven principles of reform, including no tax hikes or benefit cuts. Kerry's claim that Bush's plan will cost trillions is another canard. Consider just one plan —...

CALGARY - The long-toed salamander (ambystoma macrodactylum), unlike your humble correspondent, enjoys full unfettered access to the woods of Kananaskis. If he is not yet the official mascot of the G8 summit, he ought to be. He is hard to find because he's approximately four to seven inches long, which by strange coincidence matches exactly the latest expert estimates of the amount of real news generated by this summit, though to date real news at this summit has proved a lot harder to find than the long-toed salamander. He is fond of nocturnal burrowing, and thus would make an excellent...