Politics

After Defense Bill, Bush Does PR Photo Op

Bush Signs Huge $401 Billion Defense Bill
WASHINGTON - President Bush signed a $401.3 billion defense authorization bill Monday, saying members of the U.S. armed forces are facing "a great and historic task" in confronting and defeating the forces of terrorism. Bush spoke before leaving town for a holiday week at his ranch. On the way to Texas, Bush was stopping in Colorado at Fort Carson, home to four of the 16 soldiers killed Nov. 2 when a helicopter was shot down in the dangerous Sunni Triangle near Fallujah, Iraq.

Muslims Mutilate Bodies of US Troops
Moments after Iraqi guerrillas killed two American troops yesterday, a crowd swarmed to the car and began pummelling the soldier's bodies with concrete blocks. Witnesses to the assault in the northern city of Mosul said the mob mutilated the blood-drenched bodies, rifled through their pockets, looted their four-wheel-drive civilian car, smashed the windows and tried to set it on fire.

Ordinance Mandating Gun Ownership Is OKd
Gueda Springs — Residents of this tiny south-central Kansas community near the Oklahoma border say an ordinance requiring some households to have firearms and ammunition is nobody's business but their own. The City Council voted 3-2 earlier this month in favor of the ordinance -- under which noncomplying residents would be fined $10 -- because council members believe it's necessary to provide protection in a town that has no local police force, marshal or money to protect its residents. "It's nobody's business but our own," Phillip Russell said.

John Allen Muhammad Receives Death Sentence
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - A jury decided Monday that John Allen Muhammad should be executed for masterminding the sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks last fall. As the verdict was read, Muhammad maintained the same unflinching demeanor he has shown through most of the trial. The jury's recommendation is not final. Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. can reduce the punishment to life in prison without parole when Muhammad is formally sentenced, but Virginia judges rarely take such action.

Ruling on Red-Light Cameras Upheld
A three-judge panel agreed Friday that San Diego city officials violated state law when they allowed a private company to operate a red-light camera program without sufficient oversight. The judges, from the appellate division of the San Diego Superior Court, unanimously affirmed a trial judge's ruling two years ago that the city gave Lockheed Martin IMS of Washington, D.C., too much authority over the city's first red-light camera program.

Wussies in GOP benefit Bush
The next presidential election is too late for Pat Buchanan and too soon for Roy Moore. This aspect of the campaign hasn't attracted any headlines, but it's the single biggest strategic advantage George W. Bush has going into 2004... Had Bush faced [GOP] challengers, the danger for him wouldn't have been getting mauled in his party's primaries as much as moving so far to neutralize the challenge that it would have hurt him in the general election.

'Mother of All Bombs' rocks Florida
Three obviously was the charm. After two reschedulings, Eglin Air Force Base officials on Friday successfully tested the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. military's inventory. Shortly before 1:30 p.m., and 46 seconds after the bomb glided from a MC-130E Combat Talon I, a white ball of smoke could be seen billowing from the base about 10 miles northeast of Navarre Beach. During the next few seconds, the smoke from the (21,700-pound satellite-guided GBU-43/B) with 18,700 pounds of high explosives rolled higher and wider and eventually took the shape of a mushroom cloud similar to that of a nuclear explosion. The plume is estimated to have reached 10,000 feet and could be seen all the way to Pensacola, nearly 30 miles away. Seconds later, a "kaboom" could be heard as the shock wave rolled over Navarre Beach and rumbled across the Gulf of Mexico for several more seconds.

Posted by Editor at November 24, 2003 12:01 PM