Pour It On
We need shock-and-awe accommodation from the Fed.


ow that President Bush has signed the most pro-growth and investment-oriented tax cut in 20 years — the stock market is up 500 points since Congress passed the bill — the focus of economic policy shifts to the Federal Reserve. The monetary priests next meet on June 25. Most supply-siders disagree, but Alan Greenspan & Co. should turn the money spigots wide open that day — more than they have thus far in this reflation cycle. I'm talking about shock-and-awe level accommodation from the Fed.


Larry Kudlow

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two nights of violent protests in which angry residents have set buildings ablaze, fired weapons, and pulled people from cars and beat them, according to local authorities.


Bahgdad?
Tehran?
The Congo?
No, its Michigan!

CNN

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Analysis of the Evolving Senate Medicare Bill
Executive Summary
The Senate Finance Committee recently passed, by a vote of 16 to 5, the Prescription Drug and Medicare Improvement Act of 2003. The unnumbered bill is scheduled for Senate floor consideration starting immediately.


by Edmund F. Haislmaier and Robert E. Moffit

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All smoke and bubbles


Spanish performer Pep Bou does tricks with giant soap bubbles and smoke in Moscow on June 8. His act, The Theatre of Soap Bubbles, is running at the Bufaplanetes show in central Moscow.
MSNBC

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President Bush waves to the crowd following the conclusion of his speech at the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fund-raiser Tuesday, June 17, 2003 in Washington. Nearly 17 months before the election, President Bush opened a 10-city fund-raising push designed to pour millions of dollars into his campaign for a second term. Tuesday night's reception was expected to bring in $3.5 million, the seeds of a campaign war chest likely to grow to $170 million or more.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Change is in the wind


In this handout made available by (ISNA) the Iranian Students' News Agency, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen giving a speech in the southern city of Varamin. Khamenei accused the United States of stirring up trouble in the country after anti-regime protestors defied threats of a crackdown and took to the streets for a second night running.(
.(AFP-ISNA-HO/File)

Whats the secret?


Alexys Smith, 4, of Evans City feels a sculpture by Peter Calaboyias yesterday. Alexys, who is blind, was attending the opening of the Children’s Garden and Early Childhood Center at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children in Oakland. Children at the celebration helped plant a water oak from Helen Keller’s childhood home in Tuscumbia, Ala.
Tony Tye, Post-Gazette)

Americans Still Think Iraq Had Weapons of Mass Destruction Before War



PRINCETON, NJ -- Only a minority of Americans -- mostly Democrats and independents -- believe the Bush administration has deliberately misled the American public about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. In part, this is related to the fact that most Americans continue to think it is likely that Iraq indeed did have weapons of mass destruction before the war began in March, although the number of Americans who are certain about this has dropped. Still, a slight majority of the public, including a third of Republicans, is willing to support the idea of congressional hearings into what the government knew about Iraq's capabilities to produce WMD before the war began.


by Frank Newport

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"A short conflict that used fewer missiles, sparked fewer oil field fires and created fewer refugees than anticipated produced a lower-than-expected financial cost for the major combat in Iraq. That means President Bush won't have to go back to Congress for additional funding this year, a step that could have revived the debate over the war. A detailed account of expenses won't be complete for months, but senior administration officials say the cost of deployment and combat will be just less than the $62.6 billion Congress approved in March as emergency funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom. It is the first time officials have offered a tally. The price for the combat phase is about $220 per American. The Persian Gulf War in 1991 cost $76 billion in today's dollars. Though other countries financed 80% of that war, the United States is bearing most of the cost of this conflict."

Go fly a kite




"Try to find a better place to fly," Mr. McAlister says. "The ideal kite site would be absolutely flat. No obstructions, particularly upwind."


By Pamela S. Turner



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High Court Limits Forced Medication for Trial



A divided U.S. Supreme Court put limits on Monday on when the government may force defendants to take anti-psychotic drugs to make them competent to stand trial for serious, but nonviolent, crimes.

By James Vicini

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Bush Blasts 'Revisionist Historians' on Iraq



"Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders.

Referring to the ousted Iraqi president, Bush said, "Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted."


By Randall Mikkelsen

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'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,


The front cover of a copy of the book 'Harry Potter (news - web sites) and the Order of the Phoenix,' which was being processed in the Fernley fulfillment center, about 30 miles east of Reno, Nevada on June 16, 2003. Amazon.com is processing over 600,000 copies of the book for delivery to customers in the United States next Saturday, which is the first day it will be available to the public. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne EDITORIAL USE ONLY NO SALES


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Bush Says World Must 'Deal Harshly' with Hamas


"The free world and those who love freedom and peace must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers," Bush told reporters when asked whether Israel was justified in recent attacks against the group."

"I believe peace is possible ... until these people are brought to justice, those who will kill innocent people in order to deny the establishment of a Palestinian state, there will be violence,"

"We would like the Palestinian Authority to set up a security force ... that will do the job,"


G.W. Bush

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Big Dumb Lie
Is anyone fooled by claims that the media aren't liberal?


If you listen to a growing chorus of liberals and leftists, you might think that one of America's biggest problems today is, hold onto your hats, "conservative media bias." When Al Gore announced he wouldn't run for president, he complained about the right-wing media. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is so convinced that the media are conservative he always puts "liberal media" in quotation marks to convey their mythical, unicorn-like quality. "Sooner or later, I think we're all going to have to acknowledge that the myth of the liberal bias in the press is just that, it's a myth," insists Jack White of Time magazine. Yes indeed, assures Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, the media are "heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians."


BY JONAH GOLDBERG

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Where is his Father?


A child soldier practices with a machine gun in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo , June 15, 2003. Calm returned to Bunia allowing residents to venture out of their homes on Sunday, a day after French troops clashed with local tribal militia for the first time. French troops have begun deploying in the town over the past few days as part of an international force to protect civilians from fighting between rival ethnic Hema and Lendu militia.
REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

Can you spot the problem?


Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas attends a weekly cabinet meeting in the West Bank City of Ramallah June 15, 2003. Top Palestinian and Israeli security officials met late on Saturday but there was no sign of a breakthrough after the meeting.

'FINDING NEMO' BACK AT #1...


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