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WASHINGTON - A few senators from President Bush's own party may determine the outcome of an Iraq war vote this week that would deal a blow to him. These Republicans, up for re-election in 2008, are faced with balancing party loyalty against voters' anger at a war that is generally unpopular in their states. On the table is a resolution by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., that would put the Senate on record as opposing President Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. With Republicans ready to use parliamentary delays that would take 60 votes to force a vote...

Senator McConnell: The NRSC Will Support Senators Who Vote for Levin-Warner Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 6:41 PM Which means that 32,000 pledge takers won't be supporting the NRSC (or those senators who vote for Levin-Warner.) There is still some hope, however, that a unified GOP caucus will kill Warner-Levin quietly by refusing to allow a vote on it at all. Transcript of my conversation with Senator McConnell. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell updates on the Iraq resolutions to come next week. HH: Joined now by the leader of the Republicans in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell. Senator McConnell,...

Republican senators are gathering at the Library of Congress today. From RollCall Senators will meet at the Library of Congress on Friday to brainstorm over legislative priorities and agree on the makings of a GOP agenda they hope will serve as a strong alternative to the Democrats. Republicans believe that one reason they lost so handily in 2006 is because they lost sight of their defining party principles and didn’t effectively lay out their vision to the electorate. Republican Conference Chairman Jon Kyl (Ariz.) is coordinating the session, which is set to include broad discussions of party principles such as...

Much sooner than anyone had anticipated, the Congressional democrats forced upon their Republican counterparts a decisive action over the future of the Iraq war. Perhaps sensing the almost complete lack of energy in the GOP caucus in Senate and House, or perhaps because they feared that the president was simply not going to misread the losses of November as a repudiation of purposefulness in the war, Democrats got out their long knives and went after the president’s promise to send reinforcements and fresh leadership to Iraq. Slow Joe Biden lept into action and, taking a break from commenting on Barak...

HH: Got another Texan now, Col. Austin Bay of www.austinbay.net/blog, actually knows that, “Hell, Hoss, we’re at war.” Austin, welcome back. Always a pleasure. AB: Thanks, Hugh. Glad to be there. HH: Let’s remind people where they can get your latest, Embrace the Suck, a pamphlet. Where’s the website where they can grab that? AB: www.pamphletguys.com. I edited and put it together, Adam Bellow of Pamphletguys.com is the publisher. I encourage everybody to go take a look at it. I saw that the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed of mine, but most of the op-ed was comprised of terms...

CAMBRIDGE, Maryland (Reuters) - President George W. Bush met privately with House Republicans on Friday and agreed to an alternative resolution to set "benchmarks" for progress in his plan to send more troops to Iraq, party officials said. Conferring with lawmakers from his party, which lost control of the House of Representatives last November, Bush was confronted with their plan to hold him accountable for the revised strategy, which has been widely criticized by Democrats and some Republicans. "He deferred to the leadership," Rep. Eric Cantor (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia said after a closed-door, question-and-answer session with Bush,...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2006 – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to benchmarks with timetables, according to a joint statement with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. "The Iraqi government has made clear the issues that must be resolved, with timelines to take positive steps forward on behalf of the Iraqi people,” the two men said in the joint statement, issued after they met today. U.S. officials have said that benchmarks are ways to help push along ideas. Accomplishing the benchmarks is a way of measuring progress and assessing accomplishments, DoD officials said. Khalilzad and Army Gen. George W....

The Iowa-based ACT is trumpeting its latest college entrance examination scores as improved but a closer examination of the test results reveals them to be pretty pathetic. “National ACT scores rose significantly in 2006,” the organization claims. “The average ACT composite score for the U. S. high school graduating class of 2006 was 21.1, up from 20.9 last year.” “Scores were higher for both males and females and for students across virtually all racial/ethnic groups.” This year, 1.2 million students took the test, on which 32 was the highest score they could possibly attain. Few did. It gets worse. “For...

Text of the proposed British benchmarks that Iraq must meet to demonstrate that it is fully cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors: IRAQ The United Kingdom would be ready to accept that Iraq has begun to demonstrate full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation in accordance with its disarmament obligations under Resolution 1441 (2002) if, by (date is subject to negotiation) Iraq, has satisfactorily completed the following: 1. STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSEIN -- President Saddam Hussein must make a public statement in Arabic, broadcast on television and radio in Iraq and in the government-controlled media, that: -- Iraq has, in...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - France and Russia gave notice they would veto any UN Security Council resolution backing war with Iraq, as the first signs of discord surfaced between the US and Britain over measuring Iraqi compliance in disarming. China has also toughened its anti-war stance with President Jiang Zemin telling US counterpart George W. Bush that the international community had a consensus on Iraq and the issue must be resolved through the Security Council. "France will vote no" whatever the circumstance, French President Jacques Chirac said in a television interview late Monday. And Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov...

Microsoft new rule prohibits benchmarketing Permission needed from Grand Mufti of Licensing By Mike Magee: Tuesday 10 September 2002, 01:45 MOST OF US just click on those pesky Microsoft licence agreements just to get on with installing them as fast as we can. But others, probably far more wise, decide to read through the content and ponder its import. One such person who has done precisely this said there's a new little clause added to all Windows updates which he personally finds hard to stomach. "* You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Framework...