BIG SURPRISE — HALIBURTON GETS SPECIAL TREATMENT

For months the Bush administration has insisted it has given Halliburton, Vice President Cheney’s former company, “no special treatment.” Now, the top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, says “the Army granted the Halliburton Company large contracts for work in Iraq and the Balkans without following rules designed to ensure competition and fair prices to the government.”

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Bush Administration Leaving Children Behind

On Sept. 30, 2004, the deadline for Congress to act on preserving $1.1 billion in federal funds for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) ? the program which focuses on insuring the kids of the working poor ? was allowed to expire. The money was taken away from the states and returned to the U.S. Treasury.

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Some Job Facts from Salon.com

New job numbers are out this morning, and they’re more bad news for a president who has already received a truckload of it this week. The economy added about 96,000 new jobs in September. That’s fewer than analysts expected, fewer than what’s needed to keep up with population growth in the job market, and way fewer than what Bush’s own Council of Economic Advisors projected in December.

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No Excitement in VP Debate

I read a good summary of the Vice Presidential debate on Salon.com. I agree that mainly Cheney managed to continue throwing out information he knows to be inaccurate, but Edwards seemed more concerned with making his talking points that responding to those false statements. Neither hurt each other’s campaign, but Edwards missed some chances to hit some home runs.

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