By: Bob Herbert  

Despite the terrible toll that guns in the wrong hands are taking, there is tremendous resistance to even the most modest efforts to control the spread of guns among criminals. That resistance is led, as usual, by the National Rifle Association, which can always be counted on to provide a comfort zone for the perpetrators of gun violence in America.

The NRA is opposed, for example, to the creation of a national computerized system for tracing bullets and shell casings to the guns that fired them - a crime-fighting tool that has come to be known as "ballistic fingerprinting".

Canada Advises Citizens Born in U.S.-Targeted Countries to Reconsider Travel to the United States

By: Tom Cohen  

The advisory dated Monday focuses on a U.S. regulation adopted a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that permits American authorities to closely monitor travelers born in certain countries suspected of terrorism links.

Canada considers the system discriminatory by targeting some of its citizens based on where they were born, said Reynald Doiron, a foreign affairs department spokesman.

"It's against basic principles on both sides of the border", Doiron said Wednesday. "Canadian citizens should be exempted from that measure."

Let's Show the Republicans That the Days of Them Intimidating Us by Their Shrill Caterwauling Are Over.

By: Dan  

Paul was a Democrat because he believed in the principles for which our party stands and he fought and died for those principles. His supporters should in no way apologize for having a rally which captured the true essence, soul, and the spirit of a great human being and a great American. The supporters who spoke for him last night realized, as I think we all do, there is no better way to honor this man than to continue his fight. In us Paul lives on, and when we do his work, we honor his memory. So let's show the Republicans that the days of them intimidating us by their shrill caterwauling are over. Paul's fighting spirit is our fighting spirit. We will not tire and we will not falter until Paul's dreams become America's realities.

By: Jon Carroll  

It's like, hello, the war is over here. Worldwide Islamic fundamentalist uprising. Saddam Hussein: not an Islamic fundamentalist. I really think Dick Cheney needs to learn to use Google.

It seems clear that Saddam Hussein is most dangerous when he feels threatened. Our plan: Threaten him. It seems clear that Saddam Hussein is isolated from negative information, living in a dream world in which the entire world supports his wonderfulness against the evil American empire. It is tempting to say that the only world leader as isolated from negative information as Saddam Hussein is George Bush himself.

And Bush has nukes! I'm sorry, Captain, we had to destroy Western civilization in order to save it.

By: Ralph G. Neas  

Bork has vehemently attacked Supreme Court decisions upholding reproductive choice, overturning an anti-gay state constitutional amendment, and protecting the use of the flag in political protest. There is no question that he would have cast the deciding vote in cases that would have weakened or eviscerated civil rights laws, a woman's right to choose, First Amendment freedoms, privacy rights, and other long-cherished rights.

He once even called for a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to reverse any Supreme Court decision by majority vote, dismantling the basic constitutional principle of checks and balances.

While President Reagan called the Senate's rejection of Bork "a tragedy for our country", the real tragedy would have been granting Bork a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. Keeping him off the Court ranks among the most important achievements of the progressive coalition over the past seven decades. Thank goodness Robert Bork is writing angry books and not Supreme Court decisions.

By: Kavita Kumar, Dane Smith, and Patricia Lopez  

Though it was billed as a memorial service, many irate viewers and Republican leaders said the gathering for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and five others degenerated at times into a blatant political rally.

"What a complete, total, absolute sham", said Vin Weber, a former U.S. Representative from Minnesota. "The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone's memory totally, completely, and shamelessly for political gain. To them, Wellstone's death, apparently, was just another campaign event."

Many Republicans said the tone of the service was inappropriate, while other observers said it was a fitting tribute to a Senator who dedicated his life to championing many Democratic issues.

"To have a somber hour memorial with an organ playing just doesn't seem it would be fitting for Paul and Sheila Wellstone", said Lilly Goren, chairwoman of the Political Science Department at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. "I don't know that it was excessively partisan, but it was partisan in the tradition of Paul Wellstone."

By: Fox Butterfield  

For the first time since 1991, serious and violent crime in the United States increased last year, the FBI reported yesterday.

The bureau's annual Uniform Crime Report found that murder, the crime that is best measured because it is least likely to go unreported, rose 2.5% nationwide over the figure for 2000. At the same time, robberies climbed 3.7%, burglaries 2.9%, petty thefts 1.5%, and motor vehicle thefts 5.7%.

Rape also increased by 0.3%, the report said, while aggravated assault dropped 0.5%. Figures for these two crimes are considered the least reliable of the seven that go into the FBI's index because of problems with reporting and measuring them.

"I hate that little prick, and I hope he drops dead."

- Tom Barnard, a Minneapolis "shock jock" Howard Stern clone, about Sen. Wellstone, thirty-nine days before he got his wish

By: Molly Ivins  

What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols. "I'm just not interested in politics." "They're all crooks." "Nothing I can do about it, I'm just one person. I can't buy influence."

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom you can decide you don't much care for. Is the person who prescribes your eyeglasses qualified to do so? How deep will you be buried when you die? What textbooks are your children learning from at school? What will happen if you become seriously ill? Is the meat you're eating tainted? Will you be able to afford to go to college or to send your kids? Would you like a vacation? Expect to retire before you die? Can you find a job? Drive a car? Afford insurance? Is your credit card company or your banker or your broker ripping you off? It's all politics, Bubba. You don't get to opt out for lack of interest.

By: Jim Hightower  

So Congress passed some reforms and created a new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. John Biggs, a respected pension-fund manager who supports more stringent rules to stop the thievery, was in line to head the new board - and Pitt himself told Biggs that he supported his appointment. However, Harvey has now backed off, recently telling Biggs not to count on him.

Was there something wrong with Biggs? No... with Pitt. When his chain was yanked by the big accounting firms, he suffered yet another spell of EWS - Ethical Weaseliness Syndrome. Accounting executives and lobbyists flocked to the White House, Congress, and Harvey's office to complain that Biggs would be too tough on them... so Pitt meekly came to heel. What we have here is another attempt by Bush & Company to pose publicly as reformers, then quietly try to gut the reforms by letting industry control the reform boards.

We should keep Biggs, and punt Pitt. Harvey is a pitiful excuse for a public servant, and it's time for him to go.

By: Matthew Mogul  

Consumer confidence in the economy tumbled more sharply than expected in October, reaching its lowest levels in nearly nine years, a private research firm said Tuesday. Some analysts said the report increases the chances the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates when its board meets next week.

A weak job market, the impending threat of war in Iraq, and a prolonged bear market were the main culprits weighing on consumer sentiment, the Conference Board said. Its Consumer Confidence Index skidded to 79.4 from 93.7 in September.

The fall was the fifth consecutive monthly decline in the index and was much lower than the 90.0 reading economists expected. The index is based on a monthly survey of about 5,000 U.S. households and stood at 100 in its base year, 1985.

By: Arianna Huffington  

Wellstone's death has left a gaping void in the country that goes far beyond the question of how his absence will affect the balance of power in the Senate.

Maybe in death Wellstone will be able to achieve what eluded him in life. He often quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt's admonition that "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." But he had not been able to convince the nation of this.

His greatest legacy would be if this tragic loss, which has so deeply affected the country, taps into the latent reserve of idealism in the American people, and as a result transforms both our politics and our priorities.

By: Paul Krugman  

Ghoulish but true: as Minnesota mourns the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, many of the state's residents have been receiving fliers bearing a picture of a tombstone. The fliers, sent out by a conservative business group, denounce the late senator's support for maintaining the estate tax. Under the tombstone, the text reads in part: "Paul Wellstone not only wants to tax you and your business to death... he wants to tax you in the hereafter."

On the other side, the estate tax debate illustrates the pervasive hypocrisy of our politics. For repeal of the "death tax" has been cast, incredibly, as a populist issue. Thanks to sustained, lavishly financed propaganda - of which that anti-Wellstone flier was a classic example - millions of Americans imagine, wrongly, that the estate tax mainly affects small businesses and farms, and that its repeal will help ordinary people. And who pays for the propaganda? Guess. It's amazing what money can buy.

In an age of fake populists, Paul Wellstone was the real thing. Now he's gone. Will others have the courage to carry on?

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