From American Progress:
Think Fast....
The "hidden" economic costs to the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far total approximately $1.5 trillion, costing the average U.S. family of four more than $20,000. The total includes higher oil prices, the expense of treating wounded veterans, and interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars.
"The income gap between black and white families has grown," according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. One reason for the widening gap is that "incomes among black men have actually declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation."
Attorney General Michael Mukasey is being urged by Justice Department employees in Minnesota, along with prominent lawyers and law professors in the state, to consider an "early visit to the United States Attorney's Office in Minneapolis" to learn "what he is up against in restoring stability to the Justice Department."
"The fact that reports of torture and mistreatment are now widely circulated" means that "NATO forces may be breaching their own operating rules by handing detainees to Afghan security services despite reports that they torture their prisoners," according to Amnesty International.
$19.5 million: Amount PhRMA spent from July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007, aimed at killing legislation to speed the availability of less expensive generic drugs.
Though Gen. David Petraeus describes "the Joint Campaign Plan as the key military and diplomatic strategy to stabilize Iraq," Congress has yet to see a current copy of the plan, "despite repeat efforts" by the leadership and promises from the Pentagon.
Rocket and mortar attacks have fallen to their lowest level in nearly two years. Civilian deaths have dropped sharply since summer. "I think it has turned a corner," Gen. Richard Cody, vice chief of staff of the Army, said on Monday.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is considering "reducing the sentences of inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for crack cocaine offenses, which would make thousands of people immediately eligible to be freed." TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt has more.
Seventeen entertainment blogs will today go dark in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. They will replace their usual content with WGA "solidarity statements."
And finally: Donald Rumsfeld is now a member of the University Club of Washington, DC, "one of the premier private city clubs in the country." Yet it is in competition with two others in the city -- the Metropolitan and Cosmos Clubs. In 2003, Charles Pierce wrote in the Boston Globe, "There's an old Washington joke about various clubs around town: At the University Club, you need money and no brains, at the Cosmos Club, you need brains and no money, and at the Metropolitan Club, you don't need either one."
Wrap...
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