NEWS RELEASE

From the SavetheInternet.com Coalition: Consumer groups, local government representatives, small and large Internet companies, and thousands of Michigan residents

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NEWS RELEASE

DNC: Bush Once Again Ignores Reality In Iraq

Washington, DC - Today, President Bush once again refused to acknowledge the facts on the ground in Iraq. In a week when major news outlets agreed that Iraq is now mired in a civil war and when U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "we are almost" seeing a civil war, President Bush continues to stick by his stay-the-course rhetoric. [Washington Post, 11/27/06; Today, NBC, 11/27/06; MSNBC, 11/27/06] According to the Associated Press, President Bush declared "that an al-Qaida plot to stoke cycles of sectarian revenge in Iraq is to blame for escalating bloodshed, refusing to debate whether the country has fallen into civil war." [AP, 11/28/06]

DNC: Martinez And Abramoff: The GOP's New Direction?

Washington, DC - With disgraced former GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff headed to jail yesterday, it is clear that Washington Republicans are not ready to abandon their culture of corruption. [AP, 11/15/06] In fact, new Republican National Committee Chairman Senator Mel Martinez, who used to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) earlier in the Bush Administration, also has ties to Abramoff. Martinez was directly lobbied by convicted former GOP Congressman Bob Ney on behalf of Abramoff's clients, who ultimately received millions from HUD. Martinez has also refused to return $250,000 that Abramoff helped raise for his Senate campaign in 2004.

NEWS RELEASES

DNC: The Bush Economy Continues With New Record Deficits

Washington, DC - President Bush's fiscal irresponsibility continues unabated as the latest Treasury Department report shows that the "federal government started out its new budget year with a slightly higher deficit than last year as revenues and spending for October both set records." The "deficit for October totaled $49.3 billion, up 4.3 percent from" last year. The department also reported that "the deficit for the current 2007 budget year is expected to resume rising." So far, President Bush has "presided over the three largest deficits in U.S. history in dollar terms." [AP, 11/14/06]

NEWS RELEASE

DNC: GOP Continues Trickery at the Voting Booth

Washington, DC - An article in today's Washington Post labels Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich and his Lt. Governor Michael Steele as key architects in a desperate scheme to trick African American voters in Maryland during last week's mid-term elections. These efforts by Maryland Republicans are just one example of despicable efforts on the part of the GOP to intimidate and deceive American voters. Michael Steele whose name is now being floated as a possible replacement for RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, knowingly hired out of state workers to canvass African American communities, handing out misleading literature which falsely claimed Steele received the support of prominent African American Democrats. [The Washington Post, 11/13/06]

NEWS RELEASE

DNC: Rumsfeld and Cheney Stay The Course

Washington, DC - Yesterday during an interview with the Associated Press, President Bush said he "wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain in his administration until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-criticized members of his team." [AP, 11/1/06] Despite their numerous faulty predictions and assertions, President Bush remains completely loyal to two architects of his failed Iraq policy.

DNC: GOP "Southern Strategy" Alive and Well Republicans Refuse to Take Down Racist Ads

Washington, DC- After promising the African American community that the Republican "Southern Strategy" had been put to rest Ken Mehlman and the Republican Party are up to their old divisive and backward tricks using racist innuendo to try to win elections.

DNC: Bush Fences In Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Right Wing Political Stunt Stays the Course on Republican Security Failures

Washington, DC - President Bush this morning will complete his definitive abandonment of comprehensive immigration reform by signing a flawed and politically-driven enforcement only Republican bill that mandates a fence on our southern border, but fails to fund its construction. The Republican Congress, in a political stunt designed to cater to the far right wing base of their party, authorized a border fence 700 miles long along a border that spans more than 2,000 miles, and even then appropriated only a small portion of the billions needed to build that fence. Adding to their hypocrisy in an election year, Congressional Republicans left in a provision that even allows small amounts of funding to be used on other programs.

NEWS RELEASE

New Research Casts a Critical Eye on Media Consolidation

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Benton Foundation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) released four independent academic studies on the impact of media consolidation in the United States. The new research focuses on how the concentration of media ownership affects media content, from local news reporting to radio music programming, and how minority groups have fared -- as both media outlet owners and as historically underserved audiences -- in an increasingly deregulated media environment.

DNC: More Contracting Abuses in Iraq; Staying the Course Costing Americans Billions

Washington, DC - According to a new government report, "overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq," meaning "that, in some cases, more money was being spent on housing and feeding employees, completing paperwork and providing security than on actual construction" in Iraq. The company with the highest proportion of its costs as overhead was "KBR Inc., the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root," which has a number of oil-facility contracts in Iraq. Most disturbing, the costs for many of the Iraqi reconstruction projects "could be even higher than the estimates, the report said" because the Republican-controlled Congress has not properly tracked the billions allocated for Iraq. [New York Times, 10/25/06]