Alyssa offers running commentary on Condoleeza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission. The Center for American Progress fact-checks her opening statement:

CLAIM: “We increased funding for counterterrorism activities across several agencies.”

FACT: Upon taking office, the 2002 Bush budget proposed to slash more than half a billion dollars out of funding for counterterrorism at the Justice Department. In preparing the 2003 budget, the New York Times reported that the Bush White House “did not endorse F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators” and “proposed a $65 million cut for the program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants.” Newsweek noted the Administration “vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism.” [Sources: 2001 vs. 2002 Budget Analysis; NY Times, 2/28/02; Newsweek, 5/27/02]

…CLAIM: “The threat reporting that we received in the Spring and Summer of 2001 was not specific as to…manner of attack.”

FACT: ABC News reported, Bush Administration “officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden’s terrorist network might try to hijack American planes.” Dateline NBC reported that on August 6, 2001, the President personally “received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane.” Rice herself actually admitted this herself, saying the Aug. 6 briefing the President received said “terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft.” [Sources: ABC News, 5/16/02; NBC, 9/10/02]…

The ACLU continues its tradition of rebellious lawyering this week, first with a national suit Monday against the shady “No Fly List,” and today in New York with a legal challenge to the exclusion of gay couples from marriage. More power to them.

Chicago researchers assess the city’s commitment to fail kids who fail tests as better politics than policy:

Retention didn’t help third-graders; it hurt sixth-graders, and it made eighth-graders far more likely to drop out, the studies of the early years of the policy found. Kids who repeated two grades were in high peril of dropping out by age 19, with 78 percent doing so, one study found.

In addition, researchers said, retained kids were three to six times more likely to wind up in special education — where they struggled more — compared to similar low-scoring kids promoted during the same time frame.

More bloodshed in Iraq:

American-led international troops in Iraq were locked today in the fiercest fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein a year ago, waging a two-front war against Sunni Muslim insurgents west of Baghdad and a ferocious and fast-spreading Shiite uprising in the south and center of the country.

The extent of American casualties in fighting that stretched from the far south to Kirkuk in the north remained unclear, though military spokesmen confirmed today that 12 American marines died on Tuesday in a seven-hour assault by gunmen on an American base in the Sunni-dominated city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital.

Wal-Mart Watch: Inglewood residents overwhelmingly reject Wal-Mart’s resolution resolution to give it local sovereignty and free reign to flout government regulation:

“What this shows is that Wal-Mart can’t dupe people in this city to sign away their rights,” said Mike Shimpock, a strategist for the campaign against the move. “If they spent $1 million here and lost by this margin, I doubt they’ll try this elsewhere. They’ll have to approach cities as equal partners.”

Turns out that, contrary to company claims, it’s not just “special interests” opposed to Wal-Mart’s race to the bottom after all.

Tragedy all around:

American forces in Iraq came under fierce attack on Tuesday, with as many as 12 marines killed in Ramadi, near Baghdad, and with Shiite militiamen loyal to a rebel cleric stepping up a three-day-old assault in the southern city of Najaf, American officials said. In Falluja, where last week American security contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated, American warplanes fired rockets at houses, and marines drove armored columns into the heart of the city, where they fought block by block to flush out insurgents. Several arrests were made.

It was one of the most violent days in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with half a dozen cities ignited. One of the biggest questions at day’s end was the role of most of the majority Shiites previously thought to be relatively sympathetic to American goals.

Disgraceful:

More than 60% of U.S. corporations didn’t pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared, Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal reported, citing the investigative arm of Congress.

The disclosures from the General Accounting Office are certain to fuel the debate over corporate tax payments in the presidential campaign. Corporate tax receipts have shrunk markedly as a share of overall federal revenue in recent years, and were particularly depressed when the economy soured. By 2003, they had fallen to just 7.4% of overall federal receipts, the lowest rate since 1983, and the second-lowest rate since 1934, federal budget officials say.

The Center for American Progress assesses the extent of the Bush administration’s mendacity and cynicism in its treatment of the American public school students who make up a quarter of the US population.

As Senator Kennedy, who co-sponsored the No Child Left Behind Act, told the Brookings Institute yesterday (trhanks, Dad, for passing along the speech):

After he signed the education law, President Bush said, “if you measure and then don’t provide extra help, the measurement system is empty.” But that’s exactly what this administration has done for the reforms in the No Child Left Behind Act.

What’s as American as the army and Disney? Union-busting, apparently:

After a $92 million expansion, the U.S. Army will reopen its military-only Walt Disney World resort today with twice as many hotel rooms — and almost no traces of its once-unionized work force. Before the Army shut down the Shades of Green resort in 2002 and laid off almost all of its staff, between 60 and 100 members of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 509 changed soldiers’ sheets, poured their drinks and carried their luggage. With Shades of Green set to reopen, that number is down to one, said union President David Wilson.

During the temporary closing, the Army contracted out many of the jobs once held by union members. And despite a promise that ex-employees would be given hiring preference when the resort reopened, Wilson said that union members have had little luck getting their old jobs back. That includes Wilson, a former Shades of Green bartender who, as union head, has clashed frequently with management. “They’re trying to bust up the union,” he said.

U. of Maryland brings disciplinary charges against its students for challenging Lynne Cheney on gay marriage and slave reparations:

Two of the students said they have been accused of “disorderly or disruptive conduct,” under a university policy designed to protect the rights of speakers from being shouted off stage or drowned out by contentious audience members. The students said that they weren’t disrupting Cheney’s speech — that they were just asking questions…

“What the university officials appear to have done appears not only to be in violation of their own speech code, but also of the First Amendment,” said Susan Goering, executive director of Maryland’s ACLU. “All of these guys were just speaking out of turn.”

This case would be a great opportunity for David Horowitz and his ilk to demonstrate a genuine concern for academic freedom in the academy. Don’t hold your breath.