The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 -- 3

NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Fla. senator chosen
to replace RNC
chair Mehlman
Sen. Mel Martinez, the first-term
Florida lawmaker who previously
served in President Bush's Cabinet,
will assume the chairmanship of
the Republican National Commit-
tee, GOP officials said yesterday.
Martinez, 60, will replace cur-
rent chairman Ken Mehlman, who
will leave the post in January at the
end of his two-year term, said the
officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity to avoid pre-empting a
formal announcement.
Martinez will remain in the Sen-
ate. Mike Duncan, the RNC's cur-
rent general counsel and a former
party treasurer, will run the day-to-
day operations at the party's Capitol
Hill headquarters.
Martinez was tapped in 2001 as
President Bush's secretary of Hous-
ing and Urban Development. He
resigned in 2003 to run for the open
Senate seat created when incum-
bent Democratic Sen. Bob Graham
decided not to seek another term.
Martinez was elected with 49 per-
cent of the vote - a slim margin that
was credited to Bush's win in that
state.
WASHINGTON
Bush trades ideas
with Iraq panel,
says no to timetable
President Bush traded ideas on
Iraq with a bipartisan commission
yesterday and promised to work
with the incoming Democratic
majority toward "common objec-
tives."At the same time, he renewed
his opposition to any timetable for
withdrawing U.S. troops.
As Bush met with the Iraq Study
Group, the Democrat in line to lead
the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee, Carl Levin of Michigan, said
the administration didn't see that
"we're getting deeper and deeper
into a hole."
Levin and other Democrats
called for some troops to come home
right away, suggesting that would
pressure the Iraqi government into
assuming more responsibility
Bush in turn had stern words for
the Democrats, less than a week
after they won control of both
chambers of Congress in midterm
elections in which the Iraq war fig-
ured prominently.
LANSING
State Supreme
Court considers
voter ID laws
The state Supreme Court weighed
yesterday whether voters can be
required to show photo identifica-
tion at the polls, an issue that has
divided Democrats and Republicans
+ for a decade.
At stake is the constitutionality of
a 1996 state law, renewed last year,
requiring voters to show photo ID to
get a ballot. The law says that if vot-
ers don't have ID, they can sign an
affidavit swearing to their identity
and then vote.
The law hasn't taken effect
because former Attorney General
Frank Kelley, a Democrat, ruled
nine years ago that it violated the
equal protection clause of the 14th
Amendment, which guarantees citi-
zens the right tovote.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip
Fatah, Hamas
agree on new prime
minister
The rival Fatah and Hamas move-
ments yesterday agreed on a can-
didate for prime minister of their
emerging coalition government,
turning to a U.S.-educated profes-
sor to end months of infighting and
help lift a painful international aid
boycott.
The agreement was the strongest
sign of progress in the negotiations,
which have dragged on for months,
but the government's acceptance
by the United States and European
Union - both key aid donors - could
hinge on whether it will recognize
Israel and renounce violence.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
41.5
The number of seconds
it took 16-year-old Ang
Chuang Yang to send a 160-
character text message,
setting a new world record.
S The message was: "The
razor-toothed piranhas of
the genera Serrasalmus and
Pygocentrus are the most
ferocious freshwater fish in
the world. In reality they sel-
dom attack a human."

FIDDLE AROUND

Giuliani sets
up committee
for bid in 2008

ROB MILGRIN/Daily
Matthew Resovich performs with The Album Leaf, a San Diego-based alternative band, at the Blind Pig on Saturday.
Freshmen, lame ducks
convene on Cap itol Hill1

Popular former
NYC mayor begins
run for Republican
presidential nod
WASHINGTON (AP) - For-
mer New York City mayor Rudy
Giuliani, a moderate Republican
best known for his stewardship of
the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, has taken the first step in a
2008 presidential bid, GOP officials
said yesterday.
The former mayor filed papers
to create the Rudy Giuliani Presi-
dential Exploratory Committee,
Inc., establishing a panel that would
allow himto raise money for a White
House run and travel the country.
The four-page filing, obtained
by The Associated Press, lists the
purpose of the non-profit corpora-
tion "to conduct federal 'testingthe
waters' activity under the Federal
Election Campaign Act for Rudy
Giuliani."
The paperwork is signed by
Bobby Burchfield, a partner at the
DC-based law firm of McDermott
Will & Emery, a firm that handles
political work.
Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny
Mindel declined to comment.
Giuliani was widely praised for
leadingthe city duringand after the
terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He
has said for months that he would
wait until the end of the 2006 elec-
tions to decide whether to embark
on a White House bid.

The former mayor is a moder-
ate who supports gun control and
abortion rights, stands that would
put him at odds with the majority
of the GOP's conservative base.
Still, the Giuliani brand remains
strong; he headlined fundraisers
for Republican candidates nation-
wide and his travel has done little
to deny 2008 ambitions. During a
visit earlier this month to Colum-
bia, S.C., Giuliani dodged the ques-
tion: "There's a chance, but that's
after this election is over."
He then left South Carolina for
New Hampshire, site of the nation's
first primary and another GOP
fundraiser.
Giuliani enjoys strong name rec-
ognition and roughlythe same level
of support as Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Arizona Sen.
John McCain. Rice has insisted
that she will not run; McCain is
likely to file his papers creating an
exploratory committee shortly.
Giuliani, who was in his final
days as New York City mayor
when a pair of planes crashed into
the World Trade Center's towers,
became a national hero. Within
hours of the attack, the mayor
was visiting the site, caked in dust
and walking through the chaos
- a moment replayed rdpeatedly on
television.
Assuming the role of "America's
Mayor" and Time Magazine's Per-
son of the Year for 2001, Giuliani
remained an in-demand speaker
and GOP fundraiser. He was the
first Republican to lead New York
in decades, had cut crime and rede-
veloped rundown parts of the city.

Lawmakers jockey
for leadership roles
after Democratic
landslide
WASHINGTON (AP) - Law-
makers and congressmen-to-be
came to Washington yesterday
as triumphant Democrats and
vanquished Republicans focused
more on the upcoming change in
power than on President Bush's
wish list for the final few months
of GOP rule.
Orientation meetings for more
than 50 incoming House fresh-
men began at 8:45 a.m. Dozens
of wide-eyed rookie lawmakers
were learning the ropes. They
were scheduled to meet with
President Bush later in the day at
the White House.
"From both parties, we all sort
of have the same feeling: 'Wow!

Is this really happening,"' said
Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.).
The main order of House busi-
ness planned for yesterday was
consideration of a free-trade bill
with Vietnam, ahead of Bush's
scheduled visit there Friday.
The Senate was to debate a
funding bill for veterans pro-
grams.
The real action, however, will
be off the floor as the speaker-
to-be, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
prepares to take the reins of the
House and Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
does the same in the Senate.
Jockeying in several House
leadership races has exposed
divisions among Democratic and
GOP factions.
On the Democratic side, poli-
ticking is under way for party
leadership elections scheduled
for Thursday.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa), a
Marine Corps veteran and hawk
on military issues who became
the darling of the anti-war move-

ment after calling for a U.S. pull-
out from Iraq, is running against
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of
Maryland to be majority leader.
Pelosi is unchallenged to
become speaker.
On Sunday, she backed long-
time ally Murtha in the majority
leader race.
Hoyer is an old Pelosi. rival
dating back to a bitter 2001 lead-
ership race.
House Republicans also have
leadership fights. Three law- .
makers hope to succeed Speaker
Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) as the
GOP leader. Hastert said last
week that he doesn't want to be
minority leader.
Majority Leader John Boeh-
ner, (R-Ohio) now No. 2 to Hast-
ert, is favored to get the job, but
he faces challenges from Mike
Pence, an ambitious conservative
from Indiana, and from Ener-
gy and Commerce Committee
Chairman Joe Barton, a 12-term
Texan mounting a long-shot bid.

Racial disparities persist in
education, home ownership

'Borat' angers some
unwitting co-stars
NEW YORK (AP) - While hard feelings toward Borat, aka
teaching American humor to a gre- comedian Sacha Baron Cohen -
garious and absurdly out-of-touch but the same can't be said for oth-
foreign journalist, Pat Haggerty ers who were humiliated, thanks to
realized something was off - who the awkward fellow with the bushy
WAS this guy? mustache.
Haggerty, a public speaking Their embarrassment over the
coach from Washington, is one film's hilarious, cringe-inducing
of the unwitting co-stars of the blend of fiction and improvised
surprise hit movie "Borat: Cul- comedy is magnified by its success
tural Learnings of America for _ "Borat" has topped the box office
Make Benefit of Glorious Nation two weeks in a row, earning a total
of Kazakhstan." Haggerty has no of $67.8 million. -

White families
tend to have higher
incomes, education
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Decades after the civil rights
movement, racial disparities in
income, education and home
ownership persist and, by some
measurements, are growing.
White householdshad incomes
that were two-thirds higher than
blacks and 40 percent higher
than Hispanics last year, accord-
ing to data released today by the
Census Bureau.

White adults were also more
likely than black and Hispanic
adults to have college degrees
and to own their own homes.
They were less likely to live in
poverty.
"Race is so associated with
class in the United States that it
may not be direct discrimination,
but it still matters indirectly,"
said Dalton Conley, a sociology
professor at New York University
and the author of "Being Black,
Living in the Red."
"It doesn't mean it's any less
powerful just because it's indi-
rect," he said.
Home ownership grew among
white middle-class families after

World War II when access to
credit and government programs
made buying houses affordable.
Black families were largely left
out because of discrimination,
and the effects are still being
felt today, said Lance Freeman,
assistant professor of urban
planning at Columbia University
and author of "There Goes the
'Hood."
Home ownership creates
wealth, which enables families
to live in good neighborhoods
with good schools. It also helps
families finance college, which
leads to better-paying jobs, per-
petuating the cycle, Freeman
said.

Bush to
meet with
Big Three
Execs say they don't
want a bailout
WASHINGTON (AP) - Auto
industry leaders plan to stress in
a White House meeting that they
are not seeking any federal bail-
out, but want support on health
care and trade issues that affect
large manufacturers.
President Bush will meet today
with General Motors Corp.
Chairman and Chief Execu-
tive Rick Wagoner, Ford Chief
Executive Alan Mulally and
Tom LaSorda, President and
Chief Executive Officer of Daim-
lerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group,
in a gathering that has been
delayed since last spring.
Auto industry leaders plan to
tell Bush they do not want a bail-
out similar to the 1979 measure
approved by Congress that helped
preserve Chrysler Corp. Instead,
they will discuss the spiral-
ing costs manufacturers face on
health care, the advantages Japa-
nese automakers have because
of a weak yen and their work to
develop alternative fuel vehicles.
"We're not going into this
meeting seeking specific relief
for our industry," said GM
spokesman Greg Martin. "We
understand that we have to win
in the marketplace but there are
issues of national importance like
health care and trade that affect
the competitive balance."
All three automakers spend
more on health care per vehicle
than steel, which adds about
$1,000 to the cost of a car built by
the Big Three.
GM, the nation's largest private
provider of health care, spent $5.3
billion on health care last year.

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