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Michael Bloomberg Clobbered in Presidential Poll Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories): 1. Michael Bloomberg Clobbered in Presidential Poll New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg would be routed if he ran for president as an independent in 2008 against two leading contenders, a new poll reveals. The WNBC/Marist survey asked more than 1,000 registered voters to choose between Bloomberg, former New York City Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton. Giuliani came out on top, with 44 percent of the vote, followed by Clinton with 39 percent. Bloomberg tallied just 8 percent. But 17 percent of voters nationwide said they want Bloomberg to run for the White House, a move Bloomberg has repeatedly said he would not consider.
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When asked recently if he there was any possibility he might change his mind, the mayor answered: "No. I've got the best job in the world. I love every minute of it," according to the New York Daily News. Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said there is "little awareness or interest" in Bloomberg on a national level. Editor's Note:
2. Report: Russians Aided Hezbollah Against Israel On Oct. 3, more than 500 Russian military engineers arrived in Lebanon the first time that Russian forces have openly deployed in the Middle East. The Russian forces are ostensibly tasked with rebuilding bridges destroyed by Israel during the recent hostilities with Hezbollah. But they will be protected by commando platoons from two battalions led by Muslim officers one of whom has been identified by a Russian news service as a "former rebel commander" in Chechnya and they include a number of other former Chechen rebels. Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick sees the move as part of Russia's increasingly anti-Israel policy, and has ominous forebodings about Russian plans in the Middle East. "The Russian bear has awakened after 15 years of hibernation," she writes. "The clouds of the coming war are converging upon Israel. But our political and military leaders refuse to look up at the darkening sky." Glick cited a new report exposing Russia's intelligence support for Hezbollah during its war with Israel. According to Jane's Defense Weekly, a Russian listening post on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights gave Hezbollah a continuous supply of intelligence and that intelligence caused significant damage to Israeli operations, according to Glick. "It appears that Russia's support for Hezbollah may well have been as significant as Syria's support for the terror organization," she writes. "And now we have Chechens in Lebanon." Glick says recent bellicose speeches by Syrian President Bashar Assad indicate that Damascus feels Russia will support Syria if it goes to war against Israel.
The columnist also points to Russia's continuing support for Iran's nuclear weapons program, highlighted by statements from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during a recent visit to Tehran, that Russia opposes all international sanctions against Iran. Glick concludes: "Any objective observer of the developments in our region understands that the storm of war is rapidly approaching us. With Moscow's blessing, the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran are steadfastly preparing for battle." Editor's Note: 3. Donald Trump in Flag Flap Donald Trump got into hot water with officials in Palm Beach, Fla. over an 80-foot-tall flagpole at his oceanside estate. Trump ran a 15-by-25-foot flag up the pole on the front lawn of his Mar-a-Lago Club on Oct. 3, without obtaining the required permits. In a letter to town officials, he said: "Please consider this a statement and gift from me to the town and people of Palm Beach." But according to Planning, Zoning and Building Department Director Veronica Close, Palm Beach limits the height of flagpoles to 42 feet and flags to 4 by 6 feet. Close said Trump needed a building permit and Landmarks Preservation Commission approval for the flag and pole, the Palm Beach Daily News reported. Trump's 1927 mansion is a landmarked property. "The pole appears too tall and the flag appears too large for code," Close said. "We told him to take it down." Instead, Trump scheduled a meeting between a club representative and town officials. Trump had earlier raised an American flag on a 70-foot pole at his golf resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., without obtaining a permit. When he applied for a permit, it was initially denied. But the city council eventually approved the flag and flagpole. Editor's Note: 4. Ken Starr Speaks on Affirmative Action, Abortion Ken Starr, the major figure in President Clinton's impeachment, said the U.S. Supreme Court faces two "extraordinarily controversial" cases in its term that began Oct. 2. One case concerns affirmative action, and the other is about partial-birth abortion, Starr said in an address to Duke University law students. Starr served as independent counsel investigating the death of White House aide Vince Foster and allegations of impropriety in the Whitewater case involving the Clintons. Later he dealt with the Monica Lewinsky case that led the Bill Clinton's impeachment and subsequent acquittal. The affirmative action case Starr cited revisits a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that allowed universities to consider race as an admissions factor.
At issue this year is an appeals court ruling that upheld a program in Seattle that allows student to pick among high schools, and then relies on tiebreakers including race to decide who gets into the most-desired schools, the Herald-Sun in North Carolina reports. In a related case from Louisville, Ky., a mother is arguing that her son was denied entrance into a neighborhood school because he is white. "Are we, in fact, encouraging greater dropout rates by virtue of these kinds of mechanisms?" asked Starr, who is now dean of the law school at California's Pepperdine University. "Are you, in fact, disincentivizing parents to keep their children in the public schools by virtue of race-conscious remedies that are causing children to go to a school" other than one close to home. The abortion case revisits a 2000 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Nebraska law banning partial-birth abortions because the state law didn't allow an exception to protect the mother's health. A law passed by Congress said the procedure could be done only to protect a mother's life, but it didn't go into effect due to legal challenges. Starr said the case raises issues about separation of powers and whether Congress can engage in fact-finding about a woman's health, according to the Herald-Sun. Starr also praised John Roberts, who was sworn in as chief justice in September 2005, saying he has ushered in "a new era" for the Court. Editor's Note: 5. Study: Fox News Impacted Elections The introduction of the Fox News Channel had a small but significant effect on the presidential election in 2000, a study reveals. Fox News was introduced into the cable programming of 20 percent of Americans towns between October 1996 and November 2000. Using voting data for 9,256 towns in 28 states, study authors Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan investigated whether Republicans gained votes in towns where the conservative news channel was available by 2000. They found that in the presidential election, Republicans gained between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points in the towns where Fox was available. The researchers also found that Fox News significantly increased the GOP vote share for the U.S. Senate, by 0.8 percentage points. "Fox News appears to have induced a generalized ideological shift," the National Bureau of Economic Research noted in a report on the study by its two researchers, further stating: "Since Fox News was available in about 35 percent of households in 2000, its impact on the national two-party vote share that year is estimated to be 0.15 to 0.2 percentage points, or 200,000 votes nationwide.
"While this vote shift is small . . . it is likely to have been decisive in the close 2000 presidential elections." Editor's Note: 6. Bin Laden Biographer to Speak in Las Vegas Hamid Mir, the only journalist to have interviewed Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri since 9/11, will be the keynote speaker at a symposium addressing the origins and threat of terrorism. The symposium, titled "Understanding the Threat of Radical Islamist Terrorism," is scheduled to take place on Nov. 11 in Las Vegas. It is sponsored by America's Truth Forum, a grass-roots, nonpartisan educational organization. Mir, a prominent journalist from Pakistan, is bin Laden's officially sanctioned biographer. He has firsthand knowledge, gained through his interviews, with the world's most wanted terrorist, of al-Qaida's nuclear capability, of al-Qaida and Taliban operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, of bin Laden's ideology, and of Iran's support for the Taliban and al-Qaida. Mir interviewed bin Laden at a secret location in Afghanistan in November 2001, two months after 9/11. He said that at that point bin Laden disavowed any involvement with the Sept. 11 attacks, and claimed he had a suitcase nuclear weapon he'd bought from a Russian scientist. The journalist was captured and released by Hezbollah during its recent 34-day war with Israel. The daylong symposium is open to the public. Tickets are $150 and require advanced purchase (www.AmericasTruthForum.com) due to security protocol. Editor's Note: 7. Imus Praises 'Boy of Steel' Curmudgeonly talk-radio host Don Imus can be stinting with his praise of the books he discusses, but he gives high marks to the charming new children's book "The Boy of Steel." "This is really a terrific book," he said. "I can't believe that a children's book can have this kind of impact." And his wife Deirdre had this to say about the book, which was previewed by NewsMax in August and made it to the No. 1 spot in the children's book category on Amazon.com: "'The Boy of Steel' is a beautiful, heartwarming, honest children's book. It brings so much hope to people dealing with all types of diseases." The richly illustrated book written by sports executive Ray Negron tells the story of 6-year-old Michael Steel, who loves to watch the Yankees on TV from his hospital bed, where he's fighting brain cancer. When Yankee infielder Robinson Cano visits Michael in the hospital, the boy embarks on a wonderful journey that leads him to become a Yankee batboy for a day his baseball dream come true. And with a little help from Yankee great Lou Gehrig, Michael gets to meet Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle baseball legends who all died from cancer. But when Michael's illness weakens him on the field, he must struggle to fulfill his batboy duties. He earns the nickname Boy of Steel and learns an important lesson: never stop fighting. Many other prominent figures have praised the book, including baseball players Jim Thome and Hideki Matsui, country star Tim McGraw, Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, New York Mets manager Willie Randolph, "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini and Ron Shelton, producer of the baseball movie "Bull Durham." All profits from the sale of the book which is published by HarperCollins under the Regan Books imprint will be donated to help cancer research and education. Editor's Note: 8. We Heard THAT President Bush moved closer to the re-election campaign of Sen. Joe Lieberman a supporter of the president's Iraq policy as a close Bush ally co-sponsored a Lieberman fund-raising luncheon in Washington. Tom Kuhn, Bush's college roommate and now president of the Edison Electric Institute, raised more than $100,000 for Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. The Lieberman luncheon's sponsors urged fellow Republican lobbyists to contribute at least $1,000. Lieberman, who is running as an independent, has announced he will stay in the Democratic caucus if re-elected. But according to columnist Robert Novak, "Republicans backing him against anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, the Democratic nominee, hope for a change of heart by Lieberman." THAT Mel Gibson's promotion of his new movie has left Jewish leaders baffled. Gibson arrived for a late September screening of his movie "Apocalypto" at Oklahoma's Cameron University, one of his first public appearances since his drunk-driving arrest in July and his subsequent apology for his anti-Semitic remarks during his bust. "The actor is clearly trying to move on, but as he prepares for the Dec. 8 release of 'Apocalypto,' Jewish leaders think he has more work to do to heal still-fresh wounds," ABC News reported. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said: "He said very hurtful things, and he issued an apology, but he said he'd reach out to the Jewish community, and he simply hasn't done that yet." And Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, declared; "It's amazing that he waited for weeks after the incident to make a public appearance, and when he did, it wasn't to make good on his apology, but rather to sell his film. "He has to deal with what he's done." THAT former New York City Mayor Ed Koch said he felt let down when his two senators, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, abandoned fellow Democrat Joe Lieberman after he lost the Senate primary in Connecticut. "I'm disappointed in them," Koch said after campaigning with Lieberman among Connecticut-bound commuters at New York's Grand Central Station. "I support both of those people. But until Joe, I've never had a perfect candidate." Koch added that Lieberman is "correctly perceived as the conscience of the Senate," according to the New York Daily News. Lieberman also had kind words for Koch, a Democrat who endorsed President Bush: "He's my kind of public servant straight-talking, glad to work across party lines to get things done." Editor's Notes:
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