My post earlier today cites an article in The Washington Post about Pa. workers getting laid off. Several of them apparently tell The Post that “they do not know a single former Techneglas employee who is planning to vote for Bush.”

Well that may be true for a lot of Quaker staters.

Nothing can destroy a family more than to learn that their jobs and pensions are gone. Enron was the most egregious example recently. The Enron leadership lied about the soundness of the employee’s investment. But more Americans are learning that they can lose their pensions in other ways.

The Washington Post has had a couple of stories recently that should be read by anyone who thinks their company’s promise to pay their pensions is worth the paper it’s written on. Fifty-two year old Steve Derebey thought he would soon retire on a $66,000 a year pension.

But last month, in a Chicago bankruptcy court, United Airlines almost certainly changed the rest of the Derebeys’ life, warning that it will likely dump its pension plan onto the federal government. Under the rules of the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), Derebey would be left with $22,000 a year, a third of his expected benefit. Now, he and his wife are hastily planning a second career, a long one, they say, maybe running their own public relations shop in Seattle.

There are other examples in this story that are heartbreaking. Read the story closely, because not only was Derebey’s pension severely cut, but you may wind up paying for it.

Then today, The Post tells of the Pennsylvania workers who just lost their job because the plant in their town closed its doors but came away with a viable business – in Taiwan.

Techneglas Inc., which made glass for television sets, shut down in August and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. With that announcement, nearly 700 people here who had devoted decades to a factory that consumed their holidays and weekends and babies’ growing years were knocked off their footing in the nation’s middle class. They made good wages — as much as $21 an hour — that are not easy to replace, and the fate of their pensions and health care coverage is in doubt.

… In announcing that it was closing, Techneglas, a unit of Nippon Electric Glass Co. of Japan, said it will open a plant in Taiwan and expand production in South Korea and Japan. It blamed overseas competition and declining demand for closings that threw out of work its 670 employees in northeastern Pennsylvania, plus 382 in Columbus, Ohio.

… Techneglas has said it does not have the money to pay employees the pensions they are due….

Again, we – and our children – will likely get the bill and workers will get a fraction of what they were promised.

The Washington Post has a story on how Florida Republicans are trying to keep Demoicrats from voting. The same is happening nationwide. Nevada GOP supporters are actually throwing away registrations of those they believe are Democrats.

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Just not for Americans. Click here and scroll down to “Campaign Security Screening Crowds for Doubters.”

According to The Washington Post, 94 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed since the Israel entered the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks. This doesn’t include the people killed in the bombing of an Egyptian resort hotel yesterday.

How many people died in that blast is unclear. The print edition of The Post puts the death toll at 35. But the story on the paper’s web site, updated at 8:00 this morning, claims “at least 20” dead.

The print story was front page all across the top page of the paper with a photo, prime newspaper real estate. Other stories about the conflict may have missed the reader’s attention over the past two week:

Israeli Attacks Kill 11 Palestinian Fighters

10 More Palestinians Killed in Gaza Blitz

19 Palestinians Killed in Gaza

7 Palestinians Killed in Spate Of Violence

Why did some of you miss these stories? Because they were, respectively, on pages A26, A14, A22 and A20.

These four stories alone add up to 47 Palestinians killed while 20 people, most presumed to be Israelis, were killed yesterday and five others over the past two weeks. And as noted, The Post puts the two week death toll at 94 Palestinians killed. Yet, The Post today follows its familiar pattern of giving prominent play to attacks that kill Israelis while burying stories about Palestinians killed in the conflict. That hardly seems balanced coverage.

When I wrote earlier this year about this issue, I concluded, “Let’s see where the next suicide attack story is placed.” Now we know.

The Washington Post continues its “For the Record” series as well as its habit of misleading headlines in an effort to appear balanced.

Today’s article about the charges John Edwards made in the debate against Dick Cheney is headlined “Halliburton Charges Jumbled by Edwards And Denied by Cheney.” The lede and second graph:

In the debate with Vice President Cheney on Tuesday, Sen. John Edwards referred to allegations of wrongdoing by Halliburton Corp. several times and raised questions about the Bush administration’s handling of government contracting in Iraq.

But in doing so, Edwards occasionally jumbled or oversimplified the complex details of the company’s role as a contractor and of its ties to Cheney, who served as Halliburton’s chief executive from 1995 to 2000.

But then the 559-word article charges only that

the Democrat conflated two contracts, the second of which is a troop support arrangement awarded to Halliburton before the war, after a competition. That contract helped make Halliburton the top government contractor in Iraq. The Pentagon has considered — but has not acted on — several suggestions from auditors to withhold 15 percent of future payments because of questions about the company’s billing.

The rest of the article essentially confirms Edwards’ charges are accurate.

In fact, next to this article is another about Cheney giving the wrong web address for Fact Check, a non-partisan web site that reviews the accuracy of political charges.

Cheney “wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton,” the Annenberg site wrote in a posting yesterday. “In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn’t profited personally while in office from Halliburton’s Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney’s responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right.”

Why then do we have a headline that focuses on one “jumbled” charge?

A better, though not perfect, approach is Jim VandeHei’s in his front page story about Bush’s speech yesterday.

The story is flawed in two ways: The headline, “Bush: Kerry Would ‘Weaken’ U.S.” is simply Bush’s talking point. It’s the message Bush wants to send, and thanks to The Post, it is duly delivered in 32-point type. The second problem is that the truth is not discussed until deep in the story. But when it is, it’s precise.

While Kerry voted against the 1991 Gulf War and many defense bills, he has supported numerous increases in defense spending and voted for multilateral action in Kosovo, Bosnia and Somalia, as well as for the 2002 Iraq war resolution.

Bush reached back to comments from the early 1970s to portray Kerry as someone who would bow to international pressure and require a “global test” before protecting the nation. In doing so, he misrepresented Kerry’s stated position: the Democratic nominee has repeatedly said he would consult with but never allow other nations to veto U.S. actions.

…Many of Bush’s charges were misleading, including that Kerry would raise taxes on all Americans; Kerry has said he would raise taxes for those making more than $200,000 a year but reduce them for most everyone else, including corporations. Bush also said that Kerry is planning a move toward “Clinton care,” a reference to President Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to create a health care system with more government funding; Kerry would dramatically expand the federal health care system, but the system would rely mainly on private companies to provide coverage and care. Bush warned of consumers facing limited choices and “rationed care,” neither of which Kerry advocates.

Finally, Bush said Kerry would increase spending by $2 trillion or more. “That’s a lot of money — even for a senator from Massachusetts,” Bush said, to thunderous applause and laughter, repeating Cheney’s exact words from the night before. What he did not mention is that budget experts say the president has proposed even more additional spending, perhaps $3 trillion.

Maybe a better headline would have been “Bush Jumbles Charges Against Kerry.” The lede could then reflect that instead of Bush’s talking points.

I’m on the road for a couple of days and won’t b able to post much. Back Weds.

AP is reporting that Kerry’s debate performance might have moved the needle.

Businesswoman Marilyn Morrison of San Marcos, Calif., leans toward Bush, but after the 57-year-old Republican watched the debate, she turned to her Democratic husband and said, “If Kerry won, I could live with it.”

Morrison, who voted for Bush in 2000, says she never would have said that before watching the presidential debate, which focused on foreign policy.

Persuadable voters tended to credit Kerry with doing a better job in the debate. CBS News interviewed a nationally representative sample of 200 persuadable — or uncommitted — voters on Thursday night. Those voters said Kerry did a better job in the debate by 43 percent to 28 percent, with the remainder saying it was a tie.

More than half, 53 percent, said they had a more favorable view of Kerry after the debate….

Now here’s the kicker: “…22 percent said their view of Bush improved.”

Wonder what they must have thought of the guy beforehand? Fortunately, the debate rules didn’t allow the candidates to walk around much less chew gum.

After only a year on the job, the nation’s top cybersecurity guru quit “amid a concerted campaign by the technology industry and some lawmakers to persuade the Bush administration to give him more authority and money for protection programs.”

But it seems Amit Yoran and George Bush were never made to get along.

Both were born to a life of privilege, but while Bush chose to party and had no interest – until even just a couple of years ago – in foreign policy, Amit never had an interest in things like drugs and was focused from early on on foreign affairs.

While President Bush chose the typical rich boy Ivy League route by going to Yale, Amit chose to serve his country by going to West Point.

While President Bush did as much as possible to avoid having to serve in the military – fleeing to the Texas Air National Guard, and even fleeing AWOL from there – Amit fought to overcome scholastic and physical challenges to fight his way into West Point.

While George Bush was handed businesses by his daddy’s friends and one by one ran them into the ground, Amit started a company on his own and quickly grew it into a massive success.

And while President Bush is a newcomer to “conservative” values and political ideas, only coming to them after 40-plus years of being an unambitious, uninterested alcoholic – and even then only embracing the dishonest, fully-flawed Rush Limbaugh version of conservatism – Amit has always been a moderate socially and conservative politically, and his conservative politics are based on solid ideals and a belief in certain policies that has been borne over years of active consideration and experience.

So in the end the question is not, “Will Amit Yoran make a good chief of cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Security?”

He will, and, not being a Bush-brand Republican but a true, morally sound moderate, he can be trusted not to abuse his position or attack in the way the hateful, paranoid Ashcroft does.

Yoran’s days were numbered from the day he took the job.