Countdown Newsletter: 10/11/06 -- Urge to Vote AND Lewis Black!

[Patsy Stone]

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Tonight on Countdown
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Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

Politics is a water-cooler topic, a dinner-table subject, an issue to discuss after Sunday services, and this year the interest of American voters is at its highest level in more than a decade. That renewed attention could translate into higher voter turnout on Nov. 7, according to an Associated Press-Pew poll. Seventy percent say they are talking politics with family and friends, and 43 percent are debating the issues at work. The level of interest outpaces 1994 when Republicans swept Democrats from power in Congress. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15218813/

President Bush on Wednesday urged "serious repercussions" for North Korea's reported nuclear test, but said the United States remained committed to diplomacy and had no intention of attacking.
Meantime, in a renewed defense of his Iraq war policy, Bush told reporters that if the U.S. leaves Iraq before the Iraqis can defend their new democracy, terrorists would take control there and have a new "safe haven" to attack the U.S. Bush said these are "tough times" in Iraq, but that the stakes there "couldn't be higher." He also dismissed as "not credible" a new study that contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15026619/

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A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates. In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. "Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15215574/

The U.S. Army has plans that would keep the current level of troops in Iraq -- about 15 brigades -- through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday. The Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, cautioned that people not read too much into the planning, because it is easier to pull back forces than to get units prepared and deployed at the last minute. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220816/

Barbra Streisand wasn't the only one... The collision of celebrity and politics. Peter Alexander reports.

And Lewis Black joins us with political satire.

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,
GRAND HAVEN, Mich. -- Ottawa County will pay about $40,000 to correct an embarrassing typo on its Nov. 7 election ballot: The "L" was left out of "public." A total of 170,000 ballots will have to be reprinted. The mistake appeared in the text of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban some types of affirmative action.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BALLOT_TYPO?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
Oops. Glad my own typos aren't that expensive.

-- Carey Fox

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Other News:
Violence around Iraq claimed at least 14 lives on Wednesday, including a parked car bomb that blew up next to a police patrol in southeastern Baghdad, killing two passers-by. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220072/from/RS.4/

The federal budget deficit, helped by a gusher of tax revenues, fell to $247.7 billion in 2006, the smallest amount of red ink in four years. Bush's pledge to cut the deficit in half was based on the administration's forecast that the 2004 deficit would hit $521 billion, a figure that proved to be too pessimistic by more than $100 billion. However, the administration has continued to use the forecast number as its benchmark for deficit reduction. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220076/

OPEC has agreed to trim global oil production by 1 million barrels a day to boost prices, and its members were discussing how to share the cut, the cartel's president said Wednesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15218550/

A day after the parents of a missing University of Vermont student made an impassioned plea for help in finding their daughter in a video posted on the Internet, police said Wednesday they have received "a number of helpful leads." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15219371/

An early winter storm system was expected to hit the Northern Plains and Great Lakes region on Wednesday with snow, the second straight day that part of the United States has seen snow showers. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15219671/

A California congressman lodged a federal complaint Tuesday against "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," for featuring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a guest one month before the election while snubbing his Democratic opponent. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15218832/from/RS.5/

Madonna has adopted a 1-year-old Malawian boy whose mother died a month after childbirth, the baby's father claimed Tuesday, saying he was happy his son was escaping poverty. Madonna has made no public comment since her arrival. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15219024/