The President's Support With Congressional Repubs Erroding & Is John Bolton the Man Behind The Plame Leak? in Today's Details 9/21/05

- Congressional Republicans from across the ideological spectrum yesterday rejected the White House's open-wallet approach to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a sign that the lockstep GOP discipline that George W. Bush has enjoyed for most of his presidency is eroding on Capitol Hill.

- The number of deaths in Louisiana blamed on Hurricane Katrina has risen to 799, the state's Department of Health and Hospitals said Wednesday, bringing the overall death toll to 1,033.

- House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said Tuesday she was willing to return to the federal Treasury $70 million designated for San Francisco projects in the new highway and transportation bill and use the money to help pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

- Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 165-mph monster Wednesday as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

- Like your classic pulp novel it may all come together in the end. The creep in the background thrown in -- you thought -- for atmosphere turns out to be the killer.Well, I suppose we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves here but Arianna Huffington's latest theory (based on information from two sources...) on the source of the punitive Plame leak is that it traces back to the Mustached One himself, the unconfirmed ambassador to the UN, John Bolton.

- Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, say they are using relief measures for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast to achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond. Some new measures are already taking shape. In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended some union-friendly rules that require federal contractors pay prevailing wages, moved to ease tariffs on Canadian lumber, and allowed more foreign sugar imports to calm rising sugar prices. Just yesterday, it waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region.

- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.