Today's Details

-The number of Americans calling themselves Republican has fallen to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. Just 31.9% of American adults now say they're affiliated with the GOP. That's down from 37.2% in October 2004 and 34.5% at the beginning of 2006. These results come from Rasmussen Reports tracking surveys of 15,000 voters per month and have a margin of sampling error smaller than a percentage point. The number of Democrats has grown slightly, from 36.1% at the beginning of the year to 37.3% now. DETAILS

-President Bush has announced he will recess appoint Paul DeCamp — a corporate lawyer who represented Wal-Mart and built a career fighting against unions — as head of the U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which oversees “the nation’s wage and hour laws, including overtime laws, workplace discrimination laws, and child labor laws.” DETAILS

- President Bush’s newest effort to rebuild eroding support for the war in Iraq features a distinct shift in approach: Rather than stressing the benefits of eventual victory, he and his top aides are beginning to lay out the grim consequences of failure. DETAILS

-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats late Friday, opening up the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief. In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said recent remarks he made during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the media, including by the Associated Press. Rumsfeld said he was "concerned" by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory. (MISREPRESENTED? I think not! I read the transcripts - the media printed the transcripts - he said what he said and it is what it is. This is not the first time that someone from this administraton has insinuated that those who don't march in lockstep [or would that be goose step?] with this administration support the terrorists. The VP at one time admonished us to be careful of what we say. This was no misrepresentation. This was Rumsfeld once again crossing the line and enough is efuckinuff!) DETAILS

-Should the United States implement a more inclusive, publicly funded health care system? That's a big debate throughout the country. But even as it rages, most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn't already have a fundamentally public--that is, tax-supported--health care system. That means that the United States has been the unwitting control subject in a 30-year, worldwide experiment comparing the merits of private versus public health care funding. For the people living in the United States, the results of this experiment with privately funded health care have been grim. The United States now has the most expensive health care system on earth and, despite remarkable technology, the general health of the U.S. population is lower than in most industrialized countries. Worse, Americans' mortality rates--both general and infant--are shockingly high. DETAILS

-Under assault from Republicans on issues of national security, congressional Democrats are planning to push for a vote of no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this month as part of a broad effort to stay on the offensive ahead of the November midterm elections. DETAILS

--A year and a half after going AWOL before his second deployment to Iraq, a soldier surrendered at Fort Hood on Thursday with a dozen war protesters by his side. "I just could not in good conscience go back to a war I felt was wrong," Wilkerson, 22, of Colorado Springs, Colo., said. DETAILS

-Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a Pentagon report said Friday. In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon reported that illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services. (Hmmmm...it would appear the military has been taken over by FACISTS!) DETAILS

-When doling out financial aid, America's colleges and universities are increasingly awarding more money to upper-income students, according to a report released Thursday. The study, by the Washington-based Education Trust, found that although state and federal policies have shifted money away from low-income students, the greatest change has been at the college level. DETAILS