Wednesday News Roundup

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

Campaigns Hunt Votes Among `Anxious Xers,' `Angry Independents'

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- ``Anxious Xers'' and ``angry independents'' may replace ``soccer moms'' as the object of desire for presidential candidates in 2008.

It's the time in the campaign season when Washington's legions of pollsters, policy wonks and political consultants go looking for that elusive bloc of swing voters large enough in number and cohesive enough in outlook to make the difference in a close election.

House Passes Four Bills Aimed at Helping Veterans

The House took steps yesterday to improve counseling and care for the tens of thousands of military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The measure, one of four veterans bills the House passed on voice votes, requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide outreach and mental health services to those who served in either campaign. The VA secretary is also directed to contract with community mental health centers in areas his agency does not adequately serve.

The Murdoch Journal Watch

The story flows down the page like a Wall Street Journal feature: A passel of haughty heirs controls a major corporation that transmutes every business opportunity into disaster, driving the firm's stock off the cliff. A takeover bid arrives but melodrama ensues as the heirs squabble—first over the bidder's character (it's bad) but ultimately over how much money will be thrown their way as the heirs settle for what they can get.

So goes Rupert and the Bancrofts, in which the family that controls Dow Jones & Co. delivers it to Rupert Murdoch's own News Corp. family dynasty. For the rotten old bastard—and I mean that affectionately—the Bancroft episode is only one chapter in his multivolume history of double-down wheeling and dealing. But having won the prize, will Murdoch come to regret it as he has so many of his acquisitions and investments and discard it?

Poll: Americans Tuned In to the Campaign

It’s the middle of summer and months before the first vote is cast, yet polls confirm what the political cognoscenti suspect: most Americans are already tuning into the presidential election.
More than two-thirds of respondents in a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this month said they were paying at least some attention to the 2008 presidential campaign. That is up substantially from this time four years ago, when 4 in 10 Americans were paying attention.
Attention is higher now than it was in July 2003 among both men and women and across all age groups. As was the case four years ago, older respondents are more likely to be engaged.

Still, attention among younger Americans is up considerably : 36 percent of those under age 30 were paying attention to the election at this point four years ago; 65 percent of them are now.

Google, AT&T Take Sides as FCC Debates Airwaves Rules (Update3)

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will decide today whether companies bidding for wireless airwaves must make them available to any mobile phone or wireless device.

The FCC's decision will set rules for an auction that may fetch as much as $15 billion. The sale could draw bids from big phone carriers including AT&T Inc. and Web companies including Google Inc. that are looking for new markets.

The rules may help create a wireless alternative to services sold by the entrenched phone and cable companies, Google says. That would build new competition for AT&T and Verizon Wireless, whose networks now work only with technologies they approve. The outcome may shape the legacy of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who is pushing for the so-called open-access policy.