Wednesday Links

• A right-wing amendment to the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007 would force Katrina victims to find a job before receiving aid. Fortunately, the House defeated the amendment 266-162. Unfortunately, that's 162 people (Republicans, I've no doubt) who voted for this callous amendment. Honestly, the fact that I don't even have to look that hard to find a new example of Republican douchebagery every day is the saddest thing of all. In the meantime, an effort to bulldoze more than 9,000 rotting houses still standing after Hurricane Katrina has slowed sharply this year, prolonging the city's attempts to rebuild blighted neighborhoods.

• Under a new plan adopted by the Iowa House, Iowans would be able to register at the polls and vote on election day. Current law requires Iowans to register at least 10 days prior to election day in order to vote.

• The Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007, aimed at making immediate improvements in the treatment — medical and otherwise — of wounded combat veterans passed the House Armed Services Committee by a 59-0 vote Tuesday.

• Senators pressed federal investigators to aggressively prosecute contracting fraud in Iraq, saying the dozen criminal cases filed aren't enough of a deterrent.

• In a high-profile dissent from Bush administration policy, the nation's top medical research official told senators that he backs an end to restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

• If you repaid student loans to the U.S. Department of Education during the past decade you may have been overcharged. A class-action suit has been filed that claims that despite repeated warnings that it was breaking the law due to a computer glitch, the DOE overcharged more than 3 million student loan borrowers hundreds of millions of dollars more than they owed.

• As the Iraq war enters a fifth year, the conflict that President Bush's aides once said would all but pay for itself with oil revenues is fueling the highest level of defense spending since World War II.