"Attorney General John Ashcroft is hitting the road to rally support for the Victory Act, which would further expand his powers to go after Al Qaeda and narcoterrorists," the New York Daily News reports. Ashcroft's 10-day tour will visit 20-states promoting his Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act. Critics say expanding Ashcroft's powers would further erode civil liberites.

PR Watch's Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber will talk about their new book Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq 7 p.m., Friday, August 8 at the Barnes & Noble on 82nd & Broadway in Manhatten.

Maverick ex-soldier David Hackworth believed the Bush administration's claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction until recently, but now he's steamed. "A whole bunch of folks here in the USA and around this beat-up globe are all worked up over George W. Bush's 16 shifty words in his 'Let's Do Saddam' State of the Union speech when they should be taking a harder look at the president's judgment on the most critical matter to a state: war," Hackworth writes. "Don't have heartburn over those 16 words.