BLACKWATER SCANDAL DEEPENS

CNN - Blackwater USA guards have used deadly force weekly in Iraq and have inflicted "significant casualties and property damage," according to a congressional staff report released Monday that cites internal company and State Department documents. Blackwater's contractors fired their weapons 195 times -- or an average of 1.4 times a week -- from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found. In over 80 percent of the cases, Blackwater reports that its forces fired first, according to the staff report.

PROGRESS REPORT - Erik Prince, the CEO of Blackwater USA is the son of Edgar Prince who "was instrumental in the creation of the Family Research Council, an influential right-wing Christian group. Furthermore, Erik Prince is the vice-president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, a group founded by his parents that "gave at least $470,000 to the FRC and $531,000 to Focus on the Family," a conservative Christian group run by James Dobson. Prince has also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative causes including the American Enterprise Institute and the Prison Fellowship Ministries.