These stories answer a series of important questions, but raise a number of new ones. Detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were shackled to the floor in fetal positions for more than 24 hours at a time, left without food and water, and allowed to defecate on themselves, an FBI agent […]
I guess the president missed the memo. At his final press conference of 2004, and just days before Christmas, Bush unintentionally may have inserted himself in a deep religio-political controversy. Here’s how Bush ended today’s press conference: “Listen, thank you all very much. I wish everybody — truly wish everybody a happy holidays.” Oops. That’s […]
Last week, Bush made it sound like his economic policies were poised to create tremendous growth in the coming years. “[O]ur economy has come through a lot and it’s growing. And people realize that, and that’s positive. And there’s a reason why people say it’s growing, besides me, and that’s because the facts say it’s […]
In the Clinton years, the Justice Department just didn’t care much about getting obscenity prosecutions. Janet Reno & Co. went after the most serious incidents — child pornography, for example — but were largely unconcerned with the more traditional adult fare. When John Ashcroft became attorney general, the right assumed it’d be a new day. […]
Last week, reporters were insisting that John McCain’s work on steroids would propel him presidential bid in 2008. This week, it’s his maverick streak that helps his ambitions. John McCain is back. In the six weeks since the end of a campaign in which he wholeheartedly promoted President Bush’s reelection, the Republican senator from Arizona […]
In case you missed it, the Washington Post reported on Saturday about a House Republican who appears to be trying to buy his way into a key committee chairmanship. Do I hear $16 million? Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), seeking the powerful post of House Appropriations Committee chairman, wrote to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert this month […]
This LA Times editorial should give the Dems another valuable line of attack against Bush’s scheme to kill Social Security. President Bush is setting out to convince the nation that the danger is imminent and can be addressed only with bold action. Sound familiar? The White House is deploying the strategy it used to sell […]
All that speculation last year that disgraced former Alabama judge Roy Moore might run for the Senate never made a lot of sense to me. Moore doesn’t want to move to DC to be one of 100; he wants to be in charge, enjoy broad power, and stay in Alabama. With this in mind, it […]
Remember all of those Republican “revolutionaries” from the 1990s, who arrived in Congress under strict term-limits pledges? The number of them who have since realized how ridiculous the idea is keeps growing. The list may not be distinguished, but it’s certainly long. The latest is Rep. Zack Wamp (R-Tenn.) who told voters in 1994 that […]
Of all the lists of possible ’08 candidates I’ve seen, there hasn’t been much talk about Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D). That may soon change. According to a report in WisPolitics.com last week, several party leaders “expect Feingold to do some national traveling and make some preliminary explorations” of the White House idea. They agree […]