Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Tom DeLay won an early round in his defense against money-laundering and conspiracy charges yesterday when Bob Perkins, a 30-year veteran of the state bench, was forced to recuse himself from the […]
In 1992, Colorado voters approved known as the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR). The measure added provisions to the state constitution that made it difficult to raise taxes under any circumstances and strictly limited state government’s ability to increase spending beyond the rate of inflation. If Colorado ran a surplus, it had to automatically take […]
Justice Sunday I offered some vaguely pro-theocracy conservatives the chance to rail against judicial filibusters. Justice Sunday II, not quite as interesting as the original, gave Tom DeLay a chance to explain how federal courts are imposing a “judicial supremacy” over the country, while James Dobson described the way in which the Supreme Court has […]
Jay Sekulow is not just another conservative lawyer. As the man who runs the American Center for Law and Justice, a religious right legal group started by TV preacher Pat Robertson, Sekulow has positioned himself as one of the most politically-connected lawyers in the conservative movement. Indeed, Sekulow has become such an insider that he’s […]
I don’t want to belabor yesterday’s closed session controversy, but there’s one part of the Republicans’ response that warrants follow-up. As GOP senators rushed to microphones yesterday, most of them purple with rage, the buzz word was “unprecedented.” Harry Reid was closing the Senate without having notified Republicans in advance, which as they explained it, […]
In light of the Scooter Libby indictment, and its description of Karl Rove’s involvement in the Plame leak, Senate Dems called (again) for Rove’s ouster and reminded everyone of Bush’s stated commitment to fire anyone involved with the leak. Yesterday, however, a Senate Republican joined the fun. You might be surprised which one. On MSNBC’s […]
As political theater went, Harry Reid’s closed session of the Senate yesterday was beautiful. Republicans complained that it was a stunt. Of course it was a stunt; it was an effective one at that. Dems had a legitimate complaint, they waited patiently, and Republicans assumed Dems had neither the means nor the courage to do […]
Now here’s something we don’t see everyday. Harry Reid has brought the Senate into a “closed session.” This is a pretty unusual maneauver, and it’s apparently made Bill Frist extremely annoyed. So what’s the point of all this? Reid wants the Senate to discuss intelligence failures with regard to the war in Iraq. But what’s […]
Seven years ago, Ken Starr prepared a lurid report for Congress detailing his case against Bill Clinton. At first blush, it wouldn’t appear to have any relevance to the Plame scandal affecting the Bush White House, but I was reviewing the Starr report recently and something jumped out at me. After he laid out the […]
I’ll admit, I’ve been feeling a little discouraged about Sam Alito’s Supreme Court nomination. To defeat him on the Senate floor, Dems would need to keep the caucus together (no easy task) and peel off six Republican votes. I’m counting moderate GOP heads and I’m nowhere near six. To defeat him via filibuster, Dems would […]