Baucus sounds pretty definitive

How do Bush’s odds look for getting the privatization scheme through Congress? Put it this way, one of the chamber’s most moderate Dems is calling Bush’s idea “dead.” U.S. Senator Max Baucus, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said President George W. Bush’s proposal to create private Social Security accounts has no chance […]

The end of the dumbest … right-wing conspiracy theory … ever

As conspiracy theories go, the idea that Senate Democrats falsified GOP talking points on Terri Schiavo to make Republicans look bad was always pretty weak. Dems, frankly, just aren’t that clever. I’ve avoided giving the theories too much attention because I was waiting to see if Republicans came up with any shred of compelling proof. […]

Darfur vs. Martha Stewart

(Editor’s Note: The Carpetbagger Report, as I’ve mentioned in recent weeks, joined the Coalition for Darfur, a bi-partisan online initiative created to raise awareness and resources to address the crisis. This is the fifth in a series of posts from the Coalition.) Eleven years ago today, the president of Rwanda was killed when his plane […]

Even now, there may be more fake-news segments on the way

The Bush gang’s penchant for creating fake-news segments — with our money — is well documented. As we learned a couple of weeks ago, at least 20 federal agencies have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years. In all, the administration spent over a quarter-billion dollars on generating professional-quality […]

Plame Game Over?

Because Patrick Fitzgerald is a special counsel that respects confidentiality and disdains leaks, unlike some prosecutors we know (cough, cough, Ken Starr, cough), details about the ongoing White House criminal investigation have been far and few between. Indeed, there’s been far more coverage of the debate about forcing reporters to testify than there’s been about […]

Stem-cell legislation racing ahead

Bush is the first president in 150 years to go an entire term without vetoing a single bill, but if progress on stem-cell legislation stays on track, we’ll see his first one soon. A controversial bill to hike funding for stem-cell research is gaining momentum in the House, increasing the chances that it will be […]

Wednesday’s political round-up

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: * Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum sounded downright panicky in an email fundraising pitch last week. “I must have you working with me to stand against the Big Money leftists,” Santorum wrote. “Now […]

Cornyn stands by his madness

A day after suggesting judges who are the victim of violence may have somehow brought their fate upon themselves, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) followed up yesterday with remarks that were intended to clarify his meaning. It wasn’t particularly helpful. “My point was, and is, simply this: We should all be concerned that the judiciary is […]

More poll numbers, more bad news for Bush

The latest Gallup numbers are out and there’s reason for concern at the White House. President Bush seems to have slipped into a second-term slump. Support continues to erode for his signature goal of adding individual investment accounts to Social Security, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday and Saturday. The coalition that gave […]

GOP senators want nothing to do with DeLay

A week after Tom DeLay issued an implicit threat against judges — releasing a public statement saying, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior” — some of his Republican allies are distancing themselves from the Majority Leader’s reckless rhetoric. Dick Cheney got the ball rolling over the […]