In January, [tag]House[/tag] [tag]GOP[/tag] leaders unveiled a proposal to [tag]reform[/tag] the way Congress does business and, at least on the surface, curtail the influence of [tag]lobbyists[/tag]. The plan was presented at the height of the [tag]Abramoff[/tag] scandal, and was meant to prove that Republicans were serious about cleaning up the mess on the Hill (which […]
[tag]Time[/tag] reports this week that new White House Chief of Staff [tag]Josh Bolten[/tag] has a plan to “reboot the second term.” It also notes that this has now happened “so many times (at least three, by Time’s count) that even their allies have lost track.” But this one’s different, the [tag]White House[/tag] says. This time, […]
To follow up on an item from Saturday, Tyler Drumheller, the former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, was on 60 Minutes last night, explaining that the intelligence community gave the White House plenty of reliable intelligence about Iraq before the war, but the Bush gang blew it off because they didn’t want to hear […]
In case you missed it over the weekend, the WaPo reported that the CIA is responding to the Mary McCarthy leak on secret prisons by doing a little more digging — into partisan affiliations. The White House also has recently barraged the agency with questions about the political affiliations of some of its senior intelligence […]
Of all the public policy issues debated in this country, [tag]abortion[/tag] is by far the trickiest. There’s just not much room for compromise. If you believe a fertilized egg is a full-fledged human being with all the rights therein, abortion is murder. If you don’t, a government-imposed ban on the procedure takes away a woman’s […]
Stop me if you heard this one … top intelligence officials told the White House before the war that [tag]Iraq[/tag] had no [tag]WMD[/tag], but [tag]Bush[/tag] officials ignored the warnings, cherry picked the information it wanted to believe, and blew off anyone who disagreed. It’s a story we’ve heard so many times, it does, after a […]
Last fall, a [tag]CIA[/tag] official leaked word to the Washington Post about the government hiding and interrogating al Qaeda captives in Soviet-era [tag]secret prisons[/tag] in Eastern Europe. In effect, to avoid breaking our laws, U.S. intelligence officials have been holding detainees overseas, and breaking other countries’ laws. The story touched off a furious internal investigation […]
If a head of state is at an event, and a protestor starts screaming, I understand escorting that person from the premises. If a head of state is at an event, and a journalist asks him or her a question, having government agents whisk him away is far more troubling. President [tag]Hu[/tag] can’t suppress dissent […]
First up from the God machine this week is a story about a website about TV preacher [tag]Jerry Falwell[/tag] and a website that isn’t going anywhere, despite his best efforts. Evangelist Jerry Falwell on Monday lost a Supreme Court appeal of a case that sought to shut down a Web site with a similar name […]
Guest Post by Morbo Among the flurry of resignations from the White House this week, I would not want one to get lost in the shuffle and go unnoticed: James Towey is leaving — and it’s high time. Towey ran the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Under his watch, the “faith-based” approach, […]