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: * Embattled Rep. [tag]Bob Ney[/tag] (R-Ohio), up to his ears in the Abramoff scandal and facing a likely indictment, announced this morning that he will not run for re-election. Ney has asked state […]
We learned in May that the National Security Agency may be managing the “largest database ever assembled in the world,” used to register billions of domestic phone calls. Since then, there’s been considerable debate about whether to pull the plug on the database. As it turns out, pulling the plug may become a practical necessity. […]
As difficult as it may seem to believe, the Bush White House has long believed that its agenda would help create a powerful GOP block of young voters. According to the plan, 18-to-29-year-old voters would respond to the president’s vision of an “ownership society,” especially the privatization of Social Security. It was always a rather […]
To update an item from late last week, [tag]Democrats[/tag] on the House Judiciary Committee issued a sweeping indictment Friday of the Bush White House’s casual approach to law-breaking in a [tag]report[/tag] called, “The [tag]Constitution in Crisis[/tag].” Carpetbagger regular Hark emailed me with a question about the media’s reaction to the report so far. Needless to […]
Brent Wilkes, “Co-conspirator #1” in the Duke Cunningham scandal, has been pretty quiet lately, but he opened up to the New York Times, which ran a must-read story yesterday. Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign […]
After 9/11 intelligence failures, pre-war intelligence failures on Iraq, and revelations about intelligence officials conducting legally-dubious spying on Americans, Congress was going to be more diligent in its oversight. At least that was the plan. In reality, lawmakers are not only failing to be more rigorous, they’re not even reading intelligence bills before voting on […]
So, just how big a deal is Tuesday’s Senate primary in Connecticut? The Washington Post’s Dan [tag]Balz[/tag] has a very good piece today that argues, persuasively, that the outcome “could be a party watershed.” The passion and energy fueling the antiwar challenge to Sen. Joseph I. [tag]Lieberman[/tag] in Connecticut’s Senate primary signal a power shift […]
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow held a quick gaggle with reporters in Crawford yesterday, when an interesting subject came up. Q: Tony, earlier this year the President brought in some advisors to talk about the war in Iraq, some outsiders — outside experts. Is he doing anything similar, or are any senior officials doing […]
Raise your hand if you find this surprising. Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American […]
A remarkably dumb YouTube video is working its way through conservative circles, spoofing Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and global warming. It’s pretty weak — the video’s basic pitch is that Gore’s movie is boring and is intended to brainwash viewers. The Wall Street Journal noted that the video “has a home-made, humorous quality,” though […]