OK, so now we’ve seen some of the National Intelligence Estimate involving the administration’s counter-terrorism efforts, and the results are hardly encouraging. But what about the other NIE, focused exclusively on Iraq? As Josh Marshall explained yesterday, there’s one NIE on terrorist threats in general, and another exclusively on Iraq. Any chance we’ll get a […]
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute launched a worthwhile project recently: it surveyed 14,000 students at 50 schools as part of the largest study ever done on college students’ understanding of American democracy and political institutions. They didn’t just pick any college, either; the ISI study picked 25 schools at random, and then oversampled among the most […]
The Bush gang? Blocking a scientific report they don’t like? You don’t say. The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among […]
Americans have a choice — they can believe the president, who said just yesterday that the war in Iraq is not contributing to the spread of terrorism, or they can believe the combined judgment of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, which collectively believe the polar opposite. In announcing yesterday that he would release the key […]
Yesterday’s quick hits seemed to be pretty well received, so here’s another edition. These are items that definitely deserve attention, but which I just didn’t get to today. * I’d strongly encourage readers to make time to watch Keith Olbermann’s oration from last night’s “Countdown.” (C&L also has the clip.) Powerful, poignant, and the kind […]
The Note suggested this morning that Bill Clinton’s appearance/smackdown on Fox News may have been “a paradigm-shifting moment” for Democrats. It struck me as wildly hyperbolic — will the interview still dominate the political discourse a month from now? — but I think it’s fair to say Clinton’s hard-hitting responses have certainly gotten the right’s […]
About a year ago, I heard some buzz that Rep. [tag]Tim Ryan[/tag] (D) was receiving encouragement to run for the Senate in Ohio against Mike DeWine (R) this year. It struck me as a little odd — not only does Ohio have other, higher-profile Dems, but Ryan is also a rookie, having only been elected […]
Just yesterday, the White House heard the bipartisan calls for declassifying the National Intelligence Estimate, and had a firm response: no. White House officials said Monday that making the information public would only help terrorists gain a better understanding of how much the United States knows of their operations. “What we don’t want to do […]
I guess a filibuster is out of the question. [N]ow that the Republicans have worked out a deal on detainees, Democrats are not planning any organized effort to filibuster the deal in the Senate, even though they may not agree with some of the specifics in the legislation. With just a few days left before […]
To briefly follow up on yesterday’s item, the Democratic Policy Committee’s “hearing” on Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld’s stewardship of the Pentagon seemed to go quite well. Attendance was strong, lawmakers from both parties attended, and military experts offered a variety of compelling perspectives about the war and its management. The press largely blew it off, […]