Today’s edition of quick hits. * NYT: “Rupert Murdoch appeared today to have gained enough support from the deeply divided Bancroft family to buy Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. With verbal agreement this afternoon from a group of family trusts based in Denver that had been holding […]
Congressional Republicans picked a bad time for a new series of corruption scandals. This happens to be the week in which both chambers are considering major new ethics reform measures. The good news is, the House passed its measure today by a wide margin. The House has passed the final House-Senate agreement on the Honest […]
There were quite a few offensive Supreme Court rulings this year, but one of the more surprising decisions was in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, in which the court ruled 5 to 4 (natch) that workers who face wage discrimination only have 180 days to challenge the initial discrimination in court. Slate’s Richard Thompson Ford explained the […]
Following up on Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) bribery scandal for a moment, Michael Crowley had a good item connecting the story to Karl Rove’s recent advice for Republican congressional candidates. As Bush’s svengali told them, ’08 can still be a great year for the GOP, because the Culture of Corruption will be long gone. Karl […]
Politically-engaged people often forget just how little everyone else knows about politics. Many of us take it for granted that the typical person who’s vaguely aware of current events at least knows some details, for example, about the upcoming presidential race, who the candidates are, what side they’re on, etc. But we’re reminded, on occasion, […]
It hasn’t dominated the Republican primaries thus far, but the majority of the GOP presidential candidates support scrapping the existing U.S. tax structure, replacing it with a consumption tax (which proponents call the “fair tax”). As part of the plan, all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, […]
The WaPo’s Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza sat down with House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) yesterday, who told them that a positive progress report on Iraq from Gen. David Petraeus would likely split House Dems and undermine the party’s efforts to press for a withdrawal timetable. Clyburn … said Democrats might be wise to […]
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: * Bill Clinton said yesterday he didn’t want to wade into the Hillary-Obama “spat” from last week, but he shared a few thoughts anyway. “We have to get back to more diplomacy,” Clinton […]
I hesitate to mention this because there’s no way on earth that any presidential candidate would consider Bill Clinton as a running mate. It’s a fanciful idea that’s never going to happen. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun mulling it over. The subject came up yesterday in comments, and coincidentally, was […]
Roll Call noted today that Senate Republicans are poised to hold a special, behind-closed-doors retreat this week, in which the GOP caucus will focus their attention on “rebranding” themselves. It’s a tall order, especially given that old Culture of Corruption brand is still going strong. Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided […]