Disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been making noises for a year about creating his own MoveOn.org-for-the-right activist group, which presumably would offer him a vehicle for, well, whatever it is DeLay does. Yesterday, he made it official. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has formed a new grass-roots organization that he says […]
Just yesterday, word leaked that Senate Democrats, unwilling to see what kind of mischief the president might consider during the congressional recess, might keep the chamber open with a series of pro forma sessions. In other words, there wouldn’t actually be a recess — lawmakers would go home, but Bush would be denied the opportunity […]
The very last question in last night’s debate for Democratic presidential candidates was probably the dumbest of the year. MALVEAUX: Maria, would you stand, please? Give us your full name. Q: Maria — (inaudible) — and I’m a UNLV student. And my question is for Senator Clinton. This is a fun question for you. Do […]
Just two days after the House passed a $50 billion war-funding package for Bush’s Iraq policy, Senate Dems were poised to bring a similar measure to the floor this morning. Of course, Republicans prefer an accountability-free blank-check for the president, and the Dems’ spending bills set a goal of troop withdrawal by the end of […]
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: * The Republican push-polling season has begun: “Here’s today’s key story out of the New Hampshire local press: The Union Leader reports that New Hampshirites have been getting push-poll calls … targeted against […]
At a black-tie shindig in DC, the Federalist Society, a powerful legal group that has become an influential conservative outlet for legal thinking, celebrated its 25th anniversary. Former solicitor general Ted Olson was the master of ceremonies, and quickly poked fun at liberals’ notion of a shadowy right-wing organization. He welcomed the large audience to […]
After several weeks of wrangling, debating, and positioning, the looming congressional showdown over retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with Bush’s warrantless-surveillance scheme is coming to a head. Reflecting the deep divisions within Congress over granting legal immunity to telephone companies for cooperating with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, the Senate […]
When New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) proposed that undocumented immigrants be eligible for driver’s licenses as a public-safety issue, New Yorkers were less than impressed with the idea. The issue went from a state to a national issue a couple of weeks ago when Hillary Clinton said she thought the Spitzer plan was a […]
At 8pm last night, the debate in Las Vegas was supposed to begin, but CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was the only person on the stage. Apparently, this was intentional — CNN wanted to show the audience “what a photo op looks like.” Blitzer, after introducing the candidates one at a time, told the audience, “We thought, […]
A couple of weeks ago, after a Democratic debate in Philadelphia, the media hype was unmistakable: Hillary Clinton had “stumbled.” She was “off her game.” She “waffled,” got “tripped up,” and “lost her momentum.” By any reasonable measure, all of this was wildly overstated — it might have been Clinton’s least impressive debate performance, but […]