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: * I plan to offer a more detailed report later, but the big campaign-related news of the day is a major national security speech from Barack Obama: “In a strikingly bold speech about […]
After a while, between the lies, dissembling, and stone-walling, the details can get a little confusing. Asked initially about warrantless domestic spying, Alberto Gonzales said there wasn’t any disagreement about the legality of Bush’s so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” at the Justice Department. We later learned there was all kinds of disagreement and Gonzales was lying. […]
I often think that if Jonah Goldberg didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. Last month, he wanted to eliminate public schools. This month, he wants to bring back Jim Crow-era poll tests. Well, he doesn’t jump to that conclusion right away, of course, he just works his way to it. In his latest LA […]
We know that throughout 2006, various U.S. Attorneys were considered for replacement, for reasons that appear to have almost nothing to do with merit. We also know that in several instances, prosecutors were considered for dismissal based on pure partisanship (either too willing to prosecute Republicans, or unwilling to file trumped up charges against Dems). […]
The Vice President seems to be on some kind of publicity tour, at least by Dick Cheney’s standards. On Monday, he chatted with CBS News for 14 minutes. Yesterday, he gave CNN’s Larry King a whole hour. I’m not sure what the point of the public-relations effort is, but the interviews offer us a reminder […]
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, […]