Today’s edition of quick hits. * Congressional Dems will meet tonight to discuss exactly what their latest Iraq war spending bill is going to include (or not include). * If the AP is right — and rumors about Dem plans often aren’t — the bill is going to be pretty ugly. “In grudging concessions to […]
I know I noted this over the weekend over at TPM, but a) a lot of folks don’t read on weekends; b) I think it’s an important point; and c) TPM doesn’t have comments and I like to give you guys a chance to weigh in. The AP had an interesting item Saturday, highlighting Attorney […]
When it came to pushing a “voter fraud” scandal that didn’t exist, the administration worked diligently to politicize federal law enforcement. But it wasn’t entirely alone — outside the government, the Bush gang also received support from the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), which was established, ostensibly to root out election fraud. At least […]
On Friday, during a back-room discussion on the new immigration-reform package, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) started shouting at Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who dared to disagree with him on the legislation. Apparently, McCain accused Cornyn of raising petty objections, and Cornyn accused McCain of having dropped in without taking part in the negotiations. “F**k you! […]
By any reasonable measure, the walls are collapsing around Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He’s been exposed as an incompetent liar, turning his job as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer into little more than a cog in Karl Rove’s political machine. In the Senate, 10 members of the president’s own party agree that it’s time for […]
That former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) is moving forward with a presidential bid is hardly open to question anymore. Today, he hired a campaign manager (a former top aide to H.W. Bush), which is usually a reliable precursor to an announcement. With this in mind, we can now expect the onslaught of little-red-truck stories. A […]
I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, but given the excerpts I’ve seen, the former Vice President laments the breakdown of public discourse, and holds the traditional national media largely responsible for the problems. At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. […]
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: * As much as I’m disinterested in national polls for 2008, I nevertheless think polls from the early primary states are fairly significant, because voters in the first handful of states will help […]
This didn’t get much attention over the weekend, which is a shame because it’s a pretty important story. A military jury recommended Friday that a Navy lawyer be discharged and imprisoned for six months for sending a human rights attorney the names of 550 Guantanamo Bay detainees. Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz was convicted Thursday of […]
In early 2006, when the scandal over the administration’s warrantless-search program was front-page news, one of the central questions of the debate was whether the president had violated FISA. During a press conference, a reporter asked Bush why he decided to “circumvent” the law. “[T]he FISA law was written in 1978,” the president said. “We’re […]