Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Some welcome relief for our friends in Southern California: “Cool, damp weather moved into Southern California from the Pacific Ocean on Friday boosting efforts to beat down stubborn wildfires, while weary families returned to find many homes unscathed but hundreds of others burned to rubble. After six days of relentless blazes from Los Angeles to the Mexican border, most of the raging fires had either been doused or brought under relative control as the emergency turned to the long business of recovery.”
* Late yesterday afternoon, the House held its latest vote on S-CHIP, with revisions intended to draw increased Republican support. The bill passed 265 to 142, less than the two-thirds needed to override a veto, and with one fewer Republican votes than the last vote.
* No matter what Congress does next on S-CHIP, Bush vowed today to stick to his veto.
* Remember when White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers blew off a House Judiciary Committee subpoena relating to the U.S. Attorney firings? The committee passed resolutions in July authorizing contempt citations, and apparently, there’s renewed interest in actually following up on the matter.
* The suspected nuclear site in Syria, bombed last month during an Israeli airstrike, has been cleaned up incredibly quickly by Syrian officials. The building has, in fact, “been dismantled down to the last brick.” One expert noted, “They are clearly trying to hide the evidence.”
* At least Larry Craig’s defenses are getting more creative: “Craig is now taking yet another path in his quest to legally absolve himself: He is legally arguing that the law under which he was arrested and subsequently pled guilty to disorderly conduct in a men’s room is in fact unconstitutional. This puts Craig with an odd ally for a conservative Republican: The ACLU, who argued in an amicus brief that foot-tapping and hand gestures alone, absent a real sexual act, were protected by the First Amendment.”
* Good news out of Georgia: “The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, the Douglas County man who has been serving a controversial 10-year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. The court’s 4-3 decision upholds a Monroe County judge’s ruling that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment under both the Georgia and U.S. constitutions.”
* NYT: “James D. Watson, the eminent biologist who ignited an uproar last week with remarks about the intelligence of people of African descent, retired yesterday as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, and from its board…. Dr. Watson, who has long had a reputation for challenging scientific orthodoxy and for sometimes incendiary off-the-cuff remarks, became a center of controversy last week after he was quoted in The Times of London as suggesting that, over all, people of African descent are not as intelligent as people of European descent.”
* WaPo: “A U.S. military strike against Iran would have dire consequences in petroleum markets, say a variety of oil industry experts, many of whom think the prospect of pandemonium in those markets makes U.S. military action unlikely despite escalating economic sanctions imposed by the Bush administration. The small amount of excess oil production capacity worldwide would provide an insufficient cushion if armed conflict disrupted supplies, oil experts say, and petroleum prices would skyrocket. Moreover, a wounded or angry Iran could easily retaliate against oil facilities from southern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz.”
* As some kind of counter-terrorism precaution, Pennsylvania will not publish a list of state polling places. How very odd.
* House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) seems to have successfully shaken up Capitol Hill with “the mother of all [tax] reforms.”
* Last week, Henry Waxman charged Blackwater with possibly illegally dodging payroll taxes. Today, Sens. Obama, Durbin, and Kerry followed up, seeking a federal investigation.
* Culture of corruption watch, Part I: “A federal grand jury investigating California GOP Rep. John Doolittle’s ties to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff has subpoenaed the House official responsible for maintaining lawmakers’ old e-mails and other records.”
* Culture of corruption watch, Part II: How rough are things for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)? His lawyer told a reporter, “By the time somebody comes to me, they are pretty far up the creek. The good thing is they will pay almost anything.” Ouch.
* Bill O’Reilly, apparently in all seriousness, told his Fox News audience that he has a problem with “tolerance” for gays, and is bothered by the notion of “parity for homosexuals with heterosexuals.” No, I don’t know what he’s talking about, either.
* I’ll concede that I stopped following the Scott Thomas Beauchamp “controversy” quite a while ago. I was waiting for the right to get the proverbial smoking gun, proving that Beauchamp’s articles were wrong, but the evidence never quite came together. Today, TNR offered its latest update about the story, and it’s pretty persuasive.
* And finally, I didn’t realize it, but apparently there’s a burgeoning cottage industry devoted to clocks that count the remaining days, hours, minutes, and seconds left in Bush’s presidency. In fact, McClatchy described this as part of a “booming anti-Bush paraphernalia industry that seems to grow as Bush’s time in office shrinks.” Said one entrepreneur who has sold nearly 40,000 countdown clocks, “Personally, I’ll be ecstatic not having Bush in the White House, but our business will fall off a bit. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.” For the record, there are 451 days left.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.