Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Market watching has slipped from the front page lately, but the key indicators continue to look very discouraging: “Stocks slumped for a second straight session Tuesday after an unexpected contraction in the service sector rekindled investors’ worry that the economy is headed for recession. The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 300 points, while bond prices surged. The Institute for Supply Management’s January report on the service sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy, came in well short of Wall Street’s forecast. The index dropped to 44.6 last month, its lowest level since 2001, from a revised reading of 54.4 in December. The reading below 50 — which indicates contraction — was the first in the service sector in more than four and a half years. Economists had been expecting another month of growth.”
* So far, a few hiccups, but no voting disasters: “Scattered voting problems, including machine glitches and long lines, were reported early in some states in the biggest Super Tuesday ever held in America. But overall, voting appeared to go smoothly. A record turnout was expected as an unprecedented 24 states held primaries and caucuses to narrow the field for the Democratic and Republican nominees for president.”
* Remember all of the countless times the Bush White House has said, “We don’t torture”? Well, guess what: ” I guess they figure the cat’s out of the bag. Last month, former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, trying to accent the positive, confirmed that the U.S. had used waterboarding, but said they hadn’t done it ‘in years.’ Today, CIA Director Michael Hayden got more specific in a public Congressional hearing.” Hayden pointed to three specific examples of waterboarding.
* In related news, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate Intelligence Committee today that waterboarding “is a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances. You have to know the circumstances to be able to make the judgment.” McConnell added that when he’d said previously that waterboarding constituted “torture,” he meant that he didn’t like the idea of having “water up my nose.”
* Mitt Romney lost in West Virginia today after John McCain’s campaign urged supporters to shift to Mike Huckabee. The Romney campaign is apparently livid: “Governor Romney had enough respect for the Republican voters of West Virginia to make an appeal to them about the future of the party based on issues. This is why he led on today’s first ballot. Sadly, Senator McCain cut a Washington backroom deal in a way that once again underscores his legacy of working against Republicans who are interested in championing conservative policies and rebuilding the party.”
* It’s not saying much, but Mukasey is a slight improvement on Alberto Gonzales: “Five years after a gay advocacy group was told that it could no longer use the e-mail, bulletin boards and meeting rooms at the Justice Department, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has reversed that decision and issued a revised equal-employment-opportunity policy barring discrimination against any group.”
* This is just so painful: “Abdul Razzaq Hekmati was regarded here as a war hero, famous for his resistance to the Russian occupation in the 1980s and later for a daring prison break he organized for three opponents of the Taliban government in 1999. But in 2003, Mr. Hekmati was arrested by American forces in southern Afghanistan when, senior Afghan officials here contend, he was falsely accused by his enemies of being a Taliban commander himself. For the next five years he was held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he died of cancer on Dec. 30.” Hilzoy explained very well, “There’s a better way of dealing with this sort of thing than letting people rot in jail until they die of cancer. It’s called a ‘trial.'”
* Why doesn’t the president care about national security? “President Bush issued a veto threat Tuesday in the debate to update terrorist surveillance laws, rebuking Democratic plans to deny retroactive legal protections for telecommunications providers that let the government spy on U.S. residents after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
* A sharp rebuke: “The Bush administration overreached when it sought to limit the Navy’s obligations under national environmental laws related to sonar training exercises off California, a federal judge ruled yesterday. In a sharply worded decision that will keep the Navy from continuing a series of 14 planned exercises, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote that the Navy and the administration had improperly declared that an emergency would be created if they had to accept court-mandated steps to minimize risk to whales and other sea mammals. Because no real emergency exists, she said, the White House cannot override her decisions and those of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.”
* Just once, I’d love to hear a conservative Republican like Mary Matalin explain what an “all-American family” looks like.
* Rush Limbaugh said today of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, “They are not going to surrender the country to Islamic radicalism or the war in Iraq.” The guy really doesn’t like John McCain.
* Have I mentioned lately how much I love the reports from the campaign trail from Sam Seder (of Air America fame) from 236.com? Yesterday, Sam reported on John McCain and “The Not So Straight Talk Express.” Today, Sam had another gem on Mitt Romney and his love of “change.” Great stuff.
Ordinarily, this would be the time that I label this an end-of-the-day open thread, but the truth is, I’ll be back later with some Super Tuesday content. So, consider this a temporary open thread and I’ll talk to you again in a couple of hours.