As Kos and Josh Marshall noted today, this is truly insane. The Secret Service is investigating whether an anti-war bumper sticker that was found on the car of three people had something to do with whether they were removed from President George Bush’s town hall meeting in Aurora last week. The three people say they […]
It’s difficult not to sympathize with the pain Terri Schiavo’s parents are feeling; losing a child must cause anguish that I can’t even imagine. Having said that, this hardly seems like the appropriate way to deal with their sorrow. The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of […]
My new daily feature about campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * New York 1 reported yesterday that Gov. George Pataki (R) “has decided not to seek another term next year and will concentrate instead on a bid for the vice-presidential nomination […]
The kind of colorful imagery one can only find in a Dem from Texas. But some observers of Congress say ethics probes can suddenly flare out of control, as when former House Speakers Texas Democrat Jim Wright and Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich were forced from power. “If you’ve seen a chicken in the barnyard get […]
Right wingers are angry about the way the Schiavo case turned out in the courts. The unanimity of the rulings — among state and federal judges, elected and appointed, Dem and Republican, this month and spanning several years — doesn’t lead them to believe there’s a flaw in their legal reasoning, only that there’s something […]
Congressional Dems have decided that congressional ethics — or in the case of the Republican majority, the lack thereof — is an issue that warrants considerable attention, particularly in next year’s mid-term elections. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) strategy, still in development, aims to make ethical charges the touchstone of those campaigns and would […]
One of the more compelling areas in the debate over the future of Social Security is payroll taxes. It’s an area where even many congressional Republicans feel there’s room to move. To be sure, few, if any, lawmakers are open to moving the payroll tax beyond its 12.4% rate, but many are anxious to consider […]
Bush brought back Karen Hughes to Washington to boost America’s image in the Middle East, but when she’s done there, maybe she could turn her attention towards some p.r. with countries that are supposed to like us. (Thanks to Phil for the tip) Most Australians consider U.S. foreign policy to be as threatening as Islamic […]
When Senate Republicans first came up with the idea of barring judicial filibusters by a simple majority vote, they, not Dems, labeled it the “nuclear option.” As the Washington Times reported two years ago: Republicans could immediately break the current filibusters against two of President Bush’s judicial nominees with a rarely used parliamentary procedure that […]
Last month, the National Association of Manufacturers, led by president and CEO John Engler, a longtime Bush ally, announced that it was getting into the judicial nominee game. NAM, though not an obvious choice for a fight over would-be judges, announced a multimillion-dollar campaign on behalf of Republican efforts to stack the courts and, possibly, […]