John McCain’s appearance at Bush’s Social Security pep rally yesterday in New Mexico generated plenty of attention, but there was a tidbit that shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. Unlike most other presidential appearances, the event inside the darkly lit Kiva Auditorium was sparsely attended, with hundreds of empty seats. (emphasis added) That’s how bad […]
A few blogs noted yesterday that the IRS has launched an investigation of a Miami church for illegally helping John Kerry’s campaign last year. I think this is significant, but for a different reason than most. The IRS has notified a Liberty City church that it is under investigation for possibly engaging in political activity […]
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: * In a major surprise, Rep. James Langevin (R.I.) announced he will not run against Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R) next year. Langevin’s campaign was not only a foregone conclusion among most […]
The Hill reported a couple of weeks ago that Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum was “shifting more to the left” in advance on next year’s tough re-election fight in Pennsylvania. It was, to be sure, one of the least believable claims I’ve ever heard. To back it up, The Hill noted that Santorum proposed a […]
Literally just a week ago, Senate Republicans told reporters they had finally assembled enough to votes to end Dem filibusters and approve the “nuclear option.” It came as something of a surprise since the leadership had appeared to be short a couple of votes, but Bill Frist insisted he had the “momentum” and was ready […]
Considering that we’re dealing with a group of people who’ll exploit a woman in a vegetative state for partisan political gain, it’s hard to get surprised anymore by Republicans’ manipulative tactics. Having said that, even I was a taken aback by the Bushes’ politicization of hurricane aid in Florida. As the second hurricane in less […]
The Washington Post’s Jay Matthews offered a provocative new approach to the debate over the role of intelligent-design creationism in public school science classes. In a nutshell, Matthews thinks lessons on IDC would make science classes a little more interesting. I am as devout a Darwinist as anybody. I read all the essays on evolution […]
As Ed Kilgore first reported yesterday afternoon, Georgia Republicans, as expected, passed a measure to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries as part of the GOP’s latest re-redistricting stunt. Georgia state legislators completed action on a mid-decade redistricting effort Tuesday, sending their proposed Congressional boundaries to Gov. Sonny Perdue (R). The state House passed the remapping […]
(Editor’s Note: The Carpetbagger Report, as I’ve mentioned in recent weeks, joined the Coalition for Darfur, a bi-partisan online initiative created to raise awareness and resources to address the crisis. This is the third in a series of posts from the Coalition.) Last week, the United Nations was forced to withdraw its staff from parts […]
In theory, the idea sounded pretty good. As part of its drive to privatize Social Security, the Bush White House decided it would circumvent the national media and start engaging local and regional media. National reporters, apparently, stopped seeing anything newsworthy about the president answering scripted questions from pre-screened sycophants, so local news outlets offered […]