Last week, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and the Dem staff of the House Rules Committee released a pretty damning report, “America for Sale: The Cost of Republican Corruption.” Over 103 pages, Slaughter explored — in considerable detail — all the examples of GOP shenanigans we’ve come to love: the surge in the number of registered […]
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: * In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) got some good news and some bad news from the latest Rasmussen poll. The good news is he leads State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka (R) in […]
As part of my ongoing fascination with the oddly anti-Bush articles appearing in Insight magazine, an off-shoot of Sun Myung Moon’s far-right Washington Times, the latest issue suggests that we won’t have Dick Cheney to kick around much longer. Senior GOP sources envision the retirement of Mr. Cheney in 2007, months after the congressional elections. […]
In several conservative circles, support for the war in Iraq is practically a litmus test for sanity. To oppose the war — or worse, to call for the redeployment of U.S. troops — is a sin on par with treason. At least, that is, until recently. Over the last eight days, the number of high-profile […]
Yesterday, 18 House Dems released a letter to the president calling for an independent counsel to investigate whether the administration’s warrantless-search program is consistent with the law. As Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, put it, “If the effort to prevent vigorous and appropriate investigation succeeds, we fear […]
Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee met to discuss the administration’s Dubai Ports World deal, and several senators specifically inquired about whether any government agency raised concerns about the contract. Agencies, administration officials said, were unanimous in their support. “Is there not one agency in this government that believes this takeover could affect the […]
There hasn’t been much in the way of national polls since shortly before the Vice President’s shooting accident, and well before the dustup over the Dubai Ports World controversy. Did the incidents take their toll on the president’s support? You could say that. The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush’s approval rating has fallen […]
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dick Polman devoted his column today to my very favorite subject: Bush’s bubble. Polman asked if the president is “cut off from political reality.” The answer, apparently, is yes. Bubble talk mounted last September, after Katrina. Bush was widely tagged as out of touch when he said the breaching of the levees […]
Over the last couple of years, Congress has grown lax in its willingness to enforce its own rules, which in turn has led to an environment in which questionable conduct — some borderline illegal, others blatantly criminal — has become a little too common. According to an interesting article in Time magazine, many at the […]
Nearly three years after the beginning of the war in Iraq, most reasonable people seem to have come to an agreement about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: there aren’t any. Some of us may still feel a little bothered by the fact that the war was launched under false pretenses, while others are willing […]