A couple of weeks ago, I noted that a new campaign theme was emerging, pushed initially by John Edwards: Bush is actually raising your taxes. The idea is that Bush cuts taxes dramatically at the federal level, but services are left largely in tact at the state and local level. Naturally, municipalities have to raise […]
With all the news about Bush’s failing policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s easy to overlook the fact there’s a madman with nuclear weapons in North Korea. The White House, for example, seems to have forgotten about Kim Jung Il altogether. Former Defense Secretary William Perry was unusually blunt with the Washington Post yesterday, telling […]
Well, we knew this was coming. Jerry Springer officially filed papers yesterday to run for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. This is not, as far as I’m concerned, good news. The former Cincinnati mayor will face State Sen. Eric Fingerhut in the Democratic primary. The winner of that race will lose, I mean, take on […]
I’ve got good news and bad news when it comes to our federal budget deficit. The good news is the Bush administration’s forecast from earlier this year for a record-high deficit has been revised and it turns out they were wrong. The bad news is the deficit is much worse than predicted five months ago. […]
With one of the worst employment markets in decades, it’s no surprise that many teenagers looking for summer jobs aren’t find a lot of “help wanted” signs at the mall. While this may not seem like a big deal, an interesting article in the New York Times today — brought to my attention by Carpetbagger […]
There’s been a flurry of polls released in the last several days on Bush’s approval ratings, but none of them are good news for the White House. A Washington Post/ABC News poll was released over the weekend that showed several interesting trends. Bush’s approval rating was down to 59%, and while that’s still relatively high, […]
For all you Wesley Clark fans out there — you know who you are — New Republic writer Franklin Foer had an interesting item in the Washington Post over the weekend on the former general. Foer notes that the public, for reasons that escape me, continues to trust Republicans on national security and defense issues […]
As you surely know, CIA Director George Tenet accepted blame late-Friday for the Niger-gate scandal, saying that the CIA approved false claims made in Bush’s State of the Union and should have had the “misstatements” removed. Though the White House is desperately hoping that Tenet’s carefully-worded statement will end the controversy, I don’t believe it […]
Just a quick note to explain recent improvements to The Carpetbagger Report (not to the content, to the appearance). Carpetbagger’s lovely wife, let’s call her Evening, has once again worked her magic and made significant changes to help make this site better. If you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember Evening adding several […]
I thought I’d wrap up the week with one final example of the Bush White House’s deception about Niger-gate. The final word goes to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. On June 8th, Rice told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that she — and other high-ranking administration officials — did not know that the Niger […]