Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Wall Street was not for the faint of heart today: “Stocks trimmed losses, but still ended lower for the second session in a row as investors mulled news that the Federal Reserve has pumped $38 billion into the banking system amid ongoing worries about tightening credit and the subprime mortgage market fallout.”
* Facing the heat, Giuliani is backpedaling: “I think I could have said it better,” he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. “You know, what I was saying was, ‘I’m there with you.’ … There were people there less than me, people on my staff, who already have had serious health consequences, and they weren’t there as often as I was, but I wasn’t trying to suggest a competition of any kind, which is the way it come across.”
* Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf raised some eyebrows this week when, to Bush’s embarrassment, he said he would not attend a joint Afghan-Pakistan tribal conference aimed at cracking down on jihadists. Today, he reversed course and agreed “in principle” to participate.
* Following up on reports from the blogs yesterday, ABC News reports, “For the second time in as many weeks, a senior House Republican may have divulged classified information in the media.” Let this be a lesson to all of us: the GOP is not to be trusted with state secrets.
* Capt. Maria I. Ortiz was buried yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday, a month after she was killed in a mortar attack Baghdad’s Green Zone. Ortiz, from Puerto Rico, is the first nurse killed in combat since the Vietnam War.
* TP: “Yesterday, lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge in San Francisco to invalidate the recently-passed FISA law that lets the Bush administration conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants. ‘We are asking your honor, as swiftly as possible, to declare this statute unconstitutional,’ said Michael Avery, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights…. ‘Neither Congress nor the president has the power to repeal the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements,’ Avery said.”
* The RNC’s direct-mail fundraising program has to be the sleaziest, most corrupted fundraising operation in professional politics.
* Dick Cheney still wants to attack Iran.
* A new CNN poll shows that Americans believe a) we are not winning in Iraq; b) we are capable of winning in Iraq; and c) we will not win in Iraq. Sounds about right.
* If taxes on cigarettes go up, people smoke less. Good to know.
* Even after Missouri voters passed a statewide constitutional amendment on embryonic stem cell research, the anti-cure community is still standing in the way of life-saving medical research. “State lawmakers who opposed the constitutional amendment continue to fight it, introducing new bills that would bar some types of the research and suggesting that a ballot initiative to that end may lie ahead.”
* Bill O’Reilly blasted bloggers last night, describing us as “blackmailers.” I have no idea what this means.
* NYT: “Lyrics sung by Pearl Jam criticizing President Bush during a concert last weekend in Chicago should not have been censored during a Webcast by AT&T, a company spokesman said Thursday…. The AT&T spokesman, Michael Coe, said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the Webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings.”
* The WaPo’s E. J. Dionne Jr. had a terrific piece today explaining the Dems’ motivation for caving on FISA last week: “Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action before the summer recess….One anxiety hovered over the debate: If a terrorist attack happened and Congress had not given Bush what he wanted, the Democrats would get blamed for a lack of vigilance.” Kevin’s analysis was also spot-on: “If you pass the bill, the results are ambiguous. Sure, a lot of people will be angry, but they’ll probably get over it eventually (or so the thinking goes). But if you stall the bill and a terrorist strikes, you are firmly and completely screwed. Goodbye political career. So which choice do you think a risk-averse politicians is likely to make?”
* And finally, MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson hosted a discussion last night on his talk show, addressing the question of whether Barack Obama is “black enough.” Carlson added, “What is the measure of blackness and who gets to decide?” The discussion was limited to three pundits, all of whom are white.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.
