Today’s edition of quick hits.
* It’s been weeks since a Republican member of Congress became the subject of a criminal inquiry, so it came as a bit of surprise to learn Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) is now under investigation for using his legislative staff to perform campaign work on government time. At last count, he’s the 19th member of the 109th Congress to face a federal investigation.
* Keith Olbermann wants a big raise — from about a million dollars a year to about four times that much — to reward him for helping MSNBC gain in the ratings, particularly with the key 25-54 demo. Rumor has it that CNN may try and pick up Olbermann is contract negotiations fail.
* Air America doesn’t seem to have been managed particularly well. It’s a shame; AAR’s on-air talent is pretty amazing.
* The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit may go from being extremely conservative to slightly-less conservative. The right is genuinely worried.
* Southern Methodist University has some faculty, administrators, and staff who are none too pleased that Bush plans to have his presidential library on campus. (Can you blame them?)
* There’s a difference between “women used in prostitution” and “women who are sex workers”? Apparently the State Department thinks so. I’m not sure why.
* Even on foreign policy and national security, everybody always thinks that things were simpler in the past.
* Iran is obviously not a democracy, but I was delighted nevertheless to see Ahmadinejad supporters lose some key local councils today.
* Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, generally considered one of the more progressive voices on the Court, twice voted to uphold laws banning flag burning, even when though the court majority, in both instances, held that the practice is constitutionally protected speech. Though the issue is unlikely to go back the high court anytime soon, Stevens seems to have changed his mind. “Ironically, those decisions seem to have solved the problem because no one burns flags anymore,” Stevens said in a speech to the Chicago Bar Association in September, recently aired on C-SPAN. He added, “If one were to burn a flag today, the act would convey a message of freedom that ours is a society that is strong enough to tolerate such acts by those whom we despise.”
* Former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, who helped manage the House Republicans’ impeachment case against Bill Clinton in 1999, has left the Republican Party and became a Libertarian. He cited his disillusionment with the GOP on issues such as spending and privacy. “It’s something that’s been bothering me for quite some time, the direction in which the party has been going more and more toward big government and disregard toward privacy and civil liberties,” Barr said.
* Tucker Carlson has given up on bow ties.
* In South Florida, Broward County School District officials want high school freshman to choose a major?
* When a war memorial on a beach in Santa Barbara, Calif., becomes too big, and no longer has room for additional crosses in a symbolic cemetery in the sand, it’s a reminder of a much bigger tragedy.
* And, finally, Tom DeLay still believes re-redistricting was worth the trouble, even after the GOP defeats and his own indictment, because it “made a political has-been out of Martin Frost.” Frost responded, “I look forward to the day when Tom DeLay gets to spend some time as a guest of the government…. There’s a very fine federal facility in southeast Fort Worth.”
If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.