Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Almost immediately after Bush asked for more Iraq money from Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the White House not to expect lawmakers to “rubber-stamp” the latest request. “In the coming weeks, we will hold it up to the light of day and fight for the change of strategy and redeployment of troops that is long overdue,” Reid said. Reid also compared this funding request to the recent S-CHIP veto. “It’s no wonder the American people are frustrated,” Reid said. “We’ve been fighting for America’s priorities, while the president continues investing only in his failed war strategy. He wants us to come up with another $200 billion and just sign off on it — that’s what he said today.”
* Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) today became the first senator to announce that he will not support Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. “We need an attorney general who does not believe the president has unlimited power,” Sanders said. “We need an attorney general who understands that torture is not what this country is about, and we need an attorney general who clearly understands the separation of powers inherent in our Constitution. Unfortunately, it is clear that Mr. Mukasey is not that person.”
* OBL is apparently popping off again: “Osama bin Laden called on insurgent groups in Iraq to unify their ranks in an audio recording aired by Al Jazeera television on Monday. ‘Some of you have been lax in one duty, which is to unite your ranks,’ bin Laden purportedly said in the audiotape. ‘Beware of division…. The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner.'” He sounds a little desperate.
* Henry Waxman is still all over Blackwater, arguing today that the private security company “may have engaged in significant tax evasion.” At issue is the company’s decision to treat an armed guard as an “independent contractor,” thus neglecting to pay payroll taxes for which it is legally responsible. Waxman charges that “it now appears that Blackwater used this illegal scheme to avoid millions of dollars in taxes and then prevented the security guard who discovered the tax evasion from contacting members of Congress or law enforcement officials.”
* Speaking of Blackwater, the company is apparently aware of its public-relations problems, and has decided to make a move — by changing its logo. Instead of “a bear’s paw print in a red crosshairs, under lettering that looks to have been ripped from a fifth of Jim Beam,” Blackwater “has undergone a publicity-conscious, corporate scrubbing.” (Note to Blackwater: I don’t think a new logo is going to help you keep your Iraq contract.)
* And speaking of logos, the CIA’s new “Terrorist Buster” icon looks awfully similar to the “Ghostbusters” logo from 20 years ago.
* The WaPo had a good item today on the dangerous precedent set by the telecom immunity deal working its way through Congress. “Legal experts say the granting of such retroactive immunity by Congress is unusual, particularly in a case involving private companies…. ‘It’s particularly unusual in the case of the telecoms because you don’t really know what you’re immunizing,’ said Louis Fisher, a specialist in constitutional law with the Law Library of the Library of Congress. ‘You don’t know what you’re cleaning up.'”
* Media Matters took a closer look at the AP’s coverage of the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” comments. MM wasn’t impressed.
* Freedom Watch vs. Freedom’s Watch: “Halloween could turn out to be scarier than usual for some in Bushworld. Larry Klayman, the government watchdog who haunted the Clinton administration, has a little trick-or-treat planned for this one, too. Klayman has sued supporters of President Bush for using Freedom’s Watch as the name of a new advocacy group running commercials on behalf of the Iraq war. Klayman registered the name Freedom Watch with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2004, and he claims the Bush backers ripped him off.” Klayman has a trial date and is set to start depositions on Halloween.
* Good NYT editorial today on immigration policy: “The new demagogues are united in their zeal to uproot the illegal population. They do not discriminate between criminals and the much larger group of ambitious strivers. They champion misguided policies, like a mythically airtight border fence and a reckless campaign of home invasions. And they summon the worst of America’s past by treating a hidden group of vulnerable people as an enemy to be hated and vanquished, not as part of a problem to be managed.”
* How bad was last week on the Hill? Brian Beutler makes the case that it was really bad, with Dems making a few too many mistakes.
* And finally, some clever folks at People for the American Way have come up with an ingenious little Facebook parody. It’s called “Right Wing Facebook.” Nicely done.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.