Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Bloodshed in Burma: “At least nine people, including a Japanese national, were killed Thursday when Myanmar soldiers fired on protesters…. Tens of thousands defied the ruling military junta’s crackdown by demonstrating for a 10th straight day in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Security forces raided several monasteries overnight, beating monks and arresting more than 100, according to a monk at one monastery.”
* U.S. officials and their allies are keeping the pressure on: “The Bush administration imposed economic sanctions against more than a dozen senior officials of Myanmar on Thursday, condemning the military-run government’s crackdown on protesters. President Bush also urged China to use its influence in the region to find a peaceful end to the standoff. ‘The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals,’ Bush said… ‘Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand up for people suffering under a brutal military regime like the one that has ruled Burma for too long.'”
* Bloodshed in Baghdad: “Car bombs and other attacks killed at least 56 people in Iraq on Wednesday and wounded another 103 in a day of mayhem that heralds an annual surge in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The bloodiest attack was a double car bombing on a crowded Baghdad shopping street that killed at least 32 and left more than 50 people wounded. It was the worst Baghdad attack since July.”
* AP: “Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, ‘now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.'”
* The Senate advanced the State Children’s Health Insurance Program today, ignoring Bush’s veto threat, with a 69 to 30 vote. The strong bipartisan majority, including 18 Republicans, is enough to override the president’s opposition to healthcare for children.
* On a related note, David Broder has a good column on the S-CHIP fight, noting that congressional Republicans are foolish to follow Bush off this cliff — they have to run for re-election, and he doesn’t. (I’d like to congratulate Mr. Broder for going the entire column resisting the temptation to manufacture some reason to criticize Dems, too.)
* The Pentagon wants an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total annual request to $190 billion. For all the talk about “progress,” this is the “largest single-year total for the wars so far.”
* On a related note, what’s the war costing your state? The Center for American Progress has a cool interactive map.
* Several White House officials and their allies have compared the war in Iraq to the U.S. Revolutionary War. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did the same thing yesterday, except in his comparison, we’re the British and the Iraqis are the colonial Americans.
* Now that the media has begun to pick up on Bill O’Reilly’s comments about civility in a Harlem restaurant, the Fox News blowhard is really starting to freak out.
* When Chris Matthews asks a dumb question, he makes sure it’s a doozy. After last night’s Democratic debate, he asked Chris Dodd, “Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?” Dodd, of course, responded, “[N]ot at all.” (That’s the right answer, but I’d be tempted to endorse Dodd on the spot if he responded, “Chris, are you insane?”)
* If the NYT mistakenly charges MoveOn.org for a newspaper ad, the Republicans want congressional investigations and hearings. But what about when the Minneapolis Star-Tribune undercharges Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) for a full-page ad about the MoveOn ad? Is the GOP prepared to accuse the Star-Trib of criminal behavior, too?
* Remember all of those silly town hall-style meetings in 2005 in which Bush would talk about how great it would be to privatize Social Security? The unsuccessful campaign cost taxpayers more than $2.8 million. I guess it’s too late to ask for a refund.
* Get ready for another round of vote-caging scandals in Ohio and Florida.
* Maybe Dems should have sent Bill Clinton onto TV to talk about the “Betray Us” ad sooner. He’s ridiculously good.
* And finally, Katie Couric admitted this week that she felt “corporate pressure” when she was at NBC to ease off of Condi Rice and the Bush Administration after a “tough interview”: “After the interview, Couric said she received an email from an NBC exec ‘forwarded without explanation’ from a viewer who wrote that she had been ‘unnecessarily confrontational.'” Here’s my follow-up: an NBC exec takes a single email from a viewer that seriously? Should we start writing more emails to NBC to get them to lean on their on-air talent to be more confrontational with administration officials?
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.