Thursday’s Mini-Report

January 3, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), now an advisor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, defended the candidate’s position on gay rights: “He’s always had the same position as to regards to the gay agenda. Look, he wants to know people to know he values gay people as people, okay? But he doesn’t want the militant gays to be able to change the cultural institutions of the country.” Who are the “militant gays”? And how does Romney plan to combat them?

* There’s been a lot of talk this afternoon about an Obama-Richardson deal, though there are a lot of official denials and nothing firm. It may not matter soon, since the caucuses are just a couple of hours away.

* Remember the anti-Mormon call scandal in New Hampshire a while back? The state AG’s office has identified the firm behind the calls as Moore Information. Greg Sargent noted, “But the AG has not been able to determine who contracted the company for the calls, which obviously is the crucial info here…. According to the AG’s release Moore Information outsourced the job to Western Wats, the firm that actually made the calls — and Wats was tied to Romney in various ways, giving weight to the theory that Romney himself was behind the calls.”

* Spencer Ackerman: “Suicide bombings in Iraq: not actually over. The last two weeks there’s been something approaching a bombing every two or three days. And they’re not where U.S. forces are spread the thinnest, but where they’re in full effect — Diyala and Baghdad. The Post reports the trend line for suicide bombings has been upward for the past two months. Happy 2008, year of the de-surge.”

* In Pakistan: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday there were problems with Pakistan’s investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s killing and conceded that uncertainty remained over the exact cause of the former prime minister’s death. He denied accusations the military or intelligence services were involved in the attack.” Somehow, I suspect that won’t settle the matter.

* Was Bush’s veto of the defense authorization bill last week constitutional? Oddly enough, it’s a debatable point.

* Once in a while, Fox News is so atrocious, it manages to surprise me: “At the end of a discussion with a focus group of Democratic Iowan voters, Sean Hannity worked in one of his tirades disguised as a question to the Democrats, asking, among other things, whether or not they support ‘retreat in Iraq.’ Supposedly neutral pollster Frank Luntz, who must have known that was no way to ask a question, repeated it to the polite group and demanded that they answer, ‘Yes or no.'”

* ABC News: “A powerful senator says he is still waiting for the Bush administration to respond to inquiries he made last month following reports that American women working in Iraq had been allegedly raped or sexually assaulted by coworkers or a U.S. government official…. ‘We’re pressing hard for answers,’ said a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Nelson wrote Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month requesting details on how many Americans in Iraq had reported being sexually assaulted or abused, how they were investigated, and if any had been recommended for prosecution. He has not received a reply, a spokesman confirmed today. Nor has Nelson received replies from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates or Attorney General Michael Mukasey, to whom he also wrote asking for information and assistance, according to the lawmaker’s spokesman.”

* I love John Edwards’ line about the Democratic field being an “embarrassment of riches” and the Republican field just being “embarrassing.” I wish I’d thought of that.

* We learn a little more about the torture-tapes controversy all the time: “The CIA’s initial defense for destroying the videotapes showing interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees was that they’d briefed members of Congress about their intention to do this long ago. To which, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), the former chair of the House intelligence committee responded: yes, we were told, and I told them not to do it. She said that she’d made that explicit in a letter to the CIA’s general counsel in February of 2003, but that the letter was classified. She asked the CIA to declassify it.” The documents supporting Harman’s version events were released today.

* Wouldn’t this be amusing: “GOP presidential candidate John McCain is deeply worried that his resurgent national campaign may be stalled by a relatively strong showing in tonight’s Iowa caucuses by the iconoclastic Ron Paul. The Arizona senator’s campaign told the HuffPost that their candidate is concerned that Paul will finish third behind front-runners Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.”

* Richard Cohen’s column the other day was actually worse than I realized.

* Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton? Sounds good to me, thought the confirmation process would be brutal.

And finally, a quick programming note. In all likelihood, I won’t be blogging the Iowa caucus results tonight, but I will set up a special overnight Iowa Open Thread for folks who want to talk about the results, brag, complain, speculate, whatever strikes your fancy.

That’ll be up in a few hours. Until then, feel free to talk, brag, complain, and speculate about everything.

Thanks Steve, I’d appreciate the Iowa open thread and am looking forward to reading Zeitgeist and the other Iowans takes on it. I really appreciated Zeitgeist’s informative posting on the merits of the caucuses. Not sure I buy his arguments, but I did like learning more about it.

And that is a great line from Edwards.

  • CB, I hope that you are only getting second-hand reports about the goings on at Fox Propaganda. I hope someone else is watching Fox “so you don’t have to.”

    Watching that stuff all the time is known to cause brain damage. You need proof? Take a look at your friends and neighbors who watch F.P. all the time. See what I mean?

    Don’t let it happen to you.

  • * Was Bush’s veto of the defense authorization bill last week constitutional? Oddly enough, it’s a debatable point.

    I don’t see anything debatable about it. Bush didn’t actually veto the bill, he only failed to sign it. This would be a pocket veto when Congress is not in session, and would kill the bill with no chance to override. But when Congress is in session he must either sign or veto the bill, and if he fails to veto the bill, the bill becomes law. Congress was in session. Remember the pro forma sessions the Dems used to keep Bush from attempting to make any recess appointments? Congress was in session.

    Last week, the president claimed to have sunk Congress’ defense authorization bill by pocket veto. Now Democrats are saying he can’t do that.

    We’ll start first with the Constitution says, and then go on to what the Bush administration says it says.

    Article I, section 7 of the Constitution says that the president must sign or veto legislation passed by Congress within ten days (not counting Sundays). If he signs it, it becomes law. If he vetoes it, then Congress can override his veto with a two-thirds majority in both houses. And if he does not sign or veto it while Congress is in session, it becomes law. But if Congress is not in session and he doesn’t sign it, then it neither becomes law nor can Congress override it. The bill is dead. That’s a pocket veto.

    So on December 28th, the president proclaimed that the defense authorization bill was dead by pocket veto. (For some background on the substance of the dispute — why Bush doesn’t like the bill and Dems’ frustration with the fact that the administration didn’t raise the objection until after the bill passed — see here.) Congress will just have to start over. Keep in mind that the bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

    But, as Kagro X at Daily Kos first pointed out, there’s a problem with that. Though the president said that “adjournment of Congress” allowed him to pocket veto, Congress was not, in fact, in adjournment.

    To prevent administration monkey business during the holiday recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) kept the Senate in pro forma session throughout. By keeping the Senate nominally in session (someone shows up for a few minutes every third day), Reid stifled the administration’s desire for a bunch of recess appointments.

    Bush claimed Congress was not in session when, in fact, Congress had remained in session explictly to prevent monkeying by this administration.

    Either way, I say let the man veto any defense spending. Just don’t send him any more defense spending bills until next year. Oops, that’ll be in 2009, won’t it!

  • Musharraf is making a big show of invetigating Bhutto’s death now, but he was certainly putting a lot of effort into pushing around her supporters right before her death.

  • Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton? Sounds good to me, thought the confirmation process would be brutal.

    I think it would be worth it, just to hear Rush Limbaugh go into convulsions.

  • It’s disheartening that even our Senators can’t get answers out of the CIA and the Bush administration. An unaccountable government is not a benefit– it’s an inevitable course to turn the benefits of government into burdens. How do you put pressure on Bush not to screw anything up? No one knows, because he’s wrecked too much of the machinery. Is this what we fought the Nazis for? So different assholes could start doing the same thing here?

    OT, I have great new posts up on my blog.

  • Mark Kleiman writes:

    Just to give some background: I teach public policy at UCLA, concentrating on crime control and drug policy. In the Reagan Administration, I ran the policy shop for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. So — unlike Dobbs — I actually know what I’m talking about.

    There were 534,000 black men in prison at year-end 2006. (P. 6.)

    There were another 296,000 blacks in jail (as opposed to prison)

    Since about 85% of jail inmates are male
    that means roughly 240,000 black males in jail.

    Another 36,000 black males were held in “secure” (i.e., locked) juvenile facilities:

    That gives a total of 810,000 black males behind bars at any one time.

    By contrast, according to the Census Bureau there are 370,000 black men enrolled full-time in four-year colleges, plus another 40,000 in graduate school.

    . . .

    If you restrict both the inmate population and the college population to the under-35s, the comparable figures are 400,000 behind bars and 380,000 in college.

    So Obama’s claim is perfectly defensible, and your reference to his “mendacity” had no basis. You owe your readers a public retraction and, and Sen. Obama an apology.

  • Hey, I thought I made up the “embarrassment” line John Edwards used! I’ve been saying and writing it for months! I even used the first part in my last LTE, but left out the part about the Republicans, because I am a chicken! Actually I do a lot of local stuff in my town here in NH, and there are some of those old time decent moderate Republicans around, and insulting their candidates isn’t really necessary, I am sure they are as embarrassed as I am by the lot.

    Well, wherever it came from originally, because I may very well have seen it in a blog sometime in the fall, it’s a great line. And John Edwards is a great candidate.

  • Shrub: I pocket veto’d your defense bill.
    Donkey Congress: No you didn’t.
    Shrub: Did too.
    Donkey Congress: You only thought you did.
    Shrub: Says who?
    Donkey Congress: Constitution; Article I, Section 7.
    Shrub: I nullified that with my signing statement.
    Donkey Congress: I see. Then in that case, what would you like Mr. President?

    IMPEACH THE BA$TARDS

  • i am standing in the longest lines to get in a caucus ihave seen in my 25 years of caucusing. on a mobile device so cant post much but this is astounding. . .

  • ” Who are the “militant gays”? And how does Romney plan to combat them?

    In sMittens’ lexicon a “militant gay” is a member of the GLB community who dares to speak up when s/he is treated like less than a human being. Like that that militant African-American, Martin Luther King Jr. that Mittster hallucinates.

    By the same token Romulan has no problem with “Gays as people,” because gay people = really quiet, almost invisible people who are just grateful when no one pitches a rock through their window.

    Why the fuck is he talking about the second greatest threat to Umuricuh after terrists (according to GOP lip-flappers) anyway? He already shit a brick when LCR ran what he called an “attack” ad about him in Iowa, so if he’s trying to make friends now … Bwahahaa!

  • Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton? Sounds good to me, thought the confirmation process would be brutal.

    while I think that Bill Clinton would make an excellent Supreme Court Justice, I want the next dem nominee to the high court to be no older than 40. The relative youth of the last 2 nominees necessitates a similar nomination. We need to think out a few decades on this one.

  • …demanded that they answer, ‘Yes or no.’

    Here’s the reply I’d like to see: Are you interested in what I think? Then let me tell you. If not, I have better things to do…

  • Blooming Pol, if you are just joking, you should write so somewhere in your comment, because people may read your comment and think Edwards or one of his people looked at a website you do or something like that and lifted your line.

  • I’m with ’emd’ in #14 in regards to the Sean Hannity question that could only be answered by ‘yes or no’

    Of course, one of the democrats could have turned that around and asked Sean Hannity to answer this question, with YES or NO, and once he did you’d answer his question.

    Question: “Have you stopped beating up on your wife?”

    See how he tries to answer that one with a yes or a no…

    Exactly my point. I wish more people would throw that question into their laps at Fox. Would make for an awkward moment.

  • Supreme Court justice Bill Clinton.

    He of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and “Definition of ‘Is'” gambits????

    DOESN’T sound good to me.
    Not given the hundreds of non-celebrity hard working ordinary brilliant judiciary stalwarts that must be available.
    It sounds good to people because they don’t know anybody else. Kind of like most of teh population being convinced that Reagan and Clinton were the best presidents.

    A little perspective would render the concept of Justice Clinton an absurdity.

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