Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote<\/a> on Michael Mukasey’s nomination on Tuesday, Nov. 6. If Mukasey doesn’t answer the waterboarding question between now and then, expect the committee to reject the nomination. (It could, conceivably, move on to the floor for full consideration anyway.)<\/p>\n * Malcolm Nance, a veteran of counterterrorism operations in Iraq, has some helpful hints<\/a> for Mukasey in answering the question. (Hint: waterboarding is torture.)<\/p>\n * Speaking of Mukasey, Brian Beutler raises a good point<\/a> about the AG nominee’s reluctance to answer the torture question: “Mukasey knows that, as Attorney General, he’ll have to sign off on at least one interrogation technique–call it waterboarding–that he can’t describe, for the record, under oath, as torture. It would constitute an ex ante<\/i> admission of his own<\/i> guilt. At this point, being an Attorney General in the Bush administration simply requires breaking the law, and Mukasey, simply by appearing before the Senate, is saying he’s OK with that.”<\/p>\n * It wasn’t easy, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have come to an agreement<\/a>: “[A]ll State Department security convoys in Iraq will now fall under military control.” The point, obviously, is to bring private security forces like Blackwater “unter tighter supervision.”<\/p>\n * The Consumer Safety Product Commission may not want a larger staff and more authority to keep consumers safe, but House Dems are pushing for the measures anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n * In related news<\/a>: “The government announced an 11th-hour recall Wednesday to warn consumers that fake Halloween teeth sold by the tens of thousands since last year contain excessive amounts of lead.” (thanks to Homer for the tip)<\/p>\n * Fox News can relax — the wildfires weren’t started by al Qaeda<\/a>: “Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.”<\/p>\n * TPMM<\/a>: “Mitchell Wade, that other high-profile (alleged) briber of Duke Cunningham, got hit with a $1 million fine from the Federal Election Commission, what the commission calls ‘the second largest penalty ever paid in the 32-year history of the FEC.'” * NYT<\/a>: “Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring. There were two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., but neither they nor the majority gave reasons for their positions.” The prisoner was 19 minutes away from execution, and had already eaten his last meal.<\/p>\n * In related news<\/a>: “Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on executions, the American Bar Association says. Problems cited in a report released Sunday by the lawyers’ organization include: spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate more than 200 inmates; misidentification by eyewitnesses; false confessions from defendants; and persistent racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when victims are white.” (thanks to reader W.E. for the tip)<\/p>\n * Karl Rove is still trying<\/a> to spin (and demagogue his way out of) the fiasco at Tora Bora several years ago: “The U.S. military and U.S. intelligence agencies made every effort possible to get Osama bin Laden. I don’t think it reflects well on our intelligence and military services to suggest they didn’t.” Rove is cravenly wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n * According to former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, Dick Cheney doesn’t like poor people<\/a>: “A proposal to help the poor or sick would be presented at a White House meeting, but Vice President Cheney\u2019s office or the budget team or some other skeptical officials would shoot it down. Too expensive. Wrong priority.”<\/p>\n * On Capitol Hill today, smoke alarms led to an evacuation<\/a> of the Hart and Dirksen Senate Office Buildings this afternoon, but it appears that it was only a small basement fire that was quickly extinguished.<\/p>\n * Would you believe the Col. Boylan controversy continues to escalate<\/a>?<\/p>\n * Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote an op-ed<\/a> defending telecom immunity today. It’s not persuasive<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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\n* Ever wonder why conservative Republicans in Pennsylvania keep supporting Arlen Specter? It may have something to do with the huge earmarks<\/a> he gives to abstinence groups.<\/p>\n