| First an Emmy, now a Nobel Peace prize? Al Gore is all the rage, even among the Beltway crowd.
Senator Hillary Clinton has vowed to check the power of the executive, if elected. Actually that's Congress' job. So why hasn't she called for impeachment?
Obama spurns his flag lapel pin. Sean Hannity: "Why do we wear pins? Because our country is under attack!"
Shane scrutinizes the Republican rhetoric from the last debate and notices that a number of candidates would start a war with Iran without approval from Congress and even in some cases despite Congress' refusal to approve of an attack. (Romney would check with lawyers first.)
Uh oh, terrorists have threatened Rudy Giuliani. I guess he's a lock for the GOP nomination.
Did the anti-CHIP smear campaign against a 12-year-old start from Republican Mitch McConnell's office? Of course we're not talking about an ad in a newspaper or anything.
In related news. Ezra Klein challenged Michelle Malkin to a debate on the substantive issues around CHIP. Malkin: "What a perverse distraction and a laughable waste of time that would be. And that's what they really want, isn't it? To distract and waste time so they can foist their agenda on the country unimpeded." Indeed. Why let a substantive debate on the issue distract us from stalking the Frosts? So little time, so many 12-year-olds to harass?
Bad news for the Republican Party: the term, "circular firing squad," formerly reserved for Democrats, has been trotted out to describe GOP reluctance to pass CHIP: "'It's just stunning to me,' one veteran Republican strategist told me this week, 'that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won't use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children's health care. Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!'"
Congress is preparing a revised FISA bill?.that grants immunity to telecoms who helped Bush break the law in spying on Americans without a warrant. Yech. Yeah if these *sshats weren't mega-rich and powerful corporations, you'd think they'd be getting retroactive immunity? Yeah, me neither.
Things aren't getting any easier for poor ol' Alberto Gonzalez. He's hired a high-powered defense lawyer as investigations into his conduct as Atty Gen'l.
Also, the Department of Justice scandals keep on growing. The latest? A Democratic trial lawyer and big donor was singled out for prosecution in an apparent effort to derail the re-election of Democratic governor, Ronnie Musgrove. Oh, and a criminal probe against Alabama Republicans that disappeared, while unequal justice was applied to that state's sitting Democratic governor, Don Siegelman. Selective justice is not justice.
How's Iraq going? Apparently Iraq vets don't think it's going too well?
I'm glad economists are finally getting the picture that the middle class is getting screwed in today's economy. Kevin Drum thinks that unions helped prevent income inequality and thinks we need something like them in the postindustrial age.
Granpa Dave thinks the government should not be in the business of suppressing speech: "Trying to bring federal pressure to silence Limbaugh and his ilk is not fine -- and it wasn't fine when Republicans did it against MoveOn.org either. That dog should have been kept on its leash." Couldn't agree more. |