Bush Budget to Pass House by One Vote? Eleven moderate Republicans signed a letter, sent to Dennis Hastert, opposing the House version of the President’s proposed budget. The group of moderates argue that the additional tax cuts and accelerations of cuts under the 2001 reform are too much, given the ballooning deficit and ongoing spending […]

Is CalPundit so Crazy… That he just might be on to something (see 4th bullet point)? The one problem with this theory is that State is known to leak relatively freely, so if true, this probably should have gotten out already. AB UPDATE: Howard Fineman has more on Powell and the possibility of resignation.

Weapons of Mass Bad PR (WMBPR) Saddam’s WMBPR: March 13, 2003 | GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A defiant Saddam Hussein, under intense international scrutiny for possible ties to terrorism, this week distributed $225,000 to 21 families of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel, including $25,000 to the family of a Hamas suicide bomber. […]

Oil and the Economy ArgMax links to an old, but good, post he has on the relationship between Oil Prices and GDP growth. As oil prices hover in the mid 30’s–and they might top 40 if the war doesn’t go quickly–it’s worth a read. As you might have guessed, higer oil prices are historically correlated […]

If you haven’t seen it… It’s worth the trip: www.pressgaggle.com. The entry for 3/13: Q My point is, why is the President going through this charade of diplomacy when he obviously plans to go to war? MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, this is a very serious word, the diplomacy. And the President is carrying it out because […]

Angry Bear is Happy Comments were quick and easy to add. I’m using BackBlog, mostly because the only two I’d heard of (Haloscan and YAACS) aren’t accepting new blogs. But I must say, I should have done this a while ago, given that it’s this easy. I did note that my test post took a […]

More Eating of The Press: Confessions of a WH Reporter This is from Atrios, so you’ve probably already seen it. But my post before last was on the press as lapdogs, and I’ve talked quite a bit about Hubbard and the CEO, so here goes. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a confession by a […]

Getting Money out of Nigeria Previously, I speculated that all the government money stashed in secret accounts in Nigeria, just waiting for your help in getting it out of the country, would be gone by now. That may be the case, but there is apparently a new source of embezzleable (is that a word?) funds, […]

Bush Eats the Press Michael Crowley has a nice piece in the New York Observer on Bush’s Iraq Press Conference: In other words: They … wuz … used! The press corps seemed mainly to serve as a prop, providing Mr. Bush with an opportunity to deliver another pro-war speech while appearing to bravely face the […]

Slate’s Explainer has something interesting that I didn’t know There’s an esoteric maneuver to get around a threatened veto: invoking the obscure U.N. Resolution 377, also known as the “Uniting for Peace” Resolution. In early 1950, the United States pushed through the resolution as a means of circumventing possible Soviet vetoes. The measure states that, […]