As Kash updates and extends what I noted on Friday, I have to agree with his view that Bush is “throwing the CIA into turmoil and potentially causing a large fraction of its most experienced staff to quit in disgust”. Contrast Kash’s reasoning with this oped from David Brooks: President Bush is going to have […]

As the Democrats debate the best way to react to the Republicans apparent victory among “values” voters, they ought to take a look at the work of cultural researcher Juliet Schor. Schor, an economist by training, studies work and consumption, with research straddling the fields of economics, sociology, and culture criticism. The values issues she […]

The gang over at Marginal Revolution reports that In February we reported on a new study showing that the stock picks of Senators, as revealed in their financial disclosure forms, outperformed the market by a whopping 12 percent. Insider trading anyone? Although it’s not clear whether any laws have been broken, Alan Ziobrowski, one of […]

After Mary Matalin claimed on Meet the Press that: (a) Bush ran on a clearly articulated agenda; (b) that it was the Democrats who said outrageous things during the campaign; (c) that we Democrats demonized Christians and treat then with disdain and contempt; (d) we Democrats have a disdain for the democratic process and (e) […]

Following up on Kash’s post on the possibility of Republicans amending Senate rules to eliminate filibusters, at least in the context of judicial confirmations, I challenge anyone to watch Senate majority leader Frist’s address last Friday to The Federalist Society and conclude that he is not ready to end judicial filibusters. (To watch, go here […]

The Bush administration is apparently making great strides in improving the quality of the nation’s intelligence, by throwing the CIA into turmoil and potentially causing a large fraction of its most experienced staff to quit in disgust: The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between […]

More evidence that this Administration is undermining the Constitution: WASHINGTON (CNN): In his first public appearance since submitting his resignation, Attorney General John Ashcroft sharply criticized federal judges Friday for “second guessing” the Bush administration’s decisions on handling prisoners captured in the war against terrorism. Without referring to specific adverse rulings on the treatment of […]

Andrew Sullivan turned Alan Keyes moralist in this rant suggesting progressive taxation amounts to discrimination. Then again – Sulli also thinks the right of privacy (as in Roe v. Wade) is a sin. Bob Somerby turns his shape eye on Sulli’s flat tax rant in his latest Daily Howler: No mainstream pol has ever proposed […]

Dana Priest reports: Michael Scheuer, the author and former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, announced yesterday that he had resigned from the agency so he could speak openly about terrorism and what he sees as the government’s failure to understand the threat from al Qaeda. “I have concluded that there has not […]

Senate Republicans are giving all indications that they are seriously considering the “nuclear option” of taking away Democrats’ ability to filibuster judcial nominees. The 200 year history of Senate procedures notwithstanding, many Republicans in the Senate think that traditional Senate rules should now be changed. It goes without saying that their desire to change the […]