The Daily Muck

Guantanamo Bay is not the only overseas military prison that is posing problems for the the Bush administration. The secretive American detention center at the Bagram military base – constructed as a temporary site after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 – now holds 630 prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross alleges that some detainees are subjected to cruel treatment that violates the Geneva Conventions. (Herald-Tribune)

Former White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey lost his job shortly after he broke from White House talking points and estimated (six months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq) that the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Lindsey’s new book What a President Should Know . . . But Most Learn Too Late explains how he came up with that number and admits that putting “out only a best-case scenario without preparing the public for some worse eventuality was the wrong strategy to follow.” (Washington Post)

The judge in the case of former Allegheny County coroner Cyril Wecht has agreed to drop 43 of the 84 charges against Wecht and ruled that they cannot be refiled. Wecht’s defense attorneys, who have argued that Wecht is being prosecuted for political reasons, objected to the prosecution’s original motion to drop the charges, which would have allowed them to be filed again at a later date. Last week an appeals court refused to grant the defense’s request to remove the judge from the case. (Pittsburgh Tribune)

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Project on Government Secrecy filed a complaint last week alleging that attorneys at the Justice Department Office of Legal counsel violated an executive order on classification when they failed to respond to a request from the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) asking for an interpretation of that order. The ISOO request originated during a dispute between the ISOO and the Office of the Vice President concerning oversight of the classification system. (FAS)

In last night’s Republican debate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he has “never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state.” In fact, McCain inserted earmarks for Arizona projects into bills in both 2006 and 2003. (Think Progress)

Lobbyists are expecting partisanship and the presidential campaign season to make it more difficult (sub. req.) to pass legislation in 2008. At the same time, those factors will likely make it easier for lobbyists whose goal is to prevent specific pieces of legislation from passing. (Roll Call)