The Daily Muck

House members have already begun finding ways around recently passed ethics reforms on earmarking. With respect to the upcoming budget bill, Democrats are holding off on funding pet projects until it is too late to challenge their addition. (USA TODAY)

With a no-confidence vote impending for Gonzales, it is not clear which way critics in the GOP will vote(sub. req.). Meanwhile, the Republican leadership is looking to avoid the vote altogether. (Roll Call)

Machine politics henchmen handing out cold George Washingtons for votes is what we should picture when we hear voter fraud, or is it? (The New Republic)

Staff members of the House Oversight Committee appear to be close to an agreement (sub. req.) with the RNC that will allow limited access to past emails from White House staff. (Roll Call)

As the Defense Department probes how techniques from the Navy’s SERE program were reverse engineered to create today’s enhanced interrogation tactics, findings from an article as early as 1956 remind us that torture techniques produce false and unreliable information. (NY Times)

The first comprehensive look at the surge’s efforts to stabilize Iraq finds that already, U.S. and Iraqi forces have fallen behind their initial operational goals. (NY Times)

The Boston Globe reports that the low pay in the security industry dangerously undermines it’s ability to attract good candidates to adequately protect the US from domestic acts of terrorism.

Now that Dan Bartlett has left the White House, Karl Rove is the last of President Bush’s Texas confidants to remain. (LA Times)

On August 14, 2002, the CIA sent the White House a white paper called “The Perfect Storm” that outlined the worst case scenarios in a post-invasion Iraq, which seems frighteningly similar to the country now. (Washington Post)

Federal wildlife officials intend to hunt an Oregon species of owl whose aggressive behavior has threatened the existence of another species. Critics, however, maintain the strategy inures the logging industry from responsibility, and claim that the shortage of land is the true explanation for the species’ vulnerability. (LA Times)

Both the House and Senate are clamoring for testimony from former Attorney General John Ashcroft to discuss his late-night hospital encounter with then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. (Newsweek)