Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) says she’s on board finally for financial reform — just as Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) expresses reservations, leaving Democrats still stuck at 59 votes.
The story of the year may be the military fib, which has already put a dent in the campaigns of Richard Blumenthal and Mark Kirk (ironically more the latter than the former). But here’s one with a twist. It’s about the Republican presumptive nominee for Governor in Connecticut, a long time GOP money guy named Tom Foley. He was in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority in charge of privatizing all of Iraq’s assets. (Those were the days, right?) I even wrote about him for a short piece for the Washington Monthly way back when about all the GOP operatives running things at the CPA back then.
Back then, for obvious reasons, Foley basically said that the only danger he faced in Iraq was if the locals threw hard candy at him rather than soft. Now in retrospect though he and his campaign are painting a considerably more dire picture.
Sen. Vitter (R-LA) comes out as a birther, or at least birther-curious.
It looks like self-funded candidate and disgraced former health care CEO Rick Scott has basically run Bill McCollum’s once front running campaign pretty close to bankruptcy. The funnier thing though is that McCollum’s sole remaining hope now seems to be getting a big dollop of public money to run his campaign.
Remember back at the beginning of the month I told you that scientists working at the Library of Congress using hyperspectral imaging determined that in his first draft of the Declaration Thomas Jefferson wrote “subjects” rather than “citizens.” But I’ve just learned that then-editor of the Jefferson Papers, Julian P. Boyd, actually discovered this back in the early 1940s. I’ll bring you more details on this later.
I think we knew this. But it’s notable to have it said out loud. Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) says we can’t afford unemployment benefits if they add to the deficit. But upper income tax cuts if they add to the deficit? Not a problem, says Kyl.
We’ve compressed 5 hours of Rand Paul appearances from the 1990s on “Kentucky Tonight,” a talking heads program on public television, into a three-minute tour de force of doctrinaire libertarianism. Watch.
Harry Reid tells local interviewer he wishes Obama would have had his back more during the Health Care Reform debate.