Dahlia Lithwick overcomes her mourning of the retirement of David Souter long enough to tell us what to expect this week from the Sotomayor hearing.
Robert Reich says that President Obama has to get the Senate Finance Committee cracking this week and reporting a bill the week after or health care reform might be done for.
Despite some new reports over the weekend, details about the CIA program the Bushies concealed from Congress remain exceedingly scarce. Zack Roth runs through what we think we know — and what still doesn’t add up.
Late Update: Robert Gibbs, just moments ago in a White House daily briefing, refused to say whether President Obama has been briefed on this program.
Watching senators making opening statements will make you pull your hair out. So we’re posting the texts of the prepared statements. See what your senator is saying. Pick out the themes of the attacks and defenses to come. Much faster than watching the bloviation.
Read Sonia Sotomayor’s prepared opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Hillary Clinton blazed the trail for how high-profile freshman senators can succeed in the Senate: keep your head down, immodestly and constantly proclaim your humility, and focus on your constituents. Sen. Al Franken’s opening statement in today’s Sotomayor hearing was a paean to Hillary Clinton. For example, he used the word “learn” (as in, “I have a lot to learn”) five times in his short statement.
For a number of reasons, many of which we outline here, the reports that the secret Bush-era CIA program concealed from Congress for eight years involved targeting the leaders of Al Qaeda for assassination don’t ring true. Or at least it seems likely to be only a part of the truth.
Now a former CIA counterterrorism chief tells TPMmuckraker there would be no need for a special CIA program or separate legal authorization since we’ve been targeting Al Qaeda leaders for years. Remember all the drone attacks still going on in Pakistan?
When I first saw word within the last hour that Steve Rattner was stepping down as car czar, my first reaction was that the other shoe is about the drop in the sweeping pension fraud case in New York and New Mexico that has entangled Rattner and his former investment firm, Quadrangle. But the Treasury Department’s announcement and the media coverage seems very focused on this being a natural move now that Chrysler and GM have emerged from bankruptcy, with the pension fraud case being a minor mention (if mentioned at all). Maybe my muckraking antenna are oversensitive. Then again …
As we get down to the wire on health care reform, Brian Beutler assesses the state of negotiations.