Tom Delay’s defense in his trial down in Texas got off to a rough start yesterday.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Health care reform puts America on a path to tyranny.
If you read TPM and keep up on politics, you know that the new START Treaty is up for ratification before the Senate. And the administration is keen to have it ratified during this lame duck session of Congress. Furthermore, if you’re your average TPM reader you probably know that in some broad sense it’s a good thing and important to pass and that Senate Republicans, for a mix of political calculations and policy disagreements, are refusing to let it get voted on.
But do you actually have any idea what it does or why it’s important to get it passed other than a vague sense that arms control treaties are a good thing and that if the administration thought it was important it must be? I’ve heard the administration talking about it but I must confess this strikes me as a classic messaging fail in which there’s been no real public campaign — certainly not effective public campaign — to muscle the opponents of the treaty into allowing passage? Read More
Texas Gov. Perry (R) open to sending the US military into Mexico.
When I saw the headline that Fox News capo Roger Ailes said that NPR was run by Nazis I was figuring this was at least something of a loose summary of what he said. Turns out, no, he literally said NPR is run by Nazis.
What a shocking, awful thing to say. Hideous.
Late Update: Ailes apologizes. Sorta.
For two years, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has fought, clawed and scratched to get out from under the ethics allegations against him. He’s tried to delegitimize the Ethics Committee, its investigation and its proceedings. You can understand the ire expressed by the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL), in his remarks today before the committee took up what sanctions to impose on Rangel — while acknowledging the committee’s Republicans aren’t too torn up about watching a Democrat self-immolate.
Rangel has made a clown of himself as he’s defended himself against the ethics violations. A couple of days ago, right after Rangel took his buffoonery to new heights by walking out of the Ethics Committee proceedings against him, I said that Rangel’s lack of repentance and open thumbing of his nose at the committee warranted a harsher response than the violations he committed might usually merit. But this afternoon, finally, Rangel threw himself at the mercy of the committee. Read More
You must understand that at the TPM newsroom in New York City, most of the staff sit at desks facing directly into a wall of four big flat screen TVs playing all three cable news networks and usually one C-SPAN all day. So, really, these people put in a long day’s work on many levels. In any case, over the years the staff has developed a certain ironic fandom for the car chases that have always been a staple of the excitment/ratings starved producers of daytime cable news.
Now, before you start, please, no social commentary about hyped up cops endangering bystanders with unwarranted chases (I was almost run over in one about fifteen years ago), economic disparities, the degradation of our culture or just anything else. Just take it for what it is. Don’t judge us. We’ve come to see them as a genuine form of contemporary pop art. Or maybe that’s just me. Read More
The House Ethics Committee has voted to recommend that the full House censure Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY).
This just happened …
Federal, state and local officials carrying out a counter-terrorism drill in Northern California Wednesday played out a scenario in which local marijuana growers set off bombs and took over the Shasta Dam, the nation’s second largest, to free an imprisoned comrade.
Jeff Stein has the rest of the story.