At a Texas fundraiser today, Joe Biden rhapsodized about the swimming hole of his youth and giving the American people light. Really, it makes sense in context.
Eric Cantor’s latest defense: I didn’t know that the police had concluded the bullet in my (sometimes) office was randomly fired until after my press conference in which I said my office had been targeted.
You know it’s bad when your fallback defense is reckless disregard for the truth.
The White House has just announced that President Obama has made fifteen recess appointments, including several for hot-button nominees. These are appointees Republicans refused to allow votes on and for which the president’s supporters have been pressing for recess appointees.
Notable on the list are Craig Becker to NLRB and Chai Feldblum to EEOC.
In arguing for the appointments the press release states: “President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.”
Full press release after the jump. Read More
As I’ve mentioned at various times, I’m an iPhone user. And before that, I was an iPod user. (I’ve now consolidated into a iPhone-only lifestyle.) So even though I wasn’t a super early adopter, I did (and do) have one of those early all-white, physical scroll wheel, boxy archeo-Pods that probably many of you had at one point or another.
An FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force has conducted a series of raids on a Christian militia group called ‘Hutaree’. Seven have been arrested so far and will appear in U.S. District Court in Detroit tomorrow.
More Fun Where That Came From Update: Gawker digs up the Hutaree militia’s page on MySpace.
The most troubling thing about the rash of attacks, threats and vandalism directed toward Democrats is the fact that the Democrats are willing to speak about it publicly.
Scott Ashjian is the top ‘Tea Party’ candidate in the Nevada senate election. And since polls show Harry Reid consistently behind in his reelection campaign, Ashjian could provide his only real path to reelection. Because of that, state Republicans and even rival Tea Party factions have claimed that Ashjian is in fact a Democratic plant.
Now comes word that Ashjian is being charged with felony theft and bad check charges for allegedly bouncing a $5000 check in Las Vegas last year.
But here’s the kicker. Who’s bringing the charges? That would be Bernie Zadrowski, chief of the Clark County DA’s bad checks unit. And who’s he? Well he used to be head of the Clark County GOP. He’s also on the ballot himself this year. He’s running for Justice of the Peace.
Late Update: TPM talked to Zadrowski, and he says the charge was standard practice for his office and had nothing to do with politics.
Charlie Savage reports on the divisions within the administration over counter-terrorism tactics and detention policies. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
Minuteman group leader: When I said to come to the border “locked, loaded and ready,” I didn’t mean armed and dangerous!