Zack Roth continues his series of posts on the people Sir Allen Stanford used — PR types, lawyers and lobbyists — in his last-ditch effort to avoid the government scrutiny that would bring down his business empire.
At a presser this afternoon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about one of Obama’s campaign pledges and whether CSPAN cameras would be allowed to film the House-Senate negotiations on health care reform: “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” she pointedly noted.
North Dakota went 53-45 for McCain in 2008. Historically, that was actually a pretty good showing there for Democrats, who didn’t even contest the state.
Now we know that had a few chemicals reacted differently, we might have had three hundred or so fatalities on Flight 253 and perhaps many more dead on the ground if the plane had fallen in a particularly unfortunate location. But was this really a breakdown in the system? We’re treating it as obvious that because the Xmas bomber’s dad went into the Embassy in Nigeria and said his son was going off the extremist deep end that that should have punched Abdulmutallab to the top of the watch lists and prevented him from getting on that plane in Amsterdam. Read More
The NYT is reporting that Sen. Chris Dodd will not seek reelection this November.
Even though his odds seemed very long. This one is still kind of a stunner. And I must confess that while I know the stuff about Countrywide and the larger political climate, I never completely understood just how Dodd — a seemingly untouchable figure in the Connecticut political firmament for decades — sort of out of the blue became unelectable. But there it is.
Here’s the thing though. In seat counting terms, this is the mirror image of the Dorgan retirement. Dorgan’s seat was probably safe until he retired. Now it’s a probable Republican pick up. On the other hand, Dodd’s being on the ticket took a really blue state and made it a very possible Republican pick up. It’s still a bad climate for Dems. But Richard Blumenthal, who I assume will step in and get the Dem nomination, will be in a much stronger position to hold the seat. So this is the one retirement Democratic seat counters were probably hoping for.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) will announce his bid to replace Chris Dodd at noon today.
Dodd’s own retirement announcement is also at noon, though I presume protocol will require Blumenthal to hold off taking his podium until Dodd has stepped down from his. Still, it gives you a sense of the speed with which Blumenthal is moving to try to fill the vacuum on the Democratic side.
Former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN), a recent New York transplant, is reportedly considering a primary run against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
I’m not sure I agree. But TPM Reader DR thinks that a lot of the things we’re treating as obvious red flags with the Xmas bomber really aren’t red flags at all …
I have to respond to the line of argumentation made by some of your readers and elsewhere in the blogosphere regarding supposedly missed signals in the underwear bomber case. While I can appreciate that the whole profile may be more telling than the sum of its parts, some of the “warning signs” being cited should not really raise much suspicion. You posted another reader’s list of “warning signs”:
1. Passenger’s name: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
2. One-way ticket from Yemen to Detroit
3. Ticket paid for with $3,000 cash
4. Passenger has no luggage
Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, is apologizing for a tweet this morning poking fun at New York Gov. David Paterson’s blindness.