As I noted below, Rand Paul (and now a handful of his colleagues) are doing a real talking filibuster this afternoon in what is almost certainly a futile effort to block the nomination of John Brennan to serve as CIA Director. I just noticed a fellow reporter snarking on Twitter that, ‘well, Dems wanted to bring back the talking filibuster and now they’ve got it!’ Read More
I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by any sludge from Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News and former Republican operative. But this was a pretty revealing passage from Ailes in the excerpt of the new bio which was just published in Vanity Fair … Read More
Cable news tried to report on the death of a world leader, but apparently it’s hard when there’s snow falling from the sky.
Harry Reid fails to break RandPaulibuster, tells Rand, Fine, Keep talking.
An Alitalia jet reportedly had a near miss (200 feet) with a drone on approach to JFK on Monday. The FBI is investigating.
It’s only four months since he was the next President of the United States. But already, Mitt Romney is like something dug up in a GOP time capsule because immigration reform and immigrants became AWESOME.
It started with a quixotic effort by the libertarian Sen. Rand Paul blocking a vote on John Brennan’s nomination for CIA Director focused on questions about whether the White House thinks it is permissible under any circumstances to order drone strikes within the United States. (Much of the furor centers on this exchange from earlier in the day between AG Holder and Sen. Cruz.) Over the first few hours, it was just Sens. Paul and then Cruz and Lee. But if you haven’t been watching through the night, at a certain point it morphed into a litmus test issue for Republican Senators. Read More
For all the political disagreements and (on some parts) preening involved, this episode turned out to be a great Senate moment — see my post below for a sense of why I think that. But now I’m seeing some people say, See how bad it is that all these people were trying to reform the filibuster? This is what you’d destroy! Read More
North Korea Threatens to Nuke the US.
Silvio Berlusconi Convicted and Sentenced to Year in Jail.
Rep. Peter King to Step into Boxing Ring for Exhibition Bout.
And my quick take on why Rand Paul filibuster was awesome and makes the case better than anything else for why we need filibuster reform.
New York NRA official barred from having guns after altercation with wife.