Top Items:
Charles Hurt / Washington Times:
GOP hits Pelosi's 'hypocrisy' on wage bill — House Republicans yesterday declared "something fishy" about the major tuna company in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district being exempted from the minimum-wage increase that Democrats approved this week.
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David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:
Democrats in Senate Fail to Block Bill on Ethics — After campaigning for months on a promise to tighten ethics rules, Senate Democratic leaders tried unsuccessfully Thursday to block a measure that would shine a light on the shadowy practice of earmarking federal money for lawmakers' pet projects.
Kasie Hunt / Associated Press:
Clock ticking on Dems' 100-hour agenda — WASHINGTON - The clock is ticking for House Democrats, but it's hard to tell what time it is. — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., was touting a plan to push six bills through a Democratic House in 100 hours or less as early as June of last year.
Discussion:
Riehl World View
Jim Abrams / Associated Press:
Democrats fumble earmarks legislation — Senators jump ship, vote with GOP on tougher rules for pet projects in bills — WASHINGTON - The Senate's new Democratic leaders, the fragility of their thin majority on display for the first time, were set back Thursday when nine Democrats joined …
Discussion:
The Jawa Report
New York Post:
BOXER'S LOW BLOW — Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over Iraq about as low as it can go - attacking Secre tary of State Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman. — Boxer was wholly in character for her party …
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Fox News:
WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN BLASTS SEN. BOXER'S EXCHANGE WITH SECRETARY RICE — Jan. 11: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses U.S. policy in Iraq while testifying on Capitol Hill. — WASHINGTON — The White House fired back Friday at Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's verbal slap …
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Video: Boxer gets personal with Condi at Senate hearing; Update: "Great leap backward for feminism," says Snow — I don't recall the lack of fruit from Janet Reno's womb figuring heavily into scrutiny of Waco or l'affaire Elian, but that was a different time.
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org, Silent Running, The Political Pit Bull, Tammy Bruce, Wizbang, Ed Driscoll.com, Little Green Footballs and Althouse
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Rice, a Uniter of the Divided — Within minutes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival on Capitol Hill yesterday, it became apparent that the Bush administration had, after four divisive years, finally succeeded in uniting Congress on the war in Iraq.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Bush Speaks and Base Is Subdued — President Bush came to this Georgia military base looking for a friendly audience to sell his new Iraq strategy. But his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief.
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, The Carpetbagger Report, Washington Wire, TPMmuckraker and Washington Post
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Washington Post:
Unveiled Threats — A Bush appointee's crude gambit on detainees' legal rights — MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs.
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Lam is asked to step down — Job performance said to be behind White House firing — The Bush administration has quietly asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, best known for her high-profile prosecutions of politicians and corporate executives, to resign her post, a law enforcement official said.
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CBS News:
Read more about the CBS News poll '08 Contenders Weigh In — Bush, visiting with troops at Fort Benning, Ga., cautioned that the troop increase "is not going to yield immediate results. It's going to take a while." — The president's plan, outlined in a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday …
Discussion:
rollingstone.com
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Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:
The President's power to attack Iran
The President's power to attack Iran
Discussion:
MSNBC, Firedoglake, UPI, Unfogged, Left in the West, State of the Day, The Impolitic and TPMCafe blogs
Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
Note from Flynt Leverett: Most Important Parts of Bush Speech About Iran — Not Iraq — I asked former CIA and Bush administration National Security Council senior official Flynt Leverett for a quick summary of his thoughts on President Bush's Address to the Nation.
Discussion:
The Road to Surfdom, The Moderate Voice, Larisa Alexandrovna's …, CorrenteWire and NO QUARTER
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Matthew Yglesias:
The Question of the Day — Jim Webb is really one of the most exciting things to happen to our politics recently; the personification of potentially worthy electoral trends who's managed to pull it off not by embracing militarism but by showing that good sense in national security policy …
Opinion Journal:
Getting Iraq to Work — New York City's successes have lessons for Baghdad. — The American mission in Iraq must succeed. Our goal—promoting a stable, accountable democracy in the heart of the Middle East—cannot be achieved by purely military means. — Iraqis need to establish a civil society.
Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:
The Two Vacuums — Neither Iraqis nor Democrats seem ready to do what's required of them. — I had the odd and wholly unexpected experience of feeling supportive of a troop increase until I saw the president's speech arguing for it. What a jarring, furtive-seeming thing it was.
Jim Abrams / Associated Press:
Convicted lawmakers to lose pensions — WASHINGTON - Members of Congress convicted of serious crimes would lose their taxpayer-paid pensions, sometimes totaling more than $100,000 a year, under a measure unanimously approved by the Senate Friday. — The 87- vote to deprive lawbreaking lawmakers …
David Cay Johnston / New York Times:
Agents Say Fast Audits Hurt I.R.S. — Top officials at the Internal Revenue Service are pushing agents to prematurely close audits of big companies with agreements to have them pay only a fraction of the additional taxes that could be collected, according to dozens of I.R.S. employees …