Senate Rejects Calls for Iraq Troop Withdrawal

The stricter of the two bills being voted on—a measure that would have mandated a pullout by 2007—went down 86-13. The bill that didn’t have a timetable was defeated 60-39, with all but one Republican and six Democrats voting against the measure.
UPDATE: The Senate is weighing a modest troop reduction in the coming months.

Posted on Jun 22, 2006 READ MORE  | 25 READS

Questions About 3 Republicans’ Land Deals

The House speaker cleared a cool $2 million from the sale of land near a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds. Two other GOP congressmen had similar questionable dealings in their own districts. The Washington Post has the goods.

Posted on Jun 22, 2006 READ MORE  | 27 READS

GOP Senators Kill Minimum Wage Boost

Not even a week after the Congress voted itself a pay raise, the not-so-compassionate conservatives in the Senate voted down any bump in the $5.15 national minimum wage.

Posted on Jun 22, 2006 READ MORE  | 17 READS

House Delays Renewal of Voting Rights Act

House Republicans canceled a vote to extend the historic act because some said it unfairly singled out Southern states. The “rebellion” was “a significant embarrassment for the party leadership,” according to the N.Y. Times.

Posted on Jun 22, 2006 READ MORE  | 24 READS

Marines Charged With Murder of Iraqi Civilian

Seven Marines and a sailor have been charged in the April death.

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 52 READS

Hollywood Studio Produces Ad Against Suicide Bombing

A Hollywood studio and a Lebanese production company have produced a $1-million public service ad aimed at discouraging suicide bombings. Their funding came from “an independent, non-governmental group of scholars, non-political people,” according to an exec. (Via Huff Po)

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 285 READS

Suskind: Western Union Gave Transfer Info to Feds

In the wake of 9/11, the parent company of Western Union gave the FBI information on financial transactions and wire transfers, Ron Suskind charges in his new book, “The One Percent Doctrine.”

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 33 READS

Bush’s Phony Momentum at Home and Abroad

Last week the media seized upon several issues in Iraq, Afghanistan and the White House that supposedly had Bush “on a roll.” But after a subsequent negative turns of events, Media Matters asks whether the media will give the same amount of attention to Bush’s roll in the opposite direction….

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 53 READS

Burning Cole

Politics trumped academic integrity, says Nation writer Philip Weiss, when a neocon network torpedoed the appointment of Mideast scholar and blogger Juan Cole to a faculty position at Yale.

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 11 READS

Oil Prices Could Triple Upon a U.S. Invasion of Iran

That’s according to Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al Faisal.
Not that that should be the reason that dissuades America from invading Iran, but it’s at least worth noting.

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 26 READS

Conservative Encyclopedia Omits O’Reilly, Coulter, Norquist

It seems that the editors of this massive tome have some taste and intellectual integrity.

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 17 READS

Dems’ Young Guns Launch Journal of Ideas

Two young Democratic intellectuals have founded Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, a quarterly publication modeled after conservative publications like Commentary and The National Interest. Sen. Barack Obama is already lined up to write.

Why Does Homosexuality Exist in the Animal Kingdom?

If homosexuality is a genetic aberration, why hasn’t it been bred out of all species? That’s the provocative question posed in Seed magazine, which reports that among some species, it actually makes more evolutionary sense for animals to copulate with members of the same sex—as opposed to members of the opposite sex.

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 998 READS

Pollster Greenberg Launches Political Journal

Democratic powerhouse pollster Stan Greenberg has launched The Democratic Strategist, a publication that “brings together the latest solid research on public attitudes and social trends with extended, ongoing discussion of long-range Democratic political strategy.”

Posted on Jun 21, 2006 READ MORE  | 16 READS

Salon: Is the NSA Spying on U.S. Internet Traffic?

Two former AT&T workers have told Salon that the telecom company has maintained a secret, highly secured room in a St. Louis network operations center where, the two workers were told, employees have been “monitoring network traffic.” Salon’s security experts say the operation has all the hallmarks of an NSA operation.

Posted on Jun 20, 2006 READ MORE  | 120 READS