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By Richard Sale and Eugene Potapov
$18.21
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Join Truthdig’s Robert Scheer, along with Arianna Huffington, Tony Blankley and Matt Miller, for a lively discussion on the week in politics, policy and culture. This week: the Bush-Republican detainee-interrogation deal, U.N. rants, midterm elections, corporate spying, upheaval at the Los Angeles Times and the furor surrounding the pope’s recent comments on Islam.
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sciam.com
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Not surprisingly, Republican governors have been veering to the left in a bid to capture votes. From California to Maryland, issues like the minimum wage, the environment and healthcare have gotten a boost in recent months.
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left two: Think Progress/right: senate.gov
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The Republican senators who broke ranks with the administration to oppose Bush’s interrogation policy have indicated the possibility of a compromise. On Friday the president showed no willingness to adjust his proposals, but Stephen J. Hadley, his national security advisor, hinted at the prospect during a television appearance Sunday.
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From Forbes FYI
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Humorist and former Bush I speechwriter Christopher Buckley, a once-staunch Republican, writes that he hopes his party loses both houses in November. And as for Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”? Buckley suggests it should be termed “incontinent conservatism.”
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Southern women are turning away from the Republican Party, due to the president?s handling of the war. As one Southerner put it: ?As a mother you worry, ‘Am I going to lose my baby boy?’ A mother’s view about war is often going to be a lot different than dad’s is.? (h/t: AMERICAblog)
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GOP’ers who once bragged in campaign materials about their close relationship with the president have started whitewashing their connections with the now-toxic Bush from their political ads and websites.
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house.gov
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Whether it’s because he’s facing a tough campaign against an antiwar Democrat or he just lost his supply of kool-aid, Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) has swung ‘round to sanity on the Iraq war. After returning from his 14th visit to Iraq, the once-steadfast hawk called for a timetable for withdrawal and bashed Rumsfeld: “I haven’t had faith in the secretary in a long time.”
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Senior Bush officials and other top Republicans are apparently angry that U.S. intelligence agencies aren’t issuing more ominous threats about Iran. The GOP’ers, marred by (but unrepentant for) their Iraq debacle, are eager to use their lethal Tonka Toys once again—this time in Iran.
Check out an intelligence expert at AMERICAblog who argues that Iran poses no imminent threat to the U.S.
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In a reversal of the national sentiment of 2003, Americans now favor Democrats over Republicans on the Iraq war by 47% to 41%, according to a CNN poll. On the issue of terrorism, however, Republicans come out on top, 48 to 38.
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By Molly Ivins — Those who advocate withdrawal from Iraq ASAP have just as much of a duty to make the arguments for doing so—and to admit how much they don’t know—as those who got us into this mess five years ago.
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Rep. Robert ?Bob? Ney (R-Ohio) announced he would not seek reelection in November. Ney, who has been under investigation for corruption related to Jack Abramoff, was pressured by the House Republican leadership to step down at the end of his term.
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Bush spoke to the NAACP?s annual convention for the first time during his presidency. His speech drew both applause and silence as he addressed the group he has avoided for five years.
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The Democratic congressman from Massachusetts slams the GOP for its attempt to legislate morality in the realm of online poker (while Republicans hypocritically protect other forms of gambling). Money quote: “If we were to outlaw for adults everything that college students abuse we would all just sit at home and do nothing!”
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From Thehill.com
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The Illinois senator chastised his colleagues for leaving the evangelicals to the Republicans.
Electorally, he may be correct, but no self-respecting progressive should be fooled. On the whole, evangelicals are the most regressive people in the country. Just look at the hatred and intolerance they’ve made central to the Republican Party.
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By Molly Ivins — The top U.S. commander in Iraq proposed an Iraq cut-and-run plan during the very week that Republicans were lambasting Democrats for making the same suggestion. But Karl Rove knows that because Americans’ memories are so short, that won’t matter.
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Senate Republicans shot down a measure that would have enacted oversight on the practices of private contractors in Iraq. As a result, companies like Halliburton are free to continue doing things like exposing U.S. soldiers in Iraq to water contaminated with fecal matter. The Nation has the details.
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Companies in the insurance, pharmaceuticals and tobacco industries are boosting their share of contributions to Democrats this year, an indication that the traditionally Republican-friendly donors suspect Dems may soon end up holding the reins of power.
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The chairman of the Republican National Committee did a surprisingly good job ducking and parrying the jabs that the “Daily Show” host launched at him over the Bush administration’s record of lies and deceit. (Stewart got in a few zingers, but Mehlman is as good as they come.)
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By Norman Solomon — Members of the media have been too easy on the Republican push to ban gay marriage. Yes, it may be all about politics, but does that mean society shouldn’t react harshly to the attempt to codify discrimination in our Constitution?
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Democratic strategist Joe Trippi writes that the rise of the Netroots-based organization Unite08 may be the harbinger of the end of the traditional two-party system in American politics.
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From AmericanProspect.org
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That’s the call from Michael Tomasky in a cover story for the American Prospect. He means republicans with a small ‘r’—defenders of the idea of a republic that serves the common good. Tomasky writes: “What the Democrats still don?t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society.”
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revisits the 2004 election and finds evidence of massive electoral fraud. Kennedy writes: “After carefully examining the evidence, I’ve become convinced that the president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004.”
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Just as the GOP tried to pull African Americans away from the Democratic Party, so too are Democrats going after the Republicans’ base: evangelical Christians. But a Washington Post columninst asks: “What does it profit a party to gain a demographic but lose its soul?”
Earlier: The Religious Left Rises Again
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“By all means, reform immigration with this deep obeisance to the Republican right-wing nut faction and their open contempt for ‘foreigners.’ But do not pretend for one minute that it is not a craven political bow to racism.”
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White conservatives form the base of the GOP, and Hispanics were supposed to be its future. But thanks to Bush’s stance on immigration (and some other issues), both groups are running away from the party.
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Throw conventional wisdom out the window, says the New York Times: Many seats in the House of Representatives that were once thought safe for Republicans have now become competitive races.
Posted on May 21, 2006
READ MORE 
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From wcsh6.com
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Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers are furious over the alleged NSA phone record collection program.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham: “The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?”
Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy: “It is our government, it’s not one party’s government.”
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Although Republicans have been losing ground in polls for some time, poll numbers for Democrats haven’t been rising much at all—until now.
Posted on May 10, 2006
READ MORE
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From ThinkProgress
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House and Senate conservatives have agreed to spend $70 billion to extend the 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividends until 2010.
Posted on May 9, 2006
READ MORE
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By The Rev. Madison Shockley — The religious advocacy group is inserting itself into the fight over the San Diego congressional seat of disgraced ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
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Luckovich
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Republican senators received a flood of angry e-mails and phone calls in response to their plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the pinch of ever-rising gasoline prices. Even Rush Limbaugh said the GOP was treating Americans like “whores.”
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Georgia Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey seconds Colbert’s motion that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to “gay up” the highways.
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House Republican leaders have stripped a pending bill of language that would require lobbyists to disclose their fundraising activities and contacts with lawmakers.
Posted on Apr 24, 2006
READ MORE
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By Molly Ivins — In this classic column from 2000, the Texas columnist uses unearthed testimony from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to expose Karl Rove’s modus operandi back in the 1980s.
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By Robert Scheer — Colin Powell told me that he and his department’s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim.
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In what would amount to the country’s first universal coverage plan, the Massachusetts Legislature approved a bill that will require all its residents to buy health insurace or face legal penalties.
How did they finally eke out a winning strategy for such a long-sought goal? The program is modeled on the state’s policy on auto insurance.
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Rep. Tom DeLay’s former top aide admitted to conspiring with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to corrupt public officials and defraud his clients.
The stench of corruption spirals ever upward
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Ann Johansson / AP Photo
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On a day when tens of thousands have taken to the nation’s streets to protest a tightening of immigration laws, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas finds himself pinched between conservative “no amnesty” types and and Texas’ huge immigrant population.
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From The Smoking Gun
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When the vice president spends the night at a hotel, he requires all TVs pre-tuned to Fox News (natch), room temperature set at 68 and caffeine-free Diet Sprite, among other things.
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Three years of falsely upbeat predictions about the Iraq war are harming the president’s ability to restore confidence in his military operation and his presidency, according to GOP pollsters and strategists, reports the Washington Post.
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From mundanesounds.com
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OK, OK, it’s not time to get hysterical yet. This one doesn’t look likely to pass, but…
Four senators have introduced a bill that would allow the NSA to eavesdrop, sans warrant, for up to 45 days. GOP Sen. Arlen Specter objected, saying the law would allow government to “do whatever the hell it wants.”
Oh. Right. What a departure that would be.
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How the IRS’ Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional
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