Entries by emptywheel

Trent and Mitch

As you’ve no doubt heard, Trent Lott will announce that he has decided to spend more time with his K Street friends.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott(R-Miss.) is planning on resigning from the Senate this year and maymake a formal announcement as soon as today.

If he resigns, Lottwould become the sixth Republican senator to announce they werestepping down this election cycle.

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Does this Sound Familiar?

Where have we seen this before: a Bush Administration gives vague guidance to our favored military dictator in a turbulent neighborhood, and the dictator takes a step that might destabilize the whole region.

The Bush Administration knew that Pakistani strongman PervezMusharraf planned to institute emergency rule but did not act or speakout about the plan, according to officials with knowledge of thediscussion who spoke anonymously in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

“In the days

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It Takes Astute Observation, Not Mea Culpas

Mark Halperin has a hysterical op-ed in the NYT today, designed to be a mea culpa for the failures of presidential campaign journalism. Halperin reveals the reason behind the press corps’ obsession with horse race politics–they all read Ben Cramer’s What It Takes–and then admits that success in a political horse race does not necessarily equip someone to run the country.

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared theview

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Speaking of the Saudis

Check out who Bandar Bush bin Sultan hired to defend him in the BAE bribery investigation:

Prince Bandar, a confidant of the Bush family, recently retained the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis J. Freeh, as well as one of the fathers of the F.C.P.A., the retired federal judge Stanley Sporkin, to represent him.

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The Saudis Have Been Busy

The Saudis appear to be moving three chess pieces at once. I won’t pretend to know what the moves mean. But I’d suggest that the coincidence of the three moves might suggest they’re taking an upper hand in the US policy-making in the Middle East.

Nawaz Sharif

First data point: after preventing former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from returning to Pakistan several weeks ago, the Saudis now appear to be forcing his

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Probable Cause

I can’t say I’m surprised by this news–that some courts are approving government use of cell phone GPS data without first requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause.

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphonecompanies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint thewhereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects,according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiringthe government to demonstrate

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Thanksgiving Football Trashtalk Thread

Say, did you know that the last time the Detroit Lions won on Thanksgiving Day, they beat the Packers?

And if you want to answer the absurd quiz, click through to NFL.com, which apparently needs to have four entries for all of its quizzes. How else to explain the presence of Kitna who, though he has moments of inspiration, is not in the same league as the other guys, particularly not Manning

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Stop Making Scottie McC Rich!!

Cannonfire is right. People have gotten way too excited over this Scottie McC “revelation.” I’d advise you all to look closely at what John Dean had to say about the flap on Olbermann:

Dean: Well, there’s very little that’s specific in this. I actuallythought about calling the publisher today. He’s a very ablepublisher–Peter Osnos, Public Affairs, good journalist.

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Rove Is Rejected By Time

For the record, I heartily approve of both of Newsweek’s recent pundit hires–Rove and Markos. After all, news outlets dump a lot of money to pay pundits whose predictions turn out to be wrong year after year. So why not hire two guys who at least have contributed historic innovations to elections–the guys who execute campaigns, rather than talk about doing so?

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