This passage was buried in a lengthy piece in TIME magazine this weekend:

[S]ources tell TIME that Abramoff’s work habits could be making the investigators’ job much easier. He did nearly all his communication by e-mail–even with the assistants who sat right outside his office, associates say. And having farmed out so much work among his colleagues, Abramoff insisted on a daily accounting–known as the wrap-up–to make sure it had all got done. In those records…are notations of nearly every phone call and appointment, every payment that was collected and every check that was sent out.

Tom DeLay claims that he didn’t know that Abramoff was financing trips he took to London and Russia. DeLay should request that Abramoff release all his emails and other records so this issue can be resolved.

Last April, in its 18th annual report on terrorism, the State Department reported the number of terrorist attacks around the globe had fallen. The White House pounced on the report, using it as objective proof that President Bush was winning the war on terrorism. Just a few months later, the State Department had to revise the 2003 figures and acknowledge the original report drastically underreported the number of terrorist attacks. In fact, the number of significant terrorist attacks in 2003 had increased.

It’s a year later, and the new State Department report on terrorist attacks is due next week. According to former State Department terrorism expert Larry Johnson, statistics were set to show there were 625 “significant” attacks last year, making 2004 the worst year for terrorist attacks in two decades.

So the State Department simply decided not to publish the statistics this year. Instead, they say numbers will be compiled by the brand-new National Counterterrorism Center.

The State Department’s report on terrorism, sans numbers, is still due to Congress by the end of this month. But what about the numbers and statistics on international terrorist incidents? In today’s press briefing, spokesman Richard Boucher admitted:

“Don’t have a date yet. They’ve agreed to do it; don’t have a date yet…. I don’t know when.”

Don’t hold your breath.

Lookin’ for love but struck out on Hannidate? There’s hope for you yet: Singles Night at Wal-Mart.

It’s true. Come Friday night, the romantically challenged can head to their local megastore, tie a red bow to their shopping baskets and wait for the magic to happen.

And for the shy, “‘flirting points’ around the stores stacked with ‘romantic’ merchandise, such as chocolates, wine and cheese, to help with that first awkward step.”

Last week, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) stated that if House Majority Leader Tom DeLay “chose to resign as majority leader until these matters are resolved, that’s probably not the worst idea.” So how did fellow conservative Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) try to explain away Tancredo’s comments on Sunday’s Meet the Press? Well, it wasn’t the worst defense:

Blunt: Well, you know, you have to take those for what they are. The Tom Tancredo article I happened to read–at the end of the article, his actual quote is, ‘It might not be the worst thing in the world,’ so I assume somebody asked him that question. He also said he thought these were trumped-up charges. It’s easy to speculate on what might be the worst thing.”

As bizarre as Blunt’s “defense” of Tancredo might be, his nitpicking “clarification” of the quote is equally strange. The exact Tancredo quote from the Denver Post article is “Right now, I would not encourage him to leave. If he chose to resign as majority leader until these matters are resolved, that’s probably not the worst idea.” Other papers that wrote on the article — for example, the Washington Post and the Washington Times — cite this very same quote from the Denver Post, not Blunt’s version.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) argues that the judicial filibuster is based on “audacious and constitutionally groundless claims for minority rule.”

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) disagrees. Here’s how he described using the “nuclear option” to end the judicial filibuster on CNN’s Late Edition yesterday:

I do not like this approach. It’s a dangerous approach. It’s an irresponsible approach. And it further erodes the constitutional minority rights element of the Senate.

Hagel is in good company. In 1787, James Madison wrote in Federalist 10:

[M]easures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.

The idea of minority rights wasn’t dreamed up by liberals when President Bush took office. It’s been a foundation of our democracy for over 200 years.