ThinkFast: March 2, 2006

ThinkFast is a new feature of ThinkProgress. (It’s still a work in progress – let us know what you think.)

Supreme Court justices “signaled” yesterday “that they were likely to uphold the partisan-charged, mid-decade Texas redistricting plan” engineered by criminally indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), despite the fact that the Justice Department found the plan would likely “reduce minority electoral opportunity.”

The Philadelphia Daily News reports, “The largest known giver to a controversial charity founded by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum made its $25,000 donation as the senator was working to win as much as $8.5 million in federal aid for the donor’s project.” Officials with the company, Preferred Real Estate Inc., also gave over 20,000 to Santorum’s reelection campaign. Santorum was ultimately successful in securing the money.

Of Pennsylvania’s 10 largest employers, Wal-Mart has the highest percentage of employees enrolled in the state medical assistance program for the poor and disabled.

Court documents “may provide the first detailed evidence of U.S. residents being spied upon by President Bush’s secret eavesdropping program.” The conversations were between the director of a defunct Islamic chairty, who was in Saudi Arabia, “and two U.S. citizens in Washington who were working as lawyers for the organization.”

$3 billion: The amount in budget cuts that NASA now faces, after its administrator vowed to Congress six months ago that not “one thin dime” would be taken from space science.

Military scientists in the Pentagon are developing a way of manipulating sharks by remote control to turn them into underwater spies or weapons.

John Pace, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq, says abuses are worse now than under Saddam’s regime. Pace on Iraq: “a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.”

“Climate change could become a major source of global conflict over the next 30 years,” British Defense Secretary John Reid has warned. “[U]ncertainty about the geopolitical and human consequences of climate change…make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely.”

Facing political trouble over the UAE port deal, the administration revealed to Congress the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is investigating a second Dubai-owned firm “set to take over plants in Georgia and Connecticut that make precision components used in engines for military aircraft and tanks.”

And finally: $54 million: the amount the Library of Congress wants to spend on a “gold-plated” warehouse.

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.