Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki took “a page out of the Bush administration playbook,” saying yesterday that criticism of his administration from President Bush and other U.S. officials “give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort.”
The Senate’s high-profile ethics and lobbying reform bill was sidetracked yesterday after conservatives voted against further consideration of the bill because it didn’t include an amendment giving President Bush line-item veto power, the ability “to single out individual spending items in legislation for elimination.”
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) criticized the Justice Department’s new approach to warrantless domestic spying, charging that it relies “on a blanket, ‘programmatic’ approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.” Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,” Wilson said.
In any case, the shift yesterday “doesn’t mean the government can’t still gather personal information about Americans without a court order,” a USA Today editorial states. “How? Through something called a National Security Letter. Unlike the warrantless wiretapping program, these letters don’t violate any laws, though perhaps they should.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is moving to create a special House panel to address global warming, headed by climate champion Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). The decision, “to some degree, would sidestep” some powerful committee chairmen, specifically energy chairman John Dingell (D-MI), who is less aggressive on global warming issues.
Schwarzenegger calls for redeployment…and escalation. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) yesterday said the U.S. “should withdraw its military forces from Iraq by the end of this year.” He also gave support to Bush’s escalation “plan to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq.”
“The federal government’s biggest program to help people rebuild after natural disasters is on the verge of running out of operating money because of budgeting problems at the agency that runs it, the Small Business Administration,” the New York Times reports.
In a speech at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said federal judges are not “equipped to make decisions about” national security. “I try to imagine myself being a judge,” Gonzales said. “What do I know about what is going on in Afghanistan or Guantanamo?”
The National Association of Evangelicals and the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School “joined forces on Wednesday to protect the environment from the ravages of global warming, calling on President George W. Bush and others in power to help.”
And finally: Two titans of journalism square off tonight. Stephen Colbert will appear on the “O’Reilly Factor” at 8 pm, while Bill O’Reilly appears on the “Colbert Report” at 11:30 pm. “I think it’s fine,” O’Reilly said of Colbert’s shtick. “I’m a prominent person in the media. I think satire is very, very entertaining for any society to have. I have never had a problem with it as long as it’s not mean-spirited, and I don’t think he is.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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