May 1, 2007
File this one under Conservative Red Meat -- John McCain wants to form a League of Democracies to take action when the UN fails to do so. Warning that the US has to find a global structure for its security...
Hugo Chavez announced last night that Venezuela would withdraw from both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Claiming that Western financial assistance prolongs poverty rather than relieve it, he demanded that the two organizations return Venezuelan assets. At...
That's right, put a big fat question mark at the end of that sentence, because so far the only source on record for that assertion comes from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which has a track record of overenthusiasm with kill...
The New York Times finally weighs in on Fred Thompson, the conservative hope for the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, and they hit below the belt. Actually, that's true literally but not figuratively, as their profile actually remains balanced and positive,...
As CQ readers know, I think Alberto Gonzales has proven himself an incompetent Attorney General, and would do this administration a huge favor by resigning -- especially after his disastrous testimony before Congress in April. His continued presence enables every...
Two new studies on marijuana may provide a stumbling block for legalization activists. ABC News reports that British and American researchers have found evidence that THC, one of the two active ingredients in cannabis, provoke psychotic reactions even in healthy...
Editor & Publisher has released the latest circulation numbers for the newspaper industry -- and they show that the decline in hard-copy readership continues. Almost all major metropolitan broadsheets lost significant ground in the last year, including the New York...
Congress passed its Iraq war supplemental bill last week, but the White House still has not received it. The holdup, according to Congressional Quarterly (via National Review), is that Nancy Pelosi has not yet signed the bill. And the reason...
Unconfirmed reports from Iran say that the Iranian government has freed former FBI agent Robert Levinson and will deport him to either Frankfurt or Dubai today. Levinson had gone to Iran to conduct a private investigation into the murder of...
In today's installment of CQ Radio, I will be reviewing a blogger conference call with the White House and Tony Snow. I'll review the hot stories of day, and announcing the Heading Right debate coverage for Thursday. I may...
Today is the fourth anniversary of George Bush's speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln -- the one Democrats and anti-war activists call the "Mission Accomplished" speech. The crew of the carrier flew the banner because their mission had indeed been...
One of the points in dispute about the Iraq war supplemental bill about to get vetoed by the President is whether the delay has affected military operations. Harry Reid said that the current funding will cover operations until mid-July, while...
Pam at Atlas Shrugged had this earlier, but the Jerusalem Post has a fresh report on the latest threat from Palestinians against the West. The Speaker of the Palestinian Authority parliament has called Palestinians to the task of murdering all...
May 2, 2007
Iranian security officials arrested former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, a political ally of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Replaced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mousavian had extensive contacts in Europe while fending off any attempts to put an end to Iran's nuclear program:...
Last year, millions of people marched in the streets to push for comprehensive immigration reform. Holding signs that demanded open borders, telling Southwestern cities that the land underneath them was really Mexican, and flying Mexican flags, the demonstrations had the...
With George Bush delivering only the second veto of his presidency, the question of funding the mission in Iraq became even more acute. Eighty-six days after the start of the 110th Congress, the military still has not received funding for...
Ronald Reagan inspired many analyses of his performance, from historically brilliant to accidentally successful, and worse. Journalists used him as a blank canvas for the most part, projecting their own biases and agendas onto Reagan and missing the essence of...
The first Republican presidential primary debate airs tomorrow night at 7 pm CT -- and Blog Talk Radio and Heading Right will team up to cover it. The entire team at Heading Right will be posting live at the site,...
The US Army has promulgated a new set of rules for operational security that puts restrictions on the ability of soldiers to write about their experiences in combat theaters. In fact, the change will be so restrictive as to have...
The debate over gun rights has taken an interesting and complex twist in Texas. Governor Rick Perry, in reaction to the massacre in the "gun-free zone" of Virginia Tech, now says that Texas state law should allow licensed gun carriers...
I'm getting some e-mail and comments about the David Keene essay in The Hill regarding Dianne Feinstein regarding the multiple conflicts of interest between her Appropriations subcommittee assignment and her husband's businesses. Two days ago, Keene noted that her status...
Today on CQ Radio, we will speak with Josh Holmes, the spokesman for the Senate Republican Communication Office, to talk about the veto, the Iraq war funding, and what we can expect over the next few days. You can...
When I first wrote about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a sodomy law in the case of Lawrence v Texas, I warned that the basis of the decision -- a privacy right to sexual conduct between consenting adults...
May 3, 2007
The arrest of former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian has people scratching their heads, as I noted yesterday. Now the Guardian reports that Iranian authorities have charged Mousavian with leaking secrets from the Iranian nuclear program to the West: A senior...
Estonia angered the Russians by recently removing a monument to the Red Army which occupied the Baltic state for decades. Vladimir Putin has poured gasoline on the fire of the controversy, demanding the restoral of the monument, and threatening Estonia...
The Iraqis have announced another big takedown from al-Qaeda, and this time it looks like the US military will confirm the kill. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, has gone to meet his 72...
Democrats and Republicans began the process of reaching a compromise on funding the military operations in Iraq yesterday, with Democrats apparently making the first big concession. The Washington Post reports that the demand for withdrawal timelines will be dropped --...
Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan has spent the last few years raging about the Bush administration and its predilection for torture. He has also written extensively on the supposedly degrading effect the television show “24″ has on the nation, and how...
Yesterday, CNN reported on the disastrous consequences that a precipitate American withdrawal would create for Iraq. Today, the Los Angeles Times follows suit, describing the delicate process of training a national army from scratch, and the collapse that would ensue...
You have to love the American media and its love of lists. They feel compelled to categorize the top 100 most, least, biggest, most beautiful of just about anything that talks, walks, or crawls -- and they almost always manage...
On the eve of the first televised debate for the Republican presidential contenders, Quinnipiac shows that the race continues to fluctuate in the early primary season. Rudy Giuliani has lost significant ground over the last month to the undeclared Fred...
Robert Novak has a long career in punditry, so perhaps he has written a more despicable column than today's effort to link Mitt Romney to a massacre -- in 1857. Novak uses the release of a film that depicts the...
Today on CQ Radio, we will be talking with Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation and also of Bluey Blog in the second half of the show. We'll talk about his new efforts at Heritage and discuss the GOP...
Yesterday, Wired reported on new Army operational-security regulations that would have meant an end, for all practical purposes, to milblogging from the front lines. Today, the Washington Times' Jon Ward asked Tony Snow about the new OpSec regulations, and the...
Tonight, the first Republican presidential primary debate airs at 7 pm CT -- and Blog Talk Radio and Heading Right will team up to cover it. The entire team at Heading Right will be posting live at the site,...
Were live-blogging the debate at Heading Right. Come by and join us! We're starting the post-debate discussion at 9 pm CT -- be sure to join us!...
The first Republican debate has finished, and the analysis and spin will begin in earnest. I'm sure that by morning, my e-mail will be filled with messages insisting on promoting one candidate over another, but I already have a few...
May 4, 2007
Last night, I had the pleasure of analyzing the debate with my excellent co-bloggers at Heading Right as it happened, and then recapping it at Debate Central in a half-hour roundtable which has now been podcasted by BlogTalkRadio. Afterwords, National...
UPDATE: I expected
this kind of stupidity, but I didn't expect it from Shaun Mullen ...
I hate to point out the obvious, but that's not what I wrote. It's not okay to beat up
anyone. It doesn't make a beating worse if the victim happens to be gay, or obese, or a Democrat. I defy Shaun to identify where I said anything different. Talk about jumping the shark ...
Hugo Chavez, apparently not content to nationalize the oil industry alone, has now threatened to take over the banking and steel industries in Venezuela as well. Unhappy with the investment policies and outsourcing, the dictator sent envoys to the leaders...
Perhaps the debate over whether to persevere in Iraq has become too brittle to accept anyone else's opinion, but the foreign minister of Iraq gives it a game try. In today's Washington Post, Hoshyar Zebari implores Americans and the world...
The Democrats have always had it in their power to end the Iraq war simply by defunding it, and forcing the Pentagon to retreat from the terrorists and insurgents in Baghdad, Anbar, and leave the Iraqis to the tender mercies...
No one expected Don Imus to stay silent for long. Less than a month after CBS fired him from his morning radio show, syndicated nationwide, Imus has begun his public campaign to re-establish himself by claiming that he delivered what...
Today on CQ Radio we will be debating the debate. NZ Bear will join us to discuss the debate, the results, the spin, and the meaning of last night's event. We will also discuss the performance of MS-NBC and...
I see the Los Angeles Times has spent decades living in and reporting on the film community without learning anything about acting. In their Celebrity News section, Tina Daunt wonders whether voters will confuse Fred Thompson the politician with the...
Rasmussen has a new poll that measures the paranoia level in America, and unsurprisingly, BDS sufferers exhibit more than almost any group. When asked the question "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?", almost as many Democrats say...
May 5, 2007
I've watched The Sopranos ever since it first started, and it remains one of the two episodic shows that I refuse to miss each week (South Park is the other, when they show new episodes). While it does feature violence,...
A strong majority of troops in Iraq disavow the use of torture, even to save the life of their fellow soldiers, a new study shows. Only 10% in the anonymous survey admit to even mild forms of abuse, such as...
The Democratic leadership of the 110th Congress promised a change in style and substance from the so-called "do-nothing" 109th. They expanded the work week and laid out an ambitious agenda of legislative priorities that they would accomplish in the first...
The Chicago Tribune reports that Democrats will produce a supplemental bill for the Iraq war that will not have fixed timelines for withdrawal, in order to ensure that George Bush will sign it. Dick Durbin will reach out to Republicans...
UPDATE: Due to an issue at home today, I will not be on the air -- but make sure you tune in to the show!! The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast...
I want to calm the fears of our British friends: Queen Elizabeth was never in any danger of being assaulted with a snapped towel, nor does she need to wear plastic to avoid getting hit with tobacco spit. The snobs...
Fred Thompson appeared last night at the Lincoln Club, an influential group of California power brokers in the GOP, giving a speech which broadly outlines his agenda. Given that the Lincoln Club could have invited almost any of the 2008...
George Tenet has received plenty of criticism about his new book, At the Center of the Storm, ranging from poorly researched anecdotes to excoriation over the long delay and changing stories after he left the agency. Now one of his...
May 6, 2007
Mike Nifong faces disbarment and almost certainly a flurry of lawsuits over his negligent and malicious handling of the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape by a mentally unstable woman. He may not be the only one on the hot...
It's been a slow morning today, as I spent most of last night fighting insomnia and decided to sleep later than usual when I finally got my 40 winks. I dragged myself out of bed and had just began to...
Readers can tell that the media has begun to take Fred Thompson seriously as a candidate, because the profiles on him have become more sharp and land on the front pages. Today, the Washington Post takes a turn at Fred,...
Newsweek publishes a breathless account of how George Bush's approval rating has dropped to 28%, and how leading Democrat contenders now outpoll the Republicans across the board for the 2008 presidential race. Coincidence, Newsweek asks? They should have asked that...
It appears Nicolas Sarkozy has won the French presidential election today, as results have leaked to various media groups and to the gathered supporters of the French center-right candidate. Meanwhile, the mood at his opponent's headquarters has turned grim, which...
Palestinian Authority officials have blamed al-Qaeda for an attack on a school celebration, in part because the terrorists believed that girls and boys would dance together at the event. They allege that AQ has established a foothold in Gaza, and...
May 7, 2007
Here at CQ, we're always looking for ways to tinker with the system in order to improve performance. I'm testing a new comment interface that works outside of the Typekey login. Typekey still works with the comments section, but at...
I don't subscribe to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, mostly because I no longer feel the need to get dead trees dropped on my driveway each morning to remain informed. I also don't feel that the Strib does a particularly good job...