Home / thinkprogress.org rss archive / September-27-2007


Revealed: Sen. Jim Bunning Put Secret Hold On Presidential Records Amendment
Last week, ThinkProgress noted that an anonymous senator had placed a hold on a bill that would restore public access to Presidential records, which President Bush had sealed indefinitely with an executive order in 2001.Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) was originally suspected of being the senator behind the secret hold until a member of his staff [...]

Doolittle and aides subpoenaed…again.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and five of his staffers, seeking “virtually every record including legislative records” for the past 11 years, according to Doolittle’s attorney David Barger. Prosecutors are probing connections between Doolittle and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is currently serving time in jail. Josh Marshall has more on Doolittle’s legal [...]

Rep. Pallone slams Rush’s ‘phony soldiers’ comment.
Yesterday, right wing radio host Rush Limbaugh callously referred to American service members who favor withdrawing from Iraq as “phony soldiers.” Also yesterday, 341 members of the House voted to condemn MoveOn.org and any effort to attack the honor and integrity of all members of the United States Armed Forces. On the floor of the [...]

A Challenge For Lawmakers Who Voted To Attack MoveOn Ad: Will They Now Condemn Limbaugh?
On September 20, 72 Senators voted for the highly politicized, “bait and switch” resolution that condemned a newspaper ad by MoveOn.org. The amendment, offered by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), expressly stated that the Senate would condemn “any effort to attack the honor and integrity” of “all members of the United States Armed Forces“:(b) Sense of [...]

1992 Cheney: Deposing Saddam not worth very many lives.
A recently-unearthed video from 1992 shows Vice President Dick Cheney predicting the mess that occupying Iraq would create: If you get into the business of committing U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq, to occupy the place, my guess is I’d probably still have people there today instead of having been able to bring them [...]

Congress tries to ‘hook up’ college students.
This morning, President Bush signed into law the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) heralded the “landmark legislation,” which “makes the largest investment in student financial aid since passage of the GI Bill in 1944″ and will expand college opportunities for many students. The House Democratic leaderhsip posted this comedic [...]

Matthews To Dodd: ‘Do You Find It Difficult To Debate A Woman?’
During last night’s post-Democratic presidential debate analysis, MSNBC host Chris Matthews was hung up on the fact there is a woman running for president. After questioning Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) position on entitlement reforms, he then asked Dodd, “Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?” Dodd, not surprisingly, [...]

Limbaugh: pro-withdrawal troops are ‘phony soldiers.’
On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh declared that soldiers who support American withdrawal from Iraq are “phony soldiers.” While discussing and disparaging war critics, a caller to Limbaugh’s show, who claimed to be an active-duty soldier, said that anti-war activists “never talk to real soldiers” to support their position, to which Limbaugh responded “phony [...]

GOP Snubbing Of PBS Debate Is Part Of A ‘Pattern’ Of ‘Disrespect’ for ‘Black And Brown Americans’
Tonight, at 9 PM ET, talk show host Tavis Smiley will moderate a Republican presidential forum at Morgan Sate University in Maryland, where candidates will for the first time answer questions from “a panel exclusively comprised of journalists of color.” Controversy is surrounding the event, however, as the four Republican frontrunners — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt [...]

Senate overhwelmingly passes SCHIP.
Defying a veto threat from President Bush, the Senate just passed legislation expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), by a vote of 69-30. The Roll call vote is here. During the debate, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), one of the 18 Republican senators to vote for the compromise legislation, excoriated the White House for [...]

Jenna on Iraq: Its complicated.
In her soon-to-be-aired interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Jenna Bush is very forthcoming about her marriage plans and her fiance Henry Hager. But she was far more circumspect about her views on Iraq:“You know I’m not here to talk about that, but I’m also not a policymaker,” she told Sawyer in an interview to be [...]

Verizon’s ‘Controversial And Unsavory’ Record
Today, the New York Times reported that the telecommunications giant Verizon had refused to allow Naral Pro-Choice America to use its services for a text-message program, claiming “it had a right to block ‘controversial or unsavory‘ text.” Shortly after the Times reported the story on its front page today, Verizon quickly issued a statement retracting [...]

Breaking: Senate passes hate crimes bill.
Moments ago, the Senate voted to expand the hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victims. The vote retained the 60 votes necessary to prevent a filibuster, and it will pass as an attachment to the defense authorization bill.Opponents of the measure immediately predicted it “ultimately would [...]

NBC: Bin Laden may have escaped in Tora Bora again.
U.S. intel officials report that just last month, one of the world’s two most wanted men — bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri — was sighted in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reported last night:U.S. intelligence and military officials tell NBC News overhead surveillance from an unmanned U.S. drone spotted a large al [...]

Casey: Army ‘Out Of Balance,’ ‘Current Demand’ On Troops ‘Exceeds The Sustainable Supply’
In testimony before the House Armed Forces Committee yesterday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said that that the Army is “out of balance” due to the war in Iraq and that it cannot respond adequately to another conflict. Casey said that the “current demand” on the military was not “sustainable“:The current demand for [...]

Wurmser: Cheney does not traffic in insubordination.
In a magazine story this week, Newsweek reported that a former Cheney national security aide, David Wurmser, had said that the Vice President was “mulling the idea of pushing” for limited airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities “in order to provoke Iran into lashing out.” Wurmser, who rarely speaks to the press and has since resigned [...]

ThinkFast: September 27, 2007
During his Senate testimony, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that despite his “intent” to move towards closing Guantanamo Bay, he has run “into several obstacles put up by lawyers within the executive branch.”Gates also asked Congress yesterday for “an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” bringing the total request for 2008 [...]