Month: March 2006

Payne Prevention.

Conservative judicial nominee James Payne, whom Salon‘s Will Evans outed as corrupt this past January, withdraws his name from contention for the bench…or has it withdrawn. “A Senate confirmation hearing for Payne that would have been likely to highlight the ethical problems…could have proved embarrassing to the Bush administration, Oklahoma’s Republican senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn — who have backed Payne so far — and the judge himself.“

The Gray Zone.

“Any disclosure of the PDB beyond its intended narrow audience — the President and his most senior advisers — increases the possibility of damage to the national security.” The Libby legal team’s attempt at graymail receives a highly unwelcome reception from the CIA.

A Handful of Dust.

I’m a few days behind on this one: Layer Cake‘s Matthew Vaughn is writing, producing, and directing an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, which will star Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, Robert DeNiro, and Michelle Pfeiffer. I haven’t read Gaiman’s book, but all signs point to this being a very interesting project.

The Treason of the Senate, Redux.

“‘The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House through its chairman,’ [Senator Jay Rockfeller (D-WV)] told reporters. ‘At the direction of the White House, the Republican majority has voted down my motion to have a careful and fact-based review of the National Security Agency’s surveillance eavesdropping activities inside the United States.’” Once again, on a party line vote and at the behest of Chairman Pat Roberts (by way of the Dubya administration,) the GOP members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vote down an investigation into the NSA warrantless wiretaps….meaning presumed committee moderates Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel buckled under pressure again.

And, speaking of buckling under pressure, the House pass the Patriot Act 280-138. “‘I rise in strong opposition to this legislation because it offers only a superficial reform that will have little if any impact on safeguarding our civil liberties,’ [Congressman Dennis] Kucinich said…’Congress has failed to do its job as a coequal branch of government…The administration’s attack on our democracy has to be reigned in.‘”

You like the rug?

“For whatever reason, Bush seems fixated on his rug. Virtually all visitors to the Oval Office find him regaling them about how it was chosen and what it represents. Turns out, he always says, the first decision any president makes is what carpet he wants in his office…Sometimes Bush describes it as a metaphor for leadership. Sometimes he relates how Russian President Vladimir Putin admired the carpet. Sometimes he seems most taken by the lighting qualities.” Ah, the glory days…I guess it was only after that tough second decision — the drapes, maybe? — that the job started getting to Dubya.

Huck & Jack.

“‘We will name names,’ Lowell said by telephone at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck. ‘That is not a good thing for law enforcement.‘” In troubling news for the Justice Department’s corruption probe, a federal judge refuses to postpone Abramoff’ s sentencing, despite pleas from both sides to do so. “Huck said the government can always request a reduction in Abramoff’s sentence later and that he probably would allow both Abramoff and Kidan to remain free for a reasonable amount of time after they are sentenced.”

Snatching Defeat…

“You know what I think? I don’t think we have a message.” With the administration faltering weekly, multiple investigations into GOP corruption coming to a head, and several congressional Republicans calling it quits (including longtime House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas), the Post surveys the varying Democratic strategies to win back Congress in 2006. Frankly, folks, it doesn’t look good, even given the great hand we’ve been dealt of late. As you might expect from Will Rogers’ famous dictum, no two people mentioned in this article — Reid, Pelosi, Dean, Emanuel, Schumer, Vilsack — seem to be on the same page.

Two for III.

In today’s movie bin, the full trailer for Brett Ratner’s X3: The Last Stand shows up online. Hmm, I’m still not feeling it. To quote an AICN talkbacker, “Too much wire fu makes Homer go something something“…although I did kinda dig the scene with Juggernaut chasing Kitty Pryde. (Insert your own I’m the Juggernaut, b***ch joke if you’d like.) Also out today is the new Japanese M:I:III trailer, now with considerably less Philip Seymour Hoffman.