Monday evening links
Here’s a link round-up of the big stories of the day for your perusal:
—– Will Lieberman get to keep his seat as Chair of the Homeland Security Committee? Looks like he just might, and instead will lose the gavel on a subcommittee he chairs. How will the vote, to be taken tomorrow, go down? Via secret ballot. Apparently it’s ok for Democrats to vote via secret ballots but not union members.
—– Former Ark. gov and candidate for president Mike Huckabee has raised a lot of eyebrows this week with a new book coming out tomorrow that talks about, among other things, the race for the Republican nomination. The book, titled Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America, contains some not-too-flattering remarks about some of Huck’s primary opponents – saving the worst for Mitt Romney. The Romney camp responded back by saying, essentially, that Huckabee was doing nothing to help move the party forward by engaging in a discussion about “presumed slights.”
—– The big meeting happened today between Obama and McCain in Chi-town. No one was hurt, no cabinet position was offered, and the two – after discussing ways to “work together” to fix the problems the country faces – amicably went their separate ways.
—– It’s Republican Senator vs. Republican Senator over remarks one of the senators made about another Republican Senator. Yeah, I know – I can’t keep up with all the Republican infighting going on since the election, either.
—- And speaking of: Rep. Eric Kantor (R-VA), who is vying for a leadership position in the House GOP, told The Washington Times that he believes the GOP is “no longer relevant.” Read the full interview here.
—– Palin for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year? Not gonna happen. We know who’ll get that one.
—– The anti-Prop 8 gang continues to strike, this time against peaceful Christians in San Francisco.
—– What a surprise: Al Franken wants disqualified ballots to count in the as-yet-to-be-decided MN Senate race. In a symbol of pure arrogance, he plans to visit DC later this week to give Senate Democrat leaders an update on where the recount stands.
—– Two weeks out from the Georgia run-off Senate election, former Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley is being courted by both incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss and his Democrat challenger Jim Martin. Since the votes that went to Buckley on November 4th were enough to force the run-off, his support – and via extension the support of those who voted for him – has become key in may be the battle to keep Obama from reaching the magic 60 number in the Senate. Which way will the Libertarian vote go?
—– Here’s the latest on the Alaska Senate race: Democrat Mark Begich leads Ted Stevens by just over 1,000 votes, with 10% more ballots needed to be counted.
—– Media mogul Rupert Murdoch ripped the mainstream media a new one this weekend over its collective failure to earn the trust and loyalty of their readers/viewers. A long overdue blistering of the mediots by one of their own, IMO (even though certainly the likes of the NYT don’t see successful media big wigs like Murdoch as one of “their own” primarily because Murdoch’s successes are based around giving a more fair and balanced approach to journalism more so than many other mainstream news outlets).
—– President Bush has decided to leave Obama a gift of sorts: Half of the $700B financial industry bailout money.
—– The Iraqi cabinet passed a US-Iraq security pact today will now be considered in the Iraqi Parliament, to be voted on on November 24th. The WaPo reports:
While [Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike] Mullen said that he and the top commanders for Iraq and the region, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, were “comfortable” with the status of forces agreement signed with Iraq today, he described some logistical hurdles to a U.S. troop withdrawal along a fixed timeline.
“We have 150,000 troops in Iraq right now. We have lots of bases. We have an awful lot of equipment that’s there. And so we would have to look at all of that tied to, obviously, the conditions that are there, literally the security conditions,” he said.
“Clearly, we’d want to be able to do it safely.”
Not only that, but the top military brass will obviously have to abide by what our new CIC’s wishes on the issue of US forces in Iraq.
The exact details of the agreement have not been released.
Related: Zombietime has declared November 22nd as “Victory in Iraq Day.”