Quick Hits Before The Weekend

Here's some things for you to study before the quiz on Monday:

• Sen. Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman - CT) is feeling the heat about missing hundreds of votes during his tenure, including almost half of the votes on Iraq. This is exactly the same attack Lieberman used in his successful race against Lowell Weicker in 1988. So he's particularly sensitive to it. This race looks to be in Lieberman's favor right now, but Ned Lamont is charging.

• Republicans: they don't care about your security:

House Republicans are blocking an attempt to spend $3.1 billion to help the nation's police and fire agencies communicate in emergencies as Congress debates a proposed overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

• Let's use experimental microwave weapons to disperse crowds. Sweet!!! This isn't coming from an eight year-old, but the Air Force secretary, a high-ranking official.

• A really good debate in my cross-posted Daily Kos version of my thoughts on Presidential blackmail. One point that comes through over and over again is that the President is covering himself and his colleagues from war crimes prosecution by trying to legalize his own illegal behavior. CIA officers may be buying legal insurance because they changing the law after they've committed crimes won't help them. But it might help the Administration maintain plausible deniability. And judging from Bush's petulance today, he looks to be VERY worried about this. Jonathan Turley's appearance on Countdown today hit this point over and over.

• The Washington Post editorial board also weighs in on the President lobbying for torture. Key quote:

There's no question that the United States is facing a dangerous foe that uses the foulest of methods. But a wide array of generals and others who should know argue that it is neither prudent nor useful for the United States to compromise its own values in response. "I continue to read and hear that we are facing a 'different enemy' in the war on terror," retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) this week. "No matter how true that may be, inhumanity and cruelty are not new to warfare nor to enemies we have faced in the past. . . . Through those years, we held to our own values. We should continue to do so."

• Never got to this, but Social Security is still on the hit list for the White House, and every Democratic candidate should be very vocal about their determination to protect this successful government program that has lifted so many seniors out of poverty.

• Bob Ney wasn't the only Ohio Republican sentenced to prison this week, Tom Noe will also be fitted for an orange jumpsuit, for illegally contributing money to the President through intermediaries. By the way, the White House still has not returned that money, to the best of my knowledge.

• I am disappointed that Chicago was unable to implement their living wage law due to a veto from the Mayor. That was Mayor Daley's first veto in 17 years. Corporate America still holds a gun to the head of our nation's cities.

• Roy Edroso sees some hypocrisy in conservatives mourning the loss by hard-right Stephen Laffey to moderate Lincoln Chafee, but then seeing the loss of Joe Lieberman as the end of the Democratic Party. Apparently some insurgent campaigns are worse than others.

• MT-Sen: Will Connie Burns be the next to fall in the ongoing Abramoff probe? Maybe so, but judging by how Jon Tester is surging in the Montana Senate race (Rasmussen will show a 9-point lead soon), Burns will be a private citizen before we find out.

• The NSA is writing approved talking points for the Senate Intelligence Committee in order to move forward the illegal wiretapping program. Politics over national security, again.

• GA-Gov: Sonny Perdue thinks it's hilarious that, as governor, he can write bills giving himself a $100,000 tax break, and you can't.

"The one thing I haven't been able to do is find a way to have a friend of mine write me a bill that saves me a $100,000 on my taxes," "Brian" said. "I was wondering how I might be able to get that done."

"Well, you get elected governor Brian," Perdue fired back.

I don't think that ultimately there's a good shot Perdue will lose the governor's mansion, but it's always nice to see Republicans letting the truth slip out.