Now there’s a title I never thought I’d get to use. But it’s true … the president today will announce the designation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a national monument, making the 140,000-square mile area the largest protected marine area in the world (surpassing even the Great Barrier Reef). According to reports in the NY Times and WaPo today, the region of uninhabited islands and atolls is home to more than 7,000 marine species, including several that are listed...

All sorts of exciting political news this morning (and it’s also Flag Day), but I forgot to write about this article last night and did want to comment on it at least briefly. It’s from yesterday’s LATimes, and discusses recent events in Kansas, where a former state Republican chairman is now the Democratic governor’s running mate. Mark Parkinson’s not alone, either; at least two other prominent state Republicans have switched parties in recent months, citing a growing...

By way of followup to yesterday’s post on the NSA eavesdrop program’s day in court, I’d point to today’s article by Adam Liptak in the NYTimes. He reports that the hearing room was packed for the arguments yesterday, and that the government, as expected, urged the judge to toss the case on “state secret” grounds. Lawyer Anthony Coppolino argued that the while program is lawful, “the evidence we need to demonstrate to you that it is lawful cannot be disclosed...

As the LATimes reports, the NSA’s warrantless surveillance project will be the subject of a federal court hearing in Detroit today, as part of a suit brought by a coalition of groups and individuals including the ACLU, the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, author James Bamford, and others. From the Times article: “The suit in Detroit, like one filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights, asserts that the NSA’s eavesdropping program has violated...

Vice President Cheney has responded to Senator’s Specter’s letter with a missive of his own, in which he called his lobbying of Judiciary Committee Republicans “government at work” and “not unusual.” Cheney added “The respectful and candid exchange of views is something to be encouraged rather than avoided.” That is true, and had that been what Cheney was doing, I’d agree with him. The Veep’s letter went on to say “While there may...

Has Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter finally reached the end of his rope when it comes to patience with this Administration’s stonewalling? A letter [PDF] he sent to Vice President Cheney yesterday seems to indicate that he’s getting pretty close. This week, Specter was planning to seek approval from his committee to hold a closed session with telephone industry executives regarding the recent revelation that their companies have provided call data to the federal government....

The proposed amendment to define marriage in the Constitution failed in the Senate today (hardly surprising to anyone). It needed sixty votes to achieve cloture, and only got 49. Forty-eight senators voted in opposition. I’ll update this with a link to the roll call when it’s available. Now, Senate, get back to work on some important issues. Update: The roll call is here. Democrats Byrd and Nelson (NE) voted in favor of cloture; Republicans Chafee, Collins, Gregg, McCain, Snowe, Specter,...

I went this afternoon to a showing of Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and boy am I glad I did. This is a movie that had the potential to be absolutely horrible (yes, that would be the vision of Al Gore giving a slide show about global warming), and yet it was not that at all. It managed to be powerful without preaching, intelligent but not overwhelming, and, perhaps most importantly, not boring in the slightest. From fuel efficiency standards to the melting of ice shelves...

Rick Brookhiser’s new book “What Would the Founders Do?” is out … you can read what I thought of it here. [Pointer-posted because it's long.]

The split in the New York Republican party got a little wider yesterday, as delegates to the state party convention voted to nominate former assembly minority leader John Faso (over former MA Gov Bill Weld) to be the party’s nominee against Eliot Spitzer in this fall’s gubernatorial race. Now, since recent polls have suggested it might not even matter who the GOP runs since Spitzer’s probably going to walk away with it in November, the party’s decision is nonetheless an important...

The Federal Elections Commission is an embarrassment. Yesterday its members decided, by a 4-2 vote, to leave in place the current unsatisfactory rules for dealing with independent “527″ political advocacy groups. A federal judge had ruled in April that the Commission should either “start crafting new rules or to issue a better explanation of how it will be able to regulate the groups effectively under existing rules,” which involves handling each case individually (that worked...

Hotline On Call has the full text of former president Clinton’s speech at Cooper Union’s commencement today. Quite an interesting and – if I may say so – good speech. Some excerpts follow: “Too often in the past twenty-five years our elections and political discourse have been marked by the triumph of personal attacks, baseless or irrelevant assertions, and blind ideology over evidence argument. Too often the purpose of an election has been to concentrate wealth and...

Ah, the wonders of modern technology. CQPolitics has released a really neat 2006 Election Forecast Map, which takes a look at House, Senate and gubernatorial races for the fall and offers stats, news, and projections for each. If they can keep this updated in a reasonably timely fashion, it will be a very handy tool in a couple months. Check it out.

British journalist Steven Poole coins the term in his new book, which I’ve just posted a review of here.

It is not often that I find myself wanting to write in praise of something the House of Representatives has done, but I do enjoy those rare moments when they occur. Last week, the House voted 416-6 to sponsor an “H-Prize,” program to encourage research into the use of hydrogen as an alternative automobile fuel. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Inglis and co-sponsored by 26 additional members from both parties, “would award four prizes of up to $1 million every other year for technological...

A quick update to yesterday morning’s post on the DoJ ending its ethics investigation of itself in regard to the NSA warrantless eavesdrop program. The NYTimes reports this morning (in its story about the new hubbub over phone call collecting, which is covered well below) that Senator Specter yesterday called the denial of security clearances to the DoJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility “incomprehensible.” He added that he will join other senators in requesting that...

The papers report this morning that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has ended its investigation into the role of DoJ lawyers in the development of the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program (NYTimes, WaPo). Why, you ask? OPR director H. Marshall Jarrett wrote yesterday to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who had requested the investigation, to notify him that it was over. Said Jarrett, “we have been unable to make meaningful progress in our investigation because...

Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor recently released a new book, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution. I have posted a review of it here at Charging RINO.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg has a report in today’s NY Times which seems to suggest that we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about the Gang of 14 in the coming weeks. The debate over federal judges is resuming in DC, and conservatives are pushing for a fight that could once again lead to a debate over the so-called “nuclear option.” Part of the compromise reached last year by the Gang of 14 was that the group made no determination on the ultimate fate of two judicial nominees:...

Someone needs to cut up the Senate’s credit cards. Yesterday, that body added several additional spending projects to the “emergency” appropriations bill, sending the overall cost soaring to near $109 billion, making it now $17 billion over the $92.2-billion threshold (plus another $2 billion for avian-flu preparedness) Bush says he’ll veto at. Bush reiterated his veto threat yesterday, saying “some here in Washington with trying to load up that bill with unnecessary...

Speaking at a “surprise” appearance at a Biloxi, MS gas station yesterday, President Bush said that part of his long-term plan to bring down high gas prices would be to raise fuel efficiency standards in cars. Some of us have been saying that for years, but alright, fine, welcome to the show – better late than never, Mr. President. Here’s the problem. Bush reverted to what seems to be this administration’s default position when something needs to be done: give me the...

The National Archives’ Internal Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has completed its audit of the (formerly-secret) reclassification program conducted over the past several years, and released its report yesterday. The audit uncovered evidence that 25,315 records were reclassified under the program – of a sample of those, 24% were found to fall under the category “clearly inappropriate for continued classification,” and another 12% were “questionable.” “In...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports in the New York Times that Democratic candidates across the country are preparing campaign strategies which highlight their support for embryonic stem-cell research. The issue has “cropped up in Senate races in Maryland and Missouri, and in House races in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, especially in suburban swing districts,” writes Stolberg. The article highlights Missouri, where a constitutional amendment...

The New York Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller and Jim Rutenberg suggest today that new White House Chief of State Josh Bolten may be planning to replace current WH Counsel and failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Citing an unnamed “influential Republican with close ties to Mr. Bolten,” the dynamic Times duo report “Mr. Bolten had floated the idea among confidants, but that it was unclear whether he would follow through or if the move would be acceptable to Mr. Bush, who has...

The New York Times and Washington Post both have good coverage of new WH CoS Josh Bolten’s surprisingly candid (at least for this Administration) announcement to senior staff yesterday that big changes in staffing and structure may be (stress may be) coming to the West Wing in the near future. Without asking for specific resignations yesterday, Bolten said that it was his goal to “refresh and re-energize” the White House staff, and told anyone who’s thinking of departing prior...