The White House has just thrown Miracle-Gro on to the growing Constitutional confrontation between Bush and Congress over the latter’s investigation into the firing of U.S. prosecutors.
Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never [...]

[This weekend preview is being re-published from 2008Central.net]
Democrats prepare for the debate on Monday in South Carolina with busy schedules, while Republicans keep on plugging along…
Barack Obama

Obama has a rally and a townhall meeting in New Hampshire this morning, while Michelle Obama opens the Chicago volunteers office of their campaign. Obama addresses the AFSCME convention [...]

As if survivors of the hurricanes didn’t have enough to worry about, now comes word that some of them suffered illnesses as a result of living in those trailers. Could it be because the trailers were sitting out in the open sun in a Hope, AK airport for a year and a half before people [...]

There would be blood. But there could also be a lot of benefits and the division of a state that has begged to be split into thirds since it was unwisely joined by the British.
From Seattle PI:
WASHINGTON � If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to [...]

He says the bi-partisan proposal to expand the program is against his fiscal philosophy.
*sigh*
From Wash Post:
President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal [...]

From USA Today:
Patrick Ruffini makes the case this morning at the conservative Townhall.com::Blog that Republican Rep. Ron Paul will place second at the Iowa GOP’s “straw poll” Aug. 11 in Ames. While Ruffini thinks Mitt Romney will win the largely symbolic vote that can still lend some momentum to a campaign, he says that Paul [...]

Last week, the administration released an intelligence summary that warns Al-Qaeda is getting stronger.
The president pointed to this as proof that Iraq is central to fighting AQ. Asked if the report actually demonstrates that Bush’s efforts to defeat AQ aren’t working, he replied that things would be far worse if he hadn’t invaded Iraq.
Mull that [...]

About a year ago, I wrote about the case of a motorist who was found carrying a large sum of money. The police seized it, arguing that it just had to be drug money. They were allowed to keep it without ever bothering to prove an underlying crime, thus establishing the cherished legal principle that [...]

He wants tax incentives and programs for low-income children reupped.
While I think that’s a good start, it doesn’t do nearly enough to try and bridge the health care gap in this country.

A White House official talks with Hannah Storm.

I’ll ask it again, are we better or worse off post 9/11?

We could see it coming, but now it’s coming from the White House.
From the Wash Post:
WASHINGTON, July 17 � President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced [...]

This is one of those polls you can’t help but dismiss until you see more like it, but man…Hillary must be smiling right now.

She’ll have a tough battle with Barack, but if she pulls it out, is she the inevitable next Pres?
One thing’s for certain, there’s no hint of inevitability on the Republican side, and [...]

This is pretty interesting, and speaks to how disenchanted the GOPers are with their choices in 2008.
From the AP:
The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner [...]

For those who don’t know what it is, go here. Personally, I’m strongly against it because I think the marketplace should determine the content we hear, not a doctrine devised by politicians, pundits and lobbyists.
Still, it seems like the country is evenly split on this issue, at least according to a new Rasmussen Poll:
Americans [...]

As long as the bulk of the electorate remain polarized and balanced, even a small percentage libertarian swing vote organized around divided government will be enough for libertarians to wield the biggest swinging political “hammer” in town.

This is to be expected, but it doesn’t make it any less frightening for people who are supporting McCain. Is he imploding? Is he just cleaning house? A little bit of both?
From Atlantic Online:
Sen. John McCain’s top three press aides resigned this morning, Republicans close to the campaign said and one of those aides confirmed.
The [...]

So how’d the Internet-created candidate do on his swing through one of California’s richest, most tech savvy ‘hoods?
Here’s video of him at the Google campus.

And here are four videos of him at a rally near Google.
PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

But wait…there’s more!
You can also listen to some audio of him at the San Francisco Chronicle’s [...]

The following preview is for a documentary that details our incompetence in trying to rebuild Iraq . The people in it were people who were there, saw the train headed in the wrong direction and couldn’t convince our administration they were going to end up where we are today.

Powerful stuff.
I also found a public television [...]

This one slipped past me since it’s from January.

Weird.

The American people want out:
While the springtime surge in U.S. troops to Iraq is now complete, more Americans than ever are calling for U.S. forces to withdraw. Sixty-six percent say the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be decreased, including 40 percent who want all U.S. troops removed. That’s a 7-point increase since April.
The [...]