Attorneygate

A new email released to Congress this week reveals new details about the firing of former US Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam. Apparently Carol Lam had been seeking to extend her time in office so she could get some more work done on some high profile cases. For some reason, however, the administration was very eager to see her go immediately. So eager, in fact, that they were prepared to summarily fire Lam rather than allow her to resign. Why the hurry?

Stem Cell Veto

Today, Bush picked up his veto pen for only the third time in his Presidency and shot down the Stem Cell Research bill. This bill would have expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to lines derived from embryos which would otherwise have been thrown in the trash. Because of this veto yet more Americans will die from his stubbornness. As if Iraq wasn't enough.

The Presidential Race

Yesterday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he is leaving the Republican party, further sparking speculation that he will make an independent bid for the Presidency. Worth several billion dollars, such a bid would not be terribly difficult for Bloomberg to mount as he could easily underwrite the campaign without even doing any fundraising. The question of whether he would prove a spoiler to Democrats or Republicans depends largely on who the nominees are. A poll recently undertaken by SurveyUSA in 15 states shows that while in most cases Bloomberg seems to help the Democrat, that isn't always the case. The candidates most hurt by Bloomberg are Obama and Romney. TPM has an easy-to-read analysis.

Yesterday we also learned that Rudy Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last spring after failing to show up to a single meeting. His reason? Meeting times conflicted with his paid speaking schedule. Making money was apparently more important to Giuliani than solving the Iraq problem. This is what we want from our Presidential candidates? This is yet another item which shows that the aura of strong national security credentials which surrounds Giuliani is just that: an aura. He has no national security credentials whatsoever, but the media accredits him with such because he happened to be Mayor of New York City 5 years ago.

-David Kleppinger, Morons.org Legislative Analyst