Principles don’t mean the same to Arlen “Pro Choice” Specter as they might to you or me. You see, his are rather flexible, depending where his currents interests lie. Which really makes him more of an opportunist…
Arlen will do what’s best for Arlen, period. It’s what he’s always done.

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What could be a better night for banishing the ghosts that haunt you? I think Halloween is much better suited to new beginnings than New Year’s Eve.
I’ve been wary of this holiday for a while. My ex-husband and I finally agreed to a divorce on Halloween, and it’s been associated in my mind ever […]

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SEPTA, the Philadelphia public transit company, is on strike. I didn’t really notice a change on the way to work this morning but the ride home was a nightmare. There were lines of several hundred in the concourse for most of the commuter trains - and so many of the people waiting in them were […]

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Oh, look. Rummy’s getting rich off Tamiflu.

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So it seems pretty clear that Scooter is falling on the sword for someone higher up the food chain. The question is, how far up does it go?
Oct. 31 2005 — One of the reporters at the center of the investigation into the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, says he first […]

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Today I had my first tension headache in years. Work as usual was a juggling act and today one of the balls dropped. (Oh well.) But we fixed it and moved on.
I really do love this job. Have I mentioned that? I’m sorry I can’t give more details but so much of what we […]

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Some good news:
AP-Forecasts for warmer weather in the U.S. helped push oil prices below $60 a barrel Monday, and traders said there was also some focus on an OPEC official’s comment that the cartel had “more than adequate” excess production capacity to meet this winter’s expected global demand.

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Speaking of Scalito, here’s a handy dandy guide to national and local talk radio call-in numbers. It wouldn’t bother me a whole lot if you used it in a way unintended by the GOP.

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That Harry Reid fella is a lot sharper than I thought. He got the Republicans to open the door on ideology with Harriet Miers, and now he gets to waltz right on through:
The nomination of Judge Alito requires an especially long hard look by the Senate because of what happened last week to Harriet Miers. […]

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Since so many media types are here via Romenesko today, let me clarify exactly what I said at the Inky bloggers panel (and by the way, I was a journalist myself for 20 years).
When I said they should use the wires to cover the city and send reporters to cover the suburbs, I meant real […]

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Dear God. Now the madness has spread to Pennsylvania.
What next? Build-your-own roads? Oh, I forgot - they’re already proposing that.

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Just so you know, an old friend used to work for one of the local federal judges here and we’ve discussed new SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito.
It was at least ten years back, but I believe the phrase used to describe him was… uh, wait a minute, it’s right here on the tip of my tongue… […]

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The Lord works in mysterious ways.

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Josh Marshall begins a series today in which he details the Italian connection to the forged Niger documents.

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Karl’s nuts still roasting on an open fire:
But two legal sources intimately familiar with Fitzgerald’s tactics in this inquiry said they believe Rove remains in significant danger. They described Fitzgerald as being relentlessly thorough but also conservative throughout this prosecution — and his willingness to consider Rove’s eleventh-hour pleading of a memory lapse is merely […]

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The National Review’s Victor Davis Hansen illustrates why Carl Jung is a genius:
George Bush also should begin addressing his most venomous critics at home, by condemning their current extremism. He must explain to the nation how a radical, vicious Left has more or less gotten a free pass in its rhetoric of hate, and has […]

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Krugman:
Let me be frank: it has been a long political nightmare. For some of us, daily life has remained safe and comfortable, so the nightmare has merely been intellectual: we realized early on that this administration was cynical, dishonest and incompetent, but spent a long time unable to get others to see the obvious. […]
So […]

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This is fascinating, especially since it was widely believed otherwise:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that during the Tonkin Gulf episode that helped precipitate the Vietnam War, N.S.A. officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence to cover up their mistakes, according to two people […]

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When it comes to our national security, money obviously pulls a lot more weight:
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Justice Department never acted on a post-Sept. 11 proposal, contested by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, calling for increased federal control over immigration to the Mariana Islands. […]
“The agency reassigned the two officials who produced a 34- […]

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Or like an open-air bazaar:
As the money runs out on the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction of Iraq, the officials in charge cannot say how many planned projects they will complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to operate the projects that have been finished, according to […]

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Why should I bother to gild the lily? Go read Jane.

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Arghhhhh…….

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I wish I could say MoDo was wrong, but I don’t think she is. I’m simply amazed at how retro the mating dance is these days. [Thanks, Somegirl.]
Read it and tell me what you think.
UPDATE: Here’s Amanda’s take on it. Also check out Echidne, Jonquil and Julia.

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Emptywheel on why Dick Cheney is almost certainly in a world o’ trouble.

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Why we know Bob Woodward was lying. [Via A Night Light.]

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