Too stinky even for Congress? House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Daniel Maffei, in a letter today to President Barack Obama, expressed their “growing concern” over the closings of GM and Chrysler dealerships. Moreover, the three congressional Democrats say they want to hear a “compelling justification” how closing healthy dealerships will improve the ailing automakers’ fiscal situation. The three were asking their Capitol Hill

When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods themselves were legal. Previously undisclosed Justice Department e-mail messages, interviews and newly declassified documents show that some of the lawyers, including James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general who argued repeatedly that the United States

That’s part of the cost of “high-quality, affordable health care”. But don’t worry, I don’t think the NSA will be in charge of it. As long as the administration and the Congress are undertaking such sweeping reforms, I think that it’s high time that we include a citizen’s right to high-quality, affordable legal representation. This just doesn’t go far enough, in my view.

If you’re disgusted by the Playboy business and the firing of Tommy Christopher, if you don’t want to support MTV, if you don’t care to get MSNBC, please check out this post. Make a real nuisance of yourself to your representatives. It’s the only way they’ll listen.

It would appear that some dissents are more patriotic than others. Toby Harnden, US correspondent for the London Telegraph: Suspected spy arrested. The Department of Justice has published the indictment. The Associated Press has more (via the WAPO), but Harnden has a couple of comments vis-a-vis the specifics: Do you remember the State Department analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (relatively obscure but one of the US government’s

The latest contretemps pits former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, now president of the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, against Roger Pielke, Jr., an expert in disaster trends at the University of Colorado. Mr. Annan’s outfit issued a lengthy report late last month warning that climate change-induced disasters, such as droughts and floods, kill 315,000 each year and cost $125 billion, numbers it says will rise to 500,000 dead and $340

The subs are powered by ordinary diesel engines and built of simple fiberglass in clandestine shipyards in the Colombian jungle. U.S. officials expect 70 or more to be launched this year with a potential cargo capacity of 380 tons of cocaine, worth billions of dollars in the United States.

LET THERE BE CLUSTERFARK! And so there was. at WSJ (subscription): The Obama administration rushed an alliance between Chrysler LLC and Fiat SpA despite Chrysler’s worries about Fiat’s financial health and its willingness to share technology, according to internal company emails. The emails show Fiat ignoring requests for documents and trying to change contract terms late in the talks. A Chrysler adviser at one point said the deal risked looking

Not the actual outlines of the proposal that Obama wants on his desk by August, but the headlines that we can look forward to seeing. Sure will be a relief from all that torture. (h/t Stoo) Preview of 2010? Gordon Brown was dealt another huge blow last night when Labour lost all its remaining county councils in its worst ever local election results. Counties turned from red to blue in