Boston Globe:
Republican senators and congressmen are trying to distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular national GOP
…the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation is becoming increasingly at odds with the national Republican Party in a state that was long a GOP bellwether, according to an analysis of votes and other actions in Congress over the past year.
Congressmen Jeb [...]

Forget those ill-fated “listening tours” from Karen Hughes. The man who sued Dick Cheney for information about his so-called energy task force is on a wake-up tour.
For the ninth straight year, the GAO said it couldn’t certify the government’s financial statements.
David Walker, 54, U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accounting Office, sees nothing [...]

Compare and contrast:

1995: Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not – and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a [...]

Rough sledding ahead : Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably happy to see 2005 coming to an end. But after the trouncing his initiatives received in November’s special election, he enters 2006 in a much weakened position. The question now is, will the Democrats who control the Legislature step up to the plate:
If this stalemate plays [...]

Datamation:
Two counties in Florida have terminated their use of Diebold computerized voting equipment after computer experts showed that vote totals could be changed by a single individual in a way that would be undetectable later.
The county commission of Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, voted on Dec. 13 to scrap its Diebold equipment and switch to [...]

War lies: Bob Geiger at the Yellow Dog Blog was on hand when former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter debated the formerly liberal Christopher Hitchens about the war in Iraq. The event was held at the Tarrytown Music Hall near New York City and was moderated by talk-show host Jay Diamond. Based on Bob’s [...]

Who’s scoffing now: As constant readers of these pages know, we have been advocating impeaching President Bush since before the fall of Iraq. (Shorter: The promotion of the war was either based on lies or the grossest case of official negligence and incompetence in the history of modern warfare. Either option represents a threat to [...]

Up until now this president’s solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding [...]

I’m a long-time “Hardball” viewer, and after all these years, I’m still not sure what to think about Chris Matthews.
Before he got his own slot on MSNBC, Matthews was a center-left newspaper columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He moved to television just in time for the Clinton wars, when, like a lot of [...]

Not enough haters: Several California groups are working hard to overturn the state’s marriage-like civil unions laws for gay people. They have been talking up plans to put draconian initiatves on the ballot that would make it illegal for same-sex couples to receive any of the benefits granted to mixed-gender relationships.
This would seem like [...]