I’m watching the SJC’s 51 minutes of almost entirely pathetic questioning of Robert Mueller to remain Director of FBI for two more years (the only real challenge came from Al Franken on civil liberties issues). And while by far the most telling aspect of the questioning came in Mueller’s repeated assertion that aspirational internet terrorists [...]

So after a last minute dance with three Republican holds, James Clapper is poised to be confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. As I noted before, this means someone most Senators either have or have had concerns about will be approved by big numbers to head our intelligence community. But the more important story about [...]

As expected, SSCI just approved James Clapper’s nomination to be DNI. Surprisingly, though, there were no dissenters. Not Russ Feingold, with his worries about transparency on DOD covert ops. Not Tom Coburn, who was concerned about the timing of Clapper’s nomination (and who never met an obstructive tactic he didn’t like). Not even Kit Bond, [...]

Senator Coburn spent about 20 straight minutes today whining to Elena Kagan about how much less freedom we have today than we did 30 years ago. Which Amy Klobuchar promptly shredded–by far the highlight of today’s hearing. As she points out, back in Coburn’s idyllic free time, women were not represented on the Supreme Court–and [...]

I’m going to have a few posts on answers Eric Holder gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Questions for the Record submitted after his last appearance in November 2009. Two of the questions (one from John Kyl and the other from Tom Coburn) asked whether Gitmo detainees brought to the United States for civilian trial [...]

I really had no interest in reading Jenny Sanford’s book. But I might have to read it only to get clarity on this tidbit that Ruth Marcus writes about. (h/t Rayne) After one of the all-too-rare pre-affair moments in which Jenny gets angry, Mark enlists leaders of a congressional Christian fellowship to talk her down. [...]

Now that John Ensign has moved out of C Street, I propose a reality show to decide which moralizing hypocrite is best suited to replace him.

“The Family” is trying to pretend it’s not implicated in Mark Sanford’s and John Ensign’s moral hypocrisy.

Moral scold Tom Coburn still doesn’t want to talk about the fact that he knew an adulterer was living with him in “the Family’s” home on C Street. And the rest of the moral scolds in the Senate telling us teh gays are ruining marriage were, nevertheless, very supportive of John Ensign when he returned yesterday.

We really shouldn’t be calling the Senate stimulus bill the Collins-Nelson compromise bill. We ought to be calling it the Grassley-Isakson-Coburn-Collins-Bad Nelson bill, to memorialize where all the stupid comes from in the bill.