1/3: Spies Like U.S.
Note: Starting with today's edition, each individual story within the Blogometer has a permalink of its own -- just roll the mouse over the headline for each section.
While the Congress goes out of session and even The Hotline takes the occasional vacation, the blogosphere kept on churning over the past few weeks. To be sure, blog activity dwindled some around in the days around Christmas and New Year's. Yet the last 2 weeks of '05 were anything but slow.
As the Blogometer was signing off for the holidays on 12/17, New York Times' Risen and Lichtblau had just reported on Pres. Bush's no-warrant NSA anti-terror wiretaps, which have controversially intercepted calls inside the U.S. It quickly became one of the biggest stories of the year, interesting the left and right about equally and for opposing reasons.
Although we have a bit on the breaking news about Jack Abramoff's plea deal, tomorrow we will get back in the habit of monitoring the previous 24 hours of political blogging. Today's edition attempts to recap the last couple weeks, and we start with the wiretaps -- the last big story of '05 and the first big one of '06:
EAVESDROPPING I: Mr. Mojo Risen
For the right, these revelations made an interesting comparison to those of Plamegate and the WaPo's secret-CIA-prison story; in fact, conservative reaction to the reports mirror the left's take on those stories -- specifically, outrage at the leakers. If and when this one gets to the investigation stage, it'll be interesting to see how bloggers cover that compared to how they covered Plamegate this summer.
As Tom Maguire half-jokingly called it the Times' reportage of intel secrets a "war on America," and notes that while admin officials made specific redaction requests here and in the Post's prison story, when Bob Novak was about to print Valerie Plame's name, "all he got was a call back from beleaguered Bill Harlow in the CIA press office." 
Conservative Dean Esmay left no question about how serious he considered: "Exposing such a secret program is not whistle-blowing -- it is high treason." Mark Levin, at The Corner: "I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort."
Meanwhile, left-leaning 1st Amendment atty Glenn Greenwald argued that conservative Al Maviva of Cold Fury was "purposely misquoting FISA to defend the Bush Administration," and lamented how this take was "then linked to and approvingly cited by large, highly partisan bloggers, which then cause the outright falsehoods to be bestowed with credibility and take on the status of a conventionally accepted talking point in defense of the Administration." Instapundit -- one who initially cited Maviva's analysis -- noted both sides, and the claims of misquotation that went back and forth.
A related story from U.S. News revealed that the gov't has monitored radiation levels (also without a warrant) at mosques and Muslim-owned businesses in the U.S. Right Wing Nut House was apoplectic over "abstract" concerns of the "absolutists" and libertarians: "And the next person that quotes Ben Franklin's warning about security and liberty is going to get a pie in the face -- or my boot up their ass. Ben Franklin didn't have to worry about a goddamn nuclear weapon going off in Philadelphia while he was romping between the sheets with some harlot." Indeed, some on the left took shots at the GOP's apparent conversion from libertarianism to authoritarianism, such as this one from Roy Edroso. But in a post provocatively titled "Big Brother W?" Marshall Wittmann sounded more like his old friends on the right, and less like his new ones on the left: "Now that the controversy is out in the open, Democrats and Republicans should work together to improve and clarify the law rather than seeking retribution for past misunderstandings. The bottom line should be strengthening our national security while maintaining our liberties to the fullest extent possible. ... When it comes to the War Against Terror, there is no room for right wing or left wing libertarianism. Of course, we should guard our freedoms and be vigilant for excesses. But, our robust democracy is not endangered."
EAVESDROPPING II: Is This "Strong And Wrong" All Over Again?
The actual legality of the wiretaps is a specialized issue, one best answered by legal bloggers rather than general opinionating. It's an esoteric area of law, and only a few jumped into the fray. On 12/19, GWU law prof Orin Kerr gave it his best shot, in a lengthy post containing citations and overall resembling an academic paper more than a blog post. He wrote: "Although it hinges somewhat on technical details we don't know, it seems that the program was probably constitutional but probably violated" FISA. At Concurring Opinions, GWU's Daniel Solove largely concurred. (Kerr's analysis was referenced in Charles Krauthammer's 12/23Washington Post column, "Impeachment Nonsense.") At Balkinization, left-leaning Marty Lederman summarized the admin's "two-part answer" to the question of whether its taps were legal. Part 1: "Congress has authorized the circumvention of FISA," and 2: "We didn't ask Congress for an amendment to FISA because we were informed they would have denied it." He concluded: "The interesting question now, of course, is whether Congress will permit itself to be treated with such contempt."
Law aside, Power Line considered the logic of the wiretap statutes: "If our soldiers or intelligence agencies discover a terrorist in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere, the President or his designees can order an air strike or other attack to kill him. It would be very odd if the President has the authority to kill a terrorist, but not to intercept his telephone calls or search his cave." Non-atty Dafydd Ab Hugh summed up plenty of conservatives' reaction to the questions above: "What the heck did everybody think the NSA was doing the last four years... its nails?"
Matt Rustler of Stop the Bleating! counseled both sides. To the left: "Armchair quarterbacking is always easier -- and a lot less painful -- than the real thing. I'm nervous about what the President did, but I can't promise that in his position I wouldn't have done the same if I thought it might save lives." And to the right: "Drop the specious arguments that the warrantless eavesdropping ordered by Bush somehow complies with FISA or some other federal statute. It doesn't. If it did, the White House would have issued a detailed explanation first thing Friday morning and would be repeating it loudly, ad nauseum."
EAVESDROPPING III: Movin' To The Blogosphere, Gonna Talk A Lot About Impeachment
If the wiretaps are shown to be illegal, will the Senate impeach the president? Will it nationalize the midterms and return the House to Dem hands? While it's too soon to tell what the fallout will look like in 3 or 6 (or 11) months, the right has already decided the issue will be a political winner for them -- on the blogs, on talk radio and on FNC, we're hearing statements such as "No one impeaches the president for protecting the country." On the left there is plenty of outrage and surely some renewed calls for impeachment -- but also a sinking feeling that the issue will not play out how they hope.
Kausfiles pointed out on 12/24: "Bush hits 50% on Rasmussen. ... Another spy scandal and he'll be at 60%!" Tom Maguire: "What is the Dem message here? 'Oh my gosh, that evil Bush is spying on Al Qaeda and anyone who talks to them -- as Democrats, we will never do that!' Good luck. Let us know how that works out in '06." Conservatives took on Dem politicians who criticized the program, including those who had known of it already and now seemed to them to be on a CYA mission. Captain's Quarters eviscerated an op-ed by ex-Senate Min. Leader Tom Daschle: "Daschle demonstrates that he has no grasp of what the issues are in this debate -- and if he's being honest about his intent in the days after 9/11, it shows that he and his party remained absolutely clueless about the nature of the threat from terrorism."
For several years now, a frequent source of frustration on the left has been the conservative tactic of defending an alleged transgression of Bush's by pointing to a similar action by the Clinton admin. Most notably, it has been used to justify the Iraq war, by pointing out Clinton's signing of the '98 Iraq Liberation Act. That's been the case again with the FISA story, from Newsmax to Free Republic to top-tier conservative blogs including Wizbang. Think Progress's Judd Legum is frustrated indeed, defending Clinton against the claim that Clinton's Echelon program cut the same corners as Bush's program: "That's flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA." And then on 12/21 Chicago Tribune op-ed by a Clinton-era DoJ official, John Schmidt, unambiguously titled "President had legal authority to OK taps," was cited by the right a similar manner.
More than a few noticed the call from Barron's [sub. req.], a Dow Jones-owned biz trade pub that we don't often see quoted on the blogs (the subscription wall renders it all but unlinkable). As quoted at MyDD, Barron's wrote: "The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment."
Hullabaloo's Digby is hoping Bush has pushed this his luck too far: "I heard a stranger in a line at the book store say the other day that he was tired of hearing the president talk about 'protecting us' like he's some kind of super hero. It's possible that they've gone to the well with this one too many times. We'll see." Kevin Drum isn't optimistic. His take on the eavesdropping program: "This is interesting stuff, and it sounds like pretty useful stuff to me, too. This program and this technology might very well be important elements in the fight against al-Qaeda. But that's not the point. The point is that it appears to be illegal, and if George Bush believed it was genuinely critical to our national security he should have asked Congress to pass legislation authorizing it." Salon blog-watcher Peter Daou posted an analysis of the political fallout, titled "The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade)." Daou listed how the "typical Bush scandal follows familiar contours" -- indeed they will be familiar to those who follow blog-based debates. It starts with Bush circumventing the law -- "an impeachable offense," which is belatedly reported by the MSM, the "right-wing message machine" howls, the Dems and press cower, and the story fades. "It's a battle of attrition that Bush and his team have mastered. Short of a major Dem initiative to alter the cycle, to throw a wrench into the system, to go after the media institutionally, this cycle will continue for the foreseeable future."
EAVESDROPPING IV: Then They Came For The New York Times, But I Was A Liberal Blogger, So ...
In light of the DoJ's investigation into the Times story, Frank Foer posted to TNR's The Plank chastises the lefty blogs for signing onto the conservatives' agenda of discrediting the MSM: "The Bush administration has opened a new front in its war on the press, and the press has no defenders. Thanks to the MSB's [mainstream blogosphere] sweeping, reckless criticisms, the Times has lost much of the credibility and authority that it needs to mount a robust defense." Armando at Daily Kos objected, pointing out that he defended Judy Miller's summertime silence defending her sources. Duncan "Atrios" Black, singled out for criticism by Foer, disagrees that the left-blogosphere has the same goals as the right: "The Left wants to the press to do a better job, the Right wants to undercut their credibility. I don't know why this is too hard to comprehend." Over on the right, the sentiment is altogether different. On 12/30, RedState's Streiff commented on DoJ's announced investigations into both the Times and Post stories. Terming it "Fitzmas Redux," he wrote: "Hopefully we will get to view a perp walk out of Langley for a half dozen or so high ranking members of the operations and intelligence directorates. At a minimum, it will send a signal that the fun and games are over."
Gerard Vanderleun compares the traditional outlets to the variety of news research tools available to : "Somewhere someone is updating a graph. The graph has two lines. The first line depicts traditional media (a combination of audience numbers for television and radio news and the circulation of newspapers and magazines). It is a line in decline. The second line depicts the use of the Internet to gather information, news and opinion. This line is ascending. At some point, perhaps not too distant, the two lines will cross. At that point the angles of decline and ascent will steepen until, at some other point, the line for traditional media will drop off the significant part of the chart forever."
IRAQ: The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Place
As usual, Iraq loomed large in the political blogosphere -- both for the post-election negotiations among the Iraqi political parties, and the implications of modern technology on war correspondence.
Iraq The Model's Mohammed has been a supporter of the war from the beginning, but even now is a bit concerned about the likely outcome. As a secular Iraqi, the large Shiite [UIA] victory has him a bit nervous: "The Kurds and the UIA already have a clear vision about the shape of the government and they have internal agreement between them on the principals and what supports this thought is that both parties said more than once that they have conditions to ask from other parties but not from one another. This makes one think expect the Kurdish-Shia alliance to show little flexibility in their negotiations with the rest of parties and I don't think they will tolerate demands the consider 'exaggerated' from the Sunnis or Allawi. In general the Kurds seem to be the most internally organized party and they managed to get the presidency post for themselves again." History prof Juan Cole, the widely read and intensely divisive Middle East scholar, on 1/1 offered his "Ten Amazing Predictions for 2006," mostly offering a pessimistic outlook for U.S. interests in the region. #2: "Saudi Arabia will use the $160 billion windfall from high petroleum prices to strengthen its military and security forces, and to spread its rigid Wahhabi form of Islam." #5: "The Iraqi parliament will pass fundamentalist Muslim legislation. Sometime in 2006, a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians will call for the withdrawal of US troops. The Iraqi government will have warm relations with Iran, but strained relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The guerrilla war will continue."
A 12/26 Washington Post story tied the recent reports about the Pentagon paying Iraqi newspapers for coverage to the trend of bloggers reporting from war zones, illustrated in particular by the story of blogger/Army vet Bill Roggio, who is currently embedded in Anbar. The title: "Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War -- U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage." At ThreatsWatch, Roggio took issue with the piece: "There are three problems with this article which require a response: the use of incorrect facts which could have been easily checked; the portrayal of my embed as an information operation; and equating U.S. military information operations with al-Qaeda propaganda efforts." In addition to the Post's questions about the Pentagon's use of information in the war, others asked where the line between propaganda and reportage is found. Conservative Cori Dauber applauded the Pentagon's efforts: "American forces are trying to influence the way articles are placed by, you know, influencing the way articles are placed, while the enemy are trying to influence the way articles are placed by staging events -- meaning by killing people. It ain't quite the same thing." Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club found Dauber's take close to the mark, but argues, "the weakness of this argument is that it reduces everyone to a propagandist working for one side or the other. To avoid unfairness in dishonesty, dishonesty must become general. That renders the question of legitimacy moot, but I believe it is not. Legitimacy is rooted within an a journalistic piece itself; it is not an added on at an editorial desk in a famous building.
On a related note, Newsday reported on the seemingly paradoxical move by the military to curb soldiers's blogs -- by warning, fines and even demotion. Whereas some said blogs taking a less-than-patriotic tone were targeted first, Marine Capt. Don Caetano focused on the intel problems that blogs can pose: "When you put your blog out there, you cannot forget that not only the good guys, but the bad guys are accessing it ... If the bad guys take a piece from me, and a piece from you, and a piece from another guy, pretty soon they can gather some pretty good intel."
New York Times, among others, reports that lobbyist Jack Abramoff will plead guilty to 3 felony counts as part of a settlement with the DoJ. As of deadline, most blogs are just sinking their teeth into this, and we'll have much more reaction in tomorrow's Blogometer.
Firedoglake: "Now, on to the naming of names." Donklephant: "From what I've read so far, it's pretty much assured that some lives will be ruined." Brilliant at Breakfast: "[T]he wingnut spin is going to be a combination of the standard 'Everyone Does It', in an attempt to trivialize the corruption within the Republican Party; and 'Democrats got money too' ... By the time this is over, the MSM ... are going to be painting this as an exclusively Democratic scandal." A commenter at Daily Kos: "I don't know but somehow I am a bit sceptical that this Justice Department (though it is completely independent of the WH -- cough) will have the incentive to push this as far as it goes."
Before the announcement, Roy Temple wrote that a deal would "provide federal prosecutors with nearly unprecedented access to the inside of a major corruption scheme." Connect Left: "The plea deal is expected to contain information that will forever close the door on any chance Rep. Tom DeLay will return to his leadership role and open the door to the prosecution of his misdeeds." Bark Bark Woof Woof: "If there are Democrats who fell under the swoon of Jack Abramoff they should be investigated not only for taking bribes but for being stupid enough to take money and freebies from a Republican lobbyist. But if 64% of the money from Abramoff went to the Republicans, it doesn't sound as if there was much even-handedness in his largesse: that's a landslide for the GOP no matter how you slice it." Talk Left fleshes out legal scenarios and writes: "I'm sure this case is tricky because Abramoff is trying to resolve not only his criminal liability in the charged case in Florida, and as yet uncharged crimes in Washington, but also cases involving other jurisdictions where charges will be coming down the pike soon. But if both parties want the deal badly enough, as it appears these parties do, there's ways to work around almost everything."
Ankle Biting Pundits offered no support for Abramoff: "I think it is time for conservatives to begin piling on the Abramoff thing for a couple of reasons. First, liberals are right in this instance. The fact that this hideous wretch climbed to the heights of power under GOP leadership in Washington, shoot, with the aid and comfort of the GOP leadership, is a scandal in and of itself."
OHIO SENATE: Party Time, Not So Excellent
The OH Dem Party's 12/19 Christmas party is still a subject of debate on the Dem-leaning blogs from OH. What we can say with some certainty is that SEN candidate/Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) and wife/Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz had a handful of unfriendly interactions with bloggers who have recently criticized him. There are competing versions of what went down, but there is plenty of support for story told by Buckeye Politics' Tim Russo, who ran into Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): "I really don't know how to write about my encounter" with Brown and Schultz "other than to say he seemed to have a lot more time budgeted for getting in my face than he really should have. He and Connie were literally screaming at me for about 5 minutes (felt like 15). People started gathering around to watch the congressman and the Pulitzer winner yell and scream at a blogger."
Psychobilly Democrat backed up Russo's version, and Russell "Pounder" Hughlock of Buckeye Senate described a similar interaction with Schultz at the event.
The following day, Brown camp blogger Philip de Vellis (of Brown's Grow Ohio) sent out an e-mail to bloggers (not including the above) explaining the Russo encounter differently: "To be quite blunt -- it simply did not happen the way it has been portrayed today. It's a shame that an entire day's blogging has been wasted on a story that simply is untrue. Connie and Sherrod stood a barrage of curse words and hostile language quite calmly -- albeit with confused looks on their faces." The e-mail was subsequently posted to OH-based Plunderbund. In the comments to this post, Russo cops to using the F-word. It remains unclear whose voice was raised first.
The situation could get more interesting, as Brown has made plans to be more visible in the blogosphere over coming months -- including a recent piece for Huffington Post and upcoming stints TPM Cafe's "Table for One" and the OH-based Meet The Bloggers.
WHITE HOUSE '08: Nixon And LBJ Still Won, Didn't They?
On 12/29 LSU prof David Perlmutter pointed out at Policy by Blog that the left-blogosphere is hesitant to support Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for WH '08 on account of her moderate tack in the Senate, specifically her continued support for the Iraq war. He sought out comment from known Clinton supporters, including an open letter from Natasha Celine of Pacific Views. Perlmutter noted that HRC hasn't embraced blogging the way other pols have, and wonders if it's even in a frontrunner's interest to engage the blogosphere. On the effect blogs have had on HRC's prospects: "Politicians have always needed to balance the base and the middle. Blogs make this tension, if not more difficult, more public." Mickey Kaus, who has been following the HRC-left split for some time, agreed and went further: "[Perlmutter] underemphasizes the extent to which Hillary's character -- specifically her innate and exaggerated caution, calculation, and need for control -- makes her a particularly bad match for the blog age, maybe as bad a match as Nixon or LBJ were for the TV age in 1960."
BLOGS VS. THE BELTWAY: The Kos-a Nostra
In their Jan.-Feb. edition, Washington Monthly's Wallace-Wells profiled Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas. It's a mixed portrait, praising his combativeness but questioning whether his brand of Dems have the ideas to succeed long-term. Wallace-Wells writes: "But though he can match Michael Moore for shrillness, the most salient thing about Moulitsas's politics is not where he falls on the left-right spectrum (he's actually not very far left). It's his relentless competitiveness, founded not on any particular set of political principles, but on an obsession with tactics -- and in particular, with the tactics of a besieged minority, struggling for survival: stand up for your principles, stay united, and never back down from a fight." More: "For Moulitsas, next year's election cycle might provide the test -- if the powers that be continue to take his advice. That's when we'll begin to know whether the ideology of winnerism can truly be a winner." Moulitsas' initial reaction was surprise at the sheer number of factual errors contained within. Moreover, he criticized the "notion that the site is somehow missing something because it is more focused on tactics than it is on policy. The author writes that winners in politics then have to govern. It's true. But I'm not sure where the notion that Daily Kos had to singularly encapsulate the entire VLWC [vast left-wing conspiracy] came from." In a follow-up post, Moulitsas responded to the piece at greater length, disagreeing and pointing out errors in the fisking style. Atrios took exception to Wallace-Wells' insinuation that lefty blogs need to deal more in wonkery: "The 90s were a delightfully wonky era when serious center-left political types spent lots of time debating lots of things. We had a wonky president, a wonky vice president, and an utterly bored press corps, until the blow jobs happened anyway. I'd like a chance to spend more time talking about how policy matters, but the space just isn't really there right now." American Prospect's Garance Franke-Ruta:
But it's also worth noting that Talking Points Memo and TPMCafe are both highly wonky (and also popular), as are a range of smaller, usually institutionally-affiliated blogs, so overall the left blogosphere is both activist and intellectual.
THE MARCH OF BLOGS: Red(State) Dawn
On 1/2, the conservative group blog/527 org. RedState announced it had split into 2 formal entities: RedState.com (the blog) and RedState.org (the 527). The immediate difference to readers is that the main URL is now RedState.com, and that the former URL, Redstate.org, now redirects to the dot com. RedState's Clayton Wagar explained: "Over the course of 2005, however, it became increasingly apparent that in order to ensure the long-term success of Redstate, we needed to make the site self sufficient. Not only that, but the costs of 'keeping the lights on' -- servers, bandwidth, etc. -- was coming directly out of the donations you so generously sent us for candidates." Wagar adds, "use every single advertising dollar earned to expand and enrich the Redstate platform for the future." Following a site re-design and software switch, he writes, "we're then going to invest in the longevity of Redstate by building reserve funds. We want to ensure Redstate is around for a very long time."
Lexington Herald-Leader reported, KY will not allow bloggers space in the capitol alongside reporters at established newspapers: "State officials are telling the bloggers that they aren't journalists and can't get the press credentials that grant access to the House and Senate floors and Capitol entrances generally closed to the public. This is irritating to a group that, by nature, tends to wake up cranky on the best of days." Bluegrass Report's Mark Nickolas commented that he might have a way around this -- by affiliating himself with an alt weekly and listing himself as a "special correspondent." Conservative Blogger's William Smith took issue with the report itself: "I don't know about [reporter] John Cheves, but I only wake up cranky when I have to read smarmy comments in news stories which is precisely why Kentucky should revisit their decision."
On 12/29, AP reported that whitehouse.gov used "web bugs" and "cookies" to analyze traffic at the site. While cookies have been an overhyped as a security threat, the real issue is whether the bugs monitoring violated Clinton-era OMB rules. WH officials maintain they have followed the rules. The controversy originated with a 12/27 mailing list comment by software security specialist Richard Smith, which was picked up by the popular tech-oriented blog Boing Boing the following day. At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg snickered: "A new contender for dumbest story of the year makes a bid. The AP reports that the White House's Orwellian website technology -- they use a traffic counter! -- is not technically illegal."
BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Your Time Is Gonna Come
On 12/18 Time announced its Person(s) of the Year: U2 frontman/philanthropist Bono, Microsoft founder/philanthropist Bill Gates, and wife/ex-Microsoft exec/philanthropist Melinda Gates. Time's choices invariably leave plenty of observers disappointed, but this year the complaints seemed a bit louder than usual. Most criticisms came from the right, though a commenter at Talk Left opined: "I love Bono, but he's not out there taking genuine risks. And the Gates' are fulfilling a moral obligation that comes with wealth. But it doesn't require them to sacrifice a thing." Jeff Harrell at The Shape of Days asked rhetorically: "When did Time become Us Weekly?" And Michelle Malkin offered: "Interesting, isn't it, that Bill Gates didn't deserve the honor when he was actually creating something, but only earns Time magazine's highest praise when he's giving his money away." In general, conservatives thought a better selection for the cover would have been the new voters around the globe -- in the Ukraine, in Lebanon and Egypt, and elsewhere. Although not in context of the Time cover, Austin Bay's commenters lean heavily toward those elections as the story of the year.
Other aspects of the magazine's year-ender didn't escape scrutiny. Bizzy Blog's Tom Blumer saw in Time's presentation a quasi-conspiratorial pattern of placing presumably disliked persons (Bush, VP Cheney) in B&W, while the liked ones (Patrick Fitzgerald, Cindy Sheehan) were in color. And where the scheme didn't match up, there were mitigating factors -- a "bizarre" color photo of CJ John Roberts, and a "distinguished" B&W version of Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Crystal Ball Busters
'06 predictions were to be found around the 'sphere over the long weekend. Here are some of interesting ones.
Bull Moose calls '06 "Year of the Kinkster," predicting a TX GOV win by indie candidate Kinky Friedman. The folks at NRO have a roundup of staff predictions, including this from Jonah Goldberg: "Howard Dean will not finish 2006 as chairman of the DNC." Stirling Newberry, at Bopnews: "The word impeachment is going to get louder with every passing month. By year end there will be a rally or demonstration with at least 100K people calling for impeachment of George Bush. Cheney will receive a target letter in at least one investigation, and there will by year end be open calls for his resignation before the new congress meets in January so that a farther right replacement can be named." Daily PunditBill Quick : "The Republicans will increase their hold on power in the House, and at least maintain their current advantage in the Senate in 2006. Reasoning: Demographics and consequent redistricting are tilting ever more strongly in the Republican direction. The huge Republican surge at local, regional, and state levels has only begun to bite. ... The rest of it is the nature of the opposition. Democrats seem determined to commit political suicide." Tech Law Advisor: "NYT and WSJ will continue battle to be pre-eminent paper to report on blogs. NYT will turn nytimes.com into a blog." The Moderate Voice rounds up predictions from actual psychics. If you can't trust bloggers, who can you turn to but psychics?
If you're like us, you don't waste nearly enough time looking at pointless websites. That's why About.com's Lee Seats -- who does look like he spends a lot of time seated -- has put together "The Top 10 Free Time Wasting Sites on the Net." Now get to it -- there's no time to use productively!
