What’s Going On?

News tidbits from yesterday and today:

– The Senate Democrats managed to shoot down the latest Republican poison-pill amendment to the Democratic energy bill, Pete Domenici’s (R-Jammies) “Let’s Lie About Coal And Nuclear” amendment. Alas, while most of the Democrats are backing a clean, strong bill, we can’t depend on all of them to behave: Michigan’s Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, at the behest of their state’s floundering auto industry (which wouldn’t be floundering quite so badly if its CEOs and COOs weren’t skimming so much cream off the top, but that’s another story), are among those legislators being lobbied by the vast army of auto-industry flacks to water down or vote against the bill.

– Speaking of legislation, Bush is going to cater to the remnants of his base and veto the Democrats’ stem-cell bill, even though the vast majority of Americans favor this research.

– Rudy Who? As I predicted a while back, GOP backing for America’s Mayor^TM wasn’t able to withstand Fred Thompson’s entry into the Republican presidential candidate field. Now all those Fundies who hate Catholics and Italians and East Coasties can cuddle up to someone who looks and sounds like them even though he’s spent most of the past quarter-century as a highly-paid slick-as-oil lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

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