russ feingold

Ed Brayton at ScienceBlogs (and also of our sister site, The Michigan Messenger) has a thorough analysis of the Obama administration’s new state secrets policy, which I wrote about yesterday.
Ed sums it up: “All of the changes are to the process by which the administration will determine when to invoke the SSP [State Secrets [...]

Although the Obama administration’s much-anticipated new policy on the use of the so-called “state secrets” privilege, announced this morning, has drawn some praise, civil liberties lawyers and other critics of the use of the privilege don’t think it solves the problem.

Manu Raju talks to Senate Democrats about the Glenn Beck-driven, almost entirely hysterical campaign against “czars.” The fuel: a letter written by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) about “czars.” I’ve reprinted the letter below the jump, but the key bit is this:
I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy [...]

Ah, the varieties of opposition to the Afghanistan war. Last week, conservative columnist George Will argued that the Obama administration needed to scale back its Afghanistan involvement, turning away from an expected increase of troops and civilian resources and toward “what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent [...]

Congress is back, and Karen DeYoung has a good section in her Washington Post story on the administration’s Afghanistan choices about what that means:
The pending 2010 budget legislation for the first time requests more money for Afghanistan-Pakistan operations than for Operation Iraqi Freedom — $68 billion compared with $61 billion. Administration officials said they expected [...]

A day after Kathleen Sebelius, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that a public health insurance plan is “not the essential element”of the administration’s strategy to fix the nation’s health care system, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) has made clear that he disagrees. Calling the government-backed option “a fundamental part” of health [...]

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) went on “Face The Nation” and balked at the idea of more troops for Afghanistan, following the lead of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). His colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), had a memorable rejoinder:
Graham, who also serves on the Armed Services Committee, said, “My message to [...]

As Bloomberg reports, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell confirms. I don’t yet have the full transcript of his press briefing today, but he said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s forthcoming 60-day review of the Afghanistan war won’t include any requests for new troops. That’s not because McChrystal won’t request more troops, though:
The Afghanistan assessment will focus on [...]

Progressives who oppose escalation see an opportunity to change the public debate.

True fact: talk to the advisers to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s 60-day strategy review on Afghanistan and they say that they’re attuned to an erosion of support for the Afghanistan war in Washington. They may be a bit jumpy. Polling Report, which aggregates polls, doesn’t show much of an erosion, and it isn’t clear one is [...]