TUESDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Pakistan: “Three days of clashes between security forces and militants in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border left more than 56 militants and six soldiers dead, the military said Tuesday.”
* Iraq: “A series of bombings rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 100, as attackers struck at a bustling sheep market, a crowd of impoverished job seekers and a funeral, Iraqi security officials said.”
* Afghanistan: “Eight suicide attackers mounted assaults on government compounds in two eastern towns on Tuesday, killing six members of the Afghan security forces and wounding four, officials said.”
* Sarah Palin caught violating state ethics laws (again)?
* California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) brokered a deal on the state budget yesterday. The agreement avoids broad-based tax increases, and instead, in the midst of the recession, slashes services for the elderly and the poor, including health care access for seniors and children.
* Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke isn’t worried about inflation.
* Reports of new protests continue to come out from Iran.
* Blue Dogs stopped by the White House this afternoon for a chat about health care reform.
* The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not surprisingly, hopes to derail health care reform efforts.
* President Obama’s call with bloggers seemed to go well. (For the record, because I work for a magazine, I was not a part of the call.)
* Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will not let the Senate vote on qualified State Department nominees because he disapproves of the administration’s position on the coup in Honduras.
* The Weekly Standard: “More Partisan Hackery.”
* Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) probably ought to get a good legal team together.
* The White House will miss its own deadline on a report detailing the administration’s policy on detaining terror suspects.
* USA Today/Gallup has Obama’s approval rating at 55%. So does the AP.
* If more cable news shows ran fact-checking segments like this one, I’d watch more cable news shows.
* Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested last week after “breaking into” his own Cambridge home. The charges have since been dropped.
* I wonder what the reaction would have been if an MSNBC personality gushed, during an interview, about having voted for the Democratic subject of the interview.
* The media reports about a $23 trillion bailout are wildly irresponsible.
* And finally, Rep. Mike Castle (R) of Delaware, a relative moderate by contemporary GOP standards, held a town-hall meeting recently. That wouldn’t be especially noteworthy, were it not for the fact that right-wing activists quickly created a “mob-like atmosphere,” pressing Castle on a wide range of bizarre conspiracy theories. Castle was routinely booed for not being nearly conservative enough. It was quite a sight.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
