Samuel Knight

-According to Reuters, a remote control bomb was detonated in a Hazara Shi’ite quarter of Quetta, Pakistan today, killing at least 15 people. In recent months, Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslims have been systematically targeted by Sunni hardliners. -Meanwhile, in northern Iraq, a suicide bomber killed a senior army intelligence officer and two bodyguards. According to Reuters, […]

Just when you thought Arizona couldn’t go any further out of its way to repel non-whites and foreigners, a state representative wants orderlies to join Phoenix’s draconian crackdown on undocumented immigrants. According to a state ABC affiliate, State Representative Steve Smith proposed House Bill 2293 last week. It’s a bill that “would require hospital workers […]

A potentially important story was reported by Wired’s David Kravets on Friday, though it resulted in nary a peep from the national media. A Virginia man named Aaron Tobey, detained for 90 minutes by the Transport Security Administration in 2010 for revealing an abridged version of the fourth amendment scrawled on his chest, was awarded […]

As I mentioned in this morning’s news round-up, the Justice Department has stepped up its search for the source of the Stuxnet New York Times leak. In the summer of 2010, it was widely reported that the virus was somehow unleashed upon Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility. And in June of last year, the Times, […]

Paul Ryan, in his first live interview since November, offered a lot of the same combative and duplicitous talking points about fiscal policy that he employed in the run up to his and Mitt Romney’s loss. But he seemed to indicate that Republicans will employ a less Talibanic strategy when the next round of budget […]

-A fire broke out at a nightclub in southern Brazil last night, leaving at least 245 people dead and another 200 injured. -Just when you thought we’d get a respite from political ad bombardments with the election long over, the New York Times reports that wealthy anonymous mostly Republican donors are funding anti-Chuck Hagel advertising […]

Just when I thought that the National Review Institute demonstrated that Republicans are ready to compromise, Paul Ryan outlined a somewhat apocalyptic vision of budget negotiations there on Saturday. According to POLITICO, Ryan said “that the nation will face ‘tepid growth and deficits’ under President Barack Obama and Republicans must prudently ‘buy time’ and ‘keep […]

It’s been a rough few months for the GOP. Barack Obama is no one-term President; Mitch McConnell’s dream has been consigned to the dustbin of history. The only reason John Boehner wasn’t exiled to K Street is that his party retained the House through gerrymandering — Dems’ slim command of the aggregate popular vote only […]

From Democrats’ point of view, Tom Harkin probably couldn’t have picked a worse time to announce his impending retirement — a move he made this morning. With John Kerry expected to be confirmed as Secretary of State next week, Tom Udall rumored to be one of President Obama’s choices for Secretary of the Interior, and […]

Late last night, Scott Brown indicated that he will run in the special election set to take place if John Kerry is confirmed as Secretary of State — an outcome that’s expected, given the cordial nature of Kerry’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this week. At 9 p.m. on Friday night, […]