Monday Roundup: Censurety

This weekend had a little bit of everything — from Feingold to Pakistan, from special session possibilities to unfortunate fabrications.

Senator Russ Feingold announced plans to shake up the Senate by introducing a few measures for censuring Bush. Although he referred to it as a "relatively modest response," Feingold wants to send a message, and this certainly will.

Max Baucus, another Senate Democrat, has an interesting idea. He has plans to introduce a bill that would expand Trade Adjustment Assistance, a plan which provides benefits for manufacturing workers who end up unemployed as a byproduct of international trade. His plan would grow TAA to include call-center staff members and computer programmers, as well as other similar occupations. The tech world is still a sort of a frontier of sorts when it comes to ideas like this concerning labor and the social contract between business and employee, and I'm actually encouraged to see this being discussed.

There was a little diplomatic tension with Pakistan over the weekend — White House reps have said that strikes inside Pakistan are a possibility even without letting their government know ahead of time, and Pakistan isn't exactly crazy about the idea. Pakistan and the presence of terror organizations in that country are issues that need to be addressed and dealt with; I'm just hoping we get to it in a meaningful way before bluster throws things out of the precarious balance they are in.

It's been discussed a few times in the last few weeks — the idea that Perry might call a special session keeps getting kicked around in the press. Sure, Perry talks about it like it will be all about disinvesting the pensions from Iran, but there's gonna be more to it than that, I bet. The story talks a bit the many issues that might come up in a special session.

Clay Robison ponders what Perry's 2Q fundraising means, and in his opinion it indicates one thing for sure: that Perry isn't a lame duck. Despite his poor showing at the polls, I will admit that Perry still has A) the influence of the Governor's office and B) the ability to influence the network he's built over his long career, which includes plenty of people who don't have a better ship to jump to at the moment.

We've talked a bit about Quico Canseco gearing up out of his own pocket to run against Ciro in CD 23, and a columnist from the Express News points that another Republican is about to jump in, but that it should probably happen pretty soon. Lyle Larson might announce today, so keep an eye out.

Scott Henson has a story about the fabrication of probable cause. This sort of thing really bugs me:

...a self-identified DEA agent named Bill sought to justify a traffic stop where drugs were found using probable cause agents had overtly fabricated. They didn't want to admit in court they were acting an a possibly unreliable informant, so took the liberty of manufacturing probable cause for a traffic stop by stealing the front license plate from the car the suspect was driving.

That isn't exactly the way it is supposed to work.

By the way, that YouTube debate the Democrats are having tonight? It is apparently the first official one. I guess a lot more are in the offing, which I'm sure will present plenty of opportunities for mistakes and zingers.