CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Tea Party activists hit the Hill, arrested outside Pelosi’s office « - Blogs from CNN.com

In the fight against Universal Healthcare and a government-run option I keep hearing one argument pop up. Republican and Conservative foghorns keep spouting out how government cannot run anything, just look at Social Security and the Post Office. They spout how the Post Office has wasted so much money and is inefficient. But they seem to constantly avoid answering the question, Why??

As Barack Obama completes the first six months of his presidency next week, confidence among the public in his ability to bring the American economy out of its worst downturn in a generation is beginning to show signs of slippage, according to the latest round of opinion surveys.

Andrew Sullivan juxtaposes Cheney's description of the oath that he says he took as VP against the real oath that Cheney took. A subtle, two-word disparity amounts to a profound and elemental difference in defining his responsibilities as Vice President. It is a distinction that deserves a beacon of light.

An attorney who served in the Clinton administration was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide at his Washington law office. Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, an Atlanta-based firm, confirmed in a statement that attorney Mark Levy had died. "Mark Levy was well known and highly respected for his successful appearances before the Supreme Court of the United States," said Bill Dorris, the firm's co-managing partner. Levy was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice between 1993 and 1995 and served five years in the Solicitor General's office. D.C. Police spokeswoman Helen Andrews said officers were called to an office building where the firm is located to investigate a shooting Thursday morning. Investigators believe it was a suicide. Levy attended Yale University's law school with former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and more recently worked on fundraising for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, said Dennis Gingold, an attorney who was working with Levy on a case. "I don't know anyone who isn't shocked by what just happened," Gingold said. "He was a good guy. He really was ... and professionally, he was first class." Note: Another [supposedly] good guy gone. AGAIN!! Obviously, these people knew something we don't... It is for sure in this transparent government, no one is saying anything.

Dawn Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Justice Department is still in limbo. The fact that Senator Arlen Specter has decided to switch to the Democratic Party may remove one obstacle for Johnsen, since as ranking minority member on the Judiciary Committee, he had said Monday that a filibuster of her nomination was "under consideration" and indicated that he had not yet made up his mind on her nomination. The OLC needs the leadership that only a bona fide, Senate-confirmed appointment can provide, say former OLC chiefs Walter Dellinger and Douglas Kmiec.

Despite tough economic conditions, large office complexes continue to be built in major cities throughout the world. ‘Green’ campaigners argue that such developments are inherently bad for the environment, and skeptics point out that by making sustainability central to their new office designs, many companies are simply attempting to offset their environmentally degrading activities elsewhere.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn and other GOP hard liners would like to block President Obama's nominee to head the OLC in the Justice Department. What are they afraid of ... accountability and a return to the rule of law?

There has been a lot of talk this week about President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress and Governor Jindal’s Republican response. Much of the media driven punditocracy has admittedly failed at wrapping their heads around most of the ideas debated. This was predictable. ~~~~~ during the last 8 years, and for many of the years since Ronald Reagan was elected President, I have missed a very serious Republican disconnect that Governor Jindal reminded me of. ~~~~~ If, as Republicans claim, government is the problem, then when a Republican runs for office, shouldn’t they run a commercial stating, “vote for me, because I want to be part of the problem.” This is where we get to the Republican Disconnect.

The postmaster general asked Congress to lift the requirement to deliver mail six days a week as a remedy for it's rising deficits. Post office studies suggest that Tuesday might be a good day to skip delivery service.

Today, a surreal event will take place in London. The Foreign Office is holding an open day "to highlight the importance of human rights in our work as part of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". There will be various "stalls" and "panel discussions", and foreign secretary David Miliband will present a human rights prize. Is this a spoof? No. The Foreign Office wants to raise our "human rights awareness". Kafka and Heller have many counterfeits.

The judgment of history may well be that the United States has been “taken into, and kept in, the Iraq War by a guy who is not quite right in his head,” a distinguished legal scholar says. “It may take 25 or 50 years, but it is almost certain that one day this character will be exhibit number one for the danger of having a nut job in the oval office,” says Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. Writing in his latest book, “An Enemy of the People,”(Doukathsan Press) Velvel said, “In everyday life, someone who refuses to recognize the actual facts of the world around him, and who instead lives in a dream world in his head, is regarded as not being sane, as being, to use the blunt words, insane or crazy. Why is it different when it is a national leader who refuses to recognize facts in the world and instead lives in a dream world in his head?” Velvel goes on to say, “Most interesting is the idea that Bush suffers from a condition called ‘dry drunk’. Essentially, this means that even if one eventually stops drinking, as Bush did, years of alcoholism cause irreversible damage to brain chemistry. Results of this damage include such Bushian traits as rigid judgmentalism, irritability, impatience, grandiosity, obsessive thought patterns, incoherent speech and other unlovely characteristics.”

"There was a staffer inside when it happened. He was downstairs in the basement, came running up but by that time they were already gone."

Excessive noise can be a major contributing factor to workplace stress and anxiety.Stress has been proven to be a big contributor to declines in productivity, and also in absenteeism. When employees are stressed out and distracted by excessive noise, your customer service record is probably going to decline substantially.

Declining mail volume and rising fuel prices resulted in a $707 million loss for the Postal Service in the quarter that wrapped up March 31. For the quarter, the agency handled 51.3 billion pieces of mail, a decline of 3.3 percent from the same period a year earlier. Both first class and standard mail declined for the period. Note: Maybe we will have to pick up our mail at the post office? Or the price of stamps are really going to escalate?

Only when the American people finally climb off the floor and stop letting the Bush administration have its way with us can we begin rebuilding our health care system and our schools and our infrastructure and our economy and really, finally, start reasserting our rights and acting like the mature nation that we claim to be. Until then, the United States is just Bush’s bitch. Impeach now.

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it won't overrule a decision that FBI agents violated the rights of a Democratic congressman during a search of his office, a decision the Bush administration says will hamper future public corruption investigations.

U.S. Central Command is slashing the staff of its Tampa headquarters by a third — about 1,100 personnel — even as it coordinates two wars in the Middle East, CentCom confirmed on Wednesday. A CentCom spokesman said the cuts have been under way for months and could be completed by May...

Three federal employees are being investigated for unlawful political activities after they allegedly sent an e-mail falsely accusing Barack Obama of being a "radical Muslim," the Globe has learned.

David Willman, writing for The Los Angeles Times, reports: "Attorneys for the former Army physician who was branded a 'person of interest' in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings named three federal officials Friday who they said leaked investigative details that harmed their client."