Mid-Day Quick Hits

by Steve

Moussaoui: Eligible for the death penalty.

Barack Obama has jumped out as an effective critic of the Bush Administration’s abdication of responsibility on energy independence and global warming.

This should make GOP incumbents really popular with voters this fall, especially after those same incumbents just gave billions of taxpayer money to Big Oil.

Gee, even David Brooks said yesterday on Face the Nation that the GOP will lose the House this year, based on what he is hearing from, well, actually from House Republicans (hat tip to Jesse Lee at the Stakeholder).

Zogby says today that the Democrats appeared poised to take back Ohio, as Sherrod Brown has opened up a large single-digit lead over incumbent GOP senator Mike DeWine, and both Democratic candidates for governor lead American Taliban mullah Ken Blackwell.

Read Charlie Cook’s kneecapping assessment of Bill Frist in today’s New York Times.

This New York Magazine piece on Chuck Schumer rightly paints the New York Democratic senator as primarily fixated on electing as many Democrats to the Senate this fall as possible. There is much angst in the center-left blogosphere about the portrait painted here of Schumer as a DLC-inspired ATM, raising cash from big business and pushing for centrist, electable Democrats where necessary in order to get a Democratic majority in January. Folks, the goal for this year is at least 51 Democrats; I’ve stopped caring how we do it.

Jason Leopold over at TruthOut says today that Patrick Fitzgerald’s inside source has been John Hannah of Cheney’s staff.

55% of those polled in Great Britain want their troops out of Iraq within the next 12 months, regardless of what happens as a result. Fifty-seven percent think that Bush and the Poodle were wrong to go in.

Iran has now had its second successful weapons test in two days.