Miserable trio: Rice, Paulson and Craig....

From American Progress:

Think Fast....

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will announce "new sanctions against Iran" today that "accuse" the Quds division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of supporting terrorism and "the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of proliferating weapons of mass destruction."

The Washington Post reports that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) "has become the Bush administration's worst nightmare: a Democrat in the majority with subpoena power and the inclination to overturn rocks." Today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to testify before his committee.

"President Bush embarks this morning on a tour of the wildfires ravaging California to showcase his administration's ability to respond better to natural disasters than it did after Hurricane Katrina two years ago."

In a letter to Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey yesterday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined with his Democratic colleagues "in questioning the basis for" Mukasey's assertion that the president "can act outside the law" on national security issues.

After yesterday denying that it "watered down" congressional testimony by the head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Bush administration officials are now acknowledging that "they heavily edited [her] testimony on global warming." For example, officials took out the line: "CDC considers climate change a serious public concern."

"The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday began offering tens of thousands of dollars in payments to victims and families of victims of the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad involving security guards from the firm Blackwater." Several family members turned down the compensation, saying they still wanted "to sue Blackwater in an American court."

Secretary Rice acknowledged that the administration may have mishandled the case of Maher Arar. "We do not think that this case was handled as it should have been. We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured," she said.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and William Delahunt (D-MA) will soon introduce legislation -- the "American Anti-Torture Act of 2007" -- to "ban torture of detainees by any U.S. government agency, including the CIA or other intelligence units."

And finally: "Sen. Larry Craig is still traveling back to his home state of Idaho these days. ... But one thing about his travel plans is different since his widely publicized arrest. ... [H]e's now connecting through the Denver airport. He's apparently had enough embarrassment in Minneapolis to last a lifetime."

Wrap...