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    Michael Roston

    Michael Roston

    New York Times Staff Editor, Social Media

  • During 3Q, Bush Country Becomes Thompson Territory

    If third quarter fundraising results are any indication, it could be former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. You could almost say that Thompson struck a gusher in his fundraising efforts in the state while the other candidates started to see their wells tap out: Rudy Giuliani earned around $973,000 in the quarter, and Mitt Romney found only a $507,000 trickle. One observer of Texas politics said that the state's conservatives finally found a candidate they could connect with.

  • Freedom's Watch Watch: Vulnerable Democrats Shrug Off New Iraq Ads

    If House Democrats are worried about Freedom's Watch calling them out in newspaper ads in their local districts, they aren't showing it. "In an age of global threats, I do not believe our nation is best served by devoting so many of our military resources to Iraq," Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) told the Huffington Post, responding to the conservative broadside she faced in the Topeka Capital-Journal Tuesday morning.

  • Plants For Hillary Uprooted?

    Plants For Hillary, we hardly knew you. The mock website created by the Edwards campaign to hammer Hillary Clinton over planted questions has already been pulled down. Both Edwards and Barack Obama faced some negative feedback over their criticism of Clinton during last night's debate, including boos and hisses from the Las Vegas crowd.

  • Some Dems Vocal About Aversion To Confronting Bush On Iraq Funding

    It is already conventional wisdom that the "bridge fund" for the Iraq war passed Wednesday night in the House will be stopped by Republicans in the Senate. "Rep. Tanner had questions about the political viability of the bill because it may not be something that has the possibility of passing and making it all the way," said Randy Ford, spokesman for Rep. John Tanner (D-TN), who voted against the bill. Tanner has promoted a "bipartisan compact" with 14 Republican Members of Congress that seeks to promote a consensus approach to Congress overseeing the Iraq War.

  • Blackwater's California Wildfire Relief Efforts Backfire With Local Residents

    While hundreds of thousands of citizens were fleeing Southern California's wildfires in October, Blackwater USA was charging back in. While the fires still burned, executives from the private security firm personally delivered food and supplies to displaced residents and eventually set up temporary housing. The company insists that it is just a friendly corporate citizen.

  • Giuliani Advisors: We'll Win The Nomination In February

    The top campaign staffers for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani want everyone to ignore the significant leads that ex-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has in Iowa and New Hampshire. "Conventional wisdom has never guided this campaign," said Michael DuHaime, the Giuliani Campaign Manager during a Monday morning conference call. DuHaime argued that it was not Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina that would point the way to the winner, but Florida because those states assign a small number of delegates to the Republican National Convention.

  • Freedom's Watch Watch: New Veterans Day Ads Target Dems On Iraq

    The morning after the country observed Veterans Day, newspaper readers in seven cities woke up to full page ads blasting their local Democratic representative over the war in Iraq. After two relatively quiet months, Freedom's Watch is back. The ads running today target Speaker Nancy Pelosi and seven freshman House Democrats, and mirror a $15 million television ad campaign launched this past summer.

  • Democrats Down To The Wire Rounding Up Iraq Withdrawal Votes

    House Democratic leaders were hard at work on Wednesday to round up the votes in favor of a $50 billion "bridge fund" that would require the president start bringing US troops home. A Democratic leadership aide said she expected the bill to pass by a margin similar to?the initial May vote?on the 2007 emergency war budget, which only 10 Democrats, mostly members of the Progressive Caucus, rejected. "The leadership is starting to make sure they have the votes to pass the thing, and I think they do," said the progressive Democrat's aide.

  • Obama Refers To "Social Security Crisis"

    In an?interview yesterday,?Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) explicitly used the word "crisis" in reference to Social Security, seemingly contradicting a progressive refrain that such talk is a red herring advanced by proponents of privatization. "You know, Senator Clinton says that she's concerned about Social Security but is not willing to say how she would solve the Social Security crisis," Obama told the National Journal. Less than two weeks ago, Obama seemed to take the?opposite position.

  • Romney Keeps Up Tough Immigration Message After Joining Univision Debate

    Mitt Romney?announced last night?that he would attend a debate broadcast in Spanish on the Univision network. The December 9 debate follows an earlier event that was canceled in September after only Senator John McCain and Rep. Duncan Hunter agreed to participate. Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani will also join the newly rescheduled debate.

  • Democrats' New Bill Gives Blackwater, Contractors Six Months Notice In Iraq

    A group of House members and one Senator came together on Tuesday to introduce the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act," a bill that will give pink slips to private security guards employed by contractors like Blackwater USA in Iraq and other settings. "Our bill would essentially put private security contractors out of business in Iraq, Afghanistan and in war zones around the world," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) in a press release. Staff for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) confirmed to the Huffington Post on Thursday that the senator is currently seeking co-sponsors before introducing a companion measure in the Senate.

  • Blackwater-Linked Figure No Longer WIth Penn's Firm

    The top adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign says that an executive who brought heightened scrutiny to the public relations giant he runs by helping out Blackwater USA is no longer with his firm. During an appearance on the public radio show?Fair Game, Marc Penn was asked about Burson-Marsteller, of which he is CEO, accepting a contract from Blackwater USA in the aftermath of the September killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad. "The Blackwater was actually I think either a nine-day or two week assignment by somebody who had a personal relationship with them, who actually doesn't continue to work at the firm.

  • Dems Block $70 Billion In "No-Strings" Iraq Funding -- But For How Long?

    Members of the House and Senate came together on Tuesday morning to work out how to fund U.S. armed forces at home and abroad. "Nobody can really pinpoint what the hell is going on," a Democratic staff member with knowledge of the defense funding negotiations told the Huffington Post Tuesday afternoon. After the morning conference meeting, House and Senate budget-makers agreed to pass $459 billion in appropriations for the Pentagon's basic operations.

  • Social Conservative Groups Mostly Silent On Robertson Endorsement

    Pat Robertson's endorsement this morning of Rudy Giuliani has been met with virtual radio silence from social conservative groups. A spokeswoman at the Christian Coalition said that Robertson had made the endorsement "in his personal capacity" and so the group wasn't commenting. A spokesman at Focus On The Family similarly told us, "Anything about Pat Robertson we're not talking about." The group's leader, Rev. James Dobson, had warned last month that Christian groups might pick a third party candidate to represent social conservatives if Giuliani was nominated to head the Republican ticket.

  • White House Trying To Limit Reach Of Criminal Law On Blackwater, Contractors

    A tug of war has broken out between Congress and the Bush administration over legislation that would put private security contractors on a shorter legal leash. The White House and Justice Department are trying to limit the reach of U.S. criminal law on Blackwater and other private war contractors. With a potential veto threat looming, several senators now want to alter the bill in a way that satisfies both the Bush administration and members of the House of Representatives, who overwhelmingly passed similar legislation last month.

  • Heat Builds On Blackwater: Congresswoman Moves To Ban Private Security Contractors

    Next Wednesday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) will introduce legislation to phase out the use of tens of thousands of private security contractors deployed on battlefields where American troops are present. "After 9/11 we thought airport security was so important that it shouldn't be contracted out and we created the Transportation Security Administration," said Peter Karafotas, a spokesman for the Congresswoman. Private contractors should not be used "for functions that should be reserved for U.S. military forces," Schakowsky argued in a?"dear colleague" letter?to fellow House members earlier this month.

  • McCain Indicates Support For Mukasey Despite Torture Controversy

    Last week,?HuffPost reported?that John McCain's revulsion of waterboarding seemed attenuated by his desire to support Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for Attorney General. While McCain had criticized presidential rival Rudy Giuliani for accepting Mukasey's statement that he wasn't sure if waterboarding was a form of torture, McCain was hesitant to criticize, let alone vote against, Mukasey's nomination.

  • Clinton's "Parsing" Aired Side-By-Side In New Edwards Video

    In a new video out from John Edwards' presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton gets called out for practicing the "politics of parsing." While much of the post-debate analysis this week has focused on Clinton's alleged "double talk" over immigration, the Edwards video also zeros in on the New York senator's answers to questions on Iraq and fixing Social Security. As the campaign said in accusing her of parsing, "You don't need to take our word for it - we'll let Senator Clinton speak for (and against) herself":

  • McCain Finally Elected President....In The Future

    Last night, Rudy Giuliani's campaign showed a wonderful display of chutzpah by declaring that the former New York mayor was the real winner of the evening's Democratic debate. If you follow the link from the e-mail, you're taken to a magical world of the future where?a mocked up newspaper headline?for November 5, 2008 declares that McCain has bested Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential election. The?latest poll out from Quinnipiac University?shows Giuliani to be the only candidate who bests Clinton in a national head to head contest.

  • Out Of Iraq Dems Frustrated Over Funding, But Place Hope In Leadership

    In September, 90 House members banded together in?a letter to the White House?stating that they would vote against any further funding for the war in Iraq. The group hoped to show the Democratic leadership that a growing number in their party were insistent on ending the war before the end of George Bush's presidency. "I think that they will be able to get the votes to pass the supplemental budget unfortunately," said Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY), a veteran congressman who signed onto the letter, in a Tuesday interview with the Huffington Post.