Quickhits

Apparently this is standard practice, but the US Border Patrol uses hollowpoints?

Bush made a number of recess appointments yesterday, a number of them controversial, unqualified Julie Myers(yes, a relation to Gen. Richard Myers,) new members of the Federal Elections Commission who were bad enough they couldn't get voted in, and high placed new members of Donald Rumsfeld's team. I guess the positions were so important that they couldn't wait until the Senate comes back on Monday. Firedoglake points out that one of the recess appointments was involved in the Fla. voter roll purge. (Appointed to the FEC?)

The Supreme Court allowed Jose Padilla to be transferred to civilian custody, but they left open the question of his "enemy combatant" appeal.

Jane Harman (D - CA) said that "the limited Congressional briefings the Bush administration has provided on a National Security Agency eavesdropping program violated the law." Harman is no shrinking violet on this, she has previously defended the practice.

TP and AMblog have a little more on the NSA possibly spying on Amanpour. And a bit from my response in yesterday's comments.

I would rate Amanpour as one of the most likely to have vast and wide contacts with the Arab world......Also, I didn't know this, her husband is James Rubin, former Clinton official, and adviser to the Kerry campaign. So, if the NSA was tapping her phone with the approval of the Bush admin, they most certainly also tapped a call or two from her husband to the Kerry campaign whether or not that made it out of the NSA.

And the FISA court is set to be briefed by the Bush admin on Monday regarding the NSA spying program. Their expressed concern is whether they apporved any FISA warrants based on this illegally obtained information.