Reading List: Sunday 5/24

Let's see, what has happened this weekend...

• Colin Powell has come under attack (again) from high-ranking members of the GOP as a "Democrat in Republican clothing." He responded today by reaffirming his allegiance to the Republican party on CBS's "Face the Nation"...but says that the party needs fundamental change to become more inclusive. This is just another front in a debate that is raging all across the country, including in the very conservative state of Utah, where Gov. Jon Huntsman (President Obama's nominee for ambassador to China) has suggested that the party needs to move toward the center.
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner dismissed recent Republican charges that the Obama administration is moving the country toward socialism.
• Spanish judges are taking advantage of human rights laws to prosecute and convict officials from countries all over the world, including the U.S., China, and Israel. Related: David Bosco, an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service, has an op-ed in the Washington Post on Spain's judicial activism.
• Iran is still in the news, of course, with presidential elections coming up on June 12. In advance of that, the government has blocked Facebook access for its Internet users, and has been demonstrating its regional clout by hosting a summit with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• The Washington Post has a profile of Sen. Max Baucus, the Democratic senator from Montana who has been one of the biggest advocate of reforming the health care system.
• Former Ambassador to Belgium (and SCOTUS "sherpa") Tom C. Korologos has an article in the WaPo on "How to Scale the High Court," on what Obama's nominee (and whoever guides him or her) will have to go through.
• The New York Times today took a look at Obama's use of "straw men" as opponents.
• Politico takes a look at who has the best email lists in politics.
• Senate Republicans are already starting to resist President Obama's request that his nominee be confirmed by the Senate's August recess. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) has said that he thinks getting the process done by then would be "rushing it."
• How's this for ironic: former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says that he doesn't believe that President Obama's policies are making America less safe...at the same time as he criticized some of the moves Obama has made as "more politics than policy."
• Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that the US is still on track to pull out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but doesn't rule out the possibility of some troops still remaining.
• And for interest: Matthew B. Crawford makes "The Case for Working With Your Hands" in a new book, to be published this week. NYT offers an interesting sneak preview.