Wonkette

• McCain intends to remain steadfast with his effort to ban torture of detainees. [WP]
• Condoleezza Rice, visiting Europe, “plans to come out swinging” on the issue of secret prisons, “shifting the focus back to the responsibilities of Europe

• Lawyers at the Justice Department warned that Rep. Tom Delay’s (R-Texas) redistricting plan was illegal under the Voting Rights Act but senior officials vetoed their findings. [WP]
• Senate Armed Services Committee seeks answers about Pentagon’s propaganda campaign in Iraqi media. Scott McClellan: “We’re very concerned about the reports. We have asked the Department of Defense for more information.” [NYT]
• Revelations about Samuel Alito’s views on abortion “are stiffening Democratic resistance and complicating the nomination for moderates in both parties.” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.): “Certainly the chance of a filibuster is greater today than it was the day Alito was nominated.” [WP, NYT]
• Conversation in 2004 with Time’s Viveca Novak is said to have motivated Rove to change his testimony in the leak investigation. [NYT]
• Prosecutors are investigating whether Jack Abramoff “brokered lucrative jobs for Congressional aides at powerful lobbying firms in exchange for legislative favors.” [NYT]
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) breaks from most in her party with support of Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) plan for withdrawal. Strategist: “If Karl Rove was writing the timing of this, he wouldn’t have written it any differently, with the president of the United States expressing resolve and the Democratic leader offering surrender. For Republicans, this is manna from heaven.” [WP, WT]
• Bush marks World AIDS Day: “I believe America has a unique ability, and a special calling, to fight this disease.” Dean says the administration has “stood in the way of important global efforts to curb this disease.” [WP]

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• Military requests $3.9b to prepare Iraqi forces for a reduced American presence; Bush’s “strategy for victory” would rely on a “smaller, more lethal” American force. [NYT]
• Bush: “I want to defeat the terrorists, and I want our troops to come home, but I don’t want them to come home without having achieved victory. . . Quitting is not an exit strategy.” [WP]
• Administration vows to respond to E.U. questions concerning secret CIA prison locations in Europe. [WP]
• Republicans strongly denounce Rep. Randy Cunningham’s conduct in an effort to distance themselves from bribery scandal. [NYT, LAT]
• Businessman under investigation in Cunningham case supported 32 House members or candidates and raised over $100,000 for Bush’s re-election. [USAT, USAT]
• Bush continues promotion of his border security plan; raises $1.3m for Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and $450,000 for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO). [WP, NYT]
• R. Glenn Hubbard, the former chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, calls the president’s Medicare plan “unwise”: “The current Social Security and Medicare systems are on an unsustainable path. . . The drug benefit is a new entitlement. This isn’t sustainable over the long haul and I don’t think it’s sustainable even over the next five years.” [WSJ]

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• Viveca Novak’s testimony is said to be central to Karl Rove’s defense. Source: “This is what caused [Patrick Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging.” [WP]
• Interest groups and individuals are increasingly “concluding that the commingling of money and politics has gone too far”; lobbyists and lawmakers are “now facing what could be a wave of prosecutions in the courts and an uprising at the ballot box.” For the first time, the “public’s negative feelings exceeded its positive feelings about both political parties at the same time.” [WP]
• Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) resigns after pleading guilty for accepting $2.4m in bribes: “In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame.” [WP, NYT, WSJ, LAT, USAT]
• Bush promotes his guest-worker program and advocates border security measures: “The American people should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful society. We can have both at the same time.” Proposals face uphill battle in Congress. [WP, NYT, WSJ, WT, NYT, USAT]
• Cheney’s office has not been forthcoming with disclosure of travel expenses. Center for Public Integrity: “[T]he public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill.” [WP]
• Administration moves to hype the advances of the Iraqi Army, “a move designed to shore up domestic support for the Iraq war while setting the stage for a reduction in U.S. military troops next year.” [WSJ]

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The U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego is trying to seize the home of eminently indictable California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. This is not, mind you, the San Diego manse that Cunningham pawned of on his defense-contractor padrone Mitchell Wade, who then sold it at price $700,000 lower than what he paid his congressional protege. Nor is it “The Duke Stir,” the puckishly named DC-area house boat that Wade quartered Cunningham rent-free for 15 months; that one’s already been boarded and searched by the feds, plus the DC Yacht Club where it’s docked is reportedly seeking eviction proceedings against Cunningham. This, rather, is the luxe Rancho Santa Fe compound that Cunningham put on the market last week for a cool $3.5 million. The U.S. attorney’s office is seeking to get it forfeited to the feds since its “is derived from proceeds traceable to” alleged violations of federal bribery law. Should this tactic fail, though, there’s always the old grab-Mitchell-Wade-by-his-ankles-and-shake-a-few-hundred-grand-from-his-pockets approach. Hey, it’s got Cunningham this far. –HOLLY MARTINS MORE »