Supreme Court sides with Obama Administration and against ACLU in saying detainee abuse photos do not have to be released publicly.
CBO: Health care reform will lower out-of-pocket burden for most consumers.
The Center for Public Integrity has an interesting new project they’ve just published on the web detailing all the area of lobbying angling to get a piece of the fairly substantial money Congress has appropriated for investment in high speed inter-city rail projects. The danger, as they see it, is that lobbying cash and congressional barons will ensure that the money is divvied out into so many different places and on to so many different projects that nothing of any real consequence — in terms of technology or transformative infrastructure will end up getting done at all.
As you can see in our new feature post, a group of conservative and not-so-conservative Democrats in the senate pushing to use the upcoming need to up the national debt ceiling to insist that a commission be formed — perhaps on the model of the old base closing commission — to rein in spending and get the national finances under control. Anyone who looks at the national budget knows that if you start with the assumption that deficits are a critical problem right now that there are two big levers to get them under control — cutting social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and so on or raising taxes. You can make a dent on discretionary spending. But there’s just not enough money there. And it’s awfully hard to see how you make significant cuts in defense while you’re expanding one of two wars the country is fighting.
The key to focus on in my mind is that this is not just coming from Congress. I suspect you’ll find a White House, if not eager to go along with the idea of a commission, ready to pivot fairly dramatically from a 2009 focused on economic stabilization and reform into a 2010 focused heavily on budgetary retrenchment.
So this is a big thing to keep an eye on to understand the trajectory of the next eleven months both in policy terms and in terms of the 2010 election.
A lot of questions for Robert Gibbs just now at the White House press briefing regarding the polo-playing party crasher and his wife. Watch.
If the guy you invest your money with hosts Penthouse models at his parties, owns a 100-foot yacht and a Bugatti, is profiled in a CNBC segment on the “Rise of the Super Rich” (while hobnobbing with GOP politicos), you might consider moving your assets somewhere more secure.
Meet your latest accused Ponzi schemer du jour — this one managed to be a big fundraiser for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and lead a glam lifestyle with uber-cool parties featuring strippers making out for the guests. Quite a combination.
Tuesday: Tea party groups from New York and Vermont hit Capitol Hill to lobby against health care reform.
Wednesday: Tea Party: The Movie has its world premier at the Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. (watch the trailer here).
Thursday: It’s national tea party recruitment day.
Who can keep up? More here.
Remember all the Republican demands that Democrats’ health care reform bills be posted online for at least 72 hours before a vote for everyone to read?
Well, forget about that. Republicans shot down an effort today by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) to post proposed amendments to the health care reform bill online for before a vote. That would affect how many amendments the GOP could offer in hopes of gumming up the works, so they refused to go along.