Texas Gov. Rick Perry might be the most secretive governor in modern Texas political history, the Dallas Morning News reports today. He won’t even release his schedule publicly. Why? According to Perry’s press secretary, “Security is different in a post-9/11 world. Security is paramount.”
(The reason Perry’s lack of transparency has come up again now is he’s refusing to release the documents that he reviewed immediately prior to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, the convicted arson murderer whose conviction is coming under increasing scrutiny, as Josh noted yesterday.)
Republicans are threatening Olympia Snowe’s shot at becoming ranking member on the Commerce Committee if she votes for health care reform. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
Jon Stewart applauds CNN for its rigorous fact-checking of itself Saturday Night Live. Watch.
Brian Beutler is liveblogging from the Hill in the hearing room where the Senate Finance Committee will vote on the Baucus bill shortly. You can follow his dispatches here.
A day after their study of the Baucus Bill was released, PricewaterhouseCoopers admits that their study didn’t show much cost savings from the bill because its analysis didn’t include the cost savings part of the bill.
Top-notch product.
A federal district court judge in Georgia has sanctioned birther movement attorney (and dentist, but that’s another story) $20,000 for being in contempt of court, i.e., filing frivolous birther motions and bad-mouthing the court.
We’ve got another poll out showing the NJ gov race is essentially a tie, with Chris Christie holding on to perhaps a razor thin lead. The latest Public Policy Polling poll is out and has Christie up by a single point.
PPP is a Dem poll but respected and this is in line with other recent polls.
TPMmuckraker’s Justin Elliott had the enviable task of breaking the news to birther attorney Orly Taitz that she’s been fined by a federal judge to the tune of $20,000. Read his account of their interview.
The RNC relaunched its website this morning. But initially if you clicked on the new site’s “Future GOP leaders” page, you got “404 Error: This page could not be found.” It appears to be fixed now.
Did AHIP’s “bombshell” blow up in AHIP’s face? We take a look at the fallout from the AHIP/PricewaterhouseCoopers study 36 hours in.