1.) Ryan and Boehner talk two different lines on oil subsidies — House GOP leadership is borrowing a page from Grover Norquist’s playbook in its defense of oil subsidies. When asked about ending oil subsidies, Speaker Boehner’s office told The Daily Caller that “the Speaker wants to increase the supply of American energy to lower gas prices and create millions of American jobs. Raising taxes will not do that.” If you’ve been following the ethanol debate, you’ve heard the same line: While corporate welfare is bad, doing away with it would be worse, because that would be raising taxes. It’s possible that Rep. Paul Ryan may be a thorn in Boehner’s side. Ryan wants to eliminate all energy subsidies. “We’re talking about reforming the safety net, the welfare system. We also want to get rid corporate welfare. And corporate welfare goes to agribusiness companies, to energy companies, financial services companies. So we propose to repeal all of that” Ryan said at a Wisconsin Town hall. His spokesperson echoed that sentiment in a statement to The Hill: “[T]ax loopholes and deductions for all corporations should be scaled back or eliminated entirely.” We’ll believe it when we see it.
2.) Dana Milbank takes a dump on the White House Correspondents Dinner — “The correspondents’ association dinner was a minor annoyance for years, when it was a ‘nerd prom’ for journalists and a few minor celebrities,” writes Milbank. “Now, awash in lobbyist and corporate money, it is another display of Washington’s excesses.” What sort of excess, you ask? Free vodka, free scotch, free hand-rolled cigars, and free body butter, for starters. Parties at the W Hotel and the St. Regis Hotel and the Ritz (which is also a hotel); the Italian embassy and the French ambassador’s home. It’s all too much, writes Milbank, who sees “nothing inherently wrong with savoring Johnnie Walker Blue with the politicians we cover.” Except that the “proliferation of A-list parties and the infusion of corporate and lobbyist cash…give Americans the impression we have shed our professional detachment and are aspiring to be like the celebrities and power players we cover.” That’s the most self-aware sentence Milbank has written this decade.
3.) Civil Rights offices preserve the right to be redundant — “Based on The Daily Caller’s analysis, there are at least 55 offices, departments and commissions devoted to civil rights and diversity throughout the federal government. And their budgets don’t amount to petty cash,” reports TheDC’s Caroline May. “In FY 2010, the last complete budget year, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights cost taxpayers $46.7 million; the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Civil Rights cost $24 million; the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division cost $145.4 million; Department of Transportation’s Office of Civil Rights cost $9.66 million; the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights cost $102 Million; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cost $367 million and so on,” writes May, adding, “Those numbers, however, are just the tip of the iceberg.”
4.) TSA molests another slightly famous person, who won’t stop talking about it — Move over Dave Barry, TSA has groped someone more famous than a newspaper humor writer: “Susie Castillo was crowned Miss USA (not Miss America) back in 2003. She recently made a trip to Rio and on her return trip through Dallas was given a pat-down that she found both intrusive and upsetting,” writes John Sexton at Hot Air. Castillo had received a pat-down before, but it was nothing like the one she received when she returned to the U.S.: “What bothered me most was when she ran the back of her hands down my behind, felt around my breasts, and even came in contact with my vagina! Honestly, I was in shock, especially since the woman at LAX never actually touched me there. The TSA employee at DFW touched [my] private area 4 times, going up both legs from behind and from the front, each time touching me there. Was I at my gynecologist’s office? No! This was crazy!” Loco.
5.) White House censors reporter for doing her job — The San Francisco Chronicle’s White House pool reporter Carla Marinucci was not trying to make trouble when she pulled out a cell phone camera to tape protestors interrupting an Obama event in California. She was just doing her job. But because Marinucci is a “print pool” reporter, and because the White House hates to be embarrassed, Marinucci was kicked out of the pool after her cell video went viral. The Chron reached out to the White House for comment, but Jay Carney’s office refused to talk. “Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was ‘informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.’ Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate) and how local citizens get their information.” Even worse: “More than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public.”
6.) Roger Pilon is old enough to remember when politics was less about politicking, more about governing — Here’s some food for thought for this weekend, from Cato’s Roger Pilon: “We are moving inexorably not simply to news but to politics 24/7/365. And what better example than our current part-time president who, with no primary challenger in sight, is already on the campaign trail (did he ever leave it?), when the election is 19 months away. Some of us are old enough to remember when elected officials served — and ran for office or reelection only around election time.” Then again, the more time our foolhardy pols spend seeking reelection, the less time they have to create and inflict screwy policies. (Or so one would hope.)