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Most of the 82 federal programs designed to support wind energy had “overlapping characteristics,” and several “provided some duplicative financial support,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday. The report said the initiatives amounted to $2.9 billion of obligated expenses and at least $1.1 billion of subsides for wind power in 2011. Most of those subsidies financed construction and use of turbines, the report said. The efforts spanned nine agencies, including the Energy (DOE), Interior, Agriculture (USDA), Commerce and Treasury departments.
E2-Wire - The Hill's E2-Wire
In 2000, Too Many Liberals Told Themselves Election Didn't Matter. Will The Same Thing Happen In 2012?
The presidential election of 2000 still makes me angry. Mostly that’s because of the grotesque way it ended, with five Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices shutting down the Florida recount. But partly that’s because of the liberal apathy that first put the outcome into doubt.
Jonathan Cohn
Presidents use their inaugural addresses as an opportunity to talk about the future. But when they take the oath of office for a second time, they also use it to talk about the past. Franklin Roosevelt used his second inaugural address, which many consider his best, to define the New Deal—not as a one-time reaction to a national economic crisis, but as a “new chapter in our book of self-government.”
As I predicted , Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's calendar-freezing machinations to reform the filibuster turned out to be much ado about nothing. Reid and McConnell have struck a deal to eliminate filibusters on "motions to proceed," leaving intact filibusters on the actual legislation. In exchange, the minority will be guaranteed the chance to bring two amendments to the floor.
Timothy Noah
Daily Intel -- New York News
In a series of interviews, newly appointed NYPD chief Philip Banks III revealed that he had been unnecessarily questioned by the police during his youth in Crown Heights, though he continued to defend the department's stop-and-frisk program, which he called "an effective strategy when it’s done correctly" on Thursday. Banks, who is the second black officer to hold his position, recalled an incident that took place in the early eighties, when three cops stopped him and a few buddies because they were standing in front of a building where drug deals had taken place. Two of the officers were "fine and professional and one was not," Banks said. However, he added, "I was fine with the stop. I mean I didn’t like, of course, to be stopped.Why climate change won’t wait for the president. Climate-change deniers are on the ropes—but so is the planet. A planet connected by wild weather. How we subsidize energy giants to wreck the planet, and what we can do about it. The last days of winter and the first days of spring have seen hundreds of record-breaking high temperatures.
Bill McKibben