Slaughter House Rules

Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

So at the Speaker’s command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what’s known as a “self-executing rule,” also known as a “hereby rule.” Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill. Read more at online.wsj.com

US deficits could threaten national security - Biden

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - If the United States fails to tackle its record budget deficits, they could become a threat to national security over time, Vice President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday.

Biden said the high U.S. budget deficit had not become a national security issue yet. “If we don’t do something about it, they could and may become a national security issue,” he said in an interview on cable news network MSNBC.

Biden was speaking a day after President Barack Obama proposed a budget that projected a deficit of $1.56 trillion for fiscal 2010 but then saw the funding gap shrinking. Read more at www.reuters.com

Canadian Premier Heads to US for Heart Surgery

National Post: Mr. Williams’ decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada’s health-care system. Read more at www.breitbart.tv

Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.

“Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same.” Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

High Court Strikes Corporate Spending Ban

The Supreme Court on Thursday lifted long-held bans on corporate and union involvement in federal elections, ruling that outside groups can spend unlimited sums on television advertising and other campaign expenditures.

“The court has recognized that the First Amendment applies to corporations … and extended this to the context of political speech,” the justices ruled in the narrow 5-4 decision.

Originally heard by the court last June, the Supreme Court asked to re-hear the case last fall during Sonia Sotomayor’s first appearance on the bench. Read more at www.rollcall.com

Profiling: Sketching the Face of Jihadism

Sketching the face of jihadism is simply not as easy as it might seem.

On Jan. 4, 2010, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) adopted new rules that would increase the screening of citizens from 14 countries who want to fly to the United States as well as travelers of all nationalities who are flying to the United States from one of the 14 countries. These countries are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The difficulty of creating a reliable and accurate physical profile of a jihadist, and the adaptability and ingenuity of the jihadist planners, means that any attempt at profiling is doomed to fail. In fact, profiling can prove counterproductive to good security by blinding people to real threats. They will dismiss potential malefactors who do not fit the specific profile they have been provided. Read more at www.stratfor.com