Posts by Jefferson Morley

Mary’s blog post this morning on The Washington Post’s report today that Fannie Mae is going to pay bonuses to four top executives offers a test of  the truism that failure pays in Washington as well as Wall Street. Case in point: Fannie Mae vice president Kenneth Bacon who is slated to receive $1 [...]

Here’s The Washington Post’s idea of debate on AIG:
The leadoff contributor to the op-ed page’s ‘”Topic A” section is former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg, who was forced out of the firm in 2005 amidst a fraud investigation that (mostly) ended without charges.  Greenberg argues “the Obama administration should allow AIG to rebuild itself and earn [...]

John Harwood of The New York Times has sketched an emerging scenario in which the Obama administration seeks comprehensive health care and energy reform without significant Republican support. Democrats are increasingly talking about abandoning the pretense of bipartisanship and putting the historic legislation in a filibuster-proof budget resolution could be passed by simple Democratic majorities [...]

Last year several Senate Republicans supported the “cap and trade” idea, but are now shying from President Obama’s push.

Is pleading ignorance the new spin of the coal industry? A leading spokesman for the coal lobby told  CNN today that he “didn’t know” if burning coal causes global warming, reports DeSmog blogger Kevin Grandia. When CNN’s Joe Acosta asked Joe Lucas, the vice president of the Americans for Clean Coal Electricity, “Can you just [...]

The coal industry just lost another one. Alliant Energy announced it is canceling a proposed $1.8 billion power plant in Marshalltown, Iowa. Despite new publicity campaigns from groups like the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and America’s Power, the Iowa project is the 94th proposed coal plant defeated in the past two years, according [...]

The political moment is right for ending off-shore tax evasion tactics, but obstacles stand in the way.

Both wings of the pharameceutical industry–brand name producers and generic manufacturers–are praising the White House choice of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Tennesee health policy expert Nancy-Anne DeParle to lead the administration’s health care reform effort, according to Pharma Times.

Bloomberg’s Ryan Donmoyer digs deeper into the question of whether the administration’s plan to scale back deductability of charity donations by wealthy Americans will hurt the non-profit sector. His report today generally confirms the analysis of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported here yesterday.
“Given the size of the change we’re talking about,” Williams [...]

Its a “clean coal” culture war.
Last week, the Coen Brothers, Hollywood wise guys with a dozen feature films to their credit, released a satiric 30-second television ad, in which a cheery flak sprays a suburban home with dark dust while intoning that “clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean.’” Sponsored by the [...]