David Sessions -- Politics Daily

Published: 07/19/10

'Top Secret America': Washington Post Unmasks Unwieldy Security Behemoth

The Washington Post unveiled the first installment of a two-year investigation on its front page Monday, detailing the "top secret" intelligence world that ballooned after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Reporters Dana Priest, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and William Arkin write that they found "an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight." After nine years of "unprecedented spending," the intelligence community has become a sector of government so massive that oversight is next to impossible and that it is of ...

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Published: 07/15/10

Financial Reform Will Become Law, So What's in the Bill?

The Senate voted 60-39 Thursday to pass a Democratic financial reform bill, which would put in place broad federal authority to oversee Wall Street and attempt to prevent practices like those that led to the 2008 crash of the financial markets. It now goes to President Obama, who is expected to sign it next week. Congressional Republicans have staunchly opposed -- even temporarily filibustered -- the bill, but Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, along with his Republican colleagues Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, cast deciding votes in favor. In the House, only three ...

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Published: 07/14/10

At Jobs Summit, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Makes Its Case Against Obama Policies

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce held a summit Wednesday to highlight its views on creating jobs and challenge Obama administration policies it believes have allowed the country's employment rate to stagnate. "For the first time in my 40 years of observation, I truly think our free enterprise system is at risk," said Tom Bell, chairman of the Chamber's board of directors, opening the summit. "If you hear the conversations in Washington and read the popular press, everyone seems to see earning profit and creating wealth not as the heart and soul of our economy, but as a nefarious activity that ...

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Published: 07/13/10

Energy Industry's Lobbying Outlay: $2.9 Billion Since 2000

Large energy industries, led by oil and gas, have spent a combined $2.9 billion over the past decade on electing candidates, lobbying for industry-friendly policy, and swaying regulators in their favor, according to a report released Tuesday by Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that monitors money in politics. Since 1990, donations to lawmakers from employees of energy companies and their political action committees have increased more than 300 percent, according to the report, which is based on public data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group. While ...

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Published: 07/12/10

Teen Summer Job Market May Be the Worst Since 1951

Americans aged 16 to 19 face the toughest employment situation since the 1950s, according to job statistics released July 2 by the Department of Labor and analysis by employment experts, AOL's Daily Finance reports. The government's June employment statistics revealed that non-farm payrolls decreased by 125,000 jobs even as the U.S. employment rate inched downward to 9.5 percent. The unemployment rate for teenagers, however, is triple that: 29 percent, according to non-seasonally adjusted numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And in June, teen job growth sank to its lowest level ...

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Published: 07/12/10

Obama 'Guaranteed' 2012 Win, American University Professor Says

President Obama is "guaranteed" to win re-election in 2012, according to Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. Lichtman's formula predicts the outcome of the popular vote without considering candidate opinion polls, campaign strategies or political events. Lichtman's system is based on 13 political conditions that he calls "keys." The keys favor the incumbent president's party: When five or fewer of them are false, the incumbent party wins the presidency. If six or more are false, the opposition party wins. In 2007, Lichmann predicted that any Democratic ...

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Published: 07/12/10

Democratic Governors Fear Immigration Lawsuit Will Be Election Issue

In private meetings with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors expressed concern that the Obama administration's lawsuit against an Arizona immigration law could weaken an already vulnerable Democratic Party in the November midterm elections, the New York Times reports. The state leaders were in Boston for a meeting of the National Governors Association that focused on the economy, but worry about the Arizona situation dominated a closed-door meeting during the three-day event. "Universally the governors are saying, 'We've got to talk about jobs,' " said Gov. Phil Bredesen ...

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Published: 07/12/10

Uganda Bombings Kill 64 World Cup Fans; Clinton Pledges U.S. Support

Two bombings in Kampala, Uganda, late Sunday evening killed 64 people gathered to watch the World Cup final, the Washington Post reports. The dead included at least one American. Uganda's chief of police immediately blamed Somalia's al-Shabab, a hard-line militia with ties to al-Qaeda. Al-Shabab has perpetrated several bombings in Somalia over the past few weeks and has threatened to retaliate against peacekeeping forces from Uganda and Burundi. Last week, al-Shabab's leader accused African Union peacekeepers of participating in "massacres" in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu. The group, ...

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Published: 07/7/10

The War Over Long-Distance Flights at Reagan National

Lawmakers from Western states and others are pushing to allow long-distance flights from Reagan National Airport, the smaller of Washington's two airports. Located just four miles from the Capitol, Reagan is limited by a "perimeter rule" that bans flights longer than 1,250 miles to minimize plane traffic over the Virginia communities that line the Potomac River. That means non-stop flights cannot reach distant cities like San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix. Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia, both Democrats, have fought vigorously to keep the limits on traffic at Reagan, but a ...

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Published: 07/6/10

Wall Street Bails on Democrats: Midterm Candidates Claim It's a Plus

A front-page story in the July 6 issue of The Washington Post revealed that campaign contributions to Democrats have dropped 65 percent over the past two years, led by a defection of big donors on Wall Street. Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria suggested Wall Street is growing restless under the rule of a president they suspect is "anti-business," and that it's showing in the Democrats' fundraising numbers. At least half of the drop can be attributed to New York, where most of the nation's largest financial firms are based. In the 2008 election cycle, 28 percent of the Democratic campaign committee's ...

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