The Rick Perry that Texans know
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 10th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
The Rick Perry that Texans know
DES MOINES
The biggest guessing game in Republican politics today is what kind of presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be. Is he a heavyweight ready to contend seriously for the nomination, or someone who stumbles when he steps onto the big stage?
His prospective candidacy looms large over the GOP race. Without much effort on his part, other than a few strategic appearances and a powerful echo chamber, Perry is already being cast as the most likely candidate to challenge Mitt Romney’s standing as the front-runner for the party’s nomination.
Fuel-efficiency rules set for heavy-duty trucks and buses
The Obama administration set the first-ever fuel-efficiency rules for heavy-duty trucks and buses Tuesday, a move that will cut greenhouse gas emissions and fuel use by everything from long-haul tractor-trailers to school buses over the next several years.
The regulations require fuel-efficiency improvements of as much as 23 percent by model year 2018, compared with the industry’s 2010 baseline. The administration estimates that the rules will save a total of $50 billion in fuel costs and 530 million barrels of oil during that period.
Why Michele Bachmann is no Sarah Palin, part 2
The controversy over a photo of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann that appears on the cover of Newsweek magazine this week has drawn comment from people all over the political world.
Except for one: Bachmann herself.
House ethics punts Waters’s ethics case to outside counsel
The House ethics committee is poised to pay a half-million dollars by year’s end to resolve the mess that remains of its three-year probe of Rep. Maxine Waters.
An outside counsel and private law firm will sort out how to handle the most substantive case on the committee’s plate this session, as the panel tackles more modest matters. Waters, a powerful California Democrat, and a former senior staffer on the committee have separately questioned the integrity of the panel’s investigation.
Since last fall, The Washington Post and other news media have reported that partisan squabbling between staff and committee members derailed the Waters probe by the end of 2010 and threatened other ethics cases. The allegations, first made against her in early 2009, center on whether Waters used her public office to help bail out OneUnited, a bank in which her husband had a significant investment.
Fannie and Freddie ask for $7 billion more; Could it lead to actual reform?
Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance house, said Monday that it will ask for an additional $1.5 billion of taxpayer money to make up for losses stemming from weak housing markets.
The request falls on the heels of an announcement last week by Freddie Mac’s sister organization, Fannie Mae, that it will need $5.1 billion to make up its shortfall. The two coincide with Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating from AAA status to AA+, which has the potential to affect the institutions’ lending and collecting abilities.
