The United States Army doesn’t really need or want any more Humvees because they are effectively impractical death traps in the modern conflict zone. The Army is very public about wanting to use the billion dollars it would spend on Humvees on something else it thinks might actually be useful. This effort, though, is being [...]

For the second night in a row, Pfc. Bradley Manning has been forced to strip naked in his cell and spent the night in humiliation in his cell at Quantico. Manning’s lawyer writes on his blog that Quantico’s new brig commander, CWO-2 Denise Barnes, directly made the decision to strip Manning without consulting the brig’s mental health specialists.

It’s time for someone in the White House to hire a teacher to give everyone in the administration a lesson in remedial negotiation 101 . The actual budget issues aside, this statement from a press briefing with Director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling is some of the most pathetic public negotiating I’ve seen. [...]

The Illinois’s health care reform implementation panel has released its initial recommendations. They concluded that the private insurer exchanges created by the new health care law are likely to be a relatively bad deal for low-income residents, and that the state would be able to provide them better and cheaper coverage through a new public [...]

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has basically been a disaster since its start, and it remains one to this day. Roughly nine months ago, the Government Accountability Office examined the program, found many problems, and made several recommendations to improve it. Since then, the Treasury department has failed to make most of the needed [...]

The government is alleging Manning “knowingly gave intelligence information” and that WikiLeaks “received” it. Does that make”WikiLeaks” the “enemy” in question?

David House: “Through WikiLeaks we have been given direct evidence that the White House openly lies to congress and the American people in order to achieve political ends. Richard Nixon, in an attempt to stifle government transparency, once called Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America” and accused him of “providing aid and comfort to the enemy.” Today we see the Obama administration continuing the legacy Nixon started by declaring whistleblowers as enemies of the state. It is a sad and dangerous day for transparency advocates everywhere.”

With the individual mandate unpopular with even among the minority that actually favors the new health care law, it is no surprise that, according to the Politco Pulse, everyone in Washington is asking the American Academy of Actuaries about possible alternatives: Members of the American Academy of Actuaries, in town for Hill and agency meetings, [...]

According to the Boston Globe, the CEO of the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is going to get a retirement package worth $8.6 million after only six years on the job. From the Boston Globe: Cleve L. Killingsworth, who abruptly resigned last March as chief executive of the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield [...]

In contrast to the analysis by Goldman Sachs and Moody’s Anlaytics–which both concluded the immediate cuts pushed for by House Republicans would significantly reduce economic growth–Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claimed they would do little harm. The backing of such an important official should be a real boost to Republican efforts to push for immediate [...]