Yesterday the Pentagon surprised everybody – including Bradley Manning’s lawyer – with news that the accused Wikileaks whistleblower will be moved from the Quantico brig in Virginia to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Pentagon’s lawyer, Jeh Johnson, announced Manning’s transfer in a snap press conference (video embedded) that revealed the government’s strategy: take Manning to a place “not in the Washington[, DC] area” where he will “likely be in pre-trial confinement for a while.”

Bradley Manning is set to be moved to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the only maximum security prison for members of the military, and the home to the military’s Death Row. The Pentagon is expected to announce the move tomorrow.

It seems President Obama has succeed in shifting the deficit debate dramatically to the right. The right-of-center plan Obama laid out that relies on two parts spending cuts for every one part new tax revenue has already been declared the left extreme in the debate by top senate Democrats. From ABC News: Senator Dick Durbin, [...]

As was entirely predictable, the “airstrikes only” campaign in Libya failed to bring down the well-armed and well-financed regime of Moammar Gadhafi . So, what is John McCain’s solution? Even more airstrikes. From the Hill: McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. should revive its air attacks to incapacitate [...]

The White House has given the go-ahead to a third trade agreement since December, this one with Panama. House Republicans are continuing to push an arbitrary deadline of July 1, 2011 for passage of all three outstanding trade deals, including Colombia and Korea.

Republican Paul Ryan, on “Face the Nation” last weekend, tried to somehow claim Republicans posturing about possibly not raising the debt limit unless President Obama and Senate Democrats give in to their demands wasn’t “playing games” with the debt ceiling. From CBS News: Ryan, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said [...]

With unemployment still high and job growth anemic, finding jobs for Americans should be the top priority of our elected officials. To deal with this serious crisis, I propose the creation of a National Cooperative Administration to encourage the creation of worker-owned businesses. Basic design The NCA could provide free advice and low interest loans [...]

Thanks to many loopholes in our tax code–the carried interest loophole being the most important–the richest people in American are likely paying a lower tax rate than you are. From Businessweek: For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent [...]

It seems some of the biggest, most profitable banks in America could be responsible for your property values dropping and your neighborhood becoming less safe as a result of poorly maintained vacant homes. From the Boston Globe: Two of the city’s top delinquent landlords are not landlords at all. They’re banks. City officials said Wells [...]

Today, Ezra Klein made the logical and concise case for why Paul Ryan’s Medicare privatization plan wasn’t about health care cost control but just saving the government money by shifting more of the health care cost burden onto regular people. Ryan’s plan works differently. Let’s say health-care costs grow at 8 percent a year — [...]