Yet Obama wants to make the process even more secret and threatens to veto legislation that would increase the number of congresscritters who are allowed to view top secret material.

Why? As digby says:

Because it's worked out so well up to now.

I love the quote from McCarthy, as if the exception should somehow define the rule.  Obviously, the dark side of "the ends justify the means" is not what a good progressive would ever mean when thinking, first, of a results-based goal for policy/process.  Heaven forbid more stuff than not should actually work.  But to this dolt, worrying too much about results is a bad thing.

And the coherent national security strategy quote from Obama, nice, sheesh, show me a quote half as critical of any traditonally conservative political causes.  It's always we who must bend to them, never the other way around, even when "we" are supposedly in "power".

The top three most interesting are:

1. Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Sotomayor's self-apppointed defender, a man who needs to court Latinos to win reelection in NYC next year.

2. Ex-Fireman Frank Ricci, the guy who brought the New Haven reverse discrimination firefighters case thrown out by S'mayor.

3. Former Mets-Yankees pitcher David Cone, who was active member of the Major League players' association during the mid-1990s strike effectively ended by Sotomayor.
   

In today's WaPo, Henry Waxman said:

Waxman, lead House architect of the landmark health legislation, warned yesterday that he is not obligated to abide by deals struck recently by the White House, Senate Finance Committee, industry executives and interest groups such as AARP.

"The White House is not bound. They tell us they're not bound by that agreement," Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said at a National Journal breakfast. "We're certainly not bound by that agreement. The White House was involved, and we were not."

...One of the major reasons the stimulus is too small is because our elected officials waited too long to put one in the works.  As I stated last June, the free cash stimulus held the economy over for a few months but was a band-aid for gangrene.  
The substantial increase in downsizing could have been averted had our representatives been busy creating legislation to address the situation.  Instead, you had a party on the left waiting to win the election so they could take credit for a job creation program and a party on the right filled with confusion and failed policies.

Had a jobs program been passed in September, some of the money would be hitting the street and companies and people would feel cautiously optimistic as opposed to downright scared to spend.  Layoffs and reduced spending are partners and a very costly partnership.

We have what we have now not only because of CDS, Derivatives, greed etc. Addressing problems before they become crises is leadership.  We saw leadership from no one.

The longer we go without a stimulus the worse the problem gets and the longer it takes to recover.  An economy our size breaking down takes months to kick-start and get moving again.

In September of 2008 I stated that any bail out bill without a jobs program should not be passed as it did nothing to address the mounting labor issues which would be a direct contributor to a weaker economy and a weaker financial system.  

Working Americans keep the economy moving. With more than 10 million unemployed, state gov'ts going broke because the tax revenue losses and more layoffs forthcoming because people are afraid of losing their jobs as well, what did your representative do about it?

In September I stated that the bailout needed to be at least 1.4 trillion to include jobs and money for states.  Since we waited and allowed the problem to spiral to its current state, the new cost stands at 2.5 trillion.

So for President Obama and the democratic party, the funding needed has tripled because they wanted to be the heroes.  What they are going to get is a prolonged recession to the middle of 2010 and employment deficits until 2011.  Which could turn out very nicely for Jindal and Romney.

With foreign-policy speech, Clinton plans to raise her profile

After missing two overseas trips due to surgery to repair a broken elbow, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to deliver a major foreign-policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington next week before departing for India and the ASEAN conference in Thailand on Friday, July 17, aides say.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/mass_to_challen.html