On Friday afternoon, the Obama administration released logs detailing who had visited the White House over the past months. It is not a complete list of visitors, just those who had a specific request was made on the official website in the last month.

The White House made a point of noting that though the logs list Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers as visitors, those are the controversial paster of Obama's former church or the member of the 60s group terrorist group, but different people with similar names.

The White House plans to release the full records at the end of December (what timing!) which will include the name of everyone who visited the White House in the previous 90 days (why 90 days? who knows). So if you've visited recently, expect to see your name on the list.

"My mission is to frame this health care debate in terms of the fiscal ruin of this country"
-Senator Tom Coburn, on his plans for the health care debate

After Obama tapped Congressman John McHugh to be his Secretary of the Army, Democrats and Republicans turned the election to fill New York's 23rd district into a national referendum for their respective parties. Dierdre Scozzafava, a "a Pro-Choice, Pro-Union & Pro Gay Marriage Republican" became the GOP candidate, while Bill Owens ran for the Democrats.

Then Doug Hoffman decided to join the race and fight "for the heart and soul of the Republican Party" as an independent for the Conservative Party of New York (No official affiliation to the national party). Polls show the race as a dead heat, meaning if Hoffman wins, Republicans get to claim a victory and will definitely move further to the right (Sarah Palin endorsed Hoffman,that's how far right he is) in the 2010 elections.

However, considering that NY-23 is a solidly Republican seat anyway, it's hard to see this as anything but conflict within the Republican party.

Senate bill S.1938 was introduced yesterday, aiming to "establish a program to reduce injuries and deaths caused by cellphone use and texting while driving"

"The legislation would create a grant program for states that enact laws prohibiting texting and cell phone use while driving. To qualify for the grants, states would have to enact a ban on texting while driving and impose significant penalties for drivers who cause an accident.

States would also have to limit cell phone use to devices with hands-free capabilities, and drivers under 18 years old would not be able to use a cell phone at all. The grants would be paid for with surplus funds from the existing seatbelt safety program."

There is pushback from some states, who argue that Federal laws are too broad and states should be held hostage to national guides in order to receive funds, such as Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison:

“While some have pushed for specific mandates on the states, I disagree,” she said. “States should not be threatened with the loss of federal highway funds that have been paid for by their drivers. We can better accomplish these goals through incentives to individual states rather than heavy-handed mandates from the federal government.”

The big news is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will include a public option in the Senate's health care bill enabling individual states to opt out of the public option. it's widely thought that right leaning states will be the most likely to do so. Still, just getting any sort of public option into the Senate bill is being hailed as a victory.

But as Ezra Klein points out, this is a compromise. This isn't a single payer system. It isn't even an expansion of Medicare. States will be able to opt out, so it won't be national policy. It will only be available to those eligible for health exchanges, which doesn't apply to the majority of the population who get health insurance through their employers. Even if a person is eligible, they'll still be limited by what their state decides.   |   Click for full text...

The ability for weapons to be checked along with baggage is being proposed as an amendment to a Senate transportation bill. Oddly enough, weapons used to be allowed on trains, but that changed after 9/11, so this would be a return to a status quo of sorts.

Over in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems ok with legislation letting the states opt out of any public option.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid supposedly has close to the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, based on the idea that states would be able to opt out a national public option

The only problem is the White House, which prefers Olympia Snowe's idea for triggers, thus getting her vote and being able to call the bill bi-partisan. The White House says those reports are false though.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted, 68-29, to expand the federal hate crimes law to include not only race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, but also gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The House had already approved so the bill is headed to the President, who is expected to sign it.

The law was expanded by the Matt Shepard Act, which was attached to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill. By attaching the act to a crucial spending bill when Democrats dominated the House, Senate and Presidency, it was virtually assured to pass and be enacted, after years of failing to be passed as separate bill.

The White House's Special Master for Compensation., Kenneth Feinberg, "is set to announce that seven companies receiving "exceptional" amounts of taxpayer aid will slash the annual salaries of their 25 top executives by an average of 90 percent from 2008 levels, sources told ABC News".

According to Fox News, this is a decision of Feinberg's, not President Obama.

A Handy Guide to Congress' Health Care Bills, courtesty of opencongress.org. Good and quick breakdown of the differences between the bills.

There's talk of rebranding the public option as Medicare, Part E, where E stands for everyone. Why? Everyone loves Medicare, its got a proven track record, whereas the term 'public option' conjures up all sorts of boogeymen.

Tentative CBO scores for the House version of health care reform put the price tag at $900 billion over ten years and includes a public option. This is only slightly more than the Senate Finance Committe's $829 billion dollar bill, which has no public option. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly going to push hard for a public option in the final House bill.

The State Ethics Commission of South Carolina would like to release a report to the state's House members about SC Governor Mark Sanford and his philandering antics. Once they've reviewed the report the House members will decide whether impeachment procedures should begin against Sanford for the lies and attempted coverup of his affair with an Argentinan woman.

Unsurprisingly, Sanford's lawyers were in court on Monday, arguing that the report should not be released until he's had the choice to tell his side of the story, whatever that means. The lawyers also argued that a letter Sanford signed waiving confidentiality in the case just applies to revealing that the matter was before the Ethics Commission and what it was. The judge in the hearing noted that Sanford seems to be using delaying tactics, but issued no ruling on Monday and there's no specific date when she will rule. The actual report isn't finished and isn't expected to be until early in November, hence part of the reasoning why Sanford is just trying to delay.

That's not Sanford's only problem though. A GOP congressman is set "to get the ball rolling" on impeachment in a resolution introduced next week in a special legislative session (which was called for non-Sanford matters). By introducing it before the regular legislative session officially begins in January, the resolution will get to the floor of the state chamber quicker, allowing a vote on the resolution to go forward.

"With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs."

The AP is reporting that the Obama administration will issue new guidelines for medical marijuana today:

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

While the new guidelines will allow states wide discretion, the memos will also make clear that illegal use of marijuana will not be tolerated and any state sanctioned dispensaries that act as a front for illegal distribution will be dealt with.

Iran is reportedly close to making a deal on its nuclear program.

The U.S. House of Representatives have agreed to allow Gitmo prisoners to be transferred to the states to stand trial.

The U.S. Senate is again looking at ending the 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and power cocaine.

The Afghanistan election is heading to a runoff, which may quell some of the accusations of fraud and vote tampering.

It wasn't all hearts and flowers when the President met the frustrated residents of New Orleans today.

Part of his remarks.

White House to Fox News: You're being mean and we're not going to play with you anymore.

Fox News to White House: Stop crying, we're awesome.

While health care is getting a lot of attention, Congress is also trying to reform regulation of financial markets. House Financial Services Committee will vote today on more oversight of the derivatives market and is debating the creation of Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Wall Street isn't happy.

The GOP launched a new website yesterday and despite a few initial bugs, it's up and running. What's the best part? The accomplishments page doesn't mention anything after 2004. What's the best part for the future? RNC chairman, Michael "I say the craziest things" Steele will be blogging.

As the Senate Finance Committee prepares to vote on health care reform, Republican member Olympia Snowe has said that she will vote for the committee's bill. However, she was quick to warn her vote on the final health care bill, whatever it may look like, is in no way guaranteed.

A minor note and pretty duh as McCain admits to tensions in his 2008 campaign over Sarah Palin. Note how it's framed though: "Steve Schimdt (the campaign manager) had problems with Palin's people" i.e. "It wasn't me and it wasn't Sarah, it was a few of our staff members" Nice political passing of the buck.

The five-member Nobel committee got into global politics in a big way today, by awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama. Why did they award it to a President in the first year of his first term, who most of the world had never heard of until two years ago? According to the chairmen of the committee:

"committee members were hopeful that the prize would add momentum to Obama's efforts as he considers whether to expand the war in Afghanistan, prepares to withdraw from Iraq, and struggles to build momentum to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and assemble an international effort to stop Iran's nuclear program."

In short, this award isn't about what Obama has done, because he hasn't done much yet, but rather the vision he's been pushing for in terms of global peace, such as talking with Iran and North Korea, a speech to the Muslim world, ending US torture of prisoners and trying to close Gitmo. Not totally off the wall upon reflection, but it leaves one wondering about the other nominees, who have accomplishments to back up their peace work.   |   Click for full text...

Congressional hearings about repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy are supposedly set to take place this fall, according to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. It'll be interesting to see how President Obama reacts.

An amendment to the 2010 appropriations bill requiring a CBO score and a 72 hour period of reviews has been defeated on procedural grounds. Evidently in this case it's against the rules to attach amendments to general appropriations bills that have nothing to do with the actual bill.

With the U.S. Senate Finance Committee getting ready to vote on on health care reform, Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has suggested another compromise to woo centrist Democrats and Republicans: the public option at the state government level, seeded by $6 billion in federal money. States would also be able to ban together to create regional co-ops.

Arab countries are reportedly considering switching around from the dollar for oil sales to a basket of currencies.. That may not be all bad argues an article in Time. NPR's Marketplace says it's all doom and gloom, noting that the dollar is backed by American power and stability.

The White House is considering additional unemployment assistance along with health benefits for people unemployed for long periods of time, which would cost about $100 billion. No, it's not another stimulus bill, honest to God, just a possible extension to the first. Also being considered is keeping the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit.

Most polls show that Americans want a bipartisan health care reform bill, bu they're not married to it. If the choice is a bipartisan bill with no public option or Democrat only bill with a public option, the majority want the latter.

Something to keep in mind as the Senate Finance committee finishes up its version of reform this week and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid begins work on reconciling that bill and the HELP committee's bill, which does have a public option.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has decided it won't boycott U.S. suppliers in "retaliation of the Buy American laws." The Canadian want to give more time to talks between the nations in hopes of avoiding a trade war. Negotiations are ongoing, with a push for Canada to get an exemption that would allow Canadian suppliers to bid on projects funded by money from the U.s. federal stimulus.

With the U.S. jobless rate climbing to 9.8%, there's speculation that the sputtering economy will give the Democrats problems in the 2010 elections. Columnist Ezra Klein doesn't think so, saying that however bad the Democrats may look, Republicans look much worse to the public.

Yes, ok, Nevada Senator John Ensign had an affair with a top aide's wife. When the aide, Douglas Hampton, found out, on top of attempting to pay him off, Ensign tried to helped Hampton get a job with a firm that did political consulting, assisted with getting several donors to be Hampton's clients. Hampton then got Ensign to intervene on said client's behalf with federal agencies. The only problem is that there's a ban on senior aides lobbying the Senate with a year after leaving and by ban, I mean law.

The New York Times has all the juicy details, including examples such as this:

After requests from Mr. Hampton, Mr. Ensign called the secretary of transportation last year to plead the case for a Nevada airline, Allegiant Air, which was under investigation for allegedly overcharging for tickets. In April, he arranged for Mr. Hampton and his clients to meet the new transportation secretary in a successful effort to resolve a dispute with a foreign competitor.

Yesterday, U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer(D-CA) and John Kerry(D-MA) unveiled the Senate version of the climate change bill(PDFs: Overview, Summary, Full text of Bill). Note lack of the term "Cap and Trade" and that the Senate version is more ambitious than the House version, see below the fold for a few details.   |   Click for full text...