I noted yesterday that Rick Scott returned $2.4 billion in high speed rail money to the federal government, which would halt a planned project for an intercity link between Tampa and Orlando. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has dealt with this before with respect to Ohio and Wisconsin (there are those two states again), and he simply redistributed the money to states who wanted it. However, in this case, Florida Congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans, are scheming to get the deal done anyway.

A year and a half ago, I warned that if you bought certain beauty supplies — hydrogen peroxide and acetone — you might be a terrorism suspect. Shortly thereafter, John Kyl basically confirmed that the government had been tracking certain people buying hydrogen peroxide. Yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller did so in even more explicit terms.

William Ockham, who knows a whole lot more about coding than many of us, shares some interesting thoughts with us about the Stuxnet virus in this post.

Since MERS is owned by the big banks, this has the effect of MERS telling itself to stop existing. But it’s quite significant. In a memo to its members (the member banks who own it), MERS announces that their name should essentially be taken out of all foreclosure operations

Decades ago, when we understood we were at war, the ratio of government debt to the economy was vastly larger than it is today. We used deficit spending to win the war and save the economy. Yet we defeated the world’s most evil regimes and emerged as the strongest nation in the world. Despite that debt, or actually because of the foundations it set, we embarked on one of the greatest, most broadly shared expansions of human prosperity in history. Today’s nihilist coalition doesn’t want you to know that.

Boehner said there’s no chance at a short-term CR if differences between the House and Senate get worked out. At the same time, he has said that there will be no government shutdown. But without a short-term CR, the government will in fact shut down. Reid’s statement makes that clear. “I am disappointed that Speaker Boehner doesn’t believe he has the votes to avoid a government shutdown, unless his members get their way on all of their demands. It is unproductive to resort to threats of a shutdown without any negotiations.”

The $61 billion saved by severely cutting many domestic programs will end up being enough to pay for just barely more than four months of the almost decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Multiple outlets have confirmed that Senate Democrats in Wisconsin boarded a bus and left the state, denying the Republican majority the quorum needed to pass their budget repair bill, which strips away collective bargaining rights for public employees. Sen. Jon Erpenbach told WisPolitics that the Democrats were left with no choice.

The tense saga of Raymond Davis, who shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore on January 27, continues. His trial in Lahore has been delayed again, with the next hearing date addressing the question of diplomatic immunity now set for either March 3 or March 14, depending on which report you believe. On Wednesday, Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan to deliver yet another threat of Congress cutting off funding for Pakistan if Davis is not released. In the meantime, analysis of records for the “businesses” with which Davis is associated in the US raises the interesting question of whether he recruits potential spies among students taking courses in international security.

Wisconsin Democrats just made a big move. The State Senate opened for business about an hour ago, and Democrats didn’t attend. Under the Wisconsin state Constitution, each chamber of the legislature needs 3/5 of the members present for votes on budgetary matters. This doesn’t matter much in the State Assembly, where Republicans have a large advantage. But in the State Senate, Republicans hold a 19-14 advantage. And 20 members are needed to conduct business on the budget.