Marine rules clearly stated that Members of Congress such as Rep. Kucinich are allowed “official visits” with prisoners without monitoring by the government or military. However, the Pentagon, State Department, and Quantico base have refused to allow official visits by Kucinich or UN Special Rappoteur on Torture Juan Mendez.

Just in case the incredible political success Republicans experienced in 2010 after they were able to frame Democrats’ health care law as cutting Medicare didn’t make the point abundantly clear, a new Gallup poll reminds us that Americans really want their Medicare left alone.

One thing many people aren’t factoring into this budget debate is the fact that it will be happening in a Presidential election season. The more established GOP candidates have begun to enter the race, and they will need to get votes from conservative backers. Therefore they will push the public conversation increasingly to the right.

The NPR program Planet Money this week had a very interesting segment about the economics of illegal drugs in which they interview a former drug dealer. The best part of the segment is that it starts with an honest admission that the economic data clearly shows drug prohibitions have been a total failure.

No one really wants to report on what GE’s approach to taxes is. To the extent they do, they accept GE’s explanation unquestioningly. But if the AP had a sense of what GE’s real approach to taxes is, they would never have fallen for the hoax in the first place.

Obama got suckered into making a big show of his deficit reduction bona fides at a time when the biggest problem in the country concern millions of idle bodies who could be working and contributing.

Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into an income-based, sliding-scale voucher that seniors use to buy only private insurance on a loosely regulated exchange is nearly identical to the Obama Affordable Care Act’s basic design that gives the uninsured under 65 income-based, sliding-scale vouchers to buy only private insurance on loosely regulated exchanges.

The GOP is so proud of the Paul Ryan budget and wants such a grand discussion about it that they scheduled a House markup within a couple days and a full vote in the House this week. In other words, they want to fast-track the budget resolution, get it done so they can use it as a lever to pull the conversation to the right in the upcoming debate.

Interesting piece in The Hill this morning which potentially sheds some light on what the White House is thinking with their repeated caves to the GOP.

The advance reports I’ve seen of the speech make it a mixed bag. I think the part on entitlements will be significantly less consequential than many believe (and the poll numbers make that a pretty good strategy), but the overall spending cuts more consequential. Defense will see some hits as well. And there will be probably the same insistence on ending the high-end Bush tax cuts, again trying to cleave them from the entire set of tax cuts.