After its FBI Director told Congress that the revisions to the defense authorization bill did not satisfy his concerns with the bill, the White House issued a statement of Administration policy saying that they would not veto the bill, despite an earlier threat.

Readers of this space know that the pace of safety reforms for America’s nuclear facilities, especially in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, has been alarmingly slow. The recalcitrance–if not active hostility–exhibited by the nuclear operators and their government handmaidens borders on the criminal. So, it might sound more than a little bit shocking to hear that the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, is now under attack. . . for trying to implement new safety standards too quickly.

That’s not how House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is putting it, of course. In doublespeak that would make Orwell proud, Issa has written to the White House, issued a report, and fallen just shy of calling for Jaczko’s head.

Time magazine has named “The Protester” the 2011 “Person of the Year.” First off, a congratulations is in order. Time managing editor Richard Stengel said in making the announcement: “They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change.”

US Attorney General Holder gave an address at the LBJ Library in Austin yesterday billed as the opening salvo in a Justice Department counter-attack against disenfranchising voter laws, particularly in states which just turned over to conservative legislatures and governors.

Is this the worst Congress in our lifetimes? The public now gives Congress its worst performance rating in the 20 years in which pollsters have been asking the question. Some of this new found disapproval of Congress is probably the result of the prolonged economic downturn. But a lot probably has to do with the fact that this Congress truly is behaving horribly.

On the heels of the drone that landed inside Iran recently, now there’s a report of another drone crash-landing in the Seychelles Islands. This was a crash landing, rather than the apparently intact drone in Iran, which may have been taken over remotely.

There was a federal court hearing yesterday on the age restrictions of the morning-after pill. Judge Edward Korman heard arguments, and while he did not take action against the FDA, he did move the case forward. Korman said he was “willing to hear arguments over whether the agency should have allowed the sale of the morning-after pill to girls younger than 17 without a prescription.”

This nifty holiday card is being circulated by activist Saint Teresa Stone–yes, that’s her real, birth certificated, government name–one of the bright lights in the Los Angeles underground of punk rock, politics and vintage pleasures, concurrent and oft co-mingled streams that erupt from the same deep underground wellspring of desire, passion and joy. And what [...]

Scott Walker already had some legal trouble yesterday, when the ACLU sued the state of Wisconsin over a voter ID law they declared unconstitutional. But another, far more damaging case will play out for Walker in criminal court. The first suspect in the “John Doe” investigation into Walker’s prior and current political practices has been arrested.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz represents Southwest Ranches, Florida, which has been at the epicenter of a debate over a proposed immigration detention facility. Residents of the town have consistently demonstrated their opposition to the facility, which they feel was designed and planned without much public knowledge of the proceedings.