Trash Day

A reporter was infuriated by a 11:52pm State Department press release, resulting in a vaguely amusing confrontation with the agency’s spokesman. 

The source of the irritation wasn’t a State Department media representative, though — it was a reporter, who at one point during Toner’s briefing asked, “Do you want coverage of these statements, or do you not want coverage?

From the White House, released Thursday night before a 3-day weekend.

Oil spill prevention requirements will no longer apply to spilled milk. Gasoline pumps wouldn’t need devices for trapping vapor pollutants, and there would be fewer bureaucratic hurdles for doctors who want to dispense medical advice to a distant patient.

These were among hundreds of existing regulations that the Obama administration said Thursday it wants to revamp or eliminate in a government-wide effort to ease burdens on business. Overall, the drive would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually for companies, governments and individuals and eliminate millions of hours of paperwork while maintaining health and safety protections for Americans, White House officials said.

From Mother Jones:

Following a time-honored Washington tradition of dumping required but embarrassing information on a Friday night before a major holiday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas finally released the details of his wife’s income from her year or so working for the tea party group Liberty Central, which fought President Obama’s health care reform law. His new financial disclosure form indicates that his wife, Virginia, who served as Liberty Central’s president and CEO, received $150,000 in salary from the group and less than $15,000 in payments from an anti-health care lobbying firm she started.