BEIJING — China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.

China has built 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometer…

CHICAGO — While laying out his budget plan, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn sounded less like the leader of a state facing a $13 billion deficit than a guy looking to find a credit card with a better interest rate.

When the state fails to pay p…

Look at these governor numbers:

COLORADO:

         Hickenlooper (D)  McInnis (R)
Rasmussen:      42           48
PPP:            50           39

OHIO:

          Strickland (D)    Kasich (R)
Rasmussen:      38           49
Quinnipiac:     44           39

ILLINOIS:

            Quinn (D)     Brady (R)
Rasmussen:      37           47
Reaserch 2000:  47           32

Those are radically different numbers, in three governors races that haven’t been extensively polled. It’ll be interesting to see, as more pollsters jump in the fray, whether Rasmussen will be validated or not, but it’s clear that they’re a new and important component in the right wing’s ability to set the narratives on these races. We’ve already seen how dramatic Rasmussen’s generic congressional ballot and Obama approval numbers differ from the rest of the polling crowd. Their horserace polling doesn’t appear to be much different.

Rasmussen is particularly effective at it because is has flooded the zone with their heavily pro-GOP polling.

Rasmussen Reports has fielded far more polls so far this cycle, both in absolute terms (45 vs. 13) and as a percentage of the total (28% vs 18%). One likely explanation is the “major growth capital investment” from a private equity firm they announced this past August:

“This investment will enable Rasmussen Reports to expand and enhance all aspects of our business,” said Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports. “That includes expanding our Premium Membership service and subscription base, developing new index products and sponsorship opportunities, and exploring new research techniques.”

The loss of SUSA as a frequent polling contributor is particularly painful, given their solid track record. Mason-Dixon is likely the best of the live-caller polling outfits, so it’d be nice to see more of them. PPP is the closest outfit to Rasmussen, in terms of prolificness, and their accuracy has been stellar.

But there’s still nothing like Rasmussen, able to create the impression of vulnerability for Democrats in every corner of the country by pumping out sheer waves of numbers, with oftentimes no alternate polling to counter their results.

By Capt. FoggThe barber shop I frequent looks like something out of the old West, or at least a Hollywood version of it. Cowboy movie posters, ammunition boxes — It has more old guns and shooting paraphernalia on display than most small gun shops…

A year ago, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, nearly $5 billion was set aside in state and tribal grants to weatherize 590,000 of the homes of low-income residents over a period of three years. As a means of saving energy and money, adding insulation, caulking, weatherstripping and other low-tech measures to a house is without rival for cost-effectiveness. The weatherization money – 10 times the annual budget of the federal Weatherization Assistance Program – had the advantage of not only being green, but also being directed at the most obviously shovel-ready projects, capable of generating jobs faster than just about any other part of the stimulus package. But it didn’t.

In fact, thanks to foot-dragging at the state level, only 8% of that money had been spent by the middle of February, according to a special report from the Department of Energy’s Inspector General. The DOE took the inspector general’s advice last March to initiate steps ensuring rapid progress, but the grantees didn’t get it together. Thus, by February 16 this year, Connecticut had weatherized 23 of the 7500 homes it was supposed to, Illinois had finished 331 of the 26,933 on its list, New York had done 280 of its 45,400, and Texas had done zero of its 33,908. Only Delaware, having weatherized a third of the 1526 homes it was supposed to met its first-year goal in the program that ends in 2012.

Originally, it was assumed that ramped-up weatherization would move swiftly because program infrastructure had already existed for years, weatherization techniques were well known, the needed skills were widely available, performance metrics were easy to establish and comprehend, and the conservation benefits were clear to everyone.

The one hang-up from the federal end of things was the Recovery Act’s requirement that weatherizing be achieved under Davis-Bacon guidelines, that is, that laborers performing the work be paid prevailing wage rates. Because getting wage determinations for each geographical area was the Department of Labor’s job, and because this could take time, Energy and Labor both told the states to avoid delays and move ahead with weatherizing and adjust wages retroactively if workers were paid less than appropriate rates. Many states chose to wait, however, and the guidelines didn’t appear until October.

States and other grant recipients were supposed to present their required plans by May 2009. However, the inspector general stated:

Ironically, given the anticipated stimulus effect of the program, economic problems in many states adversely impacted their ability to ensure that weatherization activities were performed. State hiring freezes, problems with resolving significant local budget shortfalls, and state-wide planned furloughs delayed various aspects of the program and contributed to problems with meeting spending and home weatherization targets. …

Officials in California, one of the largest recipients of weatherization funds, reported that furloughs created significant staffing challenges in implementing the Weatherization Program. Similarly, officials in Illinois indicated that their plan to hire staff necessary to implement their weatherization plans had been delayed because of a hiring freeze in the State.

The plans of mice and men, and all that.

The good news? Now that state plans are completed – although the tribes remain behind – an accelerated process may make it possible to spend the remaining weatherization money within the original time-frame despite the very slow start. That means thousands of desperately needed jobs could open up soon among the most heavily unemployed segments of the economy. DOE management says that it has put into place measures that will curtail wasteful spending that might otherwise occur under a speeded-up process.

Meanwhile, states who are still having trouble getting their act into gear might take a gander at how Delaware did it.

= = =

^{h/t to TommyWonk.}

Mark McCombs is a partner at Greenberg Traurig no more. The firm cut ties with him last week when he was accused of bilking the village of Calumet Park of more than one million dollars.

A “seasoned government relations attorney focusing on state and local government issues” in the firm’s Chicago office, McCombs was Calumet Park’s economic development counsel, special village attorney (investigations), and administrative hearing officer. Not only did McCombs grow up in Calumet Park, the Village loved the guy. It even named a street after him. From the Awards & Recognitions section of his firm bio (now cached):

Honored by the Village of Calumet Park, Illinois, with the designation of “Mark McCombs Drive” in recognition of the leadership role played in the commercial redevelopment of Calumet Park’s Ashland Avenue-Vermont Street corridors.

But McCombs may have loved something more than Calumet Park: being a partner at Greenberg Traurig. He apparently wanted to impress the firm with his book of business, and so he took advantage of his devoted client, allegedly billing the tiny village more than $1 million for work he never performed. From the Chicago Tribune:

McCombs did not pocket the money, Assistant State’s Attorney John Mahoney alleged in court, but it enhanced his prestige, billable hours and opportunities for more pay at Greenberg Traurig, the downtown law firm where McCombs worked.

It didn’t take a village to unravel the scheme….

A school superintendent grew suspicious when McCombs was evasive about details of the tax increment finance funds he oversaw and when he scheduled a routine public meeting about the funds on New Year’s Eve:

“Most people are thinking about who’s babysitting for New Year’s Eve, not attending a TIF meeting,” Byrne said Friday in a telephone interview.

Knowing that McCombs had never provided reports on TIF activity, Byrne filed a request under state law in January for five years of data, prosecutors said. Later, in a telephone call, McCombs offered to pay money to the school district to make the inquiry “go away,” they said.

In the following weeks, McCombs alternately begged village officials to drop their investigation, saying he could lose his law license, or threatened them with expensive litigation if they persisted. He allegedly offered the village $100,000 of his own money.

A firm spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune that the firm will reimburse any fees not properly billed to the village. But, according to his firm bio, McCombs was the village bicycle of… village representations.

He has represented at least nine others, including Posen, Riverdale, and Phoenix, though some of the nine predate his 2002 arrival at Greenberg. We asked the firm whether it’s reviewing his work for other villages. A spokesperson tells Above the Law:

Consistent with our immediate response to this situation, we are reviewing all of Mr. McCombs’ billings and will make prompt reimbursements if we find that any overcharges occurred.

We imagine villagers might be storming the firm with pitchforks any minute now.

Lawyer charged with bilking impoverished suburb of $1 million [Chicago Breaking News Center]
Attorney bilked Calumet Park of more than $1 million, state alleges [Chicago Tribune]
Lawyer Cheated South Suburb Out of $1 Million [Fox Chicago News]

Greenberg Traurig – Law – Services – Lawyers & Law Firms – Red McCombs

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Regulators on Friday shuttered banks in Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Utah, boosting to 26 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year following the 140 brought down in 2009 by mounting loan defaults and …

On Thursday morning, a criminal law professor at Georgetown University Law Center started his class with some startling news. He told his first-year law students that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was planning to retire due to health concerns. He told his students that he could not reveal his sources but that the information was credible.

Some argue that the internet should not be allowed in law school classrooms. What transpired in Professor Peter Tague’s classroom lends support to that argument. His students proceeded to send out the surprising news via email and/or chat and/or tweet. Somehow it made its way to Radar Online, and soon the blogosphere went into a frenzy over the news.

But the news was spurious. Midway through his lecture on the credibility and reliability of informants, Professor Tague revealed that the Roberts rumor was false and that he was illustrating how someone a lawyer might ordinarily think was a credible source — like a law school professor — could disseminate inaccurate information. An important lesson in law: trust should be based on multiple sources.

It’s an important lesson in journalism as well. And the blogosphere learned it the hard way yesterday. Radar Online published an “exclusive” story that Roberts would be retiring “at any time.”

We did not initially report it here, after checking with our sources and encountering extreme skepticism. But it spread like wildfire through the blogosphere, so we “broke the news” that Roberts was still chief justice. A couple of hours later, we broke real news, of how the rumors got started.

We did not criticize Professor Tague in our story, but we’ve been contacted by his current and former students who wish to defend him. He certainly succeeded in teaching them — and many news organizations — a lesson, but he must also have learned about the dangers of pedagogical pranks in the Internet age…

Edward Sisson, a former Arnold & Porter partner, studied with Professor Tague over two decades ago. He believes Tague just didn’t think about the possible repercussions this could have in the highly-wired, digital age:

As a GULC ‘91 JD graduate, I rise in defense of Prof. Tague: he taught my class in evidence and he was one of my favorite professors, very personable and effective. Given that he must be about 70 by now, I am sure he had no idea that with texting (and with the willingness of students to do so during class when they ought to be focusing on the lecture) there was a danger that anything he said at the beginning of class might get out of the class prior to his correcting the record before the end of class. I would not tag him as eccentric, any more so than any other of the dozens of professors I had in my four years of collegiate and three years of legal education.

A student who was in yesterday’s class tells Above the Law:

Personally, I think that Prof. Tague provided a fantastic lesson in precisely why it’s so important for attorneys to not only not believe everything they are told but also to act with discretion. I’m sure that he’s disappointed with the class as a whole, especially because he teaches professional responsibility courses, so I’m sure we will be receiving a talk from him about this. I think it also speaks to the power of the internet in general as well as to the gullibility of journalists who couldn’t be bothered to do any research before repeating an online gossip item. I agree with the GULC alum that he probably didn’t even think about the possibility of it leaving the classroom in a significant way before the reveal. So, no, I don’t think it was improper of him, and he certainly won’t have to repeat the lesson in the following years; all he has to do is tell this story.

A former student says the blame for this debacle rests solely with Professor Tague’s students:

Whoever was gullible enough to buy Tague’s story about Chief Justice Roberts shouldn’t be allowed to practice law. Prof. Tague did the exact same thing last year in my criminal justice class and no one believed him. These 1Ls are just too naive.

Another current student defends the class:

I think the exercise was a good learning experience, and perhaps even more so because of what happened. The lesson Professor Tague intended to teach us was definitely taught, but I think it also reached a lot of others in the legal, journalism, and “journalism” (cough cough Radar) community. People can say all they want about how my classmates who believed Professor Tague were gullible, but the point of the exercise was that it was supposed to sound plausible. After all, Justice Ginsburg’s husband is a Tax Professor at Georgetown, and given the reports of Chief Justice Roberts’ seizures, it seemed at least within the realm of possibilities that Professor Tague had gotten the scoop. In hindsight, it’s easy to question why anyone would believe that, even if he had such information, he would share it with 120 1Ls. But I ask those people mocking us for being gullible to imagine themselves in the first minute of their 9am lecture at the end of a week of little sleep. Yes, some of my classmates caught on right away, but most of us were too shocked (and excited at the mere possibility that this could be true) to question it.

Personally, I immediately started googling trying to find some sort of verification, and was disappointed but still hopeful when I found nothing. About halfway through the class, a fellow student suggested to me that it might all be an exercise to teach us about the problem with confidential, unverified informants. And then the pieces started falling into place. Particularly when Professor Tague started writing questions on the board like “How did the informant obtain information?” and “Do we trust the informant?” By the time Professor Tague told us the truth, most of us were on to his ploy.

So, do I think the exercise did what it was intended to do? Yes. Do I think it was a proper exercise? Well, it was a bit disappointing for those of us whose hopes had been toyed with, but proper nonetheless. Ultimately, I think the fact that it got so out of hand was a generational thing – Professor Tague has been with GULC since the 1970s, and the fast-paced internet reaction is just not one that he probably anticipated. Also, he specifically let us in on the joke before the mid-class break, presumably so we wouldn’t spread the rumor during that break. Little did he know that it was too late.

The other irony is that, in addition to criminal law, Professor Tague teaches Professional Responsibility. I’m fully expecting a lecture when we return from Spring Break on the importance of discretion and confidentiality in the legal field, two things at least one of my classmates failed to exercise. Lesson learned. Well done, Professor Tague.

UPDATE: Another former student contacted us.

Just to add a perspective, I took Tague’s crim class in spring 2002, and he pulled the same trick about Rehnquist. I can only assume he’s been doing the same thing every year for a long time, and each class since some time before 2002 has been filled with wired laptops. Yet this is the first time someone decided to publish the false rumor. So, it’s not just a doddering old fool not thinking that his false rumor would have consequences. It’s a prof who has trusted his students for years, and apparently with good reason until this year.

And another current student chimes in:

First, whoever sent the story to radaronline is a jackass.

Second, it was the day before spring break. Our section had a makeup class that afternoon, so we had 7 hours of class yesterday, so we were all a bit tired from reading late. Tague has the class quiet down, tells us he has something serious to tell us the Roberts. You’ve told a bunch of tired, anxious for excitement 1Ls the supposed biggest story of the year. There was a mild uproar.

THEN, we did NOT begin discussing reliability of informants. We picked up stuff from last class on when a search is “consensual.” See e.g. United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194.

THEN we moved on to when a tip from an ANONYMOUS informant can provide probable cause for a search warrant. We were discussing Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213. In Gates, the Supreme Court throws old the old “two-pronged” test for anonymous informants that required the informant to both have veracity and a basis of knowledge for their tip for a totality of the circumstances standard. Gates specifically says when the police get a tip from someone they believe to be very honest they don’t necessarily need to scrutinize the informants basis of knowledge for that tip. This was not a “lecture about the reliability of informants” per se, it was a discussion of Illinois v. Gates…definitely very related, but it’s not like Tague gave us this Roberts story then immediately started lecturing us Also, by the logic set forth in Gates it almost seems reasonable to believe Tague…if he is playing the role of “informant” he’d certainly be a very credible one in my book.

Tague certainly taught me a lesson I’ll never forget, it was a good one. But the reports that make it sound like Tague gave us a rumor, then immediately began lecturing us on why rumors aren’t to be trusted is quite accurate. I’m not saying we should have believed him, I’m just saying we’re slightly less dumb than the story makes us sound.

FINALLY, a word about the speed of news here. We started class just a couple of minutes late. Tague got our attention. Said hello, etc. I would estimate he didn’t actually tell us the Roberts story until about 9:05am, so those morons at radaronline posted it even quicker than everyone thinks.

There’s still been no official statement from the Supreme Court public information office or from Justice Roberts about all this. Perhaps John Roberts actually enjoyed this national lesson on hearsay.

But what about you, ATL readers? What’s your opinion of Professor Tague’s lesson?

Earlier: Anatomy of a Rumor: The Story Behind Chief Justice John Roberts’s ‘Retirement’
ATL Exclusive: John Roberts Is Still Chief Justice!

And here are some thoughts on this from the rest of the media world and blogosphere:

Mischievous Law Prof + Texting Students = Media Frenzy [Chronicle of Higher Education]
Instapundit [Instapundit]
ATL Says Law Prof May Have Sparked False Rumor of Chief Justice’s Retirement [ABA Journal]
Radar Online Wins 15 Minutes Of Fame With False John Roberts Resignation Rumor [Mediaite]
Did RadarOnline.com’s John Roberts Rumor Come From a First-Year Law Class? [Gawker]
UPDATE: John Roberts NOT Resigning; ‘RadarOnline’ Retracts Claim Supreme Court Chief Justice Considering Quitting [Huffington Post]
A Roberts rumor’s blip on Washington’s radar [Associated Press]
Here’s How the Rumor That John Roberts Is Retiring May Have Gotten Started [Daily Intel/New York Magazine]
Radar Claims Two John Roberts Exclusives; One of Them Isn’t True [Media Decoder/New York Times]

Peter Tague – John Roberts – Georgetown University Law Center – Supreme Court – United States

Ezra reports on a consulting firm’s assessment of how Wellpoint will fare under reform, concluding that “should reform fail, Wellpoint would be a primary beneficiary.”

The argument is simple: Wellpoint’s business model is uncommonly concentrated in the individual and small-group markets. Those are the exact markets that health-care reform will drastically change. Those are the markets where people get rejected for preexisting conditions, where insurers spend 30 cents of every premium dollar on administration and where rate hikes are volatile and constant. Health-care reform wants to change all of that, and if it does, Wellpoint’s business model will be changed, too.

Wellpoint’s “2.2 million individual members do leave it somewhat exposed to the 80% individual [Medical Loss Ration] floor contemplated in the Senate bill and Federal oversight of rating action proposed by the President,” continues the analysis. In English, that means the bill will force Wellpoint to spend at least 80 cents of every premium dollar on medical care for its customers, and it means that regulators aren’t likely to let Wellpoint jack prices up by 25 percent with no warning or reason. It also means that Wellpoint is not spending that much of premiums on medical care and is not keeping its rates under control now. (It’s possible that “rating” is referring to regulations on things like age discrimination and preexisting conditions in this context. It’s not clear from the writing, but it doesn’t change the point: The bill regulates those practices, too.)

This report comes out on the same day that The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois consumers with these same individual health plans are going to pay up to 60 percent premium increases

It all depends, of course, on whether this bill actually manages to achieve regulation. And if it’s the state-based exchanges that are included in the Senate bill that are passed, that’s not very likely, as the same state insurance commissioners who have been unable to enforce existing regulations would be enforcing these as well. The national exchange, at a minimum, would give the regulations a better shot at actually being enforced. The House is right for having insisted on it in their negotiations with the Senate.

But in addition to a national exchange, there still needs to be real competition for the insurance companies in the form of a choice for consumers–the public option. It’s testament not just to its political popularity, but also to the fact that it’s just smart policy that the public option still lives. In fact, with Maria Cantwell’s signature, there are now 35 signers to the Bennet letter.

If it’s not included in the reconciliation package, there’s now ample support in both chambers of Congress to give it an up or down vote as an amendment to that package.

Maybe Dems should have nominated Alan Keyes.

Last night Rod Blagojevich returned to his alma mater, Northwestern, and to a crowd as skeptical as it was curious to hear how he would defend his legacy in a panel discussion on politics.

We must insist that coalfield communities get their fair share of clean energy jobs, and clean energy investments, not just the crumbs. Committing to a coal free future begins in the coalfields.

Recent advances in the field of genetic testing may make the days of anonymous sperm donation a thing of the past. Slate has a very provocative article on the subject that delves into, among other things, whether donors will choose not to donate because their identity may ultimately be discovered:

When Donor 3066 signed up with the California Cryobank, he offered some basic information about himself on a piece of paper: that he had a BA in theater; that his mother was a nurse and his father was in the Baseball Hall of Fame; that his birthday was Sept. 18, 1968. He made it clear that he didn’t want to be found by signing a waiver of anonymity.

The sperm bank protected his anonymity, just as it promised. But that did not mean he couldn’t be found. In an age of sophisticated genetic testing, the concept of anonymity is rapidly fading. With some clever sleuthing—tests that can track down ancestral origins, donor numbers, and bits of biographical information—parents and offspring can find out the donors. “With DNA testing and Google, there’s no such thing as anonymity anymore,” says Wendy Kramer, the founder of the Donor Sibling Registry. “Donors

…

The 2010 midterm election season has been officially underway for almost a month now (Illinois’ primary was February 2). But for many on the Left,…