Dan Eggen

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Democrats and Republicans come together on at least one issue: their opposition to letting corporations and unions spend as much as they want to help candidates win elections.

Sensing a clear political opportunity, congressional Democrats are rushing to craft legislation to counter a Supreme Court ruling that they fear could lead to a flood of foreign spending on US political campaigns.

Less than 24 hours after President Obama announced the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, an alliance formed solely to push the appointment launched a six-figure ad buy on the major television networks.

President Obama's war with K Street is escalating, this time over stringent new rules on lobbyists attempting to land federal stimulus money for their clients. An unlikely alliance of groups -- including one co-founded by Obama's chief ethics adviser -- argue that the restrictions will penalize those who play by the rules while doing nothing to curb the influence of large corporations and campaign donors.

A common phenomenon in the lobbying world: firms report collecting money from clients while claiming on public disclosure forms that they did not contact any members of Congress or administration officials in return.

President Bush sat down yesterday for interviews with foreign journalists, including two unusual media outlets: the People's Daily newspaper and the Central China Television network, both controlled by China's ruling Communist Party.

The Bush administration has not found disaster recovery files for White House e-mails from a three-month time period in 2003, according to court documents filed this week, raising the possibility that messages sent before and after the invasion of Iraq may never be recovered.

The federal government received failing and mediocre grades yesterday from the former Sept. 11 commission, whose members said in a final report that the Bush administration and Congress have balked at enacting numerous reforms that could save American lives and prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The panel sharply criticized Congress for failing to enable first responders to communicate easily by setting aside part of the broadcast spectrum for their use.