Secrets that matter more than Sarah Palin’s, and other matters

As exciting as it is to learn from Joe McGinnis that Sarah Palin may have shagged hoops star Glen Rice or done lines of cocaine from a barrel, the more interesting story about secrets is this piece by David Levinthal in Politico.com.

It’s about a coalition of watchdog groups who want members of the Congressional supercommittee working on the national debt to voluntarily disclose lobbying activity and campaign contributions faster that reporting requirements dictate. Under the current reporting deadlines, none of that information becomes public until January.

A lot is at stake here, and it would be good to know which special interests are sniffing around the deliberations and trying to buy favor. The watchdogs think 48-hour reporting is doable.

And in case you were wondering whether James Carville has forgotten how to get attention, check out his advice to president Obama in a CNN op-ed:

“People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic.”

Carville thinks the prez should start firing people, lots of them (I wonder if he figures one of them should be Obama’s political guru, David Axelrod, to be replaced with a bald guy who isn’t afraid to take to the gloves off).

Closer to home, Pennsylvania Republicans’ plan to change the way the state tallies its electoral votes is getting plenty of flak, well summarized here by our friend John Micek of the Allentown Morning Call.

And the website Philebrity alerted me to this piece in Wired.com by John C. Abell about the offer by publishers of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News to give readers a discounted tablet if they’ll buy a one or two-year subscription.

Wired says the tablet being offered is “an underwhelming $200 device that registers on nobody’s radar.”

And they add this:

“I can tell you that you can get the Inquirer for $10 a month, with no contract, on an Amazon Kindle — a device you might actually want, and can purchase without any fanfare for as little as $114.”

Ouch.