Three New Business As Usual Data Points

First: "Congressional Offices Don't Have the Stimulus Bill, Lobbyists Do" -- that's the very business-as-usual headline from Paul Bedard at US News, who notes:

We're receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can't get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What's more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. E-mails one key Democratic staffer: "K Street has the bill, or chunks of it, already, and the congressional offices don't. So, the Hill is getting calls from the press (because it's leaking out) asking us to confirm or talk about what we know—but we can't do that because we haven't seen the bill. Anyway, peeps up here are sort of a combo of confused and like, 'Is this really happening?'" Reporters pressing for details, meanwhile, are getting different numbers from different offices, especially when seeking the details of specific programs.

Second: "The new D.C.: Same as it ever was"--Charles Mahtesian and Patrick O'Connor sum up the situation for Politico: "So much for post-partisanship."

Third: "Democrats Abandon Transparency on Stimulus Vote"--a headline from Rob Bluey, writing in TheNextRight.com:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) confirmed this afternoon that Democrats will break their transparency pledge by bringing the stimulus bill to a vote tomorrow morning, giving lawmakers and the public significantly less time than the 48 hours promised.