Judiciary Subcommittee Holding Torture Memos Hearing Today
Capitol Hill is set to hold the first hearing on the torture memos today, with a 10 a.m. ET hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. The meeting is entitled, "What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration," and witnesses will include former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, former State Department counselor Phillip Zelikow, and others.

Obama's Day Ahead
President Obama and Vice President Biden will meet at 9:30 a.m. ET with some top House Democrats: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Reps. Charlie Rangel (NY), Henry Waxman (CA) and George Miller (CA). Obama will deliver a statement at 10 a.m. ET. At 11:15 a.m. ET, Obama and Biden will meet with top Senators of both parties to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy: Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, and ranking Judiciary Republican Jeff Sessions. Obama and Biden will have lunch at 1 p.m. ET. Obama will depart the White House at 4:15 p.m. ET, and at 9:10 p.m. ET he will deliver the commencement address at Arizona State University.

Biden's Day Ahead
In addition to the meetings listed above, Vice President Biden will also host conference calls with governors and mayors from across the country, to discuss Recovery Act implementation. He will hold other private meetings for the remainder of the day.

GOP Leadership Urges Members To Hold Back On Supporting SCOTUS Pick
Roll Call reports that the Senate GOP leadership is urging its members to avoid giving early support to President Obama's eventual nominee for the Supreme Court, wanting to avoid the conference's inability to block the nomination of Eric Holder as Attorney General. Said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): "Often there are things that come out during the nomination process that we didn't know before [and] that can affect how we see a nominee."

House Dems Scale Back Proposed Carbon Cuts
The Washington Post reports that House Democrats are scaling back proposed curbs on greenhouse emissions -- from a 20% reduction by 2020, down to a 17% reduction by 2020 -- in order to keep support from industrial-state Dems. "I'm optimistic we're going to pass it by the end of next week," said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), calling the changes "the basis for an agreement that will bring us the votes."

Energy State Dems Fight Obama On Ending Tax Breaks
The Hill reports that Democrats from oil and gas-producing states are mobilizing against President Obama's proposal to end tax breaks for energy companies. Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) said the proposal would hurt producers, "a lot of whom are the backbone of this country when it comes to domestic supply and the need of ensuring that enough domestic supply is available."

RNC Set To Dub Dems "Democrat Socialist Party"
The Politico reports that the RNC is poised to approve a resolution at their upcoming special meeting next week, to rename the Democrats as the "Democrat Socialist Party," despite opposition to the resolution from chairman Michael Steele. When Roger Simon asked his RNC source whether this would force Steele to use the new terminology, the response he got was, "Who cares?"

Utah Atty. Gen. Accidentally Announces Senate Campaign
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) announced on Twitter yesterday that he will challenge Sen. Robert Bennett in the 2010 Republican primary. One problem: the announcement was made accidentally -- he thought he was privately text-messaging someone, when in fact he was posting it on his Twitter account. D'oh!