One of the best known polling firms in the nation plans next month to reveal big changes to the way it does business after falling flat during last year’s election. Gallup’s editor-in-chief …

Can The Jihadi Geek Squad Secure The Web For Al Qaeda?

The Global Islamic Media Front Technical Center is a group of mysterious programmers with links to Al Qaeda who claim to be trying to arm jihadists with digital weaponry. These high tech terrorists have released a series of plugins that purportedly encrypt instant messages to help mujahideen avoid surveillance while communicating online. However, it’s unclear if this Jihadi cryptography software is effective. In fact, experts said these programs may do would-be terrorists more harm than good by leaving behind traceable, digital breadcrumbs and even possibly exposing them to dangerous trojan horse downloads planted by law enforcement.

Chamber Of Commerce Is Big Winner With Increasingly Conservative Supreme Court

Last term, the Chamber of Commerce was undefeated — it won every Supreme Court case it weighed in on. So far this term, it has secured favorable rulings in 6 out of 7 cases.

The modern Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is the most corporate-friendly in generations, according to a new study by the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal legal advocacy and research group which studied the court participation and success of the Chamber of Commerce, the behemoth lobbying group for business interests, in recent decades.

Malcolm X’s Grandson Dead In Mexico

Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of the late civil rights leader Malcolm X, has died while in Mexico. The news first broke when a family friend named Terrie Williams announced his death on Facebook and Twitter. TPM has independently confirmed his death through another source with close knowledge of the situation. According to an associate, Shabazz was beaten during a robbery Wednesday night in Mexico City.

NYC Mayoral Candidates Slam Non-Citizen Voting Idea

Many of the candidates vying for New York City mayor told TPM on Thursday that they oppose a measure being considered by the city council that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.

The potential law would allow those who are “lawfully present in the United States” and have lived in the five boroughs for “six months or longer” to vote in local elections.

Boehner On Obamacare, Debt Limit Strategies: Take It Up With My Members!

If you feel like the inmates have taken over the asylum in the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) wants you to know that your suspicions are totally correct.

At his weekly Capitol briefing Thursday, Boehner faced questions about two aging and increasingly questionable elements of the GOP’s legislative strategy: repeated votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continued efforts to extract partisan concessions from Democrats in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling.

In both cases, Boehner acknowledged that the conservative wing of the House is driving the agenda.

Does Congress Have The Politics Of Immigration Backwards?

The general consensus in Washington is that a bill expanding legal immigration for high-skilled and low-skilled workers alike could find Republican support with ease — it’s dealing with undocumented immigrants that’s the hard part. But a poll by Pew Research suggests the political environment may be tilted in the opposite direction.

Republican Leaders Refuse To Make Appointments To Key Obamacare Panel

The top two Republicans in Congress informed President Obama on Thursday that they will refuse to fulfill their duty under the Affordable Care Act to recommend members of a new board with the power to contain Medicare spending.

It’s a dramatic power-play driven by the explosive partisan politics of Obamacare and with potentially important implications for federal health care policy.

In a letter to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted their original opposition to Obamacare, reiterated their intent to repeal it entirely, and declared that they would not make any appointments to the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The IPAB is a 15-member panel whose members must be confirmed by the Senate. The President selects three members himself and is required by law to seek three recommendations each from the top Democrat and Republican in each chamber. With Thursday’s letter, Boehner and McConnell refused to make any recommendations.

The IPAB will be stood up in 2014 by Obamacare and tasked with making cuts to Medicare provider payments (it may not touch benefits) if costs exceed economic growth plus an additional percentage point in any given year. Congress can override it by passing equally large cuts with a simple majority or waiving the cuts entirely with a three-fifths majority.

“Because the law will give IPAB’s 15 unelected, unaccountable individuals the ability to deny seniors access to innovative care, we respectfully decline to recommend appointments,” Boehner and McConnell wrote in the letter.

But there is a catch: if IPAB fails to do its work for any reason, the Health and Human Services secretary must order the cuts herself. So in a way, Boehner and McConnell are surrendering some of their power in order to appear as though they’re thwarting Obamacare — when in reality they’re merely turning over more control to the executive branch.

“Under the ACA, if the IPAB fails to make a recommendation as required under the IPAB provision, the Secretary may make a recommendation in its place,” said Tim Jost, a professor of health law at Washington and Lee University. “So if no IPAB is created, it is not fatal.”

IPAB is, however, capable of functioning without all of its members confirmed. But the letter reflects a continuation of broader GOP obstruction of Obamacare implementation. Senate Republicans have suggested that they may filibuster any IPAB nominee, period.

This approach makes it easier for a future Republican president to neuter IPAB by executive fiat. In the short term, it puts the Obama administration more directly in the political line of fire for any cuts that it does approve.

The other political incentive for Republicans to oppose IPAB is that spending Medicare dollars more wisely makes it easier to sustain the single-payer structure of the program, and makes it harder to argue that it needs to be privatized, as the Paul Ryan budget does.

There is some irony as well in Boehner and McConnell refusing to play ball on IPAB — a key cost containment mechanism in Obamacare — while their party is complaining about potential cost increases under the law, and government spending more generally. Limiting Medicare spending and cutting the deficit, part of the rationale for IPAB, are routinely touted as central GOP goals.

“We believe Congress should repeal IPAB, just as we believe we ought to repeal the entire health care law,” Boehner and McConnell wrote. “In its place, we should work in a bipartisan manner to develop the long-term structural changes that are needed to strengthen and protect Medicare for today’s seniors, their children, and their grandchildren. We hope establishing this board never becomes a reality, which is why full repeal of the Affordable Care Act remains our goal.”

NYC Considering Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote

New York City could soon become the first major city in the country to give non-citizens the right to vote. The proposal, which would allow certain non-citizens to vote in local elections, appears to have a veto-proof majority in the New York City Council — enough to overcome opposition by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As hearings on the proposal get underway Thursday, supporters are optimistic it will become law by the end of the year and believe it will have an impact beyond the five boroughs.

“It’s going to be huge and just imagine the implications that are involved here,” Councilman Daniel Dromm, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation along with Councilwoman Gale Brewer, told TPM Wednesday.

Meet Democrats’ Newest Republican Crush: Ted Cruz?!?!

Starting around the time he launched a bogus attack on then-Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, Democrats have loved to hate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

They made sure as many as people as possible saw him condescend to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), as she tried to advance an assault weapons ban in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. When he launched a failed filibuster of more modest gun legislation the public relations backlash (nurtured by Democrats) made him persona non grata with some members of his own party.

Among Democrats, he is one of the most widely cited opponents of immigration reform.

And this week no less a powerbroker than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called Cruz a “schoolyard bully” and the “very junior senator from Texas,” after Cruz blocked further formal budget negotiations absent a pre-emptive Democratic surrender.

Yup, Democrats can’t stand Ted Cruz. Except that they also kind of love him.