While some of my colleagues like Glen McGregor -- who, along with Parliament Hill freelancer Tim Naumetz, first reported on what we now know as the in-and-out scheme -- dug into the details of the nearly 700 pages of documentation that the Elections Commissioner put in front of a judge last week in order to obtain a search warrant, Elizabeth Thompson, a few desks over from mine, remembered what Tom Flanagan had said about the concept of moving money in from the national campaign to the local campaign and then back out again from the local campaign to the national campaign.... And, keeping in mind that one of the defences mounted by Conservative MPs in the House of Commons in the wake of the RCMP raids was that it just wasn't fair, that every party engages in the advertising financing schemes that they did.

The Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics reports today that lobbyists who are trying to get Congress to do their bidding spent a whopping $2.8-billion (US) last year, a jump of 7.7 per cent over the amount lobbyists are believed to have spent in 2006.... As the CRP explains: The Center for Responsive Politics calculated spending on lobbying as narrowly defined under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, because that is what is disclosed to the Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR) and House Legislative Resource Center.

Some MPs and Liberal insiders are bitterly upset with their leader Stephane Dion and there is broad disagreement within the caucus over strategy and timing to force an election.... But at a short campaign-style rally/party the Liberals held in a bar on Elgin Street in Ottawa tonight to welcome their new MPs, Dion looks so much more comfortable.