Federal officials announced today that the Bush administration “will use its authority” to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border” by the end of 2008:

Invoking the two legal waivers, which Congress authorized, will cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently impede the Homeland Security Department from building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly about it.

The move is the biggest use of legal waivers since the administration started building the fence, and it will cover a total of 470 miles along the Southwest border, the department said. Previously, the department has used its waiver authority for two portions of fence in Arizona and one portion in San Diego.

While he bypasses environmental laws today, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff lobbied for the border fence in October by stating, “Illegal migrants really degrade the environment.”

In his new book, former Rhode Island Republican senator Lincoln Chafee reveals that even before President Bush was sworn into office after the 2000 elections, Cheney had rejected the “moderate course” laid out in their campaign:

The former Senator describes a December 2000 meeting of Republican moderates with Vice President-elect Cheney. Chafee listened as Cheney swore off the moderate course he and Bush had just finished championing in their campaign.

Hearing Cheney say “the campaign was over and that our actions in office would not be dictated by what had to be said in the campaign,” Chafee writes, was “the most demoralizing moment of my seven-year tenure in the Senate.”

In his book, Chafee angrily adds about the incident, “Mr. Cheney tore our best campaign promises to shreds and the moderates acquiesced instead of pelting him with outrage.”

In an interview with CNN earlier today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he has long understood the influence of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:

I said he was still major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and gradually eliminated.

But in a report on The Situation Room today, the network noted that just two weeks ago McCain — trying to paint a rosy picture of Iraq — described Sadr very differently while speaking to CNN’s John King in Baghdad:

His [Sadr's] influence has been on the wane for a long time.

Watch it:

This isn’t the first time McCain has inaccurately characterized Sadr’s influence in Iraq. In April 2007, McCain claimed that Sadr’s forces were “not contesting American forces,” at the same time Sadr’s urged his loyalists to “turn all their efforts on American forces.”

Wal-Mart Watch reports, “After years of hounding Debbie Shank and her family, Wal-Mart says it will finally do the right thing.” The Shank family, about whom ThinkProgress reported on earlier today, will be allowed to keep the money they won from the trucking company responsible for Debbie’s injuries. Jim Shank released this statement:

I am grateful that Wal-Mart has seen their error and decided to rectify it. I just wish it hadn’t taken them so long, this never should have happened. I sincerely hope no other family ever has to go through this.

My thanks go first and foremost to my lord and savior Jesus Christ for the strength to bear up under all this. Thanks also to the citizens of the United States – it wasn’t me who made this happen, it was the outcry of the people, and if there’s a lesson in this story it’s that ‘we the people’ still means something.

This week, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson proposed a shake-up of financial regulations, a plan that had its “genesis in a yearlong effort to limit Washington’s role in the market.” The administration’s proposed new oversight, however, “would have a light touch, enabling the government to do little beyond collecting information — except in times of crisis,” the New York Times observed.

On Monday, Paulson stuck up for this hands-off regulatory approach:

I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil. … I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer.

In contrast, yesterday on CNN, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz sharply disagreed with Paulson, stating that the regulatory failures were indeed to blame for our current situation: “He [Paulson] is wrong, it is a failure of regulation.” Noting the recent Bear Stearns bailout, Stiglitz made an analogy concerning the need for more effective regulation:

[T]hat’s why you have regulations. You just don’t build better hospitals. You try to stop the diseases before they lead you to be in the hospital.

Watch it:

Paulson’s plan does, however, expand power of the Federal Reserve. Stiglitz argued this decision is highly ironic considering the Fed’s actions until now:

One of the ironies of this whole discussion is they want to give more power to the Fed, the Fed which flooded the market with liquidity, which did not bring regulations until after the crisis. It’s like closing the barn door after the horse is out. And now, to reward them for their excellent job, they want to give them more power.

In response to Paulson’s proposal, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) argued it reflected misplaced priorities, a “failure to utilize the regulatory tools” such as the Home Owners Protection Act 1994 that could have prevented the current housing crisis.

The Wonk Room has more on the the Bush administration’s and conservatives’ failed laissez faire approach to regulation.

As most Americans “await the arrival of rebate checks from the federal government aimed at boosting the U.S. economy,” a Zogby poll released today “finds just 28 [percent] believe the government’s economic stimulus rebate plan will help.” The poll also found that 68 percent of Americans “disagree with the idea of the federal government stepping in to help investment companies that are suffering because of their heavy investments in worthless mortgages.”