Inspire Political Discourse: Weekend Political News Summary: January 24-25, 2009

« Paterson Completely Screws Up, Drives Caroline Away, and Appoints Damn Near Red and Small-time Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand | Main | Ludicrous: Hamas to control relief efforts in to Gaza »

24 January 2009

Weekend Political News Summary: January 24-25, 2009

:: SURPRISE....No comprehensive case files on many Guantanamo detainees. From the Washington Post:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

__________________________
:: Palin aides being charged with new ethics violations. From HUFFPOST:

In her current complaint against McAllister, McLeod sites a series of activities that she contends violate Alaska's "Executive Branch Code of Ethics," which prohibits public officials from using or authorizing "the use of state funds, facilities, equipment, services, or another government asset or resource for partisan political purposes."
"These campaign activities have absolutely nothing to do with the public's business, and everything to do with promoting Palin's personal endeavors and political aspirations," McLeod declared in an exclusive interview. "This must not go unchallenged."

__________________________
:: According to the complete dick, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans should be against the stimulus plan because it could hurt their electoral chances. Politics as usual. From Think Progress:

On Friday, when President Obama met with congressional leaders from both parties to discuss his economic recovery and reinvestment program, he told GOP leaders, “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.” Asked for a response by National Review yesterday, Limbaugh said that Obama’s “plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters.” He added that passage of the stimulus bill would hurt Republicans electorally:

AP photo.
__________________________
:: McCain contradicts himself on broadband access.
After campaigning in support of this very thing, McCain appears to simply be obstructing. Be sure to read the full article on Think Progress.

MCCAIN: "There’s got to be some kind of litmus as to whether it’ll really stimulate the economy and whether it will in the short-term. Some of the stimulus in this package is excellent; some of it, frankly, has nothing to do — some of the projects and others that you just mentioned, $6 billion for broadband and internet access. That will take years."

It’s an odd critique, considering that rural broadband expansion has long been a high priority for McCain. Though he now claims that it’s not stimulative, in 2005, as the lead sponsor of The Community Broadband Act, McCain cited other countries that provide internet access to their communities to insist, “As a country, we cannot afford to cut off any successful strategy if we want to remain internationally competitive.”
Expanding broadband was also a major part of his presidential campaign. Speaking last April in Inez, KY, McCain emphasized that “government has a role to play” to makes sure “every community” has access to high-speed internet — and that it was key to driving innovation:

__________________________

:: China takes on Geithner over currency comments.
In the IPD Political News Summary on Friday, we told you about Geithner's remarks re the state of Chinese currency. As was predictable, China responds. From the Washington Post:

BEIJING, Jan. 24 -- A top official at China's central bank hit back Saturday at comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner, who said the Obama administration believes that China is manipulating its currency.
Su Ning, vice governor of the People's Bank of China, called Geithner's remarks misleading and "out of keeping with the facts," and said they could sidetrack efforts to manage the global financial crisis, the official New China News Agency reported.

__________________________
:: Terrorism experts say that Obama has rattled al-Qaeda. Their reaction has been to hurl invectives and racial epitaphs, a symbol of their inability to deal with him in any more effective ways. Bolding is mine. From the Washington Post:

Soon after the November election, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader took stock of America's new president-elect and dismissed him with an insulting epithet. "A house Negro," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.
That was just a warm-up. In the weeks since, the terrorist group has unleashed a stream of verbal tirades against Barack Obama, each more venomous than the last.
The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda's skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.

Image of Ayman al-Zawahiri courtesy of the San Francisco Sentinel.
__________________________
:: In a PBS interview, Warren Buffet talks about Obama, and the stimulus package. From Calculated Risk:

Well I think if you think that he can turn things around in a month or three months or six months and there’s going to be some magical transformation since he took office on the 20th that can’t happen and wouldn’t happen. So you don’t want to get into Superman-type expectations. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s anybody better than you could have had; have in the presidency than Barack Obama at this time. He understands economics. He’s a very smart guy. He’s a cool rational-type thinker. He will work with the right kind of people. So you’ve got the right person in the operating room, but it doesn’t mean the patient is going to leave the hospital tomorrow.

Hat Tip - HUFFPOST
__________________________
:: Obama staffing the Dept. of Justice with the Bush administration's most aggressive critics. From POLITICO:

President Barack Obama is staffing his Justice Department with some of his predecessor's fiercest critics, and lawyers who have spent years defining the limits of executive power will now be helping to wield it.
The change may be most dramatic at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — which defended some of Bush’s most controversial policies — where a small cadre of lawyers who had an outsized influence on legal criticism of Bush are taking the top three jobs.
Those three — Dawn Johnsen, Martin Lederman, and David Barron — and others made the case that Bush’s interrogation policy was justified by flawed legal reasoning. Their arguments precipitated one of Obama’s most dramatic early acts: flatly repudiating all government legal advice on interrogation issued between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons
__________________________

:: GOP obstructing passage of the stimulus package on the

basis of a report that does not exist. In other words, a lie. Bolding is mine. From HUFFPOST:

Reports of a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the vast majority of the money in the stimulus package won't be spent until after 2010, have Democrats on the

REPUBLICANS TOUT AN IMAGINARY REPORT

defensive and the GOP calling for a pullback in wasteful spending.
Funny thing is, there is no such report.
"We did not issue any report, any analysis or any study," a CBO aide told the Huffington Post.

__________________________
:: All 647 pages of the House Stimulus Package (H.R. 1) are available to read on Huffpost.
__________________________
:: Anti-union GOP blocks labor nominee, Hilda Solis; continues to push a lie about "card check" From HUFFPOST:

Despite rising unemployment and a cratering economy, the GOP has placed a hold on the nomination of President Obama's choice for Secretary of Labor, the pro-worker Hilda Solis. The issue at stake is the Employee Free Choice Act, which aims to give workers a level playing field by allowing workers to choose a majority sign-up approach, dubbed "card check" by anti-union flacks, for selecting a union -- rather than keeping that option in the hands of employers.
Even so, the right wing and the GOP have launched a high-profile smear campaign claiming, falsely, that the bill takes away the right to a secret ballot. Based on that lie, GOP leaders , with the help of an anonymous Republican Senator who has put a hold on Solis's nomination, are trying to force the Obama administration and any wavering Democratic Senators into backing away from the Employee Free Choice Act.