President Obama on Monday extended by six months a task force charged with determining how terrorism suspects should be interrogated, held in custody or handed over to other countries, putting in jeopardy his promise to close the military detention facility at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January. The move came on the same day the president pushed back the release of a congressionally mandated report on the nation’s economic conditions, and the White House began to extend a self-imposed deadline for overhauling the nation’s health care system.
After some hesitation and a time shift, three major broadcast networks have agreed to carry Barack Obama’s latest primetime news conference. The event was announced Friday afternoon as Obama battles to bolster congressional support for an ambitious health-care overhaul while facing dropping approval ratings. But broadcasters are struggling with falling approval ratings of their own; Nielsen’s audience measurements show viewership in a summertime slump.
A key House committee on Tuesday indefinitely postponed voting on health care reform legislation, after Democratic leaders were unable to line up enough votes from moderate members of their own party. The House Energy and Commerce Committee canceled the session as it faced serious concerns about the legislation from fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who hold a large number of seats on the panel.
It’s so much easier to just hang up the damn phone than sit in a jail cell on felony charges.
An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat. According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families.
California’s huge government pension fund is expected to report today a whopping annual loss of an estimated $56.8 billion, almost a quarter of its investment portfolio. The loss at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System for the fiscal year ended June 30 is the second in a row for the country’s largest fund. A year ago, CalPERS reported an $8.5-billion loss, as the severe recession began to take hold. The tremendous drop in value is expected to have a direct effect on the amount of money that the state and about 2,000 local governments and school districts must contribute in coming years to pay for pensions and healthcare for 1.6 million government workers, retirees and their families.
One of the best kept secrets in California in recent weeks has been why Gov. Sarah Palin’s upcoming and much-heralded Reagan Library speech — her political debut after leaving public office — will be…closed to the media? We’ve been trying for more than a week to get some kind of explanation from the Simi Valley Republican Women’s Club, which is hosting her, without success. (To be honest: even getting a call returned was one of the greater challenges of our career.) [Boo hooo Carla…..ed]
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Yep, her thighness in the pants suit is looking mighty ragged these days indeed.
If President Obama’s goal in appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was to neutralize his biggest rival, he has certainly succeeded. Clinton looks a shadow of her former self, and has been the most low-key Secretary of State in recent times. Her immediate predecessors Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were far more prominent figures on the world stage during their first six months in office. Clinton, in contrast, looks tired, disinterested, and largely going through the motions.
Trust in President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies to identify the right solutions to problems facing the country has dropped off significantly since March, according to a new Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll. Just as Obama intensifies his efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and reach an agreement with Congress on health care reform, the number of Americans who say they trust the president has fallen from 66 percent to 54 percent. At the same time, the percentage of those who say they do not trust the president has jumped from 31 to 42. [emphasis mine….ed]
The Chicago Police Department has spent at least $2.2 million to secure President Barack Obama’s Kenwood residence since he was elected in November, according to documents released Monday by the city. The department will be reimbursed by the federal government for more than $1.5 million of those costs. But the expense of protecting the president’s home since his January inauguration — nearly $650,000 through the end of April — is not currently scheduled to be paid back, according to the city’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Tribune. “There is no reimbursement mechanism currently in place for this [post-inauguration] money,” the city’s Office of Legal Affairs said in the written response.
The special inspector general overseeing the $700 billion financial-sector bailout said the Treasury Department isn’t disclosing enough information about how taxpayer money is being spent. In prepared testimony for a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky said the Treasury has rejected several of his recommendations for more transparency on its part. Mr. Barofsky also said the Treasury has declined to require bailout recipients to explain what they are doing with their government funds.
Two senior congressional Democrats pointedly called on the Obama administration Tuesday to make the $700 billion financial bailout program more visible and accountable to taxpayers, with one complaining that the Treasury Department’s approach to the fund is, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Rep. Edolphus Towns of New York, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, insisted that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner adopt recommendations from a government watchdog that the department has resisted. “If Treasury does not put this information up on its Web site, this Committee will and if Treasury does not turn over this information voluntarily Secretary Geithner will be brought before the Committee to explain why not,” Towns said.
Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, Obama’s pick for the next surgeon general, was hailed as a MacArthur Grant genius who had championed the poor at a medical clinic she set up in Katrina-ravaged Alabama. But the full-figured African-American nominee is also under fire for being overweight in a nation where 34 percent of all Americans aged 20 and over are obese.
Charges against a famed black Harvard scholar arrested in his own home were dropped today. The city of Cambridge, Mass., issued a statement saying the arrest of Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. yesterday “was regrettable and unfortunate.” (SNIP) He warned the cops, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” according to the police report. When Gates was asked to step out on the front porch and talk, he allegedly responded, “No, I will not!” and, “I’ll speak with your mama outside!” When the cop explained he was investigating a break-in, Gates snarled, “Why, because I’m a black man?” the report claims.
Speaking for the first time about the Taliban’s capture of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, President Obama said Tuesday he was “heartbroken” and vowed to bring him home. Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, 23, of Hailey, Idaho, was snatched near a remote U.S. outpost in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30 and sold to the Haqqani network, a Taliban group with strong ties to Al Qaeda.
Quote of the day.
Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill … the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite. … The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.
-The Mayo Clinic speaks out about this Democrat health care scam.