Tag: Docudharma Times

Who’s In Charge In Washington?

Must Be  Beavis And Butt-head

Clinton Is Said to Accept Offer of Secretary of State Position



By PETER BAKER and HELENE COOPER

Published: November 21, 2008

WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat to become secretary of state in the Obama administration, making her the public face to the world for the man who dashed her own hopes for the presidency, confidants of Mrs. Clinton said Friday.

The accord between the two leading figures of the Democratic Party was the culmination of a weeklong drama that riveted the nation’s capital. President-elect Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton fought perhaps the most polarizing nomination battle in decades, but in recruiting her for his cabinet, Mr. Obama chose to turn a rival into a partner, and she concluded she could have a greater impact by saying yes than byremaining in the Senate.

Wanted: Entertainers for War Zone. Helmets Provided.

Army Seeks Stars to Visit Bases in Afghanistan

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page A01

The war in Afghanistan is heating up, so it must be time for the wrestling divas.

And what better way to boost the spirits of troops dining on MREs and dodging IEDs than some abbreviations with more pleasing associations — such as NASCAR and NFL?

Over the next five months, the U.S. Army is preparing to reinforce troop morale with “Entertainment from the Home Front,” a string of touring entertainers and athletes that will include World Wrestling Entertainment Divas, National Football League cheerleaders and players, NASCAR drivers, and professional rodeo participants.

USA

Seeking $25 Billion, Big Three to Get a Second Chance on the Hill



By Kendra Marr

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page D01

In just 10 days, Detroit’s Big Three automakers hope to re-plead their case for a $25 billion emergency loan. But this time they will be expected to produce clearer business plans.

Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sent the automakers a letter calling on them to submit “a credible restructuring plan” by Dec. 2.

The letter came a day after congressional leaders delayed a vote on providing the auto industry as much as $25 billion in emergency aid.

The Bush Administration Working

Hard On Its Legacy

A Legacy Of Complete Failure    

Financial System Suffers Relapse

Shattering Lull, Fears of Deep Recession Roil Markets

By Neil Irwin and Renae Merle

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, November 21, 2008; Page A01

The financial system, which had recently shown glimmers of improvement, is unraveling again.

After a few weeks in which credit started flowing more freely through banks, giving relief to financial markets, prices continued to plummet yesterday for all but the safest investments, dragged down by fears of a deeper and longer recession than even many pessimists had expected.

Investors were so eager to move money into ultra-safe U.S. Treasury debt yesterday that they were effectively paying the government to hold on to their cash.

Sun sets on US power: report predicts end of dominance

• US intelligence: ‘We can no longer call shots alone’

• European Union will be ‘hobbled giant’ by 2025

• Triumph of western democracy not certain

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 20 2008 19.05 GMT

The United States’ leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being “taken over and run by criminal networks”.

The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama’s intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to “call the shots” alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane.

USA

A Residency Dream, Now a Nightmare



By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: November 20, 2008

In 2004, Heathcliffe Bradley was planning to return to his native New Zealand after eight years in the United States when he met Cheryl Losee, a New Jersey native, and his plans flew out the window. He stayed, they married, and then he turned his attention to a lingering problem: Mr. Bradley was an illegal immigrant.

But what seemed to them a straightforward process to make Mr. Bradley a legal resident soon turned into a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. Last month Mr. Bradley, a construction worker who says he has no criminal record in either the United States or New Zealand, was hauled from his home in handcuffs and put in an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., and told he was going to be deported.

Clueless: See America Automotive Executives  

Bush set to relax rules protecting species

Interior Department rushed to finish new regulation despite objections

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don’t pose a threat, under a regulation the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.

The rules must be published Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, he can undo them with the stroke of a pen.

The Interior Department rushed to complete the rules in three months over the objections of lawmakers and environmentalists who argued that they would weaken how a landmark conservation law is applied.

Shares Near 6-Year Low, With More Losses Feared



By JACK HEALY

Published: November 19, 2008

As the stock market tumbled to its lowest level in nearly six years on Wednesday, Wall Street traders and many ordinary Americans were asking the same question: Where, oh where is the bottom?

After a yearlong slide in stocks and a giant bank rescue from Washington, even some pessimists had hoped that the worst might be over. But now, after the Dow Jones industrial average fell below 8,000 on Wednesday, the financial crisis and the bear market it spawned seem to be taking a new, painful turn.

Once again, investors’ confidence in the nation’s financial industry is draining away

Robert Fisk: Once more fear stalks the streets of Kandahar

Five years after his last visit, our correspondent finds the Taliban back in charge of their spiritual home – and girls attacked with acid simply for attending school

Thursday, 20 November 2008

There is a little girl in the Meir Wais hospital with livid scars and dead skin across her face, an obscene map of brown and pink tissue. Then there is another girl, a beautiful child, Khorea Horay, grimacing in pain, her leg amputated, her life destroyed after her foot was torn to pieces. In another ward, two girls lie on their backs, a tent above their limbs. One has lost an arm, another – a 16-year-old – a leg.

Then there is the grim young man with the beard, also in the darkest pain, who looks at me with suspicion and puzzlement. He has a bullet wound in the abdomen, a great incision sutured up after the doctors found it infected. Two other young men, also bearded, cowled in brown “patu” shawls, sit beside this suffering warrior. They, too, stare at me as if I am a visitor from Mars. Perhaps that’s what I am in Kandahar. Better to be a Martian than a Westerner in a city which in all but name has fallen to the Taliban.

USA

Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand

Washington Sketch

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, November 20, 2008; Page A03

There are 24 daily nonstop flights from Detroit to the Washington area. Richard Wagoner, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli probably should have taken one of them.

Instead, the chief executives of the Big Three automakers opted to fly their company jets to the capital for their hearings this week before the Senate and House — an ill-timed display of corporate excess for a trio of executives begging for an additional $25 billion from the public trough this week.

Someday The Bush

Nightmare Will End

Too Bad Only Fortune Tellers And The Physic Network

Know For Sure When  

Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees

Political Positions Shifted To Career Civil Service Jobs

By Juliet Eilperin and Carol D. Leonnig

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, November 18, 2008; Page A01

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department’s top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies — including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions — into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called “burrowing” by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

Top judge: US and UK acted as ‘vigilantes’ in Iraq invasion

Former senior law lord condemns ‘serious violation of international law’

Richard Norton-Taylor

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008 00.01 GMT

One of Britain’s most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a “world vigilante”.

Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general’s defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith’s advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: “It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had.” Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions “passes belief”

USA

Clout Has Plunged for Automakers and Union, Too



By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Published: November 17, 2008

DETROIT – When the leaders of the three Detroit auto companies and the United Automobile Workers union travel to Washington to make their case for a federal bailout, they will be flying into stiff headwinds of public opinion.

Thus far, much of the commentary in Washington, in the pages of major newspapers and on the Web, has been against providing financial support for the companies, which they will say they desperately need in hearings beginning on Tuesday.

The waves of criticism have been so strong that Susan Tompor, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, was moved to write on Sunday’s front page: “I never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”

Phil Gramm Cares Not

About What His Polices Have Wrought  

Facing Deficits, States Get Out Sharper Knives



By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: November 16, 2008

LOS ANGELES – Two short months ago lawmakers in California struggled to close a $15 billion hole in the state budget. It was among the biggest deficits in state history. Now the state faces an additional $11 billion shortfall and may be unable to pay its bills this spring.

The astonishing decline in revenues is without modern precedent here, but California is hardly alone. A majority of states – many with budgets already full of deep cuts and dependent on raiding rainy-day funds or tax increases – are scrambling to find ways to get through the rest of the year without hacking apart vital services or raising taxes.

Murder At the Drum Tower

Beijing is pumping more than half a trillion dollars into the Chinese economy in order to stave off unrest. It has good reason to worry.

By Melinda Liu | NEWSWEEK

People who knew Tang Yongming say they never imagined he could do such a horrible, senseless thing. A few minutes after noon on Aug. 9, just 12 hours after the start of the 2008 Olympics, Tang, 47, savagely knifed a visiting American couple inside Beijing’s 13th-century Drum Tower. Then he jumped 130 feet to his death from the ancient landmark’s western balcony. Minneapolis businessman Todd Bachman-father-in-law of U.S. men’s indoor-volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon-died of stab wounds. Bachman’s wife, Barbara, survived, despite life-threatening injuries. Their guide, a young Chinese woman, was also hurt, although less seriously. Tang remains an enigma. “There was nothing abnormal about him, absolutely nothing,” says Wang Yongxian, a prim, businesslike community worker who tried to help Tang find a new job five years ago, after his previous employer let him go. Wang’s colleague Xu Guofang agrees: “He wasn’t just ‘relatively’ ordinary. He was simply ordinary. Period.”

USA

Obama Wrote Federal Staffers About His Goals

Workers at Seven Agencies Got Detailed Letters Before Election

By Carol D. Leonnig

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, November 17, 2008; Page A01

In wooing federal employee votes on the eve of the election, Barack Obama wrote a series of letters to workers that offer detailed descriptions of how he intends to add muscle to specific government programs, give new power to bureaucrats and roll back some Bush administration policies.The letters, sent to employees at seven agencies, describe Obama’s intention to scale back on contracts to private firms doing government work, to remove censorship from scientific research, and to champion tougher industry regulation to protect workers and the environment.

The Automotive Industries  Mistakes  Are Of

Their Owning Making

Yet The American Tax Payer

Will Be Asked To Accept A Government

Bailout For A Problem They Didn’t Create

World Leaders Vow Joint Push to Aid Economy



By MARK LANDLER

Published: November 15, 2008

WASHINGTON – Facing the gravest economic crisis in decades, the leaders of 20 countries agreed Saturday to work together to revive their economies, but they put off thornier decisions about how to overhaul financial regulations until next year, providing a serious early challenge for the Obama administration.

Though the countries’ stimulus packages were cast as ambitious steps, they mainly reflected measures that the countries were already undertaking to respond to the crisis. What remains to be seen is whether, working with a new White House, the leaders will cast aside their political and economic differences to embrace more radical changes, including far-reaching but fiercely debated proposals to overhaul regulation.

 Young Tibetans ‘will resist China with blood’

As Tibet’s exiled leaders meet to decide the future of their struggle some are calling for direct action

From The Sunday Times

November 16, 2008

Michael Sheridan

The fate of the Dalai Lama’s birthplace high on a lonely mountainside shows the absolute supremacy of China over his ancestral land on the eve of a critical meeting between Tibetan exiles to debate the future of their cause.

The farmhouse in Taktser where he was born in 1935 stands silent in a walled compound. Destroyed by Red Guards, it was rebuilt and adorned with a golden roof at a time when China and the Tibetan spiritual leader were on better terms. Gaily coloured prayer flags flutter from a tall pole outside.

“We hope he will come back,” said a villager, “but whether that is possible or not is up to the government.”

USA

Catastrophic fires blaze a path of destruction through Southland

From Santa Barbara to Orange County, hundreds of homes burn and thousands of people are evacuated. A mobile home park in Sylmar appears to lose the highest number of housing units in L.A. history.

By Louis Sahagun, Mike Anton and Mitchell Landsberg

November 16, 2008

In a swiftly moving catastrophe that seemed as familiar as it was shocking, Southern California once again was besieged by flame Saturday, from Orange County to Santa Barbara, with hundreds of homes consumed by three major wind-driven fires, including one of the most devastating blazes ever to strike the city of Los Angeles.

At least 30,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes amid smoke that blew like stinging fog through wind-ravaged canyons. Major freeways, including Interstate 5 and the 91 and 71 freeways, were closed, making escape tricky for some. More than 500 mobile homes were destroyed at a community in Sylmar; and about 100 houses and apartments were damaged or destroyed in Riverside and Orange counties. The numbers were expected to grow.

World Leaders Ignore Bush

Too Bad Its 8 Years Too Late  

Experts See Security Risks in Downturn

Global Financial Crisis May Fuel Instability and Weaken U.S. Defenses

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, November 15, 2008; Page A01

Intelligence officials are warning that the deepening global financial crisis could weaken fragile governments in the world’s most dangerous areas and undermine the ability of the United States and its allies to respond to a new wave of security threats.

U.S. government officials and private analysts say the economic turmoil has heightened the short-term risk of a terrorist attack, as radical groups probe for weakening border protections and new gaps in defenses. A protracted financial crisis could threaten the survival of friendly regimes from Pakistan to the Middle East while forcing Western nations to cut spending on defense, intelligence and foreign aid, the sources said.

As Summit Starts, Emerging Nations Weigh New Clout

Brazil, China, India Step Up In Diplomatic Power Shift

By Anthony Faiola and Glenn Kessler

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, November 15, 2008; Page A01

When world leaders gathered last night for a White House dinner on the eve of a major economic summit, the faces around the table were not just those of the Europeans and Japanese who normally mix in the highest circles of diplomacy. This time, heads of state from the across the developing world, from China to Brazil to India, had a seat at the table.Their inclusion in this weekend’s talks on the global financial crisis marks a historic power shift. The summit is being seen as a model of what high-level diplomacy will look like in the future, with emerging giants gaining a voice in a club that long included only the richest of nations. But at a time when China maintains the world’s largest cash reserves and the United States is going deep into debt, the definition of rich has changed.

USA

Tech Industry, Long Insulated, Feels a Slump



By ASHLEE VANCE

Published: November 14, 2008

The technology industry, which resisted the economy’s growing weakness over the last year as customers kept buying laptops and iPhones, has finally succumbed to the slowdown.

In the span of just a few weeks, orders for both business and consumer tech products have collapsed, and technology companies have begun laying off workers. The plunge is so severe that some executives are comparing it with the dot-com bust in 2000, when hundreds of companies disappeared and Silicon Valley lost nearly a fifth of its jobs.

October “was like turning a switch,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the Investment Technology Group, a research and trading firm. “Everything pretty much shut down.”

The Automobile Industry

Is Like The Model T

It Comes In One Color

Failure    

Chances Dwindle on Bailout Plan for Automakers



By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: November 13, 2008

WASHINGTON – The prospects of a government rescue for the foundering American automakers dwindled Thursday as Democratic Congressional leaders conceded that they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition during a lame-duck session next week.

At the same time, hope among many Democrats on Capitol Hill for an aggressive economic stimulus measure all but evaporated. Democratic leaders have been calling for a package that would include help for the auto companies as well as new spending on public works projects, an extension of jobless benefits, increased food stamps and aid to states for rising Medicaid expenses.

Tech puts JFK conspiracy theories to rest  

Sixth floor of book depository, not the grassy knoll, was origin of lethal shot

By Eric Bland Discovery

A team of experts assembled by the Discovery Channel has recreated the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Using modern blood spatter analysis, new artificial human body surrogates, and 3-D computer simulations, the team determined that the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was the most likely origin of the shot that killed the 35th president of the United States.

“The question we were trying to answer is, given the spatter evidence in a vehicle, and knowing an individual was sitting at a particular location, is there something we could use to determine where the shot originated?” said Steve Schliebe, a blood spatter and trace evidence specialist with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, who was part of the special investigation.

USA

FDIC Details Plan To Alter Mortgages

Treasury Opposes Using Bailout Funds For Proposal to Ease Monthly Payments

By Binyamin Appelbaum

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 14, 2008; Page A01

Officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. yesterday detailed a plan to prevent 1.5 million foreclosures in the next year by offering financial incentives to companies that agree to sharply reduce monthly payments on mortgage loans.

The proposal, which has the support of leading congressional Democrats, would considerably expand the scope and force of the government’s efforts to stem foreclosures. Agency officials estimated the cost to the government at $24.4 billion.

FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair continues to face opposition within the Bush administration.

The Bailout Money

Everyone Wants Some: Corporations And Lobbyists

So When Are The People Going To Get Help?    

G.M.’s Troubles Stir Question of Bankruptcy vs. a Bailout

NEWS ANALYSIS

By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Published: November 12, 2008

DETROIT – Momentum is building in Washington for a rescue package for the auto industry to head off a possible bankruptcy filing by General Motors, which is rapidly running low on cash.

But not everyone agrees that a Chapter 11 filing by G.M. would be the disaster that many fear. Some experts note that while bankruptcy would be painful, it may be preferable to a government bailout that may only delay, at considerable cost, the wrenching but necessary steps G.M. needs to take to become a stronger, leaner company.

Although G.M.’s labor contracts would be at risk of termination in a bankruptcy, setting up a potential confrontation with its unions, the company says its pension obligations are largely financed for its 479,000 retirees and their spouses.

A Mystery Glows On Saturn  



 

 Scientists say the northern lights on Saturn are unlike anything they’ve ever seen, on Earth or elsewhere in the solar system. Infrared imagery from the Cassini orbiter, released today to accompany research published in the journal Nature, only adds to the mystery at the top of the ringed planet.

Saturn’s north pole is already home to a bizarre six-sided cyclone that planetary scientists haven’t yet figured out. That observation marked the first time a hexagon had been seen in atmospheric patterns. The northern auroral displays, monitored by Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, also go against the conventional wisdom.

USA

Bailout Lacks Oversight Despite Billions Pledged

Watchdog Panel Is Empty; Report Is Unfinished

By Amit R. Paley

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, November 13, 2008; Page A01

In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury’s massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country’s largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

People Are Just People

And Sometimes They Are Hero’s

But They Are Still Just People    

Obama Asks Bush to Provide Help for Automakers



By JACKIE CALMES

Published: November 10, 2008

WASHINGTON – The struggling auto industry was thrust into the middle of a political standoff between the White House and Democrats on Monday as President-elect Barack Obama urged President Bush in a meeting at the White House to support immediate emergency aid.

Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.

Obama to Explore New Approach in Afghanistan War



By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 11, 2008; Page A01

The incoming Obama administration plans to explore a more regional strategy to the war in Afghanistan — including possible talks with Iran — and looks favorably on the nascent dialogue between the Afghan government and “reconcilable” elements of the Taliban, according to Obama national security advisers.

President-elect Barack Obama also intends to renew the U.S. commitment to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a priority the president-elect believes President Bush has played down after years of failing to apprehend the al-Qaeda leader. Critical of Bush during the campaign for what he said was the president’s extreme focus on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan, Obama also intends to move ahead with a planned deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops there.  

USA

Fannie, AIG Struggling After Federal Takeover

Firms Report Massive Losses, Cite Shortcomings of Rescue

By Zachary A. Goldfarb

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 11, 2008; Page A01

Two months after the government began taking over ailing financial companies, the two largest efforts have failed to go as planned, with the firms complaining that federal officials set overly strict terms and took other unhelpful rescue measures.

Fannie Mae yesterday reported a $29 billion loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 and warned that the mission it was given by the government, to help revive the mortgage market, could be compromised unless the Treasury Department takes new steps to support the company

The Secrets And Secrecy Continue

As Do The Wrong Headed Policies    

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries



By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI

Published: November 9, 2008

WASHINGTON – The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

Auschwitz blueprints emerge on 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht



Kate Connolly in Berlin

guardian.co.uk, Monday November 10 2008 00.01 GMT

Architectural plans for the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, which appear to provide clear evidence that the site was purpose built for exterminations, have been discovered in a Berlin flat, a German newspaper reported.

Germany’s chief archivist, Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, is quoted by Bild newspaper as saying that the plans, which appear to have been made from 1941 to 1943, are “authentic certificates of a systematically planned genocide of European Jews”, and “of extraordinary importance”.

The find includes 28 meticulous sketches on a scale of 1:100. The documents were said to have been found in a flat being cleared out following the inhabitant’s death; there were no details about their ownership.

USA

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks

With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy

By Amit R. Paley

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, November 10, 2008; Page A01

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration’s request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious

Hate Speech Has Consequences  

Obama Team Weighs What to Take On in First Months



By PETER BAKER

Published: November 8, 2008

WASHINGTON – With the economy in disarray and the nation’s treasury draining, President-elect Barack Obama and his advisers are trying to figure out which of his expansive campaign promises to push in the opening months of his tenure and which to put on a slower track.Mr. Obama repeated on Saturday that his first priority would be an economic recovery program to get the nation’s business system back on track and people back to work. But advisers said the question was whether they could tackle health care, climate change and energy independence at once or needed to stagger these initiatives over time.

Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama

Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign

By Tim Shipman in Washington

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks

USA

As a road to a better economy, an old idea gains ground

Often dismissed in favor of the quick-jolt stimulus, spending on bridges, streets and sewers is on the table again. Obama backs the public works idea, an echo of the FDR era.

By Richard Simon and Jim Puzzanghera

November 9, 2008

Reporting from Washington — As recently as a few months ago, the idea of trying to bolster the troubled economy by pumping money into public works projects such as roads and bridges was dismissed as too slow — not the quick pick-me-up that was needed.

But today, economists and policymakers are beginning to change their minds.

Most experts still think infrastructure spending is a slower way to put money in consumers’ hands than simply mailing out government checks the way President Bush did over the summer. What’s changed is that the economic crisis now looks to be so deep and likely to last so long that a stimulus plan that pumps out benefits for months and years seems to fit the situation — with the added bonus of providing long-term benefits to the country.