Wednesday, January 28, 2009
House Passes 'Stimulus' 244-188..............
In a swift victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House approved a historically huge $819 billion stimulus bill Wednesday night with spending increases and tax cuts at the heart of the young administration's plan to revive a badly ailing economy. The vote was 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition despite Obama's frequent pleas for bipartisan support."This recovery plan will save or create more than three million new jobs over the next few years," the president said in a written statement released moments after the House voted. Still later, he welcomed congressional leaders of both parties to the White House for drinks as he continued to lobby for the legislation...Link
Release secret Bush memos..............
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling on the Justice Department to release Bush administration documentation pertaining to torture, surveillance and other controversial national security policies....Link
Obama nominee promised Bush officials......
A Republican senator says that President Barack Obama's attorney general nominee, Eric Holder, privately offered assurances that no Bush administration officials would be prosecuted for torture if he was confirmed.The claim was printed Wednesday in a conservative-leaning Washington, D.C. newspaper....Link
Schools can expel students that seem gay....
A California appeals court ruled Monday that a Christian high school can expel students perceived to be lesbians, upholding a 2008 lower court ruling that there were "no triable" elements to the case....Link
It's up to Obama..............................
Subpoenaed by Rep. John Conyers to testify before Congress, Karl Rove has left the debate over whether or not he is protected from testifying to Barack Obama.The former Bush strategist had previously refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee by claiming that executive privileges allowed him to keep his conversations with the president private. With Bush out of office, Rove instructed his lawyer, Robert Luskin, to ask the Obama White House whether the same privileges currently exist...Link
Incentive..............
A Pentagon report that 61 former inmates from Guantanamo Bay have "returned to the battlefield" doesn't seem to be scaring anyone. Matthew Alexander, a former senior interrogator in Iraq, told Keith Olbermann last night on MSNBC's Countdown that Guantanamo Bay is a persuasive argument for al-Qaeda in recruitment of fighters in Iraq. Matthew Alexander led the team of interrogators who found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in August 2006. Since returning from Iraq, he has been outspoken about the tactics that the US military uses to interrogate prisoners. His book, How to Break A Terrorist, outlines his experience with the "deeply flawed, ineffective, un-American way the US military conducts interrogations in Iraq."....Link
Reluctant Republicans 'swoon' over Obama..
President Barack Obama put his vow to govern without partisan rancor on the line Tuesday, after holding exclusive talks with increasingly truculent Republican lawmakers about his massive stimulus plan.And strangely enough, Congressional Republicans are aflutter over the "respect" being shown to them by President Obama, even as they continue to criticize the economic stimulus plan...Link
Mega-banks Could Fail Despite Bailouts.....
Martin Weiss writes: The time has come to issue one of my sternest warnings to date: Bank of America and Citigroup could fail despite the most radical government rescues of all time.Right now, after recent close calls with instant death, these two megabanks are on life support, receiving massive transfusions of government capital. But they're still hemorrhaging, and no one in Washington has found a cure...Link
Timothy Geithner was sworn..............
WASHINGTON - Timothy Geithner was sworn in Monday night as the nation's new treasury secretary, shortly after winning confirmation despite personal tax lapses that turned more than a third of the Senate against him. Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank chief, becomes the nation's 75th treasury secretary and one of the point men President Barack Obama will be counting on to help pull the country out of its worst financial slide in generations....Link
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