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House approves massive military spending bill.

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive military spending bill to defray annual expenses, fund operations in Afghanistan, and pay for the troop withdrawal from Iraq. Lawmakers voted 395 to 34 for the 636.3-billion-dollar package, which does not include monies for President Barack Obama's recently announced decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan in a bid to turn that conflict around. The Senate was expected to act on the measure soon. The bill includes 101.1 billion dollars for operations and maintenance and military personnel requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan and to carry out the planned withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq by August 2010...Link

U.S. National Debt Tops Debt Limit.........

The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has - at least numerically - exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill. The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion...Link

The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.

Despite its good intentions, San Francisco is not leading the country in gay marriage. Despite its good intentions, it is not stopping wars. Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city's. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit...Link

Nancy Pelosi in 'campaign mode'...........

Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that job creation and deficit reduction will be the central Democratic themes for the coming year – and that public support for health care reform will rebound once a bill has been sent to President Barack Obama. On the divisive issue of Afghanistan, the California Democrat ducked the question of how she would vote on increased war funding: “Let’s see what they request,” she said. But she has urged her party, including old allies on the anti-war left, to listen and give some “room” to Obama, recognizing that the president had been “dealt a very bad hand because there was no plan in Afghanistan for years.”...Link

The most powerful nerd on the planet............

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor...Link

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$100,000 in Less Than 12 Hours..............

Less than 12 hours into Rand Paul’s one-day Tea Party “money bomb” fundraising event, the Kentucky Senate candidate had already surpassed the $100,000 mark, according to the real-time donation counter on Paul’s Web page. That total puts Paul, the son of libertarian champion, congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) at more than $400,000 raised during the fourth quarter...Link

Kucinich measure gains cosponsors.......

Dennis Kucinich's proposed congressional effort to end the Afghanistan war has gained a dozen bipartisan cosponsors during the week the Cleveland Democrat has circulated it.

Here's the cosponsor list provided by Kucinich's office: John Conyers, Jr.; (D-MI); Ron E. Paul (R-TX); Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD); Bob Filner (D-CA); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC); Lynn Woolsey (D-CA); Edward Whitfield (R-KY); Michael Capuano (D-MA); Timothy V. Johnson (R-IL); Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ); Eric Massa (D-NY); and Alan Grayson (D-FL)...Link

Swine flu shots for infants, toddlers recalled.

More than three-quarters of a million doses of swine flu vaccine for infants and children were recalled Tuesday in the United States after routine tests showed they had lost potency. Four lots of Sanofi Pasteur's injectable (A)H1N1 vaccine for children aged six months to three years old were recalled after tests conducted after shipping in November showed that the shots had lost strength, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a health alert sent to doctors. The recall involves some 800,000 doses of vaccine, some of which could well have been administered to young children...Link