September 25, 2008 archive

1. The NY Times reports Lawmakers agree on outline of bailout. Details are yet sketchy and the Republicans seem to be planning on letting only the Democrats support the bailout, setting them up for election disaster. Despite this:

   Lawmakers in both parties said that few substantive differences and no major obstacles remained. They said the bill would authorize the full $700 billion requested by… Bush, but that Congress was intent on disbursing the money in installments.

   One plan under consideration would release $250 billion immediately, with another $100 billion available at the discretion of the president.

   They also said that there would be limits on pay packages for executives whose firms seek assistance from the government and a mechanism for the government to be given an equity stake in some firms so that taxpayers have a chance to profit if the companies prosper in the months and years ahead.

   The Hill reports the House Republicans claiming They have leverage on bailout. “Republicans in the lower chamber are balking at the bailout package, saying that Democrats will be solely responsible for the ramifications of what they see as a flawed compromise.” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “made it clear that… House Republicans would not be a part of” the bailout since it does not deregulate Wall Street nor provide capital gains tax cuts.

   The Washington Post quotes Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, saying that “the negotiators were ‘able to accommodate the bulk’ of Democratic concerns about the plan ‘in very responsible ways’ and that “we are on track, I believe, to pass this.'”

   Frank said lawmakers “are responding, I think, to the central thrust” of the administration’s $700 billion bailout request “but adding collectively a number of things that will make people legitimately feel better about the overall vote.” Noting that some lawmakers have been invited to a meeting at the White House today “to try to break a deadlock,” Frank said he was “glad that we’ll be able to go and tell them that there’s not much of a deadlock to break.”

   This bailout has the hallmarks of a Democratic election loser.

Four at Four continues with Pakistan and U.S. troops fighting each other on the border, Afghans growing nostalgic for Taliban rule, Republican efforts in election fraud, and a bonus story about the nation’s first CO2 pollution permit auction.

Taking His Ball And Going Home

To One Of His Eight Houses

John McCain Decides He Wants To

Help Wreck The Economy More

How Lucky For You

President Issues Warning to Americans  



   By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: September 24, 2008  

WASHINGTON – President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent.

As Democrats and the administration negotiated details of the package late into the night, the presidential candidates of both major parties planned to meet Mr. Bush at the White House on Thursday, along with leaders of Congress. The president said he hoped the session would “speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.”

Mr. Bush used a prime-time address to warn Americans that “a long and painful recession” could occur if Congress does not act quickly.

Iraqi Red Crescent Paralyzed by Allegations



By Amit R. Paley and Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, September 25, 2008; Page A01

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Red Crescent, the country’s leading humanitarian organization, has been crippled by allegations of embezzlement and mismanagement, including what Iraqi officials call the inappropriate expenditure of more than $1 million on Washington lobbying firms in an unsuccessful effort to win U.S. funding.

The group’s former president, Said I. Hakki, an Iraqi American urologist recruited by Bush administration officials to resuscitate Iraq’s health-care system, left the country this summer after the issuance of arrest warrants for him and his deputies. He and his aides deny the allegations and call them politically motivated.

USA

Ole Miss hopes presidential debate will spotlight campus progress

 The university has the opportunity to show, once and for all, that it has moved beyond its old, infamous and self-destructive reputation as a bastion of white supremacy.

By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer  

OXFORD, MISS. — For the University of Mississippi, Friday’s debate is about more than presidential politics: Officials hope it also helps combat what may be one of the most enduring public relations problems in American higher education.

They know that for many Americans, Ole Miss means little more than the deadly 1962 riot sparked by the matriculation of the first black student, James Meredith, and the 1990s-era controversy over the display of the Confederate flag at football games.

But if the debate goes off as planned, it will provide the 160-year-old school with the opportunity to show, once and for all, that it has moved beyond its old, infamous and self-destructive reputation as a bastion of white supremacy.

First, of course, the school will have to wait and see if the debate takes place. On Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain said he would not participate unless Congress approved a bailout package for Wall Street by Friday. The Commission on Presidential Debates said in a statement that it was “moving forward with its plan” for the debate. School officials said they were still prepared to host candidates McCain and Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee.

For the first time, a senior Bush administration official has admitted to discussing the use of torture by the CIA.

In a written statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that in 2002 and 2003, she and other high-ranking White House officials discussed the use of torture, including waterboarding, and other coercive methods.

Rice’s and her legal council’s statements were released by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the committee’s chairman. No specific dates were given.

At the time of the White House torture planing meetings, Rice was George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rice admits Bush officials held White House talks on CIA interrogations, she and other White House officials “discussed simulated torture techniques that elite U.S. soldiers were subjected to as part of a survival training program”.