January 26, 2009 archive

Congressman John Conyers has upped the ante, issuing a fresh, brand spankin’ new subpoena for KKKarl Rove, requiring his appearance “to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.”

Poor Karl, no friendly occupant in the White House to shelter him now. With negligible legal standing, it’s looking as though he may actually have to show up and defend himself against charges of organized politicization of hirings and firings in the Justice Department.

1. The Guardian reports the Global recession claims 67,000 jobs in a day. More than 67,000 jobs were destroyed today as corporations across the U.S., Britain, and Europe announced lay offs.

   Big companies around the globe lay off tens of thousands, adds the NY Times. “The United States economy has dropped some 2.59 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and unemployment rose to 7.2 percent last month. Economists worry that the economy could now be losing as many as 600,000 jobs a month, and they said Monday’s layoff announcements served to underline the stricken state of the labor market.”

   And the Banking crisis topples its first government, adds The Guardian. In Iceland, Prime Minster Geir Haarde “announced the immediate resignation of his government because of the country’s severe financial crisis, which saw the collapse of the currency and banking system.”

2. The LA Times reports Vice President Biden expects more U.S. casualties in Afghanistan.

   “We’ve inherited a real mess” in Afghanistan, Biden said. “We’re about to go in and try to essentially reclaim territory that’s been effectively lost. . . . All of this means we’re going to be engaging the enemy more now.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Iraq, China denies currency manipulation, and change in Bolivia.

Premiere Screenings of FTA in Los Angeles and New York

This diary is in the way of a community alert.  Over the fold is the body of an email being sent out by Don Siegelman about Specter’s hold on the Holder confirmation.  Let’s sound off on this.  These creeps are trying to subvert justice.

The confirmation of President Obama’s choice for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, is being held up by Senator Arlen Specter and others.

Adapted from an entry at Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence … links to crossposts may be found there.

OK, so, to make an egregiously long story merely excessively long, a very strange thing happened on the road to the Stimulus Package. As Rep. Oberstar told the U.S. Conference of Mayors:

That is why we set forth this $85-billion initiative from our committee. It’s been reduced in the final going. We expect that it’ll come out somewhere around $63 billion, but $30 billion for highways.

The reason for the reduction in overall funding … was the tax cut initiative that had to be paid for in some way by keeping the entire package in the range of $850 billion.

As I described in Transport Stimulus: You’re Doing It Wrong, actual effective stimulus spending was shortchanged — and in particular spending with substantial long term economic and strategic benefits — to “pay for” tax cuts.

In reality, if we want to be able to “afford” tax cuts, what we need first and foremost is growth, and economic growth requires effective government investment in the infrastructure of a New Energy Economy.

Original article, by Adam Turl, via socialistworker.org:

IT ISN’T often that a member of the U.S. Congress acknowledges that the source of wealth in modern society is labor. But there was Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) at a rally outside the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago in December, as workers inside occupied the plant.

Republican Stimulus: Tax Cut’s Tax Cut’s

Tax Cut’s Screw The Middle Class

Obama’s Stimulus: Fix Infrastructure Create Jobs

Help The Middle Class

Economic Crisis Fuels Unrest in E. Europe

Shaky Governments Face Growing Anger

By Philip P. Pan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, January 26, 2009; Page A01

RIGA, Latvia — On a frigid evening this month, more than 10,000 people gathered outside a 13th-century cathedral in this Baltic capital to protest the government’s handling of Latvia’s economic crisis and demand early elections. The demonstration was one of the largest here since the mass rallies against Soviet rule in the late 1980s, and a sign of both the public’s frustration and its faith in the political system.

But at the end of the night, as the crowd dispersed, the protest turned into a riot. Hundreds of angry young people, many drunk and recently unemployed, rampaged through the historic Old Town, smashing shop windows, throwing rocks and eggs at police, even prying cobblestones from the streets to lob at the Parliament building.

Gaza family recounts day of horror

Hours after the ground incursion began, two were killed in a swirl of mixed messages and flying bullets.

By Ashraf Khalil

January 26, 2009

Reporting from Gaza City — There were 14 of them huddled under the stairs. Israeli shells and airstrikes had long since shattered every window of the Helw family’s three-story home. But underneath the concrete staircase, they said, they felt relatively safe — until the soldiers came early in the morning on Jan. 4.

There was pounding on the courtyard door, they recalled last week, and voices in accented Arabic shouted, “Who’s in there?”

As the troops burst inside, family members said Fuad Helw, 55, jumped up with his arms in the air.

“We all put our hands up and yelled, ‘We’re women and children. We’re not the resistance,’ ” recalled Sherine Helw, Fuad’s daughter-in-law.

The soldiers opened fire on Fuad, said Sherine, and he died in front of his family.

There are no independent accounts of what happened that day, when Israeli tanks rolled into the Zeitoun neighborhood on the outskirts of Gaza City at the beginning of the land offensive. The Israeli army, which staged its offensive after years of rocket attacks against southern Israel emanating from the Gaza Strip, refuses to discuss individual charges in detail.

USA

Obama’s Order Is Likely to Tighten Auto Standards



By JOHN M. BRODER and PETER BAKER

Published: January 25, 2009

WASHINGTON – President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.