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2002
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2001
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2002
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2001
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HISTORY News:
 Global
-  Climate
- History
-  Earth
-  Fossil
Fuel -  Gases
- Antarctic
-  Pacific
Ocean -  US
-  Britain
"NASA reports 2008 is ninth warmest year since 1880." ... "The year 2008 was the ninth warmest year since instrumental temperature measurements began in 1880, and all of the nine warmest years have occurred in the past 11 years, NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] reported on Tuesday." ... "The new data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and other government agencies on Tuesday adds to the evidence scientists have been observing about a warming Earth as fossil fuel burning emits heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere." ... "NASA also reported that the January to November global temperature was 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for the 20th Century." ... "NASA also noted that the past year was cooler than any since 2000. Scientists note that global warming is a steady trend, but within it there are natural variations." ... "The NASA report noted that "Eurasia, the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula were exceptionally warm, while much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than the long-term average." It said the relatively cooler temperature in the tropical Pacific was due to a La Nina, the cool phase of a natural temperature variation." ... "Britain's Met Office on Tuesday also said that La Nina was part of the reason 2008 was slightly cooler than earlier years this decade. By Britain's accounting, 2008 was the 10th warmest year on record dating back to 1850, and all 10 of the warmest years occurred since 1997." -By Renee Schoof -McClatchyDC.com 
US
-  Iraq
-  Reconstruction
-  Money
-  Politics
- Foreign
-  Production
-  Accounting
-  Investigations
-  Federal
- History
-  Military
-  Law
"Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders." ... "An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure." ... "The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures." ... "In one passage, for example, [Republican President Bush's] former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"" ... "Mr. Powell's assertion that the Pentagon inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by [Lieutenant General] Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004." ... "Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale." ... "The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed." ... "By mid-2008, the history says, $117 billion had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money." ... "Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the history concludes, "the government as a whole has never developed a legislatively sanctioned doctrine or framework for planning, preparing and executing contingency operations in which diplomacy, development and military action all figure."" ... "Titled "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," the new history was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer who regularly travels to Iraq and has a staff of engineers and auditors based here." ... "The manuscript is based on approximately 500 new interviews, as well as more than 600 audits, inspections and investigations on which Mr. Bowen's office has reported individually over the years. Laid out for the first time in a connected history, the material forms the basis for broad judgments on the entire rebuilding program." ... "In the preface, Mr. Bowen gives a searing critique of what he calls the "blinkered and disjointed prewar planning for Iraq's reconstruction" and the botched expansion of the program from a modest initiative to improve Iraqi services to a multibillion-dollar enterprise." -By T. Christian Miller and James Glanz -ProPublica.org -NYTimes ""Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience."" ... "The draft of a federal report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Annotations are based on the review's findings." [(PDF) Original Document] via -NYTimes 
Ecuador - Audit
- Law
- Foreign
- History
-  Argentina
"Ecuador defaults on foreign debt: Ecuador is to default officially on billions of dollars of foreign debt it considers "illegitimate", says President Rafael Correa." ... "Mr Correa said he had given the order not to approve a debt interest payment due on Monday, describing the international lenders as "monsters"." ... "The president said that some of Ecuador's $10bn debt was contracted illegally by a previous administration." ... "It is the first debt default by a country in Latin America since 2001." ... "At that time, Argentina failed to repay debt in the midst of its financial meltdown." ... "His decision follows a government audit in November which recommended that Ecuador default on almost 40% of the $10bn foreign debt, accusing former officials and bankers of profiting irresponsibly from bond deals." -BBC/News
 Christmas
-  Children
- Consumer
- History
- Sacramento
-  California
"Christmas bleak for KB Toys as it files Chapter 11." ... "The toy retailer filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday just two weeks before Christmas and announced plans to immediately liquidate its stores, including all four in the Sacramento [California's capital] area." ... ""It's sad that all of these companies are going out of business," said Gina Quivan of Sacramento after a day of Christmas shopping with husband Justin Vasquez and their three children. Vasquez carried a large bag of toys stamped with the KB Toys logo." ... "KB Toys now joins a growing list of household names tacking up going-out-of-business signs, from Linens 'n Things to Mervyns to Circuit City and Shoe Pavilion. That a toy retailer failed just before Christmas shows how bleak things have become." ... "Retail sales are at their worst in 35 years, and three in five people say they'll spend less money over the next 90 days, according to a survey of consumer spending released Thursday by Maryland-based researcher ChangeWave." ... "The 86-year-old company decided the most viable way to cover its debt was to liquidate its stores via immediate going-out-of-business sales." -By Darrell Smith -SacBee.com
 Auto
- Makers
- Legislation
-  Workers
- Emergency
- Government
- Politics
- Economy
- History
-  Cheney
-  Michigan
"Senate Republicans kill auto bailout bill." ... "Republican opposition killed a $14-billion auto industry bailout plan in the Senate on Thursday night, putting the future of [United States] U.S. automakers in doubt and threatening to deliver another blow to the economy." ... "The measure died after a last-ditch effort by Senate Democratic leaders to strike a compromise that would have lured enough support to save the legislation, which was crafted in consultation with the [Republican President Bush] White House." ... "The bill's failure raises the possibility of bankruptcy by one or more of [Michigan state's] Detroit's Big Three and puts new pressure on [Republican] President Bush to authorize emergency loans for the automakers from the $700-billion Wall Street rescue fund, a step he has adamantly refused to take." ... "The collapse of General Motors, Chrysler or Ford -- along with many of their suppliers and dealers -- could throw hundreds of thousands more workers onto the growing unemployment rolls and further cloud the closing days of the [Republican President] Bush administration." ... ""If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of [Republican President] Herbert Hoover forever," [Republican Vice President] Cheney told them, according to a Senate Republican aide, evoking the president whose inaction is widely blamed for helping trigger the Great Depression in the early 1930s." (1, 2) -By Jim Puzzanghera with contributions by Ken Bensinger -LAtimes 
Auto
- Industry
- Legislation
-  Sports
- History
- Michigan
-  Ky
"Ky. Sen. Bunning, ex-Tiger, snubbed for autos vote: Ky. Sen. [Kentucky Republican Senator Jim] Bunning, ex-Tigers [baseball] pitching great, gets booted from Detroit[ Michigan]-area fair for autos vote." ... "Bunning was kicked off the schedule after he helped derail an auto-industry loan package in the Senate Thursday night." ... "Bunning is a Hall of Famer who pitched in Detroit from 1955 to 1963." -AP via -CNN 
 Barack
Obama -  Media
- Politics
- Investigation
- History
-  Illinois
"Media Matters: Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago." ... "To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn [Democratic President Elect] Barack Obama into the [Illinois Democratic Governor] Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar." ... "Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies." ... "Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for the Washington Nationals [baseball team] next year." ... "If you want to make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the "scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping something will stick." ... "If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded." ... "But this week brought signs that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions," grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too many other failings to list." ... "If that happens -- if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country. It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading as journalism." ... "That's how the media behaved the last time we had a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented "scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere, took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved without ethical standards and without regard for the truth." ... "It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again." -By Jamison Foser -MediaMatters.org
Torture
- Prisons
-War
Crimes - Secret
- Military
- Government
-  Intelligence
- Law
- Investigation
- Human
Rights - Politics
- History
-  McCain
-  Ariz
- Mich
- US
- Guantanamo
-  Cuba
- Iraq
-  Afghanistan
-  China
-   Korea
"Bipartisan Report: Rumsfeld Responsible for Detainee Abuse: Senate Committee Finds Officials Made Decisions That Led to Offenses Against Prisoners." ... "A bipartisan panel of senators has concluded that [Republican President Bush's] former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay [Cuba], and that their decisions led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere." ... "In the most comprehensive critique by Congress of the military's interrogation practices, the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report yesterday that accuses Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the authors and chief promoters of harsh interrogation policies that disgraced the nation and undermined U.S. security. The report, released by Sens. [ Senators] Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.[ Democratic-Michigan]) and John McCain (R-Ariz.[ Republican Arizona]), contends that Pentagon officials later tried to create a false impression that the policies were unrelated to acts of detainee abuse committed by members of the military." ... ""The abuse of detainees in U.S. [United States] custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the report states. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."" ... "The report is the most direct refutation to date of the administration's rationale for using aggressive interrogation tactics -- that inflicting humiliation and pain on detainees was legal and effective, and helped protect the country. The 25-member panel, without one dissent among the 12 Republican members, declared the opposite to be true." ... "The [Republican President Bush's] administration's policies and the resulting controversies, the panel concluded, "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."" ... "A Defense Department spokesman noted that the Pentagon cooperated extensively with the Senate investigation and has taken numerous steps in recent years to ensure the humane treatment of detainees." ... "The panel's investigation focused on the Defense Department's employment of controversial interrogation practices, including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and the use of dogs. The practices, some of which had already been adopted by the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] at its secret prisons, were adapted for interrogations at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later migrated to U.S. detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison." ... "The true genesis of the decision to use coercive techniques, the report said, was a memo signed by [Republican] President Bush on [February] Feb. 7, 2002, declaring that the Geneva Convention's standards for humane treatment did not apply to captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. As early as that spring, the panel said, top administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings in which the use of coercive measures was discussed. The panel drew on a written statement by Rice, released earlier this year, to support that conclusion." ... "In July 2002, Rumseld's senior staff began compiling information about techniques used in military survival schools to simulate conditions that U.S. airmen might face if captured by an enemy that did not follow the Geneva conditions. Those techniques -- borrowed from a training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE -- included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and were loosely based on methods adopted by Chinese communists to coerce propaganda confessions from captured U.S. soldiers during the Korean war." ... "The SERE program became the template for interrogation methods that were ultimately approved by Rumsfeld himself, the report says." -By Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung -WashingtonPost [PDF] "Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry Into The Treatment of Detainees In U.S. Custody." ... “What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings” -- General David Petraeus via -WashingtonPost 
 People
- Economic
- History
"Jobless claims at 26-year high: Number of people filing for initial unemployment insurance surges to 573,000 in latest week." ... "The number of Americans filing new unemployment insurance claims jumped last week to a 26-year high, surpassing the number of filings economists had predicted." ... "The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial filings for state jobless benefits surged to 573,000 for the week ended Dec. 6. That was an increase of 58,000 from a revised 515,000 claims in the previous week." ... "It was the highest number of jobless claims since Nov. 27, 1982 when initial filings hit 612,000." ... "The number of people continuing to collect unemployment rose to 4,429,000 in the week ended Nov. 29, the most recent week available, which was also a 26-year high." ... "The last time continuing claims was at such an elevated level was Dec. 4, 1982, when continuing claims hit 4,509,000." ... "So far this year, the economy has lost 1.9 million jobs." -CNN 
 Animals
- Federal
- Law
- Enforcement
-  Science
- Politics
- History
- Global
- Climate
- Ice
- Oil
- Emissions
- Construction
- Money
"Environmentalists: New rule guts Endangered Species Act." ... "In a move environmental groups says strikes at the heart of the Endangered Species Act, the [Republican President] Bush administration on Thursday announced a new rule that would let federal agencies decide on their own whether their projects harm endangered species, instead of requiring them in many cases to get a second opinion from federal wildlife experts." ... "Opponents said the move destroys the checks and balances that have helped the gove rnment save hundreds of species from extinction under the 1973 law." ... "[Republican President Bush's] Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the reason for the rule change was linked to global warming." ... "Kempthorne listed the polar bear as a threatened species in May but said that the Endangered Species Act could not be used to try to halt global warming. The new regulation specifies that there is no need for consultations when the harm to endangered or threatened species is a result from a global process that's too broad to measure." ... "Kempthorne said it's impossible to pinpoint the death of any single animal from emissions from any single polluter. In fact, emissions of heat-trapping gases disperse evenly in the atmosphere around the globe and remain there for centuries. The resulting warming and melting of polar ice have put the polar bear at risk of extinction by mid-century, scientists have said." ... "The rule changes also go further and specify that federal agencies are not required to consult with the biologists of the two agencies that enforce the act — the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Services — if they think a project such as a timber sale or construction of a power plant won't harm or kill a threatened or endangered species. The changes do not rule out voluntary consultations." ... "The Interior Department on Thursday also finalized a rule implementing another section of the Endangered Species Act to clarify that it will not protect polar bears from oil and gas development or greenhouse gas emissions." -By Renee Schoof -McClatchyDC.com
Auto
- Manufacturing
- Politics
- Jobs
- Economic
- History
- Christmas
- Consumer
- US
- China
"Senate Republicans Determined to Cause a Depression by Destroying Big 3." ... "Looks like the Senate Republicans are serious about killing the auto deal. Here's the bottom line, if GM [General Motors] goes down, it will take Ford and Chrysler with it, because the three of them share suppliers. Losing GM's business will put most of them into the red. 80% of American consumers will not buy a car from a company in bankruptcy, so the idea that going bankrupt is the solution to the auto companies woes is nonsense." ... "What comes out of any bankruptcy, even if they have the names GM, Ford and Chrysler, will be a shadow of what went into bankruptcy—assuming anything comes out at all. More likely would be that big chunks would be gobbled up by foreign car companies, especially by the Chinese, who want expertise, but not to make cars in the US [United States]." ... "We can expect, then, to lose most o f the three million jobs related to the auto industry if the Big 2 1/2 go under. To put this in perspective, in the last year the US has lost 2.7 million jobs. This would be more than the job losses for an entire (lousy) year. The US lost half a million jobs last month, and almost every economic forecaster expects the US to lose even more jobs in January, when retailers go fish-belly up due to an abysmal Christmas retail season." ... "Economic contractions of this sort are self-reinforcing. The more people who lose their jobs, the less consumer spending there is. The less consumer spending there is, the less money businesses make. The less money businesses make, the more they have to lay off people. The more people who lose their jobs, the less consumer spending there is. The less... but why go on, you get the point." ... "The cascading financial and economic effect will make the oncoming economic storm far, far worse. If 700 billion was ok to use to save Wall Street, whose business model was probably even worse than Detroit's (add up their losses and most of Wall Street didn't actually make any money for the last ten years), then 15 or 25 billion to save Detroit is peanuts." ... "Or we can make sure this turns into a Depression. Guess the Republicans playing Scrooge this Christmas prefer that." -By Ian Welsh -FireDogLake.com
US
- Government
- Debt
- Money
-  Safety
- Politics
- History
- Global
"Investors buy U.S. debt at zero yield." ... "In the market equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world's safest investment, United States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate of return." ... "The news sent a sobering signal: in these troubled economic times, when people have lost vast amounts on stocks, bonds and real estate, making an investment that offers security but no gain is tantamount to coming out ahead. This extremely cautious approach reflects concerns that a global recession could deepen next year, and continue to jeopardize all types of investments." ... "While this will lower the cost of borrowing for the United States government, economists worry that a widespread hunkering-down could have broader implications that could slow an economic recovery. If investors remain reluctant to put money into stocks and corporate bonds, that could choke off funds that businesses need to keep financing their day-to-day operations." ... "Investors accepted the zero percent rate in the government's auction Tuesday of $30 billion worth of short-term securities that mature in four weeks. Demand was so great even for no return that the government could have sold four times as much." ... "In addition, for a brief moment, investors were willing to take a small loss for holding another ultra-safe security, the already-issued three-month Treasury bill." ... "In these times, it seems, the abnormal has now become acceptable. As America's debt and deficit spiral from a parade of billion dollar bailouts and stimulus packages, fund managers, foreign governments and big retail investors reckon they will get more peace of mind by stashing their cash, rather than putting it toward any of the higher-yielding risk that is entailed in stocks, corporate bonds and consumer debt." ... "The rapid decline in Treasury yields — which since summer have headed toward lows not seen since the end of the World War II — also renders the Federal Reserve less effective, as investors and banks stuff the money that the central bank is pumping into the financial system into Treasuries, rather than fanning it out across the broader economy." ... ""The last time this happened was the Great Depression, when people are willing to accept no return on their money, or possibly even a negative return," said Edward Yardeni, an independent analyst. "If people are so busy during the day just protecting the cash they have, it's not a good sign."" (1, 2) -By Vikas Bajaj and Michael M. Grynbaum -IHT.com 
US_Debt
- Politics
- Corporation
- Law
- History
"Fed Weighs Debt Sales of Its Own: Move Presents Challenges: 'Very Close Cousins to Existing Treasury Bills'." ... "The Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, a move that would give the central bank additional flexibility as it tries to stabilize rocky financial markets." ... "Government debt issuance is largely the province of the Treasury Department, and the Fed already can print as much money as it wants. But as the credit crisis drags on and the economy suffers from recession, Fed officials are looking broadly for new financial tools." ... "Fed officials have approached Congress about the concept, which could include issuing bills or some other form of debt, according to people familiar with the matter." ... "It isn't known whether these preliminary discussions will result in a formal proposal or Fed action. One hurdle: The Federal Reserve Act doesn't explicitly permit the Fed to issue notes beyond currency." ... "At the core of the deliberations is the Fed's balance sheet, which has grown from less than $900 billion to more than $2 trillion since August as it backstops new markets like commercial paper, money-market funds, mortgage-backed securities and ailing companies such as American International Group Inc." ... "... [T]he Fed has funded programs by flooding the financial system with money it created itself -- known in central-banking circles as bank reserves -- and has used the money to make loans and purchase assets." -By Jon Hilsenrath and Damian Paletta -WSJ.com 
China
- Free
Speech - Human
Rights - Law
- Politics
-  United
Nations - History
"China arrests a signer of a freedom charter: Literary critic Liu Xiaobo had joined more than 300 in endorsing the 'Charter 08' document." ... "China has arrested at least one prominent dissident and has questioned and possibly detained others who were among more than 300 signatories to a declaration demanding more freedoms." ... "Liu Xiaobo, a prolific literary critic who spent 20 months in prison for joining students in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, was arrested Monday night at his home in Beijing [China's capital]. Human rights organizations said the 53-year-old Liu was being detained on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power," a charge often used against government critics." ... "The arrest came in the run-up to today's 60th anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a landmark document credited with inspiring the modern human rights movement." ... "The Chinese activists are using the anniversary as a peg to release what they are calling "Charter 08," a petition with recommendations for constitutional reforms that would make the ruling Communist Party more accountable." -By Barbara Demick -LAtimes
 Terrorism
- Criminal
- Political
- History
- Corporate
- Religion
- Prison
-  Pat
Robertson - Abortion
- Gay
- Rights
- Law
- California
-  Texas
- US
- Iraq
- Military
"Bush Awards Presidential Citizen Medal To Watergate Crook Chuck Colson." ... "Established in 1969, the Presidential Citizens Medal is the second highest honor for a civilian, recognizing Americans “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for the nation.”" ... "Today, [Republican] President Bush honored 24 recipients of this year’s award, including actor Gary Sinise and Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp. Also included in that mix was Chuck Colson, “the first member of the [Republican President] Nixon administration to serve prison time for Watergate-related offenses.” Colson was President Nixon’s counsel from 1969-1973 and pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice. Colson received a one to three year sentence, but served just seven months. David Plotz at Slate described Colson’s role in the Nixon administration:" "As special counsel to the president, he [Chuck Colson] was [Republican President] Richard Nixon’s hard man, the “evil genius” of an evil administration. According to Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, Colson sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators, and he plotted to raid or firebomb the Brookings Institution. He eventually pleaded guilty to scheming to defame Daniel Ellsberg and interfering with his trial.""Since that time, Colson has become an evangelical prison reformer, running the nonprofit Prison Fellowship, which advocates for “privately run prisons and the delivery of all social services by faith-based groups.” However, according to author Allan Lichtman in “White Protestant Nation,” Colson has also remained involved in conservative politics:" "Colson brought together politically conservative Catholics and Protestands for a statement of common beliefs, advised conservative politicians including Texas [Republican] governor George W. Bush, and worked with Christian right leaders Pat Robertson and James Dobson on the development of political strategy. He disseminated conservative messages on sex roles, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, gay rights, and separation of church and state in his radio broadcasts and columns, reaching millions of Americans.""On October 3, 2002, Colson was also one of the co-signers of a letter from prominent evangelical leaders supporting an invasion of Iraq. More recently he has spoken out in favor of California’s Prop. 8, accusing the LGBT community of “anti-religious bigotry.”" -By Amanda Terkel -ThinkProgress.org
US
- Government
-Debt
- Money
- Safety
- History
"Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Haven Demand Surges." ... "Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression." ... "The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in 2001." ... "If you invested $1 million in three-month bills at today’s negative discount rate of 0.01 percent, for a price of 100.002556, at maturity you would receive the par value for a loss of $25.56." ... "The world’s biggest financial companies incurred almost $1 trillion in writedowns and credit losses since the start of last year, helping push the major economies into recession." -By Daniel Kruger and Cordell Eddings -Bloomberg
Barack
Obama -  Poll
- History
"Poll: 79% approve of way Obama is handling transition." ... "Seventy-nine percent approve of [Democratic President-Elect Barack] Obama's performance so far during transition, with 18 percent disapproving." ... "Obama's approval rating is 14 points higher than the approval rating for [Republican] President-elect George Bush in 2001 and 17 points higher than [Democratic] President-elect Clinton's rating in 1992, CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said." ... "Obama's current approval rating is also more than 50 points higher than President Bush's current approval rating, which now stands at 28 percent --- with 71 percent disapproving of the way Bush is handling his job as president." ... ""An Obama job approval rating of 79 percent -- that's the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster," said Bill Schneider, CNN's senior political analyst. "To many Americans, the Bush administration was a national disaster."" -By Paul Steinhauser -CNN 
Barack
Obama -  Medical
- Politics
- History
-  Hawaii
- US
-  Japan
-  Vietnam
- Iraq
"Obama Selects Shinseki for Veterans Affairs Secretary." ... "On the 67th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, [Democratic] President-elect Barack Obama Sunday nominated [Retired Army General] Gen. Eric Shinseki (Ret.), a Japanese-American born in Obama's home state of Hawaii, to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs." ... "“We owe it to all our veterans to honor them as we honored our greatest generation, not just with words, but with deeds,” said Obama, tasking him with a modernization of the Department so troops get the medical care “far too few” are receiving right now." ... "Obama said Shinseki, the first Asian-American named to his cabinet, was the right person to cut red tape, boost funding, and bring benefits to veterans." ... "“There is no one more distinguished, more determined, or more qualified to build this V.A. [Veterans Affairs] than the leader I’m announcing as our next Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Gen. Eric Shinseki,” Obama said." ... "“No one will ever doubt that this former Army chief of staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans. No one will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure they have the support that they need.”" ... "The former Army Chief of Staff, criticized years ago by his Pentagon bosses for saying that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to wage the Iraq war successfully, today pledged to reform the Department to give troops a “smooth, error-free, no-fail, benefits-assured transition into our ranks as veterans.”" ... "“A word to my fellow veterans: if confirmed, I will work each and every day to ensure that we are serving you as well as you have served us. We will pursue a 21st-century V.A. that serves your needs,” promised Shinseki, who lost part of his foot in Vietnam." ... "“We will open doors, new doors of opportunity so you can find a good job, support your families when you return to civilian life. And we will always, we will always honor the sacrifices of those who have worn the uniform and their loved ones.”" -By Matt Jaffe -ABCNEWS.com
Employment
- Market
-  Housing
- Rebuilding
-  Roads
-  Schools
- Energy
- Obama
- Politics
"Employers cut 533K jobs in Nov., most in 34 years." ... "Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession." ... "The new figures, released by the Labor Department Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays. The net loss of more than a half-million jobs was far worse than analysts expected." ... "The U.S. [United States] tipped into recession last December [2007], a panel of experts declared earlier this week, confirming what many Americans already thought." ... "[Republican] President George W. Bush, who used the word "recession" for the first time to describe the economy's state, pledged Friday to explore more efforts to ease housing, credit and financial stresses." ... "[Democratic] President-elect Barack Obama said the dismal job news underscored the need for forceful action, even as he warned that the pain could not be quickly relieved." ... ""There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis ... and it's likely to get worse before it gets better," Obama said. "At the same time, this ... provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported oil, and making an early down payment on the long-term reforms that will grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come."" -By Jeannine Aversa -AP via -Yahoo
Business
- History
"Payrolls plunge by stunning 533,000 in November: Jobless rate rises to 15-year high of 6.7%, as recession deepens." ... "U.S. [United States] nonfarm payrolls plunged by an astonishing 533,000 in November -- the worst job loss in 34 years -- the Labor Department reported Friday." ... "It was only the fourth time in the past 58 years that payrolls had fallen by more than 500,000 in a month. Since the recession began 11 months ago, a total of 1.9 million jobs have been lost. Job losses in September and October were revised much lower." ... "In addition to the 533,000 lost jobs, an additional 621,000 workers were pushed into part-time work and 422,000 simply dropped out of the labor force." ... "Over the past three months, 1.26 million jobs have been lost, a pace of job destruction exceeded only once since 1945." ... ""The threat of a widespread depression is now real and present," said Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland." -By Rex Nutting -MarketWatch
Electric
- Cars
- Industry
- Manufacturing
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- San
Francisco - Sacramento
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"Recharge America with Electric Cars." ... "Today, our country is facing a set of seemingly insurmountable problems:" "• an economic meltdown of historic proportions""Yesterday, joined by San Jose [California] Mayor Chuck Reed and Oakland [California] Mayor Ron Dellums I [San Francisco, California's mayor Gavin Newsom] announced a nine-step policy plan for transforming the Bay Area into the "Electric Vehicle (EV) Capital of the U.S. [United States]" In support of this initiative Better Place, a global electric transportation company announced that it would enter the U.S. market with California as its first state, beginning in the Bay Area." ... "Commercial availability of electric cars is targeted to begin in 2012, and Better Place estimates its network investment in the Bay Area will total $1 billion when the system is fully deployed. I welcomed Better Place's announcement and anticipate many other EV companies will focus on the Bay Area as a top-priority market." ... "Electric vehicles represent an overarching, game-changing solution that allows us to transform, and recharge the American transportation sector for the 21st century. By accelerating the conversion of the car industry from its oil dependent past, to a new electric century, we can jump start the car industry, eliminate our dependence on oil, reduce our required presence in the middle east, create millions of jobs, and eliminate a significant portion of our CO2 emissions." ... "This plan ties together a triangle of influence that can get our nation back on track: Detroit [Michigan] car makers who know how to scale production, working in concert with San Francisco's culture of innovation, aided by Sacramento [California's capital] and Washington DC [America's capital] policy-making. The goal is to create a sustainable strategic advantage for the US instead of a series of bailouts." ... "As California prepares to launch this electric recharge infrastructure project, it can also serve as a blueprint for a more widely integrated solution." ... "California can generate upwards of $2.5B in new investment in jobs and the economy for the infrastructure effort, with billions more in cars and battery sales to consumers. The nation as a whole can trigger tens of billions in infrastructure, manufacturing and innovation investment. At the same time, this conversion reduces the cost to the consumer and nation per mile we drive. California, followed by the western US states of Oregon and Washington are ready to drive this effort." -By Gavin Newsom -HuffingtonPost.com |
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