“Let Them Arrest Me In Heathrow”

The official end of freedom for the Brits. Is the U.S. far behind?

by Pat Dollard

Brussels Journal:

This morning Lord Malcolm Pearson, a member of the British House of Lords, announced that he has invited Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament, to show the movie Fitna (see it here) in a committee room of the House of Lords next Thursday (12 February). Mr. Wilders has been asked to address a private meeting with members of the British Parliament, explaining to the Peers and MPs why he made Fitna and to engage in an open and frank discussion with them.

This afternoon Mr. Wilders received a letter from the British Embassy in The Hague [see below] saying that he is a “persona non grata” in the United Kingdom. The ambassador told Mr. Wilders that he is a threat to public security and public harmony because of the controversy created by Fitna. Mr. Wilders intends to go to London anyway. “Let them arrest me in Heathrow,” he says.

If Mr. Wilders is denied entry to the United Kingdom, it will be the first time that Britain refuses entry to an elected politician from another member state of the European Union. The Dutch government has protested to the British government over the unprecedented barring of an EU parliamentarian by another EU country.

The meeting of Mr. Wilders and members of the British Parliament had originally been planned for 29 January, but was postponed. Lord Nazir Ahmed, a Muslim member of the House of Lords (Labour), had threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent Mr. Wilders from entering the British Parliament. Lord Ahmed boasted in the Pakistani press that the cancellation of Mr. Wilders’ visit was “a victory for the Muslim community.”

Lord Pearson could not bear the thought that the “mother of all parliaments” might be perceived as giving in to threats. Hence he decided to reinvite Mr. Wilders. Black Rod, the head of security at the House of Lords, has ordered extra security for the event.

The House of Lords event is hosted by Lord Malcolm Pearson of Rannoch, a UKIP Peer with a special interest in the European Union, Islamism and education. It will be chaired by Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury, a crossbench Peer and a human rights campaigner with a strong commitment to humanitarian aid and education; she is the founder of The International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction.

In the press release issued this morning, Lord Pearson writes:

Depite threats of demonstration from a British Peer and Muslim community leaders, the meeting will go ahead. Wilders’ film Fitna features verses from the Quran alongside images of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001, Madrid in March 2004 and London in July 2005. The film equates Islam’s holy text with violence and ends with a call to Muslims to remove ‘hate preaching’ verses from the Quran. It provoked protests in Muslim-majority countries including Indonesia and Pakistan.

The leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Wilders has lived under 24 hour police protection since 2004. Following Fitna’s release online in March 2008 al-Qaeda issued a fatwa calling for Wilders’ murder.

Wilders currently faces prosecution in Holland for incitement to hatred and discrimination. The charges are based on his film Fitna and comments in the Dutch press last year in which he argued that as Mein Kampf has been banned in Holland, the Quran should similarly be banned under Dutch incitement laws.

Wilders called the Dutch Court of Appeal’s decision to prosecute an attack on freedom of expression. “Participation in the public debate has become a dangerous activity. If you give your opinion, you risk being prosecuted,” he said.

It seems that in Britain the public debate has already been smothered to the extent that a democratically elected politician from another EU country is not allowed to come to Britain to adress a private meeting with British politicians in the Palace of Westminster.

The British letter to Geert Wilders:

Dear Mr Wilders

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the Secretary of State is of the view that your presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society. The Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere, would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.

You are advised that should you travel to the UK and seek admission an Immigration Officer will take into account the Secretary of State’s view. If, in accordance with regulation 21 of the immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006, the Immigration Officer is statisfied that your exclusion is justified on grounds of public policy and/or public security, you will be refused admission to the UK under regulation 19. You would have a right of appeal against any refusal of admission, exercisable from outside the UK.

Yours sincerely,

Irving N. Jones

On behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department

..

GM and Chrysler could finally sink Ford

Words to fear: "We're from the Federal government and we're here to help you."

From BloggingStocks.com

Posted Feb 9th 2009 4:07AM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM)

Ford (NYSE: F) could be moving closer to Chapter 11, and it is not because its financial situation has become more critical. It turns out the the federal government may be closer to putting GM (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler into Chapter 11.

According to Bloomberg, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC may have to be forced into bankruptcy by the U.S. government to assure repayment of $17.4 billion in federal bailout loans, which the automakers claim would destroy them.

Chapter 11 filings at GM and Chrysler would almost certainly cause a large number of auto parts suppliers to go under as a bankruptcy court would probably only give them a portion of what they are owed by the two car companies. The court might even void their deals with the firms and force renegotiations.

The one thing Ford cannot afford to face is a collapse of its supply chain because many of the firms that sell it components have been wiped out. For a month or two, there could be little effect because Ford has excess car inventory. After that Ford would be faced with severe difficulties getting out vehicles, crippling its sales. It would still have most of its expenses. The resulting losses would be too much for its to bear.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Senate Passes $838 Billion Economic Stimulus Bill

The question remaining is "will the package be unimaginably huge or just extraordinarily huge." There is no more debate about the wisdom of the package. The only debate remaining is which special interest group that will owe future political favors will be left out.

From the Washington Post

By William Branigin and Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 10, 2009; 3:35 PM

The Senate today passed an economic stimulus bill that President Obama and congressional Democrats called crucial to pull the U.S. economy out of its downward spiral but that drew scant support from Republicans.

This Story

Senators voted 61 to 37 to approve the massive bill, which the Congressional Budget Office now says would cost $838 billion over 10 years. Only three Republicans voted in favor of it. In the House, an $819 billion version of the package passed Jan. 28 with no Republican support.

The Senate vote came as Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced a vast new rescue plan for the financial sector. Stocks plunged following the unveiling of the program to use $1.5 trillion or more in public and private funds to bail out banks and financial institutions and thaw frozen credit markets. The plan would create a $500 billion fund to buy up toxic bank assets such as bad real estate loans and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto and commercial loans.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 383 points in afternoon trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plummeted 63 points, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 43 points.

A procedural vote in the Senate yesterday cleared the way for final passage today. In that 61-36 vote, the same three moderate Republicans senators -- Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- broke with their party leaders and supported the legislation.

The three joined all 56 Democrats and two independents in voting for the bill today. One Republican senator, Judd Gregg (N.H.), who has been nominated by Obama to be the new commerce secretary, did not vote.

The package now heads to a House-Senate conference to resolve differences between the two versions. Obama, who hopes to sign the resulting bill into law before Presidents' Day on Monday, has publicly encouraged negotiators in recent days to restore some education provisions that were stripped from the Senate version to reduce its overall cost.

Obama continued lobbying for the bill today on a visit to Fort Myers, Fla., which had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation last year.

As he was speaking at a town hall meeting, he was handed a note from press secretary Robert Gibbs informing him of the Senate vote, and he announced the news to the crowd, sparking loud applause.

"That's good news," Obama said. "It's a good start."

The president was introduced in Fort Myers by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, one of the few Republicans backing the stimulus plan. Crist, bucking complaints from conservatives who say the plan costs too much and does not include enough tax cuts, praised Obama yesterday for continuing to "work hard to reignite the U.S. economy."

In a speech before taking questions at the Fort Myers meeting, Obama said Crist and other governors and mayors across the country share his conviction that creating jobs and rescuing the economy transcend party affiliation.

Obama, speaking a day after a similar appearance in Elkhart, Ind., said the stimulus plan "will save or create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years, ignite spending by business and consumers alike and make the investments necessary for lasting economic growth and prosperity."

He said the package "includes $1,000 of badly needed tax relief for middle-class workers and families," as well as "a partially refundable $2,500-per-student tax credit" to help families send their children to college.

"Most importantly," Obama said, "this plan will put people to work right now by making direct investments in areas like health care, energy, education and infrastructure -- investments that save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses and help our economy grow again."

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said after today's vote that House and Senate conferees would start working immediately to resolve differences. "I think the differences really are fairly minor," he said. "I think we can get most of our work done in the next 24 hours."

Reid said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Obama early this morning and heard his views on what should be in the final bill. "His differences with the bill we have here are very, very minimal," the Senate Democratic leader said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters after the vote that the legislation could cause government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product to rise from about 21 percent in 2008 to nearly 40 percent in 2010, similar to levels in Europe.

"This paints a picture of the Europeanization of America," he said.

In debate before today's vote, McConnell sought to distance the legislation from Obama, who is riding a wave of post-inauguration popularity. He said Republicans had expected Obama to be the author of the stimulus plan. Instead, "it ended up being written by some of the longest-serving Democrats in the House of Representatives, and it showed," McConnell said.

He charged that "Senate Democrats produced a bill that fell so far short" that an eventual compromise "wasn't much better than the original House or Senate bills." Even more worrisome to Republicans than the bill's spending provisions, he said, was "the permanent expansion of government programs" it entails.

"The president was right to call for a stimulus, but this bill misses the mark," McConnell said. "It's full of waste. We have no assurance it will create jobs or revive the economy. The only thing we know for sure is that it increases our debt and locks in bigger and bigger interest payments every single year. In short, we're taking an enormous risk -- an enormous risk -- with other people's money. On behalf of taxpayers, I won't take that risk."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), speaking on behalf of the bill, said that although the nation is edging into a "recessionary spiral downward" that could become a depression, "the other side is still adamantly sticking to policies that don't work."

He said that Democrats "bent over backward" to accommodate GOP views but that they were "drawing the line at continuing the very policies" that led to the current crisis. He also pointed out that the two largest amendments to the bill were added by Republicans: a $36 billion homebuyers' tax credit promoted by Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.) and a $70 billion patch to the alternative minimum tax authored by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa). Yet neither senator voted for the overall bill, Schumer said.

In addition, he said, "lots of the little porky things" that Republicans objected to in the bill have been removed. These items, such as funding to spruce up the Mall, were "excuses," since their removal still did not attract GOP votes, he said.

"The sad fact . . . is that unless the bill is all tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, and has almost no spending, the other side will never vote for it," Schumer said. He vowed, "We will not be diverted. . . . We will not sacrifice the focus of this bill -- jobs, tax cuts for the middle class and infrastructure -- for anything."

Shear reported from Fort Myers, Fla.

• Senate Passes Economic Stimulus Bill
• Capitol Briefing: A Difficult Stimulus Conference Ahead
• The Sleuth: Sen. Schumer: Americans Don't Care About 'Porky' Amendments
• 44: Obama Moves the Spotlight to Florida
• Virginia Seeks Stimulus Input From Public
• Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 1 p.m. ET: Opinion Focus with Eugene Robinson
• The Fix: Obama and the Town Hall Effect
• Votes Database: See How Your Senator Voted

• 
  

Holbrooke Says Afghan War ‘Tougher Than Iraq’

It looks as if President Obama has sent out another "look at the mess I inherited" envoy so that he can take credit for any military successes past and future. This is the same President Obama that claimed all was lost in Iraq and that the Surge was a failure and we should abandon ship because it was too hard and everything was lost to al Qaeda anyway. Of course, that was before the recent elections in Iraq and the message sent to the U.S. that we could take our troops back if we absolutely had to and things would be fine in Iraq without us.

This is also the same President Obama that was going to send troops into Pakistan regardless of what the Pakistani government might have to say. So why is he so concerned about Afghanistan which received no Democratic Party attention and where far fewer American troops were holding down the fort quite well.

This is the "I'll bring the troops home" President Obama who can't decide whether he is Chicken Little or Chicken Hawk.

From The New York Times
By NICHOLAS KULISH and HELENE COOPER

Published: February 8, 2009

MUNICH — The war in Afghanistan will be “much tougher than Iraq,” President Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan said at a security conference here on Sunday.

Kai Moerk/Munich Conference on Security, via European Pressphoto Agency

Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, left, with Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Sunday.

“There is no magic formula in Afghanistan,” the envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, warned an audience of European policy makers and military planners. “There is no Dayton agreement in Afghanistan,” he added, referring to the peace accord he negotiated to end the war in Bosnia. “It’s going to be a long, difficult struggle.”

Mr. Holbrooke was part of a high-level American delegation at the annual Munich Security Conference over the weekend. The group, led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and including Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, did not paint a rosy picture of the situation in Afghanistan.

The American view of Afghanistan’s problems differed from that of the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, who also spoke Sunday.

While Mr. Karzai acknowledged the security problems, he said that great progress had been made, from roads to schools to health services. In an address that at times sounded defensive, he said Afghanistan was neither a “narco-state” nor a “failed state,” as critics have labeled it.

Mr. Karzai called again for reconciliation with Taliban forces “who are not part of Al Qaeda, who are not part of terrorist networks, who want to return to their country.” He also criticized NATO over the number of civilian casualties it has caused in the course of battling the insurgency.

American officials at the conference questioned the gap between Mr. Karzai’s presentation of reality and what they see as the facts on the ground. The pervasive corruption in the country is viewed as a central reason that the Afghan leader has fallen out of favor with the Obama administration. Mr. Karzai faces an election in August.

General Petraeus’s comments, on the other hand, were greatly anticipated as the final day of the conference got under way. He is widely credited for the improved security situation in Iraq, where he was the senior commander during the troop increase known as the surge. Expectations are running high that he can repeat the success of that strategy in Afghanistan.

General Petraeus spoke of the need for outposts and patrol bases in the provinces. “You can’t commute to work” when conducting counterinsurgency operations, he said Sunday. “A nuanced appreciation of local situations is essential” to understanding “the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history,” he said.

“There has been nothing easy about Afghanistan,” said General Petraeus, adding that he “would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide” ahead of the elections in August. He said needs included not only ground forces but also an array of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, military police officers, special operations, cargo and attack helicopters and more. Mr. Obama is planning to send as many as 30,000 additional troops to try to turn the tide in the war against insurgents.

Some NATO allies have been slow to contribute additional forces.

In his comments, General Jones was critical of the effort to stabilize the country thus far. “The international coordination was spotty at best,” he said. “We tended to focus too much on the military reconstruction part, which was important but not the only thing that should have been done.”

The Americans were not alone in their calls for a more robust effort. Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland, called Afghanistan a test for NATO, and emphasized that the security situation had to improve immediately. “If this year we don’t turn the tide, it’s going to be much harder later on,” he said.

Britain’s defense secretary, John Hutton, made what may have been the harshest comments directed at the alliance’s prosecution of the war, accusing NATO of an obsession with bureaucracy. “What I want from NATO is more of a wartime mentality,” he said.

In an interview on Saturday, Vice President Biden expressed sympathy for Mr. Karzai for the challenges he faces in governing Afghanistan. “Karzai has an incredibly difficult job,” he said.

“Do I think — me speaking, Joe Biden — think he could do more? Yes. Do I understand why from his perspective he might think he couldn’t do more? Yes. Does there ultimately over the next year have to be a change in appointing strong governors? Having a police force that is free of corruption? Cracking down more on the corruption within his own government? The answer is yes. Yes, all of the above has to occur.”

In Geithner's Overhaul, Aggressive Use of All Available Tools Expected

This may be a little "iffy," but just in case the stimulus plan is set up to directly stimulate me, I plan to send the Treasury Department my bank account number and routing number so that they can just direct deposit any stray decimal point values from the $800+ billion ready to gush out of the pipeline.

By Neil Irwin and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 8, 2009; 1:35 PM

The nation's top economic policymakers were putting the finishing touches this weekend on a financial rescue plan that will deploy hundreds of billions of dollars to spur the flow of credit to consumers and businesses.

The Obama administration aims to ease the financial crisis through a series of steps -- including a program to insure banks against extreme losses on mortgages, a new round of investments in banks, help for homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and the broadening of a Federal Reserve program to directly prop up lending.

The plan amounts to an overhaul of the financial rescue undertaken by the Bush administration. It was scheduled to be announced Monday, but the administration delayed the unveiling until Tuesday so it could maintain focus on getting the stimulus package approved by Congress, Treasury Department spokesman Isaac Baker said.

The plan reflects Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's philosophy of how governments should respond to financial crises. He favors aggressive use of all available tools, both to deal directly with the massive losses in the financial sector and to bolster confidence in the future. Too little government response during a severe crisis poses a greater risk than too much response, he said at his confirmation hearing.

"There's a sense that there have been too many false starts and changes of direction," said Martin Neil Baily, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration. "We need a bold and sweeping comprehensive framework that will get us through this, keeping in mind it won't turn the recession around immediately."

This weekend, Treasury officials huddled in conference rooms, working through details, as did their counterparts at the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and at other financial regulators, all of whom are likely to play a role in the rescue. Many of the details of what Geithner will announce remained in flux, although the broad outlines were becoming clear.

Some of the policies he plans to announce are continuations of ideas developed under former Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson, though with new twists.

For example, there are likely to be new government investments in banks. But so far, the investments have come in the form of "perpetual preferred" stock, and the government has extracted no real control over how banks run themselves or what they do with the money.

The new approach is likely to make the investments convertible into common stock after some fixed period of time, perhaps seven years. If the banks are unable to raise private capital in that span, the government would receive more explicit control.

Moreover, banks receiving investments will have to report to the government and to the public, and the government is likely to insist that the new capital be used to expand lending. "Public assistance is a privilege, not a right," Geithner Saturday told House Democrats at a closed-door meeting in Williamsburg, Va., according to Democratic sources.

Geithner and his team have been trying to find a way to resuscitate the original idea of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which Congress passed Oct. 3. Paulson pitched the plan to Congress as a program tobuy troubled assets off of banks' books, then changed direction and invested the money in the banks instead.

Christina D. Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned that if a large stimulus plan were not enacted, it would have a "catastrophic" impact on the economy. "I feel very strongly it's in our hands, that if we can get this package through, we can turn it around and be back on the road to growth," Romer said on CBS.

"The center of this stimulus bill is massive, unaccountable government spending, and the American people are tired of it," countered Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) on NBC.

Administration officials have emphasized that the economy needs both the stimulus package, which is aimed at creating millions of jobs and reviving consumer spending, and the financial system rescue plan, which is supposed to loosen the credit markets that provide the loans for homes, cars and businesses.

The rescue plan will lay out how the government plans to spend the second half of the $700 billion approved by Congress in October. It will attack the core issue facing banks: the toxic assets backed by failing mortgages and other loans that are weighing down their balance sheets and freezing up the lending markets. The administration will aim a one-two punch at this problem by insuring the losses on some of the bad assets while providing incentives for private investors to buy others, sources in contact with the administration said.

The rescue package is also expected to expand a Federal Reserve program to aid the trading of assets that finance the commercial real estate and residential mortgage markets. In addition, it will lay out a way for the government to invest in banks through bonds or preferred shares that could eventually give the government partial ownership if the banks don't pay back the aid. Administration officials are expected to detail clear guidelines for how financial firms can get this money, as well as how the government will expand oversight.

But the administration is not as far along on the part of the rescue plan that would spend $50 billion to $100 billion to help homeowners and may reveal only the broad outlines of that Tuesday.

One idea being considered is to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set standards for how and when lenders should modify loans for homeowners facing foreclosure, two industry sources familiar with the matter said. These sources cautioned, however, that the plan was highly fluid.

Staff writers Zachary A. Goldfarb, Renae Merle, Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray contributed to this report.

U.S. government lab, 14 firms team up on lithium battery

Many sources have written about the looming problem with lithium-based batteries: sources for most of the world's supply are potentially unstable or unfriendly to the U.S. This includes socialist-leaning Bolivia which has been touted as the Saudi Arabia of lithium. Chile is another likely supplier with a checkered past.

It is estimated that the United States has approximately 760,000 tons of lithium. The resources in the rest of the world are estimated to be 12 million tons. The United States is the world’s leading consumer of lithium and lithium compounds. The leading producers and exporters of lithium ore materials are Chile and Argentina. China and Russia have lithium ore resources, but it is presently cheaper for these countries to import this material from Chile than to mine their own. [source]

But the U.S. government is so intent on gaining independence from foreign oil [a dependence in considerable part self-inflicted by restricting domestic drilling], that it fails to see another political obstacle in the way of energy independence. There are U.S. deposits in Nevada and those will certainly make some government-industrial complex wealthy at the expense of consumers who will be held hostage by "global warming."

It's time to look beyond lithium batteries to a really advanced battery that offers range and durability... and can be manufactured from ready, reliable sources of materials. Toyota is.

Perhaps the U.S. Government-General Motors complex should be pursuing that as well. But instead....

Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:08pm GMT

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Aiming to mass-produce a lithium battery for vehicles, 14 U.S. companies with expertise in batteries and advanced materials have formed an alliance with a government laboratory, the lab said on Thursday.

The alliance, which includes battery industry giants such as 3M Co and Johnson Controls-Saft, intends to secure $1 billion to $2 billion in U.S. government funding over the next five years to build a manufacturing facility with an "open foundry" for the participants to pursue the goal of perfecting lithium-ion batteries for cars.

"It's a huge deal for the nation, and for the lab," said Mark Peters, who is in charge of transportation and battery research at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, which will advise the group.

China, Japan and South Korea are the current leaders in lithium battery research, he said in a telephone interview.

"A small, fragmented (U.S.) battery industry will not long survive in the face of determined Asian competition," Ralph Brodd, a consultant to battery manufacturers, said in a statement released by Argonne.

"(Other) countries understand that he who makes the batteries will one day make the cars," he said.

The best-selling hybrid vehicles such as Toyota Motor Corp's Prius use a nickel metal hydride battery. Lithium batteries are widely considered to be the next technological leap forward for electric-powered vehicles, as they can be recharged in a wall socket like a computer battery.

The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture was modeled after SEMATECH, the successful public-private venture created in the late 1980s to restore U.S. prominence in computer semiconductor technology.

Besides Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, a joint venture of Johnson Controls Inc and France's Saft Groupe SA, and 3M Co, the founding members of the battery alliance are ActaCell, All Cell Technologies, Altair Nanotechnologies Inc, Eagle Picher Industries Inc, EnerSys, Envia Systems, FMC Corp, MicroSun Technologies, Mobius Power, SiLyte, Superior Graphite, and Townsend Advanced Energy.

In addition to an advisory role for Argonne, U.S. truck and auto makers will be asked to join the alliance's advisory board, said James Greenberger, an attorney who was instrumental in assembling the group.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Obama Caps Executive Pay, Pokes CEOs

This strategy presumes that CEOs have no alternative but to accept this restriction; an assumption that may prove erroneous and harmful to the corporations involved. The idea is to induce a long-term executive commitment to the corporations receiving such "extraordinary" aid... presumably any bank/financial institution receiving "bailout" funds and to corporations such as GM and Chrysler that have gotten TARP assistance.

The accounting is to be handled by the IRS which presumably means there will be no consequences as long as the corporations just make a "mistake" and overpay the executives.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 12:30 PM

NATIONAL JOURNAL

By DAVID HERBERT

President Obama torched Wall Street executives during a morning press conference to announce that firms receiving "extraordinary" federal aid must limit CEO pay at $500,000 a year.

"We all need to take responsibility," said Obama, who was flanked by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "And this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses. As I said last week, that's the height of irresponsibility. It's shameful."

The new Treasury Department guidelines cap executive pay at $500,000 a year for financial firms receiving "exceptional assistance" (as opposed to more widely available capital access programs). Any amount beyond that must be made in restricted stock options that can be cashed in only after the government has been paid back.

Obama also used the press conference to make another pitch for his stimulus package, which hasn't won over a critical mass of lawmakers. The plan as it stands now is not perfect, he admitted, "but let's not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let's show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task."

Seventy-five percent of Americans favor passing a package in some form, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, but 54 percent either want to make changes or reject it entirely.

Obama On Daschle: "I Messed Up"

Picking your Cabinet is like a practice before the real game starts. No one is opposing you and you have plenty of time between plays. It's not like dealing with foreign or domestic crises where you might be able to anticipate what's coming, but more often than not you have to make quick decisions that can impact the outcome.

But somehow President Obama has rimshot three free throws without the opposing fans waving behind the basket. No distractions; just make a good play. Geithner... oops; Kellifer... oops; Daschle... clank! That's not even counting Bill Richardson, Obama's first choice for Secretary of the Treasury, who removed himself because of a Grand Jury investigation into how New Mexico state contracts were awarded to political donors.

The game hasn't even started and Obama can't get into rhythm. He sure talked a good game....

From CBS [note: the video is an edited interview leaving out some juicy sound bites]:

.

Pres. Obama On Daschle Flop

During his second week in the Oval Office, Pres. Barack Obama speaks with Katie Couric about his economic stimulus package and the Tom Daschle tax debacle.

(CBS) President Obama had hoped to focus today on his economic stimulus package Tuesday, and he invited a handful of journalists to the White House to talk about it. But it was all overshadowed by former Sen. Tom Daschle's withdrawing his nomination for Health and Human Services secretary. What follows is a full transcript of CBS News anchor Katie Couric's interview with the president.

---

Katie Couric: Mr. President, I wanted to start by asking you: Tom Daschle withdrew his name this afternoon, you issued a statement saying, quote, you accept his decision with "sadness and regret." Did you try to talk him out of it?

President Barack Obama: Well, you know we had a conversation and obviously that conversation's private, but, uh, it's frustrating for me and it's something that I take responsibility for. Tom, I think, is an outstanding individual. I am absolutely convinced that he would've been the best person to help shepherd through what's going to be a very difficult process to get health care for American families.

But as he said yesterday, he made a mistake and a pretty big one when it came to these taxes. He didn't offer excuses and I don't think there is an excuse and what became apparent was that not only could this be a distraction, but I don't want my administration to be sending a message that there are two sets of rules: one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes everyday. I think that we're going to move forward, learn from our mistakes. I will learn from mine and we still have this pressing problem of millions of people who are either losing their health care or can't afford the health care they've got and … I'm going to make sure we get a team in place to solve that problem.

Couric: Questions have been raised about a number of your choices. Bill Richardson, Tim Geithner, now Tom Daschle. Then less than two hours before Tom Daschle bowed out, your pick for chief performance officer and deputy director of OMB dropped out because of her personal tax issues. Is there something wrong with your vetting process?

Obama: Well, I, you know, don't think there's something wrong with the vetting process. I think that what happened, certainly, let's just take Tom as an example. I made a judgment that he was the best person possible for the job. I was very eager to make sure that we can deliver on a commitment that I have to deliver healthcare for the American people. I think I messed up. I screwed up in not recognizing the perception that even though this is an honest mistake, I believe, on Tom's part, that, you know, ordinary people are out there paying taxes every day and whether it's an intentional mistake or not, it was sending the wrong signal. So again, this was something that was my fault. I continue to consider Tom Daschle an outstanding public servant, uh, and what we're going to do now is make sure we get somebody confirmed and start moving forward.

Couric: Meanwhile, a former lobbyist for the defense contracting firm Raytheon is slated to be the No. 2 person at the Pentagon. During the course of the campaign, you spoke passionately about ethics reform and against lobbyists. So what happened? It gives people the impression you talk the talk during the campaign, but now you're in office and you're not walking the walk.

Obama: On this one … I'll disagree. Oon the other one, I think we screwed up. On this one, we've got the highest lobbyist … standards in terms of former lobbyists or people who want to influence the government being involved in our administration - the highest standard that's ever been set up. And I'm appointing thousands of people. Now, what I said in appointing Mr. Lynn was that this … along with maybe a handful, maybe three or four positions, may end up being so unique that we are going to make an exception.

That doesn't obviate the fact that we are setting a standard that no other president has ever met. And it's the right standard. So, again, I've got thousands of appointments here. In this particular job, what we have to have is somebody who understands the procurement process, by statute has to understand not only government, but also how industry operates, and so we made one exception. But that does not negate the over-arching approach that we're taking on this thing which no other administration's ever taken.

Couric: You don't think it's a slippery slope...

Obama: No, I...

Couric: You make one exception. One, two, three, four, five, multiple?

Obama: No, I think when you have thousands of people that you're appointing, as long as we disclose it. We're upfront which is exactly what we did, I mean, I came out and said we're making an exception here, so people didn't discover it. We weren't trying to sneak anything by anybody. I think the American people understand that we are moving in a new direction. It's not going to be perfect. There are going to be bumps and fits and starts on this thing. But as long as I stay focused on them and putting them back to work, making sure that they have health insurance, making sure their kids can afford college, cleaning up attitudes around here, including making sure that when I screw up that I'm taking responsibility for it. I think that people will feel that three or four or five years down the road that you know we set a new course.

Couric: Lets talk about the stimulus package, which I think is what you really wanted to focus on today.

Obama: Right. Well, this is the problem when you make these self-inflicted wounds, you end up being distracted really from the people's business.

Couric You met last night here at the White House with the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate. And word has it you were pretty blunt with them. What did you tell them?

Obama Well here's what I said: We have to act. We have to act now. We have to act in a way that is responsible and we have to make sure that our overarching focus is on putting people back to work. Marking sure small businesses can stay open. And the package that passed out of the House I think in a lot of ways has been unfairly maligned. If you look at the overarching package, it's got no earmarks in it.

That's something that not even the current critics can say about budgets they had passed over the last 8 years. Most of the money is either going directly to families in the form of unemployment insurance or making sure that they've got health insurance if they've lost their job. Or it's designed to spark the economy by creating jobs in green technologies, in health care - making sure that we've got information technology system that drives down costs, that we're going to be training thousands of teachers across the country in math and science and investing in science and technology.

So, what's happened, and this is what tends to happen in this town is people have plucked out this program or that program that doesn't look particularly simulative, the contraceptives issue being a primary example. If you add all that stuff up, it accounts from less than 1 percent of the overall package. Now that doesn't mean that the package can't improve and that's what I said to the leadership last night, "Let's improve it. Let's make this a package that is big enough for the moment, and is really focused on the American people." But I also wanna make sure that people don't get some notion which I think has been systematically promoted out there that this is full of silly spending 'cause it's not.

Couric: Sen. Mitch McConnell said over the weekend that surely you're privately embarrassed by some of the product that came out of the house version and let me just mention some of the spending in this package: $6.2 billion for home weatherization, $100 million for children to learn green construction, $50 million for port modernization water and wastewater infrastructure needs in Guam, $50 million for the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts. Even if some of these are a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars, Mr. President, why are they included in this bill designed to jumpstart the economy and create jobs right now?

Obama: Lets take that example. I'm stunned that Mitch McConnell use this as an example.

Couric: We actually got these examples, so you can't necessarily blame him

Obama: Well, let's think about it. We're going to weatherize homes, that immediately puts people back to work and we're going to train people who are out of work, including young people, to do the weatherization. As a consequence of weatherization, our energy bills go down and we reduce our dependence on foreign oil. What would be a more effective stimulus package than that? I mean, you're getting a threefer. Not only are you immediately putting people back to work but you're also saving families on your energy bills and you're laying the groundwork for long term energy independence. That's exactly the kind of program that we should be funding.

Now, I think a more legitimate criticism that some people have leveled is while not all this money is going to be spending out right away. We're trying to balance the need for quick spending with the need for laying the groundwork for long term economic growth. And in some cases, some of the major energy plans or projects we have, some of the infrastructure projects that we have that are out there it may take three or four years to get all the money spent as opposed to the first year or two. now 75 percent of the money is spent in the first two years, 25 percent will be spent a little bit after that, that's where there are areas that we could potentially improve it and if Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid or anybody has a better idea of how to do it I'm happy to accept those ideas.

Couric: One of your biggest supporters, Claire McCaskill said quote all democrats did was tee up ammunition for the other side to tear this thing down. Do you blame some of your fellow Democrats for at least giving the impression that this has been loaded up with too many partisan pet projects and conversely how do you reach out to Republicans and give them what they need to be satisfied so this thing can get passed?

Obama: Well, first of all, many of the projects that people have pointed out as partisan pet projects are actually pretty good policy. They may just not belong in this bill so I don't want to cast doubt on the intentions of a lot of my democratic colleagues here. The contraception bill that people have talked about, well, that's not "stimulus," well it probably save us money and is probably good public policy. But I think it may be harder to argue that it's going to create jobs.

But what I'd say to the Republicans is the same thing I would say to the Democrats and that is "we have an urgent situation right now." This is an extraordinary time. I think the American people because they're feeling it day-to-day. Understand this, I'm not sure that Washington does at times - we're still getting our paychecks, we're not being laid off. But you go out into any city or town in America right now and they are scared. So what I would say is let's try to make sure we stay focused on solving the problem and we've got to act relatively quickly. I don't know a single economist out there who thinks that it makes for us to delay another two or three or four months to get this thing done. I will cooperate with people. I already gave significant concessions in the original design of the bill. You'll recall that many of my Republican colleagues complimented me and said they are pleasantly surprised by the number of tax cuts that were in there. Things that they support. I suppose that I could have left them out of initial framework so that now I could offer them up those aren't the games I want to play. I just want to get the job done and put people back to work.

Couric: You campaigned to change the culture in Washington, to change the politics as usual culture here. Are you frustrated do you think it is much, much harder to do that than you ever anticipated?

Obama: Well, first of all I never thought it was easy. Change is hard. Just like changing how campaigns were run is hard. We didn't do that overnight. If you recall my campaign for president, we had a lot of fits and starts. I wasn't the best candidate, and, you know, we made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, and over time we stayed focused on being true to our central message, which was that the American people deserve a better government.

That passion has not changed. And we're going to make some mistakes. I'm going to screw up sometimes, there are people here who are well intentioned but disagree with me philosophically, or have just fallen into old habits that need to be broken. And its not going to happen overnight, but I'm confident that if we just stay on the course if we stay focused on what's good for the American people that ultimately we're going to be able to deliver. I'm here not to just occupy space. This is a nice office. But we are making everybody who is involved in this are making policy based on what we think is going to be best for the American people and as long as I think we're doing that we'll have a good outcome.

Obama Pick for Oversight Role Pulls Out Over Tax Issue

You just can't keep making this up. It appears that there is something in the Democratic Party gene pool that simply forces this type of behavior. Perhaps there is a flaw in the "ethical gene" that creates a "Robin Hood" attitude: "I'll take from the rich and give to the poor, but don't ask me for any of my money."

From The New York Times:

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 3, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.

Killefer was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after President Barack Obama announced their selection.

"Nancy Killefer has decided to withdraw her nomination, and we accepted her withdrawal," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday. The 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., was expected to explain her reasons for pulling out later in the day.

When her selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.

Since then, administration officials refused to answer questions about the tax error, which she resolved five months after the lien was filed. Obama's first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.

More recently, Timothy Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary despite belatedly paying $34,000 in income taxes, and Tom Daschle is still waiting to see if his late payment of more than $128,000 in income taxes will harm his nomination to be health and human services secretary.

On paper, Killefer brought impressive credentials to the two jobs Obama selected her for: deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which requires Senate confirmation, and a new White House post, chief performance officer for the entire federal government, which does not require confirmation.

Killefer oversees McKinsey's management consulting for government clients. During 1997-2000 in the Clinton administration, Killefer was assistant Treasury secretary for management. As such she was the chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the Treasury and its 160,000 employees and led a modernization of its largest component, the Internal Revenue Service.

But for nearly a month, the administration had refused to answer how its choice to make government workers more efficient and more responsive had bungled her household payroll taxes.

The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.

That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties. The lien was filed March 7, 2005, but Killefer didn't get the lien extinguished for almost five months, not until July 29.

During that period, Killefer and her husband, an economics professor, had a teenage son and daughter, but she had two nannies and a personal assistant to run her life when she was on the road, she told Harvard business students back then.

Daschle Got Millions Lobbying Health Biz

While Obama castigates Wall Street executives for feeding at the trough, he has already lined up his band of tax evaders and lobbyists to help him gorge at the political trough.  Obama has disproven the old saying that "to the victor go the spoils."  More appropriate is "from the victor comes the spoiling."

This nation is on the verge of witnessing a stripping of wealth on behalf of the special interests that only occurred recently in history... when the former Soviet Union collapsed and its leaders and KGB operatives suddenly became "owners" of vast resources and heads of new "companies."

If you thought that the bone thrown to ACORN was outrageous, wait until you see what comes out of the stimulus package.

Via Sweetness and Light:

Daschle Got Millions Lobbying Health Biz

Some honest to goodness investigative reporting from Politico:

Daschle made $5m; health groups paid $220k

Daschle made $5m in last 2 years

By: Kenneth P. Vogel 
January 30, 2009

Tom Daschle, under fire for not paying taxes, made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show.

Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who President Obama has tapped to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, was paid $220,000 to give speeches to outfits that have a vested interest in the result the work he would do once confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services…

For instance, the Health Industry Distributors Association plunked down $14,000 to land the former Senate Democratic Leader in March 2008. The association, which represents medical products distributors, boasts on its website that Daschle met with it after he was nominated to discuss “the impact an Obama administration will have on the industry.”

This week, the group began openly lobbying him, sending him a letter urging him to rescind a rule requiring competitive bidding of Medicare contracts

Another organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama’s plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.

There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before healthcare groups.

The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.

That includes more than $2 million in consulting fees from InterMedia Advisors, a private equity firm…

He also became an adviser to the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird, which paid him $2.1 million in wages last year and also provided him a 401k and profit sharing plan worth between $100,000 and $250,000, according to the report.

In his three years at the firm, it’s earned more than $16 million lobbying on behalf of some of the health care industry’s most powerful interests before the department he’s in line to lead. Though Daschle, himself, did not register to lobby for the firm, he has advised the firm’s clients on health care issues, according to the firm’s website.

His disclosure indicates he provided “policy advice” to such clients as United Health, AT&T and the politically connected consulting shop Glover Park Group.

After leaving the Senate, Daschle also landed a host of lucrative board spots, including with the energy giant BP Corporation, which paid him $250,000 in fees, developer CB Richard Ellis, which paid $121,000, and ethanol processor Mascoma Corporation, which paid him $75,000, according to the disclosure.

It shows that Daschle has hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks and options from CB Richard Ellis and Mascoma, though he indicated he forfeited his unvested stock options and wrote that “if confirmed, I will divest my vested stock options with CB Richard Ellis.”

He reported owning homes worth as much as $250,000 each in Aberdeen, S.D. and Altus, Okla. with his wife, a high-powered lobbyist for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz…

Funny how all of this kind of news always comes out on the weekends, isn’t it?

Of course it really should be no surprise, coming from Mr. Daschle, who is as sleazy as they come.

But what does Mr. Daschle know about anything that would justify his receiving millions of dollars in “consulting fees”?

Aren’t these the kinds of excessive remunerations that Mr. Obama has so publically denounced of late?

And hasn’t the Anointed One also denounced lobbyists and declared he would have nothing to do with them in his administration?

Moreover, why does Mr. Daschle even want another government job? Hasn’t he stolen enough?

Shouldn’t there be some limits?

Life after ice storm dire, getting worse in spots

Imagine if this was happening under President Bush's administration. Calls for impeachment! Heartless Republicans! But this has no possible connection to the official belief of Global Warming, so it can be ignore... especially by a Democratic Party administration that always sticks up for the "little guy." If there were a real problem, Obama would have made a speech about it somewhere.

From YAHOO NEWS

By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 30, 8:59 pm ET

MARION, Ky. – In some parts of rural Kentucky, they're getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek. There's not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor. The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.

At least 42 people have died, including 11 in Kentucky, and conditions are worsening in many places days after an ice storm knocked out power to 1.3 million customers from the Plains to the East Coast. About a million people were still without electric Friday, and with no hope that the lights will come back on soon, small communities are frantically struggling to help their residents.

One county put it bluntly: It can't.

"We're asking people to pack a suitcase and head south and find a motel if they have the means, because we can't service everybody in our shelter," said Crittenden County Judge-Executive Fred Brown, who oversees about 9,000 people, many of whom are sleeping in the town's elementary school.

Local officials were growing angry with what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.

"We've got people out in some areas we haven't even visited yet," Smith said. "We don't even know that they're alive."

Smith said FEMA has been a no-show so far.

"I'm not saying we can't handle it; we'll handle it," Smith said. "But it would have made life a lot easier" if FEMA had reached the county sooner, he said.

FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak said some FEMA personnel already are in Kentucky working in the state'semergency operations center and that more will be arriving in coming days. Hudak said FEMA also has shipped to 50 to 100 generators to the state to supply electricity to facilities like hospitals, nursing homes, and water treatment plants.

Hudak said travel is still dangerous in some areas and communications are limited.

"We have plenty of folks ready to go, but there are some limitations with roads closed and icy conditions," she said.

From Missouri to Ohio, thousands were bunked down in shelters, waiting for the power to return. Others are trying to tough out the power outage at home, using any means they can to get basics like drinking water, heat and food.

Lori Clarke was stuck at home in the western Kentucky town of Marion with trees blocking the road out. She trudged more than half a mile through snow and ice carrying 5-gallon buckets to bring drinking water for her horses and dogs and to flush her toilet.

"When you live out in the country, you just shift into survival mode," she said.

Even for those who wanted to leave, it wasn't possible. The one gas station in Marion that was up and running was able to supply gasoline to emergency vehicles only until another delivery of gasoline arrived Friday. Only half of that gas was made available to the public, and there was a $10 limit.

Linda Young, who is staying the town's shelter, said her car only had enough gas in it to get around Marion. Even if she had gas, there was nowhere to go — all of her relatives in other parts of Kentucky also were hit by the ice storm.

"For right now, this is the best we can do, so this is where we're at," said Young, as she sat on a mattress with her 9-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.

By midafternoon water service had been restored to the city of Marion thanks to a generator, while efforts continued to restore service to the outlying county, Police Chief Ray O'Neal said. Residents were being told to boil the water before drinking it.

Meanwhile, the death toll was rising: Since the storm began Monday, the weather is suspected in at least 11 deaths in Kentucky, nine more in Arkansas, six each in Texas and Missouri, three in Virginia, two each inOklahoma, Indiana and West Virginia and one in Ohio, with most of them blamed on hypothermia, traffic accidents and carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

Among the latest deaths reported were those of a man in his 60s, a woman in her 50s and a woman in her 40s who were found in a southwestern Louisville home Friday. The younger woman was found in bed; the other two were found in the garage, along with a generator, police spokesman Phil Russell said.

The fight to return power to Kentucky and other areas affected by the ice storm is difficult because of the sheer number of outages, but also because of the ice itself. Crews have joined the effort from around the country, but more than a half-million homes and businesses were still out in Kentucky on Friday, along with roughly 78,000 in Missouri and 284,000 in Arkansas. Thousands more were still in the dark in Ohio,Tennessee and West Virginia.

"As ice is melting, power lines and tree limbs are springing upward and hitting other power lines," said Rita Alexander, spokeswoman for Gibson Electric Membership Corp. in Tennessee. "It is just an unpleasant part of the process."

While generators were able to bring some water pumping stations back to life Friday, thousands still didn't have access to running water, and thousands more were under boil advisories. Roughly 200,000 people across Kentucky still don't have water. In Hayti, Mo., alderwoman Lisa Green said a temporary generator was in use to run the water plant, and power was being moved around to pump wastewater through the sewage system, she said.

That wasn't enough. "Our water plant is up and running, but people are inundating it," Green said. The community has received some bottled water, she said, but needs more.

A precious few had enough supplies to tough it out alone. Stephen Cates said his home was being warmed by kerosene heaters and an electric furnace powered by a generator that he waited 4 1/2 hours in line to purchase in Evansville, Ind.

He was flushing his toilet with melted snow, and could even watch TV.

"I'm living just like I have electricity, just about, eating hot food," Cates said.