Thursday, January 17, 2008
Your Morning News 1.17.08
Posted by Josh in Bernanke, Democrats, Economy, Election 2008, john mccain, Republicans, South Caronlina, White House
South Carolina politics are dirty. “How dirty?” you ask. So dirty that John McCain has been employing a “Truth Squad” to keep track of and rebut stories that are flying around. So far it has just been silly stuff like accusing him of collaborating with the enemy when he was a POW in Vietnam or saying he has voted to use unborn babies in medical research.
In 2000, Sen. McCain was on his way to the nomination and these kind of attacks, orchestrated by Karl Rove and President Bush’s campaign, sank his candidacy in South Carolina and eventually nationwide. Also in McCain-related news, the New York Times OP-Ed page has a McCain love-fest today.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the economy is not doing so hot. Now this doesn’t effect us much, since as a demographic we don’t usually own homes, we don’t have long-term savings, and we are generally broke anyway (Or is that just me?). However, even if you were thinking about worrying about it, don’t be, The United States Congress is on the case! Apparently, the parties are willing to cooperate in order to pass some kind of economic stimulus package. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said he is on board, and he has even said that it might be OK to run up the national debt even more to pay for it. I’m no big city economist, but isn’t debt of every level what’s crippling the economy now? Maybe Sen. McCain can spare his truth squad for the Congressional hearings.
The White House has been having trouble finding e-mails sent between 2001 and 2003. Many people believed that they had intentionally destroyed them, but it turns out it was nothing that nefarious, they just taped over them. I mean, sure, they are required by law to keep records of communications among the President’s advisers, but there was a totally awesome Buffy The Vampire Slayer season 3 marathon! So apparently, the White House is either trying to eliminated records of what happened during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, or it is too lazy and dumb to change a tape. Truth Squad to the rescue!
Finally, across the Pond, Scientists have somehow been given the green light to create human-animal hybrid embryos. Mankind’s days as the most dangerous game are officially numbered. I, for one, welcome our new hybrid overlords.