Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sorry I have been delinquent in the news folks, my job has been rather hectic for the last week. Rather than just ignore you all, I thought a quickly abbreviated roundup of today’s top news. Hopefully I will soon be able to return to putting the news into a little bit of context.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A lame duck congress is when Congress gavels back into session after the November elections but before the new Congress is sworn in in January. The majority of the Congress and Senate live pretty far from Washington and like to go home for the holidays, so they don’t tend to call these sessions unless there is something pretty important going on. Like, say, the collapse of the US Economy.
Democratic Congressional leaders way that they want to pass emergency legislation to aid the imperiled auto industry during the lame-duck session that begins next week. President Bush, predictably, has said that he doesn’t favor tapping the $700 billion bail out fund to help automakers. Don’t these factory workers understand that there are employees at Goldman Sachs who need to sell their second houses in the Hamptons? Thank god we have a President who looks out for the little guy.
GM plant employees are not the only one’s looking at the prospect of unemployment checks. The nation’s top two intelligence officers are not to happy about the indication that they are going to shown the door by President-elect Obama. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden today clearly leaked to the Washington Post that they want to remain in their current posts and that they feel early departures could be seen as politicizing their offices and keeping them could help stabilize the intelligence community. These are good points, but Hayden was in charge of the White House’s warrentless wiretapping program and both of them have publicly defended torture. Guys, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Unemployed autoworkers and senior intelligence officers will both but unable to afford prescription drugs. Monthly premiums for Medicare’s prescription drug coverage will increase on average 43% next year. So, uhh, don’t get sick.
You know who has had it for too easy for too long? Whales. You know, the big lazy fuckers just swimming around out there, getting in the way of our submarines, eating our krill. Thank God the Supreme Court is here to put them in their place.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Apparently no one in the Treasury Department has any friends who are habitual gamblers or drug users. If a friend asks you for money, they ALWAYS need more then they ask for and they ALWAYS end up coming back for more. Fannie Mae and AIG, both of whom received massive government loans in September, have reported billions more in losses and have requested more support to the tune of $150 billion from the Federal Government. If you give a mismanaged and hemorrhaging company a glass of milk…
Apparently, President Bush and President Elect Obama did more than just measure the drapes yesterday. The two discussed the financial crisis and Obama pressed the President to provide emergency aid to the auto industry. Hard to say where to come down on this one and you can make your own arguments. Automakers are failing now because of their own lack of foresight. However, something like one in 12 people in this country is employed by the auto industry.
NASA has officially ended a six-month mission at Mars’ north pole after they lost contact for more than a week with the Phoenix Lander. The mission was a resounding success; the lander discovered water and soil that could support life. More whimsically, Phoenix’s weather relay also discovered that it snows on Mars. The lander became famous when a NASA communications staffer set it up with a twitter account which was shot around the internet. The tweets were fun and informative (that is where NASA broke the news of water on Mars) but as the lander has powered down they just started bumming me out.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Now that the election is over, newspapers can empty out the stories that they have had on the back burner for the past few months. So what has that crazy President been up to while we have been distracted? Apparently, since 2004, The United States military has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere. Stories like this used to fill me with outrage, but now I just turn the page and read stories like: “Obama Weighs Quick Undoing of Bush Policy.”
President Elect Obama’s transition team is deciding which of the approximately 100 billion executive orders issued by Bush they are going to reverse as soon as he takes office. On the top of the list are limits on stem cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling. While they are doing that, Obama is busy measuring the drapes.
Circuit City, Statins, and the NFL after the jump
Keep reading
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I think it is emblematic of how sick everyone is of the current administration that stories about the historic nature of the election barely lasted a day before pivoting to stories about “The transition.” Every paper leads with stories about who is managing President-Elect Obama’s transition and who might be in his inner circle. Because of the financial crisis, most of the speculation is on who might be named Obama’s Treasury Secretary. Some are worried that Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s pick for Chief of Staff, will be too partisan a figure for an administration that promised to deliver change by bridging the partisan divide. If you are a Republican, you can argue that this pick demonstrates what you have been saying all along: Obama is a fraud. If you are a Democrat, you should point out that over the last 8 years bipartisanship has come to mean “Democrats doing what the Republicans want.”
Apparently, the Washington DC social set is excited that we might have a cool President again. Well, if not cool at least one who goes to bed after 9 pm.
Kenya is going a little nuts. The country, which is where President-elect Obama’s father was from, has declared today a national holiday. Kenyans have taken to calling Obama “our son” and babies being born all over the country are being named Barack and Michelle. It feels pretty good that America is cool again.
One major dark spot for liberals and progressives in Tuesday’s election was the passing of a constitutional amendment in California banning gay marriage. Proposition 8 has halted all same-sex marriages in California, though it will not revoke marriages already performed. Quotes from gay marriage opponents in the story are typically nonsensical. Look to see a reversal of this back on the ballot in a few years.
