×
- President Obama hosted a fiscal responsibility summit at the White House today to address the long-term implications of our chronic budget shortfall, and over the weekend leaked a preview of what will be in his administration's first budget, due this Thursday. In addition, Obama named former Washington Governor Gary Locke as his third Commerce secretary nominee. Congress, meanwhile, is gearing up to approve the remainder of appropriations for funding the federal government, the lion's share of which were held over from last year to avoid former President Bush's veto pen. Elana Schor takes a peek at the details and notices that Medicaid family-planning -- recently stripped from the stimulus bill -- is also missing from the $410 billion appropriations package.
- In a disappointing decision, the Obama Justice Department has determined that prisoners held in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan do not have constitutional rights, echoing the Bush administration's policy. Attorney General Eric Holder, in the meantime, is personally touring the detainee prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which the Pentagon has determined meets the Geneva standards for prisoner treatment.
- In other foreign policy news, Richard Lugar has strongly come out in favor of changing the United States' decades-backward relationship to Cuba; Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba has backed the creation of a commission to investigate the torture policy of the Bush administration; the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad has reopened under new local management; and The New York Times looks at ongoing U.S. missile strikes at militant training camps in Pakistan.
- Gallup has polled Barack Obama's approval rating at the one month mark and found a slight decrease in overall support solely accounted for by sharp dissatisfaction among conservative Republicans. Other groups actually showed a modest increase in approval.
- Congressional Democrats have begun using targeted robocalls in the districts of some House Republicans, hitting them for voting against the "largest [middle-class] tax cut in history."
- It's a good thing that only a handful of people in the world actually believe what comes out of Alan Keyes' mouth or else his allegations that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States might need to be regarded slightly less mockery. But I'm struck by how rabid he sounds in the accompanying video -- this is the conspiratorial mind at its most distilled. Not to be left out of the fun, Alabama Senator Richard Selby told a local paper, The Cullman Times, that he hasn't seen the president's birth certificate, leaving open the possibility of a decades-in-the-making conspiracy. A Selby spokesperson has said the story is a "distortion" and that the Senator believes the matter of meeting the citizenship requirement has been put to rest. The Times has said they still stand behind the story.
- Republican Senator Jim Bunning has a prognosis for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who returned to the bench today after being treated for pancreatic cancer: she'll be dead in nine months. This is just speculation, but I'm guessing Bunning was given a consult by former Senate Majority Leader Bill "responds to visual stimuli" Frist. Bunning has since apologized for the remarks.
- Weekend remainders: The House GOP's plans to hitch its fortunes to a 1994-style comeback are likely doomed for very good reasons; loyal Bushies are having a tough time in the job market (and wingnut welfare ain't what it used to be); U.S. News does its part to keep sexism alive and well in mainstream America; and the Obama administration (again) sides with Bush, this time on the use of email.
- Recommended reads: Ryan Lizza's profile of Rahm Emanuel, The Washington Post's look at low-profile Obama "fixer" Jim Messina, Ryan Grim's explanation of why Harry Reid's Senate won't let Republicans stage a real filibuster, and Scott Shane's four options for investigating the crimes of the Bush administration going forward.
--Mori Dinauer
