The UK Guardian is reporting that the “incoming administration will abandon Bush’s isolation of Islamist group (Hamas) to initiate low-level diplomacy” according to sources within the transition team.
The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency’s ostracising of the group. The State Department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.
The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive.
Congress today certified Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States. The end of our long national nightmare is near. Now we just have to figure out how to pay for eight years of largesse and fiscal irresponsibility. Odd, in this clip, how Dick didn’t give it up for Barack.
Yesterday as I headed home and entered the SF Muni/BART station at Montgomery Street Station, I was struck by the announcement over the public announcement system. The Fruitvale BART station was closed due to “civil disturbances.” Civil disturbances? In Oakland? Why? The video tells you why.
I do not watch much television and somehow this incident escaped my attention. I am not surprised that this occurred courtesy of the BART police, a pseudo-police force if there ever was one. They are woefully under-trained. This should have never happened. Better training would have prevented this.
“The opportunity calls for us in this country to invest in our children and their health and their education, and all of the — to reduce the deficit, to reduce the deficit if we had those resources.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Well, well, well, will wonders never cease? After being in a fog, and not the San Francisco kind, for the past two years, the Speaker of the House has a moment of clarity:
Pelosi told reporters today that she “couldn’t be more clear” in opposing some Obama advisers’ wish to wait for the tax cuts on the highest income earners to expire in two years, as they are set to do under current law. “Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest in America repealed,” she said.
Pelosi said the income tax cuts to the highest earning Americans — which were decreased from 39.6 to 35 percent as part of the 2001 Bush tax plan — have been “the biggest contributor to the budget deficit,” which now stands at $1.2 trillion for fiscal year 2009. That deficit figure does not include the impact of the pending stimulus measure, which will cost around $800 billion, nor does it include estimates for supplemental spending bills that will come later this year to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Put me down as well as one who supports rescinding the Bush tax cuts. Now. Economic fairness, fiscal discipline and economic growth are sometimes conflicting goals. But not in this instance, not at this moment. Repealing the Bush tax cuts immediately is not just the fairest policy option but also the most fiscally responsible given the severity of the deficits we confront but also the most efficient in terms of a progressive tax scheme.
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, have proposed a plan to end the fighting in Gaza, including a call for an immediate ceasefire between Palestinian armed factions and Israel.
Joining presenter David Foster on Inside Story are Nickolay Mladenov, a member of the European parliament and its delegation for relations with Israel; Richard Burden, a member of the UK parliament, and chair of the Britain-Palestine All Party Group; and also Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in chief of the Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
The night before last, I could not sleep. My mind stuck on a phrase uttered by the President-elect based on a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), trillion dollar deficits. Plural. A trillion dollars and more for the next few years. I tried to picture just how much money that actually is. How many zeros? Well, I went a million is six, a billion nine, and a trillion thus twelve. A one followed by twelve zeros. Mind-boggling and sleep depriving.
It is some small consolation to hear that members of Congress are today in shock over the CBO projections. At least, we now know that they aren’t asleep at the wheel though it is certainly not fair to blame the deficit sins of the past on the current 111th Congress. But now it seems the debate over the size of the fiscal stimulus is taking on new twist in light of the stunning deficit projections. Via the Christian Science Monitor:
Stunned at the prospect of a $1.2 trillion deficit this fiscal year, lawmakers in Congress are taking a harder look at how big a stimulus plan America can afford.
Until Wednesday’s release of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, the main topic on Capitol Hill was how big the recovery package needs to be to reverse the economy’s slide.
Now, there’s a second theme: Is there a tipping point between the stimulus needed to revive the economy and a level of borrowing and debt that’s too much for future generations to bear?
“There’s a consensus among economists that we need to do something big,” says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “But we need to calibrate between creating jobs – green jobs, long-term jobs – and not getting weighed down with too much burdensome debt.”
Here’s the transcript of the President-elect’s speech on the American economy.
Throughout America’s history, there have been some years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare. Then there are the years that come along once in a generation – the kind that mark a clean break from a troubled past, and set a new course for our nation.
This is one of those years.
We start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime – a crisis that has only deepened over the last few weeks. Nearly two million jobs have now been lost, and on Friday we are likely to learn that we lost more jobs last year than at any time since World War II. Just in the past year, another 2.8 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs. Manufacturing has hit a twenty-eight year low. Many businesses cannot borrow or make payroll. Many families cannot pay their bills or their mortgage. Many workers are watching their life savings disappear. And many, many Americans are both anxious and uncertain of what the future will hold.
I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.
In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.