By Juliet Eilperin and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; A01

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants. Six political appointees to the Senior Executive Service, the government's most prestigious and highly paid employees, have received approval to take career jobs at the same level. Fourteen other political, or "Schedule C," appointees have also been approved to take career jobs. One candidate was turned down by OPM and two were withdrawn by the submitting agency.

The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

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rubbish bushit fertiliser....

For Some, ‘Puff’ Loses Its Magic

In his campaign for chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chip Saltsman, a Tennessee political operative, distributed a song to potential supporters this week called “Barack the Magic Negro,” a parody that questions President-elect’s Barack Obama’s racial authenticity.

The song, by the political satirist Paul Shanklin, was first broadcast last year on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, and Mr. Limbaugh defended it then against accusations of racism. But after an election in which Republicans lost badly among minorities — spurring vows of new efforts to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate — party leaders were not amused.

read more at the NYT and see toon at top...

Politics Is No Longer Local. It's Viral.

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Sunday, December 28, 2008; B01

Around this time last year, I was driving through the snow-covered flatlands of the Hawkeye State, headed to a bowling alley where a dozen college students from the University of Northern Iowa were holding court at lanes 27 and 28. All members of a group called UNI Students for Barack Obama, they were dressed from head to toe in Obama gear. This was their last gathering before Jan. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses, scheduled smack in the middle of their winter break.

As talk turned to their plans for caucus day, it also inevitably turned to the Internet.

It was on Facebook, after all, that the group had been born. Brandon Neil, a 21-year-old junior, had created it on Feb. 12, 2007, the day Obama announced that he was running for president.

It was through news clips posted on YouTube -- and through Obama's YouTube channel, which lists more than 1,800 videos -- that the group learned about the Illinois senator's policies and positions.

And it was mostly on the Internet, in one of those ubiquitous, inescapable Web ads -- the campaign spent $8 million on online advertising -- that they heard about Obama's text-messaging program. "I only get texts from my friends," Andy Green, a 20-year-old sophomore, told me. "Let me correct that: I only get texts from my friends and from Obama."

Looking back, I realize that it was on that Thursday night that a new political reality was cemented in my head. In the past, we've thought of politics as something over there -- isolated, separate from our daily lives, as if on a stage upon which journalists, consultants, pollsters and candidates spun and dictated and acted out the process. Now, because of technology in general and the Internet in particular, politics has become something tangible. Politics is right here. You touch it; it's in your laptop and on your cellphone. You control it, by forwarding an e-mail about a candidate, donating money or creating a group. Politics is personal. Politics is viral. Politics is individual.

And we're just getting started.

see toon at top and read more at the Washington Post...

Obama to Seek Higher Tax on Affluent to Pay for Health Care

WASHINGTON — President Obama will propose further tax increases on the affluent to help pay for his promise to make health care more accessible and affordable, calling for stricter limits on the benefits of itemized deductions taken by the wealthiest households, administration officials said Wednesday.

The tax proposal, coming after recent years in which wealth has become more concentrated at the top of the income scale, introduces a politically volatile edge to the Congressional debate over Mr. Obama’s domestic priorities.

The president will also propose, in the 10-year budget he is to release Thursday, to use revenues from the centerpiece of his environmental policy — a plan under which companies must buy permits to exceed pollution emission caps — to pay for an extension of a two-year tax credit that benefits low-wage and middle-income people.

The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama would propose to reduce the value of itemized tax deductions for everyone in the top income tax bracket, 35 percent, and many of those in the 33 percent bracket — roughly speaking, starting at $250,000 in annual income for a married couple.

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US President Barack Obama has said his administration intends to lay down clear rules for the troubled financial industry in the years ahead.

Strong rules are needed - not to hinder financial institutions but to "protect consumers and investors", he said.

"We can no longer sustain ... 21st century markets with 20th century regulations," President Obama said.

His comments came after news that some US banks should be able to access more of the $700bn (£492bn) rescue fund.

The banks will qualify for the money if new stress tests conclude that they do not have enough capital.

They would get the money by selling preference shares to the government, which could be converted into normal shares, the Treasury Department said.

The shares being convertible is a new factor that could leave the government owning big stakes in the banks.

The stress tests will investigate whether the banks will survive a worse-than-expected recession, with unemployment rising over 10%.

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The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that should lead to the easing of restrictions on Cuban-Americans wanting to travel to Cuba.

The provisions are part of a spending bill and must pass in the Senate - where it faces some opposition - before it becomes law.

The bill would allow Cuban-Americans to visit Cuba once a year instead of once every three years.

Meanwhile France has sent a former Socialist minister as envoy to Cuba.

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House Passes Spending Bill, and Critics Are Quick to Point Out Pork

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill packed with pet projects requested by Democrats and Republicans alike.

The 245-to-178 vote came just a week after President Obama signed one of the largest spending bills in the nation’s history, a $787 billion measure meant to rejuvenate a sluggish economy.

The new bill, a reflection of Democratic priorities, increases spending on domestic programs by an average of 8 percent in the current fiscal year, which began in October.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to send his budget for the next fiscal year to Congress. He did not take a formal position on the bill passed by the House.

“It’s a big document,” a White House official said. “We are still reviewing it.”

Republicans, however, did not mince words in describing the spending bill as wasteful. And one watchdog group said the bill provided nearly $8 billion for more than 8,500 pet projects favored by lawmakers, including $1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory in Weslaco, Tex.; $346,000 for research on apple fire blight in Michigan and New York; and $1.5 million for work on grapes and grape products, including wine.

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Barack Obama received largely favourable ratings from across the US today for a congressional address in which he promised that the country would emerge from the recession stronger and set out the most ambitious anti-poverty programme since the 1960s.

The speech, in effect his first state of the union address, attracted millions of viewers and initial polls taken by the television networks showed jumps in his already high approval ratings.

He received widespread plaudits for a speech in which he discarded the soaring rhetoric of the campaign trail and adopted a more even pace, setting out details of how he would help the country out of recession, possibly as early as next year.

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Smelling like roses, with a few thorns of course... see toon at top... Hopefully, the derivative markets won't sink the resurrection... Hopefully the recovery won't stop progress on global warming reduction, hope fully...

The "unregulated" derivative (betting on boom and crash at various level) "market" is 5 times the value of the entire financial market (money floating around) which itself is worth twice that of the entire global GDP (manufacturing, etc) of the entire world economy...

Some smart cookies have analyzed that should 2 per cent of the derivative market go "toxic" and the whole pack of cards crumbles to dust. See, 2 per cent of the derivative "market" represents about 10 trillion dollars or about 9 per cent of the entire world financial market or nearly 20 per cent of the entire world GDP...

Just imagine if 10 per cent of the derivative "market" (say casino) went down the tube for the banks...

Wipe-out... Total annihilation... Some nervous guys are watching...

We need to extricate the derivative market from the financial institutions, but that will require expertise of a bomb squad used to defuse MEGA-LARGE unexploded ordinance...  Meanwhile global warming will not wait for us....

congenialities

...

Indeed, though rarely reported upon, relations between the two men had begun to thaw significantly midway through Mr. Bush’s second term, after Mr. Bush teamed up Mr. Clinton and his father, the first President George Bush, on relief efforts after the tsunami in Asia and then, Hurricane Katrina.

Aides to Mr. Bush said he warmed to Mr. Clinton as his predecessor formed an affectionate bond with his father.

Mr. Clinton, meanwhile, offered frequent advice, sneaking into the White House for a secret lunch as early as 2007 to discuss Mr. Bush’s postpresidential plans.

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"You know, Dubya, These cows of yours, they're horses..."

"I know Billy... Dick warned me when we we're looking at alternative bullshit energy supplies..."

"Sigh... Ooohhh... I miss the red carpet, Dubya..."

"Nah, ... not the red carpet, I used to trip over it... Nah... All I really miss is... the holidays..."

see toon at top...