From Chris Floyd

President Barack Obama is losing his strong right arm. Dark days lie ahead, in which the president will lose traction with Congress, needlessly offend key constituencies, lose control of his legislative agenda. Why? His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is quitting the White House, maybe to try and become mayor of Chicago, certainly to cash in and make a bundle on Wall Street.

The NSW Nationals have accepted $16,500 from tobacco companies this year, exposing the Coalition to more criticism from the Labor Party, which refuses to take tobacco company donations.

According to the Nationals' latest donations and expenditure disclosure lodged with the Election Funding Authority, British American Tobacco donated $13,200 to the party in April, while Philip Morris donated $3300 in March.

from Crikey .....

Barns: the legality of sending Afghanis home

Greg Barns writes:

Sometimes it's the little things in the big stories that catch your eye.

It's official - we hate them: more than ever.

The primary vote splintered on August 21 to reveal two politicians deeply disliked by the country. In terms of the proportion of the Australian electorate each major party leader convinced to vote for them, we're at historic lows.

As former ACT pollie, Michael Moore, calculates, Tony Abbott, with a primary vote of 38.4%, ranks 39 out of 50, measuring the two-leader vote from the last 25 federal polls. The proposition that Tony Abbott has run 'the best campaign as opposition leader never to win government' is so ludicrous it is outrageous.

Let's not beat about the bush: putting a price on carbon means asking people to pay more for electricity and other carbon-intensive activities. So how much are we willing to pay?

Tony Abbott thinks the answer is nothing. The opposition imagines it has discovered the political equivalent of Mortein: just one spray about ''a great big new tax on everything'' will knock any policy proposal dead.

I suspect most Australians want to have their climate cake and eat it, too; we want action to curb climate change, but we don't want to pay for it.

The manager of Opposition business Christopher Pyne has become the first MP of the new Parliament to be booted from the chamber during Question Time.

Question Time is operating under new time limits and other rules aimed to ensure proper debate and less abuse of the process.

During an answer from Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Mr Pyne wanted to make a point of order but was denied by Speaker Harry Jenkins who had already sat Ms Gillard down.

Mr Pyne then said Ms Gillard had sat down because she was "hopeless".

He was promptly expelled from the chamber for one hour.

The Federal Government says its success in getting Coalition MP Peter Slipper up for the job of Deputy Speaker yesterday proves that it is in control of its fragile majority in the House of Representatives.

Mr Slipper was nominated by Labor and went on to win a secret ballot 78 votes to 71 over the Coalition's preferred candidate, Nationals MP Bruce Scott.

Labor backbencher Mike Symon says it shows the Federal Government can get the numbers when it counts.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/29/3024465.htm?section=justin

from Crikey .....

Climate committee is better without the Coalition

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

If Israel's stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy is to be broken, Americans will need to be informed about the harm that Washington's unconditional support for the Jewish state is doing to American interests, say leading analysts of US-Israeli relations.

The US says it is "disappointed" by Israel's decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent to the region in an attempt to salvage direct peace talks that were restarted earlier this month.

The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11422065