by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important, most interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
President Bush was expected to lay out an economic stimulus plan Friday which is likely to include tax rebates and other methods of getting cash into consumers' hands, a concept endorsed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who told lawmakers Thursday they needed to act quickly if they were to keep the wobbly economy from declining further.
For a state that likes to project an image of gentility and southern charm, South Carolina hosts some of the nastiest political campaigns in the U.S., especially among Republicans, with fliers and phone calls to voters that contain scurrilous rumors against the candidates, and charges and countercharges of responsibility.
A surge in citizenship applications has created a huge backlog, as immigration activists push to get more legal immigrants to become citizens in order to increase the pro-immigration voting block and applicants try to get in before rising application fees rise even more.
Individuals entering the U.S. at border-crossings with Canada and Mexico, Americans included, will in two weeks face new, stricter identification rules that will require them to show passports and birth certificates instead of drivers licenses alone.
A 2005 executive-branch study found that White House e-mails for 473 days between 2003 and 2005 were missing, leading Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of an important House panel who released the study, to say he would hold a hearing while the White House rejected the study's accuracy.
Democrats and Republicans were outraged by two charities which raised money ostensibly to help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan but which spent much of what they raised on fund-raising and personal expenses or business expenses unrelated to what the charities' stated mission.
A lawsuit filed by a man who was arrested after confronting Vice President Cheney in 2006 at a Colorado resort provides a rare view inside the Secret Service as agents disagreed with each other over what actually happened, with at least one making accusations of unethical and even illegal behavior on the part of another.
Southern black voters have split loyalties, with some backing Sen. Barack Obama, the first black candidate to have a real chance at winning the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and others supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose husband had established a uncommonly close bond with African Americans, and who would make history herself as the first female nominee.
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Comments
I can't wait for John D., Bruce, Paulo, Jerry White, etc. to jump on the economic story and start telling all of us how great the President's economic policies are and how the economy is just bursting at the seams because of the President's wonderful tax cuts.
Posted by: dogjudge | January 18, 2008 10:11 AM
Nasty politics in the South? I soon expect to hear of McCains new illegitimate islamic baby and Huckabee giving birth to the baby Jesus.
Posted by: bill r. | January 18, 2008 10:47 AM
Hey Swamp, how about a post about how U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is so, so ignorant of financial matters that she doesn't know the difference between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen.
Here's video of the grandstanding congresswoman trying to say Bernanke was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs (Paulsen was).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLzXkhYTk-U&feature=related
Can you imagine how many Swamp headlines would be generated if a Republican displayed such blatant ignorance of government's financial leaders while simultaneously trying to attack a member of the Clinton administration?
Posted by: Jeff | January 18, 2008 10:49 AM
act quickly if they were to keep the wobbly economy from declining further.
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Now the only people who don't believe boy george's economy is tanking are the head in the sand, 25%, wide stanced dead enders that troll the swamp. At some point even rncbruce, jdyslien and pillow have to admit bu$hco has really messed this up.
Posted by: rncbs | January 18, 2008 11:22 AM
"Hey Swamp, how about a post about how U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is so, so ignorant of financial matters that she doesn't know the difference between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen."
Jeff, learn to read before you attack. There's a post down towards the bottom of the page from yesterday covering the whole thing.
But where's the post about Republican ex-Congressman Siljander getting indicted for funding islamic terrorists?
Republicans- the terrorist's best friends.
Posted by: Luke | January 18, 2008 11:59 AM