Obama Says Vilsack Jumped The Gun On Sherrod

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “jumped the gun” when he decided to dismiss employee Shirley Sherrod from her job at the department amid accusations of racism.
Obama tells ABC News in an interview that Vilsack acted in part because the current media climate requires everyone to scramble when something goes up on YouTube or a blog.
Vilsack acted after portions of a speech Sherrod had given were posted on a conservative website. The administration changed course and apologized after the full speech was made available and told a different story.
Obama personally apologized to Sherrod on Thursday and appealed to her to return to work at the department.
By Associated Press

Tropical storm threat in Gulf : Ships evacuated

Gulf of Mexico, July 23, 2010: Dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico have been ordered to leave the site of the BP oil spill by the US government as Tropical Storm Bonnie gathers pace.
Incident commander Admiral Thad Allen said the well would remain capped while ships evacuated the Gulf. Drilling on a relief well has been suspended for up to two weeks.
Bonnie is the second named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, with wind speeds of 40mph (65km/h), the US National Hurricane Center says.
Forecasters say the edge of the tropical storm could reach the spill area by early on Saturday.
It has already caused flooding in Haiti, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and is moving north-west over the Bahamas, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Many of the boats and drilling rigs responding to the oil spill were preparing to move to safety from Thursday night, said Adm Allen.
“This includes the rig drilling the relief well that will ultimately kill the well, as well as other vessels needed for containment,” he said.
The operation to permanently block the well would be delayed, but “the safety of individuals at the well site is our highest concern,” Adm Allen said.
Vessels were being positioned in a way that would allow crews “to promptly re-start oil mitigation efforts as soon as the storm passes,” he added.
A “packer”, a plug used during storms, has been placed in the relief well to stabilise it while workers leave the site.
Earlier on Thursday, Adm Allen said increasing confidence in the security of a new cap placed on the leaking well had convinced scientists it would be safe to leave the capped well unmonitored for several days.

Darth Vader Robbed a Bank!

Say it ain’t so!! The Empire must be victims of the economy in a very big way. At about 11:30am this morning, Darth Vader robbed a branch of Chase bank on Long Island. He was brandishing a gun… why the hell he didn’t use one of his more awesome weapons, I’ll never figure out. The poor teller had no choice but to turn over an as-yet undisclosed amount of cash before Vader fled the scene.
Eyewitnesses claim that he was wearing a pair of cargo pants underneath his cloak. Seriously? There’s no way he’d wear something such as that. They must need to have their eyes checked. I could see him with some black jeans, perhaps, but cargo pants? No matter what he was wearing, it doesn’t change the fact that I will never look at one of my Vader action figures in quite the same way again.

Morning Brief: International court validates Kosovo declaration of independence

Posted By David Kenner

Top story: The International Court of Justice ruled yesterday that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008 did not violate international law. The ruling, which will likely pave the way for other countries to recognize Kosovo's statehood, was hailed as a victory by the country's ethnic Albanian majority. Kosovar Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni said the decision marked a "great day for Kosovo," and called on the government of Serbia, which Kosovo had split away from, to open diplomatic relations with his government.

The court's decision, however, was written in the most cautious way possible, in an attempt to avoid encouraging other separatist movements from seeking statehood. The court refrained from concluding that that the state of Kosovo was legal under international law. That determination, its ruling implied, would only be determined by the recognition of other countries throughout the world. 69 countries, including the United States and a majority of European Union nations, currently recognize Kosovo.
Countries that face the threat of secessionist movements had been particularly vocal in their opposition to Kosovar independence. Russia, China, and Spain all presented arguments at the Hague last December opposing Kosovo's case before the court. China, which faces separatist movements in Tibet and among the Uighur population in its province of Xinjiang, felt so strongly about the case that it made its first oral pleading to the court since the 1960s.

Pakistan army chief's term extended: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilana announced that Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's term as the head of the army would be extended another three years. Gilani praised Kayani's record in battling Taliban forces that have threatened to destabilize Pakistan, saying that the general "has successfully led us in this war, and his staying on is in our best interests." Kayani had been scheduled to retire in November, at the end of a three year stint at the head of the army.

BP Oil Disaster Could Cost Gulf Economy $22.7 Billion

BY Ariel Schwartz
There may no longer be oil seeping into the ocean off Louisiana's coast, but the damage is done. And the cleanup process will be expensive, lengthy, and detrimental to the Gulf economy, according to a report (PDF) from Oxford Economics.
The report, released this week, offers some eye-opening statistics: The effects of the oil disaster on tourism to the Gulf Coast will last up to three years and cost the area $22.7 billion. Most of the losses will fall on Florida's shoulders, but Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama will also feel the disaster's effect on tourism for a long time to come.
But the situation isn't without hope. According to Oxford, the disaster's impact could be reduced by $7.5 billion if a $500 million emergency fund is put in place. Oxford explains in the report:

Separate research by Oxford has determined a range of tourism marketing ROI for various destination campaigns over the past decade. This analysis showed that some of the most effective campaigns were conducted after a crisis. This was observed in campaigns both for Canada after SARS and for Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill....we found tourism marketing campaigns to yield a return of $5 to $64 in visitor spending for every dollar spent on marketing.

The U.S. Travel Association--the nonprofit that represents the country's travel industry--also released a 10-point "Roadmap to Recovery" (PDF), in response to Oxford's report. Among the suggestions: business meal tax deductions, an employee retention tax credit, and a reversal of the "state of emergency" declaration (The USTA thinks it has too negative of a connotation).
All good ideas, and they could certainly give a boost to the Gulf Coast's economy. The problem is, though, that no one really knows what the long-term environmental impact of this disaster will be--and the scope of that impact will directly affect the tourism recovery process. Not that we're knocking the recovery plan--it's a much-needed start.

Paul Krugman: Addicted to Bush

Just say no:

Addicted to Bush, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. ...

The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.

But they have a problem: how can they embrace President Bush’s policies, given his record? ... What’s a Republican to do? You know the answer. There’s now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush’s image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war.

On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.” ...

I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “vibrant.” The actual record of the Bush years was (i) two and half years of declining employment, followed by (ii) four and a half years of modest job growth, at a pace significantly below the eight-year average under Bill Clinton, followed by (iii) a year of economic catastrophe. In 2007, at the height of the “Bush boom,” such as it was, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than it had been in 2000.

But the Bush apologists hope that you won’t remember all that. And they also have a theory ... that President Obama, though not yet in office or even elected, caused the 2008 slump. You see, people were worried in advance about his future policies, and that’s what caused the economy to tank. Seriously.

On the deficit: Republicans are now claiming that ... the deficit is Mr. Obama’s fault. “The last year of the Bush administration,” said Mr. McConnell recently, “the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range ... most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it’s almost 10 percent.”

But that 3.2 percent figure, it turns out, is for fiscal 2008 — which wasn’t the last year of the Bush administration, because it ended in September of 2008. In other words, it ended just as the failure of Lehman Brothers — on Mr. Bush’s watch — ... caused the deficit to soar: By the first quarter of 2009 ... federal borrowing had already reached almost 9 percent of G.D.P. To some of us, this says that the economic crisis that began under Mr. Bush is responsible for the great bulk of our current deficit. But the Republican Party is having none of it.

Finally, on the war: ...Karl Rove now claims that his biggest mistake was letting Democrats get away with the “shameful” claim that the Bush administration hyped the case for invading Iraq. Let the whitewashing begin!

Again, Republicans aren’t trying to rescue George W. Bush’s reputation for sentimental reasons; they’re trying to clear the way for a return to Bush policies. And this carries a message for anyone hoping that the next time Republicans are in power, they’ll behave differently. If you believe that they’ve learned something — say, about fiscal prudence or the importance of effective regulation — you’re kidding yourself. You might as well face it: they’re addicted to Bush.

Breaking: Rangel to be charged with new ethics violations

Posted by James Richardson A House ethics committee has launched an investigation into New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel for undisclosed ethics violations, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Rangel, who resigned from his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee in March following a formal admonishment for two corporately-underwritten Caribbean junkets, will appear next week before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Composed of four Republicans and four Democrats, the panel will consider if sufficient evidence exists to prove the allegations against 20-term legislator.

The adjudicatory subcommittee was last impaneled six years ago, when it was called upon to handle the case of Democratic Congressman Jim Traficant, who served seven years on bribery and racketeering-related charges.

In the same way that Republican ethics violations loomed large in the 2006 midterm elections that saw the House of Representatives change hands, Rangel’s ethics misdeeds threaten to undermine Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to run the “most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in History.”
But for now, the specific nature of charges against Rangel remain unknown — and will likely remain as such until next Thursday when he makes his case to the ethics panel. In the meantime, a list–that is, unfortunately, in no way comprehensive–of the 80-year-old lawmaker’s ethics lapses:

• Violating New York state and city zoning laws, Rep. Rangel rented in 2008 several rent-stabilized Harlem apartments and used one for a base of operations for his reelection effort.
• Days later it was revealed Rangel had used congressional letterhead to solicit funds for his personal foundation, the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service.
• The following month, in August of 2008, the New York Post reported that Rangel had failed to disclose income from renting his beachfront villa on a Dominican Republic resort. In total, Rangel failed to disclose $75,000 in rental income since 1988. Rangel secured a seven-year fixed rate loan at 10.5 % for the property, but two years later the interest on the loan, which was awarded by a company for which the congressman was an early investor, was waived. Rangel paid $10,800 in back-taxes for his 2004, 2005 and 2006 tax returns for the unreported rental income.
• Rangel violated House rules and failed to report income to the IRS when he left his 1972 Mercedes in a House parking lot for several years without registering the car. The car, without license plates and covered by a tarp, occupied a space for several years valued a $290 per month.
• In November 2008, the Post’s muckrakers discovered that Rangel had improperly received a “homestead” tax exemption on a property he owned in Washington, D.C., while occupying his four rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.
• Rangel secured tax benefits for a company whose chief executive he was courting as a donor for his private foundation.
• And most recently, a House panel admonished the scandal-plagued congressman for wrongly accepting reimbursements for two Caribbean trips in 2007 and 2008.