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January 9th, 2009:

A Second Look: ENVIRONMENT — CONTROL OF KEY HOUSE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTEE SHIFTS TO MARKEY

Jan 9th, 2009
by Tom.
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The Progress Report wrote:

No Military Solution In Gaza


From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:03 AM
To: tomc2322
Subject: No Military Solution In Gaza

ENVIRONMENT — CONTROL OF KEY HOUSE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTEE SHIFTS TO MARKEY: Jurisdiction over energy and environmental issues — including global warming legislation — in a key House committee will be moving from two lawmakers sympathetic to industrial polluters to a progressive environmentalist. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) will become chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Markey’s new subcommittee will replace the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a coal-country representative, and the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Gene Green (D-TX), an oil-patch Democrat.Waxman, who, like Markey, is a strong proponent of progressive action to combat climate change, is in the process of reorganizing the energy and commerce committee after wresting control of it from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). As chair of the new subcommittee, Markey will have jurisdiction over greenhouse gas emissions legislation, such as the iCAP bill he proposed last year. He will also oversee the Clean Air Act, fossil fuel energy, nuclear energy, drinking water, and Superfund cleanups. Markey will remain chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which has no power over legislation. Boucher will take Markey’s former seat as chair of the subcommittee in charge of telecommunications and the Internet. Boucher, like Markey, is a champion of network neutrality and patent reform.

It’s sad that it took a a sweeping election victory for the Democrats in Congress to wake up and realize that progressive agenda and opposed to the conservative, pro-polluting, non-caring right-wing nut-job agenda is what the nation needs. I am glad that they are finally getting rid of the blue-dogs and handing control to real democrats.

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A Second Look: No Military Solution In Gaza

Jan 9th, 2009
by Tom.
No comments yet

The Progress Report wrote:

No Military Solution In Gaza


From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:03 AM
To: tomc2322
Subject: No Military Solution In Gaza

A HUMANITARIAN IMPLOSION: Even before the current round of fighting, the situation in Gaza was dire. In Nov. 2007, Oxfam International reported “an increasing risk to public health in Gaza as water and sanitation services begin to buckle under the strain of Israel’s restrictions on fuel, vital maintenance goods and spare parts into Gaza.” The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. In March 2008, a coalition of humanitarian organizations released a report entitled The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion. The report stated that “the current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable and, with the necessary political will, can also be reversed.” In a January 2008 interview with Middle East Progress, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters senior correspondent in the Gaza Strip, said “the sanctions have led to more radicalism in the Strip. Hamas and other religious movements have used this environment and the pressure to their advantage. Instead of lobbying the people against Hamas, Israel, and the United States are moving the people behind Hamas.”

THE NEED FOR A LASTING RESOLUTION: There is a desperate need for a sustainable cease-fire agreement that provides both for Israeli security and takes significant steps toward ameliorating the condition of Palestinian civilians, possibly by re-opening Gaza crossings under international monitoring. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Mara Rudman and Brian Katulis presciently wrote in 2007, the strategy of “isolating Gaza puts Israel, Egypt, and the region at greater risk and ignores an international obligation to the 1.4 million people living in a small enclosed area of 360 square kilometers (25 miles long, six miles wide), who did not choose this fate, regardless of how they may have voted in the 2006 elections.” The Middle East has changed in significant ways since 2000, but the events of last several weeks once again show the need for greater U.S. engagement, along with international community and regional partners, to support and empower Israelis and Palestinians to finally reach something more than just a temporary truce.

George BushThe Center for American Progress is perhaps the foremost liberal think tank, but I disagree with the philosophy that the fighting cannot stop until a “lasting resolution” is reached. The biggest problem I have with this premise is that it is centrist and supports George W. Bush’s justification for the invasion.

The humanitarian crises should override the need for a long standing political solution. The humanitarian needs far outweigh ideology. Sanctions have never worked. Ever. The only thing sanctions test is how fast a population can starve.

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A Second Look at Geithner Preparing Overhaul Of Bailout – washingtonpost.com

Jan 9th, 2009
by Tom.
No comments yet

via Geithner Preparing Overhaul Of Bailout – washingtonpost.com.

By David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 9, 2009; Page A01

Confronted with intense skepticism on Capitol Hill over the $700 billion financial rescue program, Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner and President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team are urgently overhauling the embattled initiative and broadening its scope well beyond Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Geithner has been working night and day on the eighth floor of the transition team office in downtown Washington with Lawrence H. Summers and other senior economic advisers to hash out a new approach that would expand the program’s aid to municipalities, small businesses, homeowners and other consumers. With lawmakers stewing over how Bush administration officials spent the first $350 billion, Geithner has little chance of winning congressional approval for the second half without retooling the program, the sources added.

What Geithner is doing here is nothing short of a miracle. His team along with Summers are burning the midnight oil scrubbing the TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, reshaping it into what it was supposed to be in the first place. Before the Obama team asks Congress for the second half of the $700 billion bailout, Geithner is ensuring that this time there will be monitoring and transparency.  If you mix in some regulation, then I think we will have what we need.

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