Embassies in Rome find more suspicious packages

Bizarre, and why Rome? The letters suggest they are attacks by anarchists but rather than attacking Italian political offices, they continue to go after foreign embassies.

The parcel found at the Greek Embassy contained an explosive, said Francesco Tagliente, the chief of police in Rome.

Officials were in the process of investigating whether the other packages contained explosives as well or whether they were harmless.

It was the second time in as many weeks that authorities have responded to reports of suspicious packages at embassies in the city.

Read the rest of this post...

Another Teabagger Congressman refuses government health care

More Democrats need to follow Congressman Crowley's challenge to the Teabaggers to put their money where their mouth is. We shouldn't let a single one of them get a supposed free ride. The Hill:

"If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk," Crowley wrote to incoming House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). "You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don't happen to be Members of Congress."

The push began in earnest after Rep.-elect Andy Harris (R-Md.) reportedly complained in a November private meeting that his government healthcare benefits did not begin immediately.

So far, incoming Reps. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) have declined their government health insurance.

Read the rest of this post...

Lawsuit claims Gulf seafood not safe for consumers, costing fishermen earnings

After what we experienced earlier in the year, there's little reason to trust either BP or the federal government on this issue. It would hardly be a surprise if there is an effort to help BP avoid paying fishermen who are struggling. Who really wants to eat food from that polluted area?

Citing what the law firm calls a state-of-the-art laboratory analysis, toxicologists, chemists and marine biologists retained by the firm of environmental attorney Stuart Smith contend that the government seafood testing program, which has focused on ensuring the seafood was free of the cancer-causing components of crude oil, has overlooked other harmful elements. And they say that their own testing — examining fewer samples but more comprehensively — shows high levels of hydrocarbons from the BP spill that are associated with liver damage.

“What we have found is that FDA simply overlooked an important aspect of safety in their protocol,” contends William Sawyer, a Florida-based toxicologist on Smith’s team. “We now have a sufficient number of samples to provide FDA with probable cause to include such testing, really. They need to go back and test some of their archived samples as well.”

Five months after crude oil stopped gushing from the broken BP wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico, the federal government has reopened more than 90 percent of fishing waters that were in danger of contamination from the broken Deepwater Horizon rig.

Read the rest of this post...

Air Barbour

Politico:

The Mississippi state plane, a zippy Cessna Citation with a capacity of 12, is a favorite of corporate executives and the wealthy, and its principal passenger, Gov. Haley Barbour, might easily be mistaken for one of them when he arrives with a small entourage at airports in Washington, Las Vegas or New York, a car and driver waiting there at their disposal.

Barbour has traveled extensively on the jet, brushing off suggestions from Mississippi Democrats that he give it up in favor of a more modest propeller plane for his travel. The trips, according to a POLITICO review of the Cessna’s flight manifest since 2007, have mixed state business with both pleasure and national politics.

Some of Barbour’s travel may well have been worth it to Mississippi, a state that is heavily dependent on federal funds. But much of the time, he has used the plane to go to fundraisers for himself and other Republican candidates and committees, to football games and to at least one boxing match — travel that has a less obvious connection to what Barbour, a former top lobbyist in Washington, has cast as his lobbying on behalf of his state.

Read the rest of this post...

Karzai is really corrupt

NYT via HuffPost Hill:

The New York Times posted a bunch of WikiLeaks cables on Christmas Day and put together a major scoop from them: The DEA, it turns out, is big. The cables offer an equally surprising revelation about our top ally in Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai is hopelessly corrupt and can't be persuaded by U.S. diplomats to stop releasing drug traffickers: "President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly released well-connected officials convicted of or charged with drug trafficking in Afghanistan, frustrating efforts to combat corruption and providing additional evidence that the United States' top ally in the country is himself corrupt. "On numerous occasions we have emphasized with Attorney General Aloko the need to end interventions by him and President Karzai, who both authorize the release of detainees pre-trial and allow dangerous individuals to go free or re-enter the battlefield without ever facing an Afghan court," reads a diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to The New York Times. "Despite our complaints and expressions of concern to the [government], pre-trial releases continue."

Read the rest of this post...

Bush officials: Obama terror policies echo Bush's

Yeah, Politico, but it's a quote from CNN.

While Vice President Dick Cheney and other prominent conservatives have faulted President Barack Obama for slacking in the war on terror, two top Bush administration intelligence officials are arguing that the Obama White House has been just as tough - if not tougher.

"The new administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive, in pursing these issues because they're real," former National Intelligence Director retired Vice Admiral Michael McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"You commend them for that?" host Candy Crowley asked.

"I do commend them for that," McConnell said.

Read the rest of this post...

Juan Williams: Palin not on same intellectual stage as Obama

Not that the point isn't obvious, but the Republicans have tried to make it a kind of faux pas to note how unintelligent Sarah Palin is.

"There is nobody out there except for Sarah Palin who could absolutely dominate the stage and she can't stand on the intellectual stage with Obama," [Juan] Williams concluded.

This prompted a chorus of "oooohhhs" from the rest of the panel.

Read the rest of this post...

Hawaii governor says he was there when Obama was born

And the birther mania continues. Read the rest of this post...

Why did it take Jon Stewart to do what Dems and White House should have done themselves?

Many are crediting TV comedian Jon Stewart with shaming Republicans in Congress to stop blocking passage of the 9/11 first-responders health bill. It didn't have to be that way. Why did we need Jon Stewart at all? Isn't it obvious to anyone - even those of you who don't work in PR, and have nothing to do with politics - that blocking health benefits to the people who put their lives on the line on 9/11 just might be a political loser.

I'm glad that Jon Stewart invited the first responders to his show, and apparently the public pressure forced the GOP to relent, but why didn't the President invite the first responders to the White House? He was willing to have a beer summit with an irrelevant cop, why not invite the heroes of 9/11 too?

Because it would be mean.

It would be mean to embarrass the Republicans when they're busy holding you hostage. That's the thinking of the President, I'll bet you. The same reason he was unwilling to call the GOP out for holding up health benefits, and raises, for the troops by killing the defense bill, he was just as reticent about blaming the Republicans for holding heroes of September 11 hostage.

Mind you, the President was fine mentioning the hostages, generically. But specifically? Too crass, for him. But not too crass for Jon Stewart. So now the hostages are free, Stewart gets the credit, and the President doesn't. And no, this isn't just about getting credit. It's about convincing the bad guys that you're serious, and you're willing to punch them in the face - take some hostages of your own - the next time they act up. Now the Rs know that Jon Stewart will take them on. But it's still not entirely clear that Barack Obama will as well.

These kind of moves are easy, and obvious. They're exactly the kind of thing we're talking about when Joe, Chris and I, and other commentators, complain about the President not doing all he can to pass legislation.

There are only so many tax cuts you can give away to get your hostages back before that well runs dry. Read the rest of this post...

GOP moves to block weakened 'net neutrality' rules

What a fun two years it's going to be.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, ranking member on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, plans to introduce a resolution of disapproval alongside Sen. John Ensign of Nevada to halt the new rules. If passed, the resolution could prevent the current rules from taking place and impede the FCC from adopting any similar rules with statutory authority in the future.

Echoing many of her political allies, Hutchison deemed the vote an, “unprecedented power-grab” by the “unelected” commission and a detriment to job growth and innovation.

“The FCC is attempting to push excessive government regulation of the Internet through without Congressional authority and these actions threaten the very future of the technology,” said Hutchison in a statement. “Individuals and businesses alike are rightfully concerned about government attempts to seize control of the Internet, and I will introduce a resolution of disapproval in an effort to overturn this troubling regulatory overreach by the FCC.”

Read the rest of this post...

Reid pushing ahead with filibuster reform

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

Still more good news for filibuster reform: Harry Reid is in active discussions with his caucus about moving forward with reform in the new year, and is currently devising a plan to do just that, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me.

At a caucus meeting this week attended only by Senators and no staff, Reid and fellow Dems devoted a significant chunk of time to a discussion about specific ideas on how to proceed, the aide says.

Word of Reid's machinations comes after the National Journal reported yesterday that all the returning Democratic Senators have indicated support for efforts at reform, and are urging Reid to press forward at the start of the new year.

Read the rest of this post...

Obama's re-election and some of the numbers

Nate Silver takes an early look at the re-election in 2012:

Perhaps the question should be, then, whether Mr. Obama would win re-election if an election were held tomorrow. His approval ratings right now are quite similar to where George W. Bush’s were at the end of 2004. Mr. Bush won re-election, albeit very narrowly and against a relatively weak Democratic nominee.

Then again, the set of prospective Republican nominees is also perhaps rather weak. An average of polls conducted since Nov. 2 show Mr. Obama leading Mitt Romney by an average of 2 or 3 points, and Mike Huckabee by 3 or 4 points. Some people aren’t fond of looking at head-to-head matchups so far in advance of an election, and indeed, they are very rough gauges. With that said, both Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee are quite well known to the public, so these results might be more meaningful than they would be for a candidate who is not yet identifiable to the public at large, like a John Thune or a Tim Pawlenty.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama continues to enjoy a very large advantage — about 14 points, on average — over Sarah Palin. However likely Ms. Palin is to win the Republican nomination — and I can’t help but think that, if her numbers remain this poor, it will eventually become less likely — this essentially represents pure upside for Mr. Obama: what poker players would term a freeroll.

So if an election were held tomorrow, Mr. Obama would be a clear favorite against Ms. Palin, and probably about even money (although perhaps a very slight favorite) against a less divisive Republican nominee.

Read the rest of this post...

Monday morning open thread

Things should be pretty quiet in Washington until the new Congress is sworn in. I'm still in Chicago visiting my family, so I missed the snowpocalypse out east (though DC didn't really get socked). I did, however, get to enjoy our annual day-after-Christmas visit to the Lincoln Park Zoo to see the Christmas light display. It's always a balmy below freezing, with a nice wind off the lake, but still, it's fun to see the light and the animals.



The chimps were dead asleep and couldn't have cared less that we were all gawking.



This shot, looking south towards the John Hancock building, is tremendously iconic for any Chicagoan. Hard to explain. It's simply home.



And these were our little girls, just waiting at home for us (mine is on the right, mom and dad's the left). Read the rest of this post...

Assange signs $1.5 million book deal

He's probably going to need a lot more than that to fund the legal battles ahead. The Guardian:

He told the Sunday Times that he was forced to sign a deal worth more than £1m for his autobiography due to financial difficulties. "I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he said. "I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

He will reportedly receive $800,000 dollars from Alfred A Knopf, his American publisher, while a British deal with Canongate is said to be worth £325,000. An estimated £1.1m will be generated from the deal, including serialisation, he said.

Previously Assange told the Guardian that WikiLeaks does not have enough money to pay its legal bills, even though "a lot of generous lawyers have donated their time to us".

Read the rest of this post...