Saturday Morning News and Views

Good Morning Conflucians!!!! It is 3 degrees here in the Boston western suburbs!!

Nevertheless, we are better off than you guys in the southern states where there is a winter storm going on. Yesterday, Texas and Oklahoma got about a foot of snow, and today the storm will move east into the Carolinas and Virgina and then out to sea.

California Conflucians are getting a break from the storms, but the state still needs more to end the long-term drought.

Our economics-challenged President is threatening to veto spending bills (except money for wars, banks, and insurance companies), because he thinks cutting the deficit is as important as creating jobs. I wonder when he’s going to figure out that the U.S. economy is dependent on consumer spending; and if people don’t have jobs, it’s kind of hard for them to buy things. Since he never held a full-time job before getting elected President and all his friends are rich corporate types, he doesn’t quite get what us ordinary people are so worried about.

“Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t,” Obama said. “And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will.”

In an effort to make a dent in the growing federal deficit, White House officials announced earlier this week that their budget proposal would keep non-military discretionary programs at fiscal 2010 levels (Greenwire, Jan. 26). The proposal would exempt some of the largest parts of the federal budget including defense and entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare.

It will be up to Congress to decide whether to comply with this request in its spending bills, and Obama pled with them last night to toe the line — addressing critics from his own party and calling the effort vital to keep markets in line and avoid increases in the cost of borrowing.

I guess Obama thinks he can solve our economic problems by creating jobs in the military and defense industries. Maybe he is hoping a lot of us will go to work for Blackwater? I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I like Joseph Cannon’s idea of replacing Geithner with our own Dakinikat.

Eric Holder has been taking a lot of criticism from the right for locating the 9/11 conspiracy trial in New York City, and now he will be getting critiques from not non-Obots on the left. The Justice department review has cleared the Bush torture memo writers of professional misconduct.

Previously, the report concluded that two key authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.)

By this time everyone should be aware that the Obama administration is not going to hold anyone accountable for planning or participating in torture.

Meanwhile the Mayor Bloomberg flip flopped on his support for holding the terror trial in NYC–because of unsubstantiated claims about the costs involved–so Holder is going to have to find another location:

A letter and a speech may have doomed plans to bring the Sept. 11 terror trial to New York.

The letter written by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Washington earlier this month set a whopping $200-million-a-year price tag to secure the city during the trial – more than double the original estimate. The speech by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly detailed a planned lockdown of lower Manhattan certain to set new standards for gridlock.

The resulting political and public outcry has forced the Obama administration to consider looking for a friendlier home for the high-profile trial, even as the legitimacy of the New York Police Department’s security plan and its estimated cost goes unchallenged.

For some reason the wingnuts are claiming that Obama is “soft on terror.” I guess that means we’ll spend even more on the military and less on jobs. Far be it from Obama to actually ignore these ridiculous charges and just do the right thing.

The GOP has leapt on Obama’s handling of the Christmas Day bombing plot, saying he was slow to speak to the public about the initial attack and criticizing the Justice Department’s decision to try the suspect in a civilian court, not a military one. Republicans also are criticizing the Justice Department for an FBI decision to end questioning of the suspect, Umar Abdulmutallab, after less than an hour and read him his Miranda rights.

That came on top of the congressional uproar over Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay prison by moving the detainees to U.S. prisons. Obama missed a self-imposed one-year deadline to close the facility. Republicans also criticized the Justice Department’s decision to send five alleged 9/11 plotters to trial in Manhattan, just blocks from the World Trade Center site — a decision the administration abruptly abandoned Friday after powerful Democrats came out against the New York venue.

Time to grow up and man up, Mr. President–if you’re capable of it.

Supposedly, Osama bin Laden is worried about global warming.

Osama bin Laden blamed the United States and other industrialised countries for causing global warming in an extraordinary message issued yesterday.

In a departure from his usual religious rants, the Al Qaeda leader lectured on the dangers of climate change, claiming the only solution was to ‘bring the wheels of the American economy’ to a halt.
Rather than vows to inflict death and destruction on the U.S. and its allies, the man behind the September 11 atrocity in New York discussed the environmental future of the planet and monetary policy.

Whatever. Osama bin Laden is dead, folks. And even if he isn’t, we should just pretend he is. Why the media insists on printing all these supposed bin Laden “rants,” I will never understand.

Scott Roeder was convicted yesterday of murdering George Tiller

It took only 37 minutes Friday for a jury to convict Scott Roeder of first-degree murder for killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

But the fallout of the high-profile, emotionally charged case will linger for some time.

A federal investigation into whether Roeder acted alone in Tiller’s murder is continuing.

Tiller’s clinic — which drew patients from around the world because he was one of a handful of doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions — has closed for good.

Roeder plans to appeal the verdict.

Also yesterday, NPR’s All Things Considered allowed right wing crazy David Horowitz to dance on Howard Zinn’s grave. From the transcript:

Mr. DAVID HOROWITZ (Author): There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn’s intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect.

KEYES: Conservative pundit and author David Horowitz is among critics who fiercely disagree with Zinn’s politics. Horowitz calls “A People’s History of the United States” a travesty.

Mr. HOROWITZ: Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of younger people for the worse.

For shame, NPR!! No money for you.

Here’s a sick story about a cruel and stupid man: Dad Sells Girl, Calls Cops to Complain He Wasn’t Paid

A 36-year-old California man was arrested and booked in the Monterey County jail after allegedly selling his daughter for marriage and then calling police to complain that her buyer had not paid off his debt.

Greenfield, Calif., police said Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, tried to arrange for his 14-year-old daughter to marry Margarito de Jesus Galindo, 18, for $16,000 and 100 cases of beer, along with several cases of meat and other items.

After the girl moved in with Galindo, Martinez called police to complain that he hadn’t been paid. Police said he asked for their help getting his daughter back.

The prospective groom aka rapist was arrested too. Now for God’s sake, someone get someone to help that poor girl!

And now for a change of pace, why not join me in looking at some cute baby animals? Yes, I’m sick and tired of depressing news.

See more cute baby animals here:

Animal Planet baby animals guide–choose your own

Cutest in the animal kingdom

Image galleries at babyanimalz.com

Please post your own news and baby animal links in the comments.

HAVE A STUPENDOUS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!