Bipartisan Push Builds to Stop Terrorist Trials in Civilian Courts

February 02, 2010 2:08 PM

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Two Democrats joined Republicans today introducing legislation to deny President Obama money to transport suspected 9/11 conspirators stateside and try them in civilian courts.

It is unclear when or how this measure would come to a vote, but it is abundantly clear that President Obama’s plan to use the American justice system to try suspected 9/11 conspirators is in serious jeopardy.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark, who faces a tough reelection bid, was asked by a reporter at a press conference today if the President is being “tone deaf” in asking moderate Democrats to support his plan.

“I’d be tone deaf if I didn’t speak for the people,” said Lincoln, questioning the “cost, security and appropriateness” of using civilian courts to try suspected terrorists.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/02/bipartisan-push-builds-to-stop-terrorist-trials-in-civilian-courts.html

Grappling to contain record deficits, President Barack Obama is seeking to end a middle-class tax break he once said would be permanent.

The $3.8 trillion budget request rolled out by the White House on Monday would renew the Making Work Pay tax credit for fiscal 2011, but then would have it sunset.

That’s a switch from last year, when Obama’s budget called for making the tax credit permanent.

The cut costs the federal government about $63 billion in annual revenue while putting up to $400 in the pockets of workers making less than $95,000. It was approved for the first time in last year’s $787 billion stimulus package.

An administration official said the tax credit reflects changing realities in Congress on climate change legislation.

...

The administration also wants to roll back former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 annually. That would reinstate the 36 percent and 39.6 percent tax rates.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/79161-presidents-budget-seeks-an-end-to-tax-break-for-the-middle-class

From Alan Viard at The American:

President Obama would permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes below $200,000 ($250,000 for couples); statements that the president would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire are true only for households above those income levels. The president has also proposed some additional middle-class tax cuts.

Should this make us happy about President Obama’s budget? Quite the opposite. As Arthur Brooks, Alex Brill, and I have pointed out, the middle-class tax cuts that the president would extend have large revenue losses and do relatively little to promote economic growth. The tax cuts at the top that the president would allow to expire would significantly lower marginal tax rates on saving and investment and promote long-run growth. Letting those tax cuts expire would ultimately harm the middle class by lowering their wages.

http://blog.american.com/?p=10105

Abstinence-only programs might work, study says

By Rob Stein

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for U.S. efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found. Nearly half of the students who attended other classes, including ones that combined information about abstinence and contraception, became sexually active.

The findings are the first clear evidence that an abstinence program could work.

"I think we've written off abstinence-only education without looking closely at the nature of the evidence," said John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led the federally funded study. "Our study shows this could be one approach that could be used."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102628.html

Iran, With Opposition Protests Continuing, Executes More Prisoners

Every Thursday since last April, Davoud Rahmanipour traveled to the notorious Evin prison in northern Tehran for a weekly visit with his son, Arash, 19, who was being held there while his lawyer appealed his death sentence.

The elder Mr. Rahmanipour was unsettled last Thursday to hear from prison authorities that his son had been transferred to a different prison. His misgivings gave way to shock and grief that afternoon when he heard, on state-run television, that his son had been hanged that day at dawn.

“We are in a devastating psychological and physical situation,” Mr. Rahmanipour said Monday in a tearful voice during a telephone interview.

He told Al Jazeera television on Friday that he was refusing to accept messages of condolence. “My son is a martyr for democracy,” he said.

Iran experts have said that the government hastily ordered the executions of Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammad-Reza Ali-Zamani, 37, another political prisoner, to intimidate the opposition and to silence the protests that have persisted since the disputed June 12 presidential elections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/middleeast/02iran.html

Blanche Lincoln Poll

John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner. He leads incumbent Blanche Lincoln by an amazing 56-33 margin in our first poll of the race.

Lincoln's approval rating has sunk to just 27%, with 62% of voters in the state disapproving of her. She's at a middling 51% even within her own party and just 17% of independents and 9% of Republicans are happy with how she's doing.

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What it all adds up to is Boozman winning 89% of the Republican vote while Lincoln's at just 68% with Democrats. And Boozman has a 66-20 lead with independents as well.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/02/blanche-lincoln-poll.html

The city of Springfield still hasn’t been fully repaid for costs associated with hosting then- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign stop in the fall of 2008.

Obama’s presidential campaign was sent a bill for $68,139, and still owes the city $55,457, according to Ernie Slottag, the city’s spokesman.

The city has been trying — unsuccessfully — to collect payment, Ken Crutcher, the city’s director of office of budget and management told aldermen recently.

http://www.sj-r.com/carousel/x231968722/City-still-waiting-for-reimbursement-from-2008-visit-by-Obama

Five things to watch in Illinois

Just as the reverberations from the Massachusetts special election have begun to dissipate, another dark blue state plays host to the first primary election of the 2010 cycle: Illinois.

Tuesday’s crowded ballot will test Gov. Pat Quinn’s popularity within his own party a year after he took over the reins from disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, as well as pare down the field for the surprisingly up-for-grabs U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama.

Mix in the shadow of corruption that hangs over the state and an unemployment rate above the national average and even the political professionals aren’t sure what to expect.

“I have no freaking idea what’s going to happen Tuesday,” said Kitty Kurth, a Chicago-based Democratic consultant. “It’s going to be an election that’s going to have people scratching their heads for a week.”

Here are POLITICO’s five things to watch Tuesday night as the results trickle in from the Land of Lincoln.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20100202/pl_politico/32346

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States.

CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 60, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.

The premier's office provided few details, beyond confirming that he would have heart surgery and saying that it was not necessarily a routine procedure.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/02/01/nl-williams-heart-201.html

It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre academic dispute. Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?

But the argument over the weather stations, and how it affects an important set of data on global warming, has led to accusations of scientific fraud and may yet result in a significant revision of a scientific paper that is still cited by the UN's top climate science body.

It also further calls into question the integrity of the scientist at the centre of the scandal over hacked climate emails, the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Dr Phil Jones. The emails suggest that he helped to cover up flaws in temperature data from China that underpinned his research on the strength of recent global warming.

The Guardian has learned that crucial data obtained by American scientists from Chinese collaborators cannot be verified because documents containing them no longer exist. And what data is available suggests that the findings are fundamentally flawed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud

Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws

Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures

Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 February 2010 21.00 GMT

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese

From Senatus twitter:

Graham, Chambliss, Lieberman, Lincoln & McCain intro bill tomorrow cutting funds for fed'l trials of 9/11 conspirators.

http://twitter.com/senatus/status/8508379034

It will be introduced today, The announcement on twitter occurred yesterday, February 1st.