Where's the Outrage?

Tuesday Night News Roundup

• I watched portions of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s confirmation hearing. From what I saw, I thought she performed well. I thought she reflected Obama’s foreign-policy positions extremely well. Senator David Vitter from Louisiana, connected with prostitution both in Washington, DC and in Louisiana, began a lengthy discussion about the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation. Republicans are worried about a conflict of interest. No, seriously. It couldn’t be that Republicans are enjoying the fact that they can kick around Bill Clinton again. Instead, they’re worried about ethics. A few names just popped into my head – Blackwater, Halliburton, Representative Mark Foley, Senator Larry Craig, Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Guantánamo Bay, Fallujah, Harriet Myers, Scott McClellan, aluminum tubes, the Downing Street memo – and now Republicans are worried about ethics!? Yeah, right (watch the video).

• I’m still floored by the fact that multimillionaires want people who are making an average $40,000 a year to finance their stadiums. I don’t understand it. To go one step further, I don’t understand why citizens in New York and Irving, Texas would agree to finance a stadium for two of the richest franchises in pro sports — the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. Mind-boggling.
• New research presented at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest that humans are having a greater impact on evolution than we originally thought. In the wild, it is the young and weak that are killed off before they can reproduce. Humans target the larger adults, therefore, removing the biggest and the best from the reproductive population. Interesting study.
• Carol Bartz, former CEO of Autodesk, has been named as the new CEO of Yahoo. I don’t know if she will be able to save Yahoo from a slow and painful death.
• Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and Barack Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary, testified on Capitol Hill today. He maneuvered the land mines that were set out by several Republicans. As a scientist, he criticized the idea of clean coal and the cap and trade system for limiting greenhouse gases.
• On the other hand, Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary,Tim Geithner, seems to be laying out his own land mines. He has just paid over $40,000 in back taxes, covering 2001 through 2004. It appears that he had some domestic help whose working papers expired in Geithner’s employ (see the above video).
• Arne Duncan had smooth sailing in his confirmation hearing.  He has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Education.
• Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard received the presidential medal of freedom today at the White House. Official guests of the White House stay across the street at the plush Blair House. Barack Obama had asked to stay at the Blair House but was denied because John Howard had agreed to stay there. Barack Obama and his family can move into the Blair House on the 15th of January. Other recipients in today’s ceremony were former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.  These were all ardent supporters of George W. Bush’s war on terror and his invasion of Iraq.

Tags: Foreign Affairs, Obama administration, Science // View Comments