Del.icio.us Links

links for 2009-02-26

  • Politicians use charisma — call it authentic presence — to cover up their human quirks. Luckily for Jindal, other WH 2012 or 2016 contenders (and remember, Jindal's said he's not running for president in 2012, although, as with our current president, voters don't seem to care wabout these promises), aren't terribly charismatic either, aside from Ex-MA Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has a tenuous relationship to certain parts of the Republican base. The good news for Jindal is that expectations have been lowered a bit, and if you believe him to be serious about not running until at least 2016, not a thing has happened to change his prospects.
    (tags: bobby_jindal)
  • Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

    In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

  • Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.

    Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

  • The state budget crisis that was more or less resolved last week sparked the renewal of an old semantic argument over the meaning of "spending cut," and while this column is not likely to end the argument, it may shed some light on it.

    It began with the Schwarzenegger administration's assertion that the state had a $42 billion budget deficit – the difference between revenue and projected spending – during the remainder of the 2008-09 fiscal year and all of the 2009-10 year.

    While many in the Capitol and in journalism accepted that figure, The Bee and some others opted for $40 billion, because the additional $2 billion represented the desire for a $2 billion emergency reserve.