links for 2009-07-02

Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney — who was aboard a ship the Israeli navy intercepted this week — is in a detention center and will be returned to the United States, the U.S. Embassy said.
McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday.

The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the ship.

The group said the ship, which it calls Spirit of Humanity, was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia and was the Green Party's 2008 presidential nominee.

The ex-lawmaker is in the Givon immigration detention center in the central Israeli city of Ramle, the U.S. Embassy said.

She has been given deportation papers but has refused to sign them, the embassy said.

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.

To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals.

The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity Fair magazine. The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize. For example, he personally asked me at event preceding the White House Correspondents Dinner if I would talk to him about Governor Palin. I agreed. He didn’t call. He didn’t email. He never once tried to get my take. I also know he never contacted campaign manager Rick Davis, or John McCain

Tuesday night on Hugh's program, we discussed the Vanity Fair article about Sarah Palin and why, eight months after the election, Palin still arouses such fury amongst liberals and so many rank-and-file Democrats.

After all, even if you think her election to the vice presidency would be the worst disaster ever to befall the Republic, Palin has, by and large, gone away. She's mostly focused on her work as governor of Alaska. She doesn't appear on many talk shows or do many interviews. She's been outside of Alaska . . . four times? Once to the National Governors Association meeting, once to a pro-life dinner, once to the Alfalfa Club dinner, and once to Albany for an event raising money for a museum honoring William Seward, the 19th-century U.S. secretary of state who acquired Alaska for the United States

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The tension between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and top McCain campaign aides in the closing days of last fall's presidential campaign is elucidated in a profile in the new issue of Vanity Fair. CBS News' Scott Conroy and special contributor Shushannah Walshe, who are writing a book about Palin, reveal just one example of how the mutual frustrations went even further than what has been disclosed so far.

Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt.

True to his coming-into-office promise, President Barack Obama has held his top staff salaries at the same level as his predecessor.

Which ain't too shabby.

$172,200.

True, according to an initial analysis by The Hotline, Obama has more folks making that top salary (20) than George W. Bush did (18). The hours are long. And they could probably make more dough back in Illinois politics, if you know what we mean. And D.C. house prices always get jacked when a new administration comes to town because there's not a lot of time to negotiate.

But they get free parking for their foreign brand cars in downtown Washington. And access to the White House Mess.

Here are some of the newly-minted bigshots making the big bucks: David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett, Carol Browner, Larry Summers, James Jones, Susan Sher (Michelle's chief of staff), Rahm Emanuel and Jon Favreau, the paper Hillary-groping speechwriter (photo here).

Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

The payroll decline was more than forecast and followed a 322,000 drop in May, according to Labor Department figures released today in Washington. The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent.

Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will restrain growth.

Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.

The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.