links for 2010-01-06

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner said Tuesday the state should bridge an estimated $20.7 billion budget deficit in part by freezing government hiring, borrowing and spending.

Poizner's plan would include not issuing new bonds, even those approved by voters, and not replacing some 9,300 general fund-supported employees who he estimated would leave their jobs of their own volition by the end of the next fiscal year.

The plan comes on top of Poizner's previously announced initiatives, such as 10 percent cuts in both taxes and state spending and a $10 billion rainy-day fund.

In total, the freezes, which would last through fiscal year 2010-11, and the previous initiatives would cover the entire projected deficit, he said in a meeting with reporters.
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But, where and what special interests will protest?

Barack Obama is under pressure to disclose what information MI5 passed to the American authorities about the Detroit bomber after Downing Street disclosed that a file had been "shared" with the CIA in 2008.
After initially denying that they had received British intelligence, senior American sources confirmed last night that they were "reviewing" what British information had been received on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The admission is embarrassing for the White House and threatens to provoke a rift with Gordon Brown. The conflicting briefing over the shared intelligence also suggests that the transatlantic relationship may have weakened in recent months.
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America's relationship with the UK has soured since the Bush-Blair association.

Was it the DVD's? or the i-Pod?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, piqued with White House pressure to accept the Senate health reform bill, threw a rare rhetorical elbow Tuesday at President Barack Obama, questioning his commitment to his 2008 campaign promises.

A leadership aide said it was no accident.

Pelosi emerged from a meeting with her leadership team and committee chairs in the Capitol to face an aggressive throng of reporters who immediately hit her with C-SPAN’s request that she permit closed-door final talks on the bill to be televised.

A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras.

“There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.
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Well, Obama is a typical politician. Shocking NOT.