War spending surges in President Obama's budget - David Rogers - POLITICO.com

President Barack Obama’s new budget, to be released Monday, forecasts two consecutive years of near $160 billion in war funding, far more than he hoped when elected and only modestly less than the last years of the Bush Administration.

In 2011 alone, the revised numbers are triple what the president included in his spending plan a year ago. And the strain shows itself in new deficit projections, already hobbled by lagging revenues due to the weak economy.

Obama has responded with a three-year domestic spending freeze impacting about $447 billion in annual appropriations. This leaves him less money to sustain the very rapid growth seen last year in clean water programs or the Great Lakes restoration initiative. The Environmental Protection Agency budget would be cut modestly, and to stretch his dollars, Obama wants to dramatically ramp up the Energy Department’s credit budget, a low-cost way to extend tens of billions in loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32272.html#ixzz0eDv2jncF
War spending surges in President Obama's budget - David Rogers - POLITICO.com

CHINA Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy- NYTimes

China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

Wik-A-di-What!! video (RNC Retreat)

U.S. economy grows at fastest rate in 6 years

The U.S. economy grew at a breakneck rate of 5.7 percent at the end of 2009, the government said Friday, providing the strongest evidence yet that the nation will avoid a dip back into recession.

The growth spurt in gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, was the largest in six years. But economists cautioned that such a pace will probably not persist and that the economy will grow at a more measured rate in the coming months.

"We can now say that this is a sustainable recovery," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo. "It's certainly not a boom, but it is a slow, steady recovery."

Wiretapping - Anti-ACORN filmmaker arrested -

Conservative Filmmaker now somebody's prison hoe!

Anti-ACORN filmmaker arrested - Manu Raju and Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

Federal authorities have arrested four men on felony charges for attempting to infiltrate Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office, including one filmmaker who targeted the community group ACORN last year in damaging undercover videos.

Among those arrested was 25-year-old James O’Keefe, the conservative filmmaker, along with Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan and Stan Dai, all 24. They were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses and attempting to gain access to the Democrat’s office by posing as telephone repairmen, according to a copy of an FBI affidavit unsealed Tuesday.

The complaint said that O’Keefe was waiting in the office when Flanagan and Basel each entered the premises, wearing light green fluorescent vests, denim paints and blue work shirts, tool belts and hard-hats. They informed a member of Landrieu’s staff that they were telephone repairmen and requested access to the main telephone at the reception desk.

At that point, the two men allegedly attempted to manipulate telephones and accessed the telephone closet, saying they needed to work on the entire system. The men, who said they left their credentials in their vehicles, and were later arrested by the U.S. Marshal’s Service soon afterward. O’Keefe was allegedly involved with planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation, according to an FBI news release.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32035.html#ixzz0dlgapFR8

Obama to propose spending freeze - Glenn Thrush and David Rogers - POLITICO.com

Obama to propose spending freeze - Glenn Thrush and David Rogers - POLITICO.com

President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up to Wednesday's State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with the plan tell POLITICO.

The move, intended to blunt the populist backlash against Obama's $787 billion stimulus and an era of trillion-dollar deficits — and to quell Democratic anxiety over last Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate election — is projected to save $250 billion, the Democrats said.

The freeze would not apply to defense or foreign aid or spending on intelligence, homeland security or veterans.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31989.html#ixzz0dgEwQClU

Why the GOP should still be nervous - Jim VandeHei and James Hohmann - POLITICO.com

Why the GOP should still be nervous - Jim VandeHei and James Hohmann - POLITICO.com

USA! USA! – Crowds Chant – Video 2:53

U.S. Troops Land With Aid at Presidential Site in Haiti NY Times

People watched as American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne landed with Sea Hawk helicopters at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

Helicopters carrying dozens of American troops landed on the lawn of Haiti’s destroyed National Palace on Tuesday morning, a potent symbol of the United States’ escalating military presence in Haiti since the earthquake that struck a week ago.

With hundreds of Haitians watching and cheering from outside the white-and-green palace gates, troops in combat fatigues bounded out of the helicopters, carrying food rations, bottled water and other gear across the grass, according to photographs and news reports from the scene.

The troops, who appeared to be establishing a position at the palace, were among the roughly 5,000 United States military personnel already in Haiti; thousands more are expected.

American troops took control of the airport in the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake, and have been distributing food and water and providing security for the relief effort. But they have, for the most part, not been a major presence on the streets.

In Haiti, 200,000 People Estimated To Have Perished In Quake

Rescue efforts continue in Haiti after a major earthquake hit the country last week, CNN reports (1/18). While teams still search for survivors under the rubble, the priority is shifting to relief for those who survived the quake, according to Nicholas Reader, spokesperson for the U.N. Offices for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, TIME reports (Newton-Small, 1/18).

According to USA Today, the U.S. military  on Monday was able to "dramatically" increase "the amount of troops and aid coming into Haiti … raising hopes that the rapid increase in help and people would be able to meet the most pressing needs …" (Michaels et al., 1/18).

Access to clean water is a significant issue, the Wall Street Journal reports. "The newly homeless have wandered the streets in the scorching heat since then, their throats parched. The injured have been unable to safely cleanse cuts and wounds of dust and dirt, risking infection," the newspaper writes (Esterl/McKay, 1/16).