Washington Extra – Road to 2013
WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama asked
El Paso, Texas, today if those in Congress who walked away from
immigration reform were ready to come back to the table. If El
Paso could give an answer, it might have said: “Not until
2013.”
And maybe that is what Obama is thinking too. Maybe today
we saw his game plan for a signature initiative once he is
re-elected. Call it Manifesto for 2013.
Washington Extra – Bair necessity
WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – Sheila Bair is ready to
abandon the FDIC ship. Who can blame her? She weathered five
stormy years at the helm, begrudgingly backed bailouts for
failing financial giants, talked tough on bankster pay and
butted heads with fellow regulators.
Come July 8, she’ll be off to the calmer waters of academia
or maybe a non-profit. She has street cred, but she won’t use
it to cash in on Wall Street, she has said. That would be too
uncomfortable.
Washington Extra – Of photos and firefights
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – This is not the time to trot out the trophies and spike the footballs, as President Barack Obama put it to “60 Minutes.” He has decided not to release the photos of a dead bin Laden on the grounds that they are too gory and might incite violence. The question is: will that decision come back to haunt Obama?
Most people in the world and the United States will probably accept the Obama administration’s version that “we will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again.” But a few persistent and loud voices saying, “Show me the evidence,” are capable of changing the course of matters. Just look at the “birthers” who pushed Obama to release his long-form birth certificate last week.
Washington Extra – Fire in the belly
WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) – Haley Barbour is out. Why,
one might ask, is Mississippi’s popular governor opting against
a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012? Well,
he says he’s just not sure he’s got the “absolute fire in the
belly” that supporters deserve from their candidate.
Maybe that’s the kind of self-discovery that comes on the
pre-campaign trail, in early voting states like Iowa, New
Hampshire and South Carolina, where he had visited in recent
weeks. Perhaps he’s not alone in feeling not up for the job.
The Republican field is unusually subdued at a time in the
campaign calendar when it should be hopping with activity.
Washington Extra – Dollar doublespeak
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – Talk of a “strong dollar”
is about as American as apple pie. But have you noticed that
those precious words are hardly ever uttered by Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner?
Maybe that is because Geithner’s boss, President Barack
Obama, doesn’t actually want a strong dollar and is aiding and
abetting its depreciation. After all, a weak greenback is good
for manufacturing exports and therefore good for the recovery
and for jobs. Those long-elusive jobs could work wonders for
Obama’s re-election.
Washington Extra – Freshman fling
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – Freshmen are usually low
on the totem pole. But the 85 first-term Republicans in the
House of Representatives find themselves awash in invitations
for meetings and morning coffees with the creme de la creme of
Washington and Wall Street.
Reuters reporters Tim Reid and Rachelle Younglai report
today that the freshmen are in vogue because their fiscally
conservative views could determine the outcome of the upcoming
vote to raise America’s debt ceiling. The newcomers are told
repeatedly that a failure to raise the $14.3 trillion debt
limit will trigger economic calamity, on a global scale.
Washington Extra – Major breach
In this post-9/11, ultra-high security era, it is hard to believe that the bomb-proofing specs of a new Defense Department building in the DC area would be on public view. Then again, the Internet is a tough beast to manage.
Reuters reporters Mark Hosenball and Missy Ryan discovered the sensitive information about Mark Center — where 6,400 Defense Department personnel are scheduled to move later this year — on a public website maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Washington Extra – Cattle prod
.As market maven Mohamed El-Erian told us today “The medium term has a way of creeping up on you.” That’s why everyone needs a cattle prod from time to time and today it was Washington’s turn to get a goading.
It came in the form of Standard & Poor’s decision to slap a negative outlook on America’s top-notch credit rating because of Washington’s plodding pace on deficit reduction. The White House and Congress need to get in gear and start making meaningful plans to cut the deficit or else be responsible for a dreaded downgrade in debt. The chances? One-in-three over two years.
Fired workers say Chipotle was soft on immigration
MINNEAPOLIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The hundreds of illegal immigrants recently fired from fast-growing burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc had a pretty good run when it came to job security.
Not only did some get jobs with fake Social Security numbers and few questions about their immigration status, in some cases they actually told managers point-blank their papers were no good. And they often stayed on for years.
Washington Extra – This just might stink
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress cannot
ignore the political losses that might run into the 2012
elections from failing to get a budget deal tonight. A running
poll of readers on reuters.com shows 60 percent would blame
Republicans more for a government shutdown, 22 percent would
blame Democrats and 18 percent say both parties, equally.
In the blame game, however, Republicans have a powerful
point: when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress just
months ago, they could have approved the current year budget.
The Democrats started this mess, they say. President Barack
Obama will lose face if he can’t stop it.
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