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WEB-SPE@K: Does President Barack Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

What has the President done to merit winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

More ‘Clunk,’ less junk

With the one year mark of the Obama Administration a few months away, some people are calling out the president for not passing legislation that would support the big talks of action his campaign threw out during the election.

And yes, it may be coming from the same group that shrieked in terror with socialist fears when Obama simply told kids to be cool and stay in school, but these people have a point this time. Read more

Cal may punish professor over torture advice

The John Yoo firestorm is about to get hotter.

With a federal investigation into Yoo’s legal advice to the Bush administration apparently winding down, University of California Berkeley leaders are preparing for a difficult decision — whether to punish a professor for his off-campus work.

The dilemma is rare. At risk are the tenets of academic freedom that have long allowed college faculty members to speak their minds in the name of scholarship.

Yoo’s case revolves around his advice on dealing with accused terrorists, including a notorious memo that provides legal justification for torture.

“I think this is simply a left-wing version of McCarthyism,” said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor who disagrees strongly with Yoo’s views on torture. “He should be judged solely on the merits of his academics.”

But Berkeley administrators and faculty leaders said they would be concerned about Yoo teaching law students if he were found to have violated ethical or legal standards. Critics have called Yoo a yes-man for President George W. Bush, essentially telling him what he wanted to hear.

The code of conduct for UC Berkeley faculty states that criminal convictions could result in discipline, but it is less explicit about other transgressions. But some, including Berkeley law Dean Christopher Edley and a top faculty leader, have said they could punish Yoo regardless of whether he is tried and convicted in a court.

“A criminal conviction is not necessary,” said Christopher Kutz, a law professor and vice chairman of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate.

A Justice Department spokesman said the federal investigation into Yoo’s role is ongoing. He declined to estimate when the inquiry would wrap up.

Edley, who was on President Barack Obama’s transition team and who has held positions in two Democratic administrations, said he and others on campus are conflicted about how to handle Yoo.

“I think that almost everybody is concerned” about how the debate will end, he said. “All of us need to work through the tension of the principles that preserve the excellence and independence of the university versus the principles that govern society.”

By Matt Krupnick / McClatchy Tribune

Obama seeks to block AIG executives’ bonuses

President Barack Obama said Monday that he will seek “every single legal avenue” to block the payouts of $165 million in executive bonuses by American International Group, the insurance behemoth that taxpayers are spending billions to bail out.

Unleashing his criticism in the White House East Room at an event announcing new help for small businesses hurt by the recession, the president blamed AIG’s financial woes on its executives’ “recklessness and greed,” and asked, “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”

AIG is getting about $170 billion in taxpayer assistance and is now about 80 percent taxpayer-owned. Federal officials moved to save it last fall because they thought its failure would take down the global financial system since AIG insured the assets of so many major financial institutions.

Polls show that Obama has begun to face declining public support because of the economic crisis. With his criticism of AIG, he sought to separate himself from the excesses of those receiving taxpayer assistance and stand with taxpayers who are angered by the situation.

Obama’s remarks followed weekend reports about the AIG bonuses. He said that given the taxpayer assistance that AIG is receiving, he would asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what recourse the government has. Obama said that Geithner was “working to resolve this matter” with AIG’s new chief executive, Edward Liddy, who began his job after the contracts were signed that led to the bonuses in question.

“This is not just a matter of dollars and cents, it’s about our fundamental values,” Obama said.

Even before Obama’s remarks, lawmakers of both parties expressed dismay at the bonuses. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appearing Sunday on ABC News, called it “an outrage.”

“We all know that contracts are valid in this country, but they need to be looked at. Did they enter into these contracts knowing full well that, as a practical matter, the taxpayers of the United States were going to be reimbursing their employees?”

By Margaret Talev and William Douglas / McClatchy Tribune

California Senate stalls on budget, standoff continues

A frustrated California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, unable to persuade just one more Republican to vote on a budget-saving $14 billion tax increase, followed through Tuesday on his threat to send 20,000 layoff notices to state workers.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, meanwhile, remained poised to order a lockdown, which would prevent senators from leaving the Capitol building until the tax legislation passes.

That prompted legislators to stock sleeping bags and toothbrushes in the stately Senate chambers.

If the lockdown threat wasn’t enough to force action on a plan to close the state’s $40 billion budget hole, administration officials reminded lawmakers that, as of Thursday, 270 state-funded transportation projects will come to an abrupt halt, leaving thousands of road and construction workers in the state unemployed.

“It is clear that there is going to be catastrophic consequences for California if we don’t get this done today,” Steinberg told reporters Tuesday.

The Senate finally debated the tax legislation later in the day, but leaders repeatedly held off on calling for a vote, due to lack of Republican support.

Republican holds out for reform as state employees to be cut

With the budget resolution stalled, the Republican governor moved forward on his pledge to cut the state’s payroll by 10 percent, or 10,000 positions.

Preliminary layoff notices went out to some 20,000 employees who face the prospect of losing their jobs this spring.

Lynelle Jolley of the Department of Personnel and Administration said an unknown fraction of those workers will actually be laid off once the budget comes into better focus.

Jolley said 54 departments funded by the state’s general fund were asked to rank their employees by seniority and then submit a list of the bottom 20 percent. Seniority is calculated by a person’s total service with the state, Jolley said, not within each department.

The fourth day of the budget-vote standoff brought a somewhat surreal atmosphere to the Senate chamber, where lawmakers and staffers running on little sleep after marathon sessions had a hard time remembering what day of the week it was.

All eyes continued to focus on Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria. He has suggested he could be the third and final Republican needed to support taxes if the Legislature would adopt three controversial reforms he is seeking, including withholding legislators’ pay when budgets run late.

Sen. Dave Cox, R-Roseville, is the only other GOP member high on the list of potential lawmakers who may eventually side with the Democrats.

By Edwin Garcia / McClatchy Tribune

Gitmo should remain open

New U.S. president Barack Obama has not slacked off during his first few days in office. Immediately following his inauguration he got to work addressing several pressing national issues, including the economy and the war in Iraq.

I commend our new president for such motivation and ambition in these actions. Most of his decisions I have agreed with, especially his radical ideas concerning our economy- for example, his proposed $825 billion dollar stimulus package to alleviate the recession.

But one of his very first actions, troubles me (and I believe most of the nation): President Obama’s order to shut down military prison Guantanamo Bay by 2010.

Guantanamo Bay at present houses nearly 245 men accused of and/or charged with international terrorist activity. Obama’s administration has noted that the closure of the facility is a necessary move in order to correct mistakes made by the Bush administration and to set a new example on the international stage.

But what does that even mean?

Frankly, I feel much safer with those men locked up in Guantanamo. I am even more nervous about the situation because as of right now there is no system in place for the placing of Guantanamo detainees.

According to an article in the Kansas City Star, the new administration has mentioned placing the detainees in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth.

Yes, you read that right: the only suggested idea so far is to place international terror suspects on our very own soil. This idea doesn’t bode well with me.

I tend to agree with Kansas politicians in the aforementioned Kansas City Star article in that “the military prison might not be equipped for such high-risk inmates, and that the fort and the community might be targeted by terrorists.”

There is also discussion of the release of many of the detainees. Right now, there is a program through the Saudi Arabian government known as “terrorist rehabilitation,” that is supposed to “reprogram” these detainees so that they can rejoin society.

But have you seen what this “rehab” actually consists of?

The program is not very comforting and the fact that one of their “graduates” actually went right back to his respective terrorist organization and was responsible for several recent bombings really makes me question the decision to close Guantanamo.

I urge President Obama to carefully consider this move and just keep Guantanamo open, because with no appropriate plan in place, it’s just too risky considering the possible consequences.

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