ThinkFast: June 19, 2008

House leaders in both parties struck a deal on a long-overdue war supplemental bill that includes billions for emergency flood relief, an extension of unemployment benefits and expanded GI Bill college benefits for veterans. The GI Bill is Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) version, plus $10 billion to “allow career personnel to shift their benefits to their spouses or children.” President Bush is expected to sign the compromise.

Larry Sinclair was arrested after an appearance at the National Press club yesterday. Sinclair, who has a 27-year criminal record, held the press conference to continue spreading his unfounded rumors about Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). He was “charged as a fugitive from justice” after 2 US Marshals presented him with a warrant from the state of Delaware.

In an interview with the New York Times, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, the military lawyer for Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, said “the Bush administration’s war crimes system ‘is designed to get criminal convictions’ with ‘no real evidence’” and that military prosecutors “launder evidence derived from torture.” “You put the whole package together and it stinks,” Kuebler said.

Under a wiretapping bill set to be approved by the House, U.S. phone companies would receive immunity and “be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits.” As a “compromise,” the bill would also “allow a federal district court to dismiss a suit if the company was provided written assurances that Bush authorized their participation in the spy program and that it was legal.”

On the trail today: Barack Obama (D-IL) will meet with leaders of the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and other unaffiliated unions to discuss the economy. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will survey the floods in Iowa.

The New York Times reports that there is currently a “shortage of ships used for deep-water offshore drilling,” meaning that any attempts to lift the offshore drilling ban would have little near-term effect. The “world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years,” and shipbuilders have raised prices since last year “by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars.”

“Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who negotiated the federal-state compromise to keep drilling away from Florida shores, said in an email to the Miami Herald” that he now supports drilling off Florida with restrictions.

At a gay-rights panel discussion at the Center for American Progress Action Fund last week, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) linked the issues of polygamy and same-sex marriage. He has since apologized. “My remarks referenced a point in time when a few of my ancestors were persecuted for not adhering to that belief,” Smith said. “It was an unfortunate reference, and I apologize for making it.”

“Six years and $16.5 billion later, the U.S. still lacks a solid plan to create a self-sustaining security force in Afghanistan,” according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.

In an increasingly gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy, chief executives polled by Business Roundtable “expect employment at their companies to decline in coming months and rising costs to pinch their profits.” The group “whose outlook is usually relatively upbeat, has become pessimistic amid mounting energy prices and housing-market worries.”

And finally: Last week, President Bush made headlines while in Germany for praising the country’s asparagus after a dinner with Chancellor Angela Merkel. “The German asparagus are fabulous,” Bush said. In response, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) have had 10 pounds of Washington state asparagus delivered to the White House. “Mr. President, if you liked the German variety, we guarantee you will love the Washington state variety,” Murray and Hastings wrote in their letter. Murray added that it is the “best in the world.”

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.