Pakistan warned U.S. troops not to intrude on its territory, “after the two anti-terror allies traded fire along the volatile border with Afghanistan.” The clash was “the first serious exchange with Pakistani forces acknowledged by the U.S.” Pakistan’s president said that only “flares” were fired at the U.S. troops.
“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” said President Bush at a White House meeting yesterday “as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes.” In a statement outside the White House this morning, Bush attempted to project confidence in an eventual deal, saying, “There is no disagreement that something substantial must be done.”
Yesterday, the federal government seized troubled lender Washington Mutual and then “brokered an emergency sale” of the bank to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Washington Mutual’s collapse represented the “largest bank failure in American history,” and “JPMorgan Chase will absorb at least $31 billion in losses that would normally have fallen to the F.D.I.C.”
Although Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) “has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda,” she has accepted 41 gifts “valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials” from large mining interests. These gifts include free travel, expensive artwork, and “a gold-nugget pin valued at $1,200.”
On the trail today: Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to debate today in Oxford, MS. If the debate takes place, ThinkProgress will be live-blogging it. Stay tuned.
Federal prosecutors attempted to paint Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) “as a savvy career politician who surreptitiously accepted valuable gifts.” Stevens’s attorney, “characterized the government’s accusations as inaccurate” and argued that Stevens was innocently subjected to the “whims of a friend, who at times delivered unwanted gifts and even failed to bill Stevens for the renovation project.”
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift writes in response to former Rep. Newt Gingrich’s rejection of Henry Paulson’s Wall Street bailout proposal: “Newt is back doing what he loves to do,: challenging a sitting president of his own party, inciting insurrection among conservatives, and in his own words, ‘having a ball.’”
“Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites but was told by President George W. Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert floated the idea to Bush during his May visit to Israel.
Scientific figures released today shows the “rise in global carbon dioxide emissions last year outpaced international researchers’ most dire projections,” with a 2.9 percent increase in carbon emissions in 2007. The rise “could translate into a global temperature rise of more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the panel’s estimates.”
“The chairman of the Republican Party in New Mexico’s most populous county resigned” yesterday, nearly a week after he declared that “Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.” The official, Fernando C. de Baca, claimed he was stepping down because of “the media circus that has developed.”
And finally: Ohio farmer Duke Wheeler “would like to invite you to get lost inside the head” of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). Wheeler has turned his 16-acre cornfield into a maze in Palin’s likeness. He said it took “an artist from Idaho at least eight hours to mow down stalks for the maze.” View a picture of the creation here.
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