ThinkFast: May 4, 2009

Former Bush aides Dana Perino, Ed Gillespie, and Tony Fratto are all scheduled to provide “words of wisdom to House Republican press secretaries at their annual workshop this Friday.” GOP House Conference Communications Director Matt Lloyd said that the trio represented “the gold standard for Republican communications professionals” and were “outstanding at their jobs.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claimed that Barack Obama’s desire to engage Iran is “very dangerous for Israel.” He argued talking to Iran is like talking to Hitler and that the Obama administration is “setting up the most decisive confrontation that we’ve ever seen” with the Israeli government.

In a potential threat to funding for President Obama’s middle-class tax cut, a growing number of industries — including electric utilities, auto makers, and oil and natural gas refineries — “are lobbying for free pollution permits under legislation capping greenhouse-gas emissions.” Electric utilities are pushing “to secure up to 40% of the emissions permits for free.”

“Tensions over the direction of a sweeping climate change bill boiled over in a House Democratic leadership meeting Thursday,” when Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) lashed out at Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for publicly suggesting Congress delay acting on a climate bill. “’This is not helpful,’ Waxman told Van Hollen, citing reports that presented the party’s campaign chief as opposing aggressive action on the bill.”

After the CIA ended its use of “enhanced interrogations” in 2005, Vice President Cheney and Steven Bradbury of the OLC “fought to revive the program.” A Bradbury memo drafted in late 2006 “shocked some officials” when it “gave its blessing to almost every technique, except waterboarding, that the C.I.A. had used since 2002,” just months after the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions applied to detainees.

President Obama will unveil a set of proposals today “aimed at changing international tax policy, calling for the elimination of benefits for companies and wealthy individuals that harbor their cash in offshore accounts.” “The proposed overhaul in the tax code, which will be fully unveiled in the administration’s budget later this week, could help raise $210 billion in revenues over the next 10 years.”

Longtime financial backers of former President George W. Bush “raised more than $100 million for a presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas that will house his official papers,” Time reports. “Much of the money was collected in the 100 days or so since Bush left the White House, a pace much faster than that of his recent predecessors.”

As the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency spreads in Pakistan, “senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.” The officials stressed, however, that there is no imminent threat. 
 
Even with the recent uptick in violence, the Iraqi government will not extend U.S. withdrawal deadlines, “ending months of speculation about whether U.S. combat troops would stay beyond June in bases in the restive northern city of Mosul.” “These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the…handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

And finally: Last week, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was “twitterjacked.” An imposter pretending to be the senior Alaska congressman posted approximately 30 entries before Young’s congressional office put a stop to it. One of the entries claimed that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was preparing to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Obama, which she hasn’t done…yet. Roll Call reports, “Young, of course, isn’t the only famous person ever to have a Twitter imposter. Condoleezza Rice, Bill Gates, Osama bin Laden and even Keshia Knight Pulliam (who played Rudy on ‘The Cosby Show’) all have been victims of Twitter theft.”