President Obama will visit Ground Zero in New York City Thursday to mark the death of Osama bin Laden. The White House says Obama plans to also visit with “the families of those killed nearly 10 years ago.”
Supporters of President Bush “are irked that the White House isn’t doing more to share the glory” of killing Osama bin Laden, Politico reports. Numerous top Bush officials are making the case publicly that Bush policies played a key role, “and dozens of statements Monday from Republican officeholders mentioned Bush’s role after 9/11.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted yesterday that the death of Osama bin Laden has not changed the timetable for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. “The president has a timetable to begin withdrawal,” Reid told reporters, “I think that’s appropriate.”
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced Monday that Congress now has until August 2 to raise the nation’s debt limit. Higher-than-expected tax receipts pushed the deadline back 25 days, but Geithner is still urging Congress to act quickly. Failing to raise the limit, he said, “would have a catastrophic economic effect.”
The New York Times notes today that, “by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer,” American corporations pay about what their counterparts in other industrial countries do in taxes. This makes American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to one source.
House Republicans signed a new deal with attorney Paul Clement yesterday to pay him $500,000 for defending the Defense of Marriage Act. The deal is “essentially identical” to the contract with King & Spalding, the firm that withdrew from the case after finding that “the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate.”
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) gave his farewell speech in front of a “mostly empty” Senate chamber, as none of his colleagues came to listen. On his final day in the Senate, Ensign spoke candidly about the sex scandal and ethics investigation that led to his resignation. Rep. Dean Heller (R) will fill the remainder of Ensign’s term.
And finally: Less than 24 hours after the killing Osama bin Laden, commemorative t-shirts were already being sold online and in the streets of Washington, D.C., including one popular one reading, “It took Obama to catch Osama.”
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