SPB News for Thursday.

Chairman Waxman Publishes Committee's Oversight Accomplishments - In the 110th Congress, the Committee conducted vigorous oversight to uncover waste, fraud, and abuse, to improve the operations of the federal government, ...

GOP Senators Ask Mukasey for Records About Holder - It's not just Marc Rich and 1996 fundraising that Republicans want to know about. To prepare for Eric Holder Jr.'s confirmation hearing to be attorney general...

All 50 Dem senators call on Blagojevich to resign

CHU TO BE ENERGY SECRETARY — From NBC's Savannah Guthrie — Obama will name Steven Chu his choice for Energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator and Carol Browner as energy “czar” reporting to the president. — It is unclear whether the Browner position is cabinet level. Carol Browner will reportedly be Obama’s energy coordinator. Lisa Jackson, who is currently Gov. Jon Corzine’s chief of staff in New Jersey, will reportedly be Obama’s choice to head the EPA.

Jindal says no — Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, seen by many Republicans as the most promising standard-bearer for a remade party, said at a Richmond, Va press conference that he isn't running for president in 2012. — At a news conference Wednesday with Bob McDonnell …

GOP may seek Bill Clinton's testimony — Senate Republicans are considering asking Bill Clinton to testify at his wife's confirmation hearing about potential conflicts of interest involving his worldwide charitable enterprises. — “There are concerns about his international work across the board

Bush talks with international bloggers

Bush admin to change farm rules

Farm worker groups say move will worsen wages and working conditions.

U.S. to spend $850 million for Kandahar Air Field expansion The New York Times reported this weekend that the first brigade of new troops for Afghanistan will go north to protect Kabul, the capital city, but a massive new program of base construction shows the United States preparing to send a bigger share of its additional forces to Kandahar in the south. Engineers say they're planning an $850-million (U.S.) expansion of Kandahar Air Field in the coming year, approximately doubling the population of the sprawling facility to make it the largest military base in Afghanistan.

U.S. declines to free Reuters photographer in Iraq The U.S. military in Iraq is not obliged to obey an Iraqi court order to release a freelance photographer working for Reuters news agency and will hold him into 2009, a spokesman said on Tuesday. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on November 30 that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, and ordered the U.S. military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport, where he has been detained since September.

Canadian tortured in Syria victim of US conspiracy: lawyer A Canadian man wrongly accused of terrorism and sent to be tortured in Syria was the victim of a high level US conspiracy, his lawyer told a court in New York. The full 12-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals heard Maher Arar's lawyer outline accusations that top officials were behind the 2002 deportation of the Syrian-born Canadian software engineer. "There was an intentional conspiracy to subject (Arar) to torture and there was an intentional conspiracy to keep him from having access to the courts," attorney David Cole said.
,000 US troops to help British with Taleban stalemate in Afghanistan America is planning to send at least 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan's Helmand province to help out beleaguered British troops, according to defence sources in Washington and Kabul. Ministers are expected to examine early next year whether British reinforcements will also be sent to boost the present force of 8,100 troops in the British-controlled province.

Britain to withdraw most troops from Iraq by June Britain announced Wednesday it will withdraw all but a handful of its 4,000 soldiers from Iraq next year, ending a mission that was unpopular at home and failed to curb the rise of Iranian-backed Shiite militias in the south.

Fort Dix witness cites terrorism threat US.-based Muslim terror groups don't need to be sophisticated to be effective, says a prosecution witness at the terrorism trial of five New Jersey men. The five are accused of plotting to enter the Fort Dix U.S. Army base in New Jersey and kill as many soldiers as they could, but defense attorneys say the naturalized Muslim immigrants never carried out any planning unless goaded to by a paid FBI informant who had infiltrated their group.

Supreme Court hears case on Ashcroft, Mueller immunity The US Supreme Court heard a case Wednesday on whether cabinet-level officials could be held accountable for controversial tactics President [sic] George W. Bush ordered as part of the US-led "war on terror." The nine Supreme Court justices are set to make a ruling by June 2009. Former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller have sought immunity from the charges in a lawsuit filed by Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani national. Iqbal was among more than 700 Muslim men from the New York City area rounded up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

AIG owes $10 billion for soured trades: report American International Group, once the world's largest insurer, owes around $10 billion to other financial services firms for trades that have gone sour, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Tuesday. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, says the trades have not been explicitly disclosed before, and are not covered by terms of a current $150 billion U.S. government rescue package.

Obamas And Bidens To Join Day Of Nat'l Service On Jan. 19