President Obama’s budget document, setting out US Federal Government spending of more than $3 trillion in the next fiscal year:

Fy10 Overview

Tags: Barack Obama, US Budget 2009, US Economy

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The Neighborhood Today: An Economy Day, But Clouds over Afghanistan

Evening Update (11:25 p.m.): Move Along, Nothing to See Here. Genius/General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, and Frnech Defense Minister Herve Morin discussed Afghanistan today in a meeting in Paris. Of course, Petraeus told reporters afterwards, they did not talk about the issue of troop reinforcements: “That wasn’t part of the discussion today. What we were doing was discussing how we perceive the 20 countries in the central command area of responsibility.”

Which is sort of the equivalent of visiting the Pope and not mentioning Catholicism.

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Tags: Al-Arabiya, Askar Akayev, Barack Obama, David Petraeus, Drugs, France, Germany, Hamid Karzai, Herve Morin, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Lee Myung-bak, Michael Ledeen, Mohammad Khatami, Munich Security Conference, North Korea, Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Roger Cohen, Russia, Ryan Crocker, South Korea, The Cable, US Economy, Vali Nasr

“America’s Finest News Source”, The Onion, reports that the American economic crisis has been averted with a bit of help from a former Vice President/Bond villain:

Organizers reported Sunday that the 44th White House Carnival was a rousing success, raising a record $800,000,066,845 for the federal government—$800 billion of which came from a dunk tank featuring Dick Cheney….

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Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, The Onion, Tony Blair, US Economy

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Current Obamameter Reading: Distant Clouds, Local Storms

10:30 p.m. The British Council has suspended all operations in Iran after visas were denied to British staff and local employees were summoned to President Ahmadinejad’s office and ordered to resign from their posts.

8 p.m. Red Alert of the Day. Isaac Ben Israel, a Member of the Knesset, has declared that Israel has a year in which to attack Iran before Tehran has a nuclear bomb: Ben Israel, a former general and senior defence official, said, “Last resort means when you reach the stage when everything else failed. When is this? Maybe a year, give or take.”

Meanwhile, Prime Ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu told a conference that Iran poses “the gravest challenge Israel has faced since the War of Independence in 1948. We will work on all levels to neutralise this danger.” (cross-posted from Israel-Gaza-Palestine thread)

3:25 p.m. We’ve posted a separate entry on the reports of an Obama proposal to reduce US and Russian warheads by 80 percent.

2:50 p.m. Carrots and Sticks. Only a day after Moscow’s provision of incentives helped persuade Kyrgyzstan to end the lease on the US airbase in that country, the Russian Foreign Ministry has stated:

We positively reacted to the request of the United States for the transit through Russia of goods and materials to Afghanistan. We will be flexible in many other ways which will support our joint success in Afghanistan — that would be the basic school of thinking from which we will proceed.

2:40 p.m. Karzai Strikes Back. The Afghan President, amidst stories that the US military is prepared to “ditch” him as part of the US surge, has fought back with criticism of American military operations:

Our demands are clear and they are that house searches of Afghans, arrests of Afghans and civilian casualties must cease. And they (U.S. and NATO countries) are naturally putting on pressure to make us silent and retract from this claim. This is not possible.

Karzai’s comments follow a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who expressed his concern at the civilian death toll. The UN said on Tuesday that 2100 civilians had been killed in 2008, a 40 percent rise from the previous case, and added that 700 had died at the hands of Afghan and foreign forces. Last week NATO claimed only 90 civilians had been killed by Afghan/foreign military action.

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Tags: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, Ayad Allawi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ban Ki-Moon, Barack Obama, Canada, Ethiopia, Gaza, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Missile Reduction Treaties, North Korea, Obamameter, Palestine, Protectionism, Russia, Sergei Ivanov, Somalia, South Korea, United Nations, US Economy, US Military Bases, Walter Sharp

In the run-up to the 44th President of the USA, there was a good deal of black comedy in the desperation of some to prevent the 43rd from taking his place in oblivion. From Karl Rove, who may just have been trying to sweep up around his own place in our memories, to Charles Krauthammer, who helped sell the notion of the “unipolar moment” that assisted the Bush Administration in its failed ambitions, to Andrew Roberts, who clung to dreams of American Empire, to Bruce Anderson, who bellowed, “History Will Vindicate Bush”, to former Dubya speechwriters, the chant went up: One Day You’ll Be Grateful for All He Did.

So, in that spirit, we’re pleased to re-print, from AlterNet, Bernie Horn’s Top10 Reasons to Remember Dubya.

So Long Worst President Ever; 10 Reasons History Will Hang You

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Tags: Abu Ghraib, AlterNet, Andrew Roberts, Bernie Horn, Bob Ney, Bruce Anderson, Charles Krauthammer, David Safavian, David Vitter, Dean Baker, Dick Cheney, Duke Cunningham, Economic Policy Institute, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Geneva Conventions, George W Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Harry Reid, Hurricane Katrina, J. Steven Griles, Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove, Larry Craig, Lewis Libby, Richard Nixon, Stem Cell Research, Ted Stevens, Tom DeLay, Torture, US Economy, Waterboarding

This morning I chatted with the BBC World Service’s World Update about the Obama Inaugural, ranging across topics from Obama’s style to relations with the Muslim world to the economic and foreign policy challenges.

Thanks also to Dublin Newstalk’s Right Hook, where I just had an excellent conversation with regular host George Hook, speaking from Washington, and studio host Ivan Yates about the prospects for an Obama Administration.

Tags: Barack Obama, BBC World Service, Dublin Newstalk, George Hook, Inauguration 2009, Ivan Yates, Scott Lucas, US Economy, World Update

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It is a strange feeling watching this day, sitting amidst technology which gives access to numerous television channels, Internet streams, and Twitter.

On the one hand, no amount of detachment — not even the challenge of writing a live blog and providing a running analysis — could separate me from the excitement and the enthusiasm of today. I have said this as a pro forma for media interviews but today I believed it, “Growing up in Alabama in the midst of the racial issues of the 1960s and 1970s, I never dreamed that I would see an African-American become President of the United States.”

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Tags: African Americans, Barack Obama, Bay of Pigs, George W Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Inauguration 2009, Inauguration speech, Iran, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, Obama inauguration speech, US Economy, Vietnam

Perhaps we were being too harsh on David Brooks of The New York Times (“the drying husks of the fall”) yesterday. Gareth Sellers refers us to Being There, the 1979 novel and film in which a gardener played by Peter Sellers becomes President on the basis of his “economic wisdom”:

Growth has its season… as long as the roots are not severed, all is well, and all will be well in the garden.

How David Brooks will save the US economy:

Tags: David Brooks, economy, New York Times, US Economy