Several groups from Catholic Family and the Human Rights Institute; Concerned Women for America; Institute for Family Policy; United Families International; and representatives from Poland, Spain and Honduras briefed reporters on a Petition for the Unborn Child.

The briefing was sponsored by the United States Mission. In commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), these groups demanded action be taken at all levels within the UN system to promote families, marriage and the right of the child.

They asked UN officials and member states to promote family stability, “moral” education and to not pass on future generations the notion that it is acceptable not to have a mother and father. They demanded member states to stand up for the family and to support principles for pro-family action and to fight for the right of the unborn child (under Articles 2 and 3 of the UDHR).

 

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced that Congress would be prepared to vote on the bailout for the Big 3 automakers today, pending discussion with those in the Senate.

During a pen and pad session, Hoyer elaborated on the details of the legislation, “Any tax payer assistance will be covered with vigorous oversight, and it’s included in the bill.”

While the Majority Leader stated that they will be prepared today, the Senate may vote first if success seems more likely through that avenue.

Hoyer also discussed prospects for an economic stimulus package, “President-elect Obama has made it very clear that he wants to see a very substantial economic stimulus package passed. He wants to sign such a package in January,” said Hoyer.

“After eight years of economic policies that have lead us to arguably the worst economic performance, the greatest loss of jobs, the most difficulty confronting our people since the great depression it’s critically important that we have legislation that will assist in getting this economy going. We plan on doing this very early next year before President-elect Obama is sworn.”

The Majority Leader also said that he and ten other representatives, including ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), will be presenting Obama with a series of suggestions to help end the genocide in Darfur.

At a hearing to discuss possible energy measures to stimulate the economy, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said that a “number of important energy measures” must be “a central part of any stimulus package.” Bingaman felt that this upcoming Congress has a real opportunity to create a “comprehensive and forward-looking energy policy.”

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said that Congress has done more to address the energy crisis in the last six years than has been accomplished in the previous 30 years. Domenici still suggested “an expedited process” in addressing energy initiatives because of the long delays that can occur due to current regulations.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) advocated for coal-to-liquid fuel technology. According to Bunning, this type of fuel would create significant jobs, substantially reduce emissions, and reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. He is also concerned with investing in other types of energy programs considering they are unproven and inefficient.

Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP), stated that CAP advocates for a $350 billion one-year stimulus and recovery package, part of which he called a “green stimulus.” Hendricks said that one third of that package should go directly to clean energy investments.

Malcolm Woolf, Director of the Maryland Energy Administration, made specific proposals for any stimulus package in the upcoming year. Woolf wanted as much as $10 billion provided for an energy efficient buildings retrofit program, $6 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, $1 billion for the Low-Income Weatherization Assistance Program, and $2.5 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. He also argued for an 8 year extension on energy efficiency and renewable tax provisions that would allow for long-term job creation.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) doesn’t think battery-powered cars aren’t a commodity to U.S. citizens. Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) disagrees with Bunning using some personal testimony. (0:58)

 

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Remedial Harassment by Lawsuit in the Supreme Court
What can high-level government officials do to avoid being distracted from their work by lawsuits? That seemed to be the question of the day at the U.S. Supreme Court, considering the case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Javaid Iqbal sued then-Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, and several other government officials after he was arrested on credit card fraud charges shortly after 9/11. Iqbal claims that he was mistreated—held in a maximum-security prison for nearly six months, where he was subjected to invasive daily searches, beatings, extremes in temperature, sleep disruption, and prohibitions on his religious practices—all because he was an Arab Muslim. He alleges his classification as a “high interest” detainee was racial and religious profiling by the government, in violation of his rights.

The trial has not even begun, though, since the Department of Justice is claiming that pre-trial discovery, including possible depositions with officials, would burden them and prevent them from doing their jobs. They say that the lawsuit’s initial filings, claiming Ashcroft and Mueller knew about and approved of the racial and religious profiling, are not specific enough, so the lawsuit should be dismissed. Of course Iqbal’s lawyers argue that they do have enough information to support their allegations, but they need discovery to fully develop their case.

All members of the Supreme Court today seemed perplexed by the situation. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow a case to be dismissed if it is purely frivolous, but generally not until after discovery has taken place. Further, the Rules allow judges to discipline attorneys who file frivolous lawsuits, but only after the lawsuits have been disposed of.

Justice Breyer, seeking to simplify the situation, asked how an important but non-government person would be able to escape the burden of lawsuits. He asked, as an example, how the president of the Coca-Cola Company would deal with a lawsuit claiming he personally put mice in Coke bottles: the claim is clearly preposterous, but neither attorney could give a clear federal rule that would allow dismissal of the case at such an early stage.

The Department of Justice argued that the resolution should come in a more stringent requirement on the initial filings of the case—when a suit is filed against an important government official, the filings should be held to a higher standard and need to be more specific. The DoJ said that this standard could be held to be a corollary of the “qualified immunity” rule that allows government officials to normally escape being held personally liable for actions taken while in office.

The Justices are unlikely to accept that suggestion, however. Firstly, there are procedures set out for changing the rules on court filings, so the Supreme Court cannot simply impose new standards. Secondly, such a standard would go against the American tradition of allowing easy access to the court system. Thirdly, the proposed standard would still allow private officials, such as the Coca-Cola president, to be burdened.

The Supreme Court will likely release its decision in the spring.

Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner will be covering the pen and pad briefing with House Majority leader Steny Hoyer.

Legal Affairs Correspondent Jay Goodman Tamboli will be covering the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in Ashcroft v. Iqbal.

The Washington Bureau will be covering the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on investments in clean energy and natural resources projects and programs to create green jobs and to stimulate the economy, and the House Financial Services Committee on “Oversight Concerns Regarding Treasury Department Conduct of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.”

In the afternoon, the Washington Bureau will be covering “Great Energy Debate” on “Nuclear Power: Climate Solution or Economic and Security Gamble?” at the National Press Club, and a discussion on “Building a Military for the 21st Century: New Realities, New Priorities” at the Center for American Progress.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell made the case for revitalizing the U.S. infrastructure, explaining that it will improve the country’s quality of life, public safety, and economic viability.

Rendell stressed that the scale of the program would need to be significant in order to achieve the desired effects as a vehicle for economic recovery.

“Scale is important in this program. It cannot be 25 billion or 50 billion…our infrastructure is collapsing, it’s a danger to public safety, it’s killing our quality of life when people need to sit in traffic jams an hour and a half a day, and it is certainly producing an uncompetitive American economy,” said Rendell during a summit at the US Chamber of Commerce.

In order to make sure infrastructure improvements are carried out quickly, Rendell discussed a suggested plan to take federal funds away from states if they are not used immediately, a move that Rendell says will create an incentive.

“We need to have a hammer, and the hammer is ‘use it or lose it’…we know that in emergency situations in infrastructure can happen readily.”

Rendell dismissed the notion that the U.S. does not have the funds for wide-scale infrastructure at this time.

“One thing that’s been good about the financial crisis, and there’s not much, is that it has finally blown away the answer to good ideas in Washington ‘we just don’t have the money’. It’s pretty clear, whenever they want to have the money, they have the money,” said Rendell.

“If we can produce that type of money to bail out financial institutions who may or may not deserve to be bailed out, we can certainly produce a small portion of that money to rebuild the American infrastructure.”

Rendell says that he would like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assume the role of transportation secretary, and also mentions a number of governors he considers contenders, including Tim Kaine of Virginia, Kathy Sebelius of Kansas , and John Corzine of New Jersey.

Fannie and Freddie ignored advice

While mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been bailed out and put under conservatorship, questions still remain over what factors led to the government sponsored enterprises’ (GSE) failure.

Richard F. Syron, CEO of Freddie Mac from 2004 to September, 2008, attributes some of the blame to the nature of the housing market.

“When the dramatic and widespread downturn in housing prices occurred, the pressures on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were enormous. The GSEs are in a non-diversified business focused solely on residential housing lending in the United States,” said Syron during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

“As the guarantor of almost half the homes mortgages in the country, it is not at all surprising that these two firms would get hard by the biggest housing collapse in 75 years.”

However, the release of certain documents suggest to some members of Congress that the CEOs were aware of the risks that came with alternative lending, and are therefore responsible for their companies downfall since they did not respond to the warnings.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) referenced a series of emails that the committee was provided with that detailed a discussion between former CEO of Fannie Mae Daniel Mudd and the company’s Chief Risk Officer. In the email, the Chief Risk Officer accused Fannie Mae of having the weakest control processes he had seen in his career. After the email was initially received the Chief Risk Officer’s budget was cut by 16%, a move that he interpreted as being carried out with malice.

“The facts show, gentleman, that many of you at this table did know the risks and that you were warned not to take them and that you ignored your internal advisor, your Chief Risk Officer,” said Kucinich.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell says that he would like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as transportation secretary, and also mentions a number of governors he considers contenders, including Tim Kaine of Virginia, Kathy Sebelius of Kansas , and John Corzine of New Jersey (0:34).

 

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The Campaign for America’s Future hosted a conference call to discuss an economic recovery package to help America get out of its recession.

“It will take at least two years of expanded spending to get this economy going,” said Robert Borosage, Co-Director for the Campaign for America’s Future. “We can’t go back to the high-consumption, stagnant income, high-debt model of the past.”

The plan called for $900 billion to go towards to expanding public investment. Borosage also called for better health care policies, an increase in regulation of the financial sector, and more investments in a greener infrastructure.