ThinkFast: April 13, 2009

post from Think Progress on 13 April 2009 09:00:00 AM. © Think Progress

Before Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates, President Obama twice authorized the military to use force to rescue him. “Obama first gave permission around 8 p.m. Friday, and upgraded it at 9:20 a.m. Saturday,” expanding the order “to encompass more military personnel and equipment that arrived in the Indian Ocean to engage the pirates.” The AP writes that Obama passed his first national security test.

The Obama administration plans to “ratchet up pressure on Congress to pass climate change legislation this year by declaring its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the Environmental Protection Agency.” In 2007, the Supreme Court said the EPA could regulate CO2 emissions, and Obama “has given the EPA the green light” to declare them a danger to public health and welfare.

In Afghanistan, Ahmad Wali Karzai a “female provincial legislator was shot dead Sunday in the restive southern province of Kandahar.” A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred as she was heading home from work.

Prosecutorial misconduct in Ted Stevens?s case does not mean he is ?innocent.? One of the jurors in the case, Colleen Walsh, wrote on her blog as if speaking to Stevens, saying: ?You may be innocent on corruption charges which were never brought up. But you are still guilty of not disclosing some of your major gifts to the public.?

“The private student lending industry and its allies in Congress are maneuvering to thwart a plan by President Obama to end a subsidized loan program and redirect billions of dollars in bank profits to scholarships for needy students.” The private loan industry “has begun lobbying aggressively to save a program that has generated giant profits with very little risk.”

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