Thursday, June 18, 2009

How's the weather in Sacramento?

It rained last night in D.C., where lots of reporters are taking an interest in the AmeriCorps story:
The Obama administration's dismissal of the inspector general for the AmeriCorps federal "volunteer" program has all the makings of a classic Beltway "cover-up" scandal. Not even the sycophantic White House press corps will be able to ignore this story for long.
Washington is a six-newspaper town nowadays -- in addition to The Washington Post and The Washington Times, there's also Roll Call, The Hill, Politico and the Washington Examiner. . . .
You can read the rest. Blogging will be light today, as I plan to be running around Washington, hoping to meet with some friends who work on Capitol Hill. And who knows what else might turn up?
With so many Washington journalists interested in this case, how long before one of them books a flight westward and starts filing stories with a Sacramento dateline? . . . One way or another, this story could take a long, long time to play out. They say the weather in Sacramento is lovely in June.
And you can read the rest of that, too. Anything can happen . . . uh, sources say.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking important questions, and the Prowler is on the loose:
It has not gone unnoticed among some Republicans on Capitol Hill that First Lady Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, recently stepped down from her White House position to become head of the Corporation for National and Community Service. According to White House sources, Norris and Obama have already discussed how AmeriCorps could fit into the First Lady's volunteerism projects.
According to White House sources, Norris's shift to the CNCS was discussed not only with the First Lady, but also with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. . . .
"You look at what the CNCS is funding over there: a 'Social Investment Fund,' which over the next five years is going to hand out almost a half a billion dollars to young people who start up community activist organizations," says a Senate Republican aide. "Who the hell is going to be monitoring that kind of underwriting? Michelle Obama's former chief of staff? Emanuel? I don't think so." . . .
Hmmmmmm.

2 comments:

  1. Always fun to read "...the FBI is investigating deleted emails from...."

    Unless, of course, it is YOUR 'deleted emails' they are investigating.

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  2. To answer your question, it will be 95 and sunny today (and unlike DC, it's a dry heat so it will be very nice). I've spent the last 41 summers in Sacramento and this has been the coldest June I've experienced. I'm happy that our customery heat has returned.

    Kevin Johnson shares your view that the national press may soon be at his door. If you haven't already found it, I suggest you read today's Public Eye at sacbee.com. Apparently, the Mayor's office tried to restrict press access to City Hall only to find that they didn't have the authority. Sacramento has a weak Mayor system and the City Manager runs City Hall.

    Although I'm a lifelong Republican, I find it hard to dislike Kevin Johnson. He was a year behind me at Cal and, of course, I appreciated his basketball skills. I played in a couple of pick up games with him (as a normal human, it's interesting to play with someone that unnaturally quick) and he always said hello to me when we passed on campus (and he did go to class - and earn a degree). He's a nice guy and a natural politician (I believe the second part of that was an insult).

    What interests me is that if the Obama administration hadn't fired that IG, this would have remained a purely local Sacramento story. One hesitates to criticize The One, but that was a pretty stupid move.

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