by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important, most interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
Sen. John McCain narrowly won the Florida Republican primary, the first closed party contest, beating Mitt Romney and likely driving Rudy Giuliani out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The win was likely to give McCain momentum as the race moves towards Super Tuesday next week. Sen. Hillary Clinton won the largely meaningless Florida Democratic primary, which was downgraded by the national party officials after the state moved its primary earlier.
McCain appeared to owe his Florida win to the votes of cultural conservatives being split between Romney and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who has gotten strong support from such Republicans.
John Edwards was ending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination after the former senator from North Carolina failed to win any primary or caucus and less than a week after coming in a distant third in the South Carolina primary which he had won four years ago. The Federal Reserve was widely expected to cut a key interest rate for the second time in just over a week, although the size of the decrease is a question as the economy sends mixed signals, with a surprisingly strong report on Tuesday of big-ticket durable goods confused the picture of a generally weakening economy.
The economy slowed to a near halt in last year’s fourth-quarter as a result of the housing market crash and the mortgage meltdown. The slowdown made growth for 2007 2.2 percent, the slowest since 2002.
The House passed a $146 billion economic stimulus plan as the Senate began taking up its own package, with some senators calling for expanding food stamps and unemployment benefits and also eliminating the income cap.
Although President Bush in his State of the Union announced reductions of U.S. troops in Iraq, it’s likely the Bush Administration will keep troop levels at pre-surge levels through the summer as 8,000 support troops will remain to train Iraqi forces.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey who will testify in Congress today, said Tuesday in a letter to Congress he wouldn’t comment on whether waterboarding is torture although he did say that the controversial interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, isn’t being currently used.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a probe into 14 companies linked to sub-prime mortgages and accused of fraud but it declined to identify the firms.
