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Feinstein: Geithner being scapegoated

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A call issued by a Republican congressman for U.S. Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign his post is merely scapegoating, a Democratic senator said Sunday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reacted angrily on NBC's "Meet the Press" to a challenge issued by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, to Geithner during a hearing last week in which Brady called on Geithner to resign "for the sake of our jobs."

"You know, the times get tough, so what happens? Somebody has to point a finger," Feinstein said. "Tim Geithner isn't responsible for the entirety of what's out there today, and it's nonsense to think that he is. It really makes me very angry, because we've got to find somebody to blame."

A Republican senator also appearing on the show, Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, wouldn't endorse Brady's call, instead saying that President Barack Obama's entire administration and the Democratic controlled Congress are all guilty of running the economy poorly.

"I think Kevin Brady was right to bring it up," she said. "I think that we are going in the wrong direction. ... The president, the Congress and Mr. Geithner are all responsible for going in the wrong direction. This stimulus package is wrong."

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McConnell: Healthcare bill a 'job killer'

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- The healthcare reform bill now before the U.S. Senate is a "job killer," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Sunday.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," McConnell said of the measure, which reached the Senate floor Saturday on a 60-39 vote, "(the bill) is a job killer."

McConnell asserted that small businesses aren't going to "expand employment" if they saw what was coming "with this healthcare bill. You're going to have healthcare taxes, you're going to have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, so your tax rates are going to go up.

"The cost of hiring additional employees will be greatly exacerbated by the steps that they're taking. This is the wrong direction to go," the Republican leader said.

But Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., appearing on "Fox News Sunday," noted that a federal small business tax credit would be offered to employers to provide a cushion for employers looking for relief from private insurance costs.

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White House: Gitmo transfers mean jobs

THOMSON, Ill., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Thousands of jobs would be created in Illinois if the U.S. government purchases a nearly empty prison there to house terror detainees, a study indicates.

The study, performed by the Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers and obtained by The Chicago Sun-Times, asserted that 2,290 to 2,960 jobs would be created in and around Thomson, Ill., in the first year after its conversion to house some of the prisoners now held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, the newspaper reported Sunday.

Local residents in the Illinois-Iowa border town would be "good candidates" to fill 1,240 to 1,410 of those jobs, the report indicated.

The newspaper published the results of the study as Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, toured the Thomson facility and met with local officials. Durbin has said the prison could be refurbished to house as many as 100 of the 215 remaining Guantanamo detainees.

The Sun-Times said report estimated that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons would take up 75 percent of the facility and the Defense Department would use 25 percent of the space for the detainees -- essentially two "entirely separate facilities side by side."

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Kennedy says banned from communion

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., says he has been banned by a Catholic bishop from receiving the sacrament of communion.

Kennedy also asserted that Providence, R.I., Bishop Thomas Tobin has instructed priests in the diocese to not give him communion because the congressman's political stance on abortion doesn't comport with church positions, the Providence Journal reported Sunday.

Kennedy told the newspaper Tobin told him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion. The Journal said Kennedy wouldn't say when or how Tobin told him not to take communion and wouldn't reveal whether he has obeyed the bishop's command.

A Tobin spokesman wouldn't discuss if Tobin had banned Kennedy from communion, but did deny that instructions had been issued to priests in the Providence archdiocese.

"Bishop Tobin has never addressed matters relative to public officials receiving Holy Communion with pastors of the diocese," spokesman Michael Guilfoyle said in an e-mailed statement.