AG Holder on Twitter? Not So Fast

ABC News’ Theresa Cook reports: Attorney General Eric Holder didn?t take the press with him on his trip to Guantanamo Bay Monday, but did he instead offer a window into his thoughts via microblogging site Twitter?

?Some scary dudes in this gitmo place. May have to ship em to China lol.?

Maybe not.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the DOJ-seal-emblazoned site at http://twitter.com/ericholder/, but there are plenty of signs that it’s not really him: The offer to bring back rum and cigars, the hope to meet Cuban leader Raul Castro ?if can work it in? and the entry about a career DOJ employee asking him not to tweet from Gitmo.

?On second thought, I’m AG. I make the rules. I’m in ur gitmo. Settin free ur terrists,? the next post said.

And the most recent, expressing shock about an entry from gossip blogger Perez Hilton speculating that starlet Lindsay Lohan is dabbling with drugs. “Teh girl needs help,” the apparently faux-Holder tweets.

But an attorney general on Twitter would not be unheard of — after all, political figures, including Barack Obama (pre-Inauguration), have joined the site in droves, updating constituents or fans with short posts.

Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill — recently named the No. 2 most influential Twitterer in D.C. (behind Karl Rove) even tweeted from yesterday?s White House fiscal responsibility summit.

ABC News correspondents and The Note have taken to the site, and Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran will be Twittering Obama?s speech to the joint session of Congress tonight, starting at 8:30 p.m. ET.

And if you thought you?d seen the last of the parachute-pants wearing 1990?s rapper M.C. Hammer, you?d be wrong. His tweets are apparently music to his nearly 118,000 followers? ears. Hammer Time!

Holder will not be in attendance at tonight?s speech; he?s the Cabinet member designated to stay in a secured location away from the U.S. Capitol to preserve the line of succession, if disaster were to strike.

For the attorney general, it could be a good time to think about claiming his own spot in the world of Twitter.

ABC News? Ariane de Vogue and Jason Ryan contributed to this report.

timulus Deal? Not So Fast

ABC News? Jonathan Karl reports: Earlier this afternoon, Senate leaders triumphantly announced a deal on a $789 billion stimulus plan.

The deal was to be made official at a joint House-Senate conference committee meeting at 3 p.m. ET. Several members of the committee showed up. The cameras were rolling. Staff filled the room. So did reporters.

Then the meeting was been postponed.

The problem: Liberals in the House are objecting to the amount of money in the bill for school construction — apparently significantly less than either the $79 billion approved by the House or the $39 billion approved by the Senate.

Another problem: Some House Democrats say the bill gives states too much discretion on how to use some of the money intended for education.

Some Senate Democrats are unhappy, too. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said there is just not enough money in the bill for school construction.

?Every school in America will get $10,000 bucks if they’re lucky,? Harkin said, guessing that might be enough to buy two energy-efficient windows.

?And what’s that going to do for them?? he asked. ?We’re trying to add new heating facilities. We’re trying to add renovations. And doing it by formula doesn’t do it.?

Harkin said he’d ultimately vote for the deal, but he doesn’t like the concessions made to get the support of the moderate Republicans.

?I’m just dismayed at the process,? Harkin said. ?I think that we, on our side, caved in too much in order to appease a few people. I just think we should have held strong on some of these things and seen if we could have passed it. If not, then you come back and try to fix it.?

All signs suggest that this will be worked out. But right now: impasse.

UPDATE: To quell the last-minute rebellion by House Democratic leaders, who were unhappy with the scaled-down bill, senators increased the funds allocated to states for school construction. In terms of the overall deal, the approximate top-line numbers include about 282 billion in tax cuts, which is lower than the $376 billion passed by the Senate, but more than $264 billion passed by House and roughly $507 billion in spending, for a total cost of $789 billion. These numbers are likely to change as they go through the Congressional Budget Office.