Winnie's Blog

A Call To Action !

Winnie — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:05:07 EST

The 111th senate is about to be sworn in today. The most important job they will have is to pass the stimulus package put forth by President Obama as soon as he is sworn in. The bill could probably be pushed through along party lines, but President Obama wants Congress to stop partisan politics. He wants the Republican minority to have a voice. The only voice the Republican leadership is interested in is the voice of opposition. They see their most important job as blocking, delaying, and otherwise keeping President Obama from passing the bill. They could care less about the plight of average Americans. They want to play politics. Congressman John Boener has a request on his website that economists contact him with proof that the economic stimulus plan WON'T work. Senator Mitch McConnell wants to post the massive stimulus bill posted on the internet as a delaying tactic. He wants to debate it endlessly. He wants to substitute Republican tax cutting bills that didn't get passed in the last session for the new bill that President Obama is proposing. I urge EVERYONE- call, write, or email your senators and congressmen (and women). Tell them that as their constituents, you are sick and tired of gridlock, and that you demand that they to work together to pass this bill. There is an election coming up in 2010. The Republicans STILL think, even after their serious losses in the 2008 election, that the country is center-right, and they need to be MORE conservative, and MORE obstructionist to win in the next election cycle. Inform them that unless they want to drive this country into financial ruin, and be in a permanent minority for the next 40 years, they better do what they were sent to Washington to do, and that is to work for the people who voted them into office in the first place. The only thing that is more important to a politician than a campaign contribution is a vote. Let them know they will actually have to work to earn your vote. It is the only way to get their attention.

Middle Class Tax Cuts Coming Soon

Winnie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:31:12 EST

Obama Tax Cuts Likely Soon
Senior Adviser Says Middle Class Needs 'Some Relief Now'

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 29, 2008; A04

HONOLULU, Dec. 28 -- President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan will include an immediate tax cut for middle-class families, and the incoming administration hopes to enact permanent tax cuts soon thereafter, a senior adviser to Obama said Sunday.

David Axelrod said the stimulus package will be implemented soon, given the worsening economy, and could cost $675 billion to $775 billion. The massive recovery plan will seek to create or save 3 million jobs, he said in appearances Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation."

"Look, we feel it's important that middle-class people get some relief now," Axelrod said on "Meet the Press." Obama has "promised a middle-class tax cut," he added. "This package will include a portion of that tax cut that will become part of the permanent tax cut he'll have in his upcoming budget."

Giving people more spending money will "help get our economy going again," Axelrod said. He also said he is hopeful that the recovery plan will be ready for Obama to sign soon after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

"Obviously, the sooner the better," Axelrod said on "Face the Nation." "I don't think Americans can wait. People are suffering, our economy is sliding, and we need to act. And so our message to Congress is to work on it with all deliberate speed."

Obama, in the second week of a vacation in Hawaii, continues to work on his economic plan, aides said. He is considering immediate tax cuts of $1,000 for couples and $500 for individuals, which would be delivered through reduced tax withholding from paychecks, a transition aide said. That plan could cost about $140 billion over the next two years, the aide said.

Axelrod said that the incoming administration plans to propose permanent tax cuts in its next budget but that officials have not determined the form of those cuts. They are likely to be based on Obama's campaign proposal, which said that families earning less than $250,000 would see their taxes remain the same or decrease.

Asked by NBC's David Gregory whether Obama will raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans by reversing President Bush's tax cuts, Axelrod said Bush's plan is "something that we plainly can't afford moving forward."

"Whether it expires or whether we repeal it a little bit early, we'll determine later, but it's going to go," Axelrod said. "It has to go."

Obama's economic stimulus plan is expected to include billions in new spending on infrastructure projects, aid to beleaguered state governments and programs to create jobs. Axelrod said creating jobs is an essential part of the plan.

"We want to do it in a way that leaves a lasting footprint, by investing in energy and health-care projects, and refurbishing the nation's classrooms and labs and libraries so our kids can compete, and rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges and waterways," he said on "Face the Nation." "And, in this way, we're not only just -- we're not only creating work, but we're laying the foundation for the future of our economy."

Doug Kass's 20 Predictions for 2009

Winnie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:27:49 EST

come in some large financial companies in Europe."

Without further ado, here is my list of 20 surprises for 2009. In doing so, we start the new year with the surprising story that ended the old year, the alleged Madoff Ponzi scheme.

1. The Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs are found to be large investors with Madoff.

CNBC

2. Housing stabilizes sooner than expected. President Obama, under the aegis of Larry Summers, initiates a massive and unprecedented Marshall Plan to turn the housing market around. His plan includes several unconventional measures: Among other items is a $25,000 tax credit on all home purchases as well as a large tax credit and other subsidies to the financial intermediaries that provide the mortgage loans and commitments. This, combined with a lowering in mortgage rates (and a boom in refinancing), the bankruptcy/financial restructuring of three public homebuilders (which serves to lessen new home supply) and a flip-flop in the benefits of ownership vs. the merits of renting, trigger a second-quarter 2009 improvement in national housing activity, but the rebound is uneven. While the middle market rebounds, the high-end coastal housing markets remain moribund, as they impacted adversely by the Wall Street layoffs and the carnage in the hedge fund industry.

3. The nation's commercial real estate markets experience only a shallow pricing downturn in the first half of 2009. President Obama's broad-ranging housing legislation incorporates tax credits and other unconventional remedies directed toward nonresidential lending and borrowing. Banks become more active in office lending (as they do in residential real estate lending), and the commercial mortgage-backed securities market never experiences anything like the weakness exhibited in the 2007 to 2008 market. Office REIT shares, similar to housing-related equities, rebound dramatically, with several doubling in the new year's first six months.

4. The U.S. economy stabilizes sooner than expected. After a decidedly weak January-to-February period (and a negative first-quarter 2009 GDP reading, which is similar to fourth-quarter 2008's black hole), the massive and creative stimulus instituted by the newly elected President begins to work. Banks begin to lend more aggressively, and lower interest rates coupled with aggressive policy serve to contribute to an unexpected refinancing boom. By March, personal consumption expenditures begin to rebound slowly from an abysmal holiday and post-holiday season as energy prices remain subdued, and a shallow recovery occurs far sooner than many expect. Second-quarter corporate profits growth comfortably beats the downbeat and consensus forecasts as inflation remains tame, commodity prices are subdued, productivity rebounds and labor costs are well under control.

5. The U.S. stock market rises by close to 20% in the year's first half. Housing-related stocks (title insurance, home remodeling, mortgage servicers and REITs) exhibit outsized and market-leading gains during the January-to-June interval. Heavily shorted retail and financial stocks also advance smartly. The year's first-half market rise of about 20% is surprisingly orderly throughout the six-month period, as volatility moves back down to pre-2008 levels, but rising domestic interest rates, still weak European economies and a halt to China's economic growth limit the stock market's progress in the back half of the year.

6. A second quarter "growth scare" bursts the bubble in the government bond market. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note moves steadily higher from 2.10% at year-end to over 3.50% by early fall, putting a ceiling on the first-half recovery in the U.S. stock market, which is range-bound for the remainder of the year, settling up by approximately 20% for the 12-month period ending Dec. 31, 2009. Foreign central banks, faced with worsening domestic economies, begin to shy away from U.S. Treasury auctions and continue to diversify their reserve assets. By year-end, the U.S. dollar represents less than 60% of worldwide reserve assets, down from 2008's year-end at 62% and down from 70% only five years ago. China's 2008 economic growth proves to be greatly exaggerated as unemployment surprisingly rises in early 2009 and the rate of growth in China's real GDP moves towards zero by the second quarter. Unlike more developed countries, the absence of a social safety net turns China's fiscal economic policy inward and aggressively so. Importantly, China not only is no longer a natural buyer of U.S. Treasuries but it is forced to dip into it's piggy bank of foreign reserves, adding significant upside pressure to U.S. note and bond yields.

7. Commodities markets remain subdued. Despite an improving domestic economy, a further erosion in the Western European and Chinese economies weighs on the world's commodities markets. Gold never reaches $1,000 an ounce and trades at $500 an ounce at some point during the year. (Gold-related shares are among 2009's worst stock market performers.) The price of crude oil briefly rallies early in the year after a step up in the violence in the Middle East but trades in a broad $25 to $65 range for all of 2009 as President Obama successfully introduces aggressive and meaningful legislation aimed at reducing our reliance on imported oil. The price of gasoline briefly breaches $1.00 a gallon sometime in the year. The U.S. dollar outperforms most of the world's currencies as the U.S. regains its place as an economic and political powerhouse.

8. Capital spending disappoints further. Despite an improving economy, large-scale capital spending projects continue to be delayed in favor of maintenance spending. Technology shares continue to lag badly, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD Quote - Cramer on AMD - Stock Picks) files bankruptcy.

9. The hedge fund and fund of funds industries do not recover in 2009. The Madoff fraud, poor hedge fund performance and renewed controversy regarding private equity marks (particularly among a number of high-profile colleges like Harvard and Yale) prove to be a short-term death knell to the alternative investments industry. As well, the gating of redemption requests disaffects high net worth, pension plan, endowment and University investors to both traditional hedge funds and to private equity (which suffers from a series of questionable and subjective marking of private equity deal pricings at several leading funds). Three of the 10 largest hedge funds close their doors as numerous hedge funds reduce their fee structures in order to retain investors. Faced with an increasingly uncertain investor base, several big hedge funds merge with like-sized competitors in a quickening hedge fund industry consolidation. By year-end, the number of hedge funds is down by well over 50%.

10. Mutual fund redemptions from 2008 reverse into inflows in 2009. The mutual fund industry does not suffer the same fate as the hedge fund industry. In fact, a renaissance of interest in mutual funds (especially of a passive/indexed kind) develops. Fidelity is the largest employer of the graduating classes (May 2009) at the Wharton and Harvard Business Schools; it goes public in late 2009 in the year's largest IPO. Shares of T. Rowe Price (TROW Quote - Cramer on TROW - Stock Picks) and AllianceBernstein (AB Quote - Cramer on AB - Stock Picks) enjoy sharp price gains in the new year. Bill Miller retires from active fund management at Legg Mason (LM Quote - Cramer on LM - Stock Picks).

11. State and municipal imbalances and deficits mushroom. The municipal bond market seizes up in the face of poor fiscal management, revenue shortfalls and rising budgets at state and local levels. Municipal bond yields spike higher. A new Municipal TARP totaling $2 trillion is introduced in the year's second half.

12. The automakers and the UAW come to an agreement over wages. Under the pressure of late first-quarter bankruptcies, the UAW agrees to bring compensation in line with non-U.S. competitors and exchanges a reduction in retiree health care benefits for equity in the major automobile manufacturers.

13. The new administration replaces SEC Commissioner Cox. Upon his inauguration, President Obama immediately replaces SEC Commissioner Christopher Cox with Yale professor Dr. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. The new SEC commissioner recommends that the uptick rule be reinstated and undertakes a yearlong investigation/analysis into the impact of Ultra Bear ETFs on the market. Later in the year, the administration recommends that the SEC be abolished and folded into the Treasury Department. Dr. Sonnenfeld returns to Yale University.

14. Large merger of equals deals multiply. Economies of scale and mergers of equals become the M&A mantras in 2009, and niche investment banking boutiques such as Evercore (EVR Quote - Cramer on EVR - Stock Picks), Lazard (LAZ Quote - Cramer on LAZ - Stock Picks) and Greenhill (GHL Quote - Cramer on GHL - Stock Picks) flourish. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup announce a merger of equals, but Goldman maintains management control of the combined entity. Morgan Stanley (MS Quote - Cramer on MS - Stock Picks) acquires Blackstone. Disney (DIS Quote - Cramer on DIS - Stock Picks) purchases Carnival (CCL Quote - Cramer on CCL - Stock Picks). Microsoft (MSFT Quote - Cramer on MSFT - Stock Picks) acquires Yahoo! (YHOO Quote - Cramer on YHOO - Stock Picks) at $5 a share.

15. Focus shifts for several media darlings. Though continuing on CNBC, Jim "El Capitan" Cramer announces his own reality show that will air on NBC in the fall. At the time his reality show premieres, he also writes a new book, Stay Mad for Life: How to Prosper From a Buy/Hold Investment Strategy. Dr. Nouriel Roubini continues to talk depression, but the price of his speaking engagements are cut in half. He writes a new book, The New Depression: How Leverage's Long Tail Will Result in Bread Lines. "Kudlow & Company's" Larry Kudlow proclaims that it's time to harvest the "mustard seeds" of growth and, in an admission of the Democrats' growing economic successes, officially leaves the ranks of the Republican party and returns to his Democratic roots. Yale's Dr. Robert Shiller adopts a variant and positive view on housing and the economy, joining the bullish ranks, and writes a new book, The New Financial Order: Economic Opportunity in the 21st Century.

16. The Internet becomes the tactical nuke of the digital age. The Web is invaded on many levels as governments, consumers and investors freak out. First, an act of cyberterrorism occurs that compromises the security of a major government (similar to the attacks this year emanating from the Chinese military aimed at the German Chancellery) or uses DoS against media and e-commerce sites. Second, a major data center will fail and will be far worse than the 1988 Cornell student incident that infected about 5% of the Unix boxes on the early Internet. Third, cybercrime explodes exponentially in 2008. Financial markets will be exposed to hackers using elaborate fraud schemes (such as liquidating and sweeping online brokerage accounts and shorting stocks, then employing a denial-of-service attack against the company). Fourth, Storm Trojan reappears. (Same as last year.)

17. A handful of sports franchises file bankruptcy. Three Major League Baseball teams fail in the middle of the season and seek government bailouts in order to complete the season. The Wilpon family, victimized by Madoff, sells the New York Mets to SAC's Steve Cohen. The New York Yankees are undefeated in the 2009 season, and Madonna and A-Rod have a child together (out of wedlock).

18. The Fox Business Network closes. Racked by large losses, Rupert Murdoch abandons the Fox Business Network. CNBC rehires several prior employees and expands its programming into complete weekend coverage. Two popular CNBC commentators "go mainstream" and become regulars on NBC news programs.

19. Old, leveraged media implode. The worlds of leverage and old media collide in a massive flameout of previous leveraged deals. Univision and Clear Channel go bankrupt. The New York Times (NYT Quote - Cramer on NYT - Stock Picks) teeters financially.

20. The Middle East's infrastructure build-out is abruptly halted owing to "market conditions." Lower oil prices, weakening European economies and a broad overexpansion wreak havoc with the Middle East's markets and economies.

Doug Kass is the author of The Edge, a blog on RealMoney Silver that features real-time shorting opportunities on the market.

Bye-Bye Georgie!

Winnie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:48:45 EST

Lawn Rangers To Be In Inaugural Parade

Winnie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:40:25 EST

Zany Lawn Rangers Rev Up for Obama's Inaugural Parade

(Obama marches in Chicago's 2003 St. Patrick's Day parade with the Lawn Rangers, foreshadowing the zany troupe's role in his presidential inaugural parade next month. - Photo courtesy of the World Famous Lawn Rangers of Amazing Arcola)

They aren't politically correct and they aren't very presidential. But somehow, the World Famous Lawn Rangers from Amazing Arcola (Illinois) - a longtime staple of beer-drenched St. Patty's Day parades in America's heartland - have secured a spot in President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural parade.

Pushing mowers and wielding toilet plungers and broomsticks, the Lawn Rangers have entertained rowdy crowds from the St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago and the Indy 500 parade in Indianapolis to the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix and the Holiday Bowl parade in San Diego. They've also participated in countless community parades throughout the Midwest, including Arcola's Broom Corn Festival parade, where they first marched 28 years ago, bonded by their only talent: pushing mowers.

And now, they'll get a chance to wow the millions of Americans expected to descend on the nation's capital for Obama's inauguration next month.

"We're greatly honored," the zany troupe's co-founder, Pat Monahan, tells the Sleuth, having been chosen above hundreds of other applicants. "I have to think it was diversity."

Sure, if you call middle-aged white guys diverse. Though, to be fair, the Lawn Rangers and their "Banner Babes" - who will be called "Banner Abes" in the inaugural parade, in keeping with Obama's Lincoln theme - now range in age from 21 to 80. And they include union workers, lawyers and business people alike.

They usually decorate their mowers with Lazy-Boy recliners, beer kegs and the like. But for Obama's inaugural parade, they're toning down their act - quite a bit. Never fear, they'll still have plenty of the corny shtick that made them famous.

Monahan says his 50 or so fellow Lawn Rangers (whose ranks include humorist Dave Barry) plan to honor Obama with "a few tricks" that will meet Secret Service standards. While he wants to keep most of them a surprise for Jan. 20, he did give us a few hints of what to expect in their synchronized Obama-centric routine down Pennsylvania Avenue.

And yes, the act will still involve toilet plungers, broomsticks and banners. The Lawn Rangers will still wear their signature dusters, cowboy hats and masks. And their motto will remain the same: "You're only young once but you can always be immature."

"We have a mower with an owl on it, a plastic owl; it'll say, 'Obama is wise,'" Monahan says. Another mower has hands coming from underneath it, grabbing the starter. That one has a sign on it that says "Self Starter." (Cue the oohing and aahing of ecstatic Lawn Rangers fans. "Oh, honey, isn't that cute? Get it? Self Starter!")

Besides their diversity, the real reason why the World Famous Lawn Rangers from Arcola were chosen to march in the inaugural parade may well have something to do with the time they coaxed Obama to grab a toilet plunger and march with them in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade in 2003. What a candidate won't do when he's running for a Senate seat in Illinois! (Just ask Rod Blagojevich.)

You can see the Lawn Rangers in actionin this video and in this tribute to the World Famous Lawn Rangers. But as the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette points out, since securing a spot in the inaugural parade, most videos of Lawn Rangers have "suddenly disappeared from YouTube."

So don't forget to bring your camcorders on inauguration day.

The Mess in Minnesota

Winnie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:16:39 EST

Could Senate seat Franken before he's certified as winner?

With GOP Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign signaling it will contest the results of the Minnesota Senate race , it appears that Minnesota will be without one of its two senators as the 111th Congress convenes next month.

The Canvassing Board is prepared to declare a winner by January 6—the same day the Senate is sworn in. But Coleman’s campaign has said the vote can’t be be certified if there's a post-election contest..

With the Senate hesitant to involve itself in the race, it looks like Coleman’s seat will remain vacant until the election is officially resolved.

But the state's sitting senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, is now calling for the Senate to provisionally seat the Canvassing Board’s declared winner, until the results are officially certified. Democrat Al Franken currently leads Coleman by 46 votes -- with as many as 1,400 absentee ballots left to count.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Regarding the length of a vacancy, Klobuchar said she believes there is still "a good possibility" that the Canvassing Board will finish up by Jan. 6 and even a better chance that Minnesota will have a new senator a week or so later.

"If the Canvassing Board declares a winner, that should be our senator," she said, even if a court challenge were to follow. "[The Senate] could seat a senator pending the litigation."

Her view of a possible provisional winner is shared by Fred Morrison, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota. Morrison said the Senate could tentatively seat Franken, for example, if he comes out of the Canvassing Board process with a lead that would require Coleman to prevail in court on nearly all of his disputed claims to win.

"The Senate could say ... we will seat Franken pending the final result," he said.

Stimulus Plan : $675B to $775B

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:59:25 EST

"Axelrod Puts Stimulus Plan at $675 Billion to $775 Billion"

The last Sunday of the year was a quiet one on the network’s morning talk shows, with David Axelrod, President-elect Barack Obama’s political adviser, looking ahead to the new administration. Regarding the new administration’s stimulus plan, Mr. Axelrod said that the exact dollar amount Mr. Obama will seek has not yet been determined. “We’ve talked about a package from $675 billion to $775 billion,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “One thing I think everyone agrees on, economists from left to right, is that we have to do something very large,” he said. The president-elect also intends to follow through quickly on his promise for tax relief for most Americans, Mr. Axelrod said. As for repealing the Bush tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, he said that whether it was repealed early or allowed to expire as scheduled at the end of 2010, the tax cut would eventually disappear. “It’s going to go, it has to go,” he said.

Daschle Gets an Earful on Healthcare

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:52:24 EST

December 30, 2008 Little Town Beseeches Obama’s Health Chief By BOB DRIEHAUS

DUBLIN, Ind. — Former Senator Tom Daschle, whom President-elect Barack Obama has called the “lead architect” of the new administration’s efforts to expand health insurance and rein in medical costs, attended a community meeting Monday where he got an earful about expenses that were too high and coverage that was too little.

Dolly Sweet, 79, said she beat breast cancer 20 years ago but was now battling lung cancer without the medicine her doctor had prescribed. Ms. Sweet told Mr. Daschle that after covering her radiation treatment, Medicare would not pay for follow-up treatment with the drug, Tarceva, which would have cost $32,000 a year.

“Then what happened?” Mr. Daschle asked.

“I’m still here,” she replied. “You always look over your shoulder and see someone else who’s worse off.”

The gathering here in this small eastern Indiana town was one of thousands on health care being held around the country at the behest of the Obama transition, and the first attended by Mr. Daschle, whom Mr. Obama has chosen to be secretary of health and human services and director of the new White House Office of Health Reform.

Mr. Daschle was joined at the meeting, which was held at the town’s firehouse, by several dozen other people. Among them were doctors and administrators from Reid Hospital in nearby Richmond, who told of patients who were flooding the emergency room there because they did not have primary care doctors or insurance coverage.

“Our population hasn’t grown, yet our emergency department census has more than doubled,” Dr. Michael Baldwin, the department’s director, said of changes over the last 24 years. “Everyone used to have his own doctor. Now little more than half do.”

Dr. Joseph Fouts, one of the area’s few general practitioners, said he dealt nearly every day with patients who had found jobs carrying health benefits but who were denied coverage because of what insurers determined to be pre-existing conditions. In a recent case, Dr. Fouts said, a child of one such person was denied coverage for a cold prescription because he had a cold last year.

After listening for nearly 90 minutes, Mr. Daschle said the system could be changed by citizens’ active participation.

“When we combine all the stories we heard in this small town of Dublin and multiply that by 300 million people, we can begin to imagine the scope of the problem,” he said. “But I’m hopeful that the country has come together to say: ‘Enough already. We have to fix this.’ ”

Emmanuel Resigns House Seat

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:50:03 EST

Emanuel Formally Resigns From House Seat By Carl Hulse

Representative Rahm Emanuel initiated another contact with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich today - this one to formally resign his House seat.

In a letter to Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, said he would officially give up his seat representing the north side of Chicago and some near suburbs as of Friday, clearing the way for a special election to replace him.

“As sons of immigrants to this country, you and I have a deep appreciation for the opportunities America provides to those who are willing to work hard and sacrifice for their children,” wrote Mr. Emanuel, who won the seat in 2002. “As a member of the next administration in Washington, I will strive to maintain and expand that opportunity for all families, because the chance to work hard and build a better life is the principle that unites all Americans.”

Mr. Emanuel’s contacts with the governor have come under scrutiny in the investigation of whether Mr. Blagojevich sought rewards for naming a replacement to the Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. But an internal review by Mr. Obama’s team of the discussions between the two found them to be minimal and not inappropriate. Mr. Emanuel has also been told that he is not a subject of the investigation by federal investigators, who interviewed him earlier this month and reviewed the contents of a least one taped call with the governor.

The congressman, who is abroad on vacation, also recorded an automated phone call for his constituents thanking them for the opportunity to be the congressman from the district, which has previously been represented by Mr. Blagojevich and before that by Dan Rostenkowski. Though Mr. Emanuel gave up a future shot at House speaker in stepping down, he has not ruled out another try at elective office at some point and he clearly wanted to leave his post on a positive note.

The timing of the special election will be up to the governor, who is under siege over the Senate inquiry. Earlier, there had been talk of holding it simultaneously with a special election to the fill the Senate seat to limit the extra expense.

The House seat representing the Fifth District is virtually certain to remain Democratic and has attracted significant interest from local politicians.

NYPD Will Not Be at Obama's Inauguration

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:47:08 EST

December 25, 2008 Because of Old Mix-Up, New York Police Won't Be Working at Inauguration By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Police officers from across the country are being mobilized to help Washington manage crowds for Barack Obama’s inauguration, but the New York Police Department, the biggest and one of the closest and most experienced, will not be among them.

The reason stems from a misunderstanding seven years ago after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The District of Columbia has asked 96 localities to send a total of 4,000 officers to help with crowd control along the parade route on Jan. 20, when it expects more than 1.5 million people in the nation’s capital. Those officers will augment the district’s Metropolitan Police Department force of about 4,000.

These 8,000 officers are only part of a 60-agency security force, the largest ever assembled for an inauguration and possibly in the history of the country. In 2005, Washington brought in 3,000 officers from out of town to augment its force of 3,600, and fewer than two dozen security agencies were involved.

While many police departments say they are proud to be sending contingents, for which they will be reimbursed, the New York police were never asked.

The matter is of interest now because some jurisdictions, like Los Angeles County, are sending deputy sheriffs at more expense than would be likely for an equivalent contingent from New York. In addition, New York officers are missing out on a chance to participate in a historic national ceremony.

Traci Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department, said that New York was not asked to send officers this time because the city had not sent any officers to the previous inauguration, in 2005.

“We were working under the assumption that because New York didn’t want to participate in 2005, we presumed they didn’t want to participate this time, when the demands would be greater,” Ms. Hughes said.

But Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York Police Department, said the department was not aware of any request in 2005.

He said that in early September 2001, Washington did ask New York to send a contingent to the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, scheduled for the end of the month. The meeting was expected to be a target of anti-globalization protesters, who had made their mark in violent demonstrations during a world trade meeting in Seattle in 1999.

The request from Washington arrived shortly before Sept. 11. At the time, Mr. Browne said, the Police Department was reviewing liability and indemnification issues before agreeing to send any officers. But once the terrorists struck, the whole matter was dropped.

“It just fell through the cracks,” he said.

Since then, Washington has apparently labored under the misimpression that New York was not interested in sending officers to augment the local force. Mr. Browne said that there was no such feeling in New York and that the city had sent contingents to other cities, including more than 300 officers and emergency equipment to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“It’s not upsetting as much as it is perplexing, because of our proximity to Washington,” Mr. Browne said.

Kristopher Baumann, head of Washington’s police union, said he, too, was surprised.

“No one weighed the proximity to Washington or their experience, and it seems a little troubling when you have large urban agencies very close to us that the request was not made,” he said. “I question how well thought out this was.”

Other large police forces have reacted to Washington’s request in a variety of ways as local budgets are strained in the tight economy.

Philadelphia, for example, is sending 290 officers and supervisors. Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who was the police chief in Washington during the 2001 and 2005 inaugurations, said Washington initially asked Philadelphia for 48 officers but expanded the request when it realized the crowd could be the biggest ever. He said he asked for volunteers, and more than 500 officers put up their hands.

“We chose our best officers, as a reward for a job well done,” Mr. Ramsey said. “They represent our city, it’s a historic event and our people are pretty excited about it.”

He said he was certain that the department would be reimbursed for all costs for the three-day assignment.

The City of Los Angeles, however, was not interested in sending any of its police officers. Although Chief William J. Bratton actively campaigned for Mr. Obama, a spokesman said he believed it made more sense for departments on the East Coast to respond.

But Los Angeles County agreed to send 112 sheriff’s deputies, over the vocal opposition of some county supervisors.

Ms. Hughes of the Metropolitan Police declined to describe the overall costs of importing 4,000 officers or how much of the reimbursement costs would come from the federal government.

“Rest assured, everyone will be reimbursed,” she said. “For what and how much, I can’t be specific.”

Suddenly, Holder's nomination won't be smooth

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:39:54 EST

Eric Holder's name was leaked as the Obama team sought reassurance that he could be nominated. They got those assurances. Now:

"Holder's Hearing Might be Rocky -GOP Could Grill Cabinet Nominee"

_________________________________________________________________

By Scott Helman, Globe Staff | December 29, 2008

With Barack Obama anxious to take office, the public eager for fresh leadership, and the economy demanding urgent attention, the Senate is likely to defer to the president-elect and swiftly approve his Cabinet nominees, congressional aides and political analysts say.

But there will be one prominent exception: The confirmation hearing for Eric Holder, Obama's pick for attorney general, promises to be bruising, with Republicans determined to explore Holder's role in controversial pardons under President Clinton, his views on gun rights, and his involvement in the case of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy returned to his homeland by Clinton's Justice Department.

"You're probably only going to have one truly horrendous confirmation; that's always the case," said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, who served on the White House staffs of presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. "In this case, it is clearly the attorney general-designate, Eric Holder."

The Senate must consent to presidents' Cabinet appointments, but it rarely stands in the way. The chamber has formally rejected less than 2 percent of nominees since 1789; occasionally a president has had to pull a nomination in the face of criticism, as Clinton did in 1993 when an initial choice for attorney general, Zoe Baird, came under fire for hiring illegal immigrants.

Barring some unexpected revelation, Obama may have even more clout than usual because the Democrats picked up additional Senate seats in last month's election.

He drew heavily on Congress for his Cabinet nominees, whose former colleagues will be loath to go after aggressively. And he is benefiting from broad public support and a universally acknowledged urgency about an orderly transition to power.

So while some senators may, for example, want to deeply examine the involvement of treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, the need for him to start working right away may be paramount.

"If you hold up Tim Geithner and the stock market falls 500 points, is it your fault?" said Forrest Maltzman, a political science professor at George Washington University.

There are some potential friction spots as Obama's Cabinet picks make the rounds on Capitol Hill. A federal grand jury is reportedly investigating a financial firm's donations to commerce secretary nominee Bill Richardson, and Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary, could be challenged over her support for a controversial union-backed workplace organizing measure.

Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state, is likely to be pressed on her husband's business and philanthropic ties abroad, but she is expected to be approved with ease. Indeed, Richard Lugar of Indiana - the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a hearing on Clinton - has already signaled his approval.

"He wants the national security team in place as quickly as possible," said Lugar spokesman Mark Hayes.

But Holder - a partner at a Washington law firm and a former judge, federal prosecutor, and deputy attorney general under Clinton - appears to be the Republicans' prime target, and both sides are busy preparing for a tough grilling.

Holder's hearing is scheduled to begin Jan. 15, after Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, agreed to Republican requests to move the date back, to allow more time to check Holder's record.

Judiciary Committee staff members have pulled more than 150 boxes from their archives and have been poring over internal memos and transcripts from Holder's tenure at the Department of Justice.

Republicans have also asked the Justice Department and the Clinton Presidential Library for documents relating to, among other things, Clinton's impeachment, former vice president Al Gore's fund-raising activities during the 1996 presidential campaign, the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, and the pardon of financier Marc Rich.

And on Dec. 17, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Holder asking him to account for "apparent omissions" in his questionnaire, including work on gaming that Holder did in 2004 for Rod Blagojevich, the beleaguered Illinois governor.

One senior Republican Senate aide, who agreed to discuss Holder's nomination only on the condition of anonymity, said GOP senators are not necessarily looking to derail his appointment, but to force a careful review. "No one on our side wants to filibuster or slow down this nominee; that's not the issue," the aide said.

Holder will surely be pressed hard on the pardon of Rich, who faced charges of tax fraud and making illegal oil deals with Iran and whose former wife had been a Clinton donor. Clinton pardoned Rich in the closing hours of his presidency after Holder's recommendation had been "neutral leaning towards favorable." Holder has since said that his judgment was a mistake.

Some Republicans and analysts say Holder may also be pressed on his past support for gun control measures. In January 2008, he joined several former Justice Department officials in urging the Supreme Court to uphold Washington's ban on handguns. (The court later struck it down.)

Obama's transition team is helping prepare him for the hearing, and Holder is rehearsing his defenses. On Dec. 22, Leahy released more than four-dozen letters of support for Holder's confirmation from a variety of individuals and groups, including James B. Comey, the prosecutor in the Rich case, who said Holder "knows and loves the department and has demonstrated his commitment to the rule of law across an entire career."

An Obama transition official, granted anonymity to address strategy, said that Holder, if challenged on whether in light of the Rich case he can be trusted to display political independence from the president, will cite two high-profile example of him breaking with party leaders.

The first, according to the transition official, was Holder's prosecution, as US attorney for the District of Columbia, of former US representative Dan Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat and House Ways and Means Committee chairman who served prison time for misusing taxpayer money. The second, the official said, was Holder's support, while deputy attorney general, of broadening independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigations into Clinton's activities.

Part of the opposing party's goal in tough questioning, analysts say, is to take the incoming president down a peg, to force him to spend political capital early in the term, thereby lessening the capital he can spend on policy battles down the road.

"If you can burn it up on confirmations and make the president spend the capital getting Eric Holder confirmed as attorney general and things like that, politically, from the Republicans' perspective, that's a win," said Maltzman.

But Brian Darling, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, said the GOP has to be careful in this political environment not to push too hard.

Israel's Holocaust

Winnie — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:37:24 EST

I am appalled by Israel's attack against Gaza. I find it ironic that the country that was formed because of the Holocaust would then commit the same crime against the Palestinians and expect world support. I am not surprised at Bush's response to this attack, but being Israel's puppet does not bring peace to the Middle East, it creates more conflict, and conflict breeds terrorism. This myopic view of the Middle East, seen only from Israel's point of view, is a diplomatic disaster.

Does Israel have the right to exist? Yes. Does it have the right to exterminate Palestine? No. Israel complains that Hamas is causing chaos and breaking the cease-fire, yet Israel has an extremist faction of its own that it us unwilling or unable to control. They have broken MANY cease-fires, yet THEY are not shelled into oblivion. Israel's answer has ALWAYS been to blame everything on Palestine, and use it as an excuse to attack and kill them. The truth is, ANY group of people who are forced to live behind walls, unable to go to work or school, unable to get food or medicine, and forced to go through checkpoints to move through their own country WILL lash out in anger and frustration. Their situation is intolerable.

This HAS to stop. The world community is calling on it to stop. America needs to step up and join in with the rest of the world, and condemn this attack. President Elect Obama, we need a REAL Middle East policy, not just an Israeli appeasement policy. Until we get one, there will be no peace, and no end to terrorism.

Obama and Biden will Participate in National Day of Service Before Inauguaration

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:15:52 EST

Community Service for Obama and Biden Before InauguralBy Katharine Q. Seelye(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be joining a national day of service on Monday, Jan. 19, the day before they are sworn in as president and vice president. This event, reported earlier in The New York Times, comes from an official outline of their schedule, which was just released.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden and their families are to participate in as-yet-unannounced service activities in Washington, D.C., and will call on everyone across the country to participate in similar events in their own home towns.

The next day, Tuesday, is inauguration day, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will be sworn into office.

And they will be going to inaugural balls, but we don’t know yet which ones they will attend or how many. Mr. Obama is having a new tux made; there has been no word on which designer might be dressing Michelle Obama.

They new first and second couples will participate in “the traditional inaugural ceremonies,” the announcement says, including the swearing-in on the West Front of the Capitol, lunch in Statuary Hall inside the Capitol, the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and official inaugural balls.

“Details about the inaugural balls will be released at a later date,” the announcement says.

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will participate in a prayer service, which is also customary.

Obama To Use Full Name in Swearing- in Ceremony- YAY!!!

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:27:01 EST

December 10, 2008, 3:00 pm Obama Using Full Name When He Takes Oath of OfficeBy Katharine Q. Seelye

Barack Obama plans to use his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, at his inauguration.

(Photo: Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

The president-elect told the Chicago Tribune that he would use his middle name out of tradition but also because it could help re-establish ties with Muslim countries.

“I think we’ve got a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular,” Mr. Obama told the newspaper Tuesday. He also said he had an “unrelenting” desire to “create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together.”

The world, he said, “is ready for that message.”

As part of his effort to restore relations with the Muslim world, Mr. Obama also has said he planned to deliver a major speech in an Islamic capital, which he did not identify.

As for his middle name, Mr. Obama noted that presidents traditionally take the oath of office using their full and proper names, and he would do the same.

“I think the tradition is that they use all three names, and I will follow the tradition,” Mr. Obama said of the swearing-in ceremony. “I’m not trying to make a statement one way or another. I’ll do what everybody else does.”

He largely ignored his middle name during the campaign as his critics invoked it to suggest falsely that Mr. Obama, who is a Christian, was a Muslim. Some of his supporters informally adopted the name, at least in their online dealings, in a show of solidarity and to try to de-stigmatize it.

Mr. Obama also said that even though he is moving to Washington, his heart will remain in Chicago. His vacation retreat will not be the Kennebunkport of the Bush family but Chicago’s South Side, and he plans to return early and often.

“Let me explain to you, my Kennebunkport is on the South Side of Chicago,” he said. “Our friends are here. Our family is here. We are going to try to come back here as often as possible,” he said, meaning “at least once every six weeks or couple months.”

So much for Mr. Obama’s traveling press corps, which was looking forward to presidential vacations in Hawaii.

The 'Obama Isn't A Citizen' Kooks Are At It Again- Is There Any Way To Stop Them?

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:06:46 EST

The crackpots have had their latest press conference, fresh off a rejection from the U.S. Supreme Court. Is there ANY way to slap some sense into these people? Or at least shut them up?

"THE BORN CONSPIRACY"

Sanity was nowhere to be found at the press conference held by the alarmists who believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

By Mike Madden

Dec. 09, 2008 |

At first it was a relief to see that the conspiracy theorists who believe Barack Obama isn't eligible to be president didn't shoot any pumpkins at their press conference Monday afternoon. After all, the proponents of this latest theory seem to be heading for levels of mania that even Dan Burton never dreamed up as he investigated outlandish claims about Bill Clinton. (If you need to brush up on your conspiracies, Burton resorted to blowing away squashes in his backyard to show how Clinton had a hand in the murder of White House counsel Vince Foster.) But considering the Supreme Court had refused Monday morning to hear a lawsuit about Obama's citizenship, there was reason to hope that maybe things at the afternoon press conference would stay reasonable.

Two and a half hours later, as dentist-slash-lawyer Orly Taitz harangued reporters for not investigating whether Obama's mother was actually dead, that hope had been obliterated. It was crushed by a torrent of half-baked legal theories, vague platitudes about the Constitution and sinister "facts" assembled by a collection of true believers so extreme that even Michelle Malkin wants nothing to do with them. (Let alone actual Republican operatives, who appear to realize that questioning Obama's citizenship isn't the best way to begin their journey out of the political wilderness.) Although the news conference wasn't quite over when Taitz began her harangue, it had been 15 minutes since a member of the audience compared Obama's alleged electoral fraud to how Hitler rose to power -- a sure sign it was well past time to leave.

The gist of the conspiracy theory is that Obama doesn't meet the Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen." Somehow Obama is concealing the fact that he was either born in Kenya (or maybe Indonesia) or that he renounced his U.S. citizenship as a child. One of Taitz's fellow alarmists, Pennsylvania lawyer Phi Berg (a bipartisan conspiracist -- he believes George W. Bush was behind 9/11), said Obama is an undocumented immigrant. Most of this "evidence" is easily debunked, though it can get confusing as it gets more feverish.

At any rate, the theory goes, Obama's not fit to take office, and Taitz and Berg, along with a few followers and the main ringleader for Monday's show, anti-tax activist Bob Schultz, aim to stop him. Schultz feels so strongly about the threat Obama poses to the republic that he spent tens of thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper ads last week, and plans to hold a citizens' conference after Inauguration Day if the courts don't intervene -- just the first step, apparently, in a process that Schultz says is devoted to resisting a government that has turned lawless.

"This nation is headed towards a vortex of a Constitutional crisis," Schultz said. "While on the one hand, the Obama citizenship issue is so simple a schoolchild could grasp it, if left festering and unanswered, it possesses the potential to send our nation into a time of great peril."

Talk like that could seem like a real threat, especially with the country dealing with the collapse of the economy and more than enough war to keep any president busy. But Schultz and his allies are having a tough time winning over the masses with their far-fetched theories. About 150,000 people have signed a petition at RallyCongress.com about Obama, which sounds like a lot, until you realize that it's about one-tenth of 1 percent of the total votes cast in the presidential race this year.

Throughout the press conference, the conspiracy theorists had trouble keeping things focused. Harlem minister James David Manning wandered off on a tangent about how Obama's election still means "there's never been a black womb" that produced a president. Manning might have seemed like he was making a case against Obama based on some theory of black nationalism, except that he admitted he had endorsed John McCain in the campaign. That was after he had called Obama "this usurper, this long-legged mack daddy."

Taitz -- the lead attorney in the case the Supreme Court declined to hear Monday morning -- kept making stranger and stranger assertions. At one point, she asked why the government had fined broadcasters for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," but didn't intervene to force the media to report on Obama's allegedly phony birth certificate. She claimed Obama holds passports from at least four countries, compared him to Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, equated the "controversy" about Obama to Watergate, and finished her tour-de-force presentation by saying that if Obama can claim he's a U.S. citizen and win an election, then so could just about anyone. "If a person can become a presidential candidate only based on his own statement," she said, "then somebody like Osama bin Laden, theoretically, can come and write a statement, 'I'm eligible,' and we should put him on the ballot, too?"

That sort of thing went on for 90 minutes before Schultz opened the press conference up to questions. It was clear from the occasional applause that most of the people in the room agreed with Schultz, anyway. Although the event was at the National Press Club, that's no guarantee of mainstream media interest. Groups may appear legitimate because they hold a news conference at the club, but the dirty little secret is the club rents out its rooms to anybody who shows up with the money. Most of the people apparently came from the weirder corners of the media. One friendly questioner, Shelli Baker of Morning Song Radio, wound up taking the mike for about 10 minutes to tell a complicated story involving Saudi oil barons, John Ashcroft, sharia law, the World Bank and Mitt Romney, which left even Schultz confused.

By Jan. 20, the courts -- which have, so far, uniformly refused to treat this matter as anything other than a nuisance -- will probably have left Schultz and his friends out in the cold. But the enduring power of any conspiracy theory comes from its ability to adapt to any circumstances, and this one is no exception. The only thing legal defeats teach the anti-Obama crowd is that the judges are in on it, too. Berg has another lawsuit up his sleeve if the ones he's involved in fail, though he said he couldn't talk about it because the proceedings have been sealed. For the foreseeable future, there could be "a new lawsuit for every action Obama takes" as president, Berg said. And to think Clinton had it bad.

Special Election Could Help GOP win Obama's Senate Seat

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:49:12 EST

Special election could help GOP win Obama's seat

As my colleague Manu Raju reported, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is calling for the Illinois state legislature to pass a law taking away the governor’s ability to appoint a successor for Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

In Durbin’s scenario, a special election would be held in 2009 to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat.

And the incoming Illinois State Senate president favors the idea, and is talking about legislation to make it happen.

"Before I take office as the President, we should pass legislation changing the law to allow for special election for the replacement of Sen. Obama. And I believe that Sen. [Emil] Jones will support me in that effort," said John Cullerton, the incoming state Senate president.

While the move is being advocated by two of the state’s leading Democrats, it is concerning several Illinois-based Democratic operatives, who believe that a special election would offer a golden opportunity for Republicans to pick off the Senate seat

Their thinking goes like this: If an election was held in mid-2009, the governor’s arrest would still be fresh on voters’ minds. Democrats would likely face a crowded primary with the risk of the eventual nominee being tied to the corrupt Blagojevich administration. And Obama's Senate seat would remain vacant for months, giving the president-elect one less Democrat in the Senate.

“With this so fresh in the minds of voters, Republicans may have a chance at this seat in a special election,” said one Democratic operative from Illinois.

Meanwhile, the risk for aspiring House Republicans – read: moderate suburban Rep. Mark Kirk – would be next-to-nil to run in an off-year special election. Kirk would not have to step down from his House seat to run for the Senate under that scenario.

If he chose to run for statewide office in 2010, he would have to give up his House seat.

Obama's Team At Odds On Middle East Views

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:44:36 EST

Obama team's warring Middle East views
By: Ben Smith
December 6, 2008 10:25 AM EST

President-elect Barack Obama and his presumptive secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, both pledged during the campaign to press for peace in the Middle East.

But the Middle East conflict is, perhaps unsurprisingly, already playing out on a small scale within Obama’s own transition.

Top policy jobs haven’t been filled — the org chart, insiders say, hasn’t even been drawn — but Middle East politics watchers, and Obama backers concerned with Israel, are carefully eyeing the interplay between two of his most important advisers on the Middle East.

One is Dennis Ross, a stalwart of the Clinton administration’s peace negotiations who is seen as favoring a tough approach to Iran. The other is Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel who in his 2008 book quoted Arab and U.S. officials saying Ross was perceived as “tilted” toward the Israeli side, and that he "listened to what Israel wanted and then tried to sell it toward the Arabs."

The choice of who shapes his policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, said a top Obama backer, will be a “bellwether” for the administration’s Middle East policy — for how much to require of Palestinian leaders before they can strike a permanent deal, and for how hard to push Israel for concessions in the interest of peace.

The interest is particularly intense because despite his general pro-Israel views, the details of Obama’s approach remain unclear: During the campaign, he riled the right by suggesting that to be pro-Israel isn’t to be pro-Likud, but he has also offered tough talk on Israeli security, disappointing Palestinian activists who saw him as an ally during his State Senate days in Illinois.

The difference is a matter of degrees — and not very many degrees — within a firmly pro-Israel policy team, and there are no obvious differences of policy between the two men. Ross, the supposed man of the right, was central to the Oslo peace accords despised by some conservatives in Israel and the United States; Kurtzer, the supposed man of the left, is a Hebrew-speaking Orthodox Jew who was President George W. Bush's ambassador to Israel.

But some close watchers of the negotiations in the region think that choosing Ross would indicate that Obama plans to make tough negotiations with Iran, with a focus on weakening its regional grip, a priority, and to work closely with Israel in negotiations with the Palestinians. They think the choice of Kurtzer might mean a slightly tougher stance toward the Israeli government, and a more rapid push for a historic South Lawn handshake between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

And a small, perceived distinction in the swirl of politics and perception that is Mideast politics can produce a lot of heat. Insiders say there is no love lost between the two.

Kurtzer emerged in the Democratic primary as an ambassador to the pro-Israel and Jewish communities for Obama. Ross, a trusted figure among relatively hawkish American Jewish leaders, advised both Obama and Clinton in the primary, and was a behind the scenes force in the general election, assuring figures such as New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman that Obama was committed to Israel’s safety.

Obama has worked to keep both men inside the tent. They serve together on his Middle East transition team, along with Biden adviser Tony Blinken and two campaign aides, Dan Shapiro and Eric Lynn. But camps have begun to develop: The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz floated Kurtzer as “special Mideast envoy” (puzzling Obama insiders who say that Obama — and Clinton — have not yet even decided whether to appoint a Mideast envoy whose portfolio includes the linked issue of Iran, or to divide that portfolio).

A Kurtzer admirer in Obama’s camp said choosing him would send the message that “we want to draw on the past, but we want to move forward on our own and not be bound by that.”

Meanwhile, Kurtzer’s critics say he lacks Ross’s stature, and that his relationship as ambassador with the icon of the Israeli center-right, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, left something to be desired. They see Ross in a more senior policy making role than envoy, if there even is an envoy.

“I’m not sure Dennis wants to be the new Bill Murray of 'Groundhog Day' and just be special envoy again,” said a Ross fan.

Ross did not return a call from Politico seeking comment, and Kurtzer e-mailed that he isn’t speaking to the press. And they aren’t the only ones in the running for top posts shaping U.S. Mideast policy. Clinton Israel Ambassador Martin Indyk remains a force in the field, and Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. Jim Jones, has his own background in Middle East peacemaking and could bring in a member of his military team there.

The distance between Kurtzer and Ross, moreover, isn’t the only possible rift. The New Republic suggested recently that conflict could come between Jones, who has pushed for Israeli compromises, and Clinton, who has become firmly identified with a hard pro-Israel line. Even Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fiercely pro-Israel Florida Republican, advised Obama in a telephone conversation “to rely on Hillary’s advice on Israel, because she is very pro-Israel,” her spokesman, Alex Cruz, told Politico.

The form of the peace process also remains unclear. Top American diplomats, inlcuding Indyk, Ross, and Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, have suggested that the U.S. press for a treaty between Israel and Syria before attempting to settle the Palestinian conflict. The Israeli elections on Feb. 10 could bring to power Benjamin Netanyahu, who is thought to favor that Syria-first approach, and who is skeptical of talks with Palestinian leaders; or Tzipi Livni, who appears more likely to aim for a grand bargain with the Palestinians.

And ultimately, the key factor may be the commitment of the key American players, Clinton and Obama, whose attention will be drawn by an economic crisis at home, and Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan abroad.

“What counts is whether the president of the United States is going to make this a top priority, and whether the secretary of state is going to provide the kind of adult supervision and oversight that is required,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official and veteran of Mideast negotiations. “Who they come up with [as envoy] is significant but not determinative.”

Amie Parnes contributed to this report.

Obama May Have To Decide On Execution For Accused Terrorists

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:35:59 EST

Obama May Have to Decide on Execution for Accused Terrorists

By James Rowley

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama may soon have to choose between executing five confessed plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks or trying them in courts that do more to protect their rights.

The accused terrorists -- led by the avowed ringleader of the 2001 strikes -- told a military tribunal this week at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they want to plead guilty. At least two have said they seek martyrdom by being put to death by the U.S.

Obama would have to “invest a lot of political capital into justifying why we need a better system for these particular guys,” Lisa Hajjar, a legal sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an interview. “A lot of Americans would be just as happy to see these people plead guilty.”

Martha Rayner, a Fordham University law professor who represents two Guantanamo detainees not involved in the Sept. 11 case, predicted in an e-mail that Obama will abandon the military commissions created to try suspected terrorists because of their flaws “and the stigma associated with them.”

During the campaign, Obama suggested he would scrap the military tribunals, saying detainees should be tried in civilian courts or before a military court-martial that affords more legal safeguards.

Self-Described Mastermind

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the al-Qaeda attacks, and four co-defendants stunned onlookers at Guantanamo this week by offering to plead guilty to orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people. With the mental competency of two defendants unresolved, it is almost assured the case won’t be concluded before President George W. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

No further hearings have been scheduled in the case.

Mohammed has sought “to use the American system to enable him to complete his martyrdom operation,” Hajjar said. The offer to plead guilty “is a manipulation that should have been very clearly and obviously anticipated.”

At their June arraignment, Mohammed and fellow defendant Ramzi Binalshibh told the court they welcomed martyrdom.

Hajjar said Mohammed is politically savvy and taking advantage of the procedural rights in the tribunal.

“We just give him the chain and he keeps yanking it,” she said.

Army Major Jon Jackson, lawyer for defendant Mustafa al Hawsawi, said in an interview that the detainees’ joint decision to plead guilty shows that Mohammed has been calling the shots for the group.

Obama’s Election

Defense lawyers said Mohammed and the detainees, while isolated, were aware of Obama’s election and its possible implications for them. The detainees decided on offering confessions on Nov. 4, the day Obama was elected.

At this week’s proceeding, Mohammed showed his disdain for the legal process. He told the trial judge, Army Colonel Stephen Henley, “We don’t want to waste our time in motions and motions.”

They “seemed to view the proceedings as a joke,” said Hamilton Peterson, whose father and stepmother were killed on United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania after it was hijacked on Sept. 11. “With all this due process, they were mocking it,” said Peterson, one of nine relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks who witnessed this week’s proceedings.

The confessions by the Sept. 11 plotters may lend support to any decision by Obama to scrap the tribunals, said Matthew Waxman, a former Defense Department official who teaches law at Columbia University. “The more circus-like the military commissions proceedings become, the more persuasive will be arguments that they need to be replaced,” he said in an e-mail exchange.

Supreme Court Ruling

The Supreme Court struck down the military commissions that Bush set up after the Sept. 11 attacks, prompting Congress to enact legislation in 2006 to start them again. A series of legal challenges delayed the start of trials until this year.

Defense lawyer Thomas Durkin voiced concern that Obama will “get painted into a corner because all of a sudden we are going to have people who are pleading guilty down in Guantanamo.”

There are “complex political decisions that have to be made,” Durkin told reporters. The Bush administration shouldn’t push the tribunal to deny Obama the opportunity for “careful consideration of what is, indeed, a very complex problem.”

Army Colonel Lawrence Morris, the military’s top war-crimes prosecutor, rejected Durkin’s suggestion that the Bush administration was using the plea offers for “political blackmail” to force Obama to let the Sept. 11 cases go to a conclusion under the commission.

“The guilty plea is a decision solely in the control of the accused,” he said.

Morris defended the military commissions as fair and open, saying the Guantanamo courtroom has only been closed to spectators for several minutes at the request of the defense.

Asked what he would do if Obama shuts down Guantanamo and the commissions, Morris said he would “obey the orders of my commander in chief.”

To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba at jarowley@bloomberg.net

Will Blagojevich Be A Problem For President Elect Obama?

Winnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:30:21 EST

Illinois Governor’s Arrest May Cause Collateral Damage to Obama

By Catherine Dodge and Michael Tackett Dec. 10

(Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago has an unofficial political handshake: palms extended, facing up. It goes with the city’s unwritten motto, “Where is mine?”

The mythology of official corruption added another chapter yesterday in the form of a 76-page federal criminal complaint against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. It charged him with attempting to sell his choice of President-elect Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate in exchange for a lucrative job or prestigious appointment, among other allegations.

“The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave,” said U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in announcing the corruption charges against the governor.

The news reverberated from the state capital in Springfield to Washington, with collateral damage and a taint on Obama’s transition to power. It threw into question whether Blagojevich, who was arrested at his Chicago home in a predawn raid the day before his 52nd birthday, would try to stay in office while fighting the charges and how Obama’s replacement would be named.

Blagojevich repeatedly indicated he wanted payback if he were to appoint someone of Obama’s choosing as his successor, the complaint said. The document anonymously lists five possibilities, including “Senate Candidate 1,” identified by the Chicago Tribune as Valerie Jarrett, a Chicago businesswoman Obama recently tapped to become a senior White House adviser. Jarrett withdrew from consideration during the time Blagojevich was secretly taped discussing the chances of naming her.

Obama Not Implicated

Fitzgerald said there was “no allegation” that Obama was aware of what the prosecutor said was Blagojevich’s attempt to gain personally and financially from naming his replacement.

“There’s no reference in the complaint to any conversation involving the president-elect or indicating that the president- elect was aware of it,” Fitzgerald said. Jarrett wasn’t implicated in any wrongdoing either.

Blagojevich was charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, as well as solicitation of bribery. His office declined to comment.

Obama, 47, said he had no contact with the governor or his office and “was not aware of what was happening.”

“Obviously, like the rest of the people of Illinois, I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the U.S. Attorney’s office,” he told reporters in Chicago. “But, as this is an ongoing investigation involving the governor, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time.”

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he declined to answer a question about whether any of his top aides had spoken about the Senate seat with Blagojevich or John Harris, the governor’s chief of staff, who was also arrested yesterday.

Tangential Relationship

Obama’s relationship to the case appears tangential, though the charges lump his name in the same stories as Blagojevich at a time when he is trying to focus public attention on his plan to revive the U.S. economy.

He wasn’t a political ally of Blagojevich, according to Dan Sprehe, a investigator at the Better Government Association, a Chicago government-watchdog group that is calling on Blagojevich to step down. The governor’s arrest may not become a major concern for Obama because “given the circumstances the country is in, it would take a lot to distract a president-elect.”

Still, Blagojevich has previous political connections to Obama, U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel, who will be White House chief of staff, and David Axelrod, who will be a senior White House adviser.

Obama gave Blagojevich informal counsel on his gubernatorial race in 2002. Blagojevich gave up a seat in the U.S. House when he won the governor’s race and was succeeded by Emanuel. Axelrod, a political consultant, has given advice to all three at times.

Axelrod ‘Mistaken’

In an appearance on Nov. 23 on “Fox Chicago Sunday,” Axelrod said Obama had spoken to Blagojevich about his replacement. Yesterday, the transition released a statement by Axelrod saying he had misspoken.

“I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the president-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss this subject,” the statement said.

Blagojevich’s actions surrounding the Senate vacancy are at the heart of the federal charges.

Seeking Cabinet Post

He had a number of possible ways he wanted to be paid off for the appointment, the complaint alleged. He proposed being tapped to head an arm of the Service Employees International Union called Change to Win. He speculated that Obama could persuade billionaires like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates to set up a charitable organization for him to run, or that he might be rewarded with a Cabinet post or an ambassadorship, according to the charges.

Change to Win spokesman Greg Denier said in a statement that no one connected with the group “ever considered, discussed or promised any position” to the governor.

If the president-elect were to balk at the quid pro quo, Blagojevich said he would appoint himself to fill the seat, the complaint said.

The document quotes Blagojevich recounting a conversation with advisers, who told him to “suck it up” and “give this motherfucker (the president-elect) his senator.”

He replied: “Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him,” according to the complaint.

Blagojevich said he needed to find a way to take the “financial stress” off his family, prosecutors said.

Two Years Left

The governor still has two years left in his term. His arrest yesterday is likely to accelerate calls for his impeachment after years of investigation into his administration and the conviction of some associates. One associate, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, was a former fundraiser for Obama and was found guilty earlier this year of fraud and is set to be sentenced Jan. 6.

Blagojevich is the second Illinois governor in a row to be charged with criminal conduct.

The question before Illinois political leaders is what to do next. Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, was among those calling on state lawmakers to take steps toward holding a special election.

“The general assembly should enact a law as quickly as possible calling for a special election to fill the Senate vacancy of Barack Obama,” Durbin said in Washington. “No appointment by this governor could produce a credible replacement.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement yesterday that Blagojevich must be removed from the process.

“Anyone Governor Blagojevich appoints to the Senate will fairly or unfairly be tainted,” Reid said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net; Michael Tackett in Washington at mtackett@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 10, 2008 00:01 EST

Somalia: Obama's First International Crisis and How He Should Handle It

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:08:37 EST

To Do: Somalia

The looming crisis in Somalia is an opportunity for Barack Obama to show that he won't repeat the mistakes of the U.S.'s recent past.

Jonathan Stevenson, The New Republic Published: Friday, November 21, 2008

Somalia, a genuine failed state, ranks alongside Sudan as the world's most conspicuous candidate for American attention in the early days of Barack Obama's administration. Last week, capping a series of territorial gains across the country, Islamist insurgents seized the port of Merka, and appeared poised for an offensive against the capital city of Mogadishu 60 miles to the north. Aspiring jihadists, averse to the risks posed in Iraq and Pakistan, are increasingly flocking to Somalia, which is 97 percent Sunni Muslim. At the same time, Somali pirates have become a significant maritime menace, with press reports suggesting that they are driving up prices of goods worldwide. Almost two years ago, U.S.-supported Ethiopian troops ousted the de facto government run by the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Courts Union (ICU) from Mogadishu, installed an internationally recognized secular transitional government formed in exile, and remained in-country to support it along with an anemic African Union (AU) contingent. But the Ethiopians can't afford to stay much longer, and their repressive tactics have lost Somali hearts and minds, allowing the Islamists to regain social as well as military traction. Earlier this month, in a brutally populist application of sharia law, a 13-year old girl was stoned to death in the southern Somali city of Kismayu for alleged adultery in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators.

The upstart al-Shabaab--meaning "youth"--faction of the ICU has become a political spoiler. On October 29, the group executed five coordinated suicide car-bomb attacks against transitional government and U.N. targets in different locations around the country, killing about 30 people and accelerating a trend of rising jihadist violence against local civic leaders and international aid workers perceived as pro-Western. Significantly, al-Shabaab targeted the northern city of Hargeisa, the seat of government of the relatively safe and successful quasi-state of Somaliland, even as the transitional government was making progress in Nairobi towards an orderly Ethiopian withdrawal. The threat the ICU posed in late 2006 has thus re-materialized: that Islamists will Talibanize Somalia and nurture a regional base for jihadism that exports insecurity and instability.

If the résumés of his likely foreign-policy advisers are any indication, President-elect Barack Obama does not intend to ignore Africa. Susan Rice, a strong contender for national security adviser, was assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration. Samantha Power, also prominently mentioned, wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Problem from Hell, a passionate chronicle of the Rwandan genocide and critique of the United States' failure to intervene. In the 2,000-strong Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, based in Djibouti, Africa Command (AFRICOM), the United States' new combatant command dedicated to Africa, has the means of bolstering secular Somali militias (or more Ethiopians) against Islamist forces. But that has not produced sustainable stability in the past and isn't likely to do so now, and would only stoke Africans' fears of American militarism. Further, constricted budgets and two wars elsewhere will call for judiciously set priorities.

Soft rather than hard power should be the United States' instrument of choice on the continent, and in Somalia. So what about an audacious diplomatic American approach to Somalia? The fraught 1992-93 U.S.-led humanitarian intervention, U.S. backing for Ethiopia, and civilian casualties caused by recent American counterterrorism strikes have eroded Somali respect for the United States. But Obama's singular status as the first African American president substantially renews American diplomatic credibility with all Africans, including Somalis.

Expending political capital on such a knotty problem--over a dozen transitional governments have tried and failed over the past 17 years--might seem imprudent at first blush. But the Somalis' very recalcitrance has yielded such low expectations that very little would actually be at risk. Moreover, an earnest attempt at conflict-resolution in Somalia would enable Mr. Obama to showcase the differences between him and his predecessor.

Mr. Bush was a self-described "gut player," uninterested in the cultural subtleties of other peoples, and it showed in a foreign policy that was often ineffective on account of its insensitivity. By contrast, Mr. Obama is surrounding himself with true regional experts, including Africanists who have made it their business to understand Africans and their politics in all their complexities. Somalia's notorious clan system makes for extreme political atomization, and makes any power-sharing solution an especially daunting prospect. Yet the clan network also disperses power from the bottom up, and, properly harnessed, could systematically limit the trajectory of a top-down movement like radical Islamism.

Mr. Obama's prospective team also has extensive experience on the volatile international stage of the 1990s, when the Clinton administration pragmatically--and usually successfully--backed high-level diplomacy with the selective, and therefore credible, use of military force in the Balkans and elsewhere. Thus, they understand one of Mr. Obama's most provocative campaign positions: be open to talking to your enemies.

To be sure, al-Shabaab are bad guys. Members of the group's core leadership are believed to have trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, it has sought to expel transitional government forces, AU peacekeepers, and Ethiopians troops through insurgency tactics, and supports forming an anti-Western Islamic state. Yet it was a mistake for the Bush administration to include al-Shabaab on the State Department's list of proscribed terrorist organizations. That move, along with a U.S. airstrike in May that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, al-Shabaab's leader, needlessly glorified and antagonized the group; pushed it closer to Al Qaeda; spurred it to expand its target set to any Somalis associated with the West, including local aid workers and community leaders; attracted foreign jihadist recruits; and politically inhibited any U.S. moves towards positive engagement.

Conversely, removing it from the list--as the Clinton administration de-listed the Provisional Irish Republican Army to advance U.S.-brokered talks--could induce al-Shabaab to enter into all-party negotiations with an eye to integrating it--and the ICU--into government and thus co-opting them. Although al-Shabaab would likely continue to be a potential spoiler, nudging it into a negotiating framework that offered some political legitimacy would also make it more susceptible to compromising with moderate Islamists, who are in turn more inclined to deal non-violently with the secular transitional government and with the United States. Sinn Fein's doves, after all, were better able to control the IRA's hawks once the IRA had been de-listed.

High political dividends could be achieved with relatively low financial and bureaucratic investment by coordinating U.S. efforts with and through the AU's larger peace and security agenda. Useful precedents include President Clinton's diplomatic intervention in the Northern Irish "troubles" and President Bush's in the north-south conflict in Sudan. In both cases, the president's appointment of a seasoned and dedicated special envoy with influence and gravitas--former Senator George Mitchell and former Senator John Danforth, respectively--ultimately produced formal political settlements on a non-threatening multilateral basis.

The goal in Somalia would be negotiated state-building. Perhaps U.N.-sanctioned special political status for Somaliland that could qualify it for international aid and protection, in recognition of its largely self-generated order and viability, should be on the table to create incentives for the more unruly militias in southern Somalia to reach political compromises. Even if a diplomatic foray by the Obama administration does not yield immediate success, striking a salutary keynote of multilateral diplomacy would help alleviate African worries about AFRICOM and the militarization of U.S. Africa policy. And returning to Somalia--the notorious site of U.S. military failure around fifteen years ago, which drove its sustained disengagement from Africa and emboldened Al Qaeda--would decisively signal a renewed commitment to the continent.

Jonathan Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College. His book, Thinking Beyond the Unthinkable, was published by Viking in August.

Will You Use Your Full Name, Mr. President Elect?

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:15:42 EST

When President Elect Obama is sworn in as our 44th president, will he use his full name in taking the oath of office? I hope so. Several presidents have chosen not to say their full name, using just first and last name (Ronald Reagan), or use their middle initial (Gerald Ford), instead of their full, given name. In my opinion, President Elect Obama should use his entire name to mark the historic nature of the event. It will put to rest, once and for all, the idea that his Muslim middle name is somehow a slur. President Elect Obama has never legally changed his name. He has never tried to hide from who he is. He has never let the opinions of others define him. I voted for Barack Hussein Obama Jr.. I'd like to see him sworn in that way.

Obama and the C.I.A.

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:24:16 EST

After Sharp Words on C.I.A., Obama Faces a Delicate Task By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — For two years on the presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama rallied crowds with strongly worded critiques of the Bush administration’s most controversial counterterrorism programs, from hiding terrorism suspects in secret Central Intelligence Agency jails to questioning them with methods he denounced as torture.

Now Mr. Obama must take charge of the C.I.A., in what is already proving to be one of the more treacherous patches of his transition to the White House.

Last week, John O. Brennan, a C.I.A. veteran who was widely seen as Mr. Obama’s likeliest choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal critics attacked his alleged role in the agency’s detention and interrogation program. Mr. Brennan protested that he had been a “strong opponent” within the agency of harsh interrogation tactics, yet Mr. Obama evidently decided that nominating Mr. Brennan was not worth a battle with some of his most ardent supporters on the left.

Mr. Obama’s search for someone else and his future relationship with the agency are complicated by the tension between his apparent desire to make a clean break with Bush administration policies he has condemned and concern about alienating an agency with a central role in the campaign against Al Qaeda.

Mark M. Lowenthal, an intelligence veteran who left a senior post at the C.I.A. in 2005, said Mr. Obama’s decision to exclude Mr. Brennan from contention for the top job had sent a message that “if you worked in the C.I.A. during the war on terror, you are now tainted,” and had created anxiety in the ranks of the agency’s clandestine service.

One of the first issues Mr. Obama must grapple with is the future of C.I.A. detention: will the agency continue to hold prisoners secretly, question them using more aggressive methods than allowed for military interrogators, and transfer terrorism suspects to countries with a history of using torture?

During the presidential campaign, a constant theme for Mr. Obama was the need to restore “American values” to the fight against terrorism. He pledged to banish secret C.I.A. interrogation rules and require all American interrogators to follow military guidelines, set out in the Army Field Manual on interrogation.

In a speech last year, Mr. Obama cast the matter as a practical issue, as well as a moral one. “We cannot win a war unless we maintain the high ground and keep the people on our side,” he said. “But because the administration decided to take the low road, our troops have more enemies.”

On Wednesday, a dozen retired generals and admirals are to meet with senior Obama advisers to urge him to stand firm against any deviation from the military’s noncoercive interrogation rules.

But even some senior Democratic lawmakers who are vehement critics of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies seemed reluctant in recent interviews to commit the new administration to following the Army Field Manual in all cases.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will take over as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January, led the fight this year to force the C.I.A. to follow military interrogation rules. Her bill was passed by Congress but vetoed by President Bush.

But in an interview on Tuesday, Mrs. Feinstein indicated that extreme cases might call for flexibility. “I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible,” she said, raising the possibility that an imminent terrorist threat might require special measures.

Afterward, however, Mrs. Feinstein issued a statement saying: “The law must reflect a single clear standard across the government, and right now, the best choice appears to be the Army Field Manual. I recognize that there are other views, and I am willing to work with the new administration to consider them.”

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, another top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he would consult with the C.I.A. and approve interrogation techniques that went beyond the Army Field Manual as long as they were “legal, humane and noncoercive.” But Mr. Wyden declined to say whether C.I.A. techniques ought to be made public.

C.I.A. officials have long argued that publishing a list of interrogation techniques only allows Al Qaeda to train its operatives to resist them. But they say the secrecy has led to exaggeration and myth about the agency’s detention program.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama’s aides said he would consider allowing the C.I.A to continue holding prisoners in overseas jails, but would insist that inspectors from the International Committee of the Red Cross be allowed to visit them. They also said he would end the practice of “rendering” terrorism suspects to countries that have used torture.

One of the retired generals meeting with the Obama team on Wednesday, Paul D. Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi forces for the Army in 2003 and 2004, said in an interview Tuesday that it was crucial for leaders to send the right message on the treatment of prisoners.

General Eaton pointed out that Vice President Dick Cheney once dismissed waterboarding, the near-drowning tactic considered by many legal authorities to be torture, as a “dunk in the water” and said such statements influenced rank-and-file soldiers to believe that brutality was not really prohibited.

“This administration has set a tone problem for the military,” General Eaton said. “We’ve had eight years of undermining good order and discipline.”

It is widely expected that Mr. Obama will replace Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director. Among those mentioned as possible candidates for the job are Stephen R. Kappes, a C.I.A. veteran who is the deputy director; Tim Roemer, a former congressman from Indiana who was a member of the Sept. 11 commission; Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who is retiring from the Senate in January; and Jack Devine, a former head of the agency’s clandestine service who left the C.I.A. before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The flap over Mr. Brennan, who served as a chief of staff to George J. Tenet when he ran the C.I.A., was the biggest glitch so far in what has been an otherwise smooth transition for Mr. Obama. Some C.I.A. veterans suggest that the president-elect may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party.

A. B. Krongard, the C.I.A.’s third-ranking official under Mr. Tenet when the detention and interrogation program was created, called Mr. Brennan a “casualty of war” and said he believed C.I.A. tactics were being second-guessed for political purposes. The demise of Mr. Brennan’s candidacy, Mr. Krongard said, “is a huge loss to the country.”

But Mr. Krongard said he believed that ultimately, under a new director and a new set of policies, the agency would find common ground with Mr. Obama.

“The C.I.A.’s no different than any other place,” he said. “Probably 25 percent of the people there really like him, 25 percent don’t like him, and 50 percent are open-minded.”

The Fix Needed For Hillary to Join the Obama Cabinet

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:20:37 EST

December 2, 2008, 8:56 pm Is Clinton Ineligible to Join the Cabinet? By Peter Baker

Updated | 11:30 p.m. CHICAGO – Senate Democrats were working Tuesday to put together legislation making it possible for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state despite a constitutional clause that some critics argue should bar her from joining the cabinet.

The issue may seem esoteric but it generated attention Tuesday among legal scholars and bloggers arguing over whether it would be unconstitutional for Mrs. Clinton to serve as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state because the salary for her new office was increased while she served in the Senate.

Judicial Watch, a watchdog group that made a name for itself investigating the Clinton administration in the 1990s, raised the matter Tuesday with a statement asserting that Mrs. Clinton was ineligible to become secretary of state because of the so-called “Emoluments Clause” of the Constitution. By the end of the day, Senator Harry M. Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, was consulting with Republican colleagues in hopes of putting together a bill to address the issue.

The issue stems from Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution, which says: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time.” Emoluments refers to compensation.

After Mrs. Clinton’s last Senate election in 2006, the salary for secretary of state and other cabinet positions was increased to $191,300 from $186,600. In the past, Congress has gotten around this by passing a resolution cutting the salary for the office at stake back to what it was before the nominee’s most recent election.

This became known as the “Saxbe fix,” after it was used to facilitate President Richard M. Nixon’s appointment of Senator William Saxbe of Ohio as attorney general. It happened most recently 16 years ago when incoming President Bill Clinton made Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas his treasury secretary.

“It’s been dealt with each and every time,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Mr. Reid. “We’re confident it can be dealt with this time.” Mr. Manley said it was unclear whether the measure could be passed during a lame-duck session next week. “We’re trying to work on this as quickly as possible,” he said.

Judicial Watch, and some legal scholars, argued that the Saxbe fix is insufficient because the constitutional clause says a senator is ineligible if the salary was raised, which it was in this case, even if it is subsequently cut again.

“There’s no getting around the Constitution’s Ineligibility Clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “Barack Obama should select someone who is eligible for the position of secretary of state and save the country from a constitutional battle over Hillary Clinton’s confirmation.”

Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said she and Mr. Obama had anticipated the issue and were prepared to resolve it. “This is a Harvard Law grad nominating a Yale Law grad here, so all parties involved have been cognizant of this issue from the outset,” he said. “But putting frivolous lawsuits by fringe groups aside, this issue has been resolved many times over the past century involving both Democratic and Republican appointments and we’re confident it will be here too.”

Obama's Ebony magazine Interview

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:54:48 EST

December 2, 2008, 8:49 pm Obama Interview in Ebony Magazine By Peter Baker

CHICAGO – As the country’s first African American president, Barack Obama said he plans to address issues in the black community mainly by tackling problems that affect all Americans across the board, including jobs, health care and education.

Rather than single out part of society, he said his agenda will help African Americans just as it helps whites, Hispanics, Asians and others. “I don’t have to choose between different groups,” he told Ebony magazine. “I want to put together a plan that is good for everybody. And that’s generally, I think, the approach that needs to be taken.”

Mr. Obama addressed the singular expectations he faces during an interview with the black-oriented magazine conducted in Chicago on Nov. 13 and released on Tuesday. It was his first print interview following his Nov. 4 history-making election and the magazine’s editorial director, Bryan Monroe, asked Mr. Obama how he would “look out for the needs of black America without being seen as the ‘black president’?”

“Well, you know,” Mr. Obama answered, “I don’t think this is going to be such a big problem because the issues that affect the African American community are issues that affect everybody. It’s just that they sometimes affect the African American community in a worse way.”

He singled out health care. While the government should look at whether race makes a difference in access to insurance and treatment, Mr. Obama said, “the biggest problem in the African American community is that they don’t have health insurance. Well, there’s a lot of white folks and Latino folks in the same situation, and so if we put together a plan to deal with health care as a whole, then everybody benefits. African Americans may benefit even more because they’re more likely not to have health insurance, but that’s not a race-specific agenda.”

Having said that, Mr. Obama made sure to add that he would still pursue issues of unique interest to minorities, such as “potential discrimination in the criminal justice system or enforcement of civil rights laws.

Obama Gets a Holiday!

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:52:41 EST

December 3, 2008, 4:14 pm Obama Gets a Holiday By Michael Falcone

Typically presidents have to wait until long after they’ve left office for holidays to be declared in their honor. But officials in one Alabama county have fast-tracked that process for President-elect Barack Obama.

In Perry County, where residents voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama on Election Day, members of the county commission decided to set aside the second Monday in November as “Barack Obama Day.”

And it won’t be a holiday in name only. Each year on Obama Day, the county will close down its offices and all of its workers — about 40 of them — will get the day off, with pay.

The only problem, according to Brett Harrison, the lone member of the five-person commission to vote against the resolution, is that the holiday will cost the county roughly $8,500 — mostly in payroll expenses.

Mr. Harrison said he was not opposed to recognizing Mr. Obama’s victory, but told his fellow commissioners that he did not think it was a financially responsible to declare a paid holiday. He suggested that employees get an nonsalaried day off instead.

“They didn’t seem to agree with my reasoning,” Mr. Harrison, the owner of an automotive repair shop in Marion, Ala., said in an interview.

Albert Turner Jr., the county commissioner who introduced the resolution and was one of four members to vote in favor of it on Nov. 25, said he disagreed with the fiscal argument.

“Perry County is not in such dire straights” that it cannot afford the holiday, he said, adding: “This holiday will remind people at least one time a year that we do have hope to overcome obstacles in our lives that people say are insurmountable.”

Mr. Turner said he hoped the school board and local officials in Uniontown and Marion, the largest towns in the heavily African-American county, would soon pass similar resolutions.

President Elect Obama Meets With The Nation's Governors to Discuss Stimulus

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:59:27 EST

Haste Could Make Waste on Stimulus, States Say

By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A01

With President-elect Barack Obama vowing to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into the nation's infrastructure, some state officials are warning that public works projects will fail to effectively lift the country out of recession unless they are chosen carefully and implemented rapidly.

In a private meeting yesterday in Philadelphia with 48 of the nation's governors, Obama stressed the importance of identifying projects that could put people to work quickly, participants said. He raised the specter of Japan, which languished in a decade-long recession in part because massive spending on construction projects in the late 1990s flowed too slowly to boost economic activity.

During the two-hour meeting, governors from both parties assured Obama that they could break ground almost immediately if Washington were to put up the cash to make up for state budget shortfalls. But less than half of the $136 billion in projects they said were ready to go could get underway within the next six months, according to the National Governors Association. And choosing among those projects could prove politically difficult, some governors said.

"The problem is going to be deciding in a rational and targeted way how to spend that money," Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said in an interview. "We all know about the bridges to nowhere. But we also know the projects that are critical to moving people around."

With the nation's economy in recession, Obama has pledged to create or preserve 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, primarily by dedicating federal dollars to rebuilding the nation's roads, bridges, schools and airports and to expanding sources of alternative energy. Democrats hope to send a spending package that could exceed $500 billion to the White House by Jan. 20, when Obama takes office.

In a recession that lasts only a few months, economists say spending on infrastructure would do little to revive the economy; public works projects typically take years to get underway. Even with projects that are ready to go -- meaning they have been designed, engineered and have cleared environmental and other bureaucratic hurdles -- only about a quarter of the overall cost is spent within the first year, according to the Transportation Department.

Because this recession is projected to extend well into 2009, many economists see infrastructure spending as a viable way to put people to work and keep money circulating domestically. Unlike tax rebates, which might be spent on foreign goods or used overseas, money for road projects would be used to hire U.S. workers and to purchase domestic gravel and steel.

The need for infrastructure improvements is enormous. Federal transportation officials have estimated that the nation should spend $225 billion a year to modernize and maintain its crumbling roads, bridges and transit systems.

But with 41 states facing budget shortfalls, many governors are cutting scheduled projects. Maryland and Virginia recently cut more than $1 billion each from their six-year transportation programs. North Carolina expects to cut $200 million by next June. And New York plans to eliminate 10 percent of its projects, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.

The slowdown in public spending, combined with the worst housing bust in a generation, has devastated the construction industry. The unemployment rate among construction workers was 10.8 percent in October, well above the national average of 6.5 percent. Currently, nearly 1.1 million homebuilders, steelworkers and highway contractors are out of work.

"This is not going to be a situation where we're going to be putting money into something the contractors can't handle," said Bill Buechner, chief economist at the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. "There's plenty of capacity, and there's a lot of workers."

The devil, however, is in the details. What emerged yesterday in Philadelphia, and in ongoing discussions in Washington and in state capitals, is the concern that injecting such huge sums into public works projects could prove more complicated than anyone yet imagines.

Answering the simplest questions -- which projects are ready to go? -- can be surprisingly difficult.

The governors yesterday offered school, road, transit, wastewater and airport projects that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said could be ready soon, "literally, putting shovels into the dirt within a few months after the administration starts."

But David Quam, director of federal relations for the National Governors Association, said many of the projects would take 24 months. Less than half of them -- projects worth about $57 billion -- would be ready to go within 120 days, Quam said, the time frame set in a stimulus bill that passed the House in September. An Obama aide said money dedicated to infrastructure should be spent within 24 months, not devoted to projects just getting underway at the end of 2010.

The NGA proposals, moreover, were assembled from lists prepared by other organizations. The most commonly cited was created last January by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. It offers more than 3,000 highway projects that theoretically could put $18 billion to good use within 90 days.

But that list is now nearly a year old, and for some states includes construction and repaving projects that could not begin in the winter months. For other states, including Maryland and Virginia, that list does not necessarily represent specific projects, state officials said.

In an interview, Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari identified some "critically needed projects" that could get underway quickly, including improvements to bottlenecks at the intersection at Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road in Montgomery County and the intersection of Route 4 and Suitland Parkway in Prince George's County.

Virginia officials said they are still working on their list. But the projects they select will depend on what restrictions Washington places on the money, one Virginia official said. Projects with huge political support, such as the construction of a Metro line to Dulles airport, would not be good candidates for quick construction, the official said, while more routine projects such as the completion of the Fairfax County Parkway between I-95 and Rolling Road or the repair of the VRE rail infrastructure might make the grade.

Aides said Obama's transition team is trying to craft a strategy for prioritizing projects at the national level, relieving state officials of that responsibility. But the best candidates for stimulus spending are likely to be the least glamorous projects, the ones unlikely to thrill members of Congress, several transportation officials said: Bridge repair. Bus purchases. Filling potholes.

"It's not as if people are going to say: 'You know what? We got some money. We're going to go build a bridge.' For one thing, bridges take 13 years, start to finish," said Janet Kavinoky, a transportation expert with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The dollars are for real basic work that needs to be done to maintain the system we already have."

Several governors were quite specific about their needs yesterday. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the incoming chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said his state had $200 million in projects ready to go, including some to retrofit several state-owned buildings to make them more energy efficient. West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III (D) said he hoped to secure $600 million for road and bridge repairs "that could start tomorrow."

But several Republican governors challenged Obama's call for massive government spending, saying it could saddle future generations with debt without easing the country's current economic problems.

"I think we ought to have our eyes open. These steps come with a cost," said Indiana Gov. Mitch E. Daniels Jr. (R). "Therefore, let's try to make certain that they are well conceived, that they are really aimed not at bailing out excesses in states that should have known better, but aimed at putting people to work."

Obama's Transition Team is Hard at Work

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:53:21 EST

Obama Teams Are Scrutinizing Federal Agencies
Smooth Transition Is Goal

By Shailagh Murray and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A01

Wearing yellow badges and traveling in groups of 10 or more, agency review teams for President-elect Barack Obama have swarmed into dozens of government offices, from the Pentagon to the National Council on Disability.

With pointed questions and clear ground rules, they are dissecting agency initiatives, poring over budgets and unearthing documents that may prove crucial as a new Democratic president assumes control. Their job is to minimize the natural tension between incoming and outgoing administrations, but their work also is creating anxiety among some Bush administration officials as the teams rigorously examine programs and policies.

Lisa Brown, who served as counsel to Vice President Al Gore and is helping manage the reviews, said typical questions include: "Which is the division that has really run amok? Or that has run out of money? If someone is confirmed, what's going to be on their desk from Day One? What are the main things that need to happen, vis-a-vis Obama's priorities?"

Every presidential changeover includes some type of review of the federal landscape, but some have succeeded more than others, experts say. Obama's teams -- 135 people divided into 10 groups, along with a list of other advisers -- started earlier than most, gearing up months before Election Day with preliminary planning, and will work until mid-December preparing reports to guide the White House, Cabinet members and other senior officials.

The team members include Democratic Party loyalists jockeying for senior administration jobs and subject experts in areas ranging from military systems to Medicare policy.

The Obama teams say they have benefited from a commitment by the Bush White House to cooperate as fully as possible to ease the shift.

"President Bush initiated preparations for the transition earlier, and with more extensive planning, than has ever been done before," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "We've also benefited from new legal authorities that allowed for better preparation of the transition teams. As we're at war, defending the nation against terrorist threats, and addressing a global financial crisis, it's more critical than ever that we have a successful transition."

John D. Podesta, a former Clinton White House chief of staff and co-chairman of the Obama transition, said the Obama teams have been dispatched with "clear roles and missions." In assembling the study groups, Podesta drew heavily from the Clinton administration, academia and think tanks such as his own, the Center for American Progress. Many team members were informal advisers to Obama throughout the campaign -- such as Sarah Sewall, a Harvard University human rights specialist who is a leader of the national security team.

Many chosen for the teams come with high-level, firsthand knowledge of certain agencies.

"They were part of that culture; they understand the political issues as well as the bureaucratic issues," said Melody C. Barnes, Obama's incoming Domestic Policy Council director, who is helping with the agency reviews.

Some teams parachuted in at the top. At the State Department, Obama team leaders Tom Donilon and Wendy R. Sherman met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At the Pentagon, transition team members John White and Michèle A. Flournoy dropped by the offices of four senior officials and arranged for further interviews over the coming days. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates named a transition leader, Robert Rangel, to work with the group, even though Gates is slated to continue in his job when Obama takes office.

A typical approach has been playing out at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the Obama team is led by Lisa Jackson, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and Robert Sussman, a former Clinton official and now a lawyer and fellow at the Center for American Progress. Both are considered front-runners for senior administration jobs (Jackson as EPA administrator, Sussman as a top EPA deputy).

On a recent Monday, the pair arrived at an 11 a.m. EPA senior staff meeting. Both had worked at the agency under President Bill Clinton, so they fit in easily, fully acquainted with the acronym-laden lingo.

Their team's questions have been specific, trained on a handful of issues, according to employees and other sources interviewed. A top concern is climate change, an issue they want to address with several EPA program initiatives. They also are asking how much money the enforcement divisions need to go after polluters.

The team also has focused on drinking-water standards, asking about how to reduce children's and mothers' exposure to perchlorate, a chemical in rocket fuel that is leaching into groundwater near military bases.

Jackson, Sussman and their team members hope to interview 100 staffers before filing their report, but they will do so with agreed-upon "rules of engagement," as the EPA's lawyers call them. The lawyers have urged senior managers to answer questions but to avoid idle chatter.

On Nov. 15, Podesta and his co-chairs agreed with the White House that the teams would not ask agencies for information in three nonpublic areas: individual personnel matters, legal deliberations and internal debate on pending regulatory matters.

Some managers have clearly communicated the ground rules. At the Transportation Department, Rose McMurray, assistant administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, initially urged staff members to quickly alert a senior policy manager about questions from transition team members so that management could ensure the answers were correct and "suitable for release."

Gus Coldebella, acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, told his staffers in a Nov. 19 memo that they should think carefully before talking about anything with their transition guests. He also stressed that issues involving the White House should not be discussed without consultation.

Among career employees, the arrival of the teams -- whose members wear yellow badges to distinguish them -- has brought both excitement and anxiety. Some remember the turbulence of what many considered an ill-planned transition to the Clinton administration, whose officials waited late to begin preparations.

"Most people are cautiously optimistic" about the Obama team's work, said Alex Bastani, the Labor Department union representative. "We are happy they are asking for a lot more detail, so perhaps, unlike the Clinton administration, they will lay the groundwork before they arrive and not just show up on Day One expecting everything will go smoothly."

Interviews with the teams offer some workers a chance to share their knowledge and pent-up grievances about programs that have run into funding difficulties or about bosses they did not like.

But those closely watching the review process warn that it is too early to judge its value. "I feel like those of us in the good government community need to settle in for a wait," Alyssa Rosenberg, a blogger for the publication Government Executive, told readers last week. ". . . It's not clear how much information about the agency and policy review teams' conclusions will be made public. There are signs that Obama has ideas about management, although not perhaps a comprehensive management agenda, and it's not clear if someone will be tasked with a Reinventing Government-style effort."

John P. Burke, a University of Vermont professor of political science who has studied presidential transitions, said Obama's review appears to have worked well because of its clearly defined goals. Historically, he said, problems sometimes arise when review teams "become too proactive," as evidenced during the shift to Ronald Reagan's administration in 1980. The Reagan Pentagon team, he said, produced a detailed policy blueprint that incoming Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger rejected.

But government experts warn that federal employees should manage their expectations as Obama arrives; he will face many challenges in implementing new initiatives, they said. During a news conference last week, Obama vowed to embark on a budget reform process that could prove painful.

"We can't sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups," he said. "We simply can't afford it. This isn't about big government or small government. It's about building a smarter government that focuses on what works."

Obama's Cabinet Shows Diversity in More ways Than One

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:45:47 EST

President-Elect's Picks Prove Diversity Is More Than Skin-Deep

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A15

President-elect Barack Obama's senior White House staff is taking form with a diverse array of appointees spanning generations, geography and educational and personal backgrounds.

Of the 28 top officials named to posts in the West Wing, East Wing or Vice President-elect Joe Biden's office, about two-thirds are the same age or younger than Obama, who is 47. The elder statesman of the West Wing will be retired Maj. James L. Jones, 65, who will become national security adviser. Nearly a dozen veterans of the Clinton administration will populate Obama's White House, including Lawrence H. Summers, 54, who will direct the National Economic Council.

But several relative rookies will have Obama's ear in the Oval Office, including 27-year-old Jonathan Favreau, who will become chief speechwriter, and 32-year-old Alyssa Mastromonaco, who will be the president's scheduling and advance director. About half of the White House nominees and appointees, including Favreau and Mastromonaco, worked on Obama's presidential campaign, and eight have roots in the president-elect's home town of Chicago.

"Almost all of them have political experience of one kind or another and have a very impressive range of skills," said Paul C. Light, a scholar of presidential transitions and the federal government at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service. The school's Presidential Transition Project gathered the statistics in cooperation with The Washington Post.

Obama seems to be assembling his senior staff with an eye toward gender and ethnic diversity, filling almost half the positions with women and one-third with non-whites. "It's much more diverse than critics suggest," Light said.

The nominees have far-ranging academic credentials, with graduates of Harvard (Gregory B. Craig, Terrell McSweeney) and Yale (Austan Goolsbee), as well as North Carolina State University (Robert Gibbs) and Wheaton College (Ellen Moran). Two of every three nominees boast an advanced degree.

Holbrooke Back in the Buzz

Widespread speculation has it that former ambassador Richard Holbrooke may be tapped to handle a chunk of the diplomatic effort involving South Asia, a move that would put one of America's most prominent diplomatic troubleshooters in the middle of trying to resolve the thorny and interrelated problems surrounding India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, our colleague Michael Abramowitz reports.

The possible appointment would be seen as an early indication that the region poses perhaps the biggest foreign policy challenge for the new administration. The move would also represent another example of Obama's willingness to look beyond his circle of supporters to fill key posts. Holbrooke has been a longtime adviser to and supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's pick for secretary of state, and himself had been mentioned as a possible long-shot for the top diplomat's job before Clinton was named this week.

His hopes for a top job in the new Democratic administration initially seemed unlikely to be realized, especially because his aggressive style of diplomacy and bureaucratic maneuvering had alienated some of Obama's closest advisers. But his star seemed to rise again after Obama settled on Clinton and gave her leeway to assemble her own team at the State Department.

Holbrooke is perhaps best known as the broker of the Dayton accords, which ended the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, but he has long experience across the globe, having served as both the assistant secretary of state in charge of East Asia policy (during Jimmy Carter's administration) and in charge of Europe policy (under President Bill Clinton).

Moving In . . .

Obama yesterday tapped Louis E. Caldera -- a former Army secretary, lawyer, politician and university president -- to serve as director of the White House Military Office. Caldera, who endorsed Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries, is the latest in a string of ex-Bill-Clintonites to join the new administration.

Caldera will oversee White House military operations including Camp David, presidential trips overseas and presidential aircraft. His office includes some 2,000 military officers who support the president, including the aide who carries the "presidential emergency satchel" -- known as "the football" because it is often passed around -- that includes nuclear authentication codes, emergency declarations and a telephone, should Obama need to call Clinton.

A son of Mexican immigrants, Caldera graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served as an officer in the Army. He earned his law and business degrees from Harvard in 1987 and moved to Los Angeles, where he practiced law and, in 1992, was elected to the California State Assembly. Caldera served in the Clinton administration as managing director and chief operating officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service. In 1998, Caldera became the first Hispanic to serve as secretary of the Army. Caldera later became president of the University of New Mexico and is now a professor at the university's law school.

. . . And Trading Up?

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) has emerged as a leading contender to become U.S. trade representative. A senior Democratic official said Becerra has been talking with Obama about the position, and a Latino political leader said Obama has encouraged Becerra to leave Congress to take it. Still, it was not clear last night whether Obama had officially offered the job. Becerra spokeswoman Fabiola Rodríguez-Ciampoli would not comment on the speculation, adding that "for now, this is all just rumors."

Becerra has served in Congress since 1993 and holds a coveted seat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Suspect Soldiers

Thanks to all for noting that the violin-playing terra-cotta soldiers in the photo that accompanied our item yesterday about Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson's excellent swing through China this week were not the real ones down in the tomb outside Xian.

They are modern replicas sitting, we're told, outside the music center in Xian. Several of you said you became suspicious because the soldiers, the real ones date from 221 B.C., were holding modern violins. Had we gotten the photo we'd asked for, the one of the trombone players over in the southwest corner of the dig, doubtless no one would have noticed.

With Philip Rucker

Latinos Want More Voice in Obama Administration

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:42:24 EST

Richardson Pick for Obama Cabinet Prompts Call for More Latinos
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By Hans Nichols

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Richardson’s nomination as Commerce secretary won’t satisfy top Latino lawmakers, who sent President-elect Barack Obama’s transition office a letter yesterday afternoon recommending a slate of 14 Hispanics for the remaining eight Cabinet slots.

“We’d definitely be disappointed,” if Richardson, 61, a former energy secretary and United Nations ambassador, were the lone Latino in Obama’s Cabinet, said California Representative Joe Baca, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He warned that Obama’s legislative agenda could be jeopardized if the president-elect doesn’t nominate additional Hispanics.

“If it’s just one, he’s going to have to answer to a lot of the issues that come before us,” Baca said in an interview.

There could be one more appointment soon. Two Democrats close to Obama’s transition office said that Representative Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat, has been offered the job of U.S. trade representative. The two Democrats didn’t say Becerra, 50, will accept the post.

Obama’s victories in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, all states carried by President George W. Bush in 2004, was “in large measure because of Hispanic support,” said Representative Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Election-day exit polls of Latinos gave Obama a 2-to-1 advantage on Nov. 4.

Obama is expected to announce Richardson’s selection today in Chicago, a Democratic official said.

Becerra, who once declared U.S. trade policy was “broken completely,” would take part in global trade talks, negotiate with China on product-safety issues and possibly renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Caucus Recommendations

The Hispanic Caucus letter recommends Colorado Representative John Salazar for agriculture secretary, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for Housing and Urban Development secretary and Texas Assemblyman Rick Noriega for veterans’ affairs secretary, among others.

Baca described the letter, sent to transition director John Podesta, as the “the beginning of demonstrating that we are ones to be reckoned with and not to be taken lightly.” Baca and Gonzalez signed the letter on behalf of the 21-member caucus.

Richardson is the highest-profile Latino elected official in the U.S. Before being elected as governor of New Mexico in 2002 and winning a second term in 2006, he served in two Cabinet positions in President Bill Clinton’s administration and eight terms in the U.S. House.

Endorsed Obama

Richardson ended his own bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in January and later endorsed Obama, calling him a “once-in-a-lifetime leader” who can unite the country. That move was a rebuke to Hillary Clinton, and her husband publicly lashed out at Richardson at the time.

For several weeks, Baca and Gonzalez led a group of 10 lawmakers to create a list for Obama’s transition team, which was approved by a required two-thirds of the caucus members.

“We understand that the incoming administration will have a vast pool of talent from which to choose,” wrote Baca and Gonzalez. “The individuals we have endorsed constitute the best talent, while reflecting the diversity that is so valued by President-elect Obama.”

Baca expects Obama to improve upon the two Hispanics that Presidents Clinton and Bush had in their Cabinets. “We’ll start with two and then work for three,” he said. “But it’s got to be more than what we’ve had.”

Bush, Clinton Picks

Bush began his first term with Mel Martinez serving as Housing and Urban Development secretary and Alberto Gonzales as his White House counsel. In his second term, Bush promoted Gonzales to attorney general and had Carlos Gutierrez as his commerce secretary.

Clinton started off with Henry Cisneros at HUD and Federico Pena as transportation secretary and then later as his energy secretary, until Pena was replaced by Richardson.

Gonzalez said he was “confident” that Obama will select additional Hispanics for his Cabinet, insisting that “the process is still in play.” He cheered the choices of Louis Caldera to head the White House Military Affairs Office and Cecilia Munoz as White House director of intergovernmental affairs.

Other Latino lawmakers, while insisting that Hispanics deserved credit for the Democrats’ victory, said they weren’t focused on Obama’s final Cabinet tally. Representative Linda Sanchez, who left the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in 2006 but was still recommended the group as a potential labor secretary, said “for me it’s not a numbers game.”

She criticized Baca for “speaking a little hastily,” in setting down firm demands that Obama appoint more than two Hispanics. Baca is “very strident and he’s very passionate,” about wanting to ensconce Hispanics in influential positions.

Clinton Alumni

Republicans, meanwhile, had their own criticism of the Richardson pick. “Nothing says change like picking the Clinton administration’s energy secretary and UN representative to be commerce secretary,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman at the Republican National Committee.

Obama already has tapped top officials from the Clinton administration, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to be his White House economic director, former Treasury official Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary, and Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, who was a special adviser to Bill Clinton, as his chief of staff. Obama also picked Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state.

“Obama’s Cabinet is starting to look like a Clinton administration reunion,” Conant said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 3, 2008 00:01 EST

On Closing Guantanimo

Winnie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:40:32 EST

Obama’s Plan to Close Guantanamo Forces Decision About Inmates
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By James Rowley

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists will force the new president to decide what to do with inmates who can’t be tried for war crimes yet are deemed too dangerous to be released.

About 250 detainees remain at the prison camp opened on a U.S. Navy base in Cuba after the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 520 others have been repatriated or sent to another country. Obama said Nov. 16 on CBS he will close the prison as part of an effort, including a ban on torture during interrogations, “to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”

Logistically, Obama may be able to “close Guantanamo pretty quickly” once he finds facilities on the mainland to house the prisoners, said Matthew Waxman, a former Defense Department official who teaches law at Columbia University. “The bigger issue is on what legal basis are you going to hold them?”

More than 100 inmates can’t be put on trial because of a lack of evidence and the Bush administration considers them too dangerous to release. Legal experts suggest several options, such as keeping them under the Bush administration designation of “unlawful enemy combatant,” labeling them prisoners of war or asking Congress to create a new type of preventive or administrative detention.

Obama has called for trying detainees in civilian or regular military courts instead of the military war-crimes tribunal created in 2006. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of al-Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks, and four co-defendants are scheduled to appear before a tribunal next week, possibly their last hearing if Obama quickly abolishes or replaces the war-crimes courts.

Defense Secretary

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will remain in Obama’s administration, said at a news conference yesterday that closing Guantanamo should be a “high priority” and that new legislation will be needed to keep released detainees from seeking asylum in the U.S. In May, Gates said the U.S. was “stuck” with Guantanamo because some inmates couldn’t be charged or released.

Adjusting the legal status of the Guantanamo detainees means “you are not just going to close the base and give everyone an airline ticket,” said Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has supported expanding due-process rights of Guantanamo inmates.

Closing Guantanamo won’t “happen as quickly as people would like. It’s such a Gordian knot,” said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California, a former prosecutor who has pushed for changes in detainee policy.

Obama’s first step should be to announce a plan to close Guantanamo, then review all detainee files to determine which ones can be prosecuted, said Jennifer Daskal, counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Coerced Evidence

That will depend on whether the evidence meets the higher standards of proof required in those courts, including a ban on evidence obtained by coercion, experts say.

Such legal determinations may complicate the prosecution of such “high value” detainees as Mohammed, who has alleged during courtroom appearances that he was tortured in CIA custody.

The CIA said he was one of three inmates subjected to waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. If his statements on the Sept. 11 attacks are barred from use in court, Mohammed still could be taken to trial on 1996 criminal charges of conspiring to blow up U.S. airliners en route to the Far East.

In addition to the Sept. 11 defendants, 12 other people await trials before the military tribunals. The Pentagon is preparing to bring war-crimes charges against as many as 80 detainees altogether.

The new administration then should “move quickly to repatriate or resettle others,” Daskal said.

Resettlement

Resettlement won’t be easy. The Pentagon has determined that at least 60 Guantanamo detainees are releasable if the U.S. can persuade other countries to accept them.

In the last seven months, almost 20 have been released. The latest is Salim Hamdan, a former bodyguard and driver for al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, convicted of providing material support for terrorism, was sent from Guantanamo to Yemen in November to serve the final month of his 5 1/2-year sentence.

More than 100 inmates are classified as not releasable because they can’t be put on trial and they also pose a threat to national security.

“There are some real concerns” these detainees “will join the fight against us” or will be tortured if returned to their homeland, Schiff said.

“Clearly some are more of a threat than others” and the Obama administration may have a different view on whether releasing a particular detainee would endanger U.S. security, said Anthony Clark Arend, a government and foreign service professor at Georgetown University.

Enemy Combatants

The new administration may decide to continue to hold this group as enemy combatants subject to periodic administrative review, though Obama criticized the procedure in 2006.

Federal judges in Washington are considering about 200 Guantanamo inmates’ challenges to their detention, and the Supreme Court has signaled there may be a limit on indefinite detention. One judge last month ordered the release of five inmates on grounds the government didn’t prove they were enemy combatants.

Obama could also ask Congress to create a new legal status called preventive or administrative detention. Waxman said that would be “politically controversial” and trigger a debate about “the dangers to our legal system and legal principles that flow from institutionalizing a system of detention without trial.”

Alternatively, the Obama administration could declare these detainees to be prisoners of war, which would remove them from the jurisdiction of federal courts.

Geneva Conventions

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be released once hostilities end. President George W. Bush declared that al-Qaeda terrorists weren’t traditional POWs -- soldiers who could be relied upon not to attack the U.S. once their country ceases the hostilities of war.

“The real challenge when you are dealing with non-state actors and terrorists in a so-called war on terror” is that they “want to continue to challenge you,” Arend said.

For inmates awaiting trials before the military tribunals, a fresh review of their cases by new political leadership at the Pentagon may enable some to be tried in federal courts or under military court-martial, said Schiff, a former prosecutor.

The Obama administration “may well face extremely difficult, shattering choices” of dropping some cases because the evidence doesn’t meet higher standards of proof, said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, and is president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

The new administration “may have to allow one or two people to escape justice in order to accomplish a larger goal” of restoring confidence in U.S. rule of law, Fidell said.

Dodd acknowledged the difficulties the new administration faces in closing the prison camp. Still, he said, “the most important point is closing the place” because “that message is the one that is going to resonate.”

To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley at jarowley@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 3, 2008 00:01 EST

The New Isolation of President Elect Obama

Winnie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:17:50 EST

Much to His Chagrin, 'Plain Old Barack Is Gone'
Obama nourished his soul on a life of routine in Chicago, friends say. Now they hope he can find comfort in a city he has never embraced.

By Eli Saslow and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 24, 2008; A01

A familiar number showed up on Terry Link's cellphone last week, the one that belonged to the friend he tutored in politics, dominated in golf and sometimes referred to playfully as "Ears." At least once each week for almost a decade, the Illinois state senator had talked on the phone to Barack Obama, but now the number seemed to belong to somebody else.

"This time I answered, 'Hello, Mr. President,' " Link said. "When he called, it used to just be 'Hey, Barack. What's going on?' But plain old Barack is gone."

Obama's home in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood has become a compound guarded ever more closely by bomb-sniffing dogs and Secret Service agents who peer through binoculars at neighboring rooftops. When he travels around the city, it is in an armored limousine and 20-car motorcade, so he has mainly stayed bunkered at home or a downtown transition office. Last week, Obama told one friend that he felt "a little boxed in."

This is only the beginning of the transformation that awaits the president-elect and his family. In two months, they will move into a sterile house in a unfamiliar city where they have never felt particularly comfortable. Friends say Obama is savoring these final weeks in Chicago and spending as much time as possible with his family before he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

During his political rise, Obama safeguarded times of normalcy and credited them for keeping him sane. A run on the treadmill in the early morning. An evening meander through 57th Street Books. Date night with his wife, Michelle, at one of their favorite restaurants. Pickup basketball at a gym downtown.

Obama already has learned that his mundane routine will be difficult to replicate as president, but his friends say that establishing some kind of similar comfort zone is critical to his success in Washington. They consider it one of the most pressing -- and most challenging -- issues of Obama's transition: How can he create a life as president that keeps him happy?

"Look, there are just certain things that he can't do anymore, or he can't do as easily, and that's going to be hard," said Marty Nesbitt, Obama's closest friend in Chicago. "The objective is to just make sure that things stay as similar to the way they used to be as they can. The same routines, the same conversations -- that's what he wants."

The Obamas have said they will personalize the White House by buying a dog and hosting sleepovers for their daughters. Friends expect them to occasionally spend time back in their Hyde Park home and take annual vacations to Hawaii. Inside the impermeable White House, Obama, by instinct an introvert, can read in the solarium or write in his office, alone and unbothered.

For almost five years now, Obama has lamented the way his public rise has infringed upon his personal space, calling it the most painful drawback of high-profile public service. During his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, he chafed when friends suggested it was no longer safe for him to run alone on the shore of Lake Michigan. He argued with aides a few years later when they assigned him a full-time driver, explaining that he preferred alone time in the car.

On the night of his election, Obama questioned whether it was necessary to speak to a crowd of 200,000 in Grant Park behind two panes of protective glass, agreeing to the arrangement only after staffers convinced him that it was. Although his staffers continued to party into the early hours, Obama was home before 2 a.m. He awoke by 8 the next morning, dressed in a sweat shirt and a baseball cap, and rode to the gym in a friend's apartment building for his regular morning workout.

"Like everybody else, he's got his routines," said Alexi Giannoulias, a friend who plays basketball with Obama. "There are some little things that make him enjoy life, and he's not just going to give all of that up."

Many things, though, Obama has relinquished. Only three times has he left home after dark since Election Day. He traveled with his wife to a friend's house to celebrate adviser Valerie Jarrett's 52nd birthday. One night, the couple went to dinner at Spiaggia's, a stylish and expensive Italian restaurant where the Obamas traditionally celebrate Valentine's Day over a quiet meal. This time, Secret Service agents guarded the perimeter and a crowd gathered and snapped pictures of the Obamas on their way back to the motorcade. And on Saturday night, he went to parties at the homes of Nesbitt and Penny Pritzker. He played basketball with friends Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park.

Obama's typical day as president-elect follows a routine that is necessarily spare: breakfast at home with his daughters, a trip to the apartment-building gym, six or seven hours at his downtown transition office and the evening at home. He usually enters buildings through underground parking garages and almost never ventures outside.

Gone are the trips to his cacophonous Hyde Park barbershop to see the man who has cut his hair for 15 years; now his barber, Zariff, comes to him. Gone are lunches at Medici, where servers still wear T-shirts that read "Obama Eats Here." Now, if anything, Obama carries in, although on Friday he allowed himself a rare liberty: a trip to Manny's Coffee Shop and Deli. "I'm just glad to be out," he said.

"There's still some things we're not adjusted to," Obama told "60 Minutes" during his only extended interview since he was elected. "You know, the small routines of life that keep you connected, I think some of those are being lost. One of the challenges I think that we're going to be wrestling with is how to stay pretty normal."

That challenge is exacerbated by the fact that Obama must build his new life in Washington, a city where he has never felt comfortable. After he was elected to the Senate in 2004, Obama decided to commute to work instead of moving his family to what he called the "hothouse environment" of Washington. He spent three days a week in Washington and then rushed home to Chicago, buying tickets on multiple flights to ensure the earliest possible arrival. He met Cassandra Butts, a law school friend, for dinner in Washington once each month. Most other nights, Obama ate takeout food alone in a one-bedroom apartment near the Capitol.

"There's a sort of fishbowl, ingrown quality to Washington," Obama said in 2005. "I think everybody is very status-conscious about, you know, who's a senator and who's in power and who's not."

A close friend from Chicago, Mike Strautmanis, who worked for Obama in the Senate, worries about the change in cultures. "The one thing about Chicago as compared to Washington is that most relationships in Washington are fundamentally based on politics either currently or building things for the future." he said. "I think what he wanted is a few relationships that didn't have that subtext."

As president, Obama's first option is to bring some of those relationships to Washington with him. His mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, is expected to move into or near the White House and continue to help raise her grandchildren, whom she often supervised during the 21-month campaign. Some people in Obama's inner circle expect Nesbitt to move to Washington with his physician wife, Anita, and five children, but Nesbitt said he has not had time to even consider the possibility of transplanting.

Several other Obama friends and associates -- all of whom now receive a deluge of résumés and inauguration ticket requests from near-strangers -- said they either are considering moving to Washington or will move if asked.

"You know, if he calls and asks me to be the head custodian, I still don't think I could say no," Link said. "If he needs me, then I'm going to be there. For a lot of us friends, our first interest is going to be looking out for him and just helping him get adjusted however we can."

Four of the past five presidents moved into the White House from a government mansion; the fifth, Ronald Reagan, had spent two terms as a California governor. All were familiar with living in a security bubble -- a public space -- and dealing antiseptically with the outside world.

Until recently, Obama and his wife were accustomed to pumping their own gas, shopping at a nearby food co-op, riding bikes along Lake Michigan and attending neighborhood barbecues.

"I don't know how you re-create that, even if everybody moves to D.C.," one friend said. "You just don't have as much time if you're president of the United States, and it's not as easy to drop by the White House. It's hard to make new friends for anybody, especially when you're in their position and, 'Oh, we have to make sure they're not purely interested in us and laughing at our jokes because of who we are.' "

The move could be particularly jarring for Michelle Obama, whose social and professional life is interwoven with Hyde Park, where until recently she held a prominent position at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She grew up a few minutes from their current home and has lived away from Chicago only during her time at Princeton University and at Harvard Law School. She is on the boards of an African dance company and her daughters' private school.

The future first lady will have a far more public role than she is used to. But at least initially, she plans to focus on helping her family adjust -- her husband to his new job, her children to Sidwell Friends School.

"She will be engaged. You will see her at the school. Parents will get to know her," another Chicago friend predicted. "I don't think they'll be walled in the Rose Garden."

Giannoulias said: "It's going to be a totally different life. Hopefully they can find places or relationships where things are still normal."

That rare space of normalcy is where Link thought he had guided his phone conversation with Obama last week. He congratulated the president-elect and joked with him about life in the Illinois Senate, and they laughed together at an old memory. "Hey," Obama said before hanging up, "let me give you my new phone number."

Then he paused.

"By the way," Obama said, "don't you dare give that number to anybody else."

Slevin reported from Chicago.

Palin Campaigning For Chambliss In Georgia

Winnie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:01:17 EST

Palin campaigning for Chambliss

Sarah Palin will be headed to Georgia on the eve of the state’s closely watched Senate runoff to rally Republicans to the polls for Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)

The Alaska governor will be joining Chambliss for public rallies across the state, including stops in suburban Atlanta and Savannah.

“I was thrilled when I got the call that Gov. Palin would be able to make the trip to Georgia to campaign with me the day before the runoff election,” Chambliss said in a statement.

The Senate race has drawn A-list celebrities on both sides, with Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton all in the state over the past week.

But for Democrat Jim Martin, the only surrogate who can help him drive voters to the polls is President-elect Barack Obama. Martin is dependent on high African-American turnout to win. The Martin campaign has been reaching out to Obama’s transition team, but it is very unlikely that he will make a last-minute stop down to Georgia.

And the early voting tally continues to be somewhat discouraging for Team Martin: Of the 237,000 voters who have cast ballots so far, only 22.5 percent are African-American. In the presidential election, black voters composed about 30 percent of the electorate.

Brennan A No-Go For CIA Chief

Winnie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:55:51 EST

Brennan pulls out of running for CIA
By: Andy Barr
November 25, 2008 05:52 PM EST

John Brennan, one of President-elect Barack Obama’s top intelligence advisers, pulled himself out of the running to head the Central Intelligence Agency after his potential appointment drew criticism in liberal circles.

“It is with profound regret that I respectfully ask that my name be withdrawn from consideration for a position within the intelligence community. The challenges ahead of our nation are too daunting, and the role of the CIA too critical, for there to be any distraction from the vital work that lays ahead,” Brennan wrote in a letter to Obama.

Brennan served in the CIA for 25 years and was the founding director of the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004. Questions about his role in crafting the Bush Administration’s interrogation policies within the agency lit a firestorm in the liberal netroots when the Associated Press reported Monday that he was the top candidate to be Obama’s CIA chief.

Since his vote this summer reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Obama has had a thorny relationship with progressives on intelligence issues. Obama’s choice of Brennan to run his intelligence transition staff, and speculation that he would be appointed CIA chief, rekindled the residual anger from the summer.

In his letter to Obama, Brennan acknowledged the pressure from the left and denied that he was involved in crafting interrogation policy and described himself as a critic within the Bush Administration.

“My transition responsibilities had led to speculation that I am under consideration for a senior intelligence position in your Administration,” Brennan wrote. “Quite unfortunately, this speculation has led to strong criticism in some quarters prompted by my previous services with the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“The fact that I was not involved in the decision-making process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored,” he added. “Indeed, my criticism of these policies within government circles was the reason why I was twice considered for more senior-level positions in the current administration only to be rebuffed by the White House.”

Who will stay With Defense Secretary Gates?

Winnie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:52:48 EST

Who will stay with Robert Gates?
By: Jen DiMascio
November 25, 2008 06:38 PM EST

With Defense Secretary Robert Gates set to stay in the new Obama administration, defense circles are buzzing about the complicated question of which top aides will remain with him at the Pentagon.

There are a number of reasons for concern, mainly that those who serve under Gates don’t hurt Barack Obama’s efforts to withdraw from Iraq, as he promised during the campaign, and also that Democrats who helped elect him win their share of high-ranking posts.

Under one scenario, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig would serve as Gates' deputy — sort of a secretary-in-waiting — then be promoted. In any case, Danzig would also need a team of his own deputies.

Neither Obama’s transition team nor the Pentagon would comment.

Among those mentioned as possibly staying with Gates are Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Pentagon weapons chief John Young and Gates’ special assistant Robert Rangel.

But England might be a tough sell among Democrats because of his close ties to the Bush administration. Before taking over as deputy defense secretary, England was the secretary of the Navy and the deputy secretary of homeland security.

Young is not seen as overly political. Although he worked for many years in the Bush Pentagon as the director of defense research and engineering and a Navy assistant secretary, he was previously an aide for the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, working for Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Both England and Young have lost ground with the defense industry because of a spat about the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor fighter jets and recent comments by Young questioning the need for Air Force’s Combat Search and Rescue helicopter.

“The defense industry would like to see the entire Bush team move on,” one analyst said bluntly.
But the question of who stays and who goes should be solvable, said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Gates wouldn’t be in this position if he weren’t well respected and seen as nonpartisan, O’Hanlon said.
Continuing negotiations, he suggested, may be centered not only on who might stay, but in what jobs.
Republicans are pointing out that Gates has very little to gain by leading a highly unpredictable war and needs some continuity of his own.

“If you’re keeping the secretary and none of the people who back him up, does that allow him to continue the success he’s had, or does that alter the game?” asked one defense lobbyist.

Obama Keeps Gates as Secretary of Defense

Winnie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:48:33 EST

Gates agrees to stay on under Obama
By: Mike Allen
November 25, 2008 06:29 PM EST

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Barack Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state, officials said.

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, former Marine commandant and commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, will be named national security adviser, the officials said.

The national security adviser heads the National Security Council, which is the part of the White House structure that deals with foreign policy, and varies in influence from presidency to presidency. Jones insisted on – and got – a commanding role, the sources said.

Democrats familiar with the national-security event early next week said they also expect James Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, to be named deputy secretary of State; Susan Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser on the campaign, to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and a veteran of the NSC, Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be named the director of national intelligence.

Tom Donilon, an assistant secretary of state for public affairs and chief of staff at the U.S. Department of State during the Clinton administration, is a leading candidate to be Jones’ deputy at the NSC, officials said.

The team gives Obama experience in the bureaucracy and credibility with the military, although it could lead to criticism from his party’s left wing that the lineup is more hawkish and less revolutionary than his supporters expected.

David Axelrod, the incoming White House senior adviser, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”: “The president-elect was clear throughout the campaign that when he became president, that he was going to give the secretary of defense a new mission, and that mission was going to be to wind down our involvement. Nothing has changed.”

Axelrod said Obama enjoys and invites strong opinions and there will be no “potted plants” in his Cabinet.

Gates has been negotiating with Obama emissaries over his deputies — some will be retained, and some new — and how the Pentagon will be run.

The selection of a member of President George W. Bush’s inner circle allows Obama to deliver on his promise of a bipartisan Cabinet, even though Gates has an intelligence background and has not been an active Republican.

The appointment has substantial advantages for Obama, who now can keep his pledge of drawing down troops in Iraq with the aid of an architect of the Bush administration’s successful troop "surge" strategy.

The presence of Gates also will help finesse Obama’s relationship with Gen. David Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq and now the head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Gates nomination was first reported as a “done deal” by ABC News.

Gates will not have to be reconfirmed, ofificials said.

For Those Who Think Obama Let You Down.....

Winnie — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:48:03 EST

Change We Can Perceive In
By Tom Watson, 11/24/2008

The liberal blogosphere has gone decidedly bi-polar in the Great Transition. On one side are the believers, betrothed to an image they conjured between the lines of conventional centrism, a group that is beginning to think that President-elect Obama is going to leave them waiting at the altar. They wait for their progressive swain in a rising sea of centrist appointments, foreign policy hawks, and leaked favorites from the last Democratic administration.

On the other side are the cynical pragmatists - just as personally progressive as their heartsick brethren - but decidedly less ambitious in their perception of the Obama promise; this latter group tends to know their Democratic Presidential history and is likely to own a copy of Dennis Perrin's brilliant and instructive Savage Mules.

In the end, the history-reading cynics (and count me as a card-carrier) may end up happier with President Obama.

One of the lasting mysteries of the historic election cycle just concluded was the mass migration of Democratic liberals to Obama, the careful centrist Senator out of the old-school clubhouse organization of Chicago, Illinois. There were serious progressive mainstream (non-Kucinich) choices in the pack: John Edwards and Hillary Clinton stood to Obama's left on domestic policy, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson took their place on international issues.

On any given issue - from Iraq to healthcare to tax policy - Obama always had a major rival on his left. Even when the race narrowed to a long a bitter slog with Clinton, Obama remained to the right of the New Yorker on key issues like national healthcare reform. Yet it was Obama who had a monopoly on iconic cover stories in The Nation, Obama who excited the pacifist anti-war Democrats, Obama who inspired allusions to the famed socialist organizer Saul Alinsky.

Part of it was his evident political mojo, part of it was his Iraq stance compared to Clinton's, and part of it was a strong remnant of 90s era anti-Clinton bias among progressives. But almost none of it was policy or specific promises. Says Glenn Greenwald, leader of the cynical pragmatists:

So many progressives were misled about what Obama is and what he
believes. But it wasn't Obama who misled them. It was their own
desires, their eagerness to see what they wanted to see rather than
what reality offered.

Now that Obama is the President-elect after a brilliant and highly-disciplined campaign, there is a manic near-panic among the believers about his cabinet and White House staff picks - which are dominated by experienced, conventional, mostly centrist politicians and technocrats...and which pretty much fulfill the candidate's explicit promise to build a competent, functioning, non-ideological government after the long Bush nightmare. Over at The Nation, Chris Hayes is not happy - promises, it seems, were perceived:

Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far
as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new
administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about
wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation,
right about global warming and right about health care.

And he's not alone. Chris Bowers dislikes the Obama team. And this post on Alternet by FDL regular bmz asks whether "Barack Obama is screwing the netroots?" And at The Progressive last week, Matthew Rothschild asked angrily: "When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?"

Yet, Obama's moves so far are exactly what he promised - "change" was regime change, a new style, and the involvement of more Americans in the promise of the republic. The coalition government - even the "team of rivals" - were explicit promises; you didn't need to somehow perceive them. Moreover, Rothschild's complaint belies a problem with perception: Obama certainly had the progressive base, but he made it no promises whatsoever. As Jane Hamsher says, her expectations fully adjusted for inflation:

Many people managed to convince themselves that Obama was a genuine,
dyed-in-the-wool progressive at some point during the primaries. For
no reason as far as I could tell -- his voting record in the Senate was
pretty much identical to Hillary Clinton's, and the people he
surrounded himself with weren't exactly "outsiders." But in the midst
of the pie fights, that hardly seemed worth dwelling on for the
pointless vitriolic arguments it would have engendered.

And then there's Digby - yet another progressive voice who takes a more pragmatic view of the Obama policy promise:

Liberals took cultural signifiers as a sign of solidarity and didn't
ask for anything. So, we have the great symbolic victory of the first
black president (and that's not nothing, by the way) who is also a
bipartisan, centrist technocrat. Surprise. . . . Obama said repeatedly
that he wasn't ideological, that he cared about "what works." I don't
know why people didn't believe that. He's a technocrat who wants to
"solve problems" and "change politics." The first may actually end up
producing the kind of ideological shift liberals desire simply because
of the dire set of circumstances greeting the new administration.
(Hooray for the new depression!) The second was always an empty fantasy
--- politics is just another word for human nature, and that hasn't
changed since we were dancing around the fire outside our caves.

***

Nowhere did many progressives deceive themselves more than in foreign policy - and on no subject are they more outraged; in some cases, this is simply because of Obama's recruitment of Clinton as Secretary of State. But it's also because of a blind spot of longstanding on the left - a bit of self-deception that many Democrats indulge in every four years or so.

As far as I'm concerned, Dennis Perrin has contributed the masterwork in the scholarship on the Democrats' strange relationship with militarism. Savage Mules: Democrats and Endless War tackles that strange historic dichotomy: a hawkish left that occasionally tries to brand itself as spiritually opposed to war. Savage Mules is a brilliant rant, really - it traffic in hypocrisy and rides the wave of Perrin's evident anger and stylish writing. If somebody's pissed off about this, I'm glad it's Dennis, a gifted weaver of the tale. The book (short and pungent) is filled with episodes we know, from the hateful Andrew Jackson to the the check-in tables at the YearlyKos convention, and neatly threaded with steel prose skewers that penetrate our gauzy images of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and even (especially) the human rights warrior Jimmy Carter, "America's most underrated imperialist."

Perrin is that rare liberal of 2008: he opposes Obama, openly. Indeed, the iconography around the President-elect is an opposing polar force, driving Dennis to denounce hypocrisy and false left-wing optimism. I felt the sting a couple of weeks ago when celebrating the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as a no-nonsense chief of staff. "Oh, to be in a Gaza camp today," commented Dennis. "Imagine their excitement with this appointment!"

In Perrin's Democratic Party, the still-living myth of a JFK as the peace-loving president whose tragic murder led to a cruel and deeper involvement in Vietnam (the Oliver Stone hagiographic view) has inhabited, in turn, the personal life mythology as two successors: Bill Clinton and his famous snapshot at the White House of Camelot, and Barack Obama as the modern version of a young, handsome, masculine liberal ushering in a new and optimistic era.

Bloggers wringing their hands over the imagined abandonment of an imagined liberalism should read Savage Mules:

American political life has always been a feeding frenzy of delusion, uplift, and fantasy. Things that ought to be, are, and become so depending on the number of people agreeing to a particular concept and the need for that concept to be True.

***

It seems clear that along with going "long and deep" - in Rahm Emanuel's words - on public policy, especially in rolling back some of Bush's structural conservatism in the Federal government, Barack Obama is banking on experience and pragmatism in his administration. The election is over, of course; and Obama will probably never call on the left to do again for him what it did in the winter of 2007-2008. He only faces one more election in his life (as an incumbent), and as Glenn Greenwald noted, liberals probably overrate their contribution to his victory:

It's impossible to quantify, but I think the vast majority of Obama
supporters were perfectly clear-eyed about what he is and voted for him
for the standard unremarkable reasons -- that they perceived him as
better than the alternatives. But there is no question that Obama has
inspired among many Democrats a type of deep and intense loyalty that
is personal to Obama rather than grounded in policy issues, that many
see him as much more than a politician who will make good political
decisions.

Still, the dismay seems to be growing. Some is the poisonous and personal (and often, sexist) dislike of Clinton. But of it seems to evidence the earnest quality of those who really, really expected something entirely different. In Mother Jones this week, Kevin Drum wrote about some of the open-mouthed progressive response to Obama's foreign policy and security team (as leaked thus far):

Obama never pretended to be some kind of Noam Chomsky acolyte. He's a mainstream liberal American president.

Well, replace "liberal" with "Democratic" and he might well be on to something.

Summers Joins Obama Team- May Go To Fed

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:51:05 EST

Summers to Join Obama White House, Boosts Fed Chances (Update2)

By Brendan Murray and Michael McKee

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University professor Lawrence Summers will join the Obama administration with a ready-made sales pitch for substantial economic stimulus and a chance that the role springboards him to the Federal Reserve.

Summers, 53, was Bill Clinton's last Treasury secretary. He will have a wide-ranging portfolio and help craft Obama's economic policies, a Democratic aide said. Summers's appointment, along with the nomination of Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner to be the next Treasury secretary, will be announced Nov. 24, the aide said.

The return of Summers to Washington after eight years at Harvard gives President-elect Barack Obama a fierce advocate for fiscal stimulus to revive the economy. It also positions him to succeed Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, whose term at the helm of the central bank expires in January 2010, said Vincent Reinhart, former director of the Fed's Division of Monetary Affairs.

``He's certainly on the short list, and perhaps on the top,'' said Reinhart, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Summers couldn't be immediately reached for comment. Earlier this week during a panel discussion in Washington, he said it is ``crucial'' to jump-start the economy.

Economic stimulus should be ``speedy, substantial and sustained over a several-year interval,'' Summers said in a panel discussion with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former secretary Robert Rubin.

`Impetus' for Growth

Without saying how big a stimulus package was needed, Summers said each dollar of spending generates an extra $1.50 for the economy.

``We're going to need some impetus to the economy for two to three years,'' he said. ``It's particularly important that the fiscal stimulus be linked to the country's long-term priorities around infrastructure, around energy, particularly renewable energy, around health care.''

The Obama administration, which starts Jan. 20, faces a host of economic challenges.

A credit crunch sparked by the collapse of U.S. mortgage finance has triggered a recession that shows signs of deepening, with U.S. job losses totaling 1.2 million this year. First-time claims for U.S. unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose last week to the highest level since 1992, Labor Department figures showed yesterday.

Fed Rate Cuts

The Fed has reduced its benchmark interest rate by 4.25 percentage points since September 2007, to 1 percent, and rescued Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. from failure with emergency loans. Economists forecast that the central bank will cut rates further.

The crisis has resulted in $967 billion in writedowns and losses for financial companies worldwide since the start of 2007. In response, Congress approved a $700 billion financial bailout program that is injecting capital into banks.

``The reality of the problems of the economy, the financial markets, our banking system both domestically and globally, and the long list of problems we have to deal with as a society -- that is very daunting,'' said Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Summers earlier this week sparred during the panel discussion over whether President George W. Bush's tax cuts should be allowed to expire, with Paulson saying any increases would be ``not helpful.'' Summers countered that what matters is the overall fiscal position of the government, and that relief for middle-income families is most effective.

Mexico, Asia Crisis

Summers, who was Treasury secretary from July 1999 to January 2001, had a lot of experience with crisis management at Treasury. He helped design bailouts for Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia and Brazil and worked closely with Russian officials trying to stave off that country's financial crisis in 1998.

In addition to teaching at Harvard, Summers serves as a managing director of the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co., where he works on what the company describes as ``strategic initiatives'' and ``high-level portfolio management activities.'' Shaw manages about $36 billion.

Summers has deep roots in economics. His mother and father were economists, and two of his uncles -- Paul Samuelson on his father's side and Kenneth Arrow on his mother's -- won Nobel prizes in economic science.

After earning his doctorate at Harvard in 1982 he became at age 28 that university's youngest tenured professor. He spent time on the staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the 1980s before joining the World Bank as chief economist.

He joined the Clinton administration in 1993, the same year he won the John Bates Clark medal as the outstanding U.S. economist under 40. He took over as secretary in July 1999, after Rubin resigned.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brendan Murray in Washington at brmurray@bloomberg.net Michael McKee in New York at mmckee@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 21, 2008 18:40 EST Email this article Printer friendly format

Stock Market Rallies On Announcement of Geithner as Obama's Treasury Secretary

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:46:26 EST

U.S. Stocks Rally as Obama Picks Tim Geithner to Head Treasury

By Eric Martin

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rallied and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rebounded from an 11-year low after President-elect Barack Obama picked New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Timothy Geithner to head the Treasury.

“This news could really give the stock market a badly needed shot in the arm,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York, wrote in an e-mail to clients. Geithner is a “fantastic choice to help lead the financial markets out of the wilderness.”

Citigroup Inc. pared a 35 percent slide and JPMorgan Chase & Co. trimmed a 16 percent tumble in the final hour as a Democratic aide said Obama will name Geithner to replace Henry Paulson. National-Oilwell Varco Inc. and Chesapeake Energy jumped more than 20 percent as oil rose for the first time in six days. The rally came after this week’s rout dragged the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings valuation to the cheapest since 1995.

The S&P 500, which capped a third-straight weekly decline, surged 6.3 percent to 800.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 494.13 points, or 6.5 percent, to 8,046.42, while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 5.2 percent to 1,384.35. Almost five stocks gained for each that fell on the New York Stock Exchange.

Benchmark indexes swung between gains and losses earlier as growing concern over the survival of Citigroup, the second- largest U.S. bank by assets, offset a rally in commodities producers. Some 2.4 billion shares changed hands on the floor of the NYSE in the busiest trading session since Oct. 10. Citigroup accounted for about 11 percent of all trading volume of NYSE- listed stocks.

2008 Slump

The S&P 500 extended its 2008 slide to 49 percent yesterday and was poised for the worst annual decline in its 80-year history after economic reports depicted a deepening recession and lawmakers postponed a vote on a plan to salvage the auto industry. Citigroup, which has about $2 trillion of assets, has fallen for nine of the last 10 days on concern more companies and consumers will default as the economy worsens.

The benchmark index for U.S. equities trimmed its yearly loss to less than 46 percent today, which would still make 2008 the worst year since 1931. The S&P 500 tumbled 8.4 percent this week. The Dow average declined 5.3 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 8.7 percent.

Chesapeake, a producer of oil and natural gas, jumped $2.99 to $16.97. National-Oilwell, which makes crude production equipment, added $3.66 to $21.52.

Energy Rally

Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. oil company, climbed $7.30, or 11 percent, to $75.81. Crude oil rose as OPEC members cut production and governments stepped up efforts to revive economic growth. Gasoline futures climbed for the first time this week as U.S. buyers took advantage of low prices and a weaker U.S. dollar increased the lure of dollar-denominated commodities. Oil for January delivery rose 46 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $49.88 a barrel.

S&P 500 energy companies rose 12 percent collectively for the top gain among the index’s 10 main industries. The advance came after the group’s valuation slid to 5.6 times reported earnings, the cheapest since Bloomberg began tracking the data.

Citigroup pared declines, falling 94 cents to $3.77 after sinking as low as $3.05, and the S&P 500 Financials Index erased a 7.5 percent tumble to climb 3.4 percent on word of Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary.

Geithner has helped lead U.S. efforts to combat the deepest financial crisis in seven decades, helping oversee the decisions this year to intervene in American International Group Inc., rescue Bear Stearns Cos. and leave Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to fail.

‘Fresh Face’

“The market is relieved that it’s Geithner,” said Tim Hartzell, managing director and chief investment office at Sequent Asset Management in Houston. “It’s important to have a fresh face come in who has also been in the mix and has been at the pinnacle of everything that has been going on.”

Citigroup’s earlier slide came as Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said he won’t break up the company after the stock market rout erased more than 80 percent of its value this year. Pandit and Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden, speaking on a worldwide conference call, also said they don’t expect to sell the Smith Barney brokerage unit, according to two people who listened to the call and declined to be identified because it wasn’t open to the public.

Citigroup will probably get rescued by the U.S. government after a crisis in confidence erased half its stock-market value in three days, investors and analysts said. The stock climbed 6.1 percent to $4 in trading after the close of U.S. exchanges.

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by market value, pared a drop of $3.69 to close down 66 cents at $22.72.

Gap Surges

Gap Inc. rallied $2.59, or 27 percent, to $12.10. The largest U.S. clothing retailer said third-quarter profit climbed 3.4 percent as the company reduced markdowns of sweaters, jeans and khaki pants. The owner of the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains reiterated its forecast for profit of $1.30 to $1.35 a share for the year ending Jan. 31.

Sprint Nextel Corp. climbed 25 percent to $1.71 and earlier soared 36 percent, the most since at least 1980. Barry West, chief technology officer of the third-largest U.S. mobile phone company, bought 50,000 Sprint shares, marking the biggest investment at the company in the past five years, Barron’s reported.

Microsoft Corp. jumped $2.15, or 12 percent, to $19.68 after Oppenheimer & Co. raised the world’s largest software maker to “outperform” and said the stock has fallen too far. The shares trimmed their yearly decline to 45 percent.

Alcoa Jumps

Alcoa Inc., the biggest U.S. aluminum producer, surged 23 percent, the most since at least 1980, to $8.44. Newmont Mining Corp. jumped 25 percent to $28.79. Copper and aluminum rebounded from three-year lows on speculation mine shutdowns will help erode supply surpluses caused by reduced demand.

All 10 industries in the S&P 500 advanced at least 3.3 percent and 28 of 30 stocks in the Dow average rose.

Autodesk Inc. fell $2.45, or 15 percent, to $14.37. The largest maker of engineering-design software said fourth-quarter earnings excluding some items will be as much as 34 cents a share. That missed the 54-cent average estimate by analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

This year’s tumble in the S&P 500 dragged down 97 percent of its stocks and all 64 of its so-called level-three industries, groups such as “distributors” and “leisure equipment,” as of yesterday’s close. More stocks decreased in the current bear market than in the 49 percent rout after the technology bubble burst in 2000.

‘Irrational Exuberance’

Alan Greenspan can stop worrying about “irrational exuberance” in the U.S. stock market, 12 years after he warned investors that share prices were rising too fast. The S&P 500 fell below 744.38 today, its closing level on Dec. 5, 1996, the day then-Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan used the phrase in a speech on “The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society.”

The S&P 500 was trading for 20.7 times earnings when Greenspan gave his warning and its valuation climbed to as high as 62.9 in March 2002, according to Bloomberg data. The index was valued at 16.3 times reported profits of its companies at yesterday’s closing level, the cheapest since 1995.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Martin in New York at emartin21@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 21, 2008 16:45 EST

Is THe Current GOP Obsolete?

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:39:06 EST

Demographics shifting, but GOP isn’t
By: Robert E. Lang
November 19, 2008 02:30 PM EST

In the wake of the Republican defeat, there has been much recrimination and finger-pointing over tactics and strategy. Was the Sarah Palin choice fatal? Should John McCain have suspended his campaign during the financial crisis?

But the larger issue is whether 2008 was a “realigning election” that went deeper than the candidates or the current issues. The jury is still out as to whether Democrats can turn one sweeping victory into a generation-long dominance of the White House. A key element in a possible structural shift favoring Democrats is the changing demographics of the electorate. The U.S. is growing bigger, increasingly diverse and more cosmopolitan — and the GOP seems on the wrong side of all these trends.

The United States is the only developed country that is projected to add lots of new residents by mid-century. In 2006, the nation’s population reached 300 million. The Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. will get to 400 million by 2039. To put this growth in perspective, consider that even China (yes, China) will not add 100 million people by that date. The U.S. will gain more new residents in the next three decades than the current population of Germany — the largest European Union nation.

With each decade, more than 22 million potential new voters will enter the electorate. Parties that fix on a strategy may find that it is unworkable in just a few cycles. The Republican Party’s idea of stoking its base to gain office assumes a somewhat static voting public, which, given the dynamic nature of American demographics, is a faulty notion.

So who are most of these new people? The quick answer is both recent immigrants and their American-born offspring. By 2043, the U.S. may be a majority minority nation. Another scenario is that a high rate of intermarriage among whites and minorities may open to question the whole notion of who is “majority.” The bottom line for Republicans is that no matter how this population is defined, an increasing number of current minorities are voting for Democrats.

Republicans can, of course, switch their strategy and make more direct appeals to minority voters. As recently as 2004, President George W. Bush almost won the Latino vote. But at the moment, the Republicans seem branded as the party of white people. Furthermore, much of the Republican base — especially those listening to talk radio — believe the U.S. is being flooded with immigrants (legal and illegal). It may be hard to pivot and embrace diversity without alienating the GOP base. By contrast, many whites in the Democratic Party are comfortable with diversity and now form a transracial coalition with minority voters.

As the U.S. expands and diversifies, it is becoming more urban. The Census finds that 83 percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas and that well over half live in regions with more than 1 million residents. By other calculations, two-thirds of people added by 2040 will settle in just 20 megapolitan areas — massive urban complexes that contain more than 5 million residents.

Were just the big metro areas to vote, the presidential race would be a rout every time. The Democrats dominate major urban regions. An analysis by the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech found that Barack Obama won the votes in the nation’s top 50 metro areas — often by double-digit margins.

Worse for Republicans, in 2006 and 2008, Democrats significantly expanded the areas of the metros they won. Their electoral dominance has spilled out of cities and close-in suburbs and now reaches into the kinds of sprawling subdivisions that were once reliably Republican. The suburbs in key swing states such as Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia played a particularly decisive role in delivering the presidency to Democrats.

Republicans must adjust to the demographic shifts sweeping America or risk being politically marginalized. Most significantly, the party needs to recognize that there are simply not enough rural white voters to balance the growing number of minority voters and cosmopolitan whites living in big metro areas. If Republicans think 2008 went badly, try running the same kind of small-town-flavored campaign in 2020. At that point, the vastly expanded and racially diverse metro areas in Texas and Georgia could tip those once reliably red states to the Democrats.

Robert E. Lang is co-director of the Alexandria, Va.-based Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech and an associate professor in urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech’s School of Planning and International Affairs.

PROP 8 Suit Wins Supreme Court Review

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:33:23 EST

Prop. 8 suits win supreme court review
By: James Parker - The Daily Californian
November 20, 2008 10:54 AM EST

The California Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear lawsuits challenging Proposition 8 but denied a request to postpone its implementation until the lawsuits are resolved.

Several lawsuits have been filed seeking to invalidate the proposition — which amended the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages — on the grounds that it makes such significant changes that it is a constitutional revision, which would need legislative approval.

On Tuesday, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to join an anti-Proposition 8 lawsuit initiated by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Oakland's City Council did the same yesterday, and the city of Berkeley is likely to join in the coming weeks.

"The question before the court is, should the democratic process be allowed to enact this discrimination by a simple show of hands, or is a more deliberative legislative process required?" said Goodwin Liu, a UC Berkeley professor of law.

He said that the lawsuit faces tough legal precedents when it comes to overturning ballot measures but that the great public interest and the civil rights aspect of the issue may make these lawsuits unique.

"It does come as a relief that things can move forward, and there's still hope that it can be overturned before 2010," said Carlo de la Cruz, the ASUC's academic affairs vice president.

A release from the Campaign for Children and Families stated that the state Supreme Court would risk a voter revolt if it ruled against the proposition, which received 52.5 percent of the vote. They also argued that the proposition only affects a single part of the constitution and could not possibly be considered a revision.

In contrast with the state as a whole, the proposition garnered support from only 38 percent of voters in Alameda County. The board of supervisors voted to support the lawsuit in a closed session and made the announcement at their public meeting later that day.

"It's a civil rights issue," said supervisor Gail Steele. "What is that when people are taking rights away from others?"

In Berkeley, Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Darryl Moore, who are gay, have brought the issue to the city attorney's office to determine whether a vote is required to support the lawsuit. The city has already adopted a policy of supporting marriage equality, so a vote may not be necessary, but if it is, many expect that the vote will be unanimous.

"It would be reflective of the vast majority of our constituents that we oppose the elimination of civil rights in our constitution," said Councilmember Max Anderson.

Phillip Alvarado, the campus campaign manager for the Get Up, Vote Down 4 & 8 campaign, said that if civil rights issues such as segregation and suffrage had to be passed through a vote, they would never have happened.

"Bigoted and homophobic people cannot rule what happens in someone else's life," he said. "The justices will, in the end, uphold equality and fairness."

James Parker reports for The Daily Californian, a student publication at UC Berkeley. The Daily Californian is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

Obama Records Campaign Ad For Martin Run-off Election

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:28:37 EST

Obama records radio ad for Martin

President-elect Barack Obama is chiming in for the first time in the Georgia Senate runoff, recording a new radio ad that urges voters to support Democrat Jim Martin.

The one-minute radio ad will be airing across the state beginning tomorrow morning.

“In Georgia, there’s a runoff on Tuesday, Dec. 2. And I want to urge you to turn out one more time and help elect Jim Martin to the United States Senate,” Obama says in the ad.

“Jim Martin’s a man of his word, and I know he’ll do everything he can in the Senate to help me change Washington and get America moving again.”

Obama concludes: “Please join me in supporting Jim Martin for the United States Senate on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and head to the polls just one more time this year.”

Martin’s campaign is dependent on heavy African-American turnout in order to defeat Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) in the Dec. 2 runoff. If most black voters who turned out for Obama also support Martin in the runoff, he’ll be in good position to defeat Chambliss.

Martin has already been trying to energize black voters throughout the state by connecting himself to Obama. Both of Martin’s television ads have made ample use of Obama — including one featuring his victory speech footage in Grant Park.

"I am honored to have President-elect Obama's strong support," Jim Martin said in a statement. "I plan to go to Washington to work with Barack Obama to fix our economy and get our country moving for middle class Georgians."

GOP Senate Directionless and in Denial

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:16:23 EST

Senate GOP in big funk
By: John Bresnahan and Amie Parnes
November 20, 2008 12:32 PM EST

A day after losing Ted Stevens’ seat, along with their best hope for getting Joe Lieberman to cross over, Senate GOP leaders preached party unity as the key to surviving the Obama years.

If that doesn’t work, there’s always psychotherapy.

Down to 42 seats with two still at risk, Senate Republicans are in a deep funk. Some are in denial. Some want a return to conservative principles. Some want to cut deals. Some want more filibusters.

Others want to jump out a window — but they’re afraid they’d screw that up, too.

“We probably wouldn’t die,” a Republican Senate aide joked Wednesday. “We’d just lie there, hurt and suffering, which is not too much different from where we are now.”

Two years ago, the Republicans held a 55-45 majority. They’re down 13 seats since then, with a too-close-to-call race in Minnesota and a runoff in Georgia still to come.

“The feeling I get is that we’re not ready yet to discuss with ourselves what happened,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, one of the few Republicans to win an easy reelection this year. “I think people are kind of still a bit stunned and are not prepared to have thought it through sufficiently.”

“We think the whole problem is George Bush and not us, and we’re part of the problem,” added Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

Although Republicans aren’t exactly anxious to align themselves with the outgoing president, they’re feeling so nostalgic for the power they once had that they’ve scheduled their committee organizing meetings for mid-December — an excuse to be back in town for Bush’s final White House holiday party.

John McCain — the Republican senator who had hoped to be hosting those parties for the next four years — returned to the Senate this week. He said Tuesday that he had nothing to say to the press. When reporters asked him for a comment on Wednesday, he said “No, no, no!” and kept walking.

The Republicans’ only glimmer of good news: When Stevens — the longest-serving Republican in Senate history — conceded his Alaska race to Democrat Mark Begich on Wednesday, he spared them the unpleasant task of having to expel him from their caucus.

Hillary Must Pay Off Her Own Campaign Debt

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:07:59 EST

HRC campaign sale: Everything must go!
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
November 21, 2008 05:29 PM EST

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign is wrapping up a fire sale of sorts, in which it dispensed computers, servers, desks and most other office fixtures not bolted down to charities, campaign vendors, politicians and just regular folks — all in the name of raising cash to pay off its debt.

Until about three weeks ago, signs in the windows of Clinton’s suburban Washington campaign headquarters advertised a moving sale and offered all kinds of office equipment for purchase, and some equipment is still listed for sale online. From the time she conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama through the end of October, Clinton’s campaign reaped $373,000 through nearly 400 separate “asset sales,” according to reports her campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission.

That won’t put much of a dent in her vendor debt, which stood at $7.5 million at the end of October, according to an FEC report filed Thursday night.

But every penny counts for Clinton, who’s had a tough time raising cash since dropping out of the race. Thursday’s report shows that in October she raised $774,000 and brought in another $42,000 through asset sales, allowing her to pay down $507,000 of her vendor debt.

That debt could be an issue if, as expected, she is tapped to be Obama’s secretary of state, a position that would bar her raising cash to pay off her unpaid bills, possibly prompting her to appeal to her creditors and the FEC to forgive the debt.

It would be unprecedented for the FEC to allow a candidate to write off such a large debt. But it’s quite common for losing candidates to sell off their assets, particularly to their former staffers and sympathetic political committees.

Campaigns are like start-up businesses that have to rent, equip and staff offices around the country on the fly, then quickly go out of business, leaving them with all sorts of things they no longer need.

After former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani lost his bid for the Republican presidential nomination this year, he offered steep discounts to former aides willing to purchase the BlackBerries and laptops he bought for them to use on the campaign, said his campaign lawyer Jason Torchinsky.

Torchinsky worked as a lawyer on President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection bid and said that afterward, he bought a TiVo from the campaign.

“It’s a little unusual to open it up to the general public,” Torchinsky said of Clinton’s asset sales. “It’s not illegal or prohibited at all, as long as you’re getting a reasonable market price for what you’re selling,” he said, explaining that fetching too high a price could be seen as “getting an impermissible contribution.”

“I also find it interesting that she would sell to charity instead of just making a donation,” he added.

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines pointed out that the campaign also donated many items to charities and foundations, and he said “it was very common” for the campaign to give away free stuff to people who purchased some items.

“Generally speaking, the campaign has endeavored to be creative and cost effective in its efforts to pay down the debt, and many in the community have benefited,” Reines said. “So it's win-win, always the best kind of deal.”

In Chicago, an aide to President-elect Obama said the campaign was donating much of its office equipment to charity.

Clinton reported sales of more than $14,000 to eight charities, including the National Student Partnerships, a student-led volunteer service organization. It bought 18 computers — sans monitors, which had already been sold — for $2,700 from the campaign, which originally had paid $11,300 for the hardware, according to Reines.

The campaign also reported reaping $7,900 from the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless for some desks, an LCD projector, 23 computers and two servers, which Reines said originally cost the campaign $29,000.

“We sent them a letter saying we’re a local nonprofit and if they had some stuff they wanted to donate, they could do that, but they said they couldn’t,” said John Woodard, program developer for the homeless coalition, which is located about a mile from Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va. “They couldn’t give it away, but they could sell it to us. They also couldn’t make a profit from it.”

And Woodard said “we got a good deal on it. It was unique in that it was used, but it wasn’t used that much. It wasn’t like it was 10 years old or anything like that.”

Clinton’s best customers by far, though, were political committees, to which she sold $55,000-worth of unidentified assets. That included $28,000 to the Virginia’s Democratic Party, $18,000 to committees controlled by Virginia Democratic Sen.-elect Mark Warner and $10,000 to New Hampshire’s Democratic Party.

The campaign also sold $600-worth of unidentified stuff to its direct mail firm, which was owed $830,000 in unpaid bills at the end of October, and $5,000-worth to strategist Minyon Moore, whose firm was paid $236,000 in October to settle all outstanding debts owed to it.

There were also some curious transactions, like the $65 paid to the campaign by Washington’s Metropolitan Plastic Surgery and the $230 paid by the 9:30 Club, a hip concert venue in Washington.

Clinton's Thursday report showed her campaign was still very much operational last month; she paid $37,000 in rent and $40,000 in staff salaries.

Plus, she continued charging her campaign interest for the $13 million she loaned the campaign, even though legally she can only pay herself back $250,000. The campaign now owes Clinton $78,000 interest, according to the report.

Paulson Fiddles While Rome Burns

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:53:52 EST

FINANCIAL CRISIS Paulson resists Democrats' call to rescue homeowners The Treasury secretary tells a House panel that he plans to conserve the remainder of the bailout funds for the next administration to spend. By Maura Reynolds

November 19, 2008

Reporting from Washington — Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson told unhappy congressional Democrats on Tuesday that, barring a new catastrophe, the Bush administration intended to stand pat on its existing effort to stabilize financial markets -- and leave the next stage of economic recovery to the new administration.

Having committed about half of the existing $700-billion rescue fund to ease Wall Street's credit crunch, Paulson said he had no plans to spend the rest, even on the root cause of the crisis -- soaring mortgage foreclosures.

"The prudent course, at this time, is to conserve the remaining funds available from the [rescue program], providing flexibility for this and the next administration," Paulson told frustrated lawmakers during a contentious hearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

During Paulson's testimony, committee members, at times raising their voices, complained that the administration was willing to spend money on big banks and insurers but not on ordinary Americans.

"I hope that you understand the pain and the suffering of so many homeowners in this country that are losing their homes," said Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.).

"It's just not enough to say to the banks, 'Here is the money and by the way, I trust you.' Because they are not lending!"

Calls grew Tuesday for a substantial economic stimulus package to be enacted once Barack Obama becomes president. A group of chief executives said such spending should total at least $300 billion and focus on infrastructure projects.

During the House hearing, panel Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), although acknowledging that Paulson had shown results in the financial crisis, berated him for not using his existing legal authority to stem the tide of foreclosures.

"When the program was passed, very explicit language was included to provide for mortgage foreclosure diminution as one of the purposes," Frank said, waving excerpts from the bill passed Oct. 3. "The bill couldn't have been clearer."

Frank and Velazquez expressed support for a plan by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila C. Bair to speed refinancings of troubled mortgages.

"We need to prevent unnecessary foreclosures, and we need to modify loans at a much faster pace," Bair, a Republican, told the committee. "We all know there is no single solution or magic bullet, but as foreclosures escalate, we're clearly falling behind the curve."

Paulson backed Bair's central idea to lower mortgage payments to about a third of a borrower's income as long as that income is verified and other criteria are met. But he voiced concern about a provision under which the government would absorb half of any losses from a future default.

"We continue to look at good proposals and are dedicated to implementing those that protect the taxpayer and work well," he said.

He contended that recapitalizing banks would do more to help the economy than direct aid to homeowners would.

"More capital enables banks to take losses as they write down or sell troubled assets," Paulson said. "And stronger capitalization is also essential to increasing lending, which, although difficult to achieve during times like this, is essential to economic recovery."

Bair, who has criticized the administration response as inadequate, said the foreclosure situation was too dire for such a cautious approach.

"The stakes are too high and the time is too short to rely exclusively on voluntary efforts," Bair said. "We need a national solution for a national problem. We need a fast-track federal program that has the potential to reach all homeowners, regardless of who owns their mortgages."

Bair contended that the estimated $24-billion cost of her proposal would be more than offset by added spending by all homeowners because their properties would not lose as much value.

"If this program can keep home prices from falling by just 3 percentage points less than would otherwise be the case, over half a trillion dollars would remain in homeowners' pockets," she said.

"Even a conservative estimate of the wealth effect this could have on consumer spending would exceed $40 billion. That would be a big stimulus for the economy."

Paulson gave his most detailed explanation of the rescue program so far, explaining that the government switched gears in midstream -- abandoning a plan to buy troubled securities and adopting one to inject capital into the banking system -- because the economy deteriorated so quickly as the legislation was being written.

"We have not, in our lifetime, dealt with a financial crisis of this severity and unpredictability," he said.

Many economists are predicting the most severe recession in decades. With energy prices tumbling in recent months, the specter of inflation -- which haunted policymakers into the summer -- has faded completely.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that the producer price index, heavily influenced by prices of commodities such as fuel, sank a record 2.8% last month.

"The benefit of a major recession is that any worries about inflation tend to disappear, and that is becoming the case," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa. "Over the next few months we should see a lot more data showing how inflation is coming down."

The call for a stimulus package of more than $300 billion was made by a group of CEOs attending a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. The legislation should target investment in infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, as well as alternative energy, the executives said.

In a speech to the conference Monday, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers cited a report by Goldman, Sachs & Co. that suggests the stimulus should be $500 billion to $700 billion. Summers is widely considered a top candidate to be Obama's Treasury secretary.

Democrats last week dropped plans to offer in the current Congress a stimulus plan of as much as $150 billion, citing Republican opposition.

Reynolds is a writer in our Washington Bureau. The Associated Press was used in compiling this report. maura.reynolds@latimes.com

It's 11 o'clock. Do You Know What George Bush is Doing to Our Country?

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:46:40 EST

November 21, 2008

Time is running out for the Bush Administration, and it's making a last-minute push to enstate new policy changes — a practice commonly known as "midnight regulations." According to THE WASHINGTON POST, "as many as 90 new regulations are in the works." The POST goes on to assess the changes: "many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment." That's a worry echoed by a number of government watchdog groups.

Of course, these last minute political giveaways are nothing new. Indeed, the name midnight regulations echoes the "midnight judges" — Federalist judges appointed by President John Adams way back in 1800, days before he turned over the Presidency to election-victor Thomas Jefferson.

In 2003, NOW WITH BILL MOYERS documented the ups and downs of a rule enacted in the final days of the Clinton administration in January 2001. The "Roadless Rule" — ending virtually all logging; roadbuilding; and coal, gas, oil, and other mineral leasing in 58 million acres of the wildest remaining national forest lands — had strong public support. Usually, a rule takes effect either 30 or 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. Once that happens, it is law and can only be overturned by either an act of Congress or an official new rulemaking process. However, the Bush administration caught the Roadless Rule within this 60-day window, and its implementation was delayed numerous times. The fate of the rule has been the subject of several court challenges.

In May, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten issued a memo spelling out a strict deadline government agencies need to meet when promulgating any new rules — perhaps to avoid situations where they could easily be reversed. But the incoming Obama administration is watching all such actions carefully.

Below you'll find some of the proposed regulations and changes and additional places to check on others.

Mountaintop Mining: Rule would allow mining companies to dump waste into rivers and streams.
Endangered Species Act: Rule would alter implementation of ESA to allow federal land-use managers to approve projects (like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging) without consulting federal habitat managers and biological health experts responsible for species protection.
Power plants near National Parks: Environmental Protection Agency rule would ease current restrictions that make it difficult for power plants to operate near national parks and wilderness areas, which could increase air pollution in those areas.
Truck Driver Safety: Department of Transportation rule will allow truck drivers to drive up to 11 consecutive hours and to spend seven consecutive days on the road with only a 34-hour break. Public Citizen and other safety advocates have sued successfully two times in the past three years to overturn this Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule.
On-the-Job-Risk: Department of Labor rule would change the way federal regulators calculate estimates for on-the-job risks, and add an extra comment period to new worker health standards, creating a delay.
Family and Medical Leave: Department of Labor rule would limit employee access to family and medical leave — making it more difficult for workers to use paid vacation or personal time to take leave, and would allow employers to speak directly to an employee's health care provider.
Domestic Surveillance: Department of Justice Rule would expand the power of state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate potential criminal activities and report the information to federal agencies. It would broaden the scope of activities authorities could monitor to include organizations as well as individuals, along with non-criminal activities that are deemed "suspicious."

Midnight Bureaucrats
THE WASHINGTON POST is also following the outgoing administration's movement of political appointees into civil service positions. "The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called 'burrowing' by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs." The POST reports that: "between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants...In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level." Civil service job protections make it very difficult to remove people once transfers have been made.

Published on November 21, 2008.

Help SaveThe Auto Industry

Winnie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:02:02 EST

America's auto industry must be saved. One job out of every ten in the U S is auto related. If the Big Three were to go out of business, the unemployment rate would go from 6% to 16%. The unemployment rate during the Great Depression was 20%. Do we really want to go there? I understand that the Big Three have been slow to adapt to the changing auto market. However, the problem they are having right now is directly related to the banking industry. Along with the housing industry, the auto industry depends on a good economy and a healthy banking system to operate, because their customers must take out a long term loan to buy their product. Was it REALLY a surprise that when the banks quit lending , the auto industry would be the next to suffer?

There are those who say "Let them file Chapter 11". There are many more who do not. First of all, who would buy a car from a company in bankruptcy, then have to worry whether the service contract or warranty will be worth the paper it's printed on? What bank would write a consumer auto loan to a dealership that might close its doors before the loan is paid off? Finally, a business that files for Chapter 11 restructuring must take out a DIP loan, for operating capital. Banks no longer want to write these loans, as they already have plenty of bad debt on their books. Therefore, a Chapter 11 becomes a Chapter 7 liquidation, and the business is gone. But the debt is not gone. Auto union pensions are guaranteed by the federal government. If they can't pay, WE will.

The better answer is a bridge loan to give the auto industry capital till the market improves enough for people to buy their cars. They have cut their payroll. The CEOs have given up their bonuses. The unions have made concessions. The companies are working on a plan for new energy efficient cars. That's why congress wrote them the retooling loan. The only problem now is that customers have stopped buying. It is affecting Honda, Toyota, and Nissan as well.They have already received financial aid from their states. Why do we begrudge our US companies, but help their competition?

Contact your senators and congressmen, and tell them you want them to grant the loan to the auto industry. President-elect Obama wants them to be a part of his alternative energy "Apollo plan". In order to do that, they must survive.

Orzag likely as Obama Budget Director

Winnie — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:16:07 EST

CBO chief likely pick as budget director By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press Writer

Nov 18th, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama appears to have settled on Congressional Budget Office chief Peter Orszag to be his budget director, Capitol Hill Democrats said Tuesday.

It's among the toughest jobs in Washington, but Democratic aides say Orszag seems likely to accept if it is offered. The 39-year-old CBO chief has been reluctant to leave Capitol Hill's budget agency in the middle of his four-year term but would find it virtually impossible to turn down a request from Obama, they said.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the Obama transition team has requested silence about internal deliberations. Neither the Obama campaign nor Orszag responded to requests for comment.

As CBO director, Orszag would bring an in-depth view of the budget to Obama's still unnamed economic team. Democrats said Orszag was likely to be named in concert with other members of the economic team.

Orszag served as an economist in the Clinton White House and made a small fortune after establishing an economic consulting firm. Within the Clinton administration and as CBO director, he has preached the need to address the budget deficit, which economists such as former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin say poses a major problem for the Treasury.

Some back-of-the-envelope estimates foresee a $1 trillion deficit for the budget year that began Oct. 1, with permanent deficits in the $500 billion range extending for years. Such deficits threaten Obama priorities like tax cuts for the middle class and new tax credits for the working poor.

"It will be crucial to address the nation's looming fiscal gap -- which is driven primarily by rising health care costs -- as the economy eventually recovers from this current downturn," Orszag said in a recent statement.

Democratic deficit hawks on Capitol Hill are worried about their party's ability to rein in the government's red ink.

Obama Whittles Down Homeland Security Contenders

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:31:51 EST

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who famously commanded the military’s response to Hurricane Katrina, says President-elect Barack Obama should choose a homeland security secretary with a thick resume.

“This will not be their first rodeo,” Honore said, declining to speculate on any contenders.

Appointing a homeland security chief with high-level political or military experience, sources say, is critical to bring together the department with a struggling image, a sprawling mission and a budget of about $50 billion.

Former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), an early Obama supporter, is often mentioned as a contender. He campaigned in his home state, which unexpectedly swung for Obama – something the new administration might want to reward.

While Roemer hasn’t been in the thick of a crisis, he’s politically savvy and gained considerable homeland security expertise as a member of the 9-11 Commission.

James Lee Witt, who led Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton administration, is also frequently mentioned as a possibility to lead Homeland Security Department. Witt was legendary in handling hurricanes and other natural disasters – and the administration’s response to the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

Not many political appointees serve two terms, but his expertise was so much in demand that, when he asked for a new job, Clinton refused to let him go.

In response, Witt gained the authority to expand FEMA’s mission to include a program aimed at avoiding disasters including building hurricane resistant house and relocating families in flood zones.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, who’s also bandied about as a candidate for attorney general or energy secretary, would bring administrative and political experience to the homeland security table, said Chris Battle, vice president of Adfero, who advised the Bush administration on creating the new agency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Napolitano, a former state attorney general and U.S. attorney in Arizona, has experience with many facets of homeland security, particularly in working to secure the U.S. border with Mexico and to better equip the National Guard.

Other possibilities, drawn from the 9-11 Commission, include co-chairmen former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), now the director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, who’s on the board of directors of Hess Corp.

Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a lawyer at WilmerHale who’s also been mentioned for attorney general, is still another possibility.

And Obama could also dip into the big-city ranks and tap New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly or Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, among others.

Others suggest that the president-elect, in one of the bipartisan gestures he has promised, reach into Republican ranks for Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the moderate ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Second White House Tour, But This Time It's For the Girls

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:25:16 EST

Obama girls get to see their new White House rooms

LISA TOLIN
AP News

Nov 18, 2008 16:13 EST

Malia and Sasha Obama get to see their new rooms at the White House on Tuesday, capping a busy few days looking into their new life in the nation's capital that also involved visits to potential new schools.

At the invitation of first lady Laura Bush, the daughters of President-elect Barack Obama were touring the White House with their mother and grandmother.

Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, along with their mother, Michelle, were expected to spend a short time touring the First Family's residential rooms at the White House, said Mrs. Obama's spokeswoman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld. Mrs. Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, was also with the group.

"The first lady graciously invited Mrs. Obama, her mother and the girls to visit what will be their new home," Lelyveld said. "Of course, Mrs. Obama greatly appreciated this invitation to provide an opportunity for the girls to feel at home and become comfortable in this transition process."

The visit was strictly private, with no media coverage or photos.

Earlier in the day, the family visited their top choices for schools "to make sure we find the right fit," Lelyveld said. She would not name the schools. "Their move to Washington is her top priority," she said.

A small motorcade was parked outside the Sidwell Friends school on Tuesday for about 40 minutes, and a similar motorcade was at the back entrance of Georgetown Day School on Monday. The Georgetown Day motorcade left after a group of people emerged, but Michelle Obama was not seen among them.

Ellis Turner, associate head of school at Sidwell Friends, would not say whether the Obamas had been there.

"We don't provide information on admissions inquiries," he said.

When asked whether Michelle Obama had visited Georgetown Day, some parents and students said they did not know. Other students who appeared to be in middle school said that they were not allowed to answer reporters' questions.

The soon-to-be first lady visited both elite schools last week, without her daughters, when she also toured the White House with Laura Bush.

Georgetown Day, founded in 1945, was an early pioneer in integration and prides itself on its diversity. A report posted on the school's Web site says about 35 percent of its estimated 1,000 students are of color.

Sidwell Friends is a private, Quaker school that Chelsea Clinton attended.

The president-elect's family also has discussed public school options for the two girls, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said last week.

___

Georgia GOP Senate Candidate Runs Attack Ad Against OBAMA!

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:16:16 EST

GOP Senator In Georgia Race Launches New Attack Ad -- Against Obama

By Eric Kleefeld - November 18, 2008, 4:41PM

GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss, who's fighting a high-stakes runoff in Georgia against Democratic candidate Jim Martin, has unveiled a tough new ad strategy -- he's attacking Barack Obama in his latest spot:

"Barack Obama's new taxes would be a disaster, yet Jim Martin supports them," the announcer says.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attack ad out there that has gone after Barack Obama since he won the election (not counting Fox News promos).

The thing to remember is that this runoff will be all about driving up turnout among the party base for each side. For his part, Martin has tied himself to Obama in order to gin up enthusiasm among Dem voters who are still celebrating the presidential result, so Chambliss has his own response -- attacking Obama in order to rile up Republican voters who are still angry that Obama won the race.

No Audit for Obama's Fundraising

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:06:00 EST

The hundreds of millions of dollars that Barack Obama raised for his presidential campaign would seem to make him a perfect target for a full audit to account for the legality of every dollar he raised and spent. Yet, in part because Obama raised so much, the Federal Election Commission isn't likely to investigate, according to Politico. When the FEC determines whether an audit is necessary, it takes into account the amount the candidate collected--the more raised, the less significance each error carries, the commission reasons. Even an FEC complaint from the Republican National Committee raising concerns about fictitious donors and foreign addresses that snuck under the Obama campaign's radar probably won't trigger an audit.

If Obama had accepted public financing limiting him to $84 million for the general election, he'd be obligated to undergo such an audit. Instead, John McCain now faces a long and expensive accounting review that will analyze how he spent taxpayers' money after opting into the public financing system. McCain will use $9.4 million from his legal and accounting compliance fund to help pay for the investigation into how he spent his money.

Senator McCain Goes Back To Work

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:00:55 EST

The man who would have been president returned to his old job in the Senate on Tuesday.

Hardly anyone noticed.

As reporters flocked to 85-year-old convicted felon Ted Stevens on one side of the chamber and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman on the other, John McCain — once again Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — weaved through the corridors of power and barely got a second glance.

Just two reporters chased him down the hall. An elevator ride with fellow senator and former presidential candidate John F. Kerry — a photo-op if there ever was one — didn’t even prompt a click of a camera.

When a senior Republican Senate aide was asked about McCain’s return, he answered, “He’s back?”

After losing the Democratic nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton received a paparazzi-like greeting from the press and was the subject of rousing speeches by her colleagues.

McCain’s Senate return fell way short of that.

All day long, he walked alone, rejoining a severely diminished Republican minority, trying to find his place in a chamber that seemed to move on without him — a chamber focused on the mini-dramas surrounding Lieberman and Stevens and the need to address the nation’s economic crisis.

“There’s a swirl of activity going on today,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “And it’s easy to be eclipsed by all of that.” Thune paused, apparently realizing that he’d come off as insufficiently respectful. “But we’re glad he’s here,” he said. “We need him. We need the John McCain we all know and appreciate. We need him standing tall.”

A Republican Senate aide offered a less sympathetic view. With everything else going on, he said, McCain is “so October.”

McCain did get a standing ovation at a morning meeting with other Republican senators. Senators in the room said McCain talked briefly with them about the race and the future of the party. When he was done, the senators returned to gossip about Stevens and Lieberman; McCain quietly worked the room, thanking supporters one by one.

“He seemed fine,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who traveled with McCain on the campaign trail. “He wasn’t jovial or upbeat, but he seemed ready to go to work and focused on the future of the party.”

Martinez said McCain tried his best to be part of the conversation, chiming in a few times as Republicans discussed some conference rule changes during a morning caucus meeting. And the Arizona senator pulled Martinez aside to discuss improving the Hispanic vote during upcoming elections.

Still, all day, there were reminders that McCain didn’t hold the clout he once had.

At a press gaggle where reporters once would have swarmed around him, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Finance Committee, drew a bigger crowd.

But former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who lost his own bid for the White House in 1996, said McCain should get some credit for showing up in the Senate at all.

“A lot of people would be quietly feeling the angst somewhere else,” Dole said. “But that’s not the McCain I know. The McCain I know is a fighter, and he’s the one who came back here today.”

McCain told the few reporters who followed him on his rounds Tuesday that he had “nothing to say.”

Eric Holder for Attorney General

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:55:13 EST

Eric Holder, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and campaign supporter of Barack Obama, is the top choice to be Obama’s attorney general, a Democratic official said Tuesday.

Newsweek reported Tuesday that Obama had decided to tap Holder for the job; several other news organizations said the job had been offered and accepted. But this official said that an offer had neither been formally made or accepted by Holder.

Transition aides also cautioned that a Holder appointment is “not necessarily a done deal” - though it was unclear whether that was simply a formality.

But there are abundant signs that Holder is being eyed with intense interest by the Obama team. Transition officials have talked with Senate Republicans about whether they would stall Holder's confirmation because of his role in the controversial 2001 pardon of fugitive Marc Rich.

There is no evidence that Holder actively supported the pardon, but he was criticized for not alerting the White House to strong objections to it among some Justice Department lawyers and federal prosecutors in New York.

Holder has a close relationship with Obama, supporting him during the Democratic primary against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama later tapped Holder to serve with Caroline Kennedy on Obama's vice presidential search team. Holder also raised at least $50,000 for his campaign, according to a database maintained by the government watchdog group,Public Citizen.

On Joe Lieberman

Winnie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:52:37 EST

Earlier this week, I read an article that said Senator Lieberman was about to be booted from the Democratic caucus for the unfortunate remarks he made while campaigning for Senator McCain. I was not at all happy with Senator Lieberman, so that didn't bother me very much. Then President-elect Obama made it known that he wished Senator Lieberman to stay on the Democratic side of the aisle. I sent a letter to each of the Democratic senators, and to Bernie Sanders, the Independant from Vermont, lobbying to keep Senator Lieberman in the caucus.

Today, they chose to allow Senator Lieberman to continue to caucus with them. I don't know if my letters had any influence on their votes, but I was happy that I had at least tried to help move President-elect Obama's agenda forward. Since then, I have heard nothing but anger and outrage at their decision from the blogosphere. It has ranged from calling Senator Reid and Chairman Dean wimps, to questioning President-elect Obama's leadership skills and courage.

I cannot believe that these are the same people who claimed to have wanted change. They voted for a new tone in Washington, and now they're railing against the Democrats for actually doing what they said they would. The only way to achieve a bipartisan solution is to stop the petty bickering and score settling. It is a distraction and a waste of time. President-elect Obama was the target of Senator Lieberman's insults. If he has forgiven him, who are we to hold a grudge?

2012

Winnie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:49:53 EST

I know it is VERY early to be talking about 2012, especially since President Obama hasn't even started his first term yet. I just think that David Axelrod and David Plouffe need to come up with a strategy that allows President Obama to debate with, campaign against, and criticize a female candidate. I can almost GUARANTEE you that the next GOP presidential nominee will be female. The GOP sees that its candidates need to be something other than old white men. Since there are so few minorities in the GOP, and since a portion of their base is xenophobic and wouldn't support a "racial" minority, that only leaves women to fill the void. The GOP saw the difficulty Obama had in dealing with both Hillary, and Palin. They know it will be hard for him to go after a woman candidate without creating a backlash from female voters. They think it will give them an edge the next time around. I doubt they will use Palin again. She is pretty damaged goods, at this point. I'm keeping a file on her, just in case, though. But be aware, those of you who advise President Obama. Change is coming from the GOP in 2012. Be ready for it.

Yet ANOTHER puppy story- this one covers it all, I think

Winnie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:29:28 EST

This photo provided by the Humane Society of Vero Beach shows Julie, a poodle, at the Vero Beach Humane Society, Friday, Oct. 7, 2008, in Vero Beach, Fla. Any president-elect has to make appointments to many important offices. But Barack Obama has additional burden: although most presidents have brought a First Dog with them, his family has yet to fill that position. (AP Photo/Humane Society of Vero Beach, Janet Winikoff "Who should be the first dog? Here are candidates" Saturday, November 8, 2008 5:46 AM EST
The Associated Press
By LINDA LOMBARDI For The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Among the offices Barack Obama has yet to fill, one has a special importance to his family: first dog.

At his first postelection news conference on Friday, the president-elect called choosing a dog a "major issue" in the Obama household and a hot topic on his Web site.

"We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic," he said. "On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me."

Add to that the strain of the inevitable attention that comes to a cute pup in the White House. On Thursday, President Bush's normally docile Scottish terrier Barney bit a Reuters reporter on the right index finger.

So, how to choose?

No breeds are completely hypoallergenic. However, some breeds have a tendency to cause fewer problems — mostly those that don't shed and need to have their coats trimmed regularly, or those that tend to shed less, said Stephen Zawistowski, an executive vice president for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Relatively common no-shed breeds include poodles, bichon frise, Portuguese water dogs and Maltese, but these breeds need professional grooming, which can be expensive. Other breeds that have a tendency to shed less are Schnauzers, Westies (West Highland white terriers) and Scottish terriers, Zawistowski says.

Purposely bred crosses like goldendoodles also have the no-shed coat, but random-bred mixes of dogs like poodles will also tend to have that coat, Zawistowski says.

The Obamas could adopt from either a shelter or a breed-specific rescue group. Gary Weitzman, director of the Washington Animal Rescue League, says that right now about a quarter of the 250 dogs in their shelter are purebred, but the number can be higher.

"In September we had 78 dachshunds — we'd just done a rescue from a dachshund puppy mill," he says.

An ideal first dog should also be good with kids and visitors. One advantage to adopting an adult dog is that personality traits are fully developed and good temperament testing can help choose a dog that's suitably sociable.

If the kids insist on a puppy, it's harder to predict. Almost any breed of dog can do well with children if raised with them.

Stanley Coren, a psychologist who has written a series of best-selling books on dogs, recommends breeds including beagles, cocker spaniels, golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers and poodles for families. But whatever breed is chosen, a puppy will need intensive socialization.

"Start introducing it to what it's going to be dealing with around the household," says Zawistowski. That includes children, but dogs can also be afraid of anything — men with mustaches, people with hats — if they're not used to them, he notes. "Those Secret Service guys look intimidating even on television."

A new dog can be a daunting choice, especially when made in the spotlight. But it's worth it — and for more than just the kids.

"I'd like to know that President Obama has a dog," Zawistowski says. "When he has a bad day, what's better than having a dog walk over and say, 'Hey, things aren't so bad?'"

RE: Sisters, Support Summers

Winnie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:38:41 EST

Larry Summers would be a great Secretary of thr Treasury. I too was more than a little upset with his past comments about women and their abilities. He says he was taken out of context. The newspapers say that after all that bally-hoo, he is chastened, and a little more humble than he may have been previously. I think that if President Obama gives him the "no drama" speech, and tells him to keep his personal opinions to himself, he'll be fine. This country needs someone with real ability as Treasury Secretary. I, for one, am a sister willing to give him a chance.

To:"the power of one" on the economy.

Winnie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:07:46 EST

This is in reference to a blog post which called me by name, and then proceeded to misquote me. First of all, it would probably have been more appropriate to respond directly to me in the "reply" space, if your intent was for me to see your comment. I don't have the time to blog every day, so it was pure luck that I saw your post at all. Secondly, I did not espouse "free trade VERSUS an American economy". Let me clarify: We must rebuild our industrial centers in this country. The nation that controls industry controls the world. Look at China. At the same time, we cannot have an isolationist economy. Those days are over. We need standards enforced in our trade agreements with other countries, or they will only be "free trade" agreements for those who want to dump their goods on our shores, but limit our exports to their shores. Bush's policies were stupid, and they weren't enforced. President Obama needs to put sensible trade standards in place, and ENFORCE them. He also needs to help this country rebuild our industrial centers. He already has several plans, such as plants that build wind turbines and solar power panels, as well as re-tooling our auto industry to build high efficiency flex-fuel cars. We need to do more , that is true. A big step in the right direction would be for all Americans to look for and buy "made in the USA" products when shopping. I remember when I was a kid , (about 100 years ago,lol), there used to be TV commercials promoting "made in the USA" and "look for the Union label". WE need to get back to that mind-set. We should be our own best customer. The more demand there is for American made products , the more jobs it creates. Not to mention, if it's made in America, at least we know it's not lead-coated, melamine tainted, or radioactive. We have the power to affect our own future in that regard. Let's do it!

On Sasha and Malia's Puppy

Winnie — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:54:28 EST

I think it is a great thing for the girls to finally get their promised pet after the election. I just have a few suggestions, for what they are worth. First: Research the kind of dog that will best fit your family's personality. For example, don't get a Dalmation unless you plan to run three miles every day. Those dogs are VERY active. If you don't have time to devote to a lap dog, don't get a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, or the dog will be miserable. Finally: Why not consider getting an older puppy or young dog from an animal shelter? There are plenty of great mutts out there who need a good home, and may be the perfect fit for the First Family. Lots of people who went through foreclosure had to send their furry friends to the Humane Society, not because the dogs did anything wrong, but because they couldn't bring their pets with them. It could also inspire the rest of the country to adopt a shelter pet , if the First Family set the example.

Congratulations

Winnie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:55:25 EST

Congratulations, President-elect Obama. I was so happy to see that America judged you on the content of your character. A dream has come true.

Ohio Courts Demanding Depositions in GOP Vote Manipulation Case

Winnie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:41:57 EST

11/1/08: Judge Orders Mike Connell To Submit To Deposition 24 Hours Before Election

Yesterday, after a contentious three hour hearing in an Akron, Ohio federal court, the judge ordered Bush/Rove IT expert Michael Connell to submit to a two hour deposition less than 24 hours before the start of the 2008 election. The Court ruled that Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck can question Connell under oath about Man in the Middle computer manipulations, the use of Trojan horses to control election results from a remote location, and the role of Triad in election manipulations. However, in a strange twist, the judge agreed with demands from Connell’s attorney to keep under seal any testimony about threats and intimidation of Connell by others including Karl Rove. This is seen as necessary to protect possible criminal charges against those who may have engaged in obstruction of justice in this case. A couple of notes here: We believe that Connell should not pull an Alexander Butterfield by waiting for a direct question from Mr. Arnebeck as to what he knows about rigged elections. Instead, Connell should be prepared to come clean from the start knowing that this is just the beginning of the inquiry. We have lots of names and lots of people providing us information about these rigged elections. Connell is not longer under the protectorate of the Bush family. There is a new dynamic here and Connell can either fight it and go down with the ship or get out in front and cooperate with full immunity for him and his wife. Also, Connell must now know that the gig is up—he can’t steal this election. If he has set up the network for such a theft, he knows that he has to shut it down prior to Tuesday because he will get caught. People must now be held accountable and Connell has a unique opportunity to do that by cooperating in full and telling what he knows about election rigging, White House email destruction, front groups, and orders from Karl Rove and others to do illegal things.

Rove is Trying to Rig the Election AGAIN!

Winnie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:26:00 EST

"Velvet Revolution Launches Campaign to Protect Elections and Prosecute Rove"

August 15, 2008

Velvet Revolution (VR) is working with Ohio election attorneys Cliff Arnebeck, Bob Fitrakis and Henry Eckert to discover the truth about recent information indicating that Karl Rove was the architect and director of a strategy to manipulate elections through the use of computers. Rove's cyber guru, Michael Connell, has worked for the Bush family for over 20 years and helped Bush Sr., Jeb and Bush Jr. "win" their elections using his computer skills. Whistleblowers, including a Republican cyber security expert, say that several of these and other national elections have been rigged through various invisible and illegal means, including vote tabulation manipulation, improper partisan use of the Justice Department to target Democrats and uncooperative U.S. Attorneys, and the laundering of hundreds of millions of corporate dollars funneled into fake advocacy groups directed against Democrat candidates running for public office. Ex-Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has stated publicly that Rove was the person who directed Siegelman's rigged election and criminal prosecution. GOP cyber sleuth Stephen Spoonamore has stated publicly that the leadership of the GOP has been "lying and stealing elections" and doing so through computers. According to the attorneys, Rove's goal with this strategy is to establish a unitary executive branch with a supportive judiciary, a weak legislature and a fearful press. Corporate sponsors of this strategy, such as tobacco, energy, telecom, and pharmaceutical companies, are rewarded with hands-off government, deregulated oversight, stringent limits on class-action damages, and the stacking of high courts with pro-business/anti-consumer Justices. VR's campaign is in support of the Ohio attorneys' use of a federal civil lawsuit in a new legal strategy of taking targeted discovery and depositions of those who have been identified as being involved with, or having knowledge of, Rove's "CyberGate," including Rove, Michael Connell, Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Bob Ney, Brett Rapp, Ken Blackwell and others. The attorneys intend to file a racketeering lawsuit, under RICO, against those identified in this case and will refer any proof of criminal activity to both state and federal authorities for criminal prosecution. This legal strategy will require significant resources for lawyers, expert witnesses, videotaped depositions, public relations, and investigators. The attorneys will need to go toe to toe with the top lobbyist law firms, which will be hired to represent these targets. One of those targets is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent close to a half billion dollars on lobbying since George Bush was inaugurated. The attorneys assert that Rove has used the Chamber to bankroll many of the illegal attacks by using fake front groups posing as advocacy organizations. The attorneys will need to respond immediately to what we expect to be a smear campaign by those implicated in this attack on democracy. Press and FEC reports show that Rove and Connell are now working for the McCain presidential campaign. Are these people now working for John McCain because they have promised him a win no matter what? The "Protect Elections, Prosecute Rove" campaign will ensure that McCain knows exactly what these people have done and hold him to his promise of a clean election. Your support is needed for the campaign to succeed. DONATE HERE TO SUPPORT THE "PROTECT ELECTIONS, PROSECUTE ROVE" CAMPAIGN. Let's get to the bottom of this scandal before it's too late.

McCain Criticizes Obama Tax Plan, Then Doesn't Pay His Own Property Taxes!

Winnie — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:16:17 EDT

Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.

Under California law, once a residential property is in default for five years, it can be sold at a tax sale to recover the unpaid taxes for the taxpayers.

The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain.

UPDATE: Newsweek's story is now online. The report notes that the McCains paid the bulk of their back taxes yesterday, but continue to owe additional taxes:

When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It's a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona. [...]

Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: "The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due."

McCain buses "Crowd" to Rally in Ohio, JTP a No-Show"

Winnie — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:27:24 EDT

McCain Camp Buses In School Kids To Fill Crowd

October 30, 2008 01:12 PM

The most cringe-worthy political moment of the day, so far, came when Sen. John McCain called out for his new buddy Joe the Plumber to stand up at a rally in Ohio, only to be greeted with confused silence. Joe the Plumber wasn't there.

But that rally featured another embarrassing moment, one that illustrates a far more troubling dynamic for the Republican ticket. The McCain campaign actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the event. As reported by MSNBC:

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.

This happened -- as if a reminder were needed -- less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.

What is the Definition of a Terrorist?- The Twisted Logic of Sarah Palin

Winnie — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:09:13 EDT

But Wait ... By Palin's Definition, Mohamed Atta Isn't A Terrorist

This campaign gets stranger and stranger -- and more and more frightening. Brian Williams asked Sarah Palin a fairly straightforward question, based on her repeated use of the phrase "domestic terrorist" to characterize Bill Ayers. Williams asked: "Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under this definition, Governor?"

Palin tried several evasive maneuvers before alighting on this answer:

"I would put in that category of Bill Ayers anyone else who would seek to campaign, to destroy our United States capital and our Pentagon and would seek to destroy innocent Americans."

Forget the tortured syntax for a moment. What is truly and deeply frightening in this exchange is the lengths to which Palin will go to avoid disparaging abortion bombers. She is so desperate not to characterize the Eric Rudolphs of this world as terrorists that she forges a severely narrow definition of the act: You have to target the Capitol or the Pentagon to qualify.

That even lets Mohamed Atta off the hook, since he attacked the World Trade Center. Like the doctor's offices and medical clinics struck by abortion terrorists, it's a civilian target. We know that Sarah Palin doesn't believe that Islamic militants who kill civilians aren't terrorists. That leaves only one way to interpret these words: She either supports the bombing of abortion clinics or she wants the political support of those who do (and then there's that reference to "innocent Americans," which seems to suggest that clinic staff or patients are not innocent).

Can anybody think of another explanation?

Either interpretation would seem to reinforce what I call the black-helicopter theory -- that this campaign is deliberately stoking extremism. As for the idea she might have sympathy or at least tolerance toward these attacks -- well, let's hope not. But she had already said these words as she writhed in the unforgiving claws of what should've been a straighforward question:

"Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to -- I don't know if you're going to use the word terrorist there, but it's unacceptable, and it would not be condoned, of course, on our watch."

So the strongest things she's willing to say about bomb attacks on abortion clinics (which have caused deaths as well as destruction) is that they're "unacceptable" and wouldn't be "condoned."

I guess that's something.

So, here we have a Vice Presidential candidate and potential President who has close ties to a separatist party founded by a man with violent hostility toward the U.S. government. She accepts blessing from a "witch-fighting" pastor, when "expelling witches" is its own form of terrorism (witch-hunting may sound quaint to American ears, but it's a living and hideous practice that claims hundreds if not thousands of women and children each year).

Let's face it: The $150,000 in clothing, the highly paid make-up artists, the potentially illegal use of Alaskan state funds to fly her family on junkets ... all that's trivial next to the extreme views suggested by these comments. This is not a game of "gotcha" based on a poor choice of words or associations. This is a pattern -- the pattern of a deeply disturbing individual, one who is not only unqualified to be President but who also holds some profoundly un-American opinions.

And John McCain chose her -- or, more precisely, must take responsibility for her selection. It's his name on the campaign bus. His acceptance of Palin betrayed stunning indifference to the responsibilities of leadership. That is all we need to know about him.

It's no wonder the young woman who claimed to have been attacked and mutilated by a large black Obama supporter turns out to have performed the act on herself (which the mirrored "B" on her face should have made obvious). But before the truth was revealed, we're told she got a phone call from Sarah Palin. This is a campaign that will try turning any lie to its advantage.

Self-mugging: The perfect metaphor for John McCain's campaign.

Sure, there's a strange fascination in listening to Sarah Palin speak. Every sentence seems to pass through an surrealistic archway, as if its grammatical rules had been designed by M. C. Escher. Will it turn into a flock of birds, a school of fish, become its own wall or ceiling or stairway? But underneath this tangled skein of language, a picture is beginning to emerge. It's a frightening picture and an ugly one.

It's a picture that the most expensive makeup artist in the world can't hide.

Colorado Secretary of State To Pull A "Katherine Harris"

Winnie — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:45:24 EDT

Published on PoliticsWest (http://www.politicswest.com) Colo.'s Katherine Harris threatens '08 election By: David Sirota
By dsirota Created 10/25/2008 - 12:12pm Colorado, as anyone following the election campaign knows, is a major presidential battleground state. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have visited the state multiple times, including in recent/coming days. Though a new poll shows Obama taking a commanding 12-point lead [1], everyone expects both the presidential and U.S. Senate race here to be very close. That's why the Secretary of State Mike Coffman's (R) moves should worry everyone in Colorado and elsewhere. We've got our own Katherine Harris here - and a careful look at the news suggests he's moving to game this election in a state that could be the Florida of 2008.

I say "careful look" because Coffman's behavior - while outrageous and potentially election-throwing - has received coverage mostly in the back pages of local newspapers (and similarly little attention from the national media). But if you bother to dig down, you will see what I'm talking about - and it's scary.

Here's page 21 of Saturday's Rocky Mountain News:

The story on the left describes Coffman's efforts to invalidate roughly 5,000 registrations (depending on which source you ask). Here's the crux of what's going on:

"5,000 Coloradans whose voter status is in limbo because of [a] controversial check box...The registration form asks for a driver's license or state ID number. If applicants don't have that, they're supposed to check a box and then put down at least the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. But thousands of people didn't check the box. According to a policy adopted last year by Secretary of State Mike Coffman, these applications are supposed to be listed as incomplete...National and local voting-rights organizations criticize Coffman's policy, saying it violates other federal laws. They say Coffman is unfairly putting up barriers for people who are eligible to vote and want him to change his policy."

The check box is "controversial" because you are asked to check it on the form if you don't "have" a driver's license or ID card. Here's what it looks like on the form (which you can download and see yourself here [2]):

So, here's the thing - what's the definition of "have?" I may have one at my house or in my car, but not with me at the very moment I am filling out the registration form. In that case, it would be logical - and, in fact, honest - for me to not check that box, while also putting down the last four digits of my social security number as my selected method of verifying my registration. Alternately, for whatever reason (privacy, etc.), I may simply feel more comfortable listing the last 4 digits of my social security number, rather than my entire driver's license number. So therefore, I might have listed my social security number and not checked the box.

And yet, if you made any of those logical choices - if you gave all the social security information required by law, but simply didn't check the box - Coffman is attempting to use that choice to potentially invalidate your registration and prevent you from voting.

In case you think Coffman's move isn't extreme or motivated by partisanship, consider the fact that two big Republican counties are doing exactly the opposite of Coffman. As the Rocky Mountain News notes, "Election officials in Jefferson and Larimer counties also disagree with Coffman, saying they are weighing in on the side of the voter and won't disqualify people because of what they call a technicality." The Denver Post reports that Coffman reacted by sending a letter to other counties telling them they cannot follow suit [3], meaning two Republican counties are registering these voters, but others are not.

Thus, it isn't surprising that the Rocky Mountain News notes that "the largest number [of registrations affected by Coffman's edict] are Democrats, followed closely by unaffiliated voters," and "hundreds live in predominately minority neighborhoods in Denver and Aurora" (ie. traditionally Democratic constituencies).

Remember, Coffman is an up-and-coming Republican "star" - he's simultaneously Secretary of State and running to replace Colorado U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R). So he's not some nonpartisan election observer - as I said before, he's positioning himself to be Katherine Harris, who also went on to use her notoriety as an election thief to win a seat in Congress.

And Mike Coffman in particular understands that 5,000 Democratic votes is no small number in a place like Colorado. A 12,000 vote switch from Republican to Democrat in 2006 [4] would have cost him his election to the Secretary of State's office.

To be sure, there are going to be a lot of election-day shenanigans all over the country, much of it in the shadows. But what we're seeing here in Colorado is a very public attempt to use Republican-controlled offices to potentially disenfranchise thousands and rig the election. Indeed, the Denver Post now reports that Coffman has asked his fellow Republican crony [5], state Attorney General John Suthers (R), to validate his moves with an official legal opinion so as to trip up potential pre- and post-election legal challenges to the disenfranchisement. This isn't a conspiracy theory - it's happening all right out in the open for everyone to see.

It all adds up to the kind of coordinated Republican scheme we've seen in the last two elections. And once again, that scheme could throw a national election.

McCain Campaign Worker Lied About Attack

Winnie — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:44:24 EDT

Police: Campaign Volunteer Made Up Attack Story MORE: KDKA Online Voters Guide | Campaign '08 News Embed our Politics widget to get our news on your site A Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Ashley Todd confessed to making up the story & is facing charges PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Police tell KDKA that a campaign volunteer has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

Authorities are expected to release more details at a news conference this afternoon.

According to police, investigators working on the interview process detected several inconsistencies in Todd's story that differed from statements made in the original police report.

Pittsburgh Police Public Information Officer Diane Richard released a statement earlier today, saying: "Because of the inconsistencies in her statements, Ms. Todd was asked to submit to a polygraph examination which she agreed to do."

No photos of Todd are being released by Pittsburgh Police at this time.

Al-Qaida for McCain in this Election

Winnie — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:34:21 EDT

Al-Qaida-linked Web site backs McCain as president By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 21, 11:41 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Md., monitors the Web site and translated the message.

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, said he had heard about the Web site chatter but had no immediate comment.

The message is credited to a frequent and apparently respected contributor named Muhammad Haafid. However, Haafid is not believed to have a direct affiliation with al-Qaida plans or knowledge of its operations, according to SITE.

SITE senior analyst Adam Raisman said this message caught SITE's attention because there has been little other chatter on the forums about the U.S. election.

SITE was struck by the message's detailed analysis — and apparent jubilation — about American financial woes.

"What we try to do is get the pulse of the jihadist community," Raisman said. "And it's about the financial crisis."

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden issued a videotape just four days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election directly addressing the American people.

McCain Pays Operative Accused of Voter Fraud

Winnie — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:14:08 EDT

From Times Online October 22, 2008McCain campaign paid Republican operative accused of voter fraud Hannah Strange

John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.

As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.

The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of “voter registration”.

Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.

In October last year, the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting answers regarding a number of allegations against Mr Sproul’s firm, then known as Sproul and Associates. It referred to evidence that ahead of the 2004 national elections, the firm trained staff only to register Republican voters and destroyed any other registration cards, citing affidavits from former staff members and investigations by television news programmes.

One former worker testified that “fooling people was key to the job” and that “canvassers were told to act as if they were non-partisan, to hide that they were working for the RNC, especially if approached by the media,” according to the committee’s letter. It also cited reports from public libraries across the country that the firm had asked to set up voter registration tables claiming it was working on behalf of the non-partisan group America Votes, though in fact no such link existed.

Such activities "clearly suppress votes and violate the law”, wrote John Conyers, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The letter suggested that the Judiciary Department had failed to take sufficient action on the allegations because of the politicisation of the department under the then-attorney general, John Ashcroft.

The career of Mr Sproul, a former leader of the Arizona Republican Party, is littered with accusations of foul play. In Minnesota in 2004, his firm was accused of sacking workers who submitted Democratic registration forms, while other canvassers were allegedly paid bonuses for registering Bush voters. There were similar charges in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oregon and Nevada.

That year, Mr Sproul’s firm was paid $8,359,161 by the Republican Party, according to a 2005 article in the Baltimore Chronicle, which claimed that this was far more than what had been reported to the Federal Elections Commission.

Mr McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have been linking allegations of registration fraud by ACORN, the community group, to the Obama campaign.

ACORN has been accused of registering non-existent voters during its nationwide drive, with reports of cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse being signed up.

The organisation insisted that these are isolated incidents carried out by a handful of workers who have since been dismissed.

However, the Republican nominee insists that the group is involved in fraudulent activities, noting that Mr Obama, before leaving the legal profession to enter politics, was once part of a team which defended the organisation. At last week’s debate, he said that ACORN was “perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history”, a claim which the Obama campaign says represents political smear.

The revelation of Mr Sproul’s involvement with the McCain campaign – he has also donated $30,000 to the ticket and received at least another $37,000 directly from the RNC – could undermine his case.

"It should certainly take away from McCain's argument," Bob Grossfeld, an Arizona political consultant who has watched Mr Sproul's career closely, told the Huffington Post. "Without knowing anything of what is going on with ACORN, there is a clear history with Mr Sproul either going over the line or sure as hell kicking dirt on it, and doing it for profit and usually fairly substantive profit."

In May this year, both ACORN and Mr Sproul were discussed at a hearing of the House subcommittee on commercial and administrative law. One Republican member, Congressman Chris Cannon, concluded: "The difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out."

Keating Donates $$ to McCain Campaign

Winnie — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:08:27 EDT

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22 October 2008 Keating law firm donates $50,000 to McCain campaign

Those voting for the first time this year may not have even been alive during the Keating Five scandal, the political corruption case that threatened to end John McCain's political career back in 1989. Much to the chagrin of those Democrats gesticulating wildly at the very silent elephant in the room, the Obama campaign has largely refrained from touching upon the issue, perhaps preferring to leave past associations well alone, for understandable reasons.

But sometimes history throws little reminders into our present path, and this is one of those times. Campaign finance records have revealed that the law firm founded by Charles Keating - before he went to jail for fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy for his activities as chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loans - has made donations totalling over $50,000 to McCain's campaign.

The Center for Responsive Politics has done the maths, and says: "In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain's 2008 campaign. All but two of the contributions came in July, and all but three of those July donations were logged on July 31, suggesting they were delivered at the same time. As with any bundle of campaign contributions, it's difficult to determine which donor was the "bundler," the person who solicited the contributions on the campaign's behalf. McCain's online roster of bundlers, which purports to name any individual bundling $50,000 or more for the campaign, does not associate any of McCain's major fundraisers with the Keating firm."

This is not improper in itself, and the only Keating included in the bundle is William J. Keating, Jr., Charles Keating's nephew, who is listed as a partner in the firm and contributed $1,000.

But it reminds us of McCain's role in "The Keating Five," a group of senators who received a total of $1.4 million in campaign contributions connected to Keating and personally intervened with government regulators to allow Lincoln Savings and Loans to make highly risky investments that defrauded thousands of investors and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion.

Keating, now 84, once wrote to McCain that "I'm yours till death do us part". Could he be keeping his promise?

Sarah Palin Flubs a Question From a Third Grader

Winnie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:14:03 EDT

Palin Claims The Vice President Is ‘In Charge Of The U.S. Senate’»

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Indeed, while Palin suggests that questions about what the Vice President does is something only her daughter Piper would ask, Palin herself asked this very question on national television in July. Apparently, she still hasn’t learned the correct answer.

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders.

ThinkProgress obtained the following statement from Jim Manley, spokesman to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):

"This comment is all the more puzzling because this is at least the 2nd time she has said this. Gov Palin needs to re-read or perhaps read for the first time the Constitution. While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it. Article 1 says The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided."

The Senate is part of a co-equal branch of the federal government.

Rep. Bachmann calls Obama un-American

Winnie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:45:51 EDT

Rep Michele Bachmann is exactly what is wrong with our government, suggesting that anyone who doesn't march in lock step with her beliefs is 'dangerous' and needs to be investigated. SHE is the one who is dangerous! Read the article below. If you are as outraged as I was, go to www.censurebachmann.com and sign a petition to have her censured by Congress. You can even contribute to her opponent's campaign! She is up for re-election on November 4th.

---------------------------------------------

Bachmann Calls For McCarthyite Investigation Into Anti-American Activities Of Liberals»

Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attacked the patriotism of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), based on his alleged relationship to former Weather Underground member William Ayers and the values of Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” said Bachmann. “That’s what the American people are concerned about.”

She then went further, suggesting that all liberal views — held by people such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, professors, and all Americans who identify themselves as “liberals” — are “anti-American.” When host Chris Matthews, stunned by her remarks, asked Bachmann how many people in Congress hold anti-American views, she responded, “You’ll have to ask them.”

Bachmann called on the media to conduct investigations into the anti-American activities of members of Congress, similar to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s discredited House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in the 1950s. “I think people would love to see an exposé like that,” she claimed. Watch it:

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) made similar comments at a fundraiser yesterday, saying that she loved to visit “pro-America” areas of the country — “small towns” where “hard working” people are “very patriotic.”

Reporter Assaulted at Palin Rally

Winnie — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:26:43 EDT

This is a blog entry of a reporter from the News and Record of Greensboro, N.C. - apparently the

"angry mob" sentiment is alive and well at the McCain/Palin rallies, though the candidates deny it.

------------------------------------------

"Report from Palin Rally"

Newspaper stories from Palin's rally from myself and Joe Killian

There are certain things that get me really concerned when I hear them from someone I'm working with. Joe Killian (who blogs for the paper here and on his own time here) added a new one to my list:

Joe was working with me on a package for tomorrow's newspaper covering Gov. Sarah Palin's visit to Elon and Greensboro.

"Dude," he says when I called to check on him. "Some guy just kicked me in the back of the leg."

Let me just digress for a second. I sometimes supervise people. Much more often, I work in teams with folks. I'm usually the old fart in the group so I feel responsible for them. The last thing I ever want to hear is that one of my people got hurt on assignment. Usually the worry has to do with covering a traffic accident along a highway or a natural disaster like a flood, where conditions are inherently dangerous.

What I don't expect is for some troglodyte at a campaign rally to decide that the proper way to express his frustration with Democrats, Barack Obama or the "left-wing liberal media" is to commit assault on a colleague.

Here's the back-story:

As you probably know, the crowds at McCain-Palin events have gotten, um, saucy as of late. My boss blogs about that here.

Covering Sen. John McCain's appearance in Wilmington Monday, you could definitely sense some of that vibe.

Cut to today, Palin in town. In general, I walked in sensing the crowd had a more positive vibe than the McCain rally.

That changed when I heard a ruckus behind me. A couple folks there for the rally called campaign staff over, complaining about people several rows back chanting "Obama" when the rest of the crowd cheered at Palin's applause lines. Obnoxious? Yes. But I dig me some First Amendment.

The campaign staff dutifully fetched a couple of police officers who dutifully threw the handful of individuals out. I watched just to make sure ruckus didn't develop into something more. That apparently gave other McCain-Palin supporters license to yell at me.

"Hey! Hey you! The story's up there," yelled one point at the stage. "You don't need to worry about that. The story is up there."

The presence of a barricade, the more pressing need of gathering a story and, well, that whole First Amendment thing just led me to ignore them. They can pop off if they like.

Joe was near a second group of protestors who got tossed. And he got some push back for investigating as well. After the rally wound down, he went to find some Obama folks and see if he could talk to who got put out.

That's when at least one guy from the crowd decided he needed to interject his opinion into the conversation. As Joe tells it:

I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.
As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

"Hey, hey, " I said. "I'm trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay? "

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of "U.S.A" by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

"Oh, you think that 's funny?! " the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. "Yeah, that 's real funny…" he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

There was no cop or security officer around to report this lugnut to, and Joe resisted the temptation to smack the guy back, which I commend. But let me say this: the guy who attacked Joe is a criminal, no better that the lunk-head who steals your car stereo or snatches a purse.

Do I hold the McCain campaign responsible? Not entirely. No one on their staff said, "Hey, after the event, go smack around a reporter."

Although, I will say that complaints about "the media," "mainstream media," "Eastern media elite," etc... have become a pervasive in Republican talking points, increasingly so as we get closer to the election. I've heard the complaints from folks like U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and certainly both Palin and McCain have used those phrases in their speeches. Then, there are the opening lines of Hank Williams Jr.'s campaign theme song for McCain-Palin: "The leftwing liberal media have always been a real close-knit family, but most of the American people, don't believe them anyway you see."

Fair enough. We're big boys and girls who put ourselves out there and part of the job is tacking flak from both sides. Certainly I have heard complaints from Democrats about "the media" and have been accused of being too conservative. But I have never had the sense that a Democrat was going to get physical in that kind of way. Even though McCain and Palin have taken a kinder gentler tone in their speeches, there was still a real undercurrent of anger at the rallies I covered this week.

After today I'm wondering - and this is just wondering at this point - whether Republicans aren't in some respect giving their supporters license for this sort of crap. If the story you peddle is that your guys are the good guys and all those who stand against them are the bad guys, and the "liberal media" is in that second column, might there be a message there – even if it is one that is misconstrued and carried to a stupid extreme in some cases?

Full disclosure: I'm not real happy with the McCain campaign today. After the Elon event Palin did a fundraiser and I was told the local pool would be able to cover that. It's a major reason I took the pool assignment. I was told mid-way through my day that the fundraiser would be closed. And I just found out that the campaign tossed a one-on-one to an out-of-town competitor rather than to the paper that staffed their pool today.

But that's peanuts, mere whining, an issue of protocol. This other thing with Joe reflects something far more troubling. I just hope it's not a trend.

McCain's Radical Pal

Winnie — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:00:05 EDT

October 18, 2008 11:03 McCain's Radical Pal Posted by Joe Klein | Comments (100) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

One of the ways I got to know John McCain a decade or so ago was through a mutual friend—a fellow by the name of David Ifshin. I knew David through Democratic Party politics. He was a stalwart moderate, a member of the Democratic Leadership Council and an occasional adviser to Bill Clinton. Our wives were, and are, close friends. But McCain’s relationship with David was far more interesting.

Ifshin, you see, had been a vehement anti-Vietnam radical. He had even gone to Hanoi at the height at the war and given a speech denouncing the American pilots dropping bombs on North Vietnamese civilians as “war criminals.” The speech was broadcast repeatedly in the Hanoi Hilton, where McCain was being held captive. More than a few people thought Ifshin was guilty of treason.
After McCain was tortured and broken by the North Vietnamese and signed a confession of “criminality,” he was so ashamed that he attempted suicide—and later made a vow that he wouldn’t question the decisions or statements made by anybody else about the war. And so, when he arrived in the U.S. after his released and was asked about the antiwar protesters by Life magazine, he refused to condemn them. He kept to this policy, more or less, until 1984 when, as an ambitious young politician, he was asked by the Reagan campaign to deliver a speech slamming one of Walter Mondale’s top advisors—his campaign counsel, David Ifshin—for going to Hanoi, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy during wartime..
McCain gave the speech but, he later told me, felt great remorse about it. “I didn’t know the guy. I’d never met him,” he told me.
McCain and Ifshin met the following year at the annual AIPAC convention in Washington—and there is some disagreement what happened next: Both men later told me that the other initiated the conversation by apologizing. “McCain said, ‘I’m sorry I gave that speech. I didn’t even know you’” Ifshin told me. “And I said to him, ‘You’re apologizing to me?’ I’ve been wanting to apologize to you for years. I feel so terrible about that speech I gave in Hanoi.”
The two became fast friends. They did charitable work together in Vietnam and elsewhere. When Bill Clinton went to the Vietnam Memorial for Memorial Day 1993, both Ifshin and McCain were there, too. And when McCain saw a sign in the crowd—“Clinton: Tell Us About Ifshin”—McCain went to the floor of the Senate the next day and said, “Let me tell you about David Ifshin…David is a friend of mine.”
And when David was diagnosed with cancer, John McCain was there for him. And when David died, McCain gave one of the eulogies at his funeral. His voice broke when he said, “David taught me a lot about the meaning of courage.”

I’ve told this story many times, especially to veterans groups, because it says so much about the importance of forgiveness, of reconciliation. But, in the heat of the campaign, I’d forgotten about it…until the past weeks, when Obama’s passing relationship with the radical Bill Ayers—not nearly as close as McCain’s friendship with David Ifshin—became news, and has been relentlessly exploited by John McCain and his campaign, most recently in robo-calls that flagrantly distort the nature of Obama’s relationship with Ayers.
If you want to know why I—like so many others--held John McCain in such high regard for so long, it had a lot to do with David Ifshin. And if you want to know why my opinion of him has plummeted, it has something to do with William Ayers.

It Gets Worse: McCain accuses Obama of socialism, even though his own health care tax credit is refundable--and therefore a distribution of wealth downward...Of course, McCain has been on the record for months--years, actually--in favor of redistributing wealth...upward, toward the wealthy, on the theory that it will "trickle down."

More Republican Racism

Winnie — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:26:25 EDT

The GOP’s Race Problem

October 16th, 2008
By ELROD

....and these people have the nerve to bristle at the term "racist"?!

In 1944 the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal acutely subverted a classic paradigm in American political culture: the so-called “Negro problem.” As Myrdal pointed out in his work, An American Dilemma, there really is no “Negro problem” in America. There is a white problem. White people in America systemically prevented people of African descent from fulfilling what most Americans honestly referred to as the American dream. In 1944, with segregation in full effect and blacks disfranchised across the South, Myrdal offered a powerful case for integration that would be used in the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

While so much progress has been achieved over the last 50 years in solving what Myrdal correcting identified as the “white problem” with black people, there are still vestiges of this sorry past. Here in Knoxville the Ku Klux Klan showed up a year ago to “protest” against what they described as a “hate crime” when five African Americans brutally raped and murdered a young white couple. While the murder was shocking there was no indication that the perpetrators had any racial animus. It was little more than drugs and robbery that led to this crime. But the Klan still made its case.

In this political season there have been numerous comments regarding Barack Obama that have edged toward - and sometimes gone over - any acceptable boundary of racial discourse.

But the flier sent out by the Chaffey Community Republican Women’s Club in Southern California goes into the ranks of infamy. Ostensibly a riff on Obama’s comment about not looking like the other people on the dollar bills, Club President Diane Fedele made fake “Obama Bucks” food stamps with stereotypically black food like fried chicken, watermelon, ribs and Kool-Aid. I can’t honestly say that I’ve seen a more racist image on an official party document since, well, the 19th century. The flier openly hearkens to minstrelsy imagery.

Of course, back in those days it was the Democrats who proudly declared themselves to be the “White Man’s Party.” In 1868, Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair ran the most explicitly white supremacist Presidential campaign in US history, openly cheerleading Ku Klux Klan attacks against black Republicans in the South.

Since the 1930s - and since 1964 in particular - African Americans have moved en masse to the Democratic Party. Noting the declining percentage of Americans of European ancestry Republican leaders have courted racial and ethnic minorities for years. In 2004, Karl Rove successfully encouraged 11% of African Americans to vote for George W. Bush - mostly because of a shared religious conservatism.

Images like this completely undermine such efforts to broaden the GOP’s reach. That a President of an official Women’s Republican Club would feel it even remotely appropriate to put such a flier out reveals an ugly contempt for non-whites at the rotten core of the modern Republican Party.

Barack Obama didn’t need racist antics like this flier to win nearly 100% of African American votes this fall. Black conservatives have embraced Obama for his example of self-help if not for his politics. And non-conservative blacks needed little convincing to support the first African American with a real shot at the White House.

But this flier - like the vicious anti-Mexican rhetoric during the immigration debates - has served to whiten the Republican Party at the very moment when America’s demographics have made an all-white party impossible to compete. If the Republican Party is serious about broadening its appeal, it needs to make a public example of people like Linda Fedele and expel them permanently from all Republican events. The price of ignoring this sort of outrage is political oblivion of the sort nobody will lament

The GOP Hate-Mongering Continues

Winnie — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:21:41 EDT

Obama Slaying Joke Sent By GOP Fundraiser

By WILLIAM MARCH

TAMPA - Al Austin, a high-level Republican fundraiser from Tampa, sent an e-mail to his list of his political contacts Wednesday containing a joke that refers to the assassination of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

In an interview, Austin said it was a mistake and apologized, that he hadn't fully read the e-mail and wouldn't knowingly have circulated it.

Later in the day, Austin sent a follow-up e-mail saying it was "a serious mistake on my part" and that the joke "was entirely wrong and certainly does not represent my feelings."

The punch line says that if an airplane carrying Obama and his wife were blown up "it certainly wouldn't be a great loss, and it probably wouldn't be an accident either."

Austin acknowledged sending the e-mail to his list of political contacts, but said he did so while distracted by a conversation with his doctor and didn't know what it said. That list included at least two reporters.

According to the forwarding history on the e-mail, it had gone through at least two other individuals before being sent to Austin on Tuesday. Those two individuals didn't immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment.

Austin, a prominent real estate developer long known as one of the state's leading Republican campaign fundraisers, has served in recent years as finance chairman for both the national and state Republican parties.

Controversy has arisen in the presidential race concerning virulent anti-Obama outbursts among the crowds at some rallies for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

On Wednesday, the Secret Service was looking into a second allegation that a Palin rallygoer shouted, "Kill him!" after mention of Obama's name, according to The Associated Press.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reported the shout.

A similar incident occurred at a Palin rally in Clearwater last week, according to a news report and some witnesses, when Palin talked about Obama's relationship with former anti-Vietnam War radical William Ayers.

The Secret Service investigated that allegation and found no proof that "Kill him!" was said, or if it was said, that the remark was directed at Obama, according to the agency's spokesman, Eric Zahren.

"We would ask that anyone overhearing threatening language bring it to the attention of the Secret Service or other law enforcement at the event immediately," Zahren said.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

"Joe" Not a Licensed Plumber

Winnie — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:56:57 EDT

The Debates Joe the Plumber: Not a Licensed Plumber

Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher watches the presidential candidate debate in his home in Ohio on Oct. 15, 2008. (Lori King/Toledo Blade)

By Robert Barnes
Joe the Plumber is not exactly a plumber and he's "not even close" to making the kind of money that would result in higher taxes from Democrat Barack Obama's proposals.

Such is the whirlwind of information that has come out about Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, since Republican John McCain made him famous in last night's debate. McCain mentioned him more than 20 times to use him as a symbol of hard-working Americans who would be hurt by Obama's tax policies. Obama and Wurzelbacher met earlier in the week in Toledo, where Wurzelbacher said Obama's plans to raise taxes on those making $250,000 a year or more would penalize him in his plans to buy the plumbing business for which he works.

Wurzelbacher since then has been on Fox News, interviewed by CBS's Katie Couric and appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Not all the attention has been welcomed. Wurzelbacher, 34, told the Associated Press that he was not a licensed plumber. Because he works for a small company that does residential work, he said, he doesn't need to be licensed.

Wurzelbacher said he is of modest means, but worried Obama's tax plans would eventually hurt him. "You see my house. I don't have a lot of bells and whistles in here, really. My truck's a couple of years old and I'm going to have it for the next 10 years probably. So I don't see [Obama] helping me out,'' he told reporters this morning.

He also sounded concerned about the attention he is receiving. "I'm completely flabbergasted with this whole thing and just hope I'm not making too much of a fool of myself and hope I can get my message out there," he said.

Time To Take Palin Seriously

Winnie — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:31:35 EDT

Palin Too Close for Comfort

It's time to start taking Sarah Palin seriously.

Though the latest polls show the Obama-Biden ticket ahead, the Alaska governor is still uncomfortably close to becoming vice president of the United States. The thought should concentrate the mind of every American who remembers the abuse of executive power by the administration of Richard Nixon. Just look at what Palin has done, in a short time, with the authority delegated to her by Alaskans.

The "Troopergate" report, conducted by an independent investigator and released Friday by a bipartisan legislative committee, tells the tale. It documents the campaign that Palin and her husband Todd waged to get her former brother-in-law fired from the Alaska state troopers.

Palin did, indeed, have the authority to dismiss the state's public safety commissioner, the report says. But she violated a state law, the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which prohibits state officials from taking actions that benefit personal interest. According to the report: Palin abused her power as governor when she "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

I shudder to think of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon at her beck and call.

The role played by Todd in carrying out his wife's vendetta was highly unusual. He had no official duties in government. He acknowledged, however, that he made numerous calls to state officials to press his case against the governor's ex-brother-in-law.

It's been well reported that Todd Palin’s involvement in his wife’s official business unsettled some Alaskans. He has been known to sit in on the governor's meetings, use her office for his own meetings and intervene in state business using his status as "First Gentleman." Clearly, he's a man with a lot of time on his hands.

What if he assumed the same role in Washington? Imagine Todd in a town that has no use for snow machines (which he loves to ride) or work for commercial fishermen (of which he is one, during the summer months). What would he do? Would he follow the vice president to her White House office? Join her meetings in the Situation Room? Sit in on her daily national security briefings?

Where does Todd Palin stand on America anyway? Neither he nor Sarah Palin ever explained his seven-year membership in the Alaska Independence Party, a group that seeks a vote on secession from America. "I'm an Alaskan, not an American" was the slogan of the party's founder, Joe Vogler, who also said "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions" and "I won't be buried under their damned flag." What made Todd Palin hitch his wagon to that anti-American train when Alaska offered the Democratic and Republican parties?

Troopergate shows the Palins to be small-bore people unable to distinguish selfish personal interests from official responsibilities. Imagine the power of the U.S. government at their disposal.

The prospect of Vice President Sarah Palin is no laughing matter.

By Colbert King | October 13, 2008; 12:58 PM ET | Category: King
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McCain and the October Surprise

Winnie — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:52:04 EDT

October Surprise Update: What McCain May Be Planning and What Obama Can Do to Ruin It stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/october-surprise-update-w_b_134327.html

Political horse-race fans are focusing on Obama's 11-point lead in the new Newsweek poll. But I'm focusing on the 10-point lead McCain has on national security and terrorism -- the only remaining issue voters believe the Republican candidate would be more adept at handling.

As the one arrow left in McCain's quiver-- other than appealing to racists -- national security becomes the likeliest playing field for that GOP fall tradition, the October Surprise.

Last week, desperate to "turn the page" on the economy, the McCain campaign flipped over to the tie-Obama-to-Bill-Ayers section of the scorched earth playbook. It helped unleash some of the darkest demons in the electoral psyche, but it didn't move the needle (except on McCain's unfavorables, which hit a new high).

So what might be the final weeks' bombshell? Here is Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press:

"There are some people in the Obama campaign who believe that there's a concerted effort under way to get Osama bin Laden before Election Day and bring him out of captivity, dead or alive, in some fashion."

They've tried and -- other than on some misprinted ballots in New York -- failed to turn Obama into Osama. (The latest attempt came from the chair of Virginia's Republican Party, who said Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden "both have friends that have bombed the Pentagon" -- a comment McCain refused to disavow, although his campaign already had.)

Of course, capturing Osama just before the election has been an October GOP dream in 2002, 2004, 2006, and now 2008.

But, barring the fulfillment of that dream, it seems all-but-certain that McCain will look for another way to highlight what the Newsweek numbers show is his only remaining strength. So Obama -- and his foreign policy expert Joe Biden -- need to make a concerted effort to neutralize the issue by going directly at McCain's supposed strong suit. Doing so would make the success of an October Surprise far less likely.

The best line of attack would be drawing attention to McCain's actual record. His national security rep in 2008 is as over-inflated as the housing bubble was in 2005.

The McCain Doctrine, if there is such a thing, basically boils down to two core beliefs: 1) you don't sit down and talk with your enemies (and sometimes you don't sit down and talk with your friends, either -- see Spain) 2) the surge was the greatest, most successful strategy ever, and should be exported to Afghanistan.

Obama can make his case on the wrong-headedness of McCain's approach by calling on a persuasive lineup of evidence, including the words of Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. David McKiernan (commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan), and the latest consensus findings of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Let's start with Petraeus, who McCain has called an "American hero," and who is also the person he'd most like to have dinner with. Last week, speaking at the neocon -friendly Heritage Foundation, Petraeus basically gave his seal of approval to Obama's stand on negotiating with hostile foreign leaders while undercutting McCain's.

Asked specifically about the disagreement between the two candidates on this issue, which flared up again during the last debate, Petraeus said, "I do think you have to talk to enemies." He pointed out that in Iraq "we sat down with some of those who were shooting at us" -- even some "with our blood on their hands." "This is how you end these kinds of conflicts," he said.

That's precisely the kind of thinking that led Sarah Palin to call Obama "beyond naïve" and "dangerous," and McCain to repeatedly accuse him of not understanding the world. Betcha they won't say the same thing about Petraeus.

Next up, McKiernan and the intelligence agencies:

One of the reasons the public still trusts McCain more than Obama on national security is the media's unquestioned acceptance of the idea that the surge was an unequivocal success and has, as McCain frequently claims, put us "on a path to victory" in Iraq.

Even putting aside the fact that the political reconciliation that was the actual goal of the surge has yet to happen, the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq makes clear that the reduction in violence that is the source of McCain's triumphalism is, as Petraeus has termed the overall situation in Iraq, "fragile" and "reversible."

The top-secret analysis, the conclusions of which were leaked last week, warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian disputes could lead to a renewed outbreak of violence.

What's more, responsibility for one of the main tactics contributing to the security gains of the last year -- the U.S. paying former Sunni insurgents to stop targeting American forces -- has just been turned over to the Shiite-led Iraqi government, leading to fears that many of the 100,000 so-called Sons of Iraq may re-join the insurgency.

Despite all this, McCain continues to point to the surge as proof of his foreign policy acumen -- and, in the last debate, suggested it's the same strategy that is "going to have to be employed in Afghanistan."

Gen. McKiernan doesn't agree. He points to "countless... differences between Iraq and Afghanistan," and concludes: "What I don't think is needed -- the word that I don't use in Afghanistan is the word surge."

McCain obviously hasn't gotten that memo. Nor the one explaining that those still occupying the White House now privately admit that Afghanistan is, as according to Katie Couric, the "single most pressing security threat in the war on terror." McCain and Palin continue to insist the "central front" in the war on terror is Iraq.

All told, McCain's response to our greatest national security crises, Iraq and Afghanistan, has been every bit as erratic, reckless, glib, and clueless as his response to the financial crisis.

If Obama and Biden forcefully drive this point home again and again, should McCain unleash an all-but-certain-to-be-about-national-security October Surprise, it will prove to be no more successful than his pathetic attempt to smear Obama using Bill Ayers.