Mukasey, Elliott Abrams Get Last-Minute Bush Appointments

By John Nichols

In most democratic republics, elections are followed by the rapid transfer of power.

In Great Britain, for instance, the new prime minister takes over the day after the election.

Not so the United States.

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January 7, 2009

TARPing Over the Financial Crisis

By Leslie Savan

I was on the public radio show Marketplace the other day to talk about the role that those strange new acronyms erupting from the financial crisis--TARP, CDO, CDS, LIBOR--are playing in our lives.

Is TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program), for instance, subconsciously providing us the smallest bit of comfort, deceptive as it may be? A tarp, after all, is used to cover things up, stop a roof from leaking, or haul out the trash. Whether to protect or to hide something, a tarp is your friend.

The warm ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) isn't new, but it was always there to welcome you with wide open biceps to Bush's great Ownership Society--even if those arms would later hit millions with usurious interest rates, forcing them into foreclosure.

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January 7, 2009

Burris: Out of the Rain, Into the Senate

By John Nichols

With what is effectively an endorsement from President-elect Barack Obama, Roland Burris went to the Capitol this morning to arrange for his seating in the US Senate.

And, make no mistake, the Illinois appointee is now all but certain to be seated.

By wandering around in the rain for an hour on Tuesday, Burris grabbed all the media attention that was going to be afforded to the day when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should have been outlining the agenda of the new Democratic majority in the chamber.

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January 7, 2009

Not A Great Day for Senate Democrats

By John Nichols

In fairness to Harry Reid, no Senate majority leader has ever before begun a new session of Congress with four open seats and a slowly settling contest for a fifth seat.

But Reid really has to do better when it comes to leading the chamber.

On a day when Democrats should have been celebrating their largest Senate majority in decades and setting their agenda for responding to the economic and foreign-policy challenges created by eight years of Republican rule, they were instead talking about refusing to seat an appointee from Illinois and preparing to seat a recount winner from Minnesota.

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January 6, 2009

Is Kaine the Right Choice to Lead Party?

By Ari Berman

Howard Dean will soon be out as chairman of the Democratic Party and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will soon be in. The Washington Post reports that Obama plans to officially announce the pick later in the week. Kaine endorsed Obama early on, emerged as one of his top surrogates, spoke on the final night of the Democratic Convention and was on the shortlist for vice president. So in many ways, this is hardly a surprising pick.

The way I see it, there are pros and cons to Kaine's selection.

PRO: Kaine will be a good spokesman for the party. As a governor of an important swing state that turned from red to blue, a Spanish speaker and a religious Catholic, he's in a solid position to communicate the party's message and help it grow. While he was governor, Virginia Democrats won two US Senate seats, flipped the state Senate and added seats to the House of Delegates. Accordingly, Kaine saw firsthand the value of Dean's 50-state strategy. Kaine's gubernatorial election in 2005 was the first race Dean poured a lot of money into and Virginia became an early pilot program for the 50-state strategy.

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January 5, 2009

Honor Claiborne Pell By Renewing Checks on Warmaking

By John Nichols

Former Rhode Island Senator Clairborne Pell, who gave his name to the federal college-grant program and did more than almost anyone else in the latter years of the 20th-century to foster rational foreign policies, was a mentor to Vice President-elect Joe Biden and an inspiration to President-elect Barack Obama.

So how should Obama, Biden and their congressional allies honor the six-term senator who has died at age 90?

Supercharge funding of Pell Grants? Absolutely.

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January 2, 2009

What To Do About Blagojevich's Pick to Replace Obama

By John Nichols

Illinois Governor Rod "Who Wants to Buy a Senate Seat?" Blagojevich is reportedly set to appoint former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Lynn Sweet, the savvy political reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, says the announcement will come Tuesday afternoon.

Burris, a former rival of Blagojevich, is in many senses a fine pick.

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December 30, 2008

Ask Obama For a Torture Special Prosecutor

By Ari Melber

The Obama transition team is taking questions again at Change.gov, throwing open the site this week for citizen input. The first run of this experiment was a mixed bag. The platform was open and transparent, but the official answers felt more like old boilerplate than new responses. When the submitted questions parrot toics in the traditional media, of course, the exchange can feel like a dated press conference. But here's a vital question that few reporters have ever presented to Obama:

Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

That question ranked sixth in voting last time -- out of over 10,000 submissions -- but the transition team only answered the top five questions. Now that Vice President Cheney confessed his support for waterboarding on national television, flouting the rule of law, the issue is even more urgent. Activist Bob Fertik, who has submitted the question twice, explains how you can vote to press this issue on the transition team:

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December 29, 2008

Puff Goes the GOP's Credibility

By John Nichols

Republican leaders are objecting loudly and appropriately to the bizarre decision of a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, Chip Saltsman, to send members of the RNC a CD containing a song titled: "Barack the Magic Negro."

The song, a crude dig at President-elect Barack Obama's supposed lack of authenticity as a "real black man" and at the reactions of whites and African Americans to his candidacy, goes to the tune of the Peter, Paul and Mary children's classic, "Puff the Magic Dragon."

RNC chair Mike Duncan, who is running against Saltsman and several other contenders to lead the battered party, declared, "The 2008 election was a wakeup call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party. I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction."

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December 29, 2008

Go To 1:18 In This Rick Warren Interview

By Max Blumenthal

Inside the mind of America's Pastor:

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December 24, 2008