Sherrod Brown to Push TARP Oversight In the
Senate

post from Open Left - Front Page on 21 January 2009 03:43:24 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

One of the stories we have been following on Open Left is that the Senate, led by Banking Chair[...]

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More On Iglesias

post from Talking Points Memo on 21 January 2009 03:43:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

As we told you earlier, David Iglesias, the fired US Attorney from New Mexico, has a new assignment: prosecuting detainees at Gitmo. Given that the news came out today, it sort of sounded like this was the Obama team clearing the decks, putting a very[...]

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Foxman: George Mitchell is too fair and
even-handed to serve as Middle East envoy.

post from Think Progress on 21 January 2009 03:43:00 PM. © Think Progress

The media is reporting that former Sen. George Mitchell, who handled the Northern Ireland peace process, is being eyed by the Obama administration to be a top diplomatic envoy to the Middle East. In 2001, Mitchell produced a report on the Middle East which recommended that Israel freeze all its settlement activities. Without a freeze, a cessation of violence would be ?particularly hard to sustain,? he argued. While Mitchell?s impending appointment is earning a great deal of praise, the Anti-Defamation League?s Abe Foxman complains the diplomat is too fair and balanced for the post:

?Sen. Mitchell is fair. He?s been meticulously even-handed,? said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. ?But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn?t been ?even handed? ? it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support.?
?So I?m concerned,? Foxman continued. ?I?m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.?

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Valerie Jarrett, White House Liaison and Obama
Confidante-in-chief

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 21 January 2009 03:42:35 PM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

The new title she has been given is a mouthful: "Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison." What it means is that Valerie Bowman Jarrett is a person whose talents and wisdom the new President intends to keep tapping. "I trust her completely," the President has said. But Valerie Jarrett is also an indespensible friend to the new President and First Lady.

An attorney and businesswoman, Valerie Jarrett was an ever-present counselor and problem solver during the presidential campaign. She also cochaired the Obama/Biden transition team, is a veteran of two law firms and Chicago City Hall, and rose in business to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development firm that managed 20,000 residences. Around Chicago, she is a long-time, highly sought-after civic leader well known as a networker who knows everybody. It seems probably that her formal responsibilities in the Obama White House will take full advantage of that talent and background.

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Senate Progressive Media Summit Liveblog

post from Firedoglake on 21 January 2009 03:41:56 PM. © Firedoglake

Marcy and I are at the Hart Senate Office Building with Atrios, Jerome, Bowers, David Corn, Brownsox and others listening to various Senators come in and talk about their issues.[...]

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MN-Sen: More Coleman Desperation

post from Daily Kos on 21 January 2009 03:40:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Lest there be any doubt about it, Norm Coleman has pulled a full 180-degree turn in his desperate efforts to hang on to a Senate seat which has slipped out of his grasp (a frequent consequence of actually holding elections).

MN Progressive Report has posted a video of prior arguments before the Minnesota Canvassing Board over the counting of wrongfully rejected absentee ballots - ballots which, in November, the Coleman campaign didn't want counted.

Attorney for Al Franken's campaign, David Lillehaug argued befor the Minnesota Canvassing Board that rejected absentee ballots should be reviewed and counted if they were cast properly. The board took his request under consideration and recessed to a later date so it can read all of the data and court opinions related to the request. Minnesota's Attorney General's office earlier had issued an opinion that the rejected absentee ballots should not be counted, an opinion echoed by Fritz Knaak, Attorney for Norm Coleman's Campaign.

Coleman's latest gambit is the direct antithesis of his earlier position - rather than attempting to prevent any wrongfully rejected absentee ballots for being counted, the former Senator is pushing for all rejected absentee ballots to be reviewed.

To be clear, at that meeting, Coleman's attorneys did not want all rejected ballots to be included in the count. They later came to an agreement with the Franken campaign on which wrongfully rejected ballots to include, and to continue leaving out those rejected for fair and legal reasons.

Only now that the Canvassing Board has certified vote totals leaving Coleman down by 225 votes, his representatives are demanding that all rejected ballots be reconsidered.

It's a long shot for the Coleman campaign, but it's the only shot they have. They're likely to finish even farther behind in the count than they already are, even if they get their way with this latest gamble (itself unlikely).

So they must either be hoping to get freakishly lucky, or to cast enough doubt on the validity of the election and recount (which has actually been run very transparently) so as to be able to force a new election.

One would like to think that the honorable thing to do would be to concede, of course.

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A new home for fired U.S. prosecutor David
Iglesias: JAG at Gitmo

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 21 January 2009 03:39:42 PM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

David Iglesias has been vindicated, well, to some extent.

The former U.S. prosecutor from New Mexico, one of the U.S. attorneys fired supposedly for non-political reasons, has a new job: Navy JAG. Specifically, Igelsias is working as a Judge Advocate General for the cases in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As for Igleias, he seems very happy with the change: "It is the most significant set of orders I've had in my 24 years of Navy service," said Iglesias to KRQE-TV, Albuquerque.

But the Obama Administration gets a clearly qualified individual to do an unthankable task in a difficult situation, and gets to hold his hiring up to the Bush Administration, and essentially say, "He's a good employee; you shouldn't say otherwise."

With the potential closing of Guantanamo Bay, it's likely that this job may not last long. But this might not be the worst thing in the world for Iglesias or the Obama Administration. Iglesias gets to show that he is worthy of a high-profile job and the Obama team gets desperately needed quality help to turn things around.

The sense of fairness that has been devalued by the Bush Administration is a needed commodity at Guantanamo Bay. The sense of fairness that Iglesias had that was devalued by the Bush Administration needs a home. For right now, this seems like a nice fit.

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House 2010: Dems May Have Strong Challenger for
Castle in DE

Josh Kraushaar, reporting on the developments that may lead to Beau Biden becoming the next Senator from Delaware, makes what seems from this vantage an even more important catch: The Democrats may finally have a viable challenger for Republican[...]

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Iglesias' New Gig Came Through Military, Not Bush
Administration

When we learned that David Iglesias -- one of the US Attorneys purged by the Bush administration for political reasons -- is going to be prosecuting Guantanamo detainees as a member of the Navy JAG corps, it struck us that he appeared to have been on the job for a little while. That would suggest he was tapped for the assignment by the Bushies -- which would be ironic given his past.

Turns out that's not exactly the case. Iglesias told TPMmuckraker that he had responded to an email sent out by the Navy JAG corps, looking for prosecutors for the assignment. His application was eventually approved, he said, by that office and by the Office of Military Commissions, which is run by Susan Crawford -- the retired general who last week told the Washington Post unequivocally that we tortured Mohammed al- Qahtani, a Gitmo detainee.

In other words, it appears that it was the uniformed military, rather than the civilian DOD, that brought Iglesias on board.

As for the value of his new work, Iglesias said: "It's important for people to have confidence in what's going on, in light of all the problems the office has had over the years" -- which have included allegations of rigged prosecutions.

And he called the new leadership under Defense Secretary Bob Gates "fantastic," adding "they get it."

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Obamas first day at the White House

post from conversations with an unapologetic black liberal on 21 January 2009 03:33:51 PM. © conversations with an unapologetic black liberal

I can’t believe it..Barack Obama’s first day as President of the United States.Can you believe this is happening? All these fantastic changes..can you believe yesterday? All those people and not a single arrest according to reports NOT ONE!!!Obama and his staff are hitting the ground running they aren’t playing no more secrecy, no more lobbyists [...]

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