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- On Friday it was reported that Tom Daschle, President Obama's Health and Human Services director-designate, belatedly paid over $100,000 in back taxes which was later discovered not to have been disclosed to the Obama transition team. There was some speculation that this might imperil Daschle's chances for Senate confirmation, but the Finance Committee Chairman, Max Baucus, once Daschle's foil in the Senate, has indicated that the nomination will get his nod, and both President Obama and Vice President Biden have put their weight behind the former Senate majority leader, working the phones to ensure the nomination gets a floor vote.
- The larger problem with Daschle lies with his cozy relationship with the Beltway revolving door, as Glenn Greenwald documents here. On the one hand, Daschle isn't being nominated for a government accountability post, he was nominated to get health care reform through Congress, period. On the other hand, Barack Obama explicitly campaigned for president on an anti-corruption platform and signed executive orders on his first day establishing new ethics rules for former lobbyists, rules that have been skirted twice already. But Daschle is an indispensable man and thus he gets a pass from the administration. All of which is to say that entering politics with the purest and most honest of intentions neglects the fact that not all the people you have to work with are going to be as squeaky clean.
- The political gambit of tapping Republican Senator Judd Greg for commerce secretary doesn't seem to have been much of a gambit at all, with New Hampshire's Democratic Governor John Lynch indicating that Gregg's replacement could be another Republican if the appointment goes through. Perhaps the calculation is that another moderate Republican vote in the 111th Congress is just as good as another Democratic vote. But by that logic, why not just appoint a Democrat in the first place?
- Esquire has a long piece on David Plouffe's plans for the 13 million-strong voter email list amassed by the Obama for President campaign -- he is its sole owner -- and Greg Sargent starts connecting the dots on the quiet efforts by the White House to coordinate with outside groups to build support for the president's agenda.
- According to Rasmussen, 43 percent of Republican voters think their party has been too moderate as of late, and 55 percent think the party should strive to resemble Sarah Palin more. Not shocking given conservatives oppose spending federal money on contraception, think they haven't been xenophobic enough on immigration, have to fudge independent analysis to support their lack of coherent economic policy positions (which would actually raise taxes), and just elected a party chairman that loves the politics of obstruction and doesn't believe government has "ever" created a job.
- Kate Klonick writes that in addition to being either former Clinton Justice Department appointees or Harvard Law garduates (or both), three Obama OLC appointees are also bloggers who consistently wrote about the Bush administration's reckless abuse of executive power.
- Professional jingo Glenn Beck, last seen making the thoughtful argument for kicking California out of the union, was a ratings loser for CNN while the host of Headline News. In fact, his successor's ratings were immediately, and continue to be, significantly higher. As Yglesias rightly observed, "It’s almost as if the public’s appetite for right-wing sociopaths has limits."
- Mel Martinez, who previously declined to run for reelection 2010, might retire early, leaving an interesting scenario for Gov. Charlie Crist, who is rumored to be interested in the seat for himself.
- The gist of H.R. 735, introduced by Rep. John Carter (R-TX), reproduced here without further comment: "Any individual who is a citizen of the United States and who writes ‘Rangel Rule’ on the top of the first page of the return of tax imposed by chapter 1 for any taxable year shall be exempt from any requirement to pay interest, and from any penalty, addition to tax, or additional amount, with respect to such return."
--Mori Dinauer
