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- On his first full day as President, Barack Obama initiated a salary freeze for administration staff making over $100,000, ordered a two-year ban on lobbyists working in the administration in the same area they had previously lobbied in, made several calls to Mideast leaders, met with top military leaders to discuss a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and halted all trials at Guantanamo Bay. The president also acted yesterday to halt and review all regulations issued by the Bush administration during its final days.
- Given that David Iglesias is now a prosecutor at Gitmo, I have the same question as Kate Klonick: "If President Obama is drafting an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, and he has already filed a motion to halt military commission trials, does that make fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias’ new gig as a Gitmo prosecutor irrelevant?"
- Timothy Geithner was questioned on Capitol Hill today over the vaguely controversial matter of failing to pay back taxes, Ken Salazar was confirmed for Interior Secretary, Eric Holder's confirmation was delayed by Arlen Specter at the committee level and John Cornyn's futile quest to delay the confirmation of Hillary Clinton induced an annoyed John McCain to get all mavericky on the Senate floor, ultimately prompting a 94-2 confirmation vote.
- Day One remainders: Marc Ambinder reports that Barack Obama might yet be able to keep his Blackberry, pending the introduction of presidential-level encryption, Brian Beutler asks us to keep an eye on whitehouse.gov's executive orders page (curiously, still blank), and Thomas Ricks asks what Obama intends to do about the Bush administration's covert programs.
- Senator Kennedy has been discharged from the hospital after suffering a seizure during yesterday's post-inauguration luncheon.
- Envelopes containing unidentified white powder show up at the offices of The Wall St. Journal.
- Jim DeMint goes all Red Dawn, telling the WSJ that "[w]e have to have a remnant of the Republican Party who are recognizable as freedom fighters. What I'm looking to do as a conservative leader in the Senate is to identify those Republicans, and even some Democrats, and put together a consensus of people who can help stop this slide toward socialism."
- The DNC unanimously elected Tim Kaine as their next chairman, whose plans for the future include a rhetorical embrace of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy while keeping an eye on top-level races, particularly the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012.
--Mori Dinauer
