Mori Dinauer

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested today for corruption involving (among other things) an attempt to auction president-elect Barack Obama‘s Senate seat to the highest bidder to enrich himself. Adam breaks down the cryptically numbered Senate candidates referred to in the wiretap, and Sam looks at how the seat will get filled in these special […]

Barack Obama announced Gen. Eric Shinseki as his pick to run the Department of Veterans’ Affairs on Sunday, Pearl Harbor day. Shinseki publicly condemned the Rumsfeld plan for invasion on the cheap in 2003, leading to his dismissal not long thereafter. Tara has more on Shinseki and the challenges he’ll face. In other appointment news, […]

Vice president-elect Joe Biden has added Jared Bernstein to his staff as an economic adviser, excellent news for progressives everywhere. Tim has some thoughts on the announcement. I’m wondering if Biden is building an auxiliary circle of policy advisers that could, at Obama‘s discretion, challenge group-think in the presidential cabinet. And keeping in mind the […]

Grist suggests a method by which Barack Obama could fast-track cap-and-trade legislation: “under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can also administer a national cap-and-trade program by writing federal rules to unify independent regional carbon markets. Already, 23 states and four Canadian provinces are forming such markets, with 10 additional states being brought into the […]

Team Obama announced Bill Richardson for commerce secretary today, and the rumor mill has Richard Holbrooke as special diplomatic envoy to South Asia, Rep. Xavier Becerra for U.S. trade representative, and Louis Caldera for director of the White House Military Office. Democrat Jim Martin, unsurprisingly, lost his runoff against Sen. Saxby Chambliss in Georgia yesterday […]

While voters head to the polls in Georgia today, The Hill reports that the Al Franken campaign could petition the U.S. Senate to intervene in the Minnesota ballot recount, invoking the Constitutional clause that each congressional chamber shall be “Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members” in order to make sure […]

President-elect Barack Obama rolled out his national security team today, confirming Hillary Clinton at State, Bob Gates at Defense, and Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security. Clinton will remain in the Senate until confirmed to her cabinet position next year, Ben Smith reports. I would concur with Ezra, First Read, et al, that James L. Jones […]

As Barack Obama is fond of saying, there can only be one president at a time. And right now, that might as well be Obama himself. While the president-elect is successfully injecting some confidence into the financial markets with a series of well-timed press conferences and leaks designed to unveil his economic team piece by […]

We now have a price tag to go along with Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats’ economic stimulus package: $500 billion over two years. Not to be outdone on the policy front, John Boehner wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, John Taylor wants to make tax-cutting a “permanent” policy, and Grover Norquist believes that […]

The Obama economic team took shape today, and over the weekend Obama laid out the economic recovery plan his administration will pursue. Meanwhile, The Democrat-led 111th Congress, which convenes on January 6, plans to prepare economic recovery legislation in time for Obama’s signature on Inauguration Day two weeks later. Finally, the incoming administration seems adverse […]