Daily Political News Summary - Thursday, December 11, 2008

:: The unfortunate state of the auto bailout.

I've been avoiding this topic all day, hoping that the news would be better by the end of it. No such luck, I'm sorry to say. My prediction - it won't get past the GOP in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Labor, the auto industry and lawmakers bargained in unprecedented private talks in the Capitol Thursday night, struggling to salvage a $14 billion government bailout of the Big Three carmakers.
"We're closer to agreement," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said after several hours of talks, although he also said an accord remained elusive.
Officials said the negotiations centered on possible wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers union as well as large-scale debt restructuring by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.  Chicago Tribune

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:: Obama faces the Blagojevich scandal head on, with his usual sense of integrity.

At the Obama presser today, Obama didn't wait for the press corps to bring up Gov. Blagojevich. He brought it up, told us what he knows, and told us what he's going to do about it. Watch the video and/or read the transcript.

| Analysis: Illinois scandal gives Obama chance to set himself apart and burnish 'change' image
| Obama declares his staff not involved in Ill. governor scandal, orders internal probe anyway

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:: 73% of adult Americans approve of Obama's handling of the transition, and his preparations for taking office in January.

A really excellent polling result, indicating that Obama has been able to win over many McCain voters, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Overall, a majority of Americans are confident in Mr. Obama's ability to govern and unify the country, with many who didn't vote for him now seeing him in a positive light. The poll found that 73% of adults approve of the way he is handling the transition and his preparations for becoming president. 

Polling indicates that the nation is more unified around Mr. Obama than it was for either Bill Clinton in 1992 or George W. Bush in 2000. Americans say the challenges, too, are greater, with 77% of those surveyed predicting Mr. Obama will face bigger problems than most recent presidents have.  Wall Street Journal

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:: Judicial Watch, a right-wing group, is considering a constitutional challenge to Hillary Clinton's appointment as SOS.

Do you ever wonder whether the far right-wing really gives a rat's derriere about this country, or whether they only care to keep their own party in power? I gotta say, some of the things that they do make it very difficult for me not to wonder. This latest attempt to create more problems for an incoming administration who has more than enough on their plate, is yet another of those things that causes me to wonder.

A conservative watchdog group is considering litigation to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming the next Secretary of State, saying Congress’ action Wednesday to clear a legal hurdle for her nomination runs counter to the Constitution.
Judicial Watch says that Clinton is ineligible to serve as Secretary of State because the Constitution prohibits members of Congress from being appointed to an office that saw a pay increase during their time in office. In January 2008, President Bush signed an executive boosting Cabinet secretaries’ pay to $191,300.
But on Wednesday night, both houses of Congress approved a resolution reducing the salary to the January 2007 level of $186,600.
The so-called emoluments clause of the Constitution was designed to prohibit lawmakers from reaping a financial windfall. To allow members to serve, Congress has taken similar actions in the past, including over Richard Nixon's pick of William Saxbe for attorney general and Lloyd Bentsen to serve as Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary.  POLITICO

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:: The Washington Post reports that illegal immigrants worked in Michael Chertoff's home.

Oh, this is just too funny/sad for words. Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary for the Bush administration, was unaware that the employees working in his home, and provided by a cleaning service, were illegal immigrants. However, considering his position, doncha think it would have behooved him to be absolutely certain?

FYI, when I lived in DC during the 80's, many public officials, and others, hired illegal immigrants as household employees, sometimes unknowingly, but just as often, fully aware. Washington is nothing if not deeply hypocritical.

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.
The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants.   Washington Post

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:: President-elect Obama formally announces Tom Daschle as his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In addition to his position as SHH, Sen. Daschle will head up a new White House Office of Health Reform. Obama also announced Jeanne Lambrew as the deputy director of the new White House office. ABC News live

While the presser was slated to be about healthcare, discussion of Blagojevich was a topic brought up by both Obama, himself, and by the press corps. More on that later.

Image credit: AP/David Zalubowski

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:: Will the first foreign affairs crisis for the Obama administration be the collapse of Pakistan's economy?

Marc Ambinder, an Atlantic associate editor, looks at this possibility, and the possible attending consequences.

Concerns about Pakistan's economy

Where the discussion isn't going, at least in public,  (or the PR level), is the possibility that the first foreign policy crisis the administration will face will be the complete economic collapse of a large, unstable nation. To be sure, Pakistan is nearly broke, and U.S. policy makers seem to be aware of that; but a worldwide demand crisis could lead to social unrest in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, Singapore, the Ukraine, Japan, Turkey or Egypt (which is facing an internal political crisis of epic proportions already). The U.S. won't have the resources to, say, engineer the rescue of the peso again, or intervene in Asia as in 1997."  Marc Ambinder

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:: Obama makes more exceptional choices for his staff and cabinet.

Nobel prize-winning physicist, Steven Chu, is Obama's choice for Energy Secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who heads the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to be the next energy secretary, and he has picked veteran regulators from diverse backgrounds to fill three other key jobs on his environmental and climate-change team, Democratic sources said yesterday. 

The appointments suggest that Obama plans to make a strong push for measures to combat global warming and programs to support energy innovation. "I think it's a great team," said Daniel A. Lashof, director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "On policy, it's a dramatic contrast based on what I know about the policy direction that all these folks will be bringing to these positions."  Washington Post

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:: The DOJ hesitant to provide Obama with secret legal memos.

The transition team has requested to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and NSA programs. What are they trying to hide, and how silly as this is the PE they are dealing with, and they must turn over everything in these matters.

A senior Justice Department official said Tuesday that "99.8 percent" of the department's work with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.  Law.com

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:: NASA refuses to cooperate with the Obama transition.

In a story directly from a GOP nursery school, NASA administrator, Mike Griffin, pitching tantrums, and attempts to withhold access to Obama transition team.

CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.  Orlando Sentinel via HUFFPO

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