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BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's new government Wednesday endorsed Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons, the latest sign that the group has no intention of meeting a U.N. resolution calling for it to disarm. Lebanon's government is a shaky coalition of Western-backed factions and the militant group Hezbollah, which has virtual veto power over the government. The group is believed to have thousands of rockets and missiles hidden in basements and bunkers throughout Shiite Muslim areas of the tiny country.

A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population,...

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience RequiredBy Nick Schulz November 25, 2009, 8:19 am A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. Rest of Article Here

Ibrahim Didi, right, the minister of fisheries and agriculture in the Maldives, signs a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a major climate change conference in December. (Mohammed Seeneen/Associated Press) Cabinet ministers in the Maldives held an underwater meeting Saturday to draw attention to the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth. President Mohammed Nasheed and members of his cabinet wore scuba gear as they arrived for the meeting in a lagoon off the island of Girifushi. They sat at a table anchored to the sand on the floor of...

The Van Jones story isn't about another radical federal employee or even about President Obama's addiction to executive authority (he has appointed over 30 czars with whom he meets regularly, but he has held just one cabinet meeting since his inauguration). The Van Jones story is about our president: a man who fills the void in his emotional past with "authentic" black men who have no interior struggle for definition. President Obama has incessantly injected himself into racial matters that require no clarification (see Henry Louis Gates Jr.); he has turned every debate into a racial debate (see his 2008...

Since Congress passed President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February, administration officials have traveled to at least 66 events across the country to tout the massive spending program or hand out stimulus cash to grateful local officials. But a POLITICO examination of the travel reveals a distinctly political trend line: Top officials have hosted events predominantly in states that Obama won in 2008. What’s more, the examination revealed that Obama officials all but avoided Southern states that Obama lost. It is not unusual for a presidential administration to find ways to reward its supporters through federal largesse,...

Who would have thought that after almost a hundred days, it would be Hillary Clinton that would be one of Obama's least controversial advisors? Of course, a cabinet, once referred to by the mainstream as a supreme collection of professionals, has turned into nothing short of a motley crue of misfits, criminals, and incompetents. In fact, the last of problematic cabinet choices is so large that I know that I will forget many important missteps in Obama's cabinet.

And it’s not a twister, Auntie Em. Kathleen Sebelius left her job as governor of Kansas to take a Cabinet position as Secretary of Health and Human Services in Barack Obama’s administration, but she left unfinished business behind. The Kansas City Star reports that legislators want to know how a Sebelius-tied charity wound up with an increase in government funding — while they spent $400,000 building a horse ranch:

March 15) - Another conspiracy theory surrounding President Barack Obama is making the rounds, according to Politico.com The latest one contends that many top officials in Obama's administration are involved in a clandestine global cabal bent on creating a one-world government that supersedes the United States. For decades, conspiracy theorists have viewed the Bilderberg group, an international organization made up of political, financial, academic and military heavyweights that comes together annually to discuss world affairs, as similar to the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations -- two groups comprised of influential movers and shakers who, some say, control...

The best way judge a person is by the company he keeps. But President Obama is having trouble keeping any company at all. Recently his Cabinet nominees have been dropping like flies - Sanjay Gupta's withdrawal from the surgeon general slot on Thursday brought the number of botched high-level candidates to seven. "He's having a lot of trouble getting nominations pushed through," says Paul Light, professor of Public Service at NYU's Wagner School. "He's falling behind Bush and Clinton in his number of confirmed candidates in the first 100 days. He can't afford another one." Here, a rogue's gallery at...

What is with all of these people "withdrawing" from Obama's cabinet positions? Well, three possibilities. First, they know this is a sinking ship on the way to the murky depths of socialism. Second, they are crooked, and scared to be exposed in the vetting process. And third, both the first and second reason. Geithner's choice for deputy withdraws from consideration... Gupta withdraws from consideration for surgeon general... President faces tough question over Cabinet picks... Third Obama cabinet nominee withdraws name Reuters Republican Gregg withdraws from commerce post consideration - CNN.com Gupta Withdraws Name for Surgeon General More tax problems for...

With all his problems hanging onto cabinet appointments, and maintaining a consistent message from day to day, let alone with his actions, it's no wonder that only a month in the Democrats are "Hot N Cold". This production was prepared for the 2009 Buchanan County (MO) Lincoln Day Dinner held on Feb. 28, 2009.

Add former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to the list of Obama Cabinet picks with tax problems. The Senate Finance Committee says he underpaid by $9,975 in the last three years. Senate aides uncovered the shortfall during weeks of vetting, and Kirk – the administration’s designated point person on trade -- has promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service in full. The problems: Kirk deducted too much for season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks and too much for tax preparation fees, and failed to report as income speaking fees that he donated to his alma mater, Austin College. The full political...

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden met with members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet to discuss the first steps necessary in getting money from the stimulus package to the aid of the American people. In President Obama’s speech on Tuesday evening, he addressed the arduous task facing the recovery team, but said that “nobody messes with Joe,” speaking of Vice President Biden, as a reason he had put Biden in charge of the recovery plan. Wednesday, Biden said that the stimulus package is meant to “drop-kick" the economy out of recession, and addressed the need for getting money distributed quickly....

Two of President Obama's Cabinet members authored a variety of earmarks in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill the House is poised to pass Wednesday to keep the government running through Oct. 1. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis were both House members when appropriators began to forge this legislation last year. However, a stalemate between President Bush and congressional Democrats forced the sides to punt the rest of the spending provisions until now. New transparency rules ordered up by Democrats two years ago require lawmakers requesting earmarks to write a letter expressly asking Congress to dedicate...

This was expected, but at the end of business earlier this evening, the Senate announced that Leon Panetta, an all-around respected official who has been in and out of government, was confirmed to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The nod of approval was granted by a voice vote at the end of a long day. But Mr. Panetta pretty much sailed through his hearings with the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier. Earlier in the nomination process, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, had seemed miffed that she wasn’t informed beforehand that Mr. Panetta, a longtime friend and...

Unable to post text from a Gannett newspaper. To summarize, Moveon.org is trying to derail Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's consideration for Health and Human Services Secretary. They claim Bredesen gutted TennCare, the state insurance program for the uninsured. Bredesen did cut services in TennCare to keep it solvent. He's a democrat who leans more towards fiscal conservatism than your typical beltway Dem. He has repeatedly refused to get on the "we need an income tax" bandwagon and simply said we need to live within our means. Link to Story

WASHINGTON (AP) - Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was near the top of President Barack Obama's list of candidates to head the Health and Human Services Department, a senior administration official said Saturday.

Today it has been announced that Nancy Killefer, President Obama’s nominee for the first ever “Government Performance Czar”, has been withdrawn by the candidate because of tax and household employee difficulties and that Tom Daschle, nominee for the Health and Human Services has also withdrawn. Mr. Obama throughout his campaign was demanding that wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes and that more government accountability and transparency of elected officials would proceed with his election. His running mate, Joe Biden, famously proclaimed that it would be patriotic to pay taxes. Now three major nominees for the Cabinet have been exposed as...

President Obama continues to nominate persons of ill-repute to his Cabinet and Sub-Cabinet, including a pornography defender and a woman who covered up for her tax cheat husband by lying about the financial obligations to Congress. The lack of ethics of this budding administration is astounding — kind of like a 21st Century version of Roman Emperor Caligula. An orgy of spending, lying, strange sex. David Ogden is nominated to be the second person in command in the U.S. office of the Attorney General. According to a number of reports, as an attorney in private practice, Ogden filed court briefs:...

Remember that 9 page information sheet all the Obama nominees had to fill out before they would be considered for a job? The press made a huge deal about the new, ethical tone Obama was bringing to Washington. The One was not going to be blindsided like Clinton with a Zoe Baird problem. And it specifically asked about tax problems. This is turning into a farce. First we had Geithner, then Daschle, then Nancy Killefer, and now Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis also has a tax problem. More . . .

Using Joe Biden's definition of patriotism, Barack Obama's appointees have to be considered the most unpatriotic group ever appointed: Of course, Obama would probably say that he's trying to make America more patriotic by appointing people to his cabinet who cheat on their taxes. You see, he knew that they would have to pay their back taxes before they would be approved, if they were even approved at all. It's all part of his master plan to rehabilitate tax cheats, one cabinet appointee at a time.

Back in 1986, when Tom Daschle was a member of the House, President Reagan nominated a man named Richard Lyng to be Agriculture Secretary. Daschle didn't like the nomination. Why? Lyng, Daschle said, was "a limousine-lounging corporate executive" who didn't know anything about agriculture. (Lyng, who had bipartisan support, actually knew quite a bit about agriculture and was confirmed.) I found Daschle's quote in a Nexis search and haven't seen it anywhere else on the Web, so here in an excerpt from an AP story on January 30, 1986: "He is bringing with him a solid agriculture background and years...

President Barack Obama is taking far-reaching steps to centralize decision-making inside the White House, surrounding himself with influential counselors, overseas envoys and policy "czars" that shift power from traditional Cabinet posts. Not even a week has passed since he was sworn in, but already Obama is moving to create perhaps the most powerful staff in modern history – a sort of West Wing on steroids that places no less than a half-dozen of his top initiatives into the hands of advisers outside the Cabinet.... Pulling power close is something all recent presidents have done – and on the campaign trail,...

Chertoff, Gonzales, Abrams Have Baggage President George W. Bush has appointed three more officials with unsavory baggage from previous government roles. Let's hope they have learned something from their past misdeeds. One of the nominees -- Michael Chertoff -- is expected to be confirmed shortly as secretary of the Homeland Security Department, replacing Tom Ridge. Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. White House legal counsel Alberto R. Gonzales -- the replacement for John Ashcroft as attorney general -- did not get the usual pass accorded Cabinet appointees. The Senate vote on his...

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared "I have paid what I owed." He apologized to Congress. As to his failure to pay payroll taxes from 2001 to 2004 while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, Geithner said: "These were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes." "But they were unintentional," he said.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In an early expected victory for President Barack Obama, the U.S. Senate approved seven high-ranking administration officials Tuesday afternoon.

I feel like going back to bed today. I'm really not in the mood for 48 hours of non-stop Obama media frenzy. Nonetheless, the fight must go on and there is some reason for optimism. At least John McCain's deleterious and destructive efforts are confined to the Senate for the duration of his career. Yes, Sen. John McCain (RINO-AZ) is doing what he does best. Once again he's clearing the path for the Democrat party while undercutting conservative dissent. Buried in a typical NY Times Obama-worship piece is a tidbit that demonstrates, once again, why it is that McCain and...

Meet Cass Sunstein. He's a noted animal rights activist. He's dead set against hunting and sees the keeping of pets as a form of slavery. He's been a strong advocate for the concept that animals can sue humans, he's adored by the likes of PETA, he's a Harvard Law School professor and he's about to be America's new Regulatory Czar.

A call for President-elect Barack Obama to give the arts and humanities a Cabinet-level post -- perhaps even create a secretary of culture -- is gaining momentum. By yesterday, 76,000 people had signed an online petition, started by two New York musicians who were inspired by producer Quincy Jones. In a radio interview in November, Jones said the country needed a minister of culture, like France, Germany or Finland has. And he said he would "beg" Obama to establish the post. Listening in New York, Jaime Austria, a bass player with the New York City Opera, and Peter Weitzner,...

SNIP [" ... he (Obama) can be blackmailed internally and externally.]This cabinet, for example, is a shock. Robert Gates? What’s to say that the defense people didn’t sit down and say something along the lines of “play ball or else?” I don’t know for sure, nobody but those in the room knows for sure, but you can’t tell me that people aren’t aware of this. This cabinet really isn’t a cabinet of change. What’s to say that what we’re seeing is not internal blackmail? Obama has been vetted, people have found out the truth, and this is what could be...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President-elect Barack Obama, starting his new life in Washington, faced Sunday the first major embarrassment over his cabinet lineup as his choice for commerce secretary was forced to pull out. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said he was withdrawing his name from contention for the economic job owing to an investigation into a financial company doing business with his state. Richardson's withdrawal came as Obama left Chicago to join his family in Washington and begin the final countdown before his inauguration as president on January 20. After winning plaudits for a smooth transition process thus far, Obama...

The claim is that an investigation into a company doing business with the state has complicated his appointment. He claims he has done nothing wrong. Of course he does.

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are disappointed President-elect Obama did not appoint more African-Americans to his Cabinet. Obama tapped four blacks for Cabinet posts, including Eric Holder. If confirmed, Holder will be the first African-American attorney general. But Obama passed over black candidates in selecting Cabinet nominees for positions central to setting policy for urban America, such as the departments of Education, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development. Hispanic Americans, by contrast, have been nominated for three Cabinet positions, and politicians from that constituency have hailed Obama’s nominations. “Did the African-American community probably expect more appointees at...

"The amen corner has led the applause for Mr. Obama's appointments, one by one. Each is a genius, an inspired choice, a pick for the ages, possibly the greatest public servant in history. Maybe it's time to watch more closely. The president-elect has chosen his science, energy and environmental chiefs, and a sense of unease begins to erupt. It appears that Mr. Obama has consumed the global-warming Kool-Aid, and asked for seconds. Still, the mainstream media is in applause mode. After all, these people have letters after their names. But John Tierney, one of the few cautious dissidents writing opinion...

According to the Obama-mania press, Obama is surrounding himself with a bi-partisan cabinet full of intellectual giants with a hundred years in collective expertise unlike any other in human history. What cabinet selections are they looking at? The selections I'm looking at seem more like a third Clinton administration full of the same old Clinton cronies from the 1990s, plus a few token political hacks that made the election of the most unlikely leader in U.S. history possible. Political debts are often repaid by way of political appointments and Democrats have clearly mastered the art. But what does this mean...

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) is in discussions with the Obama administration to take a Cabinet-level post — most likely secretary of the Department of Transportation, according to knowledgeable GOP sources. When reached on his cell phone, LaHood said only that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), President-elect Obama’s incoming chief of staff, had contacted him last night. He would not discuss the details of the conversation. “It’s probably not a good idea to discuss this at this moment,” LaHood said. But one GOP source said that LaHood was engaged in talks with Emanuel about the Transportation secretary position, and the Obama transition...

Day by day, name by name, President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet is taking shape, and other top jobs are being filled. Here's a look at who has made the list and who is being talked about for jobs that are still open: Nominations Announced Treasury Secretary: Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York Secretary of State: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Attorney General: Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general Defense Secretary: Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary: Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz. National Security Adviser: Retired Marine Gen. James Jones Commerce Secretary: Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M....

Were conservatives wrong about Barack Obama? I know, I know. It is way too early to begin to assess Obama's administration and its policies. After all, the man does not really even have an administration yet and won't for over a month. Still, many conservatives are scratching their heads. Is Obama more moderate than we thought? Despite his liberal voting record, there were hints that Obama might not be as liberal as many conservatives feared. For instance, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos in May 2007, Obama conceded that his daughters should probably not benefit from affirmative action policies...

Looks like Chris Matthews is actually disappointed in Barack Obama, but only in the sense that he's worried Obama isn't moving to the left fast enough. Throughout Monday night's "Hardball," after reciting recent appointments like Robert Gates, Jim Jones and yes even Hillary Clinton, Matthews repeatedly asked his guests questions like: "What happened to the victory of change, and I hate to use the phrase, the Left? Who won this election?" and "Why do we have no lefties in this cabinet?" Matthews even invited on two "lefties," Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America and David Corn of The Nation,...

There’s a great invention they have these days in schools: Interim report cards. Intended to provide an opportunity for intervention, interims in our case serve mostly as a heads-up to start saving the money for the usual bribes for A’s, which is all kids seem to get anymore anyway. Seems like, as the bottom falls out of the economy, grades are the only place we need to worry about inflation these days. I mean, who ever heard of a 4.3 on a 4.0 scale? At least in Lake Woebegone, all the children were only above average. In our schools, large...

If John Kerry was hoping to be part of President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet, he'll almost certainly have to settle for the consolation prize: a powerful chairmanship in the U.S. Senate. The Massachusetts senator, who endorsed Obama early in the presidential campaign, was left out of the mix Monday when the president-elect announced his national security team, giving shape to two-thirds of his cabinet. Kerry -- who ran for president in 2004 and lost by 34 electoral votes -- made Obama the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention that year, helping make Obama, who was running for Senate in Illinois,...

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be named President-elect Barack Obama's Commerce Secretary at a Chicago press conference tomorrow. Richardson will become the first Hispanic named to Obama's cabinet. It will be Richardson's third go round in a presidential cabinet. The 61-year old was both United Nations ambassador and Energy Secretary during the Clinton administration.

So far, President-elect Obama is looking pretty good. His finance advisers could have been picked by Mr. McCain. They can hardly do worse than Dirty Hank and the downhill gang.I really like his foreign policy team. Retired USMC General James Jones is an excellent selection for National Security Advisor. I was so sure he'd pick some lefty civilian pointy head for that job. And Hillary heading up state. If you were Putin, Chavez or even our friend Merkel, how would you like staring that woman down? Scary thought, isn't it? Plus, her foreign policy has never been liberal; it has...

This just caught my eye, and though I’ll take whatever little politically incorrect hits may come my way for elevating it further, my comments are really meant as a defense of short people. More . . .

President-elect Barack Obama stands with his national security team nominees Eric Holder (Attorney General), Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security), Robert Gates (continuing as Secretary of Defense) and Vice President-elect Joe Biden during a news conference in Chicago, December 1, 2008 Vice President-elect Joe Biden congratulates Defense Secretary Robert Gates as President-elect Barack Obama, not pictured, speaks at a news conference in Chicago, Monday, Dec. 1, 2008. Homeland Security Secretary-designate, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Vice President-elect Joe Biden; Secretary of State-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; National Security Adviser-designate Ret. Marine Gen. James Jones; United Nations...

Neither President-elect Barack Obama nor Secretary of State-select Hillary Clinton ended up taking a knee on the political field today. With him naming her the country’s top diplomat, they went from opposing sides to one team -- his, with her firmly by his side. His decision to place his fiercest rival beside

OBAMA ANNOUNCING NAMES FOR HIS CABINET LIVE ON THE RADIO NOW. HILLARY SPEAKING FIRST AND ANNOUNCING HER DEPARTURE FROM THE SENATE

The chasm between those who want President-elect Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to verify his eligibility to hold the nation's highest office and those who simply support the Democrat is widening. "The Constitution means what we today decide it means," opined one participant on a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on the birth certificate dispute.

One wants to ask the Wall Street wizards who comprise the talent pool for the incoming administration, "If you so smart, how come you ain't rich no more?" [snip] Shares of Citibank, the current firm of Bill Clinton's treasury secretary Robert Rubin, last week traded at less than a tenth of their year-earlier market price and may require yet another federal bailout. [Citigroup will have more than $300 billion of troubled mortgages and other assets guaranteed by the US government under a federal plan to stabilize the lender after its stock fell 60% last week, Bloomberg reported today, November 24....