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Barack Obama sent a message with the selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, but apparently didn’t think enough people understood it.  He sent a stronger message yesterday with his choice of Leon Panetta for Director of CIA, and this time, it’s unmistakable.  Political considerations will trump competence and experience, even in the most critical roles Obama has to fill: President-elect Barack Obama stunned the national intelligence community by selecting Clinton White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta, a longtime Washington insider with little intelligence experience, to serve as the next head of the CIA.The decision —...

President-elect Barack Obama is bringing back yet another Clinton retread. While many question former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as the best choice to head up the CIA, due to his lack of experience in the world of intelligence, the Washington Post's David Ignatius has nothing but praise for Obama's pick.(my emphasis throughout:) Here's the message, according to Obama's advisers: Panetta is a Washington heavyweight with the political clout to protect the agency and help it rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pincushion. "Leon is not going...

WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA. Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq. The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity. Al Qaeda...

When President-Elect Obama nominated Tom Daschle to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services, he proclaimed the former Senate Majority Leader: "one of America's foremost health care experts." Obama stated Daschle will be the "lead architect" of the administration's health care plan. As a nurse, I am always concerned when the government announces it has plans for our health care, so I decided to investigate Mr. Daschle's ideas. I read his book Critical: What We Can Do about the Health-Care Crisis. Senator Daschle wrote his book with 2 other experts, Scott S. Greenberger and Jeanne M. Lambrew. According to...

Washington, DC -- Members of Congress will cast their first vote related to incoming president Barack Obama's pro-abortion agenda on Thursday. A Senate committee will vote on confirming pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as Obama's Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

For Barack Obama, that is - but perhaps not necessarily for America. I don't know many people who are thrilled with Obama's pick of Leon Panetta to head the CIA. The guy has less experience working in intelligence than our own Washington correspondent Jamie Dupree. Of course I strongly suspect that Dupree is actually working under cover as a journalist. You should see the armament he carries. Anyway ...... One of the first to really speak up was Dianne Feinstein. She got her feelings hurt that Obama didn't consult her before making the selection. Well, she's right. You do talk...

Washington, DC -- Incoming president Barack Obama appears to be expanding on the steady stream of abortion advocates he is appointing to top administration posts. His latest choice appears to be pro-abortion CNN medical reporter Sanjay Gupta to become the next Surgeon General. Although Gupta spends most of his time reporting rather than opining on the topics of the day, he appears to favor abortions.

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.

While Kevin Martin closes out his final major tour of the U.S. like a diva, the future FCC is getting closer to becoming a reality. The first FCC commissioner to leave was Deborah Taylor Tate who resigned December 30th. I hope Martin is lining up his next job because he will be replaced as FCC Chairman and the betting is that Obama Harvard bud Julius Genachowski will get the nod. That leaves Commissioners Copps and Edelstein, the highly regarded commonsense and caring commissioners who think like Obama people - about delivering competitive voice and broadband options to all Americans. Copps...

Leon Panetta, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA, could be "a fabulous choice" to lead the agency or a nominee who is inexperienced with intelligence matters and will have a chilling effect on the agency, according to top former CIA officials.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to nominate Retired Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, according to media reports Monday

If anyone needed more proof that Democrats are children who truly don’t understand how the world works, the selection of lifelong party hack Leon Panetta as the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency should blow away all doubt. Barack Obama indicated he picked Panetta because he is thought of as a good manager who understands government bureaucracy. The unspoken “attributes” Panetta brings are his naïve objections to the methods of modern spying and counter intelligence operations. His pronouncement that America “must not use torture under any circumstances” elevates his selection from stupid to dangerous. To a Democrat lawyer who...

Credible buzz is that William J. Lynn, a top Pentagon official in the Clinton administration and more recently senior vice president of government operations and strategy at Raytheon, is the pick to be deputy secretary of defense.

SEATTLE -- Gov. Chris Gregoire has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday morning that's shrouded in secrecy, but KIRO 7 Eyewitness News has learned that she will not announce that she's joining the Obama Administration. The governor's office said Monday that Gregoire is out of state. She canceled an Olympia speaking engagement set for Tuesday, and she will make an announcement Tuesday at 10 a.m. via satellite to local reporters. A number of bloggers speculated the governor would be named as president-elect Obama's Commerce Secretary after New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson withdrew from the running. An Obama spokesman, Robert Gibbs,...

Sixteen appointees and advisers helping president-elect Barack Obama's Justice Department transition efforts all recently sat on the board of an organization little known outside legal circles: The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. The liberal legal network, which blossomed during eight years of Democratic exile, counts as its veterans Obama’s choice for attorney general, Eric Holder: Vice President-elect Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain; and future White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown. Seven other recent board members are advising the incoming administration on legal, education, and labor-related issues. Theresa Wynn Roseborough is rumored to be a top candidate...

For eight years, the president of the United States — the ex-officio socialite in chief — has turned up his nose at the slightest whiff of social aspiration. Now a new generation of Washington socialites has a dream. They see a dashing, young, brilliant president and his equally brilliant wife ushering in an era of inclusive entertaining. Gone is the white-gloved, debutante-loving, Pilgrim-pedigreed culture that still mattered in Kennedy’s Camelot and Reagan’s Hollywood East. Starting Jan. 20, when President Barack Obama and Michelle move into the White House, the “in crowd” will include just about everyone who, since the dawn...

Democratic political strategist James Carville predicts the Democratic Party -- already burdened by the Gov. Rod Blagojevich scandal -- will suffer more embarrassing scandals in 2009. Carville, who made his political predictions for CNN.com, said the reason is based on simple math: More Democrats in elected office increases the likelihood of scandal. "I firmly believe that there are streaks, and that political scandals happen in clusters," Carville said. "The Republican Party had its fair share of scandal and charges of deeply imbedded corruption preceding the 2006 election and leading up to the 2008 elections. "It doesn't hurt to point out...

In a meeting last month with the Barack Obama’s transition staff, representatives of the nation’s top prosecutors caught a glimpse of the president-elect’s thinking on the politically fraught issue of what to do with the the current 93 U.S. attorneys. “[The president-elect] is going to be smart and be cautious. My gut feeling is it won’t be like it was in 1993,” said U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of Texas’ Western District, a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys. On Dec. 11, Sutton and 15 other members of the committee met with Obama’s DOJ transition chief, David...

With a Democratic president soon taking office and a larger Democratic majority in the Senate, it's likely the use of pro forma sessions to prevent Executive Branch action will cease. The Senate has been meeting in pro forma sessions every fourth day for the past couple years as part of a tug-of-war with President Bush. "Pro forma" is Latin for "a formality," and in Senate parlance, "pro forma sessions" are a way the Senate can legally meet without really doing anything. No legislative business is allowed. They don't vote. They don't speechify. It's just gavel in, gavel out. Abandoning pro...

The Joint BioEnergy Institute, which encompasses the fourth floor of a high-technology office building here in a neighborhood of biotechnology companies, radiates a sleek ecological modernity: floorboards manufactured of recycled materials and laminated to look like bamboo, trendy office furniture and laboratories stocked with new equipment. It even has a hip nickname: Jay-Bay. That is how everyone pronounces JBEI. The institute has the look and feel -- and organizational chart -- of a start-up venture, not a federal research laboratory. But JBEI is financed by the Energy Department -- $135 million over five years. And JBEI is under the purview...

The Chicago Public Schools, whose superintendent, Arne Duncan, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next education secretary, failed to meet the Illinois state standards set under the No Child Left Behind Act every single year the standards have been in force. For the last five school years (2004-2008), the Chicago district (District 299) failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) in key areas, according to the district’s progress report on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site. Under the No Child Left Behind Act that Congress passed in 2003, each state must “develop and implement...

Feminists were devastated by Senator Barack Obama’s final Cabinet selections. Although Obama has not reversed any of his policy positions, he has committed a major crime in their eyes. He selected five women for his twenty Cabinet positions. This is not enough for them. That he chose one-fourth of his Cabinet positions to be filled by women instead of one-half is the problem. Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), is not happy. In a December 22nd CNN article she said, “When you are looking at a Cabinet and you have such a small number of women...

Barack Obama wasn't kidding about the audacity of hope. In tapping Republican Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood to head the Transportation Department last week, he got more Beltway hosannas for bipartisanship. At the same time he managed to choose one of the biggest spenders in Congress, of either party, and just the fellow to push $850 billion in "stimulus" out the door. As a long-time and stalwart Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. LaHood facilitated the incontinent spending that helped Republicans lose their majority in 2006. And he did so unapologetically, once telling a reporter for the Peoria Journal Star,...

Secret agendas have never been "Denny" Blair's style. The reserved former four-star admiral, who is widely understood to be President-elect Barack Obama's choice as director of national intelligence, is well known in Washington as an intellectual who values straightforwardness and has mastered the byzantine interagency process during his various government stints. Blair would be the third recently retired four-star officer nominated by Obama for a top post, an unusual trend for a Democratic administration and one that has surprised both political camps. Former Marine Gen. James L. Jones is the nominee for national security adviser, and former Army chief of...

CPS to close at least 20 schoolsProduced by Linda Lutton on Monday, December 22, 2008 The Chicago Public School district is planning on shutting down at least 20 schools. A group of Chicago teachers is calling for a moratorium on school closings. School closings have become an annual ritual in Chicago. District spokesman David Pickens: PICKENS: In schools that are performing poorly, we feel we have an obligation to do something dramatic to turn those schools around. Last week, president elect Barack Obama praised schools chief Arne Duncan for his willingness to close struggling schools and start new ones in...

Targeting Obesity Alongside Hunger Obama Administration May Look to Tie Food Assistance to Improved Nutrition In many areas where lots of people receive aid, good, nutritious food can be scarce. The District's Ward 8 went nine years without a full-service grocer. By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 24, 2008; Page A02 The worsening economic crunch is causing the tab for food assistance programs to balloon, and with the rising costs has come an intensifying debate over whether -- and how -- the U.S. government can tackle simultaneously the paradoxically linked problems of hunger and obesity. The statistics...

With the announcement of his new energy-environmental team last week, President-elect Barack Obama has signaled a clear intention of pursuing policies that differ sharply from those of his predecessor. While some questions remain unresolved, one thing appears certain: His choice for secretary of energy, the highly respected Nobel laureate Steven Chu, is no fan of fossil fuels. Chu's statements and policy positions suggest that he favors a shift away from one of the nation's — and Houston's — most important and strategic industries. If that is the case, it might be wise to consider how realistic such a shift would...

Economic Policy: Christina Romer as CEA head is one of Barack Obama's most pleasantly surprising appointments. At last, a Democratic president will be advised by someone who understands that tax increases kill jobs.How often do you find liberal Democrats interested in hearing that tax increases bring forth "a large, rapid, and highly statistically significant negative effect on output"? Or in taking in the news that "tax increases have a large negative effect on investment"? Or that previous analyses in recent years of the impact of tax increases on consumption underplayed their economic damage and that a "new measure of fiscal...

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...

"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...

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday named a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist to science posts, signaling a change from Bush administration policies on global warming that were criticized for putting politics over science.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama underscored on Saturday his intent to push initiatives on climate change by naming John Holdren, an energy and climate specialist, as the new White House science adviser. Holdren is a Harvard University physicist who has focused on the causes and consequences of climate change and advocated policies aimed at sustainable development. He has also done extensive research on the dangers of nuclear weapons. Obama pledged to put a priority on encouraging scientific breakthroughs in areas such as alternative energy solutions and finding cures to diseases, as he announced the pick of Holdren and other...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US president-elect Barack Obama on Saturday signaled climate change and genetic research will be among his top priorities when he takes office as he named four key members of his administration. "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology," said Obama in a weekly radio address. Leading his list of nominees is John Holdren, who would become director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chairman of the president's Council of Advisors on Science...

President-elect Barack Obama wrapped up his Cabinet appointments Friday, meeting his ambitious holiday deadline by assembling a team full of outsize personalities with overlapping jurisdictions and nominees who are known more for pragmatism than for strong leanings on the issues they will oversee. In Chicago, the president-elect announced his picks to lead the Departments of Labor and Transportation, the Small Business Administration and the office of trade representative. The announcement of the labor nominee, Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., the daughter of a union family who has a strongly pro-labor voting record, came as a relief to some liberals who had...

Steven Chu is Obama's nominee for Energy Secretary.  Here's what he thinks about gas prices: In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work."Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September. The price of petrol in Europe right now is more than...

Imagine a school where GLBT students can walk down the hall without fear of being called names or even suffering physical assault; where unlike the majority of America’s schools, where fellow students, and sometimes teachers, hurl verbal harassment, queer youth are safe among others who understand them, because the school is designed for GLBT students to call their own. Arne Duncan, chief of Chicago’s school system, envisioned such a school for Chicago. If it had been approved, The Social Justice High School-Pride Campus school would have joined Harvey Milk High School in New York City as a haven for GLBT...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to the selection of Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration, Dan Stein, president of FAIR, issued the following statement: "President-elect Obama's selection of a labor secretary who has steadfastly opposed protecting American workers from the impact of millions of illegal aliens in our labor force is yet another blow to hard-working families who desperately need those jobs. Both in Congress and as a member of the California Legislature, Hilda Solis has vigorously opposed efforts to institute and enforce laws against employing illegal aliens. "If confirmed, Rep. Solis...

Only 17% of 8th Graders Can Read at Grade Level in Chicago Schools Overseen by Obama Education Secretary-Designee Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan smiles as President-elect Barack Obama announces his selection to be Education Secretary, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008, at the Dodge Renaissance Academy in Chicago.(CNSNews.com) – In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools – the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001. President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday tapped Duncan to become secretary of education in the upcoming administration. Duncan, hailed by Obama as a reformer,...

"I want to thank our mutual friend John Rogers, who's been a mentor and friend to me since I was 10-years-old. He gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school in the Southside of Chicago, and that has become a model for success in urban education."

New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to "special events" and "other domestic activities." The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense's "Defense Support of Civil Authorities" plan. Under the U.S. Constitution, soldiers inside the country essentially are tasked with the responsibility of quelling "insurrections" and repelling invasions as well as making sure each state has access to the republican form of government. But the new rules go far beyond that, essentially establishing...

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....

Chicago -- The firestorm surrounding Governor Blagojevich is putting some heat on Barack Obama’s transition team. Fox Chicago News has learned about possible conversations between a top Obama aide and the governor regarding the open senate seat. Craig Wall has the exclusive.

President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for his cabinet are crucial to our community, because the executive branch of government has far more to do with our everyday rights than do the judicial and legislative branches. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is a welcome friend for gays and lesbians worldwide. Given Clinton’s support of GLBT rights in the U.S. Senate, she can be expected to condemn practices in other countries that deny us basic human rights. International human rights deeply concern us all, and Clinton will bring practices in countries such as Iran, where people are hanged for being gay, to...

Among Liberals and Conservatives there is a certain amount of bafflement at Obama's cabinet appointments, which are being characterized as center-right. On the left there are clashing calls of "Give him a chance" and "What the hell is going on here", and some on the right are displaying idiotic glee at Gates remaining on the job and are even prepared to embrace Hillary Clinton, little understanding what any of it means. They don't get it because they are looking at Obama's appointments from an American political perspective. But Obama is not an American, and his political strategies are not what...

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy. Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama's Cabinet. "I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to...

Drudge Headline: Pentagon: Obama to fire majority of 600 Bush appointees..."While Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will stay in office in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration, other Bush administration political appointees will move on, a Pentagon spokesman said today."

According to the following thread, the DUmmies are visibly upset that the RW'ers on the SCOTUS will be allowed to overturn an election. These are the same people who scream President Bush trashed the Constitution in the WOT and that Obamalamadingdong, a "Constitutional Scholar" will right the ship. However, they themselves are more than willing to trash the same Constitution they say must be upheld with regards to the "Natural Born" issue. To them, the election is more important. Does anyone know of any drugs I could take that would allow me to think in such a convoluted way so...

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.