The Waxman Democrats  —  What the coup against Dingell means for business.  —  John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party.  The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came …

Sarah Palin Turkey Incident: Does TV Interview While Turkeys Are Slaughtered In The Background (VIDEO)  —  Some videos you just have to see to believe.  On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving.

Marine general may head National Security Council  —  President-elect Barack Obama is close to landing James L. Jones, the well-known retired Marine Corps general, as his national security adviser, sources said.  —  Jones is a former Marine Corps commandant and was head of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe …

EXCLUSIVE: Obama to delay repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'  —  Advisers see consensus building before lifting ban on gays  —  President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks …

No Way.  No How.  No Brennan.  —  Marc reports the Republican, former chief-of-staff for George Tenet (who authorized war crimes as CIA head), admirer of Dick Cheney, CEO of the company one of whose contract employees improperly accessed Obama's and McCain's passports, and defender of renditions and …

Obama's Once-Disciplined Team Springs Leaks During Transition  —  Rumors Disrupt Plan For Announcing Cabinet Nominees  —  Barack Obama was famously able to impose discipline and control over his presidential campaign, but it didn't take long for him to discover that running a transition is something quite different.

Obama Team Said to Explore ‘Prepack’ Auto Bankruptcy  —  Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) — President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team is exploring a swift, prepackaged bankruptcy for automakers as a possible solution to the industry's financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Al Franken's Minnesota  —  More postelection funny business.  —  Al Franken's campaign takes exception to our recent description of the curious goings-on in Minnesota's Senate vote count.  We're delighted to hear his growing vote total is all routine.  But who needs to worry about votes discovered …

e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right  —  PARIS (AFP) - It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.  —  A brainpower consortium led …

An Option for Clinton: Enhanced Senate Role  —  WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in the Senate are prepared to give Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton a still-undefined leadership role there if she does not become Barack Obama's secretary of state, Democratic officials close to the situation said Thursday.

The Insider's Crusade  —  Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day.  Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly.  Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton …

Why Guns Are Better Than Butter  —  In economic crises, watch out for government expansion.  —  “War is the health of the state,” wrote Randolph Bourne, horrified by World War I and its excesses.  And that phrase has been used by libertarians and opponents of state power ever since, as a reason why war is a bad idea.

Did Talk Radio Kill Conservatism? … And then a bit later...  Emphasis mine.  —  This might be the key passage of my interview with John Ziegler on Tuesday, for it is, in a nutshell, why conservatives don't win elections anymore.  It is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism …

End of the beginning?  —  The failure of Citigroup, which looks increasingly likely to happen in the near future, would mark the end of the beginning of the financial crisis.  Until now, the prevailing view has been that the crisis and recession will pass in a year or so, after which things will go back …

The Lame-Duck Economy  —  Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons.  In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the G.O.P.'s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence.

Friday eCommerce Interlude  —  I generally try not to go too far off-topic, but ... well, it's Friday, and I figured this might be of interest to you.  —  Below I have listed a series of prominent, politically-oriented websites, and compared them on their ability to retain traffic in the post-election environment.

Kansas City Gives Mayor's Helpmate the Heave-Ho From City Hall  —  Wife Was an Unpopular Office Volunteer; His Honor Is Suing to Get Her Back by His Side  —  KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Things haven't been the same around here since the City Council banished the mayor's wife from City Hall.

The Friday Line: Ten Republicans To Watch  —  The great thing about elections is that as soon as the last one ends, the next one begins.  —  Everywhere the Fix goes these days — and by everywhere we mean the office, Starbucks and the gym to play basketball — people want to know: Who's next?

THE HUMAN RIGHTS PRESIDENT.... Way back in 2004, in a piece that is no longer online, George W. Bush told New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, “No President has ever done more for human rights than I have.”  —  The president has said plenty of odd things over the years, but this has always struck me as one of his more unusual boasts.

Would-be appointees quizzed on guns  —  President-elect Barack Obama's transition team is asking potential appointees detailed questions about gun ownership, and firearms advocates aren't happy about it.  —  The National Rifle Association has denounced the move, which has already led …

Obama Drug Czar Pick: No Recovery from War on Drugs?  —  On paper, Jim Ramstad— who is rumored to be Obama's choice for drug czar— looks like the ideal man for the job .  He's a recovering alcoholic himself and a Congressman who championed legislation recently passed to provide equal insurance coverage …