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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.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, The BLT, Commentary, TIME.com, New York Times, Wonkette, PoliBlog (TM), Lost in Transition, Althouse and Truthdig
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Obama plans to name Clinton to State — President-elect Barack Obama is “on track” to name Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as his secretary of state shortly after Thanksgiving, two senior Obama aides said. — Financial disclosure issues have been worked out, aides said.


Obama plans to nominate Clinton for top diplomat — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Hullabaloo, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Reuters, Taylor Marsh, The Politico, www.redstate.com, NY Daily News and CNN


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.
Discussion:
The Hill


Attorney general collapses — Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed Thursday night while giving a speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, according to three senior administration officials. — Details about Mukasey's condition were not immediately available.
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Gov't: AG doing better after collapse
Discussion:
Washington Post, Reuters, Big Brass Blog, Gawker, The Impolitic, The Volokh Conspiracy and Greatscat!

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 …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Politico, Patterico's Pontifications, This ain't Hell … and Don Surber


Recount, Day 2: Coleman, Franken trade gains, losses — Today is Day 2 in the Minnesota recount of ballots in the overtime election struggle between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken. The candidates traded modest gains and losses throughout the day.
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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 …
Discussion:
This ain't Hell …


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 …

Obama's Cellphone Records Breached — Verizon Wireless disclosed late Thursday that several of its employees accessed and viewed President-elect Barack Obama's personal cellphone account, and said it planned to discipline workers for the privacy breach. — “We apologize to President-Elect …
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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.

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 …
Discussion:
Bark Bark Woof Woof

Goolsbee out at CEA? — I'm flabbergasted. If true, this is a bloody embarassment: … I take nothing away from Professor Rouse. But she's a labor economist with a heavy, heavy specialty in returns to education. Goolsbee, by contrast, focuses on taxation and capital formation.
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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 …


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 …

Eric Holder on firearms policy: Earlier this year, Eric Holder—along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice—co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller. The brief was filed in support of DC's ban on all handguns …


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.


Director's checks on ‘Joe’ called unfounded — Job and Family Services head suspended for a month — Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is standing by an agency director who OK'd improper computer checks for confidential information on “Joe the Plumber” and used state e-mails for political fundraising.

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.