Obama Aides Signal Deeper Cuts in Taxes and Spending  —  WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has signaled that he will pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail — a plan “big enough to deal with the huge problem we face …

Progressive complaints about Obama's appointments  —  (updated below)  —  I've been genuinely mystified by the disappointment and surprise being expressed by many liberals over the fact that Obama's most significant appointments thus far are composed of pure Beltway establishment figures drawn …

We Found the W.M.D.  —  So, I have a confession and a suggestion.  The confession: I go into restaurants these days, look around at the tables often still crowded with young people, and I have this urge to go from table to table and say: “You don't know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn't be here.

“Screw it.  Ah'm off the wagon an' lovin' it.”  —  While attending APEC in Lima, Bush partakes of a traditional Peruvian drink known as a “Pisco Sour” (leave your puns in comments).  The ingredients? … And it shows:  —  “You Orientals tickle!”  —  REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Obama names communications staff  —  President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday announced that Robert Gibbs would be his White House press secretary and Ellen Moran would serve as director of communications.  —  Gibbs, a long-time aide, was long believed to become the public face of the Obama White House.

Rahm Emanuel: Saturday Night Live  —  They don't have Sarah Palin to kick around any more.  —  So the good-humored folks at Saturday Night Live, who rode a wave of Palinoia to record ratings this fall, have turned their lens on the White House-in-waiting.  —  That's Rahm Emanuel …

Ah!  Joy Of A Large Airplane Seat...  I feel uncomfortable/cramped in the economy class seats while travelling by air.  I have always wondered how those who enjoy a larger girth than mine manage to squeeze into the narrow seats.  —  So it is heartening to hear that the Supreme Court of Canada …

George Will: 'The First New Deal Didn't Work'  —  Economists on both the left and right broadly agree that the need for stimulative government spending is necessary to prevent a further collapse of the global economic system — just as the New Deal and the deficit spending of World War II restored …

Irony Is Dead.  Again.  Yeah, Right.  —  CAN THIS NATION BE SAVED?  —  PITY poor irony.  Declared dead after 9/11, it staged a strong rally beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner, only to find itself in mortal danger once again.  —  Its ill health was noted by, among others …

Why all those Great Depression analogies are wrong.  —  It's difficult to avoid the comparisons between the current sad state of financial affairs and the Great Depression.  “This is not like 1987 or 1998 or 2001,” Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain said at a conference on Nov. 11.

Sunday Reflection: Have We Changed Yet?  —  I spent several years of the Clinton administration writing about one scandal or controversy after another.  —  There was, of course, the Whitewater affair and the fight over the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr.  There was the Lewinsky matter.

RANGEL DOUBLE-DEAL$  —  REAPED DC HOME PERK WHILE BENDING APPLE RENTAL RULES  —  Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel took a “homestead” tax break on a Washington, DC, house for years while simultaneously occupying multiple rent-stabilized apartments in New York City, possibly violating laws and regulations in both cases.

Green Obama's official limo is a gas guzzler  —  On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to get a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015.  His own new presidential limousine will be far from green, however.  —  The Obamobile being prepared for the president-elect …

Richardson at Commerce, Summers as economic adviser  —  Democratic sources report two major decisions by President-elect Obama: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) will be named secretary of Commerce, subject to final vetting.  And Lawrence Summers, Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, will be White House economic adviser.