It's 3:00 AM, Do You Know Where Your President Is?

Report: Bush Prepares Crisis Contingency Briefings for Obama

President George W. Bush's administration will brief president-elect Barack Obama and his team on more than a dozen contingency plans in case an international crisis breaks in the days after his inauguration, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The memorandums for the Obama administration cover several crisis scenarios including a North Korean nuclear explosion, a cyberattack on American computer systems, a terrorist strike on a U.S. facilities overseas, or an outbreak of instability in the Middle East, people briefed on them told the newspaper.

Each contingency planning goes beyond what other administrations have done and outlines options Obama can consider, they added.

"This is very unusual," Roger Cressey, a former Clinton White House counterterrorism official told the Times. "We certainly did not do that. When the transition happened from Clinton to Bush, remember it was a totally different world. You had some documents given that gave them a flavor of where things were at. But now you've got two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hot war against Al Qaeda."

Beyond terrorism, Obama could face an early international test on any number of fronts, as his running mate, Joe Biden, predicted on the campaign trail.

Beside the memorandums, the Bush administration has given crisis training to nearly 100 government officials who may stay on after the inauguration while political appointees await Senate confirmation, the paper said.

The plans were reportedly recommended by the commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The commission noted problems during the hand over from former president Bill Clinton to Bush, and in its report on the attacks called for a better handover process "since a catastrophic attack could occur with little or no notice."

Read the full report at The New York Times.

Fox News
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So, Will the Barney Frank Sr. High Fighting Flamingos Be a 4-A School?

Obama’s New School Chief Supported Creating Gay High School in Chicago

So, how often do you think that the Old Media will mention that Barack Obama’s choice for Secretary of Education, Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, supported to be opened in Chicago a gay, lesbian and transgender high school? Any takers?




I have looked over many of the stories on Obama’s pick for Sec of Ed, but seen mention of his support of the gay high school only a few times. Only three stories mentioned it out of the first 20 I checked. Even the Wall Street Journal didn’t mention it in their announcement of the Obama pick.


Of that gay-friendly school, Duncan was quoted by Chicago land news outlets in October.

“If you look at national studies, you see gay and lesbian students with high dropout rates…Studies show they are disproportionately homeless,” Duncan said. “I think there is a niche there we need to fill.”

One wonders if Duncan will bring this proposal with him to Washington D.C. and attempt to force school systems all across the country to start up their own gay, lesbian and transgender schools?

From Redstate.com.


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Dr. Who?

Why does Joe Biden refer to Barak Obama as "Mr. President"?

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At Least The Democrats Wouldn't Nominate Anyone Inexperienced, Ya Know, Like a Palin...

Caroline Kennedy to Seek Clinton’s Senate Seat
The New York Times reports here.

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The Obama administration may be like JFK's "Camelot" after all...

Russian warships head for Cuba

Russia said on Monday it was sending a group of warships to Soviet-era ally Cuba in its latest defiant naval move around US waters, part of a drive to revive old Cold War ties with Latin America.

The warships will visit Havana on December 19-23, the navy said, continuing a tour that has already taken in US foes Venezuela and Nicaragua and seen the ships pass through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II.

"This will be the first visit to Cuba by Russian warships since the Soviet era," the Russian naval headquarters said in a statement.

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two other ships already held exercises with Venezuela's navy in the Caribbean Sea last month.

The naval manoeuvres close to US waters are seen as a riposte to Washington's own moves in Russia's Soviet-era sphere of influence, including in the Black Sea.

US officials have said they see no military threat from Russia's naval manoeuvres but continue to keep a close eye on the situation.

The naval visit to Cuba, scene of a dramatic 1962 stand-off between Moscow and Washington over nuclear missiles, comes as tensions over US missile defence plans in eastern Europe have prompted talk of a renewed Cold War among some analysts.


Last month Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a tour of Latin America where he visited Cuba and Venezuela and met former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, part of efforts to revive what he called "privileged relations" from Soviet times.

Last week he also received Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner, another Latin American critic of the United States.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega is to visit Moscow on Thursday, after he risked Washington's wrath this summer by following Russia in recognizing two Moscow-backed rebel regions of Georgia as independent.

The Russian moves in Central and Latin America follow heightened tensions over Russia's military onslaught in Georgia, a close US ally.

Russia strongly objected to US naval deployments off Georgia's Black Sea coast, accusing the United States of covertly rearming Georgia, a charge Washington denied.

On Monday the Russian navy avoided direct reference to the United States, saying that visits to Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela signified "long-term prospects for developing cooperation among these countries' navies in the interest of building stability and trust on the world's oceans."

During the Cuba visit, residents will be welcomed aboard the Russian ships and Russian officers will lay flowers at a memorial to Cuban campaigner for independence and critic of US expansionism Jose Marti, the navy said.

Last week the navy said it was sending ships from its Pacific Fleet to join ships from the Northern Fleet for exercises with India's navy and in parallel would continue anti-piracy operations off Somalia.

Despite the growing Russian assertiveness, defence experts have said Russia's navy remains severely weakened following years of post-Soviet neglect.

That impression was reinforced by the inadvertent fatal poisoning last month of 20 people aboard a Russian nuclear-powered submarine that was undergoing tests off the Pacific coast.







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I guess he doesn't want bitter cabinet members, clinging to their guns and religion...

From The Politico:
Barack Obama is 15 picks into his Cabinet — he announced New Yorker Shaun Donovan as his Housing and Urban Development head on Saturday—but has yet to name one who hails from the South.

"Not a one," grumbles a one senior Democratic aide who hails from the South. "Not even half of one, unless you count Hillary Clinton, and she doesn't count because she's not even an Arkansan anymore. She's a Yankee."

The full article can be found here.

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Just wait til the federal government runs our health care...

War veteran widows wrongly denied help

According to an Associated Press report on December 14, surviving spouses of war veterans have been wrongfully denied up to millions of dollars in government benefits over the past 12 years due to computer glitches that often resulted in money being seized from the elderly survivors' bank accounts.

The Veterans Affairs Department said Saturday it wasn't fully aware of the problem. It pledged to work quickly to give back the pension and disability checks — ranging from $100 to more than $2,500 — that hundreds of thousands of widows or widowers should have received during the month of their spouse's death.
"This problem must be fixed," said VA Secretary James Peake. The department indicated in an "action plan" provided to The Associated Press that up to millions of dollars in back payments could be given to the surviving spouses sometime after next February, once it can identify them.
To expedite matters, the VA said those who believe they were wrongfully denied payments can call its help line at 1-800-827-1000.
Congress passed a law in 1996 giving veterans' spouses the right to keep their partners' final month of benefits. It instructed the VA to make changes as needed to comply with the law, which took effect for spouses of veterans who died after Dec. 31, 1996.
But the VA never updated its automated computer systems, which send out checks and notification letters. As a result, widows or widowers were either denied the final month of payment or asked to send the checks back. In many cases, if the checks were already deposited or spent, the U.S. Treasury moved to seize the money directly from their accounts.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, confronted Peake about the problem in a letter last week after receiving a complaint from a widow. In response, Peake instructed the Veterans Benefits Administration to update its systems as quickly as possible to prevent future denials of benefits.
"This flawed practice has caused serious hardship for many widows," Akaka said Saturday. "Now that this problem has been brought to light, I trust that surviving spouses will receive the benefits they are due."
The VA has yet to identify the exact number of widows or widowers affected, but acknowledged Saturday it could be "sizable." Akaka's committee estimates that 50,000 surviving spouses each year since 1996 could be affected, based on VA numbers indicating more than 100,000 veterans die each year — some of whom may have been single or divorced — while receiving VA benefits.
Out of that 50,000, some spouses might have received the payments they were due if they called the VA at the time to inquire about their rights.
The disclosure comes as the VA is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI education benefits takes effect next August. Thousands of veterans currently also endure six-month waits for disability benefits, despite promises by Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to "fix the benefits bureaucracy" at the VA. Last week, he named Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff, to be the next VA secretary.

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Good thing Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. wasn't unionized...

Slate's Jacob Weisburg asks this week: Which State is More Crooked, Illinois or Louisiana?
Political Corruption Smackdown
By Jacob Weisberg

With the unmasking of Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a kleptocrat of Paraguayan proportion, Illinois now has a real chance—its first in more than a generation—to defeat Louisiana in the NCAA finals of American political corruption.


Illinois boasts some impressive stats. According to data collected by Dick Simpson, a political scientist at the University of Illinois, more than 1,000 public officials and business people from Illinois have been convicted in federal corruption cases since 1971. Of those, an astonishing 30 were Chicago aldermen; that's around 20 percent of those elected to the City Council during that period. If Blagojevich ultimately goes to prison, he will become the fourth out of the last eight governors to wear stripes, joining predecessors George Ryan (racketeering, conspiracy, obstruction), Dan Walker (bank fraud), and Otto Kerner (straight-up bribery). If he gets assigned to the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., Blagojevich could become the first governor to share a cell with a predecessor he defeated at the polls.

But don't count Louisiana out. According to statistics compiled by the Corporate Crime Reporter, it was No. 1 for the period between 1997 and 2006, with 326 federal corruption convictions. That's a rate of 7.67 per 100,000 residents. Illinois had 524 convictions in the same period, but with a larger population, its rate was only 4.68, which puts it an embarrassing sixth. And Louisiana can boast some impressive streaks. In 2001 Jim Brown became the third consecutive insurance commissioner to be convicted. New Orleans Rep. William Jefferson, who was just defeated for re-election, liked cold, hard cash so much he kept the bundles of bills supplied by a FBI sting operation in his freezer. His brother, sister, and niece recently joined him under indictment.

Illinois' corruption comes out of a tradition of patronage politics—not just the old Democratic machine in Chicago but also a Republican machine in the suburbs. Even as old-school politics have dwindled, however, Illinois scandals have retained their ward-boss flavor. They still tend to revolve around petty, methodical rake-offs from the quotidian operations of government—liquor licenses, elevator inspections, speeding tickets, and, above all, hiring.

The paradigmatic Illinois crook was the Paul Powell, who served as secretary of state in the 1960s. When Powell died, his executor found shoeboxes filled with $800,000 in cash (along with 49 cases of whiskey and two cases of creamed corn) in the Springfield hotel room where he lived. The money had been collected in $5 and $10 increments from applicants who wanted to make sure they passed their driving tests. Under the old Daley machine, city workers had to kick back around 5 percent of their salaries to the ward organization that guaranteed their jobs. When he insisted over a tapped phone line that "you don't just give it away for nothing," Blagojevich, the son-in-law of Alderman Richard Mell, was applying an old precept—though possibly for the first time at a senatorial level.

The Louisiana pathology is slightly different. Wayne Parent, a professor of political science at Louisiana State University, explains that with the discovery of oil and gas around 1912, politicians in the dirt-poor state suddenly controlled a gold mine in tax revenues. "They could spend this money virtually unsupervised," he says, "as long as they threw enough crumbs to the masses to satisfy them—direct, tangible goods like free textbooks and paved roads." This was the formula of populist governors Huey Long, his brother Earl Long, and Edwin Edwards. Louisiana politicians have always liked big bribes for big projects better than crooked little schemes. Edwards, for instance, is serving time for collecting a $400,000 gratuity in exchange for a casino license.

Illinois and Louisiana continue to have different styles of fraud—David Mamet vs. Walker Percy. Illinois' corruption culture tends to be mingy, pedestrian, and shameful. State legislators who sell their votes for $25 cash in an envelope (a scandal of the 1970s) do not tend toward braggadocio. When former House Speaker Dan Rostenkowski was caught filching postage stamps from the House post office, he pled guilty and apologized for his crimes (and was pardoned by Bill Clinton).

Louisiana's culture of corruption, by contrast, is flamboyant and shameless. Earl Long once said that Louisiana voters "don't want good government, they want good entertainment." He spent part of his last term in a mental hospital, where his wife had him committed after he took up with stripper Blaze Starr. When Sen. Allen Ellender died in office in 1972, Gov. Edwards didn't try to auction of his seat. He appointed his wife, Elaine, possibly to get her out of town. When Edwards ran for governor in 1983, he said of the incumbent, "If we don't get Dave Treen out of office, there won't be anything left to steal." (He also memorably said Treen was so slow it took him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.) Raised among figures like these, Louisianans tend to accept corruption as inevitable, to be somewhat proud of it, and to forgive it easily.

In recent years, however, Illinois and Louisiana seem to be copying each other. With Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patricia—Lady Macbeth of Milwaukee Avenue—Illinois' corruption has gone carnival. And since Katrina, Louisianans seem to have lost their zest for the big heist. There's been no sympathy for those caught siphoning disaster funds. It's going to be a close contest again this year, but I'm betting on the Fighting Illini to claim the national championship.


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Obama's Ag Challenge: Our Caves Runneth Over

With the government buying up excess milk supplies, Mother Nature's refrigerator -- actually a network of caves near Kansas City -- is overflowing with more than 1 billion pounds of dried milk stashed underground.

If the bags of dried milk were laid out end to end (and who doesn't enjoy being laid out end to end?), it would stretch 12,000 miles. Click here and scroll down for the painful details. Here is a news item from late last year -- from Wisconsin, of course, where cheeseheads track these things.
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"Hell, the next thing you know, they'll be questioning our safety standards..."

The Orlando Sentinal reports that NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told space transition team leader Lori Garver that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program.

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.

Chris Shank, NASA’s Chief of Strategic Communications, denied that Griffin is trying to keep information from the team, or that he is seeking a meeting with Obama. He also insisted that Griffin never argued with Garver.

“We are working extremely well with the transition team,” he said.

However, Shank acknowledged Griffin was concerned that the six-member team – all with space policy backgrounds – lack the engineering expertise to properly assess some of the information they have been given.

Garver refused comment about her conversation with Griffin -- and his remark that she is “not qualified” -- during a book-publication party at NASA headquarters last week. Obama’s Chicago office – which has sent similar transition teams to every federal agency – also had no comment.

People close to Garver, however, say that she has confirmed “unpleasant” exchanges with Griffin and other NASA officials. “Don’t worry, they have not beaten me down yet,” she e-mailed a colleague.

And this week, Garver told a meeting of aerospace representatives in Washington that “there will be change” to NASA policy and hinted that Obama would name a new administrator soon, according to participants.

Those who spoke for this article, including a member and staff in Congress, NASA employees, aerospace executives and consultants, spoke only on condition that their names not be used.

Garver’s team is one of dozens of review panels that over the last few weeks have descended on every government agency. Armed with tough questions, they are scrutinizing programs, scouring budgets and hunting for problems that may confront a new president.

Though their job is to smooth the transition between administrations, their arrival also brings a certain level of anxiety, particularly when programs face tough questions, as at NASA.

Said John Logsdon, a George Washington University professor who co-wrote the book honored at the NASA party, "There is a natural tension built into this situation... Mike is dead-on convinced that the current approach to the program is the right one. And Lori’s job is to question that for Mr. Obama. The Obama team is not going to walk in and take Mike’s word for it.”

Read the full articlehere.

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"And Then Mary and Joseph Were Cast Out from Eden..."

Obama Spiritual Advisor Criticizes US Nuking Japs At Start of World War II

Mark Hemingway at the National Review reports, "The esteemed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, preaching this past Sunday," declared as follows:


"Today! Is December 7! The day that this government killed! Over 80,000 . . . Japanese civilians, at Hiroshima in 1941. Two days before giving . . . an additional 64,000 Japanese civilians, at Nagasaki -- by dropping nuclear bombs on innocent people."




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Jackson, "Five"

Obama '08 National Co-Chair Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D. Ill.) Is ‘Candidate 5’ in Governor Bribery Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON and JACK HEALY, NYT
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities on Wednesday identified Democratic Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois as the potential United States Senate candidate who was portrayed in court papers made public Tuesday as being the most deeply enmeshed in the alleged scheme by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to benefit from his appointment of a new senator to the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Jackson staff members allegedly offered Blagojevich up to $1 million if the governor would appoint Jackson to the post vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama.

A lawyer for Mr. Jackson acknowledged that Mr. Jackson was the person identified as "Candidate 5" in the criminal complaint, but said that Mr. Jackson denied any wrongdoing and was not aware of anyone attempting to cut deals on his behalf.

The full article, from the NY Times, can be found here.


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Save the Last Stance for Me...

Appeals Court Rejects Craig's Attempt to Pull Back Guilty Plea in Sex Sting
By Ben Pershing
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 10, 2008; A03

A Minnesota appeals court yesterday rejected Sen. Larry E. Craig's latest effort to withdraw his guilty plea, 18 months after the Idaho Republican was arrested in a Minneapolis airport bathroom during an undercover sex sting.

Since pleading guilty in August 2007 to disorderly-conduct charges after allegedly trying to solicit sex from an undercover police officer in June of that year, Craig has tried to pull back that plea, arguing that his behavior was not illegal and that the police pressured him into the plea. The Hennepin County District Court denied Craig's petition in October 2007, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed that decision yesterday.

In his appeal, Craig argued that the district court fundamentally erred in its decision, that the state's disorderly-conduct statute was unconstitutionally broad and that his behavior in the airport bathroom stall should be considered legally protected speech. The court rejected those arguments.

"Appellant has not shown that the district court abused its discretion in denying his petition to withdraw his guilty plea, and neither he nor amici have shown that the disorderly conduct statute is unconstitutionally overbroad," wrote Edward Toussaint Jr., the appeals court's chief judge.

Toussaint added that even if Craig's actions in the stall were considered speech, they can be restricted because they invaded the "privacy interest" of a "captive audience" -- in this case, the undercover officer in the neighboring stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

In a statement released by his office, Craig, 63, said he was "extremely disappointed" by the ruling.

"I disagree with their conclusion and remain steadfast in my belief that nothing criminal or improper occurred at the Minneapolis airport," he said. "I maintain my innocence, and currently my attorneys and I are reviewing the decision and looking into the possibility of appealing" to the Minnesota Supreme Court, he added. The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a brief in support of Craig's appeal.

After initially vowing to stay in office, Craig bowed to pressure from his colleagues and pledged to resign from the Senate. Then he decided to stay in the chamber but not run for reelection this year. Jim Risch (R) won the contest to succeed Craig last month.

In February, the Senate ethics committee admonished Craig for his behavior, calling it "improper conduct which has reflected discreditably on the Senate."


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The Politics of Change

Governor of Illinois is indicted for trying to "sell" President-Elect Obama's Senate seat.
. . . may represent business as usual, as the Democratic Governor of Illinois is indicted for trying to "sell" President-Elect Obama's Senate seat. Although this action cannot be attributed to Mr. Obama, it shows how deep the currents of corruption run in the party that campaigned on a theme of bringing change to politics.


Full Article here.
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"I'm Not Dead Yet"

The Republican Comeback

Don’t look now, but the Republicans are making a comeback. For all the talk of an Obama political machine, and for all the arguments that the GOP is merely the party of “old white men,” it was the Republican Party that gained a House seat in Louisiana on Saturday.

Now admittedly, the Democrat who lost was the indicted William “$90,000 in the freezer” Jefferson. But Jefferson’s alleged corruption aside, it was still seen as a safe Democratic seat. And now, obviously, it’s not. Moreover, the Republican victor, Anh “Joseph” Cao, proves something hopeful about the Grand Old Party—that it can recruit bright new talent into its ranks.


Lousiana Republican Anh 'Joseph' Cao (AP)

Cao, 40, was one of the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese “boat people” who escaped the communist tyranny of his home country in the 70s. Which is to say, Cao epitomizes the American Dream, and he chose the Republican Party as the expression of that dream.

This is hardly the narrow Republican Party of liberal media stereotypes.

Now Rep. Cao will represent Louisiana, the same state where Republicans a year ago elected Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American, to the governorship. This is hardly the narrow Republican Party of liberal media stereotypes.

But not only is the GOP recruiting new and exciting candidates, but familiar faces are winning big, in spite of the supposed transformative sweep of the well-funded Obama-fied Democratic Party.

Last Tuesday, in Georgia, Republican Senate incumbent Saxby Chambliss—who had won a 3 percent plurality of the vote on November 4, but fell two-tenths of a percent shy of the needed 50 percent—earned a landslide 14-point victory in the runoff against his Democratic challenger. Chambliss’ 57:43 re-election, along with the pick-up in Louisiana, suggests that maybe the anti-George W. Bush wave of Election Day has already crested.

And it underscores the continuing Republican grip on the South. The South is not the whole country, to be sure, but it represents about a third of the population. In other words, it’s a strong base.

Yes, the Democrats have the White House and both chambers of Congress. But this is very much a two-party country, and statewide elections are coming up next year in New Jersey and Virginia. And then, of course, there’s 2010.

Stay tuned.

Fox News


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