Roland's Race Card

Ta-Neshisi Coates on the Roland Burris/Bobby Rush "racing" for Obama's Senate seat.

Enemy Combatants

Judge Leon has ruled that the gov't can hold 2 Gitmo detainees as "enemy combatants" - including the alleged driver/bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled on Tuesday that two Guantanam Bay detainees — nationals of Yemen and Tunisia — must remain prisoners of the U.S. military, finding that the government has proved that each is an “enemy combatant.” In the most significant of the two separate rulings, the judge concluded that the government does not have to prove that a detainee uses arms against U.S. forces or against forces of its coalition partners, in order to fit the judge’s definition of an enemy associated with Al Qaeda or Taliban.

Bush Reads!

.... a LOT it turns out. (via Auntie) Karl Rove writes in the WSJ about how voracious a reader our President is. Although he has great taste (and read a lot of books I'd like to read) I wonder how much governing you can do when you read more than a book a week ... I guess a genius could do both - but we know the answer to that.

Maybe W. and Sarah Palin should have a reading contest.

Russian Bailouts

(via Megan McCardle) Gazprom, Russia's state-run oil company, is now looking for a bailout. At least the recession hurts our "enemies" as well.

State Cuts

Read your Krugman. When I was in Chicago the snow-removal was atrocious. A lot of stock market loss can be theoretical to ordinary folks, but public works cuts affects everyone.

Year in Review

(via Ranger) Dave Barry has a funny syndicated article Sunday going through all the craziness of 2008. It's pretty funny:

How weird a year was it? Here's how weird:

O.J. actually got convicted of something.

Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times.

On several occasions, "Saturday Night Live" was funny.

There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury secretary would be Joe the Plumber.

Jim Carrey's Philosphy

An interesting article in the Atlantic on how Jim Carrey's acting is a showcase of existential philosophy. Make sure to check the video commentary too. It's an interesting thesis - and I think he's quite right.

Carrey is the single performer at his level who seems as though he’d be as happy in a Samuel Beckett play as in a summer blockbuster. Beckett would have dug him, I think—the wintry Irishman liked his clowns, the more existential the better

Ed Sec

E. J. does a nice op-ed on Arne Duncan, the new Education Secretary.

On a side note - the only pick I'm not real happy about so far is Tom Vilsak at Agriculture. I'm a big fan of Ag and Food reform, and I don't think that's going to come from Iowa.

De-Bunk Supply-Side

(via VH1) A great little post showing how dishonest supply-side economics and the "cut taxes and tax revenue will grow" idea is.

Man of the Year

Time named Obama "Man of the Year" (no surprise) - but these pictures from a freshman year photo shoot he did for a student's portfolio are pretty cool.

The Other Fitz

Yglesias reminded me that it was Sen. Fitzgerald (usually considered a flop of a Senator) who picked Patrick Fitzgerald as the US Attorney. And because Sen. Fitzgerald wasn't popular with his own party, and ended up not running - and sort of didn't care - he ended up picking a really good prosecutor instead of using the power to get a patronage pick. That's another reason why IL has so many public figures fall - because there's a good non-partisian US Attorney on the job.

Thoughts on Torture

Ross has a post on his mixed feelings about the Administration's torture "policy" - and I think it's a really honest piece.

But anyone who felt the way I felt after 9/11 has to reckon with the fact that what was done in our name was, in some sense, done for us - not with our knowledge, exactly, but arguably with our blessing. I didn't get what I wanted from this administration, but I think you could say with some justification that I got what I asked for. And that awareness undergirds - to return to where I began this rambling post - the mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt that I bring to the current debate over what the Bush Administration has done and failed to do, and how its members should be judged.

Plus, it's the first time I've heard the term Jus In Bello since college.

Another Senate Appointment

Salon speculates on who will take Salazar's seat.

Toon

The Illinois Whipping Boy

Great Read: Check out Frank Rich's perspective. I'd have to agree. Blago will get what he deserves - but a whole lot of others won't.

(p.s. - did you know Blago calls his Paul Mitchell comb the "football" and it's with his handlers at all times? Also, he hired R. Kelly's defense lawyer). Ok, back to the NYT:

Our next president, like his predecessor, is promising “a new era of responsibility and accountability.” We must hope he means it. Meanwhile, we have the governor he leaves behind in Illinois to serve as our national whipping boy, the one betrayer of the public trust who could actually end up paying for his behavior. The surveillance tapes of Blagojevich are so fabulous it seems a tragedy we don’t have similar audio records of the bigger fish who have wrecked the country. But in these hard times we’ll take what we can get.

Matthew, Mark, Luke .... and DUCK!

Man - that Iraqi sure is good at throwing shoes ... and to Bush's credit, he's pretty dodgy! Video is here.

Are Bribes Tax-Deductable?

From Jeffery Toobin's post in the New Yorker:

Otto Kerner, Jr., is usually remembered, if he is at all, as the leader of the Kerner Commission, in 1968, which evaluated the riots and other unrest that was then rocking American cities. He was governor of Illinois at the time, and went on to serve as a federal appeals court judge, but his later claim to fame may be of greater historical note. In 1969, he was charged in a corruption case where he and a subordinate received bribes from a racetrack owner in return for an expanded racing schedule. That particular scandal came to light because the owner tried to deduct the value of the bribes on her taxes. Paying bribes to the governor was, in her view, an ordinary business expense in Illinois in the late nineteen-sixties.

Endangered Species Axe

The Administration issued some new regulations changing the "formal consultation" requirements under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. It has to do with polar bears and global warming ... they're big issues and EPA doesn't want to deal with them, so they're essentially allowing Agencies to just come to their own decision about whether a species will be affected by the proposed agency action.

The Cutting Room Floor

(via Sullivan) Here are some Obama logos that didn't make the cut.

The "Other" American Auto Industry

Fred Barnes has a really good article in the Weekly Standard on "transplant" auto makers. The success of foreign auto makers with plants in non-union southern states has been a quiet sub-plot in the auto bailout politics. The reason the Big Three stick together instead of let the others fail is because of "supply shock" - what's good for one is good for all. However, (I gather) foreign car makers must have their own supply lines which allow them to avoid any supply shock and kept them quiet throughout the whole bailout business. And the reason Shelby, Corker and all the other southern Senators are against the bailout is because their states have successfully attracted foreign car manufacturers. Part of the reason the Dems don't want Detroit to go bankrupt is because "restructuring" is usually a death knell for unions.

So - here are the real questions: is it important to have (1) an American name on the hood of a car (2) what constitutes a "good" job. First, as far as the economy goes, it doesn't really matter whether the plant is making Fords or KIA's as long as it's providing jobs and boosting the economy. Although the may make Nissans in Tennessee, I doubt you'll see George Strait driving a Pathfinder through Nashville. So I think we can agree that an American brand has mostly nastolgic value at this point. Second. if these southern plants are giving people "good jobs" then whether they're unionized shouldn't matter. This part is somewhat unexplored (or unknown to me). I thought the Big 3 paid $27/hr - while the transplants offered $23. Now, Barnes says it's upwards of $45/hr (which could still be partially b/c they have to out-do the UAW). Also, I wonder how the benefits are and how the working conditions are. I have heard that the transplants are better at making their workers happy, so maybe there's less of a need for the unions. Or maybe since they're in "right to work" states the problems are below the surface. But all told, the BIG reason Detroit is in a fix is because they gave good healthcare to their workers - and they have thousands of "legacy" retirees to pay for. Nissan's only been in the U.S. for 10 years, so they don't have any career employees retiring. So I wonder how good the transplant benefits are. Still - all told - this shows again how the lack of universal health care can place HUGE competititve burdens on some companies - to the extent that a famous brand like Ford could disappear.

Sorry for the ramble, I just wish we could discuss the real issues out in the open. Is it important for America to still build Ford's and Chevy's? And can you still get a good job with good benefits without a union. I think they way you answer these questions largely determines where you are on the bailout.

Che

NYT Mag has a quick review of "Che" staring Benicio Del Toro. I don't know much about Che, and it sounds like the movie is worth watching (if only for the historical accuracy it offers instead of reading an entire bio), but not necessarily a tour de force.

The trailer is here.

Also, I couldn't help but think while I was reading it that the Medeillan storyline in Entourage was knocking off "Che".

The Art of Distancing

A good Post article on how Obama avoided Blago at all costs. I can only think that if the "guilt by association" didn't work with Ayers and Wright - Obama's going to come through this fine. Especially since most people have been avoiding Blago like the plague for some time.

"Obama saw this coming, and he was very cautious about not having dealings with the governor for quite some time," said Abner Mikva, a former congressman and appeals court judge who was Obama's political mentor in Chicago. "The governor was perhaps the only American public officeholder who didn't speak at the convention, and that wasn't by accident. He's politically poisonous. You don't get through Chicago like Barack Obama did unless you know how to avoid people like that."

More Detroit Problems

Looks like the Detroit Free Press is going to substantially cut back on home delivery. . . more bad news for the "fish wrapping" industry.

3 Came In - Only 2 Walked Out

Ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer has an interesting idea posted in Slate on how to do the bailout right. He thinks that the government should put up the $25M - but only give it to two! Make the 3 compete for the funds and the Feds will pick the 2 plans that look the best. Intriguing.

Why don't we tell the current Big Three that $25 billion in capital is available—but only to two of them? The surviving two will be those that submit the best, and final, binding bids, supported by all the necessary constituencies: boards, managers, suppliers, vendors, creditors, and the UAW. The plans that are the best, as judged by a panel of private- and public-sector figures—Jack Welch, Warren Buffet, or Felix Rohatyn, plus Office of Management and Budget and Congressional Budget Office officials—are the plans that will get funded. The measures they will be judged by will be announced ahead of time and will be a combination of retained/gained market share, return on capital, jobs retained, and mileage and environmental efficiency gains. The company with the least impressive plan will be denied funding.

New Cabinet Appointments

From the Page. Steven Chu, from Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Lab as Energy Secretary and Gov. Corzine CoS Lisa Jackson as EPA director.

Bio's here. . . An asian, a black, a latina and a lesbian.