Vice President-elect Joe Biden — offering one last defense of the institution he’s inhabited for three decades — conceded the Obama transition team made a “mistake” in not consulting the Senate before tapping Leon Panetta to head the CIA.
“I’m still a Senate man and I always think this way,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s always good to talk to the requisite members of Congress.”
On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the incoming chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was surprised by the pick and complained that she wasn’t consulted.
“I think it was just a mistake,” Biden said of the transition team’s failure to check in with Feinstein and outgoing Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), who was also miffed.
Betsy asks What happened to consultation? Betsy raises an important point, but the Dems have a long tradition of not consulting… at least with the electorate.
an ancient, leather-bound volume about six inches thick that a spokeswoman said has been in the family since 1893
and will be resigning his Senate seat in a few days so his chief of staff will take it. Any question of Joe resigning before the general election so the people could chose someone else? Of course not. Wouldn’t want to take any chances of the Dem party losing that seat.
In the state level, Jim McGreevy here in NJ resigned (in the most famous “Gay American” ruse in history) much too late for a different candidate to appear in the 2004 election ballot and named Dick Codey governor at the last moment . Then there’s Frank Lautenberg, who came back from retirement when Robert Torricelli had to quit because of corruption charges (imagine that!) in a last-minute ballot name change, so last-minute that the average - uninformed - guy on the street thought Lautenberg was running for reelection.
And at the local level, Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand resigned in December and was replaced by Bernie Miller, who was elected by the Township Committee and not the general election.
What happened to consultation? The Dems have long forgotten to consult with the electorate. It comes as no surprise that now they’ve forgotten to consult among themselves.
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday.
Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.
Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled “tractor parts,” Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey’s Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way.
“Experts from Turkey’s Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab,” Tosun said. “We have asked the military to send experts to determine whether to resume the shipment.”
Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.
…
Some Obama advisers privately suggest the president-elect might reach out to Chavez, proposing cooperation on a few issues of mutual interest — drug enforcement, energy, poverty — while asking Brazil and other neighbors to encourage the Venezuelan leader to negotiate in good faith in the interest of regional harmony.
The “mutual interests” are diametrically opposite when it comes to drug enforcement and energy, and Chavez is doing his darnest in keeping his people poor.
I GUESS UKRANIANS, and Europeans in general, would be applauded by the world’s intelligentsia if they started lobbing “homemade rockets” at, say, Belgorod, considering Russia’s strangling by cutting off a vital resource, gas, precisely during a severe cold wave across the continent, no?
Capgras Syndrome? That’s the delusion, named for the French shrink Jean Marie Joseph Capgras, that “a close relative or friend has been replaced by an impostor, an exact double, despite recognition of familiarity in appearance and behavior.” (See here for more.) How could Obama, who promised Change, assemble an administration virtually indistinguishable from that of Bill Clinton? How could he add insult to injury by asking Bob Gates, George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, to stay on? How could he pick Lawrence Summers as his top economic advisor? Didn’t Obama know that Summers had trespassed on one of the most sacrosanct of prohibitions by offering an independent thought touching on what David Stove called “the intellectual capacity of women”? How dare he?
Dozens of national-security and regional experts who worked intensively as volunteers on policy teams for the Obama campaign — writing talking points, doing debate prep, checking facts, following RUMINT, and rebutting opposition attacks — have grown anxious and quiet as they await word on what jobs they might (or might not) be offered in the new administration.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yielded to Republican threats and agreed on Monday not to immediately seat fellow Democrat Al Franken, whose razor-close victory in Minnesota faces legal challenges.
Senate Republicans had planned to disrupt the opening of the new Congress on Tuesday by blocking Franken’s swearing-in.
And in another ugly fight, Senate Democrats vowed to block, at least for now, the seating of fellow party member Roland Burris whose appointment by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich carries a whiff of political scandal.
TOULOUSE - ATTACKERS launched two cars packed with petrol bombs at a synagogue in France’s south-western city of Toulouse on Monday night, causing damage but no casualties, officials said.
One car was set on fire and pushed by the other until it hit the door of the synagogue, at a time when about a dozen people were attending a class with a rabbi. The building caught fire but all those inside escaped unharmed.
Police found unexploded petrol bombs inside the second car, which did not catch fire. They said they were investigating the attack and had not made any arrests.
…
In recent years, flare-ups between Israel and the Palestinians have been followed by acts of violence against Jewish people or buildings in France, which has large Jewish and Muslim communities.
Some analysts have attributed the problem to a build-up of resentment among children or grandchildren of immigrants from Arab countries who feel they are poorly integrated into French society and are victims of discrimination in the job market.
Such frustrations, coupled with feelings of solidarity towards the Palestinians, have resulted in attacks on Jewish targets that have been strongly condemned by almost everyone in the French political establishment.
All this lip service to “fearing tensions” and “attacks on Jewish targets that have been strongly condemned”, and what did Le Monde have in yesterday’s paper?
This: Logique de purification ethnique à Gaza The logic behind Gaza’s ethnic cleansing, by French-Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé. Not only Israel is accused of ethnic cleansing, but also the USA.
The largest newspaper in the country legitimizes that vile and hate-filled opinion by carrying it, not only on its op-ed page, but featured in its newsfeed, which is where I found it yesterday reading Le Monde’s newsfeed in my iPod.
Anyone surprised by the attacks on synagogues, then?
Humberto Fontova talks about the 50th anniversary of Cuba’s Communist revolution. Chat’s open a 10:45AM and the call-in number is 646 652-2639. Join us!
Mr. Panetta has a reputation in Washington as a competent manager with strong background in budget issues, but has little hands-on intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe, but one that has been buffeted since the Sept. 11 attacks by leadership changes and morale problems.
He served as White House Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton, and before that was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1976 to 1993. He is the founder and director of the Panetta Institute, serves as Distinguished Scholar to the Chancellor of the California State University system and is a professor at Santa Clara University teaching public policy.
…
During his time in Congress, his work concentrated mostly on budget issues, civil rights, education, health, and environmental issues, particularly preventing oil drilling off the California coast. He wrote the Hunger Prevention Act (Public Law 100-435) of 1988 and the Fair Employment Practices Resolution. He was a major factor in establishing the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
His positions included:
* Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget
* Chairman of the Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition
* Chairman of the Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Personnel and Police
* Chairman of the Task Force on Domestic Hunger created by the U.S. House Select Committee on Hunger
* Vice Chairman of the Caucus of Vietnam-Era Veterans in Congress
* Member of the President’s Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies.
WHich begs the question,
What experience Panetta has on anything related to national security, the CIA or anything near related to the job?
his selection points up the difficulty Mr. Obama had in finding a C.I.A. director with no connection to controversial counterterrorism programs of the Bush era.
Panetta’s tenure at the White House — both as Director of OMB and as Chief of Staff — was apparently characterized by a constant tension between him and the CIA, with his desire for deeper budget cuts being the running theme. CIA Director Woolsey had to form alliances with the Defense Department to fend off these deep cuts, as well as to ensure that the CIA retained some ability to track an expanding number of threats in a multipolar world.
_ Early 2003: Richardson wins legislative approval of a $1.6 billion highway and transportation construction program called Governor Richardson’s Investment Partnership, or GRIP.
_ October 2003: CDR Financial Products Inc. CEO David Rubin contributes $25,000 to Richardson political committee, Moving America Forward.
_ 2004: Bonds are issued for GRIP transportation program. CDR, which is based in Beverly Hills, Calif., becomes part of a team of investment and financial advisers selected by the New Mexico Finance Authority to put together the GRIP financing. CDR earns at least $951,000 in fees in 2004 for its services to the authority.
_ June 2004: CDR — under its former name, Chambers, Dunhill, Rubin and Co. — donates $75,000 to a political committee that Richardson established, Si Se Puede! Boston 2004 Inc. The donation comes a couple of months after the transportation financing arrangement won state approval.
_ 2005: Rubin gives $10,000 to Richardson’s re-election campaign.
_ Aug. 29, 2008: The New Mexico Finance Authority issues a statement saying it is “cooperating fully” with federal authorities in their investigation of CDR in connection with the 2004 issuance of bonds.
_ Nov. 14, 2008: Richardson meets in Chicago with President-elect Barack Obama, who interviews him about being secretary of state. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton also is being considered for position.
_ Nov. 23, 2008: Democratic official says Richardson is Obama’s choice for commerce secretary.
_ Dec. 3, 2008: Obama announces his selection of Richardson as commerce secretary, calling him a leading “economic diplomat for America” in troubled times.
_ Dec. 10, 2008: Richardson’s expected replacement as New Mexico governor, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, announces a transition advisory team.
_ Dec. 16, 2008: A person familiar with the proceedings tells The Associated Press that a federal grand jury is investigating how CDR won its contract. Richardson ducks questions about the company at a news conference.
_ Jan. 4, 2009: Richardson withdraws his name from consideration for commerce secretary.
But it isn’t just Obama and Richardson that Rubin has ties to. According to federal law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation, federal officials are also looking into CDR’s political and financial ties to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, as well as to Democrat state and local officials in Illinois, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
As I have posted here and at the Star Ledger’s NJ Voices blog, prominent fund-raiser and Rendell supporter Robert M. Feldman of Philadelphia is also under federal indictment. Small world.
Rubin has lots of connections among the Dems,
CDR also had close business ties to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, marketing and selling financial instruments created through low-income housing “lease to own” programs across the country. “If someone wants to understand just how deep Democrats are into the housing bubble and the economic crisis, they should look at some of the financial wheeling and dealing around some of those ‘lease to own’ programs,” says a former Freddie Mac lobbyist based in Washington. “It’s a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Democratic state and local politics from New York to Los Angeles.”
Who will Obama nominate for Commerce Secretary? We shall soon find out. The list of prominent Democrats not under indictment is getting smaller by the day.
Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your posts included in next Monday’s Carnival please email me, faustaw2 “at” gmail “dot” com.
Last week Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Communist revolution. Please check the posts listed under Cuba below for a roundup of articles and posts.
Tomorrow at 11AM Humberto Fontova will be my podcast guest and he’ll talk about the anniversary; in today’s podcast I’ll touch on Bolivia’s new TV station, sponsored by Iran and Venezuela, Argentina’s change shortage, and other headlines.
Equipment valued at US$27,000 was recently handed over to Belize’s National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO). Ceremonies were held at NEMO’s Warehouse in Belmopan.
The equipment includes more than 500 folding beds commonly referred to as cots and more than 100 sleeping bags. This most recent donation is from the United States Southern Command, based in Miami.
On hand to make the presentation was United States Ambassador to Belize, Robert Deiter. In making the presentation, Deiter said the US, in assisting in the area of management this year alone, made other donations recently to the Belize Defence Force and the National Coast Guard, in addition to training in several villages across the country.
Deiter stated that he is proud of his Mission’s work with NEMO in a region where disasters can and do strike/
For much of the world, they became iconic of France’s worst social ills: the burned-out carcasses of thousands of cars set ablaze during nearly three weeks of nationwide rioting in 2005. But as yet another orgy of automobile arson on Wednesday demonstrated, the torching of cars in France has not only become an everyday event; it’s also now a regular form of expression for disenfranchised suburban youths wanting to make sure the rest of the country doesn’t forget they exist. And their fiery presence is never felt so strongly as it is each New Year’s Eve - the day of France’s unofficial festival of car-burning.
A few unruly kids light up some Roman candles and everyone takes it in stride:
In a country where car-burning isn’t a common symptom of socioeconomic unrest, news of so many automobiles being torched would be alarming - if not a sign of brewing insurrection. In France, however, word of the destruction that accompanied the evening the French call Saint-Sylvestre was met with a mix of Gaulic shrugs and low-grade peevishness.
Just how many cars are we talking about?
Nearly 43,000 cars were torched in France over the whole of 2007 - an average of almost 118 per day.
Joining the punks, insurance fraudsters:
According to the National Observatory on Delinquency, as many as 20% of cars burned each year are suspected insurance fraud.
The first number reported was 445, but that number was later revised to 1,147, nearly four times the number from last year. Joe pours scorn on
those sneering clowns peddling the “good society” “superior lifestyle” and even that “superiority due to their ability to execute well their own cuisine” racket.
In Paris, where organisers claimed 25,000 turned out for a march led by Communist and left-wing politicians, the crowd chanted “We are all Palestinians” and “Israel killers.” Many sported traditional Palestinian scarves.
As the protesters dispersed, between 200 and 300 tried to make their way toward the Israeli embassy near the Champs Elysees but were blocked by police barricades. Several cars were set alight as well as Israeli flags, an AFP correspondent reported.
Several cars were also torched or overturned and windows smashed in the city’s midtown shopping district, but calm appeared to return as of early evening, according to an AFP journalist.
