Well, the longest election season of my lifetime has now ended. The smashing victory for Obama, and Democrats in most of the country should show us one thing. It is time we fight for the American worker once more. All over America, workers came out in force to demand a fair deal once more. Union workers, and those that aspire to organize let their voices be heard, and were a pivotal voting bloc in our victory. Now, it is time that the American worker recieved some good news for a change.

There have been legitimate concerns raised about Barack's selection of John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, to head his review of intelligence agencies and help make recommendations for the new administration. When it comes to wiretapping, rendition, and the politicization of intelligence reports related to the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, they have records that raise serious questions about where our President elect is headed in making leadership choices for our intelligence agencies.

It might not be a bad idea for Move On and other watchdog groups to place pressure on Barack and help insure that he moves in the right direction with his choices in the
intelligence area.

If you know of any such efforts already underway, this would be a good place to list them so that others can sign on.

Thanks.

Mark Phillips

Browsing the liberal blogosphere, it seems to me that the Netroots are out in full force to punish Lieberman.

I personally don't believe in revenge by, or in, government.

It's now more likely than not that we retain 59 Senate seats, and there is still a possibility to reach 60.

Why should we throw someone out of the Dem caucus, when we can use him to further Obama's agenda.

Will this "punish Lieberman" thing sound to the public counter to Obama's post partisan future?

Along with almost nobody else, Glenn Greenwald has been reporting some strange news about President-Elect Obama:

Obama's transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity.  

Greenwald has documented Brennan's support for various forms of "enhanced interrogation" in detail, and the good news is that Mr. Brennan opposes water-boarding. That's all the good news.

There are a few senators that fight the good fight. But after seeing the behavior of senators from both parties, I don't hav confidence in their courage and principles.

Lawrence O Donnell was on Rachel Maddow show talking to Arianna.
One of his statements which I paraphrase loosely.
"Committee chairpersons are never evaluated on their performance."

Wow, not exactly a shocker, but when you hear someone who served as a chief of staff say that without any reservation, it really sinks in how the senators for the most part do not give a crap about the people. They are in it for their fraternity of senators.

"Homeland Security" is not even considered an important committee.

Seriously? So isn't that all the more reason why Democrats who are in a compromising mood feel emboldened to remove him of that and give him another committee? Instead Dodd and Salazar - Dodd will get no support from me the next time Republicans expose one of his financial scandals- come up with an insulting compromise that spits on the face of every concerned Democratic Party activist when they propose stripping Lieberman of some no name committee and let him retain Homeland Security.

Say what?? Why not just crap on our heads and get on with business as usual in the senate? Here is a link to a discussion of that proposal:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1 1/18/858/95471/442/662652

Now you got my favorite Senate dunce pretty boy - Evan Bayh aka Ferris Bueller's clueless dad. He, in my opinion, gave either a really naive stupid interview with Maddow or a very dishonest one where he said that Lieberman should apologize to them and what he said about Obama and others in the past crossed the line. But Bayh was careful enough never to link that apology explicitly to retaining the chairpersonship of that committee. We KNOW Lieberman will never give an apology of that type. So why would Evan Bayh say they need one? Because he was just trying to say something to save face on Maddow, not because he believed in it. The guy is a Democratic version of Dan Quayle. I could not believe it when some of our fellow Democrats were touting this idiot(I always felt that way about him, this is not hindsight talking) as potential President or VP.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger

The Bush administration is squandering hundreds of billions of dollars on incompetence again.

In a House Domestic Policy Subcommittee hearing on Friday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, took Interim Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Stability Neel Kashkari (read: bailout chief) to task over the Treasury's decision to spend every cent of the first $350 billion in bailout funds buying up preferred stock in Wall Street icons and other banks, while allowing troubled borrowers to fend for themselves.

Can anyone honestly tell me how having Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will tarnish the image of the United States?

Can anyone remember the cowboy diplomacy of "Dead or Alive", we will "Hunt him out", that cocky swagger into the United Nations W. did when he already decided to invade Iraq, the Mission Accomplished sign, the newspaper headings in foreign countries the day after the 2004 Election...my favorite reading "How can 53,000,000 people be wrong?"

Do any of you remember that?

Moreover, our current Secretary of State specializes in Russian affairs. How handy did that come into play the last four years.

Hillary is already showing broad support in the Senate for her confirmation, leaders across the globe are praising the choice (do the research), and let's not forget..........

OBAMA IS THE ONE WHO APPROACHED HILLARY.

He needs the smartest and the brightest...she will be the most loyal to our new President.

I put my Hillary sign back up with pride!

There are a couple of people who have the politics of the Lieberman committee assignment right, like Daniel DeGroot and Markos. But we haven't hit the right narrative yet (and it's probably too late to do so).

Joe Lieberman's vote is for sale.

The price: his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship.

We need to PUSH the narrative that Joe's thinly veiled threats about losing his committee chair being "unacceptable" are basically another way of saying, "If you want my vote, you'll have to pay for it."

Lieberman has already committed political suicide, first by running as an Independent, and then by backing McCain and other Republicans. If Lieberman were to defect to the Republican caucus, he would only be kicking his own political corpse. If our side had been able to put more pressure on Lieberman, such that everyone would clearly see his potential defection to the GOP for what it is--selling his vote--there is no way that he would be in the position he is now, holding all the cards in his standoff with Senate leadership.