Today’s Better News

More "leaking" re: Obama's possible cabinet picks (with the usual caveats re: grains of salt): Eric Holder for Attorney General -- Holder was co-chair of the Obama VP Search Team…

Lieberman Survives

So reports Kagro X over at dKos.

Post what you read or hear in comments.

EDIT: The Hill reports the vote was 42-13.

UPDATE 2:From Steve Benen:

Second, let’s pause to appreciate just how smart Lieberman is. In this case, I don’t mean that as a compliment. It was inconceivable that if Obama won in a veritable landslide, while the Senate Democratic caucus grew by (at least) six seats, that Lieberman would not only get off scot-free, but would also be in a position to dictate to Democrats, without any leverage at all, which outcomes he found “unacceptable.” If someone had predicted this scenario to me a month ago, I could have found it ridiculous. And yet, here we are.

Josh Marshall had a post back in June explaining, even before some of Lieberman’s most outrageous conduct, that Lieberman was burning bridges that couldn’t be rebuilt. “My assumption is that after the November election, regardless of the outcome of the presidential campaign, Joe will be stripped of his chairmanship,” Josh said. I agreed wholeheartedly at the time. It was a no-brainer.

Except, it wasn’t. Lieberman knows Senate Democrats better than Democratic voters do. My friend Matt told me via email yesterday, “If Lieberman ends up keeping his gavel on Homeland Security, I think we need to stop for a moment and recognize him as the smartest politician in Washington. He will have correctly made a bet about the fortitude of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate and he will have been right, against all apparent odds.”

Exactly. This is a decision about long-term management, not partisanship.

Pulling Back the Curtain

Going with our recent media criticism theme, this is really intriguing: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHKzS5Zl6mY[/youtube] So Shep Smith calls out Ralph Nader, goes on Billo and refuses to participate in the echo chamber,…

More of This Please!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAyQV8gOjo[/youtube] More data from Brad Delong on this subject. Paul Krugman takes down a wingnut talking point and does it pretty decisively.   And this clip makes the case for why…

Carper Changes His Mind?

From anonone and Think Progress: Carper thinks Lieberman ought to face some reprisals. An interesting comment from Lieberman's Whip Team, and since Carper isn't going out on a limb by…

Florida 2000 Redux

Here we go again. So just as the massive Minnesota Senate race recount starts the GOP sets up their patented smear campaign. The recount in the Minnesota Senate race hasn't…

Mall Owner Warns of Bankruptcy?

Via Calculated Risk, the WSJ reports that General Growth Properties is warning of serious financial difficulty: Ailing mall owner General Growth Properties Inc. warned Monday in a government filing that…

Boogie Man

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story is on Frontline Tuesday November 11 at 9PM. This is a Must See for all political junkies and especially those who are especially unhappy…

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway

This is somewhat different content than usual, that I hope will be of interest to our many lurkers and commenters.

This week, there are Public Workshops being held to get public input to complete the application to DelDOT for this historic designation. You can see the application and a map of the byway here. The Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware (UGRCD), working with the University of Delaware’s Center for Historic Architecture and Design have been responsible for developing the application and for the Workshops. The workshops are being held on these days:

  • November 11 at the Old State House Museum at The Green, Dover
  • November 13 at the New Castle Court House State Museum on 211 Delaware Street in the City of New Castle

Both meetings are from 4 – 7PM.

Many Delawareans are not aware that this state was key ground in the operation of the Underground Railroad.  It is an amazing history well worth preserving and telling — this adds to Delaware’s rich history and adds another attraction for the state’s Tourist industry.  In addition, should the application be approved, may of the identified key sites and neighborhoods along the Byway will benefit from some additional preservation and promotion activity.

Howard Dean Leaving DNC

Very sad, but not unexpected. The rumors seem to have Claire McCaskell leading the DNC with Steve Hildebrand as her second. But the 50 State strategy seems to be new…

Bailout Nation — The Crime Scene

While some have been comforted by the bailout that hasn’t particularly stabilized much other than the ability for banks to take over other banks and to maintain their pay and bonus structures.  In today’s Washington Post, we learn that the Treasury actively enabled even more looting:

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration’s request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin.

“Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no,” said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. “They basically repealed a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid to banks.”