Today's Political News: December 17th, 2008

1. Remember how I said Big Business was scared about Obama's possible appointment of Xavier Becarra as US trade representative? Nevermind that, he's pulled his name. Sirota, the preeminent progressive voice on fair trade, is disappointed but holding out hope that Obama will find someone as good to appoint instead.

2. He's so fine, there's no tellin' where the money went. The scope of who invested their money with Bernie Madoff is truly mind-boggling. The owner of the Mets lost hundreds of millions. Spielberg and Elie Weisel both have foundations that lost a chunk of their coffers. My old senator, Frank Lautenberg, who is newly just an old senator, no longer mine, got caught up in it. As did the co-founder of Bed Bath and Beyond (which having incurred such losses may now have to change it's name to Bed Bath and Just A Little Further). The list goes on.

I'm reading that this is not a good omen for the hedge fund industry which is for all intents and purposes unregulated and could be a breeding ground for all sorts of Ponzi schemes. As well as the lesser known, but much more insidious pyramid scams perpetrated and made famous by the charlatan mechanic Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli in the 1950s, known more colloquially as Fonzie schemes.

3. Speaking of scams... If you had any doubt that we live in the golden age of American plutocracy, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of 1% last year. 1%? 1%?! 1%?!#@&$ !!!

If that doesn't make your blood boil, then NASA would like to draw some of it to use as its next generation heat shield material.

4. So much to say about the new cabinet appointees (Ag, Ed, HUD, Interior, and DOT), that's gonna have to be it's own post.

5. The new House of Lords? We got into this a little bit in the comments of the Caroline Kennedy discussion post. But here's a rundown of how the Senate replacement process is shaping up to be a bouillabaisse of dynastic appointments and what could be done to stop (some of) this from happening in the future. Lest we forget, as the GOP has latched on to this very topic and begun to trumpet it from their very high horse, that our current President is part of a dynasty as well.

6. Another remember when. Remember when I wondered how Obama would deal with the tough questions his transition team openly solicited in it's Open for Questions web tool including the question about ending marijuana prohibition to stimulate the economy? Well, let's say it was not the giant leap for open goverment that we hoped it'd be. Obama did not address any personally and his team gave answers of less than 3 sentences each for only 5 of the 10,000+ questions. To be expected, probably, but this is supposed to be a Presidency not constrained by typical expectations.

7. Hey big spender. Robert Reich argues that the outlays Obama is about to introduce in his stimulus package may need to be permanent. It's a great post, as usual. Really I want to stop promoting Reich, but it's hard when he keeps making salient points. Maybe he's got some sort of 4'10" elvin spell on me. He also had another post today where he said this in reference to the TARP program:

The dictionary meaning of a "tarp" is something used to cover things up, which is exactly we've got.

Sad but true.