The Daily Background

Boy, the times we live in…

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Says Blagojevich at his press conference formally announcing his intention to appoint the former Illinois Attorney General and state Comptroller, “Please don’t let the allegations against me taint this good and honest man.” Obama supported Burris when he ran against Blagojevich and others in the Democratic primary for the gubernatorial race in 2002, though it’s […]

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From the December 27th copy of the Chicago Tribune. To be fair however, Obama’s senate seat will only last another 2 years (not 6 as the ad says) before his term runs out and whoever is filling it would have to run for re-election.
Hat tip- Randy Haddock.

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So, apparently Blagojevich is going to (try to) appoint Roland Burris, the former IL state attorney general to serve out the last two years of Obama’s old Senate seat. Burris, 71 and the first African American to win statewide office in Illinois, tried but failed to be elected to the seat in 1984 when he […]

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Chris Bowers has got a pretty promising looking plan for demystifying the inevitable deluge of new legislation to be introduced when the new Congress is sworn in in a few days. Check it out, and keep your eyes peeled on Open Left for more in the coming days.

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So, Obama has invited him to be one of the many speakers at his inauguration. Naturally, a lot of progressives have been outraged.
1. Do I think Rick Warren has backward 17th Century-esque thoughts about homosexuality and is totally wrong about them and has probably failed the standard of tolerance that Jesus set out? Yes.
2. Do […]

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A high-up Republican named Chip Saltsman is running for the position of Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In order to woo those who elect the Chair, Saltsman sent out a compilation CD titled “We Hate the USA” to RNC members for the holidays. It features songs making fun of liberals, including one called “Barack […]

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And the results are, from the yearly Gallup poll:

Obama’s the first president-elect to be the most admired in this poll since Eisenhower. By the way, Obama is up from 5% in the same poll last year (and Bush is down from 10%).

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If the campaign season had started today instead of two years ago, the candidates would have had a lot more trouble raising money. It might have, in fact, been one of the cheaper campaigns in modern history instead of the most expensive ever.

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The memo is available here for download.
In a nutshell, it’s pretty boring and says that the following:
Rahm Emanuel is the only person on the transition team who had contact with the Illinois governor’s office.
Obama had originally thought Valerie Jarrett would be a good person to fill his senate seat, and Rahm Emanuel communicated this to […]

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Meanwhile, in Minnesota…

Franken leads Coleman with an increasingly small number of ballots yet to consider. A draft report by the secretary of state’s office has Franken up by 48 votes. The board was meeting Tuesday to discuss that report, although corrections to it won’t be done until next week.
[…]
Coleman’s campaign is disputing the allocation of […]

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This reminds me of how presidents often act in their final days in office:

Still, following his appearance, Blagojevich issued 22 pardons. Aides wouldn’t provide any information about why he granted the pardons, or what crimes the people were accused of committing, but the move served as reminder of the governor’s authority.

… Or it serves as […]

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AP:

First lady Laura Bush said Thursday that her husband, President George W. Bush, teases her about her cooking because she hasn’t banged pots around for more than a decade.
“I haven’t cooked in 14 years,” she said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “On the Record.” “He can’t even remember what it was like and […]

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So I finally went and saw the new movie “Milk,” based on the political career of San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk. (In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Milk was the first openly gay American elected to high office who fought several key battles for equality before being assassinated by a conservative […]

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Via The Fail Blog.

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