Senator Hillary Clinton now has a choice. Either she accepts a possible appointment as Secretary of State of the United States or she goes back to the Senate and Chair the Insurance Coverage Working Group established by Senator Kennedy.

Today Kennedy named three Senators to Chair three working groups that would work on Health Care reform.

Prevention and Public Health: Chair Senator Tom Harkin
Healthcare Quality: Chair Senator Barbara Mikulski
Insurance Coverage: Chair Senator Hillary Clinton

As we all know, Clinton asked Kennedy to create a Subcommittee on Healthcare, which she could chair. That request was denied. Kennedy Chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Here is a statement from Kennedy.

"Our committee is fortunate to have the services of major leaders who are committed to improving health care for the American people. Senator Harkin, Senator Mikulski, and Senator Clinton have generously offered to step forward and assume an expanded role on critical aspects of health reform. I commend them for their leadership, and I look forward very much to working with them, with all our colleagues on the committee and throughout Congress, and with the Obama Administration to achieve the goal at long last of quality, affordable health care for all Americans."

Clinton can now either help bring peace to the world or help bring affordable, quality Health Care to millions of Americans.

I've fired off angry emails to my Senators:

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.