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With only two more Senate races left to watch, an Administration to staff and a country to help out of a financial crisis, Rahm Emanuel took some time out yesterday to speak to a bunch of CEOs, and have dinner in the vicinity of The Daily Beast's Ana Marie Cox. What he said, who he was with and all the important details are after the jump, along with a discussion of Ted Stevens' Senatorial loss, homosexuality in the Middle East, Air Fuck One, vetting, the fighting pussies, Chris Matthews' Senate race and al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri's impressions of Obama (hint: they aren't good). More »
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• Barack Obama will officially resign his Senate seat on Sunday, one day before Congress reconvenes for its lame duck session. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has 60 days to appoint a successor to serve until a special election in 2010, but hasn't signaled who he's leaning towards. [Washington Post]
• In the meantime, Obama might go to Georgia to stump for Jim Martin in his run-off race to bump Saxby Chambliss from Max Cleland's old Senate seat. [Huffington Post]
• He's also not sure he likes any of the dudes he hasn't admitted he's considering to be Secretary of State so he's considering... Hillary Clinton. This might or might not be more serious consideration than he gave to the idea of her being his VP. [NY Times]

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There are moments in life when you can choose to do the safe thing, or the scary thing. Like when the Great Satan elects someone you don't hate, you can talk to him or pretend that you never really wanted to. Or when your longtime celebrity crush, Justin Long, walks into a bar in which you are getting soused, you can either beg him for a picture or quietly stare. Luckily, Spencer Ackerman is there for me even late at night to convince me — the way we try to convince Iran — to just go for it. It's kind of awesome. More »
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Sarah Palin is like a scab: we want to ignore her but we can't stop picking at her! Rachel Maddow seems to feel the same way, and last night she addressed the possibility of a Senator Palin. Here's a brief recap: incumbent GOP Senator Ted Stevens, who's been convicted of 7 felonies, is ahead by 3,000 votes though there are 90,000 votes yet to be counted. If Stevens were to win, he would be forced to step down, and many speculate that Palin would either appoint herself to the vacant seat or run in a special election. So what does the Governor have to say about this hullabaloo? "The Alaskan voters have spoken and me not being a dictator won't be tellin' anybody what to do. A Governor, especially one that's not gonna be a dictator and all this, doesn't have control over that." The Governor doth protest too much! Clip above. More »
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• Though Barack obama told Americans nothing about forthcoming nominations, that doesn't mean there's nothing to speculate about! John Kerry, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson are lead speculative Secretary of State candidates, Robert Gates might stay at the Defense Department, Janet Napolitano could be headed to Justice and former eBay executive Steve Westly, the Governator or Kathleen Sebelius could end up at DOE. Discuss at your leisure — Obama certainly is. [CNN, Politico]
• The President-Elect has included sexual orientation and gender identity in his non-discrimination pledge on hiring, which is awesome. [ACLU]
• Harry Reid is a little pissed about Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's Obama-bashing during his balls-out support of John McCain this election season — to say nothing of his current flirtation with Mitch McConnell and the GOP caucus. He is thinking of allowing the Democratic caucus to strip Lieberman of his committee chair, which Lieberman calls "unacceptable" and everyone else calls "no less than he deserves." [CNN, Huffington Post]
• Unlike the obstreperous Lieberman, Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd is stepping aside as chairman because he's confident of the new Democratic majority and, likely, because of his continuing ill health. Sadly, this means no more "barbaric" speeches. [The Hill, YouTube]

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• Sarah Palin feels the press should be forced to report about her in a certain way to avoid abridging her First Amendment rights. Add the actual First Amendment to Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution on the list of Constitutional amendments Sarah Palin is planning when she is Empress of America. [Huffington Post, U.S. Constitution]
• If you needed any other reasons to vote against McCain-Palin, Politico's list of Cabinet officials should help. It's got Dick Armitage for Secretary of State, Lindsay Graham for Secretary of Defense, Rudy Giuliani for Attorney General (!) and Randy "Biggest Asshole In the Universe" Scheunemann as National Security Advisor. And you thoughT Palin was a bad pick. [Politico]
• By contrast, their list of potential Administration officials for Obama reads like a liberal's wet dream. [Politico]
• Hey, while you weren't looking, Bush has been sneaking around trying to push controversial deregulation to "ease" consumer and environmental protections. Fuck. [Washington Post]

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• Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted today of all 7 counts he faced related to not reporting gifts on his Senate financial disclosure forms. He's up for re-election but most sources agree he's unlikely to do time. [CNN]
• The ATF foiled a half-assed plot by a bunch of psycho skinheads to kill a bunch of African-American high schoolers and assassinate Barack Obama. Because, you know, then everyone would be on their side or something. [Huffington Post]
• In other dumb ideas, a GOP group is running $2.5 million worth of Reverend Wright ads in swing states this week. As TNR's Michael Crowley points out, please note how the word "hate" turns into "God" in the middle. Subtle! [The New Republic]
• At a Palin rally in Iowa this weekend, one of her supporters gave up on using subtle terms like "terrorist" or "traitor" or "socialist" or "communist" and loudly expressed why she thinks people shouldn't vote for Obama: "n*****." Palin, naturally, stumbled in her speech but didn't say a word and neither did the crowd. [YouTube]

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If the National Enquirer weren't relentless hyping its as-yet pictureless story about John Edwards' baby, we could just spend the whole morning talking about Republican hypocrisy, the new poster child for which is Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens. Good old Interwebs Ted was indicted on corruption charges, so we talk about that, his ass-grabbing Alaskan colleague (hint: it isn't Senator Lisa Murkowski), Olympic-sanctioned censorship, late apologies, Al Sharpton on the importance of admitting one's mistakes, and John Edwards' hush money that isn't hushing everything. God, it's like everyone's a hypocrite but me and Moe, and that might just be because nobody knows yet. More »
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