Sec of State: John Kerry
Sce of Tresury: Larry Summers
Sec of Defence: Robert Gates
Attorney General: Eric Holder
Sec of Interior Ken Salazar
Sec of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack
Sec of Commerce: Penny Pritzkar
Sec of Labor: David Bonior
Sec of Health and Human Services: Tom Daschle
Sec of Housing and Urban Development: Valerie Jarrett
Sec of Transportation: Ed Kendell
Sec of Energy Steve Westly
Sec of Education: Colin Powell
Sec of Veterans Affairs: Tammy Duckworth
Sec of Homeland Security: Jane Harman
National Security Adviser: Anthony Lake
From:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/08/MNUQ14092Q.DTL&tsp=1
I started googling the above crew, looking for hints of where this list puts the Obama administration.
I looked at Holder first. Mixed bag, former fed prosecutor, judge in DC, then multinatonal corporate law. Trying to think that through. I was thinking Holder could spend the next year just cleaning up the wreckage inside DOJ... Then I read this:
``CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions that President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on stem-cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling, among other issues, members of the team said Sunday.''
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10943042
Forgot all about Obama as a constitutional lawyer. Clean out those damned executive orders. Man, that's some real fur ball shit in that drawer. Send the juicier ones over to DOJ and see if any are actionable...
Remember all that about secret courts, secret prisons, enemy-combatants, make-up laws, extra-judicial executions and imprisonments, denial of habeas corpus, extending executive privilage out to the motor pool and the cleaning service, nobody needs to testify, and on and on...?
One of these damned executive orders (from last spring) took away congressional oversight of the CMS budget and put a pre-review system in place at OMB to be coordinated with Treasury. The point was to squeeze down harder on the Medicare-Medicaid system by cutting reimbustment rates in the fee schedules. This was exactly how my former job was directly threatened. The business was completely dependent on getting paid for Medi-Medi claims.
Thinking about Colin Powell at Education. Damn. Alarms go off.
I read military style charter schools to clean up urban districts, already strangling under endless budget cuts, and dying hearts and minds in the classroom from all that NCLB crappola. I see local district's paperwork loads exponentiate as Pentagon style systems management efficiency reports require yet more statistics for every pencil used.... Those steely eyes, behind those steel frame glasses worry me. (Besides he was a war criminal, wasn't he?)
My teacher buddy called this morning to help him figure out how many seats the Demos won in the Cal state senate and assembly. He was trying to figure out if he'd have a job in February. He was also worried about other programs and services for his disabled son: housing, attendents, medical, transportation... these are all on the current chopping block.
The issue is the prop 13, 2/3 majorities required for tax bills. That damned proposition, like STDs, just keeps on giving