Obama has picked another Clintonite for his inner-circle.

Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA. Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

Let's see if this left-field pick immediately changes Bush's policy of torture and secret prisons.

DOWNLOAD: Belle & Sebastian - "I Fought In A War"

If you're in DC, here's where to party:

American Music Urban Ball - Marriott Woodman Park Hotel - 1/20 Ludacris, Big Boi, Lil Jon, T-Pain, The Cheetah Girls and Cedric The Entertainer will make this one interesting jam.

American Music Legends Ball - Marriott Woodman Park Hotel - 1/20 Same location as the American Music Urban Ball, but in a different room. This shindig features George Clinton, Isaiah Washington, The Temptations and Chaka Khan (without Hot Chip backing her).

Hip Hop Inaugural Ball - Harman Center for the Arts - 1/19 Russell Simmons has rounded up LL Cool J, T.I., T-Pain, Akon and Young Jeezy, along with a slew of surprise guests for his bash.

"Dreams from My Father" American Scholars Inagural Ball - Four Seasons Hotel - 1/20L Cool J, Alicia Keys and host Macy Gray will host this classy shindig, which the President is scheduled to attend.

BET Honors Inaugural Ball - Warner Theatre - 1/17 Mary J. Blige and Magic Johnson.

History with Jay-Z - Warner Theatre - 1/19 You guessed it, Jay-Z will perform.

Demand in DC - Black Cat - 1/20 This low-key, open to the public show will feature Anti-Flag, United Nations and The AKAs.

The Big Shoulders Inauguration Ball - Black Cat - 1/19 Chicago's The Hideout takes over DC's Black Cat for a night of indie rock featuring Andrew Bird, Ted Leo and lots more.

RIAA Inaugural Charity Ball - Club Ibiza - 1/20 Nothing says selling out like performing at this shindig. Not surprisingly, Rihanna will perform.

This morning, I got shut out of tickets for Morrissey at the Bowery Ballroom, but I was lucky enought to receive an invitation to the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. In my opinion, a much better ticket and considering that about nine million folks applied for the ticket, a much a harder one to obtain.

And let's give it up for Obama's team picking a Brooklyn company to make the invites:

ON Thursday, Dec. 11, Jim Donnelly got the call at his office on Jay Street in Dumbo for the biggest job he had ever had. Emmett Beliveau, the executive director of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, told him that Precise Continental, Mr. Donnelly’s 26-year-old printing company, had won the bid to produce one million gold-and-black engraved invitations for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

In related news, if you're still planning on heading to DC, you may want to try and get tickets to the Inaugural Parade. Here's the info:

We’ll be making 5,000 tickets for the 56th Inaugural Parade available to the public today at 1:00 p.m. EST. Tickets for the bleachers along the parade route from the Capitol to the White House will be on sale for $25. You can purchase up to four tickets through Ticketmaster.com or by phone at 202-397-SEAT(7328), 410-547-SEAT(7328) or 703-573-SEAT(7328).

As the new President and Vice President make their way from the Capitol to the White House following the swearing-in ceremony, they’ll be accompanied by more than 13,000 parade participants hailing from all over the country. More than 90 music, cultural and community groups, along with our Armed Forces, will march, dance and mow their down the 1.7 mile parade route.

You don’t need a ticket to watch the parade, but the purchase of tickets will guarantee spectators a bleacher seat along the parade route. Ticket holders must be in their seats no later than 1:00 p.m. EST on January 20th.

It's been a mere seventeen days since President Obama was sworn in, but it's been a jam-packed quick take-off thanks to the gigantic pile of shit the Bush administration left behind. So I ask you, what do you think of Obama's performance so far?

This morning, President Obama wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post that directly address the mandate he was voted into office with and the entire Republican caucus in the House and Senate that are voting against the stimulas act in an attempt to create a bipartisan atmosphere and attempt to weaken the Presidents numbers, even though every Republican Governor (with the exception of Sarah Palin) has urged their representatives in Washington to vote FOR the plan.

As Obama writes:

These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

While I'm not thrilled with every aspect of Obama's plan, I do agree with a large majority of it and believe it is important for the bill to be signed into law as soon as possible.

Other things Obama has done so far that I like:
? Pushing McCaskill's salary cap of $500,000 for executives that take government money. I am 100% behind this, especially after learning that almost all the firms that took emergancy bailout money used it to pay their employees gigantic bonuses! Seriously, how do you reward people (even if it's not their direct fauly) for running their companies into the ground. And you know, once these firms don't rely on government funds, they can go right back to their inflated salaries and bonuses.
? Ending a two-year effort by Democrats that Bush and Republicans continued to block, Obama signed legislation that will allow about 7 million children to continue coverage through the State Children's Health Insurance Program and allow an additional 4 million to sign up. A nice first step towards improving health care in America.
? He took President Bush's faith-based initiative and created something more than a government wing to pander to the Christian-Conservative voter. Obama has renamed the program the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is expanding their mission beyond funding right-wing social programs.
? Obama also imposed tighter ethics rules governing when administration officials can work on issues on which they previously lobbied governmental agencies, and banning them from lobbying the administration after leaving government service.
? Obama reversed the "Global Gag Rule." The policy banned federal funding to international family planning groups that offered abortion services or information with their own funds.
? The reworking of the USPS. The Post Office has been plagued by bad management that refused to embrace technology (remember they lobbied in that late 90's that people should be charged a stamp fee per email). I firmly believe the Post Office can save billions of dollars by closing their offices and not delivering mail on Saturdays and that it won't really have an impact on America.
? Allowing Robert Gates to do his thing. Hiring Gates is probably the smartest thing that President Bush did and Obama has been smart to give him space to do his job.

And here are some things that are pissing me off about Obama:
? Obama promised his supporters that he would immediately repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" act in favor of allowing gay men and women to serve in the armed forces without discrimination. So far, no action has been taken by Obama.
? The numerous cabinet picks that have had to withdraw due to failing to pay taxes, an issue that should piss off every tax-paying America, considering that if we were in their situation, we'd be subject to gigantic financial penalties and possible jail.

I know I'm missing tons of stuff, but that's just a taste of what our President has done in his first seventeen days. What do you think of what he's doing? What do you want to see him do? Where has he fucked up?

Last evening, President Obama held his first major press conference to address the declining economy and his stimulus package.

First things first, how encouraging was it to have a President that didn't sound like a complete idiot. Unlike President Bush, President Obama was articulate, intelligent and actually answered questions like he was talking to adults.

Obama even called on White House press corp legend Helen Thomas, whom Bush refused to acknowledge after she dared to ask him why he was misleading America in his build up to the war in Iraq.

Obama was also the first President to call on a legitimate blogger, Sam Stein of theHuffington Post, at a White House press conference. I say legitimate because you may recall that President Bush often called on RNC plant James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, the male escort who was a "conservative columnist" for the fake GOP online newswire, Talon News.

Anyway, the most important part of the evening was discussion of the stimulus plan, which I tihnk Obama did a great job of selling. I personally don't think the stimulus plan goes far enough. As Paul Krugman points out:

[T]o appease the centrists, a plan that was already too small and too focused on ineffective tax cuts has been made significantly smaller, and even more focused on tax cuts...The plan should have been at least 50% larger.

Now the centrists have shaved off $86 billion in spending — much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan....

My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years.

Today's New York Times editorial continues on the same theme:

Even if the original Obama plan — around $800 billion in stimulus, with a substantial fraction of that total given over to ineffective tax cuts — had been enacted, it wouldn’t have been enough to fill the looming hole in the U.S. economy, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will amount to $2.9 trillion over the next three years.

Yet the centrists did their best to make the plan weaker and worse.

One of the best features of the original plan was aid to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.

The original plan also included badly needed spending on school construction; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included aid to the unemployed, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the most to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.

On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the worst provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the “flip your house to your brother” provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.

All in all, the centrists’ insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering.

But how did this happen? I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend the partisan divide — a belief that warped his economic strategy.

After all, many people expected Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting both the economy’s dire straits and his own electoral mandate.

Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small and too heavily reliant on tax cuts. Why? Because he wanted the plan to have broad bipartisan support, and believed that it would.

Watch the full presser after the jump....

It's time that America stopped their deplorable attitude towards gay. Under America's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, thirteen-thousand homosexuals have been kicked out of the Army. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" may have been a necessary first step in ending the Armed Forces' archaic policies towards gay men and women, but now is the time to repeal the Clinton-Powell agreement and simply allow gays to serve.

Amy Brian, an Iraq war veteran and a woman who has served with the Kansas National Guard for nine years, was discharged after one of her civilian colleagues reported seeing her kissing another woman in a Wal-Mart checkout line.

The complaint was sent via several e-mails to superiors at the Kansas National Guard, whereby an investigation was started last August that ultimately led to Brian’s dismissal on Jan. 13, making her the first person to ever be dismissed from the Kansas National Guard under the Federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DODT) policy.

According to the Associated Press, Brian, who was commended for her service, was “separated” from the Guard which resulted in her losing her job and leaving her unable to finish her master’s degree due to the loss of her education benefits provided by military service.

The Republican minority is doing everything they can to embarrass President Obama by, among other things, blocking the stimulus plan in order to make it look like the Democrats are to blame for the recession and they're doing a great job of it.

I know Obama is working overtime to be non-partisan, but he's already made more of an effort than Bush did in eight years to extend his hand accross the aisle.

It's a basic difference of philosphy here. Republicans believe in trickle-down economics (i.e., putting billions more into banks and CEO's pockets and hoping they'll share the wealth). Demcrats believe in trickle-up economics (i.e. getting money into programs that directly create jobs and rebuild lending). Anyway, make up your own mind.

Here's the stimulus package that Obama is going to sign into law. Oh, and the "pork" the Republicans are talking about falls under the category of "science," which they don't believe in because god created everything from the earth to tylenol.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Creating Jobs, Supporting the States and Investing in Our Country’s Future

The United States is facing its deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, one that calls for swift, bold action. The goals of this legislation are the same as they have been from day one: to strengthen the economy now and invest in our country’s future.

This legislation will create and save jobs; help state and local governments with their budget shortfalls to prevent deep cuts in basic services such as health, education, and law enforcement; cut taxes for working families and invest in the long-term health of our economy. We do all of this with unprecedented accountability, oversight and transparency so the American people know their money is being invested responsibly.

To accomplish these goals, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $311 billion in appropriations, including the following critical investments:

Investments in Infrastructure and Science - $120 billion
Investments in Health - $14.2 billion
Investments in Education and Training - $105.9 billion
Investments in Energy, including over $30 billion in infrastructure - $37.5 billion
Helping Americans Hit Hardest by the Economic Crisis - $24.3 billion
Law Enforcement, Oversight, Other Programs - $7.8 billion
No Earmarks

I encourage you to read the full breakdown of the above information after the jump. It's worth understanding this important piece of legislation, which to me seems pretty reasonable. In fact, I think the bill could be larger...