Administration

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) highlighted attorney general nominee Eric Holder's bipartisan support today, along with two of Holder's GOP endorsers, on a conference call with reporters.

Former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) and former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) both expressed support for Holder's nomination on the call, which was part of Leahy's push to confirm Holder as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

"I want to make it clear that he is supported by both Republicans and Democrats law enforcement and victims rights groups," Leahy said. Read more...

The official store for inaugural memorabilia will open at 10 a.m. tomorrow in downtown Washington, D.C., the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) announced today.

Obama supporters will be able to purchase pins, hats, travel mugs and the like

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) who has been asked to serve as Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) chief deputy for health reform on the committee, met with prospective Health and Human Services secretary Tom Daschle today.

Daschle will be the top health policy official in President-elect Barack Obama's new administration, provided he is confirmed by the Senate, and is expected to take the lead in shepherding through Congress a significant expansion of health coverage as Obama seeks to fulfill one of his major campaign pledges: universal healthcare.

Dodd praised Daschle after the meeting in a statment issued by his office:

My meeting with Tom underscored what I already knew: that he is uniquely qualified to lead the next Administration

Cynthia Russell, a builder from Newberry, Fla., is the first winner of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration raffle, First Lady-elect Michelle Obama announced today in an e-mail to supporters.

Russell and a guest will be flown to Washington, D.C. to attend the president-elect's welcome ceremony, swearing in, Inaugural Parade, and Neighborhood Inaugural Ball--a ball at the Washington, D.C. Convention Center designed to host D.C. residents at a low cost.

Obama's Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC) announced last week that it would raffle off tickets Obama's inauguration to 10 supporters.

The committee encourages donations of $5 or more, though entrants can participate without giving money. The PIC requires entrants, in the contest's online entry form, to write a blurb about what the inauguration will mean to them. Russell wrote:

I'm a single woman who has been building homes for over 18 years. I've supported myself and have been able to help out my mother from time to time. Now I find myself wondering how much longer I can hold on and be able to pay my bills and keep the doors open for business. Barack gives me hope. Hope that 2009 will truly bring change to Americans who find themselves in this mess with me.

The PIC has posed the raffle as a way to give all Obama supporters a chance to attend the Jan. 20 inauguration. The entry deadline is midnight this Thursday, Jan. 8.

Most of the tax cuts that reportedly make up 40 percent of President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus package won't actually spur economic growth, according to the Club for Growth, a leading D.C.-based group of economic conservatives.

The group issued a statement today supporting Obama's decision to include tax cuts for businesses, but in the same statement it said the rest of Obama's proposed cuts won't do much.

"We are delighted to learn that the President-Elect is proposing to expand the expensing of capital purchases by businesses Read more...

President-elect Barack Obama today named David Ogden, a former assistant attorney general under President Bill Clinton, as his deputy attorney general and Elena Kagan, the dean of Harvard Law School, to serve as solicitor general in the new Department of Justice.

After working at D.C. law firm Jenner and Block from 1988 to 1994, Ogden began his career at Clinton's Department of Justice as deputy general counsel. He became assistant attorney general for the department's Civil Division in 1999 and served in that post until 2001.

Kagan has worked as dean of Harvard Law School since 2003. She served in Clinton's White House from 1995 to 1999, first as associate counsel to the president, then as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Obama also named Tom Perrelli, a former deputy assistant attorney general under Clinton, as associate attorney general and Dawn Johnsen, a former official in Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel and a former head of NARAL Pro-Choice America (1988-93), to serve as assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.

President Bush will call for international pressure on Hamas and a ceasefire between the group and Israel in his weekly radio address to the nation tomorrow, according to an advance copy of the speech released Friday evening.

"The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected.

President-elect Barack Obama returned from Hawaii with his family early this morning, concluding their 13-day vacation to the Aloha State, where Obana was born.

Obama's chartered flight touched down in Chicago at 12:33 a.m. local time, according to a pool report. The flight lasted nearly eight hours.

The First Family-elect returned to their Hyde Park home from O'Hare airport in a motorcade, stopping to drop off friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and her daughter (both had accompanied the Obamas on their trip), according to the pool report.

President-elect Barack Obama said today that Senate Democrats should not seat former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) pick to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat, if Blagojevich moves forward and formally appoints him.

"Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it," Obama said in a statement released by his press office. Read more...

UPDATE: This story was updated to reflect that supporters