In a surprising move, President Obama will name Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) the new U.S. Ambassador to China, reports say. Huntsman is expected to accept.
Huntsman was considered a possible GOP Presidential candidate in 2012. In fact, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said recently that Huntsman was the candidate he most feared.
Huntsman was deputy trade representative under George W. Bush, and was U.S. Ambassador to Singapore from 1992 to 1994. As govenor, he recently led a trade mission to China. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and his wife and he adopted their daughter from China.
Re-elected to a second four year term in November, Huntsman has taken heteredox positions for a Republican, announcing recently that he favored civil unions for same-sex couples. He recently traveled to Michigan to speak with the Republican state party, fueling speculaiton that he was considering a presidential bid.
Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert (R) will assume office once Huntsman steps down and will serve until 2010, at which time a special election will be held.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said she has asked the Obama administration for access to the photos of detainees that President Barack Obama decided to withhold.
Feinstein said she wants the photos as part of the committee's investigation into the interrogation techniques used by the CIA under the Bush administration.
"I have just asked to see if these are the same vintage photographs as the earlier Abu Ghirab photographs were, and I was told that they are," Feinstein said. "I think the Intelligence Committee should obtain these photographs, because my understanding is that some of them had to do with interrogation techniques, and we want to evaluate them as part of our study. Obviously, they are a useful part of our study, if in fact they deal with conditions of interrogation and detention. And I think we've established that we're going to have to have the information if we're going to do the study. They would remain classified, with us, but we would at least be able to evaluate them."
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the roster of her department's staff members working on health reform Monday.
Topping the list is Jeanne Lambrew, director of the HHS Office of Health Reform. Lambrew originally held the title of deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform, where she was to serve under former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Daschle was slated to run the White House office and be secretary of HHS but withdrew his nomination after revealing that he'd paid more than $140,000 in back taxes while being considered for the posts.
Working alongside Lambrew are Mike Hash, a former senior Medicare official during the Clinton administration, and Neera Tanden, who advised both the Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaigns on healthcare and previously worked for Clinton in the Senate and in the Clinton White House.
Obama campaign aide and former journalist Linda Douglass moves from the White House to HHS to run communications for the department's health reform efforts. Five additional staffers round out the team.
"The HHS Office of Health Reform and the White House Office of Health Reform will work in tandem to advance legislation and take immediate actions to cut costs, assure quality and affordable healthcare for all Americans, and guarantee Americans can choose their doctor and their health plan," Sebelius said in a statement.
Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist convicted in Tehran on charges of espionage will be released today, her lawyers said.
According to the Washington Post, authorities have suspended the rest of her eight year prison sentence:
"We are at the prison now, and hopefully she will be released in one or two hours," Khorramshai [Saberi's lawyer] said during a phone interview. He said he had received a message from Iranian judicial authorities at 2 p.m. local time that Saberi's sentence had been reduced from eight years to a two-year suspended sentence.
"As I understood it, she is free to leave Iran," Khorramshai said. "They explained me that the two years were conditional and would not be carried out if she would not commit any crimes in the coming five years."Saberi has been banned from working as a reporter in Iran for five years, Khorramshai added.
Saberi was convicted in April of epsionage after a short, closed-door trial. Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asked for a re-trial. A verdict was expected sometime this week.
UPDATE: Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) released the following statement on the news of Saberi's release--which is now final. (Saberi's family is from North Dakota).
"This is the news we've all been waiting for. Roxana has been released from prison and she is safe with her father. The entire North Dakota family shares the Saberi family's sense of joy and relief that Roxana has been freed. We anxiously await her safe return to the United States.
"I commend all those who fought tirelessly for Roxana's release and her countless supporters in North Dakota, across the nation, and around the world who never gave up hope."
The White House has formalized its short list of Supreme Court contenders and asked six prospects to provide personal background information, with an intensive vetting process well underway, according to sources close to the process.
The leading contenders on the short list: federal appeals court Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, sources close to the process say.
No huge surprises there. But then comes this:
[T]he pick has prompted an internal struggle between legal and political officials within the administration, sources say.
Political officials like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are favoring Sotomayor, who would be an historic pick as the Court's first Hispanic justice.
[snip]
Legal officials in the Administration want Obama to tap a candidate who would be a more obvious force on the Court, bringing both intellectual prowess and a proven ability to build coalitions. They favor either Kagan or Wood--prospects who could be considered judicial rock stars capable of going toe to toe with Scalia and Roberts.
The idea that Sotomayor doesn't have the gravitas for the nation's highest court sparked an uproar on the blogosphere this week. TNR's Jeffrey Rosen launched the debate on Monday, when he quoted anonymous former clerks and prosecutors who criticzed Sotomayor's demeanor and intelligence.
Numerous bloggers pushed back against Rosen--notably Glenn Greenwald--but the meme seems to have found its way into the administration. Whether Rosen's piece is the symptom or cause of this, of course, is unclear.
If there's any merit in following the day-to-day speculation on who Obama's SCOTUS pick will be, then Sonia Sotomayor had a bad couple days.
First, conservative bloggers dug up this exchange from 2005, in which Sotomayor contends that "court of appeals is where policy is made." Sotomayor quickly backtracks, somewhat uncomfortably:
All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with court of appeals experience. Because, it is, court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. Um, ok. I know. I'm not promoting it, I'm not advocating it. I'm, you know...
Republicans have already accused Obama of looking for a justice who will "legislate from the bench," and these statements from Sotomayor won't boost her reputation among moderate GOP senators.
Then, TNR's Jeffrey Rosen penned a pretty harsh indictment of Sotomayor's qualifications for the nation's highest court. Quoting (anonymously) several of Sotomayor's former clerks and colleagues, Rosen concludes that, well, Sotomayor isn't smart enough for the job.
But despite the praise from some of her former clerks, and warm words from some of her Second Circuit colleagues, there are also many reservations about Sotomayor. Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York. Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court. Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.
There's a meeting Thursday to discuss how to approach the pirate crisis, but that's all you're supposed to know. From Friday's State Department press briefing:
QUESTION: This meeting, this interagency meeting that's taking place today on piracy, could you please enlarge on that, you know? Are you looking at specific proposals? Are you hoping to come up with one thing specific?
MR. WOOD: Sue, for one thing, I don't want to make a habit of talking about internal U.S. Government meetings. But there's a working-level meeting going on today that is going to deal with next steps with regard to the announcement the Secretary made with regard to our anti-piracy efforts. So let me just leave it at that. There's a meeting going on, working level, to start to begin implementation of the initiative the Secretary announced.
QUESTION: Well, if you don't want to make a habit of talking about it, then --
MR. WOOD: Not going to start here.
QUESTION: Well, but the Secretary announced that this meeting was happening two days ago, and last evening --
QUESTION: There was a number of --
QUESTION: -- there was an email, an on-the-record email comment, about the meeting coming out from your office.
MR. WOOD: Mm-hmm. And I think I gave you some of the details --
QUESTION: Actually it was one sentence that gave no details.
MR. WOOD: Well, I think I did better than one sentence, so --
QUESTION: And so, you've already made a habit of talking about this meeting, so why can't you --
MR. WOOD: No, but in getting into the particulars from the podium about --
QUESTION: Can you tell us who's going to be there?
MR. WOOD: I --
QUESTION: Not names, but what agencies are represented?
MR. WOOD: Well, for one thing, I don't have that with me right here. But I don't really want to make -- get into the habit -- I don't even want to begin to talk about internal U.S. Government meetings. We just --
QUESTION: Okay, well, if you don't want us to ask about them, then you shouldn't announce them.
MR. WOOD: Look --
QUESTION: The Secretary said that it --
QUESTION: Is that fair enough?
QUESTION: -- was an interagency meet! ing.
MR. WOOD: Okay.
QUESTION: So can you say what agencies are there?
MR. WOOD: I'm just saying an interagency meeting. I don't want to get into the specifics. I've just said that.
QUESTION: Well, what are the options for next steps then? You said you're looking at next steps. I mean, what do you see as being, you know, possible?
MR. WOOD: Well, I think I outlined those the other day for -- for all of you. I mean, we are looking to see what we can do in terms of coordinating our communication efforts, for trying to see how we can deal with tracking and seizing assets of pirates, looking to see how we can best prosecute these criminals. But I don't have anything beyond what I said the other day.
Again, we're starting -- the process underway right now, we're beginning the implementation of the Secretary's initiative. As you know, there's a meeting on the 23rd in Brussels that Acting Assistant Secretary Phillip Carter will be attending, so there is a lot of movement and activity going on. So when we have more to say, we certainly will. But these are our initial efforts to start to implement that initiative.
QUESTION: Is there some timetable associated with the work of the committee? In other words --
MR. WOOD: I don't think there's any timetable on this yet, James. But we clearly want to move forward as quickly as possible. We're trying, as you know, to set up a contact group meeting very soon. So there's a lot going on, and we'll certainly provide you with updates as we have them.
QUESTION: A new subject?
MR. WOOD: Mm-hmm.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) blasted "tea party" protests yesterday, labeling the activities "despicable" and shameful."
"The 'tea parties' being held today by groups of right-wing activists, and fueled by FOX News Channel, are an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan that cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans and creates 3.5 million jobs," Schakowsky said in a statement.
"It's despicable that right-wing Republicans would attempt to cheapen a significant, honorable moment of American history with a shameful political stunt," she added. "Not a single American household or business will be taxed at a higher rate this year. Made to look like a grassroots uprising, this is an Obama bashing party promoted by corporate interests, as well as Republican lobbyists and politicians."
This is the strongest language to date opposing the protesters, which, according to some estimates, topped 250,000 across the country.
Congressman Donald Payne (D-N.J.) was fired upon by Somali insurgents on Monday at the Mogadishu airport,
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.
Reuters writes that Islamist insurgents shot mortars in Payne's direction as he was leaving the airport.
"One mortar landed at the airport when Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after he left and no one was hurt," Abukar Hassan, a police officer at Mogadishu airport, told Reuters.
Three people were wounded when one of the mortars hit a neighborhood nearby, according to Reuters.
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