Think Progress: The Boston Globe noted Monday that while Brown himself will not be a lobbyist — Senators may not lobby their former colleagues for the first two years after leaving office, under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 — “he will be leaning heavily on his Washington contacts to drum up business for the firm.” The position will also allow him “to begin cashing in on his contacts with the financial services industry, which he helped oversee in the Senate.”
The White House has released a very cool photo of President Obama editing his inauguration address in what appears to be very legible (albeit too small for us to see clearly) handwriting.
Is anyone else geeking out in a good way over this image?
(CNN) –The official White House photo was taken by Obama’s top photographer Pete Souza. The caption says Obama was working with Jon Favreau, his outgoing speechwriter, in the Oval Office on January 16.
I zoomed in and tried to sharpen it up a little, but it’s still too small to read. Follow the CNN link for more:
Massachusetts Republican senator Scott Brown will not run in the special election for outgoing Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s seat, according to a Republican source familiar with his plans. Brown’s decision means Kerry’s seat is very likely to remain in Democratic hands.
He may run for governor, though. More info at the link.
“You know, Joe Biden — you can joke about him all you want, [but] he’s got a set of balls, and he says what he believes,” Bloomberg said. “And he forced the focus [on gay marriage].”
But before you start patting Bloomberg on the back (even though he was spot on, and Biden deserves that pat and more) and tweeting me your new-found support, as inexplicably happened with Chris Christie, consider this:
He stuck to one endorsement — former Sen. Scott Brown, who is weighing another campaign, and whoBloomberg hosted a fundraiser for last year and supported over newly minted Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
An Emerson College Polling Society poll shows that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick would have a strong chance to win John Kerry’s Senate seat if Kerry becomes the next Secretary of State.
Patrick, a Democrat, would lead both Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown (48% to 43%) and former Governor William Weld, a Republican (50% to 32%), according to the poll. [...]
However, according to the poll, if Brown runs for Kerry’s seat, he would beat Victoria Kennedy, widow of Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, by 46 percent to 40 percent.
To put it quite simply, if Obama backs down from appointing Rice due to the Republican Benghazi brigade, conventional wisdom has it that he is likely to appoint John Kerry to become Secretary of State. If that were to be the case, Kerry’s seat would become vacant. [...]
Enter Republican Scott Brown [...]
As BuzzFlash at Truthout reader Emiliano de la Fuente e-mailed us today: “If the GOP is successful in squashing the idea of Susan Rice for Secretary of State and the President nominates John Kerry, it will immediately eliminate a Democratic senator and will give Scott Brown a chance to wiggle into position… Since he just ran in 2012, his name will be fresh in many voters’ minds.”
In modern campaigns, political brand names are significant and Brown is one of those guys who even Democratic pundits and politicians in DC like to call in their village way “a very likeable person.”
It may be Massachusetts, and this theory may be a stretch, but remember that Brown was elected to the Senate once already – and remember that not too long ago Massachusetts elected Mitt Romney as governor.
And remember that the Republicans are indicating that they would be prone to give Kerry a relatively easy confirmation hearing in the Senate. That’s a scenario that will test Obama’s mettle and how many chits he wants to call in for Rice at a time he is trying to proceed with budget negotiations.
Isn’t there just one donkey willing to call out the elephant in the room when Republicans insist on ranting on and on about Benghazi? Simply put: Which party was responsible for the hundreds of millions of dollars withheld for embassy security improvements over the last few years, adversely affecting the work and safety of our diplomats abroad?
Perhaps the questions about U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice’s statements after the Benghazi attack should be aimed at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his Republican colleagues in Congress who refused to properly fund embassy construction and security.
I have no doubt Sen Brown is a good husband and a good father to his daughters, but this is an issue that affects ALL of our daughters and our granddaughters. And what matters here is how Sen. Brown votes.
So he’s gone to Washington and he’s had some good votes. But he’s had exactly one chance to vote for equal pay for equal work, and he voted no. He had exactly one chance to vote for insurance coverage for birth control and other preventive services for women. He voted no. And he had exactly one chance to vote for a pro-choice woman — from Massachusetts — to the United States Supreme Court, and he voted no.
Those are BAD votes for women.
The women of Massachusetts need a Senator they can count on not SOME of the time, but ALL of the time. I want to go to Washington to BE THERE for ALL of our daughters and ALL of our granddaughters.
This one really matters. There is a LOT at stake here…
… And I want to be blunt. We should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work and access to birth control in 2012. These issues were resolved years ago until the Republicans brought them back.
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Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below: Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
You can read the complete story here or on Wikipedia.
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