Looks like Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is going to be President Obama’s choice for HHS, following the ignominious withdrawal of Tom Daschle. Seems to me that Obama never misses an opportunity to make an easy Senate pick-up. Must be infuriating to be Bob Menendez.
Talking of President Obama, he’s making his first “overseas” trip this week: to Canada. Meanwhile, Hillary’s touring the Far East, assuring the Indonesians that Obama will find time to visit them eventually. Don’t remember people being so keen for Air Force One to touch down when it was carrying the Texan…
Meanwhile, Hillary as elder stateswoman is putting into stark contrast the gun-totin’ (literally) ways of her successor. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, whose associations with the NRA are well known, caved in to those dastardly NYC liberals this week and removed the rifles from under her bed (insert lament for Caroline Kennedy here).
Gillibrand is far from the only recently-appointed Senator in the news. In the never-ending saga of the Illinois Senate seat, Roland Burris, former (i.e. impeached and ousted) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s choice as Obama’s replacement, is under active investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. It might only be a matter of time before he is forced out, and Illinois’ senior Senator, Dick Durbin, already seems to be distancing himself. All this seems to lead credence to Russ Feingold’s suggested 28th Amendment, an end to gubernatorial appointments for empty Senate seats. This article from The Economist makes the case.
In other news, this week, Facebook was forced into a volte-face regarding its terms of use. It had unilaterally appropriated the rights to everything you post or write on its site. It’s only a matter of time, however, before they find some other way to do this. Generation Y needs to wake up and realise that privacy online is a major issue. You write something on Facebook, or post the pictures from that drunken party, and it’s in the public domain forever. Check out the interesting debate going on at the New York Times about the future of ’social spaces’ online.
