I had meant to say something about this, but Eli Sanders did a much better job than I would have.

In yet another symbolic break with the outgoing administration, this president-elect speaks to the nation from a skyscraper, the glow of the evening city receding behind him.

...This latest backdrop is the one he should stick with--floating above the chaotic metropolis (which looks so tame from on high), tucking the nation in, welcoming the night with a plan for tomorrow.

Mike Huckabee thinks the big problem with Republicans is that they spend too much time in "the mushy middle." Huckabee's solution for the GOP: move to the right, and try to ban gay marriage in every state. He's affable...but what a nutcase.

Seventy-five years ago yesterday, on December 5, 1933, the United States of America repealed its ban on alcoholic beverages.

But even though you won't find a soul alive who thinks the repeal was a bad idea, we continue to live day after day with the disastrous consequences of a drug policy that is as misguided as was prohibition.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Nadelman wrote:

Consider the consequences of drug prohibition today: 500,000 people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails for nonviolent drug-law violations; 1.8 million drug arrests last year; tens of billions of taxpayer dollars expended annually to fund a drug war that 76% of Americans say has failed; millions now marked for life as former drug felons; many thousands dying each year from drug overdoses that have more to do with prohibitionist policies than the drugs themselves, and tens of thousands more needlessly infected with AIDS and Hepatitis C because those same policies undermine and block responsible public-health policies.

And look abroad. At Afghanistan, where a third or more of the national economy is both beneficiary and victim of the failed global drug prohibition regime. At Mexico, which makes Chicago under Al Capone look like a day in the park. And elsewhere in Latin America, where prohibition-related crime, violence and corruption undermine civil authority and public safety, and mindless drug eradication campaigns wreak environmental havoc.

All this, and much more, are the consequences not of drugs per se but of prohibitionist policies that have failed for too long and that can never succeed in an open society, given the lessons of history. Perhaps a totalitarian American could do better, but at what cost to our most fundamental values?

Just like you can't find a soul who will say that repeal of prohibition was a mistake, you won't find a soul who will tell you our current drug policy has erased the drug problem.

Yet we continue to treat drug policy as a hypothetical issue, focused on the potential consequences of reform, rather than the disastrous consequences of what we are doing now.

The question isn't just about the pharmacological impacts of drugs. The question is also about the damage our current regulatory regime is inflicting on our society, economy, and criminal justice system. The question is whether we are getting our money's worth from the $50 billion we spend each year on the drug war. The question is whether there are better ways to allocate our resources than by focusing the bulk of that money on drugs -- like marijuana -- that are probably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

But until we collectively -- as citizens -- make it clear to our political leaders that it is acceptable to talk about the consequences of our drug policy, as opposed to a blind focus on nothing but the consequences of drugs, we're never going to make any progress.

If we don't change, we're going to continue having hundreds of brutal murders occuring not just across the border, but also right here at home. And we're going to continue to have American citizens addicted to drugs, wasting their futures.

So we need to rethink this drug policy of ours, because it just isn't working. It never has, and until we find the courage to change, it never will.

A couple of quick notes on video.

First, I've gotten a couple of questions about whether the new design reflects a change in my emphasis on video. In short, the answer is 'no.' I'll have more to say about it later, but video is definitely central to my plans both here and as a contributing editor at Daily Kos.

Second, specifically on the new video player that I tried out in the previous two posts: it seems to work for most, but some people have reported problems. I think I may have figured out what the problem is for most folks having trouble.

From what I can tell, the issue relates to those who use Flashblock. Fortunately, there is a very easy fix. All you have to do is enable the Flash after clicking on the splash image.

Keith O. spends an enjoyable 9 minutes with Mark Shaiman, the brilliant creative mind behind "Prop 8 - The Musical," and two of its co-stars, Jack Black (who knew Jesus was Black!?) and John C. Reilly.

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This is protest, 21st century style...and it couldn't be more fun.

Rachel Maddow and Barney Frank had a good discussion on the interim bailout deal, starting about 5 minutes into this clip.

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(On a side note, this is my second attempt experimenting with a new video player. The last one had a few glitches, and if you experience any trouble with this one, I'd love to know, either in the comments or by e-mail.)

The NYT says Congress has struck an interim deal to save the auto industry until President-elect Obama is sworn into office:

Details of the rescue package were not immediately available but senior Congressional aides said that it would include billions of dollars in short-term loans to keep the automakers afloat at least until President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

Ending a weeks-long stalemate between the Bush administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, senior aides said that the money would likely come from $25 billion in federally subsidized loans intended for developing advanced fuel efficient cars.

This strikes me as a reasonable approach. If we've learned one thing from the TARP-disaster, it's that we are better off with stop-gap measures than agreeing to the demands of the Bush administration.

Hopefully this will cool the inane attempts to blame the auto mess on the incoming Obama administration.

Awesome:

Here's President-elect Obama's statement on today's job loss numbers, focusing on the need to transform our economy for years to come by rebuilding America's infrastructure and developing the clean energy solutions we need.

The 533,000 jobs lost last month, the worst job loss in 34 years, is more than a dramatic reflection of the growing economic crisis we face. Each of those lost jobs represents a personal crisis for a family somewhere in America. Our economy has already lost nearly 2 million jobs during this recession, which is why we need an Economic Recovery Plan that will save or create at least 2.5 million more jobs over two years while we act decisively to maintain the flows of credit on which so many American families and American businesses depend.

There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. But now is the time to respond with urgent resolve to put people back to work and get our economy moving again. At the same time, this painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported oil, and making an early down payment on the long-term reforms that will grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come.

With Brian Krolicki out of the picture, Nevada Republicans are without an obvious challenger to Harry Reid. Jon Porter might be their best shot, but he just lost his re-election bid to Dina Titus. Dean Heller is a Republican congressman, but he represents the northern part of the state, and is virtually unknown in Las Vegas.

It's always a bad idea to pick a majority leader from a swing state, but hopefully this indictment means that Reid can breathe a bit easier -- and stop being so cautious.

The Democratic leadership in Congress is having trouble putting together votes for the auto industry bailout and somehow it's Barack Obama's fault? Are you kidding me?

Obama has consistently favored giving the auto industry a boost. In fact, he helped put the issue on the table. Shortly after the election, when he met with President Bush, the PEOTUS raised the issue with the POTUS:

At their private Oval Office meeting on Monday, President-elect Barack Obama urged President Bush to support billions of dollars in aid for the struggling auto industry during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress, according to three officials briefed on the meeting.

The officials said Bush privately expressed skepticism about taxpayer money for automakers on the heels of a string of government bailouts for other industries, and the president also urged Obama to help push through a free trade pact with Colombia - a key legacy item for the outgoing administration that is facing stiff resistance from Democrats on Capitol Hill.

So no matter what Barney Frank, who I normally love, might say, Barack Obama has been doing his part to put this issue front and center. The President-elect is not the problem here. He doesn't have some sort of secret magic sauce that will suddenly allow Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to put together a majority.

The problem is that you've got a bunch of Republican Senators and House members who are eager to lose the auto industry so that they can make an ideological point about the supposed evils of labor unions (which would be a whole lot less relevant if we had decent national health care and retirement systems), and you've got a bunch of Democratic members of Congress who won't stand up to them.

Keep in mind that Democrats are the majority party in Congress right now. If they can't stand up against these right wing bullies without the intervention of the President-elect, then there's no hope for them.

Remember, all this fighting is over a $34 billion loan package. Loans, not grants.

Compare it to the $500 billion - $1 trillion stimulus package that we're going to need to get through Congress, hopefully by the end of January.

That's going to be some real spending, and it won't be easy to pass. So if they think getting this loan package passed is too hard, how in the world are they going to get a stimulus done?

Here's the scary part of this list of the top 10 stupid gifts: Potty Putter: Toilet Putting Green is only 4th on the list!

But hey, I guess it does come with a FREE! Do Not Disturb Sign!

Now, I have to be honest -- I didn't expect that my first non-housekeeping post on the new TJR homepage would feature a picture of guy putting while sitting on the throne.

But that's exactly what happened.

And unfortunately for you, it's a inspired a stupid pun. Yes we can...put. On the can. Rimshot!

Anyway, there you have it. TJR has a new home page, and I've clearly lost my marbles.

At last! The new TJR homepage is here.

(I say homepage because the pages for individual posts still haven't been updated, though they will be over the next few days.)

As you can see, what's new is the return of the "Stuff I Should Have Blogged" sidebar...but it's more like "Stuff I Should Have Blogged" on steroids.

Other than that, not much will change. I'll still continue to blog both here and at Daily Kos, and the commenting system -- Disqus -- remains the same.

Also, those of you who used the feeds widget on the old TJR homepage can now find the same feature in the "On The Wires" tab of the new homepage.

There's still work to be done. As I mentioned, the individual pages need to be updated to the new look, and I also need to fix a very annoying problem with RSS whereby videos weren't getting included in RSS feeds.

But as for the new homepage, it's here, and I hope you enjoy the new look!

Politico reports that the anonymous hold on the inspector general for the financial bailout has been lifted, clearing his way for Senate confirmation.

TPM notes that it was rumored that Senator Jim Bunning had placed the hold.

And that gives me an excuse to link to this audio clip of Bunning complaing that at a state fair, "little green doctors were pounding on my back."

It's sort of like bottled hot water, only weirder.

The campaign now says Al Franken leads by 10 votes based on the original rulings of the impartial election judges. According to the campaign:

RECOUNT UPDATE: FRANKEN HOLDS 10 VOTE LEAD OVER COLEMAN

By our count, Al Franken leads Norm Coleman by 10 votes with roughly 56,000 ballots left to be hand counted. Many media outlets are calculating the margin by a different method, relying on raw data from the Secretary of State's website to conclude that Coleman holds a lead of over 300 votes. However, that calculation assumes that every challenge will be upheld by the state canvassing board, whereas our calculation assumes that the original call by the impartial election judge will stand. So, if the judge calls it for Franken, we say it's a Franken ballot. Likewise, if the judge calls it for Coleman, we treat it as a Coleman ballot - even if we have challenged it.

You can watch them live on MSNBC. Floyd Norris has a liveblog for those (like me) who aren't watching every moment.

Also, a praiseworthy moment of television on Morning Joe...by Joe Scarborough (!), Bob Shrum, and Mike Barnicle. They debunk the false $70/hour autoworker wage number.

In other news -- I'm getting closer to posting that long-promised update to the site. I'm nearly certain it will happen today. As I've said before, the goal is to make TJR a better platform for the kind of blogging that I'm doing. I'm looking forward to having it up, because then I can focus again on content rather than plumbing. (I'm going through a similar process for the video work that I do, and that project will be ready in a month or so.)

Sweet.

He'll be Secretary of Commerce. If I were flogging a certain meme, I would also note that like Biden and Clinton, Richardson is a former rival.

Now perhaps the true test is whether Obama puts John Edwards in the cabinet. (I kid, I kid!)

BTW, I think this marks the third cabinet level post for Richardson -- UN ambassador, Energy, and now Commerce. Plus he was a Congressman, Governor, and presidential candidate. Not a bad career, eh?

Nate Silver's favorite punching bag makes fun of himself again, telling Alan Colmes that he thinks it's "rational" to believe Barack Obama is a Muslim.

We all know Barack Obama is Christian, but it's important to also say that it wouldn't matter if he were Muslim, or Jewish, or any other religion, because in this country, we don't impose religious tests.

At the same time, it's a smear to maliciously claim someone holds a religious faith other than their own, and to defend believing those smears as "rational" says more about how McCain nearly managed to get 46% of the vote than it does about anything else John Ziegler might choose to whine about.

YouTube link

Notorious smear merchant Senator Saxby Chambliss looks like he'll hold onto his seat in Georgia, giving the GOP a lock on 41 Senate seats. Meanwhile, Al Franken and Norm Coleman are still locked in a tough recount battle.

Try to decode this logic from The Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes:

BORGER: You just can't say no, because that won't go over with the American people.

HAYES: I'm not sure, I think there's a strong part of the country -- more than 50% in a lot of polls -- that are just opposing right now, that are very skeptical of these bailouts, and I think that if you have somebody like a Sarah Palin or another Republican who can articulate that opposition by presenting alternatives...

BORGER: But what are the alternatives? That's the point. You have to have 'em.

HAYES: Well, one would be not, y'know, $7.4 trillion giveaways.

Unless I'm missing something, Hayes is saying:

1. Actually, you can just say no.
2. You should say no by "presenting alternatives."
3. The alternative is to just say no.

When they talk about the intellectual deficit on the right, this is the kind of thing they are taking about. (By the way, Hayes seemed to think passing the bailout was a political plus for McCain during the campaign.)

YouTube link

I make the case over at Daily Kos:

Here's the deal: we won, and they are declaring victory.

In the same breath that they are saying that this is a center-right nation, conservatives like Limbaugh and Reagan are highlighting the appointment of Hillary Clinton as a victory for the right.

In 1998, they were impeaching Bill Clinton. Now they are claiming Hillary as one of their own.

The center has shifted....to the left.

Josh Orton debunks a false rumor about HRC's replacement, and he might just have inadvertantly started a grasroots movement for Jon Stewart for Senate.

Count me in!

President-elect Obama addressed the nation's governors earlier today in Philadelphia:

NBC selects David Gregory to host 'Meet the Press.'

Could they have managed a less inspired pick? I mean, Gregory (who is only 38) is possibly the most boring TV host on the market.

Apparently, Bush is going to be doing a series of exit interviews as he finds his way off the national stage, and he got things off to a pretty wild start with ABC.

Unfortunately, ABC hasn't yet posted the full video, but I'm dying to see this exchange:

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

That's a pretty remarkable exchange right there. If you follow it out to its logical conclusion -- as Gibson and Bush almost did -- Bush would effectively have to admit that the Iraq war was a mistake.

:::

In other news, I'm still hoping to post the new look TJR today, but I ran into a couple of snafus yesterday, so it might not be ready until tomorrow.

You know how some folks are always trying to make the U.S. out to be a center-right nation?

Well, when picking Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State is seen as a "center-right" decision...doesn't that mean the center has shifted quite a bit towards the left?

Number of references on Mark Halperin's website, thepage.time.com, for each of the following, according to Google:

A friend of mine wrote me this:

i hope napolitano gets rid of these stupid 'threat level orange' announcements
(i'm at the airport)

Here's the first part of today's national security team introduction:

Here's the Q&A portion of today's national security team introduction:

As you may have noticed, I took a few days away from blogging after Turkey Day and spent some time up in Seattle with my family. I had a great time, and hope that you had a good few days as well. But even though I was away, I couldn't keep myself totally away from doing blog-related work. As a result, I've mostly completed a long-planned overhaul of TJR, and hope to post it later today or tomorrow.

As you no doubt know, at 10:40AM Eastern time President-elect Barack Obama will announce his national security team: Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense, Jim Jones as National Security Adviser, and Susan Rice as Ambassador to the UN.

I was more than a little surprised when it became clear that Clinton would be the Secretary of State, but now that it's a done deal, it's easier to see that the proof will be in the pudding. Barack Obama has generally made good staffing decisions, and hopefully this one will be no different.

At this point, my basic view on Clinton is the same as it is with Gates: what really matters is accomplishing the goals Obama set forth as a candidate -- starting with leaving Iraq and rebuilding our relationship with the world. As long as we are making progress towards those ends, I'm happy -- especially given the monumental economic challenges we face.

At the end of the day, Barack Obama is responsible for accomplishments -- and failures -- of his administration, and if he thinks this is the best way to get things done, then I'm cool with that. At the same time, of course, we should all be watching with an eagle eye to make sure things stay on course.

One thing that I will say is that I do believe there has been a bit too much focus on the whole "team of rivals" thing. I know it's a great story line, but I just can't bring myself to believe that Barack Obama has such a sense of vanity that he would select Clinton merely because it fits Doris Kearns Goodwin's narrative of Lincoln.

I also don't believe that Obama is selecting Clinton to 'get her out of the way.' To the extent that she was a political threat to Obama, that time has long passed.

So why did Obama select Clinton? Obviously, I can only guess, but my guess is that he picked her for a very straightforward reason: he believes she's the best person to carry out the job.

And while her management skills are not the greatest, in a turbulent global environment, Hillary Clinton has the  stature to speak with authority anywhere in the world. And now that Bill Clinton has agreed to severe restrictions on his own independent activities,  she comes with an important spouse, to put it mildly. President Clinton has access to some of the most important actors in the global economy, and having him on board could be a tremendous asset.

This is one of those decisions that can't be fully appraised until the results are in. But this much is clear: Barack Obama wouldn't be selecting Hillary Clinton unless she were the woman he wanted to be Secretary of State, and he wouldn't be picking her unless he thought she could advance the interests of the country and the world.

Now that he's made his choice, the tough part is about to begin.