More lobbyist problems for Obama?

First, William Lynn, now New Intel Director Blair Resigns Defense Company Post

Before taking his new job as head of U.S. intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair has to resign lucrative directorships on the boards of two companies that do tens of millions of dollars of business with the Defense Department.

Blair, who two years ago ran afoul of Pentagon conflict-of-interest rules, has already resigned a $100,000-a-year post with Iridium Satellite LLC, according to company spokeswoman Liz DeCastro.

This guy has already had problems with conflict of interest. And he’s going to run U.S. intelligence? This is almost as good as Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner.

Speaking of our new Secretary of the Treasury,

Newly installed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new rules Tuesday restricting contacts with lobbyists – and then hired one to be his top aide.

Patterson’s appointment marks the second time in President Barack Obama’s first week in office that the administration has had to explain how it’s complying with its own ethics rules as it hires a bevy of Washington insiders for administration jobs.

The exceptions and “special cases” are coming fast and furious. These appointments also were, no doubt, “vital” and “in the public interest,” just as Lynn is.

Oh, yeah, and there’s still the Clintons.

Bill Clinton pulled down $5.7 million in speaking fees last year – almost entirely from foreign sources, including nearly $2.1 million after news circulated that Hillary Clinton was in line for Secretary of State.

Former President Clinton’s globetrotting speaking tours and charitable activities were considered the major impediment to his wife’s confirmation. The Senate approved her nomination only after he agreed to voluntarily dial back his activities, partly by alerting ethics officials to any proposed foreign speaking arrangements.

A disclosure statement filed by Secretary Clinton highlights the tricky spot in which she may find herself going forward if her husband keeps up his money-making international travels.

[NOTE: All emphases in the above quotes are mine.]

“Clinton Names Climate Envoy”

Via the Green Inc. Blog at NYTimes.com

Citing the “complex, urgent and global threat of climate change,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today appointed a special envoy for climate change, who will lead the United States in international climate negotiations.

Yes, one person in charge of negotiating.

The appointment [of Todd Stern] caps off a day of aggressive environmental moves by the Obama administration.

We’re going green!

Mr. Stern called for a new multilateral agreement on climate change.

“A new day is dawning in the U.S. approach to climate change and clean energy,” he said.

Not so fast.

The centrist Democrats who urge a slower-paced approach represent states that are crucial electoral battlegrounds and that stand to lose the most from such regulation. They say they believe that global warming is a serious threat and they will support legislation to address the problem — but not at the expense of their already-strained workers and industries.

Do you Twitter?

Some people don’t. I do. Twitter is like blogging and chat. You have 140 characters to say what you want to say. You can find and follow just about anyone in any area you’d like, politics, food, marketing, science fiction, etc. You can interact with people in a way you can’t on a blog.

If you do happen to tweet, here are some articles I’ve run across lately.

Twitter Tips For Bloggers

Learn More About Who You Follow With TweepSearch

Problems With Your Checking Account? Try Twitter. Like Bank of America? Yes. Starbucks? Yes. Southwest Airlines? Yes.

How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter. Full of interesting stuff.

If you want to follow me, the link is on the right. Also my latest tweets. Yeah, some won’t make any sense without context, but it will show you what it’s like.

Waukesha Carnival – No football Sunday edition

OK, this is late. Google Reader decided to quit working last night. But this is edition 50, IIRC. But let’s not rest on our laurels.

Beginning with posts on national topics. silent e has a question at silent e speaks now that administrations have changed. I can answer it. No. We’ve got at least one more year.

Dad29 opines that Obama calling out Rush Limbaugh a rookie mistake. He’s right. He only increased Rush’s audience. James Rowen has the tack Obama should take.

At Wigderson Library & Pub, James Wigderson has some points to make about living and blogging in the Obama era. That’s what I’ll try to follow. Will I criticize? Yes. But I’ll try not to nit pick. I hope my readers will never find Obama Derangement Syndrome here.

MommaBlogger at Homemaker’s Guide to the Galaxy has some info on CPSIA. I hear libraries will feel the effects also.

Dan Diebert shares at The D Spot a picture that belies the enviro-consciousness of the president’s followers.

Kyle Prast links to a thought-provoking pro-life ad at Practically Speaking.

A little bit closer to home Concernedcitizen lets us know he’s still at Skeptics Anonymous. The usual suspects are at fault for his lack of posting. It happens.

Huckleberry Dumbell crowns his Bonehead of the Day, the Oconomowoc Common Council. You can read why at The Spring City Chronicle.

Dave posts about a lunch at Sprizzo’s at Five Points Blog.

Alexander at A Little off Main has a name for Republicans who are fine with the stimulus increase government spending and want their share–RINO.

Linda Richter at Inside New Berlin notes the return of Jefferson Davis and Ted Wysocki.

The Asian Badger gives some perspective on Flight 1549 and links to FL390 where the Airbus 320 pilot who blogs there gives even more perspective.

Finally, a couple of miscellaneous posts. First, Byron Houlgrave has a nice sports shot.

At Fairly Conservative, Cindy Kilkenny links to a couple of piece’s that would be worth a read by all of us. Unfortunately, the title played havoc with my internet filter as did the title of one of the articles.

And Scott Feldstein brings us home with some nice thoughts on reading to kids.

That’s it for this edition. If you have posts from last week you think should be here, note the link in the comments. Also if you see something for next week’s carnival, place a link in the comments here.

24 Liveblog: Season 7 – Episode 6

I’ll be over at Blogs.4Bauer for the live blog of Episode 6.

What happened to Promise No. 13?

Once again we wonder at PoliFact. From knoxnews.com via the one and only Instapundit, we discover another campaign promise from Obama that gets dubious treatment.

If you look at the front page of The Obameter, you will find that promise 13 is no longer there. Here’s the explanation.

The rating was unusual because Congress actually passed it before he was elected. Our reasoning was that as the nominee of the Democratic Party at the time, he was effectively the leader of the party and it seemed reasonable for him to share in the credit.

This is all well and good, but it was a promise, wasn’t it? And as such, shouldn’t it be dealt with in some way? And not just ignored?

That will temporarily reduce our total to 509 campaign promises. But we expect to add several new ones that we’ve discovered in the next week or two.

So who knows how many we’ll have in a couple of weeks.

In the comments to another post Todd mentions he has a spread sheet with 895 promises. It requires registration to the website.

Numbers may vary. Opinions as to whether the promise was kept or not may vary a little less.