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President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration is going to be a huge celebration bringing millions of people to Washington D.C. to party.

In order to literally keep the party going all night long, the city council passed emergency legislation this week allowing bars, night clubs and restaurants to stay open around the clock from January 17th until January 21st.

People could disagree about whether this is a real good idea. Yesterday, the leader of the Washington D.C. police union told the Washington Post he’s worried that police resources could be insufficient during Inauguration weekend because of extended hours for clubs, bars and restaurants.

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Oprah’s going to Washington along with everyone else. The daytime Diva plans to do her television show from the Nation’s Capitol during inauguration week.

Estimates are that 3 million people may show up for this historic event…the swearing in of the first Black President. The mayor of Washington says it could be as many as 5 million.

Some will come to watch and some to celebrate. There will be numerous parties and even formal balls.

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Ed Rendell is the governor of Pennsylvania. He’s been in politics long enough that he should know you don’t say stuff around an open microphone that can come back to bite you in your situation.

And if you’re a male chauvinist you should be extra careful.

Yesterday Rendell was commenting on the nomination of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to be the head of the Department of Homeland Security. There was an open microphone nearby and we were treated to Rendell’s musings that Napolitano would be perfect for the job because she has “no life.”

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A run-off is underway today in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Poll watchers say the race will come down to voter turnout which is probably why Alaska governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin flew down to campaign for Chambliss yesterday. That and to get her picture taken some more. She apparently hasn’t lost her touch. She drew huge crowds.

The Georgia race is one of two unresolved Senate races. Democrats need to win both to get a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority. The other undecided race is in Minnesota where a recount is underway between Republican Senator Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. Don’t hold your breath for that one. The recount is expected to take weeks.

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More than 2,000 convicts are asking President George W. Bush for a pardon or a commutation of their prison sentences before he leaves office next month. Among them, junk bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh. They’ve all applied to the Justice Department for this free pass of forgiveness.

Last week, the president issued 14 pardons and commuted two prison sentences, all for so-called “small time criminals.” During his eight years in office, he’s granted a total of 171 pardons and has commuted eight sentences. A president has complete freedom to pardon anyone he wishes, and he doesn’t have to justify his decisions or explain himself to anyone.

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It may feel like a long ways away, but Republicans are already looking ahead to the 2012 presidential election.

According to a new Gallup Poll, Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents most would like to see Sarah Palin run for president in 2012. That’s right…Sarah “I read all the newspapers,” Palin. Former mayor of Wasilla, first-term governor of Alaska and hockey mom. Her interviews with Katie Couric are the stuff of legend. After she and McCain got their clocks cleaned, Governor Palin couldn’t get enough of the TV cameras. They were in her kitchen, her office, virtually every corner of her life. She is now reportedly being wooed to write a book-that would be interesting-or maybe do a TV show.

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There are stimulus packages and there are stimulus packages. Remember the one President Bush, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid collaborated on a while back? It was $168 billion and resulted in a few hundred dollars in most people’s pockets. It did it’s job, gave a short term jolt to the economy, but it’s effects are long since gone. And the economy is a whole lot worse now than it was then.

Stand by for “Stimulus Two!” Congressional Democrats say they will have a stimulus package ready for Barack Obama to sign the day he is inaugurated.

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There are high hopes for big change when Barack Obama becomes President of the United States in about two months. The expectations for this man are approaching euphoria and that could be setting the stage for a big disappointment. We’ve got big problems in this country and no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix them in a matter of weeks or months. It’s likely going to take several years.

Some of the president-elect’s advisers want to make sure Americans realize this and they’re speaking out.

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President-elect Barack Obama is inheriting a lot of problems from the Bush Administration including an economic crisis, two wars, and a whole list of international challenges, the most urgent of which is Iran.

According to a new International Atomic Energy Agency report, Iran is continuing to increase its stockpile of uranium and now has enough nuclear fuel to make a single atom bomb.

Iran insists it only wants nuclear energy to fuel power plants, but the United Nations Security Council isn’t so sure.

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President-elect Barack Obama won the White House on a message of change. Fifty-three percent of Americans said they wanted something new and different in Washington. Well, Obama is certainly new and different, but the same cannot be said for some of his early appointments. It’s like that song title, “Everything Old Is New Again.”

As Obama prepares to take over, he’s asking a bunch of former Clinton Administration members to come on board.

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President-elect Barack Obama met with Senator Hillary Clinton last week, and since then, a lot has been made about the possibility of Obama’s former rival becoming his secretary of state.

The big question this week is what sort of problems Bill Clinton could cause in the vetting process of his wife. Since he left office, President Clinton has started a new career which involves some “complicated international business dealings.” He also has a global foundation with a long list of donors who may not all agree with incoming President Obama’s policies.

But the Clintons have been here before. If Hillary gets the “all clear” and is offered the job, the next question is: Should she take it?

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Republican Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma wants to put a “freeze” on the remaining cash in the big government bailout of the financial industry. In this week’s lame duck session, Inhofe plans to push for legislation that will require Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan for the remaining $350 billion in the bailout package to be voted on in Congress.

Despite promises from Congressional leaders that there would be both, there is absolutely no transparency or congressional oversight on where the first $290 billion has gone. Senator Inhofe suggests Paulson “may have given the money to his friends.”

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As GM goes, so goes the nation…That’s the old motto anyway. Financially neither one is looking so good right now. And General Motors, along with Ford and Chrysler, is looking for some help from our already cash-strapped government to get back on track. Estimates are if the Big Three go belly up, unemployment could hit 10 percent.

But doubts about a bailout for the auto industry grew yesterday on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders conceded they don’t have the votes to get a measure through in next week’s lame duck session.

If General Motors fails– and it would likely be the first of the Big Three to fall because Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is a much smaller company– the impact would be huge.

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The New York Times reports that congressional Democrats are going to move forward with investigations of the Bush administration even after the president leaves office in January. That could prove to be quite a task.

Where to begin… Abuse of the power of the Executive Branch… Torture of detainees… The role of former White House aides Harriet Miers and Karl Rove in the firing of federal prosecutors… Eavesdropping without a warrant. It’s a very long list.

The rub is that President Bush may be able to block subpoenas long after he leaves the White House.

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The three dollar bill with the $400 haircuts is back. Former Senator, Vice Presidential candidate, Presidential candidate and adulterer John Edwards gave a speech at Indiana University yesterday. He was paid 35-thousand dollars for the appearance. He talked about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, politics…everything except his adulterous affair with campaign filmmaker Rielle Hunter.

Afterwards there was a question and answer session. But no press and the questions he agreed to answer were submitted in advance…that way he could avoid anything that made him uncomfortable.

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When’s the last time a losing vice presidential candidate was still in the news a week after the election? Nobody seems interested in interviewing Joe Biden, or for that matter, John McCain. But we just don’t seem to be able to get enough of Sarah Palin.

The news media are scrambling to get her thoughts on everything…the campaign, the charges from within the McCain camp that she is a “whack job” and a “rogue,” the $150,000 wardrobe, the travel expenses for her family that were charged to taxpayers of the state of Alaska. It’s obviously something besides her keen and subtle grasp of the complexities of being president of the United States.

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Barack Obama won the White House last week on a message of “change.” That’s something that’s easier said than done in Washington.

But the president-elect’s transition chief John Podesta told “Fox News Sunday” that Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office in January.

Podesta said, “As a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed and decide which ones should be kept and which ones should be repealed.”

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After getting the wind knocked out of them in 2006 and 2008, Republicans are a party in disarray…

From putting a woman on the presidential ticket who reportedly can't name the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement and thinks Africa is a country rather than a continent, to a presidential candidate who declared: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at the same moment the worst financial crisis in almost a century was descending on the U.S. economy, they appear to have lost their touch. And if they're pinning their presidential hopes on Sarah Palin for 2012, well, good luck with that.

Bush damaged the brand but John McCain and Sarah Palin didn't do much to restore it.

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Barack Obama made history Tuesday night, after voters came out in record numbers to support him and many voting for the first time.

It was a stunning rise to the presidency for a 47 year-old freshman senator, let alone one who is African-American.

Along the way, he beat out a handful of familiar Washington names for the top spot on the Democratic ticket…Former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards, Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Joe Biden who eventually became his running mate and, of course, most notably, Senator Hillary Clinton.

Her star power and powerful ties weren't enough to beat out Obama, but was there something more at play?

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The 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama and his family last night at Grant Park in Chicago.

There was perhaps no more profound way to slam the door on eight years of the Bush administration than to elect the first African-American to replace him. The symbolism is powerful; the history is breathtaking. We changed a lot more than our political orientation last night. The country finally grew up.

Something stirred us in a profound way. The disillusionment and disappointment of failed polices everywhere you look were the catalysts. Barack Obama was the spark. Watching him in Grant Park last night, it occurred to me that just like Hemingway was born to write and Tiger Woods to hit a golf ball, this man, Obama, was born to do this, to lead.

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