President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.

Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama's Cabinet.
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Shinseki's tenure as Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 was marked by constant tensions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which boiled over in 2003 when Shinseki testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion.

Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, belittled the estimate as "wildly off the mark" and the general was marginalized and later retired from the Army. But Shinseki's words proved prophetic after President George W. Bush in early 2007 announced a "surge" of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating the numbers needed to stem sectarian violence.
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In Obama's eight Cabinet announcements so far, white men are the minority with two nominations — Timothy Geithner at Treasury and Robert Gates at Defense. Three are women — Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. Eric Holder at the Justice Department is African American, while Bill Richardson at Commerce is Latino.

It's mostly a business-as-usual Cabinet. Ho hum.

It's mostly a business-as-usual Cabinet. Ho hum.

I would like to have seen academics at Treasury and the SEC as well. Both of them could see their current select-heads recycle back into the cesspool from which most "financial experts" come. With that prospect, it is difficult to see them having the vision to enact real reform.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has withdrawn from his name from consideration as commerce secretary for President-elect Barack Obama, citing an ongoing investigation about business dealings in his state.

Richardson, 61, who competed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination, was secretary of energy and U.N. ambassador during Bill Clinton's presidency, and also the first high-profile Latino named to Obama's Cabinet.

But a grand jury in New Mexico is currently looking into charges of "pay-to-play" in the awarding of a state contract to a company that contributed to Richardson.

Do you feel this way about Congresswoman Hilda Solís, the new Secretary of Labor? She's a real progressive.

Washington Post: Richardson Withdraws Name as Commerce Secretary-Designee

To eliminate the secret ballot would expose those who oppose unionization and result in intimidation, harrassment, and more.

Examining 118 organizing efforts, they found "strong evidence that card check agreements reduced management campaigning …use of illegal tactics such as discharges and promises of benefits, and also substantially increased the union recognition rate [as did] campaign time limits and requirements that employers provide unions with employee lists."

So it IS true--Richardson is Blagojevich's long lost brother! I knew it!...Just who does New Mexico think they are, Illinois?!? The nerve of some people to think they can compete with OUR corruption.

I would normally consider a secret ballot better but apparently the current "secret ballot" has been exploited by employers to coerce workers through group "intimidation, harrassment, and more". And the card check system has been found to significantly reduced such abuses in one analysis in Britain and Canada:When an entity pays all the voters and can fire all of them, how can the vote be free? This editorial makes the case better than I can.

Except that this isn't Canada or Britain. We're different from them when it comes to our workforce and all.

But it now appears he is just trying to do the opposite of Bush. That's refreshing but insufficient for progress.