President Bush pardoned 14 individuals and commuted 2 sentences sentences today. The press release with list of names and offenses is here.

• John Edward Forte -North Brunswick, N.J.

  Offense: Aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine; 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A)(ii), 18 U.S.C. Section 2.

  Sentence:Nov. 20, 2001; Southern District of Texas; 168 months in prison, five years' supervised release and a $5,000 fine.

  Terms of commutation: Sentence of imprisonment to expire on Dec. 22, 2008, leaving intact and in effect the five year term of supervised release with all its conditions.

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No surprises. Geithner at Treasury. Summers to head NEC. Romer to head CEA. And Melody Barnes to head the domestic policy council.

Key quote imo "We can not help Wall Street and not help Main Street."

I'll fill in more info as I get it.

Obama looking good in this press conference and fully committed to a massive stimulus package. Refuses to be pinned down on the amount but he clearly is signaling a huge investment. Good.

One thing for sure, whether Obama gets it right or wrong on everything, we will have a thinking, intelligent, engaged President again. Boy do we need that right now.

A near perfect press conference from my view.

Speaking for me only

As the Establishment Media and the Establishment blogs intersect, I was struck by this screaming headline at TPM:

Pricetags for Bailout So Far: 2.8 Trillion

That headline is bolstered by a post by David Kurtz that states $7.4 trillion has been spent on bailouts. The link goes to this Bloomberg story. What does that story say?

Through his deeds, President-Elect Obama is proving himself to be a worthy feminist, imo. Today, the President-Elect will name Cristina Romer the Chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers:

ABC News has learned that President-elect Obama had tapped University of California -Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer to be the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, an office within the Executive Office of the President.

Romer, a widely respected economist with an expertise on the U.S. economy, will be one of the key economic advisers whom Mr. Obama will introduce to the nation this morning, along with New York Federal Reserve president Timothy Geithner, tapped to be Obama's nominee for Secretary of the Treasury, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who will serve as the director of the National Economic Council.

More . . .

Is it a good deal?:

The plan has two key features:First, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will backstop some losses against more than $300 billion in troubled assets. Second, the Treasury will make a fresh $20 billion investment in the bank. The government has already injected $25 billion into Citigroup as part of the $700 billion bailout passed by Congress in October. In return for the latest intervention, the government will receive an additional batch of preferred shares - $20 billion for its direct investment and $7 billion as compensation for the loan guarantees. Citigroup will pay an 8% dividend rate on those shares. In addition, the government will get warrants, or the right to purchase $2.7 billion worth Citigroup shares in the future.

The government will impose restrictions as well. Citigroup will be prohibited from paying out a dividend of more than a penny per share for the next three years and will face limits on executive compensation. Plus, Citigroup will be expected to adjust mortgages for troubled borrowers, using procedures similar to those the FDIC implemented at IndyMac, which it took over last summer.

(Emphasis supplied.) Krugman is quite negative.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The New York Times reports President-Elect Obama may not repeal the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy but let them expire naturally in 2011.

A member of the Obama economic advisory team, William M. Daley, acknowledged that because of the gravity of the situation, Mr. Obama was leaning toward letting a Bush tax cut for the wealthy expire on schedule in 2011 rather than repealing it sooner. There were hints Sunday that a stimulus package might be extraordinarily large.

....When asked if the tax cuts might be allowed to expire on schedule, Mr. Axelrod replied: “Those considerations will be made.”

Daley said it's more likely than not this will be the case. Obama will announce his new economic team tomorrow: Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers as director of the Natinal Economic Council. Peter Orszag will be White House Budget Director.

I wish Matt Yglesias would start writing more about this point (he has made it well and repeatedly), because a false meme is beginning to gain traction among Democrats - to wit, that the GOP lost because of their politics, not their results of their policies. Here are two examples of that faulty thinking. First, my friend Ed Kilgore:

[w]e now have the clear example before us of the failure of a GOP strategy that so very recently looked compelling and perhaps invincible, based on a political map of the country that proved to be no more permanent than, I suspect, the one we see today.

This is just wrong. Republican politics failed because Republican policies failed. Similarly, Nate Silver argues the GOP lost the art of persuasion. This is also wrong. Look, Bill Clinton explained it in simple terms:

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