Newly minted Democratic Senator Arlen Specter made a relatively quiet debut as an official Democrat on Thursday — his desk was moved to the other side of the aisle.

Specter also showed up — albeit briefly — at the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on President Barack Obama’s request for $83.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to provide additional foreign aid to countries like Pakistan.

Specter quietly slipped into the room and sat on the Democratic side of the dais but in the last seat where traditionally the most junior member sits. Specter is expected to stay on the same committees he served on as a Republican and retain his seniority.

The Pennsylvania senator left after spending about 15 minutes or so at the hearing without uttering a word, let alone asking a question of the two witnesses — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Specter’s nameplate on the Democrats’ side of the dais at the Senate Appropriations Committee.)

On Obama Day 101, it’s all about Chrysler.

Unless it’s about swine flu.

Efforts at a last-minute rescue deal for Chrysler appeared to be dead ahead of a midnight Thursday deadline, with holdout creditors resistant to a debt forgiveness agreement and bankruptcy looming despite President Barack Obama’s statements of optimism at a Wednesday night news conference.

An announcement from Obama was planned for noon Eastern, as the president kicks off his second 100 days with the first-ever bankruptcy filing by a Big Three U.S. automaker.

Vice President Joe Biden flooded the morning airwaves, supposedly to calm fears about a swine flu pandemic. He said he did not see the need to close the border with Mexico,  but said he would not be too crazy about his daughter taking a flight there at the moment.

“I would tell members of my family and I have, I would not go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not just going to Mexico. If you’re in a confined aircraft, when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me,” he told NBC’s “Today” show.

“From my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. if you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a close aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom it’s a different thing,” he said.

James Lockhart, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency

The chief financial officer at Freddie Mac who died in an apparent suicide was a capable executive who had no involvement in any improper accounting, according to Freddie Mac's federal regulator.

"David (Kellermann) was a very conscientious and hard-working person and took, unfortunately, too much onto himself," James Lockhart, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, told the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit in Washington.

Kellermann was found dead on April 22 in the basement of his Virginia home after having hung himself, local police sources said. Some news reports at the time tied Kellermann's death to ongoing federal investigations into Freddie Mac's accounting.

"You know, one of the things I find unfortunate? Some of the speculation about accounting issues at Freddie. They are very rigorous," Lockhart said. He described Kellermann as a "straight arrow" whose reputation was above reproach and said that the failings at Freddie Mac were widely shared.

Last September, federal regulators took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the the companies losses on the housing market mounted.

"Yes, we're seeing significant losses but from my standpoint and my chief accountant's standpoint, from the two auditing firms that were auditing them, from a loss reserving standpoint, they were following" proper accounting standards, Lockhart said.

Democratic lawmaker Carolyn Maloney

Tired of your mailbox being jammed with unsolicited credit card offers boasting too-good-to-be-true introductory rates and confusing terms in tiny print?

So is Carolyn Maloney. But as the chairman of Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Maloney can actually do something about it.

The New York Democrat is the chief sponsor of legislation she is calling the "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights." It would stop credit card issuers -- many of which have received generous taxpayer bailouts -- from imposing surprise interest rate hikes and hidden fees.

Speaking at the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit, Maloney said she expects the legislation to pass both the House and Senate, and to be signed into law by the end of May. That won't be a minute too soon for her.

"It's hard for me to go anywhere without (hearing) a credit card story," Maloney told the summit.

Constituents in her New York district stop her at the grocery store to complain about credit card issuers, she said. So do colleagues on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"They even tricked me by changing the due date," Maloney said, referring to one of the credit cards she uses. "All of a sudden I had a late fee because I had paid within the period I usually paid -- they changed it, they changed the terms."

Reaction among Republicans to Senator Arlen Specter’s decision to defect to the Democratic party ranged from somber disappointment to outrage, and now the Republican National Committee hopes to capitalize on that anger.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele sent an e-mail to supporters expressing his outrage and disbelief that Specter was blaming his fellow Republicans for leaving. He beseeched party members to send in donations to help defeat Specter in the 2010 election.

“He simply believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a Democrat,” Steele said in the e-mail. ”He loves the title of senator more than he loves the party — and the principles — that elected him and nurtured him.”

In Steele’s bid to gin up donations, he told supporters: “Some will use Specter’s defection as an excuse to fold the tent and give up. I believe that you are not one of those people. When Benedict Arnold defected to the British, George Washington didn’t fold the tent and give up either.”

Specter, who has broken with Republicans on several key votes, said that he decided to switch parties because the Republican party swerved further to the right and he recognized he would not likely survive a primary challenge against a more conservative Republican in Pennsylvania.

He was greeted at the White House on Wednesday with open arms by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden — which will likely spark more cash appeals from Republicans.

Specter and Obama acknowledged that the two would likely differ in the future. To that end, a key test vote will come later on Wednesday when the Senate votes on the Democratic-authored fiscal 2010 budget blueprint. Specter opposed the Senate version earlier this month.

“I know the decision Senator Specter made yesterday wasn’t easy.  It required long and careful consideration, and it required courage,” Obama said. ”But I know that it also reflects an independence that has been the hallmark of Arlen Specter’s career since the days he arrived in Washington.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Specter speaks to reporters at the White House with Obama and Biden looking on); Illustration of Specter courtesy of Paul Szep

As he marks his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama has a new reason to celebrate — the defection of a senior Republican to his Democratic party.

Calling Arlen Specter “one tough hombre”, Obama appeared at the White House with the long-time moderate Republican and welcomed him as the “newest Democrat from the state of Pennsylvania.”

“I know that the decision that Senator Specter made yesterday wasn’t easy. It required long and careful consideration and it required courage,” Obama said.

Specter’s switch put Senate Democrats within grasp of being able to pass Obama’s ambitious agenda, including expanding health care and moving the nation toward energy independence, without any Republican votes.

Specter gave Democrats 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, one short of the 60 needed to clear Republican procedural roadblocks.

Obama didn’t mention that but he did take the opportunity to note that Specter’s decision reflects regognition that the administration is open to different points of views.

“We seek cooperation and common ground and …in these 100 days we’ve begun to move this nation in the right direction. ”

After his appearance Obama headed to Missouri for a town-hall style meeting — the kind he excelled at during his presidential campaign. Then he comes back to Washington for a prime-time news conference.

Obama also took a few minutes to talk about the swine flu outbreak, after a baby in Texas became the first confirmed death outside Mexico from the virus.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testify on Capitol Hill about swine flu and the government response.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Obama and Vice President Joe Biden laugh as they welcome Specter to the Democratic party)

President Barack Obama held his first ceremonial event in the Rose Garden Tuesday, using the scenic lawn outside the Oval Office to honor some of the country’s finest teachers.
 
“This is our first official Rose Garden ceremony — a place where so many,” the president started before being interrupted by a smattering of applause. “Yes, that’s worth applause, sure, why not,” he added to laughter.
 
“This is a place where so many presidents have honored so many citizens who’ve made extraordinary contributions to the life of our nation,” Obama said.
 
The Rose Garden was one of President George W. Bush’s favorite ceremonial venues. The day after November’s election, he spoke in the Rose Garden when he congratulated Obama and said his victory represented a “triumph of the American story” that made every American proud.
 
The people being honored Tuesday were educators who had been named national and state teachers of the year.
 
“Our teachers are the key to our nation’s success, to whether America will lead the world in the discoveries and innovations and economic prosperity of this new century,” Obama told the audience.
 
The president presented the national teacher of the year award to Tony Mullen, a former New York City police officer who worked his way up to the rank of captain while studying to become a teacher.
 
Mullen, who now teaches at the ARCH School in Greenwich, Connecticut, works with youths who have behavioral and emotional problems.
 
“I teach and mentor at-risk teenagers, because too many of the pages of their stories are filled with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, academic failure and despair,” Mullen told the crowd. 
 
“I teach these young adults because they are among the most complex population to educate, and therefore challenge my ability as an educator,” he said. “And I teach them because they provide me plenty of opportunity to help rewrite their stories, to help them compose a happy ending.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama presents award to Mullen)

The Obama effect was in full force again.

This time an appearance by President Barack Obama had G-Men fainting and the normally stoic director of the FBI handing out teddy bears.

What’s with that?

Shortly after Obama started a speech at FBI headquarters to employees gathered in an outdoor courtyard under the searing sun, at the point where he started reminiscing about the bureau “back in 1908,”  someone in the audience fainted.

“This happened during my political campaign all the time. I was talking too long, people would be falling out every which way,” Obama said to laughter.

We are told that the FBI employee who fainted during the speech was medically treated and will be just fine.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, who started in the  Bush administration, let his hair down a touch and gave the president teddy bears for his daughters.

Obama expressed gratitude ”for the teddy bear for the girls — even though we’ve kept our promise on the dog, I wouldn’t want to come home empty-handed.”

And the president let out a Freudian slip showing that the marker of his first 100 days in office was on his mind. At one point in his speech, intending to refer to the FBI’s 100 YEARS, Obama said: “There’s much to celebrate from the FBI’s first 100 days.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama with teddy bears)

No matter what kind of day you’re having, it’s probably not as bad as the one Louis Caldera had yesterday. Caldera is director of the White House Military Office, and he approved what might well be one of the most criticized photo op choices of all time: a low-level flyover of Manhattan by a plane often used to transport the president as Air Force One.

Caldera said federal authorities informed the appropriate officials in New York and New Jersey beforehand, but many New Yorkers were instantly reminded of the 911 attacks when they saw the blue and white passenger plane flying by their skyline, trailed by an F-16 fighter jet carrying a photographer. The idea was to get a picture of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg excoriated the plan, and Caldera reportedly got a dressing down from a “furious” President Barack Obama. Caldera apologized profusely, saying federal authorities took “the proper steps” but “it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption.”

That didn’t begin to satisfy many in the media, especially those based in New York City. ABC television’s normally avuncular Charles Gibson added a sarcastic “You think?” after he reported Caldera’s apology. On morning television, the headlines were openly hostile. From CNN, it was “Air Force Dumb.” On Fox, the line was that the flight “Sparks 911 Flashback.” The New York Times ran a picture of the plane on its front page with the restrained caption, “A jet regularly used as Air Force One flew low over Jersey City, above, and Manhattan on Monday, scaring many.”

Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart called it “Mistakes on a Plane,” a riff on the 2006 movie “Snakes on a Plane.” 

It’s not like there’s nothing else to worry about: swine flu, health care and climate change, to name three being discussed in Washington today. So you tell us: is the widespread criticism of the AF1 photo op a continuing story or a one-day drama?

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Jim Young (Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington after a day trip to New York, November 11, 2008)

Five people have been charged for defrauding about 1,000 people of a total $70 million in a scheme that the Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler called “a mortgage fraud, a securities scam and a ponzi scheme all rolled up into one.”

The unsealing of the April 22 indictment also prompted the first press conference of Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general for the criminal division, who has been on the job five days.

And he had some harsh words for anyone trying to take advantage of the mortgage crisis through illegal means.

“To those responsible for the egregious practices that have helped bring about mounting rates of foreclosure, and those who prey upon families who find themselves facing the loss of their homes to foreclosure, I say this: Our resolve as a group is great. We will find you, we will prosecute you and we’re going to put you in prison,” Breuer said.

The indictment unsealed on Monday charges that the defendants convinced victims to invest at least $50,000 by refinancing their homes or buying new homes at inflated prices by saying that Metro Dream Homes would repay the mortgages in 5 to 7 years for half interest in the home.

The defendants allegedly invested funds from later investors to pay mortgages of earlier investors, and were accused of using funds for their own gain — salaries of up to $200,000, paying their own mortgages, employing 10 chauffeurs, maintaining a fleet of luxury cars, and traveling to the 2007 National Basketball Association All-Star game and the 2007 National Football League Super Bowl and staying in luxury accommodations.

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