The ACLU has had to lay off 10 percent of its national staff, in part because two foundations that were big backers of the group were “wiped out” by Bernie Madoff.

Elana Schor brings us the story of one anti-science Bush political appointee who has managed to burrow into a career position at the National Science Foundation.

Frances Townsend, President Bush’s counter-terrorism coordinator was just on CNN talking about closing Gitmo. And from how she tells it, there’s really no difference. Obama wants to close it. But Bush did too. Only it ‘didn’t happen’.

Franken lawyer says Coleman team is doctoring evidence in recount case.

We’re sitting here watching Robert Gibbs’ White House briefing. And there is a long string of questions about whether Obama can really working in a bipartisan manner if no Republicans are saying nice things about the stimulus bill or voting for the mark-ups out of committee. And Chuck Todd just asked whether Obama would veto a stimulus bill that came to his desk that hadn’t gotten Republican support.

That would be quite a moment.

Late Update: Obama himself appears to have a pretty succinct response.

Maybe the National Republican Congressional Committee just hasn’t updated its website in a while (a long while). That’s the most charitable explanation I can come up with for this:

(Thanks to TPM Reader MW for the catch.)

Late Update: The NRCC tells Greg Sargent that the site is “under construction” (although, as Greg notes, they updated the site as recently as yesterday):

“The site is currently under construction. We are looking forward to relaunching the site and fostering a discussion on how Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues’ proposal to spend their way out of this recession is absurd at best and financially ruinous at worst.”

Later Update: Fittingly, the entire “Issues” section of the NRCC website has now been taken down, since we originally posted.

I’m listening to Sen. Jim Webb on MSNBC talking about the outlook for the Stimulus bill. The anchors are pressing him on whether 100% of the money will be spent in 1 year or 18 months. And Webb is responding that he doesn’t think that should be our exclusive focus, that his models are the big New Deal-era building programs. He went on to note that you drive around the entire country and you continually see roads, dams, all sorts of infrastructure that still makes up the bones of the country and keeps driving economic growth after almost eighty years. More common sense like that.

We’ve put together a list of the Top 10 greatest moments of John Thain’s brief but disastrous run as CEO of Merrill Lynch.

It’s quite a list.

Another federal employee checks in from the trenches:

I work at the Department of Education headquarters in DC. Today completed our 2-day introduction to Arne Duncan. Yesterday he had lunch in our cafeteria (Edibles, ha ha), with his wife and children. His wife wore jeans and a sweater and Arne looked like an average joe in khaki dress pants, white shirt and tie. They stood in all of the lines and talked to anyone who approached them. They probably stayed 90 minutes. It was definitely the highest cafeteria attendance ever.

Yesterday afternoon he visited every floor of our building and introduced himself to everyone. We all came out into the hall and he shook everyone’s hand with a “Hi, I’m Arne.”

By the end of the day yesterday, everyone was aglow, since this was already more attention than we’d received from Spellings or Paige. Today, however, was the all-staff meeting, and I can say that the morale in the building increased ten-fold by the end of it.

Our auditorium was beyond packed, with people standing in the aisles. I myself snagged a seat on the floor next to the stage kindergarten-style. Arne stood in front of a blue screen that read “Call me Arne!” in bright yellow letters. He insisted that we call him Arne, rather than Mr. Secretary or anything like that, saying his name was Arne before he got this job and it would be 8 years from now.

…

I know this isn’t anything earthshattering, but the change in the atmosphere at the Department over the last week has been really astounding. In the past, we all knew that the Secretary had an agenda that she was going to follow, and that we were only there to affirm that her way was best. We really feel that Arne wants to know the truth, whether it fits with his agenda or not.