Here’s the lineup for the big newsmakers on tomorrow’s shows.

ABC News this Week:  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA).  Topics: The nation’s economy, a possible national stimulus plan, and the fiscal crisis facing his state.  Plus, Schwarzenegger’s thoughts on the future of the Republican Party and his state’s passage of the same-sex marriage ban Proposition 8.

CBS’ Face The Nation:  Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) Chairman, House Financial Services Committee; Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) Ranking member, Senate Banking Committee; Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA); Newt Gingrich (R) Former House Speaker.

Fox News Sunday:  An update on Capitol Hill’s plans for dealing with the financial crisis from Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)., and Byron Dorgan (D-ND).  Plus  Gov. Tim Pawlenty, (R-MN) and Michael Steele.  And the Fox News All Stars.

NBC’s Meet The Press:  Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Co-Chair of the Senate Auto Caucus and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.  Topics: Pressure on the Government to bailout the U.S. auto industry.  Then, T. Boone Pickens on how our nation’s energy dependence effects both our environment and our economy.  Roundtable: New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman; Washington Correspondent For BBC World News America, Katty Kay, NBC News Correspondent Andrea Mitchell; and Tavis Smiley.

Notice something different from what the shows had for the last nine months or so, when we had a girl (either Hillary or Palin) competing to be President or Vice President of the United States?

No more girlz–at least none besides the Washington villager pundits.

Now, some of these decisions make sense. I have no complaint that Carl Levin–one of the biggest auto bailout champions in Congress–is matched up against Richard Shelby–who’s trying to make the world safe for Japanese SUVs built in Alabama’s non-union plants. Similarly, House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank against Senate Banking Ranking Member Richard Shelby makes sense for partisan balance. Hopefully Arnie will get on and talk about how Prop 8 is evil and bad for the economy. Though if you really wanted to talk about Prop 8, don’t you think it would have been a good idea to get someone whose marriage may have just been dissolved, like Ellen Degeneres? Pawlenty and Steele make sense if you want to talk about how the Republican party might drag itself out of the hole it’s in. Bobby Jindal, for the same reason … But Newt? And are Kyl and Dorgan the only people who know about a potential financial bailout? 

Maybe I’m just being really picky. But during the entire primary and general election season, we had a lot of new girlz on the Sunday shows to talk politics: Claire McCaskill, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Carly Fiorina (till she got banned by the McCain campaign), Jane Swift, and many more.

But all of a sudden, now that there’s no chance a girl will be President or Vice President next year, voila! No more girlz on the Sunday shows.

The AP has an article reporting that Ron Gettelfinger, head of the UAW, says the union will not make any more concessions to keep the Big Three in business. I guess the editor cut a big chunk–because the article obviously falls short of explaining why the UAW is taking this stand. Here’s what the AP left in:

”The focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract,” Gettelfinger told reporters on a conference call, noting the labor costs now make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the cost of a vehicle.

”We have made dramatic, dramatic changes and the UAW was applauded for that,” he said.

Instead, Gettelfinger blamed the problems the auto industry is suffering from on things beyond its control — the housing slump, the credit crunch that has made financing a vehicle tough and the 1.2 million jobs that have been lost in the past year.

”We’re here not because of what the auto industry has done,” he said. ”We’re here because of what has happened to the economy.”

And here’s what the AP didn’t report (I’m sure it was just an oversight, really).

In its contract last year, the UAW made painful concessions, adopting a two-tier wage structure, such that new employees make just $12 to $15 an hour. The move is projected to bring the American manufacturers in line with their Japanese rivals’ non-union labor costs in the near future.

In addition, the union has taken responsibility for providing retiree healthcare, thereby eliminating one of the last remaining competitive disadvantages for the American manufacturers’ unionized workforce as compared to their Japanese rivals.

With these agreements, the UAW has managed to save jobs, while still providing the superior labor force that leads most segments (big PDF, see page 10-11) in terms of the most efficient plants measured in hours per vehicle.

The UAW’s workers have made deep concessions to ensure American-owned auto industry remains competitive with its foreign competitors. Now that the American-owned manufacturers have eliminated some of the structural disadvantages that gave foreign competitors a market advantage, it would be a terrible waste for its country not to do what’s necessary to sustain American manufacturing though this tough financial period.

There. Now it tells a more complete story.

More of this please.

First, we must confront head-on the pervasive misunderstanding of what constitutes a "free market." For long stretches of the past 30 years, too many Americans fell prey to the ideology that a free market requires nearly complete deregulation of banks and other financial institutions and a government with a hands-off approach to enforcement. "We can regulate ourselves," the mantra went.

Those of us who raised red flags about this were scoffed at for failing to understand or even believe in "the market." During my tenure as New York state attorney general, my colleagues and I sought to require investment banking analysts to provide their clients with unbiased recommendations, devoid of undisclosed and structural conflicts. But powerful voices with heavily vested interests accused us of meddling in the market.

When my office, along with the Department of Justice, warned that some of American International Group’s reinsurance transactions were little more than efforts to create the false impression of extra capital on the company’s balance sheet, we were jeered at for attacking one of the nation’s great insurance companies, which surely knew how to balance risk and reward.

And when the attorneys general of all 50 states sought to investigate subprime lending, believing that some lending practices might be toxic, we were blocked by a coalition of the major banks and the Bush administration, which invoked a rarely used statute to preempt the states’ ability to probe. The administration claimed that it had the situation under control and that our inquiry was unnecessary.

Eliot Spitzer is one of the people best suited to help clean up the mess on Wall Street. After all, he was screaming about where all the bodies were buried back when everyone was in denial, up until the time Michael Garcia took him out for a high-priced hooker.

Here’s what he recommends:

One of the great advantages U.S. capital markets have enjoyed over the decades has been the view — held worldwide — that there was an underlying integrity to the representations market participants made, because the regulatory framework in which they were made was believed to provide genuine oversight. But as we all know, the laws requiring such integrity are meaningless without a government dedicated to enforcing them.

Second, our corporate governance system has failed. We need to reexamine each of the links in its chain. Boards of directors, compensation and audit committees, the trio of facilitators (lawyers, investment bankers and auditors) whose job it is to create the impression of legal compliance, and shareholders themselves — all abdicated their responsibilities.

[snip]

Finally, we need to completely overhaul the federal financial regulatory framework.

Spitzer ends this piece by saying, "mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past." Perhaps. But let’s hope that he continues to serve as a public scold, calling out all the half-assed "solutions" and insisting on real reform.

Okay, we shot our wad a little early this week with the special Thursday Throw Down. But man, what a game. J – E – T – S Jets, Jets, Jets! Okay, enough of that; the Pats will be back, and the Jets have to deal with masaccio’s Titans next week, so it is a temporary euphoria. Let’s get down to bizness; down the rabbit hole we go!

NCAA: randiego swears the Texas Tech Red Raiders are da bomb. But not this week, they have a bye and won’t face battle until November 22 when they travel to Norman to beat meet Freep’s Boomer Sooners. That leaves the big game of the day as the Ole Ball Coach and his South Carolina Gamecocks invading the Gators down in the Swamp.

Florida already has wrapped up the SEC East, but needs a win to keep its BCS title hopes alive. It will be the second trip back to Florida Field for South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, the former Gator coach and Heisman Trophy winner who guided the Gators to their first football national title in 1996. The Gamecocks head to Gainesville with a lot of confidence after winning six of their last seven. Both teams are ranked for the first time since Spurrier took over in Columbia. It’s a classic matchup of the SEC’s top defense (South Carolina) against the SEC’s highest-scoring offense (Florida). Florida has averaged 46.5 points per game during its current five-game winning streak. Quarterback Tim Tebow has been running the ball better of late since suffering a hyper-extended knee against Arkansas. Tebow has rushed for five touchdowns in his last two games. Wide receiver Percy Harvin is third in Southeastern Conference in touchdowns with 12 (five rushing, seven receiving). The Gamecocks lead the SEC in total defense (256.5 yards per game) and rank third in points allowed (15.6 per game). LB Eric Norwood is coming off a three-sack performance, and South Carolina picked off a season-high three passes a week ago. Tebow exploded on South Carolina last season. The defense needs to find a better way to corral him or South Carolina will suffer a similar result.

Other games of note include: Oklahoma State at Colorado; Ralphie and the Buffs are tough at Folsom Field, but they don’t have enough for OSU this time. Boston College at Bobby Bowden just got a lot harder for FSU since they just suspended their entire receiving corps. Southern Cal is going to piss on the Stanford Tree; Harbaugh used up his magic last year, not gonna happen again this year. Keep your eye on Boise State and Utah too; they are both still undefeated; should still be so after this weekend, they are each clearly better than their respective foes, but their games are always a lot of fun.

NFL: There are maybe more glossy games, but I think the most interesting may be a good old fashioned Black and Blue Division matchup of Da Bears at Le Cheeseheads. Just doesn’t seem right to be talking about this game in the middle of November, in Green Bay, and not have Brett Favre in the mix. But Brett’s a Jet now, so it’s Aaron Rodgers against a gimpy Kyle Orton. Better than Rex Grossman though. Da Bears are 5-4 and the Pack are 4-5; if the Bears win, they have the upper hand and the momentum for the division and the Pack is slack. But if the Cheesers put on a good show and nail down a solid win, all bets are off and the division is up for grabs with the Vikes in the mix too. Pack sack Da Bears.

The next curious game is teh Bolts at the Stillers. San Diego is an enigma; no clue what their bag is. The Stillers looked for the first six or seven weeks like one of the three or four best teams in the league; then injuries set in and they went a little wobbly. I guess there is a chance that the Chargers pop out of their doldrums and crank out a win; but I’ll leave my chips with Big Ben, wounded wing and all.

Titans go big game hunting for Jaguars in Jacksonville. Normally I would pick the Jags for the upset because they always give the Titans fits. But I am tired of predicting the Oilers, er Titans, to lose every week and having masaccio chime in with the latest win total. Titans win this one. Also, the ‘Boys go after Skins in DC. The return of Romo. If he leaves Jessica back at Southfork, his return will be enough juice to gin the ‘Boys up for a much needed win. Also Ray Lewis and the Ravens visit the Gents. I think Ray Ray is going to go wild and it will be a lot closer than most think; not enough though, and there will be enough Good Eli to pull out a close win.

Well, that’s the roundup for this weekend. Hoop it up, and trash the joint; and, find somebody to love, will ya?

There has been a lot of chatter the last 48 hours or so about Obama considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. The chatter practically exploded this afternoon with the report that the President-Elect had formally offered the job to her and she was considering the offer.

Most all of the discussion to date as to why Barack Obama might be so motivated has centered on the "Team of Rivals" aspect and the general cache of the Clinton name internationally and diplomatically.

Perhaps the best take in this regard was stated by Ian Welsh at FDL:

Clinton does offer one big advantage as Secretary of State: the Clinton name. The Clintons are loved overseas, and there is no one else in America (other than her husband, who will presumably be by her side in any case) who would demonstrate more clout than having Hilary Clinton arrive in your country. Likewise she already has relationships with many world leaders and doesn’t have to build up that trust from scratch. Clinton can hit the ground running, and assuming Obama makes it clear that he’s backing her, she can speak with more authority than perhaps anyone else could, on his behalf.

Indeed. But what strikes me is that, if Obama really has made the offer to Clinton, he may have in mind not just the obvious skills (and potential detriments) that Hillary Clinton could bring to the job, but also making a bold play for mid-east peace and specifically the Israeli/Palestinian component of it.

George Bush has never paid more than lip service to honest brokerage of real peace and rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians. Even the supposedly vaunted "Roadmap" was nothing but rhetorical roadkill on delivery, and his efforts have gone downhill since then. Condi Rice has been useless at best on the issue, and Dick Cheney, well, enough said there.

But Bill Clinton came as close as anybody in recent memory, actually decades, to actually getting a deal done. Bill Clinton was actively engaged in trying to foster a "final settlement" to the I/P problem his entire presidency, but took a crippling hit when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. The initial promise of the Oslo Accords went unfulfilled, and the final settlement that had been contemplated, unrealized. President Clinton made one last push for the elusive "final settlement" right before leaving office with the Camp David Summit.

For a variety of reasons, most notably the last second reticence, after initial acquiescence, of Yassar Arafat if reports are to be believed, Camp David went to dust. Perhaps sand. The key here is that, to both sides of the equation, Clinton was seen as an "honest broker". The simple logistical fact is that there will be no I/P peace without the sincere and active participation by the United States Government via its Executive.

If Barack Obama is indeed going to make an early and strong play on the I/P issue, it is hard to imagine who could bring more cache and weight to the attempt than Hillary Clinton. And make no mistake about it, if Obama wants to truly make his "change" global, there is no bigger key than the Palestinian problem. So much really is predicated on it and flows from it. Want to really change the world? Man, is that the prime festering sore to start with. If there is any line of dominoes, that is the initiator.

Halfway through writing this piece, I came across an article from last Monday by Georgie Anne Geyer, that lays out the argument for Clinton on the potential I/P effort by Obama perfectly.

But missed in the avalanche is the fact that we face a moment of unique hope. Where? Strangely enough, in that ever "hopeless" morass of the Middle East. In fact, when you put all the dominant factors in the region together and look carefully at the intersections of interests, we might be on the brink of the best chance for a real Israeli-Palestinian peace since the Jimmy Carter administration.
…
Despite these very real factors, deep changes are occurring inside Israel itself. Little-reported, for some reason, were the outgoing words of former Likudnik Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, long of the Israeli hard right, when he went against all of his past and stated that Israel would eventually have to give up almost all the lands it conquered in 1967, including the Arab parts of Jerusalem.

Also this fall, the Israeli government announced it would cut off funding for illegal settlement outposts and crack down on extremist squatters (thus acknowledging Israel’s complicity in their formation), after its domestic security service director, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, told a cabinet meeting that he is "very concerned" that Jewish extremists were going to attempt to assassinate moderate Israeli leaders.

Indeed, outgoing Prime Minister Olmert also warned at the meeting, showing the degree of concern that is growing even among former members of the anti-peace right: "There is a group, that is not small, of wild people who behave in a way that threatens proper law and governance. … This is unacceptable and we cannot countenance it."

At the same time, profound changes are taking place within Israel. The fate of Jerusalem, one of the world’s most exquisite cities — and the historic site of the birth and development of the three great religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam — lies in careless hands. Not a single Israeli of national stature has stepped forward to run for mayor of the city, a post that always offered immense stature. The formerly glimmering Near Eastern capital is now the poorest town in Israel, with a third of families and more than half of the children living below the official poverty line.

Meron Benvenisti, the respected former deputy mayor and a great historian of the city, was quoted recently as saying, "This city is a conundrum without a solution."

As to the Palestinians, it is surely true that one cannot expect great and mature moves from them — but what has been lost in most of the U.S.-Israeli discussions is that that is essentially unimportant. The United States and Israel are the dominant players in this unfortunate game. They can still do what both have refused to do for at least the last eight years, which is to set up a just and reasonable peace process. If it is imposed and fairly carried through by the two major players, there is every reason to believe that the Palestinians will follow, if only because they would have to."

Now the fascinating thing here is that Geyer had the wrong Clinton; she was suggesting naming Bill Clinton as American Middle East envoy.

I think Barack Obama may be a step ahead of Georgie Anne Geyer, and the rest of us too. Obama may be thinking bigger and bolder than any of us have given him credit for. A real, and audacious, move on "final settlement" of the I/P problem may be up his sleeve, and that may just be a good chunk of his motive in considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; and, if that is the case, Clinton starts to make a whole lot of sense.

UPDATE: One more point I intended to put in the post, but neglected to include before I posted, is the roster of calls that Vice-President Elect Joe Biden made Monday and Tuesday of this week (h/t Marcy). Take a look at the list:

· Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
· Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
· Israeli Likud Leader Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu
· Polish President Lech Kaczynski
· British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
· Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
· Afghan President Hamid Karzai
· King Abdullah of Jordan

Only Karzai and Kaczynski are not directly related to the I/P issue; the former, Karzai, has an abiding interest in it, and the latter, Kaczynski, was a call Biden made to straighten out some confusion on missile defense that exists from Bush/Cheney belligerence on the issue. If one is thinking the incoming Obama Administration has an I/P peace push up its sleeve, this certainly supports the thought.

There has been a lot of reporting that an auto bailout is unlikely. While I think that’s probably true, I also wonder whether Chris Dodd’s claim that the votes aren’t there is based exclusively on discussions with Richard Shelby.

Dodd was listening, and in televised remarks later he appeared to dash any hopes of action until the new Obama administration is in place and Democrats have more Senate votes next years.

“Right now, I don’t think there are the votes…Dodd said. “You’ve heard Senator Shelby publicly speak out about his opposition to doing anything in the automotive area. So I want to be careful about bringing up a proposition that might fail in light of the fact the authority exists and under an Obama Administration there seems to be a greater willingness to deal with the issue.”

As I’ve pointed out, Shelby would love for the Big Three to fail so Japanese and Korean and German manufacturers can continue to make big gas guzzlers in his state, only without any competition from domestic manufacturers.

That said, Harry Reid has noticed something I did too: like Shelby, Mitch McConnell’s got some Japanese manufacturers in his state (though those factories produce more of the efficient cars in Kentucky–like the Camry–that every one thinks of Japanese manufacturers making). In addition, McConnell’s state is also home to some Ford and GM plants, including some key Ford truck plants. Those Ford plants, incidentally, are going to be idling through the entire Christmas season.

The United Auto Workers union says Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant will be idled for five weeks beginning the first of next month.

Also, The Courier-Journal reports that UAW Local 862 says the Kentucky Truck Plant will apparently shut down in mid-December until early February.

I would imagine, with thousands of his constituents out of work, Mitch McConnell is going to be hesitant to take a strong stand against bailing out those constituents.

Which is probably what Harry Reid is thinking, as he plans to push for unemployment and an auto bailout in the lame duck session.

Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I plan to press forward with two provisions of that package – an extension of unemployment benefits, which passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 368-28 and legislation to protect the millions of workers at risk from the possible collapse of our domestic auto industry. These two provisions both address especially urgent needs and seem most likely to win your support and the support of your caucus.

Like I said, the odds of passing an auto bailout during the lame duck session are still slim. But that reality is going to put the Minority Leader in a difficult spot.

To shamelessly borrow a great story from scoutprime:

Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” — a threat made last summer by Vladimir Putin, according to an account that emerged yesterday from the Élysée Palace.

[snip]

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared. 

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

You know, I know the Villagers have a lot of polite reasons for not holding Bush and Cheney accountable. But doesn’t this present a really compelling reason for investigations and consequences? Not so much to protect Mikheil Saakashvili’s balls, mind you, but as a check on Vladimir Putin?

A lot of people are (justifiably) beating up on the auto industry for lobbying to have CAFE standards eased so they could continue to produce gas-guzzling behemoths that used to be but are no longer profitable.

But while we’re beating up short-sighted corporations, we ought not forget the credit industry–who demanded changes to bankruptcy laws that are now having adverse effects on the industry.

Federal bank regulators have rejected a request by banks and consumer advocates for a program to let lenders forgive huge portions of credit card debt.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency rejected the request for a special program that would allow as much as 40 percent of credit card debt to be forgiven for consumers who don’t qualify for existing repayment plans.

[snip]

The Financial Services Roundtable, which represents more than 100 large banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies, will "continue to look for ways to help consumers in these extraordinary times," said the group’s senior vice president, Scott Talbott.

Travis Plunkett, legislative director of Consumer Federation, said that with the number of deeply indebted consumers growing dramatically, "we still hope to work with bank regulators or Congress to create an alternative" to bankruptcy for them.

Gosh. If you hadn’t gotten greedy and just kept the old bankruptcy process in place, it would have been a lot easier to get partial payment on credit cards in lieu of nothing. 

One of the key grounds for appeal in the Don Siegelman case is that there was evidence of juror misconduct–two jurors plotting how to get a conviction–that the prosecution had the US postal inspectors investigate even while insisting any investigation would taint the jury process.

At issue is a series of e-mails that arose in 2006 suggesting that two jurors had outside influence as they decided Siegelman’s bribery conviction. After he was found guilty, Siegelman sought a new trial over the e-mails, printed copies of which had been mailed to defense attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller denied the motion for a new trial, ruling that the allegations were unsubstantiated. Siegelman has cited the issue as a central point in his ongoing appeal.

Two weeks ago, the head of the Justice Department’s appellate division, Patty Merkamp Stemler, informed Siegelman’s attorneys that the department had discovered undisclosed information about the controversy as attorneys prepared for the appeal. In a July 8 letter, Stemler wrote that while Siegelman’s mistrial proceedings were pending, acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin asked U.S. postal inspectors to try to determine who sent the e-mails through the mail.

U.S. Marshals later informed Fuller that the inspectors had concluded the e-mails were fakes. They determined, for example, that one e-mail didn’t match up with the corresponding juror’s e-mail account.

But the information produced for prosecutors and given to the judge was never passed along to Siegelman’s attorneys for cross-examination. [my emphasis]

A letter John Conyers just sent to Michael Mukasey reveals that the prosecution team allegedly knew that one of these jurors was sending flirty messages to the prosecution team during the trial. In other words, when the prosecution team fought any investigation into improper juror conduct, they had reason to believe that there had been improper contact between jurors and the prosecution team.

Those are contacts, of course, that would remain hidden in any investigation the US postal inspectors would do.

The Whistleblower

Conyers explains that Tamarah Grimes, a member of the Siegelman prosecution team, turned over emails reflecting a conversation about juror contacts with the prosecution team.

This email chain is dated June 15, 2006–the day the Siegelman/Scrushy case was submitted to the jury for its decision. The key email in the chain was written by Ms. Patricia Watson, 

[snip]

In this email, Ms. Watson writes: "I just saw Keith in the hall. The jurors kept sending out messages through the marshalls. A couple of them wanted to know if he was married." Apparently, the "Keith" referenced in this email is FBI Special Agent Keith Baker, a member of the Siegelman prosecution team who reportedly sat at or near the prosecution’s counsel table throughout the trial. Ms. Grimes responded to this email, writing "Yeah, that’s what Vallie said. He said one girl was a gymnast and they called her ‘Flipper,’ because she apparently did back flips to entertain the jurors. Flipper was very interested in Keith.

Now, Conyers goes on to talk about how inappropriate the contact itself was. But to me, it raises much more important questions about why Larry Franklin–the prosecutor in the case–made such an effort to shunt off the investigation into improper conduct of jurors to a secret investigation conducted by the US postal inspectors. Apparently, at least three members of the prosecution team knew that one of the jurors alleged to have been plotting a Siegelman conviction had reached out to contact prosecutors. According to Grimes’ whistleblower complaint, Franklin said of this juror that another member of the prosecution team, "talked to her. She is just scared and afraid she is going to get in trouble." And allegedly knowing this about the juror–knowing that she was "afraid she [was] going to get in trouble," Franklin secretly pursued an investigation not into her potential misconduct itself, but into who sent emails bearing her name.

DOJ’s Crappy Investigation of the Allegations

And then there’s the question of what the DOJ did after the Office of Special Counsel conducted an investigation into them. 

 …we have recently learned that this issue and others raised by Ms. Grimes was referred by the Office of Special Counsel to your office for evaluation. In response, an initial report has been prepared by two Assistant United States Attorneys which essentially concludes that, despite the plain statement to the contrary in this email chain, no messages were actually sent by any members of the jury to the prosecution through the US Marshals.

[snip]

We are troubled, however, that the investigators appear to have reached this conclusion without interviewing the US Marshals who supervised the Siegelman jury and who are described in the email as having been the conduit for jury messages to the prosecution. Nor do the investigators appear to have interviewed any member of the jury.

In other words, after the prosecutor in the case had launched a secret investigation into the allegations guaranteed to shield any actual misconduct, DOJ conducted a second investigation, once again designed to shield any misconduct. It appears that no one has yet interviewed "Flipper" about all the things she was alleged to have done during the prosecution (she was interviewed by the US Postal Inspectors, but presumably not about these contacts). 

Conyers goes on to describes the proof that Leura Canary–who purportedly recused from the case–was receiving campaign emails from Siegelman and forwarding them onto the prosecution team with strategy suggestions on how to use them against him–suggestions they used.

The real message Conyers appears to be sending, though, is that he holds the Mukasey DOJ directly responsible for ignoring all whistleblower evidence. In a footnote to this statement appearing in his final paragraph…

We appreciate Ms. Grimes providing this information, which she apparently has previously presented to several executive branch offices.

…He cites 5 USC 2302(b)(8)(A)(I)&(ii):

Any employee who has the authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority–take or failr to take … a personnel action with respect to any employee … because of any disclosure of information … which the employee … reasonably believes evidences a violation of any law…

For some reason, Conyers suggests, Mukasey’s own DOJ seems to be sitting on an awful lot of damning information from Tamarah Grimes.

I can’t tell whether all the giggling was from nervousness or just because Joe and Dick have been in DC for longer than forever.

And Biden’s staff isn’t telling:

"The Vice President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden met with Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne at the Naval Observatory this evening.  The Bidens thank the Cheneys for welcoming them into their home and for their gracious hospitality," said spokesperson for the Vice President-elect Elizabeth Alexander.  

No giggling from Dick, though. And no word on the man-sized safe, either.