First, the good news. While Tammy Duckworth wasn’t our first choice in Illinois’ 6th District, it’s sweet to see Gov. Blagojevich appointing her as the new director of Illinois Veterans’ Affairs.

Duckworth said a priority will be bolstering Blagojevich’s new “Veterans Care” program and “making it available to more veterans.”

Low-income veterans between the ages of 19 and 64 who do not have medical, dental or vision insurance would be covered under a state plan for $40 a month. Only a handful of veterans have enrolled to date in the program launched last September. (Chicago Sun Times)

Back in DC, the land of opposites, Bush has appointed a vocal opponent of contraception to head up family planning.

[Dr. Eric] Keroack last week was named head of HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which funds birth control, pregnancy tests, breast-cancer screening and other health services for 5 million poor people annually. HHS estimates that the program helps to prevent 1.3 million unwanted pregnancies each year.

[snip] Keroack previously served as medical director for A Woman’s Concern, a chain of Boston-area pregnancy clinics that advise against the use of contraception and advocate abstinence as a way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Keroack has spoken at abstinence conferences across the country and has written that people who have more than one sex partner have a diminished neurological capacity to experience loving relationships. (NY Times)

Democrats are calling for Keroack’s ouster, but it seems their November sweep hasn’t tempered the administration’s hubris. Dick Cheney is warning Democrats they’d better obey Bush’s dictates on judicial appointments, or else!

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will become minority leader Jan. 4, told the conservative Federalist Society Friday not to feel bad about the Senate election results because Republicans will hold 49 seats in a body that requires 60 votes to end a filibuster and bring legislation or presidential nominees to a final vote.

If the “Democrats want our cooperation, they’ll give the president’s judicial nominees an up-or-down vote,” McConnell said.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the same group Friday that Republicans’ loss of Congress in last week’s election won’t dissuade Bush from continuing to nominate strict-constructionist judges to the federal bench. (CBS News)

Then what WILL dissuade him? As Patrick Leahy says in the article, “Advice and consent does not mean giving the president a free pass to pack the courts with ideologues from the right or left.”

~Stef