Rumors are flying that Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh is under consideration to be State Department Legal Advisor. That would be a welcome development.

Win Monroe is a research intern at the New America Foundation. Leaders from both Russia and China had harsh words for American-style capitalism at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. But, as energy prices collapse and demand for exports fall, the legitimacy of these autocratic state capitalists is also being called into question.

The much respected and very tough to get Nelson Report thinks Daschle had to go. In contrast, I think Daschle’s departure signals the likely death of any near term comprehensive health care reform.

During the battle over John Bolton’s Senate confirmation to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, a post that Bolton ultimately achieved through presidential recess appointment rather than by Senate vote, I noticed a peculiar difference between leading Democrats and leading Republicans.

I have my doubts whether Obama can simultaneously pull off any kind of serious reform of the military services while also trying to engineer a few “Nixon Goes to China” moments in our national security policies.

This is a guest post by Brian Young, the new webmaster for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Senator John Kerry.

Starting today on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a new staffer joined the team.

The CBS News Political Hotsheet has lost track of Jeanne Shaheen.

Innumerable policy shops and interest group around DC have already put out strategic blueprints for a policy agenda in the new administration.

My New America Foundation colleague Daniel Mandel spends the wee hours of the morning every work day assembling an often amazing, comprehensive roster of some of the best articles on the American economy. I have his permission to forward this daily email to those who would like to have it.