Are heads over here exploding yet?

WASHINGTON - Top advisers to Barack Obama sent a strong message yesterday that Republicans will play a vital role in his administration (...)

Valerie Jarrett, a longtime friend to Obama who is cochairwoman of his transition team, suggested that Obama intends to appoint Republicans to his cabinet or other important posts and does not rule out keeping on Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he takes power in January.

"He thinks he'll make better decisions if he's pushed hard by people with perspectives that are wide and broad," Jarrett said on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday, in a response to a question about speculation that Obama will appoint Republicans to cabinet-level positions. "It is important to him to have that kind of breadth at the table." (...)

Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel, a representative from Illinois who will serve as Obama's White House chief of staff, told ABC's "This Week" that John McCain, Obama's Republican rival, "will be a partner" in the next administration.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/10/obama_advisers_signal_republican_roles_in_administration/

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''

Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.

The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. (...)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide

WASHINGTON - With Pakistan teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Husain Haqqani put on a powder blue tie and made his pitch. A quick infusion of US cash, he said, would ensure that Pakistan will be able to afford to keep up its expensive military operations near the Afghan border.

"All Pakistan is asking for is a bailout of $10 billion to fight terrorism" and get back on its feet, he told a packed audience recently at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

Fleeing investors and mounting debts have become serious threats for Pakistan, along with a smoldering insurgency and a history of corruption. Now Haqqani - a former Boston University professor of international relations who became Pakistan's ambassador to the United States in May - is charged with an almost impossible task: trying to secure more funding from the already depleted coffers of the US government. (...)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/11/10/new_envoy_urges_us_to_bail_out_pakistan/