Longtime Waxman aide and House Oversight investigator Named to Obama's Staff

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a veteran Capitol Hill aide as his top White House representative to Congress, the Democrat's transition team announced Saturday as he works to fill out the senior ranks of his team.
Philip Schiliro has worked in Congress for more than 25 years, many of which were spent as a top aide to longtime Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and the House Oversight Committee. His official title will be assistant to the president for legislative affairs when the new administration takes over Jan. 20.

Much of Schiliro's career has been spent investigating allegations of wrongdoing under Waxman and the House Oversight Committee.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/15/philip-schiliro-veteran-c_n_144072.html

He put the kabosh on the Los Angeles subway for years. Still can´t quite forgive him.

district did not want a bloated, overcharging white elephant built through his district? A district, I should mention with a history of not only earthquakes, but oil and natural gas leaks.

I was in the Hollywood Farmer's Market (which is three blocks from The La Brea Tar Pits, and smack dab in the center of Waxman's district) the day the Ross Dress for Less store across the street blew up from an underground natural gas pocket finding its way up to the street. The sidewalk burned for three days.

I'm not sure I want to know how that works.

The gas worked its way up to the suface and caused a jet of flame to keep burning for days. There was nothing to turn off, and just blowing it out risked the gas seeping up somewhere else.

The technology to prevent such explosions has long been available; Waxman merely wanted to appease Westsiders (his constituency) by opposing future subway construction. Unfortunately, the city´s traffic situation became so horrendous that even Westsiders agree something is needed. Hence, the populace (and even Waxman) are now pro-subway. BTW, do you really thing those freeways pay for themselves? They don´t even work.

most of the most-recent changes have been to add dedicated bus lines connecting the east side of the San Fernando Valley with the West. As far as freeways not working, maybe not, but they haven't given me my jet pack to get from the Valley to the LAX area.

Maybe if Jerry Brown hadn't deliberately decided to make the freeways not work thirty years ago (figuring that by making them fail, we would have to come up with a viable solution, but not having a viable alternative), they might have worked.

A monorail system would be cheaper, and have less risk of being buried alive in the next "big one".

And as far as having the technology to prevent gas leaks, I find that to be like the phrases "fully-debugged" and "Unsinkable Titanic"

Downtown to North Hollywood in 20 minutes; try that on the freeway at rush hour.

However one might arrive at such conclusion, I dearly pray we will avoid such as we evaluate President Obama's actions.

Consistently voting against mass transit in LA is not progressive. Thank goodness transportation advocates in SoCal have been able to advance transit projects despite Waxman´s stalling. The methane explosion was just the pretext for Waxman´s urging Congress to pass a law forbidding new subway construction in LA; the real reason for not wanting it was that Westsiders (Waxman´s constituency) did not want people from the south and east coming into their neighborhoods. At any rate, the technology to prevent further gas explosions has long been available.

Because he's not the roughest, toughest, Democrat there is. That would be Dennis Kucinich, who is truly afraid of nothing in D.C. and has paved the way for many, lesser Democrats.

:toast:

This is great news.

Much of Schiliro's career has been spent investigating allegations of wrongdoing under Waxman and the House Oversight Committee.




Boy do we need some investigating done in Washington DC about the shennigans of the last 8 years.

:applause:

Maybe Obama doesn't want this guy after him. :hide:

No one would walk into that position with the experience and know-how that Waxman has.

I doubt that Obama would pick him, but if we were to have a truly A.G. of the people, it would be Henry.

Read this article, please: http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3914

This recounts one of the ugliest stories in anti-Veteran politics. This is the Democratic Party version of the Walter Reed hospital tragedy. Land deeded "in perpetuity" to the health care of US military veterans has been given away to private interests, largely through the offices of the local congressman, Henry Waxman and of course, the --thankfully outgoing--GOP administration. As long as Waxman continues supporting stealing land from Veteran health he doesn't deserve your praise and high opinion.


The public park that Bob is opposing in this Resolution represents Veterans land that has been coveted by Veterans Park Conservancy (VPC), and is a calculated scheme to take virtually all of Veterans land for a public community center or as VPC has envisioned, “central park west,” all under the guise of “honoring our veterans.”

In a recent article by fellow Veteran Rees Lloyd, titled “Shame on VA Bureaucrats and Shame on Congressman Waxman,” Rees correctly pointed out that “VPC, which manifestly is not a veterans organization but an organization of wealthy Brentwood residents whose principal agent in advancing its own interests through arrogant manipulation has been the politically-connected Sue Young -- that is, politically connected to the Westside Machine.”
. . . .
Through the manipulation of the Machine and the VA bureaucrats, Ms. Young received a no-bid privileged lease arrangement for 16-acres of Veterans Land, "rent free," even though the parcel is considered to be one of the most valuable on the west coast and estimated to be worth $1 billion. On the flip side of this billion-dollar coin, Veterans receive absolutely nothing while their healthcare needs continue to go under-funded.

See also:
http://labloga.blogspot.com/2008/11/veterans-day-2008-pit-from-pole-to-pole.html

in his endeavor. Perhaps the state of California could help him out?

Waxman has been far out in front on investigating the nefarious misdeeds of the Bush administration. Naming Philip Schiliro to his staff means Obama is tapping into that Waxman connection. I think this is huge, and a very solid sign from Obama that he's not going to forget what these guys did.

I wonder--who's going to play "Good Cop"?

He made a run for a congressional seat a number of years ago to which I contributed, but unfortunately he lost. He's smart and experienced.