My must read of the day is "John Podesta hire signals a more aggressive White House" in Politico:
The addition of the quintessential Washington wise man to the West Wing staff is seen as a long overdue move that should help Obama install the kind of management and oversight infrastructure that was absent in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges this fall.
It also signals a more aggressive focus by the White House on using executive authority to circumvent Congress in the final three years of the administration.
President Obama has repeatedly said he will use executive orders to enact his climate agenda if Congress doesn’t approve. This hire shows he’s serious.
Podesta will be advising on climate change and "executive orders." For this president, the two go hand in hand.
On Nov. 1, he announced an executive order on "Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change."
Last Thursday, he announced that the federal government will be required to "nearly triple its use of renewable sources for electricity by 2020," as a means to "help reduce pollution that causes global warming, promote American energy independence and boost domestic energy sources such as solar and wind power that provide thousands of jobs."
We will soon see an increasingly aggressive climate policy that will be worked out entirely by the White House. Regardless of what you think about the issue, centralizing power in the executive branch is not great for democracy, and it certainly does nothing to change the perception of Obama’s opponents that he works around the law whenever it’s convenient.