A few days ago, incoming Agriculture Chairman Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) announced the hire of Ryan McKee as the senior staffer to oversee the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. McKee is currently a lobbyist working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s division dedicated to deregulating complex derivatives products. In her new role working for Lucas, McKee will be liaising with regulators in charge of implementing new rules under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law to overhaul the over-the-counter derivatives market.

As ThinkProgress reported, the Chamber, which is funded by AIG, JP Morgan, CitiGroup, and other financial interests, took the lead role in fighting to defeat Wall Street reform efforts. Last year, the Chamber organized a conference call with other financial industry lobby groups and bank lobbyists to coordinate their efforts. As Tim Fernholz reported, McKee made clear that she was fighting to “kill” financial reform:

“We want to make sure that we hold all the Republicans and are able to influence enough Democrats to have a working majority to kill this thing outright or modify it to the point where it’s palatable to the business community,” Jason Matthews, the Chamber’s director of congressional affairs, told the callers. Ryan McKee, a senior director at the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets, was even more direct in response to a question from an caller: “We’re fundamentally trying to kill this,” she said.

To undermine the new rules created by the Dodd-Frank law, the Chamber recently launched a new website dedicated to smearing the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo has noted that Lucas and other Republicans on the Ag Committee have already signaled that they will seek to delay implementation of new derivatives regulations. Republicans raised eyebrows recently by proclaiming that they intend to “serve the banks” rather than regulate them. By hiring bank lobbyists like McKee to oversee reform, it’s clear Republicans plan on fulfilling that promise to undermine reform.

Earlier this month, after President Obama made a deal with congressional Republicans, Congress passed a bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, in exchange for a 13-month unemployment insurance extension. Obama and most Democrats begrudged giving the rich more tax breaks, but Republicans rejoiced. Before the deal, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) fiercely advocated for extending the cuts for the rich. Despite the more than $800 billion cost to extend them, Coburn argued that tax cuts don’t have to be paid for.

Today on Fox News Sunday, the Oklahoma senator repeatedly said the federal government should reduce spending. Host Chris Wallace pressed for specifics, but Coburn couldn’t offer up much. “That remains to be seen,” he said, and, “We haven’t even done the hard work of identifying all the duplications in the federal government.” To his credit, Coburn noted that the Pentagon needs some auditing help, but he repeatedly threw out some random amounts of money that could be cut ($50 billion, $100 billion, $200 billion, and $350 billion) without saying exactly where that money would come from. But now that the tax cut deal is done and the President signed it into law, it appears that Coburn now thinks the rich are going to have to start sacrificing too:

COBURN: We could certainly cut $100 to $200 billion and help ourself. [sic] …There cannot be anything that’s not put on the table. There will not be one American that will not be called on to sacrifice. Those that are more well to do will be called on to sacrifice to a greater extent.

We could save about $50 billion a year by eliminating programs. … [W]e have a realm of about $350 billion that will not truly impact anybody in this country that we could eliminate tomorrow.

Watch it:

There is one sure way that the federal government could save hundreds of billions of dollars “tomorrow”: eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which of course Coburn would never advocate doing. The Joint Committee on Taxation said that the Obama-brokered tax cut deal — most of which go to the rich — will cost the federal government more than $400 billion over the next two years.

But if Coburn needs help with ideas on specific spending cuts, the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes that the Center for American Progress has identified $100 billion in defense programs (that won’t compromise national security), $45 billion in subsidies to oil companies, $1 billion in tax expenditures for big agricultural firms, $2 billion in unnecessary stock ownership incentives for the rich, and hundreds of millions in redundant or duplicative education programs that could be cut.

For the past two years, conservatives have repeatedly attacked President Obama for supposedly endangering American lives by not being aggressive enough in going after terrorists. But a year after the failed bombing attempt on Christmas Day for which Obama received immense criticism from the right, a key Bush intelligence official refuted these right-wing attacks today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. Retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under President Bush, said the Obama “administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing” terror threats:

MCCONNELL: Both general Hayden and I served in the previous administration and we got a lot of criticism for being aggressive, and so on. … My observation is that the new administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing these issues, because they’re real. And so, regardless of which side of the political spectrum –

CROWLEY: And you commend them for that?

MCCONNELL: I do commend them for that.

Watch it:

Meanwhile, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as the head of the CIA under Bush and appeared along with McConnell on CNN today, warned against overreacting to the “low threshold” attacks that Al-Qaeda and their ideological allies now employ. “We cannot allow our response to that kind of event to turn a tactical success for Al-Qaeda into a strategic defeat for us,” Hayden said, by “overreacting to it by suppressing our commerce and our convenience.”

With the strong backing of the tea party movement, Maine Gov.-elect Paul LePage (R) rode a wave of discontent over bull semen taxes to a surprising victory last month, telling President Obama to “go to to hell” and warning a reporter that he would punch him in the face. On the campaign trail, LePage raged against a what he considered a corrupt state government and “pledged to surround himself with ‘the best and the brightest’ and to avoid political cronyism.” But on Thursday, LePage announced that he had hired his own 22-year-old daughter for a position in the “upper echelon of his administration,” with a salary of $41,000, the Bangor Daily News reports:

Lauren LePage, 22, will serve as assistant to the governor’s chief of staff, John McGough — a position that administration officials describe as entry-level and is commensurate with her experience, work history and education.

LePage, a recent college graduate, will be a salaried political appointee earning approximately $41,000 a year, according to Dan Demeritt, incoming director of communications in the LePage administration. [...]

Maine governors have wide discretion in creating staff positions within their offices, filling those positions and setting salaries. Because such appointments are political positions — known as “special assistants to the governor” — there are no rules barring Maine’s chief executive from hiring family members.

“According to the current administration, the average entry level salary is $30,000.” Indeed, the minimum starting salary for a certified teachers in Maine is only $30,000, and that requires extra study. Meanwhile, the entry-level salary for a Maine State Police officer is just $36,000 after graduation from the police academy.

And as Maine progressive blog Dirigo Blue points out, LePage’s daughter will also be moving into the governor’s mansion with her father. With taxpayers footing the bill for her rent, utilities, food, and other expenses, “Not only will Lauren be earning $41,000 in direct income, but she’ll be making another $12,000 or more indirectly.”

Maine Democrats Executive Director Mary Erin Casale called the hiring a “brazen display of political nepotism,” but LePage aides said the position is “entry-level and is commensurate with her experience, work history and education.” It’s worth noting that Lauren LePage received her education in Florida, where she paid in-state tuition — not studying politics — because LePage’s wife violated tax laws by claiming residency in both Maine and Florida. (She was eventually ordered to pay back taxes).