U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton

Of necessity, President-elect Barack Obama's first act after November 4 was to address economic security. He has assembled his team and plans are moving forward.

In Chicago tomorrow, Obama is expected to name his national security team. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have given this announcement added signifigance and necessity. We've all heard that U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is expected to be named Secretary of State, but who are the others?

According to ABC News, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; attorney Eric Holder, Attorney General; Retired Marine General Jim Jones, National Security Adviser; retired Adm. Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence; Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations; and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will stay on in that role for at least a year.  

Napolitano has an excellent reputation as governor of Arizona and understands the critical issue of and need for comprehensive immigration reform, a top priority for NDN. She also no doubt understands the critical importance of U.S. relations with countries in central and south America.

Holder served in the Clinton Administration's Justice Department, helped vet Obama's vice presidential pick and will be the nation's first African-American attroney general.

The New York Times has an intriguing profile of Obama's alleged pick for national security adviser, retired Marine General Jim Jones.

The Washington Post also has an in-depth report on Obama's first meeting with Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who met with Obama in Chicago some nine days ago.

According to the article, many in the military traditionally do not trust Democrats or "intellectuals," as some might call Obama.

Although exit polls did not break out active-duty voters, it is virtually certain that McCain won the military vote.

In an October survey by the Military Times, nearly 70 percent of more than 4,000 officers and enlisted respondents said they favored McCain, while about 23 percent preferred Obama. Only African American service members gave Obama a majority.

In exit polls, those who said they had "ever served in the U.S. military" made up 15 percent of voters and broke 54 percent for McCain to 44 percent for Obama. "As a culture, we are more conservative and Republican," a senior officer said.

However, the article goes on to report that Obama's meetings so far have gone over well with a military. According to news reports, he has come across as disciplined, a person who will listen if not always act on the military's advice and a realist. Hillary Clinton also is popular at the Pentagon and Jones is a strong leader.

Although not technically considered "national security" appointments, make sure to check out Simon's essay on the importance of G-20 ambassadorial posts. In a world where it is no longer possible to separate the issues of terrorism from those of globalization, these are massively important picks. 

In an op-ed published in today's Wall Street Journal, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) makes a forceful and compelling argument that any proposal to bail out Wall Street financial institutions must include provisions to help the millions of Americans who have lost or in are danger of losing their homes as a result of mortgage defaults and foreclosures.

Senator Clinton writes: 

There is a broad consensus that Congress must act to stave off deeper turmoil on Wall Street. Irrespective of the final agreement yet to be reached, there are several principles that must be part of a broader reform effort that begins this week and continues in the coming months.

This is not just a financial crisis; it's an economic crisis. Therefore, the solutions we pursue cannot simply stabilize the markets. We must also deal with the interconnected economic challenges that set the stage for this crisis -- and reverse the failed policies that allowed a potential crisis to become a real one.

First, we must address the skyrocketing rates of mortgage defaults and foreclosures that have buffeted the economy and ignited the credit crisis. Two million homeowners carry mortgages worth more than their homes. They hold $3 trillion in mortgage debt. Nearly three million adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled for a rate increase in the next two years. Another wave of foreclosures looms.

I've proposed a new Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), to launch a national effort to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. The original HOLC, launched in 1933, bought mortgages from failed banks and modified the terms so families could make affordable payments while keeping their homes. The original HOLC returned a profit to the Treasury and saved one million homes. We can save roughly three times that many today. We should also put in place a temporary moratorium on foreclosures and freeze rate hikes in adjustable-rate mortgages. We've got to stem the tide of failing mortgages and give the markets time to recover.

The time for ideological, partisan arguments against these actions is over. For years, the calls to provide borrowers an affordable opportunity to avoid foreclosure as a means of preventing wider turmoil were dismissed as government intrusion into the private marketplace. My proposals over the past two years were derided as too much, too soon. Now we are forced to reckon with too little, too late.

As a result, the home-mortgage crisis slowly erode d the value of debt instruments upon which Wall Street firms were depending. That is how this house of borrowed cards began to fall. If we do not take action to address the crisis facing borrowers, we'll never solve the crisis facing lenders. These problems go hand in hand. And if we are going to take on the mortgage debt of storied Wall Street giants, we ought to extend the same help to struggling, middle-class families.

Senator Clinton's op-ed, entitled, "Let's Keep People In Their Homes," echoes NDN's statements of last week and this week. On Tuesday of this week, NDN Globalization Initiative Chairman Dr. Robert Shapiro and NDN President Simon Rosenberg released an op-ed, "Keep People in Their Homes," which can be read here.

NDN applauds Senator Clinton's leadership on this critical issue.