Former Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will become the next nominee for Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton and creating another Senate vacancy.

President Obama will formally announce the nomination today at the White House, according to sources. He is not expected to face much resistance in the Senate for confirmation. Kerry will likely recuse himself from the confirmation hearings, since they would take place at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs. But there’s no word on when or if Kerry will step down from the Senate, the timing of which triggers a series of vacancy laws in Massachusetts.

Gifts should reflect the giver’s awareness of recipient, and carry a bit of the giver’s personality. Practical, thoughtful, and thought-provoking are also important attributes. And because this is Firedoglake, a healthy dose of social consciousness never hurts.

Top of my list: FDL’s Free Bradley Manning t-shirt (there’s also an awesome sweatshirt). I ordered one for a friend as a Thanksgiving gift, and he loved it, and I have one myself. The cotton is soft, the design is super cool, and you’re helping to support Manning’s trial coverage and activism.

Want to give a group gift, say for the whole family or your office? Occupy Sandy desperately needs Tyvek suits to protect those who are cleaning up mold damage in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Or consider supplying Occupy with the FDL Occupy Supply items.

Tim Geithner is testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on a number of issues today. It looked like he would skate by without questions on the Libor scandal until Scott Garrett, an unlikely source, tore into him. And it got worse.

The House passed a bill yesterday that would force the Office of Management and Budget to detail how they would deal with the sequestration cuts that would trigger on January 1 if Congress takes no further action. While it has the added benefit of forcing the President to detail specific cuts to the federal workforce, which could theoretically get used in an election campaign, the bill had strong bipartisan support, passing by a 414-2 margin. Similar legislation passed the Senate as part of their version of the farm bill. So this is likely to get done. In fact, Harry Reid said he would consider a floor vote for it.

House Democrats have a chance to show Jamie Dimon that he isn’t the King of America. Let’s hope they don’t follow the example of the lapdog millionaires in the Senate.

In the wake of JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion Fail Whale trade and the ensuing federal investigation into violations of disclosure laws, US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has called on JPM CEO Jamie Dimon to resign from his position on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The announcement brings to light the fact that bank executives control most of the positions at the regional banks, and they select the Fed regional presidents that help to set monetary policy for the nation.

Barney Frank and Brad Miller tried to shake up a House Financial Services Committee hearing yesterday. As per usual, Republicans wanted to go after the CFPB’s funding and subject it to the appropriations process. As it stands, CFPB derives its funding from a portion of the funding of the Federal Reserve, which comes from sources independent of Congress. The argument goes, why should CFPB be exempt from Congressional oversight in terms of its funding? The real agenda is that Republicans would then squeeze funding for CFPB to render them ineffective, or attach strings to the funding, either explicitly or implicitly.

Dayen’s news roundup from April 17, 2017, including stories you missed — because as usual, you waited until yesterday to file your taxes — about Barney Frank, EPA, not-Secret Service, postal reform, housing prices, Bowles Simpson, IMF, Mississippi, Mitt Romney, Seamus, Quebec students, Taliban, Bill Buckley, Tom Freeman, wanker of the decade.

The House of Representatives will pass something they’re calling a jobs bill today. They accomplish this by giving it a nice acronym: the Jumpstarting Our Business Startups, or JOBS, Act. Now, jump-starting should be a hyphenated word so it really should be the J-SOBS Act, but we’ll let that slide. The really egregious things about this are: A) it has nothing to do with jobs, and B) it’s based on Democratic legislation that already passed, simply repackaged by the House GOP and called a jobs bill.

Barney Frank’s questions about Big Conservative Government’s advocates’ unwavering and prurient interest in regulating pot and sex get no respect from co-panelists George “Gateway Drug” Will and Paul “I Smirk” Ryan. Then the Massachusetts Congressman gets totally shut down by lame duck anchor Christiane Amanpour, who’d prefer to return to her chosen topic of ‘social mobility’ than let Barney deftly pierce the inherent personal liberty contradictions of her guests’ preferred regulatory regime.

Barney Frank revels in the opportunity to speak directly to people who have no response but to smirk at him (Ryan) or to ask for another several decades of pot research before making up their minds whether it’s a gateway drug (Will).