Obama names financial advisers. Flanked in Chicago by financial experts who will shape his economic recovery plan, President-elect Barack Obama showed he is ready to attack the financial crisis now rather than wait until he officially takes office on Jan. 20. “It is my hope that the new Congress will begin work on an aggressive economic recovery plan when they convene in early January, so that our administration can hit the ground running,” Obama said at a news conference in his hometown. Read the rest here.

A Delaware man admits to voter fraud. A 34-year-old Chester man arrested last month for alleged voter-registration fraud admitted his guilt yesterday in Delaware County Court. Jemar Barksdale, an ex-employee of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), was accused of turning in voter-registration cards for 18 already-registered voters, altering information, and forging signatures. He pleaded guilty to charges of forgery, identity theft, and tampering with public records, Deputy District Attorney Greg Hurchalla told PhillyNews.com. Under the terms of the plea agreement approved in Delaware County Court, Barksdale, who spent about a week in prison on the charges, must serve six to 23 months on house arrest, undergo a psychiatric evaluation, perform eight hours of community service, and pay $574 in restitution to ACORN, Hurchalla said.

Bush asks Justice Dept. to investigate voter fraud claims. President Bush has asked the Department of Justice to look into a request by House Republican Leader John Boehner that would force Ohio’s secretary of State to provide local election officials with information on 200,000 newly registered voters with mismatched registration data, The Washington Post reports. The move would make it possible for Republicans to issue challenges to many of these voters, perhaps forcing them to cast provisional ballots. Acceptance of provisional ballots are at the discretion of voting officials. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Ohio Republicans’ attempts to force Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to provide the information on mismatches to local officials. But Boehner announced Monday that he had sent a letter earlier this week to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking him to take action, and had not gotten a response. He then turned to the White House for help – warning in a letter to President Bush that if no action was taken, “there is a significant risk, if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted.”  Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Post: “This is taking the politicization of this to a new level.” However, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino characterized the move as “a routine step that would be taken for any such request from a congressional leader.”