Senate returns to consider nominations

As the Senate returns from recess, it will consider pending nominations for top government posts. According to the Washington Post’s Al Kamen, Frederick Barton of the Ploughshares-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies is a candidate for head of the Agency for International Development.  Barton is a highly-regarded former USAID official who was a member of the Obama transition review team on development assistance and chaired an Obama campaign team on post-conflict reconstruction.