Edward Piou's personal website

Remember when they explained to us we needed to have the Republicans in charge "because they're good with money"? Remember how excited the Villagers were about having a Harvard MBA president? Ah, good times!

The deep river of private money that helped knit together the global economy has abruptly dried up, new government figures show.

As the global financial crisis grew more severe this summer, foreigners sold almost $90 billion of U.S. securities — the greatest quarterly fire sale by overseas investors since the government began keeping track in 1960. U.S. investors also are retrenching; they unloaded about $85 billion worth of foreign holdings in the quarter, says the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

"We've had a global panic. Everyone is pulling their money home," says economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute in Washington, D.C.

That's bad for economic growth in the U.S. because it threatens to starve capital-hungry companies and entrepreneurs. But it's especially serious for emerging-market countries that rely heavily on outside financing. Capital flows into countries such as South Korea, Turkey and Brazil were evaporating even before the mid-September Lehman Bros. bankruptcy made things worse.

The reversal of private capital flows signals an abrupt end to a nearly two-decades-long era of financial globalization, says economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Private flows into and out of the U.S. for purchases of stocks, corporate bonds and federal agency bonds have dropped from around 18% of economic output to near zero "in a remarkably short period of time," Setser says.

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The economy is very sick," Obama said before meeting with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "The situation is getting worse. ... We have to act and act now to break the momentum of this recession."

"The reason we are here today is because the people's business cannot wait,"

"Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach...

"This is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem at this stage. It is an American problem and we're going to all have to chip in and do what the American people expect."

In Obama's "bi-partisan Congressional" presser today, he called the economy "sick" and stressed the need for accountability on how the money from his massive stimulus package will be spent. As we've seen with TARP, and with no real oversight in place, you can't trust CEO's to do the right thing.

The AP contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings? What's the plan for the rest?None of the banks provided specific answers and most refused to explain why they are keeping the information secret.

Obama is stepping into an economic situation that is eerily similar to FDR and he's hitting the right notes when he says transparency and accountability are a high priority for him. That is going to be paramount if his new economic package is going to move forward. In FDR's time, just the fact that "change" was happening in America that didn't have the name "Hoover" attached to it gave FDR a huge boost to his agenda and to the American psyche that helped him get through his first 100 days. Hope and change do matter to the American public and Obama is using it wisely so far.

Obama is in a similar position to FDR, but what will Conservatives do? Will they try to block his policies that he wants to sign into law as soon as his first 100 days begin or will they become part of the solution? I think we know where Mitch McConnell's head will go. They want to appear to be relevant, but it was their control that has put us in this position to begin with.

I hope Obama's love affair with bipartisanship will come to an end very soon. Not because I don't think it's a good idea to have both sides working together, but because Conservatives are incapable of doing just that. They do not want Obama to succeed because it will weaken their grip on American politics for years to come at the expense of average Americans just trying to get by.

It's about ideology for them and not about the healing that our country is in desperate need of. I think Obama will soon feel their un-partisan wrath sooner rather than later and hopefully it will snap him out of any thought he had that he could work with Conservatives, no matter how "centrist" he goes. So here's the question.
How fast will Obama get fed up with Conservative obstructionism? Will it be in his first 100 days or shortly after?

I do know they filibuster Franken (who has just declared victory) and Holder as soon as Conservatives can. Will that be the beginning of the end to this bipartisan nightmare? If Conservatives did join in then at least Obama would be able to start healing the country, but don't expect any help from them.

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Today President-elect Obama threw the political world a curveball and chose former California Congressman Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Although Mr. Panetta brings with him little experience in intelligence affairs, the pick signals that Obama recognizes the dangers of politicizing the CIA like Bush has. Expect Panetta to play the role of "public face" while he allows the real intelligence experts to do their jobs. We should all welcome that after eight years of crap like this.

MSNBC:

Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

We should probably also expect some unhappiness among the Village set.

It's time for Norm Coleman to move back to Brooklyn.

The Minnesota Supreme Court today rejected a bid by Republican Norm Coleman to have hundreds of rejected absentee ballots considered in the U.S. Senate recount, apparently clearing the way for a state board to certify election results showing Democrat Al Franken on top — and also opening the door to a post-recount lawsuit that the Coleman campaign said "is now inevitable."

The state Canvassing Board is scheduled to meet this afternoon to review recount results. Heading into the meeting, Franken holds an unofficial 225-vote lead.

We will then be able to witness the ritual of a "Bill O'Reilly head explosion" at every mention of Franken's name on his show.

Harry Reid called Coleman and told him to concede.

I believe that tomorrow the bipartisan state canvassing board will certify Al Franken the winner. After all, early on Senator Coleman criticized Al Franken for wanting a recount and wasting taxpayer money. I would hope now that it is clear he lost, that Senator Coleman follow his own advice and not subject the people of Minnesota to a costly legal battle.

I don't think it helps Reid's cause not to seat Burris at this time. Blags played everyone, even Fitz. Legally speaking, how can Reid block his appointment?

Conservatives try to paint themselves as the law-and-order folks. Yeah, it's a funny concept, I know, but at this point it's time for the Coleman camp to think about "America" and concede. Instead they are talking about filibustering the seating of Franken, so we're in for another round of Conservative whining.

Malkin writes a title to a post that could describe the Republicans in Congress since 1994: "A real clown takes a Senate seat". It's always a scream when Conservatives whine about the recount process. Oh, how they forget.

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Dick Cheney on Face the Nation doing his last bit of spin on Iraq and Saddam Hussein before we finally get these criminals out of office.

Cheney seems to think that Iraq is better off now than before the invasion and occupation. Somehow I think that the over a million dead and millions more displaced there would tend to disagree with him but hey, what do I know.

Maybe they love living in a country poisoned by DU, with filthy conditions where they're separated from their friends and family that they have left and wondering if they'll have clean water, food or electricity to look forward to in the next day, week or month.

I'm sure other than that all those Iraqis are eternally grateful to Dick Cheney and the Bush administration and all of those in the United States Congress that allowed themselves to be bullied or scared into approving us invading their country for helping to have "liberated" them. Bravo. Mission accomplished. The rest of the world just loves us now, right? But of course, as far as Cheney is concerned, they can just go **** themselves, those ingrates.

I really don't know why he even bothers with the Bush history revision. Everyone knows he could care less what anyone thinks of him or the U.S. or the Bush administration and the damage that's been done while he and Bush have been in office.

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Conservatives have a gift for pretending the obvious isn't there. Take Brit Hume yesterday for example. He gets all worked up -- even angry-seeming -- over the terrible injustice being done to Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris.

Why? Because the prosecutor is Patrick Fitzgerald. Seems Hume harbors a grudge from one of Fitzgerald's previous prosecutions ...

It's all wrapped up in defense of Blago's selection of Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat:

Hume: Why is it that he's thought to be under a taint? He's thought to be under a taint because an accusation has been made against him, not yet an indictment, by a prosecutor --

[Crosstalk]

Hume: -- Against Blagojevich, not against him -- by a prosecutor who for all of his success in court, has a propensity, as we saw in the Scooter Libby case, to say things in news conferences that he ultimately chooses or is unable to prove in court. That is all we have. We have his say-so.

Someone was saying on the air the other day, 'Well, we have the tapes.' No, we don't have the tapes. All we have is quotations from the tapes by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, and it's not at all clear when we'll see them, what they'll show, what the context was or anything. This man is innocent until proven guilty.

That's all a stirring and noble defense of Blago, but Hume doesn't seem to realize that the breadth and depth of the case against the Illinois governor involves a great deal more than just those tapes and just the Obama Senate seat matter. And really, do we need to spell out that any selection in which there is an appearance of impropriety in the process is tainted, especially when it involves the sale of the selection?

But I gather that if you live in RightWingLand, it's difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the selection of Roland Burris tainted. After all, criminal complaints laying out a politician's desire to corruptly sell off federal appointments -- hey, that's ordinary. Routine! Everyone does that!

Is it something in the water that conservatives drink, or what?

I'd guess that bipartisan cooperation on this will be slim to non-existent (see Mitch McConnell's quotes in this article), but you never know:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories.

The overall economic package, of $675 billion to $775 billion, is taking shape as Mr. Obama arrived in Washington and planned to begin trying to build support in Congress and among the broader public for his approach to stimulating the economy. Mr. Obama, who flew to the capital on Sunday to join his family in a hotel suite while awaiting his inauguration, planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Monday and deliver a speech on Thursday laying the ground for his emerging economic program.

Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans on Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing criticism of what they describe as an open-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach.

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We've known for some time that Fox News is merely the propaganda arm for the GOP. However, they usually couch their partisanship with claims of being "fair and balanced" and token ineffectual Democrats. But Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace was perhaps a little unintentionally forthright about where his loyalties lay in Sunday's interview with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Congress's priority to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

WALLACE: Big Labor’s top priority is what’s called “union card check” and that would be eliminating the right to a secret ballot in determining whether or not you’re going to organize, unionize a working place. [laughs] I love the way you’re smiling already. Are you going to move on that in the first month?

HOYER: I’m smiling because of the way you phrased it. It’s the Free Choice Act, of course, and what it does is …

WALLACE: Well, “union card check”, Free Choice, both sides have their euphemisms.

HOYER: Of course, and you use one side. That’s why I was smiling…[laughs]

WALLACE: And you used the other.

Sadly, Wallace obviously has access to the GOP talking points soundbytes that the Democrats are never savvy enough to replicate. Nice, neat, and sound sensible if a little weak on facts. "Union card check" sounds like something a Dem-voting life-long union member would be leery of. But Hoyer never retorts in a way that eliminates this fear. The Employee Free Choice Act simply gives the employees the right to decide whether to unionize, rather than the company. It's easy to understand and say, right? But instead, Hoyer gives this mush-mouthed reply:

HOYER: Well, okay, my point being that we believe that one of the problems that has existed in America is that working people have had a very, very difficult time in getting represented by unions in the work place. Work place has resisted that. The NLRB has not been very vigorous in assuring the lack of unfair labor practices. We believe that the employees…if over 50% of them sign and say that we want to be represented by a union, they ought to be able to be represented by a union. Let me say that many, many employers currently, under existing law, recognize such signatures right now and start to bargain and have a union representative.

C'mon, guys, it's bad enough that you go on Fox, can't you do a little prep work to be able to respond to the Republican framing first?

Transcripts below the fold:

WALLACE: Let’s talk about the rest of your agenda. There’s talk that you want to move quickly on what’s called “low hanging fruit,” to pass the measures that could get bipartisan support and move through Congress quickly. Expansion of the State Children’s Health Program, or S-CHIP.

HOYER: We’re looking at…we passed that bill as you know, through the House handily. It passed through the Senate with two-thirds majority and it was vetoed by the President. We think it’s critical to move quickly on ensuring that children in this country have availability of health care. So yes, that’s going to be an early bill for us. I’m not going to put a time frame on it, but I expect to see that bill early. There’s some other things that we have to do. We’re going to complete the ‘08/’09 appropriations process, that needs to be done early. We’re going to address the Lily Ledbetter and the pay equity issues…

WALLACE: That’s to give women more time to sue for pay equity.

HOYER: That’s correct. So that women are not precluded, or others are not precluded from recovering damages simply because they don’t know what their fellow employees are making, and that they’re being discriminated against. When they find out, they ought to be able to have the opportunity to get redress of that grievance.

WALLACE: Big Labor’s top priority is what’s called “union card check” and that would be eliminating the right to a secret ballot in determining whether or not you’re going to organize, unionize a working place. [laughs] I love the way you’re smiling already. Are you going to move on that in the first month?

HOYER: I’m smiling because of the way you phrased it. It’s the Free Choice Act, of course, and what it does is …

WALLACE: Well, “union card check”, Free Choice, both sides have their euphemisms.

HOYER: Of course, and you use one side. That’s why I was smiling…[laughs]

WALLACE: And you used the other.

HOYER: Well, okay, my point being that we believe that one of the problems that has existed in America is that working people have had a very, very difficult time in getting represented by unions in the work place. Work place has resisted that. The NLRB has not been very vigorous in assuring the lack of unfair labor practices. We believe that the employees…if over 50% of them sign and say that we want to be represented by a union, they ought to be able to be represented by a union. Let me say that many, many employers currently, under existing law, recognize such signatures right now and start to bargain and have a union representative.

WALLACE: Whatever you call it, Senator, are you going to pass it in the first month?

HOYER: I don’t know about the first month, but we’re going to pass it early.

WALLACE: You had talked about…when we last talked about this, in November, you talked about the possibility of a compromise that would recognize the fact that there should not be unreasonable delays in giving an election, but on the other hand, maybe not taking away the secret ballot from workers in a company. Is there a compromise out there? Or are you prepared to take away the secret ballot?

HOYER: Again, let me stress, Chris, nobody is going to take away the secret ballot. The employees currently have and will have the opportunity to opt for a secret ballot. They don’t have to sign the card. They can say, look, we’ll have an election and we may vote, but they have that choice right now and will continue to have that choice.

WALLACE: But you want to pass the bill, just to be clear here, that unions, that labor, AFL-CIO is talking about, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would create a one step system, a public vote on whether or not to unionize?

HOYER: A public vote? You mean a signing of the card which says I want the union to represent me…

WALLACE: Yes. Right.

HOYER: What I have said, and I said it on your program, and will reiterate, that bill that passed the House handily is certainly going to be the base bill. Will there be discussions? They may well be discussions and again, I want to stress, nobody is precluding having a secret ballot. What we are saying is that an alternative route will be available and if employees choose to sign, over 50% of the employees sign a card saying we want to be represented by the union then that will be effected.

WALLACE: Give me a sense of the timeframe. You said maybe not the first month, how soon?

HOYER: Well, I think it will be early. It will be early in the year, certainly in the early spring. Right now, obviously, our major, major focus is getting people back to work, getting our economy moving, making sure that our working people can get back to work and we start creating those three million jobs President-elect Obama has talked about. So that’s a priority item for us.

The Public Record: FBI email says Bush authorized abuse of Iraqi detainees. Which brings us to the Orwell du Jour and the 'morality' of conservatism.

No More Mister Nice Blog: You know, if I'm a hillbilly heroin dealer, and suddenly the Secret Service is hanging around because my son has impregnated the daughter of a VP candidate ... er, I might think of trying to find a new way to earn money. But hey, that's just me.

Open Left: Hegemony On Steroids, Part One, and Part 2

Prometheus 6: It's a really bad crisis that forces this much truth on the newspaper of record

Sic Semper Tyrannis: And now for something completely different

HOLY CRAP: That Darn God...This pretty much confirms it...Pheripheral Damage...One Nation Under Elvis...Rapturoos...2008's Top Ten Church-State stories...Clean and unclean...Nut on nut violence...The Bible tells me, uh, something else...WTF, the Pope smokes?...Dear Galileo...Lying for faith...Now How Much Would you Pay?...Bible Class Bombs...The doll that screams Jihad...Obama listening to liberal faith groups...Baptist editor wants state funds to win converts...Vatican claims contraception harms environment... Jefferson’s Jan. 1 letter to the Danbury Baptists...God hates shrimp...'God will punish Rick Warren'

Oh, how the wingnuts writhe and hiss at the prospect of Sen. Al Franken ... especially now that it's about to come true:

A state election board on Monday will announce Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, state officials told CNN Sunday.

The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN.

However, Coleman's campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification.

It's all going to wind up in the courts before it gets settled, but there's little doubt Franken has the upper hand.

I suppose it would be wicked to savor the knowledge that the wingnuts are going crazy at the thought of Sen. Al Franken, and are sharpening their shivs as we speak. BillO in particular, given his history with Franken.

Likewise with Ann Coulter. My weekly e-mail from the Brownshirt Barbie this week featured her shrieking about Franken:

Dear Fellow Conservative,

Last night, I had a horrible dream... and no, this isn't the famous "I Had a Dream" speech. Frankly, I think that one could use a rest.

No, in my dream it was 12 noon, so naturally I tuned in for my daily dose of conservative news and commentary from the greatest political talk show host in the history of radio.

As I imagined one half of a giant brain being tied behind a familiar back, just to make it fair, the familiar bass notes from "My City Was Gone" throbbed, and the announcer's voice boomed...

"Ladies and gentleman... in accordance with Fairness Doctrine broadcasting regulations... here's AL FRANKEN!"

I woke up screaming. But then I realized it was just a bad dream.

Or was it?

Actually, the whole schtick is just a pitch for yet another one of Coulter's imagined liberal plots -- that largely nonexistent scheme to revive the Fairness Doctrine. Coulter's been on a real tear lately in terms of pulling crap out of thin air. But it's worth noting that Al Franken has the ability to make her extra-nutty-kookoo with sprinkles on top.

One can only imagine what they'll be dreaming up for him as a senator.

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I love how these guys suddenly care about bi-partisanship when they're in the minority and spending when it's for something besides dropping bombs on someone's head.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And now I have, here in the studio, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell. You heard Senator Durbin, there. Have your concerns been calmed down?

MCCONNELL: Look, I think everyone knows that half the American public is represented by a Republican senator. And all we're suggesting, here, is that we be a part of the process. The president has said he wants to create 3 million new jobs, presumably as a result of this economic stimulus package. We want to make sure it's not just a trillion-dollar spending bill, but something that actually can reach the goal that he has suggested.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So how do you do that?

MCCONNELL: Well, let me make some suggestions. First of all, the president, incoming president, has said he would like for 80 percent of the jobs created to be in the private sector. Well, do we really want to create 20 percent of the jobs in the public sector? That would be 600,000 new government jobs. That's about the size of the post office workforce. Is that a good idea? That's something that strikes us that we ought to take a look at.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You don't think it is?

MCCONNELL: Well, it may not be, but I think, at least, hearings, and some kind of bipartisan considerations would be helpful. There is a bill, ready to go right now, George, that would spend $400 billion. That's the nine appropriation bills from last year that have already been vetted, been looked at by both Democrats and Republicans, could pass, on a largely bipartisan basis, very quickly.

We could pass that bill. Much of that spending is related to the kinds of items that may well end up in the trillion-dollar spending package. So that's a place to start. Another example of something that I think ought to be considered: We could do a middle-class tax cut immediately. Right now, the middle-class tax rate is about 25 percent.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, President-elect Obama says he does want to do that, a $500 tax credit.

MCCONNELL: Yes, right. This is the sort of thing we could -- we could have bipartisan agreement on. But Republican, by and large, think tax relief is a great way to get money to people immediately. A possibility would be to take a look at the 25 percent rate currently applied to the middle class, lower it to 15 percent.

And with regard to the money to the states, one item -- one approach that I think we ought to take a look at, that I have a feeling won't be in the recommendation of the administration, is to make this money for states alone, rather than a grant.

You know, the way we're operating, under the TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the money that's being lent to financial institutions is at 5 percent over five years. And if it's beyond five years, the rate is 9 percent. There are some states that are in good shape. In fact, I can think of at least two who have said publicly they don't want any of the money. So why should we automatically provide funds to states...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, there are several states struggling...

MCCONNELL: ... that don't want it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... as well. Is that a red line for you? If these are grants to the states, you're not going to support it?

MCCONNELL: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying we want to be a part of the process. And it might make sense to lend the money to the states. It will make them spend it more wisely. I think nobody thinks we ought to be spending this money on things like Mob museums and waterslides. And if the money were lent rather than just granted, states would I think spend it wisely, and the states that didn't need it at all wouldn't take any.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Two other ideas the Democrats are discussing on Capitol Hill right now are extending unemployment benefits to part- time workers and expanding health care benefits for the unemployed. Can you support that?

MCCONNELL: I might, but those are very big, systemic changes. What the speaker said last year with regard to stimulus packages I think makes sense -- timely, and temporary, and targeted. Do we in the name of stimulus want to make long-term, systemic changes that will affect spending every single year? I think that's at least worth considering, having hearings about, having bipartisan discussions.

What I worry about, George, here is the haste with which this may be done. This is an enormous bill. It could be close to a $1 trillion spending bill. Do we want to do it with essentially no hearings, no input, for example, in the Senate from Republican senators who represent half of the American population? I don't think that's a good idea, and I don't think that...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you think it's unwise for the Democrats to push for this to be done by the time that President-elect Obama takes office?

MCCONNELL: No, it shouldn't be done. I don't think that they even seriously can defend, and I don't think my friend Dick Durbin was defending doing this without bipartisan consideration. And I -- you know, this was, I think, the Democrats in Congress idea, not the president's idea, to have it on his desk by January 20th. That's just not a practical thing to do.

If we want to do a bill immediately, again, my recommendation is the omnibus appropriations bill. It's ready. These were nine bills that were not passed by October when they should have been passed. They're ready to go. They've already been vetted by both sides, would pass on an overwhelming, bipartisan basis, and much of that spending, George, would be on things similar to what the president may be asking for in that package.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But isn't a lot of that money already out there through the continuing resolution? A fair amount of that money is...

MCCONNELL: No -- well, some of it is, but it's not -- it's not very targeted. A continuing resolution doesn't target things very much, doesn't have any congressional input in it. And it could be done quickly. If we want to do something quickly, let's do something that's already been vetted. I don't think we have to delay the stimulus package for a lengthy period of time, but I've given you three ideas today that make a lot of sense, that ought to be considered.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Bottom line, will President-elect Obama get the 80 or so votes he's looking for in the Senate?

MCCONNELL: I think if they pursue a fair process, in the Senate at least, where fairness is typically the rule, and give both sides an opportunity to have input, to have it -- a true bipartisan stamp -- he's likely to get significant support.

Palestinian-American comic Dean Obeidallah from the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour on media coverage of Arabs.

I'm Yours from We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, performing live from EBS Space, Korea.

WaPo:

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will become chairman of the Democratic National Committee later this month, serving as the top political messenger for Barack Obama's administration even while he finishes his final year in the governor's mansion, several sources said.

Kaine, who emerged as one of Obama's vice presidential finalists this summer, will operate from Richmond in a part-time capacity until January 2010, when he will become the full-time DNC chairman. Kaine is constitutionally barred from running for reelection.

A personal friend of the president-elect, Kaine is a gregarious chief executive who is known to relish political combat and helped put Virginia in the Democratic column for the first time in almost 50 years.

Ugh. After Howard Dean, could we pick a more disappointing choice for DNC head? After all, what the spinally deficient Dems need is a more milquetoasty, against stem cell research, pro-life, anti-gay chairman whose actions speak directly to his callousness towards those less fortunate directing the candidates and elections to help retain the Democratic majority, doncha know?

Democrats, snatching defeat from victory since 1992.

Over there.

A woman wearing an explosive belt blew herself up near the entrance of a revered Shiite shrine Sunday morning in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims, according to the Ministry of the Interior. As many as 53 others were wounded in the attack, which occurred during a Shiite holy month.

The suicide bombing outside the Imam Moussa Al-kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood came nine days after a Dec. 26 car bomb killed 24 people and wounded 46 others after it had exploded on a busy road near the same shrine.The timing and location of each bombing appeared to be intended to reignite sectarian violence, from which Iraq had shown signs of emerging in recent months.

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In a somewhat understandably soft ball interview with Chris Wallace, former President George H.W. Bush defends what is by most accounts his son's epic failure of a presidency and defers to "the Google" when asked about which things W could be "fairly criticized for."

Bush: He's gonna come home with his head high, knowing he ran a clean operation and he kept this country strong and free after an unprecedented history attack of 9/11. He'll have a lot too be proud of and he can start by his mother and father being very proud of him...and we always will be.

Wallace: You said there earlier there are some things he could fairly be criticized for. Would you like to tell me any of those?

Bush: "No. You can go back to your, what do you call it.... Your Google, and you figure all that out."

On some level you gotta feel sorry for Papa Bush. It's pretty clear that he always wanted his other son, Jeb, to be the second Bush President.

Digby directs us to a perfectly dreadful portrait of George W. Bush by the AP's Ben Feller. As Digby sez, it actually mostly confirms some very basic suspicions about Bush -- namely, that he's an spoiled, authoritarian frat-boy jerk. And this was supposed to be a flattering piece.

But the piece actually tells us even more about our dysfunctional press corps. It's really a regurgitation of the basic theme of Bush coverage we got back in 2000: He's a swell fella you wouldn't mind having a beer with. A guy who will always "do the right thing" regardless of consequences.

Even if it means running the economy off a cliff, getting us into a costly and needless war on false pretenses, and tearing up the Geneva Conventions. Because, you know, "the right thing" is in the eye of the wealthy beholder.

Not that any of this is mentioned in Feller's piece. We do get told that Bush has deep emotional feelings for "the families that died" -- though his policy record shows little evidence of this. Indeed, what his record shows is a self-absorbed recklessness with those lives.

The entire portrait is pure fluff. We learn nothing of consequence about the man, nor do we get any insight into how his thoughtless policies have bounced back. In a man worthy of the presidency, his deeds and the countless lives lost under his carelessness would at some point provoke some deeper reflection; but we clearly need not concern ourselves that such thoughts will ever disturb George W. Bush's pretty little mind.

Nor do they ever seem to cross the reporter's mind. It's emblematic, really, of the obsequious coverage of the Bush presidency throughout from the White House press corps particularly and the Village generally -- obsessed with nonsequiturs and trivia, incapable of examining serious issues or dealing with the real-world effects of his policies.

I guess that's why we have a blogosphere.

Because calling liberals traitors---anti American---terrorist loving Nazis is all good fun for Conservative pundits and TV executives. The TODAY Show really, really loves her no matter what she says.

In any event, divorced mothers should be called "divorced mothers," not "single mothers." We also have a term for the youngsters involved: "the children of divorce," or as I call them, "future strippers." It is a mark of how attractive it is to be a phony victim that divorcées will often claim to belong to the more disreputable category of "single mothers." [Page 36]

She also attacks Michelle Obama as well.

Coulter facetiously and snidely refers to Michelle Obama as a "saint" and "Mother Teresa" and suggests that her public service career "advanced in lockstep with the political advancement of her husband."

And of course she uses Obama's name for enjoyment:

In the book, Coulter repeatedly refers to the President-elect as "B. Hussein Obama" and complains that the media "literally wanted to have sex with him."

Yup. I'll bet Chris Matthews will be giving her a full hour soon to spew her garbage. It wouldn't be so bad if the anchors actually exposed Coulter's lunacy to the American audience, but that happens so rarely now that they are making her appear like a normal cog in our society these days. So sad....

Our leaders have framed the problem as a “crisis of confidence” but what they actually seem to mean is “please pay no attention to the problems we are failing to address.” - Michael Lewis

In today's New York Times, Michael Lewis, author of "Liar's Poker" and "Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity", looks at the systemic intertwined interests (like the don't-rock-the-boat SEC) that kept Wall St. embroiled in such questionable and risky practices. As just one example among many, he points to the man who tried to stop Bernie Madoff for years:

... Consider the strange story of Harry Markopolos. Mr. Markopolos is the former investment officer with Rampart Investment Management in Boston who, for nine years, tried to explain to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff couldn’t be anything other than a fraud. Mr. Madoff’s investment performance, given his stated strategy, was not merely improbable but mathematically impossible. And so, Mr. Markopolos reasoned, Bernard Madoff must be doing something other than what he said he was doing.

In his devastatingly persuasive 17-page letter to the S.E.C., Mr. Markopolos saw two possible scenarios. In the “Unlikely” scenario: Mr. Madoff, who acted as a broker as well as an investor, was “front-running” his brokerage customers. A customer might submit an order to Madoff Securities to buy shares in I.B.M. at a certain price, for example, and Madoff Securities instantly would buy I.B.M. shares for its own portfolio ahead of the customer order. If I.B.M.’s shares rose, Mr. Madoff kept them; if they fell he fobbed them off onto the poor customer.

In the “Highly Likely” scenario, wrote Mr. Markopolos, “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme.” Which, as we now know, it was.

Harry Markopolos sent his report to the S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain the fraud to them since 1999. He had no direct financial interest in exposing Mr. Madoff — he wasn’t an unhappy investor or a disgruntled employee. There was no way to short shares in Madoff Securities, and so Mr. Markopolos could not have made money directly from Mr. Madoff’s failure. To judge from his letter, Harry Markopolos anticipated mainly downsides for himself: he declined to put his name on it for fear of what might happen to him and his family if anyone found out he had written it. And yet the S.E.C.’s cursory investigation of Mr. Madoff pronounced him free of fraud.

Of course, Madoff was a relatively small part of the culture:

The American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Electric and the municipal bond guarantors Ambac Financial and MBIA all had triple-A ratings. (G.E. still does!) Large investment banks like Lehman and Merrill Lynch all had solid investment grade ratings. It’s almost as if the higher the rating of a financial institution, the more likely it was to contribute to financial catastrophe. But of course all these big financial companies fueled the creation of the credit products that in turn fueled the revenues of Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.

These oligopolies, which are actually sanctioned by the S.E.C., didn’t merely do their jobs badly. They didn’t simply miss a few calls here and there. In pursuit of their own short-term earnings, they did exactly the opposite of what they were meant to do: rather than expose financial risk they systematically disguised it.

This is a fascinating piece, with lots of advice about what needs to be fixed to restore confidence in the financial system. (As you may have guessed, nothing substantive has been done yet.) Go read the rest.

Download | Play    Download | Play (h/t Heather)

This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passing of South African lawmaker Helen Suzman, author Samuel Huntingdon, former Congressman Claiborne Pell, mystery writer Donald Westlake. In addition, the Pentagon has released the names of four servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to iCasualties, the total number of allied servicemembers killed in Iraq is 4,538, in Afghanistan, the number is 1,043. During this week, Iraq Body Count tallies 85 Iraqi civilians killed.