Posts

Ian has a great piece up at FDL on the financial sector's problems, their genesis, and the Obama Administration's conventional wisdom, status quo, manner of dealing with them. He describes the fallacy of viewing it as a "black swan" event. That is a very rare, random and unpredictable event. We should be similarly concerned about short sidedness with American industry and manufacturing, which are the real foundation of the American economy.

As you may know, President Obama came to Phoenix in order to roll out his $75 Billion Plan to Fight Home Foreclosures. This was exciting for me, because Obama spent last night at a resort, Montelucia, about 3/4 of a mile from my house. Here are the details of the plan he announced and photos from his visit.

Chicago tenor Roland Burris is singing a new tune by acknowledging he sought to raise campaign funds for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the request of the governor’s brother at the same time he was making a pitch to be appointed to the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama. Burris' latest comments in Peoria Monday night were the first time he has publicly said he was actively trying involved in seeking campaign financing for Blagojevich.

When it was announced Sunday that President Obama had decided against appointing an "Auto Czar", instead opting for a panel of Administration financial experts including, but not limited to, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and Ron Bloom, it pretty much signaled that the Administration was going to continue to work with GM as an existing, functioning entity instead of forcing them into bankruptcy. Monday night, that was confirmed.

Here it is, another glorious President's day, and wouldn't you know it world leaders are exchanging presents. And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has sent one President Obama's way: President Hugo Chávez handily won a referendum on Sunday that will end presidential term limits, allowing him to run for re-election indefinitely.

I had this post mostly written as a screed against Greg Craig, who appeared to be caving again on Obama's stated principles on presidential privileges. But after checking with three data points, I'm not so sure.

Here's a prediction of where the new Burris controversy is going: I suspect we'll find out, in coming days, that while Burris did not donate directly to Blago, he never refused to bundle donations for Blago. I don't know whether Burris actually did bundle donations, but I suspect we'll learn that Burris has never refused to bundle donations.

Michael Isikoff adds more details to Brad DeLong's hints yesterday that Yoo and Bradbury are in trouble.

You have probably heard of the shamelessly self professed "Toughest Sheriff in America", Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. For years he has been making a PR spectacle of himself all the while running an unconstitutionally deplorable jail system, letting inmates die under tortuous conditions, and violating the civil rights and liberties of everybody in sight, especially minorities. The House Judiciary Committee has just issued a letter calling on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct by Arpaio. There are a lot of grounds for the action sought by HJC, lets look at them.