Yochai Benkler (who should know) says the Stimulus Bill (House and Senate versions) turns out to be halfway decent on the broadband front.

Soros, the financial crisis, Obama ... in the FT.

In one of his first speeches as RNC chairman, Michael Steele praises the House Republicans for voting against the stimulus package, opposing the redistribution of wealth. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

A comment in the discussion threads from one of our updates on the Coleman/Franken recount 'trial' ...

Can't somebody in the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. or St. Paul just indict Norm Coleman for all those apparently undisclosed gifts and sweetheart deals he received from political sugar daddies, and put an end to this farce? Coleman's excruciating slow political demise puts Greta Garbo's death scene in Camille to shame.

I confess that it's occurred to me, knowing Franken as I do, that it's possible the two men reached a secret pact in which Franken agreed to be kept out of the senate for six to eight weeks in exchange for Coleman agreeing to spend down all remaining dignity he has left in order to make himself a statewide laughingstock and never be able to run again for anything.

All this said, don't miss Eric Kleefeld's report from yesterday, which noted that after a comically incompetent week, Coleman's legal team actually scored some solid points in yesterday's testimony.

Apparently paying taxes not so simple.

We already noted that the House GOP Stimulus plan job creation estimates turn out to be complete nonsense. Now it turns out, at least according to some House Democratic staffers, that the GOP plan was rushed together so hastily that it actually includes tax increases for lots of Americans.

Obama for America, the White House's outside political group, has just announced a round of nationwide Stimulus Bill house parties. Will.i.am apparently also prepping a Stimulus bill song and video.

Okay, I made up the last part.

"We need a bottoms up party" -- as yet unidentified state party chair speaking at the RNC meeting.

Michael Steele wins over racial backlash candidate Dawson.

Late Update: On a more entertaining front, they're now rushing through votes for several lower-ranking offices because they have to vacate the hall by 5 pm to make room for a wedding party that gets it next.

Latter Update: Reminds me of the good old days in 2006 when Steele's senate campaign rolled out signs to fool people into thinking he was a Democrat.

Special You of All Folks Update: I'd almost forgotten this special moment back in 2006 when Steele had the bright idea of telling the Baltimore Jewish Council in a Q&A session that stem cell research was sort of like the Holocaust. "Look, you of all folks know what happens when people decide they want to experiment on human beings, when they want to take your life and use it as a tool."

Anuzis Drops Out; endorses neither Steele nor Dawson.

Blackwell drops out and endorses Michael Steele.

(ed.note: It's always important to know a news organization's biases. And we try to be up front about them. In this case, it's probably fair to say we have some inherent bias in favor of the comedic potential of a Katon Dawson victory. Nonetheless, we will try to stick to just the facts.)

Racial backlash candidate Katon Dawson moves into slim lead on 4th round of balloting.

Mitt Romney starts flogging the House GOP's already-discredited Stimulus numbers.

In his liveblog, NRO's Jim Geraghty notes that in addition to the other weighty questions hanging over this balloting for the chairman of the RNC who will lead the party out of the political wilderness ...

the RNC has to be out of the ballroom by 5 p.m. because a wedding is slated to use the room starting at 5:30. Besides the RNC Chair, the RNC has to elect several other positions, including co-chair, secretary, and treasurer.

The few, the proud ... the TPM interns.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Spring 2009 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles. Spring cycle interns will work closely on stories relating to the start of the new Administration and the new Congress. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

So current RNC Chair Duncan just dropped out. After his announcement, the people controlling the gavel tried several times to push for a brief recess. But there were repeated calls of 'no' from the floor. So the proceeded immediately to a vote. It looked liked someone's supporters thought that a win was within their reach on an immediate vote and they didn't want any delays that would allow something to shift or some group to jumble the numbers to put it out of their reach.

So we've just had a third vote in the RNC chairmanship race. It's still pretty scattered. But Michael Steele has moved into a clearer lead. There's also been movement in the direction of South Carolina party chair Katon Dawson. In other words, we might be moving more clearly toward a black candidate vs. racial backlash candidate race in the race to steer the Republican party out of the 19th century.

Needless to say, Dawson's move may be gaining from the withdrawal of former Tennessee GOP chair Chip Saltsman, whose main selling point was sending out racist parody songs as party gifts.

It's seems like the RNC chair contest is shaping up more or less like everything I've seen from the GOP for the last few months. After a lot of talk about rebranding the party, how they always hated President Bush and generally are going to become the party of the 21st century, on the first ballot the plurality of votes went to the marginally competent semi-neanderthal installed by President Bush.

According to Rudy Giuliani, it's shortsighted not to let state-supported Wall Street firms give out massive bonuses since those bonuses help float the economy through all the luxury goods and services the Wall Street sharpies buy. (And believe me, I've got no beef with Wall Street sharpies. A lot of them are friends of mine. Indeed, now I feel even closer to them since a chunk of my tax dollars is going to their salaries. Sort of makes me feel like a Wall Street player.) As a resident of New York City, I think it's probably true that those dollars do do a decent amount for New York City economy, in the form of tax dollars and supporting local businesses -- though I would question its relative efficiency in stimulus terms. (And that's in large part because it's a lot of money in a fairly restricted geographic area.) But the government support that keeps these firms afloat doesn't just come from New York City, does it?

This is the definition of trickle down -- give huge amounts of money to a small number of individuals, most of which will be socked away but a relatively small percentage of which will be spent on luxury goods.

Amazing that this goof was once the GOP frontrunner for president.

No one captured a majority of the vote on the first ballot for RNC chairman. This should get fun.

Late Update: But on to more important business: the box lunches!

President Obama is hiring Samantha Power to be senior director of multilateral affairs at the NSC.

Labor-backed group runs new ads hitting new GOP party leader Rush Limbaugh.

The RNC elects its new chairman today at its winter meeting in DC (where the theme is "Republican For A Reason" -- seriously). That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Obama on Blago ...

Today ends a painful episode for Illinois. For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted. I wish Governor Quinn the best and pledge my full cooperation as he undertakes his new responsibilities.

Martin Feldstein's opposition to a Democratic Stimulus Bill wouldn't normally be a big surprise, given his background as a conservative economist and advisor to President Reagan. But he's been trotted out a lot recently for his support of the Obama plan. So it caught my eye when I saw his editorial in today's Post coming out in opposition to the bill in its current form.

I'm not saying I agree with him. Actually there are a number of points I definitely disagree with him on. The points on capital gains taxes don't add up to me. And he makes what strikes me as a poor argument that we should concentrate a lot of the spending on retooling and repairing the military after five years or war because the military is capable of much more rapidly doing procurement and getting new projects underway.

In terms of speed that may well be right. It sounds logical to me, though I don't know myself. But one of the key fringe benefits of this vast spending has to be to make investments that will create greater efficiencies and possibilities for sustained growth in the future. New green energy stuff, transportation infrastructure, etc. Most military spending -- whatever the merits in national security terms -- just doesn't get you that. At least not in any way I can see.

All that said, though, his critique is nothing like the Republican claptrap we've been hearing over recent days. In fact, in some respects it's like stuff I've been hearing from Democrats. He's critical of most of the tax cuts -- judging them either inefficient as stimulus or just lump sum payments to businesses that are unlikely to reinvest it in a down economy . And he thinks the kinds of spending are not sufficiently targeted to maximize employment and spending into the economy. It's worth a read.

Disgraced ex-Congressman Wes Cooley (disgraced for lying about his military record) indicted for defrauding investors out of over $10 million in a scam right out of an episode of the Sopranos ...

Cooley and co-conspirers sold unregistered stock of Bidbay.com Inc., of which he was vice president, under the false pretext that EBay Inc. would soon be buying the company for $20 a share, according to the statement. EBay never intended to buy Bidbay.com and had sued the company for trademark infringement, according to the statement.

And some more details here ...

The indictment outlines a scheme in which Cooley, along with co-schemers George Tannous and De Elroy Beeler Jr., solicited hundreds of victims across the country to purchase unregistered stock in Bidbay.com, Inc. (also known as Auctiondiner.com, Inc.) and several related shell companies. Cooley was the vice president of Bidbay. The indictment alleges that victim investors were lured by several false statements, including claims that Bidbay.com and/or the shell companies would soon be acquired by Ebay, Inc. for $20 per share. Ebay never had any intention of acquiring Bidbay.com and had even sued Bidbay.com for trademark infringement over the use of "bay" in its name. Investors were also not told that Beeler, who was engaged in soliciting investors for Tannous and Cooley, was a convicted felon awaiting sentencing on unrelated fraud charges.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick reviews all the new developments in the still-unfolding saga of U.S. torture policy: what a new administration signals for torture policy, the importance of Susan Crawford's use of the word "torture," and the significance of Obama's executive order closing Guantanamo ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Special thanks to Margaret Ho for putting this one together.

Roll Call says that Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican, is being considered for Commerce Secretary by the White House. Of course, New Hampshire has a Democratic governor who would presumably send another Democrat to Washington, becoming the Democrats' sixtieth senator.

Illinois Senate convicts Blago -- unanimously.

A source who was at the White House signing ceremony today says Obama offered assurances that the family planning dollars stripped from the stimulus package will be back in an upcoming spending bill.

Yesterday I noted that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and fellow House Republicans were claiming on the House floor that their alternative stimulus plan would create 6.2 million new jobs according to the White House's own numbers. And I asked if anybody knew how they came up with that number. Well, it turns out, pretty much out of their backsides.

We checked with House sources and this is how they came up with that number.

Norm Coleman's legal team has denied they were cherry-picking rejected absentee voters for Coleman supporters -- but one of those Coleman voters just admitted on the witness stand that he himself was cherry-picked by the Coleman team.

This is the first I've heard of this. But this jumped out at me in an article on the CNN website about the Stimulus Bill in the senate ...

The sources say Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, wants a "smaller, narrower" bill. Another group of Republicans including Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is working to craft a larger package that would include more infrastructure spending.

Generally, the sources say, the party is looking for more concessions from the White House on spending.

This is pretty bare on details. But what that seems to say is that there are a number of Republicans who want a bill with a larger total price tag, with the extra spending weighted toward infrastructure spending (presumably transportation infrastructure spending since that's usually what people are talking about when they use that shorthand.) In other words, Obama +, with the plus being mainly transportation infrastructure.

(Of course, maybe it's just loose reporting and they really mean a bigger price tag with 2/3 tax cuts and 1/3 roads. Who knows?)

I'd put this squarely in the 'I'll believe it when I see it' category. And it would not match up very well with the spending policies Sen. McCain was campaigning on last Fall. But if something like this were true, I would think you'd get a significant number of Democrats interested in moving in that direction.

Of course, very big 'if'. But we'll see.

Sen. DeMint (R-SC): Obama's Stimulus bill is a "mugging."

Coleman lawyer takes new stand for Coleman voter with forged absentee ballot application.

TPM Reader IA responds to TPM Reader PS on the 'bad bank' idea ...

PS's claim that the model currently being proposed has a way of protecting taxpayers from over-paying for illiquid assets fails to consider that the current market price would do more than dilute existing shareholders. For many banks, it would wipe them out and force debt holders to absorb significant losses as well. So the idea of giving government an equity stake in an insolvent company in return for over-paying for toxic assets is really a gift to debt holders. (This is why Bill Gross is so positive on the plan.) Like shareholders, they knowingly took risks when investing in these companies in search of higher yields. Why should they not be forced to take a hit?

One point that might be worth considering. I've heard that a number of sovereign wealth funds -- i.e., foreign governments who've invested big chunks of money -- have put us on notice that they would not sit still for seeing their own assets wiped out in any global financial sector plan.

And TPM Reader TP follows up ...

Reader PS assumes that banks aren't lending because they have all of these assets of "uncertain value" on their books.

Krugman has already addressed this argument and the "folly" of the 'Bad Bank' that is 'Bad' for you (the taxpayer) and not-so-bad for the 'Bank' after all. As Krugman has pointed out, the problem is a "Zombie Bank" problem. There are doubts about the solvency of many banks. This means that the problem is that these banks can't attract private capital (debt or equity) because investors and creditors fear throwing good money after bad. What PS describes is not a "sale" of these assets but the exchange of these assets for some type of warrant or future claim on equity. It's pretty clear that these assets are not being carried at anywhere near expected value. If the Gov't takes these assets in exchange for what is expected to be a large issuance of shares in the future (and the Gov't must pay much more than what the banks think the assets are worth, otherwise there wouldn't be any improvement to the capital base), wouldn't it be difficult for these same banks to raise equity capital? Who wants to own Bank X at $4/share with the expectation that it will be massively diluted? Similarly, who would lend to this bank that can't raise equity and whose ratings will remain uncertain until the Gov't's claims are known?

Meanwhile, business as usual for the bank managers and employees (the folks with whom Gheitner is most familiar). The bonus party goes on (see: Merrill Lynch, AIG) while the equity holders languish in uncertainty and the taxpayers pay the bill. Oh, btw, isn't there another financial instrument that gives you cash now but may be converted to stock in the future? Doesn't that instrument earn a pretty nice rate of interest (ask Mr. Buffett)? I don't think we'll be seeing that kind of return on the 'Bad Bank,' do you? That would be another taxpayer-funded subsidy.

This is an uncomplicated game of "hide the salami." It may very well be appropriate for Obama and the Congressional Dems to bailout the poor judgement of Wall Street shareholders and employees, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking it will be anything but massively expensive to the taxpayer. The 'wisdom' isn't hidden here, the bill is.

Here's what TPM Reader PS says I'm missing about the wisdom of the 'bad bank' model ...

What you are missing is that the new "bad bank" structure that has been reported has a way to deal with the uncertainty surrounding the value of many of the suspect assets. The new bank will buy these assets at some estimate of current fair market value, but if the assets ultimately turn out to be worth less, then the new bank will receive common equity (not debt) in the existing banks, potentially massively diluting existing shareholders but not jeopardizing the soundness of the bank.

This proposed transaction thus achieves two things:

1) Uncertainty as to the capital sufficiency of existing banks will be much reduced. This has to achieved before robust bank lending can resume.

2) Nationalization gets postponed and may not ultimately prove necessary. If the assets transferred prove to be really bad, then the government may indeed end up as the majority holder in some banks. But this will occur many years down the road, in what can only hope will be calmer waters. If that is the case then the majority stake can be disposed of that that point.

So the key point here is that this structure finesses the current valuation of the bad assets. Nobody really knows what these assets are worth currently, but in a few years all will become clear.

Sen. Kyl (R): 'Bipartisanship' Means Dems Need to Agree With Us

Does Geithner get who he's working for? Barry Ritholtz isn't so sure.

Blago will be making the closing argument in his own impeachment defense with a speech to the Illinois Senate this morning. That and the day's other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The Times has a story in tomorrow's paper gaming out where the administration seems to be going on a comprehensive bank rescue plan. The gist seems to be that we're heading toward some version of the 'bad bank' plan; but they're moving cautiously so as to avoid the ridiculousness of the Paulson days, coming up with a new plan every week or so.

The message they're clearly sending is: we're not going to 'nationalize' the banks.

What I wonder, though, is whether or not we're running into a semantic dead end that is obscuring some more pertinent questions.

The core problem is that many, perhaps most of our major financial institutions are insolvent. They have more liabilities than assets. A functioning financial system requires solvent banks. And only the government has the resources to manage the massive recapitalization to get the key institutions back on their feet. At that level of generality, the issue assumes a degree of clarity.

All the different fix permutations are just different ways of accounting for the transfer of cash. You can take the banks over and assume their debts. Or just give them tons of money to make them whole. Or you can buy their bad investments at the price the banks wish they were worth and thus get the banks out of under the consequences of the financial collapse they helped create.

It's not clear to me why the dollar amounts spent would really be different in the various permutations. It's all a question of who owns what when it's all said and done and who runs the institutions. According to a brief aside in yesterday's article in the Post, both Geithner and Summers are against having the government run the banks for a transitional period and against wiping out the shareholders of the banks that are in fact insolvent.

What that sounds like is that we'll nationalize most of the banks because we have no choice. But we'll allow the current management to run the nationalized banks and the current shareholders to own the nationalized banks.

What am I missing?

Todd Boulanger charged in Abramoff case.

See our earlier coverage of Boulanger's part in the case at TPMMuckraker.com.

Fmr. Sen. Coleman: What I'm fighting for is more important than Law & Order.

Right-wing Brit reporters agree this was a crushing defeat for Obama.

Unified Republican control of government required a disproportionate number of Republicans on cable TV; apparently unified Dem control requires mostly Republicans too.

We gave Politico a hard time today for their piece on the neo-Hooeverite alternative to the Stimulus Bill. So here's their companion piece on those who support a bigger Stimulus Bill. They originally said they'd run this piece Thursday. But it seems they advanced the schedule.

Late developments, from the Wall Street Journal:

In an effort to prevent financial upheaval at America's credit unions, federal regulators guaranteed tens of billions of dollars in uninsured deposits at the powerful financial institutions that service them -- an unprecedented move that shows how the credit crisis continues to ripple through the economy.

Regulators also injected $1 billion of new capital into the largest of these wholesale credit unions, U.S. Central Federal Credit Union of Lenexa, Kan., after its unexpected loss Wednesday of $1.1 billion for 2008. U.S. Central serves essentially as a main clearinghouse for the others in the network.

Credit unions in general were believed to be among the most conservatively managed financial institutions. Wednesday's sweeping move comes amid mounting losses on mortgage securities.

As you know, this afternoon the House passed the Democratic Stimulus package with a sprinkling of Democratic defections and no Republican votes. From the standpoint of political accountability, if nothing else, this clarifies things. If the public ends up judging this a success or a failure, they'll have little doubt who to punish or reward for the decision.

But let's step back and take stock of what the public appears to be seeing.

This afternoon, Diageo/Hotline released the second part of its recent poll (Jan. 21/24), which leaves little doubt about the public mood.

Now that Democrats control both the White House and both Houses of Congress, Democrats in Congress currently find themselves as beneficiaries of President Obama's high favorability and job approval ratings.

Specifically, The Diageo/Hotline Poll of 800 registered voters conducted by FD from January 21-24, 2009, finds that 49% of voters say they approve of the job Democrats in Congress are doing, while only 26% of voters who approve of the job Republicans in Congress are doing.

And, while the 111th Congress has been in session barely three weeks, the Poll finds that the Democratic candidate leads the Republican candidate 46% - 22% in a generic 2010 congressional election match-up, with 27% of voters saying they are undecided.

So, President Obama is extremely popular. The Stimulus Bill is pretty popular. Hill Democrats are reasonably popular. And Hill Republicans are deep in Bush unpopularity territory, as much as they now try to distance themselves from the man they once wrapped their party around.

It grated on a lot of people -- and I include myself -- to see Obama going every extra length to cater to Republican nonsense. But it's left little question who was doing what. One benefit the Republicans carry out of the 2008 election is that most of the remaining Republicans come from districts that are so red that it's hard for Democrats to ever contest them. But not all of them. And in a lot the industrial Midwest especially, the GOP is the party of 'no'.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) revealed more of himself than anyone cared to see, at the expense of Salon's Joan Walsh, this evening on "Hardball." In a debate with Walsh over tax policy, Armey let loose with this chauvinistic gem: "I am so damn glad that you can never be my wife cause I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day." Take a look:

That's the headline. A few Democratic stragglers, but not a single Republican in the House voted for the Stimulus Bill on round one. For all the clatter and noise, looks very like 1993.

It seems that every new political moment brings in its train a new menagerie of Republican pseudo-facts and finely drawn nonsense meant to confuse and obscure any actual discussion of the public policy issues of the day. So it's time to start cataloguing them. A week or so back I heard Jonah Goldberg yakking on about how Herbert Hoover was actually a Progressive. (Which may constitute some modest advance from his earlier confusion of do-gooder grade school teachers with Nazi prison guards and SA paramilitaries.) And then today this little nugget has transmogrified through the GOP sound machine into Herbert Hoover as a closet Keynesian who apparently started the whole New Deal before Franklin Roosevelt was even elected.

Like most sophistries, there's an element of truth in this one -- but much of it is based on semantic evolution. Hoover was part of the 1912 Progressive party and he was in key respects a Republican Progressive in the early 20th century meaning of the term -- which is to say he was a technocrat who believed in scientific management and things like that. It is also true that as the Depression deepened Hoover did take some very limited steps in the direction of government intervention in the economy, though ones that were dwarfed by Roosevelt's subsequent spending programs and regulatory innovations.

Fundamentally, Hoover was captive to the economic orthodoxy of the day which was hostile to government intervention and relied on volunteerism and placed a great deal of emphasis on balanced budgets. The straw-man version of Hoover's presidency, in which he sat back and did nothing for four years, waiting on the market to correct itself is a caricature. But broadly speaking, he was unwilling to take decisive action on virtually every front, though some of the efforts he began on a very small scale were expanded dramatically to great effect under Roosevelt.

History is always complex. But to the degree public policy discussions don't leave room for extended detours into historiography, the broad brush outlines have to suffice. And once again, the Republicans are peddling the standard up-is-downism meant to confuse the discussion and fight for the eventual triumph of absurdity and nonsense.

Bernard Madoff isn't the only one. In the last few weeks, we've seen a spate of Mini-Madoffs, as the collapsing economy has exposed a slew of alleged Ponzi schemes and other scams in which money managers are accused of ripping off their clients. Here's the rundown...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

From TPM Reader RS ...

One point that been bugging me in the current stimulus package debate is the notion that scheduling infrastructure spending for 2010 or 2011 won't have any immediate impact on the economy.

Economic crises are ultimately about loss of confidence, i.e., a lack of faith in the economy's future. For this reason knowing that government money will be spent not only this year, but for years hence, is actually more stimulative than a quick launch of make-work projects whose effects, while immediate, would be quickly discounted as short-term.

Knowing Uncle Sam is willing to stimulate aggregate demand for years, not just for a few quarters, is just the kind of long-term reassurance companies need to plan ahead and entrepreneurs need to restore flagging animal spirits.

Eric Holder is denying that he made any promises to Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) and other GOP senators not to pursue torture prosecutions in order to secure their support for his confirmation.

Rep. Boehner (R) just said that the GOP alternative stimulus bill will create over 6 million jobs over two years with half the amount of money of the Democratic bill. Anybody have any idea where he got that number?

Now Sen. Ensign is claiming that President Hoover tried to pump up government spending during the early days of the Great Depression.

It may not be advisable for anyone to actually listen to the arguments House Republicans are actually making on the House floor. We're just listening again to Rep. Flake (R) who appears to have outdone himself in militant statements of economic nonsense. Earlier today we heard Flake claiming that tax cuts have no stimulus effect if they go to low-income earners who pay payroll taxes and not income taxes.

Now he's explaining how capital spending on AMTRAK is also not stimulus because AMTRAK doesn't run a profit. Again, total non-sequitur. I think rail is something we should be spending a lot more on. But you can certainly disagree with that on policy terms. But you can't claim that that capital spending on rail stock and rail upgrades doesn't provide jobs. Of course it provides jobs. And whether Amtrak is profitable or not is completely beside the point.

Where did they get this guy?

Actually, I forget. He's a chief GOP spokesman on this whole issue.

Progressive Caucus: We got a lot of good stuff in that bill.

Meanwhile, our anonymous TPMCafe contributor says, face it, the stuff that's really stimulus ain't infrastructure investment and vice versa.

Not sure I agree with that -- not in the narrow sense, where I suspect he's largely right, but of what we really want/need this stimulus to accomplish. But take a look.

I'm now being lectured on CSPAN about the spending in the Stimulus Bill by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R), who's still the target of an on-going criminal investigation because of his various earmark/lobbying scams.

More examples of what I was talking about below. Rep. Flake (R) was just on CSPAN moments ago talking about tax cuts in the Stimulus Bill. And he just made the argument that a lot of tax cuts in the bill go to 'people who don't pay income taxes', i.e., they're tax rebates. Now, this is another example of Republicans making transparently nonsensical points, making extensive use of the free pass on nonsense that appears to be their god-given from most of the political press in Washington.

There's a decent case that one-off tax rebates aren't as potent as spending in terms of pumping money back into the economy. The one from last year didn't seem to have much of a punch. But whether the money goes into the hands of people who do or do not pay income taxes is a completely irrelevant point in itself. It's only relevant to whether you can focus tax breaks on wealthier people -- a political point.

What's more, since people who 'don't pay income taxes' are overwhelmingly people with low incomes, those people by definition spend more than those with higher incomes, if only because they have no choice. It's just a straight-up nonsensical statement.

Over the last few days I've been trying to take stock of an essential element of the current stimulus debate: namely, Hill Republicans have been getting a lot of air time and minimal press criticism for a series of arguments about the stimulus that are in most cases transparently ridiculous. For instance, I heard several House Republicans yesterday making the straight up argument that the renovation of the Capitol Mall wouldn't create any jobs or stimulate the economy. Well, obviously any major building project creates jobs. Nothing could be more straightforward. Whether it's the best long-term use of the money, in the sense of whether the building project will have spin-off effects creating greater productivity and growth over time is a decent question. And looking at what's in the bill I find myself wishing that more of the more was being spent in a more concentrated fashion -- largely on infrastructure projects. But every major building project creates jobs.

Next, since there are no controlled experiments in recessions and depressions, there's no really concrete and dispositive evidence about what policies end or don't end severe economic downturns. But there's a more focused question: how much spending into the economy you get for government spending versus tax cuts. And on this point there's a lot of evidence, all of which points to spending as being more efficient. And that's even more the case in a severe downturn when tax cuts to businesses don't go into further business reinvestment because everyone's afraid to invest into a down economy. See more on this point in this post from Elana Schor at TPMDC.

A subsidiary point to this one -- to the extent that tax cuts are on the table, Republicans are going nuts about any tax cuts being rebated to people who are not paying income taxes. Now, again, you get more spending in the short term from people who have no choice but to spend virtually all their income. Very elementary. And it's just another case where if you look at the criticisms coming from Hill Republicans they show clearly that they don't come from people who have any concern for stabilizing the economy but rather from people who want to maximize tax cuts to wealthy Americans. Simple as that.

And yet for all of this, most reporters seem to take these non-sensical criticisms completely on face value, grading on a curve, as it were, not giving these folks a hard time because they're well-liked much as we might with a dumb jock in the physics class who gets a free ride because no one expects anything different from him.

Alas, there's a good example of this in this headline piece from today in the Politico making the argument that simple doing nothing, a la, the Hoover administration in the early 30s is likely the best plan.

Today is the big vote in the House on the Democrats' stimulus plan (a big vote but a somewhat predictable outcome). That and the day's other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

RNC members decide they no longer like President Bush, just in time for his no longer being president anymore.

Will John Fund not do the right thing and throw this accursed vote fraudster in prison where he belongs?

Support for Obama's Stimulus Plan, very high.

Support for Boehner and McConnell, very low.

Not paragraphs we can believe in -- from Richard Wolf's article in USAToday ...

The pace of spending as well as the package's size has made it difficult for Republicans to support Obama on his first legislative effort. They complain that the package includes too much spending, not enough tax cuts and not enough jobs.

On a more constructive note, it was pleasantly shocking to see this article in the Post which shows that there are actually critiques of the Stimulus Bill that don't come from craven right-wing freaks of the John Boehner persuasion. Seriously, read the Post piece.

TPM Reader BM's lament ...

I was @ home today, painting a room and writing a lecture, with MSNBC on for most of the day. I don't know about the other cable nets, but there were almost no Dems from the Hill on during the day, at all. Lots of Rs. Lots of re-rolling of Obama footage and the Gibbs briefing late in the afternoon.

What's up with that?

Are the cable networks just not booking them, or are they staying quiet while Rs complain? The way the coverage was playing out, you'd think the House Republicans had a zillion seat majority.

Reich: Why We Need Stronger Unions, and How to Get Them

From WaPo ...

Explicit nationalization of financial companies has little support among key Obama officials, sources said. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and top White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers believe governments make poor bank managers and cannot efficiently manage a vast number of institutions, according to some of their associates.

Taking over a substantial portion of a bank's stock and wiping out the investment of the firm's other shareholders could also precipitate a sell-off across the banking system as investors flee, fearing they could be next.

The gist of the rest of the article is that the Obama folks aren't going to go clearly in any of the widely discussed options, but rather mix and match. But these two points, tucked in at the end of the article, tell us the key points.

I'm sitting here at my desk at home working on miscellaneous TPM stuff and like every few minutes some cable network flack sends me a new rush transcript of some interview Blagojevich did today. First, Campbell Brown. Now here's one from Rachel Maddow. I mean the dude is an interview machine. And it's not like he didn't do something like 50 interviews yesterday. If Bill Buckley were still alive I'd expect to see him soon on Firing Line. And when does he go on Charlie Rose?

On the other hand, exchanges like this do make me wonder ...

RACHEL MADDOW: When-- when you-- again, this is from the wiretapped calls, and I realize you're not gonna testify to their veracity. But they are out there, and the transcripts are there, and some of them were played today in the senate. Speaking about Barack Obama's advisors, "They're not willing to give me anything but appreciation in exchange for the senate seat. Bleep them." What would you want other than appreciation? What-- what could be kosher to exchange for a senate seat?

BLAGOJEVICH:
Well, how about helping us pass healthcare and a jobs bill? And helping the people of Illinois. Don't just leave Illinois now. And--

RACHEL MADDOW:
I will appoint person X instead of person Y unless you do this (UNINTEL) favor for me?

BLAGOJEVICH:
No, no, the-- no, the one-- for the other is not-- that-- that's not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying-- I'm in a political business. When Barack Obama agrees to raise $10 million for Hillary Clinton to get out of the race that's the natural political sort of thing that happens in this business. It's appropriate. Nothing that you-- improper about it. Again, in the full context, discussions and the explorations of ideas and thoughts and whether you could or couldn't do something-- you-- you should be able to do that in a free country that guarantees the right of free speech. Especially when you're doing it in what you think is the sanctity of your home, and you want to do it out of your home phone, because you don't want any interconnection with the government's lines, so somebody thinks you're talking politics on a government phone. Again, when the whole story is-- is heard, and put in the proper context, I think you'll see a process that ultimately-- ultimately would-- would lead in the right place.

I've got no brief for this guy. I've said several times, he often strikes me as genuinely clinical. But it's not clear to me how strong a case they've got against this guy.

Obama gives selected Republicans a pat on the head.

From Paul Bedard's Washington Whispers quoting Republican sources on what Obama said in his meeting with Hill Republicans ...

On GOP complaints, "he said that 'there will be time to beat him up and a time for politics. He said I understand that and I will watch you on Fox News and feel bad about myself.'"

Sen. Ensign (R): 2001 Bush tax cut a model of bipartisanship Obama should aspire to.

Over the last several days the recently impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich made the talk show rounds. If you like Rudyard Kipling, you'll love this.

In today's press briefing Robert Gibbs said the White House Counsel's office was studying whether to keep Karl Rove's executive privilege grant in place in the face of John Conyers' new subpoena.

Coleman witness and alleged 'disenfranchised' Coleman voter admits absentee fraud on the stand.

And this came out on direct examination.

About the new Diageo/Hotline poll ...

A new poll released today by National Journal Group's Hotline and its polling partner Diageo finds President Obama enjoying strong support one week into his administration, with Americans also generally backing the $825 billion stimulus package now working its way through Congress.

The Diageo/Hotline poll conducted by FD will be released in two parts, the first today and the second - looking at Congress and its leaders - on Wednesday. It is available to subscribers at The Hotline on NationalJournal.com.

Obama's favorability rating stands at 76 percent, with a job approval rating of 63 percent. Even Republicans have a generally positive view of the new president, with a plurality saying they approve of his job performance. So far, Democratic approval of Obama is nearly universal.

Overall, Americans are also supportive of the economic stimulus package Obama has asked Congress to pass. After learning the details of its provisions, more than two-thirds of respondents said they at least somewhat supported the package. But partisan rifts do exist. Democrats were inclined to support the legislation - 58 percent of them strongly - while Republicans were split about evenly.

From an internal Random House email earlier this hour ...

From: Bogaards, Paul
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1:07 PM
To: @Knopf Doubleday Group
Subject: John Updike

It is with great sadness that I report that John Updike died this morning at the age of 76, after a battle with lung cancer.

John was one of our greatest writers. He was a part of the Knopf family for over fifty years. We will all miss him terribly.

JOHN UPDIKE
March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009

Russia to build new base for its Black Sea fleet in Abkhazia, the disputed region that Georgia lost control of in last year's brief war. The fleet is now at the old Soviet-era base at Sevastopol, which the Russians currently lease from Ukraine.

With Rep. Conyers' new subpoena to Karl Rove, it's now up to President Obama to decide whether Rove gets to keep hiding behind executive privilege. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has forwarded the subpoena to President Obama and asked where he stands.

Boehner to Obama: We'd be willing to support a fully Republican bill.

The McConnell/Boehner plan is to fix the Bush mess by pushing through more of the former president's policies. Again. Totally clear. I don't think they'd even deny it. Why is this off-limits to say out loud?

You might be surprised to learn that it's congressional Dems who are causing trouble for President Obama's stimulus plan, while Republicans are onboard. So says none other than forked-tongued Sen. Mitch McConnell:

Elana Schor has more on McConnell's little gambit.

Meanwhile, Politico reports, contrary to what McConnell suggests, that the leadership in the House is determined to kill the bill:

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion.

As long as Mitch McConnell's lips are moving, there's a scam afoot.

I hear a lot of talk about whether Obama's governing approach can be 'bipartisan' if a good number of Republicans don't vote for his Stimulus Bill. But that dubious point seems to be obscuring a more obvious and telling reality: the Republican leadership in both houses has decided that it's in their political interest to oppose the Stimulus Bill no matter what.

In the most cynical of evaluations, it's not clear to me that they're incorrect. If the stimulus is judged a success, their political gain from adding more votes to what will be seen as Obama's bill will not be that great. So they're figuring that only failure will work for them politically; and they judge that they want Obama to own it entirely.

One can pick apart the political ethics of their stand, but the reality of it is clear. They want to criticize as many provisions of the bill as possible, push for as many non-stimulus inducing tax cuts as possible at the expense of spending on infrastructure, and then vote against the final bill en masse. I think it's possible Obama will get a smattering of moderate Republicans in the senate. But that is the Boehner/McConnell approach -- and the one few if any reporters seem to have the wherewithal to say out loud.

Obama heads to the Hill today to sell his stimulus package to lawmakers. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Some train wrecks are just impossible to watch and impossible not to watch. Here's ex-Merrill CEO John Thain explaining the whole $1.2 million office renovation story in an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo this afternoon. The first question is just about the office renovation in general and it gets your pretty standard pseudo-abject apology.

But it's the second question and answer that's just one for the ages. Bartiromo says, Okay, fine, that was a bad idea spending $1.2 million to get your office renovated while your company was swirling down the drain, but just what was wrong with the old office? The one he inherited from his Merrill predecessor Stanley O'Neal?

Tell me if you can decipher what Thain is saying ...

Gershom Gorenberg on why some fear what George Mitchell might bring to Israel-Palestine mediation.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is going to put Obama's openness and transparency claims to an early test -- by re-subpoenaing Karl Rove to testify about the U.S. attorney firings. Will Obama support Rove's executive privilege claims? Will Rove even bother asserting executive privilege with his patron out of the White House?

So many questions ... but we may get answers pretty soon. The subpoena summons Rove for next week, Feb. 2.

How much TARP money should be spent on lobbying Congress to loosen the restrictions on getting TARP money in the first place?

Does John McCain really think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to break out of the Supermax facility in Colorado, if that's where he ends up getting sentenced to serve a life term? Or Fort Leavenworth?

Saw through the bars with a sharpened spoon? Team up with Jimmy Cagney on some dig out through a tunnel plan?

Former Johnson-era Attorney General and Under Secretary of State Nick Katzenbach says following the law and the constitution can actually be good politics.

From TPM Reader JG ...

Excuse me if I sound like a worry wart, but I am a little concerned that Obama is being punked by the GOPers on the stimulus bill. As I understand it, he has already changed the proposed bill to include tax cuts and made other changes to please the GOP. However, it seems that he has yet to get them to buy in. It would seem that rather than putting their proposals into the package upfront, it would be better if he made it clear that he would include their proposal only if they agree to support the bill. By making the concessions up front, he seems to be diluting his proposals, lending credibility to both the GOP's proposals and criticisms of Obama's package.

Or not so punk'd, from TPM Reader ND ...

I have to disagree with your reader about his worry that Obama is getting 'punked' by Republicans. I am beginning to think that a lot of liberals are suffering from some kind of Stockholm syndrome with the republicans and conservatives giving them credit for every little move while trashing Obama and doubting him every step of the way. Though we may not like everything that is on the bill and should as progressives push for what we think needs to be done the comments I have seen go way beyond that. Calling into question Obama's commitment to progressive causes and his savvy about how to get a good bill passed. People seem to forget that Obama is extending a hand not in order to get all the republicans to bend over for him (excuse the graphic description) but is doing this for a large audience. The ones getting punked are the republicans who will look childish and small when this is done. Obama is playing chess while the republicans and many liberals are barely doing checkers. Not a week in and already giving the cons more credit than the guy who won the election for our cause.

On this whole front, I would say it's very important to distinguish between what the Obama folks are really doing and thinking and what's just Beltway media nonsense.

Given the way that the insider media can define narratives, it's easy to get the two confused or assume the one defines the other. I think that the healthy attitude is one of watchful skepticism but we should also not assume that the people in the White House don't see that the Republicans are a largely discredited minority party with few cards to play, even if many reporters remain easy to play.

Courtesy of the Drudge and Politico, Republicans go nuts over expansion of Republican-endorsed program.

As Elana reports, mass transit turns out to be doing even worse in the senate stimulus bill than it did in the one from the House, where it was already wildly underfunded. One part of the equation here is definitely the need to spend money quickly. There are far more roads waiting to be fixed than there are public transportation projects ready to be started. But I wonder if another issue isn't the one Atrios points to here -- public transportation, especially rail, has no coherent political coalition behind it.

From TPM Reader JEM ...

I'm starting to get really annoyed with most news outlets, particularly Politico, which seems to be auditioning for the role of Drudge 2.0, portraying Obama's pledge to be more bipartisan as some sort of political straight jacket. Apparently, Obama has to completely transform all of his ideas and proposals to whatever the Republicans demand if he hopes to live up to his 'promise' of bipartisanship. I hope these articles conclude that he's broken his promise by the time the stimulus passes (with more than 60 votes, mind you), just so I don't have to endure them for the next four years.

I'm not sure I'd say I'm annoyed because I'm not really surprised. But I do think it's an example of the continuing Republican tilt of much of the capital press corps. Not in ideological terms perhaps, but in terms of whose opinions carry weight, whose matter and whose do not.

Is this the same John McCain that everyone seemed to agree a few months ago knows virtually nothing about economics and cares even less?

In an interview this morning with Diane Sawyer, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allows that he did consider appointing Oprah Winfrey to Obama's empty Senate seat:

The biggest item on President Obama's agenda is the stimulus package currently being constructed to rescue the nation's economy. Democrats claim that there has been wide bipartisan input, but Republicans dubious of the proposals say they haven't been brought in sufficiently. It's a regular Sunday Show Showdown ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

TPM Reader SG checks in:

Am I the only one who is simply flabbergasted that any Republican, much less a member of the Bush Administration like Karl Rove, thinks the closing of Gitmo will be a campaign issue that favors the GOP? I listen to these people lecture us about the difficulty Obama will face in relocating the prisoners and one word keeps repeating itself in my mind: chutzpah! Of the highest order! It's as if they built a poorly designed nuclear plant, let it melt down on their watch, did nothing to clean it up, and then upon leaving office said: "Good luck with that nuclear plant! We'll be watching and ready to pounce when you haven't got that sucker under control in a year!"

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, the Franken-Coleman election contest trial begins today. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

From the NYT:

President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Take that, Stephen Johnson.

Nancy Pelosi says that Republicans have had the opportunity to present their ideas for the stimulus -- but their ideas have to be good ones. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Sunday Roundup.