The stimulus bill might have already passed and been signed into law, but the GOP is still pushing its debunked in-house math about how their proposal was better. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

A lot of Republicans think FDR caused the Great Depression.

LA Times jumps on the Obama birth certificate 'controversy.'

A little nugget from an article in yesterday's New York Daily News pointed out by TPM Reader DS. Turns out my main man Sean Hannity was a big pal of Sir Allen Stanford too ...

A big booster of Stanford has been Fox News host Sean Hannity who intones on his radio show, "Stanford Coins & Bullion, a member of the Stanford Financial Group - their name as good as gold."

We're learning that one of the ways Sir Allen Stanford plied U.S. lawmakers was through a little-known non-profit group called the Inter-American Economic Council. At one point, the group was focused on easing the restrictions that the Patriot Act imposed on offshore banks like Stanford's. Zack Roth has the background on Stanford's relationship with the group -- and pictures of Stanford attending an IAEC event with lawmakers in Washington.

Late Update: I'm not sure "little-known" is the best description of this group. Last year's keynote speaker at IAEC's annual awards gala, which is held at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, was Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). In 2006, when Sir Allen was given the group's top award, President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush were the honorary co-chairs of the event. Tickets for this year's black-tie affair, set for next Friday, are $500 apiece, and sponsorships of the event go for as much as $250,000.

Sen. Cornyn decides to cough up 1/5 of Sir Allen Stanford's contributions.

If you've been out of pocket since yesterday and missed CNBC's Rick Santelli going off on the Obama foreclosure relief plan (a Google search for "Rick Santelli" offers "Rick Santelli rant" as an alternative search term), here's a snippet of his rant and Robert Gibbs' response today at the White House press briefing:

(See more at CNBC.com and MSNBC.com)

Asked at today's press briefing whether Sen. Roland Burris should resign, Robert Gibbs all but gave him the old heave-ho:

(See more at CNN.com)

Reich: Countering Conservative Claptrap on the New Deal and the New Stimulus.

Johnny Damon can't pay his bills because he had his money invested with "Sir" Allen Stanford.

Burris's Chief of Staff resigns.

A bit earlier this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made statements which many have taken as pushback against the rising tide of rumors that Citigroup and Bank of America could soon be taken over by the government.

Gibbs said, "This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government. That's been our belief for quite some time, and we continue to have that."

I'd be curious what others think. But when I heard this, this struck me as a pretty mild response, given how rapidly people seem to be moving toward the belief that these banks are at their last gasps. It's not completely on point for the question at hand and it refers to preferences not what may actually happen.

To be clear, I would not expect the White House to make definitive statements in such a situation unless they'd really made a clear decision that any sort of government take over of these banks was out of the question -- and ruling that out seems crazy under the present circumstances. And no question this is a very delicate messaging situation. But my own take was that these statements do not tell us that much.

According to CNBC, BofA CEO Ken Lewis sent a memo out to employees today saying the bank was well capitalized, that the credit markets are easing up and absolutely, positively not to believe the nationalization rumors.

Says Lewis: "Our company continues to be profitable. We see no reason why a company that is profitable with strong levels of capital and liquidity and that continues to lend actively should be considered for nationalization."

Late Update: It's a bit unclear now whether this was an internal staff memo or a statement released more broadly.

This point has been hinted at in the last couple reader emails I've posted. But I've just been talking to a few knowledgeable observers. And when you step back what stands out most over the last two days is the silence of the administration on the nationalization/receivership question.

Sen. Dodd clearly opened the door to nationalization in an interview with Bloomberg reported this morning. This comes on the heels of Alan Greenspan opening the door to it. And just moments ago Huffington Post reported an interview with Sen. Schumer in which he appears to do more or less the similar, though with a decent amount of caveats and hedging.

These and other comments and developments are driving the value of the big bank stocks down toward their mathematical limit. Citi and BofA have lost another 20% of their value just today. As the reader pointed out earlier, at a certain point this emerging consensus becomes a fait accompli. And as I noted, the administration has been really silent on this.

Is the silence intentional? Because it seems, unmistakably, to be moving this ball forward.

Late Update: Writing about an hour ago, Krugman provides some key context on what's actually happening here and what it means. These banks are already insolvent. They've been able to stay afloat because the markets have believed that the federal government has implicitly guaranteed their obligations. "What's happening now is a growing sense that the federal government, in return for rescuing these institutions, will demand the same thing a private-sector white knight would have demanded -- namely, ownership."

From TPM Reader JP ...

Please stop using the highly inaccurate term "nationalization" which connotes permanent government takeover of the banks. The correct term is receivership, which is by definition temporary and a routine staple of our capitalist economy and banking regulatory system. Using the term nationalization plays into the propaganda of the far right.

As I've said a number of times, the term 'nationalization' at best confuses the issue, for pretty much the reasons JP says. I'm inclined to say that I don't want to further confuse the issue by using a different term when this is the one everyone is using already. But perhaps JP has a better point than I realize.

The key is that financial reorganization of failed companies -- whether it's receivership, or bankruptcy proceedings, or something else like it -- is textbook rule of law capitalism. If you're a real free marketeer the real departure is keeping failed companies afloat with a perpetual taxpayer IV line, socializing all the losses and leaving all the upside with people who ran their companies into the ground. It's not just a raw deal for taxpayers. It also keeps the whole economy in idle.

A TPM Reader comments ...

In an interview with Bloomberg set to air later today, Chris Dodd was reportedly asked about nationalization. The powerful Senate Banking Chair did something unexpected - he spoke the blunt truth:

"I don't welcome that at all," he said, "but I could see how it's possible it may happen. I'm concerned that we may end up having to do that, at least for a short time."

There's an interesting dynamic at work here. Nationalization is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Investors, convinced that it's coming, are dumping bank stocks. Uncertainty is making it difficult for the most troubled banks to finance their operations. Their stock prices are
routinely setting new lows - Citi and Bank of America both lost about a fifth of their remaining value on Dodd's comments. That's why Ken Lewis is pushing back. Unless something dramatic is done to convince investors that nationalization is not in the offing, it becomes the only solution. But, as Lewis has discovered, no public figure is going to step forward and take it off the table at this pivotal juncture.

Now that Dodd has publicly mooted the notion, it's probably picked up too much momentum to be stopped. What was politically unfeasible just months ago is now inevitable. By the time the government steps in, it's as likely to be met with as much relief as opposition.

Dodd opening the door to nationalization.

The Washington Post ombudsman has responded to the outcry over George Will's faulty global warming column.

Huffington Post: "John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey With Bright Blue Scrotum."

There seems to be a pretty clear realization now that the hammering the big bank stocks are taking over the last few days is not simply a matter of their battered economic condition but more immediately because of the growing likelihood of nationalization. But buried down in an article in today's Journal is this.

At a senior leadership meeting yesterday, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis told bank leaders (according to a source in the room) that government officials have assured him that nationalization "isn't on the table."

He said "he has [also] urged the government to say this publicly."

I'll bet he has.

Now, under the present circumstances, I would not take anything Mr. Lewis says at face value. But the comment can speak for itself.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who was elevated to that post from lieutenant governor when Blago was impeached, is calling on Sen. Roland Burris to resign:

Coleman: Votes I said were legal should now be thrown out.

Last fall Sir Allen went on CNBC for a brief segment. Most of the attention has been focused on him saying it was fun being a billionaire, but I find the rest of the interview -- where's he's bragging about how they didn't get killed in the subprime debacle because they never felt like they could properly assess the "risk" -- far more entertaining and ironic:

The Hill has a piece today arguing that Obama might have a harder time pushing bank nationalization than a Republican since he'd be more vulnerable to charges that he's a dangerous left-wing freak like Alan Greenspan, Joe Stiglitz, Lindsey Graham and others who support the idea. As a political matter that may or may not be true. But what caught my eye was the quote from Scott Talbott, vice president and spokesperson for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents most of the big TARP recipients in addition to a medium sized list of big financial institutions nationwide.

Says Talbott: "If you had government running the banks, in the long run, you'd destroy the private sector."

The only problem is that no one is talking about a 'long run'. No one who is remotely part of the mainstream policy discussion is talking about the government taking over and running the banking sector. The idea under discussion is having the government take over the failed banks, clean them up and then reprivatize them. Private banks in, private banks out. The only difference is that the private banks that come out on the other side would be owned by different people. That's the rub.

So this is a complete non-point.

As we mentioned below, Rep. Pete Sessions and his congressional office are still saying that Sessions has never met billionaire fraudster Sir Allen Stanford -- notwithstanding the fact that Zack Roth has come up with a picture of the two of them chilling down in Antigua a few years ago.

But it seems that there's no shortage of pictures of these two pals spending time together. TPM Reader ES just sent us a link to this new picture on an Antiguan government website.

It seems there's no shortage of pictures for the Sessions/Stanford photo album, so definitely send us your snapshots of Sessions and Stanford and we'll share them with readers too.

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Bernie Madoff's operation started legit and then drifted into a Ponzi scheme over time to cover up losses.

But the trustee told Madoff victims this morning: "We have no evidence to indicate securities were purchased for customer accounts."

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) says he doesn't know accused billionaire fraudster Allen Stanford; photos say otherwise.

Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) has canceled his public events today and is hunkering down with advisers. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Politico reports: Obama's cabinet has no CEOs.

It's one thing to accept money from a piece of legislation you campaigned strenuously against. But we're seeing more and more stories about Republicans who just got done trashing the stimulus bill in Washington and are now back in their districts taking credit for the spending programs contained in it. A lot of the stories have already been written up. But I think there are many, many more out there. So keep an eye on your local media for examples.

And remember, the criteria are pretty clear. Every House Republican voted against the bill. So any member of the House with an R after his or her name qualifies. And in the senate pretty much the same with the exception of Snowe, Collins and Specter.

Send us links or other citations. We'll apply the appropriate snark and share with the rest of the TPM readership, all culminating in a ground GOP Stimulus Hypocrimap.

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. Former interns have gone on to jobs at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and TPM, among other places. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Vicki Iseman, the DC lobbyist who came off as John McCain's squeeze in that big NYT "expose" during the campaign, has settled her lawsuit against the paper.

The Times declares that it was vindicated because it didn't pay any money, apologize or retract the story, though it did agree to run the following editor's note to readers:

An article published on Feb. 21, 2008, about Senator John McCain and his record as an ethics reformer who was at times blind to potential conflicts of interest included references to Vicki Iseman, a Washington lobbyist. The article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust.

But Iseman's attorney tells Greg Sargent that this statement goes farther than the paper has before in disavowing any inappropriate conduct by Iseman and declares the settlement is a "complete vindication" for her.

Not sure what I make of this. Thoughts?

Late Update: TPM Reader JO scores it for the Times:

No money, no retraction, no apology, and the statement is carefully worded to say only that the article was not meant to convey either an affair or "an unethical relationship on behalf of [Iseman's] clients in breach of the public trust." But neither Iseman nor her private client held any public trust -- it was McCain's ethics that her lobbying, and her contacts with McCain, placed in issue. Even more surprising: no confidentiality agreement to keep the Times from letting everyone know just how one-sided the terms of the settlement are.

This looks like as complete a win as the Times could possibly get without spending a lot more on litigation. And since no one settles for absolutely nothing, it's not surprising that the Times would offer this minimal fig-leaf to give her lawyer something to say. There's no way Iseman settles on these terms if she has any shot of winning at trial. And it seems hard to believe that she and her counsel would perceive the odds as being so completely against them unless the discovery process had made it very clear that the Times would prevail on a defense that the story as published was true. Otherwise, the fight would be about the state of mind of the people at the Times who did the reporting and editing -- and state of mind disputes are rarely so clear cut as to warrant such a one-sided settlement.

Later Update: Ben Smith calls it for Iseman.

Later Still Update: TPM Reader RR says it's a close call, but that Iseman did pretty good considering the high bar for libel:

I have defended these cases. The Times gets off, but the story didn't have the facts to prove there was a fire causing the smell of smoke. Now the Times is saying that it "did not intend to conclude" there was a romantic relationship with McCain or an unethical relationship "on behalf of her clients."

The story did not reach those conclusions because the story did not have the facts to prove them. But the implications were clear enough. This was a "raises questions" kind of story. The implications and innuendos are there, but the story stops short of claiming the proof. This was not great journalism by any stretch.

But the "public figure" defamation plaintiff has a near impossible task. She must prove by "clear and convincing" evidence that the reporter knew the statements were false or had a high degree of awareness of their probable falsity ("actual malice"). I think she did OK because the Times is now admitting, if that is the word, that it had no proof of a romantic or unethical relationship.

More evidence in a new poll that the picture is not that simple. Congressional Democrats have a 48% - 45% approval. Not wildly good, but decent. Congressional Republicans are down at 33% - 59%, which is known in the public opinion field as "really, really bad."

Sir Allen was served today with papers in the SEC case somewhere in Virginia.

Remember, no criminal case yet against Stanford. The SEC action is civil suit. Bloomberg had a good rundown this morning on the difference and on how the cases are likely to play out.

Late Update: They found him in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, area. He has surrendered his passport and retained DC criminal defense lawyer Brendan "I am not a potted plant" Sullivan as counsel, ABC reports.

Several times over the last few weeks I've said that notwithstanding the last two elections DC remains wired for Republicans. And each time I say that people write in to ask, what does that mean exactly? So here's what I mean. In Washington there's a formal government and a para-government. The formal government itself has all sorts of different layers to it -- the current crop of political appointees, the career employees, etc. But for the moment, let's put everyone who draws a paycheck from the United States government to one side and focus on everyone else.

Who are we talking about? The journalists. The lobbyists. The people who work in the think tanks and quasi-think tanks where purported policy experts work. The employees of the majority activist groups on both sides of the political spectrum. The list could go on and on. But this gives a basic flavor of who we're talking about.

We're coming off of, or at least we've had a period of (because who knows about the future) thirty plus years of conservative dominance of Washington. By some measures you could say forty years. But at least thirty, notwithstanding Bill Clinton's eight years in office. That conditions a generation of people with mindsets based around Republicans being the party of power, the party whose ideas get vindicated at the polls. Most of all Washington is a city that coddles up to and worships power. But a generation of one party holding the reins selects for certain kinds of journalists in key positions of power, the policy experts at the think tanks who get the journalists calls, the lobbyists who move the most money and so forth. You build up a set of assumptions about what kinds of people and ideas are respectable and which aren't. Which are old-fashioned, which are 'cutting edge' and so forth. Who defines conventional wisdom?

In all of these respects, DC remains overwhelmingly wired for the GOP.

Over time, the formal government shapes the para-government. But there's no immediate transition. In fact, in the short-run there's usually an intensified conflict between the two. And you see evidence of the disconnect in repeated failures of people in the capital to predict the reactions of the country to key political developments -- which is something you've seen repeatedly in 2006 and 2008. And even into 2009.

The role of organized money obviously plays a big role too, though money's partisan attachments are highly, highly malleable. The most important factor is the para-government and its entrenched attitudes.

Another tough-talking GOP governor admits he's a hypocrite and says he'll take the Stimulus money.

David Weigel caught up with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a Republican event on the Hill this morning and asked if we would cooperate with Sen. Patrick Leahy's proposed truth commission, should that come to pass. Saying he would, Gonzo elaborated:

"I think only a fool would be unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation in this political town and in this political climate. Having said that, again, because I feel like I've got nothing to hide and I've done nothing wrong, I'm not worried about the truth, so long as what we're talking about is the truth and things don't become politicized."

Reed Hundt points to the far-ranging effects of the various spending in the Stimulus Bill. And next up is the budget, which I'm told will be equally ambitious in terms of a major rewiring of the federal budget, particularly making a major down payment, as in a substantial amount of money set aside for health care reform.

To date most of the debate in DC has been tied up with largely nonsensical jousting with the rump GOP about the terms of the Stimulus Bill -- largely the GOP's push for doing no Stimulus at all or one focused on inefficient tax cuts. But the Democrats now control Washington -- especially on the budget, where the same super-majority rules do not apply in the senate. So it's much better to start thinking in terms of what change would benefit the country most over the short and long term rather than getting distracted by arguments with Republicans who polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans have lost patience and confidence in.

(ed.note: As one of the more humorous points of Republican irrelevance, see the feeble twists and turns GOP Govs. like Rick Perry of Texas are going to to explain why it's taken them about a day and a half to apply 'due diligence' to the stimulus money their states are getting and decide it's okay to accept all of it.)

TPM Reader JH is feeling arch this morning:

I understand that Gov. Sanford has, on first try, proven unable to quit the federal dole. But it seems to me that practice makes perfect.

Now that Sanford and the Congressional Republicans have determined that government spending has no stimulative effect it is my hope that next time NASA seeks to expand operations in Cape Canaveral, Huntsville, or Houston that the principled senators from Florida, Alabama, and Texas will seek to have such wasteful money redirected to NASA facilities in California where the money can provide no benefit for California.

Next time the Dept. of Energy seeks to expand Oak Ridge National Lab, I trust that Senators Alexander and Corker will insist that their constituents would rather see these funds transferred to Argonne Lab and the fine citizens of Chicago.

And so that Governors Sanford, Jindal and Perry don't feel left out, next time the DOD considers military base closures they could volunteer to have the military bases in their states closed as socialized jobs are worse than no jobs at all...

As if to feed my Google Earth addiction, Noah Shachtman over at Danger Room links to a 2006 Google Earth image unearthed by the News of Pakistan that shows what looks to Noah's better-trained eyes like U.S. Predator drones parked at an airfield in Pakistan.

Unveiling the latest GOP makeover plans, RNC's Michael Steele promises to apply conservative principles to "hip-hop settings."

Greg Sargent gets a read out on last evening's cocktail party at the White House, where the Obamas wooed progressive groups.

Matt Cooper recaps the Dems' post-election woes appointing U.S. senators.

It just so happens that two of the home-state pols Sir Allen Stanford was very cozy with now head up the NRSC and NRCC, respectively. But Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) aren't going to follow the lead of their fellow lawmakers: they're refusing to give up the big bucks they got from Stanford.

All that talk from some GOP governors that they would refuse their state's portion of the Obama stimulus package? Fuggedaboutit. Now the most vocal of the grandstanders, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), says, yeah, I'll take the money.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to announce today that he is running for the seat of the retiring Sen.Kit Bond (R-MO) in 2010. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The long prosecutorial saga of New Hampshire phone-jamming figure James Tobin, which we have covered extensively over the years, appears to be at or very near the end. A federal judge in Maine has dismissed the latest charges against Tobin as a vindictive prosecution, a stunning rebuke to the Public Integrity Section of DOJ. The government could appeal this decision, so maybe not officially over. But the fat lady is gargling with lemon and honey.

Prosecutors suggested that part of the reason for the new charges (after Tobin was acquitted on appeal following his first trial) was to force his cooperation. Now we may never know the true extent of the RNC's and White House's involvement in the 2002 phone-jamming.

We've known about the securities fraud charges against off-shore bank kingpin Sir Allen Stanford. But now TPM alum Justin Rood reports that the FBI has a separate, on-going investigation into whether Stanford's operation served as a money-laundering operation for one of the big Mexican drug cartels.

We'll see how this story develops. But it does point to something I've given quite a bit of thought to -- and a decent amount of poking around on -- with the Madoff case. When you're involved in fraudulent enterprises involving billions of dollars, with lots of unaccounted for and untracked streams of money, organized criminal syndicates -- whether it's the mob or drug gangs or whatever -- just tend not to be too far behind. I suspect we'll eventually find that with Madoff securities fraud was not the only crime.

Durbin gives Burris the old heave-ho ...

(ed.note: As you can see in the statement below, there's really little daylight between what Durbin says here and just coming out and calling on Burris to resign. And Durbin is his senate colleague from Illinois, has known the guy for 30 years and is very close to Obama.)

DURBIN STATEMENT ON SENATOR ROLAND BURRIS

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] - U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) issued the following statement today on the evolving situation regarding Senator Roland Burris (D-IL):

"When we met with Roland Burris in January, we made it clear that in order for him to be seated in the U.S. Senate he needed to meet two requirements - first, that he submit the proper paperwork certifying his appointment, and second, that he appear before the General Assembly's Impeachment Committee to testify openly, honestly and completely about the nature of his relationship with the former governor, his associates and the circumstances surrounding this appointment."

"We asked him to testify in the impeachment proceedings, not to embarrass Roland Burris, but to give him an opportunity to clear the air regarding this appointment from a tainted governor. Our hope was that he would use that opportunity to assure the people of Illinois and the other members of the United States Senate that he was not involved in any wrongdoing."

"Now the accuracy and completeness of his testimony and affidavits have been called into serious question. Every day there are more and more revelations about contacts with Blagojevich advisors, efforts at fundraising and omissions from his list of lobbying clients. This was not the full disclosure under oath that we asked for."

"These news reports and the public statements by Roland Burris himself are troubling and raise serious questions which need to be looked at very carefully."

"The State's Attorney in Sangamon County is reviewing the affidavit and other materials associated with Senator Burris' testimony to see if criminal charges are warranted and the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee has begun a preliminary investigation into this matter."

"This is the appropriate course of action and I await the outcome of those investigations. The people of Illinois deserve nothing less."

The Times says Kansas Gov. Sebelius is Obama's top choice for HHS.

There aren't a lot of investments paying good dividends these days. But the Republicans have definitely found one: funding Norm Coleman's hopeless court suit to try to find some way to let him be senator again. As a matter of principle, I don't really like when people try to shame candidates into throwing in the towel. Elections are important; candidates and supporters put immense energy, money and effort into winning them. So as long as a candidate thinks he or she won, they should be free to pursue whatever remedies and legal avenues are available. That said, it's worth considering what Republicans are getting -- not by keeping Coleman's hopeless effort alive but far more importantly by delaying Al Franken's swearing in.

The Stimulus Bill battle is a good example. The Dems needed Specter, Collins and Snowe to get the thing through. With Franken they would have needed only two of those votes. I don't know precisely what each of them wanted. But I don't think there's much doubt that would have led to a less watered-down bill. And it seems quite possible that that missing vote will play a similarly consequential role in the weeks ahead. Perhaps in the months ahead.

The court process has to play itself out. There's no way around that -- though the judges seem ready to strangle Coleman. But we could do with a little more recognition of the fact that this is not about getting Norm Coleman into the senate. It's about paying money to give the Republicans a few more months of leverage against the Democrats 59 seat majority.

Which GOP governors are grandstanding about maybe turning down their state's stimulus money?

There's a line from the philosopher Seneca which, in English, goes like this: Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling. And that seems like an apt description of where the consensus is heading on the possible takeover of some of the biggest national banks. Lindsey Graham says he's for it. Yesterday, Alan Greenspan said he was for it. And this new article from the Financial Times says the Obama administration is moving toward embracing the so-called Swedish model.

With regards to Obama, this seems more like tea-leaf reading than anything concrete and specific. But it does seem pretty clear that this is where everything is trending. The issue isn't whether people like the idea of 'nationalization'. It's better framed as whether you a) want the government to temporarily take over certain banks or b) want to continue giving away hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in an effort that probably isn't even going to work. Especially for Republicans, you really can't be anti-bailout and anti-nationalization. Those are the only options.

We have to focus on the economic crisis.

Zack Roth looks at the cast of characters in the orbit of Sir Allen Stanford and finds familiar names from other recent scandals popping up again and again -- from Abramoff to Blagojevich.

We've also dug up photographs from a 2005 congressional junket to the islands sponsored by the Inter-American Economic Council, which Stanford backed financially. Here's Sir Allen and former Florida Secretary of State and then-congresswoman Katherine Harris:

The rest of the photos are here.

Shorter Politico: Citizens increasingly out of touch with Beltway Media.

Murray Waas has been digging into just how many Bush officials in the waning days of the administration refused to cooperate with the various internal investigations into the politicization of the Justice Department. He's up to at least nine -- not including the GOPers on the Hill who stonewalled, too. In his exclusive report at TPMmuckraker, Waas also gets us up to speed on who may or may not be cooperating with the subsequent criminal probes those investigations spawned.

Roland Burris is on TV giving a speech defending himself against allegations he lied about his role in being solicited and then trying to help raise money for Rod Blagojevich to help get the senate seat. And it's basically identical to a series of speeches Blago himself gave when he was swirling around the bowl: How dare you give me any crap for lying about that fundraising stuff when, my god, I just helped pass the Stimulus Bill, SCHIP and the Lily Ledbetter bill.

It's almost like a homage to Blago. All he needs is a good Tennyson quote.

Sir Allen Stanford may be on the run today facing an $8 billion fraud charge. But back in the beginning of this decade he was pouring tons of money into Washington to help block a series of bills that would have created problems for his Antigua-based off-shore banking empire, which now appears to have been a massive fraud.

At the key time, Democrats controlled the Senate, where the key actions were going to take place. And Stanford poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Democratic coffers to help (successfully) deep six legislation he wanted killed.

As we look deeper into the Allen Stanford story and his alleged $8 billion fraud, his role spreading around money in Washington is becoming increasingly clear. A lot of it tied to his efforts to kill a bill back in 2001/2002 era bill that would have cracked down on offshore banks and money laundering. Elana Schor's got part one of the story.

As she'll explain in part two of the story, Stanford gave a huge amount of money to the Democrats -- who then controlled the senate -- to prevent the bill from ever coming to the floor.

Sen. Roland Burris' political position is becoming increasingly untenable: state criminal investigation, Senate ethics probe, and calls to resign, including from the Chicago Tribune.

Maybe Blago's spectacular fall has skewed our sense of what a political flameout looks like. But by any usual standard, Burris is in deep, deep trouble.

Things are heating up in the March 31 special election for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's vacant House seat, with the GOP having a real shot at picking up the seat. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Does anyone think there's currently a sellers' market in bank executives and traders?

Is anyone else really curious to see what Roland Burris admits to tomorrow?

From the AP ...

Federal agents have raided the Memphis brokerage where state Senate Commerce Chairman Paul Stanley works, but the Germantown Republican says he's not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Stanley is a wealth manager for broker-dealer Stanford Group Co. He said his assistant called him Tuesday morning to tell him federal agents were searching the offices.

For more on Sir Allen's billions, see Zack Roth's coverage at TPMmuckraker.com.

From TPM Reader DB ...

I haven't seen this mentioned yet in any articles but what about the big banks (or any others receiving bailout money) lobbying while taking tax payer money. They are using public funds to pay for lobbying to increase their own interests and not necessarily those of the general public. Seems at least as bad if not worse than bonuses and executive pay.

Just a thought/question

Norm Coleman getting ready to demand a whole new election.

Just out from the FT ...

The US government may have to nationalise some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman has told the Financial Times.

In an interview with the FT Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.

"It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring," he said. "I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do."

Late Update: As Jon Taplin asks, is this the cover Summers and Geithner need.

Aerosmith draws the line on House GOP using its tune.

Reich: Don't confuse American companies with American jobs.

The big development over the weekend was when Sen. Graham (R-SC) said he thought that nationalization of some of the major banks may be unavoidable. He's now being forced to defend his comments back home. Charlotte-based B of A doesn't seem that pleased.

From Jim Manley, Sen. Reid's spokesman: "Senator Reid supports Senator Burris' decision to cooperate with all appropriate officials who may review this matter, including state agencies and the Senate Ethics Committee."

Lobbying from alleged Mini-Madoff Faux-Sir Allen Stanford helped kill a bill that would have cracked down on financial fraud.

Seems like he gave a nice amount of currency to Dems too -- though so far Sen. Cornyn looks like the only one who got to take the "financial services industry fact-finding mission" to Antigua courtesy of Sir Allen.

As Elana Schor highlights, the Dodd executive pay restrictions weren't added to the stimulus bill at the last minute in conference, as much of the reporting this week as described it. Rather, they were added by voice vote days before the bill passed, with no objection from either party. The only thing last minute about them was the last-minute effort to strip them and other pay restrictions out of the bill. So the framing of this as a sneak attack under cover of darkness? Not true.

Felix Salmon ponders the possibilities.

One of the points mentioned in this morning's Washington Post piece about the Geithner speech is a point I've mentioned already a few times: that a lot of key political appointments at the Treasury haven't been made yet, let alone been confirmed. And that played an important role slowing down and frustrating the planning.

From what we can tell, one of the big issues is that it's actually hard to find people with the requisite knowledge of banks and the capital markets who aren't also compromised -- either in policy or business terms -- by the housing bubble and the rest of the financial collapse. And that raises again as a question: why have none of the people who were financial orthodoxy dissidents and saw what was coming been brought in to the administration. I know I'm hardly the first one to bring this up. And we know that the big appointees -- Summers and Geithner -- were part of the mix. But there aren't even any of them further down into the appointment structure. They're all still on the outside.

Often I feel like there's something cheap about dividing everyone up by who got this or that question 'right', as a way for the people who got it 'right' to discredit everyone else. Happens on the right or the left. Sometimes people are just lucky. And being right once doesn't mean you'll be right again. But it would certainly help having some people in the mix who'd gotten in the habit of thinking in ways that allowed them to see what was coming.

Back in 2004, Sir Allen Stanford's company flew Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and an unidentified companion down to Antigua -- home base for Stanford International Bank, which the SEC now says can't account for $8 billion in holdings -- for three days of "financial services industry fact-finding."

Late Update: It only gets better. The House Caribbean Caucus (no, I didn't know it existed either) takes an annual "fact-finding" trip down to the islands on Stanford's planes. As recently as 2005, the caucus was chaired by now-disgraced Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who did jail time in the Abramoff scandal, and included such other Abramoff luminaries as Reps. Tom Feeney (R-FL) and John Sweeney (R-NY).

Later Update: It appears Cornyn's companion on the junket was identified back in 2006 as his wife.

Only a few months back former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R-CO) was in the hunt to become the next senator from Colorado. Now he's taken a gig as a Margarita mix pitchman.

See the rest of the report at KDVR.com.

(Via Josh Green.)

I'm wondering if Roland Burris's senate career could end up being pretty short. Now he's admitting that not only was he asked to raise money for Blago, he went ahead and did the best he could to raise money for him while he was trying to get the senate appointment.

Bank lobbyists hit up the Treasury for help gutting the executive compensation limits.

At TPMmuckraker, we've been closely following the case of Sir Allen Stanford, the colorful Texas billionaire who secured himself a knighthood from the government of Antigua (where he is the largest employer) but who falsely claimed for a time that the British Crown had presented the honor. Stanford has also gone around claiming to be a descendant of the founder of Stanford University, even though the school denies there's any family connection there and is suing Stanford's company for trademark infringement.

As you can see, Sir Allen is a real Texas-size character. He actually looks a bit like Clark Gable, though I think his cinematic antecedent may be more along the lines of Jett Rink or Charles Foster Kane.

Stanford has padded his rise with substantial political contributions to Democratic and Republican politicians alike. (Here, for example, is Bill Clinton singing Stanford's praises at a Stanford-sponsored shindig in Denver during the Democratic National Convention last summer. You'll see other luminaries there, too, like Nancy Pelosi, Tom Brokaw, and Madeline Albright.) We're investigating reports of at least one national politician taking a junket down to Antigua on Stanford's dime.

What's gotten Stanford into trouble are the spectacular annual returns on certificates of deposits issued by his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank. More on that in a moment.

The story of how Stanford came to the attention of the regulators and the media is a story in itself. Bloomberg first reported on SEC subpoenas of Stanford last July, and had apparently been investigating Stanford ever since. But the Madoff-like consistency of the performance of these CDs, despite market upheavals, caught the attention of a guy named Alex Dalmady, a financial analyst with a friend invested in the questionable CDs. Dalmady first suggested a Ponzi scheme was afoot in an article published in an obscure financial newsletter in Venezuela last month. (Apparently a significant number of Stanford investors are in Latin America.) That eventually prompted more stories about Stanford in BusinessWeek last week, and Bloomberg came out with some (though I suspect still not all) of its investigative work.

But the scope of the fraud and details about what went down have been only hinted at until this morning, when the SEC filed a civil enforcement case against Stanford in Dallas, alleging a multibillion fraud "of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world." Meanwhile, U.S. Marshals were seen entering Stanford's office in Houston, and late word is that a sign on the Houston office door announces Stanford's company is now in receivership.

Some $8 billion that was apparently deposited at Stanford International Bank in Antigua is now unaccounted for, according to the SEC.

Offshore banks. Political contributions. Ponzi allegations. Billions missing. This is a live one, folks.

Fox News "consultant" Karl Rove was asked this morning about the report that Dick Cheney was furious with President Bush for not pardoning Scooter Libby for his role in the Plame case, before leaving office:

Note no mention of Rove's own deeply intertwined involvement in the Plame case.

Late Update: Nor did Matt Lauer mention it when asking Rove a similar question this morning on the Today show:

Later Update: Nor does Politico in its roundup of these interviews.

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) was on Hardball last night and put on a dizzying display as he tried to blame George Soros and Chuck Schumer for the economic collapse:

An important dynamic to keep an eye on: state budgets across the country are cratering, and where Republican governors and legislatures are having to deal with the mess a rupture is developing between them and the do-nothing national GOP. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Japan's Finance Minister resigns after repeatedly appearing drunk at G7 conference in Rome.

From an article in tomorrow's New York Daily News, by Tom DeFrank, who's extremely wired in the Bush 41 world, among other places ...

In the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby - and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn't budge.

Sources close to Cheney told the Daily News the former vice president repeatedly pressed Bush to pardon Libby, arguing his ex-chief of staff and longtime alter ego deserved a full exoneration - even though Bush had already kept Libby out of jail by commuting his 30-month prison sentence.

DOJ yanks the Ted Stevens prosecution team off the case.

Coming off a devastating court ruling last week, Norm Coleman is back to pushing Minnesota to allow votes from his supporters in the forgery community.

Slow news day, I'll admit it. But it seems that in addition to Rep. Eric Cantor's historically illiterate reverence for Winston Churchill, the great man is now at the center of a mini-tiff between the US and the UK.

After 9/11, as a symbol of the 'special relationship' between the US and the UK, Tony Blair loaned a bust of Churchill from the government's art collection to President Bush to keep in the Oval Office.

They extended the offer when Obama came into office, as TPM Reader DM just let us know. But the 44th president apparently said that wasn't necessary and sent Churchill back. For the moment, Churchill is hanging out at the British Ambassador's residence in DC. And it's not clear yet when or whether he'll be traveling back across the Atlantic.

The Brits seem to have their nose bent slightly out of shape over the incident, since Churchill's bust has now been replaced with one of Abraham Lincoln. They're trying to decide which if any alternative bust they should send with PM Gordon Brown when comes to DC in early March.

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. Former interns have gone on to jobs at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and TPM, among other places. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Does the Post need to up for budget for fact-checking George Will's column's? Seems he may be making up some numbers on the global warming front, or maybe just getting his numbers from Fred Barnes' expert.

I'm not sure what other ways he's going to follow in Newt Gingrich's steps. But GOP House whip Eric Cantor seems to have the megalomania and ego front down pat. He's been putting out word over the last few days that he's modeling himself off Newt and now apparently Winston Churchill too. And now there's this from the Post ...

But Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill's role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party. He calls the stimulus bill "a stinker."

Now, I guess it's possible this is the Post's error and not Cantor's. And even if it's not you'd think they might have corrected this point. But Cantor's handle on his new hero seems pretty thin.

In the late 1930s, of course, Great Britain didn't have a Labour government with a principled Tory minority. It had conservative Tory government with a Labour minority. And Churchill was on the outs with both, although on some fronts he was beginning to make common cause with some Labourites on his key issue, which was foreign policy. When Churchill eventually came to power it was in a national coalition government for the purposes of fighting the war. And when he eventually went to the voters as head of the Tory party toward the end of the war they got crushed by Labour in a landslide.

I say all this as a big Churchill fan. But, I mean, not only is Eric Cantor no Winston Churchill, I'm not even sure he's read a book about Winston Churchill.

Think U.S. bankers have it tough with the new executive compensation limits? Check out what Conservatives in Britain are proposing for bankers there.

The economic stimulus package has been passed by both houses of Congress and is set to be signed by the President on Tuesday. But while the voting is complete the debate rages on. And what about the next item on the president's early agenda - the banking crisis and the question of nationalization? All that and more in today's Sunday Show Roundup ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

BREAKING: Ken Starr anticipates partisan rancor in any Supreme Court picks Obama gets to make. That and the day's other (less predictable) political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Israel is reportedly on the brink of releasing Marwan Barghouti from prison, in an effort to bolster Fatah and Abu Mazen ahead of a possible prisoner swap with Hamas.

It's the right and the smart thing to do. And with Netanyahu probably on the brink of a second premiereship, right and smart are both going to be in seriously short supply.

There's been an alternative theory afoot in recent days which holds that Tim Geithner's ill-received bank rescue plan wasn't so much a plan as a holding pattern; and that the 'stress test' for banks may be the back door through which we move toward some sort of nationalization of at least some of the big banks. Nouriel Roubini suggested something like this just after Geithner's speech. And now it seems that Obama too is leaving himself a decent amount of semantic and policy wiggle room to pursue such an approach.

Last week Ron Brownstein published an article based on an interview he and four other columnists were granted with President Obama. And now E.J.Dionne has published a detailed transcript of just what Obama said on the issue of nationalization.

The upshot is that Obama would not rule out Swedish model nationalization, though he clearly wants to avoid it. And the opposition to nationalization which Obama made clear early last week seems, in this interview, to be at least in part a matter of semantics, or subject to enough subsequent revision and experimentation as to bring us to the same end result. But this is a case where reading the precise words he used is key.

Shorter John McCain: Obama needs to do a better job of letting us jerk him around.

CNN's Current Headline Story

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if McCain had lost.

Late Update: Seems like now CNN rules Mark Halperin's world. Or is it vice versa?

There was a very odd moment on This Week this morning when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Sen. Schumer (D-NY) both said they opposed bank nationalization only to be followed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who said that, painful as it is to contemplate, we need to seriously consider doing so.

Now, I've said before that I think the term 'nationalization' mainly confuses and obscures the issue. And since Geithner's speech last week there does seem to be a slow but steady movement in the direction of letting the big insolvent banks fail. But this contrast points to something I've been wondering about for a while, which is whether the idea might not end up getting some paradoxical support from more doctrinaire free market types.

The idea has never been to nationalize the banking sector as a matter of on-going national policy. It's more like a highly structured and customized form of moving these institutions through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In fact, we have a whole system in place for how this is done by the FDIC.

But as long as you have this unworkable hybrid of keeping notionally solvent banks on taxpayer life support with the pretense that they're still viable private corporations you end up with government-mandated salary caps and lots of other government intrusions into the running of these business. We're still working on this story. But recently we we were told that just after receiving its TARP money, one of the mega-banks turned around and sent a whole bunch of stateside jobs to India to cut costs. If and when that comes out I'm sure you going to have a lot of calls to prevent TARP funded banks from doing that too. And why not? Notwithstanding a marginal company's need to cut costs, why should taxpayers from state X directly underwrite bank Y to put tens of thousands of state X's residents out of work?

Organized bankruptcy for failed companies is not a radical or left-wing idea. It's the junction where capitalism and the rule of law meet. Very establishment stuff.

Needless to say, this is hardly the most compelling reason to stop subsidizing failed banks and the failed bankers who run them. The current approach isn't working. It's amounting to a massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars. But I suspect this may end up pushing some of these people over the edge too.

Late Update: The whole "retention fee" issue seems very similar to what I was referring to above. In theory at least, there's a logic to these companies needing to make sure their best employees aren't poached by competitors. In practice, I'm skeptical there's such a great market out there for financial services wizards. I know a lot of them. And most are really glad not to have lost their jobs yet. But the whole problem is an artifact of the illogic of propping up the failed banks in the first place. Citi wants to protect the value of its shareholders' big asset, the company, the institution itself as a value proposition going forward. But that's something they should have thought of before they let the board and executives drive the company into bankruptcy. It's not clear to me why taxpayers care if Citi's best brokers go to Morgan Stanley or some new bank that gets set up from the ruins of one of the failed ones. I'll admit I'm not sure I have as clear an answer to the idea that foreign banks could poach the best people, etc. So I'll defer to others who have a better handle on that issue. But you still end up in these unworkable situations. And I suspect it's a messiness that will lead many free marketeers to decide that biting the bullet is the way to go.

President Obama declares that he's an eternal optimist -- but not a sap. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Sunday Roundup.

I just celebrated my 40th birthday by taking my two sons to see Sesame Street Live at Madison Square Garden. Seemed fitting somehow. But definitely different from 20 and 30.