A Special Prosecutor for Torture?

Newsweek reports that AG Holder is considering a Special Prosecutor of Bush admin torture.

Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months.

Needless to say, if Holder appoints a Special Prosecutor the GOP will go into full revolt, the likes of which we have not seen in a very long time.

Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Reid?

First, Reid tells his caucus he expects to have their votes on procedural matters and now this.

TPMDC,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office just told TPMDC that the senator will file for cloture on the nomination of Robert Groves, whom President Obama tapped to be director of the Census Bureau on April 2.

Groves, the 60-year-old director of the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center, sailed through confirmation hearings in Mid-may, but shortly thereafter, anonymous Republican senators held up his nomination, preventing a confirmation vote and leaving the bureau without a director. Earlier today Roll Call (sub. req.) reported that those holds were placed by Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and David Vitter (R-LA).

Is it possible that the flaccid Harry Reid has grown a pair? More likely he was told if he didn't start leading he would be ousted.

Soda? Pop? Coke? The map

I grew up in the St Louis/ South West Illinois region that is an inexplicable island of "soda" or as some say, "sodee".

Second term for Bernanke?

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's term is up in January and the WH must reappoint him or replace him.

The WJS,

Before making a decision later this year, the White House also is expected to look at other economists, including Roger Ferguson and Alan Blinder, former Fed vice chairmen; Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank; and Christina Romer, chairman of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr. Bernanke's reputation on Wall Street has ebbed and flowed. But a Wall Street Journal survey conducted this week of 46 private-sector economists found that 43 endorsed his reappointment. "Bernanke's leadership during this financial crisis was outstanding, but not flawless," said Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo & Co., one of those surveyed. "But given human limitations and the limitations of economic and financial knowledge he deserves another tour of duty." Some saw benefits to continuity. "Don't change horses in midstream," said David Wyss of Standard & Poor's. Others cited the alternatives: "Stated differently: Don't appoint Summers," said Nicholas Perna of Perna Associates.

I think one of the biggest mistakes Bill Clinton made was to appoint Alan Greenspan to a second term. An absurd cult of the personality developed around him that made it impossible for anyone to disagree with him. And it's undeniable that his monetary policy of keeping interest rates unusually low during Bush's first term was a major contributing factor the our economic collapse.

I'm not qualified to make a solid evaluation of Bernanke's performance but has a matter of basic public policy, no Fed Chair should serve more than one term. We don't need any more Greenspans.

And it's my guess that like Clinton before him, the POTUS will find it very hard not to reappoint Bernanke.

Sen Jim DeMint: Major League Kook

Sen Jim DeMint (R-SC) appears to be a real nut-case. He was plugging his new book, Saving Freedom, at the National Press Club where he not so subtly suggested recent American elections have lost their legitimacy ala Nazi Germany and more recently Venezuela.

An excerpt of DeMint's remarks from The Washington Independent, wherein he was relating a recent conversation with an Iranian immigrant,

They understand socialism. They understand tyrants. But none of us have ever had it here. We don’t even know what it looks like. Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they’re easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that’s where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they’re worried, because they see it happening here.

What exactly is the Senator saying? That a coup may be in order if Republicans continue to lose elections?

Netanyahu on the brink?

I'm not sure what to make of this piece from Haaretz that paints Bibi and his government on the brink of collapse.

Here's the crux,

But despite the unified front they tried to present, it is clear that all of Netanyahu's aides dislike each other: They are constantly badmouthing each other and blaming each other for leaks. Arad, for example, demanded that Hauser undergo a lie-detector test and is now demanding the same of Hefetz. And the latter two say "it is impossible to work with" Arad.....

Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama's senior aides: as "self-hating Jews."

"He thought that his speech at Bar-Ilan would become mandatory reading at schools in the United States, and when he realized that Obama gave no such order, he went back to being frustrated," one of his associates said.

Could Bibi actually believe that the POTUS orders American school children to read political propaganda, or anything else?

The article is not well written which calls its credibility into question, but Haartz is a real English language Israeli news outlet. And if half of the article is factual, Bibi's government cannot stand very much longer.

Palin

I've been intending to write about Palin's recent return to the news, but David Frum has said what I wanted to say better than I could.

Here's the crux,

Yet there will be no escaping another story line. Faced with exasperating criticism and the accumulating cares of public office -- she quit to cash in. Her admirers can excuse anything, but to the much larger audience of non-admirers, Palin will look a lot like those CEOs who wrecked their banks and the national economy while accepting huge bonuses for themselves personally. John McCain’s slogan in 2008 was "Country First." Palin’s in 2012? "I seen my opportunities, and I took ‘em."

Sarah Palin is the very embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Republican party. Guys like Huckabee and Romney only get it half right.

Sarah Palin hasn't left highschool. She is the prom queen writ large as Todd Purdum explains in his entertaining Vanity Fair profile (note that all her critics are Republicans). People are to be used until they no longer advance the princess, then they are cast off. People who criticize Princess are singled out as mean and the princess puffs her lips and plays the victim. Power is for Princess to have her revenge on those who wouldn't worship her or dared to disagree with her.

The simple truth is that with lower oil prices, being the governor of Alaska has become much harder. With the Government in the red and not enough earnings in the Alaska Permanent Fund to send the big checks she promised everyone -- and showing actual leadership out of the question --there was only one thing for Princess to do: Quit, and head south where they still love the GOP's favorite little victim. Watching Romney, Huckabee and Gingrich (with whom she competes most directly for the substantial kook vote) while she was stuck in Alaska dealing with issues prove too much for Princess. And everyone in Alaska is mean now.

In Sarah Palin, the GOP is reaping what it has sowed the last 20 years and it's entertaining as hell to watch. Theocratic anti-intellectualism in a Louis Vuitton silk jacket.

Haven't we been here before?

TPM points to this from Bloomberg.com

Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.

I seem to recall problems with similar 'securities' in the recent past.