Larry Summers assures Congress that Obama will use TARP to get money in the hands of small businesses and consumers. That’s good–because we already have proof that doing so will help the economy.

The business lobbyists who used to run the White House are complaining about the treatment they’re now getting. I know that will make you sob for them.

Illinois law and the Constitution have always been contra to Reid and Durbin’s intransigence on Burris, but the disingenuous duo have always fallen back on their precious ancient Senate Rule II. But not only is their fallback claim that Senate Rule II is mandatory completely false, there is clear precedent of deviation from the Rule six years ago in the nepotistic Murkowski appointment in Alaska.

A while back, I wrote a post called We’re all Flint, MI now. Mitch Albom just wrote a story that might as well be called We’re all Detroit, now. It’s long–so to induce you to read it, I’m going to give you an almost-spoiler.Because we may be a few steps behind the rest of the country, but we’re a few steps ahead of it too.

Sorry, no music for this week’s trash, but we’ve got hubcaps!!

It looks like Barney Frank is trying to reverse the really punitive aspects of the auto rescue plan snuck into the loan terms by Bush.

Alberto Gonzales is writing a book. Honest–he’ll set the record straight. He says.

On reflection, it’s just really neat the way the Blagojevich offer to Burris ended up in an offer–certainly picked up by wiretaps–that emphasized Burris’ qualifications for the office.

Roland Burris’ admission that he spoke with Lon Monk about the Senate seat is interesting for several reasons–not least because Monk is centrally tied to the allegations against Blago.

Okay EW is tied up and will be along in a bit, but Rod Blagojevich just had a fascinating press conference. Like a demented king (there is that Elvis parallel again) holding forth in his court. Probably not for long, but the guy knows how to play a room, you have to give him that.Blago rambled around about how he has brought healthcare to the poor, which he actually did