TARP II: Stress Tests for Banks

February 10, 2009

In bank bailout to be announced Tuesday, TreasSec Geithner will require that banks go through several “stress tests” to ensure they’re healthy enough to lend before receiving additional financial aid from the feds. Think of it like an episode of “House,” just hope it isn’t that one per season where the patient dies.

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Stimulus Passes Cloture Vote, 61-36

February 10, 2009

The $838 billion economic stimulus bill passed its first and only real hurdle in the Monday cloture vote – Collins, Snowe and Specter trading their votes for roughly $100 billion in cuts – and a vote on final passage is expected to be roughly the same Tuesday.

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Australian Fires: Police Close in on Arsonists

February 10, 2009

The 400 blazes have killed, injured hundreds. Advance of flame continues on towns north of Melbourne. PM Rudd: “This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated.” Deputy PM: “One of the darkest days in Australia’s peacetime history.”

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Plouffe Heads to Azerbaijan

February 10, 2009

Now here’s an innovative approach to foreign policy: Obama campaign head David Plouffe heads off for some private citizen diplomacy with someone who believes torture is a perfectly good way to resolve the jaywalking problem.

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Kindle 2.0 Hands On: Can it Survive This Economy?

February 10, 2009

Amazon’s Kindle 2 launched in NYC yesterday. Besides being a way to get rid of delivery costs and make it easier to sell you new books, it’s sleeker, has longer battery life, text to speech, improved screen/response time, and more neat things. But can a $350 item with modest improvements sell in this economy?

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Poll: POTUS Popular, Stimulus Lukewarm

February 10, 2009

CNN/Opinion Research poll finds that Obama’s popular, but the stimpack is lukewarm – 55 percent believe it costs too much, only 16 percent believe it will significantly help the economy. Three out of four Democrats support the bill, but it only gets a bare majority of independents. Bi-partisanship – who needs it?

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Transcript: First Primetime Press Conference

February 10, 2009

President Obama held the first evening press conference of his presidency Monday, with the financial crisis as the main topic. Before taking questions, he gave a brief speech. Here is a transcript of the speech and news conference:

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Liveblogging Obama's Presser

February 10, 2009

From Marc Ambinder.

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Rothenberg: Not What Pelosi and Reid Expected?

February 10, 2009

Either Congressional Democrats went from undeniably brilliant to unbelievably inept in just a few weeks, or being in the majority in Congress isn’t nearly as easy as being the opposition.

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Blue Dog Throwdown: Reid Spokesman Mocks Shuler

February 10, 2009

NC’s Heath Shuler ruined the lives of many Washingtonians in the early 90s, but now he’s all about making folks happy. After the Blue Dog criticized leadership for skipping bipartisanship, Harry Reid’s PressSec lashes out, mocking him as that “guy who threw more than twice as many interceptions than touchdowns.” That’s still a Congressman, buddy.

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