11/24 Roundup: CitiFAIL, Frenemies, Turkey Execution

Leader: CitiFAIL

- As you may recall, Hank Paulson reassured us all a week ago when he told us that the financial system had been stabilized.  As if on cue, Citigroup burst into a ball of magnificent flames, and demanded government rescue.  Last night, the Treasury, Fed and FDIC announced they had reached a deal, whereby the government will invest another $20 billion in the financial behemoth, and backstop as much as $306 billion of buggered assets. In return, the government will become the proud owner of $7 billion in preferred shares, with more coming, if more public dollars are used to back up the bank.

- Louise Story at the NY Times reports on the bailout, take three.  Will it work better this time?

- Paul Krugman's short take on the deal: It's a bad deal.

- Steve Forbes makes it official: Hank Paulson is the worst Treasury Secretary in modern times.

Politics

- Michael Lind at Salon takes up an old rhetorical battle, and asks if it's ok to be "liberal" again, instead of "progressive." I vote yes.

- Hillary is now more or less a lock to head the State Department, and New York's John Heilemann writes on the relationship between Hillary and Barack: The closest of frenemies.

- Virginia is moving closer to abandoning some of its notoriously harsh policies toward illegal immigrants, making the state less hostile and more accepting of the situation's reality.

- Perhaps this is part of a Republican strategy to reverse their  fortune among Hispanics? The Denver Post reports on the blue drift in Hispanic-heavy states, and quotes Simon talking about how Republicans lost serious ground with Hispanics because of their anti-immigrant policies.  Even Texas, he says, could turn blue as a blueberry.

International

- Brent Scowcroft (a Republican, but a foreign policy realist, not like those crazy neocons) has been speaking regularly with Barack Obama, and is the ideological forbear of many Obama foreign policy advisors, particularly those from the right side of the aisle.

- Obama has also been chatting it up with Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. Let's hope Obama makes good on his campaign promise to prioritize the conflict there, and get the country under control.

One More Thing

- Students at a Long Island elementary school voted to rename their school after Barack Obama.

- Will spazzy Democrats tip the scales for Al Franken? Perhaps: “Democrats are [thought to be] more creative, free-spirited, so the idea is they’re more likely to make a mistake that the optical scan won’t pick up. But when they recount the hard copy, those votes will be counted for Franken. If you talk to Republicans, they say it will be Franken’s advantage, because Democrats are stupid and will screw up ballots more often.”

- Happy Thanksgiving week!  MSNBC does a "where are they now" on the pardoned turkeys of Thanksgivings past.

- Last, in case you haven't seen this yet, Sarah Palin blathers while innocent birds are systematically executed over her left shoulder. Shudder.