Many of my normally DFL voting friends told me they voted for Norm but failed to give a coherent reason for their abhorrent behavior (they admitted that Coleman's behavior as a Senator did not reflect their views). My son-in-law is among them. Many of my friends who are active in DFL politics would not even say whether they had voted for Franken. Minnesota types are just too "polite" to just say what's on their mind when their decision is based upon personality -- I suspect many just concluded that Franken was just not "nice" enough to be a Senator.

Let's face it -- in Minnesota, in 2008, Franken should have won by nearly as large a margin as Obama. The problem here is the Al Gore problem -- in 2000 Gore failed to carry his home state of Tennesse. Franken has failed to win by a large margin because he failed to win the hearts and minds of a large slice of the DFL voters.

If he prevails in court and serves his term, Al Franken will be the darling of the DFL in 2014.

I personally find all of this puzzling. I have met Mr. Franken, believe that is a man of substance and integrity and I hope he wins and serves in the Senate.

One hesitates to reason from a strong point of ignorance. My problem is that I do not have enough information about the so-called "toxic assets" to understand how a portfolio of those "toxic assets" might be classified into meaningful categories let alone form any opinion as to the value of each type of asset. The information I have collected in my limited time to research this issue leads me to believe that the "toxic assets" held by banks may be purely a bundle of debt obligations which might be readily cataloged as to the nature of the debt obligation or the nature of the debtors.

It appears to me that a substantial portion of the "toxic assets" may be hybrid in nature and comprised of a fractional interest in a fund comprised of (a) a bundle of mortgages, (b) a sum of money reflecting premiums collected on the sale of credit default swaps (CDS), and (c) the credit default swap obligation to pay in the event a default occurs. The capital behind the credit default swaps of course would be the bundle of mortgages and the cash on hand. Such a "toxic asset" would be difficult to classify or to value and is likely to be worthless.

Moreover, the the CDS premium cash may have been used to pay all or part of the interest due to holders of fractional interests in the fund. The fractional interest holders may be classified into "tranches" and the a small group may have collect virtually all of the cash from the CDS premiums.

Hello, Mr. Ponzi.

Is there a Mr. Pecora in the house?

All debate over the TARP seems pointless absent more information on the exact nature of the "TOXI ASSETS".

Thanks for the great post. It was a great read.

I seem to recall that the Voting Rights Act was passed after a long filibuster ground Congress and the federal government to a halt. Do you expect to see a filibuster on the stimulus bill passed today?

What should President Obama do if a Magistrate (in a NATO country - say France or Germany) investigating allegations of war crimes returns an indictment of George Bush or Richard Cheney and seeks extradition?

Isn't there precedent in the case of General Pinochet?

Here is the one exception I have found. It is an NYT piece Deutsche Bank's Gemstone VII, "After Sure-Bet Investment Fails, a Bank Contends It Was Duped". http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/business/20gem.html?adxnnl=1&dlbk=&adxnnlx=1232712013-wvU0WyQdKPSsTKOT3dAj1w.

The self-styled "right-to-life" movement is merely a "give-government-the -authority-to-imprison" movement and we should remember that criminal prosecution and the imprisonment of women who choose abortion is the ultimate goal of all "right-to-lifers".

Prosecution is always a possibility but truth and reconciliation are far more important. Unfortunately, the truth remains buried in the federal government. Obama seems reluctant to take the position that truth is too important to conceal and ultimately the property of the people. Yesterday, Eric Holder frequently assured the Senate Judiciary committeee that he would look into certain matters, but pointedly failed to commit to making the results of his review public.

I hope that Obama will come around to the position that we must have full disclosure of the misdeeds of the Bush administarations misdeeds. The public deserves to know the truth in all its nauseating detail.

If Obama fails to at least bring the facts into the light of day, he and the Democratic Party will find out that Obama may suffer the fate of Gerald Ford.

You are far too glib. Obama may, or may not, care to provide the public with details regarding the misconduct of the Bush administration.

During the campaign, I would have bet that Obama would have investigated and outed the miscreants and made relevant documents public. Now I'm not quite so sure.

None of McCain's ideas revealed as much as McCain's choice of a running mate. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain declared that the "conservative values" of his Republican base are just what American needs. Obviously, most voters did not share John McCain's enthusiasm for "conservative values".

To his credit, John McCain did not take the George Bush propaganda route. John McCain forthrightly stated his beliefs. And he lost by doing so.

The lesson to be learned is that not even a candidate with such a compelling a life story as John McCain's can win by espousing "conservative values". The current crop of GOPpers may not be willing to act upon that lesson, but their successors will.

Hopefully, the next ten years of elections will bring enough GOP losses to install new leadership in the GOP -- a new crop of leaders with a credible vision for the future of America that is shared by a large portion of the voters in every state. Then a GOPper may be able to win without a life story as compelling as John McCain's.

All I can say is that I hope he does carry out a shallow, futile contest suit. And I hope he gets bad press for months. Then maybe a DFL candidate will succeed Pawlenty as Governor in 2010.

When a Minnesota resident votes at the polls, she signs the voter roll next to her printed name. Few get their names, as reflected on the voter rolls, wrong. After all, the "correct" name is there in front of them.

Unfortunately, the absentee ballot process (I voted absentee in this election) may involve going to the county government center. The clerk will inspect the driver's license and compare it to the voter roll. I don't recall actually seeing my name printed on the register voter roll. Then the process involved additional signatures. As I recall the last was on the envelope into which I had placed my ballot. For me, this probably did not present a problem (assuming that my name on the voter roll does not have a spelled out middle name in the signature).

However, for others, especially women, this may present a problem. My spouse (who also voted by absentee ballot) is, I suppose, rather typical. She sometimes signs her signature using her middle name (or its first initial) and sometimes signs her signature using her maiden name as a middle name (or its first initial). She is not certain which signature she actually used and which middle name (or initial) is actually imprinted on the registered voter roll.

The comparison of signature, if overly officious, can result in many voters actually being disenfranchised. The impact is likely to fall disproportionately on women who are somewhat inconsistent in using either a middle name or a maiden name as a middle name.

Cest le guerre.

Ponzi schemes are the Circus Rule writ large. Mr. Madoff's Ponzi scheme is no exception. For a long time Mr. Madoff fooled everyone that mattered. Some were fooled by guile, others were fooled by their own willing suspension of disbelief.

Ponzi schemes work because the money from new investors is sufficient both to provide income to the old investors and to purchase enough securities to fool those inclined to make inquiry or redeem their investments.

Ponzi schemes fail when there is not enough new money to either provide enough income to satisfy investors or enough assets to cash out old investors.

Mr. Madoff confessed because in this economic environment he no longer had enough money coming in from new investors to prevent the failure of his scheme.

Mr. Madoff may have skimmed off the odd hundred million here and there but the bulk of the money he collected probably was lost in investment transactions or paid to those investors who were the first to cash outs their investments in Mr. Madoff's scheme.

The apparent Israeli strategy has been to isolate Arafat and cage the Palestinian Authority and simultaneously to establish sufficient settlement to create a reality on the ground. Then the Israelis can argue with conviction that (a) there is no Palestinian with the credentials to negotiate for the Palestinian people, and (b) there is really nothing to negotiate about -- settlements, barriers and walls leave nothing to be decided. For the past twenty plus years the United States has given support, sometimes passive and other times active, to this strategy.

I suspect that it is now far too late in the day to hope that a Palestinian leader strong enough to negotiate peace will arrive deus ex machina; and too late in the day to hope that the Israelis will cede to the Palestinians, in negotiations or otherwise, West Bank land seized and occupied by force of arms.

Will it be those staunch Democrats in Kent, Oakland and Macomb counties?

What will you really remember? The Republicans' cynical effort to deflect blame onto the UAW? The staunch support of the Big Three management for all things Republican? The Big Three's culture of corporate arrogance?

As for me, I'll remember how the GM corporate culture devoured Saturn -- its last and best hope for innovation and survival.

The rest don't matter because it ain't personal -- it's just politics.

The first major question is, which branch will establish the commission -- Congress or the President? The best solution would be for Congress to authorize funding and staffing, to define the scope of inquiry and to require the President to appoint a five-member commission and establish a firm date for a report from the commission. The President has broad power to grant security clearances expeditiously, to declassify documents and to use the executive branch to funnel information and documents to the commission. The commission should be charged merely with reporting the facts as they find them. Then appropriate congressional committees could conduct hearings based upon the reported facts. The conclusions could then be drawn and reported in detail by the committees. This would give both parties an opportunity to express their views -- and both would be tempered by having the committee reports subjected to public scrutiny. The voters could then hold the members accountable for their actions and omissions.

The wise part is tricky because we are talking about government spending. This economic crisis may be too important to waste, but I'm afraid we are likely to squander it.

The Democrats have been out of power and their list of infrastructure proposals is merely a wish list and not a series of project plans ready to be laid on the table today and completed within a year.

The Republicans are trying to figure out just which of their cronies deserves to be rewarded with a fat contract.

We scoff at the Pentagon for drawing up a war plan for every situation that can be imagined. But we are comforted by the fact that those plans exist. Right now I would be pleased to find that the Council of Economic Advisors that actually could bring a recession war plan -- $350 billion in carefully thought out, infrastructure construction project plans that could be begun tomorrow and completed within three years.

But Economists (note the upper case), have for some reason never concerned themselves with either developing a detailed plan for combatting a recession or actually working to implement a program of wise government spending they so urgently call for.

Please consider this observation. The arguments raised here are abstractions that do not recognize the most important point of Roe v. Wade. The case is a civil liberties case. It declares that the government has no place in the chain of decisions that lead to a pregnancy and the decision to be made by a pregnant woman -- whether to continue or abort the pregnancy. Many among us would urge the woman to reject the abortion decision. But few among us believe the government is so wise as to usurp the pregnant woman's fundamental right to make that decision. I suspect that fewer still would opt to convict the woman of felony murder and sentence her to prison. The abstractions about when life begins, etc. are mere abstractions that conceal and avoid discussion of the real issue. Should we give government the power to sentence young women to prison for choosing to terminate a pregnancy? Is that what our Christian faith demands of us? Or does our faith demand that we counsel that young woman and, if necessary, forgive her?

The wine was better then too.

I suppose we have the Senate leadership we deserve.

I suppose we have the Senate leadership we deserve.

Q: What is the difference between Thurgood Marshall and Barack Obama?

A. Martin Luther King, Jr. and 40 years.