David Shuster has been having bloggers on his show regularly and whether it was the intent or not, these conversations have been consistently diverging from the traditional right/left divide that dominates most of cable TV. Today’s discussion between Baratunde Thurston and Cenk Unger about the New York Post “monkey” cartoon was case in point, probably because both participants come from the progressive blogosphere which isn’t simply an extension of the

And so we have a class of prisoners, some of whom may have done nothing at all and don’t deserve to be held under any law that an American court would recognize. But the chance that one of them might be righteously pissed off about having been held captive and tortured for years despite their innocence, and go on to do the things that you might well imagine someone would do as a result of those circumstances, presents too much political risk for our legal system to responsibly handle.

I don’t recall anyone mentioning this fragility of our legal system in junior high civics.

I’m a bit conflicted about this.  The Senate has opened an ethics probe into Roland Burris’s conflicting testimony about his relationship with Rod Blagojevich — as it should.  But the moral authority of the Senate to cast judgment in the situation is seriously compromised by their lack of action with regard to Ted Stevens, who was actually convicted on federal corruption charges.

I think we’re safely in “the best and the brightest” territory, in the true sense that Halberstrom meant it.

Behold the power of Atrios:As a candidate for president, Obama spoke of high-speed rail as part of his vision of “rebuilding America.” Campaigning in Indiana, he talked of revitalizing the Midwest by connecting cities with faster rail service to relieve congestion and improve energy conservation.

“The time is right now for us to start thinking about high-speed rail as an alternative to air transportation connecting all these cities,” he said.

Steve Rattner will just have to settle for his private equity millions, he’s been robbed of a position in the administration playing vroom vroom — by a group of people, some of whom will hopefully know what they’re doing.

In Geithner’s testimony before the Senate Finance Committee last week, Jon Tester asked him if there were banks that were “too big to fail.” Geithner dodged the question and said he didn’t want to use those words, but there was a need to “stabilize the core of our financial system,” so in essence, yes.

The AMT was put in the stimulus bill at the insistence of Republican Charles Grassley (who voted against the bill), and it stayed in because President Collins, President Snowe and President Specter demanded it. If Graham wants to demonstrate how “bipartisansh” works by taking on the members of his own party, he can start right there.

Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales on the curious willingness of elected officials to help bankers but do nothing for mortgage holders:

Is it just an accident that in 2008 the financial industry spent $442.5 million in political contributions, while the automotive industry only spent $17.3 million, and homeowners spent none?