Via John Cole, it turns out life insurance companies are also a lynchpin to the financial system:

The Treasury Department has decided to extend bailout funds to a number of struggling life-insurance companies, helping an industry that is a linchpin of the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said.

Remember the saving the "non-banks" issue? It is front and center here:

I have had many a nasty thing or two to say about Powerline in my blogging life, but credit where due to Scott Johnson for a pretty fair appraisal of the Minnesota Senate recount. In an election this close, it really is basically a tie. But you count the votes as best you can. The Franken team was simply better. Johnson writes:

d-day complains that:

Allow me to interrupt the great love-fest between liberal foreign policy bloggers and Bob Gates by stating the obvious - isn't the fact that the Pentagon budget is increasing, um, THE PROBLEM? And considering that the media-Congressional complex will characterize any effort to put an end to outdated Cold War-era weapons systems as a "defense cut", in the most irresponsible way possible, why aren't we limiting expenditures on a military budget that costs far more than any country's on Earth, depriving us of the flexibility to pursue meaningful social investment?

I have no opinion on the national security implications of the Gates Defense budget but I do have an opinion on calls to cut the Defense budget now - it is wrongheaded. In case anyone has not noticed, aggregate demand is nosediving. Jobs are hemorraging. At least for the next few years, no part of the government budget that stimulates the economy should be cut (though changing expenditures can make a lot of sense, especially changes to more stimulative spending.) Heck, I think I can make a good case for bailing out Detroit for a couple of years as an effective stimulus measure. Once we have gotten through this Depression we are in, then we will need to undertake significant cuts in the discretionary budget (as well as significant tax increases, particularly on the wealthy.) But not now.

Speaking for me only.

I'm still drowning in wiretaps -- motions are due tomorrow. There are 20 plus defendants, 33 phones tapped, innumerable pen registers, trash searches, residence searches, computer searches, controlled buys and snitches -- and companion cases in two California districts. The TL kid's firm is also in the case so he's awash in them as well. But, he had time to win a trial today. He and another lawyer in his firm tried a double refusal DUI and the jury convicted only of careless driving, sparing their hero of a mandatory jail term due to priors. The TL kid did voir dire, opening and the direct examination of their hero. His associate cross-examined the cop and did the closing. The jury was out two hours. So, while even I don't have sympathy for their hero, congrats to the TL kid.

I'm going to take an hour off to watch American Idol and then get back to motions.

What are you watching or thinking about tonight?

Yves Smith writes approvingly of the study on credit risk during the financial crisis that I linked to yesterday and makes a couple of points that are probably familiar to everyone following the financial crisis but are worth repeating--repeatedly--because Geithner and co. and their supporters seem to be getting everything so wrong.

1) Prior to the financial crisis, there was a "gross underpricing of risk"; 2) The plummeting value of assets represents a "return to rationality," so what we're seeing is NOT, as Geithner and co. argue, an irrational flee from risk or a fire sale.

In sum, as I wrote yesterday: toxic assets, toxic after all.

I think Sen. John Cornyn's (R-TX) statement on the Minnesota Senate election contest let's you know where the end of the line comes for Coleman:

Events today do not address the main issue that remains unresolved: over 4,000 Minnesotans were disenfranchised by this three-judge panel. That's why it's so critical for this process to move forward before the Minnesota Supreme Court and why Senate Republicans fully support Senator Coleman's efforts. "The message from our side has remained consistent throughout this process: we want this election to resolve itself as quickly, but not at the expense of Minnesota's laws or voters. . . . Senate Democrats should stand down, set partisan politics aside, and respect Minnesota's laws and voters."

(Emphasis supplied.) No "equal protection" talk. Only a passing reference to "enfranchising the voters." The Minnesota Supreme Court is the end of the line for Coleman.

Speaking for me only

The excellent digby links to a Glenn Beck idiocy and asks:

If you haven't seen this yet, take a look. And then tell me this guy isn't somebody we should keep a close eye on.

Well, Digby and everyone can keep a close eye on whomever they want but, Beck is not even a trivial character with regard to what the policy of our government will be. Hell, Beck is not even Dobbs influential, much less Limbaugh. And to be clear, I think neither of those "comedians" matters either.

I'll concentrate on what's happening in Washington - the problems are too big to think about anything else right now imo.

Speaking for me only

More prosecutorial misconduct, this time by prosecutors in the case of Guantanamo detainee, Dr. Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, who brought a habeas petition in federal court. (Background here from our post last week noting that the Government decided to release the Yemeni physician although it's still looking for a country to accept him.)

The Judge issuing the ruling: Emmett Sullivan, the same judge who today threw out Ted Stevens' conviction.

The Justice Department improperly withheld important psychiatric records of a government witness who was used in a "significant" number of Guantanamo cases, a federal judge has concluded.

The government censored parts of the records, but enough has been made public that it's clear that the witness, a fellow detainee, was being treated weekly for a serious psychological problem and was questioned about whether he had any suicidal thoughts. The witness provided information in the government's case for detaining Aymen Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor who the government announced last week it would no longer seek to detain.

[More...]

The Vermont legislature today overrode the Governor's veto of the law allowing same-sex marriage.

Vermont is now the first state in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriages through legislation.

The New York Times has more here.

The Minnesota Senate contest is a foregone conclusion, as it was when it started, Al Franken won the election. Today, at the direction of the Minnesota Election Contest Court, Minnesota counted more ballots. The result? Franken's 225 vote lead expanded to a 312 vote lead. Apparently, the more votes Coleman asks to be counted, the larger Franken's lead becomes.

The question is not will Al Franken become Minnesota's next Senator, the question is when. A final order from the Minnesota ECC should be handed down shortly and then the inevitable Coleman appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court will need to be decided. Coleman has no chance of winning imo. Then the interesting part comes - will Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty certify Franken's election? Will a federal court (either a federal district court or the SCOTUS) enjoin the issuance of such certificate? Will Senate Republicans try to block Franken's entry into the US Senate? My guesses? Maybe (if Pawlenty does this, he is running for President in 2012), no and no.

Speaking for me only

U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan officially tossed former Senator Ted Stevens' conviction today due to prosecutorial misconduct.

A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday threw out the criminal conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a criminal probe into the Justice Department's handling of the longtime lawmaker's corruption trial.

"In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said at the hearing, granting a government motion to throw out the conviction and dismiss the indictment.

[More...]

This aspect of the Geithner Plan is not one I had considered -- turning the FDIC into AIG:

The F.D.I.C. is insuring the program, called the Public-Private Investment Program, by using a special provision in its charter that allows it to take extraordinary steps when an “emergency determination by secretary of the Treasury” is made to mitigate “systemic risk.” Simple enough, but that language seems to bump up against another, perhaps more important provision. That provision clearly limits its ability to borrow, guarantee or take on obligations of more than $30 billion.

MORE . . .