We're hunkering down for another huge snowstorm expected in a few hours.

There's no motive yet in the Binghamton, NY killings today.

President Obama is ready to lift travel and money transfer restrictions to Cuba.

The president has authority to loosen the restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba on his own. The new rules will affect an estimated 1.5 million Americans who have family members in Cuba. Other Americans are allowed to travel to Cuba but only if they qualify through particular cultural, educational and other programs.

Madonna's adoption application was denied by a Malawi judge today, she will appeal.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

A federal judge in Chicago has rejected the Gang Tax. Prosecutors sought a 45 year sentence for Fernando King, also known as "the Supreme Inca", saying it would send a zero tolerance message to street gangs. King was the #2 leader of the Latin King street gang.

While acknowledging that Fernando King, 38, was the leader of a gang responsible for narcotics trafficking and murder, U.S. District Judge David Coar said King could be sentenced only for the crimes for which he was convicted and not the broader destruction caused by the gang.

"He was a leader of (the gang) and for that morally he is accountable," said Coar. "Legally, he is accountable for what he was convicted of - two drug counts."

It sounds like the Government was engaging in a bit of grandstanding with the Judge: [More...]

Politico (scribe informs us that the quopte was first reported in The American Banker.) The interesting thing to me about this is the question why Obama has chosen to be the thing stopping the pitchforks (figurative one presumes.) Why not instead build some political capital for the right policy moves regarding Wall Street and the economy?

We are told that President Obama is "politically constrained." But Obama seems to see it conversely - that he is the one doing the constraining. FDR certainly knew how to wield public anger to forward his agenda. Obama seems to believe that constraining public anger is necessary for his agenda.

Speaking for me only

Robert Reich:

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway. All this means that the real economy will need a larger stimulus than the $787 billion already enacted. To be sure, only a small fraction of the $787 billion has been turned into new jobs so far. The money is still moving out the door. But today's bleak jobs report shows that the economy is so far below its productive capacity that much more money will be needed.

. . . We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.

But Krugman Reich always hated Obama so he must be wrong.

Speaking for me only

A new report from the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research:

Today Seton Hall Law delivered a report establishing that military officials at the highest levels were aware of the abusive interrogation techniques employed at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO), and misled Congress during testimony. In addition, FBI personnel reported that the information obtained from inhumane interrogations was unreliable.

[More...]

An interesting article about Tim Geithner as head of the NY Fed. Geithner admits his failings, which is good, but I think the article raises questions about what he is doing now as Treasury Secretary:

That same year [2006 Geithner] initiated a Fed-wide review of how well the financial giants were able to measure their ability to survive the stresses of a market downturn. William Rutledge, the New York Fed's executive vice president for bank supervision, said the reviews turned up several weaknesses. They found that banking companies were pretty good at measuring the risks to specific parts of their businesses but had little understanding of the dangers to the institution as a whole. The firms also failed to account for the kind of worst-case scenarios that would later cripple several banking giants.

[More...]

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The Iowa Supreme Court says the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making it the third state where gay marriage is legal.

In a unanimous ruling issued Friday, the court upheld a 2007 Polk County District Court judge's ruling that the law violated the state constitution.

How Appealing has more, including this link to the decision (pdf).

James Kwak writes up the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) weakening of the "mark to market" rule. It's a good read. But as Kwak notes, investors won't be fooled by it. It does allow Geithner and the banks to play games with us though:

What if the function of these rule changes is to make it easier for banks to ignore the results of the PPIP auctions? For example, Bank A puts up a pool of loans for auction, but doesn’t like the winning bid and rejects it; Bank A doesn’t want to be forced to write down its loans to the amount of the winning bid. Or, alternatively, Bank B sells a security to a buyer, and Bank A holds the same security; Bank A doesn’t want to be forced to write down the security to the price of Bank B’s transaction.

I think it is more pernicious than that -- it allows "investors" to justify gambling taxpayer money (remember the non-recourse loans) and pay higher prices for the "legacy assets" than the market calls for. This is part of the Rube Goldberg contraption called the Geithner Plan to hand over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to the financial industry.

Speaking for me only

E.J. Dionne quotes President Obama at the G-20 Summit:

"We can't fall back on the stale debates and old divides," Obama said at his Wednesday news conference in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

As applied to the financial crisis, this is simply nonsense from President Obama. He is applying a solution that has been tested and failed. In Japan in the 1990s. Dionne acknowledges this by citing Krugman and Stiglitz:

NYTimes:

The American economy shed another 663,000 jobs in March, the government reported Friday, bringing the toll of job losses during the recession to 5.1 million. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate climbed to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent in February, its highest levels in a quarter-century, as employers raced to cut their payroll costs. It was the 15th consecutive month of job losses.

. . . “There is no letup,” said James O’Sullivan, senior United States economist at UBS. “The trend has been truly dismal.” . . . In all, nearly 16 percent of the people in the United States are now looking for a job, working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, or are out of work and not actively looking, the government said.

Dizz Knee Land

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and family are at Disneyland. Here's Dada, I always loved this song:

I just ran away from home
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just crashed my car again
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just robbed a grocery store
I'm going to dizz knee land
And I just flicked off President George
I'm going to dizz knee land
I'm going to dizz knee land!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As expected, Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been indicted. His brother and top aides were also indicted. You can read the Indictment here (pdf). More details here.

In addition to Rob Blagojevich, 53, and fundraiser Christopher Kelly, 50, charged were Lon Monk, 50, a lobbyist and former Blagojevich chief of staff; John Harris, 47, also a former chief of staff to Blagojevich; and William Cellini, 74, a Springfield insider for decades.

DOJ press release is here. The charges: Racketeering conspiracy, Wire fraud, Fraud conspiracy, Extortion conspiracy, Attempted extortion, False statements Forfeiture.

Why is it a Superseding Indictment? When was the first one returned and why did they have to go back to the grand jury for a second one? [Update below]