This is an Open Thread.

I wrote about this yesterday, but it is now becoming conventional wisdom. The upside to the AIG furor is that the Obama Administration, should it wish to do so, will now have a much freer hand for adopting temporary takeovers as the the first bailout option. Indeed, it seems to be fast becoming the only politically possible option. Just this morning even Joe Scarborough was advocating for temporary takeovers and "preprivatizations." The Adam Nagourney writes:

The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama’s agenda. . . . Mr. Obama’s aides said any surge of such a sentiment could complicate efforts to win Congressional approval for the additional bailout packages that Mr. Obama has signaled will be necessary to stabilize the banking system.

. . . [T]he financial crisis is the most acute problem facing the administration, one it will not be able to play down. Christina D. Romer, the White House’s chief economist, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC that the administration was close to unveiling details of its plan to remove the worst of the bad assets from the books of banks, a move sure to refocus attention on winners and losers from bailouts.

(Emphasis supplied.) In my opinion, this is a good thing. The Obama Administration has been entirely too timid in its approach to the financial crisis. Here is a case where angry populism could force the Obama Administration to do the right thing, something it has been reluctant to do - temporary takeovers of insolvent financial institutions.

Speaking for me only

Paul Krugman sort of poses this question:

The clear and present danger to Europe right now comes from a different direction — the continent’s failure to respond effectively to the financial crisis. Europe has fallen short in terms of both fiscal and monetary policy: it’s facing at least as severe a slump as the United States, yet it’s doing far less to combat the downturn.

Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany’s finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans.

But Europe's biggest failure is in its powerless continental institutions. Krugman writes:

News is out about a 2007 secret report by Red Cross officials who visited the 14 "high-value" detainees transferred to Gitmo after stays in CIA secret black hole prison.

The 14 detainees, who had previously been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

Read the details about Abu Zubaydah and the others. The take-away from the report: [More...].

As mentioned earlier, the New Mexico legislature has voted to repeal the death penalty. Gov. Bill Richardson hasn't decided whether to sign it. He's asking for input.

Please take 30 seconds and tell Gov. Richardson to sign the bill. Via David Seth at Daily Kos:

Here's the number: (505) 476-2225. The number will record your request. There is no human being on the phone, just a recorder.

If you are near Santa Fe, the Governor is holding meetings with the public tomorrow from 2:30 to 5, first come-first serve...you get five minutes with him to tell him your position.

The No. 1 seeds are Louisville (Midwest), Pittsburgh (East), North Carolina (South) and Connecticut (West). The Midwest region winner will play the West region winner and the East region winner will play the South region winner in the Final Four semis.

Talk about it here.

Daily Kos gives us this video of Dick Cheney upon his triumphant return as the face of the Republican Party

To dignify Cheney as a serious person on policy is something I will not do. This is without saying the man should be, by all rights, in jail. But as the de facto leader of the worst Administration in history, Cheney is not someone whose views should be taken seriously. I certainly will not. I will point out that it is political suicide for the Republican Party to allow Cheney to reemerge as the face of the GOP.

Speaking for me only

The urgent need for crime lab reform (discussed in recent TalkLeft posts here and here) is exemplified by the disaster that was the Detroit police crime lab.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy says her office has identified 147 cases of convicted and imprisoned people that will require the retesting of evidence as part of the investigation into the now-closed Detroit police crime lab -- unveiling the first of potentially thousands of cases that are at risk of unraveling because of mishandled evidence.

Worthy calls the 147 cases "the tip of the iceberg." It's an iceberg that is causing damage to Detroit justice of Titanic proportions. [more ...]

Good news from New Mexico:

New Mexico state lawmakers voted on Friday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. ... New Mexico's House of Representatives, also controlled by Democrats, previously voted in favor of the repeal, and it will now go to Governor Bill Richardson for his signature.

Although Richardson has expressed opposition in the past to a death penalty repeal, the odds seem to be good that he'll sign it. Richardson has established a hotline — (505) 476-2225 — for New Mexico residents to express their opinions.

Bad news from Maryland:

March Madness brackets come out tonight. I won't lie, my interest has dropped precipitously since the Gators won't be in it. But, never fear, I'll pick myself up and give you some first rate coverage the next few weeks.

In the meantime, this is an Open Thread.

The chances of a future TARP are hurt by news like this:

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

. . . The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street. Past bonuses already have prompted President Obama and Congress to impose tough rules on corporate executive compensation at firms bailed out with taxpayer money.

Some say there is legal recourse against paying these bonuses, namely bankruptcy I think that is wrong legally (I'll do a post about that later), but it does pretty much make clear that the chances of another TARP-style bailout is zero. For those institutions unable to meet their financial obligations, temporary takeover is going to be the only way out.

Speaking for me only

It's interesting that people who want to exercise authority over others (in careers like law enforcement and corrections) are often the wrong people to entrust with that kind of power. Case in point: Corpus Christi State School employees who forced "mentally disabled residents into late-night prize fights."

Authorities say vivid video footage captured on cellphone cameras shows staffers goading young mentally disabled male residents of the institution into physical altercations, then shoving them at each other until fights ensued.

How could one employee, much less a group of them, be so twisted as to tolerate this abusive behavior? Here's one explanation: