I wonder what motivated the Chinese to say this:

The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, expressed unusually blunt concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that the securities would maintain their value in the face of a global financial crisis. . . . Mr. Wen said he was “worried” about China’s holdings of United States Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching economic developments in the United States closely. “President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis. We have expectations as to the effects of these measures,” Mr. Wen said. “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”

There obviously is a motivation for saying this - it is not in China's financial interest to cause concern for US debt. What are they after with this?

Speaking for me only

I wrote that I would not touch upon Cramerama again but Glenn Greenwald wrote such a good post that I can not avoid it. Glenn writes:

Today, everyone -- including media stars everywhere -- is going to take Stewart's side and all join in the easy mockery of Cramer and CNBC, as though what Stewart is saying is so self-evidently true and what Cramer/CNBC did is so self-evidently wrong. But there's absolutely nothing about Cramer that is unique when it comes to our press corps. The behavior that Jon Stewart so expertly dissected last night is exactly what our press corps in general does -- and, when compelled to do so, they say so and are proud of it.

At least give credit to Cramer for facing his critics and addressing (and even acknowledging the validity of) the criticisms. By stark contrast, most of our major media stars simply ignore all criticisms of their corrupt behavior and literally suppress it (even if the criticisms appear as major, lengthy front-page exposés in The New York Times).

More . . .

NOTE: My title is facetious - see Jeralyn on the process. In a WaPo article today, there seems to be some controversy about whether the President of the United States gets to decide who will be US Attorneys in his Administration:

One of the better spoils of winning the presidency is the power to appoint nearly 100 top prosecutors across the country. But filling the plum jobs has become a test of competing priorities for President Obama. While he pledged bipartisanship during his campaign, replacing the cadre of mostly conservative U.S. attorneys would signal a new direction. When President Bill Clinton took office, he fired all U.S. attorneys at once, provoking intense criticism in the conservative legal community and among career lawyers at the Justice Department.

President George W. Bush took a different approach, slowly releasing several of the prosecutors but keeping in place Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, while she pursued terrorism cases and a politically sensitive investigation of Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

(Emphasis supplied.) Is this accurate? Not really, according to this 2007 LATimes article:

I do not plan to write a separate post on Cramer on the Daily Show last night. Of course Jon Stewart exposed the farce that passes for journalism in our day, as his show has done for years now. This is merely the latest example. I do think Cramer may have done himself some good (while exposing CNBC to merited ridicule) by going in and taking the beating. But the reality is Jim Cramer is not a journalist and in some ways, it was unfair and unfortunate to lay the sins of today's "journalism" upon him. Stewart spent a lot of time arguing as if Cramer really held himself out as journalist. I respectfully disagree with that assessment. Cramer has always acted a fool. I doubt anyone expected him to "break" stories on financial shenanigans or even give objective analysis on financial news.

But NBC and its family of networks do hold themselves out to be journalists. And they are doing no journalism. Let me put it this way, who do you think is a worse "journalist," Jim Cramer or Brian Williams?

This is an Open Thread.

The NYTimes today reports on the issue of health insurance for the gay partners of federal employees:

Just seven weeks into office, President Obama is being forced to confront one of the most sensitive social and political issues of the day: whether the government must provide health insurance benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. In separate, strongly worded orders, two judges of the federal appeals court in California said that employees of their court were entitled to health benefits for their same-sex partners under the program that insures millions of federal workers.

But the federal Office of Personnel Management has instructed insurers not to provide the benefits ordered by the judges, citing a 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Office of Personnel Management's citing of DOMA appears to run contra to the signing statement issued by President Clinton when he signed the DOMA bill in 1996. See also Smelt v. County of Orange, 447 F.3d 673, 683 (9th Cir. 2006) (DOMA on its face "does not purport to preclude Congress or anyone else in the federal system from extending benefits to those who are not included within [its] definition [of marriage][.]") More . . .

I started the day at 4:30 am, waking up concerned about Bernie Madoff (regardless of what he did, he's 70 years old, non-violent and doesn't belong at an MCC for months pending sentencing. Bail is not meant as punishment, only to secure one's appearance at the next court proceeding.)

I'm blogged out for now, the TL kid and I are going shopping, after which there's a new Gray's Anatomy to watch.

Your turn, all topics welcome.

Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio is trying hard to avoid reporting to federal prison on March 23. In the past week, he's filed a motion for new trial based on newly discovered evidence in the trial court and, in the 10th Circuit, a request for continued bail pending the disposition of an as-yet unfiled petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court.

The Tenth Circuit dismissed his bond request (pdf)saying he should have filed it in the trial court. It said if he gets denied there, he can come back to the appeals court.

He filed the request yesterday in the trial court and today it was denied (pdf) -- because the Bail Reform Statute doesn't apply to petitions for cert that haven't been filed yet. The trial court said the denial was without prejudice, meaning if he cites the correct authority for allowing bail before the writ is filed, he can try again. [More...]

But in my neck of the woods--New Orleans--Douthat will be remembered for coining the phrase "Welfare Duchess" to describe a New Orleans woman named Sharon Jasper who was living in subsidized housing and who happened to be photographed in her apartment with a big screen TV.

A few commenters nailed Douthat for the stupid, and frankly racist, remark. "Here's the double-bind," wrote one commenter, "If Sharon Jasper keeps her apartment clean and attractive and decorates it with flowers she's a crooked welfare queen, cynically scamming the Hell out of the sweaty, put-upon, hard workin', tax payin', David Duke votin' white Louisianans. Conversely if she'd let it degenerate into a filthy mess, she'd be a typical slum-dwelling black: a sub-human savage who doesn't even deserve to live indoors." [More...]

We now have a Deputy Attorney General. David Ogden was confirmed by the Senate today. The vote was 65-28. This is the #2 slot at Justice and Ogden will be responsible for the day to day running of the department.

Background materials on Ogden are here. Most recently, he served as Obama's DOJ transition team leader.

The radical right really doesn't like him, believing him to be pro-p*rn, pro-gay rights, pro-affirmative action and pro-abortion. On the other hand, PFAW is pleased.

He's certainly qualified. He served in the Clinton Justice Department, including as head of the Civil Rights Division and chief of staff to the Attorney General. He clerked for two Supreme Court Justices and has military law experience, having served as Deputy General Counsel and the Legal Counsel for the Defense department. A Harvard law grad, he was editor of the Law Review. In 2006, he received the National Law Journal Pro Bono Award.

Another Republican governor does not want the money for his state's unemployed -- this time it is Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Gov. Rick Perry will announce today that he is blocking the state from accepting $550 million for expanded unemployment benefits as part of the federal stimulus package. With an upscale Houston hardware store as his backdrop, he will paint the expansion as a burden on small business.

How much this is related to a possible GOP primary challenge by Kay Bailey Hutchinson is easy "impossible" to say. I venture to guess it is about 100% related to it. Playing politics with the struggles of the unemployed. Just terrible.

Speaking for me only

. . . then he should put his principles where his mouth is. He should sue to have the stimulus money NOT sent to South Carolina. Yesterday, the South Carolina Governor insisted again that he will refuse federal stimulus money. The problem is the federal stimulus legislation provides for the South Carolina legislature to bypass him and take the money on South Carolina's behalf. But, according to Jack Balkin, Sanford has a strong case that that provision in the federal stimulus bill is unconstitutional. If Sanford REALLY believes what he is saying, he should challenge the provision in the federal stimulus that renders him powerless to stop South Carolina from becoming Zimbabwe. Balkin writes:

I've spent far too much time following the Bernie Madoff case and am going to be working on my own cases the rest of the day. Final item: Here's the statement Madoff made in court today (pdf).

Here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.