From the Financial Times:
Private equity group Apollo Management will establish a new bank under an obscure provision buried in the US financial regulations signed into law last week.
Apollo is to take advantage of a change that allows banks to operate in multiple US states without a national charter, lawyers say.
The company, which has about $55bn under management, has hired a team from Countrywide Financial to run the bank, and is awaiting regulatory approval.
It can’t be pointed out often enough that in two of the biggest Senate races of 2010 — Kentucky and Nevada — the GOP fielded nominees who were so unprepared (read: unqualified) not merely for the office they were seeking but simply as candidates that the powers/consultants-that-be were forced to hide the nominee from the local and national media for weeks. We’ve thoroughly documented Rand Paul’s disastrous debut in the general election race, but in his meager defense at least he still leads in the polls. Sharron Angle seems to be even less ready for primetime, and it’s basically cost her her lead against Harry Reid. Eric Kleefeld takes a closer look at the Angle media “strategy.”
TPM interviewed Dan Choi after he confronted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at Netroots Nation.
As we told you earlier, Choi gave Reid his West Point ring to make a point that Democrats’ promises to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell haven’t yet panned out.
Out here in Las Vegas, the news is coming a mile-a-minute at Netroots Nation.
We’ll be posting this evening but follow every development here.
Just now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised Lt. Dan Choi he’d keep his West Point ring until the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal is signed. See the quotes here. They hugged and the crowd gave a standing ovation.
President Obama surprises Netroots Nation with a prerecorded video.
Watch the video, and follow our up-to-the-minute coverage of both Netroots and RightOnline today here.
Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), the immigrant-bashing nativist who did not run for re-election in 2008, is threatening to run for governor of Colorado unless the two declared GOP candidates drop out.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who has a wicked sense of humor, introduced Vice President Joe Biden today to a crowd in South Carolina as “articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy.”
It’s being presented by the Tea Party Express as his decision, but Mark Williams is out as spokesperson for the group. Maybe he is doing it on his own, but hard not to think that the firestorm created by his comments like Allah is a “monkey god” and the NAACP makes “more money off of race than any slave trader, ever” didn’t convince the Republican operatives behind the Tea Party Express that it was time to dump Williams. Not that they deserve any credit for it now.
I’ve gotten used to a pretty intense brand of hyperbole in the era of Tea Party-chasing Republicans. But Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN), who’s now in a tough primary to get the nomination to run for Governor of Tennessee, is now saying that if Americans don’t get it right in 2010 and 2012 and repeal Health Care Reform his state may have to secede from the union.