We’ve known about the securities fraud charges against off-shore bank kingpin Sir Allen Stanford. But now TPM alum Justin

Rood reports that the FBI has a separate, on-going investigation into whether Stanford’s operation served as a money-laundering operation for one of the big Mexican drug cartels.

We’ll see how this story develops. But it does point to something I’ve given quite a bit of thought to — and a decent amount of poking around on — with the Madoff case. When you’re involved in fraudulent enterprises involving billions of dollars, with lots of unaccounted for and untracked streams of money, organized criminal syndicates — whether it’s the mob or drug gangs or whatever — just tend not to be too far behind. I suspect we’ll eventually find that with Madoff securities fraud was not the only crime.

The long prosecutorial saga of New Hampshire phone-jamming figure James Tobin, which we have covered extensively over the years, appears to be at or very near the end. A federal judge in Maine has dismissed the latest charges against Tobin as a vindictive prosecution, a stunning rebuke to the Public Integrity Section of DOJ. The government could appeal this decision, so maybe not officially over. But the fat lady is gargling with lemon and honey.

Prosecutors suggested that part of the reason for the new charges (after Tobin was acquitted on appeal following his first trial) was to force his cooperation. Now we may never know the true extent of the RNC’s and White House’s involvement in the 2002 phone-jamming.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to announce today that he is running for the seat of the retiring Sen.Kit Bond (R-MO) in 2010. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

All that talk from some GOP governors that they would refuse their state’s portion of the Obama stimulus package? Fuggedaboutit. Now the most vocal of the grandstanders, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), says, yeah, I’ll take the money.

It just so happens that two of the home-state pols Sir Allen Stanford was very cozy with now head up the NRSC and NRCC, respectively. But Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) aren’t going to follow the lead of their fellow lawmakers: they’re refusing to give up the big bucks they got from Stanford.

Matt Cooper recaps the Dems’ post-election woes appointing U.S. senators.

Greg Sargent gets a read out on last evening’s cocktail party at the White House, where the Obamas wooed progressive groups.

Unveiling the latest GOP makeover plans, RNC’s Michael Steele promises to apply conservative principles to “hip-hop settings.”

As if to feed my Google Earth addiction, Noah Shachtman over at Danger Room links to a 2006 Google Earth image unearthed by the News of Pakistan that shows what looks to Noah’s better-trained eyes like U.S. Predator drones parked at an airfield in Pakistan.