Dems apparently have no Plan B if the Senate Republicans get their act together and filibuster Financial Reform.

Some of the shrewdest analysts of American finance have argued that financial panic of 2008 was less a matter of lax regulation or reckless bets than a broader crisis of political economy — one in which the financial sector had simply become too large to fill its proper role in the larger economy and its power, relatedly, too great in Washington to be restrained within healthy bounds.

Along those lines, I sometimes think that a cultural anthropologist might be better prepared to analyze what’s happening today between the White House and Goldman Sachs than a political analyst or financial commentator. Read More

When not the client but the attorney declines to answer a question on the advice of his “good friend” Roger Stone.

That’s what happened when birther Army doctor Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin and his lawyer appeared this morning on Gordon Liddy’s radio show to discuss their plans to use court martial discovery proceedings to finally get the truth about Obama’s birth certificate.

Grab your popcorn.

National Republicans try their best to game out when to bag on Charlie Crist.

John McCain, whose campaign was rescued by Crist in Florida in 2008, just preemptively put out a statement pledging that he won’t support Crist if he goes independent.

There were two big gun-rights rallies yesterday in Washington, admirably timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The one on the Mall was at least made up of law abiding citizens; at another, in a national park just on the other side of the Potomac, attendees were encouraged to attend heavily armed. That “Restore The Constitution” event turned out to be so nuts that even the fringe-ish ‘Oath Keepers’ group decided not to participate.

You can see scenes from both events in today’s TPM Slideshow.

The Georgia state legislature, on top of the latest threats, is holding hearings on a bill to ban implanting people with microchips — as one rumor suggested the Health Care Reform bill mandated.

But the good folks who run the Judiciary Committee seemed to have gotten a bit more than they reckoned with when one of their hearing witnesses claimed that she had already been implanted with a microchip.

And not just any microchip, but one the Pentagon had implanted in her “vaginal-rectum area”, apparently to track her movements.

Presumably part of the Stimulus Bill.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that his threats to filibuster financial reform have helped get substantive negotiations back on track.

Apparently tired of being a national pinata for birthers and Tea Partiers attacking President Obama the Embassy of Kenya has decided to host their own “Tea Party” up on Capitol Hill — “a proper Kenyan Tea Party on Capitol Hill (one without a political agenda)” — to celebrate their new status as the world’s top exporter of tea.

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, will be hosting the event.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. A couple weeks ago our Eric Kleefeld came up with video showing Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowden suggesting that “bartering” for medical care would be a good way to rein in spiraling health care costs.

I mocked her with the headline: “I bid three chickens for that MRI!” But I sort of figured she’d rethink that plan after her advisors sat her down for a moment and explained the concept of a cash economy or maybe if she found out what ‘barter’ meant. But it turns out that she was serious. Not just serious. She was actually thinking about payment in chickens too.

Yesterday she told a local news program: “I’m telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor.”

I’m always troubled by these moments when my sarcasm and snark is outpaced by the ugly reality. See the video here.

PS. If you want to hear something really funny. This woman’s probably going to be the freshman senator from Nevada next January. Think she’ll be for repeal? I wager five chickens!

The IRS is investigating that credit card unfortunateness with Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

This all looks pretty preliminary. But what’s fascinating about this to me is that even if this ended up being profoundly damaging to Rubio, it’s really not clear to me that Crist can stay in the GOP primary. He was already disliked by the right of his party. But he’s now gone so far in tipping his hand about an independent run, I’m not sure there’s any going back.