• Obama is just pretending to have any sway within the Obama/Hamid Karzai powercouple. [New York Times]
• A bunch of people in the Army were very encouraging of Nidal Hasan’s religious phase, and some even suggested he take college courses about Islam. Should we purge the Army of anyone who self-identifies as a “supportive friend” too?? [Washington Post]
• The Malevolent Balloon People of Colorado will plead guilty when they are charged with being the worst parents ever not even in the usual hyperbolic sense. [CNN]
• Americans might not buy as much useless garbage for their loved ones this holiday season. [AP]
• Obama may dip into TARP funds to help out with the huge deficit. [WSJ]
• The weak dollar has consequences other than all the rich Europeans coming to New York to shop “because it is so cheap here”: oil prices could go up, like way up. [Reuters]

Many blame last week’s Chrysler bankruptcy on the fact that Chrysler is a shit company. They are wrong! It was really a group of hedge funds, holding large swaths of Chrysler debt, that rejected the administration’s settlement offer of a 33 cents-on-the-dollar payout and thus threw the company into its current quickie “nooner” of a Chapter 11 filing. These twenty-ish hedge funds — who call themselves, retardedly, the “Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders,” making them Moral — are trying to score a better deal in bankruptcy court. These terrible people! SO TERRIBLE are these people that they filed a motion in court to have their names sealed, because apparently, what’s this, the public is mad at them for bankrupting a massive company out of greed? They’ve received death threats! And as the Non-TARP Cocksuckers’ court motion reveals, the threats have come from… dumb slob commenters on the Washington Post website. MORE »

For many months now, people have been asking why Ken Lewis still had his job as chairman and CEO of Bank of America, and for many months the answer has been “Because,” but now we have a new answer: as of last night he is only the CEO, and who knows how much longer he’ll have that gig. MORE »

You look at this little article by an anonymous TARP wife about how she has had to scale back on “important gifts and other necessities,” and comparing the modern banking class’s plight to intellectuals in Maoist China, and you think, wow, good thing the author chose to remain anonymous. Greenwich and environs have not yet managed to scrub the stink off the lawns after the last rabble uprising. MORE »

Whoa, weird, Fox Business News has a delightful scoop today! They won a suit against the Treasury to release 10,000 pages in TARP-related government records, and for the good of mankind have already found a couple of funny anecdotes revealing cartoonish confusion and conflict. We’re starting to understand the mechanics of how AIG rips off the federal government so easily: the old racist means of pitting the bureaucrats against each other until they’ve all been killed off. MORE »

Do you know what is happening to your America, America? Communism! Yesterday our friends at the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP invited a crazy European monster to our country to outline the nuclear option — “The Swedish Model” — for fixing our banks. Boo! Go “fix” yourself! MORE »

Tim “TurboTax” Geithner revealed his magic plan to save the economy and the banks and the Toxic Assets, and the Senate approved the Stimulated Package, and … the markets collapsed! Again. The Dow plunged 340+ points, which is basically what happens every time the government makes some big move to try to stop the collapse, going back to October 2007, when all this shit began to spill. What, exactly, are these traders expecting? MORE »

Wonkette Operative “Michael C” reports that this TARP-bailout hearing at the House is providing endless lulz. Why is Illinois Rep. Pete Roskam jabbering about tapping people’s backsides and the “greased chute of government”? Because he’s a Republican! It’s all about ass. MORE »

The Dow Jones fell 679 points today, since it’s been a full six days since Paulson last introduced a new multi-hundred billion dollar loan or loan guarantee program, and everyone on Wall Street is a child: “The day’s news reminded investors, who last week were buying on a burst of optimism, that the economy is still in serious trouble. And at midday, Wall Street had confirmation of what everyone has suspected for months, that the nation is indeed in a recession.” They just wanted to be sure, for the 80th time, that the economy was indeed contracting, and then it was SELL SELL SELL. MORE »

• TARP II HAS AN ACTUAL NAME!: Our Government Money People were at least smart enough to realize that sequels almost always fail to live up to originals, so — knowing how well original TARP has performed so far (yikes!) — they have avoided calling the new $800 billion money bonfire “TARP II,” which probably would have resulted in the immediate nuking of everyone. Instead, it is playfully called the “Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF).” Ha ha, “Securities” was cut out because it would’ve ruined the acronym. Anyway: Insider beltway gossip suggests that TARP has already developed a gay thing for TALF. Go get ‘em, TARPy. [Federal Reserve]

Whoa hey… whoa… what the hell? “The United States government unveiled $800 billion worth of new loans and debt purchases on Tuesday, hoping another massive infusion of cash would smooth troubled credit markets and make borrowing easier for homebuyers, small businesses and students.” Ha ha, it’s like the original TARP, but for consumers and eggheads — and this time, to hell with the Congressional “funding approval”! It’s much easier for Hank Paulson to drag his ass to a podium some random Tuesday morning and just start stone cold announcin’ the motherfucker. MORE »