This does get more and more amusing:

Citigroup is pressing the US government to agree on a new capital injection that would increase the authorities’ stake in the troubled bank to about 40 per cent but stop short of an outright nationalization.

Because we have a lot to say

Okay…are you ready? The opening number is about to start…OMFG

Nominees and liveblogging after the jump:

Welcome to FDL Live Blogs the Oscars, well okay the pre-show right now, where we’ll be discussing who’s nominated, who’s arriving, what they’re wearing, and if they are wearing white knots for marriage equality, red ribbons for HIV/AIDS awareness or just some damn tacky borrowed dress and jewelry.

I’m at a party where everyone brings foods based on the nominated films:

“I confess,” writes Stan Greenberg in the introduction to Dispatches from the War Room, “I’m a member of ‘the pollster industrial complex.’” Greenberg’s fascinating new book recounts his experiences working as a consultant to five leaders – Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Britain’s Tony Blair, Israel’s Ehud Barak, and Bolivia’s Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada – all of whom knew or discovered that engaging with popular opinion was necessary to govern effectively in a democracy.

In Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker piece, Rahm Emanuel says:

“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy—produced a package that wasn’t large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession.

When Rahm went looking for a loyal stenographer to dictate a canonical piece on himself, no surprise his gaze landed on Ryan Lizza, who did the honors for Chuck Schumer in the recent past (wherein Lizza called Russ Feingold “an ass” for proposing a censure resolution against George Bush). This week’s New Yorker carries the 5200 word lap dance in which Rahm finds universal praise from sources carefully chosen to heap said praise upon him. Paul Krugman gets bashed by Rahm but sadly, there is no room for him to respond.

The National Security Network released a statement on Afghanistan last week calling for “phasing out tactics that have increased civilian casualties with questionable payoffs.” Another 13 Afghan civilians died waiting for someone to actually stop them.

Terry Jones, of Monty Python, on why he’s becoming an arms manufacturer. The forecast is good he says. Sales are up. And it doesn’t look like growth will slow any time soon. Think about it…by the time you finish watching this the United States will have spent an additional one million in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Poor George Will. It happened again.

Engrossed in his own pontificating, watch as he triumphantly punctuates his Very Important Insight Of The Day with professorial hand gestures and his “I’m. Smarter. Than. You.” cadence. You can feel the self-satisfaction, the preening. “I just got that fancy pants Roubini to nod approvingly!”

Then Krugman brings the hammer.