It’s on, tell us what you think. I’ll post the transcript briefly.

Heath Shuler was — no surprise — one of the eleven Democrats in the House that didn’t vote for the stimulus bill, something fellow Blue Dog Jim Cooper claims was “encouraged” by the White House (something Robert Gibbs would not deny). It looks like Rahm Emanuel, who is in charge of managing the White House’s relationship with the press, is himself pursuing a strategy to make Reid and Pelosi look as weak as possible and once again has his hand up Shuler’s dress:

The final vote will come tomorrow, but in effect, it’s done. This is the Gang of Four Compromise which cuts millions of jobs from the budget (600 thousand per Krugman). Collins, Snowe and Specter voted yes. Kennedy was brought in to vote as well. Final vote 61-39, otherwise straight partisan. After the vote tomorrow, the next step will be a conference between the House and Senate to determine a final version to be voted on by both bodies.

One of the contemptuous SEC officials who pretty much blew off Congress last week will be resigning today. And, all of a sudden, the SEC is going after Madoff for financial penalties, perhaps reflecting the elimination of Chris Cox-era rules that made it hard to do so.

This will evidently be the House messaging as the stimulus bill goes into conference: “how do we create the most jobs,” not “how do we make Susan Collins happy.”

The Senate version of the stimulus bill cut aid to states from $79 billion to $39 billion, roughly half of what it was in the House bill.  What does your Republican governor think of Susan Collins’ cuts?   Do they agree with Joe Lieberman that the two of them deserve the Medal of Honor?   Let us know in the comments.

Earlier this morning, Looseheadprop wrote about the case of Binyam Mohamed, the British subject tortured at the hands of the United States at Gitmo, including having his genitals carved selectively with a scalpel. The Mohamed case is of critical significance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that there was an oral argument in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco this morning in which the Obama Administration has shown its true colors and continued the assertion of state secrets to conceal US torture policy.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s handling of the Oscar Grant murder continues to disappoint anyone hoping that justice will prevail.

It took two weeks and thousands of people speaking out before the DA charged Johannes Mehserle, Grant’s killer, with murder. Clearly, it will take continued public pressure to see that justice is served throughout this case. On Tuesday, those of us in the Bay Area will publicly confront District Attorney Tom Orloff with over 20,000 petitions demanding that Orloff explain his refusal to charge Pirone.

Waterboarding is not the worst war crime we have committed at Gitmo. It’s not even the #2 worst thing we did.

I am sick over this.

It seems that losing the White House, Senate and House — after losing control of Congress in 2006 — is good for Republicans.