Last Friday at the Alaska GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner, The ‘Cuda explained why McCain/Palin and the GOP got their asses handed to them last November.

Today Joe Donnelly (D-IN) asked Timothy Geithner a simple question — why can’t they ban naked credit default swaps?

DONNELLY: We saw naked credit defaut swaps cause extraordinary devastation to our economy and I know regulation is coming. do these naked credit default swaps provide any value added, or is this simply just gambling?

GEITHNER:

Remember when AIG told us if it didn’t pay the bonuses, and top people left Banque AIG, we might be on the hook to collateralize $234bn in credit default swaps? Guess who’s quitting on the same day whiny Jake DeSantis got published in the New York Times.

If I understand the rules Barney Frank laid down on Tuesday, the members who waited patiently but never got a chance to ask questions on Tuesday (people like Alan Grayson) get to go first.

You can follow along at CSPAN3 or the committee stream.

Here is Geithner’s statement.

Frank:

(I’ll be on the Nancy Skinner show today at 4pm ET — jh)

As Yves Smith and other predicted, BofA and Citigroup have already begun gaming Tim Geithner’s private-public partnership plan (PPiP). Remember our old pal Stanford Kurland, who milked Countrywide for $200 million, and is now financed by Blackrock to buy up toxic mortgages at thirty cents on the dollar? The New York Post says companies like his are being outbid — by BofA and Citigroup.

Now remember, TARP money was supposed

Huge kudos for Sen. Byron Dorgan.  Because he has more than earned them with this interview with Rachel Maddow: “There’s a culture, and the culture is that ‘Wall Street knows best.’ You know, there were only eight of us in the United States Senate that voted no. This was a huge deal to repeal the protections that were put in place after the Great Depression — a huge deal. Eight of us voted no.”

• More coming from Treasury today.
• Budget wars.
• How many “Are you a socialist?” are we gonna see?
• Good news.
• More good news.
• Yep, she’s still blaming the media.
• Apparently, Hannah Montana was sold out.
• Oh please oh please oh please…

Michele Bachmann gets a mash note from Powerline