The Wall Street Journal now counts 51 votes in favor of Ben Bernanke’s confirmation for another term as the Chair of the Federal Reserve. If the new regime of just Ben Bernanke requiring 50 votes to pass the Senate, then he’s pretty much assured of confirmation. This would explain why a date has been set for the vote.

The Washington Post reports that US involvement in Yemen includes attempts to assassinate US citizens in Yemen, and a new joint operations center.

The hearing will look at the overall federal response to the AIG debacle, but at two specific circumstances in particular – 1) the decision to pay off the credit default swaps to AIG’s counter-parties “at par,” without forcing the banks involved to take a haircut; and 2) the effort by the NY Fed to hide disclosure of counter-party payment information to securities regulators, as revealed in recent emails. In addition to the Oversight Committee, Barofsky’s SIGTARP office is investigating the NY Fed anew over the disclosure issue (they first probed this issue in November).

Crappy politics + crappy policy = heckuva job! End of segment is here.

When will Glenn Beck start reading James O’Keefe’s “Letters from a New Orleans Jail’?

The Doors — Waiting For The Sun.

At first, it appeared that the Texas State Board of Education had made a mistake in banning the children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, written by Bill Martin Jr., from a proposal for the third-grade reading section. . . .

Another day, another poll showing that the message of the Massachusetts massacre was that Obama and the Democrats need to go further on health care and opposing corporations, and that most people like the public option and would be more likely to vote against someone who tried to kill it.  Less than a week later, [...]

Two major AFL-CIO unions, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), with the United Auto Workers (UAW) came out hard against Citizens United, joining National Nurses United from the AFL in opposing the decision.

Asked about whether market conditions would play a role in his vote, Harkin said, “Is our economic policy going to be held hostage forever by the Wall Street threat that total collapse is going to happen if we don’t do what they want?”