O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Sarah Palin speaks at the Tea Party Dinner, the high point of controversy-plagued Tea Bag Nation convention.

If Democrats in Congress get handed the largest majority in a generation and do almost nothing with it, and spend a year on their signature priority and get nothing out of it, what Obama said will come true – they won’t be asked back to try again.

The US is attempting to dodge responsibility for illegal detentions in Afghanistan by transferring control of the publicly acknowledged facility to Afghanistan while continuing to maintain a network of secret prisons most likely under JSOC control.

The title of John Perkins’ latest book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–and What We Need to Do to Remake Them, comes from a conversation the author had with Panama’s populist head of government, Omar Torrijos, in the late 1970s. Perkins describes that he was trying to convince Panama to assume huge World Bank loans, which would bankrupt Panama, and thereby ensure that the US retained control over the Canal. But Torrijos wasn’t interested.

Paul Krugman has a must-read column today on the irresponsible and harmful fear mongering over the federal budget deficit.

Ever since Dennis Blair revealed that there’s a procedure within the Obama administration for killing American citizens during counterterrorist operations, I’ve been thinking about the complexities of the circumstances envisioned. As a basic proposition, Glenn Greenwald is right: it’s unacceptable to set the standard for the killing of an American citizen at “the government says he’s a danger.” Anwar al-Awlaki, for instance, is an American citizen who supposedly provides encitement and encouragement to jihadis to kill Americans. Assume it’s all true (as I do). That is more than enough to warrant his arrest and trial. But is it enough to warrant his summary execution? I can’t accept that.

As Jason notes, David Axelrod has already taped a CSPAN response to Jane Mayer’s piece on Rahm’s spat about distractions like “the law” and “human rights” with Eric Holder and Greg Craig. In it, Axe appears to try to distance the White House from the decisions that have been attacked in the last few weeks, particularly the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

In case you had any doubts, Wall Street is the big winner as the country goes into political gridlock. Kiss serious financial reform good-by. Say hello to years of high unemployment and economic chaos.

Last December, Chuck Todd labeled a big blizzard “not news,” much to the disgust of many folks buried underneath it. Today, he may be rethinking that opinion, as feet of “not news” are piling up around him.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner just announced support for a full cancellation of Haiti’s debt, and the IMF will join him, ending Haiti’s crippling economic burden which hampered development long before last month’s earthquake.