The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Sam and Charles Wyly, two politically powerful brothers and major GOP donors, with $550 million in insider trading and securities fraud.

Proponents of TARP insisted that there was no alternative to handing hundreds of billions to the banks with no questions asked. They are still pushing this line.

Meanwhile, how long before oil industry shills Republicans start citing Grunwald’s reporting in talking points?

We better high tail it to one of those blogger ethics conferences Atrios at Eschaton is always going on about again.

Deep South — Keep On Smilin’.

Mary Gauthier’s “The Sugar Cane” laments environmental damage to Louisiana from the sugar industry, but could apply equally well to the BP oil spill.

Today, a coalition of 50 organizations dedicated to ensuring no benefit cuts to Social Security launched in Washington. The coalition, including top labor unions, progressive groups like MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, and a host of others, released seven principles that will guide their policy prescriptions.

After criticism increased over the President’s education policies, he took to the National Urban League to defend them today. However, he ignored the elephant in the room: that holding back education funding from the stimulus to pursue an untested “reform” agenda is costing tens of thousands of teachers their jobs and a generation of students their futures.

Is there any better demonstration that members of the Gang of Four cannot exercise oversight over such programs without staffer assistance than the way former Gang of Four member Rockefeller talks about the machines that collect and store data on you?

The Treasury Department is offering special off-the-record briefings to reporters to give another side to the widely held view that their foreclosure mitigation strategies are completely failing.