So apparently, the reason the Democrats got their asses kicked a few weeks ago was people just didn’t know what a fantastic job Ben Nelson’s been doing.

A letter from Rep. Brad Miller and other members of Congress urges the Financial Stability Oversight Council to take action to prevent the foreclosure fraud problem from becoming a systemic crisis. The letter reminds the FSOC that Dodd-Frank gives them the power to avoid a systemic crisis. Barney Frank has signed the letter, and Chris Dodd has already admonished Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to employ FSOC to mitigate systemic risk. And thus far?

Crickets. From both the Administration and the media.

I have a hard time believing that anyone quoted in this piece actually believes what they’re telling the public. “We’ve taken the gloves off, and it has had huge impact,” for instance. Or how “you’re connecting the government to the people” by making them travel to a district-government office and submit a claim for a NATO-demolished house.

One of the more amusing moments of yesterday’s House Financial Services Committee hearings on foreclosure fraud was when the representatives for the loan servicers were asked why they were subsidiaries of the large financial institutions. The link between the servicers and the big banks, mainly caused by a series of mergers, leads to all kinds of conflicts of interest, because it inevitably pairs them up with the originator or trustee of the loan. The servicers had no real answer to this question. Finally, the Wells Fargo representative claimed that it was for “customer convenience,” because some customers had their mortgage and their checking accounts at the same bank.

Everyone’s jaw dropped in the hearing room.

Now Miller is out with a letter, signed by all the top leaders of the House Financial Services Committee, that seriously ratchets up the demands on the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Among other things, it asks the FSOC to use its authority under Dodd-Frank to force the large financial institutions to divest from the loan servicers.

The purpose of raising the retirement age, we’re told, is to increase cat food sales save money and put Social Security on a path to long-term solvency. But the bean-counting geniuses Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson didn’t take one thing into account: it could actually cost more to the system if people go on disability in those later years because they’re unable to work. And this wasn’t the National Hippies Foundation who made this assessment, it was the Government Accountability Office.

The projected spike in disability claims could harm Social Security’s finances because disability benefits typically are higher than early retirement payments, the Government Accountability Office concluded.

George Will’s column lamented the fact that the Federal Reserve is required to care about human suffering caused by massive unemployment. It’s all part of the latest unified GOP attack on the Fed’s dual statutory requirement to pursue full employment as well as price stability and moderate interest rates. Krugman concludes the GOP just doesn’t want the Fed to succeed, because it might help Democrats.

Remember when wingnuts were calling for a boycott of GM?

FoxNews has a ‘brainroom’, where their employees apparently are able to indulge in their desire to eat brains.

Christina Aguilera — I’m A Good Girl, from the movie Burlesque.

We learn from Reuters tonight that two German entreprenuers have won a prize from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology for their Wursttoaster, which they tell us delivers perfectly toasted bratwursts. To see the Wursttoaster in action, watch the delightful video at this link, where the poll question next to the video translates from German as “Would you stick your bratwurst in a toaster?” As of this writing, “yes” is leading “no”, by about 89 percent to 11 percent.