He can fly! via Express Monorail.

Wheeeeeeeeee! 

– Via Duncan: Jobless Claims Rise 36,000 to 667,000; Durable Goods Orders Fall More Than Expected Down 5.2% (story developing).  More from Reuters via CNBC:

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits increased to a seasonally adjusted 667,000 in the week ended Feb. 21 from a revised 631,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. It was the highest reading since October 1982, when claims reached 695,000.

The year-long U.S. recession has savaged the labor market and sent the unemployment rate soaring, with some economists fearing it will pierce 9 percent in 2009 from 7.6 percent in January and mount further next year….

The four-week average of new jobless claims, a better gauge of underlying labor trends because it irons out week-to-week volatility, increased to 639,000 from 620,000 the week before….

Calculated Risk has more.

– New home sales fall to record low; prices tumble.  Calculated Risk has more.

– Reports offer snapshot of slowing economy.

– After everything else, AIG now considering breaking up to stay afloat.   

– For the econ wonks, the Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal will be available online starting at 11 am ET.   Now, complete with real DOD action figures!  (as in budget numbers, not GI Joes…duh!)

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Gorgeous shot via alpha du centaure.

Federal prosecutors filed their government’s sentencing memorandum in the Dusty Foggo plea deal. This is used by the judge as one of many sources to determine culpability, sentencing breaks or enhancements in terms of going up or down levels in the sentencing guidelines — all of which go into the court’s sentencing calculations.

It is a scorcher. A sampling:

By late 2002, Foggo had become Chief of Support Operations at a crucial Overseas Location, with control over millions of dollars in government funds. He also had a high-level, high-paying position with his best friend [Brent Wilkes] waiting for him, as well as a need for money and powerful contacts so he could pursue his plan to succeed Randall "Duke" Cunningham as one of San Diego’s congressional representatives. All of these circumstances and exigencies presented after September 11 put to the test Foggo’s commitment to the core values of the CIA and to his country. He failed that test and seized the opportunity to abuse his CIA offices through a vast criminal scheme.

Although Foggo has admitted his execution of this years-long scheme, he seems unwilling to truly accept responsibility for its full scope. Instead, in his Statement of Responsibility, he attempts to portray himself as having been "influenced" by Wilkes into a "lapse of judgment."…

Foggo’s goal was to succeed Cunningham at the elected official trough.  Just what the nation needs.

The lawyers in the readership will be cringing at that last bit — because federal judges hate a weasel attempt at acceptance of responsibility in a plea. That one is likely to result in a sentencing enhancement, which can add months to years of prison time.

This whole sordid saga is tied into the morass of money and corruption that so much of Washington has become.  

The halls of power are swimming in a sea of lobbying dollars, no bid contract perks and everything else that goes with courting the seemingly insatiable appetites of people in power and those who surround them.  Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Ed Buckham, Brent Wilkes, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove…the list goes on and on of people the last few years — on both sides of the political aisle — who are so drunk on power and so intent rake in personal perks that they fail to act in the public’s interest.

Those folks who haven’t been imprisoned…yet…are feted on television (YouTube) or in print as power tycoons whose opinions ought to influence to the rest of us.

Wrong. 

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John Scalzi nails modern conservatism in a nutshell.  In a single sentence, so precisely that I am in awe.  

The rest of the article is a hoot on its own, but this particular portion is just flat out brilliant.  The distillation is that conservatives:

Genuinely fear and hate those who are not “with” them — the sort of people who would rather shit on a freshly-baked cherry pie than share it with someone not of their own tribe.

Why is it that the dodo scene from Ice Age just leaps to mind here?  

Or leaps over the cliff.  Way, way over the cliff and into a rather large mudhole.  Filled with bloated pit vipers and leeches.

Hmmmmm…way of the dodo, indeed.  Can self-inflicted extinction be just around the corner?

(H/T to John Cole who spotted this.)

This morning, Vice President Biden, OMB director Peter Orszag and newly minted oversight tough guy Earl Delaney met with President Obama’s cabinet in the Roosevelt Room at the White House to go over the ground rules for increasing transparency for stimulus initiatives.

What follows is a transcript of their remarks this morning — thought folks would want a peek at this:

Earlier this month, we flagged Mark Gitenstein’s rumored contention for the Office of Legal Plans at DOJ as problematic.  At the time, what I was hearing in Beltway grapevine was that Gitenstein was said to be a shoe-in for the job because of close ties to Vice President Biden, a long record of great civil rights work, and his time on the Obama campaign. All that was swell, but it was his close ties to anti-individuals legal lobbying that was so troubling.

President Obama laid out the pragmatic need for health care reform in last night’s speech: “This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes,” Obama said…

Hilda Solis was confirmed this afternoon as the new Labor Secretary in a vote of 80 to 17. This is excellent news. Mike Hall at AFL-CIO has details: Says [AFL-CIO President] Sweeney: She understands that the Employee Free Choice Act is critical to rebuilding our economy because working men and women deserve the freedom to choose whether to form a union without employer interference.

As Steve Benen points out, the GOP’s strategy of “no cooperation and we win” isn’t exactly a winning strategy.  And yet, here we are. Quite the stage for tonight’s Obama address to Congress, isn’t it? No pressure.