Bernanke

Paul Krugman has a good piece on why he is grudgingly supporting Bernanke's reappointment as the chair of the Fed.For me, knowing that hooker aficionado  David Vitter, John McCain and Jim Bunning oppose Bernanke is probably enough to get me to support him.

Bernanke is getting equally attacked from both the left and the right- in this case, he is about where he should be. In retrospect, the Fed did a horrible job of understanding the financial catastrophe that was developing in 2007 and 2008. Highly leveraged banks, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, lack of regulatory control, CDOs run amok, etc.- the entire federal government failed to intervene in any type of meaningful way.

However, starting in September of 2008, Bernanke has been incredibly aggressive in trying to avert another depression. He vastly expanded the role of the Fed and that was vital to saving our financial system. He's currently keeping the Fed rate at zero in order to continue stimulating the economy.

My guess is that he'll get between 65 and 70 votes to continue as the head of the Fed.

Jim Bunning- still crazy after all these years

In a way, I'll be bummed when Jimbo gets knocked out of the Senate next year. Dude is kind of hilarious- check out this exchange with reporters:

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., has conducted a poll on his 2010 bid for election to a third term, but he isn't making the results public.

"Let's say I did the polling," the senator told reporters on a conference call this morning.

What does that mean?

"That means it's none of your g--d--- business," Bunning said, who then followed up with a laugh. "If you paid the 20 grand for the poll, you can get some information out of it

Craziest US Senator

Tom Coburn has his moments, but Jim Bunning is the craziest person in the US Senate. In addition to be known as one of the worst/laziest Senators, Bunning has just plain gone off the deep end. He's now threatening to sue his own party if someone runs against him in the primary. Even Norm Coleman had the decency to wait till after the election to start suing people. But good old Jimbo has decided he'll sue early and often.

From AP: In his call, Bunning said that if the National Republican Senatorial Committee backed a Republican challenger in the primary, he would have grounds for a lawsuit.
"In the bylaws of the NRSC, support of incumbents is the only reason for their existence. If they recruited someone and supported them in a primary against me I would be able to sue them because they're not following their bylaws," Bunning said.