Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

Today's edition of quick hits:

* It passed with zero GOP votes: "More than a year after the near-collapse of Wall Street plunged the economy into crisis, the House on Friday approved the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the Great Depression."

* A cramdown measure was defeated in the House, thanks to Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans.

* Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expects new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

* From 2004 to 2006, the lines were blurred out of existence: "Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.'s most sensitive activities --clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials."

* It's safe to say Greece is having some very serious fiscal problems.

* The latest retail-sales report looked pretty good.

* For reasons that I can't begin to understand, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) thinks health care reform is still going too fast.

* Why students drop out of college.

* Krugman, who has defended the Fed chairman, today takes Bernanke to task.

* Matt Taibbi trashes President Obama and his economic team. Tim Fernholz describes Taibbi's piece as "a factual mess," "a conspiracy theorist's dream," "pernicious for a lot of journalistic reasons," and sidestepping actual administration policy failures. "It's almost as if he cherry-picked what he thought would fit with his narrative," Fernholz adds.

* Legislation related to a college football playoff is stalled in a House committee, but Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) hopes to get it moving in the Senate. President Obama has said he'd sign the bill into law.

* Good question: "Why does the LAT allow Andrew Malcolm to continue to misrepresent polling?"

* Josh Marshall catches CNN's coverage yesterday on the Copenhagen conference: "First we hear Al Gore, discussing the evidence for warming. And after that, the latest from Sarah Palin discussing the science on her Facebook page. That's the debate. Proud moment."

* Bachmann kills what was left of irony: she told a crowd this week, referring to the Obama administration, "These people are not connected to reality."