720P:  Steve Stecklow, Wall Street Journal, re the Allen Stanford Ponsi scheme, re the connection to the family members of the Vice-President,  SEC: Stanford Ran Ponzi Scheme Stanford Had Links to Fund Run by Bidens.  "Stanford International Bank's financial statements, including its investment income, are fictional," the SEC said.

735P: Professional Roundtable,  John Fund, Wall Street Journal, Mona Charen,NRO, Jodi Schneider, CQ, re the President's SOTU and the return of the New Deal, re the Bobby Jindal response, re the Obama administration budget that the NYT calls "even radical," re the CPAC meeting in Washington, re the new secretary HHS, K. Sibelius of Kansas.  Barack Obama Unveils His Budget. We Ask: Is It Credible? - Economist

750P:  Continued re the passing of Paul Harvey at 90 years old, re the passing of the torch of story-telling to Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee.

805P:   David Enrich, Wall Street Journal, re the Citibank deal with the Treasury to exchange preferred shares for common shares up to 36% of the common stock, re Citi becomes the United Nations of banks, re the Geithner resistance to privatization.  Take Bankruptcy Over Nationalization - James Keller, RealClearMarkets  Nationalization: Who Would Bear the Pain? - Peter Coy, Business Week

820P:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, re Bibi Netanyahu negotiating to form a government, re the visit of Secretary of State HRC to the region.

835: Financial Roundtable, Barron's John Tamny, RealClearMarkets.com, Simon Constable, Dow Jones,  Tom Donlon, Barron's, Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, re the collapse of the American economy, the skyrocketing unemployment, the cliff-diving housing, retail sales, gasoline use, GDP.  'In Geithner We Trust' Elusive as Market Fails To Recover - Bloomberg

850P: Continued, re the Obama SOTU and the trillion dollar deficits, the tax the rich, the reordering of the Reagan school, the Geithner resistance to privatizing Citibank.   Stress Test for Banks Exposes Rift on Wall Street - New York Times  Obama's War on American Capitalism - Larry Kudlow, CNBC  Pay freeze looms for millions of Britons  IN DEPTH: RBS hides real £33m value of Goodwin's pension pot  Payback time for culture of greed

905P:  Martin Wolf, Financial Times, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the upcoming G20 meeting in a crisis atmosphere of failing global banks, cliff-diving employment across the EU and North America, crushing retail sales umbers, housing glut, mortgage failures both residential and commercial, and the weakest members of the EU chain of 27 in despair and retreat, along with rising turmoil in the strongest members and an underlying tine of protectionism and dishonesty, re Martin Wolf's letter to the G20 by President Obama.  How the Crisis Is Hitting Europe - Jack Ewing, BusinessWeek

920P:  Marc Morano, U.S. Senate Committee Enviroment and Public Works, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the green proposals inthe stimulus plan, the President's SOTU, the budget, and the challenge to the Al Gore global warming scenario. 

935P:  Lisa Sweetingham, author, Chemical Cowboys, re the DEA tracking and busting of an Israeli gangland run pharmaceutical chain of a New York club drug called "Ecstasy," re what young, marginal characters did with their spare time before Facebook and Twitter, re the madness of the DEA, re a trite, loathsome and opaque character named Peter Gatien.

955P: Exeunt re Gordon Chang, re the watch on the imminent North Korea missile launch and what it means.

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KFI-AM 640 Los Angeles, 7-10P Pacific Time.

705P PT:  Bradley Keoun,Bloomberg, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re Citigroup and the negotation with the Treasury to convert preferred shares to common shares, re the demand by Treasury that Citi replace board members, re Vikram Pandit will keep his job, re the scale of the problem faced by Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and the other banks undergoing stress tests.  Citi's 'Multinationalization' May Not Be So Bad - Rob Cox, Daily Telegraph  

720P:  Stu Woo, Wall Street Journal, re the California budget deal fiasco may force the legislature to amend the rules, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re Since California enacted the two-thirds requirements for the budget and tax increases in 1933 and 1978, respectively, it has passed only a handful of budgets on time in the past 30 years.  In Sacramento's latest budget drama, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders struggled for nearly a week to find a single Republican vote to pass the proposal they negotiated. The governor had declared a fiscal emergency in November to close a budget shortfall that ballooned to $42 billion. 

735P:  Professional Roundtable with, Larry Johnson, No Quarter and State (ret), Craig Unger, Vanity Fair, Laura Meckler, Wall Street Journal, re the President's SOTU, the administration budget, re the cliff-diving markets, housing, employment, retail sales, and GDP, re the spreading gloom.  Niall Ferguson: There Will Be Blood - Heather Scoffield, Globe and Mai

750P: Continued  re the stimulus package and job, re the crisis of the SOTU replaced by the rosy scenario of the deficit reduction.  Obama's Historic Message Balances Urgency, Optimism - Washington Post

805P: Professional roundtable with Diana West, author,  Bill Whalen, Hoover, Thaddeus McCotter, 11th Michigan, The Green Jobs Engine That Can't - Max S  Go Green, and Create Millions of Jobs - Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation, City Journal  Why the Economic Stimulus Plan Will Fail - John Chapman, TCS Daily

820P:  Continued re the collapse of employment in California, the unemployment rate now over 105 and climbing.  CA Jobless Rate Hits 10.1%

835P: Dimitar Sasselov, Harvard Astrobiology, re the imminent launch of the Kepler mission to search for Edens in the Southern heavens.  The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets. By Alan Boss ... Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  Kepler launch delayed as NASA works problems with several missions Examiner.com

850P:  Pierre Rehov, re the Gaza propoganda machine and Youtube.  Tony Blair makes first trip to Gaza Strip  Middle East peace envoy visits battered coastal territory ahead of reconstruction conference in Egypt tomorrow

905P:  Bob Zimmerman, author, "Universe in a Mirror," re the Jonah in NASA, the promise of the robots, the preparation for the next manned space launch, the threat of space junk in low Earth orbit. 

920P: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal,  re the East Asia visit of Mrs. Clinton, re the plunging economies of East Asia.   China warns of unemployment risk BBC 

935P:  Evalyn Gates, author, "Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe" re cosmology and the general relativity theory, re gravitational lensing and the discovery of dark matter and dark energy, which make up 95% of the universe mass.  Primordial' gas ring gives birth to baby galaxies New Scientist

955P: Exeunt, re cosmology and String Theory and the beginning and end.

720P:   Charles Gasparino, CNBC, TheDailyBeast.com, re the nationalization craze, the sell-off in the big banks, what is pre-privitzation, re the pursuit of Ken Lewis and John Thain by Andrew Cumo, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones.  Gold Prices Pass $1,000 Mark

735P: Professional Roundtable,  John Fund, Wall Street Journal, Mona Charen, NRO, re the sinking of the markets since the Tim Geithner speeech, the stimulus bill, the Judd Gregg fiasco, and the mortgage plan, re Obama's trip to Canada where the Canadians were steaming about the protectionism in the stimulus bill.   Obama Promotes Bad-Mortgage Behavior - Larry Kudlow, RealClearPolitics

750P:  Continued re the Roland Burris scandals, re the Franken/Coleman contest, re the White House definition of bipartisanship this week, is the market failure bipartisan?  Illinois Gov. Asks Burris to Resign

805P:   Tunku Varadarajan, Forbes.com, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the rising power of India and the puzzle why Mrs. Clinton left India out in her first Asian tour, re the Indian markets apparent stability in the face of the worldwide sinking, re Richard Holbrooke's mission to Pakistan and why Kashmir was removed from his portfolio.

820P:   Gabi Thesing, Bloomberg, Frankfurt, re the fresh meeting in German by the major European powers Germany, France, Britain with regard a common EU policy for the G-20 meeting in April, re the most troubled EU members, the so-called PIGS, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain, and perhaps also the flailing economies of Eastern Europe, from Latvia to Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus.

835: Financial Roundtable, Barron's John Tamny, RealClearMarkets.com, Simon Constable, Dow Jones,  Jim McTague, Barron's re the "Lost Decade 1997 to 2009, the six-year market low, the crushing the of bank stocks, the insistence by the White House and Treasury that Citigroup and Bank of America will not be nationalized: what is nationalization.  Memo from Bank of America's Ken Lewis  Smoot-Hawley's Ghost Rises as Economy Tanks  Are Stocks Cheap? No, and They Should Fall More

850P: Continued, re the UBS tax dodgers, re the Allen Stanford fraud allegation and the peculiar network of Stanford institutions including a major cluster in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and the lesser members of the "Axis of Good," in Ecuador and Peru.   In depth Stanford scandal  Revealed: how Stanford created illusion of wealth

905P:  Sarah Childress, Wall Street Journal, from Africa, re the failes state of Somalia and the new leadership that challenges the jihadists and separatists.  Somali Leader Asks Groups to Disarm  Somalia's new president said it will take about a year to reconcile political factions and restore stability.

920P:   Aaron Klein, WND, re John Kerry surprisie visit to Gaza with two Democratic congressman, re the letter passed to John Kerry by a Hamas cut-out, re the Bibi Netanyahu task to form a government, re what will Livni do?  Netanyahu to Form Israeli Government

935P:  Barry Werth, author, "Banquet at Delmonico's: Great Minds, the Gilded Age, and the Triumph of Evolution in America," re the October 1882 gathering at Demonico's in New York of 200 of the Gilded Age's luminaries in celebration of the guest of honor, Herbert Spencer, a cranky, lonely, hypochondriacal, miserly, accusatory, paranoid philospher was was regarded the greatest mind of his age in America for advancing the theory of social Darwinism in the face of the Victorian Age's censorious and vengeful Protestant preachers.  A perfect book, and a demonstration that the seeds of the 20th century's revolutions and mass exterminations, along with its Midas fancies and reckless, aimless greed and not a few cultural and educational refinements, were all planted by the curmudgeons and despots of Europe, especially England, France and Germany with an American audience, in the late nineteenth century.  Eye-opening.    And what seeds of ruin and darkness are we planting today?

955P: Exeunt re Kaputnik and the threat to Hubble, re waiting for the launch of Kepler on March 5 and the eyes on Edens in the galaxy.  Kaputnik chaos could kill Hubble

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KFI-AM 640 Los Angeles, 7-10P Pacific Time.

705P PT:   Thaddeus McCotter, 11th Michigan (R), with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the GM and Chrysler emergency plans for government funding, re the UAW vs the GM bondholders, re the stimulus package promises to protect or create 4 million jobs, re the continued opposition of the voters to the stimulus.  9 Bailout Surprises From GM and Chrysler  Task Force on Auto Bailout Meets

720P:  Bradley Keoun, Bloomberg, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re Citigroup cost cutters skip offices, Staff for ex-ceos Prince and Reed.   Re the continued abuse of the public by the dukedom of Citi, insolvent, corpse-like, aimless, sold off by its own staff in Asia.

735P:  Professional Roundtable with, Larry Johnson, No Quarter and State (ret), Craig Unger, Vanity Fair, Margaret Hoover, FNC, re the question raised by the puckish Karl Rove that the Obama administration is "winging it," with regard Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, Judd Gregg, re the stimulus bill, the Tim Geithner plan, the mortgages, re the Obama trip to Canada to mollify the Canadians re the stimulus bill.  Re Energy Secretary Steven Chu says that OPEC is not in his domain.  The Market Is Shorting Obama's 'Stimulus' 

750P: Continued  re Roland Burris fiasco, re the  meaning of bipartisanship this week, re the six-year low of the markets and the continuing doubts of NYT Paul Krugman for the stimulus bill, the mortgage rescue.

805P: Professional roundtable with with John Avlon, Diana West, author,  Bill Whalen, Hoover, re the Obama search for bipartisanship, re the mortgage bailout, re the banking nationalization plan.  BofA's Lewis Gets Subpoena  How The Mighty Banks Have Fallen

820P:  Continued re the California bailout, the higher taxes and cut services, the search for the stimulus bill at Sacramento.

835P: Martin Wolf, Financial Times, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the banking crisis and the threat of nationalization, re what does Davos man want, re the stimulus bill, the mortgage bailout bill, re the Thinking anew on monetary policy  ...advisers would help even more. The Bank has erred. Who, after all, has not? The Treasury has erred still more. The UK has much left to learn from this shattering failure.*Why Banks Failed the Stress Test, www.bankofengland.co.ukmartin.wolf@ft.com

850P:   Bob Zimmerman, author "Universe in a Mirror," re the threat to Hubble rescue mission by Kaputnik: when satellites collide.  Re the Kepler mission scheduled March 5, re the 

905P: Jim Rogers, from Singapore, with Simon Constable, Dow Jones, re the Lost Decade, the six-year low in the market, the price of gold at $1000, re the Dodd remark about nationalization, re the sell-off in Citi and BAC, re the crisis of confidence in the EU, re the Paul Volcker capitulation ad the Krugman complaint, re the stimulus bill and growth.  Roubini: Many European Countries at Risk of Default

920P: Joe Sternberg, Asia Wall Street Journal,  re the East Asia visit of Mrs. Clinton, re her remarks about North Korea, re her reception in China, re the Avian flu mystery of isolated cases throughout China.

935P: Azadeh Moaveni, author, "Honeymoon in Tehran," re the Iranian-American journalist who returned to Iran in the Spring 2005 as a correspondent for Time Magazine and ran into the diffident brutality of the lazy, cocky, clever mullah regime and its thuggish cronies. Fluid, shrewd, comprehensive, passionate.

955P: Exeunt, with Lou Ann Hammond, Carlist.com, re the strange murder of Saab by the ax-killer GM.  GM Woes Go Global

720P:  Larry Kudlow, CNBC, Jobs Down, Stocks Up? Big money growth means the economic future looks better than the past.  Re stimulus bill in Senate, re SectTreasury Geithner's High Noon bank rescue plan.  Treasury Plans Wide Bailout Approach  Treasury Secretary Geithner's bailout revamp is likely to include a bigger FDIC role and help for homeowners.

735P: Professional Roundtable  Jodi Schneider, CQ, John Fund, Wall Street Journal, re the Daschle fiasco, re the stimulus bill needs Ted Kennedy, re the Collins/Specter exception.  Senate Leaders Reach Stimulus Compromise  Senate Democrats struck a deal with moderate Republicans on a U.S. stimulus plan, which was valued at $780 billion but could be pushed closer to $820 billion by tax breaks. Congress Is Divided Over Competing Stimulus Bills  The House version of the stimulus bill emphasizes helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts, while the Senate plan focuses more on tax cuts.

750P:  Continued re the White House plan to move the Census Bureau out of Commerce and into Rahm Manuel, with Bruce Chapman.  Boehner blasts WH on Census

805P: Heidi N. Moore, Wall Street Journal, re the Obama administration bonus caps, re Leaving Big Firms 
For Boutique Shops  Obama's moves to limit banker pay underscore a shift in power to foreign or boutique firms that don't need bailout money.

820P:  Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, Chinese Woman Contracts Bird Flu From Poultry  BEIJING -- A 21-year-old woman in central China has been infected by the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the country's eighth reported case this year, the Health Ministry said.

835: Financial Roundtable, with Jim McTague, Barron's John Tamny, RealClearMarkets.com, Simon Constable, Dow Jones,  Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, re Geithner to unveil bailout plan Geithner is expected to unveil the W.H. proposal to tackle foreclosures and toxic assets Monday.

850P: Continued, re the bank bailout may be in trouble, Paul Krugman: On the Edge It's as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened -- yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there's a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated."  Kudlow: With all the fiscal mania and Keynesian government-spending-multiplier talk in Washington these days, most folks have forgotten Milton Friedman's dictum that money matters. Indeed, money growth could well produce the biggest economic surprise this year. And as Art Laffer has taught us all, taxes also matter--a lot. In fact, the only real stimulative part of the behemoth stimulus package is the simple fact that marginal tax rates will not be raised.

905P:  John Miller, Wall Street Journal, Nations Rush to Make New Trade Barrier  The WTO called a meeting to discuss a fast-rising wave of barriers to commerce, as governments scramble to safeguard key industries, often at their neighbors' expense.  (Below, steel industry public stocks, a century low, February 1933.)

920P:   Malcolm Hoenlein, from Jerusalem, re Israeli elections.. 

935P: Martin Wolf, Financial Times, Labour support falls to lowest level since bail-out Support for the Labour Party has dropped to its lowest level since Gordon Brown's bank bail-out last autumn, a new poll suggests. More gloom for Gordon as ratings slump  Why Davos Man is waiting for Obama to save him ...leading the world is easier and more rewarding than cajoling a recalcitrant Congress. This may not be the challenge he expected. But it is the challenge he confronts. History will judge his presidency on whether he dares to succeed.  It is always the economy, stupid ...last recovers. "Buck up," as my colleague Samuel Brittan says. Life is going to be much harder for longer than almost anybody imagined two years ago. But the UK can, with tough discipline and some luck, manage even these shocks.

955P: Exeunt re Bob Zimmerman, author "Universe in a Mirror," re the exoplanet at twice Earth diameter and 11 times Earth mass.  Re the NASA search for a boss.  Politics Hampers Search for NASA Chief

 

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KFI-AM 640 Los Angeles, 7-10P Pacific Time.

705P PT: Laura Meckler, Wall Street Journal, U.S. Links Bailout 
To New Caps on Pay  The president announced a series of pay curbs, including a strict $500,000 pay limit for top executives of companies that receive "exceptional assistance."  Heard: The Problem With Obama's Pay Caps

720P: Marc Morano, U.S. Senate 
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, 23% Fear Global Warming Will End World - Soon 54% Say Media Hype Global Warming Dangers

735P:  Professional Roundtable with Craig Unger, Vanity Fair, Larry Johnson, No Quarter and State (ret), Margaret Hoover, FNC, re the stimulus bill   Senate GOP says they were left out  Senate GOP launches an attack on the stimulus deal. 'We have a deal Pelosi offers muted response to Senate deal  List of spending 'cuts'

750P: Continued re  Closing argument: Change in tone Gone is the gentle wooing of the GOP. Obama warns of 'catastrophe'

805P: Professional roundtable with with Diana West, author, Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution,  John Avlon, re the stimulus package.   Congress Is Divided Over Competing Stimulus Bills  The House version of the stimulus bill emphasizes helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts, while the Senate plan focuses more on tax cut

820P:  Continued re  Thousands of state workers stay home as part of governor's furlough program  The program shuts DMV offices but allows some agencies to function..

835P: Maylik Kaylan, Forbes.com, The Dangers Of Rejecting Turkey Erdogan's exclamations are the least of it. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of Davos in a huff last week during a discussion about Gaza in which he berated Israel and was greeted--like some gold medalist returning home--at Istanbul airport by banner-waving supporters. For a moment, the rift between Islam and the West appeared once again to begin at the border between Turkey and Europe, just as it did for so many centuries.

850P:   Mike Matz, re Congress is about to vote on a bill that would mean the single largest addition to the National Wilderness Preservation System in fifteen years.  Already passed by the Senate, this large lands package, which contains 150+ broadly supported, bipartisan bills, would preserve key components of America's natural heritage and provide important economic benefits to struggling local economies, protecting more than 2 million acres of wilderness across nine states (CA, CO, ID, MI, NM, OR, UT, VA and WV)

905P: Jim Rogers, author, "Bull in China," with Simon Constable, Dow Jones Newswire, Jim Rogers warns on bank bailouts and currencies RT, Russia - Feb 6, 2009 Noted investment advisor Jim Rogers spoke with RT about the banking bailouts being implemented worldwide, and the outlook for major currencies..Britain, running out of oil, is "finished" and may see the pound fall close to parity with the dollar. So said the investor Jim Rogers. He got it slightly wrong: Britain is not shutting up shop like a bankrupt oil company, just closing temporarily for a financial meltdown - and a fall of snow.  ...The fiscal cloud, if not dispelled in time, could make the fate of Britain and the pound still worse. But there is still time to avert fiscal collapse; and if the pound dives to depths expected by Rogers, its visit should be short-lived.

920P: Peter Smith, Financial Times, from Sydney  Opposition opposes Australia stimulus plan The Australian government's hopes of securing rapid parliamentary approval of its A$42bn fiscal stimulus package were nixed, after the main opposition bloc said it would vote against it. - Feb-04 Australia unveils A$42bn package  Australia faces first deficit in 7 years  Westfield launches A$2.9bn share sale

935P: Trevor Paglen, author, "Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World," re  "Trevor Paglen gets into the black heart of America's black sites. There is no better guide to this great American mystery. What goes on inside these bases will determine the future of warfare--and who we are--for the rest of the century." --Robert Baer, former case officer at the CIA and author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism

955P: Exeunt, with Lou Ann Hammond, carlist.com, re Chrysler vs Chrysler dealerships,re Toyota plunges worldwide, re car sales below scrappage.