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David Shuster talks to John Harris about the interview Dick Cheney gave to his pals over at Politico.

From Think Progress:

The reality is that it is the policies that Cheney has fought so hard for over the years that have made America less safe. His scare tactics are nothing more than an attempt to salvage his own conscience.

And Steve Benen notes:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was a national disgrace and an embarrassment to himself while in office, but he's not quite done engaging in some of the cheapest, most offensive, least honest demagoguery imaginable.

Previous national leaders, once they leave office, usually maintain some sense of decorum, refraining from attacking their successors. Cheney waited just two weeks before accusing the Obama administration of coddling terrorists and putting American lives at risk. Classy.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Sen. Bernie Sanders who was the one that first came up with the idea of limiting executive pay. Sanders also feels we need to have a real investigation into who caused the banking crisis and that the TARP oversight committee should lead it.

President Barack Obama announcing new rules to curb executive pay for bailed out companies.

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David Shuster filling in for Keith talks to Jonathan Turley about the latest twists and turns with Rove refusing to appear before Congress. Turley feels that Rove can no longer continue to maintain the untenable position that they're going to invoke executive privilege to protect the executive branch against information from the executive branch and that Rove might be finally be looking at a real chance of indictment and contempt chareges.

We can only hope. If anyone finally gets to the bottom of the Don Siegelman case I think Karl Rove is in big trouble. This latest news is a good step in the right direction.

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From The Situation Room Jan. 2, 2009. Michael Steele is completely clueless. Hey Steele, weren't you drawing a government pay check at one time? Maybe that didn't qualify as a job. I think the people working for the Post Office, Parks Department, IRS....etc., etc., etc. might disagree with you.

UPDATE: John Amato:

As soon as he had the chance, Michael Steele makes it perfectly clear why he's a perfect choice for the RNC. He can lie with the best of them. This statement was utter nonsense as Wolf Blitz looked on like a blow up doll.

BLITZER: But if there's an economic recovery and there are jobs created...

STEELE: Are you taking into account inflation?

And, first off, the government doesn't create jobs. Let's get this notion out of our heads that the government create jobs. Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job.

Small business owners do, small enterprises do, not the government. When that government contract runs out, that job goes away. That's what we're talking about here. And those two to four million jobs that are projected won't happen. Trust me.

Wolf moved on to a new topic immediately. Maybe Blitzer had a few voices in his ear piece and didn't really listen to Steele's answer, but to sit back and not respond to a LIE that big is insane. Watching the crazy stock market shows all year, most of the time they said that because of government hiring, the job reports didn't look as bad as they should have. We all know that FDR put people to work. Did the TSA get any work because of the federal government and the strict rules in airports? Steele is a clown and this is the type of lying that needs to be exposed always.

And as Duncan properly states:

As Dean says, we're living in the Republican alternative universe where government spending isn't stimulus. Stimulus is instead... well, no one really knows. You can argue about the effectiveness of various stimulus measures. You can argue about what spending priorities should be. But anything which involves buying stuff and paying wages or otherwise putting money into the pockets of people is stimulus.

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Joe Scarborough during part of his daily freak out on Morning Joe. He looks like he's slowly coming more and more unhinged on there by the day from the little I can stand to watch of the show. Where was Joe Scarborough's concern over deficits when George Bush was throwing billions down the toilet with his invasion of Iraq? And he has an utter lack of concern over what high unemployment rates mean to average Americans or anyone else for that matter.

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Mary Snow on The Situation Room Jan. 2, 2009 making an extremely flawed analogy.

Mitch McConnell press conference on the stimulus bill Jan. 2, 2009.

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On Face the Nation Mitch McConnell says the GOP is going to require sixty votes for the stimulus bill to pass, but doesn't want to call it a filibuster. Since the Democrats cave in and never actually make them filibuster anything, his response is not surprising.

Schieffer: If it came to it, would Republicans filibuster this bill if it was not to your liking?

McConnell: Well that term is thrown around a lot. In the Senate it routinely takes sixty votes to do almost everything. It doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to slow a bill down. But a super-majority is required for virtually everything in the Senate and certainly for something close to a trillion dollars for a spending bill, it will.

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The panel on Meet the Press of Erin Burnett, Mark Zandi and Steve Forbes responding to the statements made about Wall Street bonuses by President Obama and Sen. Clair McCaskill. Apparently Erin Burnett thinks the silly populists out there just need the shell game Wall Street played with the bonus money explained to them.

MR. GREGORY: In, in just a couple of minutes left, I want to talk about something about everybody understands, and that is bonuses on Wall Street. And we find out this week from the New York comptroller's office that Wall Street allocated $20 billion in bonus money, the same amount as 2004. It created some pretty strong reaction from the White House to Capitol Hill. Watch.

PRES. OBAMA: It is shameful, and part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. You know, the American people understand that we've got a big hole that we've got to dig ourselves out of, but they don't like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they're being asked to fill it up.

SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL (D-MO): We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. What planet are these people on?

MR. GREGORY: Fair question, Erin?

MS. BURNETT: I understand the outrage, and you understand the populism. There are, though--well, how should we say this? The taxpayer money is not being used to pay the bonuses. I think people could understand if you work for a company--right? If the three us worked for a company, your guests, and I lost $10 billion but Steve over there, he made a billion dollars. So overall the company actually loses money, but Steve went and did his very darndest for that company and he made money. So should he be paid for his work? That's essentially what we're talking about here. And reasonable people could argue about this, but many reasonable people would conclude, yes, he should be paid for that. And I think, David, you've raised a fair point, which is maybe it's the whole use of the word "bonus."

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. BURNETT: If you explained to people this is how they are compensated, that might make a difference. But there is also a fundamental misunderstanding. The taxpayer money isn't being taken and paid out in the form of bonuses. It goes in a, a separate pool, shall we say, a separate account for banks. So maybe people don't care about that distinction, but it is there.

MR. ZANDI: Well, this, this highlights a very significant risk...

MS. BURNETT: Mm-hmm.

MR. ZANDI: ...of the government coming in and giving this money to the banking system, that we're effectively nationally the system in one form or another. And by doing that, then taxpayers, rightfully so, are saying, "Well, I want some control of what you do with this money." So now we're talking about compensation, which I think is a reasonable thing to do, but it is a slippery slope. And one thing I do worry about is that maybe the next thing is that we start making strictures on what kind of loans they can make or what kinds of deals they can fund or can I, can I fund a bank that's going to produce a factory in, in Mexico? I mean, these are decisions that are very difficult for government to make and can't make wisely.

MR. FORBES: And this gets to the danger of what you might call financial protectionism; that is, a return for these new monies, new capital, banks won't be able to lend overseas, which is a form of protectionism and gets in the way of the system.

MR. GREGORY: But as--does Wall Street need to absorb the fact that if they need lots of taxpayer help, they have to find a way to speak directly to the American people about what they do...

MR. FORBES: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: ...and the importance of what they do, if they want $1 trillion, $2 trillion worth of taxpayer money?

MR. FORBES: Yes. Well, Wall--yes. Wall Street has to learn the golden rule: He who has the money makes the rules. And in Washington, they have the money so they're going to make the rules. Get used to it. You want the help, you pay the price for it. And I think they've been slow in doing that.

MS. BURNETT: The rise in populism, though, has been amazing. I mean, just the rhetoric out of Barack Obama and Joe Biden this week, that they talk--used the word shameful and outrageous to refer to Wall Street practices. You know, and I'm hearing that that's much more they know that they're going to have to bail them out and they don't want to look like they're doing it because they want to, as opposed to a real shift of populism.

MR. GREGORY: All right, we are going to leave it there.