AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

FIASCO: A Year’s Worth Of Obama Health-Care Soundbites. The Thelma and Louise reference seems particularly prescient. . . .

HOPE: Hollywood Director: White Conservatives ‘More Terrifying’ Than ‘Any Jihadist’.

THE PROPAGANDA of omission.

ILLINOIS ENTERS a state of insolvency?

BERNANKE’S NOMINATION in trouble. “I’d now say it’s quite likely that his nomination will not make it through the Senate. They need someone to strike at to take voters minds off the health care bill and the debacle in Massachusetts. I think Ben Bernanke just got nominated to lean into the strike zone and take one for the team.”

It’s getting crowded under that bus. Meanwhile, I wonder if rumors of Bernanke’s trouble have been helping to drive the markets down. Probably not as much as the bad news on housing and unemployment, and the idiotic bank-bashing from the White House.

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails: “Bernanke’s re-nomination issues have totally freaked out the markets, largely accounting for today’s selloff. A Senate shoot-down would be without precedent, and given all the other hand grenades lobbed toward the Street this week, this issue was clearly ‘the last straw.’ These clowns are playing with fire. Their cluelessness is frightening the pinstripe boys who thought they’d bought off area code 202.” They’re not honest politicians. They don’t stay bought.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes: “Apropos of your hedge fund trader’s comment: Would those advocating for a government takeover of 401K’s really mind a chaotic market?” Yes, they would, though they may not realize that yet. When the folks with pitchforks show up, though, they will . . . .

MORE: Regarding a 401k takeover, a reader emails:

In addition to being many folks’ core retirement nest egg, the various 401k-type accounts are an enormous source of income for Wall Street.

They’re a very reliable, stable source of fee income. Any Washington effort to force-convert them into ordinary govt IOUs would find the pinstripe boys personally financing the tar and pitchfork crowd.

It’s really shaping up to be a perfect storm, isn’t it?

MICHAEL WALSH: Christmas In January.

BARACK OBAMA: The anti-John Adams? ”Because, so far as President Present is concerned: this is a nation of men, not laws. He is, at his core, the anti-John Adams.”

DO TELL: A.P.: Obama’s Health Care Plan Lost Massachusetts For Dems.

JON STEWART VS KEITH OLBERMANN:

UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin writes: “One of Olbermann’s swipes at Brown was that he was a nude model. Since when do liberals have anything against nudity?” Yeah, I wondered about that, too.

ALAN BOYLE: Good Moves On Mars.

I DUNNO, IT SEEMS LIKE IT IS TO ME: “Revenge Isn’t An Economic Policy.”

UPDATE: Only 77% of Investors See Obama As Anti-Business.

JACOB SULLUM: Happy Guantanamo Closing Day!

In case you missed the nonevent, the military prison for suspected terrorists and other assorted “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, did not close today. It may be years before it does, assuming President Obama ultimately delivers on that promise. In any case, the policy of keeping people locked up indefinitely without trial will continue, supplemented by a policy of keeping them locked up even if they are tried and acquitted. The New York Times reports that “the Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees…because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release.” The task force said about 40 other detainees “should be prosecuted for terrorism or related war crimes,” but that does not mean they will be released if they are found not guilty.

Change! Kinda makes a mockery of all that fierce moral urgency stuff, though, doesn’t it? Rubes.

BARACK OBAMA, outpolled by . . . Mike Huckabee?

AND THAT’S WITHOUT TAKING POLITICIANS’ OUTPUT INTO ACCOUNT: Eastern US Could Get 20% Electricity From Wind In 2024.

NO WONDER HE WANTED THE CAMERAS OUT OF THE ROOM: America’s Mayors Grade The President.

MICHAEL BARONE: If Republicans run as strongly as Brown, only 103 House Dems are safe..

SCARY TIMES in Obama High. “I don’t think it’s accident that the Stock Market is tanking after a very short rally that coincided with the then coming victory of Scott Brown. The business world is scared – as is evidently our Secretary of the Treasury who has wandered about as far off the reservation as cabinet officers normally go, allowing the world to know his skepticism about Obama’s new reining in of the banks. (How long before Geithner goes under the bus now?)”

MARKDOWNS ON DVD and Blu-Ray.

ALFONZO RACHEL: Health Care Reform Will Not Be Televised. Channeling Gil Scott-Heron, and beautifully.

THE END OF FASHION TRENDS? “Rather than fuss about skirt lengths or the season’s silhouette, people now dress the way they see themselves, choosing looks that flatter their bodies and fit their lifestyles. Most of us dress with our social groups or professions, rather than fashion trends, using clothes to flash messages about who we are.”

THE DAY OBAMACARE DIED.

H.G. WELLS PANS METROPOLIS.

SOUS VIDE: Cooking with a $450 immersion circulator.

ANN ALTHOUSE: And you, President Obama, a law professor!