By Steve Clemons

Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to CNN, “bans short selling of financial stocks on U.S. markets to “strengthen investor confidence.

In February 2008, Senator Chuck Hagel wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, copied to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, warning that our policies with Kosovo, Serbia, and elsewhere in Europe could be brewing up a storm with Russia.

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV Today at 4 pm EST, join us for LIVE STREAMING here at The Washington Note. I will be chairing a session with retired four-star General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe Wesley Clark for a discussion on the national security and economic crises facing America.

Tonight, The Washington Note and the New America Foundation are hosting a film screening of “The Battle in Seattle” — a film about the famous anti-WTO protests. This film has an unusual cast, including Woody Harrelson and Charlize Theron among others.

In this interview with former New York Mayor Ed Koch, CNN anchor Carol Costello goes after Koch and the New York Times on the story that then Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin sought ways to possibly ban books at the local public library.

Is Tina Fey Sarah Palin? Or Sarah Palin Tina Fey? — Steve Clemons

I don’t have time or interest in spending time attacking the pugnacious, rude, and ingnorant Sean Hannity — but I do want to commend the American Prospect‘s Robert Kuttner for standing his ground and sticking to substance when Hannity was such a miserable host.

Heck, I stopped in Bucharest, Romania for refueling in the middle of the night. I was traveling with former Treasury Secretary and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, for Secretary of State Alexander Haig, United Technologies Chairman & CEO George David and others.

Thank you, Dan Froomkin. Froomkin writes at the Washington Post‘s “White House Watch” and also at Nieman Watchdog. Froomkin captured something I have been feeling but haven’t quite articulated in a post he sent me last night.

(Suffragist Susan B. Anthony) Despite the superficial celebration by some and criticism by others that George W. Bush says that he doesn’t read many of America’s leading papers, the 43rd President of the United States reads a great deal of quality work.