Congress Yells At Its Bank (China)

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   You know how when you're low on money and payday is stillforeverin the future and yet you've got to pay for food and gas and your apartment and your old parents and your occupation armies in Afghanistan and Iraq? Sometimes it just feels good to yell like a crazy person at your bank. Just walk on in there and start jabbering enraged nonsense at the branch manager: "This is an ugly and stupid bank and it sucks! Bet you don't even pay your employees enough! And what about those billion-dollar bonuses you give to the CEO and then you have the nerve to charge me $36 for one stinkin' bounced check? And then you don't clear that Verizon rebate check I put in the ATM like a year after they sent it, because it got lost, because it's supposedly not good? So money's not good now, American money? You're a freakin' dictator is what!" Well that is exactly what Republican and Democratic members of Congress will do today when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrives at the Capitol to take a look at his possession, America. The excitable Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) already called Hu a "dictator" on some hate-radio show, and damp douche pad Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) went on CNN to tell its seven viewers that China was a “gangster regime that murders their own people and should be treated in that way.” There was a State Dinner at the White House, too. [ New York Times / Washington Post / Guardian ]

• Gabrielle Giffords continues to amaze as she is now standing (with assistance) and will be transferred tomorrow to a rehabilitation hospital in Houston that's well known for its work with brain injuries. [ AZ Central ]

• Only 404,000 lucky ducks filed for new unemployment benefits last week! That's on the low end of what economists expected, so, hooray? Any other good news from the business desk? "Those who’ve used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments increased by about 29,000 to 4.68 million in the week ended Jan. 1." Uhh. Oh yeah, and Morgan Stanley's "wealth management services" division had HUGE growth and profits in the last quarter, it was announced this morning. Huge. A net income increase of $272 million, which is a 68% jump over the previous quarter. [ Bloomberg / Reuters ]