Last Call

Fresh off his mind-shattering stupidity where he believes government jobs are in fact a sort of mass delusion and the people who earn money at them are in fact getting weird scraps of colored paper, RNC chair Mike Steele doubles down on his cluelessness on This Week with Snuffy.

However, newly-elected Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele believes that government-funded jobs don't count as real employment because "a job is something that a business owner creates."

"What this administration is talking about is 'making work.' ... It's not a job," Steele explained during a Sunday appearance on ABC's This Week. "It ends at a certain point. ... These road projects that we're talking about have an endpoint. ... There's no guarantee that there's going to be more work when you're done that job."

ABC host George Stephanopoulos objected, "We've seen millions and millions of jobs going away in the private sector, just in the last year."

"They come back though," Steele insisted. "That's the point. They've gone away before and they've come back. And the point is, the small business owners take the risks. They're the ones that are out there in the morning putting the second mortgage on the house ... so that they can employ your kids."

Describing the present once-in-a-generation economic crisis as merely "the downside" of a recent period of economic expansion, Steele told Stephanopoulos that all we really need is "tax credits and relief for small-business owners, incentives for people to get back into the credit markets, to deal with the mark-to-market rules that have stymied the banks and deal with the housing crisis."

This guy is the presumptive leader of the party (although the real leaders are El Rushbo, Malkinvania, and the rest of the Wingnut blowhards) and he's embarassingly stupid.

No Mike, the jobs you're talking about "coming back" aren't coming back. They're good middle class jobs being replaced by minimum wage fast-food and service jobs. Most of them are retail positions...and retail has been gutted by this recession. These jobs are going overseas and they're not coming back at all.

But government jobs don't count to Republicans. Government workers are mostly unionized, meaning they are a clear and present danger to Republicans who want us all to be "right-to-work" McDrones, able to be fired at a moment's notice with no benefits or recompense. The idea of collective bargaining, tenure, or a fair wage is poison to the Republican efforts to strip the people of all they have to enrich those at the top of the mountain.

These private sector jobs aren't coming back. They're already minimum wage poverty jobs that trap millions of Americans in a cycle of suffering. With those jobs vanishing at the rate of tens of thousands per day, what pray tell will replace them? Unless the government steps in, they will be replaced by nothing.

But that's what the GOP wants: millions of angry unemployed Americans who the GOP can stir up into a lynch mob to demand more of the same self-inflicted wounds that America has brought upon itself during the Bush years. They want a failed, crumbling economy. They want an angry, misinformed populace. They want a compliant, subservient media.

It makes it so much easier to finish what the neo-cons started under Bush.

Things Come Around

I've been saying it for weeks now, Josh Marshall came to the same conclusion a few days ago, and today Digby has joined the chorus:

Obama's going to be coming to the congress for God knows how many more gazillions in bailouts for the financial system. There are two wars that continue to burn vast amounts of money, not to mention the US global military empire in general. There is the massive federal police state apparatus that has been built up over the past seven years that has to be funded or the terrorists will kill us in our beds. All of these things are sacred and will be funded no matter what, although the Republicans may put up some kind of a token fight against the finacial system bailout and the Democrats may put up a token resistence to military spending. (Sadly, nobody will raise a question about the police state funding.)

Those are things that are considered absolutely necessary and vital government expenditures that can't even be touched, particularly by a Democratic majority, and the Republicans will use them as examples of their responsible leadership. They will say they just have to draw the line at "pork" and "entitlements," which the country just can't afford, what with all the unemployment and all.

They have shown their cards -- they are cynically banking on the economy failing to get themselves back into power. And they have the media (and possibly even the administration) helping them.

And so another intelligent voice hits upon the only logical conclusion to support the GOP's actions, actions that border on what then? Evil? Treason? Who knows. Who knows how many millions will suffer because the GOP is willing to stop any effort to rehabilitate the economy?

It starts with the sabotage of Obama. But it could end with calling the GOP out on being willing to wreck the economy for political gain.

A Way Out For Obama

Not everyone in Washington and the press corp is drinking the GOP Kool-Aid. Frank Rich gives Obama a smart strategy to fight the GOP with a truly populist approach.

The new president who vowed to change Washington’s culture will have to fight much harder to keep from being co-opted by it instead. There are simply too many major players in the Obama team who are either alumni of the financial bubble’s insiders’ club or of the somnambulant governmental establishment that presided over the catastrophe.

This includes Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary. Washington hands repeatedly observe how “lucky” Geithner was to be the first cabinet nominee with an I.R.S. problem, not the second, and therefore get confirmed by Congress while the getting was good. Whether or not this is “lucky” for him, it is hardly lucky for Obama. Geithner should have left ahead of Daschle.

Now more than ever, the president must inspire confidence and stave off panic. As Friday’s new unemployment figures showed, the economy kept plummeting while Congress postured. Though Obama is a genius at building public support, he is not Jesus and he can’t do it all alone. On Monday, it’s Geithner who will unveil the thorniest piece of the economic recovery plan to date — phase two of a bank rescue. The public face of this inevitably controversial package is now best known as the guy who escaped the tax reckoning that brought Daschle down.

Even before the revelation of his tax delinquency, the new Treasury secretary was a dubious choice to make this pitch. Geithner was present at the creation of the first, ineffectual and opaque bank bailout — TARP, today the most radioactive acronym in American politics. Now the double standard that allowed him to wriggle out of his tax mess is a metaphor for the double standard of the policy he must sell: Most “ordinary Americans” still don’t understand why banks got billions while nothing was done (and still isn’t being done) to bail out those who lost their homes, jobs and retirement savings.

In other words...Obama's going to have to throw Geithner under the bus, scrap "bad bank" and come up with a real plan to save the banks after selling it as a populist move.

It's risky. But it's clear that Geithner cannot be part of the solution to the economy, for he is too intricately linked to the problem itself. As Rich finishes:

The neo-Hoover Republicans in Congress, who think government can put Americans back to work with corporate tax cuts but without any “spending,” are tone deaf to this rage. Obama is not. It’s a good thing he’s getting out of Washington this week to barnstorm the country about the crisis at hand. Once back home, he’s got to make certain that the insiders in his own White House know who’s the boss.

And the neo-Hoover Republicans are going to bury Obama unless he takes it to the people. Luckily, he's back in campaign mode, and there's still time for the Obama that pitched his way to the Presidency to save the country.

...If he's willing to make the hard choices, that is.

Full Court Press

The Dems are getting crushed. Sunday talk shows had John McCain just unable to bring himself to vote for the stimulus bill because" it's bigger than the New Deal" or something, John Cornyn unable to suport it because "Nancy Pelosi wrote it" and SC Gov. Mark Sanford accusing the plan of being something a "dictator would come up with."

Republicans can lie all they want to, and nobody calls them on it. Until Democrats do (and this is a small start) and do it every time, all the time, they will lose.

That doesn't stop the fact the stimulus as it is looks to be maybe half what it needs to be.

Your Liberal Media In Action

The latest complaint out of your liberal media? Obama's prime time press conference on Monday, a speech on President's Day on the stimulus, and an address to the joint chambers of Congress on Feb. 24th, is going to "cost the networks millions" in prime-time ad revenue.

"His economic stimulus package apparently does not extend to the TV networks," one network exec noted.

Obama's reps have alerted broadcasters that the president will hold a news conference Monday, according to network execs. It's expected to eat up the first hour of prime time; that alone could cost broadcasters more than $9 million in lost ad revenue.

Imagine if the media had complained about lost ad revenue during any Bush speech at any point. You would have wingnuts screaming that the media was corrupt, anti-Bush, and should have all federal funding pulled.

But it's okay to attack Obama and complain about how he's monopolizing TV before he's even made a single prime-time appearance as President.

And does anyone lift a finger? No.

The deck is so stacked against Obama it's pathetic. I honestly believe we'll see at least one major network refuse to cover his appearances. And the wingnuts will chuckle and say "Well gosh, the Liberal media hates him too, is it any wonder why this President has failed?"

[UPDATE] Digby has more on this, as well as a pretty good explanation of the future of America at the hands of the rabid conservative minority: you have to look no further than California's impending collapse.

California is in deep trouble. The state's bond rating is now the worst of all 50 states. They are furloughing workers. The place is coming apart at the seams.

And why? Because the anti-tax zealots have achieved their goal -- a government that is held hostage to conservatives whether in the minority or the majority ---conservatives who will ensure that the government can never function in a way that gives the citizens confidence that it can actually work.

It's useful to think a little bit about that as we see the federal government likewise rigged, and increasingly dysfunctional. Conservatives masquerading as centrists having veto power when the government needs to raise revenue or spend it on anything that might make government seem like a useful institution for anything other than war, prisons and (sometimes) police, is a recipe for chaos.

And I have said this time and time again: the contempt, the hatred, the notion that "Obama is not my President" didn't vanish on November 5. It stayed buried until January 21. It's now back among us in spades.

They want you to hate Barack Obama. They want you to forget conservatism and rampant free market greed caused this. They want you to think the Democrats are to blame. They know the collapse is coming. They are setting up the scapegoats ahead of time.

And when they get control again next time, they will never let go.

Bad Bank Bonanza, Part 2

Looks like Monday's announcement will indeed be a Bad Bank Bonanza for struggling financial institutions.

The new financial industry rescue plan, to be outlined in broad terms on Monday in a speech by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, will not require banks to increase their lending. That is despite criticism that institutions that already received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, either hoarded it or used the funds to acquire other banks.

The incentives to investors could be in the form of commitments to absorb some of the losses from any assets they purchase, should their values continue to decline. The goal is to relieve the banks of their worst assets so that private investors might then provide more capital.

Officials hope that that part of the plan is not labeled a "bad bank" administered by the government, although they expect that some might call it that.

No matter what it is called, the government would assume some of the risk of declining assets at the heart of the economic crisis. But by relying on a combination of private investors and government guarantees, the administration hopes to reduce its exposure to losses and avoid the problem of having to place a value on assets that the institutions have been unable to sell.

A central element of the plan would be a major expansion of a lending facility begun in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when it was headed by Geithner. The program, which was initially financed by $200 billion in Fed money and $20 billion in seed capital from the $700 billion bailout fund, lent money to investors to buy securities backed by student, auto and credit card loans, as well as loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

Obama administration officials say they have rejected nationalizing institutions by taking large ownership stakes. They also will not immediately seek additional money from Congress beyond the $350 billion left in the TARP fund.

So, to recap:

1. Banks don't actually have to increase lending, (but that point is now in dispute as of today)
2. The taxpayer will now absorb the risk of trillions of bad toxic derivatives,
3. Private investors will profit while the government assumes the debt and risk,
4. The government will dramatically expand loan guarantees to insolvent banks,
5. The government refuses to nationalize the banks in any way.

Other than possibly the first point and the scope, this plan is no different from the Bush TARP plan. It's TARP, only bigger. The Republicans will block it just like the stimulus bill, and when it does pass later on, it will still fail to work.

Months from now we'll be in the same situation. Obama will have to come back for more money later on in the spring. The GOP will laugh him out of the room, and deservedly so.

We're in trouble now. Deep trouble. Pretty soon we'll be past the point of no return.

[UPDATE] Geithner is postponing the Bad Bank announcement until Tuesday, as the Senate will vote on the stimulus plan Monday.

Bank Watch

Three more banks closed by the FDIC this week, now 9 banks gone this year, 33 since January 2008.

Three banks, two in California and one in Georgia, were seized by regulators, bringing this year’s tally of closings to nine as a recession and record foreclosures extend the biggest financial crisis in more than 70 years.

County Bank of Merced, California, with deposits of $1.3 billion and assets of $1.7 billion, was shut yesterday by the state’s Department of Financial Institutions, according to an e-mailed statement from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Westamerica Bancorporation, holding company for Westamerica Bank, acquired all the assets and deposits.

The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance closed McDonough-based FirstBank Financial Services Inc., which had $337 million in assets and $279 million in deposits as of Dec. 31, the FDIC said in a statement. The California Department of Financial Institutions shut Culver City-based Alliance Bank, with assets of $1.14 billion and $951 million in deposits.

The FDIC was named receiver of the institutions, which will resume business as branches of the acquiring banks. Regulators seized six banks in January, the largest monthly toll since 1993, including Salt Lake City-based MagnetBank, which the FDIC closed Jan. 30 after being unable to find a buyer. The FDIC shuttered 25 banks last year, matching the total for 2001 through 2007.

The FDIC, other U.S. bank regulators and Congress are taking steps to help banks avoid losses as the administration of President Barack Obama readies a stimulus package that may include guarantees for toxic assets, according to people familiar with the plan.

Three last week, too. Pretty soon this is going to start adding up, folks. When that adding up gets to "more than the FDIC has in its fund for covering bank failures", Obama's going to have to address it.

The Thunder Rolls

I don't know how many times I have to say it, but I'll say it again: The GOP must destroy America's economy by any means necessary in order to regain political power. How quickly America has forgotten that when Democrats raised the idea of a stimulus plan eight months ago, the GOP laughed and said our economy was fine. They killed it in the House. Bush immediately threatened a veto saying there was no need for it because our economy was the strongest it had ever been.

But now, these same Republicans are the ones taken seriously by the Village, while the "clueless liberals" and "inexperienced President" fumble around while the "brave GOP insurgency" kicks into action blocking more stimulus. The Democrats have been rolled again, and this time it's going to cost millions and millions of us our jobs, our health insurance, our livelihoods, our way of life, many of our freedoms and eventually our country.

It starts by assuring the stimulus package fails, it continues with the shifting of blame to Obama, it ends with the Village writing the narrative. The GOP control of the Village got us into two wars, it got us into this mess in the first place, and soon it will get us into a full-blown economic depression.

Then the fun really begins. Then the real long knives will come out for Obama and the Democrats. The Village and the hatemongers on the right will see to that. They will come for Obama with blood in their eye, folks. You thought they did a number on The Hick From Hope, Arkansas? You thought they did a number on The Jawja Peanut Farmah? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Well, some of you have. Back in November, 1963 in Dallas. Back in April, 1968 in Memphis. Back in June, 1968 in Los Angeles.

The storm is coming, folks. America is going to be a much different country in just a few short years. I've been talking about worst case scenarios now for over a year both at the Frog Pond and now at my own place, and I just do not see this game of chess playing out in a way where the good guys win.

In fact, I see chess pieces on both sides of the battle turning on the Black King. "Shat mat", the Persians said when they won this game they invented thousands of years ago..."The King is dead."

We get the term "checkmate" from that phrase.

Checkmate is all but upon us now. Mate in 6 moves? Mate in 8? Mate in 2?

In the end, you still lose.

Kroog On Centrists

Another cheerful bit of analysis from the Kroog.

My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years.

The real question now is whether Obama will be able to come back for more once it’s clear that the plan is way inadequate. My guess is no. This is really,really bad.

Hahaha, back for more? By the time it's clear we need more spending, the GOP already will have pinned the Pelosi/Obama/Reid Recession Depression squarely on this bill for having spent government money in the first place. That is the plan all along, to assure whatever passes is far too weak to slow our descent and then scream bloody murder at the Democrats for wanting to spend more when it becomes painfully clear this weak-ass bill isn't nearly enough.

Still Unable To Comprehend The Problem

Arizona Republican Jon Kyl on the stimulus bill:

"If you knew a bill in the U.S. Senate would cause a recession in 10 years, would you support it?" asked Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona. "That's what the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan office that supports our efforts in the Congress, says about this legislation. ... There will be negative [gross domestic product] in this decade as a result of this legislation."

In which case I have a couple things to say to the Distiguished Asshole from Arizona.

1. Yes...the CBO report says we'll suffer negative point three percent growth in 2019. Worst case scenario if we fail to do anything about the debt in ten years. Also, the CBO report says the stimulus will in fact add millions of jobs.
   
2. We're already IN a recession NOW, you moron.
   
3. The last time we were in a recession, we tried your way: massive tax and interest rate cuts and got a housing collapse, a much worse recession, and a near collapse of the financial system in just five years, not ten.
4. You're a moron. Still.
   

Ergo, shut the hell up.

Picking Sides

The first real test of the Obama administration's new foreign policy comes as India's ruling party is demanding the international community declare Pakistan a terrorist state.

India's Congress Party on Saturday said the international community should consider declaring Pakistan a terrorist state in light of the latter's release of a scientist who sold nuclear secrets around the globe.

"It is time for the international community to think whether to declare Pakistan a terrorist country," Manish Tewari, the Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi, in reference to the end from house arrest of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

India's Congress Party rules in a coalition, and the call to the world community was from the party, not from the Indian government.

Khan, the man at the center of the world' most serious nuclear proliferation scandal, was released Friday after five years of house arrest.

This is a pretty ugly situation here. Obama cannot allow Pakistan to be labeled an international terrorist state, having been an ally of the US. At the same time, he cannot afford to alienate India's ruling party, either.

But, the Indian Congress Party has a valid point: Pakistan's A.Q. Khan is a both serious and proven nuclear proliferation threat, and with Pakistan turning him loose after Mumbai, the Indians have every right to be nervous. Pakistan is a major problem, and eventually Obama is going to have to pick a side: India or Pakistan.

Yes, this may be campaign rhetoric for the ruling party as elections in India are approaching. But, India's concerns are valid. We'll see how Hillary handles this one.

Let Slip The Wingnuts Of War

Meanwhile, today's news that the stimulus actually has some Republican votes in the Senate has thrown the Wingnuts into a frothing madness. They have decided to take down any Republican who dares vote for this.

Spector is done, and so is any other Republican that votes for this bill. We will mass opposition against any further run for office against any traitor to the party, who in spite of overwhelming constituency disgust, continue to side with socialist democrats.

I am calling on all true conservative bloggers to take a stand and help me ensure that these RINOS do not get reelected to office and to further help support true conservatives to take their place.

Yes, because the best thing possible to do about America hemorrhaging 500,000 jobs a month is oppose anything but tax cuts and blame the Democrat in the White House for the last 2.5 weeks eight years after he destroyed this country!



It's time to rise up against our Democrat oppressors! WOLVEREEEEEEEEEEENS!

The Already Failed Obama Presidency Continues

Newtie and Sam Donaldson are already explaining how President Obama Carter has been unable to lift America's malaise after two and a half weeks and has failed America.

"Reagan would never have allowed himself that level of partisanship and that kind of aggressiveness in that kind of setting," said Gingrich. "So you could either have a strategy that says, 'I'm going to go over and I'm going to be bipartisan and I'm going to prove it and here's how I'm going to it. In which he case he wouldn't have gone down last night. He would, in fact, have invited Pelosi and Boehner and he would have invited Reid and McConnell down to the White House to collectively hammer out the bipartisan compromise. That's one strategy. Or there's the strategy … that's perfectly reasonable, that says, 'I won, we won and we're running over you but we're going to deliver. … What he's doing now is Carter-ism because he's trying to live out both strategies and you gotta figure out which morning it is by which strategy he's using today. And what that will do is totally clutter who he is."

Panelist Sam Donaldson of ABC News agreed with some of Gingrich's critiques.

"He's making the mistake of not knowing how this town works,” said Donaldson. “He hasn't dealt with Congress well.”

“I think President Obama has not yet demonstrated the kind of leadership Reagan demonstrated time and time again with a smile, affability,” he added. “He hasn't found his sea legs yet and I don't know whether he will or not."

Obama's not Reagan, and being a former Senator he has no clue how Washington works. Very un-Presidential! And Michael Steele is hot on the trail, pointing out how after an interminable 18 days the power-mad Democrats have destroyed this country with their Spendulus Bill.

The Democrats have controlled the Congress and the White House for less than a month, the chairman of the Republican Party says, "and you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads...

""For the last two weeks, they've been trying to force a massive spending bill through Congress under the guise of economic relief,'' Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says in a Saturday address.

The address comes on a day in which the Senate is debating a compromise economic stimulus that negotiators from both parties have produced - but the Republicans don't appear too enamored with it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is saying today that the agreement looks more like $827 billion than the $780 billion that negotiators have represented. Add interest costs, he complains, and it's still $1 trillion.

The GOP is still promoting tax cuts as the solution.

"All of us - Republicans and Democrats - agree the government must act to kick-start the American economy. American families are doing their best to balance their own budgets and pay their mortgages,'' Steele says. ""The fastest way to help those families is by letting them keep more of the money they earn. Individual empowerment: that's how you stimulate the economy.''

The GOP is winning this game by leaps and bounds. Democrats will never get any respect unless they start demanding it...because in the eyes of the Village, they'll never earn it. Nobody in the Village is calling the GOP out on this idiotic behavior because the Village is part and parcel of it. They're the ones saying Obama hasn't shown any leadership yet and never will. Your liberal media is doing this.

How long before the word "impeachment" is uttered? Seriously? The Republicans will always run this country as long as the Democrats let the Village get away with it.

I'm Just A Bill

The stimulus bill will go to a Senate vote on Tuesday. If it passes, the real work begins: reconciling it with the House version for another set of votes as BooMan explains.

Congressional procedure is painfully opaque. It's difficult for me to determine Senate procedure on a conference committee report and that is making it hard for me to predict what is going to happen next on the stimulus bill. So, let me lay out what I know and also what I'm not sure about.

The House passed their stimulus bill a couple of weeks ago. It was a good bill and would have made a fine final product. It cost about $820 billion. The Senate has made numerous amendments to the House bill. Some of those amendments were good, like adding a lot of money for the National Institute of Health. Others were not so good, like stripping out a lot of education spending. In the end, however, the bills will both wind up costing around $820 billion. The big difference is that the Senate version includes $70 billion to address the Alternative Minimum Tax issue. So, the Senate version has roughly $70 billion more in tax cuts and roughly $70 billion less in direct stimulative spending. I think almost all economists would agree that the House version is better, but neither of them will become law.

What happens now is that the House and Senate will elect conferees who will meet together in a conference committee. They will work together to make one piece of legislation that both houses can support. And then those bills will go back to each house for a final vote.

So honestly, who knows. Obama wants this thing on his desk by the President's Day holiday a week from Monday, but the odds of that seem lower and lower daily to me. The GOP will want to stall this as long as possible before not voting for it, and quite possibly another round of negotiations may take place after the vote magically fails on Tuesday (with Harry Reid, you never know.)

Meanwhile, Americans have been losing their jobs at roughly the rate of 125,000 a week now for the last five months straight, so clearly we must take as much time as possible in order to make sure the stimulus has enough tax cuts.

Idiots.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition

• Vice President Joe Biden gives his first major speech in Munich on foreign policy.
• New RNC chair Michael Steele is facing a federal fraud probe.
• Rural Kentuckians are still struggling after last week's ice storm.
• The IMF says several world economies are already in a depression...including the US.
• Just 10 online registrars are responsible for 83% of the world's spam.