Last Call

Sleep well America, knowing that nothing can stop our superior zeppelin technology.

Sometimes it feels like I'm already living in the future. The U.S Army's Space and Missile Defense command plans to have an unmanned spy-ship capable of loitering at 20,000-feet (for up to three weeks) ready to deploy by mid-2011.

Dubbed the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), the craft will be based on Lockheed Martin's P-791 experimental hybrid airship, which you can see in the video below. The smaller P-791 was 125-foot long, but flew six tests in 2006. It's known as a hybrid because only 80% of its lift comes from buoyancy; the other 20% comes from three downward thrusters on each side.

As for the LEMV: a 40-foot long, 15-foot wide area behind the only sometimes-manned cockpit will carry intelligence systems, like radar and wide-area motion sensors, that will beam information back to commanders on the ground.

Pew pew, indeed.  (Gizmodo, via Rumproast)

Welcome To The Big Time, Bob

Virginia's Governor-Elect, Bob McDonnell, is about to learn the difference between being a Republican candidate and being a Republican in office.  Case in point, his first major controversy:  Virginia Muslims are calling on the new Governor to disavow Pat Robertson's virulent remarks on Muslims after the Fort Hood shooting, especially in light of Robertson giving $25,000 to McDonnell's campaign last month.

During the campaign, McDonnell played down his ties to Robertson, whom he has known since he attended the law school Robertson founded in the late 1980s. McDonnell tried during the race to convince Virginians that he was a social conservative who could speak more broadly to issues that cross party lines.

But Robertson's comments last week suggest he might prove to be a continuing political liability for McDonnell as he seeks to turn his bipartisan campaign promises into a governing coalition. Now assembling his administration before his Jan. 16 inauguration, McDonnell is under close scrutiny from Democrats and others to see how he balances his allegiances to the social conservatives who helped elect him with his pledges to spend most of his time in office focused on jobs and the economy.

"McDonnell has tried to suggest he should be judged on his own actions and not on Robertson's comments," said Virginia political analyst Robert D. Holsworth. "But the fact of the matter is he does have a major contributor who has made these comments. My guess is that he will not be able to simply say 'no comment,' himself, forever."

You lie down with dogs and you end up with fleas.  Bob McDonnell is now Governor-Elect of all Virginians, not just the ones his campaign donors approve of.
Welcome to the Hoffman Effect, Bobby.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

To reiterate the Wingnut position on trying terrorists in NYC:

equals

That is all.

Lobbyists Drafting History

From the "Is anyone possibly still surprised by this?" department comes today's NYT story on over 40 House members, Republicans and Democrats alike, who basically had the same section of their health care speeches written for them by pharmaceutical giant Genentech -- in some cases verbatim.

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.

In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.” He said he got his statement from his staff and “did not know where they got the information from.”

Members of Congress submit statements for publication in the Congressional Record all the time, often with a decorous request to “revise and extend my remarks.” It is unusual for so many revisions and extensions to match up word for word. It is even more unusual to find clear evidence that the statements originated with lobbyists.

The e-mail messages and their attached documents indicate that the statements were based on information supplied by Genentech employees to one of its lobbyists, Matthew L. Berzok, a lawyer at Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli & Berzok who is identified as the “author” of the documents. The statements were disseminated by lobbyists at a big law firm, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.

In an e-mail message to fellow lobbyists on Nov. 5, two days before the House vote, Todd M. Weiss, senior managing director of Sonnenschein, said, “We are trying to secure as many House R’s and D’s to offer this/these statements for the record as humanly possible.”

He told the lobbyists to “conduct aggressive outreach to your contacts on the Hill to see if their bosses would offer the attached statements (or an edited version) for the record.”

In recent years, Genentech’s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members, including some who filed statements in the Congressional Record. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers.

But Evan L. Morris, head of Genentech’s Washington office, said, “There was no connection between the contributions and the statements.”

Yeah, and if you believe there's "no connection" between Genentech telling congressional staffers exactly what House members should put in their official statements on legislation and the money they get in contributions from lobbyists like Genentech, you've even dumber than Congress thinks you are.

Keep in mind that while Obama's domestic agenda, including health care reform, is nice and all, remember that no matter which party is in power, the people in charge are lobbyists and always will be.

Losing It

This is the week where the Wingers have gone careening over the cliff.

Faced with a quintuple rejection of their Bushian ideologies on heath care, immigration, terrorism, Afghanistan, and Doug Hoffman's loss over the last two weeks, the screeching and sheiking from the right has risen to such fever-bright heights that they've simply stopped even pretending to have any other ideas now other than "oppose everything Obama does until we can be rid of him."

Obama Derangement Syndrome is now the new default for the right.  Bill Kristol:

What is the loyal opposition to do?

Oppose Obama's destructive proposals (health care, cap and trade) and try to defeat them. Expose the foolishness of Obama's ineffective policies (the stimulus, cash for clunkers) and show the American people their failure. And try to influence Obama's policy choices by persuasion (Afghanistan), embarrassment (political correctness in the fight against jihadists), or legislation (Guantánamo), so as to minimize the damage done to the country on his watch.

In all of this, Republicans and conservatives can succeed, especially if they keep two rules in mind: Don't celebrate bad news. Don't root for the bad guys.

Jennifer Rubin:

And so what should conservatives be doing? Well now it’s obvious — oppose, obstruct, warn, and cajole. There aren’t many weapons at conservatives’ disposal, but there are some. And the greatest is to be found in the reservoir of common sense and decency of the America people, who, when stirred, have risen up to oppose pernicious legislation and those whom they mistakenly trusted to behave in a responsible fashion. As Kristol points out, three years is a long time, but the congressional elections are approaching and the argument has begun. And now conservatives know precisely what must be done: as best they are able, slow and stop Obamaism until reinforcements arrive and the voters can render their verdict.

Even the limited voices of "conservative intellectualism" have admitted there's nothing left for them to do but attack Obama on everything they can, every time, and hope they can swing voters over.
I'm even less worried about 2010 than I was before.

Last Call

It used to be that attacking the President required a substantial argument.  Nowadays you can just sit back, relax, and lay into Obama for an entire day for bowing to Japan's Emporer Akihito.

They don't even bother with coming up with real complaints anymore.  They produce outrage artificially, like inserting DNA plasmids into microbes so they can eat waste and excrete indignation.

Glenn Beck Concern Trolls Black America

Dave Neiwert has today's must read, and it's all about Glennsanity playing dumb while asking black conservatives about race.

And it let Beck lead exchanges like this, with Beck regular Charles Payne and talk-show host Lisa Fritsch:

Beck: How many people here identify themselves as African Americans? (About a third raise their hands) OK -- Why?

Payne: It's interchangeable.

Beck: But wait, wait. Why not identify yourself as Americans?

Fritsch: Well, people can look at you and tell you're black. You can't escape that.

Beck: Yeah, but I don't identify myself as white, or a white American.

Will Brown of the New York Republican Community Coalition points out, adroitly, that "African American" is an "evolution" from the "N word" -- and certainly is preferable. Moreover, it wasn't black people who invented the "N word" or the segregation from enjoying the full fruits of American citizenship it represented -- it was white people. "African American" represents the recognition of their dignity and their rights as Americans.

Oh Beck understands that point exactly, which is why he brought it up.  His implication is the same as it was months ago when he accused the President of it:  only racists identify themselves by racial identity, ergo African Americans, who identify themselves by race, are by definition racist.  In a very real sense, Beck is implying that being proud of being black (and that of course brings up the ghosts of Malcolm X, Huey Newton, "uppity" and the entire closet full of bad connotations) is racism in 2009.  "Aren't you over that by now?  We're looking at two generations raised outside Jim Crow at this point, so how are you possibly still harping on this?"

You have only to look at the 2008 campaign to see that racism against African Americans is not dead and gone.  Hell, it's still here today, now, here.

(More after the jump...)

The Kroog Versus Plan C

At this point, Paul Krugman argues, the best we can hope for out of the Obama administration is that they don't cave to the GOP on Plan C.

The first-best answer — that is, the answer that economic models, like my old Japan’s trap analysis, suggest would be optimal — would be to credibly commit to higher inflation, so as to reduce real interest rates.

But the key thing to recognize about this answer is that it’s all about expectations — the central bank only has traction over expected inflation to the extent that it can convince people that it will deliver that inflation after the liquidity trap is over. So to make this policy work you have to (i) convince current policymakers that it’s the right answer (ii) Make that argument persuasive enough that it will guide the actions of future policymakers (iii) Convince investors, consumers, and firms that you have in fact achieved (i) and (ii).

In reality, we haven’t even gotten anywhere near (i): the conventional wisdom is still that any rise in expected inflation above 2 percent is a bad thing, when it’s actually good.

And the reason why that's good is because of the massive, massive loss in real estate prices in both residential and commercial sectors amounts to deflation.  We've lost trillions nationally because the first the housing market collapsed, and now the CRE market is following.  That value is literally vanishing into thin air, it's leaving the economy, period.  Combine that with the fact that rates have been kept artificially low for most of the last decade, and wages have been stagnant, and you have a classic liquidity trap.
(More after the jump...)

Another Headscratcher From Newsweek

Newsweek's Jon Meecham freely admits that we've seen the Hoffman Effect before, 45 years ago when Barry Goldwater's reactionary conservatism broke the country in two.

As Evan Thomas argues in this week's cover, the Reagan style was one that might not have passed muster with Palin's adoring fans. Reagan realized that movement conservatives like him needed moderate conservatives to win and ultimately to govern. In 1976, in his challenge to President Ford, Reagan announced that he would run with Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker, a Rockefeller Republican. It never came to that, but four years later, in Detroit, Reagan seriously considered only two men for the ticket: Ford and George H.W. Bush, both men from the middle, not the far right, of the Republican Party. It is difficult to imagine the 2012 nominee choosing a more moderate running mate, not least because there are so few moderates left in the GOP. Even those of centrist inclinations are finding it virtually impossible to work with the administration for fear of a backlash from the base.

So who does Meecham blame for the current problem?
Why, Obama and the Democrats, of course.  The very next paragraph:

We have been to this movie before, when the unreconstructed liberals of the fading New Deal–Great Society coalition obstinately refused to acknowledge the reality that America is a center-right nation, and that Democrats who wish to win national elections cannot run on the left. We are at our best as a country when there is something approaching a moderate space in politics. The middle way is not always the right way—far from it. But sometimes it is, and a wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?

It's not 1964 that Meecham is channeling here, but 1995, where a chastened Bill Clinton turned to running as a conservative Democrat, and got impeached for his troubles, his policies to appease the "center-right" setting the table for both the dot-com bust and the meltdown that followed eight years later.
It's the Democrats who have to change in Meecham's view, who have to swing hard to the right to try to capture the disaffected Republicans in the middle in order to save the country.

Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers are allowed to do whatever they want, in fact Meecham seems they are inevitable.  The Democrats have to change, you see.  Never the GOP.

And there's your Village for you.

[UPDATE 5:57 PM]  Scott "Obama Derangement Index" Rasmussen and Doug "Clinton's Pollster" Schoen have some friendly advice for the President:  Obama should triangulate now, throw away his domestic agenda, and just be a Republican.  That will win him the election for sure!

The Terror Of Being Terrified

The Double G calls out the spineless wimps on the right who are too afraid to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad to trial.

This is literally true:  the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists."  It's the same fear they've been spewing for years.  As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers.  Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice.  Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings.  The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London.  Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali.  India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents.  In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials.  As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are.   Then again, this is the same political movement whose "leaders" -- people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts -- cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive:  the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded.  Given that, it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world.  It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

Amen to that.  Democracy, freedom and especially justice are only permissible to the right as long as it doesn't inconvenience them, and frankly anyone telling you that America isn't capable of putting these murderers on trial in NYC is a pathetic coward.

[UPDATE 12:36 PM] The fearmongering never ends with Republicans.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today that it is highly likely that terrorists will attack New York City as a consequence of the Obama administration's decision to send five alleged Sept. 11 plotters there for trial in federal court.

Yes, because Lex Luthor and Magneto will break him out, and go on to recruit Doctor Doom and Darkseid!
HIDE UNDER YOUR BEDS, NEW YORKERS!

The Great War

Sister Sarah's new book has become the battle standard for both sides in the GOP civil war that continues to rage on. Palin's supporters say the book reveals how uncommitted and ideologically weak the McCain campaign was when they wouldn't do what was necessary to win, and the McCain camp says the book is full of vicious lies that only ended up splitting the ticket down the home stretch.

The battle over the book itself is only a microcosm of the much larger battle over the direction of the GOP.  Moderates say the lesson of Election Day 2009 is that GOP moderates can win in blue states against embattled Dem incumbents, and that Teabaggers can't even win in red districts like NY-23.  Teabaggers on the other hand say that purging the party of RINOs is the only way to take the country back, even if it means short-term losses, and some are even considering a Ross Perot-style third party movement.

This has been brewing for quite some time now, and it seems Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, has opened the floodgates as Ann Althouse rips her book apart and in turn faces the Angry Teabagging Horde for her heresy.

(More after the jump...)

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Suspected Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been named to Forbes' Magazine's list of most powerful people in the world.
• Convicted former Democratic Congressman William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson has been sentenced to 13 years for taking bribes.
• The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is just the latest local government entity suing Goldman Sachs and a number of other financial firms for losses.
• The Fed is kicking around the idea of being "lender of last resort" to prevent future bank bailouts.
• It's Switzerland versus Google Maps Street View as the Swiss are suing the tech giant over privacy concerns.
  

Last Call

Been a long, long day.  I leave you all tonight with two quotes.  First:

“Back in 1775, they burned images of the then-governor and sent him packing back to Great Britain and they were seen as patriots. The Tea Party movement will be seen as patriots and heroes, like the civil right movement or women’s suffrage.”

--Danville (Va.) Tea Party chairman Nigel Coleman, on his plans to see Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perillo burned in effigy this weekend.

And second:

"History is written by the winners."

--1984 and Animal Farm author George Orwell, in an essay dated February 4, 1944.

Have a good night.

Try And Try Again

Hizzoner the Mayor, NYC's Mike Bloomberg, has this obnoxious centrist streak that means he's rational about 50% of the time.  Luckily, when it comes to trying 9/11 terrorists in the Big Apple just blocks from Ground Zero, he's all for it as Greg Sargent points out.

New York’s City Hall sends over Bloomberg’s statement, which puts him at odds with multiple Republican critics of the Obama administration’s decision:

“I support the Obama Administration’s decision to prosecute 9/11 terrorists here in New York. It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered. We have hosted terrorism trials before, including the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
“When I spoke to Attorney General Holder earlier today, I told him New York City stands ready to assist the federal court in the administration of justice in any way necessary. I have great confidence that the NYPD, with federal authorities, will handle security expertly. The NYPD is the best police department in the world and it has experience dealing with high-profile terrorism suspects and any logistical issues that may come up during the trials.”

Bloomberg, obviously, has to support the decision since it has already been made and he would be expected to declare confidence in the cops’ ability to maintain security. But it’s interesting that Bloomberg seems determined to give Obama cover on the substance and symbolism of the decision, going out of his way to declare it “fitting” as an act of justice on behalf of the murdered.

Not odd at all if you know anything about NYC politics and Mike Bloomberg.  The more chances he can get on TV and say "We're bringing the guys responsible for 9/11 to justice right here!" the better he looks to the folks who almost threw his ass out of City Hall earlier this month.  NYC is a blue town, and Mikey here came razor close to losing his job to a guy who shoudn't have had a chance.  He needs to convince the people he's on their side, and in NYC, that means backing Obama and Eric Holder on this decision 100%.

No surprise to me at all.

Friday The 13th

And you thought the Wingers had blown today's wad on trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, and just when they thought today couldn't get any worse...JANET NAPOLITANO WITH A CHAINSAW!

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

Boy this has been a really bad day to be a Wingnut, huh?