Last Call

Republicans are now trying to pretend that the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling will be minimal.  Today, the financial ratings agencies disabused them of that notion.  Brian Beutler:

Republicans are now openly flirting with the theory that allowing the United States to default briefly on its payment obligations won't be such a bad thing -- and may even be necessary to extract concessions on entitlement spending in exchange for raising the debt limit.

But two of the biggest ratings agencies say they could downgrade the United States' triple-A credit if the government misses even a single debt-service payment. 

"A sovereign's failure to service its debt as payments come due is a default according to S&P's sovereign rating criteria," writes John Piecuch, spokesman for Standard & Poors, one of the "Big Three" credit ratings agencies, in an email to me. "In that case, the rating would be lowered to "SD" (Selective Default)."

A U.S. analyst for Moody's -- another Big Three ratings agency -- was not available for an interview. But a spokesman referred me to a February report in which they downplay the likelihood that they'll have to reduce the country's credit rating. But it could happen as the result of a major political failure. 

And let's get this straight, folks:  once we lose AAA, we'll never, ever get it back.  But that's fine with Republicans, who seem to now be suggesting that our only choices are a selective default that harms 90% of America, or trillions in spending cuts that will harm 90% of America.

Nice guys, those Republicans.  Again, given the last three decades, what financial and economic credibility do they have?

Nancy Pelosi Gets It

Dear Democrats up for re-election in 2012:  if you want to win, get your head out of your ass and listen, really listen, to Nancy Pelosi for once.  Greg Sargent:

“It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare.”

That’s from Nancy Pelosi, who called me from Wisconsin, where she’s holding events today defending Medicare in Paul Ryan’s back yard. On the call, Pelosi laid out a message on Medicare she hopes Dems will use for — well, forever.

Pelosi recently came under fire from Republicans — and even some liberals — when she recently indicated that Medicare should be “on the table” for deficit reduction. Republicans claimed she now agreed with them; some liberals wondered whether even Pelosi — whose sharp line on Social Security enabled Dems to beat back George W Bush’s privatization scheme — is preparing to cave.

Asked to clarify what she meant, and to detail what sort of changes she’d be open to, Pelosi insisted that any claims she could support cuts in the program are wrong. “No benefits cuts,” she said flatly. Pelosi added that Dems have already put on the table the type of reform they should continue advocating for: The Affordable Care Act.

Really is that simple, guys.  If you defend Medicare for millions of Americans while pointing out that Republicans want to scrap the program, give people coupons, and give the balance of the difference to the wealthiest Americans, you will win.  If you do not, well...

Saying you want to protect Medicare from Republicans who want to destroy the program is not some crazy liberal fringe position, folks.  It's what the American people expect you to do.  I suggest you start doing it.

Exploring The Heart Of Darkness

David Corn's piece in Mother Jones today on the GOP 2012 field attacking President Obama for being the "other", the ultimate dangerous alien outsider, demonized at every turn as an America-destroying catalyst of evil, is one of the most important things you'll read this month, possibly this year.  Corn calls this "Otherism" and he's spot on in his analysis.

Anti-Obama otherists have wrapped themselves in the flag of American exceptionalism, contending that Obama is different because he doesn't believe that the United States is special and superior to other nations. Last summer, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who at the time was mulling a bid for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, told Politico that Obama's "worldview is dramatically different than any president, Republican or Democrat, we've had… He grew up more as a globalist than an American. To deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation." (In March, Huckabee, à la Gingrich, claimed, wrongly, that Obama had grown up in Kenya and had thus absorbed an anti-colonialist sentiment that prompted him to have a "very different view" of the British than "the average American.") In November, former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, another 2012 wannabe, told College Republicans at American University, "America is exceptional, and Americans are concerned that there are a group of people in Washington who don't believe that any more."

This is exactly why I've been saying Birtherism is pure and simple dog-whistle racism.  Corn's "Otherism" is just the next stage in evolution of this concept, what the polite circles of the GOP use to describe Obama as "fundamentally not like the rest of us." And yet, it's far more than that. Otherism has been used against Democrats for decades now, against Clinton (he's not like us, he's poor trash from the Ozarks), Gore (he's not like us, he's an elitist hippie tree hugger), Kerry (he's not like us, he's a rich snob who played at being a war hero) and of course these days, against Obama.  Republicans have always pulled crap like this because it works.

But with Obama, the element of race gives it a whole new dimension.

The key audience for otherists, though, is not the general public. Obama, according to the polls, remains popular, even when voters disapprove of his policies or his handling of key matters. But many tea partiers and other conservatives do view Obama as an interloper and harbor deep fears about him and his agenda. GOP presidential contenders and party leaders need to appeal to these sentiments, and some, no doubt, seek to exploit them. Otherism offers a way to do so.

Unlike birtherism, otherism remains quite useful to the Republicans. Not even the adults of the party can resist its ugly temptations.

When you combine otherism with racism, the result is the frenetic, dangerous cottage industry we see today springing up and playing on the fear that our nation's first African-American president may be our nation's last president period.  Racism as fear has had a long and ugly political history in this country, but rarely has the disease been this acute.

This is the new Obama Derangement Syndrome...same as it ever was, if you think about it.

Dave's Not Here, Man

The esteemed Joe Sonka has an excellent rundown of Tuesday's KY GOP primary non-event as rabid Tea Party voters cast their ballots to pick an opponent for Gov. Dinosaur Steve Beshear.

What was supposed to be an impressive coronation for David Williams as the GOP gubernatorial nominee on Tuesday night turned into something... well, less than impressive.

Leading up to the election, folks either dismissively mocked the Persons of Tea as a tiny fringe of the Republican Party that had faded since Rand Paul's 2010 primary victory, or assumed that David Williams was rabidly right-wing enough to win their support over Johnny-come-lately Phil Moffett. Either way, most assumed that Williams would breeze to a landslide victory over Moffett in a race that would be called soon after the polls in the central time zone closed.

That did not happen, as Lexington and Louisville returns started showing Williams taking a beating, registering less than 35% in both. Moffett won almost the entire golden triangle, hanging within 5 points of Williams statewide with 75% of returns in.

After the dust cleared, Williams managed to pull out a 10-point victory, registering only 48% of the vote. But what's least impressive about Williams' performance is the fact that only 68,528 out of 1,084,982 registered Republicans in Kentucky bothered to vote for him.

Yes, that is only 6%. No, that is not exactly intimidating, going into the general election.

And that's really saying something.  Winning a primary with just six percent of the total number of registered voters in a Republican primary in Kentucky is borderline narcolepsy.  I understand "Dems at the state level, Republicans at the national" is personified by the Bluegrass State, but this is downright sad.

Granted, as annoying as Dinosaur Steve is, I'll take him in a heartbeat over David Williams.  But you think Williams could at least muster some amount of excitement among Republicans here.  I don't think Dino Steve is in any real trouble here...at least not from the Republicans.

Now from a velociraptor attack...that's another story.

The Sperminator Chronicles

The media frenzy around Arnold Schwarzenegger and his newly announced son is amazing.  I'm surprised by the anger people are showing towards a man who has never had a reputation for honoring his wife.  Are we really surprised?

Here is a Christmas pic of Arnie and his mistress at Christmas. 

This article is an update of how Maria has appeared and kept her chin up, while dodging the press.  CNN fills in some gaps and without a snicker they deliver the quote that the maid retired "on good terms" after years of service.

Not to be outdone, TMZ actually dredged up a photo of Arnold and Mildred Baena dancing.  I never knew a still photo could prove the subject had no sense of rhythm.  I'm not taking a cheap shot, check out the picture.  He is the male counterpart to Elaine, the full body dry heave.

Harvey's got some sources.  TMZ has scooped everyone and delivered better information.  I think he has one more bombshell up his sleeve.

StupidiNews! Bad Day To Be Famous Edition

Zsa Zsa Gabor has fallen into a coma after emergency surgery to repair a stomach infection.  The 94-year-old icon has been in poor health for some time, but I so hate to see this.  I adore her for the strength and sass she radiated throughout her career.

Jeff Conaway is also in a coma.  The star, famous for playing the role of Kenickie in Grease, has fought drug addiction for years.  An overdose is suspected but nothing has been confirmed yet.  After multiple injuries, the star became addicted to pain pills and alcohol early in life.

Stephen Hawking has ticked off a few folks by saying there is no heaven.  One of the loudest to speak up has been Kirk Cameron.  In other news, Kirk Cameron and Stephen Hawking are having a debate.  I'm not sure who is more aggravating when it comes to the subject.

Nuked Gingrich, Part 3

The death spiral of the Gingrich campaign continues unabated, this time as Newtie becomes just about the only person in history to pick a fight with Meet The Press's David "Fluffy" Gregory and lose.

"There was no set-up," Gregory told the Huffington Post's Michael Calderone, adding that Newt "knew what he was doing" and "knows what he's doing now."

Sunday marked Gingrich's 35th appearance on Meet The Press, but he said in a conference call with conservative bloggers yesterday that he was unprepared for Gregory's questions on Paul Ryan's budget and Gingrich's support for an individual mandate.

"I didn't go in there quite hostile enough, because it didn't occur to me going in that you'd have a series of setups," Gingrich said. "This wasn't me randomly saying things. These were very deliberate efforts to pick fights."

According to Gregory, he isn't letting the presidential candidate's words get him down.

"I don't take what he's doing all that personally," Gregory said. "I understand that he must feel that he made a mistake in answering the way he did. He's got to do whatever he's got to do."

Yeah, I don't see Newt ending up on Fluffy's show anytime soon.  But next week's Paul Ryan segment should be boatloads of fun...

Win Ben Stein's Misogyny, Part 2

The other day Ben Stein asked:

Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?

Randall Munroe of xkcd fame takes up that offer.

On a whim, I just did a little research, and couldn’t believe what I found.  Guess who holds an economics degree?

Paul Bernardo.

For those not familiar with the case, Bernardo is one of the nastiest serial killers in history. He and his wife drugged, raped, and tortured to death a number of schoolgirls in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The story is the stuff of nightmares.

I’ll leave the debate over the rest of Mr. Stein’s article to others. But as for his suggestion that studying economics precludes becoming a violent sex criminal, it seems history provides one hell of a counterexample.

Remember when Ben Stein got fired from the NY Times for his hawking of the Freescore "credit watch" service?  Yeah, somehow 18 months later he's still employed at the "Gentlemen's World Net Daily" there at American Spectator, and if anything his writing has actually gotten worse.

Making Bucks From Birthers

Making fun of the Birthers at this point has become nearly a full-time job for guys like me.  Over at Esquire magazine, Mark Warren wrote a clever satirical piece on Jerome Corsi "scrapping" his birther book in the light of the President's long form birth certificate.   The Right Wing Noise Machine was of course furious and Corsi and World Net Daily are already threatening a titanic lawsuit.  The WSJ:

Esquire's defense, rather, would be that it published the parody believing in good faith no one could reasonably understand it as a true report. The speed with which it posted the disclaimer that it was satire--the equivalent of a correction to an actual false report--would be a strong piece of evidence in its favor.

As to "restraint of trade," that accusation presupposes that the Esquire parody was a guise for an anticompetitive conspiracy to harm WND's publishing business. A judge and jury--unlike WND and its readers--would reject such a theory unless there was evidence to support it.

But WND doesn't need a lawsuit, for it has already won. "The book is selling briskly," WND quotes Farah as saying, and the free publicity from Esquire surely isn't hurting. Esquire's journalistic reputation has been tarnished, too--to the point where we'd be hard-pressed to say it's any more lustrous than WND's. Writing good satire isn't as easy as it looks.

On the other hand, the Obama 2012 campaign is having as much fun with this as humanly possible.

President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign today started selling “Made in the USA” t-shirts featuring images of both President Obama and the long-form birth certificate he released copies of last month.

“Wear your support for this campaign with an official Made in the USA T-shirt,” his website advertises. Donate $25 or more today and we'll send you your limited-edition shirt.

Coffee-mugs are also available.
 
“Remember ‘fight the smears’ from the 2008 campaign?” asked campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. “This is the mobile version of it.”

Naturally the Birthers are even more infuriated by this.  They figure the President is being petty and obsessive, and coming from these morons (and yes, anyone who believes Obama was born in Kenya, I've got some nice beachfront property in Utah for you) that's just hysterical.

Might as well make some campaign cash off of making fun of these fools, yes?

StupidiNews!

• President Obama will give a major policy speech on the Middle East today outlining where America goes from here in a post-Osama world.
• Rep. Gabby Giffords is recovering from cranial surgery and doctors say she is continuing to improve rapidly.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unveiling a new, simplified mortgage disclosure form that may be a new national standard by next year.
• Embattled IMF head Dominique-Strauss Kahn has resigned from the organization, setting off the international battle for his succession.
• Google chairman Eric Schmidt says blocking addresses to fight piracy makes the US "more like China".

Last Call

I think this ad may get some attention.



Think the House Republicans who voted for the GOP plan to kill Medicare and replace it with coupons are scared yet of the voters in 2012?  They should be.

Twenty-eight percent of U.S. registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election, tying the low point in the trend set last year, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll.

You know, tying last year, when the party in control of the House lost 63 seats.  Voters are just as angry with Republicans now and it's only been five months...

It's gonna be a long two years for Republicans.

Fish, Meet Barrel And Shotgun

Somehow I missed this in last week's Blogger explosion, but Tbogg caught it.



Matt Taibbi vs. Megan McArdle on Goldman Sachs.  In the words of the immortal Bill Cosby, "Let the beatings...BEGIN!"

Gettin' All Mavericky

Senate bill to remove oil subsidies from the top five energy giants failed to pass a GOP filibuster.  That's not news.  This part is (and of course it's the last graph:)

[Mary] Landrieu [of Louisiana], Mark Begich of Alaska and Ben Nelson of Nebraska were the Democrats who cast "no" votes. Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe were the only Republicans to vote to take up the measure.

I can understand Landrieu and Begich, being from oil-tastic red states. I can understand The Ladies From Maine using a freebie to polish their moderate cred (what's left of it.)  But Ben Nelson?  He's just being a dick. We never had a 60 vote majority, not when one of them was Nelson.

Who Let The Jerks Out To Play?

Is it the spring weather?  Or just my imagination?  It seems jerks and people with an undeserved sense of entitlement have come out in great numbers lately.  Here is an example:

From the Detroit Free Press:

A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that he still uses food stamps.

Leroy Fick of Bay County admitted he still swipes the electronic card at stores, nearly a year after winning a jackpot on "Make Me Rich!" He told WNEM-TV in Saginaw that more than half the prize went to taxes.

Poor guy.  He only cleared a million dollars, and takes advantage of money intended for people in need.  Why is he still able to draw these benefits?  Who dropped the ball on this one?  Please tell me this is an oversight and not true policy.  I need to go watch some kittens and clear myself of the ickiness.

Stickin' It To The Poor Part II

WASHINGTON -- Many states shortchange the jobless by distributing unemployment benefits on debit cards loaded with obnoxious fees, according to a new study by the National Consumer Law Center.

Of the 40 states that have switched from paper checks to prepaid debit cards, 22 states' cards charge ATM fees, 24 charge balance inquiry fees, and 28 charge inactivity fees. The cards in Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio, and Oregon come with overdraft fees ranging from $10 to $20.

And in Connecticut, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, cardholders "must pay for every ATM inquiry or pay a denied transaction fee if they request cash when their balance is insufficient," the study says.

Tennessee is found to be the worst offender.  When asked for a comment, a representative for the Tennessee Department of Workforce Development said he didn't think that statement was fair.  However, he failed to explain how the charges and stupidity of this program is fair for the people who need help the most.  After vague references to this "probably" being less expensive than cashing a paper check, there was nothing else to say.  Except, you know, neener neener we'll get you no matter what.

Stickin' It To The Poor Part I

CNN has a brief and very informative article explaining the differences between the rich and the poor.  I rarely trust statistics, but I trust CNN for the most part.  You can read stats on the rich, and disparity between the two classes.  I found the stats on the poor the most interesting, and am including them below:

The Poor:

– The poorest 20 percent of Americans get 3.4 percent of the country's income.

– The portion of wealth for the poor has consistently declined: In 1999, the number was 3.6 percent. In 1989, it was 3.8 percent. In 1979, 4.1 percent.

– You are in the poorest 20 percent if you make less than $20,453 in your household.

– Some 43.6 million Americans live in poverty. That is the record high for the 51 years the U.S. has recorded poverty data.

– The number of Americans in poverty jumped 9.5 percent in 2009 alone (the most recent year for which we have data).

– Overall, 14.3 percent of Americans live in poverty.

– You are in poverty, if you have a family of four and total income is under $22,314. For an individual, the poverty line is $11,136.

Poor us.  Or is that Poor US?

Nuked Gingrich, Part 2

And it gets even worse for Newtie after the events of Sunday and Monday.  Yesterday the Gingrich campaign completely came unglued as Newt went after that "notorious gotcha show", Meet The Press.  It's gotten so bad that even Republicans are now acting like he just died, starting with House GOP leader Eric Cantor.

Cantor went so far as to hint Gingrich may have ended his nascent campaign entirely.

"I think that many have said now he's finished," Cantor said. "I haven't had a chance to really dissect what in the world he's thinking ... so I probably would reserve judgment on that."

Paul Ryan, the architect of the House GOP budget, lit into Gingrich as well. "With allies like that, who needs the left?" he told radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, considered one of the party's most important endorsements because of her state's early primary, held nothing back in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

"What he said was absolutely unfortunate," Haley said. "Here you've got Representative Ryan trying to bring common sense to this world of insanity, and Newt absolutely cut him off at the knees."

Dick Armey, who had a legendarily tempestuous relationship with Gingrich when they were in the House leadership together and is now a Tea Party organizer, told Politico that Newt was "confused and conflicted" on policy.

"We always say: Newt always has so many great ideas," Armey said. "Well yeah, but then he shifts between them at such a rate it's pretty hard to track it let alone keep up with it." 

At this point I'm fairly sure that Gingrich's 2012 campaign has set some sort of record for fastest flameout, except that he had no lofty heights to burn down through to reach to surly bonds of earth, more like he stuck his head up out of his hole and hit himself with a giant cartoon mallet.

In all seriousness however if there was any doubt that Gingrich was done before yesterday, the absolute disemboweling he got from the right pretty much seals the deal.

Meanwhile, Democrats are more than happy to have the GOP plan to kill Medicare as the new litmus test for all the 2012 candidates, not just Newtie.

Conservatives are already openly dreading seeing Gingrich's remarks pop up in Democratic messaging as they head into an election cycle likely centered on the Republican budget.

"I think every one of these Republican candidates running for the House is going to have a Democratic opponent who's going to run an ad that you can write today," columnist Charles Krauthammer told FOX News. "It's going to start: 'Even the conservative Newt Gingrich, the former leader of the Republicans in the House, says it's 'radical,' it's 'social engineering.'"

And this explains why Republicans are treating Newt like he's dog poop on a Manolo Blahnik at a wedding reception.  They want him gone as fast as possible to get the GOP Medicare disaster out of the news cycle, and that's not going to be possible as long as he runs.  Of course, the Dems are going to do everything they can to keep America's attention on the fact that 96% of Republicans voted to end Medicare and replace it with a coupon, too.

This should be good.

Goldman Sach-ed Us

Matt Taibbi's piece on Goldman Sachs and the financial crisis is your morning reading.  A taste:

Goldman's chief financial officer then and now, a fellow named David Viniar, wrote a letter in February 2004, commending the SEC for its efforts to develop "a regulatory framework that will contribute to the safety and soundness of financial institutions and markets by aligning regulatory capital requirements more closely with well-developed internal risk-management practices." Translation: Thanks for letting us ignore all those pesky regulations while we turn the staid underwriting business into a Charlie Sheen house party.

Goldman and the other banks argued that they didn't need government supervision for a very simple reason: Rooting out corruption and fraud was in their own self-interest. In the event of financial wrongdoing, they insisted, they would do their civic duty and protect the markets. But in late 2006, well before many of the other players on Wall Street realized what was going on, the top dogs at Goldman — including the aforementioned Viniar — started to fear they were sitting on a time bomb of billions in toxic assets. Yet instead of sounding the alarm, the very first thing Goldman did was tell no one. And the second thing it did was figure out a way to make money on the knowledge by screwing its own clients. So not only did Goldman throw a full-blown "bite me" on its own self-righteous horseshit about "internal risk management," it more or less instantly sped way beyond inaction straight into craven manipulation.

"This is the dog that didn't bark," says Eliot Spitzer, who tangled with Goldman during his years as New York's attorney general. "Their whole political argument for a decade was 'Leave us alone, trust us to regulate ourselves.' They not only abdicated that responsibility, they affirmatively traded against the entire market."

They knew the financial crisis was coming, because their own actions assured it would happen.  And knowing it was coming, they then proceeded to bet massive amounts of money that the housing market would collapse into a massive depression.  For this, they were rewarded tens of billions of dollars, and given hundreds of billions more in government credit to make more bets to earn even more money to "pay back the Treasury department."  It was a win for GS.  It was a win for the Treasury department.  And when Obama saw what he had inherited, he realized he had no choice but to keep playing or watch the country snap back into depression.

But somebody's got to pay for all this mess.  Guess who?  Go look in the mirror if you want a hint.

Win Ben Stein's Misogyny

I suppose the choice was obvious, but if you have an international economist like Dominique Strauss-Kahn who has been accused of rape (and there's the preponderance of evidence against DSK) and you were taking bets on who would write the inevitable "It's the victim's fault!" article, of course the answer would be Ben Stein in the American Spectator.

It's filled with sheer genius like this:

In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?

Oh and it gets better. 

People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

And better.

I don't know Mr. Strauss-Kahn. I have never laid eyes on him in person. He may well, in the future, be found guilty of atrocious conduct towards the complainant and maybe towards others. But, so far, he's innocent, and he's being treated shamefully. If he's found guilty, there will be plenty of time to criticize him and imprison him. But nothing has been proved yet except that the way this case has been handled so far is an embarrassment to this country.

You know what DSK is being treated like?  Like a person who has been accused of committing a heinous crime.   What does he want, an achievement badge?  If anything we should be proud that regardless of your status that if you are accused of a crime and there's enough evidence to back the accusation (and according to the NYPD there is) that the police act.

The best part here is that Stein admits he doesn't know DSK from Adam, so why is he singling the economist out for being treated too harshly?  Just because he's an economist doesn't mean he's incapable of being a criminal. 

What's an embarrassment to this country is all the folks we let get away with things because they have power and status...see Wall Street.  DSK deserves and will get his day in court, and so will his accuser.  That's more than I can say for the millions of Americans who got screwed in the financial crisis.

StupidiNews!

• IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is facing increased pressure to resign as he sits in Riker's Island on rape charges.
• A San Francisco man who received a marrow transplant is the first man to have been "cured" of the AIDS virus.
• As the NATO air campaign in Libya hits the two-month mark, there's still no end in sight to the fighting.
• Sony is facing more questions from Congress about the data breach that may have exposed information on millions of PlayStation Network customers.
• A new study shows Netflix is now responsible for 30% of peak time internet download traffic in North America.