Last Call

Want to know why Democrats are winning the battle for the White House and losing the war for Congress?  Here's your answer, plain and simple.

Conservative interest groups have dumped well over $20 million into congressional races so far this year, outspending their liberal opponents 4 to 1 and setting off a growing panic among Democrats struggling to regain the House and hold on to their slim majority in the Senate.

The surge suggests that big-spending super PACs and nonprofit groups, which have become dominant players in the presidential race, will also play a pivotal role in House and Senate contests that will determine the balance of power in Washington in 2013.

The money could be particularly crucial in races below the national radar that can be easily influenced by infusions of outside spending. One example came this week in Nebraska, where a dark-horse Republican Senate candidate upset two better-funded rivals in the GOP primary thanks in part to a last-minute, $250,000 ad buy by a billionaire-backed super PAC.

And in Indiana this month, veteran Sen. Richard G. Lugar was ousted in the GOP primary by challenger Richard Mourdock with the help of millions of dollars in spending by conservative groups. The Club for Growth, which backed a losing candidate in Nebraska, spent more than $2 million to help Mourdock in Indiana.

“We’re just getting started,” said Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller, who said the group will soon begin training its fire on Democrats. “Our group has already had an impact on what the composition of Congress is going to look like next year. That’s our whole goal is to have an impact, to improve the gene pool in Congress.”

Once again we're now seeing the true aftermath of the January 2010 Citizens United decision.  It cost Democrats 60+ seats in the House.  It may very well cost them the Senate in 2012.  Unlimited money is pouring in to House and Senate races across the country as the one percent move to buy our government, one seat at a time.  It's even worse at the state level.

Not much we can do about it.  Other than VOTE, of course.

While we still can, that is.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Conservatives just need to admit that they believe the only hope is to get rid of all the brown people and make the country safe for the melanin challenged.  Think Progress:

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on new census data which showed, for the first time, that non-white births made up over 50 percent of all births in the United States last year.

It marked an important milestone, indicative of a changing United States that has long been considered the world’s melting pot. Or, if you’re the conservative, Phyllis Schlafly-backed Eagle Forum, it’s a clarion call that America is in grave danger of being overrun by uneducated, un-American brown people:

It is not a good thing. The immigrants do not share American values, so it is a good bet that they will not be voting Republican when they start voting in large numbers.
[...]
Instead, the USA is being transformed by immigrants who do not share those values, and who have high rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy, and gang crime, and they will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps.

We're just savages and locusts to them, feeding off their sweat and hard work, thugs to be bribed, cattle to be exploited.  They accuse the Democrats of buying our loyalty, then say we're simply too stupid to see the truth that we could "free ourselves" by giving people like Schafly our freedoms and loyalties.

Us dumb darkie peasants, we don't know no better, no sir.  And yet conservatives continue to wonder why they don't get 95% of the African-American vote.

The Politics Of Descent Into The Abyss

Mickey Kaus's descent from "professional left" pundit to full-blown right wing hack was sealed the moment he signed on to the Daily Caller, and he's never given up his outright contempt for President Obama beating Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries.  These days he's reduced to quietly bitching about how the Democrats have abandoned white male pundits like himself.  He's particularly angry about the President publicly backing marriage equality:

Weren’t Democrats supposed to be the party of Everyman? If you went to work and obeyed the rules, Dems would “make work pay”–plus give you unemployment compensation and Social Security and medical care in old age. White male workers are sort of the indivisible denominator in American politics–they have no special economic leverage, and no race- or gender-based claim to special privileges. They’re naked as far as favoritism goes, and thus (not unlike Marx’s proleteriat) are the representatives of universal privileges (such as Social Security). The new Obama coalition threatens to abandon this universality, becoming instead the party of non-universal skills, ethnic and gender identities–of special pleaders, victims and causists. Not of citizens.

P.S.: But isn’t this just a question of strategy or political marketing? No. Different coalitions produce different policies–or, rather, the attempt to mobilize different coalitions produces different policies. (Sorry, Weigel.**) Gay marriage is a New Coalition policy: Young voters love it; white working class voters, not so much. “Comprehensive immigration reform”–e.g. legalization or amnesty– is a New Coalition policy: It is quite explicitly framed as an attempt to win over Latinos. But if it attracts additional unskilled illegal immigrants, from Mexico and elsewhere, unskilled working class Americans are the ones who will see their wages bid down even further. Screw ‘em–they vote Republican anyway!

Similarly, if you don’t care that much about ordinary white unskilled workers you might be perfectly willing to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, as Obama has apparently been willing to do. After all, it”s not such a big deal to retire two years later if you are an accountant. But what if you are a coal miner? The worst example of all would be Obama policies that push poorer workers out of Medicare into often-inferior Medicaid, as Scott Gottlieb has charged the Affordable Care Act will do. (I await Jonathan Cohn’s explanation of why Obamacare doesn’t actually do this).

You can’t blame Obama for trying to win, and if white working class voters don’t like him–well, he has to assemble a majority anyway he can.*** But if you’re not Obama you can hope this particular Emerging Democratic Majority un-emerges soon.

It's pretty sad how far Kaus has fallen since his days at Slate.  He basically despises everything the Democrats have done in the last four years, because he's decided that equality among minorities, women, the LGBT community and yes even the working class is nasty zero sum class warfare where white males lose, and that the Democrats could easily win if they just kicked all those groups to the curb, gave them the "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" speech, and just put them in their place at the back of the bus where they belong in pursuit of the only people that matter in politics anyway, white guys.

He's a not so gentle reminder that not all bigots and fools are in the GOP.  The "behind every successful minority person is a white guy giving them a leg up" force is strong in this one, and he's far from the only one.

Will Smith Gettin' Slappy With It

Will Smith slapped a reporter who kissed him.  I am normally a big fan of his, and this is the first time I've been disappointed with him.  That means that I will eventually forgive him because every single person on the planet can lapse in judgment when surprised.  However, I think an apology is due. The man violated his personal space, but that wasn't the problem and you can tell that.  It was the kiss.  The slap was demeaning and full of contempt.  This wasn't a slug to protect himself, it was a bitchy and shallow act that is beneath someone who I believe is a good guy for the most part. He compounds his error by saying he was lucky he didn't sucker punch him as a joke.  Well, uh, you kind of did.  Jerk.

It is not uncommon for Russian men to kiss in greeting.  While that is being pounced on and exaggerated right now, it truly isn't uncommon.

Am I overreacting?  I don't think I am, but reactions have been mixed.  Watch here and tell me what you think.

People has a poll where the majority of people voted that the reporter out of line.  The article above says the man asked and was granted permission to hug Will Smith.  He had permission to enter his personal space, and while the kiss was over the top it is only by our butch alpha-male Western standards that it becomes truly "offensive"... but take one look at Sacha Baron Cohen's humor and tell me there's no double standard.

One Lucky Defibrillator

SAN DIEGO — A man's implanted heart defibrillator may have saved his life in an unexpected way — by stopping a knife.

San Diego police say the 57-year-old got into an argument with an acquaintance early Thursday near some elevators at the trolley station for the Fashion Valley shopping mall.

Police say the acquaintance pulled a folding knife and stabbed the man in the chest. The knife hit the man's defibrillator, a device that shocks the heart if it gets dangerously out of rhythm.

So remember, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.  I can't imagine the math that calculates the odds of that happening.

The Smartest Man In The Room Is Not Your Friend

Say what you will about Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg, he knows how to pick his business partners.  In fact, the number one qualification for being a business partner with the guy is apparently the ability to be such a self-centered asshole that it completely takes the spotlight off Zuckerberg himself, quietly allowing him to be an even larger schmuck in the process.

When, as Facebook expects, the 187 million stock options are cashed in this year, Facebook will get $7.5 billion in tax deductions (which will reduce the company’s federal and state taxes by $3 billion). According to Facebook, these tax deductions should exceed the company’s U.S. taxable 2012 income and result in a net operating loss (NOL) that can then be carried back to the preceding two years to offset its past taxes, resulting in a refund of up to $500 million.

Oh and that gets worse.

While Zuckerberg will pay a hefty tax bill right off the bat if he follows through on his plan to sell $5 billion in Facebook stock options, as the New York Times noted, he may then never pay a dime of taxes on the rest of his Facebook wealth. “Instead, he can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous wealth and avoid all tax,” the Times reported.

And even more so.

In addition, Zuckerberg’s using a totally legal accounting gimmick to transfer money to his unborn children, thus avoiding the gift tax. He also — by virtue of accepting a $1 dollar salary and purely living off his wealth — could be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is intended to benefit low-income Americans.

Yeah.  Let's not kid ourselves.  Friday was the day Mark Zuckerberg became the .0001%.  He's now one of the richest people on Earth.  Literally, he's #29 on the planet.  And unless you think he's going to say "Hey, I can give $3 to everyone on the planet and still have a billion left over LOL", he's not exactly your new hero.

He's your new overlord.  Might want to keep that in mins when you're all surprised at whatever "leveraging of your online information" stunt they pull next.  Because now?  Now they've got the mega-billions to back it up, stockholders to answer to, and profit margin to exploit.

It's not gonna be pretty, kids.  You want to be online?  You're going to be playing by this guy's rules, and he's already made himself a god among mortals before 30.

Unfriend.

GOP Voter Suppression Isn't Enough? Try Candidate Suppression

Want to know how to put swing states like Arizona with Republican Secretaries of State firmly in the Mitt Romney camp?  Use birther nonsense to threaten to take President Obama off the ballot, of course.  Voter suppression not working?  Just eliminate the Democrat as a possible candidate.

The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.

Bennett’s comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.

Bennett said he was following the lead of the state’s eccentric Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a fellow Republican who ordered an investigation into the president’s birth certificate last year and concluded the document released by the White House is a forgery. Bennett said he is now trying to get verification from state officials in Hawaii that the certificate is authentic.

If you ever really wondered what the Birther stupidity was really about, it's Put The Kenyan Usurper And His Kind In Their Place(tm).   He can't win the state if he's not on the ballot, right?

“I’m not a birther. I believe the president was born in Hawaii — or at least I hope he was,” Bennett said on the show. “But my responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications for the office they are seeking.”

And as Secretary of State for Arizona, what's really stopping him from saying "Hey, this birth certificate is of a black man has too many irregularities for us to allow on the ballot" anyway?

What's to stop Republicans in Ohio, Virginia and Florida from doing the same thing, I wonder.  If anyone knows, please tell me.  These guys are nuts and will do anything to keep him from winning.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Private space travel company SpaceX will be launching its first Dragon unmanned vehicle to deliver cargo to the International Space Station on Saturday.
• Quebec lawmakers have countered months of student protests over university tuition hikes by passing laws limiting protests and banning the use of masks.
• President Obama is spearheading a new initiative along with dozens of major food and agriculture companies in the US to help 50 million in African poverty.
• The next iteration of the Apple iPhone could feature a larger screen, according to suppliers and industry reports.
• Checking out the bar scene in San Francisco this weekend?  You could be part of a facial recognition software program's test run to determine real-time men-to-women ratios.

Last Call

Dear America --

"We can't really know anything about how massively cutting revenues with back-loaded spending dumped on Bush's successor unbalanced the government or the economy, because if Obama can't handle the fact Bush took Clinton's balanced budget and put us in the worst financial meltdown in 3 generations, well he's not very good of a President, is he?  Why don't you blame the firefighters who have been there for almost four years instead of the arsonists who were there for eight and now long gone?"

--Byron York, DC Examiner

Bonus Verbatim Stupid:

The new blame-Bush-forever argument shows, once and for all, that the Democrats' Bush obsession has raced completely out of control. Barack Obama has been president nearly four years and is asking for four more. The election is about him.

American history didn't exist until January 20, 2009 you know.   Mathematics, economics, those are for idealists and fools.  Real men blame Obama for not being able to fix the problem despite nearly four years of continuous Republican objection to him being President at all.

You Cannot Grasp The True Form Of Our Plan

What's the GOP plan in case the Supremes actually do axe the Affordable Care Act? It's contained in this box.



 Nothing, of course. Absolutely nothing.

House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Thursday said Congressional Republicans would not unite around specific legislation to replace President Obama’s national health care law this year, but would instead present an alternative market-based “vision."

In their 2010 “Pledge to America,” Republicans vowed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare if they gained power. Though the GOP-controlled House has voted to repeal the law since taking power in January 2011, it has not yet offered replacement legislation. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to strike down the law next month, Republicans would receive increased scrutiny about their lack of a plan to replace it.

“We do feel obligated to articulate our vision for replace,” Ryan said when asked about the matter during an editorial meeting with the Washington Examiner. “Now, we’ve got nine weeks of session left. Do we want to cram through our own 2,700 page vision? No, that’s what the country hated. But do we believe in patient-centered health care and market-based medicine? A lot of us have put time and effort into this, yeah.”

Luckily Paul Ryan doesn't actually have to do anything to give us a "market-centered approach" should the law struck down, because that would be called "America before the Affordable Care Act was passed." You know, where death panels full of insurance claims adjusters and approvers would simply declare people too sick for insurance and medical care would become unaffordable and retroactively deny valid coverage they didn't feel like paying for through rescission or imposing lifetime plan coverage limits. And if you somehow believe Republicans will make insurance companies pay for the "popular" parts of the ACA without the mandate to spread around risk and cost, you probably do need medical attention.

Of course, if Ryan's previous plan was passed, we could just turn everyone over to these market solutions, including Medicare, Medicaid and VA patients. They'll end up as what's in the box too.

The Kroog Versus The Biggest Bubble In History

Paul Krugman goes down to his local economist watering hole, bellies up to the fiduciary bar and orders two fingers of macroeconomic schadenfreude to pour on the floor in memory of the austerity-plagued euro.

The story so far: When the euro came into existence, there was a great wave of optimism in Europe — and that, it turned out, was the worst thing that could have happened. Money poured into Spain and other nations, which were now seen as safe investments; this flood of capital fueled huge housing bubbles and huge trade deficits. Then, with the financial crisis of 2008, the flood dried up, causing severe slumps in the very nations that had boomed before. 

At that point, Europe’s lack of political union became a severe liability. Florida and Spain both had housing bubbles, but when Florida’s bubble burst, retirees could still count on getting their Social Security and Medicare checks from Washington. Spain receives no comparable support. So the burst bubble turned into a fiscal crisis, too. 

Europe’s answer has been austerity: savage spending cuts in an attempt to reassure bond markets. Yet as any sensible economist could have told you (and we did, we did), these cuts deepened the depression in Europe’s troubled economies, which both further undermined investor confidence and led to growing political instability. 

And now comes the moment of truth. 

Indeed, the last two weeks have been rather unkind to the European markets.  Spanish bond spreads in particular are rather nasty.   Once again Krugman notes that the timeframe here for the collapse of the euro currency would be a half-life measured in months, not years.

So now what? Right now, Greece is experiencing what’s being called a “bank jog” — a somewhat slow-motion bank run, as more and more depositors pull out their cash in anticipation of a possible Greek exit from the euro. Europe’s central bank is, in effect, financing this bank run by lending Greece the necessary euros; if and (probably) when the central bank decides it can lend no more, Greece will be forced to abandon the euro and issue its own currency again. 

This demonstration that the euro is, in fact, reversible would lead, in turn, to runs on Spanish and Italian banks. Once again the European Central Bank would have to choose whether to provide open-ended financing; if it were to say no, the euro as a whole would blow up. 

Yet financing isn’t enough. Italy and, in particular, Spain must be offered hope — an economic environment in which they have some reasonable prospect of emerging from austerity and depression. Realistically, the only way to provide such an environment would be for the central bank to drop its obsession with price stability, to accept and indeed encourage several years of 3 percent or 4 percent inflation in Europe (and more than that in Germany). 

Both the central bankers and the Germans hate this idea, but it’s the only plausible way the euro might be saved. For the past two-and-a-half years, European leaders have responded to crisis with half-measures that buy time, yet they have made no use of that time. Now time has run out. 

So eternal financing by the ECB is unsustainable.  And serious price inflation in Germany where the Merkel government is already in trouble?  Also not happening.  That leaves the whole "euro blowing up" thing.  I keep saying this is the biggest threat to President Obama's re-election, not Mitt Romney.  If the euro goes completely pear-shaped and takes the US with it, we're going to end up neck deep in austerity crazed Republicans and we'll get this same mess in Europe now all over again a year or two down the road here.

It's enough to drive a man to drink.

It's Not Me... It's You. Really.

(CBS/AP) RICHMOND, Va. - The Virginia House of Delegates, voting in Tuesday's wee morning hours, has blocked an openly gay Richmond prosecutor from appointment to a general district judgeship in the city.

Tracy Thorne-Begland received 33 yes votes, 31 no votes - all from Republicans - and 10 abstentions in his bid to become what gay-rights advocates contend would be Virginia's first openly gay jurist.

Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring said today that Virginia lawmakers who scuttled the judicial nomination did so without any justification that he was unqualified for the bench, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"It's hard to think about what happened in the General Assembly and not conclude that it's a form of bigotry," Herring said. 

So the next time we hear "Oh no, it's not that we don't like gays, it's just that we want to define marriage" you are free and clear to call bullshit.  This had nothing to do with marriage, and everything to do with sending a message.  Stay in your place, message received loud and clear.  It's not exclusively GOP bias, but they corner the market.

Please, oh please let this type of stupidity end soon.

From The Mouths Of Babes

Westboro protesters were put in their place... by a 9-year-old boy.  You can read the entire story on NPR's site.

As Akrouche wrote on her Facebook page, she and Josef were on the campus of Washburn University in Topeka when they encountered some of the protesters from the tiny Westboro Baptist Church, which has gained notice in recent years for protesting against homosexuality, abortion and other issues outside the funerals of military veterans and celebrities.

"Josef was determined to make his own statement so we went to the car and with pencil and his sketch pad, he made up his own little sign that reads 'GOD HATES NO ONE,' " his mom wrote. "Those people are scary but he stood strong, was respectful and stood by his convictions. He will be a good man, I have no doubt. I got my Mothers Day present early."

She has every right to be proud.  It takes a lot of innocence to counter the stain that the Westboro followers have left behind.  This boy was respectful even of them, but not only is he correct, he really did show an extraordinary amount of grace.

I think we can expect mighty things from him in the future.  I would pray that we hear less of Westboro Baptist Church.

 

War Pigs In The Senate

Old Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle is at it again, this time he's blocking the latest round of economic sanctions ahead of Iranian talks next week because the sanctions don't explicitly state military force is "on the table".

The sanctions are meant to shut down any financial deals with Iran's powerful state oil and tanker enterprises, stripping Tehran of crucial oil revenues. The new bill would build on penalties signed into law by President Barack Obama in December that threatened sanctions against any foreign institutions trading with Iran's central bank.

Democrats wanted to pass the proposed penalties ahead of talks between world powers and Iran next week, and had support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby group.

But Republicans sought a stronger statement in the bill that the use of U.S. military force was an option.

"These sanctions are great. I hope they will change Iranian behavior. They haven't yet, and I don't think they ever will," said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"I want more on the table," Graham said.

 Wait, what?   Sanctions haven't worked yet, so we'll block additional sanctions so they can never work, thus proving our point that sanctions can't work?  That's the big plan?

Boy, remember when Democrats were called traitors just for talking about alternatives to straight up war in the Middle East over the last decade?  You know, last week?

At this point Mitch McConnell is just undermining the President's authority.  Period.  As a voting constituent, I'm thinking he should knock it the hell off.

Doucheknocker.

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter Part 87

Foreclosuregate is baaaaaaaaaack, and just as predicted, the massive settlement between the various states Attorneys General and the mortgage giants has resulted in the complete lockup and lockdown of the housing market.  Foreclosures have now all but ground to a complete halt.

Foreclosure filings in the U.S. fell to a five-year low last month as lenders sought to avoid seizing property and a housing recovery showed signs of taking hold.

The number of default, auction and seizure notices sent to homeowners in April totaled 188,780, down 14 percent from a year earlier and 5 percent from the previous month, according to RealtyTrac Inc. It was the lowest tally since July 2007, before the onset of the biggest housing crash in seven decades, the Irvine, California-based data seller said today in a report.

The “gradually rising foreclosure tide” forecast by RealtyTrac after a February settlement by the nation’s biggest mortgage servicers over faulty practices has yet to materialize, limiting the number of properties on the market and propping up prices. Banks are finding alternatives to home seizures, selling distressed property for less than the amount owed on the mortgage, known as a short sale, or modifying loans for borrowers struggling to keep up payments while an improving economy is helping to ease defaults.

“Things are getting better and the number of vulnerable households is going down,” Paul Willen, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said in a telephone interview. “The pool of borrowers is much more stable than it was two or three years ago.”

The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate fell in the first quarter to 7.4 percent, the lowest level in more than three years, the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday. The rate peaked at 10.1 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and was last lower in the third quarter of 2008, at 6.99 percent. 

So this is good news, right?  Sure, the same way limited bleeding around a steel spike in your chest is "good news" because you have a blocked aorta as a result.

The lack of foreclosures is a symptom of serious, serious sickness in the housing market.  The foreclosure logjam favors the banks, because at this point they don't have to take the losses until they repossess.  If they drag their feet and the foreclosure process takes a couple years, well nobody loses.

You know, except for property tax collection and the whole urban blight thing.  The fact of the matter is once this foreclosure blockage crumbles, the market is going to basically tank.  Whether or not it happens before the November election or not, I couldn't tell you.  I'd say Wall Street wasn't crazy enough to commit suicide, but they know they'll get bailed out again if the economy collapses.   On the other hand, they're getting free money and no losses now by sitting on these foreclosures and doing nothing.

We'll see.  But this is going to be brutal when this particular boil gets lanced.