Handicapping The 2010 Races

Fourteen months out from the 2010 races, and the cries of DOOOOOOM are already resounding from the mountaintops. Politico's Josh Kraushaar breathlessly details the dire predictions of the end of the Democrats.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Top political analyst Charlie Cook, in a special August 20 update to subscribers, wrote that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats.”

"Many veteran congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats,” he wrote.

At the mid-August Netroots Nation convention, Nate Silver, a Democratic analyst whose uncannily accurate, stat-driven predictions have made his website FiveThirtyEight.com a must read among political junkies, predicted that Republicans will win between 20 and 50 seats next year. He further alarmed an audience of progressive activists by arguing that the GOP has between a 25 and 33 percent chance of winning back control of the House.

“A lot of Democratic freshmen and sophomores will be running in a much tougher environment than in 2006 and 2008 and some will adapt to it, but a lot of others will inevitably freak out and end up losing,” Silver told POLITICO. “Complacency is another factor: We have volunteers who worked really hard in 2006 and in 2008 for Obama but it’s less compelling [for them] to preserve the majority.”

Shocked isn't the word, more like resigned. Look, even I think the Dems are going to lose seats in 2010 and it's entirely possible they will lose 20 or 25. But losing full control of the House is going to be a long shot for the Republicans for the same reasons the Republicans lost ground in 2006 and 2008: America's voter demographics is changing and not in the Republicans' favor. I don't see 50...unless that is the Democrats can't pass a health care reform plan and the rest of Obama's domestic agenda dies.

If that happens, the Gates of Hell will swing wide. On the other hand, if a solid bill does pass, the Republicans in 2010 are going to run on a ticket of taking health care coverage away from tens of millions of Americans.

You tell me how successful that's going to be.

Great Moments In Neo-Con Stupidity

Michael Scheuer explains here how Democratic administrations are anti-CIA and pro-terrorist, you know unlike the last pro-CIA anti-terrorist Republican President we had that ignored the intelligence that CIA provided on Bin Laden eight years ago this month that warned that Al Qaeda was going to try to fly planes into buildings and kill thousands.

But of course we have to worry about America's safety under those Democratic administrations where we were attacked. Yes, the first WTC attack did happen on Bill Clinton's watch, but 9/11 was all on Bush's head. Why is anyone from that era given any credibility on our national security?

Five Guys In The NKY

It's good to see Five Guys Burgers and Fries here in the Cincy/NKY area, and if you've never had a Five Guys burger, do yourself a favor and get one, the new location in NKY is at the Crestview Hills Town Centre off exit 2 on I-275.

Best burgers in town. Reminds of the time that Obama and Biden stopped at a suburban D.C. Ray's Hell Burger to have a burger, of course the fact Obama had dijon mustard on his burger started the whole "Dijongate" stupidity, but that of course is another story. Quite a rivalry I hear in D.C. over which is better, Ray's or Five Guys.

The Systemic Problem Is Only Getting Worse

Felix Salmon notes that the continued forced consolidation plan to make Too Big To Fail banks even larger means that the next time our banking system breaks down, the fallout will be much, much worse:

It’s urgent that the government (probably through the FDIC) start imposing a surcharge on bank size. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue, there will be hundreds of unnecessary bank failures — maybe there already have been. And rather than the big banks getting smaller — which is what makes sense, from the point of view of the amount of systemic damage they can cause — they will continue to get bigger.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the 10% cap on national deposits was taken seriously: now it has been left far behind, even as the total deposit base has increased substantially. Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America pose a real systemic threat to the US economy. They should be forced to start shrinking today.

But of course the opposite is happening. The Big 19 banks were given enough money to stay afloat. the rest of the industry will simply fall or be absorbed. Short-term, the plan worked. Long-term, it all but guarantees that we'll have another collapse down the road.

Happy Sarahversary!

As the Rumproast crew reminds us, twas one year ago that Sister Sarah was LAUNCH FIGHTERS from the Ur-Quan Dreadnaught of the GOP. Shamelessly stolen:

The gift that keeps on giving. Also!

Frickin Robot Sharks With Frickin Laser Beams Can't Be Far Off

MIT scientists have worked out a way to create schools of robotic "fish" submersibles useful for probing the ocean depths.

Schools of robotic fish could one day map the ocean floor, detect pollution or inspect and survey submerged boats or oil and gas pipelines, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say.

MIT engineers are showing off the latest generation of so-called robofish 15 years after they built the first one. The latest incarnation is sleeker, more streamlined and capable of mimicking the movements of a real fish.

And it's capable of exploring underwater terrain submersibles can't, said Pablo Valdivia Alvarado, a mechanical engineer at the school.

"Some of our sponsors were thinking of using them for inspection and surveillance," Alvarado said. "Since these prototypes are very cheap, the idea was to build hundreds -- 200, 500 -- and then just release them in a bay or at a port, and they would be roaming around taking measurements."

First thing that comes to mind for me is the fact that these little guys have pretty obvious military applications for submarine hunting, and that enemy subs wouldn't be able to detect the robofish because, well, they'd show up as a school of fish on sonar. That's just off the top of my head, I'm not sure how advanced these guys are in relaying real-time oceanographic info or if it's even possible with a robot fish that small, but you can bet somebody in the Navy wants these little guys and is thinking exactly along those lines.

If you can hunt submarines without having to muck about with actual submarines, you win.

A Super Powered Deal Or A Mickey Mouse Operation?

Disney announced today that it is going to acquire Marvel Comics for $4 billion.

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including favorites such as the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.

Disney said Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash, plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own. That values each Marvel share at $50 based on Friday's closing stock prices.

Marvel shares jumped $10.09, or 26 percent, to $48.74 in trading before the market opened. Disney shares fell 70 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $26.14.

Disney said the boards of both companies have approved the transaction, but it will require an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.

Needless to say, Marvel Comics stock is way up this morning, but I'm really not sure how I feel about Snow White and the Seven X-Men or Magneto's New Groove. On one hand, Pixar has really gotten complete creative freedom as a company and it has benefited Disney well. On the other hand, Disney hasn't been too kind to ABC or ESPN and has basically treated ABC as its corporate PR arm.

We'll see how Marvel is treated. Hopefully this means some serious firepower behind Marvel's many movie projects. If Marvel is treated as well as Pixar, that would be wonderful. If not however it could be a disaster.

Indian Moon

After 312 days, India has lost contact with its lunar probe orbiting the moon. It was slated for a two-year mission, but it seems the lunar probe has given out on the shorter end of its lifespan.

The Indian Space Research Organization currently has no means to locate Chandrayaan-I, which can float in space like a dead satellite for 1,000 more days before crashing on the lunar surface, said S. Satish, a spokesman for the agency.

"We are exploring the possibility of making a request to the United States and Russia to help locate it since they have powerful radars," Satish said.

The space agency blames system failures on Chandrayaan-I for the abrupt loss of contact Saturday.

Chandrayaan-I was originally expected to stay in orbit for two years, but Satish said that was a stretch.

"That probably was a mistake because such craft do not have this much life," he said.

However, the mission had met most of its scientific objectives by providing "large volume of data," the space agency said.

Still, it's good to see countries like India having a space program, even if it's only a small one. Were it that America was still excited about space...

More Bad Faith Arguments

Once again, the Republican idea of bi-partisan negotiations on health care reform legislation is having the GOP senators doing the negotiating to tell America that health care reform legislation has already failed because Republicans in the minority haven't gotten 100% of what they wanted.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), one of the three Republican negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee, said in the GOP weekly address that bills introduced by Democrats "fail" to lower health care costs and will "raid Medicare."

"We need reforms that will actually lower health care costs for working Americans and we need to make sure we do not increase the deficit and add to the record debt we're already passing on to our children and grandchildren," Enzi said. "The bills introduced by Congressional Democrats fail to meet these standards."

The bill fails to meet President Mike Enzi's standards of a 100% Republican plan, ergo he can't in good conscience vote for it, support it, or even allow it to come up for a vote. I'm so glad that America voted for President Mike Enzi last year, aren't you?

[UPDATE 4:10 PM] Apparently the White House noticed that Enzi spent his entire weekly Republican address on bashing the health care plan he's supposed to be negotiating and may actually no longer consider him to be part of the "Gang of Six".



About damn time. Now chuck the other two and get back to work, guys.

L.A. Burning

From the "As if California didn't have enough problems already" department, major wildfires continue to rage across Los Angeles County, the largest of these, the so-called Station wildfire, has already claimed two firefighters and is only 5% contained as of this morning.

The giant fire in Angeles National Forest continued its slow-motion rampage through the mountains Sunday, causing the deaths of two firefighters as it bore down on the semirural community of Acton and threatened to overrun Mt. Wilson.

The two firefighters were killed when they drove off the side of a treacherous road in the Mt. Gleason area, south of Acton, around 2:30 p.m., said Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Mike Bryant. They were later identified as Arnaldo Quinones, 35, of Palmdale and Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County.

"This accident is tragic," Bryant said, choking up as he spoke Sunday evening. "This is a very difficult time for L.A. County Fire Department and the men and women that serve day in, day out."

The fire had churned through more than 42,500 acres of chaparral and forest, from the edge of metropolitan Los Angeles up to pine-clad ridges and down toward the Mojave desert. More than 12,500 homes were threatened and 6,600 were under mandatory evacuation orders Sunday night. Eighteen residences have been destroyed, fire officials said, mostly in the Big Tujunga Canyon area.

The fire was 5% contained, officials said, and at least temporarily eased off the foothill communities from La Cañada Flintridge to Altadena.

Much of Sunday turned into a blistering-hot waiting game for firefighters, who were trying to determine where the fire would move next. Rather than battling the flames in the sheer granite canyons of the interior, with heavy vegetation more than 40 years old in many areas, they cut fire lines near threatened neighborhoods.

"In this rugged, steep terrain, with this brush as thick as it is, we are having difficulties establishing containment lines where we can make a stand," said Capt. Mark Savage, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. "This fire is still very much out of control."

Here's hoping any readers out in the L.A. area remain safe, but needless to say, this will not do California's budget problems any favors.

StupidiNews!

• Hurricane Jimena takes aim at Baja California as a Category 4 storm that could grow to Category 5.
• Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has been indicted on corruption charges.
• The VA says it won't pay for injuries a Marine suffered from a vaccine injection three years ago.
• After 50 years of nearly uninterrupted rule, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party was booted from power over the weekend by voters.
• A software industry group wants a "three strikes" law to permanently disconnect internet pirates, but are wary of the press backlash.

Last Call

When both Dick Cheney and Dianne Feinstein are on the same side, something fishy as hell. Both of them are strongly against Eric Holder's torture probe, and that means there will be more strong turbulence blocking any easy resolution to this mess.

Powerful Republicans and Democrats are starting to really not like this probe. It must mean there's something to it after all. The Village is trying to play the sympathy card as much as it can to protect the CIA here.

It is impossible to extrapolate from the small sample contacted by Washington Post reporters about the effect the varied inquiries are having on the thousands of agency employees, more than one-third of whom are spread around the world. But among the dozens of officials who were part of the program and either remain active or have retired, feelings run high about how the White House and the Justice Department have handled the issue.

One former senior official said President Obama was warned in December that release of the Justice Department memos sanctioning harsh interrogation methods would create an uproar that could not be contained. "They [the White House] thought that it would be a two-day story; they were wrong," this official said.

A much-discussed question is whether the legal reassurances of one administration carry over to its successor. "When a previous administration says something was legal, and the next says it doesn't matter, the result is hesitancy to take on cutting-edge missions," the former senior official warned.

Another former top official said senior managers detect a double standard. He pointed out that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. supported Obama's decision not to release photos of military abuses of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq because they would harm military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The warning that CIA operations would be made more difficult were disregarded," former official said.

There are some very powerful people in the former -- and current -- administration, not to mention Congress, who are going to take a serious hit on this should AG Holder continue with his probe.

The voices are getting louder. Obama is not going to be able to remain silent on the issue much longer. He's going to have to publicly bless this probe...or very publicly kill it. One of the two is going to have to happen, and soon.

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

Raw Story reports on a secessionist rally in Austin, Texas.

Some 200 people rallied at the State Capitol in Austin on Saturday, a small but vocal crowd that set itself in opposition to pro-health care reform protesters.

Larry Kilgore, a Christian activist that the Texas Observer says has advocated execution for homosexuals, "drew some murmurs of disapproval" when he told the crowd: “I hate that flag up there. ... I hate the United States government. … They’re an evil, corrupt government. They need to go. Sovereignty is not good enough. Secession is what we need!”

“We hate the United States!” he declared later in his address.

Although the Texas independence movement is nothing new, observers say it has been given new life by the debate over health care, which some secessionists see as an attack on the US Constitution, and therefore grounds for abandoning the Union.

But many observers place responsibility for the movement's growth in prominence on Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who in April suggested that the Obama administration's policies may drive Texas to leave the United States.

"If Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that," Brian Beutler at TalkingPointsMemo quoted Perry. "But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

"Rick Perry's talk of secession appears to have buoyed efforts by Texas secessionists who want the governor to follow through," Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater blogged on Sunday.

Slater went on to debunk some of the assertions made by the secessionists:

Another self-styled patriot invoked George Washington as an ally of secession (History lesson: Washington presided over creation of the union) and Sam Houston - "You go ask Sam Houston what he thought about secession. He did it anyway." (History lesson: Houston opposed secession. He ran for governor as an independent Unionist in 1859. Despite his efforts, the people of Texas voted to secede, and he was forced out of office in March 1861.)

As the Texas Observer notes, no prominent Texas politicians showed up to the event, not even the 70 or so members of the state legislature who supported a declaration (PDF) earlier this year affirming the sovereignty of Texas over its own constitutional affairs.

Prior to the protest, organizer Gerry Donaldson told Robert Moon of Examiner.com that secessionists are "calling for an orderly process that will allow our federal government to fall back in line with the Constitution. ... Either we will restore America, we will live in a Marxist dictatorship, or we will secede and start over again."

Boy, I'd love to see some of these guys go. And these are the base that the Republicans are trying desperately to keep at all costs, a base that's virulently anti-federalist, anti-immigrant, anti-minority and anti-science.

1860 called, boys. They want their casus belli back.

Will Helicopter Ben Get Audited?

Something momentous has to be in the works if it unites House Republicans like Ron Paul and House Democrats like Dennis Kucinich, and that subject is auditing the Federal Reserve. Barney Frank is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and he's now saying that Ron Paul's bill will clear his committee by the end of October, setting up the very real possibility the bill could be done by the end of the year.

“Here’s what we plan to do: I want to restrict the powers of the Federal Reserve in a number of ways,” he said. “First of all, they will be the major losers of power if we’re successful, as I believe we will be, setting up that, uh, financial product protection committee.”

The committee Frank mentioned was proposed by President Barack Obama during the campaign, as a way of protecting consumers. It was formally presented to Congress in the President’s financial regulatory reform white papers in July, noted law firm Wiley Rein LLP.

“The Federal Reserve is now charged with protecting consumers,” continued Frank. “They were supposed to do sub-prime mortgage restricted … Congress in 1994 gave the Federal Reserve the power to adopt rules to ban bad sub-prime mortgages. … They have the power to ban credit card abuses. They have the power to do most of it. They, under Greenspan, did nothing.

“Under Bernanke, they started to do things, but only after Congress started, when I became chairman of the [House Financial Services Committee], we began to act on these things: Sub-prime mortgages, credit cards, overdraft … And after we started, the Fed did. So, that’s why one of the reasons why in the new consumer protection agency we will take away from the Federal Reserve the power to do consumer protection.”

Frank added that Congress will reverse an action by the Democratic Congress of 1932 that gives the Fed authority to lend money at will.

“Under section 13.3 of the Federal Reserve Act, they can lend money to whoever they want,” he said. “We are going to curtail that lending power. We are going to put some constraints on it.”

Good. Like I've said before, the thing that make Ron Paul dangerous is that about 40% of his ideas make sense and I'd like to see them implemented, including auditing the Fed and us getting out of the world police business with our military. It's the other 60% of his far-right neo Goldwater agenda that is the problem.

He's right about the Federal Reserve, however.

Brokedown Senate

Earlier today I mentioned that the "hyper-partisan Senate" was basically broken. But as BooMan reminds me, it's not the Senate that is broken, but the Republican Party.

Take a look at the elected officials in the GOP. There are no black Republican members of Congress. With the retirement of Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, there are no Latino Republicans in the Senate. The only Latino Republicans in Congress are the three Cuban-American representatives from the Miami area. There are no Mexican Republicans or Puerto Rican Republicans. Now that Arlen Specter has switched parties, the only Jewish Republican in Congress is Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia. I can't think of any Republicans of East Asian ancestry other than freshman Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans. There are no openly gay Republicans in Congress. And consider this:

In the House there are 75 female Representatives. The Senate has 17 females. These are the highest numbers of women Members in the history of the Congress.

Of the 17 female Senators, 13 are Democrats and 4 are Republicans. Of the 75 female Representatives, 58 are Democrats and 17 are Republicans.

The demographics of the country and the degree of female participation in politics have changed dramatically since 1962 when Ted Kennedy was first elected to the Senate. So, too, has that tolerance for gays and the rights of racial and religious minorities. But it seems like the Democratic Party has absorbed all of that change, while the Republican Party has been trapped in amber. The two Muslims in Congress are Democrats. The two Buddhists in Congress are Democrats. The three Unitarians in Congress are Democrats. The only averred atheist in Congress is a Democrat.

The Republican Party is hostile to non-white immigration. It considers religious tolerance to be an infringement on the free exercise of Christianity. It opposes gay rights and hate crimes legislation. And it holds anachronistically paternalistic views of human sexuality and reproductive rights. Overtly racist comments are made by Republican leaders (usually unelected leaders) on a regular basis. And, finally, the party has an uneasy relationship with science since much of its base rejects basic scientific theories like of evolution, plate tectonics, and climate change.

All of this has resulted in a deeply divided political culture that is rife with the types of disagreements that cannot be resolved by debate and compromise.

And that's really the bottom line. The GOP has become the last bastion of reactionary, antiquated, 20th Century demographics. They hate and fear change, and America is changing rapidly.

Republicans are wholly unprepared to handle it.

The Lion's Funeral

President Obama delivered Ted Kennedy's eulogy today, and Presidents, family and others paid their respects in Boston, including his son Ted Jr.

President Obama hailed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as "a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate," at Kennedy's funeral Saturday.

Kennedy "never stopped trying to right wrongs," his son Ted Jr. declared at the towering Washington figure's funeral Mass Saturday at Boston's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica -- Boston's famed "Mission Church."

"My father was not perfect, but he believed in redemption," he said.

"Although it hasn't been easy at times to live with this name, I have never been more proud of it than I am today," Ted Jr. said.

He said his father had made light of his failure to become president, despite the weight of expectations on him as a Kennedy.

"I don't mind not being president, I just mind that someone else is," he quoted his father as saying, closing his eulogy with a line from Kennedy's famous 1980 concession speech that ended his presidential ambitions: "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream will never die."

The Senate will miss Kennedy. Despite however you felt about the man personally, he was greatly respected and had over four decades of legislative service to the country. Lawmakers like Kennedy are in rather short supply on both sides of the aisle.

Today's hyper-partisan, win at all costs Senate is a much more grim and unyielding place, and it will only get worse. Notably absent from the funeral was Poppy Bush, who let his son represent the Bush family at the proceedings.

That's classy for you.

Another View On Health Care

ZandarDad flagged me an editorial on health care reform this morning from the Editorial Board of the Cincinnati Enquirer and asked me to take a look at it.

President Barack Obama should call a time-out on health care reform, go back to the drawing board, and actually listen to what all Americans are saying instead of dismissing those who object as simply uninformed stooges. Polls show that Americans increasingly agree with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who argues for a more incremental approach and says it's "a real mistake to try to jam through" the proposed Democratic overhaul.

Even some of Obama's supporters seem unsettled by the botched message and bumbled strategy on health care reform. They wonder why he ceded the job of crafting a plan to the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her left-leaning allies who have yearned for a government-run, universal single-payer plan - an overhaul far more radical than Americans were ready to accept.

Obviously, there's little reason to believe that the end product will turn out to be bipartisan in any meaningful sense.

Merely re-labeling it to make it more palatable won't help: It's Health Care Reform. No, it's Health Insurance Reform. No, it's Entitlement Reform. No, it's Hospital Gowns with Open Backs Reform.

So here's our message for Congress:

Tear it up, folks.

Just tear it up and start over.

It is somewhat of a tempting prospect. Obama really has fumbled the message. I've said numerous times that for the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, President Obama sure does seem to act like he wants to pass a bill. He's left it completely up to Congress to handle, and Congress has no intention of passing a real reform bill. So what do we do about it? The Enquirer suggests Wyden-Bennett:

Sharp-eyed readers may note that many of these principles align well with an alternative bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. It may be the only truly bipartisan plan out there, with support from key senators in both parties.

Wyden-Bennett would move America away from employer-provided insurance:

Money that employers pay for coverage would go directly to workers.

Workers would use the money to choose their own insurance on the competitive, open market.

Everyone would be required to have insurance.

Since government wouldn't have to help fund employers' plans any more, that money would help pay premiums for lower-income (up to 400 percent of poverty) Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office says this plan could quickly pay for itself, and studies indicate it could reduce health care spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, not increase it by $1 trillion or more as the Democratic plans might.

A more radical plan? Perhaps.

But its rational simplicity is appealing.

Maybe that's why Wyden-Bennett is getting the stiff-arm from Democratic leadership - it's too simple, and it gives control-driven bureaucrats fewer levers to pull in the future.

To be clear: We're not endorsing Wyden-Bennett here. It needs more work and serious public debate. But it shows that it's possible to envision reform that doesn't resort to the tired old top-down, command-and-control mode Washington seems to favor.

And actually, I agree with the CE here. Wyden-Bennett does need a lot of work. As it stands right now, it's a huge gift to the insurance companies. I've discussed it before and the reasons Wyden-Bennett won't work as is: it really is too simple. Having employers give that compensation to employees to pay for insurance means yes, employees can take that money and shop around. It also means that insurance companies have every incentive to offer the least comprehensive plans as possible for maximum profit, because everyone will have to have insurance. Wyden-Bennett with a public option that would lower costs and foster competition would actually be a great plan. Wyden-Bennett without a public option would result in tens of millions of underinsured Americans with catastrophe only health insurance, the way car insurance is today. Now granted, there's much more competition in the auto field. But think about how many auto insurance companies for high risk drivers with low incomes are out there just so you can keep your car barely legal? God help you if you need the insurance. The same prospect awaits millions of Americans on health insurance.

Besides, Wyden-Bennett gets rid of the tax deduction for companies. If they're forced to offer coverage money to employees, and don't get deductions for it, that will be another game-changer in the American landscape. Employers would seek to hire whichever employee costs the least for them to give insurance compensation to. Single parents with kids on health insurance plans would find themselves to be the first let go...or not hired a all. And finally, let's not kid ourselves here, 200 million Americans shopping for health insurance? Informed shoppers will find the best deals. The rest are going to find out the hard way that there's always fine print. Wyden-Bennett still doesn't solve the major problem with health insurance: it's a for profit industry, and it does nothing to remove the rationing of health care by ability to pay for it, in fact it mandates it.

While the editorial does have good points, I disagree with the notion that none of the bills before Congress are worth passing. Anything that does pass needs at minimum the public option, and all the four bills that have come out of committee have it. Only the Senate Finance Committee refuses to consider it. The insurance companies are still calling the shots here. A truly "radical plan" would give them direct competition.

This Week's Busted Banks

Three more banks went under on Friday, raising the 2009 total to 84.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver for Affinity Bank of Ventura, California, Bradford Bank of Baltimore and Mainstreet Bank of Lake Forest, Minnesota, after yesterday’s closings, the FDIC said. Assets of $1.9 billion and deposits of $1.7 billion from the three banks were turned over to new lenders at a total cost of about $446 million to the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund, according to agency statements.

Regulators have closed banks at the fastest pace in 17 years and more are likely as losses mount from soured real- estate debt. A total of 416 banks with combined assets of $299.8 billion failed the FDIC’s grading system for asset quality, liquidity and earnings in the second quarter, the most since June 1994, the regulator said in a report Aug. 27.

Pacific Western Bank of San Diego will assume the deposits of Affinity Bank, the FDIC said. Affinity, with $1 billion in assets and $922 million in deposits, had 10 branches. Two, based in San Mateo and San Francisco, will open today as Pacific Western branches; the rest will open Aug. 31 under new ownership, according to the FDIC. The regulator agreed to share losses on $934 million of the assets.

Central Bank of Stillwater, Minnesota, assumed $434 million in deposits at Mainstreet Bank, the FDIC said. Central Bank will pay a premium to purchase Mainstreet’s $459 million in assets, with the FDIC sharing losses on about $268 million. Mainstreet’s eight branches will open today as Central offices.

The bank body count continues to rise as the commercial real estate collapse claims more and more victims. The pace is beginning to accelerate.

The days of the local bank with 10-20 branches is rapidly coming to a violent end. We continue to pay for each failure as a nation, while the government-deemed victorious banks continue to grow, fed the bodies of the losers.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• After numerous delays, Discovery has lifted off from Florida on a mission to the International Space Station.
• Brazilian scientists have discovered that a protein in tick saliva may be a weapon in fighting cancer cells.
• The Afghan Taliban is spreading from the south to the north, which could lead to a two-front war for American troops.
• The head of the SEC says more information of derivatives trades are "crucial" to reforming the derivatives market.
• A newly discovered planet outside our solar system is testing theories of how planets are created...and destroyed.

Fighting The Good Fight Badly

Republicans are so intent on keeping Democrats at 59 votes in the Senate that they're willing to possibly sue Democrats in order to keep them from passing state legislation that would allow Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint a successor to Ted Kennedy, as Eric Kleefield reports.

I just got off the phone with Massachusetts state Sen. Richard Tisei, the leader of the minority Republicans in the state Senate, and he confirmed to me that the GOP is not ruling out a court challenge against any possible new law to quickly fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat through an interim appointment.

Tisei said that when Democrats changed the law in 2004 to provide for special elections instead of gubernatorial appointment -- when John Kerry was running for President and Republican Mitt Romney was Governor -- the GOP offered an amendment to have interim appointments. The Democrats, he said, are all on record shooting it down back then. And Tisei says that Dems can't change the rules to fit the new circumstances of a current vacancy.

Which does in fact make the Dems look like a bunch of hypocrites, and Tisei certainly has a point. But the fact of the matter is if Democrats in the Bay State do have the votes to change state law, they're going to do it. Republicans would do the exact same thing if the roles were reversed and they know it.

Tying up the law in court until the de facto time has passed is the goal here, so neither side comes away smelling like roses, but let's be honest here: Both sides are looking to politically profit.

His Last Wishes

The Republican name that gets thrown around the most when looking back on Ted Kennedy's career is Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. How nice to know then that Sen. Hatch knew Kennedy so well that he doesn't believe that the late Senator would have supported the health care reform legislation that he wrote.

On ABC's World News, senior congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl stated that "Republicans, even those close to Senator [Ted] Kennedy, are not buying" the argument that health care reform should be passed to honor Kennedy's memory, then aired a clip of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) claiming Kennedy "wouldn't want it passed if it wasn't good." But ABC did not note that Kennedy voted by proxy to pass the Senate HELP committee's health care legislation -- a bill Hatch criticized -- and advocated for progressive policies included in the bill, such as universal health care coverage and a public plan.

Which is very odd, considering Kennedy statements about his own legislation:

"I could not be prouder of our Committee. We have done the hard work that the American people sent us here to do. We have considered hundreds of proposals. Where we have been able to reach principled compromise, we have done so. Where we have not been able to resolve our differences, we have treated those with whom we disagree with respect and patience," Chairman Kennedy said. "As we move from our committee room to the Senate floor, we must continue the search for solutions that unite us, so that the great promise of quality affordable health care for all can be fulfilled."

As I called earlier this week, prepare for Republicans to tell America exactly what Ted Kennedy's life-long dream was: not to pass his own health care legislation that he tirelessly worked for over the last 40 plus years.

Ted Kennedy's bill had everything Ted Kennedy wanted in it. Ergo, Republicans say, the best thing Congress could do is to scrap the bill. After all, somebody might use Kennedy's death to politicize health care.

In Case Of Emergency, Pray

Here in KY, a judge has struck down as unconstitutional the wording of the state's Office of Homeland Security mandate that references a dependence on the Almighty God.

Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate said in Wednesday's decision that references to a dependence on "Almighty God" in the law that created the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security is akin to establishing a religion, which the government is prohibited from doing in the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions. Ten Kentucky residents and a national atheist group sued to have the reference stricken.

"It is breathtakingly unconstitutional," said Edwin Kagin, national legal director for American Atheists Inc. in Union, "and Judge Wingate goes to great detail as to why it is."

The judge wrote in the 18-page ruling: "The statute pronounces very plainly that current citizens of the Commonwealth cannot be safe, neither now, nor in the future, without the aid of Almighty God. Even assuming that most of this nation's citizens have historically depended upon God, by choice, for their protection, this does not give the General Assembly the right to force citizens to do so now."

The language in the 2006 legislation had been inserted by state Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a pastor of Christ is King Baptist Church in Louisville.

Riner said he planned to ask Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway to seek a reconsideration of the order. Conway has 10 days to do that, and 30 days to appeal.

And while from a legal standpoint the law really is inordinately unconstitutional, this is also a hand grenade in the back pocket of Kentucky AG Jack Conway as he is running for Jim Bunning's seat in 2010.

A spokeswoman for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway says he has not yet decided whether to appeal.

Not exactly filling me with confidence there, Jack, this case seems pretty open and shut to me. I appreciate Conway has to walk a fine line with voters here in KY, but fighting for the ability to legislate a dependence on God as an emergency preparedness tool is not going to win him any friends with Democratic primary voters.

We'll see how he responds.

Odubya In My Internets

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is behind a Senate measure that would give control of the Internet to the President in case of a "national cyber emergency," among other lovely massive violations of privacy and civil liberties.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

The first is bad enough, but the last paragraph is more than a little disturbing. This seems to straongly suggest that if the government defines your network as critical, that you must have this training and be approved by the government or you can't be allowed to administer the network.

The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," he says.

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

The sheer number of Odubya references is starting to grate on my nerves. Unlike all the silly health care nonsense where Democrats are supposedly coming for your kidneys in the night, this issue actually is a massive concern for any free-thinking American.

Immoral Moral Hazard

AIG stock has shot up recently as investors know a good deal when they see it, a busted stock that the government cannot allow to fail and owns 80% of means that there's no downside to stock in a company that has unlimited bailout potential should things go bad. Thanks, Moral Hazard!

“Who would want to buy a stock that’s still 80 percent owned by the government?” wondered William T. Fitzpatrick, an equity analyst at Optique Capital. Shares ended Thursday at $47.84, a gain of 27 percent from the previous close of $37.69.

Yes, the company has named a new chief executive, who comes from a solid background at MetLife, and yes, he has said that A.I.G. will pay back the government for its bailout sooner rather than later. The giant insurer has been moving to change the names of key business units and working to disentangle its bewildering structure. It even reported a profit in its latest quarter.

But none of that really explains the recent gains. Speculation swirls daily that some deal may be in the works, that short sellers are being squeezed out of their positions, or that the company’s former chief executive, Maurice R. Greenberg, may be poised to make a comeback in the role of consultant. The new chief executive, Robert Benmosche, has been fueling some of the interest, as he talks about seeking advice from Mr. Greenberg and slowing the breakup of A.I.G. so it is not a fire sale.

Mr. Fitzpatrick said he thought the likelier explanation for the increased share price was that speculators looking to profit from a distressed stock had pounced on A.I.G.

“The risk appetite has returned to the marketplace,” he said. “People don’t want to get 5 percent back. They want to get the money back that they lost over the last year.” They look at a cratered stock like A.I.G. and think, “This is the place to do it,” he said.

Of course it is. And thanks to Treasury's trillions, investors are more than happy to get a piece of this rocketship as it blasts off for moral-hazard fueled points still unknown.

The best part? Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg is making a mint.

Also, the stock is concentrated in a few hands, meaning that a small number of investors can cause a big move in the stock price. The number of shares was reduced by a 20-for-1 reverse split in June. The government has the biggest stake in A.I.G., and the biggest common shareholder is Mr. Greenberg and a group of entities he controls.

Cha-ching! That's the sound of you getting screwed.

Not Waiting Until January

As I've mentioned before, GOP punching bag Mark "First Class" Sanford may be facing impeachment by his ow party in January, and the threat of that made zero difference in his tone or rhetoric.

Ergo, South Carolina Republican lawmakers are apparently turning up the heat.

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are laying plans for a special session legislative session on whether to impeach and remove embattled Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year, several senior state lawmakers have told The Washington Times.

Republican lawmakers in the state House will use a regularly scheduled annual retreat in Myrtle Beach this weekend to discuss the governor's fate and the details on whether to call a special impeachment session of the legislature before its scheduled reconvening in January, Rep. Gary Simrill, a Republican, told The Times on Thursday.

Two bills of impeachment already are being prepared - one by a Republican lawmaker and the other by a Democrat, Mr. Simrill said.

Mr. Simrill, who said he has voted about 80 percent of the time with the Republican governor, met privately with Mr. Sanford on Tuesday and urged him to resign but to no avail.

Mr. Sanford, whose extramarital affair with an Argentine woman sparked an international scandal earlier this summer, has rejected calls to step down voluntarily, including one issued Wednesday by the state's Republican lieutenant governor.

The movement toward impeachment is bipartisan and goes beyond talks at the Republicans' House retreat this weekend.

"A group of Republicans and Democrats are discussing how to take up impeachment before we reconvene in January," Rep. James Smith, a Democrat, told The Times. "The only question is: Are we better off waiting or taking up impeachment before the legislature reconvenes?"

At this point South Carolina is so eager to get rid of Sanford's ass that they are willing to actually call a special legislative session to do it as soon as possible.

That cannot bode well for Sanford's chances against impeachment proceedings. He's going to get Blagofied. I've said all along that Sanford was going to lose this battle, it was just a question of when.

And that when just got a hell of a lot closer.

Concern Trolling 101

The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel is suddenly worried about Leon Panetta's job.

In the game of political football that is today national security, spare a thought for CIA Director Leon Panetta. Quarterbacking is hard enough without getting sacked by your own team.

President Barack Obama fought hard for the former California congressman during his uncertain February confirmation fight. That's about the last thing the president has done for his spy chief. Quite the opposite: If the latest flap over CIA interrogations shows anything, it's that Mr. Panetta has officially become the president's designated fall guy.

The title has been months in the making. Mr. Obama is contending with an angry left that's riled by his decisions to retain some Bush-era counterterrorism policies. He's facing Congressional liberals still baying for Bush blood. He's hired Attorney General Eric Holder, who is giving the term "ideological purity" new meaning. Mr. Obama's way to appease these bodies? Hang the CIA and Mr. Panetta out to dry.

Shouldn't conservatives be thrilled to see a former Clintonite like Panetta get fried up like latkes by "his own team?" After all, if Panetta is the fall guy, that means Bush, Cheney, Gonzo, Ashcroft and John Yoo aren't going to be the ones in front of the firing squad. That should have conservative pundits like Strassel dancing in the streets, yes?

Ahh, but the problem is for Panetta to be the fall guy, there's the implication here that others will fall with him. Some of those others may in fact be Republicans, current or former. The risk of that is apparently so great that Strassel is playing the "won't you think of poor Leon Panetta" card this early in the game. It's a feckless and desperate move that strongly implies there's much hidden from the public eye.

All the more reason for Holder's investigation to go to the top.

The End Of The Rainbow

After 26 years, LeVar Burton's public television staple Reading Rainbow is coming to to an end.

Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday; it has won more than two-dozen Emmys, and is the third longest-running children's show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

The show, which started in 1983, was hosted by actor LeVar Burton. (If you don't know Burton from Reading Rainbow, he's also famous for his role as Kunta Kinte in Roots, or as the chrome-visored Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation.)

Each episode of Reading Rainbow had the same basic elements: There was a featured children's book that inspired an adventure with Burton. Then, at the end of every show, kids gave their own book reviews, always prefaced by Burton's trademark line: "But you don't have to take my word for it ..."

"The series resonates with so many people," says John Grant, who is in charge of content at WNED Buffalo, Reading Rainbow's home station.

Needless to say, I grew up with this show and I'm somewhat saddened to see it go after more than a quarter-century. It's especially sad seeing how popular children's books have become in the last decade, from Harry Potter to Maximum Ride to Eragon the Dragon Rider to the Baudelaire children, and that's led a revival of the classic books featuring characters from my own youth, Meg Murry, Turtle Wexler, Peter Hatcher and his little brother Fudge, Encyclopedia Brown and Tom Swift.

Reading to explore new worlds is what it's all about, and Reading Rainbow showed a generation that. All good things must come to an end, as they say, and the show really did have a heck of a run.

Still, going to miss it. Share your memories of the show if you have it, or the books the show interested you in growing up.

Finally Had Enough, Eh?

Steve Benen is fed up with Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Grassley's comments aren't the words of someone worried about deficit projections. Grassley's comments are the words of someone who wants to kill health care reform.

I'm tempted to ask Max Baucus to write 100 times on the chalkboard, "Chuck Grassley does not support health care reform. Chuck Grassley does not support health care reform. Chuck Grassley does not support health care reform."

What more would the guy have to do? Grassley wants to drive a stake into the heart of the reform bill, for reasons that defy common sense. He doesn't think he can reach an agreement with the administration. If he thinks the bill is "imperfect," he won't vote for it. He's prepared to vote against his own compromise bill, and as of this week, it's doubtful he'll "even support something."

What more is there to talk about with Chuck Grassley?

Why he's still in charge of the GOP negotiations for health care reform that he doesn't want and will never allow to pass, and why Obama keeps acting like Grassley is acting in good faith are two questions that most certainly need to be talked about as far as Chuck Grassley is concerned.

The third and final question is "When are Dems going to tell Grassley to go bugger himself with a chainsaw?"

How many times to I have to say this, folks? The GOP will never allow health care reform to pass if the Democrats can take credit for it. It really is as simple as that, and has been since Medicare and Medicaid were passed decades ago.

The Hunt For Sanity In The GOP

Why am I worried about the President so much? Stuff like this.

Rex Rammell, a former elk rancher slated to run against incumbent C.L. "Butch" Otter in the May 2010 GOP primary, made the comment at a Republican rally Tuesday in Twin Falls where talk turned to the state's planned wolf hunt, for which hunters must purchase an $11.50 wolf tag.

When an audience member shouted a question about "Obama tags," Rammell responded, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those."

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a President.

Too Big To Fail Becomes Even Bigger

The forced consolidation of the financial industry is simply making banks that were too big to fail last year even bigger now, as David Cho writes at the WaPo.

The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance. A series of federally arranged mergers safely landed troubled banks on the decks of more stable firms. And it allowed the survivors to emerge from the turmoil with strengthened market positions, giving them even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit.

J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.

A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.

Of course this was going to be the outcome. Save the largest 19 banks, throw the rest to the wolves. What did you think was going to happen to the industry as ten banks have failed on average each month this year, and some think scores if not hundreds more banks could fail before all this is over? The big boys take over the market. You're delusional if you didn't think that was the plan all along.

This problem, known as "moral hazard," is partly why government officials are keeping a tight rein on bailed-out banks -- monitoring executive pay, reviewing sales of major divisions -- and it is driving the Obama administration's efforts to create a new regulatory system to prevent another crisis. That plan would impose higher capital standards on large institutions and empower the government to take over a wide range of troubled financial firms to wind down their businesses in an orderly way.

"The dominant public policy imperative motivating reform is to address the moral hazard risk created by what we did, what we had to do in the crisis to save the economy," Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in an interview.

The worry for consumers is that the bailouts skewed the financial industry in favor of the big and powerful. Fresh data from the FDIC show that big banks have the ability to borrow more cheaply than their peers because creditors assume these large companies are not at risk of failing. That imbalance could eventually squeeze out smaller competitors. Already, consumers are seeing fewer choices and higher prices for financial services, some senior government officials warn.

Those mergers were largely the government's making. Regulators pushed failing mortgage lenders and Wall Street firms into the arms of even bigger banks and handed out billions of dollars to ensure that the deals would go through. They say they reluctantly arranged the marriages. Their aim was to dull the shock caused by collapses and prevent confidence in the U.S. financial system from crumbling.

Officials waived long-standing regulations to make the deals work. J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo were each allowed to hold more than 10 percent of the nation's deposits despite a rule barring such a practice. In several metropolitan regions, these banks were permitted to take market share beyond what the Department of Justice's antitrust guidelines typically allow, Federal Reserve documents show.

"There's been a significant consolidation among the big banks, and it's kind of hollowing out the banking system," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com. "You'll be left with very large institutions and small ones that fill in the cracks. But it'll be difficult for the mid-tier institutions to thrive."

"The oligopoly has tightened," he added.

Make no mistake, Helicopter Ben and his sidekick Timmy planned this out with the blessing of President Odubya. The only way to save the financial industry was by drowning it in moral hazard and making sure the largest banks, able to give the largest political contributions, survived. Over the next several years, your local bank will get bought out, competition will be reduced, and consumers will be left holding the bag on trillions in toxic assets. Bush may have started the process, but Obama is doing everything in his power to finish.

Change we can believe in, indeed. Bankster fat cats are laughing all the way to, well, the bank.

Blast From The Past

One name being kicked around as interim replacement for Ted Kennedy's seat is, of all people, Michael Dukakis.

Marc Ambinder and others are reporting that Michael Dukakis is the most likely placeholder Senator should the Massachusetts legislature grant Deval Patrick the power to make a temporary appointment until a special election can be held for Ted Kennedy's seat. That makes sense to me. Ambinder, however, raises the possibility that Patrick might pick an up-and-coming Democratic pol for the job and thus give him or her a major leg up in the special election. I don't see that happening--not only because Patrick isn't Blago, but also because Kennedy, before his death, specifically requested that Patrick receive an "explicit personal commitment" from his appointee not to seek the seat on a permanent basis if the legislature grants Patrick that power. It would be politically disastrous for Patrick to go against Kennedy's wishes.

Ted Kennedy was a very shrewd and intelligent man, and I don't see Gov. Patrick pulling a Blago either, he'd be annihilated for it. But Michael Dukakis? Granted, he's the closest thing to a non-Kennedy elder statesman the Bay State has, but you know the GOP is going to attack the guy rather mercilessly.

Of course, maybe that's the point. We know the GOP will attack whoever is appointed for being a hypocrite, and we know they will continue to insist that anything the Democrats do will be "exploiting Kennedy's death". Let the GOP be the ones politicizing Kennedy's passing then by attacking for political gain.

StupidiNews!

• Tropical storm Danny is approaching the Carolina coast this weekend, possibly causing problems as far north as the Canadian Maritimes.
• The United Nations is demanding a full investigation into human rights abuses by the CIA.
• Embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is blasting a probe into his travel practices, calling it politically motivated.
• Massachusetts Democrats want to see an interim appointment to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat.
• The Federal Trade COmmission is banning "robocalls" except of course from a wide list of exceptions.

This Could Possibly Be A Problem

If even the financial guys are saying there will be a massive numbers of bank closings, then there's a problem.

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May.

“We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They're smaller companies.”

Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank.

“Government money has propped up the very large institutions as a result of the stimulus package,” he said. “There’s really very little lifeline available for the small institutions that are suffering.”

This comes at a time when the FDIC has established new rules on bank sales. Private equity, for instance, would have to hold double the capital of their competitors in order to buy such an institution, said Kanas.

“This will have somewhat of a chilling effect on our participation,” he said. “As a result of having to keep higher capital levels, we’ll see lower prices coming from that sector.”

In other words, the small banks die, their assets get eaten up, we pay for the mess and the larger banks get bigger. But that's the way the forced consolidation of the financial industry rolls.

Democrats Sappin' My Bodily Fluids

Dave "Birther Watch" Weigel catches the GOP scaring the crap out of their own again.

I just chatted with Raymond Denny, the 64-year-old La Center, Wash., man who received the RNC’s “2009 Future of American Health Survey,” which alleged that President Obama’s health reform plans might discriminate against Republicans. Here’s the survey question:

“I’ve been getting these things for years,” said Denny, who opened the letter with his wife Louise, “getting them from the Republicans, getting them from the Democratic Party, usually with the wrong name on it. This thing says I’m a sustaining member. They word these things to solicit the answer they wanted. This one here we looked at and said, “Wow, that’s way beyond the pale of what should be done.”

So, Republicans are sending out surveys to people asking them if they should be concerned about Democrats using government health care to kill all Republicans. This is basically an official Republican survey here, folks. This is going out to millions of Americans, questions like "Does it concern you that the liberal media has gone to unprecedented levels to only give Obama's views on health care and no one else's?" (Nice touch, refusing to call him President Obama) and "Rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long to receive treatment. Are you concerned that this would be inevitable in the U.S. under the Democrats' plan?"

Gotta love how fair and balanced THAT is. As Digby says,

How long is everyone going to deny just how fucking crazy mainstream Republicanism has become? And when are people going to start asking seriously where this is headed?

I've been asking that for months now. The inevitable, logical endpoint of all this the Tree of Liberty getting some fresh transfusions of blood, of course.

The Wingers are running the party now, and they are baying for blood. It's only a question of when the next victims will be hurt or killed while the crazies yell "You damn liberals called Bush Hitler too!" while reloading.

Takedown

The New Republic's Jon Chait loved him some Sensible Centrists in 2006, calling progressives behind the efforts to primary Joe Lieberman out of office in 2006 "fanatics". This week, Chait has changed his tune, suddenly seeing the light that corporate drones like Lieberman are killing Obama's agenda.

Needless to say, this hypocrisy has earned him the deadly eye beams of one Double G Glenn Greenwald.

My, what a rapid and total reversal -- one effectuated without the slightest acknowledgment that it even occurred. But that's just the accountability-free nature of Beltway punditry. There's a more important point highlighted here: namely, it is a sign of how dysfunctional the Democratic Party is -- and how meaningless is their glorious super-majority -- that even The New Republic, which long prided itself on safeguarding the Party from nefarious left-wing influences, is now calling for "centrist" Democratic Senators (even including Joe Lieberman) to be thrown out of office by means of primary challenges (I believe that was once called a "purity purge"), even if doing so results in a loss of Democratic seats. Chait's rationale is that allowing "centrist" dominance within the party means that the same corporate interests (rather than the interests of constituents) and the same political agenda end up being served regardless of which party is in control, meaning that -- as he put it -- even "a filibuster-proof Democratic majority isn't worth having" because nothing meaningful changes. You don't say.

That, of course, was exactly the motivating premise of those who sought to remove Joe Lieberman from the Senate in 2006 -- the people Chait demonized back then as "left-wing fanatics" who "refuse to tolerate any ideological dissent." That was also the animating principle behind the founding last year of Accountability Now, largely designed to recruit and enable meaningful primary challenges against corrupt, unaccountable, and worthless corporate-serving incumbents.

Ahh, Double G in Righteous Indignation Mode is a glorious thing to watch, folks. The real problem is that the corporate whoring doesn't stop at Capitol Hill, but heads all the way across to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

While it's lovely that The New Republic has now joined that movement and decided that corporate-owned "centrists" need to be purged from the Party, Chait is laboring under complete blindness about the reasons these problems have arisen. Chait accuses me, Dan Froomkin and "liberals" generally of "confusion" because we believe that the Obama White House bears some of the blame in the dominance of corporate interests generally and in the health care battle specifically. Chait echoes the facially absurd excuse of the most hardened Obama loyalists everywhere: namely, that Obama, Rahm Emanuel and friends are just helpless, impotent observers who wield no influence over the health care debate and can do nothing but sit back and hope and pray that the Senate will pass a good, progressive health care reform bill free of excessive servitude to the health care and drug industries. If the Congress refuses to, well that's obviously not Obama's fault -- a President isn't in the Congress and can't really influence what it does, so this excuse-making goes.

For the moment, leave aside all the evidence to the contrary: that, as Chait's colleague Jonathan Cohn detailed, the Obama White House secretly entered into a deal with the drug industry not to negotiate for lower prices; that Obama has repeatedly sought to empower the Baucus-dominated Senate Finance Committee at the expense of more progressive committees; that the White House aggressively threatens, berates, and cajoles House progressives who impede the President's agenda but hasn't done anything against Blue Dogs; that the strategy of the White House from the start has been to ensure that the health care and drug industries are pleased so that they continue to use their ample largesse to fund the Democrats rather than get behind a GOP takeover in 2010; and that Emanuel built his career and power base by controlling the Congress through the expansion of the Blue Dogs and other "centrist" and "conservative" members and by pleasing corporate donors, thus rendering the image of him as a helpless, passive bystander in the health care debate transparent fiction. Even Dick Durbin -- the Senate's number two Democrat -- acknowledges that, even with a huge Democratic majority, the banking industry "frankly owns" the Congress.

And if you're wondering why we don't have a health care bill signed into law yet, remember that we need a health care bill to be created first, and Obama's done squat in that department, insisting that he leave the process to centrists like Max Baucus. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that both sides are trying to drag the fight out looking for the best way to shift all the blame to the other side, and neither side has any intention of passing a bill.

After all, both sides have been bought and paid for.

Sprained Your Arm Patting Yourself On The Back

The nasty mess around New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson is getting messier.

The federal investigation into allegations of pay to play in one state agency may be over, but that doesn’t mean Gov. Bill Richardson is in the clear, a top New Mexico political analyst said today.

In an interview with NMI, Albuquerque pollster and analyst Brian Sanderoff pointed out that federal and state investigators are still looking into allegations in the investment scandal that began in New York and has since spread to New Mexico and other states. That case, which is separate from the probe that has ended, involves some prominent Richardson friends and donors.

The probe that we learned today has ended — the federal investigation into allegations that CDR Financial Products received a lucrative investment contract from the New Mexico Finance Authority in exchange for campaign contributions to Richardson and two political action committees he started — cost the governor the commerce secretary job in Washington. But even as President Barack Obama accepted Richardson’s withdrawal of his nomination for that post in January, the president said he looked forward to Richardson’s “future service to our country and in my administration.”

Richardson said at the time that he would continue serving as governor “for now” and was “eager to serve in the future in any way (Obama) deems useful.”

How nice. The Holder DoJ is letting Richardson skate on the campaign finance shenanigans, but playing the muni bond roulette wheel may be the far more serious crime:

In the investment scandal, the founder of a company that was once New Mexico’s investment adviser is under indictment in New York in a pay-to-play investigation there. Among the allegations is that the founder of Aldus Equity, Saul Meyer, helped the son of New York’s then-state comptroller win an investment contract in New Mexico in exchange for his company getting increased business in New York.

In addition, Richardson has taken $20,000 in campaign contributions from another man tied to the scandal who is reportedly negotiating a settlement in New York to avoid criminal charges.

In other words, somebody's cutting a deal for Richardson's neck.

Keep an eye on this one. You thought Rod Blagojevich and Eliot Spitzer's downfalls were amusing (and Mark Sanford's slow-mo train wreck may end up one for the books) and hey, let's not forget Sarah the Quitter, but Richardson may end up being the disgraced Governor with the biggest price tag on his tomfoolery.

Also, what's up with the DoJ killing the pay-to-play probe? I can understand if the investment scandal is juicier, but still, it looks bad for Eric Holder...really bad. May want to hold off with the congratulations on that CIA torture investigation if you're burying Richardson's probe there, Sparky.

If I'm Not Back In Thirty Minutes, Call The President

Amanda Marcotte wisely points out ahead of time that should anything happen to her, she damn well wants her death to be used to motivate progressives to carry on her political beliefs.

I’m almost 32 and I’m in good health, so this might seem a little premature. But as the President pointed out that even young, healthy people should have living wills, the occasion of Ted Kennedy’s death---and Paul Wellstone’s before it---makes it clear that anyone who is a liberal in the public eye at all should explicitly spell out their wishes about the “politicization” of their deaths, or else the wingnuts will declare that the only proper way to honor your legacy is to start by undermining it.

Point taken. Should I die, keep on making fun of stupid people. You have my express permission to moon Joe F'ckin Lieberman while you're at it.

Cash From Clunkers

One financial upside (for corporate America anyway) to trading in old clunkers for new cars? Higher auto insurance premiums for those new rides...to the tune of $375 million.

Progressive Corp. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Geico Corp. are among insurers that may benefit from the U.S. “cash for clunkers” program as drivers pay higher premiums to protect new cars.

The government’s vehicle trade-in initiative could yield as much as $375 million in premiums, said Robert Hartwig, the president of the New York-based Insurance Information Institute.

“When they buy that new vehicle, the insurance generally will cost more,” Hartwig said in an interview. “It’s a newer vehicle and people will normally take out full coverage of the car. Any auto insurer would stand to gain.”

A rebound in auto sales amid the clunkers program may bring relief to auto insurers facing pressure from rising medical costs, reduced consumer purchases and declines in the value of fixed-income holdings. Progressive last month reported its first quarterly gain in net income since 2006, and Geico’s profit fell 63 percent in the second quarter on an increase in claims.

A bit of a cautionary note then for much more expensive insurance for people. The insurance companies want new customers, you see.

The Eternal Question

...as one Balloon Juice commenter points out. Are Republicans intentionally racist or just plain stupid?

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins told a recent gathering in northeast Kansas that the Republican Party is looking for a “great white hope” to help stop the political agenda of the Democratic party and President Barack Obama.

Either option of course kinda of disqualifies them from running the country, you know.

Mitt-igating Circumstances

As Steve Benen points out, goofy Village Centrist types are putting forth The Mittster as Ted Kennedy's replacement. This is a pretty horrible idea for Massachusetts, Democrats, Mitt Romney, Republicans, and pretty much everybody, but then again that makes it the perfect Village Centrist Stupid Idea.

This is certainly an ... what's the word ... imaginative proposal. But I don't think it's especially realistic.

First, Romney ran for governor in Massachusetts as a center-left, pro-choice, tolerant New England Republican. He left office after just one term as a conservative with an approval rating in the 30s. Which version of Romney would run for Kennedy's seat? He couldn't run to the right; he'd lose. He couldn't run to the left; it would ruin his presidential ambitions.

Second, Roff may have missed it, but while President Obama's approval ratings aren't as strong as they were, he maintains a 73% approval rating in Massachusetts. It doesn't look as if the Bay State would be anxious to replace Ted Kennedy with a harsh, reflexive opponent of the White House.

And third, by all appearances, Mitt Romney isn't actually a resident of Massachusetts.

Other than these minor details, though, it's a great idea. Run, Mittster, run.

As it is, I forsee Mitt having to distance himself as far as humanly possible from Massachusetts mainly because he was the governor who signed the often-attacked MassCare program into law. That alone puts a massive bullseye on his forehead for every other 2012 primary opponent Wingnut crackpot out there to aim at. The practical upshot is primary voters will realize about, well, now that the only Republican with more than a snowman's chance in Death Valley is Romney, meaning he will be primaried to death by the same intransigent wingnut knuckleheads who'll see Romney as a complete heathen.

In other words, 2012 should be a glorious disaster. Even better, there's no way Romney wins in 2010, either...and to win he'd have to go so far to the left that he'd never even get out of the gate in 2012.

[UPDATE 1:38 PM] Nate Silver runs the numbers on any Republican's chances to win Ted Kennedy's seat, and comes up with "very probably not."

Speculation aside, Mitt Romney is probably smart enough to know this (whatever else you might say about him, Romney's not lacking for brainpower). Romney has a pretty good brand and probably 75 percent-plus name recognition among likely voters. And last I checked, you don't have to be popular in Massachusetts to become elected President. Running for the Senate seat is virtually a pure downside play for him.

As for other Republicans in Massachusetts, their prospects don't figure to be much better. This is mostly because there aren't very many of them. Something like 40 percent of U.S. Senators had been U.S. Representatives at the time of their election -- but all 10 of Massachusetts' U.S. Reps are Democrats. Statewide office holders like Lieutenant Governors and Attorney Generals have also had their share of success when running for Senate -- but Massachusetts' A.G., Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and State Auditor are all Democrats. State Treasurer Timothy Cahill is a Democrat-turned-independent, but he's expected to run for governor instead. This, incidentally, is another layer of protection that the Democrats have -- any Republican worth his salt should be trying to knock off the unpopular Deval Patrick, rather than trying to win Ted Kennedy's old seat. Unless William Weld is interested -- and Weld endorsed Barack Obama and might vote with the President anyway on issues like health care and cap-and-trade -- this one is probably a pipe dream for Republicans.

Seems to be some very reasonable logic there.

If It's Thursday...

570,000 new jobless claims, down a smidge. Continuing claims down to 6,152,000 but still above that six million mark.

GDP revision for second quarter revised to a 1.0% contraction. Better than expected.

More Village History

The more wrong about political analysis you have been in the last ten years, the more respect and clout you have in the Village. Doug at Balloon Juice points out Cokie Roberts from 2006, who was convinced that the Dems were going to blow it by pushing to the left:

Yes, I do because I think, first of all, that pushing the party to the left, which is what’s likely to happen, is pushing the party to the position from which it traditionally loses, and In presidential elections but also it will send a signal to everybody in the Senate, watch out, the only smart thing to do here is play to your base, and then what that means is that your legislation becomes a mess, which it already is but even more of a mess...

In which case Doug notes how wrong she was:

Cokie Roberts uttered these words three years ago. I don’t need to tell you that since then, Democrats have picked up 15 seats in the Senate, 55 in the House, and captured the presidency with the largest percentage of the vote of any Democratic president since 1964. She literaly could not have been more wrong.

I’d feel a lot better if she’d describe health care reform as DOA.

No kidding. I'm waiting for her to say it's dead, because I then know it's a guaranteed bill this year signed into law.

Sadly, Cokie Roberts is not the only denizen of Opposite Land. They still are our political pundit class, known for their wisdom and ability to read the currents of Washington.

Just do the opposite of what they say and you'll be fine. Unless you're a beltway pundit, that is. Then you get Froomkined.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

South Carolina Republicans are lining up to take their shots at Gov. Mark Sanford ahead of this weekend's state GOP meeting in Myrtle Beach, including his own Lieutenant Governor asking him to step down. Sanford proclaims he "won't be railroaded." But in the Court of Wingnut Public Opinion if Sanford has lost Malkinvania he's in serious trouble with the GOP.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Musical Chairmanships

BooMan games out where the Democratic Senate leadership will go with trying to fill the shoes of the late Sen. Kennedy.

Understanding the congressional committees is real inside baseball stuff. But it matters a lot who controls which committees. For example, the fact that Max Baucus is the chair of the Finance Committee is greatly complicating Obama's efforts to pass a health care reform bill. Now that Teddy Kennedy has passed on, the Senate is about to embark on a game of musical committee chairs. How it plays out will have consequences, so I want to run through it for you.

You may have noticed that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) ushered the health care bill through the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee. He did that both because he was Kennedy's best friend and because he is the second highest ranking member of the committee. That means that Dodd has the first right of refusal on taking over the chair of HELP. That must be an attractive choice because Dodd's reelection prospects are looking quite sketchy due to the fact that he was the chair of the Senate Banking Committee in 2007-8 and didn't do anything to avert the financial meltdown. Taking over HELP will allow him to move on, and attract the support of teachers, nurses, and other members of labor movement. If health care reform passes, he'll be able to take a lot of the credit.

But Dodd is vulnerable in 2010, and things get a lot more complex and complicated. Traditionally, the full committees have one chair, and a Senator is not traditionally allowed to chair more than one full committee. Dodd could jump to HELP from Banking, and from there, things get messy.

To summarize, Dodd and Lincoln are two of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats who will be facing the voters in 2010. Dodd can help himself by moving from Banking to HELP. If he stays at Banking, he helps Lincoln by letting her get a hold of the chair of Agriculture. If Dodd leaves Banking, the duties there will fall to either Tim Johnson (bad) or Jack Reed (good). And Kennedy will be replaced by either Dodd, Harkin, or Mikulski (all of whom are satisfactory).

And, no, we can't make any difference in how this shakes out. It's all inside baseball.

We'll see how it shakes out, and I wholeheartedly agree all this does matter, like BooMan says, you have to look no further than Max Baucus to see that.