Eleventh Hour In Lansing

Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granhom informed Michigan's state employees that they will be laid off effective 12:01 AM Thursday morning unless the Michigan State Senate can pass a spending bill in the next few hours.

Because the Michigan Legislature has failed as of 2 p.m. today to meet its constitutional responsibility to enact a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2009, that notice remains in effect. You are temporarily laid off effective 12:01 a.m. on October 1, 2009, until a spending plan is in place or you are otherwise notified.

A bill authorizing the continued expenditure of state funds has been approved by both the Michigan House of Representatives and Michigan Senate but has not been given immediate effect by the Senate. If and when the Senate gives immediate effect to this continuation budget and the bill is signed into law by the governor, the Executive Office will notify news organizations and post a notice on www.michigan.gov. You are directed to monitor those reports for updated information, because in the event of action by the Michigan Senate or other action to authorize expenditures for Fiscal Year 2010, you will be expected to report to work for the balance of your shift or for your next scheduled shift as appropriate.

Jenny's playing hardball, kids. No budget tonight, the state with the worst unemployment rate in the country effectively shuts down in roughly three hours, laying off thousands more workers until further notice.

Pray tell how many more states will face a situation like this over the next 12 months? I'm thinking a lot more than you believe. Not exactly fair for Granholm to hold state workers hostage like this, but then again, the state Senate has to send her a bill to sign first.

[UPDATE 12:35 AM] Looks like no deal as of yet. I'll check back in the morning.

Laying Into Grayson

Republicans are laying into Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson like he personally took a dump on Rush Limbaugh's studio chair or something. They're trying to Van Jones the guy out of Congress for his comments on the GOP health care plan (or complete lack of it). Grayson, for his part, refuses to back down, as HuffPo's Howie Klein reports.

GOP morning shill, Joe Scarborough, had reactionary sidekicks Pat Buchanan and Mika Brzezinski, comparing Grayson's well-reasoned and factual assault on Republican Party well-coordinated anti-working family obstructionism with the disgraceful outburst from secessionist lunatic Joe Wilson (R-SC). Some of the most extremist partisans among the obstructionist caucus took Grayson's criticism personally -- which makes sense. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), whose ProgressivePunch voting score since President Obama was elected is a big fat zero-- extreme even for the fringe Republicans -- demanded an apology. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), another goose-egg extremist-- with unanswered questions about a gay Republican triple homicide in Orlando involving one of his now dead "associates" -- was up early this morning tweeting away, demanding Speaker Pelosi call a vote to reprimand him.

If Grayson made one mistake, it was blaming only Republicans for the way Congress is treating American families in the health care debate. Sure, every single Republican is catering to the special interests who line their pockets and fill their campaign coffers. But perhaps Grayson should have found a way of mentioning that it isn't just 100% of Republicans -- who, by the way, have often said that the Democratic plans for reform will kill granny, etc. -- but that there are also a significant number of corrupt, bribe-besotted Democrats -- from Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln to most of the Blue Dog caucus -- who also are trampling on the aspirations of working people in our country. Elijah Cummings stood up for Grayson to the vampiric Mika this morning. Georgia goofball Tom Price is introducing some kind of cockamamie resolution to condemn him.

Yeah, The Odious Patrick McHenry is even getting up off the GOP benches to attack the guy for telling the truth. And that resolution to condemn him? Going nowhere.

Tom Price, the Georgia congressman who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee, announced Wednesday morning that he would introduce a resolution condemning Grayson for breaching House decorum.

But a few hours later, Price decided to hold his fire and give Grayson a chance to apologize to House Minority Leader John Boehner for his remarks.

"We thought that we would give Congressman Grayson an opportunity to do the right thing and recognize the comments that he made were disrespectful to the House and to the decorum," Price told CNN.

Price said Grayson, who hails from a conservative district in central Florida, "has maligned half, if not more than half, of his own constituents" who are Republican.

Asked if he will introduce the resolution if Grayson refuses to apologize, Price said "we'll certainly consider it."

He noted that House Democrats set a precedent for punishing bad behavior when they voted in favor of a resolution formally disapproving of Republican Joe Wilson for shouting "You lie!" at President Obama.

"That was the avenue that was defined by the Democrats in charge when someone breaches the decorum," Price said. "So we chose the same vehicle."

And now Republicans, in one fell swoop, are guilty of hypocrisy for all the yelling they did at Democrats. In their mind, this was as bad or worse than what Joe Wilson did to President Obama on national TV. It's hysterical, and it only makes them look like a bunch of petty crooks.

Please, keep Alan Grayson in the news as much as possible guys, so the Village keeps playing what he said yesterday over and over and over again...

It just might start to hit home, I'm thinking. Hey America, what have the Republicans done for you on health care?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/alan-graysons-candor-hone_b_304742.html

Chad Ocho Pinko

Give some football players an inch, they'll take a yard. Give Chad Ochocinco an inch, he'll take an entire month...for charity.

The uniform-obsessed NFL is permitting a significant deviation for Week Four of the 2009 season.

As recently reported by Sean Jensen of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, players will be allowed to wear pink cleats and/or pink gloves to promote breast cancer awareness.

In Week Four, and presumably only in Week Four.

And, of course, Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco sees this as an opportunity to push the individuality envelope. He has indicated, Twitter style, that he plans to wear pink shoes and gloves for the entire month of October, and to supplement them with a pink chin strap and a pink mouthpiece.

He also says that he'll match any fines imposed with a donation, most likely to breast cancer research groups.

I may give Chad a hard time, but even I think this is damn cool.

Harry Plays Hardball

Harry Reid has actually followed through on a threat for once, canceling the Senate's Columbus Day week recess so they can get their work done passing a freaking health care bill.

Reid had threatened earlier this month to cancel the break, but unlike similar warnings in the past, the leader followed through on Wednesday.

Reid has often threatened to cancel recesses or long weekends to spur colleagues to pick up their legislative pace. But he usually relents, letting fellow lawmakers fly home to visit their families and constituents around the country.

The pressure on Democrats to pass healthcare reform, however, has raised the stakes. Some Senate aides speculated that Reid did not want to give conservative activists a chance to stall progress by staging a second round of angry demonstrations during townhall-style meetings over the recess.

“The Columbus Day [recess] is fast approaching,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “It’s the week after next and with all the things going on here, it just would not be right for us to take that week off.”

Reid said the Senate would only work three days that week, taking off Columbus Day (a Monday) and the following Friday. The Senate would not vote until 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

But hey, it's at least three days to get work done. Must be nice, being exhausted from those three-day work weeks.

Home Is Where The Heart Is (Ripped Out Of Your Chest, Still Beating)

More than half of homeowners who have taken advantage of loan modifications have once again fallen behind on their payments.

More than 50 percent of homeowners with loans modified in the first half of last year had missed at least two months of payments a year later, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision said Wednesday.

But the results were better among those who saw their payments drop substantially.

About one in three borrowers whose monthly payments were reduced by 20 percent or more had fallen behind again within a year. That compares with more than 60 percent for borrowers whose loan payments were left unchanged or increased.

The report highlights a significant challenge for the Obama administration's plan to tackle the foreclosure crisis, backed by $50 billion in money from the financial industry bailout fund.

Some people are being helped by this, but the reality is all the loan mods in the world aren't going to help you if you've lost your job and your insurance rates have gone up again, and you car breaks down, etc.

Sadly, this is only going to get worse.

That's It, It's Officially "The Left Is Just As Crazy" Day

The Wingers have now absolved themselves of everything remotely nasty ever said at a health care Town Hall Blitz thanks to Florida Democrat Alan Grayson.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) warned Americans that "Republicans want you to die quickly" during an after-hours House floor speech Tuesday night.

His remarks, which drew angry and immediate calls for an apology from Republicans, were highlighted by a sign reading "The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly."

Veteran Tennessee Republican Jimmy Duncan abandoned customary reticence to chastise Grayson.

"That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor, and I, for one, don't appreciate it," Duncan said.

"It's fully appropriate that the gentleman return to the floor and apologize," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another Tennessee Republican.

And actually, Grayson should apologize and clarify his statement and say "You know, the Republicans don't want you to die. They only wants traditional Democratic voters to die. And they are bastards for it. They don't give a damn about health care reform for Americans, they only care about political power. Screw them with a chainsaw. San Dimas High School football rules."

Which probably explains why I'm not a Capitol Hill aide and speechwriter.

How is that any different that the hundreds of Republicans who said the President wants to kill people with "Death panels"? Should they also apologize? Sarah Palin? Newtie? Bachmanniac? Glennsanity? El Rushbo?

Still waiting on those apologies...and what about YOU LIE!?

Hmm? Hundreds of Republicans on TV can do whatever they want. One Democrat calls them out on it, it's breathtaking and shocking and the wiorst thing ever.

Republicans are truly bastards. My country for a real opposition party to the Dems.

Stupidity Equivilency

Via John Cole, we get Tom Friedman concern trolling Obama Derangement Syndrome and pulling this kind of "It's just like that!" Village Idiot crap. First, the concern:

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

And then the trolling.

Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.

Because the attacks on Clinton and Obama's legitimacy by lunatics who impeached one and advocating a military coup against the other are just like the attacks on Bush's election screwup in Florida.

They are equivalent you see: the left is just as misguided and insane as the right. Village has always seen it that way and always will. Completely, 100% alike.

[UPDATE 11:53 AM] Hey look, Cap'n Ed Morissey can pull the equivalency card too. Gore Vidal is nuts too, so that absolves the entire right wing from the military coup thing from yesterday!

"The Left is just as crazy and violent" is no longer a valid excuse, people.

[UPDATE 2:32 PM] And Michael Steele still thinks Friedman is a "nut job" despite the fact that Friedman's column basically exonerates the Winger base by comparing the military coup freakos to those who thought Bush was not legitimately the President in 2000.

Classic.

Jobapalooza Preview

ADP's job loss report for September is still pretty grim, another 254,000 jobs estimated lost.

The decline was greater than the 200,000 loss economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast. But the difference was "not statistically meaningful," according to Joel Prakken, an ADP spokesman and chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC.

"The pattern of improvement in headline number is undeniable at this point," Prakken said. Private sector payrolls will continue to decline at a slowing rate for the next few months before modest job growth resumes "in the first few months of 2010," he added.

Large businesses, those with 500 or more workers, let 61,000 workers go. Medium-sized businesses, with between 50 and 499 workers, shed 93,000 jobs. And small businesses, those with less than 50 workers, reduced payrolls by 100,000.

Small businesses held will continue to shed more workers than larger and medium-sized firms, Prakken said. That's because large businesses started shrinking payrolls earlier and therefore will recover sooner, he explained.

It's not statistically significant unless you're one of those 54,000 I suppose...or are somebody who is currently employed because of those 54,000...you get my drift.

Modest job growth in early 2010, huh?

Don't see that happening, frankly.

Writing Off A Problem

The IMF is reporting that international bank losses still have a very long way to go.

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday lowered its estimate for global writedowns for banks and other financial institutions to $3.4 trillion but warned that loan losses were set to rise as unemployment grew.

In April the IMF estimated in its Global Financial Stability Report that global bank losses could reach $4 trillion but said it cut the figure by $600 billion to reflect rising securities values and new methodology for calculating writedowns.

"Global financial stability has improved, but risks remain elevated and the risk of reversal remains significant," the IMF said. It added that the economic downturn was troughing but the recovery in advanced economies would be extremely slow.

The report said that while banks have enough capital to survive, their earnings are not expected to fully offset writedowns expected over the next 18 months.

It said stronger action was needed to bolster bank capital and earnings capacity to ensure banks could support a recovery.

The Fund said while private-sector credit growth has contracted in big economies, overall borrowing needs have not slowed as quickly because of burgeoning government deficits.

"The likely result is constrained credit availability," it said, adding that continued support by central banks may be required to alleviate this.

More bailouts and dirt-cheap loans will be needed, and in turn these banks will be sitting on the loans making money rather than risking lending that out to the cash-strapped American consumer or the businesses that employ them (for now).

The problem is that the banks will still need yet more money to stay up. We're maybe halfway through this mess at best. 2010 will not be pretty.

Going Coup-Coup

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has a damn good point on yesterday's NewsMax.com article advocating a military coup against the President:

If the Democrats don't step up and shut this kind of talk down right now, I fear we are going to see violence in this country. And yes, it will be the Republicans' fault. But it will also be the fault of the Democratic party for watching the crazy talk grow, and not doing a thing to stand up to it. At some point, silence abets.

Let's see some response to the Obama Derangement Syndrome, guys. It's gone way the hell too far. And as Logan Murphy at C&L reminds us, it's not just fringish stuff like NewsMax and World Net Daily openly talking treason, it's guys like El Rushbo too.

This thread of commentary clearly is pushing toward a single thought -- to push people in the armed forces into seeing Obama as a usurper and traitor, just like the Honduran president, and toward the idea that a similar military-based removal of him from office might be justified.

Keep in mind that Limbaugh is only of only four pundits still broadcast daily on Armed Services Radio, so our men and women in uniform are getting fed this garbage on a daily basis. (And Wes Clark was right: It is well past time to take him off.)

Dismissing these guys as harmless cranks isn't an option anymore, guys. It's time to stand up here and say something. The Wingers have become so insane with hatred that being out of political power for less than a year already has some of them talking about a military coup against Obama.

This is deadly serious stuff here, guys. It's no longer a funny fantasy or a comic absurdity. It's borderline treason.

[UPDATE 8:55 AM] Even Rick Moran thinks this guy is insane. Mainly because this guy is insane.

The Public Option Playbook

TPMDC's Brian Beutler takes a look ahead at the future of the public option after yesterday's twin defeats in the Senate Finance Committee.

Soon, Reid will have to decide whether or not to import the HELP Committee's public option into the package he brings to the floor. If he does, it would completely shift the onus on to the skeptics. As it stands liberals are forced to make the push for the public option; if Reid adopts it, conservative Democrats would be smoked out: either they'd have to accept it, or come out strongly against it by voting with Republicans to strip it, or by filibustering the entire bill.

But he probably won't do that. So what then?

Assuming he doesn't (a safe assumption) there will be more amendments, and, soon enough, the entire Democratic caucus will have to go on the record anyhow. More than that, they'll have to decide whether a public option is worth filibustering. That will be a key test of party unity.

And to take things one step further still, if a public option is not in the final bill that passes the Senate, Democratic leaders could still adopt one in negotiations with the House of Representatives. Maybe they will and maybe they won't, but if they do, then conservative Democrats will have to decide yet again whether it's worth tanking the entire reform project over the inclusion of a fairly modest provision.

That's a lot of choke points, and a lot of pressure on public option skeptics. So while it's much too early to predict what will happen, it's also extremely premature to say the public option fight is over. As you can see, there are much more favorable battlefields ahead.

And while Beutler is right on the fights to come, the whole point is that there shouldn't be Democrats fighting against this in the first place.

The public option is a no-brainer, folks. It will save Americans money, it will lower health care costs by giving insurance companies competition, and it will make more affordable health care more widely available to millions of Americans, yet with sixty Senators, Democrats are whining that they just don't think a bill with the public option has the votes to pass.

In other words, there are Democrats that plan to filibuster the bill or vote against the bill if it has the public option in it. That's a problem. And it's one that the Democratic leadership better make clear to the rank and file that failure to pass a real reform bill will cost a lot of Democrats their job in 2010 and 2012.

BooMan has more:

The ideal situation from a parliamentary point of view is to include the HELP version of the public option in the base bill, and then force the opponents to strip it out with an amendment. But that might not work out for the best. For example, if the Senate has a knock-down drag-out fight over the public option and defeats it, it will be harder to get them to turn around and support it if it comes back at them in the Conference Report. The liberal majority in the Senate Democratic Caucus might be better served to save their ammunition. Pass whatever can pass without a lot of fuss and then fight like hell to include the House's public option in the Conference Report. I could go either way on the strategy. The most important thing is that the progressives in the House hold firm in their pledge to vote against a Conference Report that doesn't have a public option. They must make sure it is included in the House bill and they must prevail for its inclusion in the Report.

If they do, the only way they can fail is if there are Democrats (or Lieberman) in the Senate who will filibuster this at the end of the process. And, if that happens, we just go to the reconciliation process. I don't sense that the administration is wobbly on this at all, although I'm sure they are plenty nervous. They are a lot of balls in the air at the moment, and anything can still go wrong.

But that still means Democrats will be the ones killing this bill, not Republicans. It may be the best chance for real reform to pass, but if it fails, the Democrats will take the blame, not the Republicans.

StupidiNews!

• A massive 8.0 earthquake off the coast of American Samoa has created a tsunami disaster across the Pacific Islands, killing dozens.
• A bizarre situation in a small town in Montana has an unregistered security firm posing as the local police.
• Security and terrorism experts doubt the validity of reports that Al Qaeda is considering attacks with "internal explosive" laden bombers.
• America's biggest banks may have to fork over $10 billion in fees to replenish the tapped FDIC's tapped reserves.
• Data storage technology is advancing as firms consider new methods, including holographic disks.

Heart Of Darkness

Paging Colonel Kurtz...Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, please pick up the white courtesy phone. The Wingnuts are calling. NewsMax.com's John L. Perry fantasizes darkly:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

Wow, now isn't THAT a copout. Suuuuure you're not advocating treason. That's what an armed military coup taking over the leadership of America is, after all...but because this is a nutcase Winger fantasy, nobody gets hurt but the bad guys.

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don't shrug and say, "We can always worry about that later."

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

"You know, if we HAVE to have a magically bloodless coup where we take the military, relive the President of his power at gunpoint, and create an interim government, why I'm sure these military patriots will surrender that power back to the people in a just and peaceful manner."

Because world history is full of examples of that over the last 4,000 years. Jesus.

I really don't know what's more frightening, casually rattling off the inference that our military is packed full of officers and generals ready to execute a plan for high treason against the United States of America, or the completely moronic failure of this guy to understand even the most basic tenets of the history of military might over the last four millennia: Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But this is the discourse our neocons have, and Perry brilliantly represents the dichotomy that is Homo Wingnuttius: on one hand, he claims to have a inner knowledge of our military to the point where as an expert, he believes a coup is not only possible but necessary, and at the same time he demonstrates such a laughable lack of even a rudimentary grasp of military history that he and his "expertise" should be laughed out of the room by any sane and thinking individual. He perfectly encapsulates the neocon of the last decade: somebody who through his own claims demonstrates complete and total ignorance of the subject matter he claims to be opining on in capacity as an authority.

Better to ask a rock about high-energy particle physics. The rock at least has the sense to keep its mouth shut, putting it ahead of the Neocon.

And yet these people are taken seriously by the Village and terrify the Democrats.

Gaming The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court may take up California's controversial law banning violent video game sales to minors, one that was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court before the law ever even went into effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to discuss today whether it will hear arguments on an appeal of a California videogame law that would ban the sale of certain games to anyone under 18 and required game manufacturers to label violent games with a four-inch square marker with “18” printed on it.

This is the first time the country’s top court has considered a case involving sales restrictions within the video game industry.

Despite being signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, the controversial proposition never took effect. A U.S. District Court blocked it after the gaming industry sued the state, citing First Amendment concerns.

In February of 2009, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violated the rights of minors under both the First and 14th Amendments.

California appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in May.

Justices were scheduled to meet Tuesday in a closed conference, where they will decide whether to put the case on the docket. A public information officer at the court said the orders list, which will either grant the request for oral arguments (and move the case forward) or deny it with no further comment (letting the lower court ruling stand), is expected to be issued as soon as Wednesday.

It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. The video game industry is hurting badly, and should the California case pass muster, you'd better believe other states will follow suit or even national laws will be on the books by 2010.

That will blow a pretty fatal hole in the already struggling console market. Not good.

Max Baucus Returns, Part 7

Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer put up a pair of public option amendments to the Baucus plan in the Finance Committee today, and Maxie killed them both.

The amendments by Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Charles Schumer of New York were opposed by all 10 Republicans on the committee and a few Democrats, including committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.

Baucus explained that he liked much about the idea of a public option but that he knew a health care bill containing the provision would fail to win enough support in the full Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster.

"I fear if this provision is in the bill, it will hold back meaningful reform this year," Baucus said.

Let's review, class:

Democrats will have 60 votes once Ted Kennedy's replacement is sworn in.

Democrats will need 60 votes to beat a GOP filibuster.

There are Democrats that will not vote for cloture to stop the GOP filibuster on health care reform if a public option is included, one that will save Americans money. One of those Senators, and it only takes one, is Max Baucus. He was not the only one.

This is why millions of Americans will not get meaningful health care reform this year or any other year, because your Congress is owned by insurance companies.

What do you suppose voters should do about Max Baucus?

Class dismissed.

[UPDATE 4:53 PM] Your extra credit work is from Pam Spaulding.

[UPDATE 5:09 PM] D-Day runs down the roll call:

Here's the vote on the Rockefeller amendment: Rockefeller, Aye; Conrad, No; Bingaman, Aye; Kerry, Aye; Lincoln, No; Wyden, Aye; Schumer, Aye; Stabenow, Aye; Cantwell, Aye; Bill Nelson, No; Menendez, Aye; Carper, No; Grassley, No; Hatch, No, Snowe; No; Kyl, No; Bunning, No; Crapo, No; Roberts, No; Ensign, No; Enzi, No; Cornyn, No; Baucus, No.

8 Ayes, 15 Nos. Conrad, Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Carper and Baucus have been ferreted out. We'll see if anyone flips on the Schumer "level playing field" amendment. Given the debate on the prior amendment, I'd say that MAYBE Bill Nelson could go that route. Probably not anyone else.

Now we know which Democrats want to protect the insurance industry at the expense of people.

And on that Schumer Amendment?

..here's the vote: Schumer Aye; Rockefeller Aye; Bingaman Aye; Kerry Aye; Cantwell Aye; Stabenow Aye; Wyden Aye; Menendez Aye; Bill Nelson Aye; Baucus No; Conrad No; Carper Aye; Lincoln No; All R's no.

So Carper and Nelson flipped. Amendment fails 10-13. Only Lincoln, Conrad and Baucus against it.

Tom Carper of Delaware, Bill Nelson of Florida, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Max Baucus of Montana, folks. Owned by the insurance companies. They should be disowned by voters.

Quote Of The Week

Sully on Sister Sarah:

She remains the hood ornament for a marketing campaign that now passes for the conservative movement.

When he's on, brother he's dead on.

No Longer Buying What You're Selling, Mike

Poor Michael Steele. He holds a conference call with reporters to attack the President on health care (which is not news, because the GOP is irrelevant on health care reform by their own admission), and then makes the mistake of attacking the President on the Olympics (which the Village, being the Village, thinks is news.)

Dems are now seizing on that as proof that reporters don’t believe the GOP has credibility on health care, or at least have no interest in Steele’s views on it.

“It speaks directly to the RNC’s complete lack of credibility on health insurance reform that they would hold a conference call on health care and no one was at all curious about how Republicans felt about health care,” emails DNC spokesperson Brandi Hoffine. “I guess that’s what happens when you have no plan.”

To be fair, the Republicans who might better be questioned about health care are those with a direct say over it: Members of Congress. And Steele did get in some health care licks, hammering Obama’s reform plans as imposing untold costs on “businesses and families that will not hasten recovery but prolong recession.”

It’s also worth noting that the GOP’s health care opinions just aren’t relevant. The final proposal will pass with a handful of Republicans at best. It’s up to Dems.

But Dems counter that the RNC billed the call as being about health care — and couldn’t even get a reporter to ask Steele for his views about the big topic of the day.

I don't honestly know what's worse, the Village, or how completely awful Michael Steele is at playing their games.

[UPDATE 3:50 PM] Speaking of attacking the President on the Olympics, why do the GOP insist on saying idiotic stuff like this?

"I think it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri. "[Obama's] got a lot of responsibilities. His number one responsibility is to keep our country safe."

Yes, because at this point in George W. Bush's first term we had just been hit by the worst terror attack in our nation's history. I'm going to say in comparison, Obama's doing a great job on that.

No Longer The Big Cats

The Bengals and the Lions now have better records than my 0-3 Carolina Panthers after last night's interception debacle cost them the game on MNF.

I like coach John Fox. But I think he just lost his job last night. The bye week Charlotte media is not gonna be happy.

Ray Ray Versus The Birthers

Rachel Maddow takes on the "Birthermercial" I talked about last week.

Classic watching here.

The Loyal Opposition

Following up on last night's post, the GOP has pretty much given up on civility towards Obama as GOP Rep. Trent Franks proves:

A Republican member of the House of Representatives accused President Barack Obama of being "an enemy of humanity" during a conservative values forum this past weekend.

In a speech Saturday before the How to Take Back America conference, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) made comments that went far beyond the limits of traditional White House criticism. At one point, Franks demanded that Obama release his birth certificate to prove his constitutionally eligibility to hold office. The bluntest charge, however, centered on the president's position on abortion, which the congressman derided as "insane" and godless.

That's nice. At this point Obama is the Enemy and must be dealt with. Sitting Republican members of Congress are publicly calling him inhuman. Trent Franks's exact words:

"Obama's first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers' money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries," said Frank. "Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there's almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity."

Now I ask you, if a sitting Democrat would have said that about Bush, that Democrat would have a firestorm crammed so far up their ass they'd be spitting charcoal. But Republicans saying Obama is an enemy of humanity?

No problem. Hey, at some point a liberal said something bad about Bush, so it's okay.

North Of The Border

Sen. Byron Dorgan is tossing about lit sticks of dynamite into the Baucus plan's deal with Big Pharma, and I for one am willing to supply the matches.

A Senate Democratic leader is hoping to blow up the deal reached between the White House, drug makers and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), by introducing an amendment on the floor to allow prescription drugs to be re-imported from Canada.

It's one of the simplest ways to reduce health care costs but was ruled out by the agreement, which limits Big Pharma's contribution to health care reform to $80 billion over ten years.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership, isn't a party to that bargain. "Senator Dorgan intends to offer an amendment to the health reform bill and his expectation is that it will be one of the first amendments considered," his spokesman Justin Kitsch told HuffPost in an e-mail. "Prescription drug importation is an immediate way to put downward pressure on health care costs. It has bipartisan support, and has been endorsed by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and AARP."

U.S. patients pay far more than the rest of the world for prescription drugs. The Canadian government keeps prices down by using its purchasing power to negotiate for lower rates. Dorgan wants American consumers in on the deal.

A bill to allow re-importation -- S. 1232 - has 30 cosponsors, several Republicans among them, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would result in $50 billion in direct savings over the next decade, with $10.6 billion of that being savings to the federal government.

The problem is that $50 billion is going to Big Pharma, and that's just a small slice of the pie for the drug industry that they are expecting to get.

Threatening to cut off that windfall is going to spark a rather nasty battle, but it's one that needs to be decided and decided now. Good for Byron Dorgan.

A Blue Streak In The Bluegrass State

Here in KY, the buzz is all about Lt. Gov Dan Mongiardo (and current Democratic candidate for Jim Bunning's Senate seat) tore into current Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, as Bluegrass Politics reports.

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo used profanity as he criticized Gov. Steve Beshear and his support of Mongiardo’s U.S. Senate candidacy in a recording posted last week on the Internet.

In the recording, which was placed on YouTube by someone using the name “senrace2010,” Mongiardo is heard saying he is so frustrated with Beshear that he is “close to saying f— it all. I do not need this job. I do not need the U.S. Senate.”

Mongiardo is also heard saying that Beshear, who has endorsed Mongiardo, will be remembered as the state’s “worst” governor and that a “blowup” is coming.

Mongiardo spokesman Kim Geveden said the audio tape was “edited” and that Mongiardo “strongly supports” Beshear.

“He supports him now and he supports him for reelection in 2011,” Geveden said in a statement. “He believes Governor Beshear has provided strong leadership and a steady hand during some of the most difficult times in our Commonwealth’s history.

Geveden declined to answer specific questions about the veracity of the tape, including when and where it might have been recorded.

Somewhere, KY AG and Mongiardo primary opponent Jack Conway is laughing his ass off.

You Say Potato, I Say War Crimes

A UN report on last winter's Israeli attacks into Gaza holds nothing back, suggesting Tel Aviv has committed war crimes against the Palestinians.

Israeli officials condemned Tuesday a scathing United Nations report that accused the nation of war crimes in its military offensive into Gaza.

Palestinian officials applauded the report, which was presented at a U.N. meeting, and urged U.N. members to address the alleged crimes documented in the report.

In the report, released earlier this month, a U.N. group accused Israel of committing "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18.

The group, called the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, is headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone.

Goldstone presented the 500-plus page report the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva Tuesday.

"The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point," Goldstone said Tuesday. "This is the time of action."

Naturally, the Obama administration isn't happy, but they stopped short of full condemnation of the report.

The U.S. representative, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, said some of the recommendations in the report were "deeply flawed" and called for Israel and Palestinian authorities to be allowed to finish conducting their own investigations before passing judgment.

Translation: the White House needs some time in order to talk down Russia and China, who are both satisfied with the report. Any serious action against Israel is inconceivable, even Obama will assure any sanctions will be vetoed by the United States.

But accusations of war crimes by the UN is a deadly serious thing, and the report pulls no punches:

The report claims that the Israeli Defense Forces "failed to take feasible precautions required by international law to avoid or minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects."

The U.N. report also said Israel fired the chemical agent white phosphorous in civilian areas, intentionally fired upon hospitals using high-explosive artillery shells, and failed to provide effective warnings to civilians or U.N. workers before attacks. It also claims that Israel used Palestinian civilians as human shields and deliberately attacked Palestinian food supplies in Gaza.

The report recommends that the U.N. Security Council require the government of Israel to launch appropriate independent investigations into the findings of the report within three months. The findings also recommend that the alleged Israeli war crimes be explored by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor.

The findings also call on Palestinian leadership to investigate alleged war crimes, for militants to respect humanitarian law, and for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on humanitarian grounds.

A spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that a resolution on the issue could be drafted by the human rights council by Friday.

In other words, this is a serious problem for Obama, and an even more serious problem for Israel. How Tel Aviv reacts to this will be anyone's guess, but reaction of the Wingers I can tell you will include cries of "pervasive anti-Semitism throughout the UN" for daring to say that using Willy Pete on Palestinians is a bad thing.

Do You Like Coffee? Real Colombian Coffee?

In a sign of the times, Starbucks is expanding their business model...not to include more stores and more upscale barista brews, but the opposite: they're getting into the instant coffee market nationwide starting today with their new brand, Via.

Starbucks will trumpet Via's debut in the United States and Canada with a week-long advertising campaign that will highlight in-store taste tests pitting Via against Starbucks brewed coffee.

Some analysts have questioned whether U.S. coffee drinkers will flock to Via, particularly since it will compete with familiar and far less expensive products.

Schultz said that due to the higher quality of Via, it would not compete with existing instant coffee products. He added that Via did not cannibalize Starbucks main business in markets where it was tested.

"This is not your grandmother's instant coffee," Schultz said. "The quality of Starbucks Via is a mirror image of the quality and taste of Starbucks brewed coffee."

While the CEO said that Via "exceeded expectations" when it was tested in Seattle, Chicago and London, he declined to reveal expectations for Via profits, the cost of the advertising campaign or the timing of Via's launch in other parts of the world.

A trio of single-serve Via packets will sell for $2.95 in the United States and 12 packets will sell for $9.95.

Those prices are significantly higher than Nescafe's Taster's Choice single-serve packets that sell in Los Angeles for roughly $1.50 for six and around $4 for 20.

Starbucks aficionados "won't balk at the price" of Via if they believe it delivers on taste, said Bill Smead, portfolio manager of the Smead Value Fund in Seattle.

A decently smart move. Americans are definitely cutting back on the daily trip to pick up their mocha half-caf lattes with no foam, and like everyone else, Starbucks is trading down a notch to go after the instant market instead.

The economy that gave rise to the ubiquitous Starbucks on every corner is dead and gone, folks. Look for the company to keep concentrating on the home market and closing more stores around the country.

And I choose to respond through the power of comedian Lewis Black.

He was more right than he knew five years ago when he said this. End of the universe, indeed...

StupidiNews!

• An infamous YouTube prank video at a Domino's Pizza in North Carolina has now led to the store's closing.
• Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue", will be on sale in November.
• A number of energy companies are withdrawing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to that group's intense lobbying against climate change legislation.
• Flooding deaths from heavy rains in the Philippines has reached 240 as the government comes under fire.
• A new EU "volume policy" means cell phones and MP3 players will have to comply with noise level guidelines.

Last Call

It's not really paranoia if they really are out to get Obama, you know.

At the How To Take Back America Conference last weekend, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann led a workshop called “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists.” Announcing the panel in a column preceding the conference, talk show host Janet Porter gushed how Werthmann’s description of Austria in the 1930s is a “mirror to America” today — noting “They had Joseph Goebbels; we have Mark Lloyd, the diversity czar.” The room was packed over capacity to hear Werthmann, who grew up as a Christian in Austria and serves as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum South Dakota President.

During her session, Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted “like an American politician,” was “elected in a 100% Christian nation.” Although she failed to once mention Antisemitism or militarism, Werthmann explained how universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes were telltale signs of Nazism. Werthmann also warned the audience:

If we had our guns, we would have fought a bloody battle. So, keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. [...] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into Socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was National Socialism. [...] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism.

Well, alright Zandar, you say, but these people are mad, fringe lunatics. Surely the GOP is keeping a safe distance from people advocating armed revolt against the government given our recent history over the last 20 years.

You would of course be COMPLETELY WRONG.

Werthmann noted that her Nazism speech is gaining popularity. She not only has delivered it to several tea parties, but has been asked by “a group of bankers” to address them this month.

Before the event, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), one of several Republican members of Congress also speaking at the conference, to autograph Werthmann’s DVD about National Socialism. She happily obliged:

Bachmanniac again. Anyone else surprised? Well, who else was there, you ask? How about World Net Daily founder Joseph Farah, conservative pain in the ass Phyllis Schlafly, GOP Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, and GOP Congressmen Steve King, Tom McClintock and Tom Price...and Joe The Plumber!

It's a Hollywood Squares of squares who hate Hollywood. And Obama. And anyone who isn't exactly like them.

But don't dismiss them as harmless cranks. These guys mean business, folks. The GOP is backing their play with the Pretty Hate Machine. Who will it set off next, and how many people will be hurt or killed when it happens?

Keep that in mind.

Auto Sales Running Out Of Gas

Without Cash For Clunkers, car sales have hit a pothole again.

U.S. auto sales likely fell in September back to the nearly three-decade lows of early 2009 without government incentives to spur buying, leaving in doubt the timing and pace of a recovery for the battered industry.

Nearly 700,000 new cars and trucks were bought by U.S. customers through the government "cash for clunkers" incentive program from late July through the first three weeks of August, a leap from recession-stunted sales earlier in 2009.

The massive jump in buying versus earlier in 2009 depleted the stores for all the major auto manufacturers, leaving industry inventories at historically low levels.

Major automakers made sharp production cuts due to the economic downturn in general. Chrysler, now under management control of Italy's Fiat, and GM, also broadly halted output around their restructurings in bankruptcy.

The exhaustion of the government incentive program and a dearth of key vehicles at dealerships curtailed activity at many dealerships through the first half of September, but there have been some signs of sales improving late in the month.

"We have started to get little rumblings that maybe the consumer isn't quite so flat on their back, that they have been responding to some of the incentive programs and the fact that leasing is coming back," said Rebecca Lindland, an automotive research director at IHS Global Insight.

The gas tank for the auto industry is down to "rumblings". Who's going to buy a car at this point unless you absolutely need one, and if you need one, you're going to be buying used.

But here's the larger, scarier problem: replace "Cash For Clunkers" with the "stimulus bill", and "car sales" with "the economy", and you have America roughly 12 months from now. We're in trouble, folks...and once the stimulus is gone, do you think we'll get more?

Obama Derangement Syndrome, Farmville Edition

Via Bob Cesca's place, NPR has the story:

A blog called The Political Carnival is getting credit this afternoon for calling out the ridiculous "Should Obama be killed?" poll that showed up on Facebook over the weekend (and is now being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service).

GottaLaff, one of the blog's authors, pointed out the offensive post last evening. Today, says GottaLaff, the Secret Service tracked her down to say thanks for having posted a screen grab of the poll.

Facebook, the company, had nothing to do with the poll, according to spokesman Barry Schnitt. It's no longer on the site.

Nice. "Should Obama be killed?"

Proof that John Gabriel's Greater Internet F'ckwad Theory is in full effect. Combine that with Obama Derangement Syndrome, and you get Facebook polls asking if the President should be assassinated.

Yeah, but it's okay because liberals did that to Bush, right?

Desert Storm

The Saudis are giving the thumbs up for whacking Tehran.

Excellent news for nutjobs! According to the always accurate and never at all hysterical Daily Express, Saudi Arabia has given Israel permission bomb Iran:

INTELLIGENCE chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran’s new nuclear site.

The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom.

As you are no doubt aware, according to the US Constitution as interpreted by geniuses of the Mark Steyn class, this Saudi move compels President Obama to launch nuclear missiles at Tehran no later than 9PM EST next Wednesday.

It's 2002 all over again, unless Obama changes the script. He might, as commenter Paul W. has said on a number of occasions.

I'm hoping Paul is right. Me? Hope in one hand, a bunker buster bomb in the other, see which one fills Tehran's skies first.

Irony Science Theater 3000

Dennis Kneale: Financial genius and film critic.

Just spent two hours watching the upcoming film from Michael Moore— "Capitalism: A Love Story." It ends on a most hopeful note: The populist provocateur may be leaving the U.S. (Beat.) For good!

"I don't want to live in a country like that," he concludes at the end of two hours of ultra-liberal polemics and Wall Street bashing. To which I and a few colleagues cried out in instant unison: "So move!"

"Capitalism: A Love Story" is a truncated piece of trash, an utterly unbalanced, poorly argued screed. Its real title should have been "Vainglorious Bastard," for it skimps on facts and context in favor of unspooling Moore's own loopy, jaded and paranoid view of the world.

This meandering, ponderous flick deplores the past 30 years of the Reagan Revolution and free markets—and dotes lovingly on the wonders of socialism. Moore wishes we were more like France and Germany and Japan.

Freakin' JAPAN??? Replete with its 20-year slump?

The irony is lost on Kneale, apparently. He's not allowed to call anyone's work trash. Now, Michael Moore is a vainglorious bastard...but so is Dennis Kneale.

Attacking The First Fan

Obama is trying to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago by making a personal pitch to the IOC in Copenhagen this week.

Obama will join First Lady Michelle Obama and other administration officials in pitching Chicago to the International Olympic Committee on October 2, spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

No other U.S. president has ever attended an IOC meeting.

Chicago is vying for the Summer Games against Madrid, Spain; Tokyo, Japan; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Leaders from Brazil, Spain and Japan are expected to also make an in-person pitch.

So it's unprecedented, but certainly not out of the ordinary, since other world leaders will be there. But because Obama is doing it, he must be attacked for, well, whatever idiotic reasons the Wingers have now, which according to Malkinvania is "Evil Overlord Obama is silencing dissent from patriotic Chicagoans who hate the international sham that is the Olympics."

No, really. That's the logic. TBogg takes it from here:

It's a slow news day and Drudge is grasping at straws because wingnuts need something to HATE HATE HATE or they can't get out of bed before 11. So today it was the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee asking the local Fox affiliate to not run a piece detrimental to acquiring the Olympics and THIS IS CENSORSHIP!!! and THE CHICAGO WAY!!! because the organizing committee is in Chicago which is where Obama is from when he's not from Kenya. Also. Jesus is involved. And probably ACORN.

This would not have happened under the Palin Administration.

I swear if Obama Derangement could be harnessed as an energy source, we could power suns with it.

Insert Obligatory Blues Brothers Movie Reference Here

Illinois Nazis.

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — A group waving flags adorned with swastikas traded insults with and challenged a crowd of about 250 onlookers from behind yellow wooden barricades manned by police including SWAT members during a midday protest Saturday.

After an hour of loud protesting by white supremacists, who were countered by a silent demonstration, police ended the two downtown rallies at 12:30 p.m.

While a police sniper watched from the roof of the police station, 22 members of white supremacist groups, shouted obscenities and made obscene hand gestures. One man, who had a crew cut and wore a black uniform, told the crowd of onlookers, "Wake up white America!"

"We were out there to denounce the violence," said Belleville resident Jason Bonn, who is a corporal with the National Socialist Movement, a group with a name similar to the Nazi Party of Germany during World War II. Bonn’s group is "fighting for white civil rights."

Free speech doesn't mean it makes sense of course. Then again, what did you expect after El Rushbo decided to call for busing segregation?

Stay Classy, Wingnut Nation

Jesse Taylor documents the Pretty Hate Machine versus Census worker Bill Sparkman.

Thankfully, after nearly days of professional investigation of the murder of a U.S. Census worker in Kentucky, a conservative blogger has collected all the gold and Cracker Barrel gift certificates his readership can offer, and is headed down there to Get To The Bottom Of This Mess, like Encyclopedia Brown would. And he has a hunch:

BTW, some people have a crazy hunch this Kentucky thing might involve teenagers and the horrorcore rap scene. Maybe they’re wrong about that, too . . .

You see, horrorcore rapper Syko Sam is suspected in the murder of four Virginians.

That’s the connection.

Seriously.

Yep, Robert Stacy McCain is on the case. And so is Dan Riehl:

UPDATE: Alternately, R.S. McCain could track down Dan Riehl’s theory that the murdered worker was a child predator, which is based on two ironclad pieces of evidence:

1.) What if he was?

2.) Wouldn’t it be irresponsible not to theorize?

Certainly, we believe things of greater import based on less evidence, such as gravity.

Because the fact Bill Sparkman died and the word "fed" scrawled across his chest couldn't possibly have been domestic terror perpetrated by anti-government nutbars. It must have been rap fans because somewhere a black man committed a crime in America, or justified because he was a pedophile, based on evidence that doesn't exist.

But this is how the Wingers roll, yo. Attacking a dead guy. Musta been "traditional Democratic voters" who did it, or the dude screwed kids, either way, the Wingers' hands are clear of blood.

Case solved! Right? Oh, and check the comments section on Dan Riehl's piece there. Real classy stuff. Destroying Bill Sparkman is now the Winger Crusade du jour.

StupidiNews!

• Iran claims to have successfully tested long-range missiles only days after admitting it has a hidden second nuclear facility.
• Panama will sign a treaty with the U.S. giving America two military bases on Panamanian soil.
• California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces a series of health care legislation initiatives to either sign or veto.
• State-based low interest mortgage loan programs are getting help from a new federal effort.
• AT&T takes on Google Voice in the wireless industry, and both sides want the FCC to administer net neutrality rules to help them.

Last Call

The Telegraph's Jeremy Warner mourns the death of the dollar.

The challenge for a developing nation such as China is a rather different one. In China, the propensity to export and save is driven by an absence of any meaningful social security net, in combination with the legacy of its oppressive one child policy, which has deprived great swathes of the population of children to fall back on for support in old age.

What's more, most Chinese don't earn enough to buy the products they are producing, so in what has become the customary path for developing nations, they export the surplus and save the proceeds.

Yet even in China the establishment of a newly affluent, free-spending middle class may now have gained an unstoppable momentum. In any case, the country can no longer rely on American consumers to provide jobs and growth. It needs a new growth model, which means ultimately adopting the Henry Ford principle that if you want a sustainable market for your products, you have to pay your workers enough to buy them.

These trends – all of which pre-date the crisis but which, out of necessity, are being greatly accelerated by it – will eventually drive a move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency of choice. As China takes control of its economic destiny, spends more and saves less, there will be less willingness both to hold dollar assets and to submit to the domestic priorities of US monetary policy.

None of this will happen overnight. Depressed it might be, but US consumption is still substantially bigger than that of all the surplus nations put together. All the same, that the dollar's reign as the world's dominant currency is drawing to a close is no longer in doubt.

And he's right. Sometime within the next decade, the dollar will cease to be the world's reserve currency. America will no longer be running the show, but the BRIC nations: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Of those four, China's renminbi will end up being the strongest currency. With almost four times our population, China will eventually start outspending us worldwide, it's only a question of when the dollar collapses.

But it will collapse. It will be replaced, either by the renminbi or whatever passes for a UN global currency down the road. Either way, the US will lose its place atop the economic superpower mountain and our standard of living will be dictated not by us, but by other countries.

We may get our turn again. But I doubt it will happen in our lifetimes. China and India especially are just too big for us to compete with, and Russia and Brazil's resources will make them the major suppliers for China and India's workforces.

The economic engine of Earth will no longer be powered by America. It's already happening. The only question is how much of the end game of our decline we'll be able to choose. And with our current economy, the world has seen that depending on the American consumer is no longer a viable economic model. New markets and new consumers are coming. They will decide who lives and dies in the new marketplace, not us.

The hands of the clock are turning, folks. My generation will see our standard of living continue to drop, year after year. The American middle class that our parents were born into and our grandparents worked so hard to create will not be passed on to our children. We're already experiencing the new economic reality.

Get used to it.

Give And Take

On one hand, as BooMan pointed out earlier today, Obama seems to be indicating he's winding down the rhetoric on Afghanistan. On the other hand, the administration is definitely upping the noise on attacking Iran.

Two U.S. administration officials told CNN on Sunday that the United States plans to tell Iran this week it must provide "unfettered access" to the Qom site, the people involved in its construction and the timeline of its construction "within weeks."

The latest dispute comes ahead of planned talks Thursday involving Iran and the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and China about international concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

In interviews broadcast Sunday, top U.S. officials said Iran's newly revealed underground nuclear facility violates international requirements for reporting such operations, reinforcing the perception that Iran is trying to hide a weapons program.

"I think that, certainly, the intelligence people have no doubt that ... this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only ... because the Iranians kept it a secret," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a ... secret for a protracted period of time," Gates said in the interview recorded Friday.

In a separate interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the strongest possible sanctions if Iran can't prove a peaceful intent for the newly disclosed facility and its entire nuclear program.

"It would have been disclosed if it were for peaceful purposes," said Clinton, who also was interviewed Friday. She added that Iran must do more than provide assurances at the meeting on Thursday, because past assurances proved false.

"They can open up their entire system to the kind of extensive investigation that the facts call for," Clinton said. Later, she said: "The Iranians keep insisting no, no, that's for peaceful purposes. That's fine. Prove it. Don't assert it. Prove it."

The faces have changed, it's not Colin Powell and Rummy, but William Gates and Hillary. The country is not Iraq, but Iran. The message is 2002 all over again: comply or face sanctions. The "or worse" is implied.

Anyone else believe Obama will soon be pushing for a drawdown in Afghanistan so we can move onto Iran? Remember, if the news on Iran is to be believed, we've known about Iran's second facility for quite some time now. Only now is the heavy push for sanctions starting again. What's different?

Somebody at the top has made a decision. That decision is "Afghanistan on the back burner and Iran is now the priority."

The Big Dog Barks

Former President Bill Clinton went on Meet The Press today and discussed the smaller but more efficient Pretty Hate Machine.

Former President Bill Clinton told NBC's David Gregory on "Meet the Press" that the so-called "vast right-wing conspiracy" still exists and is "as virulent as it was," but has had its impact diminished by the nation's changing demographics.

Gregory asked: “Your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?”

The former president replied: “Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him. You know, it's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did. … But … it's not really good for the Republicans and the country, what's going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down. They can run his opposition up. But, fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail."

Well, at least the Big Dog gets the GOP plan. He lived through it for eight years and an impeachment. Glad to see he's finally speaking up about it. Yes, they most certainly want Obama to fail and are trying to do everything they can to assure that outcome, even if it ends up hurting the country in the long run.

But you know Bill, it would have been nice if you'd spoken up earlier and not used those same tactics against Obama back in the primaries and all, but politics is politics, apparently.

Who Watches The Watchmen?

Yet another stark reminder that bank regulators failed miserably as far back as Clinton's second term to stop the subprime mortgage crisis. The evidence was there. Nothing was done. The banks want to keep it that way.

The hands-off policy, which the Fed reversed earlier this month, created a double standard. Banks and their subprime affiliates made loans under the same laws, but only the banks faced regular federal scrutiny. Under the policy, the Fed did not even investigate consumer complaints against the affiliates.

"In the prime market, where we need supervision less, we have lots of it. In the subprime market, where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision," former Fed Governor Edward M. Gramlich, a critic of the hands-off policy, wrote in 2007. "It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat."

Between 2004 and 2007, bank affiliates made more than 1.1 million subprime loans, around 13 percent of the national total, federal data show. Thousands ended in foreclosure, helping to spark the crisis and leaving borrowers and investors to deal with the consequences.

Congress now is weighing whether the Fed should be fired. The Obama administration has proposed shifting consumer protection duties away from the Fed and other banking regulators and into a new watchdog agency. That proposal, a central plank in the administration's plan to overhaul financial regulation, is opposed by the industry and faces a battle on Capitol Hill.

The Federal Reserve is best known as an economic shepherd, responsible for adjusting interest rates to keep prices steady and unemployment low. But since its creation, the Fed has held a second job as a banking regulator, one of four federal agencies responsible for keeping banks healthy and protecting their customers. Congress also authorized the Fed to write consumer protection rules enforced by all the agencies.

During the boom, however, the Fed left those powers largely unused. It imposed few new constraints on mortgage lending and pulled back from enforcing rules that did exist.

The Fed's performance was undercut by several factors, according to documents and more than two dozen interviews with current and former Fed governors and employees, government officials, industry executives and consumer advocates. It was crippled by the doubts of senior officials about the value of regulation, by a tendency to discount anecdotal evidence of problems and by its affinity for the financial industry.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke testified before Congress this summer that the Fed has protected consumers with renewed vigor in recent years, writing new rules and responding to problems more quickly. The Fed has avoided a public position on the new agency, but Bernanke has testified that Congress instead could choose to strengthen the Fed's responsibilities.

The problem is Helicopter Ben wants the Fed to have more power, and the Fed has already proven that it can't handle the responsibility. The other problem is Obama wants to create a new agency to handle it, and Congress will make sure that new agency will never have the power necessary to sufficiently regulate banks.

Our choices are currently the Fed, which is acceptable to the banks and the Congress they have paid for as an agency that will continue to look the other way and give out trillions, or a new agency that only will be acceptable once it is neutered to the point where the Fed's regulatory duties are now, otherwise the legislation will never pass the Congress that the banks own, lock, stock, and barrel.

And I doubt Obama is too busy looking for a third way.

Why Can't You Just Get A Job, Kid?

Because there are none. Who do you think got cut first?

The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. -- meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time.

And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults -- aged 16 to 24, excluding students -- getting a job and moving out of their parents' houses are long. Young workers have been among the hardest hit during the current recession -- in which a total of 9.5 million jobs have been lost.

"It's an extremely dire situation in the short run," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. "This group won't do as well as their parents unless the jobs situation changes."

Al Angrisani, the former assistant Labor Department secretary under President Reagan, doesn't see a turnaround in the jobs picture for entry-level workers and places the blame squarely on the Obama administration and the construction of its stimulus bill.

"There is no assistance provided for the development of job growth through small businesses, which create 70 percent of the jobs in the country," Angrisani said in an interview last week. "All those [unemployed young people] should be getting hired by small businesses."

There are six million small businesses in the country, those that employ less than 100 people, and a jobs stimulus bill should include tax credits to give incentives to those businesses to hire people, the former Labor official said.

"If each of the businesses hired just one person, we would go a long way in growing ourselves back to where we were before the recession," Angrisani noted.

There are many reasons to be mad at Obama, but the stimulus bill and small business tax credits aren't it. It's called "for the same money, I can hire the more mature 30-year old who needs the job rather than the 22-year old living with mom and dad who's barely able to show up to work on time, dude."

Companies don't have to take entry level workers to fill entry level positions anymore. That's not Obama's fault. There are six seekers for every open job position out there.

Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking open positions in 2000. According to the Labor Department’s latest numbers, from July, only 2.4 million full-time permanent jobs were open, with 14.5 million people officially unemployed.

And even though the pace of layoffs is slowing, many companies remain anxious about growth prospects in the months ahead, making them reluctant to add to their payrolls.

“There’s too much uncertainty out there,” said Thomas A. Kochan, a labor economist at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. “There’s not going to be an upsurge in job openings for quite a while, not until employers feel confident the economy is really growing.”

The dearth of jobs reflects the caution of many American businesses when no one knows what will emerge to propel the economy. With unemployment at 9.7 percent nationwide, the shortage of paychecks is both a cause and an effect of weak hiring.

Our consumer economy is not consuming. Not as many workers are needed for the companies that do have jobs. It's a death spiral, frankly...and if it wasn't the stimulus, it would be worse.

But all the stimulus did was buy us time to fix the underlying problems, and refusal to fix those is Obama's fault and his problem. And when the stimulus is up next year, we're in a hell of a lot of trouble.

Selling Exit Passes

This morning, BooMan argues that Obama will not got for any sort of Afghanistan surge as in Iraq, and in fact is now engaged in trying to sell a withdrawal (emphasis mine):

It appears that the administration is mainly working with the Washington Post in their effort to prep the country for a scale-down of our effort in Afghanistan. That is not to say that the Post is supportive of a scale-down. If anything, the case is the opposite. But, tonight, the Post has another article by Bob Woodward based on an interview with National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones. They have a front-page article on the source of Taliban funding (something I've been wondering about for years) by Craig Whitlock. They have an editorial advising us to go all-in or all-out by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. And they have a piece by Walter Pincus on the Taliban's successful communications strategy.

Whatever the specific intent of any of these articles, the cumulative effect is to convey a sense of an overwhelmingly daunting and hopeless challenge. And, I believe, that is what Obama wants to convey because his objective now is to gently announce that we are abandoning our nation-building effort in Afghanistan and that we will not be giving General McChrystal another 40,000 troops for a massive counterinsurgency program. This will contradict his campaign rhetoric and even some of his moves from the winter and spring. But talking tough on Afghanistan was always partly a way of compensating for being critical of military efforts in Iraq. He didn't want to look unwilling to fight against terrorists anywhere in the world. But that doesn't mean that he bought into the absurd 'war-on-terrorism' rhetoric of the Bush administration. With the failed elections in Afghanistan removing any semblance of legitimacy for Karzai's government, there is no reason to invest more in his success. That's the exact same mistake we made in Vietnam, and it cost us dearly in every way that counts.

I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that at all, especially since on a number of other parts of Bush's Warren Terrah rhetoric, Obama has bought into them completely, namely Bush's wiretapping of Americans and our treatment and continued incarceration of terror suspects without trial. Both of these programs are still going.

Having said that, Obama gets credit for turning over the torture probe to Eric Holder and Congress, and he has made improvements to the rendition and wiretapping system, but he's still fighting for a PATRIOT act renewal that is 99% the same as before.

There are many, many arguments as to why we're going to have to leave Afghanistan and soon, whether we want to or not. Chief among them is our broken economy. Right now, Obama has to be aware that a trillion dollar surge effort will end his domestic agenda altogether, and we just don't have the troop strength. But Obama's actions in the first several months of his term do not give me hope.

I pray BooMan is right and Obama has weighed the options and found staying untenable, as many Americans have. If there's anything in his favor right no for this tough decision, it's that the GOP has proven they will oppose anything Obama does simply for the reason that Obama is doing it, and the American people are sick of them.

Is The Public Option Coming?

Steve Benen argues that the Party Of No may actually be helping Democrats unite to pass a real reform bill.

Most notable is the new-found optimism on the left about the prospects for a more ambitious reform bill. It's largely a foregone conclusion that the Senate Finance Committee will wrap up this upcoming week, approving a bill that generates no (or almost no) GOP support, but fails to meet liberals' expectations. But as the legislation moves to the floor, progressive lawmakers and their allies "expect to be able to shape the final product more than they had hoped just weeks ago."

What's changed? Having the caucus return to 60 members doesn't hurt, but the NYT's Jackie Calmes point to two other angles.

One is the failure of Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a more conservative Democrat who heads the Finance Committee, to get any Republicans to support his draft legislation, after months of trying. That doomed President Obama's goal of bipartisan backing for a health care overhaul, and now leaves party liberals arguing for a distinctly Democratic health plan.

"One of the strongest arguments against a public option has been that the Republicans will never go for it," [Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)] said. "Well, the Baucus bill doesn't have a public option, and they're still not for it in any way, with the possible exception of Olympia Snowe," a moderate Republican senator from Maine, who has not ruled out supporting the overhaul that Mr. Obama is seeking.

The second development that has encouraged liberals is recent polling, including some done for The New York Times and CBS News in the last week, that gives Democrats a clear edge over Republicans as the party favored to deal with health care issues. The same polls show significant support for a public option despite months of criticism from Republicans, who describe it as a government takeover of health insurance.

Congressional Democrats of all stripes have become more upbeat since returning to work after the August recess.... The sense that something will become law has only strengthened the resolve of liberals, inside the Congress and out, to fight with intensity as Democrats write the legislation this fall.

Like Greg Sargent, I found that Schumer quote of particular interest. Max Baucus bent over backwards to offer Republicans an insurance-industry-friendly bill, filled with concessions and ideas that Republicans had already embraced. Every single GOP senator balked anyway. I'd hoped it was obvious beforehand, but this apparently sent quite a signal to the Democratic caucus -- there's no point in watering down the bill to get bipartisan support if the minority is going to slap their hand away anyway.

Which is what I've been saying for months now: damn the GOP, pass a real health care reform package. Even the Sensible Village Centrists have finally had enough of the Republicans refusing to support any health care reform legislation, and polls are proving that the American voters are just as fed up with the Party of No and are counting on the Democrats to pass real reform.

It's looking more and more like the Republicans overplayed their hand, just as predicted.

Not So Wild About Harry

BooMan notes that while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is having problems in his home state, the WSJ's "fix" for Reid's problems is far worse.

You don't need me to tell you that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is dishonest. But I will point it out anyway. In his piece about Harry Reid's poor polling numbers, Jim Carlton provides this explanation:

According to an independent Mason-Dixon poll Aug. 23, Mr. Reid lagged behind Mr. Tarkanian by 49% to 38% and 45% to 40% against Ms. Lowden. Meanwhile, a Sept. 2 poll by liberal Web site Daily Kos found 52% of likely voters holding an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Reid.

Driving up Mr. Reid's unpopularity at home is the liberal agenda that he has been championing for Democrats nationwide -- including the health-care overhaul and $787 billion stimulus package -- which is alienating some residents in his mostly moderate state.

First of all, it's misleading to cite the Research 2000 poll as a 'liberal Web site Daily Kos' poll. Markos paid for the poll, but he didn't conduct it. Research 2000 is a respected polling outfit and their polling should be cited as reliable. Secondly, here's what the poll found:

Yet if anything is hurting [Reid], it's anemic support among Democrats in those head-to-head matchups -- barely breaking 70 percent against both challengers. It could be argued that Reid will bring those Democrats home by election day, and he likely will score dominant numbers among Democrats once the votes are cast. The problem isn't in the percentages, but in the intensity of that support. If Democrats remain unexcited about Reid and his stewardship of the Senate, they could very well stay home on election day. If that happens, we could have the second Democratic Senate leader in six years ousted by home state voters.

Now, I am not arguing that there is no price to be paid for being the Majority Leader when you represent a swing-state. We learned this when Tom Daschle was ousted from office in 2004. It's much safer for a Democratic senator from a red or purple state to hang back, keep a low profile, and occasionally separate themselves from the liberal wing of the party. But the polling out of Nevada shows that Reid is doing poorly in large part because thirty percent of registered Democrats are refusing to voice support for his reelection. He only has a 59% approval rating from Democrats.

Democrats are frustrated that it is so difficult to get anything done in the Senate and they place a lot of blame for that on Harry Reid. Most of that criticism is unwarranted in the sense that no alternative leader could do anything differently to change things for the better. But Reid will benefit everytime something on Obama's agenda actually get passed through the upper chamber.

If Harry Reid can shepherd through real health care reform and stop being such a mealy-mouthed Village suck-up, he'll win re-election easily.

If 2010 rolls around and nothing has passed, Reid will not be the only Democrat out of a job come January 2011.