Last Call

John Cole has the best angle on the Chelsea Clinton engagement story tonight:

Chelsea Clinton, the 29-year old daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, investment banker Marc Mezvinsky.

***

Mezvinsky is a son of former Pennsylvania Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and former Iowa Rep. Ed Mezvinsky, longtime friends of the Clintons. Ed Mezvinsky was released from federal prison last year after pleading guilty in 2002 to charges of bank and wire fraud.

***

The couple became friends as teenagers in Washington and both attended Stanford University. They now live in New York, where Mezvinsky works at Goldman Sachs and Clinton is attending graduate school at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.

Ahh Goldman Sachs...is there anything you can't do?

Seriously, you have a guy with a father convicted of bank fraud, and it doesn't even begin to disqualify the son from working at a financial firm like GS.  Only in America.

A Done Deal

Obama has "signed the orders" sending more troops into Afghanistan.

President Obama has issued his order to send more troops to Afghanistan, communicating his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office, and will spend Monday speaking with foreign leaders to share with them the broad outlines of his new strategy, the White House said.

“The commander-in-chief has issued the orders,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters at the White House at the outset of what will be a two-day effort to sell the new strategy to the American people, Congress and American allies.

Mr. Gibbs did not provide a precise figure for the new level of forces, although senior advisers to the president have said Mr. Obama intends to commit roughly 30,000 more troops. After weeks of intense deliberation, Mr. Obama plans to share his strategy with the American people Tuesday evening in a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Mr. Gibbs said the president would discuss in the speech how he intends to pay for the plan, and will make clear that he has an exit strategy. “This is not an open-ended commitment,” the press secretary said.

The GOP will never support Obama on Afghanistan no matter what he does.  Democrats will only support a withdrawal.  Trying to split the difference will mean nobody accepts the plan, and nobody will.

Congress is not going to keep giving Obama a blank check on this.  And Republicans are already saying that Obama needs to scrap his entire domestic agenda to pay for victory in Afghanistan.

We need to get out, not send more troops in. Enjoy your war, Mr. President.  It's all yours now.

Criminal Intent

Make no mistake:  there's a portion of the GOP that sees nothing wrong with criminalizing homosexuality to the point of making it a capital offense.

We already noted the religious right-wing's support of making Uganda a home base for homophobia, but now comes word that America's own Christian politicos are backing President Yoweri Museveni's campaign to make gay sex punishable by death.

As Jeff Sharlot, author of the expose The Family, tells it, the bill's biggest supporter is a member of The Family. David Bahati, the lawmaker pushing for aggravated homosexuality crimes, "appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda."

Moreover, says Sharlot, "we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family's work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni's kind of right-hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family's National Prayer Breakfast. And here's a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda's executive office and has been very vocal about what he's doing, in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family."

Our good friends in The Family are back.

Punishable by death.  Don't think for a second it can't happen here.

Cause And Huckeffect Part 2

CNN has two stories on Mike Huckabee today:

Huckabee Responds To Washington Shootings

Huckabee Unsure About Another Presidential Bid

If you don't think both of those stories are intimately related, you're fooling yourself.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

The Village really, really, really wants to see Dick Cheney vs. Sarah Palin in 2012.  They are salivating over the fight.

They are salivating even more over Cheney/Palin (or Palin/Cheney) as the GOP's dream ticket.  They are practically giddy about it.  Please, by all means, assure another four years of Obama.  (Maybe the media really is in the tank for Obama.)

The Method To Rasmussen's Madness

Now, I give Rasmussen a hard time, I think their Presidential approval number polls are heavily skewed against Obama.  The fact they are so far off from the majority of other polls has begun to bother them somewhat (not to mention being constantly called out on it) but as TPMDC's Eric Kleefield points out, even Rasmussen's curious as to why.

Rasmussen has released a new set of polls illustrating how the exact questioning of a poll can subtly affect the answers -- and perhaps explaining why their own daily survey puts President Obama's approval lower than nearly everyone else.
Respondents were asked their approval of Obama using Rasmussen's usual format: Do they strongly approve, somewhat approval, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove? The answer here is 47% approval, with 28% strongly approving, to 52% disapproval, including 41% who strongly disapprove.

However, Rasmussen got a different result when they asked the question as a simple "approve" or "disapprove." Obama then enters positive territory at 50% approval, 46% disapproval -- in line with a lot of other polls, such as the Gallup survey.

Now that's quite curious...but as I keep mentioning, Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index ignores everyone who doesn't have a strong opinion either way.  It's completely the strongly approve versus the strongly disapprove, and that has had Obama deeply in the negatives for basically all of his Presidency so far.
I've called this discrepancy the ODI -- the Obama Derangement Index.  I've been tracking it since late July, and this set of Rasmussen polls shows what I've been saying for months now:  Rasmussen goes out of its way to make Obama look bad.

Indeed, 50% to 46% gives Obama a +4 in Rasmussen's book, but using their method, he's at -13.  There's something lousy going on there.

Placing A Premium On Savings

Ezra Klein looks at the latest CBO numbers on the Senate health care reform plan.

The CBO's analysis broke the health-care system into three parts: individual, small group and large group. The small- and large-group markets account for 159 million Americans, and have very little change in premiums. But what change they see is in the right direction: Health-care reform is expected to reduce premiums in the large group market by about 1.5 percent, and in the small group market by about 0.5 percent.

The individual market is where the big changes happen. In 2016, which is the year CBO examines, this market is expected to serve 32 million Americans. And in this market, average premiums are expected to rise by 10 to 12 percent. What's important, however, is why.

The bottom line is that premiums will go up on individual users, but the coverage will be much better, and then the subsidies will make that coverage significantly less expensive for people.

(More after the jump...)

Ross Douthat Is Still Wrong

I'd have more respect for Ross Douthat if he wouldn't disprove his own theories within his own column. To whit:

Do downturns create Democrats? The Great Depression certainly did: The generation that came of age in the 1930s has cleaved to the Democratic Party like no population before or since. And it makes intuitive sense that experiencing a recession at a formative age could inspire lifelong sympathy for the party of the welfare state and lifelong suspicion toward the party of free markets.

OK, makes sense so far.

In a recent paper, “Growing Up In a Recession,” Paola Giuliano, an assistant professor of economics at U.C.L.A., and Antonio Spilimbergo, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, offer statistics to back this intuition up. Looking at over 40 years of survey data, the authors report that Americans who experienced “macroeconomic shocks” between the ages of 18 and 25 were more worried about poverty and inequality across their voting lives, and more skeptical about the wisdom of the market.

These findings track with the results of the 2008 election, when a cratering economy helped Barack Obama win an extraordinary landslide among young and first-time voters. And they provide grist for the liberal hope that the rising generation will prove as enduringly Democratic as that of their Depression-era grandparents, with George W. Bush playing Herbert Hoover to Obama’s F.D.R.

Right, and I sense a "but" coming.

But the study shouldn’t make liberals too cocky. The authors find that growing up in a recession can encourage conservative instincts as well. Downturns make young voters distrustful of unfettered capitalism, yes. But they also make them less confident in the federal government.

This finding may explain why recent recessions have actually ended up pushing America rightward. The stagflation of the 1970s, for instance, and the hapless liberal response, helped usher in Ronald Reagan’s revolution. (The cohort that grew up with Reagan is the most staunchly Republican in modern history.) The slump of the early 1990s bolstered Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign — but it also gave a boost to the fiscally conservative populism of Ross Perot, and then to the Republican wave of 1994.

Note that phrase, "hapless liberal response."  This is the real cause of the Republican waves of 1980 and 1994.  When liberals show that the Federal government can do some things better than the free market, you get people who trust the government.  When liberals foul up that response, as they did in 1979 and 1992-1993, you get a Republican backlash.  The Republican response to recessions hasn't changed since the days of Herbert Hoover:  cut spending in a recession.  1982 was rather ugly economically, and 1994's Clintonian triangulation led to the dot-com bust of 2000, leading to the Bush economy, leading to where we are now.

When the economy messes up, we're told by Democrats that more regulation is needed, and that the government needs to play a role.  Republicans say we need to double down on less regulation and let companies keep on making profit.  A good 15 years of the latter since 1994 hasn't exactly worked, folks.

The Golden State Of Debt

California's about to tackle an $11.1 billion water bond for the state, but a closer look and some back-of-the-envelope calculations by the Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters show that the state's debt is pushing the $600 billion mark.

The latest annual pension report from the state controller covers 2006, when the unfunded liability was $64 billion. But since then, state and local pension funds have lost at least $150 billion on investments, so a reasonable estimate of today's unfunded liability is $200-plus billion. A state commission, meanwhile, says the state-local liability for retiree health care is about $100 billion.

No one keeps complete data on local government general obligation debt, but it appears to be roughly the same as the state's, perhaps $50 billion, plus several billion dollars in debt incurred by local redevelopment agencies.

There are tens of billions in specialized state debt, such as veteran home loan bonds, "securitization" of tobacco lawsuit proceeds, and budget deficit bonds.

The interest that must be paid on all that state and local debt is probably an additional $100 billion, so we're already talking about well over $500 billion.

Then there are the off-the-books debts incurred to paper over years of state budget deficits, such as speeding up tax collections that will have to be refunded later, postponing periodic payments to schools, making promises to schools about levels of future financing, borrowing money from special funds and taking local government funds that must be repaid later.

The state's unemployment insurance fund, meanwhile, is about $7 billion in the red, and that deficit is expected to more than double in the next year and quadruple by the end of 2011. The state has been borrowing from the federal government, but sooner or later it will have to repay the feds, probably by taxing employers.

Conservatively, then, California is probably more than $600 billion in debt. Perhaps we shouldn't sweat another $11.1 billion. Or perhaps it will be the straw that breaks our back.

Six.  Hundred.  Billion.  Just for the state of California.

The question is how are we going to bail out one-seventh of the country, and when?  The how, well who knows.  The when?  Well I'm thinking it's sooner rather than later.  Here's the trillion dollar question:  how much in the unfunded obligations are America's other 49 states pushing?  As long as real estate prices were going up, it wasn't a problem:  states would just borrow based on increased property tax numbers.  Now?

Well, now we're all about to get an ugly lesson.  And keep in mind California's trapped:  they can't raise taxes a single dime, so either they have to borrow more or cut everything they can.  The GOP wants to basically do the same to the rest of the country, to boot.  Ahnold's muffed it, folks.

California's problems are really just beginning.

Af-Gone-Istan

Sully gets it on Afghanistan.

As Obama appears to be intensifying the lost war in Afghanistan, with the same benchmark rubric that meant next-to-nothing in the end in Iraq, he does not seem to understand that he will either have to withdraw US troops from Iraq as it slides into new chaos, or he will have to keep the troops there for ever, as the neocons always intended. Or he will have to finance and run two hot wars simultaneously. If he ramps up Afghanistan and delays Iraq withdrawal, he will lose his base. If he does the full metal neocon as he is being urged to, he should not be deluded in believing the GOP will in any way support him. They will oppose him every step of every initiative. They will call him incompetent if Afghanistan deteriorates, they will call him a terrorist-lover if he withdraws, they will call him a traitor if he does not do everything they want, and they will eventually turn on him and demand withdrawal, just as they did in the Balkans with Clinton. Obama's middle way, I fear, is deeper and deeper into a trap, and the abandonment of a historic opportunity to get out.

I pray I'm wrong. Maybe Iraq will teeter away from a second implosion. Maybe the Af-Pak strategy is credible in a way Iraq's surge never was. We have yet to hear the president's explanation and we would do well to ponder his proposal as thoroughly as he has.

But I fear Bush's wars will destroy Obama as they destroyed Bush. Because they are unwinnable; and because the US is bankrupt; and because neither Iraq nor Afghanistan will ever be normal functioning societies in our lifetimes.

When he's right, the man is dead right.

It's time to go home.

Obama's Real Problem

Steve at NMMNB flags this Politico story of the seven big GOP talking points against Obama.  What Steve notes however is what the Politico story is missing:

I'm struck by what's not on the list, which includes many of the old favorites: "He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money"; "Too much Leonard Nimoy"; "That’s the Chicago Way"; "He’s a pushover"; "He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe"; "President Pelosi"; and "He’s in love with the man in the mirror." Most of these are old right and centrist chestnuts -- he's too free-spending, his people are thugs ("Chicago Way"), he's a wimp ("pushover") -- and yes, Harris does note that the latter two seem a tad contradictory, but liberal and Democrats are always accused of being both supervillains capable of destroying Western civilization with a few lawyerly subterfuges and wussy girly-men who should leave politics and stick to flower-arranging and poodle-walking. ("President Pelosi" is probably the only puzzler, but it's a variant on "pushover" -- i.e., that Nurse Ratched Nancy wears the pants in the Obama-era Democratic Party, and is accomplishing more than Obama himself).

So what's missing here? What anti-Obama narrative does Harris skip? Well, it's the one that says Obama cares more about Wall Street than Main Street. It's the one that says he's utterly dropped the ball on the economic recovery with regard to the needs of ordinary citizens.

Which is odd.  Why does Politico miss such low-hanging fruit?

I suppose Harris could also be thinking of the suffering of the unemployed and the underwater -- but the fact that he can't even get himself to mention those people tells you that this is a pure right and right-centrist critique. No populism, please -- we're the Village! The real worry with regard to Obama's deliberateness is Afghanistan, dammit -- he's not a steely-eyed rocket man! That's what we need! That's what America wants!

Actually, America wants us to get the hell out of Afghanistan, but never mind. What America wants is a steely-eyed scourge of the rich and friend to the afflicted. But that's not a narrative Obama has to fear because it's coming only from members of the Great Unwashed -- and not the ones reading from scripts written by Dick Armey. Who cares about those people?

Who cares, indeed?  We know Republicans don't give a damn about people being out of work:  "real Americans" can simply get a job.  If you can't, well, you must be a Democrat.  Chalk that up to Village Stupidity.

The problem is it's looking more and more like Obama doesn't care either.  And that's the real problem in 2010.

Voices From The Wilderness

Steve Benen pores over the latest WaPo poll on the Republican Party.

What's tricky about all of this is trying to get a sense of direction. Rank-and-file Republicans aren't happy, but it's not altogether clear what they're looking for, either.
In 2005, 76% of Republicans were satisfied with the direction set by the party's leadership; now that number is 49%. About a third believes GOP leaders do not stand up for the party's "core values."

The next question, of course, is what Republican leaders should do in response, and that's where the poll offers few clues. It's one thing to learn that the party is off-track; it's another to know what to do about it.
It's not like there's a clamoring for an even more right-wing party -- 58% of Republicans want to see the party work with Democrats, and 69% said they approve of GOP candidates who take moderate positions on some issues.

There's also no real sense of what the party's priorities ought to be. About a third of Republicans believe the GOP should spend more time opposing gay marriage, but nearly as many believe the party should do the opposite. About a third of Republicans want to see more focus on abortion, and nearly as many prefer less. GOP voters expressed concern about taxes, spending, and the economy, but that's pretty much what the party leadership focuses on already.

They only thing they seem to agree on is that Obama is the source of all evil in the known universe.  The problem is they have no idea how to oppose him without slipping into the "Obamahitler" rhetoric without any positive changes to offer the public.  However, 58% of Republicans want the party to work with Democrats?  If that's true, the Party of No plan is failing miserably.  If that's even ten points within being true, the Republicans are in real trouble with their monolithic opposition to everything in Congress.
How interesting.

The Too Big To Fail Global 30

Global regulators have identified the 30 banks that are systemic risks to the entire global financial system should they fail, and five are in North America:

Compiled under the guidance of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body of regulators and central bankers, the list is part of an effort to pre-empt the spread of systemic risks in the event of a future financial crisis.

Those featuring in the list will also be asked to write so-called "living wills" that outline plans to wind up banks in the aftermath of a crisis.

The FSB was established in the summer of 2009 to address the dangers posed by systemically-important, cross-border financial institutions through better supervision and co-ordination.

The list in full, as cited by the FT:

North American banks: Goldman Sachs , JP Morgan Chase , Morgan Stanley , Bank of America-Merrill Lynch , Royal Bank of Canada.

UK banks: HSBC , Barclays , Royal Bank of Scotland , Standard Chartered .

Continental European banks: UBS, Credit Suisse, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, Santander, BBVA, Unicredit, Banca Intesa, Deutsche Bank, ING.

Japanese banks: Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui, Nomura, Mitsubishi UFJ.

Insurers: AXA, Aegon, Allianz, Aviva, Zurich and Swiss Re.

Lot of banks, and six insurers.  These are basically the world financial institutions that can never, ever be allowed to fail.  Ever.

Every reason then that these 30 banks and insurers should immediately be the first ones broken up so that they are no longer a systemic risk should they fail.

But that of course makes too much sense.  Too Big To Fail has just gone global.

Double G Versus Evan F'ckin Bayh

In today's must-read, Glenn Greenwald rips Evan F'ckin Bayh a new one over Bayh's bloodthirsty war hawk stance on Iran and Afghanistan, and yes, virtually every other stance Bayh has taken in his career as a "Democratic" Senator.

It's impossible to find a more perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment than Evan Bayh.  He is the pure expression of virtually every attribute that makes the Beltway so dysfunctional, deceitful and corrupt.

Bayh wants to send other people into every proposed war he can find and keep them there forever ever without ever bearing any of the costs himself -- not in military service for him or his family nor even in higher taxes to pay for his glorious wars.  Sacrifice is for everyone other than Evan Bayh and his friends.  He runs around praising himself as a "deficit hawk" while recklessly supporting wars and indefinite occupations that the country can't afford and which drive us further into debt.  He feigns concern over the "deficit" only when it comes time to deny ordinary Americans benefits which he and his family already possess in abundance.  He is a loyal servant to the insurance and health care industries over his own constituents -- as his wife sits on the Boards of numerous health care giants, who, right when Bayh became a Senator, began paying her millions of dollars in cash and stock.  And this Sermonizer of Personal Responsibility is the ultimate by-product of nepotism, following faithfully and effortlessly in the footsteps of his Daddy-Senator, whose seat he now occupies.  The fact that he's a Democrat -- and was Obama's close-second choice for Vice President -- just underscores how bipartisan these afflictions are.

When the sad and destructive history of the U.S. over the last decade is written, the coddled, nepotistic, self-serving face of Evan Bayh should be prominently included.  It embodies virtually every cause.

Now, I've long had my problems with Evan F'ckin Bayh, he's earned the StupidiTag several times over with his Republican Lite/John McCain act.  Indeed, Bayh was floated as Obama's Veep, which I said at the time would have been a disaster.

In a way it's almost nice to see Bayh has been nothing but repeated problems over the last year for Obama.  At the same time, Bayh has been a de facto Republican for years and has already negatively affected legislation in the Senate.  For all intents and purposes Bayh should have an R after his name.

Unfortunately there's just no serious challenge to Bayh in the primary, for all the reasons Glenn listed.  We're stuck with the guy...or a potential worse Republican senator.  There's a reason why the GOP isn't trying too particularly hard to unseat Bayh.  What I want to know is why Indiana progressives aren't trying.

The Loan Arranger Rides Again

Cynthia Kouril at FDL goes over the Obama administration's mortgage loan modification program, and finds out that -- surprise! -- the banks took the money and ran.  Is anyone surprised after finding out the program was run by Timmy and Treasury?

Talk about burying the lede. The NYTimes has run a story which purports to be about the plans by the Treasury Department to pressure banks to do more to renegotiate delinquent mortgages. It has all sorts of blather from Treasury about using “embarrassment” as tool to get banks to do what they were given $75 Billion dollars to do under the federal Making Home Affordable Program.

The real story though, does not come out until the very bottom of the article. The real story is the continuing fraud being perpetrated on both the Government and consumers by the banks and other “mortgage servicers.” Predatory lending has an ugly tail end.

Some lawyers who defend homeowners against foreclosure assert that mortgage companies are merely stalling, using trial loan modifications as an opportunity to extract a few more dollars from borrowers who would otherwise make no payments.

“I don’t think they ever intended to do permanent loan modifications,” said Margery Golant, a Florida lawyer who previously worked for a major mortgage company, Ocwen Financial. “It’s a shell game that they’re playing.”

According to the Times, this federal bailout was intended to save 4 million homes from foreclosure, yet there are only approximately 650,000 homes in the program to date. A previous report showed that ONLY 2,000 of the then 500,000 in process had their loan modifications made permanent.

That's right.  2,000 mortgage loans out of a program to help 4 million.  That's .05% for those of you keeping score at home.
(More after the jump...)

The Kroog Versus The Jobless Numbers

Paul Krugman is once again prescribing a jobs program for our sick economy, stat.

How is a jobs program different from a second stimulus? It’s a matter of priorities. The 2009 Obama stimulus bill was focused on restoring economic growth. It was, in effect, based on the belief that if you build G.D.P., the jobs will come. That strategy might have worked if the stimulus had been big enough — but it wasn’t. And as a matter of political reality, it’s hard to see how the administration could pass a second stimulus big enough to make up for the original shortfall.

So our best hope now is for a somewhat cheaper program that generates more jobs for the buck. Such a program should shy away from measures, like general tax cuts, that at best lead only indirectly to job creation, with many possible disconnects along the way. Instead, it should consist of measures that more or less directly save or add jobs.

One such measure would be another round of aid to beleaguered state and local governments, which have seen their tax receipts plunge and which, unlike the federal government, can’t borrow to cover a temporary shortfall. More aid would help avoid both a drastic worsening of public services (especially education) and the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Meanwhile, the federal government could provide jobs by ... providing jobs. It’s time for at least a small-scale version of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, one that would offer relatively low-paying (but much better than nothing) public-service employment. There would be accusations that the government was creating make-work jobs, but the W.P.A. left many solid achievements in its wake. And the key point is that direct public employment can create a lot of jobs at relatively low cost. In a proposal to be released today, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, argues that spending $40 billion a year for three years on public-service employment would create a million jobs, which sounds about right.

Finally, we can offer businesses direct incentives for employment. It’s probably too late for a job-conserving program, like the highly successful subsidy Germany offered to employers who maintained their work forces. But employers could be encouraged to add workers as the economy expands. The Economic Policy Institute proposes a tax credit for employers who increase their payrolls, which is certainly worth trying.

All of this would cost money, probably several hundred billion dollars, and raise the budget deficit in the short run. But this has to be weighed against the high cost of inaction in the face of a social and economic emergency.

(More after the jump...)

Cause And Huckeffect

Early this morning four Seattle-area police officers were shot and killed.  The suspect wanted in that killing is a man named Maurice Clemmons.  The shooting itself is unforgivable and of course my heart goes out to the families of these brave officers who were killed in the line of duty.

Maurice Clemmons was released from prison nine years ago, granted clemency for a 60-year sentence at age 18 for burglary and property theft.  He had served 18 of those 60 years.  The governor who granted that clemency?

Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

"This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said tonight when informed that Clemmons was being sought for questioning in connection with the killings.
Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed.

Huckabee, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination last year, issued a statement tonight calling the slaying of the police officers "a horrible and tragic event."

If Clemmons is found responsible, "it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State," Huckabee said.

He added that Clemmons' release from prison had been reviewed and approved by the Arkansas parole board.

Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child. He was released from custody just six days ago, even though was staring at seven additional felony charges in Washington state.

Now, clearly, Huckabee's not the guy to blame here, not totally.  But Clemons was released for serving a 35-year sentence before that, was released, committed another pair of armed robberies and went to jail for 10 more years.  He walked again a few years ago.  While Yggy and Scott Lemieux have a point that 60 years is a lot for a robbery where nobody was hurt, this guy did have a rap sheet as long as my arm and kept getting released after committing more crimes.  On the other hand, Maha has a point about the religious angles that have motivated former pastor Huckabee's other clemencies.

Needless to say, the Wingers have vehemently turned on Huckabee this morning.  Not that they particularly liked him to begin with.  The words "Dukakis" and "Willie Horton" keep getting thrown around, as do the words "Wayne Dumond".

Police have surrounded Clemmons's house as of 7:30 AM EST.

[UPDATE 8:05 AM]   Repors of gunfire and explosions at the Clemmons home.  Also, TBogg reminds us that those who aren't blaming Huckabee for this one are blaming those damn liberals (It's Seattle, after all.)

StupidiNews!

• Somali pirates have hijacked a Saudi oil tanker bound for New Orleans.
• Right wing radio host Hal Turner was an FBI informant, providing info on white supremacist groups.
• A legal fight over when a fetus is considered a person takes to the courts again, this time in Alaska.
• Dubai may lose its status as the Arab oil states' financial hub in exchange for a rescue package from Abu Dhabi.
• ICANN is looking to keep top-level domain users from redirecting web traffic from non-existent domains.
  

Last Call

There are opinions, and then there are opinions passed along as facts when they are clearly not.  "Because shut up, that's why!" really does explain the logic behind Climategate and science in general.

Got A Tiger By His Tale

This whole Tiger Woods accident thing is getting really, really strange...but not as strange as the "apology" on the golfer's official website.  Paul at LG&M runs down the details:

The Tiger Woods incident provides an interesting glimpse into the world of celebrity image making, and the corporate and media interests that enable it. Woods got into a minor car accident early Friday morning after he was apparently attacked by his enraged wife. She seems to have smashed in the back window of his SUV with a couple of golf clubs as he tried to flee their home at 2:30 AM. Woods was found lying in the street drifting in and out of consciousness and suffering from facial lacerations, raising questions regarding whether the window was the only thing his wife connected with. Woods is refusing to talk to the police, which isn't surprising, given that a truthful account of the proceedings would probably require his wife to be charged with committing domestic violence.

An estranged wife, a broken rear window on an SUV, and Tiger out in the street after the incident...I can understand feeling guilty and trying to protect the woman you're married to.  But Paul does have a damn good point:

The most ridiculous feature of the statement is his whining plea for "privacy." Tiger Woods has become a billionaire by marketing himself so assidiously that he's now the most recognizable athlete, and indeed one of the most recognizable people, in the world. His vast wealth (less than 10% of which has been earned directly through his athletic achievements) is a product of making himself into a kind of human logo, that corporations pay him immense amounts to attach to their products. They find it profitable to do so because of the preposterous yet very widespread idea that athletic excellence somehow reflects well on a person's character and general value as a human being. Tiger Woods alleged adultery has nothing to do with his ability to excel on the golf course, but has everything to do with his ability to market himself as some kind of exemplary person, whose putative preferences in regard to cars and accounting firms and watches should influence your view of these products, and the corporations that produce them.

Agreed.  Tiger made himself a public icon that transcended the sport of golf and even sport in general.  Tiger Woods was less of a man than he was a brand name.  Now that brand name is seriously tarnished.

Golf is a dangerous sport, apparently.  You'd think Tiger could afford better PR people.

The Assault On Science

The Wingers never make an attack that's half-assed.  The assault on "Climategate" has turned into a full-fledged indictment of science itself in the British press, and the Wingers are in full outrage mode, demanding that basically all the climate change science done over the last generation be redone because it's now 100% suspect, the world is fine, and we're free to really pollute as much as we can.

God'll fix it.  Let's all drive Hummers.

What all this really goes into is the Winger tenet that science is bad.  Scientists are all "elitist atheist liberals" who are all trying to scam the good "everyday" people with their climate change and evolution and their human trials crap, and all science really does is promote thought, which the Wingers abhor.  You're not supposed to think critically, you're supposed to do what the Wingers tell you to do, treat it as the truth, and never question it.  2+2=4 is a scam, they tell you.  You should consider alternatives, because science itself is suspect, unlike religion and groupthink.  Scientists are outside this, so they are suspect too.  You see, if 99 scientists and 1 Winger come to the same conclusions about the way the world works, the Winger is the "free thinker" because he's wrong.

It's suspect because they can't control it.  It's been going on since the days of Galileo and well before that.

Stamp Of Disapproval

More and more Americans are using food stamps these days.  In some places in the country, the number of people on food stamps has doubled in just two years.  The biggest growth in food stamp usage?  It's not the inner city, folks.  It's the suburbs hit hardest by the housing depression.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.
The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.

America.  The great country of free markets and innovation and "rising tides lifting all boats" can't even afford to feed itself.  The shocking part?

Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.

That's right: only two-thirds of people actually eligible for food benefits receive them. Remember that this holiday season.
Here in Kentucky, to get food benefits you have to be a U.S. citizen with a job (or on SS) and you can't have any drug convictions.  They've made it quite difficult as a matter of fact to get EBT here.  You also can't have more than $2000 in the bank.  For a family of four, the income limit is $28,665.

And still, here in Boone County, the number of people who are on food benefits are up 43% from 2007 (map).  Kenton County next door, up 24%, Campbell County up 21%, and across the river Hamilton County Ohio, where Cincy is, has seen its rolls jump by 41%.

Check that map link above to see how your county is faring.  Times are tough, folks.  They will only get tougher.

Learning Curve Is A Flatline

Good to know Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl is incapable of reading the newspaper.

"Talk of an exit strategy is exactly the wrong way to go," Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. The Senate's second-most powerful Republican wants President Barack Obama to defer to the generals' wishes in Afghanistan without announcing a strategy to end the war.

Exit strategy...now where have I heard that before...
Oh, yes, Iraq.  Of course, it doesn't help that FOX News's idea of the "opposing viewpoint" is Evan F'ckin Bayh.

"As I understand it we're going to go with 30 to 35 thousand American troops," Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) said on the program. "We're going to try and make up the difference with NATO. They're probably not as good and effective as American troops but I think its good that we have some burden-sharing. After all the American taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for this whole thing if our allies are wiling to step up and do their part."

Bayh at least is worried about the money we're wasting in Afghanistan.  Only took him eight years, but hey.

Bayh and Kyl stuck to the talking points for the most part on Sunday morning, but Kyl brought up Vietnam and Bayh mentioned the cost of the war, suggesting there will be criticism from all sides immediately following Obama's speech. Just one day earlier, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) told Fox News, "This war is undermining our nation."

"35,000 new troops? That's going to cost $35 billion more a year," he said. "Where are we going to find that money? Who's going to finance this? You're going to tell the taxpayers we're going to borrow more money from China so we can fight a war in Afghanistan? Come on!"

Obama's speech is expected to put his alliance with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the test as well. House members may introduce a Resolution of Disapproval to counter Obama's plan. Pelosi and the President met privately last week as Obama concluded his deliberations on Afghanistan, according to The Hill.

On the contrary, an exit strategy from Afghanistan is what we needed eight years ago.

In Which I Strongly Disagree With John Cole

John Cole believes America's making a mountain out of a molehill on the Salahi state dinner party crasher incident.

People are aware that the only thing that happened in the breach is that they were not officially invited, right? You all are aware out there that they went through intense screening on-site, went through metal detectors and everything else, and there was no chance they had a weapon on them. You are aware that if one of them had, as Peter King suggested, “grabbed a knife off a table” and lunged for POTUS, they would have been tackled by any one of the thousands of security personnel there. You are aware that they were through far more security screening than it takes to get on an airplane, and tons more than any of the hundreds of thousands of people who shook hands with Obama the last year on rope lines?

In short, you are aware that the only thing that was missing was their name on an official invite list, and it is looking like they were helped out by an Indian dignitary.

Stop acting like Osama bin Laden crashed the damned dinner with a MOAB under his trenchcoat. If this gets the Secret Service more money and resources, great, but no one was in danger and this is really just silly.

Bullshit, John.  Bullshit and you know it.  This President has been threatened more in his first year than any other one in modern history.  The security around him -- and the professionalism of that security -- should reflect that.  It didn't.
What should have happened?  The Salahis should have been refused entrance and removed from the party in a discreet manner, and the world should really have never known about it.  Instead, the two people that got by the USSS were budding reality TV stars looking for an angle to sell, and boy did they get it.  That raises the question of how many other close calls the President's had over the last year or so.

I agree with you that more money and personnel need to be devoted to the President's security because of this incident and I hope that occurs.  But somebody's head has to roll for this.  Period.  Obama's security is nothing to take lightly.

Not with all the psychos out there telegraphing death threats daily, and an entire political party making political points off that aura of hatred.

[UPDATE 10:50 AM] Then again, marindenver over at Rumproast has a good point about the eerie similarities between the Salahis and the Heenes and the whole Balloon Boy hoax.

Dead Or Alive

It's interesting to see the reaction of today's news about the Senate report on the fact that we had a chance to pursue and capture Osama Bin Laden in December of 2001 and simply chose not to do so.

“Removing the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the committee’s report concludes. “But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide.”

The report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora Bora episode by the military’s Special Operations Command, asserts that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block Mr. bin Laden’s escape into Pakistan are still being felt.

The report blames the lapse for “laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.”

Its release comes just as the Obama administration is preparing to announce an increase in forces in Afghanistan.

The showdown at Tora Bora, a mountainous area dotted with caves in eastern Afghanistan, pitted a modest force of American Special Operations and C.I.A. officers, along with allied Afghan fighters, against a force of about 1,000 Qaeda fighters led by Mr. bin Laden.

The committee report, prepared at the request of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, concludes unequivocally that in mid-December 2001, Mr. bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were at the cave complex, where Mr. bin Laden had operated previously during the fight against Soviet forces.

The new report suggests that a larger troop commitment to Afghanistan might have resulted in the demise not only of Mr. bin Laden and his deputy but also of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Mullah Omar, who also fled to Pakistan in 2001, has overseen the resurgence of the Taliban.

Gosh, you mean if Bush had captured OBL then, not only would we not be in Afghanistan now, but he wouldn't have been able to sell the Iraq War to Americans and the world, either?

The reaction from the right so far is textbook: in hindsight, everything is 20/20 and that capturing OBL wouldn't have changed the fact that Islam is the most singularly evil thing on the planet, or something. 

I'll tell you what:  anybody who feels the need to make excuses as to why Bush failed to get OBL in December 2001, please explain that to the families of the 9/11 victims and to the families of all the troops that we've lost since OBL's escape into Tora Bora, not to mention all the families of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan civilians lost to eight years of war.  Then, help pay back the trillions of dollars we spent on this little foreign policy exercise.

Thanks.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Newsweek's Jon Meacham asks "Why Dick Cheney Should Run in 2012".

Umm, because Obama would win for sure?

Last Call

We've downgraded what a huge success means for Teabaggers these days.  Instead of pretending 70,000 is two million, we're down to pretending 4,000 is a massive, country-changing event.

You know what really was a country-changing event?  Nearly 65 million people voted for Obama in 2008.

Have a nice day.

That Domestic Terrorism Problem We Have

It's funny.  The same folks willing to condemn the entire Muslim world for the the actions of one man at Fort Hood are dead silent when it comes to a non-Muslim right-wing anti-government bombmaker in Cleveland.

Following a pipe bomb explosion Monday night, police and federal law enforcement officials are trying to figure why a Center Avenue man turned his apartment into a bomb factory.

Police said no charges have been filed against Mark Campano, 56. Police found 30 completed pipe bombs in his apartment along with components to make more, plus 17 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Campano is in an Akron hospital with injuries received when one of the bombs exploded.

As police and federal authorities puzzle over Campano's past and what he planned to do with the bombs, a former neighbor said Campano often railed against the government.

Barbara Vachon lived next door to Campano at the Center Park Place Apartments for several years and said he was a big reason she moved.

"He was always trying to get me and another neighbor to listen to anti-government tapes and watch anti-government videos," said Vachon. "I would never watch them. He was some kind of radical, and he didn't believe in the government."

She said there were other warnings.

"There were a few times I heard minor explosions from outside the apartment building, and he would scream that he had hurt himself," she said. "I never knew what he was up to."

Vachon said Campano seemed to be most active at night.

"There was a steady stream of creepy visitors going in and out of his apartment," she said.

If Campano were a Muslim, well, as Dave Neiwert says,

...we'd be getting talk-show panels on Hannity featuring Michelle Malkin ranting at length about the threat of Islamic jihad, blah blah blah. Not to mention chatty discussion on Fox and Friends and Morning Joe. 

But instead, because he's just a white anti-government extremist, hey, let's just give it a big shrug.

More on the case here and here.

Do check out the Campano case, and keep in mind the Wingers love to pretend that there's no such thing as right-wing domestic terrorism in the US.

Mind The Gap, Lads

Steve Benen notes the latest Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll has good and bad news for the Dems:

The latest Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos included the usual question on the generic congressional ballot, with Dems still enjoying a modest edge over Republicans, 37% to 32%, with 31% unsure. Democratic numbers were strongest in the Northeast (53% Dems, 7% GOP), and Republican numbers were strongest in the South (51% GOP, 21% Dems).

That's the good news.

But this poll added a new question to the mix to measure voter enthusiasm: "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The overall results aren't nearly as interesting as the partisan breakdown.
Among self-identified Republican voters, 81% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 14% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

Among self-identified Independent voters, 65% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 23% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

And among self-identified Democratic voters, 56% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 40% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

And that's the bad, bad news for the Dems in 2010.  The solution of course is to pass the legislation promised:

Finish health care. Pass a jobs bill. Finish the climate bill. Re-regulate the financial industry. Finish the education bill. Pick up immigration reform. Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's ambitious, but a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president can prove to the country that they know how to tackle the issues that matter and know how to get things done.

The R2K/Daily Kos poll shouldn't cause panic among Democratic leaders; it should serve as a wake-up call.

But will it?  More than ever, the Dems need to pass real legislation.  More than ever, the GOP will try to stop them.  Unless the Dems deliver, the GOP will be back.

On The Road Again

I'm heading back from my vacation and I'll be on the road until this evening, so if you have any stories to flag or discuss, let's hear it.

How was your Thanksgiving?  It's an open thread.

Secret Service's Not-So-Secret Screwup

With evidence last night that last Tuesday evening's party crashers at the White House state dinner actually met with President Obama, I honestly find myself thinking two things:

1) America actually owes the Salahis a debt of gratitude for exposing this security lapse.  Considering this President has been under more death threats than any other in modern history to the point where it cannot fill its duties outside of protecting the President, this lapse here may have just saved the President's life in the future.

2) It takes staggering incompetence of such an earth-rattling magnitude, in this case on the part of Secret Service director Mark Sullivan, to make me agree with the Hot Air gang, but it is imperative that heads must roll in the USSS on this one, up to and including Sullivan.  With all due respect to the Service and the men and women who serve our country in this capacity, 99.9% is not good enough.  The honorable thing is to tender your resignation, sir.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Russian officials believe a terrorist explosion may have derailed a Moscow express train that killed 26 people.
• Tiger Woods has been released from the hospital after a car crash yesterday, but many questions remain for the sport of golf.
• Thousands of Americans are still out of work and are getting subsidized COBRA insurance, which expires for many in December.
• At least one group is buying London's luxury homes again:  British bankers having a record year.
• The DOJ is fighting a losing battle against unmarked and counterfeit computer chips for the U.S. military.
  

Last Call Plus

Oh and one more thing tonight:  I thought "Climategate" was the indisputable proof that climate change was a myth, and that Copenhagen was now doomed.

Gosh, if anything it's looking like Copenhagen will be a major international success, and even China and the US are in, according to UN head Ban Ki-Moon.

"Our common goal is to achieve a firm foundation for a legally binding climate treaty as early as possible in 2010. I am confident that we are on track to do this," Ban told a summit of Commonwealth leaders in Trinidad and Tobago.
"Each week brings new commitments and pledges -- from industrialized countries, emerging economies and developing countries alike," he added.

"An agreement is within reach ... We must seal a deal in Copenhagen," Ban said. He, Rasmussen and French President Nicloas Sarkozy attended the summit of the 53-nation Commonwealth as special guests to lobby on Friday for international consensus on a climate pact.

Rasmussen said Denmark had received an "overwhelmingly positive" response to its invitation to world leaders to attend the talks next months. "More than 85 heads of state and government have told us they are coming to Copenhagen, and many are still positively considering," he said.

He urged major developed countries to deliver firm commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to "put figures on the table" for "up-front" financing to help poor nations combat climate change.
"The need for money on the table -- that is what we want to achieve in Copenhagen," Rasmussen told a news conference later.

There's just too much evidence out there showing we're in real trouble, guys.

Last Call

When Sully's not sticking a loaded gun to his head over Trig Palin, he's capable of smashing blowhards like Karl Rove.

I learned then that nothing beyond short term politics motivates Rove. Nothing. And I also learned: this fathomless cynicism is not just repulsive, it's invariably wrong. People sure did vote on deficits in 1992. And one small reason Obama won in 2008 is because many Independents and Republicans couldn't trust the GOP to stop spending and borrowing us into oblivion in an era of economic growth.

Now, Rove - whose shamelessness is only matched by his incompetence - is writing a deficit hawk column for the WSJ.

The sliver of argument he has left is that the debt we now face is vaster than we imagined only a year ago. The reason? Rove would have you believe it's those spend-and-splurge Democrats. In fact, of course, the massive debt has been building for years and its new height was precipitated by the recession begun under Bush (who was still in office a year ago), by the stimulus necessary to prevent a total abyss, by the bailout money required to rescue the banks, and by the continued de-leveraging after the reckless private borrowing of the Bush-Cheney years.

Steve Benen gets in on this one too.

Rove wants to see an "honest appraisal" of where we are. Good idea. The stimulus was necessary because Rove's old boss left the president an economy on the verge of wholesale collapse. S-CHIP expansion was necessary because Rove's old boss rejected a bipartisan measure to help low-income children go to the doctor. Rescuing the auto industry was necessary because it was a continuation of Rove's old boss' policy and the nation couldn't afford to cut off American manufacturing at the knees at the height of the recession. Cap and trade, Rove neglected to mention, wouldn't add to the deficit, and is necessary because Rove's old boss ignored the climate crisis for eight years. The health care reform bill would cut the deficit significantly, and is necessary because Rove's old boss fiddled while the dysfunctional health care system got worse.

That's an "honest appraisal."

Granted, Karl Rove takedowns are low-hanging fruit, but considering he gets a new column in the WSJ to lie about every two weeks or so, it's necessary harvesting.  Karl Rove's about as qualified to write about deficit reduction the same way GOP Sen. David Vitter is qualified to write about monogamous relationships.

The Kroog Versus Dubai

With the U.S. markets losing a percent and a half or so on today's half-day session due to the growing likelihood of a 'major sovereign default' in Dubai, Paul Krugman takes a look at what Dubai means for the bigger financial picture here in the states and across the globe.

As far as I can tell, there are three ways to look at it — three stories, if you like, about what Dubai means.

First, there’s the view that this is the beginning of many sovereign defaults, and that we’re now seeing the end of the ability of governments to use deficit spending to fight the slump. That’s the view being suggested, if I understand correctly, by the Roubini people and in a softer version by Gillian Tett.

Alternatively, you can see this as basically just another commercial real estate bust. Either you view Dubai World as nothing special, despite sovereign ownership, as Willem Buiter does; or you think of the emirate as a whole as, in effect, a highly leveraged CRE investor facing the same problems as many others in the same situation.

Finally, you can see Dubai as sui generis. And really, there has been nothing else quite like it.

At the moment, I’m leaning to a combination of two and three. For what it’s worth (not much), US bond prices are up right now, suggesting that the Dubai thing hasn’t raised expectations of default.

(More after the jump...)

There's Always One

Some people choose to be less than thankful for their families this time of year.

Police in southern Florida were searching Friday for a man in connection with the fatal shootings of four people and the wounding of another.

Detectives in Jupiter, Florida, were looking for Paul Michael Merhige, 35, said Jupiter Police Sgt. Scott Pascarella.

The victims were found Thursday night in a home in Jupiter, he said.

Merhige's 33-year-old twin sisters, Carla and Lisa Merhige, and Ramon Joseph, 76, were fatally shot, Pascarella said. The suspect's 6-year-old cousin, McKayla Sitton, died after being rushed to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

Puts those family arguments you have over turkey into perspective, doesn't it?

If you get a chance to make amends with your family, make the most of that chance, folks.

Nameless One 2012: Why Vote For The Lesser Evil?

Republican Wingnuts.  Who else would think a guy with a VP job approval rating in the teens would win a presidential election?

A new group wants former Vice President Dick Cheney back in the White House.

The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House. But there may be a major roadblock to the group's pitch - Cheney himself.

"The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for President will be about much more then who will be the party's standard bearer against Barack Obama, the race is about the heart and soul of the GOP," said Christopher Barron, one of the organizers of the Draft Cheney movement. "There is only one person in our party with the experience, political courage and unwavering commitment to the values that made our party strong – and that person is Dick Cheney."

The guy left office with an approval rating of thirteen percent.  Thirteen. Everyone in the country hates the guy.  And these idiots think he can win.

By all means, run a Palin/Cheney ticket.  Please.  Better yet, make it Cheney/Palin.

Because Clearly The Problem With Health Insurance Is Lawyers

Chuckles wants to scrap health care reform and "do it right", in this case we're back to the same old GOP talking points of tort reform and abolishing interstate barriers.

First, tort reform. This is money — the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade — wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.
    
The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures, and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits — resources wasted on patients who don’t need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.
    
In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.” Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don’t want “to take on the trial lawyers.” What he didn’t say — he didn’t need to — is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.
    
Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.
    
Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter.
    
And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option — a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin — to introduce “competition.” It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges.
    
But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need — the excuse — for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine.

There's stupid, and then there's National Review stupid, which is stupidity with intent to mislead other people into buying their particular brand of stupid by lying about how stupid it would be in actual practice.

(More after the jump...)

The Road To Hooverville

If these Rasmussen numbers are even close to right, then the President has lost the war on the economy in the minds of the American people.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of voters believe the $787-billion economic stimulus plan passed by Congress in February has helped the U.S. economy, while 34% say it has hurt the economy. Twenty-four percent (24%) say it has had no economic impact. 

While some in Congress are pushing for a second stimulus package to fight the country's rising unemployment rate, only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is the best tool. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Fifty-one percent (51%) say a better way to create jobs is to stop all stimulus spending now. 

Most voters (53%) worry that the federal government will do too much when it comes to reacting to the nation’s financial problems. Concern about the Federal Reserve's actions in recent months is advancing a bill to audit the Fed in the House.

Voters continue to think that the president’s top budget priority should be cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. But they see it as the goal the president is least likely to achieve.

It's insane.  We're deep in a deflationary event where the only thing keeping the economy going is government spending, and 62% of Americans think the answer is tax cuts.  51% want to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending and say that will magically create jobs.

Obama's economic team has dropped the ball so badly that they think the same economic policies that led to the near collapse of the global economy are the solution to the problem.  We've spent a couple trillion extra dollars this year and producer and wholesale prices have remained flat.  Housing prices continue to fall dramatically.  If the stimulus wasn't there, we'd be in freefall.  As it is, we haven't spent enough to counteract the housing depression.

And yet more and more Americans are being convinced that Obama, the Democrats in Congress and  the stimulus caused the depression.  All they know is people are losing their jobs, so we need tax cuts, because that's what the Pretty Hate Machine tells them to think.

StupidiNews Focus

Today's WaPo lobbyist story is a pretty damn big one, and provides a sorely needed boost to a lot of people's estimation of President Obama (including me).

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.

The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don't have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

(More after the jump...)

StupidiNews!

• Wall Street is set for a sharply lower opening this morning in reaction to Dubai's credit woes.
• An Obama administration initiative to remove lobbyists from federal advisory panels could affect thousands.
• SC Attorney General Henry McMaster says there's no conflict of interest in investigating Gov. Mark Sanford and running against him.
• Americans lined up across the country for Black Friday deals on everything from HDTVs to robotic hamsters.
• The US government is taking advantage of Sony's lower PS3 prices to add to its supercomputer cell processor collection array.
  

Last Call

It's not that Dana Perino necessarily lied here when she says that "No terrorists attacked America during President Bush's term."  She clearly misspoke.

It's the fact that nobody on Hannity's show even bothers to correct her that is the problem.

FOX.  Fair and balanced.

Because It Never Gets Old

Never, ever get tired of this.

Happy Turkey Day.  Unless you're the turkey.

I Don't Know Why You Say Dubai I Say Hello

Dubai's possible sovereign debt default is turning into a disaster.  Credit Suisse says Euro banks may be in as deep as $40 billion.

The broker said it's identified $10 billion of bonds issued by the government's Dubai World investment vehicle just since 2005, along with a further $26 billion of syndicated loans.

Fears of a potential sovereign default by Dubai roiled financial markets Thursday, sinking stocks across Asia and Europe and pushing up government bond prices, after Dubai said late Wednesday it would restructure Dubai World and announced a six-month standstill on repayments of the conglomerate's debt. See full story on the impact on financial markets.
 
In a note to clients, Credit Suisse said the middle-East region is unlikely to be more than 1% to 2% of banks' total exposure and Dubai itself would just be a small part of that.

Still, it estimated that a 50% loss on the exposure that bank's may hold would be the equivalent of a 5% increase in provisions in 2010.

For the banks that Credit Suisse analysts cover, which could have an exposure of around 13 billion euros ($19.6 billion), that would equate to a combined hit of around 5 billion euros, it added.

(More after the jump...)

What Zandar's Thankful For

In no particular order, ten things I'm thankful for this year:

1. Our troops overseas.
2. My job.
3. My family.
4. The United States Secret Service.
5. Genetic turkey mapping.
6. The Lions and Cowboys playing on Thanksgiving.
7. Wingers to blog about.
8. Movies about robot boxers.
9. Singing Carl Sagan.
10. and last but not least, you, the faithful ZVTS reader.

Have a great holiday, folks, and thanks for sticking around.

The Capital Job

CNN's Jeanne Sahadi takes a thoughtful look at what Congress can do to pass a jobs bill as soon as they can.

Several ideas are percolating among economists and lawmakers. But none are clear winners - politically or economically.

There is a limit to what government can do to create jobs, and there is legitimate disagreement about which measures offer the most bang for the buck.

It's also because a jobs bill that adds to the deficit may face headwinds since the country's debt problem - which both Democrats and Republicans played a heavy hand in creating - has become a political hammer to oppose legislation.

(More after the jump...)

Canada: Still Laughing At Us, And With Good Reason

Maybe our neighbors up north are trying to do us a favor and all, but it was distressingly easy for Canadian comic Mary Walsh to take up her Marg Delahunty persona (you know, Canada's answer to Stephen Colbert) and punk Moose Lady into saying Canada should dismantle a health care system that's light-years ahead of what we have here.

The action was documented on Tuesday night’s “This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” but four days later, Walsh was still marvelling at her close encounter with one of the most controversial politicians on the planet.

“We told her we’re from Canada, and we’re just looking for a few words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so tirelessly to destroy the socialized medicare that we have,” Walsh recalled Tuesday from St. John’s.

“Four huge big burly guys started pushing, and I pushed back, but I got her attention, and she told us to keep the faith, something like that, and said we’re all trying for the same thing.”

After being kicked out of the book-signing, Walsh and her crew then waited outside at a loading dock close to where Palin’s bus was parked. When Palin emerged from the Borders bookstore, Walsh said, Delahunty — dressed in a more toned-down version of her trademark warrior princess costume — called out to her.
“Hey, remember us, we’re the Canadians! We came all the way here from Canada!” Delahunty yelled. “When we asked you that question, we didn’t hear your answer.”

Palin strolled over, looking down on Walsh and her crew to tell them that “Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.”

“Basically, she said government should stop doing the work that private enterprise should do,” Walsh said.

It's mind-numbing how ignorant Palin is about anything not involving GOP talking points and field-dressing ruminants.  Out of the 19 wealthiest countries on earth, we have the worst health care.  Dead last.  19 out of 19.  The other 18 countries haven't exploded yet into fireballs of socialist anarchy.  What they do have is universal coverage.  Canada in particular has a Medicare for all type system where basic care is guaranteed and private insurance picks up the rest.  It's a pretty good system (they're ranked number 6 by the way) and it's the kind of system that would work here.

But not if you're Moose Lady.  No, they should dismantle it and have free market stuff like we do.

I'm sure they'll get right on that.

StupidiNews, Thanksgiving Edition!

Time to give thanks this year as we check to see who's talking turkey and who's merely full of stuffing.

• A couple of reality-show turkeys crashed the White House's state dinner on Tuesday night.
• Tony Blair ladled on the gravy when it came to Iraq's WMD claims he apparently knew were false.
• A Marine in Afghanistan had a fiery holiday cooking disaster making dinner for fellow troops.
• Dubai's decision to delay debt payments has the global banking world gobbling about default.
• Web use among non-smartphones is stuffing cellular traffic full worldwide.

Have a good holiday, folks.

Last Call

I leave you with a must-read from Dave Neiwert on right-wing populism, which is more accurately described as producerism, and what it means for the Palin/Beck Hoffman Effect on the GOP:

The kind of wingnuttery Beck is embracing -- and promoting -- is a product of the kind of politics that now has conservative America in its thrall: right-wing populism. And it's not just Beck -- it's Sarah Palin, the Tea Parties, and the broad mainstream of the American Right who are careering down this path.

Take this prime moment in yesterday's Beck show as an example. Beck -- being our Fearmonger in Chief, as usual, with handy chalkboard in hand -- told the audience that we have three potential economic outcomes facing the USA: Recession, Depression, or Collapse. In other words, Disaster, Doom, or Total Annihilation. It was, as always, an uplifting scenario. He also described how we normal folks respond at each step. Paying off our debts, building fruit cellars, that sort of thing.
Then he got to the third one:

Beck: The third one is Collapse. That's 'Get out of debt and save,' plus, 'Have a fruit cellar,' plus -- I like to call the "three G system" here for this -- it's, uh, God, Gold, and Guns.
Now personally, you might take God and put him as an umbrella over the whole thing. And then you got your gun and your gold down here too. But that's your choice.

"God, Gold and Guns" has quite the ring to it, doesn't it? And the thing about it is, it could stand in all three aspects as the Battle Cry of Right-Wing Populism -- not just now, but as we've known it for most of the past thirty years and more. Before Beck, there was the Posse Comitatus, and the militias, and the Ron Paul wing of the GOP -- all right-wing populists, and all focused largely on the mythology of right-wing "constitutionalism", whose three great appeals to the masses have revolved around embracing the notion of a "Christian nation," returning the U.S. to the gold standard, and defending gun rights.

And that's what it boils down to, God, Gold and Guns.  If you have all three, then you win...and those who don't lose by default.  Winger populism has always been the pursuit of all three, and more importantly the right to pursue all three without being contested.  That's what America has been reduced to in this worldview.

Do read the whole thing.

A Googleplex Of Fools

Considering Google has no problems censoring free speech in China, it seems to have rather dropped the ball on its search engine leading to a rather ugly racist image of Michelle Obama.

For most of the past week, when someone typed "Michelle Obama" in the popular search engine Google, one of the first images that came up was a picture of the American first lady altered to resemble a monkey.

On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for "Michelle Obama."

Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Google faced a firestorm of criticism over the episode. First, it banned the Web site that posted the photo, saying it could spread a malware virus. Then, when the image appeared on another Web site, Google let the photo stand. When a Google image search brought up the photo, an apologetic Google ad occasionally appeared above it.

The ad redirected users to a statement from Google which read, "Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google."

The California-based company then explained that search results rely on computer algorithms that take into account thousands of factors.

"The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results," it said.

The company said that the integrity of its search results is extremely important.

"Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it."

No, but you've got no problem removing pages from your search results if Chinese officials tell you to censor it.  Ugly racist stuff?  That's fine. Good call, Google.  Real classy.