Last Call

BooMan has two good points here tonight:

Rather than focus on getting the Republicans to denounce their own base, a better use of energy is to lobby the media to label racism as racism. There is plenty to report. We see Republican activists and minor party leaders doing rancidly racist things almost everyday. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are putting Father Coughlin to shame lately. Getting the media to drop their faux impartiality would be a start.

The problem is if there's anything the Village hates worse than seeming liberal, it's seeming racist. They believe that if you point out racism, you yourself must be racist. It's a no win situation for the sensationalist media, and very few of them have the balls to touch this subject.

The other thing I'd like to see the media do is to stop asking Barack Obama what he thinks about the misbehavior of every black person in this country. They didn't think it was appropriate to ask Clinton or Bush what they thought everytime a white person said something stupid or committed some crime. They shouldn't treat the president as if he is the spokesperson and personal attorney for every black person. That's a double standard that we could all do without.

Man, didn't you get the memo? Being black, I can tell you that any black person in this country is a de facto expert on the behavior of every other black person in the country, and your white friends will make a point of asking you to explain and even justify the behavior of any other black person they don't agree with. The real jagoffs will in fact personally hold you responsible for that behavior. Now, I can tell you that this goes for basically every other minority group out there, Latinos, Asians, foreign-born citizens, LGBT, Jewish, Vegan, Pagan, whatever. If somebody from that minority group does anything questionable, any other accessible member of that group will be called to account for that behavior by people who are not in that minority group.

President Obama is just the most visible person constantly put in this situation, but I can assure you that everybody does this, not just the Village idiots.

I'd wish they'd stop too.

Rocky Mountain Low

The Colorado resident arrested earlier this week on terrorism plot charges has apparently admitted ties to Al Qaeda.

Either a plea deal or charges are possible for the man, identified as Najibullah Zazi, the official said.

A spokeswoman for Zazi's attorney said Zazi began meeting in Denver with the FBI at 9 a.m. Friday for the third consecutive day, and was still there by nightfall. Zazi's father Mohammed met for three hours Friday afternoon with the FBI, then returned to his home.

The alleged terrorist plot, which came to light this week after raids in New York, may have been targeting a major transportation center, such as a large railroad or subway station, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday.

There were plans for an attack, presumably in the New York area, where crowds are large and security screening for travelers who are not flying is lax, the sources said.

"While DHS and FBI have no information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack, we believe it is prudent to remind transit authorities to remain vigilant," the Department of Homeland Security said Friday in a written statement.

Two sources familiar with the investigation said that Zazi had video of New York's Grand Central Terminal, a massive junction of rail and subway lines, as well as shops and restaurants, through which pass a half-million people per day.

A former counterterrorism official briefed on the investigation said bomb instructions were found but could not say where.

Here's the crux of the issue: even if this is a completely legitimate arrest and Zazi was allegedly plotting to attack a major subway station or something in NYC, the fact that we've held people on bogus "terrorism" charges for the last eight years pretty much guarantees that we have to ask very careful and specific questions about this case.

There's no Bush administration to fault for this one, either. This is all Obama's DoJ here. Question the case, and try him in a court of law. If he cops a plea bargain, then we need to know what information was obtained.

The government has very little credibility on this issue. Obama can make a huge difference in that depending on how he reacts to this.

Sure, Why Not?

Former IMF economist Michael Mussa is as high as a kite, kids.

We all know the story: The economic recovery has begun in the United States and the rest of the world, but it will be sluggish and disappointing. Shell-shocked and over-borrowed American consumers will spend less and save more. Financial markets remain traumatized, so don't expect much of a boost from new consumer lending or corporate investing. Global trade is rebounding, but slowly, from huge declines. The only question is whether the recovery will be W-shaped (a double-dip recession), U-shaped (a slow and shallow expansion) or L-shaped (bumping along at the recession's trough). Except now comes economist Michael Mussa with a simple message: WRONG.

Mussa, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund now at the Peterson Institute in Washington, argues that the recovery will defy the prevailing pessimism. From mid-2009 to the end of 2010, he says, the U.S. economy will grow almost 7 percent, about double the 3.3 percent gain envisioned by the 50 or so economists in September's Blue Chip Economic Indicators. The world economy will also outperform, says Mussa. In 2010, growth will rebound to 4.2 percent from 2009's decline of 1.1 percent. By contrast, the latest IMF forecast in July has a 1.4 percent drop in 2009 and a feeble 2.5 percent gain next year.

Wow. Seven percent growth. That's insane, particularly sustained over six quarters. How does Mussa come to this conclusion?

It's not that he completely rejects today's conventional wisdom. American consumers, he says, have retrenched-and will continue to do so. He thinks the personal savings rate will rise from 5 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2009 to 7 percent by year-end 2010. (Note: in 2007, it was only 1.7 percent.) Still, consumer spending will increase, albeit at a slower pace. But Mussa sees something larger driving recovery. He invokes the Zarnowitz Rule, named after Victor Zarnowtiz, a leading scholar on business cycles who died earlier this year: deep recessions have steep recoveries.

So, his reason is "just because it will."

Nice. Deep recessions have steep recoveries because the ones in the past did. This one will be no different apparently, except for all the features of the recession that strongly indicate that this recession will still result in an extended period of slow to zero growth.

Clap harder and maybe ten million Americans will get their jobs back, too.

[UPDATE 3:00 PM] Who's more clueless on the economy, Mussa or Texas GOP Gov. Rick "What recession?" Perry?

Said Perry: "As a matter of fact ... someone had put a report out that the first state that's coming out of the recession is going to be the state of Texas ... I said, 'We're in one?'"

Paul Burka of the Texas Monthly: "This gaffe is going to stick. It is going to be national news. It will come back to haunt him in a campaign spot. If Hutchison can't make something of it, the Democrats can. You cannot be callous and cavalier when people are losing their jobs and their homes. I don't care how ideological the Republican base is. Unemployment in Texas just reached the 8% mark. Everybody knows someone who is suffering in these times. Everybody has lost part of their life savings. It could cost him the race."

Only poor people and Democrats lose their jobs in a recession, you know.

Rick Sanchez Versus The 1.93 Million Invisible Teabaggers

Round one. FIGHT!



Sanchez stomps FOX News for claiming that nobody else bothered to cover last weekend's Teabaggerstock. Sanchez straight up calls them liars.

When Fox News ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post — as well as in two newspapers owned by Fox’s parent company — claiming that it had been the only network to cover the 9.12 tea party rally in Washington, DC, it was more than one CNN anchor was willing to take.

“I usually don’t suffer fools gladly,” CNN’s Rick Sanchez began. “Especially when it comes to the fools who perpetuate falsehoods. Well, today thousands of you flipped through the pages of the Washington Post, only to come up a lie so bold and so upsetting that frankly I’m just not going to sit here in silence and allow my craft or my news operation to be unfairly maligned.”

Over a large photo of the rally, the ad asks, “How Did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN Miss This Story?”

“Enough is enough,” Sanchez went on, sounding as though he had been taking lessons in righteous indignation from Keith Olbermann. “And yes, I’m talking to you, Fox News. You, who claim to be fair and balanced. At what, I wonder? … They are saying we did not cover this story. They are using a lie to try and divide people into camps. … That’s an offense to myself and my colleagues, who risked their lives in Iran and Afghanistan and around the world to bring the news.”

I wonder how long Rick's got before he gets Froomkined?

Orly? Ya Rly!

Via the Rumpies, the train wreck that is Orly Taitz continues to derail. You'd think after getting smacked down by a federal judge not once but twice this week, the second time the judge giving her 14 days to come up with a reason NOT to slap her with a $10,000 fine that the woman would call it a day and beat a hasty retreat.

Not Orly. Ya Rly! With her own client throwing her under the bus and wanting out of the plummeting plane crash that is Orly's "legal career", it looks like she may have finally bitten off more than she can sue.

Gosh, I almost feel sorry for her.

Almost.

The First Lady Joins The Obamacare Fight

Michelle Obama has entered the fray with a speech on how one of the major reasons the current health care system needs to be reformed is that it is a "crushing" level of responsibility that falls dispropotionately on women nationwide.

Michelle Obama said women are being “crushed by the current structure of our health care” because they often are responsible for taking care of family illnesses, arranging checkups and monitoring follow-up care.

“Women are the ones to do it,” she said to an audience of 140 people, including representatives from groups such as the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and the National Council of Negro Women. “Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses.”

Women also are more disproportionately affected by the lack of insurance options because they are more likely to work part-time or at small businesses that don’t provide coverage.

“It’s not surprising that so many millions of women are simply going without insurance at all,” Obama said.

And that's a valid point, especially the part-time work meaning no employer health coverage, and not every woman has a spouse to get health coverage from, as well. Plenty of single mothers forgo coverage for themselves to get coverage for their children, for example.

Naturally, the Wingers are snidely attacking the First Lady's speech, saying that Michelle Obama is merely playing the gender card, and of course there's the nasty little gremlin that wingers like to bring up saying that whenever you have a single mother situation, whatever the problem is has to be the single mother's fault for being a single mother and not having a man around...especially if the single mother is a minority.

Gosh, there hasn't been this level of disrespect for a First Lady since Hillary, I'd imagine. It's funny, because whenever a Republican First Lady champions women's rights, she's lauded by both the left and the right as a "living legend".

Michelle Obama merely gets brutally attacked.

The Obama Derangement Syndrome doesn't stop at just Barack, you know.

StupidiNews, Weekend Pirate Day Edition!

Arhhhhhhh maties! It be time for the StupidiNews!

• September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, me hearties!
• Iraqi contractors are gettin' into the spirit by gettin' into the spirits, tradin' weapons for grog.
• The scurvy dogs at ACORN have their history of wenching and debauchery as well.
• The G-20 nations are trying to figure out just what constitutes piratical levels of pay in the banking industry.
• And digital content companies are fighting their own battles against piracy, but are the ones pillaging customer's wallets.

And who says piracy is dead in 2009? Not me, ye landlubbers. So happy Talk Like A Pirate Day to all, even the bilge-suckin' Wingnuts.

Last Call

It's worth noting that the "Father of Neoconservatism" and Bill Kristol's father Irving Kristol passed away today at age 89.

Kristol was the husband of critic-historian Gertrude Himmelfarb and father of neoconservative editor and commentator William Kristol, an editor of The Weekly Standard.

A Trotskyist in the 1930s, Kristol would soon sour on socialism, break from liberalism after the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and in the 1970s commit the unthinkable — support the Republican Party, once as "foreign to me as attending a Catholic Mass."

He was a New York intellectual who left home, first politically, then physically, moving to Washington in 1988. He was a liberal "mugged by reality," his turn to the right joined by countless others, including such future GOP Cabinet officials as Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett and another neoconservative founder, Norman Podhoretz.

"The influence of Irving Kristol's ideas has been one of the most important factors in reshaping the American climate of opinion over the past 40 years," Podhoretz said.

He was a flagship in the network of think tanks, media outlets and corporations that helped make conservatism a reigning ideology for at least two decades, the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that Hillary Rodham Clinton would claim was out to get her husband.

"More than anyone alive, perhaps, Irving Kristol can take the credit for reversing the direction of American political culture," liberal commentator Eric Alterman wrote in 1999.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was a longtime admirer and former President George W. Bush, whose administration was heavily populated by neoconservatives, awarded Kristol a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, praising him as "a wide-ranging thinker whose writings have helped transform America's political landscape."

Of course I fundamentally disagree with basically everything the man stood for, but Irving Kristol's influence on the Republican Party and in turn the neocon movement that he helped to shape over the last two decades cannot be underestimated. Certainly from Poppy Bush through George W. Bush, Kristol's ideas defined the Republican Party and the foreign policies of both parties.

Having said that, it will take decades to undo the damage of the direct application of Kristol's ideals by the last three Presidents, and yes that includes Clinton. Obama's policies certainly aren't free of Kristol's influence either, but at least the reversal against them has begun.

Low -Hanging Fruit Reaches New Lows

From Steve Benen:

This week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) announced that he's ordered all state agencies to "stop all state funding" of ACORN. That wasn't exactly a bold decision -- ACORN doesn't get any state funding in Minnesota. Pawlenty was "stopping" something that never "started," almost certainly to score a few cheap points with right-wing activists.

A potential rival to Pawlenty for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has decided to do the exact same thing.

Nice. Also, both governors are stopping volcano monitoring in their states before any volcanoes can form.

Good News Out Of The FCC

As FCC head Julius Genachowski is making Net Neutrality his first major issue as Chairman.

Genachowski will discuss the rules Monday during a keynote speech at The Brookings Institute. He isn't expected to drill into many details but the proposal will be for an additional guideline that network operators can't discriminate, or act as gatekeepers, of Web content. That proposal will be reviewed across platforms, including wireless networks which have come under scrutiny for allegations of blocking competing voice services offered by carriers.

The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the new regulations haven't been officially announced.

It would be the first bold move by Genachowski, who served as President Obama's technology advisor during the campaign and transition. The rule could upset wireless, telecom and cable operators who have fought against regulations that would give them less control over traffic that runs on their networks. They argue that they need to maintain flexibility to manage traffic to ensure some applications don't take up too much bandwidth and make Web access slower for some users.

But the rule, which is expected to come in the form of a fifth principal to existing guidelines for network operators, would clearly spell out that carriers can't discriminate what applications run on their networks, according to a source. The agency is expected to review what traffic management is reasonable and what practices are discriminatory. The principals are guidelines set forth by the agency, which some public interest groups have sought to codify so that they would clearly be enforceable by the agency.

Good, and something long overdue. We'll see the details that Genachowski will propose in a few days, and if he's coming down as solidly on the side of Net Neutrality as it appears he is, that's nothing but good news for internet users and not have your internet company possibly block sites or charge you extra on top of your internet access bill just to say, get to a competitor's site.

Imagine AT&T charging you extra every time you accessed your Verizon bill online, or Time Warner Cable charging you more for going to FOX News instead of CNN. If Genachowski is serious about ending this practice, then we're all far better off.

Tehran Calling, Redux

HuffPo's Shirin Sadeghi covers today's major anti-regime protests in Iran.

Today a long time tradition of the Islamic Republic of Iran was transformed into nationwide mass protests against the government.

Qods Day (or Jerusalem Day) is an annual event in the Islamic Republic, ostensibly held in honor of the suffering of the Palestinians but whose other major theme is anti-Israel rhetoric.

Despite having banned all public demonstrations by an opposition movement that has suffered disappearances, prison abuse, gang rapes in state institutions, and all manner of threats, the government had no choice today but to convene Qods Day, and the people had no choice but to take this chance and make their voices heard once again.

They took the government's cue for Qods Day participation as a legal loophole for once again brimming the streets of Iran.

But ironically for a government that has invested so much in its pro-Palestinian position, the Iranian public seems to have said today that they could care less about that issue.

"Not Gaza, not Lebanon. I die only for Iran," protesters have reportedly chanted in significant numbers across Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz and other major cities across Iran today.

An image going around the Internet shows a protester holding a poster of the iconic Palestinian caricature Handala wearing a long green scarf with the words "Palestine is right here."

The message is clear, if unsympathetic: we Iranians have our own problems to solve.

Iranian anger has not died down. They are still protesting peaceably for real change, and getting that change will be difficult. The people of Iran are willing to risk it. We must make sure our response in helping them does not target these Iranians instead of the real culprits here.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shirin-sadeghi/qods-day-protesters-trans_b_291220.html

Jobapalooza

State unemployment numbers are out for August, and they continue to be dismal. Five states now have nominal unemployment rates of 12% or higher, meaning working U-6 numbers of over 20% unemployed/underemployed. Michigan is at 15.2%, meaning that U-6 number there is closing in on 25%.

Michigan led the nation in unemployment, with a rate of 15.2%, while Nevada was next at 13.2% and Rhode Island was third at 12.8%. California and Oregon were tied for the fourth spot, each with unemployment at 12.2%.

"The losses tend to be heavy in states that have a high concentration of manufacturing jobs or were hit hard by the housing bust," said Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia.

In August, 27 states and the District of Columbia recorded month-over-month unemployment rate increases, while 16 states posted a decrease in unemployment and seven saw rates hold steady.

The total number of nonfarm jobs fell in 42 states and the District of Columbia, while 8 states saw an increase.

The state-by-state unemployment report for August came after the government reported earlier this month that American employers cut 216,000 jobs in August, sending the nationwide unemployment rate to 9.7% from 9.4% in July.

14 states and D.C. now have double digit unemployment. Eight more states are at the 9.0% mark. There will be no recovery without consumer spending, there will be no consumer spending without housing market stabilization, there will be no housing market stabilization without the job market recovering, there will be no job recovery until consumer spending picks up.

Negative spirals suck.

You Cannot Stop The Bachmanniac, You Can Only Hope To Contain Her

Turns out privately, House Republicans Eric Cantor and John Boehner are both a tad worried about Our Gal Shelly.

The Politico reports that House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) are worried about the potential damage to the party's reputation from a certain back-bencher: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

This paragraph is buried deep within their latest piece on Boehner's efforts to keep up with the GOP base:

Sources say they [Boehner and Cantor] have been especially wary of the possible damage inflicted on the party's reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who last fall called for an investigation into whether members of Congress are "pro-America or anti-America."

It's almost like she's everything bad about the GOP rolled into one highly visible stereotypical train wreck. I'd weep for the GOP leadership's plight, but they created this monster.

Helpful Associated Press Is Helpful

The AP has decided that since liberals are simply crying racism too much to make them comfortable, that the claims themselves have no meaning, and therefore nobody is in fact racist because really, everyone is.

Everybody's racist, it seems.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson? Racist, because he shouted "You lie!" at the first black president. Health care protesters, affirmative action supporters? Racist. And Barack Obama? He's the "Racist in Chief," wrote a leader of the recent conservative protest in Washington.

But if everybody's racist, is anyone?

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The word is being sprayed in all directions, creating a hall of mirrors that is draining the scarlet R of its meaning and its power, turning it into more of a spitball than a stigma.

"It gets to the point where we don't have a word that we use to call people racist who actually are," said John McWhorter, who studies race and language at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

"The more abstract and the more abusive we get in the way we use the words, then the harder it is to talk about what we originally meant by those terms," he said.

What the word once meant — and still does in Webster's dictionary — is someone who believes in the inherent superiority of a particular race or is prejudiced against others.

I choose to respond through prior precedent.

On Fox & Friends today, Glenn Beck called Obama "a racist" during a discussion of how the president handled the arrest of Henry Louis Gates.

"This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture," Beck said. "I don't know what it is."

The AP is apparently deeply confused about what actually qualifies as racism, so much so that they are directly buying the winger argument that anyone who points out that the wingers believe the President hates white people and that America should reconsider bus segregation are themselves the real racists.

The real argument of course is "Well now, you wouldn't be so uncomfortable with these statements if you hadn't gone and forced us to make them when you elected a negro President, you stupid libs."

It's simply too obvious to grasp, apparently. The hatred of Obama's "otherness" actually transcends racism to include hating him for a variety of other prejudicial and bigoted reasons. It's so much worse than racism it's frightening, it's delirium on a scale of millions. But it's not just racism...that would be wholly underestimating the hate.

Also, what Digby said.

[UPDATE 12:52 PM] And David Brooks continues the Village assault on the Left, blaming them for all this.

What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.

“One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy,” the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. “The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice versa.”

It’s not race. It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old.

Yes David, it's America Versus The Stupid.

Another Snowe Job In The Works?

Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is once again bemoaning the Republican Party that has changed underneath her, as TPMDC reports.

"I've always been a Republican for the traditional principles that have been associated with the Republican party since I became a Republican, when I registered to vote. And that is limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. So I think those principles have always been a part of the Republican party heritage. And I believe that I reflect those views and I haven't changed as a Republican. I think more that my party has changed.

So what's Snowe's game here? Is she playing the Republicans by threatening to pull an Arlen Specter, or is she playing the Democrats reminding them just how important being the 60th vote is? It may all be a moot point since Massachusetts is moving to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to name a replacement for Ted Kennedy, and I'm betting very strongly that the events in the Bay State have put a clock on the game of Deal or No Deal she's playing with Obama. If that 60th Democratic vote to break a filibuster is appointed before Snowe gets her deal, the game's over.

So, naturally, she's getting hers. She saw the deal that Arlen Specter got, and she's making her play. Can't blame her.

The question is how much damage will a deal to get Snowe on board do to Obamacare? How much will the Democrats give up for one vote?