Earning Cred, Republican Style

So, suppose you're a Republican running for arguably the most powerful internal position in the GOP: Chair of the Republican National Committee. You're running for the job to be the person in charge of the GOP's new strategy to take back Washington. How do you go about raising your profile among GOP bigwigs over the holiday season?

Well, if you're former Huckabee campaign guru Chip Saltsman, you put out some swag bags complete with holiday tuneage.

RNC candidate Chip Saltsman’s Christmas greeting to committee members includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” first played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show.

Saltsman, a personal friend of conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, sent a 41-track CD along with a note to national committee members.
“I look forward to working together in the New Year,” Saltsman wrote. “Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show.”

The CD, called “We Hate the USA,” lampoons liberals with such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Several of the track titles, including “Barack the Magic Negro,” are written in bold font.

The song, which debuted on Limbaugh’s show in late March 2007, latches onto an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times of the same title. That column, penned by cultural critic David Ehrenstein, argued that Obama could serve as a balm to whites who felt guilty about past treatment of African Americans.

Limbaugh first highlighted the column the day it ran, according to a contemporary report by Media Matters, the liberal watchdog agency. Media Matters reported Limbaugh repeated the phrase more than two dozen times the day the column ran.

The following month, Shanklin debuted his version of the song, sung to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and performed in Shanklin’s impression of Al Sharpton.

“See, real black men, like Snoop Dogg, or me, or Farrakhan, have talked the talk, and walked the walk, not come in late and won,” one verse in the song says.

The GOP. Because being a racist asshole never goes out of style, and that's what passes as a positive among the party elite.

As I've said time and time again, if you think the campaign season was the worst the GOP could possibly get, wait until the wing of the party that honestly believes they lost because they were way too soft on the President-Elect finishes purging the moderates from the party, and galvanizes every racist, bigoted, homophobic, hate-filled impulse into a party platform and long-term strategy to "take the country back for real America and God."

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

What Digby Said

And lo, Digby said:

In case anyone's wondering why Bush retracted the pardon of his contributor's son, it's not because he had an attack of conscience or even because it looks bad politically to pardon a mortgage scammer.

It's sadly because the pardon would have made it harder for the Republicans to tank Eric Holder's nomination on the basis of the Marc Rich pardon. One of their most substantial hissy fits was that that Holder signed off on it when it hadn't gone through proper channels (something that was not unprecedented then either.) It turns out that this Bush pardon was granted under similar circumstances.

Remember, Rove is orchestrating the Holder strategy and he's made clear that the Rich pardon is going to be at the center of it.

This has been What Digby Said.

Four Years Down The Road

A lot has been made of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's shot in the GOP primaries in 2012, but if even Rick Moran over at Right Wing Nuthouse thinks Jindal's a loser, then he's in real trouble. Jindal reflects the basic problems with the GOP according to Moran.

Sizing up Jindal at this point is probably an exercise in futility since he will no doubt grow and change as his term in office continues. But what we know of him now is not very encouraging to me. I could never vote for someone who believes that creationism/intelligent design should be taught in schools – even if it is done in concert with the teaching of evolution with the goal of “letting the kids decide” which “theory” they wish to believe.

This kind of anti-intellectualism that promotes ID as science on a par with Darwinism is just plain loony. Imagine in Cosmology if we taught the “Steady State” theory of the origins of the Universe alongside the “Big Bang” and expansion theories, allowing students to decide which theory is “true.” The question answers itself. One theory is clearly wrong and the other is clearly correct.

If parents want to home school their kids and teach them ID or send them to private religious schools where Darwin is a dirty word, fine. They will grow up sweeping the floors of Japanese, Swedish, or Chinese bio-tech factories rather than owning them. You can deny the efficacy of evolution all you want but since modern biology is based on it (and not on ID/creationism) it stands to reason that the coming revolution in bio-technology will proceed without your children being involved. This nonsense has already affected the numbers of students entering graduate level life sciences which a recent Rand study showed will necessitate US bio-tech firms looking overseas for engineers and biologists within the next decade.

But this debate is only a symptom of what ails the GOP. Much of the base appears to be battling modernity itself. Declaring categorically – and without even a scintilla of the requisite knowledge to do so – that Climate Change is a “hoax” bespeaks an ignorance that causes most voters to blanche in horror at the prospect of electing a Republican. Scientists who advocate the theory of catastrophic climate change may indeed be wrong. They may be close minded and not open to opposing views. But “hoaxers?”

This is not the first time that eminent scientists have gotten it wrong and refused to consider evidence the the contrary. The theory of plate tectonics – the continents sitting on plates, floating on magma, that rub against each other and migrate great distances over time – was belittled for a 100 years. But no one accused proponents of the Continental Drift theory of perpetrating a scientific hoax to advance that theory at the expense of plate tectonics.

And of course he's right. The GOP is at war with itself over science and religion. There's a deeply ingrained, fanatical section of the GOP that is Luddite to the core, that rejects science as the tool of evil, believing it to be what the elitist secular Liberals use to yoke the necks of the proud, self-sufficient, God-fearing American family.

We're talking about a group of people that honestly believe all the nasty things going on in the world are the result of the final coming battle, and that faith in God and only faith in God can save us. Anything else, including the whole exercise of intellectualism in any capacity, takes away from faith and is therefore inherently evil.

It's part preying on the fears of the small-minded and part being scared into religious fanaticism. People are scared because they are being scared on purpose by these clowns, and the worse the economy gets, the easier it's going to be to convince these folks that the real problem is not Bush and the GOP ripping the American people off, but lack of God's law being imposed on all Americans.

Moran belongs to the sect of the GOP that thinks it is smarter then that, but in the end, those are just the guys with the whip hand. Can you imagine a President that doesn't believe in evolution?

Oh Look, More Headaches

As if 2008 didn't have enough problems, here comes reports that the Pakistan Army is being directed to the Indian border region near Kashmir to defend against "anticipated Indian incursions".

The troops were deployed from Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan, where forces have been battling Taliban and al Qaeda militants in North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Pakistan's armed forces have been on high alert in anticipation of a possible conflict with India following last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which killed 160 people.

India believes the 10 men who carried out the attacks were trained at a terrorist camp in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir.

A senior official said the troops had been moved from areas where there are no active military operations, and emphasized that troop levels have not been depleted in areas where soldiers are battling militants, such as the Swat Valley and the Peshawar area in the North West region.

In addition to the move, leave for all military personnel has been restricted and all troops were called back to active duty, the senior official said.

Asked for a reaction to the development, Husain Haqqani. Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said, "Pakistan does not seek war, but we need to be vigilant against threats of war emanating from the other side of our eastern border."

Pakistan is clearly making a show of expecting to be attacked soon. Two bitter rivals, both nuclear powers mind you, getting into a border scuffle is not the kind of thing you want to see. Somebody needs to step up and defuse the situation, but what can honestly be done?

A fourth Pakistan-India war could be imminent.

StupidiNews!

• The worst holiday shopping season in decades could lead to unprecedented post-holiday sales this year starting today.
• California's looming budget default is causing state bond yields to skyrocket.
• Blago's lawyer plans to subpoena Obama aides in order to help clear the Governor's name.
• Reduced demand for commodities has stalled the recycled materials market.
• Singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died at the age of 81.

Obama's Holiday Message

StupidiNews, Christmas Edition!

• President Santa Bush dealt out some presents: jobs on government panels and committees for 3-6 year terms.
• A "blog miracle" this Christmas saved one family's home from foreclosure.
• Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman just got a lump of coal in his runoff election recount against Al Franken.
• Convicted Presidential pardon seeker Issac Toussie got his own lump of coal as the President rescinded his pardon.
• Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was looking for his own presents from Obama, but ended up with coal, coal, coal.

Have a Merry Christmas anyway.

Dear America:

"This economy proves Obama is the worst President ever. The fact that he's not actually President yet is just semantics."

--Holman Jenkins, Wall Street Journal

Not So Fast

While I hate to be a humbug on Christmas Eve, it's worth pointing out that many of the predictions of a weak economic recovery in late 2009 are based on the housing market finally having bottomed out. The only problem with that is that the housing market shows zero signs of bottoming out at all, if anything the decline is accelerating.

The U.S. housing market took a sharp turn for the worse while Spain joined a growing list of countries in a recession that shows no sign of abating.

Existing U.S. home sales and prices both fell at a record pace last month, according to a report released Tuesday, further evidence that the financial turmoil which intensified in September was driving consumers deeper into retreat.

"The quickly deteriorating conditions in the job market, stock market and consumer confidence in October and November have knocked down home sales to another level," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

Sales of newly built U.S. homes slowed to the weakest level since 1991, according to separate figures from the Commerce Department.

We're getting closer and closer to that death spiral depression scenario every month, it seems. The housing market crash lowers consumer consumption, lower consumption causes layoffs, layoffs take more and more people out of their homes, and prices continue to fall as a result as more homes are put on the market and more buyers are taken out as credit requirements tighten.

At this point a gargantuan stimulus package, well above the trillion dollar mark, may be the last hope we have. All signs point to an even steeper pace of deterioration in early 2009.

As bad at this year has been, next year will be much, much worse.

[UPDATE] Just in time for Christmas, the weekly job numbers are out with new unemployment claims hitting a 26-year peak at 586,000. It'll get worse. Much worse.

Happy Holidays.

StupidiNews!

• President Bush has issued a few more Christmas pardons, but nothing controversial so far.
• Was the airplane death of Karl Rove's "IT Guru" an accident or something else?
• CIT and AmEx join the TARP bailout list to the tune of $6 billion.
• Despite death threats from insurgents, registration for Afghan elections continues.
• The notebook computer has finally overtaken the desktop PC globally in shipments.

The Stupid, It Burns Us

There's got to be some kind of award out there to give USA Today's DeWayne Wickham for sheer number of thinking people offended by his gobsmacking article comparing Rick Warren to (and I shit you not) Booker T. Washington.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Washington was one of this nation's most influential black leaders. His willingness to try to find common ground with whites who viewed — and treated — blacks as an inferior race made Washington someone presidents reached out to.

Theodore Roosevelt, especially, turned to Washington for advice on "the Negro problem." Taking counsel from "the great accommodationist," as Washington was called, was an act of steam control by the Republican president at a time when the racial divide was undeniably this nation's most explosive problem.

"In all things purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress," Washington said in an 1895 speech that established him as a black leader who was willing to temper the demands of blacks for racial equality.

Recently, Warren — who, like most evangelical leaders, disagrees sharply with Obama on social issues such as abortion and gay rights — sounded a similar note when he sought to assuage the concerns of those who question why he was asked to give the invocation.

"You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand," he said in a speech to a group of Muslims in California.

I don't know where to start, but let's go with this: Booker T. Washington stood up to and worked with a notoriously bigoted man in President Teddy Roosevelt, because even Roosevelt realized that the world was permanently changing in a post-Civil War industrial era. Somehow, that's exactly like Obama picking the notoriously bigoted Rick Warren out of raw political expediency!

Look folks, no matter what Obama does to reach evangelical voters, he won't get them. Not that he should stop trying to reach them: he is President of the entire United States. But Rick Warren is just a terrible attempt...and this article comparing him to one of the most influential black leaders in history manages to even be worse.

Walk Softly And Carry A Big Clinton

BooMan takes a look at the NY Times story on the future of diplomacy. Hillary Clinton is already pushing for a much more powerful State Department role in Obama's foreign policy apparatus.

Democrats are more culturally attuned to the State Department, but Carter and Clinton had weak secretaries. Hillary Clinton is not going to be a weak secretary. She is looking to expand the job and take over as much turf as possible. Ordinarily that might be a bad thing, but her power is going to be coming at the expense of the Defense Department (and to an indeterminate degree, the Treasury Department). Secretary Gates is voicing his support for an expanded diplomatic service, and his lame duck status and Republican roots make him institutionally incapable of competing with the former First Lady.

Why do I see this as good? Because it will mark a restoration of the State Department as the premier department of government. And that means that we won't shoot first and ask questions later. It means we will put a kinder face forward to the rest of the world. It means that State Department will regain its morale and that they'll be able to recruit the best minds. It's just good overall.

I happen to agree with BooMan on this one. The Times story makes it clear that a new era is dawning at Foggy Bottom.

As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.

Given Mrs. Clinton’s prominence, expanding the department’s portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members.

Mrs. Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Mr. Ross’s name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Mr. Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel.

The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results.

Again, having the State Department run diplomacy and foreign relations is a good thing, and certainly a step in the right direction over Colin Powell's lies to the UN to justify invading Iraq and Condi Rice's frenetic scrambling that continues to accomplish nothing, both acting on the whim of the VP's office.

Then again, Clinton is still a war hawk and always will be. Although she's a definite improvement over Powell and Rice, that's just not saying much. Any competent diplomat would meet that low criteria. We need somebody committed to diplomacy and compromise, not Kissinger in a dress. It still remains to be seen if she'll actually promote Obama's policy...or worse, she will promote Obama's policy, and it turns out Kissinger in a dress is exactly what he wanted.

The Center of A Viper's Nest Indeed Contains A Serpent

While the Madoff case rages on, another case involving bank regulation is developing, this time a federal regulator has been removed from his job for pulling the strings behind IndyMac Bank.

The Office of Thrift Supervision has removed its west region director as a result of an inspector general's investigation into the collapse of IndyMac earlier this year, according to correspondence made public today by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA).

Darrel Dochow was fingered by the OTS inspector general as having approved a backdated capital infusion of $18 million into IndyMac by its holding company to stave off a downgrade in the rating assigned to the bank. A downgrading in its level of capitalization would have triggered additional regulatory restrictions on IndyMac, according to a letter to Grassley from OTS Inspector Eric M. Thorson.

This isn't the first time Dochow has been the regulator involved in a major banking collapse. A generation ago he resisted calls to shut down Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan before its collapse, which became notorious thanks to the Keating Five scandal.

Dochow's approval for the backdating came in early May and was intended to buttress the bank's capital position as of the end of the first quarter, March 31. The plan -- some details of which, Thorson concedes, remain unclear -- was discovered by the inspector general for the FDIC in documents held by IndyMac's auditor, Ernst and Young, and were turned over to Thorson's office.

So a former Keating Five figure was covering for a bank to the tune of $18 million instead of regulating it. Gee, that's not SOP for the Bushies. And the best part? There's even more of these back-dated capital infusions floating around still being investigated.

Thorson's investigation, which is ongoing, found that OTS allowed other thrifts to similarly backdate capital infusions, but the letter provides no additional details about those other cases.

If you've done something bad enough in the Bush administration in order to actually lose your job, then you're in serious trouble.

StupidiNews!

• The so-called Fort Dix Five have been convicted of conspiracy to kill US soldiers in New Jersey.
• Mexican drug gangs beheaded eight Mexican Army soldiers in a gruesome display.
• One economist puts the chance of economic depression in the US at 50%.
• Iran's President may be unpopular, but he's expected to win re-election in six months.
• Wall Street investors seem to be betting on GM to run out of gas for good.

Well If This Were A Novel...

Over at the Daily Beast, crime novelist, lawyer, and Chicago native Scott Turow dissects the Blagojevich case, and how he he sees the case against the Illinois Governor shaking out:

Some commentators have argued that the prosecution of Blagojevich, especially the charges that he was trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat in exchange for a job or massive campaign contributions, is not all that compelling. And it is surely true that it is hard for prosecutors to win cases of attempted bribery. So-called ‘crime in the head’—bad thoughts without outright bad conduct—does not tend to impress jurors.

But critics should not make the mistake of confusing a bare attempt case with the forthcoming indictment against Blagojevich. What Fitzgerald charged in the complaint is an astonishing and appalling pattern of extortion and bribery involving numerous completed crimes. Blagojevich awarded state contracts and state jobs to giant campaign contributors. The only real defense for Blagojevich is to blame those quid pro quos on his aides and fundraisers and claim he was clueless. And that dog will not hunt. Not only does the government have at least four witnesses who were deep in the scheme who will say that Blagojevich was fully knowledgeable, but the roster of witnesses of is all but certain to grow as Blagojevich intimates caught on the wiretaps make their own deals over time. Worst of all for Blagojevich is the venal chatter that came out of the governor’s mouth and was captured on the federal bugs that were in place for over a month. The man who called the President-elect of the United States a “motherfucker” because Mr. Obama’s team wouldn’t play ball, will be damned in the end by his own words and his unambiguous intent to profit from public office.

It's worth a read.