Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Nobody likes being accused of racism, especially actual racists.

End Of Daze

Dave "Birtherwatch" Weigel continues to document the atrocities for the Washington Independent, today's find is that one-third of New Jersey conservatives believe Obama might in fact be the anti-Christ. On, but it gets worse:

- Twelve percent of McCain voters think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Twenty-one percent are not sure.

- Fourteen percent of Republicans think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Fifteen percent are not sure.

- Eighteen percent of “conservative” voters think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Seventeen percent are not sure.

The big surprise here–the group of voters most likely to think Obama is the Anti-Christ are … Hispanics, who solidly backed Obama in 2008. Only 58 percent of them say, for sure, that their president is not Satan come to wreak havoc here on earth.

If these questions were being asked about Bush in say, 2003, it would have been the end of the universe for anyone involved in the silliness. But in 2009, the President being the Son of Satan is a legitimate voter concern.

I weep for the people in this country. I truly do.

Max Baucus Returns, Part 6

As Max Baucus rolls out Baucuscare in the WSJ this morning, the pushback is already apparent from both the left and the right. The Republicans want nothing to do with it, but it's becoming increasingly problematic that the Baucus plan is going to be nothing more than a mandate for forcing millions of Americans to buy insurance.

A 2008 study by the Urban Institute found that more than 10 million young adults ages 19 to 26 lack health insurance coverage. For many of those people, health-care reform would offer the promise of relatively inexpensive individual policies, which do not exist in many states today.

The trade-off is that young people would no longer be permitted to bet on their good health: All the reform legislation before Congress would require individuals to buy at least minimal coverage.

Another bill will be introduced Wednesday by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will offer in it a proposal to keep premiums manageable: a bare-bones catastrophic policy that would protect young people from financial calamity while providing basic preventive care.

Drafting young adults into any health-care reform package is crucial to paying for it. As low-cost additions to insurance pools, young adults would help dilute the expense of covering older, sicker people. Depending on how Congress requires insurers to price their policies, this group could even wind up paying disproportionately hefty premiums -- effectively subsidizing coverage for their parents.

An array of Democratic senators continued to complain Tuesday about the affordability of reform, insisting that the final package should include much larger tax credits to help people cover the cost of insurance premiums.

"I want to make clear that in its current form I cannot put my support behind the Finance bill -- it will not have my vote," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

In part, young adults are uninsured because they are less likely to work for employers who offer coverage; they may not qualify for public programs such as Medicaid; and even the skimpiest private insurance plans may be too expensive alongside hefty student loan payments and credit card debt.

But some young people -- nicknamed the "young invincibles" -- are also likelier than other Americans to assume that they won't need health insurance or to decide that they'd rather spend their money on other things.

To discourage that attitude, the Finance Committee bill would fine individuals who do not purchase coverage. An early draft of the proposal set the penalty at $750 or $950 per year for single people, depending on income. But according to various insurance experts, even the least expensive plan under the bill could cost more than $100 per month, making it cheaper for people to pay the fine than to buy insurance.

The problem is not that the penalty is too onerous. The problem is that this plan does nothing to make insurance more affordable for anyone, period, and I mean nothing. Folks who get sick under these catastrophe plans are still massively underinsured. If the Dems are really going to send billions to the insurance company's coffers and offer the same underinsured nightmare "barely legal" coverage as exists now, the Dems are going to get ravaged in 2010 and 2012 and rightfully so.

A bad plan is worse than no plan, and right now Baucuscare is that bad plan.

Dems Get Snowe Jobbed

Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is picking up her bipartisanship ball and taking it home, apparently annoyed that she is not being feted as Queen Of All Health Care Reform by Obama and company. Pitching a fit, she just can't bring herself to support anything short of the Olympia Snowe Health Care Reform Act of 2009.

Senate Democrats are going to have to move forward on healthcare without a single Republican supporter after Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday she could not back the Finance Committee’s bill.

Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) failed to win any Republican backer despite weeks of intense negotiations behind closed doors to strike a deal.

Snowe (Maine), who was one of three Republicans who backed the $787 billion economic stimulus package, was being lobbied heavily by the White House, and some centrists view her refusal to strike a deal with Baucus as troubling. But concerns about how the plan would be paid for prompted her to back away in the hours before its release.

“I do have concerns and I’m not sure they can be addressed before he issues [legislation] tomorrow,” Snowe said.

Faced with the prospect of having to pass legislation without Republican votes, Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod met with Senate and House Democrats on Tuesday to stress the importance of party unity on healthcare reform — a message most directly aimed at centrists who now are critical to its passage.

Democrats control 59 seats in the Senate. Without a single Republican vote, they would be forced to advance healthcare using a budgetary maneuver that requires only a simple majority.

As I said time and time again, not a single Republican was ever going to vote for robust, affordable health care reform that the Democrats could take credit for. It was laughable to think that Republican centrists like Snowe or her Maine colleague Susan Collins would ever cast a yes vote on an issue that would doom the Republicans to back-bencher status for years, and it was stupidity to even pursue it for this long. Too much time has been wasted, and it has resulted in 59 votes, not 60 if Sen. Kennedy was still with us. That's directly the fault of this idiotic and quixotic effort to get Republicans on board with a plan they will never support in any way, shape, or form.

To reconciliation it is, then. Pass a real plan, with the public option. No need for caving now. Get it done, and to hell with the Republicans in Congress.

A Warning For Whom?

I'm not sure if this Calderone/Allen article in Politico is a warning to the Wingers that the media is getting tired of their antics, or if it's a warning to the media that the Wingers are going to determine the news cycle and the media better get with the program or else.

The right-wing media’s single-minded focus on a handful of targets over the past months and its success in pushing those stories into the mainstream have underscored the sharp divide between traditional news organizations and the bloggers and talk show hosts aggressively pursuing an ideological agenda on-line and on TV and radio.

From birthers to tea parties to town halls and ACORN, the scandal-plagued anti-poverty group — not to mention President Obama’s speech last week to school children and the background of former White House aide Van Jones — issues initially dismissed or missed entirely by the national media have burst, if only fleetingly, onto the national agenda after relentless coverage on Fox News, talk radio and in the blogosphere.

“If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Glenn Beck declared Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.” Beck, who’s aggressively pushed the Van Jones and ACORN stories, told the morning show hosts that he plans to devote his hour-long, top-rated 5 p.m. show to new undercover tapes of ACORN employees.

Last week, Big Government, a site run by conservative Andrew Breitbart, showed videos of undercover stings in three ACORN offices, where journalists posing as pimps and prostitutes were instructed by employees on how to skirt legal restrictions on housing. The tapes got big play on The Drudge Report—where Breitbart has worked—and right-leaning news outlets and commentary shows. But only after the Senate voted to cut off federal funding to ACORN on Monday did the story get more attention in the mainstream media.

ABC "World News" anchor Charles Gibson seemed caught off guard by the ACORN tapes on Tuesday when he told Chicago radio hosts Don Wade and Roma that he hadn't heard of them, in a clip flagged by prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. Gibson added that "maybe this is just one you leave to the cables."

I'm leaning towards the latter. The Wingers are pretty pissed that the Village isn't playing ball 100%. It turns out there are lengths to which the traditional non-FOX media will not go to, and this story does seem to be a rather bold warning that the Village better snap to it or get left behind.

On the other hand, it does take the Village to turn one of these Winger outrage/apoplexy stories into a national scandal. When the Village does play ball, you get Van Jones and Jeremiah Wright. When it doesn't, you get Sonia Sotomayor and Rep. Joe Wilson. It's clear however that the Wingers want the Village on board and on board now, and for the rest of Obama's term at minimum. After all, they have a lot of crazy to spread. The Village, for its part, is finally beginning to see that these guys have no off switch on their derangement towards Obama, and they are getting increasingly uncomfortable in being involved in this little war, sensationalism or not.

But the Village has been making this bed since '94.

A Question Of Race In America

Two stories in the last 24 hours have brought the question of race in America to the forefront once again. First, Jimmy Carter believes racism is a factor in the attack on President Obama.

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American," Carter told NBC in an interview. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shared the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans"

Continued Carter: "And that racism inclination still exists. . . . It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply."

The 39th president also predicted that Obama will be able to "triumph over the racist attitude that is the basis for the negative environment that we see so vividly demonstrated in public affairs in recent days."

Second, a white student in St. Louis was attacked on a bus by two black students, the incident captured on the bus's camera, but school officials now say the attack was not racially motivated.

A student on a Belleville West High School bus was beaten for his choice of seat, not because he was white, according to a witness and police.

"The incident appears now to be more about a couple of bullies on a bus dictating where people sit," said Belleville Police Capt. Don Sax, who originally said Monday's attack may have been racially motivated.

D'Vante Lott, 16, said he was on the bus and witnessed the attack by the two black students.

The victim walked onto the bus, looking for an open seat, but students kept turning him down, as D'Vante said happened often with this student.

But Monday, the victim apparently tired of asking for a seat, D'Vante said, moved one student's book-bag off a seat, and just sat down.

The student next to him then started hitting the victim for moving his bag, D'Vante said.

Both these incidents raise uncomfortable questions (especially at 7 AM on an average Wednesday morning.) Not every attack involving people of different races in America involves racism. Some are more obvious, some more subtle, some are blatant, some are misconstrued.

But it's the reaction by the Wingers to these two news items that is very telling. Wingers don't believe there's any racism towards Barack Obama, and in fact many of them believe that saying that attacks against the President are racially motivated in any way are in fact proof that those who do are racist themselves. Meanwhile, the bus fight in St. Louis is in fact prima facie evidence that President Obama himself is responsible for a massive anti-white crusade in America's streets, as Publius points out at ObWi.

Let me echo Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher and Conor Friedersdorf in condemning the utterly shameful and race-baiting exploitation of yesterday's school bus incident. I'm not big on writing posts that start "Rush Limbaugh did outrageous thing X today...", but this is an exception.

And it's not just Limbaugh. It's also Malkin, and Gateway Pundit, and Drudge, and Tom Maguire. Though Limbaugh takes the cake:

It’s Obama’s America, is it not? Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering[.]

So here's the basic dilemma. On the one hand, there's nothing ambiguous about this. It's straight-up George Wallace-style race-baiting. It's an intentional attempt to stir racial prejudices.

Limbaugh & Friends took a random fight and immediately tried to pin it on Obama (some less directly than others). And after the police quickly backed off claims that it was racially motivated, the corrections either didn't come or were merely one-liner updates inappropriate to the gravity of the previous charges.

But even if it was racially motivated, what on earth does Obama have to do with it? The answer is nothing other race. The only goal here was to stir up racial resentment and then pin it on Obama. I'm sorry, but this is infuriating. We shouldn't be putting up with this in 2009.

But here's the thing -- there's no way to win. If you ignore it, they get to race-bait. If you cause a big stink about it, it will have the effect of putting racial tensions in the news. And that's exactly what they want, because it hurts Obama.

The reaction to this is very much blatant and horrifying. We're to the point now where 250 days into Obama's term and the Wingers are openly trying to pin every single possibly racist incident on Barack Obama, claiming he is personally and single-handedly responsible for racial animosity in this country.

The message is crystal clear, that Obama is a threat to whites in America, and he should be treated as such. We've gone straight to full, pedal-to-the-metal racism here in just a matter of months. I've been warning for some time now that this would only get worse, and now we've got El Rushbo, Malkinvania and company so far over the line that they can't see it.

They want war, open and bloody. And there are those who are willing to take up arms for this disgusting cause, and have the willingness to use them.

Things have gotten a hell of a lot more dangerous this week in America.

StupidiNews!

• As expected, Yukio Hatoyama has been elected as Japan's PM after his party's historic victory two weeks ago.
• President Obama wants to renew several provisions of the Patriot Act, but is "open" to the idea of modifications to the law.
• Yesterday's 240-179 House vote admonished the actions of SC Republican Joe Wilson, but not his words.
• Typhoon Choi-Wan has become a massive Category 5 storm as it heads for Japan.
• Electric/hybrid cars are using new battery technology, but Toyota is going for slightly older tech.

Last Call

In a sign of the times, Blockbuster Video is closing nearly a quarter of its stores by the end of 2010.

The store closures disclosed in documents filed Tuesday show that Blockbuster is having to cut much deeper than it anticipated to save money and keep its lenders happy.

Blockbuster now expects to close between 810 and 960 of its U.S. stores through 2010, up from the 380 to 425 stores that normally would be closed. If Blockbuster hits the high end of the new target for store closures, it will represent 22 percent of its 4,356 U.S. stores.

The Dallas-based company has closed 276 stores so far this year.

Netflix is killing them, period, just as ten years ago Blockbuster's business model and buying power was putting the locally owned video store out of business.

The Pretty Hate Machine Fails At Math

Eric Bohlert runs down the timeline on the 1.9 Million Invisible Teabaggers lie, and pins it on Malkinvania.

For most sane observers, what transpired over the weekend resembled a comical bout of telephone tag -- the game schoolchildren play when they whisper something into a friend's ear and then get a big laugh when, six or seven friends later, they hear how distorted the original message has become via garbled repetition. (Two million protesters!) The sad part is that right-wing bloggers are serious. They think they're engaging in some bold new era of citizen journalism. Instead, they just, you know, make stuff up.

It's just the latest example in a string of unforgettable whoppers from online conservatives who rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story. And, yes, irony abounds in that right-wing bloggers hate the press and that they hate the practice of journalism. They lecture reporters about accountability and fairness all the time, yet whenever amateur conservatives try their hand at reporting, they just produce guffaws for the rest of us. (Did I mention they miscalculated the size of the crowd by 1,930,000 people?)

On Saturday, facts didn't matter because right-wing ringleader Malkin was helping to spread a sprawling (and illogical) lie, and her dutiful followers knew just what to do: spread it hard and fast. Perhaps Malkin's only regret was she didn't aim higher; she could have claimed there were news reports of 12 million people protesting in D.C., and I'm sure every one of her willingly gullible devotees would have linked to her.

The amusing part of the weekend's blind-leading-the-blind charade was that Malkin already has a very long and detailed history of manufacturing phony stories that later leave nasty stains all over the blogosphere when they turn out to be turds. (Paging Jamil Hussein.) And that's what I think was so revealing about the 2 million-people-in-D.C. fiasco: Nobody within the right-wing blogosphere seems to be the slightest bit upset, let alone embarrassed or chastened, for having been part of a farcical, inept attempt to inflate the size of Saturday's rally by 1,930,000 people. Nobody seems to think it reflects poorly on them as a community, or that it will damage their collective reputation.

They really are shameless. And they really do inhabit their own parallel political universe where everyone's allergic to facts.

It deserves to be said again: they run on lies, they always have, and they always will.

The Fat And The Cat

Dubya on the Democrats that were vying for his job in 2008:

He always believed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. “Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,” he once said (except he didn’t say “keister”). He didn’t think much of Barack Obama. After one of Obama’s blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off. He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. “This is a dangerous world,” he said for no apparent reason, “and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.” He wound himself up even more. “You think I wasn’t qualified?” he said to no one in particular. “I was qualified.”

Yeah, that's right. Chuckles there thought Obama wasn't qualified. Not as qualified as, you know, he was. (Also, Hillary has junk in her trunk.)

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

WOLVEREEEEEEEENS!

We'll Just Get America To Do It

Former J-Post editor Bret Stephens writes in today's WSJ that if Obama keeps up this silly diplomacy crap with Iran instead of bombing the place like a good little Israeli client state that Israel's simply going to have no choice but to bomb Iran and start a war anyway, and it will of course be all Obama's fault. (emphasis mine)

All this only helps persuade Israel's skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable," he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama's decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities; and by Russia's announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.

In sum, the conclusion among Israelis is that the Obama administration won't lift a finger to stop Iran, much less will the "international community." So Israel has pursued a different strategy, in effect seeking to goad the U.S. into stopping, or at least delaying, an Israeli attack by imposing stiff sanctions and perhaps even launching military strikes of its own.

Thus, unlike Israel's air strike against Iraq's reactor in 1981 or Syria's in 2007, both of which were planned in the utmost secrecy, the Israelis have gone out of their way to advertise their fears, purposes and capabilities. They have sent warships through the Suez Canal in broad daylight and conducted widely publicized air-combat exercises at long range. They have also been unusually forthcoming in their briefings with reporters, expressing confidence at every turn that Israel can get the job done.

The problem, however, is that the administration isn't taking the bait, and one has to wonder why. Perhaps it thinks its diplomacy will work, or that it has the luxury of time, or that it can talk the Israelis out of attacking. Alternatively, it might actually want Israel to attack without inviting the perception that it has colluded with it. Or maybe it isn't really paying attention.

But Israel is paying attention. And the longer the U.S. delays playing hardball with Iran, the sooner Israel is likely to strike. A report published today by the Bipartisan Policy Center, and signed by Democrat Chuck Robb, Republican Dan Coats, and retired Gen. Charles Ward, notes that by next year Iran will "be able to produce a weapon's worth of highly enriched uranium . . . in less than two months." No less critical in determining Israel's timetable is the anticipated delivery to Iran of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft batteries: Israel will almost certainly strike before those deliveries are made, no matter whether an Iranian bomb is two months or two years away.

So if I'm getting this straight, Israel is not only running our foreign policy and supposed to be running our foreign policy, but Stephens here is openly wondering why the Obama administration hasn't yet accepted the fact that Israel should be running our foreign policy, and if Obama will not acquiesce to this stated fact and do what Israel wants, Israel will then proceed to play our foreign policy hand in Iran for us and then will expect us to deal with the consequences.

Now I ask you, does that sound even remotely right to you? Here's his finisher:

But most importantly, it is an abdication of a superpower's responsibility to outsource matters of war and peace to another state, however closely allied. President Obama has now ceded the driver's seat on Iran policy to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He would do better to take the wheel again, keeping in mind that Iran is beyond the reach of his eloquence, and keeping in mind, too, that very useful Roman adage, Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Since we're soon going to be at war anyway, Stephens argues, we might as well do it on America's terms and not Israel's...only that the terms for America that Stephens describes are the terms Israel has wanted all along, a U.S. war with Iraq.

Funny how that works out.

D-Day On The Baucus Plan

And now we arrive at the choice: No health care reform at all, or a health care reform plan so horrible that it will make you wish there was no health care reform at all.

So Max Baucus will reveal his long-awaited wet kiss of a bill tomorrow, with subsequent votes in committee in the coming week. We've already seen an outline of it, so we know that it would still cripple people financially who have the temerity to get sick, it would criminalize people who do not buy inadequate private coverage from the insurance industry, it would incentivize employers to offer crappy coverage and discriminate in hiring against people who have no coverage from a family member, and it would not include a public insurance option to compete with private plans. It won't even include a trigger, because the original trigger backer, Olympia Snowe, has decreed that it's a dead letter. Those weak state-based co-ops designed to allow nonprofits like Blue Cross, some of which control 90% of the insurance market, to access billions in government seed money, will be as close as we get in the Finance Committee to a public option. Seemingly, the only reason for the death of the trigger is that Susan Collins said they might lead to a (horrors!) public option, and Snowe probably wants her along as cover for a final bill.

You can pretty much tell what a steaming pile of garbage the Baucus bill would be by the fact that the drugmakers are going all in to support it.

And that's all you really need to know. Everybody's lining up behind the Baucus plan, the White House, Congressional Dems, and the drugmakers and health care industry. They know it's a massive gift to the industry, one that politically will annihilate the Democrats, but something the Republicans will never seek to overturn despite all the protestations they are throwing in front of it.

It's a disaster, and we're walking right into it.

The M3 Menace

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is warning that America's M3 number, the broadest gauge of the amount of actual money and credit in the economy, is currently showing the largest contraction since the Great Depression.

Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research said US bank loans have fallen at an annual pace of almost 14pc in the three months to August (from $7,147bn to $6,886bn).

"There has been nothing like this in the USA since the 1930s," he said. "The rapid destruction of money balances is madness."

The M3 "broad" money supply, watched as an early warning signal for the economy a year or so later, has been falling at a 5pc annual rate.

Similar concerns have been raised by David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff, who said that over the four weeks up to August 24, bank credit shrank at an "epic" 9pc annual pace, the M2 money supply shrank at 12.2pc and M1 shrank at 6.5pc.

"For the first time in the post-WW2 [Second World War] era, we have deflation in credit, wages and rents and, from our lens, this is a toxic brew," he said.

In other words, banks aren't lending. They are in fact hoarding cash, and by doing so and failing to counteract the massive deflationary pressures of the twin residential and commercial real estate market crashes, they are setting up a secondary "double-dip" recession.

In fact, right now the bank hoarding of cash has gotten so bad it has more than counteracted the stimulus package in the last month, leading to these staggering annual contraction rate numbers.

Our economy is freezing up again like it did this time last year, only it's happening at an even faster pace. Yves Smith at nakedcap has more:

Note that the “reducing loans” takes place not only via tougher lending standards, but also pricing. Look at how banks have jacked up rates on credit cards. Now admittedly, many consumers are trying to cut back, but now it is becoming too costly not to.

William White, of the BIS, one of first to warn of the dangers of leverage, today said that he saw a strong recovery as particularly unlikely. But the true believers are not deterred.

Go go happy face financial media! Clap harder and you too can save the economy...

[UPDATE 11:45 AM] Helicopter Ben says the recession is over.

Sure it is, we've got to clear the decks for the next recession, you see.

Republicans, Give Dem An Inch, Dey Swim All Over Ya

Hey look, Max Baucus's brand new compromise health care plan is 100% unacceptable to Senate Finance Committee Republicans!

A summary of the senators’ views, prepared by the Finance Committee, says Mr. Enzi believes that the federal government should pay “100 percent of the cost of the Medicaid expansion, in order to avoid an unfunded mandate” for states, which ordinarily share Medicaid costs with the federal government.

Mr. Enzi and Mr. Grassley have also objected to the fees that Mr. Baucus wants to impose on health insurance companies, clinical laboratories and manufacturers of medical devices. Such fees would help finance coverage of the uninsured.

Mr. Enzi and Mr. Grassley also told Mr. Baucus that health legislation must include language affirmatively prohibiting the use of federal money to pay for abortion. The restriction, they said, should apply to any subsidies that help low-income people buy insurance. In addition, they said, health plans should not be obliged to provide abortion. Thus, they said, the bill should “include a conscience clause to protect entities from being required to contract with abortion providers.”

By contrast, a Democrat participating in the negotiations, Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, told colleagues that the legislation should “remain silent” on abortion, according to the committee documents.

Mr. Baucus and other senators agree that illegal immigrants should not benefit from the health care overhaul in any way. Mr. Enzi and Mr. Grassley want a five-year waiting period for legal immigrants to receive tax credits, or subsidies, to help them buy insurance.

They want more. And when Baucus caves and gives it to them, they will want even more. The plan here of course is to get Baucus to cave so much that the plan becomes a disaster for the Democrats, either not passing at all or worse, passing as the disastrous Republican health care plan that mandates Americans buy private health insurance or pay thousands in penalties.

Anything Max Baucus comes up with won't meet with Republican approval, so why is he caving in the first place?