Control Issues

Perhaps Republicans should go back to the drawing board on their strategy to attack Democrats on health care.

Judging from the rhetoric in the first day of debate, it would appear that one word is testing well in internal Republican focus groups: "arrogant," which is how they repeatedly described the Democratic approach. On Sunday, minority leader Mitch McConnell was at it again, telling CNN that he does not believe Democratic moderates will allow the bill to pass without significant changes: "I believe there are a number of Democratic Senators who do care what the American people think and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach that everybody sort of shut up and sit down, get out of the way, we know what's best for you."

Coming from a group of elderly white men whose entire political party is built on telling Americans exactly what they are allowed to do and not do with their bodies, particularly women, that's actually laughable.

It's a nice try, Mitch.  Really.  Snerk.  Republicans would never be so arrogant as to tell a woman what she's allowed to do with her uterus, for example.

Just Keep Swimming, Swimming, Swimming

The WSJ tells us this morning that 23% of U.S. homeowners now owe more on their home than the home is worth, including some 40% of mortgages taken out in the last few years.

The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.

Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif.

These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market.

And even more bad economic news, 3rd quarter economic numbers were revised downward from 3.5% to 2.8%.

What recovery?

Home prices are going to keep dropping into 2011, unemployment will continue to rise, and if Obama's suddenly serious about balancing the budget, we'll be back in another recession before the end of next year.

Boy things are just getting better and better around here.

StupidiNews Focus

A double StupidiNews Focus today for two big President Odubya moments:

First, The Nation's Jeremy Scahill informs us that we're running a Dick Cheney-style black bag program with Xe (formerly Blackwater) to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan.

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

And people wonder why we're not doin' so hot in Pakistan.  We're running three wars here: one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and one in Pakistan, an operation so high up that not even the Afghanistan folks know what's going on.

And we're using Blackwater?  Really?  Who in the Obama administration knows about this?  Who's running it?  How much does Obama know?  Did somebody bother to tell Congress we're at war with Pakistan?

Oh, and secondly, we're going for the Surge in Afghanistan, too.

As it now stands, the plan calls for the deployment over a nine-month period beginning in March of three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., and a Marine brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., for as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

In addition, a 7,000-strong division headquarters would be sent to take command of U.S.-led NATO forces in southern Afghanistan — to which the U.S. has long been committed — and 4,000 U.S. military trainers would be dispatched to help accelerate an expansion of the Afghan army and police.

Boy I'm sure glad we didn't elect McCain/Palin into office.  They might have expanded the war into Afghanistan and Pakistan, not like Obama.

I mean, Odubya.  Really, Barry?  Covert Blackwater black bag jobs in nuclear-armed Pakistan?  Another 34,000 troops in Afghanistan will solve the problem after 8 years?  Has it occurred to you that you might have been voted into office to get us out of both countries like America wants?

This is getting tiresome.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama's first state dinner will be hosting Indian PM Manmohan Singh today.
• The Obama administration is reportedly using Blackwater mercenaries to carry out assassinations in Pakistan.
• Another report claims Obama's Dec. 1 decision on Afghanistan will be to send in 34,000 more troops.
• The Fed wants TARP banks to submit plans to pay back government bailout money.
• Some 60% of U.S. libraries lack the internet bandwidth to serve their patrons.
  

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Last Call

FOX fails at math.

Wrong Analogy

Ezra Klein describes the current health care situation in the Senate as hostage negotiations.

The hostage-takers might not prefer to kill the kid, but there's definitely some upside to killing the kid, as it strengthens them in future negotiations. Conversely, the people on the other side of the phone don't want the kid to die, but also don't want a situation in which hostage-taking is encouraged. Generally, you try and resolve that by killing or capturing the hostage-takers, but that's not really an option here, with the closest analogue being a kamikaze primary challenge against Blanche Lincoln, which would come too late to affect health-care reform anyway.

This is actually incorrect.

Ezra still assumes that both sides are negotiating.  To have negotiations, both sides must operate on good faith.  This isn't any more of a negotiation that it was with the Republicans.  What this is here is a plan to demand so much from the bill that the progressives are the ones that kill the bill and get blamed for it.  It's patently obvious if you take into account 3 things:

1. The Senate corporate masters do not want any bill to pass at all.
2. The GOP and the ConservaDems do not want to take the fall for killing the bill.
3. Obama has to pass a bill or else he will be a one-term President.

Ergo, the easiest way to get rid of the Dems and Obama is to have the progressive Dems revolt and kill health care reform.  This was the plan all along.  The Republicans and ConservaDems are there to make the bill so horrible that passing it will be worse than not passing it.  Howard Dean gets it.  People still think the point was to kill the bill.  It wasn't.  The point was to kill the bill in such a way that nobody ever tries health care reform again.  Ever.

The point is to bring down Obama in such a way that kills the Dems for decades and finishes off the Donks for good.

Making The Grade

The RNC has come up with a new ten-point purity plan for 2010 and forward.  The hysterical part:  None of the last three Republican Presidents would have survived the plan's "three strikes and you're out" policy...not even Reagan.

(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill
(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) Workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check
(5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

As Steve Benen adds:

It occurs to me, looking over the list, that George W. Bush would have been deemed ineligible for support from the Republican National Committee. He did, after all, increase the size of government, run enormous deficits, endorsed cap and trade, allowed North Korea and Iran to become more serious security threats, and rejected the right's line on immigration.

For that matter, I'm not sure if Ronald Reagan would have gotten RNC support, either. Reagan, you'll recall, voted for several tax increases, began the modern era of massive federal debt, ran huge deficits, and approved an immigration measure the far-right still resents.*

And it's not just the past, either -- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine would easily fail this test, and be made ineligible for support from her own party.

I can't wait to see how the purity test turns out for the RNC. They're a clever bunch, aren't they?

* Update: Reader S.T. also reminds that Reagan would have failed the RNC Purity Test after withdrawing Marines from Lebanon in 1983 in the wake of the barracks bombing. Dick Cheney bashed the decision years later.

And George H.W. Bush would have failed on #1 (Read my lips, anyone?), #2 (Bush Sr. had his own managed health care plan to compete with Clinton) and #6 (He left Iraq unfinished, remember?).  He also would have failed on #10, as he signed an executive order on the way out that banned some military-style rifles.

Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr never would have made it under this plan.  The Hoffman Effect rolls on.

Dimon Dogs

If this NY Post article is correct, I'd actually rather see Timmy keep his damn job.

As support for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wanes on Capitol Hill amid frustration with the Obama administration's handling of the economy, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is emerging as a potential replacement.

Sources tell The Post that a number of policy makers have begun mentioning Dimon as a successor to Geithner, whose standing in Washington has suffered because of the country's high unemployment rate, the weakness of the dollar, the slow pace of the recovery and the government's mounting deficit.

First of all, if you think Timmy hasn't been sucking up to Wall Street enough, then yes, Dimon's your man.  Second of all, there's that strong suggestion yet again that Obama's problem is deficit reduction, not job creation.  Both make me think ad bad as Tim Geithner is, Jaime Dimon would actually be an order of magnitude worse as SecTreas.

The Wall Street fatcats were talking about replacing Timmy with Jaime Dimon back in March.  I said then that it was a horrid idea, It may actually be worse now.

Can you imagine how putting a TARP bank CEO in charge of Treasury is going to look?  Are these "sources" insane or just stupid?  It would end Obama overnight.  He's got to be aware of this.

Right?  I mean even with Dimon aside, trying to reduce the deficit right now would pretty much wreck the economy.  Doing that and hiring Jaime Dimon as SecTreasury would assure a Dem meltdown in 2010.  I never thought I'd say this, but this guy would actually be worse than Henry Paulson.

What the hell are people thinking up there?

Incomprehensible

BooMan has a damn good point:  Senate ConservaDems are threatening to scuttle health care legislation.  If the legislation fails, the ConservaDems will be the first ones in the party to be voted out in 2010.  So why are these idiots so keen on getting themselves kicked out of office?

Does anyone here think Blanche Lincoln's Republican opponent is going to be nicer to her should she kill Obamacare?  Do you think more Democrats are going to vote for her?  Do you think more Republicans will?

Marked For Destruction

SC Gov. Mark Sanford is in considerable trouble at this point.  The SC State Ethics C omission has come back with 37 charges against the Republican governor.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces 37 ethics charges he broke state laws limiting official use of airplanes and involving campaign money.

The details were released Monday by the State Ethics Commission. They came five days after the panel charged the governor without offering any specifics.

Sanford's lawyers have claimed the charges involve minor and technical aspects of the law.

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The charges followed a probe into whether Sanford used state aircraft for personal and political trips, used pricey airline seats despite low-cost travel requirements and reimbursed himself with campaign cash.

It also means the resolution to impeach Sanford continues.

A S.C. House panel will hold a hearing Tuesday at 1 p.m. on the resolution to impeach Gov. Mark Sanford, which was introduced last week.

The Judiciary subcommittee will meet in Room 101 of the Blatt Building. The meeting is open to the public.

The resolution seeks to remove the two-term Republican governor, who cannot run for re-election again, for disappearing from the state for five days in June. The married governor subsequently said he had been in Argentina visiting his lover.

The subcommittee hopes to conclude its work by Christmas. Its recommendation then would go to the full House Judiciary Committee. If that committee votes to impeach Sanford, the resolution would go to the full House. If the full House passes the resolution, it would go to the S.C. Senate, which would try Sanford. If convicted, he would be removed from office.

Between the ethics investigations and the impeachment resolution, there's going to be tremendous pressure on Sanford to resign over the next several weeks.  Will he go, or will he hold out?  The longer he stays in the news, the more damage he does to the GOP.

Dennis Moore No More

Missouri Blue Dog Dennis Moore is not running for re-election in 2010.

A Republican source tells us that the seat could be a strong pickup opportunity for them. One potential GOP candidate would be former state Sen. Nick Jordan, the 2008 nominee, who lost that year by a 56%-40% margin. Jordan is conservative, but is reputed to be in touch with the state party's moderate wing and could provide a unifying force in an open-seat race.

A Democratic source was more optimistic, citing the district's base in the Kansas City suburbs and parts of the liberal college town of Lawrence. "We think this is a strong seat for us," the source said. "Dennis Moore's going to be a hard act to follow for any candidate, but we know what it takes to win in this seat, and demographics are certainly in our favor."

After 12 years, Moore is packing it in. There are opportunities on both sides here.

StupidiNews Focus

This morning's big story is the Daily Telegraph's report on Tony Blair misleading the British public and Parliament about the Iraq War.

The reports disclose that:
Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process. The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.

Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.

Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”

The Foreign Office unit to plan for postwar Iraq was set up only in late February, 2003, three weeks before the war started.

The plans “contained no detail once Baghdad had fallen”, causing a “notable loss of momentum” which was exploited by insurgents. Field commanders raged at Whitehall’s “appalling” and “horrifying” lack of support for reconstruction, with one top officer saying that the Government “missed a golden opportunity” to win Iraqi support. Another commander said: “It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves.”

The documents emerge two days before public hearings begin in the Iraq Inquiry, the tribunal appointed under Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall civil servant, to “identify lessons that can be learnt from the Iraq conflict”.

As much as this sounds like a comedy, it is not.  The plan was always to occupy Iraq for its oil and its strategic value in the Middle East.  Blair sold it just as much as Bush did, and sold it through lies.

StupidiNews!

• A half-meter rise in sea-level could cost coastal cities $28 trillion in damage.
• A 2002 military report suggests British PM Tony Blair misled the public about the true nature of the Iraq War.
• The state of U.S. climate change talks in Denmark in two weeks is now unknown.
• The U.S. dollar continues to fall.and will continue falling into 2010, according to analysts.
• A Canadian insurance company has denied coverage to a woman as a result of a Facebook picture.
  

Last Call

Here's my problem with the Twilight saga:  Two high school kids fall in love. There are two, equally unbelievable, fantastical conditions to the story that require you to suspend all reasonable belief:

1)  The guy is a vampire.

2)  Neither one of them is even remotely interested in sex.

Dealing with one I can handle.  Dealing with both at the same time is just stupid.

Standard-Bearer. Also.

Frank Rich's column on the Tao of Also is another must read today:

Even by the standard of politicians, this is a woman with an outsized ego. Combine that with her performance skills and an insatiable hunger for the limelight, and you can see why she will not stay in Wasilla now that she’s seen 30 Rock. The question journalists repeatedly asked last week — What are Palin’s plans for 2012? — is a red herring. Palin has no obligation to answer it. She is the pit bull in the china shop of American politics, and she can do what she wants, on her own timeline, all the while raking in the big bucks she couldn’t as a sitting governor. No one, least of all her own political party, can control her.

The fact-checking siege of “Going Rogue” — by the media, Democrats and aggrieved McCain campaign operatives alike — is another fruitless sideshow. Palin’s political appeal has never had anything to do with facts — or coherent policy positions. The more she is attacked for not being in possession of pointy-headed erudition, the more powerful she becomes as an avatar of the anti-elite cause. As Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, has correctly observed, “She represents less a philosophical strain on the right than an affect and a demographic.”

That demographic is white and non-urban: Just look at the stops and the faces on her carefully calibrated book tour. The affect is emotional — the angry air of grievance that emerged first at her campaign rallies in 2008, with their shrieked threats to Obama, and that has since resurfaced in the Hitler-fixated “tea party” movement (which she endorses in her book). It’s a politics of victimization and sloganeering with no policy solutions required beyond the conservative mantra of No Taxes. Its standard-bearer can make stuff up with impunity: “Thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere”; Obama’s “palling around with terrorists”; health care “death panels.”

After the Palin-McCain ticket lost, conservative pundits admonished her to start studying the issues. If “Going Rogue” and its promotional interviews are any indication, she has ignored their entreaties during her months at liberty. Last week, Greta Van Susteren chastised Oprah for not asking Palin “one policy question,” but when Barbara Walters did ask some, Palin either recycled Dick Cheney verbatim (Obama is “dithering”) or ran aground. Her argument for why “Jewish settlements” should be expanded on the West Bank was that “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.” It was unclear what she was talking about — unless it was the “rapture” theology that requires the mass return of Jews to settle the Holy Land as a precondition for the return of Christ.

And I'll say it again: Sarah Palin represents The Stupid that Zandar is Versus.  It's all know-nothing slogans, sound bites, and reducing everything to either Good or Evil.  She is the lazy man's Dubya.  Policy doesn't matter to the woman because everything Obama does is bad, and everything she does is good.

That's her worldview.  It is shared by millions of Americans because that's been beaten into them by the Pretty Hate Machine.  She is the one-eyed Moose in the kingdom of the blind, stupid, deaf and angry.

The people angry with Obama's America know the GOP don't have anything better, Bush proved that.  They dream and hope that Sarah does.  So she can sell them all the cloudstuff and pixie dust in the world and they eat it up.  As I said yesterday, her creation and rise was inevitable based solely on the perfect idiocy of our current political process.  It has produced the Perfect Idiot as a result.

All hail.  In a reductio ad absurdum world, we have distilled everything down to Sarah Palin.