It's So Shiny

Apple iPad.  It's shiiiiiiny.

So very shiny. (And it starts at $499.)

ACORN Bug Out

The whole James O'Keefe/illegal wiretap on Sen. Mary Landrieu's office story is getting far more interesting.  It seems Andrew Breitbart of Big Journalism, the website that "broke" the faked ACORN story, isn't exactly denying he had some sort of financial arrangement with James O'Keefe to publish any dirt he dug up as an exclusive in an interview with Hugh Hewitt yesterday.

AB: ... So when he puts a story out there, it's on the Brietbart sites, the Big sites, that he can tell people what transpired. So...


HH: Do you pay him for that?

AB: Yes.

HH: And are you free to tell me how much you pay him?

AB: I'll...perhaps at another date, but he's paid a fair salary.

HH: Is he...so he is an employee?

AB: I'm not sure that's technically the thing, but yes, he's paid for his life rights. And he's, you know, he's still...we reserve the right to say yes or no to any of the stories that he puts up on our site as we do to any other contributor who comes to the site.

Interesting.  And it seems James O'Keefe's cohorts knew each other...three of the four of them, including Keefe, founded conservative college alternative newspapers.

Gosh, it's almost like there's a rather decent-sized little effort here to attack Democrats through internet gotcha journalism.

Dear America:

"It's all Obama's fault.  If he would just do what the GOP wants him to do and cut spending in a recession thus driving us into a depression where Republicans can win a landslide victory in 2010, everything would be fine.  It's what the American people want."

--Mitch McConnell, CNN

Bonus Verbatim Stupid:  "At a time of trillion-dollar deficits, the administration should direct unspent stimulus funds to pay down our debts right now, rather than have money spent out on questionable projects nine years down the road."

Yes, because the real problem right now with people not being able to pay their bills, their mortgages, their car payments and their health insurance premiums is clearly the deficit and not "I haven't gotten a raise since Dan Rather was on CBS."

Flop-ulism

HTML Mencken at Sadly, No! has a classic David Brooks takedown in today's must-read.

Today David Brooks offers the most dishonest, morally-degenerate column I have read in, maybe, years. Srsly. Brooks is so worried about class-based left populism that he’s willing to concede culturally-reactionary rightwing populism “equally” sucks just so he can give the appearance of even-handedly condemning the supposed excess of all populist movements, whose anger and sincerity scare professional gasbags for whom politics is a game. Then he fakey-fakely positions himself as, at the same time, anti-elitist — more bullshit even-handedness — so he can pretend his take is, yes, sensible, centrist, reasonable, disinterested etc. etc. barf. and not what it actually is: an inky-lubed handjob for the wealthy criminal class.

Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds.

David Brooks is among that “some,” but he has his Mr. Pop Sociology hat on here, so he speaks from disinterest and objectivity and.. right.

The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.

Yeah, though racists are more specifically people who say things like… well, like what David Brooks said about Haiti. But that’s neither here nor there; my point is Brooks’s strategery, his affect, and for what ultimate purpose. The first co-opts a liberal point; the second does as well, but is a more subtle (doesn’t immediately ring as phony) “evidence against interest” item than the first, coming from a conservative. Then there’s the third item; ding ding ding; here’s the real “tell”: those who even see class differences are the moral equivalents of racists. And to actively oppose the interests of the opposite class? Hitlerian, presumably.

So, to be Hitlerian: The interest of the wealthy is in opposition to (or, if you like, exploitation of) that of most of the non-wealthy. The lower classes have to pursue their interests explicitly, by raising hell. In contrast, the wealthy interest is pursued “structurally” — or, implicitly in the everyday culture. Because the wealthy have the power, duh. From Brooks’s point of view, this fact can’t be stated without a huge political cost — there’s no way to not appear mean-spirited. There is no equivalence in reality, so Brooks’s solution is to throw the whole class war out as an irrational fraud, based not on poor people’s alleged envy (as per the usual wingnut rationale) but on bigotry. Talk about gall.

Do read the whole thing. The whole comparison Brooks manages is vile, even by Bobo standards.  Up id down, black is white, and populism is bad, while corporate profits are the only thing that matters while your average American is barely scraping by.

Unlike NY Times columnists.

[UPDATE 11:17 AM]  What an amazing coincidence.  Brooks' fellow NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman is also chastising both Democrats and pretending to chastise Republicans for picking on our poor, precious rich people by giving into the "political sugar high" of populism and uses it as a platform to attack Obama and push the GOP talking points.

Roubini At Davos

Nouriel Roubini is at the Davos World Economic Forum meeting this week, and in a Bloomberg interview he gives a dire warning about the future of the Euro and the Eurozone, particularly Spain and Greece.

“Down the line, not this year or two years from now, we could have a breakup of the monetary union,” Roubini said in a Bloomberg Radio interview from the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “It’s a rising risk.”

Roubini’s concern contrasts with the view of European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet who said it’s “absurd” to imagine that the 16-nation euro area could splinter. Speculation of a breakup has mounted in financial markets as Greece struggles to cut the continent’s biggest budget deficit and countries from Spain to Ireland face rising debt burdens.

“The euro zone could drift essentially with a bifurcation, with a strong center and a weaker periphery and eventually some countries might exit the monetary union,” said Roubini, who predicted the recent financial crisis a year before it began. “This is the very first test” of the single currency bloc.

Economies including Spain and Greece are threatened by fiscal imbalances and declining competitiveness, Roubini said. Membership in the euro means they can no longer devalue the currency to export their way out of recession, he said.

And that means they crash and burn.  The question is whether or not they crash and burn forcefully enough to take the EU down with it.

Roubini said for all the focus on Greece, Spain may eventually pose a bigger threat to the euro zone because it’s the region’s fourth-largest economy and has higher unemployment and weaker banks. Spain’s jobless rate is more than 19 percent, almost twice the EU average.

“If Greece goes under that’s a problem for the euro zone,” he said. “If Spain goes under it’s a disaster.” 

The basic problems that created the global recession have yet to be addressed.  The symptoms were treated with more money, but the root causes remain.  And hey, Japan's still in trouble too.

After Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered its sovereign credit rating outlook on Japan, Roubini said he was “worried” about the world’s second-largest economy as its debt mounts, deflation returns and population ages. While it can currently finance itself thanks to domestic savers, at some point they may “flee the yen,” pushing up borrowing costs and crippling the economy, he said.

That's right, Japan's credit rating is now in trouble. The U.S. may be better at hiding the problem, but the rest of the world is hurting badly.  The world has a long way to go to get out of this mess, and the next decade is going to be painful.

Paying For It All

At least one state's voters have the courage to close a budget gap by increasing taxes, and that's Oregon.

Oregon voters delivered historic approval Tuesday for a pair of tax increases after a campaign that assured Oregonians they could protect schools and other programs by requiring wealthy individuals and big corporations to pay more.

With 91 percent of the votes counted, Measures 66 and 67 each were passing with 54 percent and 53 percent approval.

Measure 66 raises income taxes on the top 3 percent of filers and Measure 67 boosts business taxes. Both tax increases were approved by the 2009 Legislature but forced to the ballot by opponents’ signature drive.

Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt called the results “a win for Oregon kids,” whose schools will not face the 5 percent cut in state spending they would otherwise have confronted. The Gladstone Democrat acknowledged that Tuesday’s vote broke from Oregonians’ history of rejecting general tax-raising measures, which were similarly promoted as ways to preserve vital services.

The core difference was these measures were crafted to hit the bank accounts of only the most well-off individuals and the deepest pocketed big corporations — not all Oregonians and businesses across-the-board, as past tax measures have proposed.

“These are asking people who are doing well — even in this economy — to pay a little bit more,” Hunt said. “I think that’s what made the difference.”

And that of course makes sense.  Hey imagine that, making the people gaining more in this economy pay more to help balance the budget.

I wonder when the "boycott Oregon" movement will start from the Wingers and the state explodes into abject and instant poverty.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama's State of the Union Address tonight will be vital to convincing Americans that his agenda is worth saving.
• Verizon plans to eliminate 13,000 more jobs in 2010 after cutting nearly the same amount in both 2008 and 2009.
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner goes before the House to explain and defend his role in bailing out AIG.
• A vastly scaled-back climate legislation proposal is being pushed by Sens. John Kerry and Lindsey Graham.
• Advance buzz on Apple's new tablet confirms it's a "terrific" e-book reader, running the iPhone OS, and more.
  

Last Call

Self-Awareness Fail:

Opponents of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's second term are guilty of "pandering populism," Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) argued Monday .

Gregg, the top Republican on the Budget Committee and a member of the Banking Committee, decried a growing tide of populism spurring senators to oppose Bernanke's nomination to a second term, and support stringent new rules on large financial institutions.

"That's pandering populism," Gregg said during an appearance on CNBC in response to some Democrats' and Republicans' criticisms of the Fed chairman. "There's a lot of populism going on in this country right now, and I'm tired of it."

Really.  Sick of populism?  There's an army of Teabaggers who would like to have a word with you there, Judd...

Punting On 4th And Goal, Down By 6

The Senate has all but thrown in the towel on health care reform.

With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying that they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care now,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.” He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.

Mr. Reid said that he and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, were working to map out a way to complete a health care overhaul in coming months. “There are a number of options being discussed,” Mr. Reid said, emphasizing “procedural aspects” of the issue.

There is no rush.  Mapping out a plan in the coming months.  No clear path forward.   That's hysterical.  You have a plan.  You just have to have the moral fiber to do it.

Pass the damn bill.

[UPDATE 8:35 PM]  Rep. James Clyburn understands and says if the Senate promises to make real fixes in reconciliation, the House will pass the Senate bill.  But he wants Obama to get behind the plan.

Good luck on that, James.

ACORN-ival Of Fools

So, the conservative filmmaker who supposedly "busted" ACORN was not found to have done anything illegal when he faked his videos...but that whole "not found to have done anything illegal" part just ran into a brick wall called the FBI.

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans,  fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affadavit, observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O'Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.

Illegal wiretapping.  Two gets you five that these guys will be adamantly defended by some big-wig GOP donor group and called heroes for trying to expose Sen. Landrieu as the ACORN-loving Commumuslimhippie she really is.

But hey, the damage is already done to ACORN.  Millions of Americans will now shoot an ACORN worker on sight.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Thers asks:

The "freeze" idea is crazy. Why not just have voted McCain? 

Well, because if we did that, Johnny Volcano and Moose Lady would be all over the media.  Not like now.

Elevator Going Down

Home prices are still dropping as foreclosures continue to flood the market.

The S&P composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas slipped 0.2 percent in November after a revised 0.1 percent October dip, for a 5.3 percent annual drop.

A Reuters survey had forecast a 0.1 percent November rise.

Prices were originally reported as unchanged in October.

"Up until a while ago it looked like home prices might have bottomed," said Suvrat Prakash, U.S. interest rate strategist at BNP Paribas. "There might be a double dip in home prices, which could feed through to the rest of the economy," he said, adding that housing still faces many hurdles.

So why's that double dip coming?

Several major government supports for housing are soon ending, including an extended and expanded home buyer tax credit for which buyers must sign contracts by April 30.

The end of such incentives just as mortgage rates rise and foreclosed properties start hitting the market could pressure prices anew, economists agree.

And what's the answer to this dilemma?  If you said "Obama's spending freeze" congrats, you're a winner!  Just like Jim Cramer said when he called the housing market bottom in July 2009.

How's that working out for ya, Jim?

You Say Bad Bayh, I Say Hello

The Republicans have figured out they really don't need to run hard against Evan Bayh.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has announced on his Facebook page that he will not run for Senate this year against second-term Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh.

"After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to remain in the House and to seek reelection to the 6th Congressional District in 2010," Pence writes. "I am staying for two reasons. First because I have been given the responsibility to shape the Republican comeback as a member of the House Republican Leadership and, second, because I believe Republicans will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010."

A Rasmussen poll released yesterday had shown Pence with a 47%-44% lead over Bayh in a hypothetical match-up. Against the Republican candidates who are currently in the race, Bayh had a slim lead of 47%-44% over former Rep. John Hostettler, who lost reelection in 2006, and a 45%-33% lead over state Sen. Marlin Stutzman.

But Pence is immediately announcing he's out.  It possible there's a rat here.

Now, I can see Pence going for the brass ring in 2012.  But knocking out Evan Bayh would be a pretty huge win for the GOP.  On the other hand, given Bayh's Republican lite voting record, the RNC could care less.  They win either way.

I think Pence figures Bayh is Republican enough.  He'd be right.

[UPDATE 3:06 PM] In the "News That Should Surprise Precisely Nobody" department, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln are all warning they won't vote for health care fixes through reconciliation.  (If you're curious, you can go ahead and pencil in Joe Lieberman too in the no column too.)

Some Sort Of Progress

The Republicans at least understand that sidecar reconciliation is the only way forward for the Dems on health care reform, and they are already planning to do everything they can to stop it.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) has said that Republicans "would make it an extraordinarily difficult exercise" if Democrats try to make changes to the Senate health care reform bill through reconciliation.

According to the New York Times, Gregg said that using reconciliation "would be a very hard lift" for the Democrats.

It's crazy.  The Democrats are still fiddlefarting around.

But as the days drag on, one reality becomes more and more certain: Until leaders reach an understanding that will allow the House to move ahead with a guarantee that the Senate bill will be amended, they will be unable to press rank and file members to support the end game they're working toward.

In the meantime, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and senior Democrats must hear their members who are of differing mindsets on how to proceed. According to Rep. John Dingell, "What you're seeing now is Chairman Mao's 'let a thousand flowers bloom'." Hill sources tell TPMDC that leaders will continue to work toward a grand bargain: House and Senate leaders will huddle today at 4 p.m., House Democratic leadership will meet at 5 p.m. and then House leadership will hold a caucus meeting with rank-and-file members at 7 p.m.

The goal of the caucus meeting is to get a sense of where members stand after spending three days sounding out constituents. Nothing is certain; rank-and-file Democrats are all over the map with some members opposing comprehensive reform outright, and others resistant to passing the Senate bill and having lost faith that the Senate will be able to pass a separate bill.

A House leadership aide tells TPMDC that members will be presented with "three ways forward and that's it. And none of them are really that good."

And it's all thanks to the Dems in the middle that killed the good ways to move forward when the Dems had 60 votes.

The Kroog Versus Mr. Freeze

Paul Krugman is not.  A happy.  Camper.  He calls out Obama's spending freeze as "appalling at every level" and continues to put him through the ringer:

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”

Now, I still cling to a fantasy: maybe, just possibly, Obama is going to tie his spending freeze to something that would actually help the economy, like an employment tax credit. (No, trivial tax breaks don’t count). There has, however, been no hint of anything like that in the reports so far. Right now, this looks like pure disaster.

And I can't see how he's wrong here.

And looking over the blogroll, I really can't find anyone who genuinely thinks this is a good idea.  Ezra Klein, Steve Benen, Joe Sudbay,  Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, James Kwak,  all think it's a bad idea.  Noam Scheiber thinks maybe bond traders will at least think it'll pay for the jobs bill.

But in the long run Obama's going to get slaughtered over this.