The Train of Thought

News You Can't Use!

2012-02-15T11:18:00.001-05:00

ABC News seems fine with making people stupid: (Dean Baker)

ABC News took budget reporting to new levels of irresponsibility last night telling its viewers to think of the federal budget like the family budget by knocking off 8 zeros to make spending $38,000, instead of $3.8 trillion. While this approach could be useful to put some items in context (spending on TANF, the main welfare program, would be around $190; the $1 million Woodstock museum that served as a main prop for John McCain's presidential campaign would cost 1 cent), it is fundamentally misleading in explaining the significance of the deficit and debt.

Unlike ABC's family, the government is expecting to be around in perpetuity. This means that it never has to pay off its debt. At the least, it would be more appropriate to make a comparison to a corporation, which may forever add to its debt as it grows. No shareholder would complain if General Electric borrowed a huge amount of money to expand a profitable division. Government spending fosters growth by financing education, infrastructure and other public investments which will make the country richer in the future.

However, there are even more fundamental differences between the government and a family. The U.S. government's debt is in notes printed by the government. If ABC wants to make the family analogy, its family has an obligation to pay off the $9,000 it has borrowed in 9000 sheets of paper that say "I owe you $1, payable in notes that say 'I owe you a note saying that I owe you a note'."

Most families can't borrow on such terms, but the government can and does. If ABC can't explain this distinction in its 2 minute and 30 second news segment, then it should look for a different analogy.

You would think a news organization would be slightly ashamed that anyone who watched that "family budget" segment is now grossly misinformed about how our economy works. Guess not.

Happy Valentine's Day Washington

2012-02-14T13:48:00.003-05:00

One more sane state...

Gov. Christine Gregoire signed legislation on Monday to make Washington the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage, but opponents said they would try to seek its repeal through a ballot measure. Ms. Gregoire, a Democrat and a Roman Catholic, said, “I’m proud of who and what we are as a state.” Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont recognize same-sex marriage, as does Washington, D.C. The measure will take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends.

Also, here is a really cool Valentine's day mix from Bird Peterson:

Bird Peterson - Dearest Lover (A Mix For Heavy Petting) by Bird Peterson

People Won't Always Agree!

2012-02-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

Atrios really nails this:

Everybody in DC needs to stop this fantasy that if only we find all the magic compromises then people will stop caring about this stuff. I'm not religious, but if I genuinely had beliefs that those in the Church profess to have, I wouldn't be happy with some sort of compromise. Why the hell would I? I'd be fighting to outlaw contraception completely if I thought it was strategically reasonable to do so within a broader agenda.

There is a sense that if each side moves a little close to the other person's position, then all differences can be worked out. This may be true when your friends are debating where to go for dinner, but in politics any decision you make is going to piss some people off, no matter what. People who oppose contraception aren't going to like this agreement or you! It's ok, they represent an extreme viewpoint held by 2% of the population! Tell them to suck it and move on!

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

2012-02-10T16:54:00.000-05:00

Jonathan Chait touches on a pet peeve of mine:

And this is why I am forced to be so mean. There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting rich people keep as much of their money as possible vastly outstrips the supply. Hence the intellectual marketplace for arguments that we should tax rich people less is glutted with hackery. The very simple fallacy I pointed out by de Rugy has been knocking around for years, without end. (Here it is in a piece by Stephen Moore in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page. Here is Senator Jim DeMint making it today in an interview with the approving editors of Reason.) A similar problem exists, perhaps to an even worse extent, with climate change denial.

Most people don’t follow these issues for a living and have a hard time distinguishing legitimate arguments from garbage. I don’t mean this patronizingly: I certainly would have trouble distinguishing valid arguments from nonsense in a technical field I didn’t study professionally. But that's why there’s a value in signaling that some arguments aren’t merely expressing a difference in values or interpretation, but are made by an unqualified hack peddling demonstrable nonsense. Being so mean is a labor of love, I confess, but also one with a purpose.

The only issue I take with his post is that I'm not even sure qualified/unqualified is the distinction we want to be making. I'm sure plenty of these hacks have all the right credentials! The difference is that one side of the policy debate is lying almost all the fucking time. It's important to understand the difference between genuine disagreements on policy, and lying. Mainstream media outlets rarely point out the difference, and this unsurprisingly leads to people thinking most policy debates are genuine disagreements or he said/she said bickering. There is always some of that too, but the right has figured out that there is absolutely no political cost to lying constantly, so they're using it to great effect. Watch an interview with any Republican politician/think tank hack and I guarantee you over half the stuff they say are either highly misleading or outright bullshit. That's not to say that Democrats don't lie (All politicians do), but conservatives have turned it into a science.

I'm genuinely not sure how you counter this when most media outlets don't seem to give the slightest shit about educating their readers/viewers. However, since this is one of the defining dynamics of this era, it's at least worth pointing out from time to time.

Foreclosure Settlement In

2012-02-10T10:40:00.001-05:00

I need to read more about this, but my initial verdict is: Not good:

Forty-nine states, every one but Oklahoma, as well as federal regulators will participate in a foreclosure fraud settlement that will release the five biggest banks (Wells Fargo, Citi, Ally/GMAC, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America) and their mortgage servicing units from liability for robo-signing and other forms of servicer abuse, in exchange for $25 billion in funding for legal aid, refinancing, short sales, restitution for wrongful foreclosures and principal reduction for underwater borrowers. The announcement will be made on Thursday.

This settlement arises from multiple abuses found in the servicing of loans and the foreclosure process over the past several years. At the height of the housing bubble, banks sliced and diced mortgages and traded them with little regard for the rules following land recording or securitization to such a sloppy extent that they lost track of the true owner on potentially millions of homes. To cover up for this massive failure, banks and their servicing units have been found to have routinely forged, back-dated and fabricated documents at county recorder offices and state courts across the country. Furthermore, they employed “robo-signers,” who signed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of documents and affidavits without any knowledge of the underlying mortgages. In addition, investigations uncovered massive servicing abuses, including illegal fees charged to borrowers, putting borrowers into foreclosure at the same time as they were working out loan modifications, failing to honor previous settlements where promises were made on modifications, and countless other errors that maximized servicer profits and gouged homeowners. There are also cases of wrongful foreclosures where homeowners have been turned out of their homes without just cause, and servicer-driven foreclosures, where servicers illegally added late fees and applied payments inaccurately, pushing the homeowner into foreclosure. This is but a smattering of the examples of foreclosure fraud and servicer abuse found in a series of interlocking investigations, court depositions, reviews of documents in registers of deeds offices, and homeowner testimonials.

The deal caps a 16-month process that had several fits and starts, and closed with the final holdouts, New York and California, coming to terms. The deal will release claims from state Attorneys General, but individual homeowners retain private rights of action to sue over foreclosure fraud and other abuses. As part of the settlement, states will get a fixed amount in hard dollars that would go to fund legal aid services. “This will get a lawyer for everyone facing foreclosure in the state,” said one source in an Attorney General’s office. “This will stop every wrongful foreclosure.”

Oklahoma stayed out of the deal because the state’s Attorney General, Scott Pruitt, did not believe that the banks should face any penalty.

As far as the release goes, AG offices that signed onto the lawsuit claimed it was narrowly crafted to only affected foreclosure fraud, robo-signing and servicing (which I don’t feel is all that narrow, but I’m trying to just-the-facts this -ed). The lawsuit that New York AG Eric Schneiderman filed last Friday, suing MERS and three banks for their use of MERS, was preserved fully. There was a last-minute request by the banks to dissolve that lawsuit, but it was not successful. In addition, Schneiderman reserves the right to sue other servicers for their use of MERS along the same lines as the current lawsuit.

In addition, all securitization claims, tax fraud claims, insurance fraud claims, and more will be able to be investigated and prosecuted by individual AGs and the RMBS working group, set up at the Financial Fraud Task Force, with Schneiderman as one of five co-chairs. They will be able to use all findings gathered in multiple investigations into servicing and foreclosures in their investigation. At least one of those investigations, the HUD Inspector General report, will be made public as part of the settlement. That report, according to a senior Administration official, will show a wide variety of errors among the major servicers, but the worst will show up to a 60% error rate. In one incident described in the report, an employee of one of the servicers spent two weeks experimenting with her staff to see how long it would take to process foreclosure documents correctly. They determined it would have taken at least 1-2 weeks. This employee went to their manager and reported the information. The following week, the manager told the employee they were reducing the time spent on each file from 48 to 24 hours.

Read the entire article, because Dayen has been one of the best people covering this topic.

This seems to be a key point:

And then there’s the settlement price: $25 billion, divided up several ways. $3 billion will go toward refinancing for current borrowers who are underwater on their loans, as well as short sales. $5 billion will go as a hard cash penalty to the states, which can use them for legal aid services, foreclosure mitigation programs, and ongoing fraud investigations in other areas (one official close to the talks feared that much of that hard cash payout will go in some Republican states toward filling their budget holes). The federal government will get a cash penalty as well. Out of that $5 billion, up to 750,000 borrowers wrongfully foreclosed upon will get a $1,800-$2,000 check if they sign up for it, the equivalent of saying to them “sorry we stole your home, here’s two months rent.”

The bulk of the money, around $17 billion, will go to principal reduction credits for troubled borrowers. The banks will not get dollar-for-dollar credit for every write-down; reductions on loans bundled in private-label mortgage-backed securities, for example, will be under 50 cents on the dollar, and write-downs for second liens (mostly home equity lines of credit) will be more like 10 cents. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan believes that they will be able to get between $35-$40 billion in principal reduction in real dollars out of the settlement. Donovan became the point person on the federal level, along with DoJ, as the Administration pretty much took over the investigation and settlement process from the states, who were led by Iowa AG Tom Miller.

But even this $35-$40 billion number, which is at best a guess since the direction of the principal reduction is mostly at the discretion of the banks, pales in comparison to the negative equity in the country, which sits at $700 billion. And the banks have three years to implement the principal reductions, drawing out the loss on their books. As the New York Times reports, banks have covered reserves for all of this, and should see major boosts to their stock price as a result of the settlement.

35-40 Billion out of 700 Billion = Not good. More to come once the full details of the settlement are released.

Do Campaign Promises Matter?

2012-02-09T15:25:00.000-05:00

I care about contested primaries. A lot. I think everyone should face them, even people I "like". I think they the make candidates stronger in the longer run and most importantly, it is the only real window to make someone earn your support. If there is a political position with enough popular support, during a primary you have leverage to force a candidate to nominally support that stance. Does this mean they will always keep this position? Of course not, but getting someone to commit to supporting something on the record, at least in theory makes it the candidate open to flack from both the media and various outside groups if they decided to flip. But is this actually true?
Obama on the individual mandate:

Also, Obama's pledge to renegotiating NAFTA:

His pledge to renegotiate NAFTA was important in gaining support from manufacturing workers in many key primary states. This pledge was clearly never taken seriously once he got in the White House.
President Obama also promised to push for legislation that would allow for judges to rewrite the terms of home mortgages in bankruptcy. Any effort in this direction has been all but invisible since he entered the White House.

My way of choosing the candidate to support in any primary has always been to pick the one with the most progressive record and the one whose stated positions most closely reflect my own. During the 2008 election I thought it was silly when people picked their candidate based who they trusted the most, often with little evidence that that candidate supported the policies of their liking. Well, promises don't matter, not in the slightest, and I would feel differently in 2016 if someone told me they're voting for someone because they "have a feeling" they'll be more progressive while in office. If their stated positions and backgrounds are all relatively similar, why not?

I have to admit that during the 2008 race I didn't follow my own rules either. I was an Edwards supporter because his platform and advisers were significantly more progressive than Clinton or Obama, particularly on Economic issues. Once it was down to Clinton and Obama, I was strong for Obama mostly because of their differences on the Iraq war. But on other issues, I ended up following the same methods I ridiculed. Nominally Clinton took positions to the left of Obama, that I dismissed because of her record and because I didn't trust her in the slightest. On the issue I cared the most about outside the war (passing the Employee Free Choice Act), when Hillary Clinton said she would pass the Employee Free Choice Act in the first 100 days of her administration it didn't change my mind in the slightest, even as Obama was barely choking through the acronym for the bill in his stump speeches. When Obama talked about reforming NAFTA, I took one look at his advisers and cynically rejected any hope that he would even mention those words once he became president.

I would bet everything I own that Hillary Clinton would not have passed EFCA in the first 100 days. And I was right that there wasn't a chance in hell that Obama would touch NAFTA. But is that good? Shouldn't the promises and positions that candidates take have some sort of importance? When it's clear that they're being broken (like Obama and the mandate), shouldn't there be some political cost for those actions? If what candidates say is completely meaningless, what is the point of primaries in the first place?

We all have priorities and issues we care about more than others. Say your issue was health care, and within that your preference was strongly against the individual mandate. You gave money, you donated time, you did everything to support Barack Obama based on his strong opposition to the individual mandate, as seen in the video above. He gets elected, and immediately embraces the mandate, and no one says anything. No one cares or remembers that this is a complete 180 from his position on one of the most divisive issues of the primary.

My question is this: What should you have done? Should you have done more homework on Obama's advisers, hoping to have a window into whether or not he would keep this promise? Should you have looked deeper into his soul, as Bush did with Putin, to know he wouldn't betray your trust?

I don't know if there is a right answer, but it is something worth thinking about. I'd be curious about your thoughts.

Arizona is the new Wisconsin

2012-02-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

Collective bargaining rights under attack, as fiercely as ever:

With a sweeping series of bills introduced Monday night in the state Senate, Republicans in Arizona hoped to make Wisconsin’s battle against public unions last year look like a lightweight sparring match.

The bills include a total ban on collective bargaining for Arizona’s public employees, including at the city and county levels. The move would outpace even the tough bargaining restrictions enacted in Wisconsin in 2011 that led to massive union protests and a Democratic effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

“At first glance, it looks like an all out assault on the right of workers to organize,” Senate Minority Leader David Schapira (D) told TPM on Tuesday. “And to me, that’s a serious problem.”

The bills were crafted with the help of the Goldwater Institute, a powerful conservative think tank in Phoenix that flew Walker to the state for an event in November. Nick Dranias, director of the institute’s Center for Constitutional Government, told TPM he sees Walker as a “hero” but that Wisconsin’s laws were “modest” compared to Arizona’s measures.

“In Arizona, we believe that the political will exists to do even more comprehensive reform,” Dranias said. “The environment, the climate that we face in Arizona is much more receptive to these kinds of reforms than Wisconsin is.”

Beyond a ban on collective bargaining, the bills would also prohibit state and local government workers from deducting money from their paychecks to pay union dues.

They would ban state and local governments from paying anyone to spend time doing union work, a practice known as “release time.”

And in another break from the Wisconsin model, the restrictions would affect every type of public union, including police and firefighters.

This ad that AFSCME made is pretty great. I remember that video at the time, but completely forgot that it was Brewer. The 2010 elections put some real imbeciles in office.

CAN YOU FEEL THE SANTORUM WASHING OVER YOU?

2012-02-07T23:47:00.002-05:00

Tonight three states were overrun by Santorum... eh, let me try that again. Santorum surged from behind tonight... nah, that isn't right. Republican primary voters in Minn, Colo, and Mo experienced an explosive discharge of Santorum... Santorum erupted to the top for tonight, covering three states...

Alright, there isn't any way to make this not sound really gross, but I'm still psyched. Just when you thought the Newt derailment meant that the fun was over for this season, Santorum pulls a hat trick. Santorum just popped out of a hole and saw his own shadow and now we have a few more weeks of delicious Republican primary to enjoy! Maybe Newt can get his act together in a few of the states down the road and the three of them can just keep smashing each other all the way to the convention.

We can hope, right?

Class War Tuesday

2012-02-07T12:05:00.003-05:00

Share of national income, % changed over the last 30 years:

(Via business insider)

Deportations for All, Nonexistent Political Victories for Others

2012-02-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

The number of deportations during the Obama administration is something that has very much flown under the radar as far as mainstream media coverage goes. It's a shocking policy that unfortunately fits the Obama Administration's attempts at political calculus on a variety of issues. The idea seems to be that if they embrace a conservative policy (mass deportations, or cutting deficits), they believe it gives them room to move in the other direction and pursue more liberal policy goals (comprehensive immigration reform, increasing spending on infrastructure, etc.).

This strategy is frustrating for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they are playing a game that no one else has agreed to play in a world that doesn't exist. If they deport 400,000 people a year, the Republicans will demand you deport 500,000. It does not increase the ability to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the slightest and the only thing you will have accomplished is ruining the lives of many hardworking people who have done nothing wrong.

To learn more about the immigration policies under Obama, watch this really incredible episode of Frontline, and judge it for yourself. When issues like this don't get enough coverage (admittedly, they haven't gotten enough coverage here either), it's worth doing your part to educate yourself on what's going on.

Watch Lost in Detention on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Train Lounge: A-Ha

2012-02-03T18:05:00.002-05:00

Being performed by North Korean accordionists, that is. Listen to this while you think of dear leader and the glories of juche ideology:

Good Economic Numbers

2012-02-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Good news: (Dean Baker)

The Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January, bringing its drop over the last year to 0.8 percentage points. African Americans in particular saw an especially sharp decline in unemployment, with their overall rate falling by 2.2 percentage points to 13.6 percent, the lowest level since March of 2009. The unemployment rate for African American men over age 20 fell by 3.0 percentage points to 12.7 percent, the lowest level since November of 2008. The drop for women over age 20 was 1.3 percentage points to 12.6 percent. The unemployment rate for Hispanics dropped by 0.5 percentage points to 10.5 percent, the lowest since January of 2009. These numbers are erratic and may be partially reversed in future months.

The gains for whites were more modest, with the overall unemployment rate edging down by 0.1 percentage points to 7.4 percent. The unemployment rate for white men over age 20 fell by 0.2 percentage points to 6.9 percent, while it was unchanged for women over age 20 at 6.8 percent. The unemployment rate for all men and women over age 20 is now the same at 7.7 percent, the first time they have been equal since the recession began in December, 2007.

As atrios points out:

One more month of good news and I'll shed a bit of my bearishness, but it's still important to note that while this is good, it isn't recovery good. It's basically the average monthly job growth over the entirety of the Clinton presidency. Job growth in a recovery should be better and faster. This is enough to make a difference, but not a fast difference.

So, it's not quick enough, things are still really shitty, but this terrifying chart apears to be slowly moving in the right direction.:

Dem Senate Leadership Screws Unions Yet Again

2012-02-02T17:18:00.001-05:00

Watch this powerful video of CWA president Larry Cohen describing this latest maneuver.

The emotion and anger there is real, and rightly so.

This is a small enough issue that calls on it really make a difference. And even if your senators are Democrats, this call still matters because we want them to take notice of this issue enough to bring it up with their leadership. It's the Democratic leadership that's fucking us on this.

If you get the urge to call, here is the number, and here is a sample script: If you want to learn more about the issue, click here)

Call 1-888-516-5820 to connect to your Senator's office.

When you are connected say:Hello, my name is _____ and I am a constituent. I am calling to ask the Senator not to pass the FAA Reauthorization Bill with the unrelated labor provision that would gut collective bargaining rights for aviation and rail workers. This has no place in a bill for funding of aviation safety, heath and security. Get it out of the bill or don't pass it. Thank you.

Caving to Bullshit Over Fighting Cancer

2012-02-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

This is going to make you scream:

Susan G Komen For the Cure has announced that it will stop funneling money to Planned Parenthood, ending a years-long partnership between the two organizations that provided mammograms and related services to low income women. But what accounts for the Komen Foundation's sudden change of heart? Surprisingly, it seems that the pressure may not have come from external sources, but from within the Foundation itself.

The Susan G Komen Foundation's official line is that they didn't end their relationship with Planned Parenthood in response to relentless bullying from pro-life groups, but because the family planning organization is currently under investigation by Congress. They have a rule, you see, that bars them from contributing to organizations that are under investigation at the local, state, or federal level.

Interestingly, this brand new rule that suddenly appeared in the books of the Komen Foundation just so happened to coincide with a Congressional investigation launched by a Republican legislator, who himself was pressured by the pro-life group Americans United for Life. And last year's assault on Planned Parenthood also coincided with the addition of a vocally anti-abortion ex-politician to the ranks of Susan G Komen For the Cure.
. . .
Komen's relationship with Planned Parenthood has been on the radar of anti-choice groups since the two organizations began their relationship in 2005. Last year, a shipment of pink Bibles were recalled after the publishing house behind them realized that by supporting Komen, they were kinda sorta supporting mammograms for poor women who received services from Planned Parenthood and thus kinda sorta supporting abortions, which is totally consistent with how "pro life" groups also make extra careful sure that none of their money goes to support "pro death" things like war or sweatshops or poverty or animal cruelty. Pro-life groups are always nice and consistent like that.

Man, there are some terrible people in this world of ours.

Good Listening

2012-01-31T14:28:00.001-05:00

If you don't listen to Sam Seder's Majority report, you're doing it wrong.

His interview with Tim Wise yesterday was great, because Tim Wise is awesome and should be listed to at all times.

His argument against Ron Paul's foreign policy stances being helpful in the debate is the probably best articulation of that position I've heard, and a good counter to the Glenn Greenwald article I posted a few weeks back. His point about the tone of criticism against Obama is interesting, and something worth struggling with, although I'm not 100% sure I agree with his conclusion.

Also his point (that I've heard him argue a lot before, but it doesn't make it any less true) on the role that racial resentment plays in the ability to defend and expand our social safety net is dead on, and very important if you haven't heard it yet.

Anyhow, listen to it, really good stuff.

Newt In Space

2012-01-30T16:06:00.000-05:00

So it looks like he's going to lose tomorrow, but this photoshop from buzzfeed is incredible.

Click to Embiggen.

Don't give up Newt! Keep reaching for that rainbow!

More On The Mystery Task Force

2012-01-30T10:43:00.002-05:00

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Up With Chris Hayes:

Here is an interview with Delaware AG Beau Biden. Does it seem like he's going out of his way not to mention Schneiderman? Am I reading too much into this? His question about the staffing does seem to be the best way to determine if this will actually do something or not.

Mortgage Settlement News: Is it Good?

2012-01-27T11:48:00.002-05:00

There was a major development in the mortgage settlement talks earlier this week:

WASHINGTON -- During his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will announce the creation of a special unit to investigate misconduct and illegalities that contributed to both the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis.

The office, part of a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, will be chaired by Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, according to a White House official.

Schneiderman is an increasingly beloved figure among progressives for his criticism of a proposed settlement between the 50 state attorneys general and the five largest banks. His presence atop this new special unit could give it immediate legitimacy among those who have criticized the president for being too hesitant in going after the banks and resolving the mortgage crisis. He will be in attendance at Tuesday night's State of the Union address

"The goal of this joint investigation will be threefold: to hold accountable any institutions that violated the law; to compensate victims and help provide relief for homeowners struggling from the collapse of the housing market, caused in part by this wrongdoing; and to help us finally turn the page on this destructive period in our nation’s history," reads a White House document outlining the objectives.

"This is a big achievement and something the entire progressive advocacy community wanted [with respect to] housing policy," added the White House official.

The unit will not supersede the efforts already underway by the Department of Justice. Instead, it will operate as part of the president's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. In addition to Schneiderman, the unit will be co-chaired by Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC; John Walsh, a U.S. attorney in Colorado, and Tony West, assistant attorney general in the Civil Division at DOJ.

News of the new mortgage unit comes amidst reports of a potential settlement between the five biggest banks, the Obama administration and the state attorneys general. Under the deal, banks would agree to follow existing laws against abusive foreclosures and set aside $25 billion to both help homeowners who are underwater on their homes or who were wrongfully foreclosed. The agreement has been in the works for months, with disagreements over the level of legal immunity granted to banks accused of wrongdoing, and the scope of violations covered by the deal.

Critics of the pending settlement have argued that the president should couple the financial relief for homeowners with a robust law enforcement effort targeting lawbreaking by big banks. Schneiderman has been among the settlement's most prominent critics for months, insisting that a deal not release bankers from criminal charges, and urging AGs to look into violations outside the foreclosure process, including issuing fraudulent loans and improprieties in the packaging of those loans into complex bonds that would become toxic assets.

My initial reaction was not a positive one. The fact that Schneiderman was brought in by the White House insantly worried me, because it appeared that he had been co-opted to come on board with a settlement, of which he had been one of the biggest detractors. As recently as a month ago, the White House had been trying every pressure tactic in the book to force Schneiderman to sign on to the settlement, and now suddently they're giving him more power? Something doesn't seem right. David Dayen, the reported I trust the most on this subject, seemed to agree.

While I still have worries and doubts, I've read things in the last two days that have changed my mind about how terrible I thought this commission was. Dayen:

Schneiderman, according to sources, still has space to object to the settlement while agreeing to join the financial fraud panel. In negotiations, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and the Administration tried to link the two, but Schneiderman would not comply. And he still opposes the settlement in its current form. “The language we’ve seen would release claims we are not prepared to release,” one source said.

Schneiderman may look at a settlement if the release is incredibly narrow, more narrow than it is right now, and it doesn’t hinder the investigations being done at the state and federal level (the release has narrowed since the initial offer in August). There’s also the question of enforcement, and whether the settlement will have an actual independent monitor, with real fines for violations. You can see by Schneiderman’s words yesterday that he is making a distinction between pre-crisis conduct and post-crisis conduct, and he simply feels the banks have more exposure on the pre-crisis conduct, which would be the focus of the state/federal probe.

I always thought the point of focusing on robo-signing was that the banks, through depositions and court documents, were dead to rights on those issues (not to mention that they were more recent, and so statutes of limitations didn’t come into play), and that they could be leveraged into a comprehensive deal that gives homeowners what they need, with sufficient penalties on the banks. What Schneiderman seems to be saying here is that, no, it’s the pre-crisis stuff on securitization where the banks REALLY have the exposure, and going after them on that will create the desperation moment where the banks agree to whatever terms are necessary for homeowners.

I’m not sure I totally believe that, and I think giving up the more recent fraud – which is ongoing – is very risky. So is going into the lion’s den and partnering with the likes of Tony West and Robert Khuzami and Lanny Breuer, when their conduct as regulators and investigators speaks for itself.

Here’s what my sources say about that aspect of things. The panel was attached to the existing financial fraud task force because it didn’t require a new executive order. It gives the New York AG new resources that he can take to his state to pursue claims under the Martin Act. In other words, if things are found out by the investigation, and it fits better under New York statutes rather than the federal ones, Schneiderman has that flexibility. If the state statutes on mortgage origination, for example, have run out, the federal origination statutes can be employed. In a best-case scenario, this investigation puts a lot of people on the case, and gives Schneiderman every tool to operate in that context. There may even be other AGs eventually named as part of this panel. I am also told that Schneiderman has some suits ready to release in the coming weeks.

What about a worst-case scenario, though? What if this is, as I suspect, an attempt by the Administration to ring-fence Schneiderman, to slow-walk these cases, and to bottle up any accountability in committee? Sources, who preferred to speak off the record, made this commitment: if the investigation is going in that direction, the New York AG will walk away. And not only that, he will walk away in the most showy, public manner possible, letting everyone know who was responsible for the lack of prosecutions. At that point, Schneiderman can go back and use his own resources and statutes, which while perhaps less flexible than what a state-federal partnership can do, are nonetheless potent.

While I'm still nervous about how this plays out, the fact that Schneiderman can still walk out on the settlement is a huge positive. Additionally, if he's played the system as a way to leverage more resources from an Obama Administration who genuinely fears his actions, then he's bolder than I thought.

I'm still not sure if this commission makes us better or worse off, but it doesn't appear as bad as I initially feared. If you care about the economy, the cases against the banks and the bullshit settlement to shield them from accountability are probably the most important things you should be following over the next 2 years. After cramdown's failure, congress appears to be too fucked up to do anything about the housing/foreclosure crisis, and short of the Obama Administration doing something major from the executive branch (I'm not holding my breath), this is our best hope to fix the housing market and restructure the banking system. Those two things (housing market being fucked, and the too big to fail banks being insolvent) also happen to be the biggest factors holding us back from an actual recovery, so the importance of getting this right couldn't be higher.

Let's just hope Schneiderman knows what he's doing, cause we basically have to go all in with him, whether we like it or not.

Newt Gingrich Channels Dave Chappelle

2012-01-26T14:11:00.003-05:00

No, really:

Newt Gingrich’s case for boosting federal investments into private sector space projects awkwardly embraces a core tenet of modern liberalism: the belief that government spending can help the economy.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich said in Florida, explaining that it would entail “commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and manufacturing, because it is in our interest.”

Not that far off:

And because we're talking about one of my favorite skits ever...

What Does Nancy Pelosi Know?

2012-01-26T10:47:00.002-05:00

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh:

John King, CNN: "Because of your history with Speaker Gingrich, what goes through your mind when you think of the possibility, which is more real today than it was a week or a month ago, that he would be the Republican nominee and that you could come back here next January or next February with a President Gingrich?"

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): "Let me just say this. That will never happen."

King: "Why?"

Pelosi: "He's not going to be President of the United States. That's not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it, it isn't going to happen."

King: "Why are you so sure?"

Pelosi: "There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that's their prerogative. I don't even think that's going to happen."

Did Nancy Pelosi watch Newt Gingrich bludgeon a man to death on the floor of the house?

And if you watch the video it's clear that she's saying "something I know will end his political career" rather than "everything we already know about Newt will end his political career".

Justice at Cablevision

2012-01-25T13:46:00.000-05:00

A great video about the ongoing organizing drive at Cablevision:

The Post Racial GOP

2012-01-24T10:55:00.001-05:00

Going along the lines of the recent viral videos everyone has seen, this playlist of "Shit Republican Candidates say about Black People" is a pretty solid/extremely depressing compilation.

Click over to Dominion of New York for Kelly Virella's annotations of the videos.

Assorted Thoughts

2012-01-23T18:25:00.003-05:00

-BRING ON THE NEWTMENTUM! It seems like he'll probably flame out sooner rather than later, but just dreaming about the possibilities of Newt "IDEA MAN" Gingrich getting the Republican nomination fills me with joy. I'm finding myself wondering who he would pick for VP- would he resurrect some other 90s ghost, like Dick Army? Follow the Obama TEAM OF RIVALS thing and bring Romney in (ahahah, this guys career is built on petty grudges and vindictiveness, so nah)? Comedy option with Cain? John Bolton for SecState? Some maniac for SecDef? If Obama is determined to let creeping police-statism and the corporations continue destroying America we may as well let him pass the ball to someone who will do it with a real sense of panache, right?

-JOEPA. I had to look this one up to make sure, but this is the same guy who didn't call the police after hearing about child rape? And he dies and everyone is like "oh man, he sure was good at coaching sports." Ok... Seems to me like all the coaching in the world doesn't really make up for that, but based on the headlines and editorial cartoons it really hasn't derailed his legacy of being good at sports, so... alright? After the whole thing came out a bunch of people in PA had a rally to support... not the children who were raped, but the coach who didn't call the police on their rapist? Am I missing something on this one?

-OBAMA vs. WHISTLEBLOWERS. I've already let on that I'm not voting for Obama again, and this latest attack on leakers is a prime example of why. When even the WaPo is calling you out on your "unprecedented crackdown," and when you've had people like Bradley Manning held in solitary confinement for ages before reluctantly letting him interact with other human beings again... well, you've lost my vote. If Bush did this progressives would (rightfully) be up in arms about it, and its much to the shame of the left that we seem to have generally accepted the arguments for why it's ok, or simply shut up entirely on the subject. If it wasn't for Glenn Greenwald...

The Larry Summers Experience

2012-01-23T12:58:00.000-05:00

Larry Summers has always been a frequent target here, mainly because I find it annoying that people ignore his extremely dodgy track record because he is a "brilliant mind", or something.

The size of the stimulus has always been a issue of debate. At the time, many of the economists whose judgement I trust (because they aren't constantly wrong about things) strongly criticized the stimulus as being not large enough, and being too focused on tax cuts rather than the more stimulative options at their disposal. In the months and years since it's become painfully obvious that they were right and Summers (and the administration) were wrong, there have been two main for why they screwed up. The 1st excuse that no one thought it was too small and fully understood how bad the economy is so wrong and easily disproved it's not worth discussing.

The second excuse is that political constrains forced a smaller sized stimulus than the administration would have otherwise wanted. This excuse was always hard to disprove since you can't know exactly how those meetings went, but it always seemed odd to me that Summers, Obama's lead economic adviser, would be including political considerations into his analysis.

In an interesting article in the New Yorker on Obama's first term, we get our answer:

Since 2009, some economists have insisted that the stimulus was too small. White House defenders have responded that a larger stimulus would not have moved through Congress. But the Summers memo barely mentioned Congress, noting only that his recommendation of a stimulus above six hundred billion dollars was “an economic judgment that would need to be combined with political judgments about what is feasible.”

He offered the President four illustrative stimulus plans: $550 billion, $665 billion, $810 billion, and $890 billion. Obama was never offered the option of a stimulus package commensurate with the size of the hole in the economy––known by economists as the “output gap”––which was estimated at two trillion dollars during 2009 and 2010. Summers advised the President that a larger stimulus could actually make things worse. “An excessive recovery package could spook markets or the public and be counterproductive,” he wrote, and added that none of his recommendations “returns the unemployment rate to its normal, pre-recession level. To accomplish a more significant reduction in the output gap would require stimulus of well over $1 trillion based on purely mechanical assumptions—which would likely not accomplish the goal because of the impact it would have on markets.”

Paul Krugman, a Times columnist and a Nobel Prize-winning economist who persistently supported a larger stimulus, told me that Summers’s assertion about market fears was a “bang my head on the table” argument. “He’s invoking the invisible bond vigilantes, basically saying that investors would be scared and drive up interest rates. That’s a major economic misjudgment.” Since the beginning of the crisis, the U.S. has borrowed more than five trillion dollars, and the interest rate on the ten-year Treasury bills is under two per cent. The markets that Summers warned Obama about have been calm.

There are no excuses for Summers. He was tasked with proposing what the economy needed for a turnaround, and was spectacularly wrong. I'm sure the Summers defenders will find a way to make "major economic misjudgment" another example of his genius, but for those of us who prefer to look at his actual record of policy beliefs and actions, it isn't a pretty one.

For most people, a screw up of that magnitude would cost them their jobs. For Larry Summers, he gets recommended for a more prestigious one.

RIP Etta James

2012-01-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

"You're Pretty Terrific"

2012-01-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

These things kind of speak for themselves:

A set of recently released transcripts of internal Federal Reserve communications includes a burst of profuse praise from then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner directed toward then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

"Mr. Chairman, in the interest of crispness, I've removed a substantial tribute from my remarks," Geithner said during a Jan. 31, 2006, meeting of the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee. Attendees responded with laughter, according to the transcript.

"I am most appreciative," Greenspan replied.

"I'd like the record to show that I think you're pretty terrific," Geithner said, prompting more laughter. "And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you're even better than we think is higher than the alternative."

Geithner's probability estimate was a bit off. Today, Greenspan is the subject of criticism from all corners -- notably including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner, a Ronald Reagan appointee -- for his refusal to combat or even recognize the predatory lending-fueled housing bubble.

For several years leading up to 2006, Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich had warned Greenspan and other central bank officials about dangers brewing in the subprime mortgage market. Gramlich left the Fed in 2005, but Greenspan declined not only to attempt to pop the ballooning housing bubble, but even to try to regulate abusive lending. Posner and others have denounced Greenspan's decision to keep interest rates low for a very long time as a monetary policy failure, which, combined with his refusal to enforce consumer protection regulations, allowed that bubble to ossify into an economic wrecking ball.

At the time Geithner praised Greenspan, the Fed chairman was widely respected among conservatives and neo-liberals, but concerns were already circulating about the potential implications of the subprime mortgage problems. Within months, Ben Bernanke would replace Greenspan as Fed chair and make a host of reassuring comments in the media about the subprime debacle being "contained."

Greenspan, an acolyte of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, eventually acknowledged before Congress that his "ideology" was not equipped to handle the rapacious behavior of major banks during the housing bubble.

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," Greenspan told then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in 2008. "I have found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact."

Or Maybe it's the Shitty Policies?

2012-01-19T14:58:00.000-05:00

This logic is always pretty incredible: (via atrios)

A depressing tale of austerity, job cuts and economic misery from our Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald.

Henry reports that Northern Ireland's finance minister Sammy Wilson has told trade unions in the province to "shut up" over fears about job losses, and criticised the union's negative approach to the local economy.

On Tuesday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions claimed that 26,000 jobs could be lost in the Northern Ireland public sector as part of the Coalition's cost cutting, austerity programme over the next five years.

But Wilson denounced these projections saying that the predictions undermined efforts to build confidence in the economy.

Speaking on Radio Ulster, the Democratic Unionist minister said: "If they haven't anything positive to say, then they should shut up."

Wilson added:
Instead of engaging in rhetoric which damages the economy, I have been working as finance minister to try and mitigate the impact of decisions made in Westminster. We have been doing the thing responsibly, not going out trying to make the situation worse as the trade unions have been.
This kind of negative talk about what might happen undermines all the good work people are doing across Northern Ireland.

The Internet on Strike

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia, Reddit and a bunch of other sites are going dark today to protest some pretty terrible legislation in congress right now that would completely change the internet as we know it.

So no new content in solidarity, but click here to read about the bills, and what you can do to stop them.

Actually forget all of that and watch this video on the oatmeal.

Mitt Romney Fan Art

2012-01-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

This is incredible. Via Mother Jones magazine, this portrait apparently exists at BYU.

Mitt The Ripper

2012-01-17T11:29:00.001-05:00

If you haven't been following Colbert and Stewart's recent attempts to point out how stupid our campaign finance rules are, it's time to catch up. Warming Glow:

A small refresher: Last week, Stephen Colbert announced his intention to create an exploratory committee in order to run for the President of South Carolina. By law, if someone become a candidate for office, he or she must relinquish any control he has of a Super Pac, one of those independent organizations that raises money on behalf of a candidate but can’t actually coordinate with the candidate. It’s a not so subtle way of getting around campaign finance laws. As a result, Colbert had to relinquish control of his Super Pac, Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. He gave it to Jon Stewart, who renamed it, The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC.

Like with many very cool things, I don't know how this ends, but it's actually not that important. Excited to watch this play out, especially anything else they do is as good as this first ad:

I Was A Drum Major

2012-01-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it drove me absolutely insane and I'm really happy it was fixed.

A badly excerpted quote shown on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington will be corrected, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told the Washington Post on Friday. Salazar has given the National Park Service 30 days to come up with a more accurate alternative.
“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness,” the quote on the monument reads.

Should We Publish Lies? Opinions Differ.

2012-01-13T11:53:00.001-05:00

Here is how the New York Times defines the role of the public editor:

Arthur S. Brisbane is the readers' representative. He responds to complaints and comments from the public and monitors the paper's journalistic practices.

All the quotes from the following post are real, and were not taken from the Onion.

The headline of his post:

Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?

Yes.

This should have ended there. Instead, who wrote an entire post on the subject.

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

Still having trouble believing this is serious. On one hand "challenging facts that are asserted by newsmakers" is the job of a news organization, and on the other hand... the person you called a liar doesn't invite you to their birthday party?

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

Uhhh, yes?

That approach is what one reader was getting at in a recent message to the public editor. He wrote:
“My question is what role the paper’s hard-news coverage should play with regard to false statements – by candidates or by others. In general, the Times sets its documentation of falsehoods in articles apart from its primary coverage. If the newspaper’s overarching goal is truth, oughtn’t the truth be embedded in its principal stories? In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn’t the Times’s coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?”
This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. They worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true.

This reader is frustrated that we print falsehoods and don't correct them! It's as if they look to this newspaper as a place to be further informed on the issues. How quaint!

Is that the prevailing view?

For people who care about being more informed and facts, yes, it is.

And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair?

When someone isn't telling the truth, you point out that they aren't telling the truth? That seems fair.

Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?

Yes. This is possible.

Are there other problems that The Times would face that I haven’t mentioned here?

Mainly that you think that refusing to print lies is some sort of confusing and brave new world for reporters?

This post needs to enshrined for future generations to as so they can better understand how everything went so wrong.

Real Talk on Foreign Policy, Imperialism

2012-01-11T21:17:00.000-05:00

Your anti-imperial message, coming from a republican presidential candidate.

Incredibly powerful stuff. Wouldn't it be nice if someone in power on our side were openly talking like that?

We Are All Youssef El-Korma

2012-01-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

Shit like this makes you proud to be a member of the human race.

Thomas Friedman visits Egypt, this happens:

"During a question-and-answer session, Friedman faced the ire of Youssef El-Korma, a member of AUC’s student leftist movement. “You can’t come here with a smile and preach to us on democracy when you’ve been demeaning Arabs and supporting war crimes in Gaza and Iraq,” said El-Korma. “We don’t welcome you here.” El-Korma’s assertions were met with applause by the audience but failed to draw a response from Friedman, who replied to another student critic earlier by saying that, "In the Middle East everybody wants to own you, and if they can't, they will try to destroy you.""

No Change At Chief Of Staff

2012-01-10T11:06:00.000-05:00

The horrendous Bill Daley of J.P. Morgan Chase has resigned as Obama's Chief of Staff. His goals were to "rebuild" Obama's relationship with the business community and work with congressional Republicans. Heckuva' job.

He is being replaced by Jacob Lew, a former Citigroup executive.

I didn't know banking experience was needed to be a chief of staff, but there you go. But in fairness to Lew, he isn't just any banking executive, he's an unbelievably shady one. Glenn Greenwald:

In 2010, Lew became head of the Office of Management and Budget when Peter Orszag left and then, a couple months later, accepted a multi-million dollar position as a high-level Citigroup official. Lew has spent many years in various government positions, but he has his own substantial ties to Citigroup. Here is what Lew was doing in 2008 at the time the financial crisis exploded, as detailed by an excellent Huffington Post report from last year:
[Lew] oversaw a Citigroup unit that profited off the housing collapse and financial crisis by investing in a hedge fund king who correctly predicted the eventual subprime meltdown and now finds himself involved in the center of the U.S. government’s fraud case against Goldman Sachs. . . .
[I]t is his few years at Citi — in particular the one year he spent at its then-$54 billion proprietary trading, hedge fund and private equity unit — that’s likely to raise the most eyebrows in the coming weeks as Lew faces a Senate confirmation hearing.
Especially his unit’s investments in a hedge fund that bet on the housing market to collapse — a reality suffered by millions of American homeowners.
In particular, the Citigroup fund run by Lew, Citi’s Alternative Investments, invested heavily in the hedge fund of John Paulson, “who made billions off the deterioration of the housing industry by making bearish bets on securities tied to home mortgages — particularly subprime home mortgages.” One of Paulson’s largest bets at the time involved Goldman Sachs, which the SEC has now charged with “defrauding investors by creating and selling exotic securities tied to subprime home mortgages in 2007 without disclosing that they were handpicked by a hedge fund [Paulson] that was betting on them to fail.”

Although these bets turned a profit for Citigroup as the housing market collapsed — a collapse that led to the foreclosures of millions of Americans’ homes — Lew’s unit “lost as much as billions of dollars in 2008 as its bets turned sour. In the first quarter of 2008 alone the unit lost $509 million; the company stopped publicly disclosing the unit’s individual numbers soon thereafter, but the part of the company that absorbed Alternative Investments lost $20.1 billion in 2008, according to the bank’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.” As a result of that and other losses, Citigroup received $45 billion as part of the Wall Street bailout, and also used a crisis-created FDIC program to issue another $64.6 billion in taxpayer-backed debt. All of that led to these comments when Lew was chosen last year to replace Orszag as OMB Director:
Lew’s role at the fund is raising some eyebrows among good government groups.
“That sounds pretty nasty, doesn’t it?” said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a group that monitors the budget office. “Any activity and any player that contributed to the economic calamity needs to be looked at.
“We already got enough players in this administration that certainly were key players in the economic malaise that we currently have,” Bass continued. “Why shouldn’t we have another one?” he said with a slight chuckle.
For his work at Citigroup, work that included betting on the housing collapse, Lew received a salary of $1.1 million. After Citigroup received its $45 billion taxpayer bailout, Lew — two weeks before joining the Obama administration — received another $900,000 from Citigroup as a bonus. This was revealed only in 2010; in 2009, when Lew first joined the administration as a State Department official, both he and the administration refused to say if he had received a post-bailout bonus from Citigroup (at the time, there was a huge political scandal over Wall Street executives receiving large bonuses despite needing taxpayer bailouts). There’s certainly nothing illegal about betting on a housing market collapse, but it’s quite symbolic that those who made millions of dollars from the crisis are now running government policy.

Lew (like so many key Obama officials) also participated in the orgy of Wall Street de-regulation that took place in the 1990s when he served as Clinton’s OMB head; after leaving Citigroup to join the Obama administration, he unsurprisingly said in response to questioning from Sen. Bernie Sanders that he does not believe deregulation contributed to the financial crisis.

Rahm, Daley, Lew. If they're anything this administration has been consistent on, it's making sure a corporate whore is the gatekeeper for the president.

Interesting Reading

2012-01-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

I'm still digesting what was written, so I'm not entirely sure what I'd comment, but Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller wrote two really interesting and thought provoking pieces on Afghanistan, the drug war, civil liberties, and the awkward spot Ron Paul's candidacy puts people in.

Stoller's piece. Greenwald's piece, and his follow up to the criticism he received. Corey Robin's post on this was also very good.

Attention Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL): Go Fuck Yourself

2012-01-09T07:48:00.002-05:00

Nothing else to say, Autonomous Zone has the story, Mark Kirk is garbage.

Santorm Only Racist Against Blah People

2012-01-06T09:57:00.000-05:00

We mentioned Rick Santorum's racism earlier this week. This might be the funniest/worst defense ever:

Iowa runner-up Rick Santorum said Thursday that he would be "a much bigger player" than expected in the New Hampshire primary and denied saying that he didn't want "to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Santorum allegedly made the controversial comments when discussing welfare in an interview Wednesday night with Fox News, but he maintained that people misheard the word "black" when he stumbled on a word.

“I looked at that, and I didn't say that. If you look at it, what I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — came out. And people said I said ‘black.’ I didn't," Santorum said.

My question is who are these blah people, and why are they taking other people's money?

Recess Appointments for All

2012-01-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

Well, not all, just several important positions:

The White House confirmed Wednesday morning that President Obama will announce a recess appointment for Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at a speech in Ohio later today. Cordray was a well-liked Ohio Attorney General until last year, after he was toppled by the GOP midterm wave in 2010.

Add the National Labor Relations Board to the list of agencies that will be given new life thanks to President Obama’s decision to thwart Senate Republicans and use his recess appointment power expansively.

The administration just announced that Obama will appoint Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Grifin to the NLRB, preventing it from being crippled indefinitely thanks to Senate Republican intransigence.

One of the board’s members — Craig Becker — had to step aside this week after his recess appointment expired. That left the NLRB with only two sitting members — not enough, according to the Supreme Court, to constitute the quorum the board requires to function.

This is amazing news. Both positions make am immidiate positive impact on people's lives, and in Cordray's case, it allows him to start running a critically important organization that would have probably never gotten had this move not been made. The most interesting part of this whole saga is the end of Brian Beutler's story:

On Tuesday, they believed Obama could take advantage of a precedent set by Teddy Roosevelt, and filled those vacancies with the stroke of a pen and the blast of an email in the seconds-long window between sessions of the 112th Congress.

He didn’t do it. That meant the Senate went back in “pro forma” session, lackadaisically gaveling in and out every three days to avoid a technical “recess,” and thus prevent a recess appointment.

It’s customary for Presidents to heed this defensive tactic. But there’s nothing that says they have to. And Obama concluded he could move ahead. According to the Wall Street Journal the administration’s own attorneys don’t think they do — the Senate’s “pro forma” sessions are meaningless and Obama retains the Constitutional right to recess appoint whomever he wants until session begins in earnest.

This creates a significant new precedent — a bold power play in the face of an unprecedented act of GOP obstruction, but also something to which Obama (and Democrats more generally) have been pretty averse. Given that aversion, it’s hard to figure why Obama would choose to create a new precedent rather than avail himself of an existing one — unless you imagine he’s daring the GOP to make a big stink about it, and thus loudly side with Wall Street against him and middle-class consumers. It’s a safe bet that’s part of his thinking.

So we had this power all along, and were just holding back to play nice? Are you fucking serious? Since Obama was elected it's been obvious to anyone with half a brain that the GOP was doing absolutely nothing in good faith, and was opposing everything that Obama wanted to get through (no matter how trivial), solely because they were dicks. Period.

Why now? And why not more? Why not use this power to place people on the federal reserve board where they could force Ben Bernanke to take the unemployement crisis seriously?

Don't get me wrong, this is incredibly good news. But there are plenty of times I wonder if politicians could actually do something about an issue, and the barriers they cite as obstacles aren't as insurmountable as they claim. This isn't to claim that idiotic rules that allow obstruction haven't made our government institutions broken, but that those in power don't really care about changing those rules that much because obstruction isn't as bad for them as they want you to believe.

Earlier this year Harry Reid stunned everyone when he single-handedly changed the rules of the senate for a comparatively trivial reason, because the Republicans were being dicks. No one was surprised that the Republicans were being dicks, but as an advocate of quite a few bills that were deemed "not to have the 60 votes" required to pass, I was a bit floored that the rules were only rules when people decided to follow them.

The dysfunction of our government is real, but moments like this show that there is quite a bit more Kabuki going on than we realize.

Santorumania!

2012-01-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

Last night in Iowa...

Mitt Romney – 24.6%
Rick Santorum – 24.5%
Ron Paul – 21.4%
Newt Gingrich – 13.3%
Rick Perry – 10.3%
Michele Bachmann – 5.0%
Jon Huntsman – 0.6%
99% of precincts reporting

I actually think this can fuck up Romney more than people are predicting. Santorum is crazy, but he's actually more polished than Cain, Bachmann or Perry, who were all able to surge for about a month before plummeting back to earth. The difference here is the timing on Santorum's surge is pretty ideal, especially combined with the news that Bachmann and ~~Perry~~ are dropping out. (update: Apparently perry isn't dropping out. Good luck with that!)

The craziest aspect of this primary has despite the fact that Romney is the only candidate that consistently beats Obama in the polls, he has only been able to get 30% of the GOP vote. Also, looking at PPP Polling's stuff a few weeks back, Romney wasn't the top second choice of any of these people, it was very much a Paul, Romney, and everyone else type division.

If Paul had won, I think there would be a movement among conservatives to suck it up and rally around Romney and make sure the greater evil (Paul) was defeated. The current situation could actually be a lot more troublesome for Romney. If Perry and Bachmann drop out, their support is much much more likely to go to Santorum than anyone else, especially Romney. Also, I'm not really sure where Newt's support will go when he drops out, but it does seem like he's willing to sacrifice any chance of winning to destroy Romney, which won't help Newt, but it would hurt Romney.

As absurd as this sounds, I could see a senario where Santorum's surge is perfectly timed, he gains the support of the other non-Romneys once they drop out, and wins the nomination. I've been wrong about this stuff on a fairly consistant basis before, but I do think that's a possibility.

What do you guys think?

Rick Santorum: Also a Racist

2012-01-03T12:21:00.001-05:00

Don't get how this quote hasn't gotten more attention:

At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn't want to "make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Answering a question about foreign influence on the U.S. economy, the former Pennsylvania senator went on to discuss the American entitlement system - which he argued is being used to politically exploit its beneficiaries.

"It just keeps expanding - I was in Indianola a few months ago and I was talking to someone who works in the department of public welfare here, and she told me that the state of Iowa is going to get fined if they don't sign up more people under the Medicaid program," Santorum said. "They're just pushing harder and harder to get more and more of you dependent upon them so they can get your vote. That's what the bottom line is."

He added: "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."

"Right," responded one audience member, as another woman can be seen nodding.

"And provide for themselves and their families," Santorum added, to applause. "The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling again."

It is unclear why Santorum pinpointed blacks specifically as recipients of federal aid. The original questioner asked "how do we get off this crazy train? We've got so much foreign influence in this country now," adding "where do we go from here?"

As I'm sure many of you know, most welfare recipients are white.

But Santorum singled out black people... at the very same time he's trying to win support of Republican base voters. Hmmmmm... can't quite put my finger on it...

Train of Thought Lounge: Bird Peterson

2012-01-02T11:23:00.000-05:00

Happy new year!

The Bird Peterson Holiday Spectacular by Bird Peterson

Train of Thought Lounge: Broken Bells

2011-12-29T11:07:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T20:54:00.000-05:00

Garfield's Christmas special, required viewing:

Charts of the Year

2011-12-22T11:47:00.000-05:00

This is a great idea from Ezra Klein, and Jared Bernstein's chart and explination made it even cooler:

"Corporate profits have not only recovered their post-recession highs, they’ve surpassed it. And compensation as a share of the economy is far lower. The image of the above figure should be viewed as a big, scary dragon of sorts."

The Washington Post sucks, and doesn't let you imbed images, click through to see why his chart is so awesome.

The Year In Legos

2011-12-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

Check out the whole gallery, it's pretty awesome. (via americablog)

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week: Politifact

2011-12-20T12:48:00.000-05:00

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week is awarded to whatever event/person best deserves Joe Buck's unnecessary and over the top outrage after a 2004 Randy Moss' touchdown celebration.

If you read this blog, you're aware that the conservative game plan for the last __ years involves constantly lying about everything and depending on the media to not call them out, and report the story in a he said she said, you decide fashion. So when CNN and other news organizations started citing this service called Politifact I thought it was hilarious they treated it as this crazy new technology, rather than "doing their jobs".

The inherent problem with Politifact was going to be as follows: Conservatives lie constantly about fucking everything. If a fact checking service was going to do it's job, it was going to call out conservatives a lot more than it would with anyone else... opening themselves up to the charge of liberal bias. And since the charge of liberal bias is apparently so strong that shielding yourself from this label is actually more important than doing your job for most media organizations, this was always going to be an issue.

So while it was nice that people were pretending to care about accuracy... there was always this looming problem when Politifact would have to decide between doing their jobs or getting to sit at the cool kids table with all the other worthless news organizations.

And now, perfectly in line with everything wrong with our media, we get this logic: (TPM)

Here’s a long, sad story about how Democrats’ basically true claim that House Republicans voted to end Medicare ended up with PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year award.

Back in April, House Republicans passed a budget that included a plan to phase out Medicare over several years and build in its place a subsidized, private insurance marketplace for seniors.
Democrats called this a vote to “end Medicare.”

You can quibble. It wasn’t a vote to end Medicare — BLAM! — all at once. But under the GOP plan, within a couple decades, the current health retirement program for old people would be gone and in its place would be an entirely different one. It would just, by political design, have the same name: Medicare.
Ignoring policy in favor of process, and with an eye toward political balance, PolitiFact rated this basically true Democratic claim “Pants on Fire.”

Liberals, economists, health policy experts, and yours truly objected strongly to PolitiFact’s conclusion. But instead of rethinking their conclusion, the PolitiFact turned the opprobrium into a badge of honor: The claim itself became a candidate for PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” contest; Paul Ryan — the House GOP budget chairman who authored the plan — engaged in a modest ballot stuffing campaign; and the Democrats’ true “lie” came in third place, just behind the GOP claim that the stimulus created zero jobs, and Sen. Jon Kyl’s claim that abortion services are “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.”

In a way I'm actually glad this happened, because sometimes it takes an example this stupid to bring the amount of lying to the forefront. Of course that won't be what happens, the conclusion will be that Paul Ryan is a reasonable man who simply wants to fix medicare, and shame on those crazy hippies for saying otherwise.

The fact free discourse lives on, now with it's very own "fact checking institutions" to help ensure that no one has the slightest clue about what's going on.

A Bold New Plan To Get Rid Of Medicare

2011-12-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

And this one comes with the backing of a "liberal" senator! David Dayen:

In a surprise move, Paul Ryan found a Democratic partner to propose a new Medicare plan that does not fully privatize it, but instead keeps fee-for-service Medicare as an option alongside a premium support plan. This is the same proposal that the front-running Republican Presidential candidates have made.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Its sponsors say the proposal would avoid shifting health costs to beneficiaries, but that’s not so. It would replace Medicare’s guarantee of health coverage with a flat payment that beneficiaries would use to help them purchase either private health insurance or traditional Medicare. It also would limit the growth in spending per beneficiary to the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) plus one percentage point (presumably on a per capita basis). But health care costs have risen faster than that for several decades and, as Chairman Ryan acknowledged at a December 15 briefing, if that faster rate continues, the amount of the government’s premium support payment to beneficiaries would be cut back — with more of the costs of coverage shifted to beneficiaries — unless Congress intervened and made offsetting cuts elsewhere within Medicare.

Specifically, Ryan-Wyden would give Congress a period of time in which it could cut provider payment rates or make other changes to limit the rate of growth of Medicare spending before the premium support payments were automatically cut. But Congress would not be — indeed, could not be — “required to intervene.” And, Congress could well fall short of mustering the requisite majorities to enact alternative cuts — including 60 votes in the Senate — in the face of likely opposition by providers and other health-industry interest groups.

Many media accounts portrayed this part of the plan incorrectly (due to a confusing sentence in the proposal document that the sponsors issued yesterday), reporting that beneficiary premium support payments would be shielded — rather than cut — if health care costs rise faster than the target.

Ryan and Wyden also claim that their proposal guarantees that traditional Medicare “will always be offered as a viable and robust choice.” Unfortunately, that’s not the case either. Under a premium support system, traditional Medicare very likely would attract a less healthy pool of enrollees, while private plans would attract healthier enrollees (as occurs today with Medicare and Medicare Advantage). Although the proposal calls for “risk adjusting” payments to health plans — that is, adjusting them to reflect the average health status of their enrollees — the risk adjustment process is highly imperfect and captures only part of the differences in costs across plans that result from differences in the health of enrollees.

Inadequate risk adjustment would mean that traditional Medicare was only partially compensated for its higher-cost enrollees, which would force Medicare to raise beneficiary premiums to make up the difference. The higher premiums would lead more of Medicare’s healthier enrollees to abandon it for private plans, very possibly setting off a spiral of rising premium costs and falling enrollment. Over time, traditional Medicare could well cease to be financially viable and could unravel — not because it was less efficient than the private plans but because it was competing on an unlevel playing field in which private plans captured the healthier beneficiaries and, thus, incurred lower costs. The fact that Ryan-Wyden would allow private plans to tailor their benefit packages to attract healthier beneficiaries and deter sicker ones only makes this outcome more likely.

So yeah, this is a really horrible idea.

And it's hilariously insane politically, because the one chance the democrats seemed to have of a victory this November was running on the fact that all the Republicans voted for Paul Ryan's plan to destroy medicare.

Before any of this, I actually kind of liked Ron Wyden, because he was fairly liberal and had some interesting policy ideas. No one can no for sure what motivated him to do this, but my best guess it's another case of Egoism running rampant in the Senate.

Let's be clear about the stakes of this decision: Wyden is teaming up with the person who wants to end medicare to propose something that would weaken medicare at best. Additionally, he is fucking over every single person in his party by making their reelection chances that much harder.

Why would he do this? Well Dayen hints that this a retaliation against Obama for dropping his idea out of the health care bill, which seems about right considering the pettiness and entitlement we often see in the Senate. The other option is that he's an attention whore, and considering all TV invites and good press the DC media gives any democrat who wants to cut medicare/start stupid wars, I could see this being an option too.

At the end of the day, his actions are what's most important, and they merit him a strong primary challenge. The fact that I haven't seen that option even mentioned tells you just about all you need to know about the shittiness of the democratic party.

War, What is It Good For?

2011-12-16T15:17:00.000-05:00

Juan Cole, listing the cost of the Iraq war:

Moreover, the American public still for the most part has no idea what the United States did to that country, and until we Americans take responsibility for the harm we do others with our perpetual wars, we can never recover from our war sickness, which drives us to resort to violence in international affairs in a way no other democracy routinely does.

Population of Iraq: 30 million.

Number of Iraqis killed in attacks in November 2011: 187

Average monthly civilian deaths in Afghanistan War, first half of 2011: 243

Percentage of Iraqis who lived in slum conditions in 2000: 17

Percentage of Iraqis who live in slum conditions in 2011: 50

Number of the 30 million Iraqis living below the poverty line: 7 million.

Number of Iraqis who died of violence 2003-2011: 150,000 to 400,000.

Orphans in Iraq: 4.5 million.

Orphans living in the streets: 600,000.

Number of women, mainly widows, who are primary breadwinners in family: 2 million.

Iraqi refugees displaced by the American war to Syria: 1 million

Internally displaced [pdf] persons in Iraq: 1.3 million

Proportion of displaced persons who have returned home since 2008: 1/8

Rank of Iraq on Corruption Index among 182 countries: 175

No words.

Train of Thought Lounge: The Roots

2011-12-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

Final exams are occurring so posting will be light for the next few days.

Enjoy your Thursday while a new team of assholes tries to destroy the only good healthcare system we have.

Trolling, a New Campaign Tactic

2011-12-14T13:58:00.001-05:00

I'm not posting this for any other reason than that I find it really funny:

Who inspires you to give?

This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign.

Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate.

Thank you for supporting this campaign, and happy holidays.
...
Really want to fire up your GOP friends? Buy them a gift from the 2012 store. I recommend the birther mugs — they get the message across pretty well.

So the article talks about this as an opportunity to list build with Republicans, which I guess kinda/sorta/doesn't really make sense. I'd prefer to laugh at the fact that their campaign is dedicating resources to something that doesn't seem to have a more worthwhile purpose than trolling Republican friends of Obama supporters.

Doing It Wrong

2011-12-13T14:36:00.002-05:00

Not that I thought the scum of the earth bigots at the Westboro Baptist Church were a bunch of rocket scientists, but I didn't think it was that difficult to be consistant in your prejudice:

(Look at her shirt)

For A Political Advantage to Be Named Later...

2011-12-12T12:14:00.000-05:00

Yet another example of the Obama Administration choosing pointless political posturing over a meaningful policy change that would make a difference in people's lives:

The Obama administration stunned women’s health advocates and abortion opponents alike Wednesday by rejecting a request to let anyone of any age buy the controversial morning-after pill Plan B directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves.

For what the Food and Drug Administration thinks is the first time, the Department of Health and Human Services overruled the agency, vetoing the FDA’s decision to make the contraceptive available without any restrictions. Revealing a rare public split, FDA Administrator Margaret A. Hamburg said her conclusion that the drug could be used safely by women of all ages was nullified by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

There is absolutely no excuse for this. Fucking appalling.

Accusations of Anti-Semitism Is All They Know

2011-12-09T16:13:00.001-05:00

With the Israeli Lobby, charges of anti-antisemitism are the feature, not the bug:

The former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is shopping a 3,000-word trove of opposition research against bloggers critical of Israel to friendly neoconservative journalists.

I’ve obtained an email sent by Josh Block to a private listserv called The Freedom Community, in which he throws around accusations of anti-Semitism against liberal bloggers and calls on other list members to “echo” and “amplify” his assault and “use the below [research] to attack the bad guys.”
...
Block sent out his email following publication of an article by Politico’s Ben Smith Wednesday about writers at the Democratic-affiliated Center for American Progress and Media Matters who enunciate a more progressive take on the Israel-Palestine conflict than is usually found in Washington. Block was quoted in the story accusing CAP columnist Eric Alterman of writing “borderline anti-Semitic stuff,” a charge Alterman (who is himself Jewish) dismissed as “ludicrous.”

Block’s email to The Freedom Community list arrived under the subject line “Important piece to echo and the research to do it….” – a reference to the Politico story. He wasted no time throwing around more accusations of anti-Semitism.

“This kind of anti-Israel sentiment is so fringe it’s support by CAP is outrageous, but at least it is out in the open now — as is their goal – clearly applauded by revolting allies like the pro-HAMAS and anti-Zionist/One State Solution advocate Ali Abunumiah and those who accuse pro-Israel Americans of having ‘dual loyalties’ or being ‘Israel-Firsters’ – to shape the minds of future generations of Democrats,” Block writes. “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.”

The responses to Josh Block's assholeness here and here from the people he smeared are really great.

None of this is surprising, but it's always important to point out the disgusting tactics AIPAC will use to smear anyone critical Israel's amoral and counterproductive foreign policy.

Own Your Incompetence

2011-12-09T11:00:00.001-05:00

Long time readers of the blog will know this stuff really pisses me off:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made a surprising assertion on MSNBC Wednesday, saying that in early 2009, as Barack Obama was taking office, there weren't any major economists who understood just how bad the recession was.

The problem is that the evidence doesn't support his claim.
"There was not a single mainstream, Wall Street, academic economist who knew at the time, in January of 2009, just how deep the economic hole was that we were in," Carney told Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on Wednesday's program.

Yeah, uh... bullshit!

In reality, though, well-respected analysts and economists from all corners were sounding alarms about the state of the economy -- in early 2009, and even before.

Numerous experts warned that the stimulus bill wouldn't go far enough to address the nation's economic woes as it was making its way through Congress in the early days of Obama's presidency. They cautioned that the economy was pointed toward higher unemployment and weak or nonexistent growth -- conditions that have indeed come to characterize Obama's first term in office.

For example, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, testified before the House Budget Committee on on January 27, 2009, that without immediate action, the economy would sag below its potential by nearly 7 percent for the next two years, and that unemployment would exceed 9 percent by early 2010 -- something that actually happened four months later, in May 2009.

Describing this projected gap between potential and actual economic output, Elmendorf called it the largest shortfall "in terms of both length and depth ... since the Depression of the 1930s."

That same month, Paul Krugman, a left-leaning economist and Nobel laureate, wrote in a New York Times column that Obama's plan to jump-start the economy was "nowhere near big enough," arguing that it was "unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap" at a time when the country was experiencing "the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression."

But Krugman wasn't the only economist to draw a Great Depression comparison. Martin Feldstein, Harvard professor and former economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, wrote in January 2009 that "this recession is likely to last longer and be more damaging than any since the depression of the 1930's."

And James Galbraith, a left-leaning economist and former executive director of the Joint Economic Committee said, "there are many good reasons to think" that America is in "a true financial crisis of the type in the 1930s." Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics warned at the time that "the economy appears headed toward its worst downturn since the Great Depression."

Dean Baker, a left-leaning economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, issued a warning similar to Krugman's in January 2009, writing in the Guardian that "[t]his downturn is so severe that [the stimulus bill] may not be sufficient to offset even half of its impact."
And a January 2009 survey of more than 100 economists, conducted by the National Association for Business Economics, found that that business conditions overall were the worst in the survey's 27-year history. At the time,78 percent of the economists said they expected GDP to keep falling.

Strongly-worded warnings about the economy were pouring in even before January 2009, in fact. Nine months earlier, in April 2008, left-leaning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia professor and Nobel laureate, told CNBC that the recession was "going to be one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression." And as early as 2006, the economist and New York University professor Nouriel Roubini -- famous for his perennially bearish outlook, but also regarded by many as a prescient forecaster -- was predicting a recession, triggered by a softening housing market, that would be "much nastier, deeper and more protracted than the 2001 recession."

"There were a lot of us who were saying that the stimulus was nowhere near large enough at the time," Baker told The Huffington Post when reached for comment on Wednesday. "The fact that it was going to be considerably more severe than the Obama administration was predicting at the time -- there were a number of us who were quite explicit about that."

There were plenty of people who saw this coming, just not the fuck ups you hired. You hired people from the same school of thought (and in some cases, the exact same people!) that pushed through the deregulation of the financial sector that destroyed our economy in 2008. Ten years later, they were still making horrible decisions. Who could have imagined that?

Plently of people saw this coming, and knew you weren't doing enough. You just chose to hire people who were more concerned with the perils of the government "doing too much", rather than doing everything humanly possible to turn the economy around.

That was solely your fuck up, and the fault of your administration. Own it.

He Doesn't Even Know What He's Bitching About

2011-12-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

JP Morgan Chase CEO, Obama buddy and unspeakable asshole Jaime Dimon said something pretty awesome yesterday, continuing the "rich people whining" theme of this week's posting:

Next time you read an article about the behavior response to marginal tax rates on high income earners, I would urge you to refer back to JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's fine whine that "most of us wage earners are paying 39.6 percent in taxes and add in another 12 percent in New York state and city taxes and we're paying 50 percent of our income in taxes."

What makes that so incredible? Matt Yglasias:

The thing about this is that the actual top marginal income tax rate is 35 percent. The entire debate in congress over taxes is that President Obama wants to restore the top marginal rate to the level that Dimon thinks it already is. Meanwhile, Dimon doesn't even know what tax rate he pays. Just saying.

Jaime Dimon, while crying about paying too much in taxes... DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING KNOW WHAT TAX RATE HE'S PAYING.

This is pure speculation, but do you want to guess why he doesn't know? I'll say it's because he's so fucking rich that the difference between paying 35% and 39% makes absolutely ZERO difference to him in any sort of tangible way. Which is, of course, the whole point of progressive taxation, and forcing people like Jaime Dimon to pay a higher tax rate. You seriously can't make this shit up.

The Rich and Powerful Need Love Too!

2011-12-07T14:19:00.001-05:00

As my understanding of politics and power has evolved over the years, one thing that has really stunned me is how even the richest most powerful elites we have need more than their power and vast riches. They often need to be loved, or at least thanked for all the great work they think they're doing by being rich or powerful. I had always gone under the assumption that if you're a really powerful senator, or a really rich hedgefund manager, why would you give the slightest fuck about mean things said about you... but the evidence keeps piling up that they do.

And let's be clear, this is a good thing, because it opens up a point of leverage on these elites that I didn't think previously existed. There have been a lot of examples of this recently, (some involving a campaign at work so I don't want to get into it here, but shoot me an email or ask offline if you're curious), and I've been absolutely fascinated by these stories.

A perfect example from the other day about a rich hedge fund manager:

Last week, Cooperman circulated an “open letter” to President Obama that accused him of a ”divisive, polarizing tone” that risks further inflaming an “already incendiary environment.” The letter was a sensation on Wall Street, so Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Cooperman to find out what exactly ticked him off badly enough to inspire him to write it:
“What pushed me over the fence was the president’s dialogue over the debt ceiling,” Mr. Cooperman said, explaining that just when it seemed like a compromise was near, President Obama went on national television and pressed harder on “millionaires and billionaires,” a phrase that has stuck in the craw of many of the elite.
For example, Mr. Cooperman zeroed in on what he described as the president’s belittling remarks about taxing the wealthy: “If you are a wealthy C.E.O. or hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They are lower than they have been since the 1950s. And they can afford it,” the president said back in June. “You can still ride on your corporate jet. You’re just going to have to pay a little more.”...
Mr. Cooperman acknowledges that, in the debt ceiling debate this summer, it was as much the fault of Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner’s inability to gain support for a compromise as it was the Democrats that a deal did not get done. And Mr. Cooperman accepts that taxes are indeed at record lows.
But he says the president could do a better job of pressing for higher taxes on the rich without “the sense that we’re bad people.”

As Greg Sargent points out in the post, the most staggering thing about this is that he agrees with Obama on the fundamentals. He accepts that taxes are at record lows, and that the Republicans are also at fault for the debt ceiling nonesense. But this billionaire's feelings are so hurt because Barack Obama said the most milk toast possible line tweaking the rich for not paying enough taxes. It's not like Obama was breaking out some Che Guevara or even FDR style class warfare, he merely pointed out (in the tamest terms possible) facts that this billionaire largely agrees with, and yet what he said made him mad enough to write a angry letter to other rich people about it.

Being rich and powerful may seem great, but apparently it just isn't what it's cracked up to be unless someone is also telling you how awesome you are.

How to Lie To the 99%

2011-12-06T10:27:00.001-05:00

Frank Luntz is a GOP language guru who makes his living lying about Republican policies and phrasing them in a way that sane people won't find them revolting. He now has a memo on how to discuss issues that have come up due to the emergence of the Occupy movement. Let's take a look at what concepts Luntz felt rich assholes might not be able to figure out on their own. Credit to Yahoo news for transcribing Luntz' thoughts on each one:

1. Don't say 'capitalism.'
"I'm trying to get that word removed and we're replacing it with either 'economic freedom' or 'free market,' " Luntz said. "The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem."

The honesty of this one is telling, and also a sign that in the long run, the occupy movement is winning.

2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.' Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.'
"If you talk about raising taxes on the rich," the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But "if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes."

This is the first of what you will begin to see is a pattern with Luntz. When something is stated factually, and extremely popular, don't just change the wording, but change the entire meaning of the sentence, then it becomes unpopular!

3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.' Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.'

"They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the 'middle class' and the public will say, I'm not sure about that. But defending 'hardworking taxpayers' and Republicans have the advantage."

It's always funny when he admits something is just completely lost for republicans. In this case, it's the third rail issue of "talking about the middle class".

4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.'
"Everyone in this room talks about 'jobs,'" Luntz said. "Watch this."
He then asked everyone to raise their hand if they want a "job." Few hands went up. Then he asked who wants a "career." Almost every hand was raised.
"So why are we talking about jobs?"

Answer: Because when lots of people don't have jobs, whether or not they're going to have a career at said imaginary job isn't exactly their biggest concern at the moment.

5. Don't say 'government spending.' Call it 'waste.'
"It's not about 'government spending.' It's about 'waste.' That's what makes people angry."

He's right, it's not about government spending, because people actually like a decent number of things the government does. But if we lie and say that all government spending is waste, then they don't like it! See what he did there? The key was lying.

6. Don't ever say you're willing to 'compromise.'
"If you talk about 'compromise,' they'll say you're selling out. Your side doesn't want you to 'compromise.' What you use in that to replace it with is 'cooperation.' It means the same thing. But cooperation means you stick to your principles but still get the job done. Compromise says that you're selling out those principles."

Given the last 2 years of the Republican party I'm not really sure why he bothered to include this one.

7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.'
"First off, here are three words for you all: 'I get it.' . . . 'I get that you're angry. I get that you've seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system."
Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem.

Shorter Luntz: Say "I get it". Then explain to them why you don't get it.

8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.'

Use the phrases "small business owners" and "job creators" instead of "entrepreneurs" and "innovators."

I don't even understand the difference here, other than the need to add job to every republican initiative for the sake of doing it.

9. Don't ever ask anyone to 'sacrifice.'
"There isn't an American today in November of 2011 who doesn't think they've already sacrificed. If you tell them you want them to 'sacrifice,' they're going to be be pretty angry at you. You talk about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together."

So Frank Luntz has better awareness on this issue than Barack Obama. Awesome.

10. Always blame Washington.
Tell them, "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it's the policies over the past few years that have created this problem."

Back to the "lying" theme we've seen repeated several times.

BONUS:
Don't say 'bonus!'
Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus."

"If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry. It's 'pay for performance.'"

The best part of this list, is you can see a room full of the 1% in suits furiously taking notes at Luntz' shocking suggestions.
Guy #1:"So if you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry."
Guy #2: "Wow, I'm so glad we came to this, how else would we have figured that out???"

The idea that Luntz gets paid ungodly sums of money to tell rich people how to lie to non-rich people pretty much says all you need to know about the state of the world in 2011.

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week: Governor Sam Brownback and Ruth Marcus

2011-12-02T12:22:00.001-05:00

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week is awarded to whatever event/person best deserves Joe Buck's unnecessary and over the top outrage after a 2004 Randy Moss' touchdown celebration.

This happened a week or so ago so I know I'm late to the party, but let's look at a brief recap:

Emma Sullivan, of course, is the Kansas teenager who went on a field trip to the state capitol, listened to some remarks from Governor Sam Brownback, and tweeted:
Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.
The governor's staff went ballistic, Sullivan's school principal demanded she apologize, the governor and the principal eventually backed down, Sullivan became an internet hero for a few minutes, and Ruth Marcus was appalled. "If you were my daughter," she wrote in the Washington Post, "you’d be writing that letter apologizing to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback for the smartalecky, potty-mouthed tweet you wrote after meeting with him on a school field trip."

So as someone who writes a blog that calls politicians mean names I felt obliged to take time and thank Emma Sullivan for her contribution.

If Sam Brownback doesn't like being told he blows, maybe he should suck less?

And if Ruth Marcus has thinks it was a good use of her Washington Post column to bash this girl and her family, maybe she should suck less as well?

Maybe Ruth Marcus could have written a column about the fact that Sam Brownback has made a career out of demonizing gay people? Between that and few mean words, I'll tell you which one I think is a hell of a lot more offensive.

It's Possible to Do the Right Thing

2011-12-01T13:37:00.001-05:00

Despite popular belief, it is possible to be a politician and not whore yourself to banking industry:

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said today that she has filed suit against five major US banks for allegations related to mortgage fraud and unlawful property seizures.Coakley said she will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. today to detail the suit against Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citi, and Ally Financial.

I know that the president of the United States faces more political pressure than attorney generals from Massachusetts, New York or Delaware, but there is nothing stopping him from directing Eric Holder to look into these practices nationally. More importantly, he most certainly does not need use his political power to force a settlement that lets the banks of the hook.

I'm not saying any of this stuff is easy or without cost, I just think any excuses made for Obama on this front are particularly week. He has the power to investigate the banks, he has used his power to shield them from scrutiny instead.

Occupying Throughout History

2011-11-30T14:03:00.001-05:00

A really interesting take from David Dayen:

While occupying a public park or other physical space would appear to be a novel escalation of national discontent, it has actually accompanied other eras of frustration and rage throughout history. Unemployed Americans marched on Washington after the Panic of 1893, forming what was termed Coxey’s Army after Jacob Coxey, the leader of the protest. The Bonus Marchers did the same, seeking their World War I bonuses, and they occupied parts of Washington before getting booted by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In 1968, the Poor People’s Campaign pledged to camp out in Washington, using actual sharecropper’s domiciles to build a shanty-town called “Resurrection City,” in a bid to achieve better economic outcomes. We will never know the potential success of this event, because Martin Luther King Jr., one of the lead organizers, was shot just before the start of the occupation, and the campaign never regained momentum. The Flint sit-down strike was a non-Washington example of occupations, an event most mirrored by the 2008 takeover of the Republic Windows and Doors building by the workers. And that brings us to the point that there are RECENT antecedents to Occupy Wall Street – the bank accountability campaign, actual protests on Wall Street in 2009 and 2010, the anti-foreclosure direct action movement, and so on.

The point is that there’s nothing particularly new about the premise of occupation. There’s also nothing new about the response – these have historically always caused a reaction by the authorities that led to arrests, beatings, and dismantling of the occupation sites. But in no case did that temper or end the movements which led to the occupations themselves. The common thread underlying these occupations is that they have come at a time of profound economic dislocation, and they heralded a new era of reforms aimed at ameliorating the situation. Coxey’s Army and the protests of the turn of the century occurred hand-in-hand with the Progressive Era; the Bonus Marchers and Flint sit-down strike happened during the Depression; the Poor People’s Campaign adjoined both the civil rights movement and the Great Society reforms. This always happens, in other words. And those occupations never defined the movements they inspired. The movements always multiplied and innovated and went beyond sitting down for rights.

It’s undeniable that this current occupation movement has shown that the right to assembly is under threat, and if you cannot assure this basic right, good luck with the economic agenda that undergirds the occupations. But that’s been true to a degree throughout history. People have been beaten, attacked, assailed, and physically removed for speaking out against injustice, for exercising the basic right to protest. This has arguably become more militarized in recent years, but the dynamic has always been there.

And so has the results. Occupation movements have always existed parallel to a larger movement that did eventually secure a series of rights and protections for the disenfranchised. John Heilemann has this cockamamie story about how Occupy Wall Street will bring us back to 1968, because for everyone in the traditional media, it’s always 1968. But a survey of the historical record shows that the more likely scenario is that this inspires a mass movement that leads to progressive reform, as it always has. The pendulum is swinging back from a time of Gilded Age stratification. This is a familiar theme and you’d think people with any sense of history would be aware of it.

This is also why I am disinclined to offer helpful hints to the Occupy protesters, or a game plan on how they should go about achieving or even determining their goals. The movement energy around occupations has always sustained itself and built a reform agenda. Mother Jones was a Coxey marcher. It’s endemic to a movement like this that it draws the activists most focused on progress and provides a space for them to figure out how to get there. Nobody on the sidelines has any better insight. So the best option is to just shut up and watch history take flight again.

Caps Fire Boudreau

2011-11-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

As someone who was a Caps fan long before Ovie, sellout streaks and rocking the red, thank you to Bruce Boudreau. The excitement he brought to the caps over the last couple years has been an incredible thing to behold, somesomething that didn't just "happen" because we lucked out and got one of the most exciting players in the game. It was his system and style that brought us there and created that atmosphere. While a change was probably needed, that doesn't dimish the job he did, or the fanbase and expectations he left behind.

Thanks for the memories, Bruce.

At Least Paul Wolfowitz Had A Terrible Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T17:38:00.000-05:00

Also, Jeremy Scahill is an American hero. From his twitter feed:

Just randomly ran into Paul Wolfowitz. Told him what I think of him. The words "war" & "criminal" were involved.

Wolfowitz tried to keep walking. A family member of his started screaming at me & cursing, called me a "coward."

I told Wolfowitz he belongs in prison, not asking questions at GOP debates.

It's true, he should be in prison, not asking questions at GOP debates. I had similar thoughts during the debate!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T11:42:00.001-05:00

(Image via suicide foods)

Damn Undocumented Pilgrims, Taking Our Jobs...

2011-11-23T11:23:00.001-05:00

Well done to the New Yorker and cover artist Christoph Nieman:

Taking Us Back To The 19th Century

2011-11-22T11:14:00.001-05:00

Newt Gingrich has awesome plans for this country:

Speaking at Harvard (to remind us that he's a historian, no doubt) on Friday, Newt Gingrich not only called child labor laws "truly stupid," he did so as his answer to a question about income inequality. His answer had several prongs. First, use student labor to bust unions in schools:
"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

"The process of rising" = Firing janitors so that kids can become janitor, which will help with their learning, because they're also janitors for the school, which is clearly a position of respect or something. Newt manages to take some pieces of libertarian thought (ownership breeds betters stewardship) and conservative ideas (Unionized janitors that have it too good!)and combines them into a nonsensical justification for getting rid of child labor laws. This is probably a good time to point people to the quote my dad sent me of Krugman saying that Gingrich is a "stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like".

Are we going to be lucky enough that reporters/other candidates don't reach into their constantly expanding Newt opposition research file during tonight's debate? I would really love to see him twist in the wind for a few more weeks, even if it's just for comedic value.

SUPERFAILURE!

2011-11-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

Not a moment too soon:

Capitol Hill sources say that barring a highly unexpected, last minute development, Super Committee co-chairs Jeb Hensarling and Patty Murray will issue a statement on Monday acknowledging the panel’s failure.
The development comes one day before the panel’s drop dead date to submit a plan, and three days before the debt limit law requires them to report legislation to the full Congress. Failure will lock into place deep, across the board cuts to defense and security programs, a two percent cut to Medicare providers, and cuts to other domestic programs. Those spending reductions will kick in on January 1, 2013, unless Congress acts to change the law, or passes more targeted budget cuts and thus agrees to eliminate the automatic penalty.

Those cuts, along with the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, promise to be major flashpoints for the 2012 campaign, and lock in a tough legislative food fight over cutting spending and raising taxes.

Putting aside the hilariousness of releasing a statement of failure, it's great news that this dangerous waste of time is coming to an end. The infighting of an austerity commission in the middle of a horrific economic downturn should make for a nice "fiddling while Rome burns" moment for future historians to highlight when explaining our downfall.

Prediction: In the next few years, there will be a new austerity commission, which will be cheered by all the important people for trying to tackle the important issues of our time: cutting social security and medicare.

As Ari Berman brilliantly described, these things don't happen out of thin air, and the same group of people trying to cut social security will be at it again on with new excuses in a few years time.

And if you want your mind to truly be blown, think about the people that probably saved us from a Democratic president signing cuts to medicare and social security into law:

Grover Norquist, whose idiotic no tax pledge prevents Republicans from signing onto a deal even if it is wildly in their favor
Eric Cantor, for going nuclear on the initial round of "grand bargain negotiations" and leaking his notes to the press.

My head hurts.

Awesome Video of the Day

2011-11-18T11:29:00.001-05:00

Via DJ fucking pretentious... this is absolutely stunning:

The Rule of Law

2011-11-17T13:37:00.001-05:00

Whoa, this is exciting. David Dayen:

A grand jury in Nevada yesterday indicted two title officers, Gary Trafford and Gerri Sheppard, on 606 counts of robo-signing between 2005 and 2008, a scheme that resulted in the fraudulent filing of tens of thousands of other documents with the Clark County register of deeds. This has the potential to be a groundbreaking case; it’s the first I can think of which actually indicts a robo-signer on criminal charges for fraud. And by going after the title officers, the Attorney General of Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, appears to be laying out a strategy to go up the chain and hollow out the entire industry and their illegal document fraud.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the two defendants were employed by Lender Processing Services, the leading foreclosure document processing company in the country, and one under a near-constant state of controversy over the past few years of the foreclosure crisis. In the indictment, Trafford and Sheppard are accused of directing fraudulent notarization and filing of foreclosure documents. This included having their employees forge Trafford and Sheppard’s names on the documents, typically Notices of Default, and then having them notarized. So in addition to a robo-signing scheme, where the notaries and affiants have no underlying knowledge of the documents, this was a forgery scheme. And banks filed these fraudulent documents with the country register of deeds, in violation of existing statutes under Nevada law. These are category C and D felonies, in addition to gross misdemeanors. One woman who worked with Trafford and Sheppard says she signed 25,000 Notices of Default this way.

Understand what was going on. In the interest of speed – and certainly not accuracy – Trafford and Sheppard had other people sign their name on legal documents, notarize them (attesting that the signature was legitimate and the content of which they had no knowledge was legitimate as well), and file them with the register. These are the documents that would be used to kick people out of their homes in Clark County, Nevada, where as many people have been foreclosed upon as anywhere in the country.

Prosecuting mortgage fraud, holy crap!

The Glorious Super Deal That Never Was

2011-11-16T11:08:00.001-05:00

As atrios says, the fact that people in the White House were dumb enough to think the politics of a huge austerity deal would be good is more troubling than almost anything else:

For most of this year, the White House has thought that the surest path to President Obama’s reelection was to strike a big deficit deal with Republicans, or at least be seen trying to strike a big deficit deal with Republicans. The debt-ceiling debacle proved it wrong. The White House was unable to reach an agreement, and the sorry sight of its ineffectual efforts led it to sink in the polls. Since then, it has moved toward a more confrontational stance with the GOP, and has seen its poll numbers tick up slightly. So White House officials do not consider a supercommittee deal crucial to their chances. Perhaps that’s for the best, as the Democrats on the supercommittee think it would be harder to secure Republican support for a deal if the White House were more involved.

It's hard to conceive how they thought that would be smart politically. I know I rant about this a lot, but it really was incredibly stupid, and that needs to be pointed out.

Even if you think talking about the deficit is smart, it really hammers home that many people in the administration have simply no clue about the political climate we live in. Facts don't matter. Actually doing something to show you "care about the deficit" doesn't matter. Republicans don't care about the deficit in the slightest, yet they run on it every year. Why does it work? Because the one party has realized that the press isn't doing their job and are taking advantage.

Does this mean our side should lie like they do? Of course not. But it does mean that we should spend less time worrying about showing we're serious about the deficit, showing we're strong on national security/illegal immigration, arbitrary figures for the cost of policies (stimulus/healthcare) and so on. They're gonna say you're a gay Muslim Mexican loving tax and spend democrat no matter what you do. You might as well focus on getting the policy right. There are no bonus points for fawning David Brooks columns.

Sometimes Good Things Do Happen to Extremely Privileged People

2011-11-15T14:04:00.001-05:00

Having snapped up budding journalistic talents Luke Russert, Meghan McCain and Jenna Bush, NBC News continued their their hiring spree of America's best and brightest: (via Glenn Greenwald)

NBC announced Monday that it has hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent for NBC News.

Chelsea Clinton will be a special correspondent for NBC News.

The appointment was immediate. Ms. Clinton will begin work on stories that NBC expects to use as part of its “Making a Difference” series, which runs on “NBC Nightly News,” said Steve Capus, president of NBC News.

As ridiculous as this is, it isn't at all surprising. What is somewhat surprising is how candid NBC News was about their decision making process:

Mr. Capus said an intermediary contacted him in July with word that “she was kicking around what she wanted to do next.”

Mr. Capus said he had met with Ms. Clinton and had a long conversation that began with a simple question. “I asked her: ‘What are you interested in doing?’ ”

Ms. Clinton told him, he said, that during her mother’s campaign for president in 2008, she had been moved by stories of people making personal contributions.

“What we talked about was if she were to come on board that’s the kind of thing she would be interested in doing. We knew she wasn’t going to do the lead story. But having somebody who was going to do really captivating feature assignments for the ‘Making a Difference’ franchise really kind of synced up,” Mr. Capus said.

Those feature reports, which have become popular on NBC’s evening newscast — and which may be added to NBC’s new prime-time newsmagazine program, “Rock Center With Brian Williams” — spotlight people who are making volunteer commitments to improve the lives of others in their community.

Mr. Capus said Ms. Clinton had said to him, “That’s the kind of thing, if this were to happen, that I would really like to do.” He added, “It’s not about Chelsea Clinton saying, ‘Here I am; I want to be a TV star.’ ”

He's right, this isn't about her saying "I want to be a TV star". It's Steve Capus, the president of NBC news saying "Hey, you have a famous last name, I will find a way to put you on TV despite a complete lack of TV or journalism experience".

And hey, maybe she'll be smarter than Luke Russert (BREAKING: She will be), but that really doesn't matter. It's more the idea that the head of NBC news is bragging about seeking her out and asking "what she is interesting in doing" the way a team approaches a sought after free agent. But that's been the life of the rich and privileged in this country, it just isn't usually this obvious.

NEWT!!!

2011-11-14T14:46:00.001-05:00

Man, the GOP race is going to strange places:

Two new national polls of the Republican primary race show very different results in the horserace, but do agree on one thing: Newt Gingrich is rocketing upwards.

The new CNN poll, among Republican respondents: Romney 24%, Gingrich 22%, Cain 14%, Perry 12%, Paul 8%, Bachmann 6%, Huntsman 3%, and Santorum 3%. In CNN’s previous poll from a month ago, Romney had 26%, Cain 25%, Perry 13%, and all others in single digits (including Gingrich at 8%).

And the new numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): Gingrich 28%, Cain 25%, Romney 18%, Perry 6%, Bachmann 5%, Paul 5%, Huntsman 3%, Santorum 1%, and Johnson 1%.

So this will last about 2 weeks, until right wingers realize he made an ad with Nancy Pelosi talking about climate change, or the second anyone anywhere reads this:

After going to the doctor for a mysterious tingling in her hand, [Marianne Gingrich] was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Early in May 1999, she went out to Ohio for her mother’s birthday. A day and a half went by and Newt didn’t return her calls, which was strange. They always talked every day, often ten times a day, so she was frantic by the time he called to say he needed to talk to her.

“About what?”

He wanted to talk in person, he said.

“I said, ‘No, we need to talk now.’ “

He went quiet.

“There’s somebody else, isn’t there?”

She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. “‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’ “

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, “How do you give that speech and do what you’re doing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

In seriousness, what this tells me is that there are a large chunk of GOP voters who despise Romney and are searching for anyone (and if Newt Gingrich is leading, we mean ANYONE) to stop him from getting the nomination.

This would all be funnier if we weren't another economic downturn away from one of these asshats being president.

6 Things Obama Could Do to Improve The Economy

2011-11-11T12:13:00.000-05:00

It's a slideshow, so it's hard to quote, but it's interesting stuff, and it's a reminder that the presidency isn't totally powerless when crazy people control one house of congress.

Worth a read.

#7: Don't oppose a financial transactions tax. Mitch McConnell isn't forcing them to do this, it's just a really, really stupid policy position.

Winning!

2011-11-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

It's an odd feeling, but a massive slate of victories for progressives last night:

Democrats romped, as expected, in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear won a second term, and Dems carried all statewide races except agriculture commissioner (a Republican hold). The reverse was true in Mississippi, where GOP Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant was handily elected governor and Republicans retained every statewide post except attorney general (won by incumbent Jim Hood).

The good guys also won big on the three major ballot measures up last night: Ohio Issue 2 (repealing a bill that limited collective bargaining rights for public employees), Maine Question 1 (restoring same-day voter registration), and Mississippi Initiative 26 (turning back an amendment that would have defined personhood at the moment of fertilization). Not one of these three votes was even close, and the Ohio result in particular is a monstrous black eye for GOP Gov. John Kasich.

Democrats also held on to a crucial state Senate seat in Iowa, where Liz Mathis cruised to a double-digit win, ensuring the narrowly-divided chamber remains in Dem control. And two Republican state legislators were recalled: Sen. Russell Pearce in Arizona (who lost to fellow Republican Jerry Lewis), and Rep. Paul Scott in Michigan. (A special election will be held to replace Scott sometime next year.) In the OR-01 special primaries, Suzanne Bonamici cleaned up for the Dems and Rob Cornilles did the same for the GOP, as expected. They will face off on Jan. 31, 2012 for ex-Rep. David Wu's former seat.

The one big black mark appears to be the Virginia state Senate, where Democrats look to have lost two net seats to drop the chamber into a 20-20 deadlock. Though GOP Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling would presumably break ties, some commentators are suggesting that a power-sharing agreement might be necessary.

Much of the talk will be how the Obama campaign responds to this result, and who honestly knows. After the 2010 elections, they thought that the country wanted a president who was friendlier to big business and Wall Street, and it's hard to see how that could have been a more colossal failure. In the last few month's the Administration seems to be at least publicly acknowledging that people care about not having jobs, so he's talking about those issues more, and he's flirting with using his executive power to do a few things, but who knows.

You'd think that this election would make the White House less squeamish around populist issues, but then again this is a president who thought getting further in bed with Wall Street was a good political strategy as recently as a year ago.

The most important message in these elections (particularly Ohio) is the warning shot other governors looking to attempt the same in other states. We will fight back, and the people are on our side.

R.I.P. Heavy D

2011-11-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

Damn, gone far too soon.

The War on Voting

2011-11-08T15:29:00.001-05:00

An under reported story in the past year has the GOP's "keep in the vote" efforts in many states:

Today residents of Mississippi will decide whether voters must produce a government-issued ID in order to cast a ballot and voters in Maine will choose whether to keep or overturn a new law banning election day voter registration, which had previously been on the books since 1973.

These votes occur amidst the backdrop of an unprecedented, Republican-led war on voting. Since the 2010 election, at least a dozen states controlled by Republicans have approved new obstacles to voting—mandating government-issued IDs, curtailing early voting, restricting voter registration, disenfranchising ex-felons. Five million voters could be negatively impacted by the new laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which found that “these new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities”—in other words, those most likely to vote for Democrats.

A key component of the GOP’s campaign has been orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which receives substantial funding from the Koch brothers. ALEC drafted mock photo ID legislation after the 2008 election and in five states that passed ID laws in the past year—Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin—the measures were sponsored by legislators who are members of ALEC.

It is rather absurd that while democrats in the house were too chicken shit to attempt legislating during the last 6 months of their term, Republicans make their majorities count, with long term, structural reforms that make it easier for Republicans to remain in power. Unions usually campagin against me? Eliminate collective bargaining! Too many of "those people" voting? Institute laws that depress voter turnout!

Say what you will about today's Republican party, but they are committed to the cause.

Outsourced Blogging

2011-11-07T17:13:00.001-05:00

Worlds are kind of collapsing right now, so blogging may be lighter this week. However, I'll try always give you some sort of content, even if it isn't the vulgar poorly worded class warfare you've come to expect.

I thought this Sam Seder interview with Chris Hayes was really good. Also, if you're not listening to Sam Seder's podcast, or watching Chris Hayes's new show, fix that immediately. TV and podcasts that interview smart people and make you smarter! What a concept!

Sexual Harassment? Ehhh, Who Cares?

2011-11-04T13:43:00.000-04:00

I made the point on twitter the other day that while allegations of sexual harassment may seem like a bad thing for you or I, neither one of us is voting in the Republican primary. I feel like folks on our side do this in attempting to understand the Republican party on a regular basis, and the Republican nomination is no different. In order for Cain's sexual harassment allegations to hurt him politically, they need to change the mind of people who have already decided/or are seriously considering voting for Hermain Cain for President of the United States. That is why I'm not at all surprised by this polling data:

Herman Cain entered the worst week of his presidential campaign at the top of most national polls. And for all the missteps and seething allegations of past misconduct, he is ending the week where he started—at the top.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Friday morning found the former corporate executive locked in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican nomination, Mr. Romney with 24% and Mr. Cain with 23%. The poll was taken between Monday and Thursday, just as the wave of news stories broke about allegations that Mr. Cain sexual harassed at least two women in the late 1990s while working as a restaurant lobbyist in Washington, charges that Mr. Cain denies.

The findings mirror a number of polls taken over the last month, that have shown Mr. Cain essentially locked in a tie nationally with the former Massachusetts governor. Mr. Cain’s support was up seven points from last month’s ABC News poll. A Rasmussen poll out Thursday found that 26% of likely GOP primary voters supported Mr. Cain while 23% supported Mr. Romney.

The survey found that a solid majority of Republican or Republican-leaning independents were unruffled by the allegations. Nearly seven out of 10 said the controversy would have no impact on their support for Mr. Cain, while just under a quarter said it would make them less likely to support him. Nearly six out of 10 said the allegations were not a serious matter.

That said, Mr. Cain is far from in the clear. Should the controversy continue to balloon, the pollsters warned, “Cain’s support could be at risk,” as nearly four in 10 likely GOP voters saw the charges as serious. (Just under a quarter of Cain supporters polled regarded the charges as serious.)

It's hard to predict a group of which you're not a member (I thought Michelle Bachman could win!), and this scandal could be enough of a black eye that it dents his support based on competence issues alone. However, it is worth pointing out that 60% of Republican voters DON'T SEE ACCUSATIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AS SERIOUS!!!

Holy crap!

Eleven Dimensional Medicare Cutting Chess

2011-11-03T11:45:00.000-04:00

The Democrats on the super committee are so hell bent on cutting medicare it's frightening: (TPM, via Digby)

“As I have thought about it…under the Affordable Health Care Act we provide subsidies for people who have really chronic illnesses and people who have limited incomes so they can afford health care insurance in the private sector,” Bowles told the panel during an exchange with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). “And that didn’t exist before the Affordable Health Care Act. That means that people 65, 66, 67 will still be able to get health care insurance. So as I think about it I could support raising the health care age for Medicare since we have other coverage available under the Affordable Health Care Act.”

In private budget negotiations earlier this year with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), President Obama entertained the same idea — a slow increase in the Medicare retirement age — provided Boehner find votes for over $1 trillion in new revenues. The discussions quickly fell apart.

The proposal infuriates progressives, and other defenders of single-payer Medicare, who note that the proposal is regressive — hitting elderly minorities and poor people who have lower life expectancies hardest — and shifts costs on to seniors, states, employers, and other federal programs. And it doesn’t save much money.

Ok, so it's not just that Kerry is proposing benefit cuts to medicare, but the argument he is using is particularly maddening. His logic: because of Obama's health care bill (you know, the one that very well may not exist after 2012), we should begin to dismantle Medicare, the only thing resembling a good health care system that we have in this country.

This is bringing back all of my angry health care bill emotions, so bare with me for a minute. During the negotiations, there was a step by step argument that supporters of the bill used to ridicule the complaints of those that were seriously concerned that it didn't address the fundamental problem in our health care system (which to many of us, is the lack of genuine competition to private health insurance).

First we were told that expanding medicare and single payer were great, just not feasible, and that a shitty public option that couldn't even be tied to medicare rates was the best we could do. With hopes that it might be improved later, many people reluctantly accepted this compromise, and figured that strengthening the stranglehold that private insurance has over our system is worth it, as long as something resembling genuine competition could happen in the future (this made sense to me at the time? What the fuck was I thinking?)

We all know how this ended, with Lieberman killing a medicare buy in, and the Obama administration having negotiated away the public option early in the summer while falsely claiming it didn't have the votes to make it in the final bill. So we ended up with a bill that further regulates our shitty private system, while fundamentally cementing it's place in our health care system, with no expansion of medicare or a public option in sight. A lot of people begrudgingly excepted this, thinking this was the best our system could do, and that at least 30 million more people would have access to health insurance who didn't have it before.

But let's be clear about one thing: Never, ever during the endless year that we debated health care, did anyone make the argument that the shit sandwich the were proposing was just as good as medicare, which is exactly what John Kerry is saying. He's proposing we dismantle the closest thing we have to a good health care system in this country, and using Obama's far from good (and may not even be attempted) health care bill as the justification.

And think of the payoff! Now that we've spent 2 years parroting right wing proposals to hurt the economy... DEFICITS ARE FINALLY OFF THE TABLE!

Why are the off the table? Because we said so! Is there even a table? Maybe. Is there anything stopping us or the Republicans from trying to destroy medicare and social security further? Well, no, but you see, they're off the table now, and that means something!

It's also fairly ironic that two years after getting our hearts broken by Douche Lieberman's refusal to vote for the medicare buy in, the Democrats are now proposing a reveres medicare buy in, where shitty private insurance replaces your ability to get medicare.

Everyone who questioned the administration's embrace of austerity has to admit that going from proposals to expand our nation's only successful health care program to proposals that severely weaken it in only 2 years' time is damn impressive! Heckuva job guys!

Fearing Democracy

2011-11-02T14:29:00.001-04:00

The prime minister of Greece is attempting to put the latest austerity package from the IMF/EU/ECB up for a national referendum vote.

He is now facing a no confidence vote.

Austerity is so awesome, what is everyone afraid of?

General Strike!

2011-11-01T15:22:00.000-04:00

(Image via @michaelwhitney)

Insanely busy, and had a pretty incredible last couple of days. In the meantime, keep your eyes out for this tomorrow:

OAKLAND -- From schools and downtown stores to the nation's fifth busiest port, Oakland is bracing for Wednesday's citywide general strike, a hastily planned and ambitious action called by Occupy protesters a day after police forcibly removed their City Hall encampment last week.

Occupy Oakland has since returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza, but the leaderless group is still asking workers and students in the city to take the day off to come downtown and protest economic inequality and corporate greed.

Major goals will be protesting at banks or corporations that refuse to shut down for the day, then marching in the evening to the Port of Oakland to try to shut down the night shift.

Some employees and businesses downtown, where the core activities are scheduled, intend to participate, while others plan to carry on as normal - hoping there won't be a resumption of last week's violent clashes between protesters and police.

General strike = HUGE fucking deal. Occupy Oakland's call is bold as hell. Best wishes to everyone in the bay area!

Train of Thought Lounge: Geto Boys

2011-10-28T15:04:00.001-04:00

One of the all time greats:

Leave Bank of America ALOOOOOOOOOONEE!

2011-10-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

Let's all take a moment to stop and thank Bank of America for how awesome they are. Jason Linkins:

I'm sure you remember where you were when you heard that Bank Of America announced that after receiving taxpayer bailouts, it was going to institute a $5 monthly fee for the privilege of using your debit card. "Well, that's exactly why I saved Bank Of America in 2008," you probably said, because you are a Good American. "I look forward to my new negative-interest checking account," you probably added.
Well, apparently you Good Americans are in short supply, because according to Bloomberg News this morning, BofA Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan has been inundated by a bunch of Negative Nancies, and the experience has left him feeling "incensed."
Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said he's "incensed" by public criticism of his company and is pushing back by reminding local leaders of its contributions to their economies.Moynihan, 52, told employees in a global town hall meeting last week from the firm's Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters that the "place to win the battle" over the bank's battered public image is at the state and municipal level.
[...]
"I, like you, get a little incensed when you think about how much good all of you do, whether it's volunteer hours, charitable giving we do, serving clients and customers well," Moynihan said during the Oct. 18 gathering. To the bank's critics, he said, "You ought to think a little about that before you start yelling at us."
Right! Did any of these complainers even "think" before they started "yelling" at Bank of America? Actually, as Bloomberg goes on to report, they may have spent some time contemplating the fact that "Bank of America ranked lowest in a 24-bank survey of small business customer satisfaction from J.D. Power and Associates this month," or that "Bank of America was named the country's second-worst company by Consumerist.com after BP Plc, the firm blamed for the worst U.S. offshore oil spill."

Why was Consumerist so hard on Bank Of America? Well, perhaps after doing a little bit of thinking, they realized, "Oh, hey, we've published tons of pieces attesting to Bank Of America's awfulness! Like the time the bank got an address wrong and foreclosed on the wrong home. Or the time they made mortgage payment demands from someone who wasn't their customer. Or the time they threatened a customer with foreclosure if he didn't make a prompt payment of $0.00. I mean, I could go on and on.

As Dan suggested in the comments a few weeks back, let's make a deal. We tell Brian Moynihan and all the other masters of the universe what great people they are praise their contributions to our society, and we get to nationalize BoA and sell it off in smaller pieces to people who aren't corrupt assholes. Deal?

This Isn't Rocket Science

2011-10-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

From the always awesome Tom Tomorrow:

Herman Cain Goes Next Level

2011-10-25T11:26:00.001-04:00

I don't want to start prematurely declaring winners for the greatest political ad of the cycle contest, but this might be the strongest entry we've ever had in the "major party, legitimate chance of winning candidate" category. I'm not exactly who the desired audience is for this ad, but I do know that it's spectacular.

For all you Tim and Eric fans out there, check out how Herman Cain's expression does a reverse baseball man at the end of the ad.

Troops Coming Home/ Contractors Cashing In

2011-10-24T13:28:00.000-04:00

Bringing home our troops from Iraq is obviously a welcome development, and is the "official" end to the dumbest war in the history of the world.* Spencer Ackerman on the new phase for Iraq:

President Obama announced on Friday that all 41,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq will return home by December 31. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end,” he said. Don’t believe him.

Now: it’s a big deal that all U.S. troops are coming home. For much of the year, the military, fearful of Iranian influence, has sought a residual presence in Iraq of several thousand troops. But arduous negotiations with the Iraqi government about keeping a residual force stalled over the Iraqis’ reluctance to provide them with legal immunity.

But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas.

So our troops will come home, and we're replacing them with contractors (admittely less of them) who are known to act crazier and behave far worse than US soldiers. With no oversight.

Regardless of this fact, it is still nice to see our service members coming home, and a sort of full circle for Obama, who's opposition to this idiotic war kick started his political career and carried him to the presidency.

*I know there were probably dumber wars, but this was really, really dumb.

The Austerity-Industrial Complex

2011-10-21T13:43:00.004-04:00

Wonder why most politicians in DC have spent the last couple years obsessing over a fake problem? Ari Berman has a great article on the coordinated network that makes this happen:

The event spotlighted a central paradox in American politics over the past two years: how, in the midst of a massive unemployment crisis—when it’s painfully obvious that not enough jobs are being created and the public overwhelmingly wants policy-makers to focus on creating them—did the deficit emerge as the most pressing issue in the country? And why, when the global evidence clearly indicates that austerity measures will raise unemployment and hinder, not accelerate, growth, do advocates of austerity retain such distinction today?

An explanation can be found in the prominence of an influential and aggressive austerity class—an allegedly centrist coalition of politicians, wonks and pundits who are considered indisputably wise custodians of US economic policy. These “very serious people,” as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wryly dubs them, have achieved what University of California, Berkeley, economist Brad DeLong calls “intellectual hegemony over the course of the debate in Washington, from 2009 until today.”

Its members include Wall Street titans like Pete Peterson and Robert Rubin; deficit-hawk groups like the CRFB, the Concord Coalition, the Hamilton Project, the Committee for Economic Development, Third Way and the Bipartisan Policy Center; budget wonks like Peter Orszag, Alice Rivlin, David Walker and Douglas Holtz-Eakin; red state Democrats in Congress like Mark Warner and Kent Conrad, the bipartisan “Gang of Six” and what’s left of the Blue Dog Coalition; influential pundits like Tom Friedman and David Brooks of the New York Times, Niall Ferguson and the Washington Post editorial page; and a parade of blue ribbon commissions, most notably Bowles-Simpson, whose members formed the all-star team of the austerity class.

The austerity class testifies frequently before Congress, is quoted constantly in the media by sympathetic journalists and influences policy-makers and elites at the highest levels of power. They manufacture a center-right consensus by determining the parameters of acceptable debate and policy priorities, deciding who is and is not considered a respectable voice on fiscal matters. The “balanced” solutions they advocate are often wildly out of step with public opinion and reputable economic policy, yet their influence endures, thanks to an abundance of money, the ear of the media, the anti-Keynesian bias of supply-side economics and a political system consistently skewed to favor Wall Street over Main Street.

Taken together, the various strands of the austerity class form a reinforcing web that is difficult to break. Its think tanks and wonks produce a relentless stream of disturbing statistics warning of skyrocketing debt and looming bankruptcy, which in turn is trumpeted by politicians and the press and internalized by the public. Thus forms what Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent calls a Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop, wherein the hypothetical possibility of a US debt crisis somewhere in the future takes precedence over the very real jobs crisis now.

Go read the whole thing, it's really an incredible look at this complex network and how it effects our politics.

Emotional Millionaire Bankers: "Mean Words Hurt Worse Than Actual Regulation"

2011-10-20T13:55:00.000-04:00

Banking executives: They have more money than anyone you know will have in their lifetimes, yet have the emotional sensibilities of a 5 year old.

After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at the party committee started ringing.

Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.

“They were livid,” said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients.

The execs asked the lawmakers: “What are you doing? Do you even understand some of the things that they’ve called for?” said another lobbyist with financial services clients who is a former Democratic Senate aide.
. . .
“Most Wall Street guys, they feel like they’re going to be burned in effigy,” said Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, who gave to Obama in 2008 but is now fundraising for Mitt Romney. Some moderate donors, who have given to both parties, “fled from Obama in his support of the Wall Street protests,” he said.
. . .
“You can’t have it both ways,” said one in-house financial services lobbyist. “It just makes it harder for people who are Democrats in New York, Boston, Chicago to on the one hand be demogagued and then be asked ‘Hey, you can get your picture with the president for $30,000.’ It doesn’t square.”
And the rhetoric strikes a nerve.

“In some ways, I think this is worse than [Dodd-Frank] because it is more symbolic,” said a Democratic financial services lobbyist. “People from Wall Street can deal with regulation, they deal with it all the time … I think it’s just the bashing that sort of drives them crazy.”

Apparently being an extremely wealthy elite isn't enough, you also need be praised by other elites for all of the great work that you're not doing. This just makes me think that Occupy Wall Street, SEIU (and others') have it right in their tactics. If the CEO of Bank Of America or Goldman Sachs go about his day for 10 minutes without being reminded that he's an asshole who has cause the suffering of millions, we aren't doing our job.

Republican Debate Thoughts

2011-10-19T15:25:00.001-04:00

So while this is far from the first debate, this is the first one I was able to watch in non highlight form, so I figured I'd give a few thoughts.

Romney is so far ahead of these guys in "general politician skills" it's not even funny. His exchange with Newt was probably the most devastating 1 on 1 take down I've seen in a debate. Humiliated him. I know, it's Newt, and degree of difficulty and all, but man was that brutal to watch.
Having only read about the other debates, I didn't understand how Rick Perry could have dropped 20 points in 3 weeks. Well, that mystery is solved! He makes Bush seem articulate and knowledgeable on the issues.
I want a framed picture of the look on everyone's face when Ron Paul brought up Iran/Contra. I'd actually pay to see cameras of each person's face when Ron Paul is speaking, just to capture their facial expressions.
Based on the Iran/Contra thing, we need to find a way to do a Republican debate where all the questions are directly related to the things that Reagan actually did, rather than the nonsense claimed about him now. We could kick it off by asking if arming Osama Bin Laden was a good idea.
Cain's response to criticism of his Sim City tax plan was incoherent, and mostly about fruit. Don't know if people cared or not though.
Bachman seemed fairly subdued. Santorm's desperate attempts to talk about his hatred of gay people was hilarious. You could tell he just wanted to yell out "listen you morons, All you used to care about was gay people and abortion!!! What happened???"
There seems to be a strong anti-romney vote, but there isn't a warm enough body to house it. It really can't be emphasized how terrible all the other cantidates are, just in their political skills alone. Obama better hope that they can coalese around someone and take down Romney, cause I'm really starting to believe if he gets the nomination Obama is toast.
One more thing, Anderson Cooper repeating the complete BS right wing lie that only 51% of Americans pay taxes drove me insane. I know it's a Republican debate and no facts were allowed within 30 feet of the stage, but I expect better from Anderson Cooper for some reason.

Did you watch it? What did you think?

Crazy Liberals and Their Crazy Liberal Ideas

2011-10-18T13:24:00.001-04:00

You mean austerity doesn't improve economic growth??? Krugman: (via atrios)

Right now, the two most prominent institutions calling for an end to the disastrous turn to short-run austerity are … Goldman Sachs and the International Monetary Fund.

Brad has written about the Goldman memo, which calls for a nominal GDP target — that is, a future dollar value of GDP — that would in effect both promise a significantly higher inflation rate over the medium term and require very large quantitative easing. We need to be careful about this: it’s a proposal from the excellent Jan Hatzius, not official GS policy. But still.

Meanwhile, the IMF special report for the G20 (pdf) is essentially a declaration that the focus on universal austerity was wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s a lot milder than it should be — the Fund is still, for example, endorsing the Cameron austerity plan. But it pretty much flatly says that Congress should pass the Obama jobs bill.

Atrios asks if we can start giving these "the master of the universe jobs" to people who haven't taken 2-3 years to figure this out?

Maybe?

If so, I vote for this guy.

BP Regains Bidding Rights For Gulf Drilling

2011-10-17T14:22:00.001-04:00

Remember those guys that did such a great job drilling in the gulf last time?
Let's give em another shot!

The Obama administration has infuriated environmentalists by giving BP the green light to bid for new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

The move – seen as a major step in the company's political rehabilitation as an offshore driller following the Deepwater Horizon accident – was revealed by the head of the US safety regulator after a congressional hearing in Washington.

"They don't have a deeply flawed record offshore," said Michael Bromwich, head of the newly formed Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. "The question is: 'Do you administer the administrative death penalty based on one incident?', and we have concluded that's not appropriate."

Drilling rights are sold off on a regular basis but many believed BP would be ruled out as unsuitable after the gulf well blowout that killed 11 workers and polluted the beaches of southern states. The next sale comes up in December, when more than 8m hectares (20m acres) of offshore rights will come up for grabs.

BP declined to comment, but Friends of the Earth said it was appalled. "Governments should be administering the death penalty to all deepwater drilling rather than waiting for yet more devastating incidents like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico or in any other part of the world," argued Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at the environmental group.

"It is not just BP operations that are deeply flawed," he added. "There is not a single oil company that can say with a high degree of confidence that it can drill safely and how it will clear up if something goes wrong. It is clear in the context of climate change we need to develop new clean technologies, not hunt for fossil fuels in ever more remote and hard-to-reach areas."

The "they don't have a deeply flawed record" quote is jaw dropping, but the statement from friends of the earth really hits the nail on the head. BP's non-reaction to the gulf spill was essentially the airing of a dirty secret that no one has the slightest clue what to do when something goes wrong with one of these things.

So let's obviously keep doing it, and why not let the same people who fucked it up last time go for it again? Awesome.

Standing Up For The 1%

2011-10-14T11:50:00.002-04:00

One of the more powerful recurring chants/signs/slogans of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been "We are the 99%".

Those on the right have responded typically: Finding a new way to do the bidding for the rich and powerful, and being completely factually wrong in the process. Alex Pareene's description is amazing:

The conservative response to the “We are the 99 percent” movement is … hilarious. (And, sure, heartbreaking.) Conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson and vacuous right-blogger Erick Erickson joined forces to start “We Are the 53%,” a blog made up of contributions from the 53 percent of Americans who pay more in federal income taxes than they receive back in deductions or credits.

The project was kicked off by Erick Erickson, who announced that he works “three jobs,” by which he means being a professional television pundit, radio pundit and Internet pundit. There is a stunning amount of cognitive dissonance, misplaced resentment and class revulsion going on, even for a conservative Web project.

The site can’t even manage to correctly represent that 53 percent, with multiple contributors very clearly belonging to the 47 percent of people who make up the supposed parasite class. There is a blog dedicated to this confused minority. The best example is obviously this dog.

Let’s get this out of the way early: Pretty much every adult American pays taxes. Workers who are too poor to pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, and property taxes if they own their home. Even the unemployed pay sales taxes. The poorest Americans — people who make an average of $12,500 a year — pay, on average, 16 percent of their paltry income in taxes. That is less than every other demographic, but the point of a progressive tax system is that 16 percent of a poor person’s income is a hell of a lot more meaningful to that person than 30 percent of a millionaire’s. It’s a simple concept, and one that most Americans agree with. And that simplicity and popularity is why the conservative movement has spent 100 years attempting to muddy the debate with misinformation. (They are quite dedicated, actually, to class warfare, in that they seek to align the shrinking middle with the elites in a war against the downtrodden.)

So a good number of people who pay no federal income taxes are simply lucky enough to be impoverished. The rest are beneficiaries of tax breaks and loopholes championed most vocally by Republicans. A member of “the 1 percent” (or, more accurately, the tenth-of-1 percent) likely considers these harried taxpayers “the 53 percent of people without the sense to hire a good accountant.”

Multiple lies, wrapped up in self righteousness, blended with a healthy dose of incoherence. We are the 53% couldn't be better designed to capture the mind of the modern day conservative movement.

The 9-9-9 Plan: It's Awesome

2011-10-14T02:00:00.002-04:00

You get to the point where you're so out of the loop over here... I finally do some interneting and all I see from everyone everywhere is 9-9-9, Hermain Cain, blah blah blah. Almost everyone seems to agree that it's a stupid plan, but what is it? No one says in the reaction pieces, which is weird because 9-9-9 seems really simple, like it should lend itself to easy explanation.

But nah, everyone is just talking about how stupid it is, so I have to go to Cain's site and figure it out for myself. I'm already kinda resentful because of that, but the first line turns me around:

"The natural state of our economy is prosperity. Freedom ensures that."

Wow, here's a guy who apparently doesn't understand anything about the economy! It's making me glad that I'm about to try and read his tax plan. By the way, 'freedom ensures that' is a great suffix to add to any random statement. Try it at home for fun.

"We can not spend our way to prosperity.
Government spending IS taxation.
Government spending is like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of the pool, pouring it in the shallow end. Then they HOPE that the water level will CHANGE."

Why do I feel like he would get into some Clintonian debate about the definition of "is" and stuff if anyone asked him questions about that? Also who actually wrote these sentences? Is Cain even less of a real contender than he seems?!

You know what, forget about the substance of his plan, if there is any. Check this out:

"The Fair Tax makes our exported goods and services the most competitively internationally than any other tax system."

What is happening in that sentence? How could someone look at that and then put it up on his website as the official description of his stupid tax plan? What is happening in America?! Then you get to his summary on the bottom:

"Ends all payroll taxes
Ends the Death Tax
Features zero tax on capital gains and repatriated profits
Lowest marginal rates on production
Allows immediate expensing of business investments
Eliminates double taxation of dividends"

Oh okay. While we're at it, why not just tax everyone in America a nickel? Also instead of a Death Tax you get a Death Credit, where poor people give rich people some money if someone in their family dies. Also instead of payroll tax we can just hire some people to scrounge around gutters and find loose change- also creating jobs for Americans! Capital gains should be completely untaxed and the number of millions of dollars you've made in this category should enable you to punch an equal number of homeless people in the face. Now things are really fair. I call it the 6-4-3-7-4-7-4-2-6-1-0 plan. Vote for Pizza Man Herman Cain.

Pro Murder/Slave Labor/Tax Cheating Bills Pass The House, Will Be Signed By Democratic President

2011-10-13T12:03:00.001-04:00

Last night, the free trade deals that we've written about numerous times on this blog passed the house, the last meaningful place where they could have been opposed. They then go to the desk of a Democratic president, who I can only assume will sign the agreement with the blood of murdered Colombian trade unionists, because that's the level of fuck he's given about their lives in pushing these deals.

Obama released a statement about how these job killing deals will create jobs (no really, i believe you this time!) and about how exciting it is that we have enough corporate whores in both parties to make this deal bipartisan. He described the deal as a "major win for American workers, to which David Dayen brilliantly replied:

They’re not a win for Colombian trade unionists, as even the weak Action Plan which has failed to protect them from murder was kept on the side and not written into the trade pact, giving it no authority. They are mainly a win for North Korean sweatshop owners and Panamanian tax haven specialists. And, I should add that the President and his entire party just got done saying that Republicans want only to sabotage the economy, and will not let anything pass that creates jobs. Now they are applauding the passage of job-creating trade agreements. Something doesn’t fit.

It's actually pretty simple: It doesn't fit because he's lying to all of us about the impact of this deal. Does it make more sense now?

There are no mean senators making this happen, there are no government constraints forcing Obama to pass these deals. I don't know if he's passing them because it makes him look like a super awesome bipartisan leader for the election, or whether he thinks rewarding a country for legalizing the murder of unionists is the right thing to do. Or if he thinks the American worker benefits from competition with slave labor. Or if he thinks that tax cheats needed a helping hand. It honestly doesn't matter. Pushing these deals was 100% Obama's call, and it's a truly shameful moment for his presidency.

Elizabeth Warren For Senate

2011-10-12T11:27:00.001-04:00

This parody is amazing:

Train of Thought Lounge: Blackstar

2011-10-11T15:38:00.004-04:00

Been insanely busy, normal blogging will resume once Wednesday is finally over.

Blackstar on Colbert last week:

Systematic Fraud Is A Pretty Big Loophole

2011-10-07T15:34:00.000-04:00

There are several basic ways to look at the financial/housing crisis. The way you see the crisis is usually imporant, because it puts you on the right track in determining what needs to be done to prevent the next crisis.

Some views: (extremely oversimplified to make a point)

(1) Poor people scammed the banks into giving them bad loans.

(2)You can think that Banking industry took advantage of the deregulation and bank friendly laws to make risky investments.

(3) Knowing that there was no meaningful oversight, the banks committed incalculable amounts of fraud in all of it's forms.

Number 1 is just stupid and completely factually wrong, but it allows conservatives to blame the poor for something, which is no doubt why many of them believe this myth.

Number 2 is right and very important, but is also far from the whole story.

Number 3 is also right, and is something I still don't think most people fully understand about the crisis.

Back to my point earlier, your view of what occured is very imporant in setting the course for how to clean up the mess. Based on Obama's response to the crisis this isn't particularly surpising, but it's very upsetting to hear him say this: (via dday)

“Banks are in the business of making money, and they find loopholes,” the President said.

Many of the practices on Wall Street “weren’t necessarily against the law but they had a huge destructive impact,” said the President.

So he's right that businesses find loopholes and exploit them, but he's spectacularly wrong that no one broke the law. It's a convenient thing to say when your Attorney General is doing nothing to prosecute those people, but that doesn't make it true. Yves Smith:

Is breaking IRS rules a “loophole”? How about making repeated false certifications in SEC filings? Or as Dayen points out, fabricating documents? Or making wrongful foreclosures, aka stealing houses?

The Administration’s strategy for maintaining this posture is by being anti-investigation and anti-transparency. As we’ve discussed, the stress tests were a sham. The foreclosure task force didn’t even try to look serious, it was a mere 8 week investigation and of 2800 cases chosen for review (in no scientific manner), only 100 were foreclosures. The US Trustee’s office found a level of servicing errors more than 10 times that asserted by banks and happily parroted by Federal banking regulators. We expect readers could add to this list just as readily as we can.

There are plenty of grounds for legal action. Contrary to the Obama/Geithner position, this is a target rich environment. And some of the violations were persistent and deliberate enough that they might well raise to the level of being criminal. This is a mere illustrative tally:

1. Violation of REMIC (real estate mortgage conduit) rules, which are IRS provisions which allow mortgage backed securities to be treated as pass-through entities. As we’ve indicated, the violations were clear cut and are easily documented. Moreover, when the senior enforcement officer in the IRS was alerted last year, she was keenly interested. But the word that came back was the the question had gone to the White House, and the answer was to nix going after these violations: “We are not going to use tax as a tool of policy.” So this is not a case of creative use of “loopholes,” this is prima facie evidence of an Administration policy of protecting the banks.

2. Consumer fraud under HAMP. Catherine Masto of Nevada has already delineated this case in her second amended complaint against numerous Bank of America entities (in fact, the evidently clueless President could find a raft of other litigation ideas in her filing). All the servicers engaged in similar egregious conduct.

3. Securities fraud by mortgage trustees and serivcers. While the statute of limitations for securities fraud for the sale of toxic mortgage securities in the runup to the crisis has now passed, securitization trustees and servicers are making false certifications in periodic SEC filings. In layperson terms, the trustee certifies that everything is kosher with the trust assets. As readers well know, in many cases the custodians do not have the notes or they were not conveyed to the trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement (as in they were not properly endorsed through the chain of title).
Now of course, pursuing this sort of litigation would blow up the mortgage industrial complex. But it represents a powerful weapon to bring unrepentant bankers to heel.

4. Widespread risk management failures as Sarbanes-Oxley violations. As we’ve discussed, Sarbox provides a fairly low risk path to criminal prosecutions. And we believe the SEC has been incorrectly deterred by an adverse ruling in the early stages of its case against Angelo Mozilo. In that case, the judge (with no explanation of his ruling) barred the SEC from claiming SEC violations (which this case did) and double dipping by adding a Sarbox charge (securities fraud statutes parallel Sarbox language; indeed, that was one of the complaints re Sarbox, that many of its provisions were already represented in existing law). That’s far more significant than it appears. As we argued in an earlier post, the language in Section 302 (civil violations) tracks the language in Section 906 (criminal violations). A win on a Section 302 case would thus set up what would appear to be a slam dunk criminal case.

There were crimes committed. If you're just trying to rebuild a broken system, you can't whitewash a major part of the problem. Unfortunately the White House seems hell bent on doing just that.

Why Don't They Like Us???

2011-10-06T13:52:00.001-04:00

I really feel like this exchange with Tim Geithner is incredible. First, he is asked about #occupywallstreet:

"I feel a lot of sympathy for what you might describe as the general sense among Americans as whether we've lost the sense of possibility and whether after a pretty bad lost decade in terms of income growth or fiscal responsibility...followed by a devastating crisis, huge loss of faith in public institutions, people do wonder whether we have the ability to do things that can help the average sense of opportunity in the country," Geithner said at The Atlantic's Ideas Forum, just a few blocks from both the U.S. Capitol and the White House.

You get a sense that he cares, and understands why people are so upset. What part of the current equasion does Tim Geithner not understand?

To the contrary, Geithner expressed dismay at the fact that many Wall Street executives have grown to loathe President Obama over the last two years.

"I think it's inexplicable," Geithner said. "They -- people resent when they need help. It's a natural thing."
They resent the huge amount of public anger they've been subjected to because they caused the crisis -- they sometimes claim, they think it was created by us, which I think is a deeply unfair judgment. And they react to what is pretty modest, common-sense observations about the system as if they're deep affronts to the dignity of their profession. And I don't understand why they're so sensitive. But they're very wounded, and they've seen a huge amount of damage to peoples' confidence in their capacity to not just manage risk and to meet the needs of their customers, but in the broader public consciousness. And they'd like us to heal that for them, and they ask me all the time, Why can't you heal that for us? And I say to them, i think reasonably, that's something you've got to earn back yourself. We can't do that for you.

That rant is fairly incredible. I don't have much of a comment, but I do think it gives you a pretty good view of how Geithner sees the world.

Class War Wednesday

2011-10-05T15:32:00.002-04:00

Well, they aren't lying!

The Occupy Wall Street movement spread to Chicago this week, where protesters have gathered outside the Chicago Board of Trade, the world’s oldest options and futures trading center. Like the protesters in New York and other cities around the country, the group gathered to protest our nation’s growing income inequality, as the top 1 percent of Americans continue to see their incomes rise rapidly and their tax rates fall. The Chicago traders, confronted by the protesters’ “We are the 99 percent” message, crafted their own not-so-subtle reply, hanging signs in eighth-floor windows that said, “We are the 1%“:

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-04T15:06:00.001-04:00

Something really interesting started in New York and is taking off around the country. Kari has a good background:

This is a grassroots movement that received a lot of criticism (yeah, I'm looking at you NYT) for being disjointed and not having solidified leadership after all is just a few young people causing trouble (note my sarcasms). Actually, Occupy Wall Street is a diverse movement composed of the unemployed, students, unions, etc, but we can probably summarize by saying they are the poor/working poor/disenfranchised, and if not directly one from these group understand that "this is not about me" (as noted from a sign I saw in photos: "I have a job. This is not about me. It is bigger". It all comes down to the same things though, some people with a dangerous idea that must be vilified. This idea that says corporations have to pay their fair share, that corporations are not people, and that if politicians will do nothing about it then the masses will. So, I'm wondering why it took so long. I'm wondering why the unemployed and underemployed didn't take to the streets when we started talking about yet another Free Trade agreement that will rob US citizens of jobs. I'm confused why no one rushed into the streets after the President declared a third illegal war, when he was the guy who was supposed to bring the troops home. But finally, the people have gathered, and not in DC, but in the New York financial district, you know where the power is.

Don't really have time for a full post, but check out the rest of Kari's for more. Also Glenn Greenwald has an interesting post about the reaction to the protests, while Matt Stoller has a post that gives you a pretty good sense of the people who started this.