The Spit Shine

Goodbye, Jersey Girl

2012-02-12T19:26:00.000-05:00

Gone too soon, Whitney Houston, XOX:

Israel's Pre-Election First-Strike Window

2012-02-09T05:05:00.002-05:00

The title says it all. Think about it.

Rick Santorum, OWNING the execrable part of his moniker

2012-02-09T01:53:00.001-05:00

"There's always a reason."

Have a treat and do yourself a favor. Set aside some time and watch these two, one after the other. Textbook ship wreck.

"They hated me without a cause.":

Obama Tweet of the Day

2012-02-07T20:30:00.003-05:00

Separation of powers is Constitutional. Fast talk about 'ending supremacy' is not serious. -BO #NewtFastTalk #NotASeriousCandidate

Obama Tweet of the Day

2012-02-07T20:26:00.003-05:00

Can't lead or govern with platitudes. What page of 133p opinion is "prejudiced"? -BO #W.MittRomney #notaseriouscandidate

Syria on Path to Escalation

2012-02-07T00:23:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting paradox: (Principled) Non-intervention creates conditions that require intervention.

It's like the Spanish Civil War, a little bit, in which everyone tried to stay out, but got sucked in, one way or the other.

An American Classic

2012-02-06T23:56:00.000-05:00

Left or Right, you have to admit that Maureen Dowd has taken this form of political takedown to an artform.

This one ranks up with President Bush's Barberini Faun, no?

Remainderman of Reagan Devolution, "Thuggery", Will Not Be Televised

2012-02-02T23:09:00.001-05:00

FRAKING THE COUNTRY, ONE GOP VOTE AT A TIME

GOP swells, they stall, delay, arguably harass, and then arrest documentary filmmaker, so he won't video tape a public hearing, prompting him to exclaim, "This is not government. This is thuggery."

There were reasons that the founders insisted on public hearings.

However, we are on terra nova with the Reagan Devolution, in which some things the GOP do are so awful that they need the continued cloak of secrecy.

About that "He made the recession worse" propaganda

2012-02-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

MAKING IT HARDER TO GOVERN THE COUNTRY, ONE GOP CONTENDER AT A TIME

What's going on with this phrase, "Obama made the recession worse"?

Looks like pretty sophisticated propaganda technique, to me. Afterall, on the facts, this is what Obama should be saying about the GOP, who stalled stimulus legislation and made sure that a huge part of what was done, went into stimulus-inefficient tax breaks.

Now, some might say that is what Rachel Maddow called, "going after their strength", in reference to Karl Rove's super-naught-PAC.

But consider this: one needs to know a bit of economics to understand the truth of the matter. Or, rely on an independent expert. This propaganda technique, used by the GOP, exploits that.

First, you attack anyone who sets themselves up as an 'independent expert'. This is the "liberal media elites".

Then you work to make the issue seem like a partisan disagreement over the facts. Use your propaganda TV channel and its mantras of epistemic closure, but also giveaway, right-wing radio. People trust their "daddy", Bill O'Reilly, say, who's "always looking out for you", rather than their reason.

As such, it is a fairly sophisticated approach. Doesn't always work, but it sure makes it harder to govern the country in a fact-based way, doesn't it? At a minimum, you have to have the money it takes to do voter education, if the media fail in that role.

FL Horserace: It's the Heretic over the Papist and the French Conservative

2012-01-31T20:21:00.002-05:00

...by a mile.

Best Pundit Comment

2012-01-26T23:05:00.001-05:00

Describing the Jacksonville debate:

"Welcome to the Marco Rubio suck-up party."

Favorite Moments of GOP Constipation, Jacksonville Debate

2012-01-26T22:28:00.003-05:00

The Spreading Santorum Award goes to Rick Santorum, who railed and railed, like a half-vest-wearing timber mouse, against both Newton and Willard for being complicit in "top down, government-run healthcare", unlike St. Rick.

Then, Rick boasted about his ties to Peurto Rico and waxed proudly to have done all he could to pass things (legislation?) and boost medicaid reimbursement rates, to help people there.*

The Republican Ideological Invisibility Award gets split.

Republican Palestinian Americans are invisible, so long anyone is firing a missile (or gun?) at Israel.

The unemployed uninsured are invisible, because they can simply be redefined as re-employed and self-insured, by a swelling economy under abject deregulation of a GOP President, etc. or having them mythically buy their own insurance, somehow, with enough money from somewhere (or with lower health costs from before the 1960s).

*(No other candidate was even given a chance to respond to the PR question, so swelled were the moderators by Rick's earnestness--what's up with that?)

Gingrich Bows Out, Admits Just a Sparring Candidate

2012-01-26T22:13:00.002-05:00

The real truth of the Gingrich fake candidacy came out in tonight's Jacksonville debate.

He's got Willard Mitt Romeny fired up and ready-to-go.

Accordingly, he's back in friendly, quiet talk-circle mode.

It looked like he was ready to invite people to come sign his book, after the "debate". ["What (token?) hispanics would you have serve in your cabinet?" was actually a question allowed by CNN].

His biggest failure was looking down at the podium, as if reading from notes, while talking about Callista.

For the Record

2012-01-26T12:59:00.003-05:00

Newton lies well under pressure.

At least everyone thought that 'Reagan Conservative' meant being so conducively aloof that lies came off as mere stupidity or as distractedly disinformed.

Now you know differently, about big-tent Reagan Conservatism.../f Clinton-karma backlash

Latest, from the Most Reverend (and sinner) the Archbishop

2012-01-26T12:44:00.002-05:00

RECOGNIZING MARRIAGE IN NEW JERSEY

Not much new, except they are most visibly aggrieved, concerned about themselves, this time around, than they were last time.

Tweet of the Day

2012-01-26T08:49:00.000-05:00

From "Joe" "the plumber"

OMG, I'm SUCH an IDIOT. #WillardMittRomneyTaxes

Stampede the Immigrants!

2012-01-24T03:22:00.000-05:00

Finally, we have, from Mitt Romney, the GOP owning up to their strategy to make America hostile to immigrants.

The plan is to encourage their "self-deportation".

Longtime readers will recognize this strategy, called here "stampede the immigrants".

Destroying America, One Broadcast At a Time

2012-01-24T00:26:00.002-05:00

The damage of FOX and its long subsidy of Beck lives on.

While his politics aren't common knowledge among many hockey fans, [Tim] Thomas hasn't hidden his political leanings. He's a fan of former Fox News channel host Glenn Beck, ... - story

Some might not have wanted to shake the hand of President Bush, because of his dereliction of duty in planning the Iraq War and his embrace of torture.

But, to disrespect the Office of the President? The Republic for which it stands? For ANY Beckian reason? Nah.

Why Social Moderates Should Greatly Fear a Gingrich Presumptive

2012-01-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

The fact is that Gingrich has almost no chops on social issues. He's a walking embarassment as a standard bearer for the party, and the Left will not relent on this. He'll never feel secure.

To compensate, he is going to have to talk bigger and act bolder, on the social issues and law-and-order issues.

Coupled with the remnants of the Tea-Party furor, his party's behavior is likely to get draconian.

You think no one would ever haul a gay-rights friendly judge or woman's-rights friendly judge before Congress? He will. He told you he would. He's not going to have the room to moderate once in office. To the contrary, the pressure is going to go the other way.

You think no one would dare grab U.S. citizens off the streets for indefinite detention, because it's outside our norms?

The list goes on.

South Carolina Drinks the KoolAid From Highest Paid "Historian" in History

2012-01-22T12:18:00.001-05:00

A MAN WITH A POISONOUS PAST

Even if you have a grudging respect for the rebel yell, last night's Gingrich win has to make you laugh.

Apparently, to the voters of South Carolina, "Freddie Mac" is a menu item at McDonald's that Gingrich ate a lot of.

Hate of the media is so important that moral character in a standard bearer for the party is a booed second.

This is how you choose leadership quality? #notaseriouscandidate

(the ever-present, power-lover lover, Callista, drawing by Jorge Arévalo)

Question of the Day?

2012-01-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

Should team Obama visibly be in South Carolina now? Florida?

The answer is yes. An unconventional campaign is called for. An attempt to expand and build the party is worthwhile. If his promise was transformative politics, he can't do that from inside the beltway so easily.

The fight is on and they are hanging back, instead of shaping the battlefield.

He should do 'the reverse Lincoln-Douglas'. In this move, Douglas chases Lincoln (and whoops him before the bullets even fly).

Obama Tweets of the Day

2012-01-21T19:15:00.000-05:00

Can't be a candidate of 'Ginormous Solutions' if you play the world's smallest (media) violin. -BO #NewtFastTalk #notaseriouscandidate

FOX, Where The News is a Blur

2012-01-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

If the point was to poke fun at FOX, better copy would be "Braised and Biased". Just sayin'.

(Passed on "rotated and balanced", but I didn't have time to focus-group test, either.)

FastTalk Newtons

2012-01-20T10:36:00.002-05:00

Newt's reply to John King last night was totally disingenuous nature, the one that is getting so much airplay, that Andrew Sullivan liveblogged as "perfect". (Even this is cute, but no cigar).

The fact of the matter is that Newt wanted that question, despite saying, "No, but I will."

King is not a highly-skilled interviewer, at least not at this level, not a power-player.

Imagine how different it would have been if he had immediately cut Gingrich off and said, "Okay, then, the question is withdrawn."

This would have left it the pink elephant in the room and Newt at the hands of the rumor mills, unaided by the power of CNN.

Truths and Perspectives I Don't Want to Deal With

2012-01-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

THE MEDIA VIOLIN - THERE YOU GO AGAIN!

Isn't EVERYONE exhausted yet of GOP candidates who won't deal with questions, truths, or perspectives, and instead, just start playing their media violin?

Obama Tweet Of The Day

2012-01-19T23:15:00.004-05:00

Would not want to run against feisty Ron Paul. Share many of his views of constitutional protections of liberty. -BO

Tweets of the Day

2012-01-19T23:12:00.002-05:00

Special prosecutor to investigate Newt, if Pres. Rec on impeachment, if true. -Bill Clinton

To the Radicals Alito and Roberts

2012-01-19T23:06:00.001-05:00

Without Super-PAC money, Gingrich would not be in the race, today.

Ignoring the conservative view, a deference to over a century of conventional wisdom related to money-in-politics, these two right-wing radicals have changed the trajectory of the Republic.

Citizen's United is perhaps as good as any high-watermark ahead of American political decline.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The French Conservative

2012-01-19T23:01:00.003-05:00

It's revealed today, by ABC's interview with his former wife, that Newt asked for permission of his wife to continue his relationship with Calista.

Gingrich, of course, was Speaker when he allowed votes to impeach Clinton for investigatory faux-pas related to personal sexual impropriety:

Do-Nothing GOP Congress Returns after 3 1/2 Week Recess

2012-01-17T19:23:00.000-05:00

The GOP's do-nothing congress returned, after awarding themselves a comfortable three and a half weeks of vacation.

First order of business?

Posture politically and ... do nothing.

Huntsman, Gone With the Wind

2012-01-17T15:57:00.002-05:00

Everyone should miss Huntsman (just not too much).

He will always be remembered as the one who sent thousands of Tea tiddlewinks to their mommies, asking, "What is an 'intellectually honest conversation', Mommy"?

Obama Tweet of the Day

2012-01-17T09:15:00.002-05:00

FOX, where news is just a blur. #notaseriousnewsorg #AndrewSullivanNewsweek

FOX Visibly Throws Fair and Balanced Out the Window

2012-01-17T03:18:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry, but blurring Andrew Sullivan's name off the cover page is just hilarious.

FOX is like a MAD TV version of real journalism. It's pathetic that any political candidate would talk to them, between this and the omerta (Reagan's 11th commandment) that they enforce...

"By the way, Fox News has Mark Levin on to trash my article but they are far too afraid to have me on to defend it. I've been on the blacklist for years. Like Ron Paul, too dangerous for Fox. You might notice that they have actually blurred out my name on the cover. Heh." - Andrew Sullivan

Shorter GOP "debate"

2012-01-17T01:41:00.001-05:00

C'MON EVERYONE, LET'S GIVE THE LITTLE GIRLS A GREAT BIG WELCOME!

They hate government so much they all want to run it; and when they do, they run it into the ground and do everything they promised not to do and much they never said they would.

Obama Tweets for the Day

2012-01-15T00:14:00.001-05:00

No challenge political debates, not the right direction for America. -BO #notseriouscandidates #Huckabee

Obama Tweets For the Day

2012-01-13T08:05:00.000-05:00

Which is it: 'Shining City on a Hill' or 'Nation In Crisis'? Pray for or praise her? -BO #PerrySC #notaseriouscandidate

You w/party~divides forever by calling op "unrighteous". But u cannot stand a _vote_ on whether top earners should pull more weight during hard times?! -BO #MittRomney #notaseriouscandidate

Obama Tweets of the Day

2012-01-12T13:38:00.000-05:00

Good managers and great nations put their people first. Health Care Act does that. #MittRomneyRepeal #notaseriouscandidate

Committed couples paying taxes, married in their state. No civic "destruction". #NewtFastTalk #notaseriouscandidate

Obama Tweet of the Day

2012-01-11T15:35:00.001-05:00

Can it be we have a Republican presumptive who has never shot a gun before? Strange days. -BO #notaseriouscandidate

Did they write it? No.

This White House is going to play it safe until they are forced later on to do something dramatic.

It's still not too late for them to start supporting the candidacy of Ron Paul. There are ways, for people who are clever, without appearing to do it directly.

The GOP Picks La Vache Qui Rit

2012-01-11T15:18:00.000-05:00

The incredibly unserious candidacy of "Mitt" Romney:

Is Newt's Career Over, Finally?

2012-01-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

To have pandered so boldly and lost is truly a costly proposition.

"Gingrich is a festering white-head of loathing. Which is why his smile looks so terrifying and false." -Andrew Sullivan

Obama Suddenly Looking a LIttle Bit, er, Executive

2012-01-05T21:15:00.004-05:00

Has he broken out of his Senator-mode, his "let's have a debate" mode and taken up the whip handle, the true burden of being an Executive?

Who can say, because he does a lot of things behind the scenes, and like Eisenhower, a bit, maybe, he prefers not to appear as 'the heavy'.

Still, this move to recess appoint Richard Cordray suddenly has him looking, acting, feeling Presidential. (It was foreshadowed on this blog - gulp!)

Platitudinous To Perfection

2012-01-04T09:26:00.003-05:00

Clearly, he's ready to "preside over the decay" in Washington.

Look into the amber waves of grain and "vote values". Pay no attention to the things we'll do we're not talking about.

Catechized Deadhead Thanks Wife Before God

2012-01-04T00:38:00.000-05:00

As long as Rick Santorum is being a display-faith candidate, can we question openly and honestly how it is that he put his sing-songy wife ahead of God in this thanks tonight?

Yes, of course we can, AND it is the right response to do it. I mean, we *know* you love your wife, but c'mon.

Oblation: Santorum Is Aroma that Attracts Evangelicals Away From Gingrich

2012-01-04T00:09:00.001-05:00

We'll wait for the returns cross-section, but one has to hazard that Santorum was the knife that the GOP "establishment" used to cut Gringich's appeal to the heartland Christianists, backed by huge PAC spending on ads.

If true, that means that Santorum, who never had much polled support in Iowa until recent days, garnered nothing more than a rejection vote, a safe-harbor "value vote", a power-pastor oblation vote.

That's just fine with those pulling the GOP's purse strings, as they get to keep up the illusion of a Reagan coalition that "works", rather than one that is a dangerous trinity for any polity.

Not a single broker or executive goes to jail

2011-12-22T06:58:00.000-05:00

$335 Million settlement across 200,000+ borrowers, for one company (of hundreds?).

Not a single mortgage broker or loan officer goes to jail. Not one, reportedly.

Ergo, nothing will or has changed.

One wonders just how much worse it will get when the Democrats keep adopting moves to shut Freddie and Fannie out of the credit markets, despite their salutatory affect on creating fair access to credit...

Do Nothing Congress Finds New Ways to Do Nothing

2011-12-21T12:24:00.003-05:00

The latest from the GOP's do-nothingness? Stage a fight with yourself.

It's true. I didn't make it up.

[By the way, funding via pass-through fees on Fannie and Freddie is a bad idea.]

The Last March of the Women?

2011-12-21T00:55:00.000-05:00

Isn't it an acute symbolism, that the women march to protest brutal treatment, as the Islamist Winter falls in Egypt, one that they no doubt voted for in large numbers?

Sant'Obama

2011-12-20T01:36:00.001-05:00

Dear Mr. President:

You did good, this year, from this perspective.

Tribalism

2011-12-19T06:07:00.000-05:00

Remember, on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, in the early months of the invasion (or perhaps even before), the intellectual fight over how best Iraqis could organize their oil wealth?

Today, the come-down from such lofty heights, so many years later:

U.S. forces, which had ended combat missions in 2010, paid $100,000 a month to tribal sheikhs to secure stretches of the highways leading south to reduce the risk of roadside bombings and attacks on the last convoys.-link

Christopher Hitchens: A man worth naming a dog after

2011-12-19T05:31:00.000-05:00

The Asia Times comes in with a solid.

I had forgotten the moving essay on Daily and the Galloway exchange.

('Drink-Soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War' has had a link on this blog for a long while - for literary purposes only, but I see the website is defunked, now. Forgone maintenance.)

Team USA was hacked

2011-12-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

Now we know why self-destruct wasn't triggered or sent, possibly:

Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

link

Reagan's Omertà

2011-12-16T04:41:00.002-05:00

Perhaps the most fatuous question last night had to do with Reagan's 11th commandment, omertà.

A nation has lost something when the question is whether or not candidates for political office should level hard-hitting, legitimate criticisms of each other.

Reagan's Devolution, torched now by a media propaganda arm, rotten from the core, I guess.

(Does one need more evidence than this that Conservatism is tribal, not ideological? No. Yet, you will find many acolytes, still burning candles of that illusion.)

“Allons travailler!”

2011-12-16T03:02:00.001-05:00

Goodnight, Christopher.

Strongman Politics: The GOP Have Theirs

2011-12-16T02:19:00.003-05:00

Ron Paul might hopefully stage an upset in Iowa.

But, it's going to be Newton. He's the one who can talk like an Arab strongman (even talking down to the jurists!) and rally the fighters, including the Christianist fighters, who, face it, just want to win, because they've made up an evil called "Obama" that's more odious than the stinker Gingrich.

The rest is noise.

Learn his keywords. They are all still in use. "Fundamentally" much? "Radical" dovetails the most with Rovian messaging, i.e. continue to call your opponent something that you are, to deflect. Afterall, isn't it radical to "abolish the 9th circuit"? "Double the State Department"? Shut down the government in a temper tantrum? Rush to the arms of a billionaire's bogus debate, without thinking it through?

Most telling question of the night?

It could be, "Who's your favorite Supreme Court Justice?" Fits with the overall FOX agenda to trivialize and politicize the judiciary.

On offer is a likely return to Bush-Rove firing of US District Attorneys who aren't meeting ideologically-driven prosecutorial goals. Gingrich's "analysis" and takedown of decisions that he didn't like means we'll likely just have another Monica Goodling and Liberty Counsel prayer-train as a feeder to the bench.

The GOP's Remarkable Idea Machine

2011-12-16T01:31:00.001-05:00

Regarding the Keystone project and the coming deluge of lies and distortions, did you know that buying (expensive) oil from Canada is "energy independence"?

Did you know that maybe 20,000 jobs in Houston is a "Big Solution"?

It's all been said to be true.

$1.6M Freddie Payout to Newton

2011-12-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

"I had a [private sector] job like any other." - Newton Gingrich

Like any other. Okay.

Newton's Judgement Problem

2011-12-14T09:05:00.001-05:00

Regarding the Trump debate, the GOP finds the Party, (or at least the RNC Charimen, Reince Priebus), at odds with the odds-on nominee, Newton Gringrich.

That tells you something.

"Do Nothing" GOP Redefines Compromise as "Do Nothing, Later"

2011-12-09T10:24:00.001-05:00

What is the point of debating and passing compromise legislation, if the GOP simply flout the law and undermine it at every possible point, going forward?

The lead says it all, pretty much:

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked an effort to put someone [Richard Cordray] in charge at the [post financial debacle] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move that prevents the newly formed agency from supervising some of the same nonbank entities that triggered the financial crisis.

Doublespeak, Live In America

2011-12-09T10:14:00.001-05:00

Up is down and Rovian declensions in America revealed.

As Rachel Maddow notes, "it works".

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

FOX News Stridency - "No Dogmeat"

2011-12-07T02:35:00.001-05:00

Is it just me, or does FOX seem to be brainwashing "Fair and Balanced" more than usual?

Over and over and over again, between almost every segment. Sheesh. Methinks thou dost protest too much.

There is something wrong about having to advertise your programming like that. Isn't that assumed or up to the viewer to decide, really?

It's worse than a restaurant hanging out a sign that says, "No dogmeat. Honestly! Every day! Really, no dogmeat. Seriously.".

OMG, Lee Cooperman Thinks He's a Victim!

2011-12-07T01:13:00.001-05:00

Hedge fund legend (and former Goldman guy...) thinks he a victim.

Dear Mr. Cooperman:

I don't doubt that you are not naive, as you say; but your idea that the wealthy, on the whole, might be persuaded or moved to action on behalf of the needy (in the midst of our current economic crisis) by using a softer tone isn't naive, it's just daft.

Don't take my word for it:

“The best way to reach a deal for Obama is to pull out the partisan cudgel and slam the [Republicans] between the eyes repeatedly. They’ll only come to the table if their political brand is damaged. They’re not coming for the good of the country,” - Norm Ornstein, AEI (via Andrew Sullivan)

What's more, you are politically misinformed. The President tried reasonable intonations, even with his own political party, on taxes and burden-sharing. He was rebuffed and then, later, held hostage on the issue.

No one wants to blame the innocent, but you do have the misfortune of belonging to an industry that appears to have rescued itself, by commanding or commandeering the levers of government, and passed the bill on for its economic arson to .... everyone else, who are largely innocent, too, frankly.

What's worse is that you imagine that the tone of the backlash against this injustice is at the heart of the problem, and not the inability of the Street to accept that it cannot police itself adequately.

Do you agree that AIG Financial Products was a criminal enterprise, in the commonsense usage? They deliberately sought to skirt rules, by seeking out a friendly regulator. They used cunning to deliberately avoid internal oversight. They created products deliberately to skirt capital requirements. They knew or should have known the risks - including the systemic risks - of writing blank checks of an enormous notional size, as they pocketed millions in salary and bonus, on the back of AIG's enabling, AAA rating.

Your own hedge fund industry is systematically destabilizing, most likely, because so many hedge funds operate as off-trading-floor trading-floors. Put simply, no one knows the leverage in the system, because of it. A $41B fund just blew up, with 80:1 leverage, reportedly. Why should everyone else be concerned about the hardwork that you and your hedge fund guys are putting in, when what really matters is that enough simultaneous blow-ups of that size could start another massive liquidity crisis and, once again, dash the general living standard for the entire population!

Your industry is also seen as an enabler of the bogus 'CEO lifestyle', not only tacitly, but expressly, by passing out CEO treats to decisionmakers for deals that the Street likes for its own enrichment. No one really believes your indirect conjecture that these multi-million dollar packages of all stripes have anything to do with hard work and reward, even for philanthropy, when art sales and high-end retailers are doing so swimmingly.

So, while a gentle tone is often a good thing, railing against a tone that seems almost required by circumstance to re-shape things properly is probably misdirected anger, itself.

Sincerely,
Citizens Willing to Finally Say Something

Romney to the Test

2011-12-06T00:31:00.001-05:00

Okay, I have to say this, because I haven't heard the pundits say it.

Right now, the political guantlet is down to Romney.

If he's a political pitbull, he'd go after Newt and Trump. Trump for brazenly holding the Party hostage (has anyone ever - ever - heard a single guy threaten to sink the ship so visibly?) and Newt for lack of judgment w/r/t Trump, "just like his ethical lapse days".

Something tells me that Mittens won't pick up the gauntlet, though.

Update: Romney says 'No'. But, just that, nothing more. He's gonna be second place, or "another silver", as he put it last time.

Go Get A Copy, You Know You Want One, Possums

2011-12-05T23:55:00.001-05:00

From me to you at the Holidays, via Cameron Carpenter and the organ he designed (never have artist and instrument been so well matched).

I've never hocked, shilled, or advertised here. But, when you hear/see how amazing this is, you'll want to go buy a copy for $0.99 and support any future "Camerons" currently in the American Boys Choir, who will get all proceeds. There are no recordings even close. If this were a vocal artist, people would be falling over themselves to declare 'voice of the century' or something. It really IS that good.

Cameron Carpenter performs Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride'. Download this track on iTunes (or at http://tinyurl.com/bnw87xv ). All proceeds from sales of the download will benefit The American Boychoir School (see www.AmericanBoychoir.org).

This video and the iTunes single were recorded on the Marshall & Ogletree organ at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. The organ is Marshall & Ogletree's Opus 4 and was designed by Cameron Carpenter.

Islamist Winter, After Arab Spring

2011-12-04T13:03:00.001-05:00

After dictatorship, Egyptians opt for ... dictatorship.Humans are strange, but predictably strange.One vote, one time? Look for the crackdowns to begin.

Getting to the Bottom of Arsenokoitai

2011-12-04T10:22:00.001-05:00

New from wunderkind Michael Wood.

The heretofore ambiguity of the term is intentional usage by Paul.

Chris Hayes!...

2011-12-04T09:19:00.001-05:00

... has a Canadian on his show.

Doesn't he know that they just make us look bad, these days?

Sheesh

Before the Great Sanhedrin

2011-12-03T23:22:00.001-05:00

FOX Asserts Its Athorita

The FOX high priests summoned the GOP's semi-clean hopefuls for inspection, tonight.

Rules?

Nobody talks about anybody else. This is not a "debate". No back-and-forth. No rhetorical skill(s). This is you versus Orthodoxy. You answer the questions. We have the law(yers).

No journalists. None. This is not about your record or vetting anything but your pureness.

Those not invited, no matter how willing, able, or interesting, will simply not be spoken to or about.

This is how the world's greatest country chooses its leaders?

Be afraid.

Rand and Ron Paul - Classical Liberalism Face Plant

2011-12-03T20:22:00.001-05:00

The love of Ron and Rand Paul for bashing the Federal Reserve is well known. Ol' Ron was just up in New Hampshire, promising that he'd take a run at abolshing it.

The tea waggers sip twice, when either of them talk.

But, this week, we found out just the extent to which both of them are dangerously ignorant and, thereby, public enemy.

In fact, we found out that during American capitalism's most dire hours since the great depression, that 109+ institutions and $7.7 trillion dollars of liquidity were being supported by the lender of last resort, the U.S. Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, an institution that, it should be noticed, pre-dates the Great Depression...

Just stop and think of the magnitude of the economic wreckage, if there was no one around to have done what the Fed did. Ponder what the massive devastation would look like, if it isn't unfathomable.

With Herman Cain the latest nut to be shaken from the Koch brother's Tea Party tree, there is a danger, perhaps, of pretending that economic policy isn't being jawboned and influenced, yet, or of ignoring that the threat to us all from them and their bankrupting ideology is real.

Update: The Fed releases notes that refute the characterization offered by Bloomberg (suppliers of the figures above). The Fed suggests that $1.2 Trillion was closer to the maximum. The point remains unaltered.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

2011-12-03T08:21:00.001-05:00

Turns out that GOP leaders in Congress and compliant Democrats exempted their own pensions, benefits, and salary from cuts (as sequestration kicks in, mandating across-the-board cuts).

While proposing cuts in everyone else's retirement and ending hundreds of thousands of federal jobs,
soon-to-be Senate leader McConnell this week direly intoned that it was time for Washington to take a hit.

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Laugh of the Day

2011-12-02T07:45:00.001-05:00

Ta-Nahesi Coates closes comments on this thread. Ha!

At least 2011 doesn't go out without some Andrew Sullivan snot on a sleeve.

Would it be wrong of me to say, "Welcome to the club, Ta-Nahesi", in a manner of speaking? Yes, yes it would.

Pinkwashing

2011-12-01T01:58:00.001-05:00

Boy, it's a week of unusual strikeouts over at The Daily Dish...

First, calling Barney Frank a sometime "total asshole"; then (in the same breath) picking, picking, picking at the ugly scab of the unknown, pressing need to develop a front-page politics of lesser IQ by race well in advance of the science on it; and finally blasting the 'hard left' about Israel's manipulative pinkwashing.

[I have to take this one up, because I heard Netanyahu mention gays in his Knesset speech and I was thinking, "How very odd." I'm not sure I've ever heard that before.]

Let's start with something easy to analogize from. Senator Bob Corker goes to an auto plant opening and congratulates himself on what "we've done here". Of course, he visibly and ultimately opposed what was done. It is the same level of duplicity that some leftists and level-headed rightists sneer at, when a rightwing Israeli government, that depends on and cultivates its support from rabidly anti-gay groups, gets up and launches into "Look at Israel. We're so progressive on gay rights. :-)" True, the Israeli right is not nearly as captured on this topic as the American right, but still.

Kirchick, now marching in pride parades organized by liberals, one supposes, writes:

The first fallacy of the pinkwashing meme is that it’s a non sequitur. No one is saying that Israel ought to be immune from criticism because it treats gay people humanely. Israel’s stellar record on gay rights does not prevent anyone from condemning the country’s settlement policies,

To the contrary, I think the record will show that some people, including Kirchick, have argued exactly that, in particular, that gays-against-apartheid really have no place in a gay pride parade, say, because one must put the gay issue first.

Beyond that is a rightwing Israeli mincing that falls hard on liberals, not unlike how clear-minded liberals bristled when conservatives intoned that Ronald Reagan was a 'nice guy', and if he had to illegally mine harbors in South America, that was just what daddy did at the office, to borrow a phrase.

In this, the current Israeli government/leadership seems so smugly assured that their 'imposed compromise' is moral truth and not conceit that it is no wonder that people are raising questions about pinkwashing...

The Fact-free Rightwing Attack on Barney Frank

2011-11-29T18:03:00.001-05:00

Andrew Sullivan thinks he found a clip in which Barney Frank is being a "total asshole".

I've watched a lot of Barney Frank. As much as I can get. I've never seen him be gratuitously rude or an "asshole", even when angry.

The plain fact is that this student's preface, that the crisis happened "on your watch", is factually incorrect. Even rightwing law students ought to know that if you bring the allegations ("on your watch"), you bring the facts. I see no reason to kid glove him, really.

Prove otherwise or print a correction, no?

Update: You can't miss today's O'Reilly Factor on Barney Frank. Fact-free hyperbole: "single handedly responsible", "biggest liberal of all time". Epistemic closure, lunacy - it's not clear what the right collection of words are to describe it.

Update2: Krauthammer joins the fray, locked into his own ideological deficit. He and O'Reilly both seem to assume (and deliberately dis-inform their listeners) that the rightwing wanted to re-regulate Freddie/Fannie in order to strengthen its mission, rather than just make it possible for private institutions to take a bigger slice from the mortgage giants. Krauthammer somehow thinks that there is some "new reality" for liberals to adjust to, rather than just the same old bankrupt GOP ideas to hold at bay.

Can a Nation Be Great With a Crap Intelligence Agency?

2011-11-25T09:37:00.001-05:00

Recalling:

According to U.S. sources, in 2004, the CIA had lost its entire agent network in Iran when a CIA headquarters communications officer was about to send instructions to an agent via its Inmarsat transmitter/receivers. The CIA officer attempted to download data intended for a single operative, but accidentally hit a button that sent it to the entire U.S. spy network in Iran, these sources said.

This week, after years of rebuilding, another such catastrophe, with US listening equipment sold to the Lebanese government, eventually used by Lebanese Hizb'allah and other explanations:

Brian Ross, reports [link]:

"When you lose your entire station, either in Tehran or Beirut, that's a catastrophe," said Bob Baer, a legendary CIA agent whose Middle East exploits were fictionalized in the George Clooney film "Syriana." Baer said the disaster was due in part to a new generation of agents that has forgotten, or never learned, the traditional methods of intelligence gathering. "They don't understand tradecraft," Baer said. "And we have lost our touch in espionage."

PIZZA party for Hezbollah?:

In Beirut, two Hezbollah double agents pretended to go to work for the CIA. Hezbollah then learned of the restaurant where multiple CIA officers were meeting with several agents, according to the four current and former officials briefed on the case. The CIA used the codeword "PIZZA" when discussing where to meet with the agents, according to U.S. officials. Two former officials describe the location as a Beirut Pizza Hut. A current US official denied that CIA officers met their agents at Pizza Hut.From there, Hezbollah's internal security arm identified at least a dozen informants, and the identities of several CIA case officers.Hezbollah then began to "roll up" much of the CIA's network against the terror group, the officials said.

Score another one for resentiment

2011-11-20T11:53:00.001-05:00

Spain rushes headlong into the conservatives.

Where have we seen this before:"Rajoy has said little about what his party would do to fight Spain's sky-high unemployment and pile of debt..."

Suddenly, the new era of campaign on vague platitudes, then claim a mandate for radical right-wing policies, extends beyond the USA....

The Photo That Says It All

2011-11-18T05:42:00.001-05:00

Every now and then, a photographer captures the zeitgeist. This picture might be it, taken by Brian Smith for the NY Daily News.

The distraught look on the policemen's faces. The outstretched arm, that cannot be received. A system that sells its young (and old) out for the unpoliced, short-term greed of "The Big Short". A mop of hair, soaked in blood. A crestfallen fighter seemingly on the verge of tears...

We sold the national interest out to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Politically timid-to-the-point-of-failure, didn't go far enough to fix incentives of loan servicers or set up oversight.

We cut the stimulus from the wrong cookie cutter, so that the already cash-rich supply-side could "accelerate depreciation" and get richer (with no obvious "trickle-down" to be seen).

All the while, our politics remains mired in the bubble (often epistemic) that American exceptionalism implies that every wrong decision - even every bogus compromise - will somehow work out okay or not have consequences, short-term or cumulative, that America will always be "Great" and "#1".

Honey, I trashed the balance sheet

2011-11-17T12:08:00.001-05:00

QOTD: Would Merrill Lynch have trashed their balance sheet (or even AIG? Lehman?), if their trading floor and corporate-risk management spaces looked like this?:

("The Watchers" photo: the old Liberty Park, now called "Zuccotti", twit-pic, 11/17/2011)

Foxes in the Henhouse

2011-11-17T11:30:00.001-05:00

Reality check, resource allocation:

Number of police and barricades deployed to stop or watch over OWS: hundreds (thousands? air-support, too?)

Number of uniformed officers/ADAs on the trading floors of major Fox-in-Henhouse, too-big-to-fail institutions, either regularly or intermittently: zero

A New Age of Diminished Expectations

2011-11-16T01:45:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure, from this, if Andrew Sullivan "gets it".

A sane and responsible polity will fess up to this and propose and negotiate a fair balance of sacrifice ..

Actually, I'll say no, maybe it's not. When the ship goes upside down, such as it likely is, the "sane" thing is not a "fair balance", as counter-intuitive to the mediocre, middle-of-the-road mind as that assertion may be.

The sane thing is "radical" (even odious?) policies that push markets to clear and clear quickly, such as "insane" debt relief (deleveraging). The sane thing may also be a dose of what is not normal, like an increase in income re-distribution, in order to boost demand in specific ways (a "new deal", in the vernacular).

The alternative is long, slow "economic adjustments", much like the one in Japan.

Long, slow, and costly.

Put it this way: the cost of bailing out sub-prime borrowers and consumers - perhaps even businesses - who have "too much debt" seems exorbitant and outrageous ("odious"). But, doing so is a LOT less costly, in the long run.

One could also argue it is a LOT less risky, to do so. We have a false sense of security, because we've been bouncing along for over a year, now, without acute deterioration, i.e. the prospect of 'the bottom falling out'.

In our fragile condition, consider what would happen if there were an external shock to the U.S. economy, like a spike in oil prices. That's a truly terrifying prospect, no? Really, budget politics looks kinda small, bathed in that light.

"Jordan is not Palestine"

2011-11-15T04:47:00.001-05:00

Proof that, if you live long enough, you see everything:

Laugh of the Day

2011-11-10T08:51:00.001-05:00

Donald Trump (on CNBC): "I represent millions of voters."

More "Do Nothing"Evidence

2011-11-08T05:33:00.001-05:00

More evidence that the Tea Party wasn't much more than a trumped-up rebranding, filled with hallucinatory sloganeering, for the sole purpose of vacant vilification of "Obama".

Politico Reports on no need for action in post Tea Party victory world, here.

The Return of the GOP "Do Nothing" Congress

2011-11-04T13:39:00.000-04:00

Why do people continue to vote for these do-nothings?

Seriously, is there a better do-nothing job than Republican Senator or Congressman in the U.S.?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Oh, dear, another kind of Mankiw moment

2011-11-03T14:26:00.002-04:00

Harvard students walk out on Bush's financial "architect". Don't expect anyone to walk-out on Glenn Hubbard, anytime soon, though.

The backlash against the lies (including economic hallucinations) and irresponsibility of the Bush-era lives on.

FIOS fees go to fight Net Neutrality

2011-09-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

Would you want to be paying hefty access fees to a company that is using them to fight to charge you even more and different access fees?

Probably not, but Verizon is that company.

Yikes. I wonder if they toughht it through, before they got their dander up?

Grim Visage of War

2011-09-14T16:36:00.002-04:00

Hopefully, we haven't gotten inured to war, after years and years of it.

The Taliban attempt to create a "Tet Offensive" in Kabul, or something:

Photo: Mossadeq Sadeq

Waiting for the Peace Dividend in Iraq, still

2011-09-11T13:20:00.002-04:00

Both for members of Parliament and ordinary Iraqis in the streets of Baghdad, Sept. 11, 2011, is just another wearying day in a country beset by violence, political paralysis, and a deep, lingering sense that conditions aren't likely to improve anytime soon.

-National Journal

Laugh of the Day

2011-08-18T14:50:00.003-04:00

From the Kudlow-Kernan-Caruso-Cabreraesque CNBC brain trust milieu, 1140 is the "worst case". Got it.

Latest GOP Misery Index

2011-08-17T03:59:00.004-04:00

The Problem is with the 20-year budget, didn't you hear, so much so that we need a super-congress to solve it.

Meanwhile, what a headfake that is. Aren't we all dead in the long-run?

A cool 15 million:

A disasterous belief in American "exceptionalism"

2011-08-10T04:41:00.003-04:00

The belief that, no matter what we do (better: "is done by them"), it will all work out, leading to this kind of apathy at the polls:

"Overall, it appeared that more than 43% of voting-age adults turned out in the recalls [in Wisconsin]" - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Not even more than half the people of Wisconsin could be bothered to vote, with the dramatic changes/unraveling going on there. Gulp. Yet, this is seen as "high".

"The Revenge of Macro"

2011-08-08T12:13:00.002-04:00

La reprise to the "End of Macro" and all its aficionados.

(I just wanted to be the first to say it.)

American Heroes

2011-08-08T10:25:00.004-04:00

Was it worth it? The price that everyone is paying so that the GOP can pretend to get its brand back?

Syria

2011-08-07T14:39:00.001-04:00

What it means to live in the ambit of Iran. Syria goes past the point of return (if it hasn't already).

Cap, Cut and Heeere's Hoover!

2011-08-04T19:17:00.003-04:00

We now know what GOP-Tea prosperity looks like.

Thank you, Senator McConnell and the Senate Republicans. You guys are da bomb:

Paging Larry Kudlow

2011-08-04T13:09:00.002-04:00

How are those "green shoots" working out?

Just sayin'.

/"Future Babble"

Sedition: Defining Down "FULL faith and credit of the United States"

2011-08-02T20:46:00.003-04:00

So, who thinks that politicians who sign a "no new taxes pledge" and then go on to say that the U.S. debt is sound and sacrosanct aren't, at best, double-speakers, and, at worse, guilty of sedition?

After all, the "FULL faith and credit" of the U.S. includes the ability to tax (and even tax harshly, say) to make sure that obligations are met.

To deliberately sign a pledge that runs so obviously and "commonsensically" counter to the U.S. Constitution is perhaps ... sedition.

Market Gets to Vote on McConnell-Boehner Dancing on the Ceiling

2011-08-02T20:33:00.010-04:00

NO SENSE PLEASE, WE'RE REPUBLICANS

Kinda says it all, as the market digests extremist Tea-Party rhetoric-become-reality and legislation that more-or-less hamstrings policy makers and prolongs the uncertainty during a critical economic time in the U.S. economy:

Markets off 2.5%+, as Americans "embrace the suck" in GOP-Tea politics:

McConnell, Boehner: "PEACE (AND PROSPERITY) IN OUR TIME!"

2011-08-01T07:01:00.004-04:00

THE NEWEST "PEACE DIVIDEND" (FOR THE WEALTHIEST) FROM THE GOP

McConnell and Boehner obviously feel like they've achieved something ... suddenly, everyone is going to be better off because we are vapidly cutting spending during a downturn that has headline unemployment still at 9%.

Thought for the Day

2011-07-27T11:46:00.002-04:00

Krugman bait:

Apparently the GOP's "Confidence Fairy" doesn't take notice of, you know, Congressional use of the debt ceiling.

Thought for the day: Where are your jobs, Mr. Boehner?

2011-07-26T08:04:00.002-04:00

DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY

Not to question your delusions of adequacy, Mr. Boehner, but, we haven't had any new taxes on "job creators" since as long as anyone can remember.

So the question abides: where are all your jobs, then, Mr. Boehner?

In fact, the GOP insisted as part of the stimulus that huge accelerated-depreciation breaks be given to "job creators". Then, Obama presided over a 1-year "repeal" or "holiday" in the "death tax", just before he extended the favorable tax rates to avoid hitting the economy (and his re-election hopes) and put into place even more ill-advised tax breaks (e.g. the social security tax holiday).

So, again: where are all your jobs, Mr. Boehner?

Showdown Speech

2011-07-25T21:20:00.002-04:00

That was your showdown speech, Mr. President?

Who writes your stuff?