He has scheduled a, “major announcement regarding the campaign“.
Sounds to me like he’s going to get out. He’s got lower numbers than the margin of error, which means that he could actually have negative poll numbers.
Month: December 2007
Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread
The hed above is straight from The New York Times article about how the Federal Reserve under Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan ignored the warning signs of the real estate bubble.
It’s a clever turn of phrase. Greenspan was an acolyte of Rand’s and what was likely his first publication in the Times was his defense of Atlas Shrugged against a brutal review of the work. He argued that it was actually a “celebration of life and happiness”.
While the authors of the article rarely write the headline, it is clearly an attempt to cast the failures of the Fed to deal with the problems in the credit markets generally, and the housing market specifically as a result of Greenspan’s Randroid ideas.
It clearly shows that Greenspan was never the genius that he was viewed as in, say, 2000.
To my mind, the high opinion that many people had of him was an artifact of low oil prices and the cooking of the books with regard to inflation figures.
Read the article. It’s a hoot.
Deep Thoughts
Every so often, I have a thought that is worthy of Jack Handy, and I’m sharing this with you:
I was at my chiropractor, and I noticed the various theraputic furniture that they have in the office.
With springs, hinges, dampers and suspension, powered lifts, straps and buckles, I thought You know, a pervert could have a lot of fun with this stuff.
And then I realized, Throw in some killer eggnog with whipped cream, and you could have a really kick ass office party.
Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Back Down on Attempt to Seize Control of JAG Corps
Yesterday, I mentioned how Bush was attempting to put political hacks in charge of the military’s legal corps, one would assume that they were doing this because they have so completely f$%#ed up real trials, so they wanted false ones.
Today, they have backed down. Reviews and promotions will be handled through the military chain of command, not through political hacks.
My guess is that a few dozen of the people involved with the Gitmo trials made it clear that they would resign their commissions if this went through.
Brkk: Wanker of the Day: The New York Times
Media Bloodhound noticed something about how the New York Times covered Dodd’s filibuster threat victory, ON PAGE A-29.
That’s right, on page A-bloody-29. No note of it at all on the front page.
Holy Crap????
The story, “Democrat Dan Bartlett wins Texas State Rep. District 97“, might not sound like much, but take a look at the historical numbers for this district:
District 97 – Profile
| Year
Race |
Dem |
Percent |
|
2000 PRES |
Gore | 34.1% |
|
2002GOV |
Sanchez | 36.1% |
|
2004 PRES |
Kerry | 35.8% |
|
2006 SEN |
Radnofsky | 33.7% |
|
2007 ST REP |
Barrett | 52.2% |
This is somewhere between a 16 and a 19 point swing.
Dennis Kucinich’s Dead
Dennis Kucinich’s 52-year-old brother found dead in his home. No evidence of foul play.
My sincerest sympathies go out to the Kucinich family.
FCC Pimps for Big Media
Once again, the FCC has passed rules allowing big media to grow even bigger.
3-2 party line decision. It will be challenged in court, and probably Congress.
Prosecutors Investigating Bear Stearns
Fortune has an article, somewhat amusingly titled titled Prosecutors loaded for Bear, looking into allegations of insider trading.
Specifically, it is alleged that senior fund manager Ralph Cioffi pulled his money out of Bear’s mortgage backed funds about 2 weeks before they imploded.
Drip, drip, drip…I stand by my prediction on Bear Stearns: They will cease to exist as an independent entity before August 2, 2008.
Senate Democrats Considering Removing Byrd as Appropriations Chair
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) is not doing well health wise.
At 90 years old, he needs help walking, and there are suggestions that he is no longer physically able to run the appropriations committee, so there are discussions about moving him aside.
At this point, it is just talk, and any move would set up a battle for who would head the powerful committee, so my guess is that nothing will be done until 2008.
Unfortunately, he was re-elected in 2006, so this will have to be sorted out sooner or later.
Russian Head of Nuclear Forces Says Retargeting Europe Under Consideration
Remember when I mentioned that Obama’s Senate subcommittee never met? It was the Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Europe.
It might look at things like, I don’t know, the fact that the Russians are threatening to retarget Europe over the US Missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
General Nikolai Solovtsov, head of strategic missile forces says that Russia might just do this if the installation is seen to, “undermine the Russian nuclear deterrent capability”.
Just because it doesn’t get a whole bunch of press doesn’t mean that it isn’t important work. John Kerry, in a similar position, was instrumental in breaking open the criminal terrorist money laundering operation known as BCCI.
Judge Tells DoJ Not To Tell Him What to Do, Holds CIA Tapes Hearing
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter, and told lawyers to appear before him this Friday.
Kennedy as you recall was the judge who ordered the government to preserve, “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.”
The tapes were destroyed a couple of months later.
Even if the destruction technically complied with the letter of his order, they could still be on the hook for obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in “pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation.”
Nouriel Roubini Nails It Again, Central Banks Are Engaging in Stealth Rate Cuts
He has a quick inventory of the actions taken, followed by an analysis that shows that the central banks are dropping rates to the floor and ramping up the printing presses.
Inflation, here we come.
I would note however that the US inflation rate is already severely understated.
Members of Congress Push for Special Prosecutor in Tapes Case
I was 11 in 1973, and that hed sounds like Deja vu, but Conyers and Kennedy are calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA tape destruction.
Bush and His Evil Minions™ make miss the openness, honesty, and general humanity of the Nixon administration.
I cannot believe that I just said that.
Israel-Gaza Conflict Heating Up
Over the past few days, there have been a series of rocket launches from Gaza, and airstrikes into Gaza, culminating (at least for now) in an Israeli airstrike killing Majed al-Harazin, one of Islamic Jihad’s top leaders.
Another day in the Middle East…***sigh***
Long Island Couple Found Guilty of Slavery
They face up to 40 years in Federal prison, and the jury has decided that their $2 million dollar house was used in the commissiion of a crime and so forfeited.
As horrific as the testimony given in the case was, a landscaper testified that the women begged for food, these high profile cases involving domestic servants are really the small minority of the cases.
Most are larger scale, involving sweatshops and prostitution, and they are far more appalling.
Federal Reserve to Tighten Lending Regulations
This good, but I need to say three words: barn door cow.
The high points:
- Prohibit giving people unaffordable loans.
- Restrict use of “liar” loans.
- Prohibit or limit prepayment penalties.
- Curb or better disclose broker incentives.
- Require or encourage escrowing of taxes and insurance.
- Prohibit coercion of appraisers.
- Prohibit loan servicers from engaging in unfair practices.
- Require better disclosure overall.
Of course, half of these should be done already by anyone who wants to operate for more than a few years and then leave town ahead of the police.
About Bloody Time: US Ag Subsidies Go to WTO
The farm subsidies are bad policies all around, and the fact that the WTO has opened probe is a good thing.
It costs the taxpayers money, it driver poor 3rd world farmers off their farms (one of the sources of the illegal immigration from Mexico is farmers displaced by subsided American corn).
Wanker of the Day: Bill Clinton
What the hell was he thinking?????
He goes and suggests that when Hillary becomes prez, she sent people out to convince allies that the US is open to real diplomacy (good idea), and that one of the people she send out is George Herbert Walker Bush, father of George W. Bush?
Let’s see, you piss off the Democratic primary voters bu suggesting that Shrub’s DAD be a part of a foreign policy good will tour in which he repudiates his son?
This is wrong on so many levels, which Bush-the-elder clearly sees, as he said no bloody way.
I gotta figure that he was going off and trying to be the center of attention, and his mouth outran his mind.
Scabs
It looks like a number of the talk show hosts are going to cross the picket lines in addition to Carson Daley, Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien will all be returning to air shortly.
Leno and O’Brien are actually members of the Writers Guild, which makes it worse.
Don’t watch them, boycott their advertisers.
I think that this is very different from David Letterman’s efforts, where, as opposed to breaking the strike, he is attempting to cut a limited deal (the same is rumored of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show).