Author: Matthew G. Saroff

New Jersey Dem Establishment Struggles To Squash Upstart Challenge To Lautenberg

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It appears that the Republicans will not be running a serious candidate for New Jersey senate, so the real action will be in the Democratic primary, which will pits Frank Lautenberg against Rob Andrews.

It’s going to be interesting, we are already having members of the NJ delegation condemning Andrews for running against Lautenberg, and Andrews wants to have seven debates.

And then there is the fact that Lautenberg is something like 132 years old (OK, actually 84), which would suggest that his finishing his term is somewhat problematic.

Conversely, the sense I get is that Andrews is part of the South Jersey machine, and he voted for the authorization of forces bill, but I’m in way over my head teasing this one out.

Today in Iraq

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It now appears that, as expected religious leaders in Iraq have told Sadr that he does not have to disband the Mahdi militia.

This is not a surprising outcome. Any “disbanding” would only eliminate the already tenuous chain of command, and you would end up with dozens of smaller groups.

Meanwhile, the The Grauniad* appears to have gotten its hands on the status of forces agreement between Bush and Iraq.

It’s technically “temporary”, though it has no expiration date (kind of like the Billion Year Sea Org contracts), and it, “contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries.”

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

Obama Preparing to Opt Out of Public Financing

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Barack Obama is looking at opting out of the public financing system for the general election, as he already has in the primaries.

I think that this is a good idea. He’s out raising John McCain to a degree that boggles the mind, but his argument, that because he is raising so much in small dollar donations, he is basically sticking to the spirit of the law, is asinine.

There are a number of reasons that this is stupid. The first is that it’s hair splitting that will have people bringing up his “pledge” on public financing, and the second is that he is missing a line of attack that is useful.

His pledge was not to go onto public financing, it was to enter into negotiations with the Republican nominee on a “fund raising truce”.

What he should have said was, “I would like to negotiate with John McCain about a fund raising truce in good faith, but I find no good faith on his side. John McCain illegally withdrew from the public financing system that he sponsored, and has been committing an ongoing felony since then, using the inability of the FEC to make quorum as a dishonorable cover for his law breaking.”

John McCain and his campaign staff are knowingly committing a felony right now. That’s a fact, and they know it, because John McCain was the guy who wrote the law.

Delong is Wrong and Krugman is Right

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Brad Delong belives that a significant part of the housing bubble appreciation was due to a real lack of space, and thus he guesses that only about ½ of the appreciation will be lost, thinking that some of the appreciation is being driven by the , “location, location, location” factor.

Paul Krugman looks at the trajectories of rental and buying, and sees appreciating in housing but basically none in rentals, which would not be the case if there were actually a shortage of land in desirable locations.

Krugman is clearly right.

This is UnAmerican and Repulsive Behavior

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Democratic Illinois State Representative Monique Davis is cancer on the body politic, and next primary season, she needs to be excised:

Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

While context is frequently important, in this case it’s minor. There was some sort of political payoff to a Baptist Church going through the legislature, and Mr. Sherman, and atheist activist, was opposed.

But in this case, the the context does not matter. This person should be be permanently removed from the public sphere, whether that be through the primary process, or by convincing Mayor Daley (the younger) to pull his support.

I have not heard this vile outburst of bigotry since I was an adult.

The Illinois primary is over, but there is 2010.

Shift at Top May Mean Shift in Tone for Clinton – New York Times

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I think that Penn’s kind of sort of firing is unlikely to pull it out for Hillary Clinton at this late date, but Geoff Garin does seem to be a breath of fresh air.

That being said, Josh Marshall published a reader letter that nails the Penn problem on the head:

….increasingly I think Penn is the main reason. His faults suffused and defined her campaign – think small and narrow, don’t change anything that worked for Bill, don’t roll your proposals into a larger vision, don’t suggest that you bring anything to the table but stolidity and experience – and, for targeted voters only, emphasize your gender. Penn took one of the most popular Democrats of the last 40 years and made her into a one-note bore.

Mark Penn and his “microtargeting”.

Hillary is not Bill, and something sucked much the life out of her campaign.

It’s why she seems better in the debates, there, it’s just her and her knowledge.

Economics Update

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Busy day in real estate, we have:

Of course with any of these situations, you will inevitably find the highly placed moron, and today’s is Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who is saying that he thinks that the credit crunch is, “in the final innings”. If you have money in Morgan, get it out now.

Why am I so certain about this? Because the Fed auctioned another $50 billion banks in their “crap for cash” program, which has now “auctioned” $310 billion to banks for their worthless mortgage paper.

If that doesn’t convince you, how about GMAC looking down the barrel of a ratings cut, which means that people who might want to buy a car will find it even more difficult to get a loan to do so.

Of course, Mack thinks that things are looking up because private equity firm TPG just put $7 billion into WaMu, which implies to him that private equity is on its way to a comeback.

Nope….Dead cat bounce. WaMu’s only virtue is that it’s better, and only a bit better, than Countrywide.

For an idea of how badly things are going, note that First Marblehead is at risk of imploding. Note that FM is a student-loan services provider. It should basically be impossible for them to lose money.

This is federally guaranteed, and cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, but given that their insurer, The Education Resources Institute Inc., just filed for bankruptcy, all bets are off.

Schadenfreude

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It looks like Senator David Vitter will be called to testify at the DC Madame trial by the defense.

Apparently, Vitter did not do “sex”, just the fantasy service….if reports are true, something involving his wearing a diaper.

BTW, his lawyer is suggesting that he will take the 5th.

For what’s worth, in addition to Vitter, “Randall Tobias, a former senior State Department official, and military strategist Harlan Ullman, the father of the ‘shock and awe’ tactics are also on the list.

Heh.

Bogus Job Creation Data?

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I would be stunned if the Bush Administration would take a nonpartisan collection of data, and massage it for political advantage. What if they did it on Global Warming Data ANWR Drilling Stem Cell Research Morning After Contraceptives Safe Sex Preventing AIDS Lead Paint Mercury Iraq

Well, it now appears that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are overstating job growth in the US, see Dean Baker and Barry Ritholtz.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that the BLS cannot get questionnaires regarding employment to all the businesses out there. A number of businesses, particularly newer and smaller ones, slip through the cracks.

It’s called birth-death adjustment, and in 2007, it guesstimated about 300,000 more jobs than were actually created.

Dean Baker notes that the BLS is showing that the restaurant sector is shown to have added 48,000 jobs in January and February, but restaurant spending is shown to have decreased by about 0.6% over the same period.

Barry Ritholtz notes that the B/D adjustment accounted for 80% of all new jobs in 2007, and he has a nice picture of 2008 adjustments:

Given Baker’s data on restaurants, I would circle hospitality too, but the idea that construction and financial services are surging is just loopy.

More Tanker Fun

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Well, in the latest bit of unmitigated bullsh&# to spew forth from Seattle Chicago, boeing is now claiming that the USAF had worries about the refueling boom, but covered these concerns up.

McDonnel Douglas had no problem whatsoever coming up with their own boom in the 1970s, and EADS is already working on one for the Australians, and it’s already flying.

Unmitigated crap.

We have a little one paragraph blurb in Aviation Week‘s Newsbreaks section (subscription required):

A factor that won the U.S. Air Force replacement tanker program for Northrop Grumman’s KC-45 may have operational repercussions, say U.S. Air Force critics. The KC-45’s ability to carry cargo and passengers is being used to validate the need for production of fewer C-17 transports. But a long-time operations expert says USAF will now be required to assign the tanker “for too many missions” because of its “significant strategic airlift capability,” he says. “It’s a convenient argument to kill the C-17, but it also means they’re going to try to use the tanker for everything under the Sun.”

Let’s see, they are claiming that there will be “operational repercussions” because the aircraft is too capable. That’s like claiming that you are too rich, or there is too much chocolate.

What they are really saying is that when choosing an airframe for the basis of the tanker, a 767 or a shortened 777, they went with the 767 because it did a better job of protecting the C-17 production line.

American Hero: Lieutenant Commander Matthew Diaz

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Lt. Cdr. Diaz is the man who got the list of the Gitmo detainees out when Bush and His Evil Minions™ were illegally concealing this information from the International Red Cross (It’s called “disappearing”).

The National Press Club just gave him the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.

He spent 6 months in the brig, and now the Pentagon is trying to take his law license.

Read the article from the always compelling Scott Horton.

A Good Commentary on Russia

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Boston Globe columnist James Carroll looks at what might be driving Russia’s hostility to recent NATO actions, and comes to the conlusion that it’s completely justified:

  • The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was accompanied by a buildup of NATO.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev was assured that if the USSR accepted the reunified Germany’s presence in NATO, there would be no further eastern expansion of the alliance.

Carroll quotes George Kennan describing NATO expansion as, “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”

The list of countries that have invaded Russia in the past few hundred years includes, “Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, Austria, France, Great Britain, and Germany”, though he leaves off the US’s direct military participation in White Russian revolts of the 1920s.

I would argue that Carroll does not go far enough.

If one looks at the Hart-Rudman Commission of the late 1990s looking at coming threats to America, and the behavior of Lynne Cheney, who continuously called for an immediate military strike on China, and resigned when she was created like a crazy aunt by everyone else, inclucing other Republicans, and juxtaposes it with the report that Francis Fukuyama said that “There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn’t do as well“, I think that this is actually a deliberate strategy.

The Republican party needs an external enemy to succeed, and that this actions taken recently, particularly the missile shield, are part of a deliberate attempt to recreate the Cold War for partisan political gain.

B-2 Center of Gravity Seen as Likely Cause of Crash

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As with any flying wing, the moment arm for the controls is fairly short, so maintaining the CG within the proper range is crucial to controllability.

Actually, it’s not just flying wings. The first B-1 crash happened because the CG was too far aft, because the fuel was not properly distributed.

Well, investigators are now examining the fuel management system or other issues involving the CG of the aircraft. (Paid sub reqd)

The report (a short blurb really) says that the , “bomber rotated prematurely, lifted off too early and stalled”.

According to a former B-2 pilot, ““One of these things we always worried about on ferry missions is that you have a lot more fuel on board than on training or operational missions. So CG can play a role. You have to make sure you don’t overcontrol on takeoff because that’s easy to do with an aft CG in a fully loaded configuration.”