Category: Politics

Blue Bush Dogs: Not Moderate, Just Corrupt

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Davit Sirota has a very good analysis of the despicable betrayal of the American people by the so called “moderate” Blue Bush Dog Democrats with regards to basic fairness and the economic stability of the United States.

The bill in question, HR 3609, is rather simple: It would allow a bankruptcy judge, “To ameliorate the terms of abusive “subprime” mortgages.” Under the current law, judges can already do this for investment properties, and for vacation homes, but for primary homes? Das ist Verboten.

So the judge could vitiate prepayment penalties to allow for refinance, or change interest rates, or modify fees charged for things like taking a phone call from a customer, though it would not give the judge power to forgive principal, since a mortgage is, after all, a secured loan.

While I favor a more expansive bill, one that would cover all consumers, this could go a long way towards fixing the system. As it currently stands, many loan servicers are legally unable to modify the terms of a loan, because their contracts with the bond holders prohibit it.

Even when they can, there is little incentive for them to negotiate in good faith.

What this means, of course, is more Chapter 7 liquidations, as opposed to Chapter 11 reorgs, more foreclosures, more empty houses blighting more neighborhoods, and more turmoil on wall street. It is The Tragedy of the Commons writ with trillions of dollars to be eventually be baid for by all of us.

Bush Pocket Veto of Troops Pay Raise is Invalid

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I understand that Bush is threatening a veto of the latest defense authorization bill.

It appears that inconveniencing banks means more to him than giving our troops the payraise they deserve.

That being, this rather insightful analysis is correct: If he wants to do this, then he has to put his name on the veto with those crayons sharpies that he is so fond of. He cannot use the pocket veto, because Congress is still technically in session.

The Senate has remained in session to prevent recess appointments, and as such his claim, “The adjournment of the Congress has prevented my return of H.R. 1585 within the meaning of Article I, section 7, clause 2 of the Constitution”, is completely without merit.

If you really find this provision so bad, stop behaving like what Ahnuld would call a “Girlie Man”, and put your name on a veto that cuts pay for the troops.

Don’t worry, it’s not like any or your kids will be affected.

Too True

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In his blog post, Memories of 2003, the great Paul Krugman notes:

Back in 2003 all the Kewl Kids, as a lot of my friends call them,

FWIW, I call them “very serious people”.

thought that to suggest that Bush was misleading us into war was, you know, shrill — it marked you as not being a Serious Person.

And here’s the thing: they still do. Even now, it’s better for your reputation not to have noticed until, say, 2005 that we had some dangerous people running the country. If you noticed earlier — or, worse yet, you caught on to the administration’s essential mendacity right from the beginning — it’s not a sign that maybe you had good judgment. It shows that you were an irrational Bush hater.

This is kind of like the term “Prematurely anti-fascist” that was big in the 1950s.

How can one be prematurely anti-fascist??? That’s kind of like being prematurely anti-baby eating.

It was a way of dismissing people’s ideas without any serious review.

It’s why the Democratic party should extricate from groups of “very serious people” like the Council on Foreign Relations.

I Love it When Conservatives Go Hammer and Tongs After Each Other

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In the left corner, wearing the bible print trunks, Michael Dale “The Gastric Bypass” Huckabee, and in the left corner, wearing currency print trunks with the corporate sponsorship, the Club for Growth.

It appears that the CfG is taking out bunch of nasty ads against Huckabee.

Four years ago, they called me a, “tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show”, so I’m experiencing no small amount of schadenfruede.

While Obama and Hillary Try to Make Hay, Edwards Takes High Road on Assassination

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We’ve got them sniping back and forth here, and to his credit John Edwards is not saying that it’s all about him:

Benazir Bhutto was a brave and historic leader for Pakistan. Her assassination is a sad and solemn event, and our hearts go out to her family and to the Pakistani people. But we will not let this contemptible, cowardly act delay the march of progress in Pakistan for a single second.

I have seen firsthand in Pakistan, and in meetings with Prime Minister Bhutto and President Musharraf, the instability of the country and the complexity of the challenges they face. At this critical moment, America must convey both strength and principle. We should do everything in our power to help bring the perpetrators of this heinous act to justice and to ensure that Bhutto’s movement toward democracy continues.

Compares favorably to the posturing by Clinton, Obama, Romney, Giuliani, etc. where they all basically say, “this is why you should vote for me“

It compares even more favorably to Mike Huckabee’s statement, where he says, “There’s a country called Pakistan? Really? Are you sure??“

I would note that my assessment of Bhutto is far less charitable than his, but he’s not making hay of the assassination, which is a good thing.

A Note to Ramesh Ponnuru

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It appears that the Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor for National Review, has taken offense at a a blog post I made about 8 days ago regarding rumors that Time Magazine wanted him to write regular OP/EDs for them.

The title was and is over the top and offensive, which will surprise my friends no one bit, and you can go to the post and see my apology in the comment.

However, I take exception (not offense, exception) to one thing that he posted in The Corner:

That’s one “progressive” blogger’s reaction to the possibility that I will become a regular columnist for Time.

(emphasis mine)

I am not a progressive. I am a liberal.

A progressive is what wimps call themselves if they favor forward looking programs, but have capitulated to the linguistic efforts to equate the term “liberal” with “N***er Lover” in the 1970s by various reactionaries.

I’d like to think that I have a bit more intestinal fortitude.

To quote John F. Kennedy:

But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

You can also refer to the late Steve’s Gilliard’s post on the subject. He was alway rather insistent on his use of the term “liberal”, rather than “progressive”.

Even New Labour Sick of Anti-Terror Laws

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It looks like Gordon Brown is looking at a revolt among his own party regarding his proposal to extend the period of detention without charge in terrorism cases from 28 days to 42 days.

It probably does not help that Sir Ken Macdonald QC, Head of the CPS and Director of Public Prosecutions, in addition to, “the former attorney general Lord Goldsmith and the former Lord chancellor Lord Falconer.”

What I don’t get about the current politics in Britain is how the other parties are not exploiting the current situation.

Brown is floundering, Blair was remarkably unpopular, and that was before his conversion to Catholicism, which from what I’ve read, both historical and current stories, is a very big negative to the British public.

Why the Tories or Lib-Dems are unable to pick up significant seats in these circumstances is completely beyond me.

It’s Official, Politicians Becoming Drooling Idiots: Barack Obama Believes His Own PR

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I understand his politics of hope. I understand how he thinks that this is the best way to go. I also understand how this is a central tenet of his campaign.

Still, in looking at his speech intended to close the deal in Iowa, it’s clear that he’s jumped the shark:

It’s change that won’t just come from more anger at Washington or turning up the heat on Republicans….

OK, I differ, but it’s consistent with his message.

Then, unfortunately, he goes on with his examples of how hope has won.

But I also know this. I know that hope has been the guiding force behind the most improbable changes this country has ever made. In the face of tyranny, it’s what led a band of colonists to rise up against an Empire.

Let’s run the numbers: 25,000 American casualties, 8000 in battle, 17,000 from disease including about 8000 who died as prisoners of war, and a slightly smaller number of British casualties. This isn’t hope, this is Bismark’s, “Blood and Iron”, at a cost of somewhere north of 1% of the population of the 13 colonies.

No one bowed before hope.

In the face of slavery, it’s what fueled the resistance of the slave and the abolitionist, and what allowed a President to chart a treacherous course to ensure that the nation would not continue half slave and half free.

In justification of what the slave owners considered their property, we have 110,000 Americans killed in action, with 360,000 total dead in US service, and 93,000 Confederate KIAs and 258,000 dead in CSA service, a number amounting to about 1 in 30 people living in the United States.

This was a battle against selfishness, and the costs were enormous, not a battle over “hope”.

In the face of war and Depression, it’s what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation.

World War II, huh? We have 73 Million dead.

Again, about 3% of the world population.

In the face of oppression, it’s what led young men and women to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through the streets of Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause.

Which ignores the bombings of school girls, tens of thousands of lynchings in Jim Crow land, resulting an ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Black Americans from the South to the North.

That’s the power of hope – to imagine, and then work for, what had seemed impossible before.

The people were not swayed by a desire for change and hope, they were forced kicking and screaming, and the sons of Jim Crow, in their heart of hearts still believe, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever“. Trust me, I’m white, and I’ve lived in the south, and I heard the “white to white” discussions during things like the OJ trial and following Katerina.

They believe it to this day, and they vote consistently Republican.

I understand the need to show “The Audacity of Hope“. It’s what you think will resonate, and you really believe it, but I’d be hard pressed to find one more counter factual example than all four that have been given here.

In his speach, he has not only rode his motorcycle over a tankful of selachians, but he has done so wearing a tutu and fairy wings.

He has left the realm of Matthew Yglesias’s Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics*, and gone straight to something I am calling the Tinkerbell Theory of Everything, wherein the noble tinkerbell (typically played by a follow spotlight) is saved by all the children in the audience clapping just as hard as they can.

If there is a problem with the Neocons, and other descendants of the Trotskyite intellectual tradition, it is the consistent denial of reality in order to confirm their theories, but Barack Obama makes them look like hard eyed realists.

H/t to Chris Bowers for the initial catch on the speach.

*To quote the other Matthew:

The ring is a bit goofy. Basically, it lets its bearer generate streams of green energy that can take on all kinds of shapes. The important point is that, when fully charged what the ring can do is limited only by the stipulation that it create green stuff and by the user’s combination of will and imagination. Consequently, the main criterion for becoming a Green Lantern is that you need to be a person capable of “overcoming fear” which allows you to unleash the ring’s full capacities. It used to be the case that the rings wouldn’t function against yellow objects, but this is now understood to be a consequence of the “Parallax fear anomaly” which, along with all the ring’s other limits, can be overcome with sufficient willpower.

Suffice it to say that I think all this makes an okay premise for a comic book. But a lot of people seem to think that American military might is like one of these power rings. They seem to think that, roughly speaking, we can accomplish absolutely anything in the world through the application of sufficient military force. The only thing limiting us is a lack of willpower.

What’s more, this theory can’t be empirically demonstrated to be wrong. Things that you or I might take as demonstrating the limited utility of military power to accomplish certain kinds of things are, instead, taken as evidence of lack of will. Thus we see that problems in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t reasons to avoid new military ventures, but reasons why we must embark upon them: “Add a failure in Iran to a failure in Iraq to a failure in Afghanistan, and we could supercharge Islamic radicalism in a way never before seen. The widespread and lethal impression of American weakness under the Clinton administration, which did so much to energize bin Ladenism in the 1990s, could look like the glory years of American power compared to what the Bush administration may leave in its wake.“

My Thoughts on the Bhutto Assassination

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First, it’s clear that even by the standards of Pakistani politics, she was highly corrupt, as mind boggling as this characterization was.

This is something that is frequently ignored, as the westerners that she met with were dealing with someone who went to Harvard/Radcliffe and then Oxford. She was well spoken, and knew how to make her point in terms that were familiar to the western officials whom she studiously cultivated.

In this way, she was very similar to Ahmed Chalabi, whose support from US officials, despite a history of criminal, dishonest, and corrupt dealings, managed to convince US figures who were profoundly ignorant of that part of the world to support his interests.

That they both went to college at prestigious western schools, (Chalabi received his BS from MIT, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago) is not an inconsequential part of this equation. It taught both of them how to communicate their interests in a very fluent way with their American counterparts.

That being said, it is clear that Bhutto was far more interested in actually governing and implementing policies, as opposed to Chalabi’s rather more venal interests.

Additionally, as the head of a the only major opposition party was assassinated yesterday, and with the elections less than two weeks away, it’s clear that the elections will not mean anything.

All that they will do is to serve as a rubber stamp of Pervez Musharraf’s power, as the only other potential rival to power, Nawaz Sharif, has not been allowed stand for election.

As to Mushaffaf, he is largely the product of, and completely beholden to, the Pakistani military establishment (which includes Pakistani intelligence services) which has little or no interest in pursuing the American anti-terrorism or anti Taliban agenda.

The Pakistani military’s culture resembles to a very large degree that of the German Imperial Navy pre World War I. They are focused on “der tag”*, the day, i.e. the eventual large scale conflict with India much in the same way that the German fleet focused on an eventual showdown with their British counterparts.

As a result, both organizations had limited effectiveness to the task at hand.

As such, it is no surprise that very little of the military aid that the US has sent to Pakistan has gone towards fighting the Taliban or terrorism, but has instead been directed toward India.

As to who is directly responsible for the assassination, I do not know, and neither does anyone else writing about it, though I lean toward various Pakistani warlords in the generally lawless border regions who were directly threatened by Bhutto’s policies.

However, it is clear that Musharraf deliberately impaired the security arrangements for Bhutto, probably in an effort to hamstring her ability to campaign, and as such he does bear some direct responsibility for her death.

I don’t see any resolution of this situation as being favorable to the United States, a quick perusal of Sharif’s record shows him having amended the constitution to make removal of a prime minister nearly impossible, and considering the fact that Pakistan has somewhere between 30 and 100 nuclear weapons, and the possibilities for the average Pakistani citizen are even worse.

There is a more general lesson to be learned though, and that is that the US has for a very long time generally cast about for “our man” in various places in the world of interest, rather than looking at issues of governance and process, and the results when this individual falls up short, as has happened when the US withdrew to some degree from Musharraf and placed its chips on Bhutto, have almost always been disastrous.

*At official events banquets, the German Navy always had a toast to “der tag”, translated as “the day”, referring to the eventual clash of fleets.

Economic update

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Nouriel Roubini sees the following signs of an upcoming recession (I consider them to be signs of a current recession, but I’m not an economist):

  • Initial unemployment claims at 2001 recession level.
  • Durable and capital goods orders falling.
  • Consumer confidence down.
  • Oil prices closer to $100 than to $90/bbl.
  • Retail sales falling after accounting for inflation.
  • Residential real estate going down, and accellerating.
  • Commercial real estate starting down (more below).
  • Various leading indicators falling, as are corporate earnings.
  • Credit markets not only staying seized up, but getting even more seized up. (Dr. Roubins bullet points this out into about 5-7 items)
  • Unstable world environment.

In terms of more specific news, we have mortgage applications falling off a cliff, despite a rate cut, Fitch saying that it may downgrade residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) because the insurers for these bonds are basically insolvent, Goldman-Sachs is predicting that Citigroup may be forced to cut its divident (implying that there is more bad news to come), the Chinese Director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange saying that the US should not cut rates any more because it will “hammer” the dollar, there is increasing evidence that commercial real estate is starting to tank too (It typically lags residential real estate by about ½ year), and residential real estate prices have fall by 6.7% year over year (and at about an 11.7% rate for the past quarter).

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

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According to CNN’s report, she was bombed and shot:

Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily-guarded vehicle to leave the rally.

Khan said while it appeared Bhutto was shot, it was unclear if her bullet wounds were caused by a shooting or shrapnel from the bomb.

You don’t get bullet wounds from a bomb.

Shot and bombed, and this is a government teetering on the brink of anarchy with nuclear weapons.

Democrats Try Fiscal Sanity in Campaigns

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The Democratic Presidential candidates are finally moving toward a flat fee structure with their consultants, as opposed to paying a percentage of the media buy.

The Republicans have been doing this for years, and it removes a perverse incentive for the consultants to recommend large media buys, since it pads their fees.

Of interest is this statement:

In interviews, aides said Ms. Clinton, of New York, and Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina, had negotiated flat fees with their top consultants. And Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has capped what his consultants can earn, which will convert their more traditional percentage deal into a flat fee once his ad spending passes a certain threshold, his aides say.

As on healthcare, the putative “candidate of change” is taking the more timid and status quo route.

Hopefully, this is a first step in putting a better leash on Democratic political consultants who frequently spend too much time as the face of the campaign to the press.

Political consultants should neither be seen nor heard until after the general election.

Sally Quinn Is Concerned

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Oh my, Sally Quinn is shocked.

It appears that the House of Representatives has passed a resolution (H.R. 847) declaring that “Expresses continued support for Christians in the United States . . . acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States . . . rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and expresses its deepest respect to American Christians.”

She expresses concern that, “Earlier this year the House also passed resolutions honoring Islamic and Indian holidays but nothing that so equated a single faith with America and Americans”.

Gee, I wonder who might have created this.

I don’t know, maybe those people who valued pleasant DC cocktail party conversation over real discussions of issues and real values.

Maybe those who favored phony protestations of faith as a good way to “play the game” of politics”, because, of course, inside the Beltway, where all the important people live, policies don’t matter.

Whether you are a Washington Post editor (or just married to one), a congressional page, a lobbyist, a reporter, or a Washington DC pundit, you make decent money, are guaranteed steady work, have excellent health care benefits, and a pretty good retirement package.

You can’t take policy seriously, it gets in the way of your parties. It makes conversation stilted. It makes people think that you aren’t a “very serious person”.

Sound like anyone you know?

Obama Looking at Appointing Schwartzenegger to Cabinet

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This is, I think, a good illustration of the problems that I have with Obama.

Arnold is not a bipartisan figure, he is a self serving one, and only after getting his clock cleaned did he make any real effort toward “bipartisan” action. Furthermore, he’s doing his best to undermine those so called bipartisan initiatives through executive orders and inaction.

Ahnuld is not even suitable as head of the physical fitness council, as he is a former steroid user.

This is a dangerous level of naivety, and until adults run the Republican party again, reaching across the party aisle is simply an exercise in futility.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot: The Dems Cave on SCHIP????

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What the hell are they thinking????

They just passed a bill extending SCHIP as it currently exists until March 2009. This is acutally a cut, because Bush has issued executive orders to reduce the scope of the existing program.

I understand the extension, but they could have extended it for 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months, and forced the Republicans to come back to this tremendously popular program, again, and again, and again.

Instead of this, which is a win-win, the kids get their insurance, and the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, they took it off the table.

**sigh**

A Must Read Book: How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative

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Well, the continuing unfolding scandal of the 2002 New Hampshire phone jamming scandal has provided quite a lot of insight into how Republicans work, and How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, by Allen Raymond, is one of the products of the scandal.

As a result of his being fingered as the fall guy for the phone jamming, he was guilty as hell (served 3 months), but he was a foot soldier sacrificed in an attempt to protect the higher ups.
First, we have a McClatchy review of an advance copy of the book, which notes that James Tobin, he former regional director for both the RNC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (convicted and now on appeal), made 22 calls to the White House *cough* Rove *cough* in the 24 hours surrounding the phone jamming.

As soon as the investigation started, Tobin and Charles McGee, the executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, denied all knowledge, and basically pretended not to know Raymond. In the days following the election, when Raymond “when he phoned Tobin after Sununu’s 19,000-vote election victory to tell him that a Manchester, N.H., police officer was looking into the scheme, Tobin responded, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.'”

Also of interest is his story of the related at TPMmuckraker:

To set the scene: Raymond got a call in 2000* from two former colleagues in New Jersey who ran a consulting shop called Jamestown Associates. They were working for Dick Zimmer, who was running against Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), the incumbent, and they were pulling out all the stops. (Ed. Note: This post originally stated that this happened in 2002 — that was my mistake, not Raymond’s.)

They’d already succeeded in getting a Green Party candidate on the ballot to drain liberal votes from Holt (a favorite GOP trick). And they had already put Raymond’s firm to work calling Green-oriented households and urging them to support the Green candidate.

But what came next was “even better”:

[Tom Blakely from Jamestown Associates] called me up and asked, “How do you guys find voice talent?”

“Well, I’ve got a whole catalog of different voices on CDs. I’ve got ‘single Northeastern female,’ I’ve got ‘Southern belle’ — what are you looking for?”

“We’re targeting Democrats of Eastern European descent using a surname select and geopolitical filter.”

“Oh,” I said, quickly doing the polarizing-voter math in my head. “How about ‘angry black man’?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. What’s his voice sound like?”

So I cued up one particular actor’s CD on my computer and put the phone to the speaker. The track I played was one in which the actor was deliberately playing up a street gang character.

After listening for a few seconds, Blakely said, “That’s the guy!”

So we had the actor record a spot over the telephone saying, “I’m calling as a Democrat, asking you to vote for the Democratic nominee. We need your vote for Holt.”

I’m not saying that all Eastern European whites are racists, but, no matter where or when an election is held, there is a always a cultural divide that you can rely on. The message was “I’m ghetto black calling you, racist Ukrainian guy, and scaring the crap out of you because you probably think that if you don’t vote for the Democrat I’m going to come to your house and take care of some business.”

The calls were extremely highly targeted, household by household, no message ever left on an answering machine. We wanted the message heard only by people whose reaction would be “I’m not voting for Holt because he uses scary black men to call my house.”

We made calls to Democratic union households supporting Zimmer, taped by actors putting on thick Spanish accents, figuring union workers were the voters who felt most threatened by immigration. The objective was to get them to throw up their hands and stay home on Election Day. We were just forcing those people to make a decision that was true to who they really were. If you want to question someone’s character, look to the people who stayed home because of those calls.

Remember — they were Democrats; they were supposed to be the tolerant ones.

Zimmer lost the election by 481 votes and the Green Party candidate picked up 2 percent in the polls.

Seriously, if it weren’t for bigotry the Republicans would barely outpoll the Monster Raving Loony Party.

BTW, you have to love this comment by Raymond, “As for his three months in a Pennsylvania prison, he wrote: ‘After 10 full years inside the GOP, 90 days among honest criminals wasn’t really any great ordeal.'”