Well, I am paraphrasing, but he is saying that Mr. “Let’s Do a Favor for Charles Keating”, has ignored the problems created by abusive lending practices of the credit card and mortgage industry.
This is a good tactic. There is a reason why brutal thugs like Bonnie and Clyde became folk heroes, and it’s because Americans hate banks.
It looks like the right wing screamers just got to mount Jim Johnson’s head on their wall.
He has resigned as one of the members of Obama’s VP vetting committee.
We are back to the bitch slap theory of Republican politics.
It’s not about them being right, it’s about them making Obama look weak, which they did.
I have one thing to say, thank you Howard Dean.
I’m encouraged.
Despite what the moron pundits and bloggers who said that she wouldn’t, that’s what she did.
Howard Dean has spent much of the primary season trying not to be seen as favoring one candidate over the other. Now that Obama has clinched it, he feels free to say this:
“The wounds of sexism need to be the subject of a national discussion,” the chairman, Howard Dean, said in an interview. “Many of the most prominent people on TV behaved like middle schoolers” toward Mrs. Clinton.
I wholeheartedly agree.
So does the Women’s Media Center:
FWIW, I don’t debate their example, but the quotes and schmaltzy music make the clips less effective, not more effective.
It appears that about 20,000 wealthy Americans have accounts at the Swiss Bank UBS, and US regulators are now turning the screws to get this information out of them.
Under pressure from the authorities, UBS is considering whether to divulge the names of 20,000 of its well-heeled U.S. clients, according to people close to the probe, a step that would have once been unthinkable to Swiss bankers, whose practice of secrecy dates back to the Middle Ages.
U.S. investigators believe some of these clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to illegally hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge $300 million or more in U.S. taxes, according to a government official connected with the investigation.
….
New revelations are likely to come Monday, when a former UBS banker is expected to testify in a Florida court about how he helped Olenicoff and other clients evade taxes. …..
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive at UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank’s investment-banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in soured investments, many of them linked to risky U.S. subprime mortgages.
…
As the authorities zeroed in on UBS last January, the bank abruptly shut its three Swiss offices that sold undeclared offshore banking services to U.S. clients. Those offices catered to thousands of wealthy Americans, some of whom may now have their tax secrets put on public display.
(emphasis mine)
They are guilty as hell, and 90% of Americans know what it means to have a, “Swiss Bank Account”, and if Obama’s people don’t use this for Phil “Offshore Account” Gramm, John McCain’s economic guru, they are idiots.
I just hope that the Obama’s choice is not some sort of DLC squish.
This bit of Senatorial theater is making the rounds now:
Returning to the Senate after his securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Lieberman greeted each on the Senate floor in the Well as they were voting on the budget resolution.
They shook hands. But Obama didn’t let go, leading Lieberman – cordially – by the hand across the room into a corner on the Democratic side, where Democratic sources tell ABC News he delivered some tough words for the junior senator from Connecticut, who had just minutes before hammered Obama’s speech before the pro-Israel group AIPAC in a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign.
The two spoke intensely for approximately five minutes, with no one able to hear their conversation. Reporters watched as Obama leaned closely in to Lieberman, whose back was literally up against the wall.
(emphasis mine)
A source said that it was, “a cordial and friendly discussion”, but I’m inclined to think that that depends on how you define those words, and this sounds just like how LBJ used to work people.
If it’s true, I’m favorably impressed.
This article has polls showing 8% in Georgia, and 6% in North Carolina, which might be enough to flip the states from McCain to Obama.
Heh.
I haven’t formed an opinion on the Veepstakes, so I am not endorsing this line of reasoning, but I am certainly amused:
A Few Observations From Last Night’s Big Speech Threefer:
– No way, no how, not on this planet, not in this galaxy should Obama have Hillary Clinton on the ticket. That’s what Obama needs: a Vice President who believes she should be President, with the added bonus of having Bill Clinton wagging his pussy-ready finger at everyone whenever someone says something mean about his wife. It’d be a big, stupid mistake, akin to a family of lemurs inviting a boa constrictor over for dinner.
This guy is priceless.
Heard on the radio.
Should happen Saturday.
The high points of McCain’s speech last night, such as they are, courtesy of Mark Halperin.
Seriously, I’d take Jack Abramhoff, or Larry Craig, or Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Even now, Penn is suggesting going nuclear on the nomination process.
If there is any justice in the world, Penn will be selling shoes for a living in 6 months.
No link, just heard it on Tee Vee.
Obama missed the vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, and McCain is hammering him on it.
If he had voted against it, I don’t think that it would be a big deal, but he missed the vote, and he has done so on a number of other contentious votes, the MoveOn resolution comes to mind.
If McCain hammers him on the substance, that he opposed the resolution, it shouldn’t be a difficulty, as Obama spokesperson Hari Sevugan response shows, “Instead of recognizing reality, John McCain continues to run on a platform of doubling down on George Bush’s failed policies.”
However, if McCain starts harping on the contentious votes where he did not show up, and makes his attendance an issue, it is a problem, because it strikes at the core message of any presidential candidate, that he will stand up for you.
So far, so good, but I expect this worm to turn shortly.
He is endorsing Obama, which comes as no surprise at all.
He’s been an enthusiastic Obama since before the South Carolina primary, though I understand why he held off until now, given that he is the #3 guy in the House leadership.
Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of Barack Obama. He want to the bottom of my preferred nominee list in October, so I understand the imperative that some pro-Clinton bloggers feel on this issue.
There has clearly been a lot of misogyny in the campaign, both on the part of the blogosphere and the MSM, and calling both groups out on this is justified.
Furthermore, the sort of Teflon he has experienced with the MSM is something appropriate to discuss.
That being said, there are differences in how this is handled, with folks like BTD and Jerylyn being generally fairly well reasoned and calm, with Taylor Marsh being over the top with alarming regularly, though not universally, and Larry Johnson being completely batsh%$ insane to the degree that he is quoting former Nixon dirty trickster, and wife swapper, Roger Stone.
It’s OK not to like Obama, and to see him as either weak or lacking in candor (or both).
I do, and have ever since he threw gays under the bus in South Carolina.
But this does not mean that you pick up anything scrawled on a bathroom wall, and run with it.
Whatever you think of the candidates, Publius is spot on when he says that this primary season has shown that the current nominating process is completely broken.
In previous years, where you were left with what was effectively one candidate standing by the time the primaries were half over, never stressed the current system, and now that we have two very closely matched candidates, it’s showing its problems.
His first suggestion, that Iowa & New Hampshire get their “first in the nation” ticket pulled, is a good start, and probably fixes more than anything else, because it gives all the states a chance to be relevant and receive attention.
As to “rotating regional calendar”, I favor the rotating, but the regional thing I’m not so sure about. You want an opportunity for low dollar candidates to compete early.
He also suggests dumping caucuses entirely, but I’m ambivalent on this. You have to have the opportunity to measure the activist response, because these people are going to be the foot soldiers of the election.
As to killing the Superdelegates, I agree. It’s clear that they don’t work.
I would add that the option of adding some sort of “first past the post/winner take all aspect”, even if it’s only a portion of the delegates per congressional district, would be a good idea.
Joschka Fischer, former German Foreign Minister, is writing that he expects an Israeli military strike on Iran.
It was linked to on Nouriel Roubini’s blog, and he goes into the potential economic/political implications:
While I agree that these consequences are likely, I disagree with Roubini on one point though, thinks that such an attack would guarantee a McCain victory, because he believes that, “Such October surprise by Israel would also certainly lead to the election of McCain and defeat of Obama as a national security crisis of such an extent would doom the chances of Democrats to win the White House.”
There are two problems, the first is that if the Israelis act after the conventions, it will be explicitly seen as meddling in US partisan politics, and the blow back later will be too intense, and the Israelis understand the ebb and flow of party politics, and the second is that $200/bbl oil would do immediate damage at the gas pump.
Further, I think that Republicans no longer have the confidence of the American people on anything including national security.
Then again, maybe I am an optimist.
I am not sure as to whether his resignation is a good or a bad thing.
Obviously, the church has embarrassed him repeatedly, but there is the question as to whether he is acquiescing to the Republican bitch slap theory of politics, where they launch an attack not to tell the truth, but to make the Democrat back down, which makes the voters wonder whether he will stand up for them.
I’m inclined to think that it is a losing proposition, because he was 20 years. The Republicans will both claim that it’s the “real Barack Obama”, and that he lacks the guts to stick with the church where he was married and his daughters baptized.