Fist fighting for Christ

I guess this is better than a duel with guns:

Fox News aired an interview Thursday with the controversial Catholic League president, William Donahue, who took offense to comments questioning religion from comedian, and prominent athiest, Bill Maher.

That Maher deigned to question the divinity of Jesus Christ -- saying he was more skeptical of Christian mythology than that UFOs regularly visit earth -- sent Donahue into an apoplectic rage. The 60-year-old Donahue challenged his longtime nemesis Maher to a fist-fight. Fox News host Megyn Kelly offered to televise the fight right there on Americas' Newsroom.

But, not much. So, let's see, would Christ have picked a fist fight with anyone? Somehow, I doubt it. I seem to recall something about turning the other cheek.

On the other hand, I once had a "born again" roommate who often threatened to flog me and my other roommates with a rubber hose in order to force us to accept Christ as our lord and savior. He never quite succeeded at that, but he is now a Bishop, so I guess the rubber hose worked on somebody.

Kansas wingnuts

The wingnuts in Kansas want to get into your doctor's files to find out what you're doing. It's the chastity police at it again:

One of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors was ordered Wednesday to turn over about 2,000 patient medical records to a Kansas grand jury investigating his practice.

Abortion opponents hope that the records will lead to further criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller, who already is facing 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from late-second and third-trimester abortions at his clinic in Wichita.

Tiller's lawyers say he scrupulously follows the law. They plan to ask the Kansas Supreme Court to overturn a state district court judge's ruling that Tiller begin handing over files as early as today.

"It's an unprecedented encroachment upon a woman's right to privacy," attorney Dan Monnat said.

Monnat was joined in court by a lawyer from the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, who filed affidavits from three patients demanding that their medical records remain private.

Even though the judge ordered names and addresses removed from the files, the patients said they feared their identities could be deduced from details about their families and medical histories. The antiabortion group Operation Rescue has given the grand jury several photos that it says show pregnant women entering Tiller's clinic; the same pictures are posted online, with the women's faces blurred.

"Even thinking about the possibility of anti-choice extremists identifying me has caused my partner and I great distress," one woman wrote.

Meanwhile, let's cut off money for health care for the poor and elderly. We don't care if they die after their born. Then, it's their own fault. We just have to prevent them from dieing before they're born.

WASHINGTON — In his new budget, to be unveiled Monday, President Bush will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare, far exceeding what he proposed last year, and he will again seek major savings in Medicaid, according to administration officials and budget documents.

You're in good hands with AllBush

Isn't it nice to know we're well protected?

The U.S. military isn't ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a report.

Even fewer Army National Guard units are combat-ready today than were nearly a year ago when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves determined that 88 percent of the units were not prepared for the fight, the panel says in a new report released Thursday.

Our friends

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

Obama

I was thinking about making a contribution to the Obama campaign, but now that I see that he raised $32 million in January alone, I think I'll at least wait to see what happens next Tuesday. He certainly can't spend $32 million between now and then.

51st State?

New York City (or at least some of its politicians) wants to secede from New York State:

Emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg's testimony in Albany this week that the city's taxpayers pay the state $11 billion a year more than they get back, a City Council member is offering legislation that would begin the process of having New York City secede from New York State.

Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents Queens, is pushing the idea, and the Council plans to hold a hearing on the possibility of making New York City the 51st state.

As a former New Yorker (city, that is), I think it might make some sense. Then, we could have two utterly corrupt state governments, where we only had one before.

Torture does not exist

Today Mukasey told Congress that whether a particular interrogation activity is torture or not is not determined by the act itself (e.g., waterboarding) but by how useful the potential information that might be gained is.

Ahh, I suppose that means that thumb screws, the rack, and other such instruments of interrogation are perfectly okay if the information is really important. Gee. It's hard to think of anything that might be torture under this scheme of things.

Torture does not exist. Therefore, America does not practice torture.

Oh, and I guess all these laws and treaties that forbid torture are meaningless, since torture does not exist.

POTUS, SCOTUS and the militarization of our discourse

The blogosphere is awash with references to “SOTU” (State of the Union) today. Maybe I’m alone on this, but these new acronyms for events or central institutions of our country bug me. I feel the same way about “POTUS” (President of the United States) and especially, “SCOTUS” (Supreme Court of the United States. What is Congress? Not sure I’ve seen this, but I suppose “COTUS.” How do they bug me? Let me count the ways:

• Since when are “of” and “the” proper elements of an acronym?
• Granted, maybe that’s how they do things in the military – like SNAFU -- and by extension, I suppose, the FBI, Secret Service, CIA, etc. But it’s not that context that bugs me. That’s OK. It’s when ordinary pundits, including liberals who presume to respect the Constitution, show off by spouting cynical insider lingo.
• As suggested in the previous bullet, it represents a militarization of our discourse. In military discourse, that’s fine (after all, we know we all support the troops), but not among civilians
• It just seems undignified to refer to the President of the United States of America with an acronym. He might as well be an “NCO” or a “CO” somewhere. Yeah, yeah, we need to take them down a peg, or sometimes as at present, to the bottom of the rack, but there’s the office as an institution – the reason why, instinctively, decent Americans recoiled at the efforts of the execrable Kenneth Starr to delve into and publicize the details of the sexual life of a sitting President – as opposed to the particular man who holds the position. Somehow, too, to me, “POTUS” is more demeaning than slang like “Prez.”
• The worst is “SCOTUS.” Presidents command armies and spies, so maybe they don’t need dignity. But as Stalin would have noted, the Supreme Court, like the Pope, doesn’t have any divisions, and it depends for its authority entirely on the good will of the other branches of government, which, in turn, depends on the esteem with which the public holds the institution. The Supreme Court really needs its dignity. But here’s the worst part of the indignity: “SCOTUS” sounds an awful lot like a male body part that could be described as fairly unmentionable because it’s not mentioned very often. Come to think of it, maybe Ken Starr made it up for the Warren Court he no doubt hated with as much passion as he could muster.

Maybe somebody else who feels the same, if there is anyone, can explain it better.

DOJ Blocking investigation into US Attorney firings

Surprise, surprise.

The head of a federal inquiry into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys claims the Justice Department has impeded his investigation.

Specifically, Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch sent Attorney General Michael Mukasey a letter last week saying the department's inspector general and office of legal counsel asked him to step aside until internal investigations are finished.

But that could take months, Bloch wrote, effectively pushing his agency's role "into the very last months of the administration when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible."

The Office of Special Counsel is a small, independent federal agency charged with protecting the rights of federal workers and ensuring that government whistle-blowers aren't subject to reprisal.

Bloch also complained that his attempts to meet with White House Counsel Fred Fielding to discuss the investigation have been rebuffed. The White House did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment Tuesday.

FISA

Okay, I think I've finally figured out what happened in the Senate yesterday on the FISA bill. I had gotten confused because there were two different votes that went 48-45.

The first vote was on cloture. The Republicans wanted to shut off debate on the Intelligence Committee's (bad) version of the FISA bill that might have improved it (though the likelihood of passage of any significant improvements through debate and amendment was low). The Thuglicans needed 60 votes for cloture, and failed to get it, the vote being 48-45. Three Dems voted with the Thuglicans and Arlen Specter voted with the Dems.


At that point, because a recess is coming up, the Dems proposed an emergency 30-day extension of the current (relatively bad, but not as bad as the permanent intelligence committee version with immunity for the telecoms) FISA law that was passed under similar circumstances six months ago. Bush had threatened to veto the 30-day extension (in order to force passage of the telecom immunity version of the bill). Republicans voted to block the 30-day extension and Democrats voted in favor of it. Once again, the vote was 48-45. Once again, 60 votes were needed, so the extension failed.

It is expected that the House will vote a 30-day extension in their session today and then adjourn for the recess. That means the Senate can bring the 30-day extension back up tomorrow for another vote. It seems likely the Thuglicans will block the extension once again. That will, in effect, kill the 30-day extension move since the House will be in recess*.

Hence, on Friday, Feb. 1, the current FISA Act will expire and be replaced by the old version that was in effect (except for the fact that Bush ignored it) throughout most of Bush's presidency. With only one exception, the old version was perfectly fine**. The one exception is that it does not permit interception of foreign to foreign communications that happen to pass through the US networks on their way. My guess is that there are even ways to deal with that under the old FISA act by getting warrants after the fact. So this is a really great result for the time being.

Nevertheless, the Bushies are now going to say that the Democrats have endangered the country by blocking the legislation needed to protect it. Of course, this is absurd since it was the Thuglicans themselves that blocked the legislation in order to get retroactive immunity for the telecom industry. However, the press simply doesn't seem interested in any of this (I haven't seen any decent reporting on it anywhere, much less in a prominent place), and almost certainly will mouth the Thuglican talking points whenever they can.

* (Footnote. My wife asks, "Why the hell are they going into recess? They just came off the Christmas recess. Obama says he wants the average American to have the same healthcare as those in Congress. Why doesn't he also call for them to have the same vacation package?)

**(Footnote. Actually in my opinion even the old old FISA Act gave too much spy power to the prez, but I appear to be a minority of one in that opinion.)

SOTU Fact Check

Juan Cole does a fact check on last night's SOTU. I have yet to watch one of Bush's SOTUs. I was particularly careful to avoid it last night as I have a new HDTV which would have been at severe risk of having a brick thrown through it had I been watching Bush. So, go read Juan Cole.

A new epoch

Man has created something new, but this is not entirely welcome news:

Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:

* Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
* Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.
* Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns
* Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

Fact v. fiction

It's nice to see Paul Krugman bash his own paper:

Today’s Times asserts as fact:

Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisers, he has had trouble getting credit for it, in large part because Americans were consumed by the war in Iraq.

OK, I don’t want to make too big a deal of this, but although many people say this, it’s a theory, not a fact. And the evidence suggests that this theory is wrong.

Add these words to your vocabulary

You may need them:

Intentional foreclosure. Jingle Mail. Negative Equity. All terms that could be common in 2008.

The point is, there are going to be lots of houses whose value falls below the amount they are mortgaged for. When that happens, many homeowners may just mail the keys back to the bank. Why continue to pay off a loan when it's worth more than the house you're trying to keep? Just go buy another house.

Just in time

This is just the kind of news we really need when we're starting to talk seriously about universal health care here. From the Brits:

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Just in time to save us from "Socialized Medicine."

Of course, the British model has never been a good one. The French model is much better. But, the wingnuts are going to be blaring this one from the rooftops. (I would have said the minarets, but somehow I can't see a wingnut entering a minaret).

FISA

Maybe, just maybe, Reid has gotten mad enough to try to get even with Bush:

President Bush is now daring Congress to defy his demand for more unchecked power to spy on Americans without warrants, vowing to veto temporary surveillance legislation and politicize his last State of the Union address for an attack on Democrats. Last week, Democratic leaders were considering a bill to grant a one-month extension of the administration's spying powers, a "compromise" tilted in Bush's favor, but Republican tactics have finally tried the patience of Majority Leader Harry Reid. He had been managing floor votes to advance the Republican bill and squash opposition from the majority of Democrats within his caucus, but that may change this week.

"The White House threat to veto a short extension of the Protect America Act is shamefully irresponsible," says Reid, who also derided Bush's new threat as simply "posturing" for the State of the Union. Reid added that if any terror-related problems were caused by legislative delays, "the blame will clearly and unequivocally fall where it belongs: on President Bush and his allies in Congress."

I wouldn't count on it though. Every time push has come to shove in the past, Reid has caved.

Fun

Have some fun and go watch this add in Dutch. Once you've clicked on it, just wait until things start to happen.

[h/t Andrew Tobias]

It ain't over yet

Good morning America. It looks like you'd better gird yourselves for some more market turbulence:

LONDON (AP) -- Global market turmoil extended into a second week as European and Asian markets tumbled Monday in the wake of Wall Street's drop on Friday amid persistent worries about a possible U.S. -- and worldwide -- economic slowdown.

Edwards to be Obama's AG?

Informed (maybe badly informed) rumor has it that Obama intends to appoint Edwards as Attorney General if he wins the presidency. The more I think about it, the more I think that would be a great place for Edwards, given that his cause for the presidency is lost. It would get the civil rights division back into action, undo all the crap that Ashcroft, Gonzales & Co. have created, bring a bunch of people (like Bush/Cheney) to trial (maybe). Jeese, go for it.

Go Brattleboro

I'd love to see this pass:

BRATTLEBORO, VT — Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.

The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.

Somebody needs to do it.

Hillary breaks promise not to campaign in Florida

If you ever wondered which candidate is most likely to break his or her promises, you don't need to wonder any longer. Hillary had taken an oath not to campaign in Florida. Now, here's what she's doing:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she will go to Florida to assure Democrats that "their voices are heard" and to underscore her commitment to seeing the state's delegation seated at the national convention.

She's shameless.

One more comment on Obama's win

Obama's actual results exceeded the forecasts of the pollsters by about 17 points, far more than Hillary's outdistanced her polling in New Hampshire. Does that mean the so-called "Bradley effect" (i.e., white voters lie to pollsters to avoid appearing racist) is dead, or does it mean that it applies equally to blacks and whites?

Mortgage due diligence firm gets Immunity

Hmmm. Do you ask for immunity if you don't need it?

A company that analyzed the quality of thousands of home loans for investment banks has agreed to provide evidence to New York state prosecutors that the banks had detailed information about the risks posed by ill-fated subprime mortgages.

Investigators are looking at whether that information, which could have prevented the collapse of securities backed by those loans, was deliberately withheld from investors.

Clayton Holdings, a company based in Connecticut that vetted home loans for many investment banks, has agreed to provide important documents and the testimony of its officials to the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, in exchange for immunity from civil and criminal prosecution in the state.

The agreement, which was confirmed by Mr. Cuomo’s office and Clayton, forwards an investigation by the attorney general into the question of whether the investment banks held back information they should have provided in the disclosures that accompanied the huge packages of loans they offered as securities.

In these disclosures, underwriters typically said that loans that did not meet even lowered lending standards, called exceptions, accounted for a “significant” or “substantial” portion of the loans contained in the securities, but they offered little hard, statistical information that Clayton promised prosecutors it would provide as evidence.

And, can Cuomo's agreement actually prevent me from suing them in a civil suit if they have injured me?

Dems outpoll Thugs

From what I can tell, Democrats in South Carolina out-polled Rebublicans by 75,000 to 80,000 votes in the primaries. At this point, that's been true in virtually every primary state (don't know about Michigan, but the Democratic primary didn't count there), but this time it happened in one of the reddest of the red states. Somehow, I suspect that may be a harbinger of things to come. At least, I hope so.

Obama, another thought

I just finished watching Obama's victory speech last night, and as I was watching it a thought that's been percolating in my mind for awhile started to crystallize. We all know the man is an eloquent speaker, echoing the best of Martin Luther King at times and the best of Abraham Lincoln at others. My point here is that that is a very powerful skill, particularly if he really becomes president. I have a suspicion that he could use that eloquence to lead and convince people on the merits of his policy objectives, organizing the power of the people to force the inside the beltway operatives to get things done. I have a feeling he could even inspire people to rise above their own petty needs and wants for the better common good. And, I think that's something that's been sorely missing for way too long in American politics.

My hope is that if this is true, and if he wins the presidency, his policies will be sound. It would be easy for someone with his speaking skills to lead us down the garden path in the wrong direction. Look at how that worked even for someone with lousy speaking skills back in 2001-2004.

Suharto dead, finally

I rarely take pleasure in someone's death, but I think this one is good riddance.

A government run by idiots

There is increasingly little doubt that this is a government run by idiots. Yesterday, Kevin Drum highlighted this piece by Mark Kleinman:

The Office of National Drug Control Policy is working hard to make sure that opiate addicts keep dying of overdoses. At least, it's hard to put any other interpretation on this story:

Public health workers from New York to Los Angeles, North Carolina to New Mexico, are preventing thousands of deaths by giving $9.50 rescue kits to drug users. The kits turn drug users into first responders by giving them the tools to save a life.

[snip]

The nasal spray is a drug called naloxone, or Narcan. It blocks the brain receptors that heroin activates, instantly reversing an overdose.

Doctors and emergency medical technicians have used Narcan for years in hospitals and ambulances. But it doesn't require much training because it's impossible to overdose on Narcan.

[snip]

New data compiled for NPR by researcher Alex Kral of the consulting firm RTI International show that more than 2,600 overdoses have been reversed in 16 programs operating across the nation.

[snip]

John Gatto, executive director of the Cambridge program, says such dramatic results are unusual in the world of substance abuse treatment and prevention.

"In the work that we do, oftentimes the results are very intangible," Gatto says. "This is amazing to be involved in something that literally can save people's lives. Why wouldn't we do it?"

But Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, opposes the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs.

"First of all, I don't agree with giving an opioid antidote to non-medical professionals. That's No. 1," she says. "I just don't think that's good public health policy."

Madras says drug users aren't likely to be competent to deal with an overdose emergency. More importantly, she says, Narcan kits may actually encourage drug abusers to keep using heroin because they know overdosing isn't as likely.

Madras says the rescue programs might take away the drug user's motivation to get into detoxification and drug treatment.

"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says.

Got that? Preventing thousands of deaths isn't "good public health policy" if it doesn't involve the appropriate laying-on-of-hands by the medical priesthood. Anyway, if heroin addicts aren't afraid of dying, they might keep using heroin.

Why not just go all the way and poison the heroin supply? If withholding Narcan in order to generate more overdoses in order to scare addicts into quitting were proposed as an experiment, it could never get past human-subjects review. But since it's a failure to act rather than an action, there's no rule to require that it be even vaguely rational.

And, today, the New York Times editorializes as on another health issue as follows:

How’s this for a nonsensical regulatory position?

The federal Office for Human Research Protections has ruled that it is perfectly fine for hospitals to use checklists to remind doctors and nurses to wash their hands and follow other sanitary procedures — provided the goal is to improve the quality of care given to patients. But if those hospitals want to analyze what impact the checklists might have in reducing infections, that counts as research and they must first seek approval from institutional review boards.

These review boards were set up to protect patients from being harmed — by risky drugs or treatments — in the course of medical research. Seeking approval is a cumbersome process that could delay studies for months. Surely, as the nation’s health care system works to reform dysfunctional practices, this makes no sense. The rules intended to protect patients could instead slow organizational reforms that would benefit the patients.

This bizarre outcome came to light when Johns Hopkins researchers coordinated a study of whether bloodstream infections acquired in intensive care units could be reduced if doctors and nurses followed common-sense procedures to wash their hands, wear sterile garb and wash a patient’s skin with antiseptic before inserting a catheter. The results in 67 cooperating hospitals in Michigan were astonishing. Infection rates dropped by two-thirds, and the procedures saved an estimated 1,500 lives and almost $200 million.

Then an anonymous critic complained to federal regulators that the study had not been approved by an institutional review board and had failed to obtain the informed consent of human subjects. The Office for Human Research Protections, a unit of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, forced Johns Hopkins to suspend further research until review board approval was obtained. It stressed that hospitals were free to follow the procedures if the goal was to improve patient care, and they could even monitor their infection rates. But once a research component is added, federal laws and regulations require that human subjects be protected by review board oversight.

Q. Average IQ of a Bush appointee? A. 20

Obama

So, what's left to be said about the South Carolina primary? Quite a win for Obama. Will it give him the momentum he needs? Who knows? Certainly not I. Whatever else you might say, it is great to see an African/Kansan American in real contention for the top job in this country. That has to be a purgative of some sort for all the bitter strife of the past 300+ years.

Just a goddamned piece of paper

A one point several years ago Bush is reputed to have said, "Don't bug me about the Constitution, it's just a goddamned piece of paper." By now, we know, of course, that he really meant that. The man has no qualms about doing anything he wants to, Constitutional or no, so this from the Boston Globe is not that surprising, I guess:

WASHINGTON - President Bush's plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq's security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.

After World War II, for example - when the United States gave security commitments to Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and NATO members - Presidents Truman and Eisenhower designated the agreements as treaties requiring Senate ratification. In 1985, when President Ronald Reagan guaranteed that the US military would defend the Marshall Islands and Micronesia if they were attacked, the compacts were put to a vote by both chambers of Congress.

By contrast, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki have already agreed that a coming compact will include the United States providing "security assurances and commitments" to Iraq to deter any foreign invasion or internal terrorism by "outlaw groups." But a top White House official has also said that Bush does not intend to submit the deal to Congress.

"We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress," General Douglas Lute, Bush's deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in November when the White House announced the plan.

Lute's disclosure initially attracted little scrutiny. Most of the attention has instead focused on whether the pact could make it more difficult for the United States to withdraw from Iraq after Bush leaves office. Although the next president could scrap the agreement, reneging on the compact would create diplomatic problems by showing that the nation does not live up to its obligations, specialists say.

But there is now also growing alarm about the constitutional issues raised by Bush's plan. Legal specialists and lawmakers of both parties are raising questions about whether it would be unconstitutional for Bush to complete such a sweeping deal on behalf of the United States without the consent of the legislative branch.

"There is literally no question that this is unprecedented," said Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School professor who has written a forthcoming law journal article about the proposed Iraq agreement. "The country has never entered into this kind of commitment without Congress being involved, period."

At Least Sen Reid is Stiffening is Backbone

Refering to Waldon's recent post showing concern that Dems will fold on Telcomm immunity, Sen. Harry Reid points out that President Bush wants the Senate to pass retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies who spied on Americans. For the President, this isn't just about letting his friends at AT&T and Verizon off the hook. He knows this is the American people's last chance to hold the Bush administration accountable for their warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans. Sen. Reid pointed out that the key vote is scheduled for late Monday afternoon and the count is down to the wire and Dems need 41 Senators to stand up to President Bush and right now we have only 36.

Democracy Info pointed out that Senators Clinton and Obama are the missing votes. If Senator Clinton or Obama stands up and leads from the floor of the U.S. Senate and calls upon the 8 senators that have endorsed their campaigns to stand with them, we'll have the votes we need and the American people will win.

The rich get richer

Paul Krugman points out that the richest 40% of the people get 58% of the tax rebates in the "bi-partisan" stimulus package. The bottom 40% get only 21% of the rebates.

It's nice to be rich in America, isn't it?

Look out below, V

Hmmm. I hope somebody is thinking hard about how to head this off:

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- If bond insurers are downgraded a lot, banks will need as much as $143 billion in fresh capital to absorb the impact, Barclays Capital estimated Friday.

We're going to need a lot of foreign governments to come in and buy up our banks if this keeps up.

Florida and Michigan

I have to second (or in this case, maybe, third) Josh Marshall and Matthew Yglesias on this:

Meanwhile, what Josh said about Hillary Clinton's efforts to change the rules of the primary midstream. There was a time and a place to stand up for the Michigan and Florida primaries, but she didn't do it. Instead, she signed a pledge agreeing not to "campaign or participate" in them and the DNC, without her dissenting, said they would get no delegates. She could have decided to do something different, but she didn't and that's the way it is.

Letting the crook decide what his punishment should be

In typical Bush fashion, the government decides to ignore the findings of it's inspector general that the government had been cheated and agreed to let the cheater determine how much it should pay the government back in damages. You can guess how much the government will collect.

The Education Department has brushed aside a finding by its own inspector general that a student lender improperly received $34 million in federal subsidies, and is instructing the lender to decide for itself how much money it should pay back.

In a letter sent Friday to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, a state-owned company that makes and guarantees student loans, the department said it had estimated the overpayment at only $15.1 million, and said in a separate letter that it agreed with only some of the findings of the inspector general. But it told the agency to calculate for itself the amount it thought it had overbilled the government. Any final payment would require the approval of the Education Department.

The agency “must provide a detailed explanation of its plan to identify affected loans and to calculate overpayments,” which would be deducted from future reimbursement requests, wrote Patricia Trubia, a department official, in the letter.

Keith New, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania agency, said it was “very pleased” with the department’s letter, and that it would continue to negotiate with the department over any repayment obligation.

“We could wind up with zero liability,” Mr. New said.

Big brother

Now the CIA is spying on us:

For three years, the Bush administration has drawn fire from civil liberties groups over its use of national security letters, a kind of administrative subpoena that compels private businesses such as telecommunications companies to turn over information to the government. After the 2001 USA Patriot Act loosened the guidelines, the FBI issued tens of thousands of such requests, something critics say amounts to warrantless spying on Americans who have not been charged with crimes.

Now, newly released documents shed light on the use of the letters by the CIA. The spy agency has employed them to obtain financial information about U.S. residents and does so under extraordinary secrecy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained copies of CIA letters under the Freedom of Information Act.

The CIA's requests for financial records come with "gag orders" on the recipients, said ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman. In many cases, she said, the recipient is not allowed to keep a copy of the letter or even take notes about the information turned over to the CIA.

I guess it wasn't sufficient for the FBI and the NSA to be spying on us. We also need the CIA in the act. Who else wants to join in? Let's see, how about the IRS?

Uncle Sam wants you!

Don't look twice, they may deport you:

FLORENCE, Ariz. — Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.

Apparently this is a fairly common occurrence.

Above the law

I'll second Matthew Yglesias on this:

There's nothing surprising about the fact that the Bush administration seems to be seeking to ensure that US mercenaries contractors serving in Iraq be legally unaccountable but it is shocking. That's not something any genuinely sovereign government in Iraq or anywhere else would ever agree to, and it makes a mockery of the pretense that the purpose of our policy in Iraq is to help Iraqis (for a way to help Iraqis, check out this refugees bill) or that we're doing everything we can to shield civilians from harm.

Frustrated

I am so sick of watching the Democrats hand one victory after another to the Republicans without even putting up a fight that I can't bear to read the news anymore.

Jeese, I might even decide to vote for Nader if this keeps up -- or, better yet, move out of the country.

Democrats cave again

As usual, the Democrats have scurried off to hide from the big bad Bushies, leaving the economic stimulus plan to the rich and powerful. Here's Paul Krugman's take:

If this description is correct, the stimulus bill will be a real disappointment. As I pointed out in an earlier post, economic theory — Milton Friedman’s theory! — suggests that if we want stimulus funds spent, they should go to people in temporary economic difficulty who are likely to be liquidity-constrained. But it appears that most of the measures that would do that — benefits to the unemployed, food stamps, aid to state and local governments — are being bargained away. Even the tax credit is apparently not fully refundable, so those who need it most, and are most likely to spend it, won’t get the full amount.

You can blame the Bush administration, whose hostility to helping those in need is now getting in the way of good economic policy. But I’m also disappointed with the Democratic leadership, for not standing up more forcefully.

I gather there are also huge tax breaks for big business in this package. Just what we need is more business tax cuts!

Bailing out

It's always nice to see the New York Times catch up with you. I first posted on this several weeks ago. (Of course, it wasn't just me. Others in the blogosphere were talking about it too). Today, the New York Times catches up:

Even as stocks ended five days of losses with a surprising recovery on Wednesday, officials began moving to defuse another potential time bomb in the markets: the weakened condition of two large insurance companies that have guaranteed buyers against losses on more than $1 trillion of bonds.

Regulators fear a possible chain of events in which the troubled bond insurers, MBIA and Ambac, might be unable to keep their promise to pay investors if borrowers default on their debt.

That could leave the buyers of the bonds — including many banks and pension funds — on the hook for untold billions of dollars in losses, shaking confidence in the financial system.

However, the supposed fix that seems to be in the works doesn't make much sense to me. The banks that are protected by the now failing insurance companies are going to bail out the failing insurance companies so that the protection won't fail. As Atrios says, this is a bit like bailing water from the left side of the boat and pouring it back into the boat on the right side. (Yeah, I know, on a boat it's supposed to be port and starboard, but Atrios used left and right).

A win and a loss

From TPM we learn this:

Last September we flagged the White House nomination of E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. He was opposed by both of his home state senators, Democrat Jim Webb and Republican John Warner, of Virginia, who were incensed that he was nominated over their objections.

Today, the White House withdrew his nomination.

From the New York Times, we learn this:

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department lawyer who wrote a series of classified legal opinions in 2005 authorizing harsh C.I.A. interrogation techniques was renominated by the White House on Wednesday to a senior department post, a move that was seen as a snub to Senate Democrats who have long opposed his appointment.

The lawyer, Steven G. Bradbury, who has run the department’s Office of Legal Counsel without Senate confirmation for more than two years, has been repeatedly nominated to the job of assistant attorney general for legal counsel.

But the earlier nominations stalled in the Senate because of a dispute with the Justice Department over its failure to provide Congress with copies of legal opinions on a variety of terrorism issues. Under Senate rules that place a time limit on nominations, Mr. Bradbury’s earlier nominations expired.

Undoubtedly, in their new-found spirit of bi-partisanship, the Democrats will now agree to confirm this nomination while they give the telecoms immunity and tell the president it's perfectly okay for his minions to ignore Congressional subpoenas.

Who does Congress hold in contempt?

Interesting question: why do Harry Reid and other Democrats who are actively demanding that the country cave in to Bush on telecom immunity for things they did several years ago demonstrate such utter contempt for the Democrats who are most committed to supporting the party and its candidates? For those who have the most respect for the checks-and-balances under the Constitution that we were all taught in 6th Grade are so important -- i.e., for the authority of Congress?

They are so ready to hold committed Democrats in contempt, dismissing them as the rabid "base," but cannot muster the fortitude to do it with people who simply blow off their subpoenas.

The “Village” in action, as they say.

Roller coaster

You didn't have to go to an amusement park to get a roller coaster ride today. All you had to do was watch the stock market. Down 320 at one point, the Dow closed up almost 300 points. What a ride.

Nevertheless, there's lots of bad news still to come, so I doubt we've seen the bottom yet.

A pearl of wisdom

Here's a quote I should have posted on Monday but didn't because I didn't come across it till today:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dems too frightened to vote contempt

As usual, you don't even have to say "Boo" to get the Dems to stick their tails between their legs and scurry off to hide in a corner:

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.

Look out below, IV

Looks like we're in for another rough day on Wall Street. The DAX is down another 5.5% as I write.

Only the New York Times

Only the New York Times can write an entire article on the outlook for the FISA bill and telecom immunity without once mentioning the name of the most important player -- Chris Dodd. Look for yourself.

It's unbelievable. After reading the entire article, I went back and read it again to make sure Dodd's name wasn't mentioned. And, even after that, before posting this, I did a computer scan of the article for Dodd's name, just to make triply sure. It isn't there.

How can anyone call this reporting?

McCain from Arizona crushed in Nevada: did you know that?

Want more evidence of the inappropriate love affair the mainstream media have with John McCain? In Nevada, McCain finished in a distant third place behind Ron Paul, with all of 13% of the vote. Remember how many reporters made a big deal during the Iowa primary out of how much Obama would be helped by being from a neighboring state? Somehow, though, the concept disappeared from the press coverage for McCain, requiring people to put two-and-two together on their own. Arizona is a neighboring state to Nevada, and yet McCain got crushed. Granted, Romney as a Mormon probably had the upper hand anyway in a heavily Mormon state. But 13%??? Beat by Ron Paul??? In a state right next door. Where were all the “worse-than-expected” stories about McCain? You know what though? There is no doubt some spin to discount the importance of that terrible performance, but the reporters who don't take too kindly to criticism will be the most ardent spinners.(And what is it the people from a neighboring state know about him that we aren’t being told?)

Government of big business, by big business, and for big business

From our esteemed Supreme Court:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court dealt a blow Tuesday to Enron investors who sued major investment banks to recover money lost when the Texas energy giant collapsed amid a massive accounting fraud.

Horror of horrors: gas prices might go to $1.91 by 2010!

Here's a great find by Mary at The Left Coaster:

Remember when the conservative think tanks were talking about how signing the Kyoto treaty would lead to terrible economic consequences? Well, the other day I was reviewing the series of lectures delivered by wonderingmind42 on global climate change and in one of the sections he mentioned that he went out and looked up the papers that warned about how badly the economy would be hurt. Turns out the worst case economic damage in signing the Kyoto Treaty would have been having to pay upto $1.91 for a gallon of gasoline in 2010.

Dissing an entire race

All the Thuglican candidates were invited to participate in MLK Day celebrations in South Carolina, but none showed up. I guess they know how to win friends and influence people.

Fed rate cut

Okay. The Fed cut interest rates (short-term rates, that is) by three quarters of a percent. Maybe that will staunch the flow for a day or two, but I doubt it. This is not a problem that can be fixed by lowering interest rates. It's far more fundamental than that. We need to bail out a whole series of institutions before the entire financial system collapses of its own weight. People don't seem to get that yet. They still seem to think it's a psychosomatic illness that can be fixed by changing people's minds instead of a real cancer that can only be fixed through radical, invasive surgery.

The last I looked at the DOW futures they were down 530. Will see what happens in 35 minutes or so when the market opens in New York.

Update: Just looked at the futures market again, and the losses seem to have disappeared, so maybe the rate cut will work for a day or two. Keep your fingers crossed. Unfortunately, there is sure to be more bad news coming down the pike in a few days, and who knows what will happen then?

Update II: 5 minutes to opening and the futures are back down almost as low as they were before the rate cut was announced. Hang on to your hats!

Parallel Universe?

Did I watch the same debate the news media did? I came away from last night's debate thinking it was a comparatively tame and friendly affair, but from the morning press I learn that Hillary clawed Obama's eye balls out with her claws while Obama ripped Bill's balls off with his fangs.

King Richard

No real surprises here. Cheney gets ordered to preserve his e-mails, but Cheney is above the law, so he destroys the e-mails:

Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney's office is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

That morning, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered the president and the vice president's staff to "preserve all materials that might be relevant" to an inchoate Justice Department probe.

What else would you expect a king to do?

The bail out

I think I agree with Jim Cramer on this. The only real solution to the financial meltdown we're in right now is for the government to step in and recapitalize the bond and mortgage insurers like MBIA, AMBAC, PMI, ACA Capital, and MGIC and essentially take over their operations. Without that, they are all going to fail within the next few weeks or months, and, after they fail, the house of cards will come tumbling down. [Full disclosure: I own several hundred shares of MBIA.]

Unfortunately, I just don't see the Bush administration (or even the Democrats) doing this, so I'm afraid my outlook is pretty gloomy. I wouldn't be too surprised if we lost another thousand points off the Dow tomorrow. It seems there are still a lot of people on Wall Street living in la la land, thinking the economy is in really good shape. Just think about it, there were all kinds of signals that Merrill and Citigroup were about to take huge writedowns, but the market didn't fall until after they actually took those writedowns -- even though the writedowns that were announced were smaller than those predicted. Today's drop in the overseas markets may put the fear of God in them. But, of course, you never know.

On the fence

Paul Krugman took another shot at Obama in his column today:

Well, I’d say that the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.

I must say, I'm inclined to agree with Krugman on this. It truly mystifies me why Obama is going so far out of his way to undermine the Democratic message.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Up till a few weeks ago, Edwards was my first choice for Democratic nominee and Obama my second. Readers of this blog know that I have a fairly high discomfort level with Hillary, largely because she has failed over the last six years to speak out loudly against the excesses of the Bush administration or take any meaningful steps to lead a movement to stop Bush from stealing our government from us. Her vote for the war was only a symptom of the malady, as was her vote for Kyle-Lieberman.

However, in the past couple of weeks, as it's become progressively more clear that Edwards has next to no chance of getting the nomination, my fondness for Obama as the alternative to Hillary has significantly cooled. Much of the reason for that cooling is Obama's repeated use of Republican talking points to attack Hillary (and to a lesser degree Edwards). Frankly, I now find myself sitting on the fence, unsure who I am going to vote for on super Tuesday.

On the one hand, I think electing a (half) black president would do enormous good for this country, both at home and abroad. At home, it would be an inspiration to many who have been discouraged in the past, and it would tend to belie the myth peddled by those who want to point to racism as the reason why African-Americans are doomed by the whites to failure and need not even try to succeed. It would heal many, many wounds. Abroad, it would signal a complete change in how the rest of the world sees us. The myth that all Americans are racist pigs, ready to enslave their own as well as others around the world would be dispelled to some degree, and countries that have refused to talk to us in the past (largely because we've refused to talk to them on a one-on-one basis) would probably come to the table.

Those are powerful reasons to vote for Obama. But, if the man is going to mouth Republican talking points and compromise on critical issues with the right wing nuts, the price is too high.

I also suspect that Obama has a better chance of winning the general election than Hillary. He will get more crossover voters and certainly won't lose the base. Nevertheless, I suspect almost any Democrat could win in this climate.

Of course, electing a woman president would also strongly benefit the country, but I don't see that it would produce the kind of metamorphosis that electing an African American would. And, with Hillary, we pretty much know what we'll get -- more of the Clinton administration's kind of policies. Let's face it. They were pretty good, but, as Krugman points out, they didn't change the paradigm. Maybe Obama can do that.

I just don't know.

Look out below, III

As I write, the DAX is down 5.7%, the FTSE down 3.5%, many Asian markets are down over 5% and the DOW futures are down 350 or so. The Bush house of cards is collapsing upon itself, and all of us are going to suffer from it.

Update: The DAX closed down 7.2% and the FTSE 5.4%. Watch out for falling things tomorrow when the NYSE opens!

Means and ends

Juan Cole reminds us on MLK day of something Dr. King once said:

' And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace.

What is the problem?

They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.'

Iraq: the "surge" is working to accomplish . . . what?

Juan Cole asks the question:

If someone came to you six years ago and said that for only $2 trillion, you could have for your colony a burned out country, a failed state, and a semi-permanent incubator of terrorism and hatred against the US, would you have ponied up the money? That's what you've got, and that is what it cost you.

So what does the answer to that question say we should do now? Here's what the proponents of the surge say:

What the snake oil merchants like Fred Kagan and Bill Kristol . . . are really saying is that if you just give them $2 trillion more, and are willing to expend another 12,000 killed and wounded American young people, boy do they have a deal on a neo-colony for you.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice-- can't get fooled again.

Yet we continue to listen to these guys to resolve the problem they created for us. Why would they continue to be given a national platform when they were so utterly, totally wrong in the first place? There's something really, really sick and disgraceful about that.

Look out below II

I see some people are now talking about the DOW falling below 8,000 in the near-term. That would be something like a 45% drop from its high around 14,000. It's happened before. It can happen again. With the large bond insurers like MBIA failing, there will be another huge round of write-downs at the big banks since the insured bonds they hold will have to be written down. Many of those banks are short of capital already. With their capital base gone, they won't be able to continue lending. (By the way, this has nothing or nearly nothing to do with cash flow or liquidity per se. It has to do with solvency.) Without lending, businesses and individuals will have to sharply tighten their belts. Tightening the belts means a cut back on consumption and investment spending. With the economy falling, the tax base will shrivel as well, probably forcing a sharp cut back in government spending (at least at the state and local level). Well, just remember that GDP is roughly equal to the sum of consumption plus investment plus government spending. With all three contracting ... whooops there goes another rubber tree plant.

I'd say it's time to hunker down for the long haul.

In America, it's who you know, not what you've done, that counts

Somebody should tell the children the truth. In America today, it's who you know, not what you've done that counts:

HOUSTON – In a case some say reveals political backscratching at the courthouse, a Texas Supreme Court justice saw his arson-related indictment thrown out Friday at the request of a scandal-plagued, but fellow Republican, prosecutor.

The move outraged the grand jury foreman, who threatened to reconvene the panel and issue the charges again.

The rule of law.

A ray of hope

Having toured a good part of Spain last Spring, my interest in the country peaked, and I decided to pick up James Michener's Iberia, a personal tour of Spain written in the late 1960s. I remember when the book came out and was a great success (at least among my friends), but I never got around to reading it then.

In any event, as far as I can tell, the Spain Mitchener writes about is virtually unrecognizable in the Spain of today. Mitchener's Spain is largely poor, somber, suspicious of everyone. It's people hide inside their homes and peak out through peep holes at the world going on before them. It is ruled by a less than benevolent dictator, and no one dares talk politics. The Church rules, and everyone is a faithful Catholic (in the Spanish version of that word), going to church at all the prescribed times and occasions. Women wear modest clothing -- long skirts. Arms, legs and heads covered at all times. Courting is only done through family arrangements. Teenage lovers don't just meet on the streets and go to the movies. The economy is backwards, agrarian, and bumbling.

Now, I can't really pretend to "know" modern Spain after a mere three weeks there, but the Spain I see today is almost the exact opposite of that depicted by Michener. The economy now seems to be thriving. Construction is going on everywhere. Some of my companions and I even joked about buying an interest in a Spanish construction company, there's so much building going on. While about 85% of the population are still self-described Catholics, only about 15% attend mass regularly. The government is relatively progressive, democratic, and more or less stable. The mood is upbeat. The nightlife raucous. The girls dress in shorts or mini-skirts and tank tops, belly buttons proudly on display. Lovers fill the parks. The people no longer seem moody and suspicious. With some exceptions, politics is discussed openly.

All of which brings me to an observation Michener makes about three quarters of the way through the book -- that countries and societies regularly reinvent themselves every few decades, and what once was the rule in a country, thirty years later is often the rare exception. The more I think about that, the more true is seems even though I can't quite apply it to my own country. Perhaps I'm too close to home here and can only see the trees and not the forest. But, think Russia, Germany, Italy, even the U.K. and compare where they are now to where they were in the mid-1960s.

All of which gave me a bit of pause as a political blogger here in early 21st century America. I and many of my friends tend to see the disaster the Bushies have brought on us in almost apocalyptic terms, as if it has destroyed the America we knew and loved for generations to come. But, perhaps we're putting too much stress on the present day gloom and failing to see how completely things may have changed by 2040. By then, who knows? The entire political paradigm may have changed; perhaps for the worse, but quite possibly for the better. As gloomy as things look right now, perhaps there's something in this that shines a ray of hope for the future.

EPA to Congress: "FU"

Frankly, I've never heard of a government agency invoking "executive privilege" before. The President, yes. An agency like the EPA, no. Maybe I just haven't been listening, but I have a feeling this is breaking new ground:

Invoking executive privilege, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday refused to provide lawmakers with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.

The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared now with Congress.

"EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting," EPA's associate administrator Christopher P. Bliley wrote.

More than a week after a deadline set by Boxer, the agency gave her environmental committee a box of documents with numerous pages left almost entirely blank and others with key information redacted, Boxer said.

The documents provided Friday by the EPA omitted key details, including a presentation that Senate aides said predicted EPA would lose a lawsuit if it went to court for denying California's waiver.

The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the agency denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sports utility vehicles.

ISI, not Qaeda, responsible for Bhuto killing

No great surprises here. Our friends in Pakistan are probably among the most corrupt and despicable in the world, but beggars can't be chosers:

The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last December may never be solved, because Pakistani officials refused to demand an autopsy and hosed away evidence at the scene of her killing.

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, President Bush, CIA Director Michael Hayden, and news reports have all claimed that al Qaeda was responsible. However, some current and former US and British intelligence officials now say the evidence points instead to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), the country’s security services.

Lucy, Football

I have to say, I'm betting with Atrios on this one:

Lucy, Football

Call me cynical, but I'll be very surprised if the White House doesn't spend a few days telling the country everyone's gonna get an $800 check and then demand some bullshit in the bill which the Dems, frightened, will cave on...

Right and wrong

When asked yesterday about a previous statement by White House spokeswoman Dana Perino that some White House e-mails are indeed missing, Fratto demurred. "I'm not sure what was said on that," he said. "I could tell you today, though, that we have no evidence and we have no way of showing that any e-mail at all are missing."

Of course, Fratto is mostly wrong. There's plenty of evidence there are missing e-mails, particularly when you can be virtually certain e-mails were exchanged but there are no copies now available. That's certainly evidence.

However, there is one sense in which Fratto is right. If all the e-mails were destroyed and no one will admit to writing e-mails, there is no way of proving that any are missing. It's a bit like trying to prove murder when you don't have a body. Indeed, I think that's what they're counting on.

In the meantime

You will notice that I have not done much speculating about the outcome of the various primaries. That's because I haven't got the slightest idea how this is going to turn out, and, unlike Chris Matthews, I know I haven't. There are way too many people spouting gibberish about all this. It will all happen soon enough, and then we'll know what happened (or at least we'll know what the voting machines were programmed to tell us). So, meantime, sit back, relax and wait for the results.

The rest of the news (e.g., White House destroyed aver a year's worth of e-mails) is just so much of the same ol' same ol' that it seems hardly worth mentioning. Somebody should be trying these guys as criminals, but it's clear the Dems don't have the stomach to do that -- or anything else -- so what can the rest of us do?

My answer is contributing to the primary campaigns of progressive Democrats who are running against the entrenched cowards of the Party. I suggest others consider that as well.

A quiz

Just a reminder. If it hits forty degrees below zero where you are,

a) You don't have to ask whether it's Fahrenheit or Celsius.
b) You shouldn't have to ask whether it's Kelvin.
c) You're in an unusual place.
d) Dress warmly.
e) All of the above.













Answer: e) all of the above.

At forty below, both Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same (Remember (5/9)(F-32)=C). The Kelvin scale never goes below zero (it's absolute), so you know it's not Kelvin. Only a few very rare places in the world ever get that cold. And, it is cold!

I'll say "white" so you think I mean "black"

Tristero, over at Hullabaloo, offers up an alternative reason why Obama is channeling Ronald Reagan.

But Obama isn't stupid, so he clearly is no Reaganite. Therefore, I am entertaining the possibility that perhaps this is an extremely clever rhetorical strategy on Obama's part, complete with a dog whistle to people like you and me. Surely Obama knows modern rhetoric better than any other American politician and most cultural observers. So I think this may be a plausible explanation of what he's up to:

Obama believes the country isn't in love with conservative ideas per se. But both the voters - but especially the press - loved the way Reagan packaged them.

That is what I think Obama is saying - Republicans win merely on packaging, not on widespread support of their ideas. And he thinks he can win very wide support simply by associating liberal/moderate ideas with an updated version of Reagan's manufactured persona. Going even further with this, Obama is addressing not "the American people" directly, but the people who serve as the mediator between politicians and the people, ie, The Village. This makes sense. After all, The Village are the ones who first have to accept and then spread a politician's manufactured persona. As for Reagan's conservatism, Obama understands that The Village neither knows or cares very much about that, beyond a few short slogans - "death tax, partial-birth abortion," yadda yadda. In other words,

Obama is trying to appropriate the Reagan-Love that The Village feels - and by extension, felt by the voters they influence - for himself.

It doesn't matter that it's all illusion. By co-opting not the legacy of Reagan but simply his image within The Village, Obama makes it difficult for Republicans to paint themselves without a fight as the only heirs of the cheerful, confident, can-do America that Reagan's myth says he was.

Now, we know Reagan was nothing like his image, And Obama knows we know. That's the dog whistle. His Reagan-loving is just bait for a corrupt press corps fixated on images and perceptions. He is playing their own game against them, and he is much smarter than they.

Perhaps, but it strikes me as really convoluted thinking. In the meantime, while we're trying to figure out all this, Obama may lose votes like mine to Hillary or Edwards.

Who owns Harry Reid?

From Glenn Greenwald:

Reid has spent the last two weeks making abundantly clear that his intention is to bring to the Senate floor as early as next week the Bush-compliant Senate Intelligence Committee bill, and has further made clear that it's his expectation that that bill -- complete with warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom immunity -- will pass. Because the Protect America Act is scheduled to expire in early February, it will be necessary to extend it by 30 to 60 days, but that is seen by the Senate Democratic leadership only as a tool to enable them to work out a deal with the House to ensure that a bill acceptable to the President is sent to the White House promptly.

Please tell me what is wrong with Harry Reid? Is he smoking telecom cash?

Echoing the thugs

I must say, I get deeply disturbed when I hear one of our leading presidential candidates echoing Republican talking points. Obama:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Sheeesh. Ronnie Reagan was a really bad president who was semi-senile through most of his second term.

I don't know. Despite co-blogger Kissweb's repeated assurances that this guy is great, I'm getting very uncomfortable with him.

If they won't eat broccoli rabe or sushi, let them starve to death

They deserve it:

The presidential race is not the only place where change is an issue.
Members of Congress returning to the Capitol this week are being confronted by transformational happenings that have shaken the building to its foundations: Democrats have hired a new company to run cafeteria services. Naturally, this has caused an outbreak of partisan skirmishing.

"I like real food," proclaimed Republican leader John Boehner when asked about the new menu by a producer for another cable news outfit. "Food that I can pronounce the name of."

Boehner is now forced to wrap his lips around such phrases as "broccoli rabe and shaved persimmon," "balsamic glazed butternut squash," and "calico pinto beans"...all on this afternoon's menu, along with the downright patriotic "American Regional Yankee Pot Roast," which, even Boehner would have to admit, kind of rolls right off the tongue. On Fridays, there is a real sushi bar tended by a bona fide Japanese sushi chef. Gone are such grade-school cafeteria specialties as Salisbury steak and fried chicken, slathered in gravy and served with a side of chips.

The other shoe drops

Merrill went to the confessional today:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (MER.N) on Thursday said it took a $14.1 billion writedown and adjustments in the fourth quarter as bad subprime mortgage bets forced the brokerage to sell pieces of the company to foreign investors to raise capital.

Analysts expected Merrill's write-down to land anywhere from $10 billion to $15 billion. For the year, Merrill's subprime mortgage-related losses totaled nearly $23 billion.

$23 billion -- if this keeps up, it could add up to something big.

Of big business, by big business, and for big business

Once more, the Bush court proves it is on board with government of big business, by big business, and for big business:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday curbed investor lawsuits against businesses accused of scheming fraudulently to inflate stock prices.

In a 5-3 ruling, the court gave a measure of protection from securities suits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with publicly traded companies.

The court ruled against investors who accused two suppliers of colluding with Charter Communications Inc. to deceive Charter's stockholders and manipulate the price of the cable TV company's stock.

Businesses, for all the wrong reasons, are treated by the courts as if they were people -- except the courts also give them special privileges as businesses, so they end up being super people. The rest of us can't compete.

I think I'm going to incorporate.

Waxman to investigate executive comp at the big banks

Henry Waxman is going after the golden parachutes of the CEOs of the big banks that are taking a douche in the mortgage meltdown. Here's his letter to the CEO of Countrywide:

Mr. Angelo R. Mozilo
Chairman and CEO
Countrywide Financial Corporation
4500 Park Granada
Calabasas, CA 91302

Dear Mr. Mozilo:

I am writing to request your testimony at a hearing on February 7, 2008, before the Committee on Oversight and Govemment Reform. The hearing will address executive compensation and severance arrangements for CEOs involved in the ongoing mortgage crisis.

According to recent press reports, if Bank of America completes its proposed purchase of Countrywide Financial, you stand to collect tens of millions of dollars in severance payments and other compensation. I request that you be prepared to provide your perspective on this reported pay package. You should plan to address how it aligns with the interests of Countrywide’s shareholders and whether this level of compensation is justified in light of your company’s recent performance and its role in the national mortgage crisis.

The Committee on Oversight and Govemment Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information about testifying before the Committee.

If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Roger Sherman or David Leviss of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5051.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

Enclosure
cc: Tom Davis
Ranking Minority Member

Similar letters were sent to the heads of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.

It's about time. These guys have destroyed thousands of lives and walk away with tens of millions of dollars for their efforts. May they rot in hell.

The news of the day

After reading the morning paper, I was going to say something like this, but I see Kevin Drum already has, so I'll just copy his post over here:

GLOBETROTTING....The newspapers are just a great big bundle of foreign policy cheer today. First up, Iraq:

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Oh, goody. Next, Afghanistan:

After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving, according to a wide range of senior U.S. and NATO-member officials who agreed to discuss sensitive alliance issues on the condition of anonymity.

And finally, the world's most dangerous country:

Pakistan's premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

So how are things going in your neck of the woods these day?

Oh. One other thing in today's good news. About a month ago, my cardiologist put me on Vytolin (a combination of Zetia and Zocor) instead of just Zocor, which I had been on before with good results. Today, the NY Times tells us that a long delayed study by Merck and Schering-Plough (which jointly market the drug) showed it not only did no good, it actually probably increased the build up of plaque in the blood vessels. I had already stopped taking it two weeks ago when a similar article in the Times told us that another long delayed study showed it increased liver damage. My doc wasn't happy when I told her I had stopped. Tells you something about the hand that feeds her, I guess.

Ocean front property

There's now evidence that Antarctica is melting.

Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.

While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of South America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years -- as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world.

"Without doubt, Antarctica as a whole is now losing ice yearly, and each year it's losing more," said Eric Rignot, lead author of a paper published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking despite land temperatures for the continent remaining essentially unchanged, except for the fast-warming peninsula.

My house is about 15 miles inland and about 50 feet above sea level, but I'm thinking about putting it on the market as beach front property. If only I could get my neighbor to fill his yard with sand.

Weather forecasters & NH Pollsters

For the past several days, up to as recently as 7:00 pm last night, the weather forecasters around here were calling for the "first major snowstorm of the season" to hit the New York area, starting as rain around 8:00 pm last night and turning to all snow by midnight and continuing through Monday afternoon, with 4" to 8" accumulation.

I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and looked out the window. Nothing. I got up around 6:30 a.m. and looked out the window. Nothing. It's now 8:35 a.m. and the sky is blue and the sun is shining. There is no longer any significant snow in the immediate forecast.

This has not been a good month for the prognosticators. I guess I'll avoid making any economic predictions for awhile.