GOP to blue collar Americans: Screw you

By Libby Spencer

While the GOP is busy disguising its union busting mission as a call for 'responsible management,' (by which they mean screw the union workers first), in obstructing the $14 billion Big 3 bridge loan, the 'responsible' beneficiary of the multibillion dollar bailout of the financial industry doesn't seem to be outraging Mitch McConnell enough to demand wage concessions from the white collar workers of AIG. The company received $152 billion tax dollars and what are they doing with it? Paying millions to some employees in its new retention program.

The company has told 168 employees they'll receive between $92,500 and $4 million per individual if they stay with the company for one year. [...]

Even though there are more layoffs every month, AIG says its top talent is being recruited to rival companies. In fact, the company says two of its top people just left this week, despite being offered big retention payments. AIG says it needs its best people to keep its healthy businesses profitable until it can sell them and the company plans to sell 65 percent of its businesses to repay its federal loan and get back on track.

I don't suppose it's possible no amount of money will keep some of their best talent from jumping ship when it's evident the company is extremely likely to fold anyway. But as the enraged critics on Capitol Hill point out, with "tens of thousands of people being laid off from Wall Street and financial firms every day" it's ridiculous to think that they wouldn't be able to find qualified replacements for anyone who might quit because they didn't get a multi-million dollar "retention" bonus.

Outraged pols on the Hill are sending sternly worded letters demanding details on the program. As if that's likely to work. Maybe they should have demanded some pre-determined compensation criteria before they handed over the big bucks, as they're now demanding from blue collar workers.

And I don't just blame the GOP here. Harry Reid is just as responsible for failing to stand up to the GOPers scare tactics. Frankly, I'm not so sure Reid secretly wouldn't like to see organized labor taken down himself. He's sold us out to his corporate overlords right along and management always wants to suppress labor, no matter which party they presumptively support.

I'm thinking since these people are effectively our employees, though they seem to have forgotten that long ago, perhaps it's time for the citizenry to demand some wage concessions from them.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

Minnesota Senate Recount -- update 6

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Star Tribune has Coleman up by 192, while Minnesota's secretary of state has him up by 687. Why the significant difference? The former's count includes the pre-recount totals from Minneapolis Ward 1 Precinct 3, where 133 ballots are missing, whereas the latter's count excludes the 1,965 ballots from that precinct, where Franken did well.

As TPM's Eric Kleefeld reported earlier today, though, things are now looking much brighter for Franken:

Al Franken's chances of winning the Minnesota recount may have just gone up astronomically.

The state canvassing board just voted unanimously that absentee ballots that were initially rejected because of clerical errors -- and the current estimate from the hearing is that there could be nearly 1,600 of them, based on some extrapolation -- should be counted, probably the single biggest issue that the Franken campaign has been hammering ever since this recount began, and which really seemed up in the air going into this hearing.

The board can't directly order the county officials to do the counting, only making a formal request to go back and count the votes and then submit amended totals. But many counties have already begun or finished the process of sorting the rejected absentees at the board's request, and board members did castigate any election officials who wouldn't do so, with some of them even leaving open the option of seeking a court order if necessary.

Because of all that, it seems very likely that the vast majority of these ballots will be counted before this is over -- and it could possibly seal the deal for Franken. Pre-election polling showed him winning the overall pool of absentee ballots by a solid margin, so it seems pretty reasonable to assume that the newly-counted votes will break for Al. If that proves to be correct -- and if Norm Coleman is unable to stop it through further litigation -- Franken will probably pull ahead of Coleman and win the election.

Of course, there will likely be "further litigation" regardless -- UPDATE: the Star Tribune is reporting that the absentee-ballot issue will go to the state Supreme Court -- and so this whole process is far from over.

Still, the key in terms of public perception will be to be in the lead when the recount is completed (and prior to the inevitable litigation over challenged ballots). In that respect, Franken may soon be in the best position he's been in yet.

For our past posts on the recount, see here.

Step by step

By Capt. Fogg

It wouldn't be Christmas if we didn't have the mindless, botox-faced zombies at Fox yelping about the insult to religion. Of course, it wouldn't be a free country if we weren't allowed to express our objections to anything or were forced to make religious oaths and follow religious practices. Oh, wait a minute -- we are. It isn't; at least not yet.

Lyin' Bill says he expects "they" (Jews, Atheists, Muslims) will try next to remove the national holiday (what, he called it a holiday?) on the premise that we can't have a holiday based on religion. Of course we can have a holiday based on the fact that nobody would come to work anyway, but that's inconvenient to his scenario and it annoys him that in fact, nobody seems to object to a day off for any reason.

It's my constitutional right to insult your religion, I'm proud to say, and it's only fair since your religion in and of itself insults mine and several others. In fact I take offense at some aspect of every religion I've yet heard of. It's good to live in a free country.

Apparently the sense of relief at being newly out from under the bootheel of religious tyrants seems to be spreading. Newsweek has a very objective over story on the empty bigotry of the war against gay marriage; one that I think couldn't have got past the editors before the election. Keith Olbermann came out last night and condemed Lyin' Bill's comic opera about Christians under siege as the step-child of xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

It's not as if freedom is breaking out all over, but I sense a weakening of the old guard; the passing of an old, worn out tyranny and again, I'm no longer ashamed to be proud of being an American: not because I think we're the best, but because we're not as ashamed to admit our faults and more likely to do something about it.

Merry Christmas.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Senate Republicans kill auto bridge-loan

By Creature

They really want to see the United States economy go under. And why? Because they hate unions. The enormity of this ideological blunder by Senate Republicans cannot be overstated. Overnight stocks have already tanked and the U.S. stock market is set to do the same. All eyes now look to George Bush to save the day. How fucked up is that?

Update: Ian Welsh thinks Obama can still twist a few arms. I'm not that hopeful.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Media needs its own open question page

By Libby Spencer

I wasn't at all surprised to see Ben Smith throw himself on the fainting couch over this, but I was surprised to see MoJo's Jonathan Stein join in the hand wringing over the "flaw" in the new Open Question page on the Obama transition site.

Notice something missing? The hot topic of the week, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, is absent. It's not because the American people are more substantively minded than the Blago-obsessed press. It's because Obama supporters using "Open for Questions" are using a tool on the site to flag as inappropriate any questions relating to the Illinois corruption scandal. The submissions about Blagojevich, of which there are plenty, can only be found by searching for the word "Blagojevich." And they all have a label on them reading:

"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate."

The site's users have a right to vote up and vote down whatever they'd like. If Blago-related questions get voted down, or are out-voted by questions about stem cells and Constitutional safeguards, that's fine. But the transition should find a way to ensure that polite, reasonable questions about uncomfortable topics don't disappear from the radar because of the well-meaning but ultimately anti-democratic fervor of supporters.

Undemocratic? Excuse me guys, but the site is open to everyone, supporter or not. The fact is the only ones obsessed with Blago are the media and the GOP. The rest of us lowly hoi poloi really are "more substantively minded" and would prefer the questions be prioritized according to their actual importance. Blago is not Obama's problem, no matter how many pixels you waste in your single minded pursuit of the next ginned-up controversy.

And there's a simple way to prove it. The media sites could start their own pages, using the same format, where readers could weigh in on what stories they would like to see covered. I'm willing to bet that they would get the same result on Blagojevich.

The media needs to get a clue. Your industry is failing because nobody gives a flying leap about what you think is important. You've become just as removed from reality as the people you're supposed to be watchdogging. A little responsiveness to the public hunger for actual journalism from the all powerful elite media would go a long way towards restoring their rapidly waning credibility.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

Demands not seen in eight years

By Creature

Why do the press and the GOP now demand a full accounting from Obama regarding the Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal when over the last eight years they have never held George Bush to that standard? I'm not saying Obama shouldn't be transparent. I am questioning the double big-D standard.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Top Ten Cloves: Tricky things about attempting to sell a Senate seat

By J. Thomas Duffy

News Item: Obama: I Am ‘Appalled And Disappointed’ By Illinois Scandal, Blagojevich Needs To Resign

10. Try to move it quickly ... Just remember Andy Card's warning - "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce a new Senate Seat in August."

9. Get it placed in a few movies, or television shows, and people will line up to buy it like Happy Soup!

8. Ticket brokers, but you have to be careful of the various states that have "scalping" laws.

7. Talk to Sarah Palin, cut her in, and maybe you can package it with the Bridge to Nowhere.

6. Two words - Time Share!

5. If you're willing to put "GoldenPalace.Com" on it, you could get millions!

4. You could get Billy Mays, butit's a tougher sell if the seat doesn't mend something.

3. eBay, but it probably would sell faster if it had an image of the Virgin Mary with it.

2. Holy Cow! ... Too bad Phil Rizzuto died ... Think of the potential - "Hi, I'm Phil Rizzuto, from the Senate Seat Store" ... You could have sold it like hotcakes!

1. SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ... SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ... SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ...

**********

Bonus Blago's Bazaar Riffs

Josh Marshall: Amazing

Robert Stein: Selling Obama's Senate Seat

Steve Benen: THE INEVITABLE PUSH

Nate Silver: Appointed Senators Rarely Win Re-Election

Rex W. Huppke: Rod Blagojevich shows foulmouthed side ...Etiquette experts say such language still unprofessional

Prescott Carlson: Bla-lego-vich








(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Rags to bitches

By Capt. Fogg

The McCain Campaign is unloading their surplus property this week in Arlington, VA. I'm surprised that they didn't put the laptops, Blackberrys and folding chairs up for sale on eBay, but perhaps the failure of Sarah Palin to sell that surplus Airplane on eBay (despite the fact that McCain said it sold at a profit) was a lesson to them. Too bad, I'd have liked to run some undelete software on one of those bargain laptops and see what kind of porn the righteous right prefers.

But one thing we aren't seeing is that fantastic wardrobe of Sarah Palin's -- the one she claimed would be returned to the GOP after the campaign. She certainly seemed well and expensively dressed when she was cheerleading for Chandless. Nothing she wore looked like the small town resale shop she claims to frequent, but perhaps I'm being premature. Perhaps it just takes longer to remove the stains of hypocrisy and the odor of mendacity than it does to erase those Blackberrys and hard drives.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Jon Stewart is full of win

By LindaBeth

Jon Stewart makes a great comeback to Huckabee, Heterosexual Questionnaire-style: "At what age did you choose to not be gay."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

In Canada, here or here (not sure which).

Also, check out this post on what marriage would look like if we followed Biblical scripture.

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power.)

Krazy Kristol tops 2008 worst list

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Foreign Policy has published its list of "The 10 Worst Predictions for 2008." Topping the list: Krazy Bill Kristol, with this doozy:

If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she's going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then... Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I'll predict that right now.

He predicted that "right now" on Fox New Sunday on December 17, 2006 -- and, of course, it turned out, like so much of what he predicts, to be entirely wrong.

But was it really a worse prediction that this truly appalling one -- this dangerously misleading one -- from Crazy Jim Cramer?

Peter writes: "Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?" No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out... Bear Stearns is not in trouble. I mean, if anything they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear! That's just being silly! Don't be silly!"

Yeah, how'd that work out? Bear collapsed six days later.

Kristol was just doing what so many political pundits do, namely, making ill-informed, partisanized predictions, whereas Cramer was actually giving investment advice.

So what if you accepted Kristol's prediction? Unless you had money on the outcome of the Democratic primaries, which you shouldn't have had, what did you lose by agreeing with him that Hillary was going to win? Back then, before Iowa, many people, including me, thought that she was going to win. She was well ahead in the polls, after all, and Obama had not yet become, well, Obama.

But if you accepted Cramer's prediction? Well, you could have lost a lot of money.

In other words, what Kristol predicted was wrong, but what Cramer predicted was both wrong and deeply irresponsible.

Now, what was clear long before the Bear collapse was that you shouldn't trust Cramer with your money -- or any single investment advisor, for that matter -- and you deserve some of the blame if you accepted Cramer's word on Bear without doing your own due diligence, but that doesn't excuse Cramer from being so downright ignorant just days ahead of one of the biggest corporate meltdowns in American history.

Politics as usual

By Creature

Politico:

National Republican Committee Chairman Mike Duncan called on President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday to disclose any communication he has had with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested Tuesday for allegedly attempting to sell Obama’s Senate seat.

"President-elect Barack Obama’s carefully parsed and vague statements regarding his own contact and that of his team with Governor Rod Blagojevich are unacceptable," Duncan said in a statement.

This is why playing nice and embracing bipartisanship, while noble in theory, is usually a waste of time in practice.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

And it's Ignatieff...

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As expected, Canada's Liberal Party selected a new leader today, and, just as expected, that new leader is:

Michael Ignatieff.

Actually, he's just the interim leader -- a leadership convention is scheduled for May -- but, with his main rival, Bob Rae, having pulled out of the race yesterday, there's nothing really "interim" about it. It is Ignatieff who will lead the Liberals through these politically turbulent times, with Parliament set to resume sitting at the end of next month and the Conservatives' budget set to be introduced shortly thereafter. The convention will be a formality.

For my thoughts on Ignatieff, whom I did not support for the leadership, preferring Rae, see here.

Around the World: Zimbabwe, Belarus, Greece, Russia, and Turkey

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This, apparently, is Post #6,000 at The Reaction. I suppose that's a milestone of sorts. Let's use the occasion to do another installment of our Around the World series (which we haven't done in some time):

1) Zimbabwe: "A cholera epidemic is sweeping across Zimbabwe, causing further suffering to millions of people already struggling to survive in a country close to systemic collapse as food shortages and hyperinflation continue to take their toll." It's pretty grim, to say the least -- and, as the BBC notes, it does not even have permission to report from Zimbabwe.

2) Belarus: "Police have arrested dozens of opposition activists across Belarus after a series of protests marking international Human Rights Day." Oh, what a lovely dictatorship. (And such irony: human rights abuses on Human Rights Day.)

3) Greece: "Riot police battled protesters outside Greece's parliament and in Athens suburbs yesterday while opposition socialists called for the conservative government to step down to end the worst civil unrest in decades." It's a complicated situation, but, essentially, students have risen up against the government of conservative Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis in the wake of the killing of a 15-year old boy by police. As the editor of one of the country's leading newspapers put it, the killing "It will quickly become a flag of convenience for anyone who has a grudge against the state, the government, the economic system, foreign powers, capitalism and so on." More here.

4) Russia: "[T]he Kremlin seems to be capitalizing on the economic crisis, exploiting the opportunity to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long coveted, particularly those in natural resources." Putin's authoritarian centralization -- and, make no mistake, he's still in charge -- is disturbing, but it's not like the alternative, the rule of the oligarchs and the various other corrupt and criminal elements that dominate Russian society, is terribly appealing either.

5) Turkey: "Amid corruption scandals and stagnating reform, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, praised in Europe as a modernizer, is seeking refuge in nationalist rhetoric, adopting a tougher stance on the Kurds and moving closer to the country's military leaders." It is nationalism, and not so much patriotism, that is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and certainly of the desperate politician seeking to distract public attention away from what really matters. Yet again, and so predictably, it's the glorification of the Self (us) and the vilification of the Other (them). And, in this case, it could put a halt to Turkey's pro-European modernization efforts and lead to further destabilization in northern Iraq (Kurdistan).

So how bad is it, really?

By Carl

This bad:

In the market equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world’s safest investment, United States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate of return.

The news sent a sobering signal: in these troubled economic times, when people have lost vast amounts on stocks, bonds and real estate, making an investment that offers security but no gain is tantamount to coming out ahead. This extremely cautious approach reflects concerns that a global recession could deepen next year, and continue to jeopardize all types of investments.

A quick finance lesson for those of you who didn't attend B-school. Interest is essentially the cost of borrowing money (there's a lot more and that's very simplistic, but I digress). If you borrow $100 from me, that's $100 I don't have. I charge you $2 interest, because I can make at least that much in another investment.

Let's assume inflation is a factor, for a second, and inflation would eat up $1 of the $100. I still come out ahead. Presumably, you being a rational person, use the $100 to make a quick $3 or more. You come out ahead.

If I lend you the money at zero interest, it means that I lose money over time. I don't recapture that $1 that inflation has eaten up. I effectively get $99 for lending you $100. Under what scenario does this arrangement work.

When inflation is a negative, or economic growth is contracting.

So in other words, the global financial markets have factored in the entire world economy. They've taken into account China and India and Russia. And they've decided that, for the next thirty days (which includes the last two weeks of Christmas shopping), the economy is going to go south like nobody's business. They're not worried about making money: they're worried about losing more money than they already have.

As well, some global investors are scared enough that the Treasury auctioned off some 3-month notes for zero percent, meaning those pessimists believe things won't get better before next spring.

Personally, I would have taken zero on 12-month notes.

It's a very weird world out there. The dollar, which had hit some recent historic lows against the euro and the pound, is suddenly the place to invest, primarily because oil prices, tied to the dollar, have collapsed, making dollars more freely available on the market. You'd think this would be good news to stock markets, but you'd be wrong.

The dollar being strong and the U.S. Treasury being able to float zero interest debt actually caused the market to drop. My guess is this is mopre pyschological than economic: I see this as the last stand of the American government. For too long, we've lived on borrowed money, buoyed only be the fact that we've been able to see the private sector, similarly buoyed, scratch out some economic growth in this decade.

Despite Bush's tax cuts, which have done nothing for the real economy and only helped speed up the shuffling of paper in the fantasy economy.

The bailouts of so many businesses in so many key economic sectors (wait until the airlines start lobbying) has Wall Street worried, and rightly so.

When does the spigot turn off? What companies will be left standing when the music stops and the chairs are full? What happens when Uncle Sam himself turns empty pockets inside out?

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

This seat's for sale

By Capt. Fogg

Let's hear it for young Rod Blagojevich,
Put his state up for sale, oh boyavich!
They surely won't fail
To put him in jail,
Where his cellmate will make him a toyovich.


(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Weighing Obama

By Libby Spencer

The White House has helpfully issued a two page memo titled Speech Topper on the Bush Record for those in the administration that may be having a little trouble coming up with good things to say about Bush's self-designed fairytale legacy. Meanwhile, the GAO released a 150 page list of Bush engineered horror stories that will be confronting the incoming Obama administration when they take office. [pdf] There is virtually no governmental agency that is not entirely screwed up by incompetency and outright sabotage of the public interests.

Read the whole sordid capsule version at the first link at least, but here's a shorter version:

Department of Homeland Security: Failed leadership. No plan to integrate emergency efforts with other agencies in event of a crisis. Wasting bucketloads of money. Programs under its management, including TSA, FEMA, immigration and the Coast Guard have no effective policies to protect from potential attacks or disasters.

Department of Defense: Just as inefficient as it's ever been, only now with more crony corruption. No effective plan to rebuild troop and mission readiness.

Department of Agriculture: Still passing out big bucks to non-farmers and mishandling "high-consequence biological pathogens" at laboratories carrying out agency-funded work.

Department of Veterans Affairs: Completely failing to meet the needs of veterans.

Environmental Protection Agency: Policy decisions being influenced by industry groups. Total failure in safety enforcement.

Department of Commerce: Census bureau = epic failure. (Sidenote - Lieberman chairs the Senate committee in charge of overseeing this agency.)

Department of Energy: Failed leadership, inept project planning and rife with crony corruption.

Department of Transportation: Epic across the board failure. Wanton spending, failure to solve transportation problems and no Supertrain.

General Services Administration: Poster agency for incompetency. Doesn't repair the properties it owns, owns properties it doesn't need and another hotbed of crony corruption on leasing practices.

Worse yet, this is not even close to a comprehensive list. It only addresses the bare minimum of bad pratices and doesn't touch such issues as the politicalization of the DOJ for instance.

Everybody has to do what they think is best to advance the progressive, or whatever cause, they believe in. But this is why I'm willing to cut Obama some slack. It exhausts me to just think about the sheer weight of what Bush has ruined in the last eight years. I can't imagine being tasked with trying to repair it and unlike our current Thief in Chief, I believe Obama genuinely feels that weight and is trying to lift it. I don't know how exactly to help him, and I'm not advocating giving him a totally free pass, but I'm just not inclined to add to his burden as long as he's making a good faith effort to carry it himself.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

Mary on my mind

By Capt. Fogg

I have to admit that it looks more like medieval images of Mary than most apparitions appearing in the news: burnt toast, rust stains, grilled cheese sandwiches. Usually any inverted U shape qualifies. This one however appears in one "slice" of an MRI scan of a local woman's brain and the woman's sister, hoping to raise needed funds for medical care, intends to put it up on eBay.

I could ramble on about the sad story of someone growing up in a town polluted with dioxin and with a lifetime of health problems, including cancer, that because of our "every man for himself" medical care system has been left on the side of life's road, but instead I'll talk about my kitchen counter. It's a large grained slab of granite and there isn't a morning when I don't discover another hitherto unobserved face in it. It's not that I'm hung over or astigmatic or even mentally unbalanced. Our brains seem to be wired to seek out faces lurking in the weeds. It's probably a survival thing even if it's only Millard Filmore or Maynard G. Krebs staring at me, eating breakfast.

Of course, nobody knows if there really ever was a Virgin Mary or whether she actually was Virgo Intacta until Yahweh shagged her -- much less what she looked like. I'm certain she wouldn't have worn medieval European clothing, but none the less, just like we know that Jesus had long, straight, lanky and light colored hair, with northern European features and was somewhat underweight, we know what she looks like. She looks like a structure in the brain of Pamela Latrimore, in blurry cross section.

Ms. Latrimore has no medical insurance and needs the money, so for once I'm hoping that the deranged and delusional will want some object to pray to (God screens his calls these days) and will bid it up. Unlike Burnt French Toast Jesi or tomato slice apostles it won't rot and unlike road stain apparitions of Jesus you can hang it on your wall. Maybe God made us prone to see faces just so that he could inspire people who pray to bird shit splatter on car hoods to actually do some good in the "love thy neighbor" department. Maybe not, but Pamela definitely needs the money.

(Cross-posted from The Swash Zone.)

Dust to dust

By Capt. Fogg

To day he shall be lifted up and to morrow he shall not be found, because he is returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing.

- 1 Macabees 2:63 -

Freedom's Watch, the organization largely funded by a Las Vegas Casino owner, really cared about watching our freedom, I'm sure. That's why they promoted the "War on Terror" so avidly -- and not just because there's big money to be made by marketing fear and demonizing the innocent and righteous. You know, of course, that Ari Fleischer, formerly a paid liar for George W. Bush, was a board member of the far-right, jingoistic group that now seems to be the latest domino to fall. He may be left no other alternative than to seek honest employment.

Since the Bush economy began to piss away the wealth of our nation, people have had less money to piss away themselves at places like The Sands in Las Vegas, whence cometh most of the funds that kept the lobbying group alive. Freedom's Watch hasn't had the budget to play games with our freedom of late, although they did manage to help Saxby Chambliss this year -- the same Chambliss who ran one of the most reprehensible campaigns in American history in 2002, painting war hero opponent Max Cleland as a coward and associate of Osama bin Laden.

So perhaps deep recessions like this one aren't an entirely bad thing. Like death, it sweeps everything away in time, the good, the bad, and the Republican. It's not that there isn't an endless supply of malice, dishonesty, greed and any other kind of evil you can think of ready to take its place, but I enjoy watching the end of Freedom's Watch. Even if justice rarely prevails in this world, in the end everything dies and the smug smiles of arrogant elitists, power mad sociopaths and Republicans in general will have an end.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Symbols of delusion: Chambliss, Cao, Boehner, and the future of the Republican Party

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yesterday at WaPo's The Fix, Chris Cillizza asked if Republicans are "on the march" and concluded that the recent Republican victories in Georgia (Senate) and Louisiana (House) "give Republicans something to rally around" and "lay the foundation for at least the possibility of a comeback in 2010 and beyond."

Oh... really.

While I do not deny that things can change quickly in politics, and that the GOP could make a comeback within the next few years, I'm not sure that any sort of pre-comeback should be read into what happened in two of the reddest states in the country:

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss held on to his Senate seat in last week's run-off election. No surprise there. He was ahead in the polls leading up to the (first) election and he almost reached the 50% threshold the first time around. The fact that a libertarian was on the ballot, and won about 3%, cost him the outright win. True, he expanded his lead in the run-off, but the Republicans poured far more money and resources into the run-off campaign than the Democrats did, with the likes of Sarah Palin stumping for him. In the end, the incumbent won. So what?

Louisiana: Disgustingly corrupt Democratic incumbent William Jefferson lost his bid for re-election in the state's 2nd District to Republican challenger Anh Cao on Saturday. In response, House Minority Leader John Boehner wrote that "[t]he Cao victory is a symbol of our future." True, Cao is untraditionally Republican (he will be only the fourth visible minority in the GOP House caucus, joining three Cuban-Americans), and, true, the 2nd District (which includes New Orleans), where Jefferson (the first black to represent Louisiana in Congress since Reconstruction) has been firmly and comfortably ensconced since he first won the seat way back in 1990, is overwhelmingly Democratic, but was it a win for Cao or a loss for Jefferson? Surely the latter much more than the former. Indeed, according to an analysis of the vote reported by the Times-Picayune, "Jefferson's downfall was largely a product of apathy and confusion among black voters." Had black voters turned out as they did on November 4, Jefferson would have won. Some voters may simply have had enough of Jefferson, at long last, but it was the turnout, or lack thereof, that gave the vote to Cao.

So... that's the "symbol" of the GOP's future? Capitalizing on low turnout against a corrupt incumbent? That's not much of a future.

And... Republicans can "rally around" these two wins? Well, they can rally around whatever they want, including their own delusions, but the two wins don't really "lay the foundation" for anything. Will the new Boehner-inspired strategy be for GOP incumbents like Chambliss to hold on to their seats in tight races and run-offs and for upstart no-names like Cao to topple disgustingly corrupt Democratic incumbents in low-turnout run-offs?

That's not much of a strategy, and certainly not much of a winning one. Then again, maybe it's all the Republicans have.

Another media push to keep the Hillary-Obama feud alive

By Creature

I'm not saying there is not a controversy, or a conflict, between Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice over whether Rice will get her own transition team in Washington (something rare for a U.N. Ambassador), but when the article "reporting" on these so called "cracks" in Obama's foreign policy team says, "Officials with Clinton's transition team declined to comment on the matter, and aides to Rice could not immediately be reached," I have to wonder if the author isn't looking to create a controversy out of whole cloth.

Hillary could be totally on board with Rice's independence or she could be spitting mad, but without her comment is there really a story here?

Update: Ta-Nehisi Coates smells the same fish.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Family jewels

By Mustang Bobby

Not to pick a fight with Jane Hamsher, for whom my respect knows no limit, but I don't think she's giving Caroline Kennedy a fair shake on her possible appointment to fill out Hillary Clinton's Senate term.

The woman has never run for office in her life. We have no idea how she'd fare on the campaign trail, or how well she could stand up to the electoral process. She simply picks up the phone and lets it be known that she just might be up for having one of the highest offices in the land handed to her because -- well, because why? Because her uncle once held the seat? Because she's a Kennedy? Because she took part as a child in the public's romantic dreams of Camelot? I'm not quite sure.

I recall that the same arguments were made in 2000 when Hillary Clinton decided to run for the Senate. True, Ms. Clinton is an attorney and she had worked in the Senate before becoming First Lady, but she had never run for office before, either, and she was basically anointed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to take his seat. And if her name had been simply Hillary Rodham and she hadn't been married to the President of the United States, and had just bought a nice place in Westchester County and decided to pick up the phone and call people, what would her chances have been?

Caroline Kennedy does have one thing going for her that Hillary Clinton didn't have, and it's not just her name or her family connections. She has spent most of her life in New York and she has been involved in, among other things, education reform. She is also an attorney, and her resume is as impressive as anyone out there being seriously considered for the position. I think it's unfair to gloss over her accomplishments and disqualify her just because she is the daughter of a president and the niece of two senators. That may have opened some doors for her, but she's been the one who proved herself, and it's not her that is carrying the baggage of memories of Camelot. I also don't think she's naive enough to think that she will be above it all and not be able to take on the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics in New York or in the United States Senate.

As for the entitlement issue raised by having a slew of family connections in positions of power, I think that it sounds a lot worse than it actually is. After all, we've seen it throughout the history of the country and it pretty much balances out good versus bad (the Roosevelts vs. the Adamses; not to mention rafts of Tafts), and denigrating a potential candidate purely because of pedigree is, I think, a shallow argument. In some ways it can be a curse to be a member of a political family; for example, Jeb Bush's chances for winning the White House are pretty much shot to hell, even if he does become the next senator from Florida. On the whole we have found that family connections don't necessarily mean a lockstep continuation of policy or even political alignments; Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican and FDR was a Democrat.

I don't know if Caroline Kennedy is up to the job of Senator from New York. Then again, no one knows if anyone is, and certainly the names being bandied about (including -- are you ready -- Fran Drescher) are enough to make you wonder what the qualifications are. But she shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because of a pedigree she had no control over.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Whoa!

By Carl

Well, I figured there would be some fallout from the whole Illinois corruption thing, going back to the Rezko trial, but this?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges.

Blagojevich and Harris were accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that included Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. The governor was also accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning.

Ouch. Naturally, Obama's sainthood is tarnished just a little by this revelation, but it doesn't touch him beyond that, as far as anyone is saying. As well, it would have to take a mistake of monumental proportions for this to somehow get tied back to Obama. I suspect he was purposely left completely out of the loop in any way, shape or form. At worst, someone lower-level in his campaign organization will take a fall for even discussing Obama's noninvolvement.

However, it is unlikely that Obama became such a powerful force in Illinois politics without having to dip his hand into this barrel of slime at some point, and that will likely come back to haunt him.

Blagojevich is a particularly unctious little creep, judging by the various investigations that he is or has been the subject of, but Illinois has a long history of people like this, from former governor George Ryan to the infamous Daley machine. It's not pretty.

It's possible that Obama's fast rise was predicated on keeping him out of the muck in this machine, much like Harry Truman managed to win the presidency despite being a member of the Pendergast machine of the '40s and '50s in Missouri. Truman had a few brow-raising favors traded with Pendergast, but much of the dirty work seemed to take place around him but avoiding him directly.

Or he avoiding it.

Either way, the rest is history, and one can hope that the same can be said for Obama.

The difference, of course, is the Republican party today plays a far nastier and unctious game themselves and it's not out of the question that this shadow will hang over and hamper the Obama first term almost as much as the Lewinski affair nearly defined the Clinton legacy.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

Canada’s Liberals set to pick new leader, likely Michael Ignatieff

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If you're interested, my latest piece at The Guardian on Canada's rather exciting political situation was posted this morning:

Ignatieff’s moment.

It looks like the new leader of the Liberal Party will be former Harvard professor and noted international relations expert Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff was first elected to Parliament in 2006 -- from a suburban Toronto riding into which he was parachuted, much to the displeasure of some of the locals. Although a relatively new politician, he is seen by many Liberals as the party's saviour, and, indeed, he tends to carry himself with an air of detached (and arrogant) statesmanship.

The question is whether he'll be able to guide the party, currently in opposition, a distant second to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives, through these rather turbulent and partisan times. He would certainly boost the party's credibility, as well as its poll numbers (at least short-term), but I have my doubts. While his academic credentials are impressive, his positions on such matters as pre-emptive war and torture, both of which he has defended in terms of his "lesser evil" theory (as in, they're lesser evils than, say, terrorism), are, to put it mildly, controversial. Furthermore, it's not clear what he stands for other than wishy-washy centrism and the advancement of his own political career.

My clear preference is former Ontario premier Bob Rae, a far more progressive and democratic figure than Ignatieff. But Ignatieff has the overwhelming support of the Liberal caucus and the decision could come as early as tomorrow.

**********

UPDATE: Rae has pulled out of the leadership race, throwing his support behind Ignatieff.

Said one "senior Liberal," quoted in the Star, "[Ignatieff] could've well won, but leaping for the reins of power without giving the grassroots a voice -- these are people who are going to do your organizing and legwork for the party. It says the party can't move, can't be nimble. It's very dismaying."

I agree.

White House sends out legacy talking points

By Creature

Basically since President Bush refrained from getting blown by an intern during the last eight years his presidency is deemed a success. Mission accomplished.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Stop the bailouts! ... Nicole Wallace has something much better!

By J. Thomas Duffy

Nicolle Wallace served as a senior advisor to the McCain-Palin campaign from May 2008-November 2008. Prior to joining the McCain campaign, she worked as a political analyst at CBS News. She served President George W. Bush as an assistant to the president and director of communications for the White House from January 2005 - June 2006, as communications director for President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and as special assistant to the president and director of media affairs at the White House.

With a rap sheet like that, you might expect to find it on The Smoking Gun.

But no, Tina Brown's new toy is the forum.

I know that things are very bad for a lot of Americans this holiday season, so I hope people will forgive me for my good cheer. Perhaps it’s all the hope and change in the air these days, or maybe it’s just my defeat-induced life of unemployed leisure, but I have been filled with a warm and fuzzy feeling. First, there was John McCain’s exquisite concession speech.

OMG!

Quickly, somebody tell The Congress to cancel those bailout checks!

All we have to do, for those who are unemployed, or being foreclosed on, is to give them "some warm, fuzzy unemployed leisure" and a copy of John McKKKain's "exquisite concession speech".

They'll be thrilled, swept away with indescribable bliss.

Anything but a "gracious" concession speech would have been ... Well ... Pretty much in character of the campaign Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny, and the Wasilla Whiz Kid ran.

The monster, landslide ass-kickin' Obama dished out Election Night left the debunked Maverick with no options.

All the networks were biting on the bit, as the clock ticked slowly towards 9:00PM (EST), so they could cue the music and declare the projections of the historic Obama victory.

It wasn't close ... At all.

The speech sent a powerful signal around the world about the strength of our democracy. It also opened the door for the McCains to return, unscathed, to their previous lives of impressive service—Cindy McCain as an advocate for international aid and relief efforts and John McCain as a powerful, pragmatic senator known, liked, and respected by a sizable swath of Democrats, Republicans, the media, and world leaders.

Unscathed?

Impressive?

Jesus, was Wallace holding a box of donuts with one hand, typing with the other?

She goes on to wave her "Gracious" wand over McKKKain's Mini-Me, the Obama staff and, finally, we get to the point where we see she's signed up for passage on the S.S. Bush Legacy Restoration Barge, waxing on how The Commander Guy is a baller, as he begins his "can't-come-fast-enough" exit from The Bush Grindhouse.

But some of the most heartwarming stories I’ve heard this holiday season are the ones that have leaked out of both the East and West wings of the White House about George and Laura Bush, two people whose grace has gone under-reported and unappreciated for too long.

That ought to get her a personal, handwritten note on her Christmas card from the Turd Blossom.

The Bushes have invited former staffers back to the White House this holiday season for one last visit to the place we called home for 70-hour work weeks. I will cherish one last stroll through the grand rooms, one last photo by the Christmas tree, one last look at the East Room as it sparkles with holiday lights and decorations, and one last opportunity to bask in the glow of their grace.

The Daily Beast, where this pap appeared should have provided barf bags, or, at least, a warning to readers, that a two-time hack, completely delusional, would be fouling the pages with her "warm, fuzzy unemployed leisure".

Hey, wait a minute ...

Here's an idea.

Why don't we get a good chunk of those 500,000+ recently unemployed citizens, mix in some of the thousands who have been thrown out there homes, bring in a few bus loads of Iraq veterans, wounded, maybe without much help from the VA, and we shouldn't forget some of the good folks from New Orleans, still displaced, still without a home, and let them stroll through the grand rooms, and take in all the sparkling holiday lights and decorations - and give them a copy of John McKKKain's "exquisite concession speech".

Now, taking our cue from Nicole Wallace, if that wouldn't be one, rootin'-tootin', god-damn, buckets-of-tears, holiday joy, I just don't know what else would capture the spirit of the season, with so much of that "good cheer" Nicole Wallace is so full of.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Grown-ups in charge

By Carol Gee

For a time prior to November 4 of this year, I was afraid to hope for a set of healthy-sized Democratic victories. Eight years of things going wrong with elections had worn my hopes thin. Then the positive numbers began to come in and I could breathe more easily. The grown-ups were going to take charge again. The adolescent was on his way to Texas.

For a time following the election, I was hopeful that Democrats would have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Two years of near-impotence in the face of Republican leaders' obstructionism had worn out my faith in the Senate's Democratic leaders. Now the numbers are in and I must reckon with the necessity of bipartisanship to get anything substantive done in the 111th Congress. Grown-ups in both Executive and Legislative will rebalance their power. The bully on the see-saw has left the playground.

For a time following the official transition into the "Obama Transition," I was optimistic about a standard set of Progressive nominations fitting my agenda. A month of leaked names, intros and announcements has tempered my wide-eyed optimism. On the scale of left to right the numbers fall more toward the center than the left. Grown-up leaders can inhabit the Center and we will still be OK. Childish ideologues will be replaced with pragmatic over-achievers.

For a time after the world economic crash and attacks on Mumbai, I was anxious for the world's well-being. As the weeks have passed and I am out and about in my community, I see for rent signs in stores, empty parking lots, and fewer help wanted ads in bankrupting newspapers. And I hear tension in my grown-up children's voices as they ask without saying, "Am I grown up enough to handle what's coming?" While Bush president fiddles their Rome is burning.

For the time being I understand the recession has spread to my own, and my turf. My hope that the downturn is time-limited and finite is buoyed by my own history as a "Depression baby." I am grown up now and so are my children and most of my grandchildren. Our change-leaders are having to grow up fast as they face the worst challenges since the Great Depression. And we have grown desperately tired of Bush 43, the neocon's darling, manipulatable, boy wonder from Texas.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Buy 'em while you can!

by Capt. Fogg

So I leave the dim coolness of the ophthalmologist's office and emerge into the Florida Noonday blaze and gain an immediate appreciation of how a vampire feels when he can't make it back to his coffin before the sun rises. Even with my darkest sunglasses on, my dilated pupils won't allow me to drive so I decide to get a haircut at Bob's, where you can look at his massive collection of old guns, antique ammunition signs and cowboy paraphernalia while you and the good old boys get your hair length reduced.

Even after an hour, I still can't see well enough to drive, so I go across the street to the gun shop looking to chat with the proprietor who, up to now, has been almost as lonely as the Maytag repairman would be if the claims were true, and willing to pass the time talking about outdoorsy things. Of course since Obama the Antichrist was elected, things are different at gun shops and the place was full of people and almost devoid of those non-automatic, civilian versions of military weapons that the more hysterical of us like to call "assault weapons."

The conversation was lively and as gun shop conversations have been of late, all about "that man" and the certainty of his rabid opposition to all forms of weaponry in private hands.

"I don't know" said the creepy guy, using a magnifying glass to inspect a nickel plated double barrel derringer chambered for .45 long colt and 410 shotgun shells.

"I just change channels when that guy comes on" says he. " I can't stand to listen to him."

"Well it's all on his web site." says the Deputy Sheriff, lovingly examining a monstrous, long barelled Smith &Wesson .460 SVR Magnum revolver with green laser sight and bipod. "Jesus, there's nothing in Africa you couldn't take down with this one."

"You've read it?" asks the store owner. "No, but his whole gun policy is on his web site. I just can't stand to read it, but I'm telling you if we're supposed to knock on doors looking foreveryone's guns, it ain't gonna happen. I mean he's talking about making lists of all registered guns and there is no gun registration in Florida in the first place. You just know the crime rate's gonna skyrocket."

"I guess the ATF has the authority to come in here and look at my books though" says the owner, let's call him Joe.

"Yeah, but I'll just tell them I sold them all privately or at a gun show and I don't have any guns any more" says creepy guy with a creepy, conspiratorial grin.

"Well it's all on his web site" says the Deppity. "He's going to bring back the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban and all the rest. It's on the web site."

It's not, actually. I looked and what it does say is that Obama believes the second amendment conveys an individual right, that he is concerned with the impediments to hunting and fishing and is determined to increase access and provide incentives to open more land to those uses and that he will protect the rights of law abiding citizens to own, transport and use guns. Of course that's not enough for the NRA and a lot of other people, but it's not wholesale confiscation and it's not the rabid, hysterical and diabolical plan to disarm the general public that theDeppity says it is.

Anyway I asked if he had sold all the AK's he had on the racks last Summer and he said he had, and I asked if was getting any more and he said yes, but he wouldn't say when because it would be a mob scene if word got out, but it should be soon and they would all be gone within hours.

Pasted on the glass counter where bowie knives and ear muffs and safety glasses were displayed was a cartoon of a car plastered with Obama stickers. The driver was saying to a questioner: "No, I don't, but I own a gun shop."

For some people, business has never been better.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Mittragious: How Romney is angling for 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"It is more essential than ever that conservative candidates and organizations have the resources they need to get their message out to voters."

-- Mitt Romney

In other words: "I'm running for president again!"

According to The Boston Globe, Romney has thus far used his self-glorifying Free and Strong America PAC not so much to support conservative candidates and causes but to support his "political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting fees to over a half-dozen of Romney's longtime political aides."

However the money is spent, though -- and he's raised $2.1 million so far -- the objective is clear: Romney 2012. "In essence, Romney is financing a political enterprise that he can use to remain a national GOP leader and use as a springboard should he decide to launch another presidential bid for 2012."

Because even spreading the wealth around to conservative candidates and causes is about... Mitt Romney.

He lost the Republican nomination this year not so much because McCain was strong -- he wasn't at all; he won largely because the field was weak and because there wasn't a dominant conservative candidate -- but because he failed to win over conservatives, many of whom went for Huckabee (the preferred social conservative in the race) or Thompson (until his pathetic campaign fizzled out) or held their nose for McCain (thinking he could win over independents and win in November). He just never broke through this year, never secured the support and trust of conservatives, despite his impressive ground campaign (especially in the early states), outreach efforts to the right, and fund-raising abilities.

In the end, conservatives didn't buy it, either him or his brand, never quite believing that he was genuinely one of them. They suspected that he was merely an opportunist, willing to say whatever needed to be said to win them over. And -- ambitious guy that he is -- he knows that to win in 2012, and especially if high-profile conservatives like Palin are in the race, he'll need to be perceived to be, if not actually to be, one of them.

But how to be so perceived? After all, it's unlikely that he'll ever be able to put his insufficiently conservative past behind him. He tried to be a conservative this year and it didn't work, and, even four years from now, doubts will remain among those he is so desperately trying to woo.

So, evidently -- and in typical Romney fashion -- the strategy is to buy them off. Pump money into "conservative candidates and organizations" and have them "get their message out to voters."

What message? Why, that Romney's one of them, of course. It's called getting a return on your investment. And Romney knows how to play the game.

But will conservatives -- not just candidates and organizations but the grassroots elements of the GOP -- actually invest in Romney in return? Will they come to believe in him enough to throw their support behind him? I doubt it. He's still too transparently opportunistic, still to self-promotional. And, as the party shifts further and further to the right, there will be no shortage of (real) conservatives angling for the nomination in 2012, even if Obama remains an electoral juggernaut.

Romney's one advantage is the economy. If it continues to tank -- and it likely will, for a while -- he'll be able to campaign to his strengths by touting himself as the Republican most able to deal with it. Even then, though, there is hardly any guarantee that Republican primary voters, many of whom are stuck in the culture wars of the past, will trust him enough with the keys to the car.

No fair

By Mustang Bobby

George F. Will joins the growing chorus of right-wingers who are speaking out against the re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine.

Reactionary liberalism, the ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the "fairness doctrine," should be repeated. That Orwellian name was designed to disguise the doctrine's use as the government's instrument for preventing fair competition in the broadcasting of political commentary.

Because liberals have been even less successful in competing with conservatives on talk radio than Detroit has been in competing with its rivals, liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals. If liberals advertise their illiberalism by reimposing the fairness doctrine, the Supreme Court might revisit its 1969 ruling that the fairness doctrine is constitutional. The court probably would dismay reactionary liberals by reversing that decision on the ground that the world has changed vastly, pertinently and for the better.

[...]

If reactionary liberals, unsatisfied with dominating the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood, were competitive on talk radio, they would be uninterested in reviving the fairness doctrine. Having so sullied liberalism's name that they have taken to calling themselves progressives, liberals are now ruining the reputation of reactionaries, which really is unfair.

One small problem: No one on the liberal side of the dial is advocating for the re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. President-elect Obama is not in favor of it, and no one on Capitol Hill is seriously proposing that it be brought back.

It's pretty pathetic when the right wing has to whoop up a hue and cry over a non-existent issue so that when nothing happens they can claim a victory.

We also haven't been invaded by the Borg. I guess they can take credit for that, too.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Horrors!

By Carl

Goodness gracious! A politician allowed the delusional to maintain their delusions just long enough to get him elected!

I could go on and on. The point I'm making here is that our new president, the Congress and all Americans must come together to solve these problems. This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn't the way he thinks and it's not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people -- not just those on the left.

As a liberal member of our Party, I hope and expect our new president to address those issues that will benefit the vast majority of Americans first and foremost. That's his job. Over time, there will be many, many issues that come before him. But first let's get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end climate change and restore our place in the world. What a great president Barack Obama will be if he can work with Congress and the American people to make great strides in these very difficult times.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)