Just Go Read Matt Taibbi

His latest, on the corrupt Florida "rocket docket" special foreclosure courts is a thing of beauty.

Go read.

Rotten to the Core

Happy Veterans Day

Not only is the US military is pressuring our own soldiers to get them to sign documents admitting to a pre-existing "Personality Disorder" when they are injured in combat, so that they are not eligible for disability, now we have testimony that they tortured at least one soldier for the requisite signature.

This is a rather profoundly unsettling 9 minutes and 37 seconds.

Oop Ack! This is an Insult to Cat Food!

Yeah, this gives me hairballs too

So, now that the election is over, the two co-chairmen of Barack Obama's catfood^* deficit reduction commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, have released the plan that they came up with together.

On their own.

Without consulting with anyone else on the commission.

Which needs to get affirmative votes from 14 of the 18 members to actually issue a report.

It makes it pretty clear that these folks are idiots.

Remember now, that this commission was given one charge, to reduce the deficit in the long term, so let's see what they came up with:

• Cutting social security benefits, even though they themselves have said that this will not count against the deficit, because it has its own trust fund, and because they would be laughed out of town if they did.
• They cut this by means testing social security, changing the way that the benefits base is figured from average wage to CPI, which will cut benefits by over 50% over the next to years, and by raising the retirement age, which, as Paul Krugman notes, "Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever."
• Limiting government revenues to 21% of GDP.
• Cutting taxes, with the top tax rate dropping to 23%.(!).
• Torte reform.
  

Note that these are clearly not part of the committee's charge, which was to reduce the deficit, but they decided to go wingnut to start off.

Additionally, in areas where they are acting within the scope of their committee they want to:

• Cut military spending.
• Cut many tax deductions, including the home mortgage interest deduction (not gonna happen).
• Charge co-pays for veterans to get services from the VA.
• Magically making healthcard costs increase by no more than 1% more than GDP.

No wonder that (still) Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it, "simply unacceptable."

Felix Salmon is scathing about the plan, and shows just how silly it is:

Meanwhile, some of the small savings have to be seen to be believed. The deficit commission, charged with coming up with a bold plan to bring the nation’s finances into order, really does propose:

• Increasing the amount of time spent on instant messenger, to reduce travel costs;
• “Reduce copying use by putting the default option on copiers to double-sided”;
• Merging the Commerce Department with the Small Business Administration;
• Charging a fee to Smithsonian visitors.
• Etc.

Really, they are suggesting that we have the Smithsonian charge admission, and changing copiers to copy both sides of a sheet of paper by default.

This was foreseeable. Both Bowles and Simpson have been advocating privatizing Social Security for years, and Bowles almost had a deal cut with Gingrich in the 1990s to do so.

Not surprising, BTW, since Bowles is an investment bankers, and those folks have been salivating for decades about the possibility of getting fees for (mis)managing all that money.

This is not a deficit reduction plan. This is a slash fanfic wet-dream from the denizens of some warped right wing think tank.

I would note that the way is playing in the press will be disastrous for the Democrats, because it's all, "Obama Commission proposes cutting Social Security" (or the mortgage deduction, or veterans' benefits, etc.), and that was clear even before wankers Bowles and Simpson were appointed.

It was intended to be yet another excuse for Obama to preen about how he was post-partisan and reasonable he is, and once again, what emerged from this bit of narcissism is cataclysmic blow back, both in terms of the policy and the politics.

<Facepalm>

^*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

Ford Field In Detroit Evacuated!

Practice at the Detroit Lions stadium was delayed after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the ground. After a complete analysis, forensic experts determined that the white substance, unfamiliar to most of the players, was in fact, the goal line. Practice will resume tomorrow after Police and Homeland Security decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.^*

^*No clue as to who came up with this in the first place, but it's funny.

FDIC Moves to Boost Assessments on Large Banks

This is a good thing. If banks are too big to fail, then their insurance costs should reflect this:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposed shifting the burden for protecting depositors against bank failures toward larger lenders whose reliance on riskier funding sources may pose a greater threat to the financial system.

The FDIC board today approved two proposals for overhauling assessments for its deposit insurance fund, including one that would base the fees on banks’ liabilities rather than their domestic deposits. The fee proposal, a response to the Dodd- Frank financial-regulation law, would increase assessments on banks with more than $10 billion in assets.

“This proposal achieves the goals of the Dodd-Frank Act to change the assessment base to better reflect risks to the deposit insurance fund,” said FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. The measure is subject to a 45-day comment period.

If we make too big to fail too expensive to exist, I can live with that.

One Less Bigot With Power

Andrew Shirvell has been fired as assistant Michigan Attorney General for stalking University of Michigan student Chris Armstrong.

Armstrong was the first openly gay president of the Michigan Student Assembly, and this sent the already right-wing Shirvell into a delusional hissy fit.

As a private citizen, it would be creepy, but as a supporter and confidant of Michigan's right wing Attorney General, it took on some rather disturbing overtones.

Background here.

A Very Nice Take-Down of Treasury View Economic Blather

Click for full size

---

The Numbers Do Not lie


But David Henderson Does

Economist Mike Kimel does a masterful job of taking down another right wing economist, one David Henderson, who asserts that the government spending actually suppressed economic activity during WW II, and when reduced, we experienced an unprecedented boom in GDP.

Only we didn't.

Henderson also claims that the relaxation of economic controls under Truman lead to a much larger increase in private investment.

Only it didn't.

The giveaway that Henderson is writing to reflect his opinions, rather than the facts is that he published his article at the Geroge Mason University Mercatus Center, which is another one of those right wing "think" tanks.

In any case, both of Kimels articles are worth a good read.

It is a very well done, and very well deserved, "Fisking" of a charlatan.

H/t Angry Bear.

Economics Update

Generally, this has not been a good day for economic news.

We have seen a a spike in inventories, they rose 1.5% in September, following a 1.2% increase in August, which indicates that recent increases in manufacturing activity, which were largely driven by businesses rebuilding inventories, may now be running to the wall of weak consumer demand.

The fact that job openings fell again in September, indicating that there is simply not a an opportunity for people to find their way back into the job market, might be a part of this, as would the continued increase in personal bankruptcies.

On the brighter side, the National Federation of Independent Business’s optimism index rose to a 5 month high in October.

Not Enough Bullets

The high frequency trading firms are ramping up their lobbying efforts to keep their front-running of markets legal:

The high-frequency trading industry is stepping out of the shadows in Washington.

Closely held companies with undisclosed profits and obscure names like Getco LLC, Hard Eight Futures LLC and Quantlab Financial LLC, are beginning to act more like Wall Street banks, cutting checks to politicians, forming trade groups and hiring lobbyists and ex-regulators. They’re looking to fend off tighter rules and appease lawmakers who say the firms disadvantage small investors and contribute to wild swings in stock prices.

While the companies, which use high-powered computers to execute thousands of trades in milliseconds, aren’t approaching the big banks in Washington spending, they have more than quadrupled their political giving over the last four years, a Bloomberg News analysis shows. The top recipients include Eric Cantor, set to become House majority leader, and several incoming senators who won in last week’s Republican rout.

Among other things, they are worried that the SEC will limit their ability to manipulate stocks by doing things like submitting large number of orders and then canceling them.

But Eric "Place" Holder Remains True to Form

The Obama Department of Justice has elected not to prosecute CIA officials who obstructed justice by erasing torture tapes:

Central Intelligence Agency officials will not face criminal charges for the destruction of dozens of videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of terrorism suspects, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

After a closely watched investigation of nearly three years, the decision by a special federal prosecutor is the latest example of Justice Department officials’ declining to seek criminal penalties for some of the controversial episodes in the C.I.A.’s now defunct detention and interrogation program. The destruction of the tapes, in particular, was seen as so striking that the Bush administration itself launched the special investigation after the action was publicly disclosed.

Government officials said Tuesday that the special prosecutor, John H. Durham, could still decide to charge current and former C.I.A. officers and lawyers with making false statements to a grand jury over the course of the investigation, which began in January 2008.

Yes, they could, "Charge current and former C.I.A. officers and lawyers with making false statements," but they won't because they want to cover this up because Obama and Holder fear a future prosecution by a future Republican administration want to "look forward, not backward."

Respect for the rule of law, my ass.

Finally, Someone In the Obama Administration With Guts

Unfortunately, it's just Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood:

The Obama administration is urging Wisconsin's incoming Republican governor, Scott Walker, to reconsider his opposition to high-speed rail in his state and threatened to rescind $810 million in federal stimulus grants for the project if the venture is killed.

In a letter (pdf) to Walker yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood discussed what he called a "difference of opinion about the value of a Midwest high-speed rail network" between the Obama administration and the incoming governor, emphasizing economic benefits that high-speed rail could bring to the region.

Walker, who is currently the county executive of Milwaukee County, campaigned heavily against a proposed high-speed line to link Milwaukee and Madison that would eventually be part of a Midwest network. Decrying the project as a waste of tax dollars, he has called for the cash to be redistributed to highway and bridge repairs in his state.

But LaHood said the stimulus grants must be spent on rail projects.

Additionally, LaHood is demanding $271 million back from New Jersey Transit for Governor Christie's cancellation of the rail tunnel under the Hudson, and there are indications that the Feds will be demanding money back from Ohio when the new Republican governor there cancels their rail program.

Even more amusing is that Illinois is already applying for the money that the 'Phant governors don't want.

Good for Secretary LaHood, but I expect Obama to overrule him and give the money to Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey anyway, because he wants these loony tunes to like him.

It is interesting that the only one in Obama's administration to do the right thing because it is the right thing is a Republican.

What the Dickens??!?!?

And yes, I mean the author, as in in the Scrooge quote, "Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses?"

The new Conservative government in the UK is going Charles Dickens on the unemployed:

Ministers have defended their plans to force the long-term unemployed to do manual work or lose benefits.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander told the BBC the idea was not to "punish or humiliate" but to get people back into the habit of working.

But the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said the changes could drive people "into a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair".

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is to unveil the plans this week.

Under the plan, claimants thought to need "experience of the habits and routines of working life" could be put on 30-hour-a-week placements.

Anyone refusing to take part or failing to turn up on time could have their £65 Jobseekers' Allowance stopped for at least three months.

Of course, the Tories like this because they hate poor people, and their coalition partners, the Lib-Dems love this, because it hearkens back to a time when they had political relevance, those halcyon days before World War I.

With unemployment at the highest levels since the great depression, and unemployment in the UK among the highest in western Europe.

As Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman notes, "But she said the government needed to understand that to get people back into work, there had to be jobs for them to go to - and at the moment there were five people chasing each vacancy."

I think that Labour doesn't get it. The Conservatives plan to destroy enough so that people will be ready to dismantle the National Health Service for something more disastrously like the US system.

The barbarians are not at the gates, the barbarians are in the gate.

Economics Update

We have two different data points, first mortgage delinquencies were up in the 3^rd quarter, but we also saw that U.S. household debt shrunk by 0.9% over the same period.

So, are people paying down their debts, or are they having their debts written down by banks that realize that they will never get the money?

Coupled with this, crude oil is getting close to $90/bbl again, which may put another crimp in the economy.

Finally, the other shoe has dropped for monoliner bond insurer Ambac, and it has filed for bankruptcy, chapter 11 reorg, not chapter 7 liquidation.

Excuse Me While My Head Explodes

So, someone in the Obama administration is floating the idea that it would be a good to make (likely soon to be former her election is still to close to call) Congress woman Melissa Bean head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? (CFPB)

Yes, the Democrat most hostile to both to banking regulations in general and to the CFPB in general, is being mooted by some idiot in the Obama administration economic team *cough* Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner *cough* being the first official head of a bureau dedicated to protecting consumers from predatory lenders.

If Elizabeth Warren played the role of Martin Luther, protesting the corruption in the system by nailing her 95 theses to the door of the church, then Melissa Bean is the Church of Wall Street's Temple Prostitute, selling indulgences.^*

And someone in the Obama white house wants her to head the CFPB.


Never heard of Melissa Bean? Well Jane Hamshire has the bill of particulars: (quoting)

• Bean voted AGAINST Audit the Fed.
• Melissa Bean and the New Democrats were able to shoot the House derivatives plan full of holes.
• Melissa Bean introduced an amendment to gut a House bill to limit bonuses for TARP recipients. It passed.
• Melissa Bean “earned the most support of any incumbent from the US Chamber of Commerce.”
• Bean received over 40% of her 2009 campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector.
• She led the charge on behalf of the Wall Street banks to include “federal preemption” in the legislation, meaning that state regulations could be no tougher than the federal guidelines. Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform, said that “Bean’s amendment was considered the biggest threat to the CFPA.”

Seriously, if Barack Obama nominates her for this post, it will show that he is completely in the pocket of the banking industry.

To be fair, this could be an administration official, *cough* Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner *cough*, free lancing, but I am inclined to see this as deliberate and calculated. This administration revels in message control.

^*Yes, I know, this is a badly mixed metaphor.

What Bill Maher Said

True Dat

there are way too many people who think that reasoned discourse is about equating the two sides.

It's not. Reasoned discourse is about the truth, and as Bill Maher notes, "Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts the other one is very close to playing with his poop."

That is the problem with the Stewart/Colbert March for Sanity/Fear.

At the core of this discussion, there are people who are just lying or delusional, and they should not be considered equivalent to those who are merely partisan.

As the noted tippler Daniel Patrick Moynihan once noted, "People are entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts."

And Stewart and Colbert did not make that distinction at the rally, though, ironically enough, Stewart does so regularly on his show.

Olbermann Is Back on the Air Tomorrow

And there was much rejoicing:

STATEMENT REGARDING KEITH OLBERMANN - SUNDAY, NOV. 7

From Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC:

After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night's program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy. We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night.

I imagine that Keith's ratings will be through the roof for the next few days.

We Know Who is Going to Win This War

Killing each Taliban soldier costs $50 Million; Killing each NATO soldier costs $50 Thousand:

Kabul Press, on September 30, 2010, published an article by this author detailing the best estimate of Taliban killed per year (2,000) divided by a portion of the direct costs that the Pentagon is spending each year in Afghanistan ($100 billion). The resulting statistic suggests that it costs $50 million to kill each Taliban soldier. This number is very conservative. If all NATO and American costs (direct and indirect) were included, the analysis would reveal that it actually costs about $150 million.

The present article examines spending from the Taliban side in order to comparatively determine what it costs to kill each NATO soldier. The Brookings Institution is the consulting firm with the best political access to the Obama Administration and the U.S. State Department. In September 2009, it published a report on Taliban annual revenue, based in part on data gathered by the Congressional Research Service. Brookings estimated Taliban annual income at between $140 and $200 million. The Taliban have already inflicted over 600 deaths on NATO soldiers and more than twice that number of fatalities on Afghan army and police personnel. By the end of the year, total Coalition deaths are expected to reach 3,000. The math is unfortunately easy. Assuming Taliban revenue of $150 million divided by 3,000 = $50,000 to kill a NATO, American or Afghan soldier.

The military says that this is the product of an over simplified analysis, which is true, but the trend reflected here is correct, and we are not winning "hearts and minds" and cannot win "hearts and minds" because the populace opposes occupying forces, and our man in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is so indescribably incompetent and corrupt.

Oklamoma, Where the Dumb Comes Sweeping Down the Plains

So, someone decides to ban "Sharia Law," in Oklahoma, which will almost certainly be overturned, someone already has a claim that it invalidates his will in violation of the First Amendment, but the constitutional amendment, which intends to, "prohibit state courts from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases," also has the effect of banning the 10 commandments:

[U of OK Law Professor Joseph] Thai said the ballot measure "raises thorny church-state problems as well" and could even affect a state judge's ability to consider the Ten Commandments.

"The Ten Commandments, of course, is international law. It did not originate in Oklahoma or the United States," Thai said.

Morons.

Both the politicians who place demagoguery above observing their oaths of office, and the voters who pulled the lever for this crap.

So, the NFP Numbers Came Out Yesterday

The Non-Farm Payroll report for October came out Friday, and it was much better than expected, growing by 151,000 jobs, much better than the forecast of 70,000 with unemployment (U-3) remaining at 9.6%, while the broader U-6^* fell by ¹⁄₁₀ of a percent to 17%.

Even more significantly, it is more than the 125-150 thousand required to meet the natural increase in the workforce, meaning that at current rates, using the lower growth number, it would only take 26⅔ years for us to recover our job losses since Wall Street imploded.

By my math, this still qualifies as a jobless recovery, particularly since the total labor force has been shrinking as workers have become discouraged or otherwise left.

^* "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force."

The F-35 JSF Clusterf%$# Gets Even Clusterf%$#ier

Yes, everyone's favorite too big to fail defense program fails once again, with reports that SecDef Robert Gates has been briefed that costs will further escalate, and there will be an additional 3 year delay:

Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s costliest program, may see more price increases and new schedule delays of as much as three years, two government officials familiar with the matter said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to be briefed tomorrow on new cost and schedule assessments for the F-35 and other aircraft, said the officials, who requested anonymity because details aren’t public. Software, engineering and flight difficulties are greater than expected, the officials said.

……

Slippage in the JSF’s timetable may be as much as one year for the Air Force and Navy versions and two to three years for development of the Marine Corps model capable of short takeoffs and landings, the officials said.

It should be noted that these delays were forecast by the Pentagon's Joint Estimating Team (JET) over two years ago, and much of the delays are software issues.

Even Lockheed's CEO admits this, while asking for more money (big surprise).

What's more, not only will it be delayed and not only will the acquisition costs rise, but direct operating costs are jumping as well:

Gates also was advised in a Nov. 2 briefing that operations and support costs for the F-35 will be re-budgeted at 1.5 times the aircraft it replaces, more than twice the original goal and 50% more than more recent projections, according to reports.

Eric Palmer runs some numbers and shows that there has been about a 3 year of push-back on the schedule over the past 3 years, so basically the program is running in place.

What a damn mess.

This is a Metaphor for Halloween

Click for full size

---

Did I mention that it was illustrated?

It is a very funny essay on what happens when a child is separated from cake.

Taking candy from a baby, my ass.

Go read, it is brilliant, at least it is if you have children.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

140. K Bank, Randallstown, MD
     
141. Western Commercial Bank, Woodland Hills, CA
     
142. Pierce Commercial Bank, Tacoma, WA
     
143. First Vietnamese American Bank, Westminster, CA
     

A ordinary run, so far we have averaged 3¼ bank failures a week, though K Bank is very local. My chiropractor is in Randallstown.

Also, I neglected to mention that 2010 passed 2009's total of 134 on 22 October.

Full FDIC list

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):



I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I'm keeping it here for historical purposes.

Well, This is Shaping Up to Be a Crappy Day

First, I have to put my cat to sleep, and now Keith Olbermann has been suspended by MSNBC for making campaign contributions:

Keith Olbermann, the pre-eminent liberal voice on American television, was suspended Friday after his employer, MSNBC, discovered that he made campaign contributions to three Democrats last month.

The indefinite suspension was a stark display of the clash between objective journalism and opinion journalism on television.

Many prominent liberals and conservatives immediately called on MSNBC to reinstate Mr. Olbermann, who is usually outspoken but who had no comment on his suspension Friday.

The contributions came to light in an article by Politico Friday morning. Mr. Olbermann acknowledged in a statement that last month he donated $2,400 to the campaigns of Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and Attorney General Jack Conway of Kentucky, who lost his Senate race to Rand Paul.

I think that this is a stupid standard to hold straight journalists to, much less someone who is clearly an talking-head opinion type.

In the article, there is a suggestion that this is an attempt to make brand differentiation with Fox, where, for example, Hannity gave to Michelle "I used to be the nuttiest person in Congress, but the elections moved the bar" Bachmann, but I don't live in media executives heads, nor would I ever want to.

It does appear that Keith will be back at some point in the not to distant future, though.

H/t DC at the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.

We Had to Put Lavi to Sleep Today

Click for full size

---

Lavi, June 2003 - November 5, 2010
You will be missed

As I mentioned a month ago, we took her in for what looked like a bad tooth, and it turned out to be an aggressive malignant tumor.

She had stopped eating, is in pain, and is exhibiting difficulty moving, so we had to put her to sleep today.

In the pictures, you can notice the swelling on the side of her head, and the unequal pupils from the effect of the tumor on her right eye.

We buried her in the back yard, in the corner where the hill starts.

I found her in July of 1993.

I was driving from Orrville, OH, to Akron, and was sick and tired of the bottle of windshield washer fluid banging around in my trunk, so I pulled over to the side of the road, and grabbed the bottle, and popped the hood.

Under the hood, I saw something furry, and moving.

At first, I thought that it was a rat, but then I saw the ears and whiskers, so I picked her up, she fit in the palm of my hand, and she proceeded to puff herself up and hiss and spit in an attempt to intimidate me.

I took her home, and gave her a saucer of milk, and went and got some cat food.

The next day, I caught her brother, Tudza, who survives her, as they were crying to each other through the door.

She is older than my marriage, and she outlived the car under whose hood I found her so it was a good run, particularly since she survived a bout of hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver) 5½ years ago.

Both she and Tudza imprinted on me, so I guess that I am their "mommy", though she was also my daughter Natalie's cat.

Tudza is still alive and active, having never left his 1^st kitten hood.

I can haz prosecutions?

George W. Bush just admitted that he specifically authorized waterboarding, which is unequivocally torture under US law:

Human rights experts have long pressed the administration of former president George W. Bush for details of who bore ultimate responsibility for approving the simulated drownings of CIA detainees, a practice that many international legal experts say was illicit torture.

In a memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.

In his book, titled "Decision Points," Bush recounts being asked by the CIA whether it could proceed with waterboarding Mohammed, who Bush said was suspected of knowing about still-pending terrorist plots against the United States. Bush writes that his reply was "Damn right" and states that he would make the same decision again to save lives, according to a someone close to Bush who has read the book.

Bush previously had acknowledged endorsing what he described as the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation techniques - a term meant to encompass irregular, coercive methods - after Justice Department officials and other top aides assured him they were legal. "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Vice President Richard B. Cheney acknowledged in a television interview in February.

George W. Bush has just confessed publicly to a criminal conspiracy, and Barack Obama and Eric "Place" Holder need to (God I hate this term) "Man Up" and begin a criminal investigation.

What we also need to understand that in both Bush's and Cheney's talk about torture, the never suggest that they got actionable intelligence, nor that they even expected to get actionable intelligence from torture.

There are vague claims of "saving lives", but if those were true, they would have been declassified or leaked years ago.

They didn't authorize torture because there was a ticking bomb, there wasn't.

They didn't get actionable intelligence, because they would have trumpeted it.

They had no belief that it would generate actionable intelligence.

They did this because they it mad them feel tough. They deliberately authorized the infliction of pain in order to derive pleasure and self worth.

This is the very definition of Sadism.

Now, the Blue Dogs Have Lost Joke Line

At Time, Joe Klein is saying that the devastating Blue Dog losses are their own damn fault:

This year, however, I do feel that there is an argument that, to an extent, the Dogs brought this on themselves by being penny-wise, dogpound-foolish. The argument goes like this: a larger stimulus package might have helped the economy recover at a faster clip, but the Dogs opposed it on fiscal responsibility grounds. A second argument: the public really has had it with Wall Street, but the Dogs helped water down the financial regulatory bill, gutting the too-big-to-fail provisions. There is real merit to both points. If the stimulus had been bigger and the financial reform package clearer and stronger, the public would have had a different--and, I believe, more positive--sense of the President's agenda.

Yes, when Democrats are bitch slapping the Democratic agenda, the whole party looks week, and voters hate to vote for weakness.

H/t Kevin Drum.

It's Jobless Thursday

And initial unemployment claims are back up to 457,000, with the 4-week moving average rising slightly to 566,000, continuing claims fell by 42K to 4.34 million, and emergency claims, which, by the way expire on November 30, rose by 357.7K to 5.01 million.

Total up those numbers and things are getting worse, and come November 30 they expire.

Extended unemployment insurance will likely not be renewed, because the threat of electoral punishment is gone from the Republicans, and over 5 million people lose UI benefits, which will crush consumer demand in the middle of the all-important holiday season.

So we have a cohort of 99ers who would be losing their unemployment benefits anyway, along with millions of people who will be abruptly cut off.

This is going to get very ugly very fast.

So If Timidity and Capitulation Created a Disaster, then We Need More of That!

So Barack Obama held his post election news conference, and he decided to double down on capitulation and weakness, and call it civility:

More conciliatory than contrite, Mr. Obama used that phrase, “take responsibility,” six times but rejected the suggestion that his policies were moving the country in the wrong direction. He conceded that legislation to limit greenhouse gases was dead and said he was “absolutely” willing to negotiate over the extension of tax cuts, including for the wealthy. But he drew the line at any major retreat from signature priorities, saying he would agree to “tweak” his health care program, not “relitigate arguments” over its central elements.

……

“I do believe there is hope for civility,” he said. “I do believe there’s hope for progress.”

Honestly, I understand that Barack Obama has spent his entire life trying to avoid being the stereotypical "angry black man," because the perception is politically toxic in our not yet post-racial America.

But he's leading with the chin again.

Barack Obama will ask what they want to preserve the sup $250K tax cuts, and they will say make the whole package permanent, and because Obama is afraid not being liked, and because he made a promise, which he wants to keep (Unlike his promises on prosecuting war crimes, closing Guantanamo, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc.) he'll cave, either on the $250K+ rates, or on eliminating the inheritance tax, or everything, because that's how he rolls.

The standard line in Washington, and I'm sure that it's one that Obama has swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, is that between the economy and "liberal overreach," the Dems lost.

The Dems lost because they looked weak, and the Dems looked weak, because they were weak, and they were led by a weak leader, who sees his weakness as an independent good.

Economics Update

The lede here is that the Federal Reserved has announced another round of quantitative easing (printing money), $600 billion over the next 9 months, more than the the widely forecast $½ trillion, which pushed the US dollar down in currency markets.

Accompanying the statement was a mild, to my mind too mild, statement about how the recovery is not progressing as rapidly as planned.

With the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index falling, and US GDP growing at a truly anemic 2% rate, I think that they are being too timid, though there is good news with the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index and non-manufacturing index, and ADP's private employment survey: all show an increase.

Even more significantly, it appears that retail sales are beating expectations, which may bode well for the all-important holiday shopping season.

Still, real estate looks dead, with mortgage applications remaining flat despite historically low rates.

BTW, here is a blast from the past, monoliner bond insurer Ambac is warning that it might go bankrupt this year.

I'm wondering if this will put a whole raft of municipal bonds in technical default, since if Ambac goes BK, then it no longer has an obligation to fulfill its insurance contracts.

I really don't know. Does anyone else know?

Full Fed Statement after break:

What a Whiny Bitch!!

So, after nearly 3,000 Americans are killed by terrorists, he leads into a war against Iraq on false pretenses, a number of the White House staff out a clandestine CIA Operative, he allows a city to drown, and, "Here, watch this swing," George W. Bush thinks that the worst day of his Presidency was when George Bush, still thin-skinned as ever, is still stewing of Kanye West:

MATT LAUER: You remember what he said?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes, I do. He called me a racist.

MATT LAUER: Well, what he said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: That's -- "he's a racist." And I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now. It's one thing to say, "I don't appreciate the way he's handled his business." It's another thing to say, "This man's a racist." I resent it, it's not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency

MATT LAUER: This from the book. "Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust." You go on. "I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low."

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt 'em when I heard 'em, felt 'em when I wrote 'em and I felt 'em when I'm listening to 'em.

MATT LAUER: You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes. My record was strong I felt when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And-- it was a disgusting moment.

I will actually agree with Bush that the criticism was wrong. What George W. Bush doesn't care about is poor people, white or black.

Of course, the idea that he was more offended by the accusation of racism than he was about treason (outing CIA agent Valerie Plame), or incompetence (Katrina), or lying about weapons of mass destruction (Iraq) and killing thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, or dropping the ball before 911, is a meaningful tell.

You see, he felt that the accusation by Kanye West was unfair, but that the other criticisms had some merit, because even saw that there was an element of truth to them.

Still, what a remarkably small and petty man.

The Recent Comments Widget Seems Not to Be Updating

There are a couple of comments that are not showing up.

I'll see what I can do.

(on edit)
I have placed a widget below the recent comments widget tag cloud in the left hand column, it works off the recent comments feed, which works fine, though it is pretty crappy looking.

I will see if things sort themselves out over the next few days.

Just Desserts

Bummer of a birth mark, ConservaDems

In looking at the elections, there is a trend here:

• Reelection losses by the Blue Dog cut the caucus in half.
• Over ⅓ of the corporatist New Democrat Coalition got whacked.
• 96% of the Democratic Progressive Caucus 96% of the Progressive Caucus was reelected.

While a part of this is that liberal Democrats tend to have safer seats, though one of the Blue Dog losers, Gene Taylor, had polled at more than 75% in prior elections, what this is about is the fact that the Blue Dogs and the New Dems created the groundwork for this.

When people thought that they had to vote against Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, it was because the Blue Dogs gave credibility to this Republican talking point by campaigning against her too.

When people complained that the Congressional Democrats were in the banks pockets, it was because the New Democrat Coalition was in the pockets of the banks, and trading loopholes for campaign contributions.

When people complained that nothing was getting done, it was because the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats were slowing things down, because the Blue Dogs and the New Dems wanted time to get insurance company and banking lobbyists geared up and donating.

When they claimed that the stimulus did not work, they validated the Republican storyline.

To a very large degree, they validated the Republican attacks, and weakened legislation and policy, and contributed to the losses that we saw.

In fact, if these folks had held on, which was their argument for their positions, that it made them more electable, Nancy Pelosi would still be speaker in January.

Payback is a bitch, ain't it?

It is best to remember what Harry S Truman said:

Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.

I'd much rather have a Democratic majority in the House, but I think that they are marginalized.

Let's keep it that way.

What Emptywheel Said…

Click for full size

---

This is how well Tim Kaine, former governor of Virginia, served the Democratic Party in Virginia

Fire Tim Kaine as head of the DNC.

Since Kaine has become head of the DNC, just in Virginia, we have had a Neanderpublican Governor and Attorney General, and lost 3 house seats, one of which had been held for decades.

Kaine is, of course, head of the the Democratic National Committee, hand picked by Barack Obama, because he is the sort of Democrat that Barack Obama loves, the type of Democrat that runs against the Democratic Party base.

How's that whole cock punching hippies thing working, Barry?

While We are On the Subject of HP Lovecraft Quotes…

Yesterday, I posted H.P. Lovecraft's quote on Republicans, and I also forwarded it to my Lovecraft-reading family.

My brother, Stephen, aka "No I'm Not Wearing a Wookie Costume, I'm Just Hairy," asked the question, "Given Lovecraft's fondness for slimy spineless creatures, it is strange that he didn't have anything to say about democrats..."

Well, according to the Donovan K. Loucks, the Webmaster at The H. P. Lovecraft Archive, who posted in the comments, the author did make his feelings known on both parties:

“Democrats invariably ape the grotesque crudities of the lower orders and make conspicuous clowns of themselves; jeering at civilised speech, manners, and standards of accuracy and beauty instead of respecting these things and urging their beloved masses to work up toward them. As long as they persist in this position, they will win nothing but the distrust and hostility of men well-disposed toward civilisation and the fullest realisation of the human personality.”

(H. P. Lovecraft to Woodburn Harris, 9 November 1929)

Given Lovecraft's rather well documented nativist attitudes, though biographer L. Sprague de Camp implies that his attitudes moderated as he grew older, and that some of his statements were a way he taunted people that he did not like, this is an unsurprising statement from him.

Interestingly enough, he was a fan of FDR and an Ardent New Dealer according to the Wiki.

Truth be told, I am kind of torn as to whether, if I had a time machine, I would want to meet him or not.

I'm Not Sure if It Was the Elections……

But after my morning election summary was posted, I got sick.

I ended up worshiping the porcelain alter, and that IPA that I bought by way of a condolence drink did not taste as good coming up as it did coming down.

Still went to work after everything settled down. I've had this reaction to stress since I was 7 years old.

It hits when I'm stressed, and then I relax.

And yes, it kind of sucks.

Crap.

So the lost the house, ironically largely because of the actions of the Senate and a former Senator (Obama). Lots of good things made it through the House only to die in the Senate with an assist from the complete apathy of the White House.

If the Dems retake the House in 2012, and Obama is reelected, the lesson here is that taking the initiative without movement from the White House and the Senate, you will get gigged again, and again.

It looks like Murkowski won in Alaska, as "Write Ins" got a plurality, only they haven't started counting the write-ins yet. That only happens after a full tally, and if the total number of write ins are enough to win under Alaska law.

As to the bad news:

• Alan Grayson lost his bid for reelection. It's a pity, we need Democrats with guts.
• Rand Paul will be battling Tom Coburn for craziest muthaf%$#er in the Senate.
• Heath Shuler won. Normally, I wouldn't root for the other guy, even if they are the rankest of Blue Dogs, which Shuler is, but as a Washington Redskins fan, I have a bit of residual hostility about his expensive washout in the NFL.
• It appears that Republicans are will not be relegated a minor party status in Colorado for the next 4 years, because Dan Maes barely cleared the 10% hurdle.

The good news:

• The Blue Dogs and New Dems appeared to take the brunt of the losses.
  
• This is more than simple churlishness on my part. While the economy is clearly the proximate cause of this debacle, the perception that both parties are in the thrall of the banks, a perception which is entirely true for the Blue Dogs/New Dems who worked tirelessly to castrate financial reform and foreclosure relief. It is appropriate that those Democrats who sold the party, and the country, down the road for fat-cat campaign donations bear the brunt of voter wrath.
• Harry Reid defeats Sharron Angle. Now that he's won, could we please elect someone else as Democratic leader? He is hapless and hopeless, and he is the luckiest person tonite for having to run against nut-job Angle, or perhaps 2^nd luckiest after Chris Coons, who ran against Christine O'Donnell.
• The Senate margin is large enough that Joe Lieberman won't be able viably threaten the Democrats with crossing the aisle.
  

A random thought on the loss of Alexi Giannoulias: Choosing someone as the nominee, even though they spent years running a bank that was then on the edge of failure, (It has since failed) just because they are basketball buddies with Barack Obama, is a really stupid thing.

As a final note, that whole idea of using Google searches to estimate final votes? It does not appear to be validated by the results.

For a quick view of the races, I would suggest going to the Talking Points Memo Election Center.

I still have not gotten results on the Tapeworm Initiative.

If You Are Bumming Over the Election

Some video game humor.


Link

So After Months of Evidence That Their Lawyers Were Corrupt Bastards…

The GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have finally fired the foreclosure mill and forged document factory that is the law offices of David J. Stern:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac terminated their relationships with a top Florida foreclosure attorney on Tuesday, one day after the companies began taking back loan files from the firm that has processed thousands of evictions on behalf of the mortgage-finance giants.

Fannie and Freddie dispatched employees on Monday afternoon to begin removing loan files from the law offices of David J. Stern in Plantation, Fla. Those files are needed to process foreclosures, which must be done through courts in Florida.

………

The Stern law firm has been at the center of allegations by the Florida attorney general's office of improper foreclosure practices and is one of four firms under state investigation. The office has released depositions of former law-firm employees who have alleged that the firm forged notarized documents and that employees signed files without reviewing them in an effort to speed through foreclosure filings.

In those depositions, former employees testified that the firms would go to great lengths to conceal improper practices during regular audits by Fannie and Freddie. A lawyer for Mr. Stern has dismissed the allegations as falsehoods made by disgruntled employees.

Well, it's a start, though even the most tepid investigation of foreclosure fraud, which is all what Barack Obama would do, is sure to be sabotaged by the new Republican majority in the house, because:

1. They will favor the banks even when they break the law because laws are for little people.
2. They favor the Andrew Mellon school of dealing with the economy, foreclosure, and the financial crisis. As Hoover's Treasury secretary, he suggested, "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."

So all that Daniel J. Stern, Esq. will see is a few bucks less profit, as opposed to disciplinary action from the bar or a criminal investigation.

Nothing to see, move along.

Understanding Christine O'Donnell

When one looks at the craziness out there, why is it that Christine O'Donnell appears to get the lion's share of the attention?

Well Matthew Yglesias has a good explanation:

That’s true, but I think there’s more in play, namely logistics. The Alaska Senate race should be excellent copy. Joe Miller is nuts, Scott McAdams is fascinatingly amateurish, the Palin-Murkowski feud is interesting, everyone likes to talk about Sarah Palin, etc. But Alaska is also cold and remote. Sending a reporter there would be expensive and annoying. The time zones are inconvenient. By contrast, Wilmington is a 2 hour drive or 90 minute train ride from both Washington, DC and New York City. So if you want to get some “real reporting” done it’s convenient. And logistics count in life.

I would note that even some place less remote, like Angle in Nevada, or Paladino in New York, or McMahon in Connecticut, they were also much less willing to expose themselves to the press.

Basically, if you wanted to cover "the crazy," it was easier, and cheaper, to cover Ms. O'Donnell.

Anecdotal Reports of High Turnout

Hopefully, this is good news for Dems, but I am not making any predictions, as I stated this morning.

I am so glad that I voted early on October 22 though.

The reports are of a lot of people waiting in line to vote.

I'm not going to be following this stuff on the cable networks.

Basically, I'll look at web based tickers, because I don't want to listen to the damn pundits.