Month: August 2011

Picture this

by digby

Somebody tell me again that the culture war is over.

David Limbaugh, the conservative author and brother of Rush, tweets an image you’re likely to see again.

Hmmm. I’ve been told that it’s very wrong to make fun of this guy:

Yeah, that’s the same studly man in uniform.

Never mind the fact that Perry was 22 in 1972, when all the true blue cadets of his age were still trying to evade the draft. Obama is 11 years younger than him and was 22 in 1983, when Ronnie Reagan was single handedly winning the cold war.

Look, I have plenty of respect for the military. I grew up in it. But the idea that this costumed fool deserves some kind of special dispensation to punch hippies because he wore a (closetful of) uniforms is a very sad comment on liberalism. They aren’t playing by the same rules:

UPDATE: Perry spokesman Mark Miner emailed this response: “A picture is worth a thousand words.

Yes it is. That letterman sweater is just dreamy. I think it looked better on Frankie Avalon though.

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Confidence Fairies and Attorneys General

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Attempting to follow the mortgage fraud foreclosure story is like going down Alice’s rabbit hole: the farther you go in, the weirder and more convoluted everything starts to become, the more confusing the details get, and the less you know what or whom to trust in terms of sources.

That is why context is so important. The essential details are basically that lenders transferred the deeds of ownership from one servicer to the next in order to create the mortgage-backed security bundles that crashed the entire economy. In so doing, they had shoddy or nonexistent documentation of the transfer of ownership of the mortgages. As any student of property rights knows, you can’t foreclose on a property for which you cannot prove ownership. We already know that

Goodbye yellow-brick road

by digby

On a day when the financial news is all about gold, my thoughts inevitably turn to Ron Paul. If, like me, you have not spent years studying monetary policy, much less absorbed the reasoning behind his and Glenn Beck’sinsistence on returning to the gold standard, this well written piece on the issue (by a conservative critic, btw) explains it well. And he points, rightly I think, to why it’s gaining traction, which should be a lesson for Democratic politicians if they choose to listen:

IF Representative Paul has been agitating for a return to gold for the better part of four decades, why have his arguments now begun to resonate more widely? One might point to new media—to the proliferation of cable-television channels, satellite-radio stations and websites that allow out-of-the-mainstream arguments to more easily find their audiences. It is tempting to blame the black-helicopter brigades who see conspiracies everywhere, but most especially in government. There are the forces of globalization, which lead older, less-skilled workers to feel left behind economically, fanning their anger with everyone in power, but with the educated elites in particular (not least onetime professors with seats on the Federal Reserve Board).

There may be something to all this, but there is also the financial crisis, the most serious to hit the United States in more than eight decades. Its very occurrence seemingly validated the arguments of those like Paul who had long insisted that the economic superstructure was, as a result of government interference and fiat money, inherently unstable. Chicken Little becomes an oracle on those rare occasions when the sky actually does fall.

Read the whole thing for the history of goldbuggery and the holes in Paul’s thesis.

(This is interesting too.)

The way I see it, it’s not so much that the good doctor’s diagnosis is so wrong, it’s the snake oil prescription. Sure, the Fed is too powerful, too obscure and too bound to protect the interests of the financial elites. But returning to the gold standard would actually make things much worse for average people.

But then, the goldbugs’ obsession has little to do with economics and everything to do with ideology and politics. Libertarian ideology and politics to be precise, half of which is perfectly reasonable. It’s the crazy, economic half that’s the problem.

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Bargains and Tiger and whores, oh my

by digby

Going after Thomas Friedman is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I’ll just recommend that you go and read his silly column today and I’m sure you’ll recognize every stale, centrist point in it for the nonsense it is. Let’s just say that rallying the nation around the idea of the Grand Bargain with its “shared sacrifice” and “skin in the game” isn’t up there with “Happy days are here again” or “Morning in America” as politics’ most inspirational slogan. Somehow I doubt that Average Joe’s are going to be energized by the idea that wealthy people are going to be asked nicely to kick in some tip money in exchange for them giving up their financial security. (But hey, it’s probably better than WTF.)

On Morning Joe today, Howard Dean said Thomas Friedman is writing “opinion page blather” and blames Wall Street for being miscreants. Watch the Villagers turn on him with the ferociousness of rabid dogs:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Right. The only thing wrong with Friedman’s column was the comparison to Tiger Woods. The rest of it made very good sense. For millionaires anyway. (Just listening to Harold Ford defend Wall Street is enough to ruin my lunch. Is there a bigger whore anywhere on the planet? ) But at least Andrea Mitchell was there to step in and help us understand Tom Friedman better from a personal perspective. He’s an exceptional golfer, you see. That explains everything.

The good news is that they all agree that what the President has to do is go to the country with the Grand Bargain and sell it as hard as Kevin Costner golfed in Tin Cup. Or something.

All these wealthy TV celebrities know that the only thing that matters is that we clear this debt as quickly as possible. And some of them undoubtedly feel very righteous and pure in their willingness to pitch in and endure the necessary “shared sacrifice” to get that done. It’s quite inspirational to see people so willing to do their part. Now if only all those millions of old, sick, poor and struggling people would get with the program and be as patriotic we could lick these problems and move on to something interesting, like war or blow-jobs.

You’ll notice that none of them mentioned the 800 pound unemployed gorilla in the room. But then they all have extremely well-paying jobs, don’t they?

h/t to @RockDot

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Historical interlude

Alternate Universe

Setting aside the silliness of the ad, when you listen to what he’s saying you can see a very defined, explicit worldview that is at seriously odds with reality. And millions of people think this way. The problem with our politics isn’t just corruption, although that lies at the heart of it. It’s important to acknowledge that a whole lot of our fellow Americans believe very, different things than we do and the fight we are having is real and substantial. Fixing the money in politics problem will help stabilize it, but unraveling the rightwing propaganda that’s been pumped into this populace over the past 30 years must be at the top of the list as well. We will always have disagreements with conservatives. But this is bizarroworld, know-nothingism. Different animal (so to speak.)

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Will the state Attorneys General stand up to Wall St. and the White House?

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

I know the financial industry runs the country top to bottom, but even this is hard to believe:

Eric T. Schneiderman, the top prosecutor in New York, was removed on Tuesday from a committee of state attorneys general investigating mortgage abuses.

In recent months, Mr. Schneiderman has voiced concerns over a proposed settlement between major banks and a coalition of federal and state officials over claims of foreclosure abuses. He has come under increasing pressure to approve the deal.

The Iowa attorney general’s office is leading the investigation and on Tuesday sent an e-mail to other lawyers involved in the investigation to announce the decision. “Effective immediately, the New York attorney general’s office has been removed from the executive committee of the robosigning multistate,” a lawyer from the Iowa office wrote, using the shorthand for the investigation, which is looking into so-called robo-signing of mortgage documents and other abuses.

Word on the ground is that Scheiderman won’t exactly be taking this slight lying down, and fully intends to fight for accountability for the mortgage lending racket. Good for him.

You have to feel for the Administration. They’re faced with a dual revolt on their hands: on the one hand, they have angry progressives and liberals who expect something remotely approaching governance on behalf of the people instead of Wall Street. And on the other, they have banksters threatening to give all hard stolen earned money over to Mitt Romney.

Faced with that hard choice, the Obama Administration has chosen to protect the banksters. Not surprising: they expect irrelevant liberals to fall in line, and they know Wall St. cash is a more fickle mistress.

The only question now is what state Attorneys General are going to do about it. They’re accountable to their people, too, and more importantly they aren’t usually beholden to financial sector cash.

David Dayen has a good rundown of the status of the rest of the relevant attorneys general as well:

Democrats Madigan, Schneiderman, Delaware’s Beau Biden (the VP’s son, who has joined Schneiderman on his intervention into the Bank of America settlement with investors over mortgage backed securities), Massachusetts’ Martha Coakley and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto are on the record against a broad liability release in one way or another, and others like Washington’s Rob McKenna (R), Colorado’s John Suthers (R), California’s Kamala Harris, and even Utah’s Mark Shurtleff (R) and Michigan’s Bill Schuette (R) have active investigations or lawsuits on this issue.

Of particular interest is what newly elected California Attorney General Kamala Harris will do. California is an extremely powerful player nationally, and many of the greatest excesses of the mortgage fraud business took place here. Ms. Harris won election to Attorney General in a surprise over a formidable Republican candidate, in spite of being an anti-death-penalty female African-American. Quite an extraordinary feat, but one that was accomplished with much blood, sweat and tears from the California Democratic Party’s liberal base. So far she has done good work on mortgage fraud, but her efforts have mostly centered on small-to-medium sized mortgage scammers rather than on the big boys.

Ms. Harris and the other Democratic Attorneys General across America would do well to join with Mr. Schneiderman in refusing to bow to the Obama Administration’s pressure. The needs of the people and the demand for accountability are more pressing concerns to New Yorkers and Californians than President Obama’s need to win a few more bankster millions away from the Mitt Romney campaign.

Fictional Outrage

by digby

I’m with Kevin. This is sort of surprising:

In other news, I’m sort of shocked to see that I’ve read 8 of the 24 books that Obama is known to have read since he was inaugurated. I thought he had better taste than that. I remember once seeing a list of 50 or a hundred books that Bill Clinton had plowed through in the previous week (or whatever) and finding only one or two that I’d read.

Me too. I’ve read 11 of the books on that list. What kind of a slacker is our president that mere bloggers (whose only responsibility in the world is to snark regularly) are reading almost half the number of books he’s read in the last couple of years? What, is he busy or something? (Actually Clinton was one of those super voracious reader types who gobbled up anything in print. I always wondered whether he read so fast that he couldn’t remember any of it. That’s what happens to me anyway.)

But speaking of Obama’s reading habits, apparently some wingnuts are very, very unhappy because he’s not seriously boning up on important issues while he’s on vacation and reading all the wrong books. Alyssa Rosenberg writes:

Tevi Troy’s insistence that the president’s reading list “constitute the oddest assortment of presidential reading material ever disclosed” because “the near-absence of nonfiction sends the wrong message for any president, because it sets him up for the charge that he is out of touch with reality,” merits singling out for how uniquely grasping and bizarre it is, and how simultaneously snobbish and anti-intellectual.

Aside from “sending the wrong message about reality” he’s reading a novel that might give some people the wrong idea about his stance on Israel and one about claustrophobia that can only lead to the conclusion that he’s “trapped in the White House.” Seriously.

Rosenberg makes all the right points about this nonsense but I think her conclusion absolutely nails it:

Finally, it’s pretty depressing that Troy can look at a reading list that includes novels about the victims of horrible crimes, the parents of war victims, and people who give their lives to healing others, all experiences that the President hasn’t had directly but that have implications for his job, and see only Troy’s own paranoia about Obama’s mindset. People need to read fiction precisely as a tool to expand their moral imaginations, certainly a quality I think most of us would hope for in presidents, or columnists.

That’s exactly right.

I find myself reading so much non-fiction these days that I forget sometimes that reading good fiction is the way I get out of my head and into the head of someone else (which, believe me, is a vacation in itself.) It’s one of the ways we expand our empathy toward other people. I used to argue with a religious pal over the idea that the Bible should be taught in school. She felt it was the only way that children could get a moral education. My argument was that they could get the same moral education by reading great plays and novels. It’s all there.

And anyway, who the hell are these people telling the President what he can and cannot read? Clearly the only thing they don’t consider their business is how much money wealthy people are cheating from the government. Talk about busy bodies…

“It’s not healthy for rich people to feel maligned”

by digby

It looks like we have another outbreak of phony Randroid Rage to deal with. Apparently 67 wealthy fatcats who donated to Obama in 08 have donated to Romney this time around:

One Wall Street executive, who requested anonymity, said he and some of his colleagues feel betrayed by Obama.

“Everybody I speak to is on the same boat — disappointment,” said the source, who contributed to Obama three years ago and is now backing Romney.

The executive said he and others on Wall Street have taken exception to Obama’s rhetoric about the wealthy, especially because the president has asked rich donors to fork over $35,800 to his reelection efforts.

“It’s not healthy for rich people to feel maligned,” the executive said.

Other donors who backed Obama in 2008 and have given to Romney recently declined to comment or did not return The Hill’s phone calls.

The article does finally point out that many of these folks are playing both sides, just as they did last time. More importantly, they’re playing the refs. In this billion dollar campaign they want to keep the pressure on all candidates, Obama in particular, since he remains the favorite to win. They do this by periodically whining to the media about how sensitive they are to criticism and how important it is to keep them happy. It is a lesson not lost on the major fundraisers. And it works for all concerned:

Obama still has his share of supporters on Wall Street. He reportedly raised $2.4 million from Wall Street donors during an event at a New York restaurant in June.

A recent report from the Center for Responsive Politics found that Obama has leaned on Wall Street more than he did when he launched his first presidential bid. The report found that one-third of the money Obama has raised for his reelection came from the financial sector.

I honestly don’t know why they are even continuing their little whine routine unless it’s to help President Obama pretend to be their enemy in order to win votes. They’ve had a spectacular run during his tenure. What more could they want?

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All but over for Ghaddafi, thanks partly to Democrats

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

The rebels have stormed Ghaddafi’s compound:

Rebel fighters overwhelmed Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sprawling compound on Tuesday, crashing through its outer gates, running pell-mell through the grounds and ransacking caches of weapons abandoned by his shrinking retinue of defenders. Colonel Qaddafi and his family were nowhere to be found.

While the crackle of gunfire and rumble of explosions could still be heard across a confused and wary Libyan capital, with the possibility of more fighting in days to come, the rebel invasion and pillaging of the Bab al-Aziziya compound seemed to represent an important symbolic moment for the rebel movement seeking to oust Colonel Qaddafi and his sons from power.

No one seems to know where Ghaddafi is right now, and there will probably be sporadic fighting here and there, but Ghaddafi is essentially done as a head of state and military leader at this point. Good riddance.

Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering how Ghaddafi thanked Republicans for their help in defending his regime in June:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has written to members of Congress thanking them for criticizing President Obama last week over his involvement in the NATO-led military campaign in Libya.

“I want to express my sincere gratitude for your thoughtful discussion of the issues,” Colonel Qaddafi wrote in the letter, a copy of which was supplied to The New York Times by a person seeking to defend the administration’s policy. “We are confident that history will see the wisdom of your country in debating these issues.”

Colonel Qaddafi did not refer specifically to a resolution passed by the House that rebuked the administration for maintaining an American role in the campaign without the consent of Congress. But he expressed hope that the lawmakers would continue to press the administration.

Also, it’s a good time for remembering John McCain’s interesting tweet:

Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his “ranch” in Libya – interesting meeting with an interesting man.

Try to imagine what would have happened in 2003 had Saddam Hussein thanked Democrats for their opposition to Bush, and had John Kerry called Saddam Hussein an “interesting man” after a meeting with him. We would have seen the rebirth of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Accusations of treason would have been spoken not only on talk radio, but openly in the halls of Congress. Blood would likely have been spilled. But reverse the roles and…crickets.

And let’s also remember that unlike Saddam Hussein who was neatly contained in his no-fly zones, Colonel Ghaddafi actually did pose an ongoing threat to his people, and was directly guilty of international terrorism.

If national Democrats have an ounce of intelligence, they will hang this issue over the heads of Republicans at least 1/10th as vociferously as Republicans would have done to Democrats had the roles been reversed.

Republicans are absolutely, 100% terrible on national security. Terrorist attacks happen on Republican watch. Wars are lost on Republican watch. The wrong countries get invaded for no reason on Republican watch. International terrorists run free on Republican watch.

That Republicans still somehow retain the mantle of national security is a testament to a massive lack of political courage on the part of Democrats to tell the truth about who is effective even in military policy, and who is not.