Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Win By Losing

by digby

Paul Rosenberg lays it out:

Anyone who remembers the Clinton years knows what this means. The Republicans never accepted Clinton as President, and the Democrats failed to crush the Republicans for this outright disloyalty to the democratic process. The media, in turn,normalized this state of affairs. Unlike any other President, Clinton had no “honeymoon” period, and was subjected to a continual witch-hunt designed to cripple him and drive him from office. They came very close to acheiving their ultimate goal, and were quite effective at keeping him hamstrung. One consequence of this may well have been 9/11, as their demonic politicization of everything under the sun impeded the full-scale focus on combatting terrorism generally and al Qaeda in particular. And, of course, the impeachment of Clinton significantly damaged Gore’s chances of winning the presidency in 2000, hardening the media’s hostility against him for failing to join in their witch-hunt.

So this is what we’re fighting against now: the pre-emptive undermining of everything we’re fighting for in this election.

This is correct. It’s true that the Republicans are on the run and their movement is crippled by the epic failure of the Bush administration. But they have a permanent character assassination apparatus, funded by extremely wealthy aristocrats, devoted solely to the destruction of liberalism. They aren’t closing up shop and taking up needlepoint. Indeed, they are much more active when the Republicans are out of power than when they are in.

It’s not inevitable that Obama will not have a honeymoon or that the press will become the willing love toys of the rightwing as they did in the 1990s. But it pays to remember that the media were quite in love with Bill Clinton during the last half of that campaign and they turned on a dime once the wingnuts started working the refs in earnest. (You see, as with John McCain, the conservatives didn’t care for Bush Sr and were actually quite happy that Clinton won so they could purge the party of its moderates and focus on its “revolution.” For them, the way to real power is in being a ruthless opposition.)

So, as Rosenberg writes, this voter fraud nonsense is about legitimacy. Regardless of whether Obama wins a clear victory, the story doesn’t stop the day of the election. Indeed, they will be recycling the left’s complaints from 2000 almost verbatim making us sputter in rage about the absurdity of such a comparison. And they’ll build a powerful myth of victimhood around the phony belief that Democrats steal elections. Lack of faith the in the electoral system serves conservatives far better than it serves liberals.

Here’s a great movie by ACORN and Brave New Films which you should send around to any skeptics you know and keep bookmarked for future use. you may need it.

.

To Hell With Aunt Millie: part deux

by digby

Remember this?

This is Bob Badeer (a trader at Enron’s West Power desk in Portland, CA, where all these tapes were recorded) and Kevin McGowan (in Enron’s central office in Houston, TX, as he mentions in the transcript):

KEVIN: So,
BOB: (laughing)
KEVIN: So the rumor’s true? They’re fuckin’ takin’ all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
BOB: Yeah, grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fuckin’ vote on the butterfly ballot.
KEVIN: Yeah, now she wants her fuckin’ money back for all the power you’ve charged right up – jammed right up her ass for fuckin’ 250 dollars a megawatt hour.
BOB: You know – you know – you know, grandma Millie, she’s the one that Al Gore’s fightin’ for, you know? You’re not going to –
BOB: Grandma Millie –

Ah those were the days.

The whole Enron business was a bit of an embarrassment what with Kennyboy Lay being Bush’s strongest supporter and all, but it was blamed on a few bad apples and quickly swept under a rug. Bush was such a brilliant leader that we couldn’t afford to taint him with that unpleasantness. But the ethos, unsurprisingly, lived on:

The top dogs of the big three credit rating companies made $80 million in compensation while their firms gave bogus high ratings to trillions in dubious mortgage-related investments which led to the world’s current financial meltdown — and a hearing before bitter lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning.

“The story of the credit rating agencies is a story of colossal failure,” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will tell the men when they appear before his committee this morning, according to a draft of his prepared comments. “The result is that our entire financial system is now at risk.”

The top executives — Moody’s Corporation CEO Raymond W. McDaniel, Standard & Poor’s president Deven Sharma, and Fitch Ratings’ president and CEO Stephen Joynt — are expected to say the meltdown of mortgage-backed securities was “unanticipated” and “unprecedented.”

But confidential documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show that the firms’ executives anticipated much of what has happened, and were aware that their ratings were quite possibly shaky, according to the chairman.

“It could be structured by cows and we would rate it,” one Standard & Poor’s employee wrote in a company email cited by Waxman. “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters,” wrote another in an email obtained by Waxman’s committee.

I’m sure a lot of them are more than wealthy enough to be able to retire quite comfortably. And from the looks of things, nothing will be done about that. The big boys are all taking care of one another and making sure that their social class isn’t badly impacted by this unfortunate turn of events.

As for us grandma Millies well … in the immortal words of the Enron traders:

KEVIN: They’re so fucked and they’re so, like totally
BOB: They are so fucked.

.

Investigate The Firefighters!

by tristero

More anti-Americans.

We’re Tied With Bosnia. But We Beat…Uruguay!

by tristero

The US is number 36 on the Press Freedom Index. (My pals in Finland have the 5th freest press in the world, btw.)

Joking aside, this is a disgrace. It’s one of the major reasons why the American liberal blogosphere screams bloody murder at the media, of course. Our media is more than lousy (and boy is it ever lousy). It also does not have the freedom to report the news enjoyed by nearly every other democracy of note.

But hey, when it comes to the skinny on Paris Hilton, the US press totally rules. Maybe.

UPDATE: Some detail on the US ranking:

The United States rose twelve places [!] to 36th position. The release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base contributed to this improvement. Although the absence of a federal “shield law” means the confidentiality of sources is still threatened by federal courts, the number of journalists being subpoenaed or forced to reveal their sources has declined in recent months and none has been sent to prison. But the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California, is still unpunished a year later. The way the investigation into his murder has become enmeshed in local conflicts of interest and the lack of federal judicial intervention also help to explain why the United States did not get a higher ranking. Account was also taken of the many arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

An Un-useful McCain Endorsement

by tristero

True, McCain’s campaign is, apparently and hopefully, in such deep water he needs as much support as he can dredge up. But the endorsement of this group creates two problems. First, not too many of their members are eligible to vote. Second, they’re, you know, al Qaeda.

At least they’re not socialists.

How Helpful

by digby

Nothing like deploying a bunch of cops on the streets of American cities, looking for marauding African Americans to help get out the vote:

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.
Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.
Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.
Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.
In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.
“Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.
“I think it is a big deal — you got an African-American running and [a] woman running,” he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. “Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south.”
The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama’s loss badly.
Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.
Shelton, the director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.
“What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?” said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.
“On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation,” said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from “police states.”

Yeah, that’ll work. Between the long lines because of obscure voter ID requirements, GOP lawyers buttonholing anyone who looks even slightly like they might not be a Real American and the cops hovering all over the place, it’s just possible they’ll be able to keep a lot of those new voters from casting a vote. And hey, if they get out of line, they can always taser them into submission.

My favorite thing about this is that they assume it’s going to be Aftrican Americans rioting in the streets if they don’t get their way.

Here’s who they should be worried about:

Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest one and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black. Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white. As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.

The first video closes with Roger Farina (who won NHL fan of the year in 2003) going into detail about why he was heckling the voters.

I sent Stephen Dinan a quote from Farina about former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s endorsement of Obama yesterday. Read his story wrapping up that news and Sen. John McCain’s reaction here.

At the voting site, I asked a local sheriff monitoring the scene if the protesters were allowed. “They’re fine,” he said. I asked if he’d ever seen anything like that and he said he’d never seen Sunday voting.

The only people who sound like they’re are ready to start shooting things up on election day are the Republicans.

.

Welfare Queen

by dday

Why is the nanny state, in the form of the state of Alaska, caring and feeding for Sarah Palin and her family? Doesn’t she know she has to WORK for that money instead of taking a handout?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Actually, $21,000 is chump change compared to what the hockey mom is charging the RNC for her duds:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

John Edwards got a haircut, though.

Talk about your redistribution of wealth. I’ll tell you, we can’t afford Sarah Palin as Vice President. I mean we literally can’t afford it.

.

The Poo-Flinging Campaign

by dday

Looking back on the McCain campaign’s narrative throughout the election looks a bit like the narrative through-line from Tristram Shandy. The lack of discipline to find a line of attack or a compelling reason for voters to choose McCain, and stick with it, is probably the most surprising element of this campaign. In place of an actual strategy, McCain walks out every day with a different set of cards, and he lays them down and says “Whaddya think about that?!”

This is a great strategy for 24-hour news, and given that McCain is most suited to the role of hothead pundit, it fits. But it’s a terrible strategy when you’re trying to convince people that you’re best equipped to handle the office of the Presidency. Flailing about incoherently from one attack to the next does not inspire confidence. Because the traditional media is obsessively moving from one news cycle to the next, without the time to take a step back and consider anything in context, McCain probably figured he could sneak by and take the advantage by keeping his opponent off-balance. But the Obama campaign actually provided the context in this very perceptive ad.

Above all, this is why McCain’s boxed in right now. When the financial crisis overtook the campaign, he treated it the same way he treated the attacks on Obama – suspending his campaign, supporting the bailout, then opposing certain elements of it, coming out with a mortgage plan, changing the mortgage plan, thinking about adding additional economic steps, postponing the announcement, going forward with it… watching McCain’s campaign is like babysitting a hyperactive child. There’s always something new and it’s exhausting to take in.

There were BRAND NEW lines of attack today. McCain has seized on comments by Joe Biden that the next President will be tested in a crisis, touting that he has “already been tested” – not the POW card this time, but that he was on the USS Enterprise before the Cuban Missile Crisis. So “already been tested” means “awaiting an order,” I guess. But of course, McCain and Obama were tested just a few weeks ago in the economic crisis, and McCain acted like a nut. When he later today suggested that the election is all about the economy (wringing a bit more out of the “Joe the Plumber” nonsense), Joe Biden pounced:

And then there’s this idea that Obama is plotting with those evul librul Democrats and we have to preserve gridlock in the federal government or they’ll just run wild. Yes, I’m sure the whole country has been thrilled with the gridlocked and divided government of the past two years. In a time where the economy needs massive intervention, making sure NOTHING HAPPENS is definitely an argument for its time.

Obama kind of laid this all out in his ad and again today:

“While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, the president has failed so far to address the crisis on Main Street, and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it,” Obama said at a jobs summit his campaign staged in economically precarious and politically significant Florida […]

“Instead of commonsense solutions, month after month, they’ve offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, outdated ideology,” he said in a steamy gymnasium at Palm Beach Community College, where 1,700 people sat cheering in the stands and at least that many if not more gathered outside to cheer Obama’s appearance.

It comes down to the word that is the name of the ad: erratic. While any Republican nominee faced serious headwinds, one that acted like an adult throughout the campaign would probably fare much better.

The other thing, of course, is that McCain managed to find the only bigger liability than Bush to run with him as Vice President.

.

Railing

by digby

Jonathan at A Tiny Revolution catches a perfect illustration of Village mores:

From a recent profile of Seymour Hersh:

It was Tina Brown, formerly of Tatler and Vanity Fair, who brought [Hersh] to the New Yorker. ‘What’s-her-name… yeah, Tina. She gave me a lot of money, and she said: “Just go do it!” But she used to worry. She’d call me up and say, “I sat next to Colin Powell at dinner last night and he was railing about how awful you are.” So I would say, “Well, that’s good.” And she’d say, “Is it?” And I’d tell her, “Yes, it is.”‘

Tina Brown was the editor of the New Yorker from 92 through 98, so it’s not like Powell was just being a good soldier for the Bush administration. Indeed, he was probably upset at Hersh’s My Lai expose and his indictment of the military over Gulf War Syndrome.

Hersh is an old guy with a long established reputation, so he has nothing to fear from villagers like Powell. Any other journalist might have seen what Tina was saying as a warning. And, indeed, it would have been. Tina and Sy weren’t peers. Tina and Colin were.

.

Here’s To Doing The Right Thing

by digby

Apparently, Obama’s grandmother is very ill and he will take a couple of days off from campaigning to spend some time with her. He lost both of his parents at a relatively young age and his grandmother is the last of his parental figures — it’s a sad irony that she should be so ill when her grandson is on the cusp of achieving the most powerful job in the world.

Here is an excerpt from a lovely thoughtful post from Ta-Nehesi Coates about Barack’s grandmother.

… I was looking at this picture of Obama’s grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I’d bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn’t give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were “of their times.” Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child–commit an act love. Here’s to doing the right thing.

Bravo. There were always people who weren’t racists in America, going all the way back to the beginning. And those people don’t get enough credit and aren’t held up as examples of people of courage and integrity, almost as if we want to hide them away because they prove that people always had a choice.

Madelyn Dunham is a good woman who produced a good and open minded daughter and helped raise a good and inspirational grandson. Let’s hope she recovers and can see him get elected and sworn in to the presidency.

.