Joe Scarborough talks about Glenn Beck and "Oklahoma City"

It seems that the crazies have taken over the asylum has some conservatives finally troubled. Good. At some point, Democrats are going to lose elections, and if Glenn Beck is the fact of the new Republican party, our country is in serious trouble. It serves us too to have the Republicans wrestle back control of their own party. Read More......

More Fonzie, less Richie

Starts off silly, then not so much. Oh, and his name was Arthur.

Here's my worry about Obama. Lots of people love him and he is indeed very lovable. But I wonder if anyone at all, anywhere in the world, really fears him....

Everyone was frightened of Fonzie. He could banish bad guys with a look. In one episode, Fonzie tried to teach Richie his style. Richie practised the grimaces, the flexes, the stares, but alas the bad guys were not impressed and certainly not deterred.

In the midst of a desperate scrape, Richie turned to Fonzie imploringly and asked: Why are my deadly looks, threatening flexes and strategic grimaces having no effect?

Oh yeah, Fonzie replied, I forgot to tell you. For all that to work, once in your life you have to have hit someone. You cannot imagine a deeper strategic insight.

At some point, Obama is going to have to do something seriously unpleasant to someone.

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Friday Cat Blogging

Chris and Joelle had a dinner party last Sunday night, and Sushi decided to saunter by, plop down right next to the table, upside down, and promptly fall asleep.

Then the ever-alert protector of the hearth sensed that something was amiss.

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Sen. Kyl doesn't need maternity care, but Sen. Stabenow let him know his mother did

When Republicans get stupid, Democrats have to respond. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was very stupid -- and Senator Stabenow chimed in:
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What do pink ties, wine auctions and restaurant garbage have in common?

They are supposed to be signs of economic recovery but it sounds like a stretch. Read More......

Obama needs to tell Blue Dogs to get with the program

Steven Hill of the centrist New America Foundation:

Mr. Obama needs to let the Blue Dog Democrats like Sens. Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad know who is in charge. He needs to tear a page from the playbook of two other Southerners who knew how to put on the brass knuckles. Former GOP operatives Karl Rove and Tom Delay made it clear that any Republican representatives who crossed their agenda would face a well-funded conservative opponent in their next party primary.

Mr. Obama should let any Democratic foot-draggers know that if they don't get with the program, he will un-elect them and put in Democrats more in tune with his priorities. His threat would be credible, since Mr. Obama is one of the great campaigners of modern political history. He still enjoys popularity - though it is dwindling - among the broad coalition that mobilized to elect him. Mr. Obama could convincingly threaten to fund candidates to run against uncooperative senators in the Democratic primary and to campaign on behalf of his slate of candidates.

But to make that threat, Mr. Obama has to mean it. He has to show a quality that the nation has not seen in him since the presidential election ended last November.

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Mt. Vernon, WA city council distances itself from mayor’s ‘Glenn Beck Day.’

Apparently, associating itself with unstable men who cry on TV didn't go over very well with the populace. Read More......

Jed speaks: "If Carper is being sincere, it's hard to imagine a stupider thing for him to have said."

Yesterday, I got a text from the Washington Post at 11:14 a.m., which read "Mass. Gov. Names Long-Time Kennedy Aide to Senate, Restoring Democrats' Filibuster-Proof Majority."

I laughed and thought, someone needs to tell the White House and the Democrats in the Senate about that "Filibuster-Proof Majority."

Case in point: Senator Tom Carper from Delaware. He's horribly concerned about what Republicans think on health insurance reform. Today, Carper said that he and Republican Mike Enzi (WY) agree on 80% of the bill and "at the end of the day what we need to do is focus on the 80% that we agree on, maybe set aside the 20% that we don’t agree on for some other day. And I hope at the end of the day that’s what we’ll do." Carper, who sits on the all-important Senate Finance Committee, only wants what the Republicans agree to. Via Jed @ DailyKos:

Jed's comment is perfectly on point:

If Carper is being sincere, it's hard to imagine a stupider thing for him to have said. Even if you accept his flawed premise that we should only do things everybody agrees on, the reality is that once you throw the twenty percent overboard, the GOP will decide to disagree with twenty percent of whatever is left over, and we'll be right back where we started.

What is it with these Democrats who don't get that they've got power? The Republicans don't matter. Not even Olympia Snowe.

Jonathan Cohn at TNR posed a good question from someone he calls "one equally well-connected insider":

If Snowe doesn't support the bill in committee, are the Finance Democrats really going to vote out a bill that doesn't reflect Democrat values--the public plan, pay or play, etc.

That's a very good question. Let's start by asking Tom Carper. Read More......

Health Care reform groups circulate memo on Hill warning of public ire if Baucus bill becomes law

Someone's gonna get yelled at by Rahm....

It seems our health care reform groups just developed a spine. They're circulating a memo on the Hill that includes polling data showing that people are opposed to an individual mandate to buy health insurance (i.e., they have to by law, or they get fined), unless the mandate includes a public option as one of the possible insurers they can go to. Baucus' bill, which Obama seems to be supporting as first among equals, doesn't do that.

It's a fascinating question: whether Democrats are walking into a trap here. If they pass the Baucus bill, or any other bill, and require people, by law, to buy insurance that's from the same old crappy private insurers who already milk us dry, and provide no viable alternative, in the future, every time Blue Cross or Humana or Kaiser screws one of us over, guess whose fault it's going to be? Every Senator and Congressman who votes for Baucus' and Obama's current plan.

And Baucus and Conrad's cute little co-op idea isn't expected by anyone to work. Even CBO agreed. That means every American is going to be stuck with the same crappy insurers they current have, and they're going to blame Democrats for it, thanks to Max Baucus and Barack Obama.

Should make for some exciting elections. Read More......

New pro-marriage ad in Maine powerfully -- and proudly -- rebuts the anti-gay messaging

I just posted the latest ad, Proud, from No on 1/Protect Maine Equality at AMERICAblog Gay. It's an excellent. The Maine anti-gay campaign's consultant, Frank Schubert, also ran the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign in California. He's using the same false messages and the same ads (literally the same ads.) But, he's finding out that Maine isn't California. And, 2009 isn't 2008.

Help No on 1/Protect Maine Equality keep its excellent ads on the air. Donate here. I think the caliber of the campaign is evident from the quality of the ads and the speed of the response. Our money is being spent very well. Read More......

We need leaders, in Congress and the White House

Good op ed in the LA Times:

The president's coolness in the face of the right wing's relentlessly anti-intellectual assault on his policies has been impressive as a display of character. But it also has enabled his opponents to subvert his program and erode his popularity.

He hasn't been helped by the feckless performance of the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They've behaved like they think the public buys into such Republican talking points on healthcare as the "death panel" and "socialized medicine" claims -- all discredited fantasies.

By failing to take a strong line, the Democrats allowed the GOP to dominate the healthcare debate all summer. Senate Majority Leader Reid wasted weeks trying to enlist the GOP in a compromise, despite clear signs that Republican leaders were only interested in sabotaging reform. Obama didn't really take the reins of the debate until his address to Congress on Sept. 9.

Consequently, reform that Congress might have passed by Labor Day may not happen for months. Reid still isn't guaranteeing that healthcare reform will pass this year, saying only that there's "a very good chance" it will happen. Is this how a leader with a commanding majority should talk?
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Global warming and financial regulation -- big issues lying dead ahead -- are in many respects even more complicated than healthcare and more susceptible to demagoguery. If they want to achieve their goals on these issues, the White House and the Democrats may have to assert their electoral mandate more aggressively than they have so far, or they'll risk losing it.

We've already seen that Obama knows how to talk sense. Can he play hardball too?

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Froomkin on Afghanistan

Dan Froomkin, DC editor at Huff Post:

Should Obama actually change his mind about Afghanistan, our elite journalists -- obsessed as they are with how the game is played -- will almost inevitably characterize this as vacillation and declare it a sign of political weakness. But that really misses the point.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is that over the last several months, what's emerged when it comes to Afghan policy is a sort of consensus of the realists -- from across the political spectrum. The consensus: That our national interests in Afghanistan are pretty limited and that the harder we try to change things over there, the more resistance we face; that Afghanistan, after eight years of U.S. occupation, has become a Vietnam-like quagmire where escalation only leads to more escalation, not victory; and that what little we could possibly accomplish there is not worth more American blood.

Pretty much the only people left supporting a massive sustained military approach (no matter how cleverly retooled) are the neocons, the reflexive Obama supporters, and the military commanders charged with carrying it out. Otherwise, a wide swath of experts and politicians -- not to mention a significant majority of the American public -- have concluded that our interests are best served at this point by getting out and certainly not by sending more troops in.

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Dem activists aren't complacent, they're pissed

Democrats are worried that their fundraising is going down. And they should. But the reason isn't because Democratic activists have become complacent. Democratic activists are pissed, and see no reason to fund a party that doesn't have a backbone or the desire to keep its promises.

Democrats said a struggling economy is only partly to blame for the poor fundraising performance and acknowledged a more perilous problem: satisfaction among activists that the party now holds the White House, 60 votes in the Senate and 60 percent of the House.

"There was a little sense of complacency that set in despite our best efforts to warn people," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "We made it very clear: Beware."

You beware. Read More......

Stimulus forever?

(NOTE FROM JOHN: Steven Kyle, a professor of economics at Cornell, is joining us as a regular writer on economics issues, and then some.)

History sometimes has some interesting lessons we all ought to remember. There has been a lot of talk recently about the stimulus, whether it has been big enough, and whether it should be extended and/or made bigger. A lot of the talk makes it sound as if people are just grabbing numbers out of the air, and that ANY kind of stimulus would be favored by one side and opposed by the other. But there is some real world guidance to what we ought to be doing and how long it should last

First, lets remember what a stimulus is for. In a recession like the current one, consumers are pulling back because they have too much debt, their stock portfolios have crashed, and their houses are worth way less than they thought they were. Business investment is also weak because nobody is buying anything and they arent even using all the capacity to produce they already have installed. The foreigners are in the same boat we are so there is not going to be a big help from exports.

That leaves only government as a potential engine of growth. And even there, government is fighting with one hand tied behind its back – In every recession since the 1940’s one of the main tools to stimulate demand has been a decrease in interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve. But with interest rates already at near zero levels there is no more ammunition left in monetary policy, so the only way to stimulate things is to do it directly through government spending. For the greatest stimulative effect (!) there is a preference to spend money in ways that will put money in the hands of people who will themselves spend it – e.g. the unemployed or quick disbursing infrastructure projects rather than tax cuts where the cut may or may not induce more spending.

So here is a question everyone should ponder: When stimulus spending starts to wind down after the first half of 2010 and various incentive programs end in a few months, will all those nervous citizens step up and start spending and will business embark on a surge of investment spending? Will the roughly one third of the stimulus that is tax cuts inspire people to spend money rather than pay down debt? If your answer is yes, then be happy and don’t worry. If your answer is no, then we ought to be thinking about more stimulus and soon – because if we let things wind down again we will have to start all over but from a starting point with higher debt than we had at the beginning. Or we could just wait for everything to take its natural course . Paul Krugman has made a similar point recently.

How long will it take housing prices to return to “normal” levels relative to incomes? If incomes are falling, then obviously it takes longer for this to happen. How long will it take consumers to be happy with their debt burden? It is very unlikely that any of these happy situations will come to pass by the end of 2009 which is when several of the incentive programs passed under the stimulus will end. Housing prices will still be down in the dumps, foreclosures will still be high, and unemployment will very likely be rising since it tends to lag other indicators. All of this means we will need to keep up the stimulus until the housing market has stabilized (and that doesn’t mean mere falling at a slower rate) and consumers have worked off their excessive debt.

Back in the days before governments thought it was their job to enact stimulus programs it would often take 10 years or more for a cycle to come full circle. That is what happened in Japan in the 1990’s after a financial meltdown similar to ours. Do we want to wait that long? I sure don’t. But I wish I had more confidence in our elected representatives…. Read More......

Teachers' unions say Obama's educations proposal are "Bush II"

Come join us under the (school) bus.

To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag....

Labor leaders, parsing the Education Department's fine print, call the proposal little more than a dressed-up version of the No Child Left Behind law enacted seven years ago under Obama's Republican predecessor.

"It looks like the only strategies they have are charter schools and measurement," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "That's Bush III."

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Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Late last night, the White House sent out an update to the President's schedule, which announced that Obama would be making a statement at 8:30 a.m. Now, we know that statement is about Iran's secret nuclear fuel plant. Obama will be joined by the leaders of Great Britain and France.

I can report first-hand that the ad wars are escalating in the race for Governor in Virginia. I posted a very powerful ad from Democrat Creigh Deeds the other day. He's been hammering away at the theocratic views of his Republican opponent, Bob McDonnell. Over the summer, McDonnell had a large lead, but it's diminished over the past few week. Today, McDonnell's campaign is on the air with its own negative ad. I just saw it. Now that McDonnell has gone negative, we know it's true: His campaign is in trouble. This is going to be a battle til the end.

Also, the Senate Finance Committee continues its work on the health insurance reform bill. There could be a vote on the public option amendment offered by Senators Schumer and Rockefeller today.

Let's get started... Read More......

Losses piling up for large loans at US banks

At least the banking industry is safe and sound, ready for fat bonuses. Maybe this is why there's a sudden new interest in Washington to address the severe problems in the banking industry. The banks, no doubt, have done an excellent job of convincing many in Washington that they only needed to get over the ever-so-small problems last year. The massive injection of capital helped keep money moving though too much into the pockets of bankers. The next round of pain for the banks may not be as bad as the failures last year but that situation was unique. The coming problems in the banking industry will be a major challenge to the bottom line of the banks. Plenty more pain to come, but will there ever be any consequences for the banks?

U.S. regulators say that the level of losses from syndicated loans facing banks and other financial institutions tripled to $53 billion in 2009, due to poor underwriting standards and the continuing weakness in economic conditions.

According to the Shared National Credit Program (SNC) 2009 Review, an annual inter-agency report released on Thursday, credit quality deteriorated to record levels with respect to large loans and loan commitments.

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G20 to eclipse G8 meetings

Not a bad idea at all that is being promoted by Obama. It is ridiculous to exclude China, India, Brazil and other large countries during important economic talks. (Well, assuming they are actually important, but that's another discussion.) The world today is not the world of 1945 or even 1990. Don't tell the GOP that though, because they're convinced we still live in a 1945 world. CNN:

The move comes in the wake of a major push by President Obama, the officials said. The G-20 will now essentially eclipse the G-8, which will continue to meet on major security issues but carry much less influence.

"It's a reflection of the world economy today and the players that make it up," said one senior official. Nations like China, Brazil and India -- which were locked out of the more elite G-8 -- will be part of the larger group.

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Twitter worth $1 billion?

At least those who over-hyped in the past have learned their lesson. Valuable, yes. But one billion for this one trick pony?

Dotcom darling Twitter is close to securing a cash injection of $100m (£62m), with executives due to complete a surprise funding round that would see the total value of the much-hyped Californian company quadruple to an estimated $1bn.

More than half a dozen investors – including some existing backers – are understood to have lined up to pump even more cash into the three-year-old San Francisco-based startup, despite the fact that it has yet to make any money.

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Mugabe claims sanctions are illegal

Probably not, but certainly torture, murder and starvation are crimes against humanity. CNN:

Mugabe, giving his first major Western network interview for at least five years, also defended his government's record in the face of international accusations that he has driven a once-prosperous country to the brink of ruin.

"It is not a basket case at all," he said.

"Things are much better in terms of food. We have had hard years... years of drought. Sanctions as well. Combine effects of drought and sanctions and what do you get?"

To be fair to Robert Mugabe, yes, it's definitely not as bad as Pol Pot's Cambodia. Compared to the neighboring countries and considering how strong the agricultural output was even during his early years, it's a basket case. Having spent a good deal of time in southern Africa and being familiar with how it compares, Zimbabwe is a catastrophe. The sooner Robert Mugabe goes, the better. Read More......

Amateur metal detector finds massive Anglo-Saxon gold hoard

This must have been a day to remember for the amateur. After years of searching, he found what many consider one of the greatest modern historical finds in the UK.

A harvest of Anglo Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found.

The weapons and helmet decorations, coins and Christian crosses amount to more than 1500 pieces, with hundreds still embedded in blocks of soil. It adds up to five kilos of gold - three times the amount found in the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 - and 2.5 kilos of silver, and may be the swag from a spectacularly successful raiding party of warlike Mercians, some time around 700AD.

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