Obama Approval Ratings Not Dented by Blagojevich Scandal

From Nate:

With Rod Blagojevich facing the triple threats of impeachment, court-ordered removal from office, and a federal indictment, the tribulations of the Illinois Governor may yet prove to have an effect on Barack Obama's approval ratings -- but the early signs are that Blago will have no tangible impact on the public's perception of the President-elect.

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The logos Obama didn't pick

The guy who designed Obama's logo is showing the logos Obama didn't pick. Interesting.

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CNBC gold: Thain deserved $10 million bonus

I caught a glimpse of this while running around in London the last few days and wasn't able to comment until now. You may remember the crazy, yet typical Wall Street, request from Merrill Lynch CEO for a bonus. (This of course would be above and beyond the $200 million payout that Thain and small team are rumored to receive thanks to selling the company to Bank of America.) After Andrew Cuomo joined the discussion, the request suddenly disappeared. One CNBC was having none of it though and wrote a strong letter of support for the $10 million bonus.

The editor starts the process by taking a page out of the Phil Gramm book, calling everyone who disagrees "whiners." That was a nice touch and glad to see him fully embrace the fool who led us down this economic path. Well done. It includes all of the usual smears against anyone who has the nerve to demand reward for quality, because that's obviously asking for too much. These guys take on so much risk to earn hundreds of millions, so they should be rewarded win or lose as we've witnessed with the likes of O'Neal and Charles Prince.

The money line is when CNBC argues in favor of the bonus because Merrill Lynch stock of up 5% since September. OK, but what about the twelve month high compared to the current numbers? Merrill Lynch is DOWN almost 80% from its twelve month high, so for that, this brain trust thinks Thain should be rewarded. It's no wonder why the rest of the country (and much of the world who knows about the crisis) detests this bunch of frauds, both CNBC and Wall Street. Read More......

Is it ever okay to assassinate foreign leaders?

It's an interesting question in international relations, the use of assassination as a tool of policy. In the US, the government use of assassination is illegal, but it's questionable whether that rule still stands in practice after September 11 (and eight years of Bush-Cheney rule). But the larger question is: Should it be illegal?

When I read about people like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, I'm hard pressed to find an argument against just killing the guy. Putting geo-political costs and benefits aside (e.g., will the situation truly improve if Mugabe is disposed of (think Iraq post-Saddam, not necessarily better)), the question I'd like us to consider is, morally it is acceptable to simply have Mugabe killed?

Yes, it's a stark question, but I think it's an important one. Look at South Africa. Mbeke spent years denying the origins, scope and treatment of AIDS, and he successful doomed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens with his denialism. I've long believed that Mbeki is no better than any other leader overseeing and orchestrating a genocide. And I doubt many would have a problem taking out a foreign leader overseeing a genocide. So would it be appropriate to apply the same logic to a Mbeki or a Mugabe?

And then, after we've debated the moral question, it isn't a bad idea to have the practical debate as well as to whether replacing a foreign leader would make any difference. I believe the US, and others, have tried in the past to install our own guy in a number of countries (see Afghanistan and Iraq), and it's not clear it works. Would getting rid of Mugabe, or having gotten rid of Mbeki, truly have improved the situation in South Africa or Zimbabwe? Read More......

More on leaked GOP auto bailout memo

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On Vitter: "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

Via Talking Points Memo, a UAW official in Shrevesport, Louisiana calls out his state's U.S. Senator, David Vitter, who led the effort to kill the auto bailout in order to screw the American workers:

Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local representing General Motors workers in Shreveport, said Friday that Sen. David Vitter's role in blocking an auto bailout indicates "he's chosen to play Russian roulette" with Louisiana jobs and the national economy.

"I don't know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we've done, it's time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him, " said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

Johnson's comments are a reference to the revelation last year that Vitter's name appeared in the phone records of a Washington prostitution ring. At the time, Vitter responded that "several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling."

Vitter, R-La., has gotten out in front of opposition to the bailout of the auto industry, joining a handful of other Southern Republicans, led by Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.

Vitter was all over the place on this one, talking about "ass" on the Senate floor. We do know one thing about Vitter: He loves to screw the working men and women of America. And, he's up for re-election in 2010. Read More......

Obama talks housing in the weekly radio address

In the weekly radio address, the president-elect talked again about the housing crisis, another of the Bush disasters which will soon be on his plate, and named his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:


The new HUD Secretary will be Shaun Donovan.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

You have to check out the editorial cartoons over at Bob Geiger's site. They had a field day this week with Blago. But, they also hammered the attempts by Bush and Rove to rewrite their legacy. I actually look forward to seeing those cartoons every Saturday morning, so I owe Bob a big thanks for compiling them every week -- and to the cartoonists for letting him do it.

The poem of the week is "Drum" by Phillip Levine. It's a poem about workers in Michigan. How appropriate for the week when the GOP Senators, led by the David "DC Madam's John" Vitter, risked the jobs of working men and women in Michigan and across the country as a political stunt.

What's going on out there? Read More......

US recession impacting factories in China

You don't say? How could anyone even remotely think the US recession would not damage the Chinese economy? Who did they think was buying cheap products? Bangladesh? To China's credit, the government is (finally) starting to turn some of the profits of recent years into infrastructure projects beyond the select locations that have profited during the economic expansion. They better get cracking though and not follow the American model of dragging their feet.

Declining U.S. orders already have contributed to the closure of at least 3,600 toy factories since the beginning of 2008, according to the Chinese government, leaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers suddenly out of work in this sector alone. Some of the shutdowns have triggered violent protests, a situation that could worsen if the Western recession drags on through 2009, as many economists are predicting.

Unemployment in China could deprive a lot of people of their lifeline,” says Hu Xindou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “So it could trigger social instability or even shake the rule of the Communist party.”

The toy industry has played a major role in China’s economic surge over the past 30 years. Exports account for as much as 40 percent of China’s gross domestic product, and labor-intensive industries making things like toys, shoes and clothing generate millions of jobs for its rapidly growing workforce.

But Chinese toy makers began feeling the economic squeeze well before the U.S. recession was made official in late November.

U.S. retailers trimmed orders after suffering weak sales in the 2007 holiday season — made worse by recalls of dangerous toys.

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Tony goes to work

More popular than ever. Blair even manages to generate the Blue Screen of Death. Just back in last night from a few days in the UK and it was impossible to avoid the heaviness in the air due to the credit crisis. From the news to the newspapers to talk at the pub, people are worried. Shops continue to slash prices but buyers are nowhere to be seen and rightly so. The British pound has tumbled in recent months, falling from around 2:1 to the US dollar now to 1.50:1 and the pounds previous dominance over the euro is also in jeopardy we it falls nearer to 1:1. I can't see how that's not going to have an impact with the eurozone workers who used to flock to London for work thanks to the strong currency. Now they have the weakling in the area with high prices to boot.

On the positive side, bless those friendly folks at the Boots in Reading station. I'm on my second cold (or whatever this is) of the season and I took a turn for the worse the night before heading over, making sleep impossible. They guided me away from the "no drowsy effect" junk on the shelves and set me up with the old fashioned "Pholcodine linctus". I slept like a baby, finally. If only they could help provide something for the pain of the criminally expensive trains that can't manage to add on enough trains during non-peak hours. Is $21 for a 30 minute train ride - crammed into cold, small spaces including in between cars - really reasonable? What idiot allowed the once great train system to fall this low? Read More......

Powell blasts Palin

From Crooks and Liars:

REED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: What do you think is going to happen to the Republican Party? You sounded concerned then, and you always have been concerned about certain aspects of your party. Do you think it's moving in the right direction?

POWELL: We don't know yet. I don't know yet.

I think that in the latter months of the campaign, the party moved further to the right. Governor Palin, to some extent, pushed the party more to the right. And I think she had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about small-town values are good.

Well, most of us don't live in small towns. And I was raised in the South Bronx, and there's nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx.

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Scientists find 2,000-year-old brain in Britain

Mmmm brains.

British archaeologists have unearthed an ancient skull carrying a startling surprise — an unusually well-preserved brain. Scientists said Friday that the mass of gray matter was more than 2,000 years old — the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it "a real freak of preservation."

The skull was severed from its owner sometime before the Roman invasion of Britain and found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York in northern England this fall, according to Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust.

Finds officer Rachel Cubbitt realized the skull might contain a brain when she felt something move inside the cranium as she was cleaning it, Hall said. She looked through the skull's base and spotted an unusual yellow substance inside. Scans at York Hospital confirmed the presence of brain tissue....

He confirmed it was the oldest brain found in Britain. He noted that far older preserved brains, thought to be approximately 8,000 years old, were found in 1986 when dozens of intact human skulls were uncovered buried in a peat bog in Windover Farms in Florida.

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