Senate passes another $70bn for Iraq and Afghanistan

Different clowns, same circus. Read More......

Greenspan and Bush ignored subprime concerns

Not only from outside consumer groups, but also from another member of the Fed. Mr Bubble can spin it anyway he likes, but this problem is jointly owned by Greenspan and Bush. Neither had any interest in stopping the good times and blindly ignored all of the warnings for the bad times ahead.

Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman.

(More warnings that were ignored, after the jump.)

In 2001, a senior Treasury official, Sheila C. Bair, tried to persuade subprime lenders to adopt a code of “best practices” and to let outside monitors verify their compliance. None of the lenders would agree to the monitors, and many rejected the code itself. Even those who did adopt those practices, Ms. Bair recalled recently, soon let them slip.

And leaders of a housing advocacy group in California, meeting with Mr. Greenspan in 2004, warned that deception was increasing and unscrupulous practices were spreading.

John C. Gamboa and Robert L. Gnaizda of the Greenlining Institute implored Mr. Greenspan to use his bully pulpit and press for a voluntary code of conduct.

“He never gave us a good reason, but he didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Gnaizda said last week. “He just wasn’t interested.”

Today, as the mortgage crisis of 2007 worsens and threatens to tip the economy into a recession, many are asking: where was Washington?

Indeed. Where was Washington and why are they asking everyone else to pay for problems that the allowed? Read More......

Edwards takes back the lead in new Iowa poll

From Political Wire:

A new InsiderAdvantage poll in Iowa shows John Edwards leading among likely caucus-goers with 30% support, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton at 26% and Sen. Barack Obama at 24%.

This is the first poll to show Edwards ahead of his rivals since summer.

Key finding: Edwards holds a significant advantage "among a group who could be key to the first contest of the presidential year: those who say their first choice is someone other than the top three. Under Iowa Democratic Party rules, candidates who poll less than 15 percent in the first vote at each caucus around the state are eliminated, and their supporters get a second chance to vote for another candidate."

In the Republican race, Mike Huckabee leads with 28%, followed by Mitt Romney at 25%, Fred Thompson at 10%, Sen. John McCain at 9%, Rep. Ron Paul at 6%, and Rudy Giuliani also at 6%.

Read More......

Why are people giving Ron Paul so much money?

Ron Paul is raising a TON of money. But it's not translating into real support.

A new Gallup Poll out today shows that his support among Republicans nationally has actually dropped in the past month, from a paltry 5% to a pathetic 3%. This is after he did get more press and appeared in most of the TV debates. By the way, that 3% total now ties him with new entrant... the loony Alan Keyes.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post asks what the heck is going on with Ron Paul raising all this money. (After the jump, what do you think is going on?)

In commemoration of Guy Fawkes' attempted assassination of King James I, the Paul network organized a fundraising bomb -- for lack of a better word. More than $4 million was collected online in roughly 24 hours, a stunning achievement for any candidate but especially someone with Paul's seemingly long-shot odds at the nomination.

Even then, however, it was easy to write Paul off. Other fringe candidates had been able to collect several million dollars form their efforts. Paul fit somewhat easily into the model of other perennial candidates like Lyndon LaRouche.

No more. Paul collected more than $6 million in a single day earlier this week (Dec. 16 -- the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, natch). Paul campaign officials say that he will top $18 million raised between Sept. 1 and Dec 31, a total that will put him first or very close to the top of the fundraising chase.

The Fix is often baffled about politics but rarely totally stumped. Ron Paul's financial prowess is, however, an example of a development that we just can't figure out.

So what's going on? Are the Rs fed up with their own party? Is Paul's support even coming from Republicans, or is he tapping into an anti-war vote, or what? Thoughts? Read More......

Huckabee equates homosexuality with necrophilia

Can we just quarantine Huckabee? Read More......

American cars to enter the 1980s

Gee, a whole 35 miles a gallon. With aspirations like these, there's no saying what can we achieve as a nation. Sigh. Read More......

"That's what you get for ruining my birthday, bitch"

I've recently joined the "international observer" team of a large French TV network, France 24 (kind of the French CNN). Basically, they've asked a number of people around the globe to occasionally report in on news in their country. Anyway, one of the first reports (not from me) is about our troops in Iraq making their own videos of their day to day lives. The video is actually quite interesting. It's not quite clear whether it's fascinating, horrifying, funny or all of the above. But it is interesting how the YouTube phenomenon is affecting all aspects of our lives, even the troops in Iraq. Read More......

Who are we, really?

Kevin Drum relays without comment a letter from a conservative defending torture, an exercise in intellectual and moral contortionism that is revelatory, I think. Since Kevin didn't comment, I will: The move to endorse torture as stated policy of the country is one of the most heart-wrenching results of the past several years, and it goes against everything this nation stands for.

The idea that if we do it then it's okay, because we're doing it for "the right reasons" -- the explanation put forth by Kevin's correspondent -- is a recipe for rupturing the very foundation of the country. The very thing that makes us better, that allows us to have pride in our country and culture, is our restraint from the kind of barbarism that is torture. What happened to "Give me liberty or give me death"? When did the right become moral relativists? It's really astonishing.

On a more specific level, though, the letter closes by saying, in an attempt to justify our using torture by saying that the motivation is the key moral test, "Get back to me when some enemy tortures one of our soldiers in order to save innocent lives." Which raises the question: Does this writer believe that if a US soldier is captured, and he has knowledge of a planned airstrike that will cause collateral damage, the enemy would be right to torture him? After all, that would fit this twisted requirement, wouldn't it? Of course, many of our enemies need no excuse to torture . . . but the fact that they do and we don't is the very type of thing that makes them an enemy! Or, at least, it used to be.

The flag doesn't make the values, the values make the flag. Read More......

Photo proves Romney lied about attending Planned Parenthood fundraiser

Definitely read ABC's article, it's great - Romney outright lied about this entire incident. Said it was all his wife's doing, he had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. That's assuming, of course, that attending a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in person is "nothing." Piece of work, this guy. More pro-gay, pro-life, and anti-gun than Ted Kennedy - and now he's Ronald Reagan because he's had personal epiphanies on every issue imaginable in just the past two years. It's like he's a born-again Christian except that he's neither born-again nor a Christian (though he plays one on TV). Anyone on the right who falls for this guy deserves what they get. Read More......

"Catholic" group slams Huckabee for putting cross in TV ad

Donahue is a nutjob, but he's a nutjob the media loves to quote as a "real" Catholic leader when he's going after Democrats and others on the left. So fine, what's good for the goose... As for the "cross," Huckabee has no problem using Christ as his own personal man-servant - citing "Christ" in his TV ad and going so far as to claim that God wanted Huckabee to surge in the polls (which is a comment so audacious, and so offensive to real Christians, that it's surprising (or not) it hasn't gotten more scrutiny in the media - I mean, come on, he isn't asked about this at every press opp?). So it wouldn't be surprising were Huckabee now abusing the cross for political purposes. More from Raw Story. Read More......

US firm loses UK drivers license data. Fortunately, no one in Congress or the big non-profit advocacy groups cares.

Globalization at its finest. Three million records were lost back in May though the Iowa company did not think it was necessary to mention that fact.

The government yesterday revealed another disturbing loss of citizens' data when the transport secretary disclosed that a computer disc had gone missing that contained the records of more than 3 million driving test applicants, including their names, home addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers.

The disc was lost from a "secure store" in Iowa in the US midwest by private firm Pearson Driving Assessments in May, but this was not relayed either to Westminster or to the police.

(More after the jump.)
Luckily enough for business in America (and elsewhere) there are hardly any repercussions for losing data by the truckload, so why even bother? When political leaders in Congress don't show any interest, including those running for President, why should they care?

While in the US visiting family recently, I was shocked to hear that both my mother as well as my sister had experienced credit card fraud in the last few years. (It happened to me more than 15 years ago, none since.) There was only one other adult at the table and so far he was OK but to find three out of the four at the table was amazing, though pretty much aligned with the statistics. NOTE FROM JOHN: My credit card number was stolen a month ago too. Read More......

Media in a frenzy trying to reinvigorate McCain's campaign

Reporters really can be such cheap dates. No one knows that better than John McCain. He's been driving them around on that bus of his again this year -- and it's starting to pay off.

The media sees momentum for McCain. Not translating anywhere else, really. But that doesn't matter. The GOP field is in such disarray that reporters and editorial boards are pushing McCain's comeback.

There has been a frenzy over the Lieberman endorsement. But to attribute so much potential influence to Lieberman's endorsement is pretty laughable. Although there are ample mentions of Lieberman's VP run in 2000, not so much coverage of Lieberman's run for President in 2004 -- which famously went no where. In New Hampshire, Lieberman came in fifth with nine, yes, nine percent, of the vote.

Gotta love how the press is predicting that Lieberman's endorsement will help McCain in New Hampshire. That's what CBS/AP report indicates that:

The Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000 endorsed Republican John McCain for president on Monday, scandalizing Democrats in Washington and giving the GOP hopeful a much-needed boost in New Hampshire where independents outnumber Republicans and Democrats.

One problem with the theory that Lieberman will help with independents in New Hampshire is that independents in New Hampshire are becoming more partisan -- just what Lieberman has been decrying:

Yet the battle for the independents is taking on a new aspect this year, with implications for both parties' primaries: There are signs that the true swing voter, trying to make up his mind between parties, is much less in play.

Political scientists studying the state have noted in recent years that most of its undeclared voters favor one party, with a slight majority now leaning Democratic, and are thus independent in name only. While a growing share of the state's voters are undeclared -- 44 percent -- at most a third of those voters are seen as true independents.

If John McCain is making a comeback, it's less about him and more about the other GOP candidates just plain tanking. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

All right. One week til Christmas. We all get that.

But we really need to know right now? And, note to all the tv news folks, we don't need to know any more about Drew Peterson. Stop. Please. Read More......

FCC to vote in favor of media consolidation

Fantastic. I was almost getting worried that we might have competition and too many news sources. Those ideas are so old fashioned and out of date. The Bush administration is loving this move, which should say enough about what this means to everyone outside of media conglomerates such as News Corp. This administration never saw a plan to destroy competition and diversity that they didn't like.

The only bright news here is that there are at least a few Republicans in the Senate who are joining a handful of Democrats who are vowing to overturn the FCC if they vote to allow consolidation. Whether it will be enough is hard to say, since most in the GOP are afraid of competition these days. Read More......