Christopher Hitchens has died

I was always impressed by the man's intellect, writing, and just raw chutzpah.  He lived around the corner - Joe and I would often see him coming in and out of his building over the years.

Here was Hitchens recently on Romney.

And here's an article about him two months ago in the NYT.

Hitchens writes last year about finding out he had Stage 4 esophageal cancer.  Oh god, I'm reading this piece now, he made me laugh out loud:

I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?

And here's Vanity Fair's announcement of his death.

And here's an elegy of sorts from Christopher Buckley, it's quite good:

David Bradley, the owner of The Atlantic Monthly, to which Christopher contributed many sparkling essays, once took him out to lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. It was—I think—February and the smoking ban had gone into effect. Christopher suggested that they eat outside, on the terrace. David Bradley is a game soul, but even he expressed trepidation about dining al fresco in forty-degree weather. Christopher merrily countered, “Why not? It will be bracing.” Lunch—dinner, drinks, any occasion—with Christopher always was. One of our lunches, at Café Milano, the Rick’s Café of Washington, began at 1 P.M., and ended at 11:30 P.M. At about nine o’clock (though my memory is somewhat hazy), he said, “Should we order more food?” I somehow crawled home, where I remained under medical supervision for several weeks, packed in ice with a morphine drip. Christopher probably went home that night and wrote a biography of Orwell.

Love this part of Buckley's piece as well:

Christopher may not, as Byron did, write poetry, but he could recite staves, cantos, yards of it. As for Byronic aura, there were the curly locks, the unbuttoned shirt revealing a wealth—verily, a woolly mastodon—of pectoral hair, as well as the roguish, raffish je ne sais quoi good looks. (Somewhere in “Hitch-22,” he notes that he had now reached the age when “only women wanted to go to bed with me.”)

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More foreclosures expected in early 2012

Anyone that suggests the economic crisis is anywhere near over is crazy. We're years away from the end and from the sound of things, there's a lot more pain in the housing market to go before it's all over. CNBC:

Despite a seasonal slowdown in overall foreclosure activity, and a process still bogged down and backed up by the "robo-signing" processing scandal, the U.S real estate market is about to be hit by another surge of bank repossessions, according to a new report from the online foreclosure sale site RealtyTrac. As banks resubmit millions of documents and courts begin hearing cases again, the backlog of over four million delinquent loans will start surging through the pipeline again.

"November’s numbers suggest a new set of incoming foreclosure waves, many of which may roll into the market as REOs [bank repossessions] or short sales sometime early next year,” said James Saccacio, co-founder of RealtyTrac. “Overall foreclosure activity is down 14 percent from a year ago, the smallest annual decrease over the past 12 months, and some bellwether states such as California, Arizona and Massachusetts actually posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity in November."

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The senators voting Nay on the "Indefinite Detention by the Military" bill

Because someone has to post this list, before posting becomes an act of terrorism, to be dealt with by the military only, in military court only (yes, folks, that's what this bill calls for).

Senators voting Nay on this year's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA):

Cardin (D-MD)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Durbin (D-IL)
Franken (D-MN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Wyden (D-OR)

A paltry, forlorn lot. All other Dem senators voted Yea. Your pseudo-democracy-driven Congress at work; the final vote was 86-13-1.

And if you want the pessimistic version, note that some of those fine listed folks might have voted Nay only because the bill was doomed (yes, I said doomed) to pass.

If it might have failed, how many of those Nays would have magically turned to Yeas? (Answer: We'll never know.)

Will Obama veto this bill? I'm going to guess No, because, well, that's what he does ... talk a good game, then cave.

Oops, was that my Gitmo Moment? We'll have to see, won't we.

[Update: Added three senators lost due to copy-paste error.]

GP Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul hits Gingrich over Vietnam deferments

Paul basically called Gingrich a chickenhawk:

Interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox News Channel, Paul was responding to the negative ads he’s running against Gingrich when he added, “you know, there was one other issue that I personally found annoying is that he’s probably as aggressive with the military as anybody. He supports all the wars in the Middle East a thousand times more than I would. But, you know when, in the 1960′s when I was drafted in the military, you know, he got several deferments. He chose not to go. Now. He’ll send our kids to war. But, at that time, he said, one person wouldn’t make a difference, he didn’t know how he could make a difference. So I see that as important information, people should know that, and It reflects on him.”

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Romney claimed he lived impoverished existence in France, in fact he lived in a "palace" in Paris

Romney's impoverished home
while living in Paris was until recently
the embassy of the UAE.

To hear Mitt Romney tell it, his two and a half years as a Mormon missionary in France in the late 1960s were tough times.  The places he was staying often had no working toilet, and certainly no baths or showers, he said just this past Sunday (in an effort to divert attention from the $10,000 bet he made Rick Perry).  He lived, he said, just like lower-middle income Frenchmen lived.

The truth is slightly different.  According to the Telegraph, for nearly a year during his time in France, Romney lived in a "palace" in Paris' richest neighborhood, known as "the 16th."

Although he spent time in other French cities, for most of 1968, Mr Romney lived in the Mission Home, a 19th century neoclassical building in the French capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. “It was a house built by and for rich people,” said Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president at the time of Mr Romney’s stay. “I would describe it as a palace”.

It had chandeliers, stained glass windows, its own art collection and servants.  I found a photo of one of the windows, via the Mormon Paris mission's Web site:

The stained glass stairway at Mitt Romney's
"lower-middle class" Paris group home.

Until just recently the building housed the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, a government known for its impoverished lower-middle class lifestyle.  Using that info, I was able to track down the address to 3, rue de Lota, Paris 75016.  And using Google maps, I was able to locate the building (above) and recreate the entire facade using some panoramic software, below (that entire photo, left to right, is the house):

Click photo to see a much larger version.

I lived in Paris twice, and have visited a lot. That is one heck of a house.  Mind you, these places were probably built over a hundred years ago, possibly more.  It's a fair bet that it looked just like this when Romney lived there four decades ago.

Oh, but the Telegraph has more:

In his remarks this week, Mr Romney said of his French lodgings: “I don’t recall any of them having a refrigerator. We shopped before every meal”. Mr Anderson said that as well as a refrigerator, the mansion had “a Spanish chef called Pardo and a house boy, who prepared lunch and supper five days a week”.

The home in fact had several baths and showers.

You get the picture. Read the rest of this post...

Lawyer: Sandusky teaching hygiene in shower

Wow, that is lame.

ABC27:

"Some of these kids don't have basic hygiene skills," attorney Karl Rominger said. "Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills like how to put soap on their body."

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Sen. Cantwell demands DOJ investigate foreclosure fraud before a settlement

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued a blistering letter calling on the Department of Justice to investigate big banks for fraudulent foreclosure practices before agreeing to any settlement deal which would grant them immunity for these practices. In her letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Cantwell writes:

I am concerned that recently reported settlement proposals will effectively absolve these financial institutions of substantial civil and criminal liability in one of the largest alleged fraud schemes during the financial crisis. Specifically, I am concerned that the proposed settlement includes a release from liability that may be far too sweeping, does not adequately compensate victims, does not require enough of banks to reform the system that led to the crisis in the first place, and is being made before all the facts are known and without the backing of a full inquiry into the size and scope of the alleged fraud.
...
Without a thorough investigation, it is impossible to truly estimate just how pervasive the defects in the foreclosure and securitization process are. Continued reports of wrongful foreclosures, forged documents, and an inability of servicers and banks to prove chain of title and the legal right to foreclosure, raises the very alarming possibility that these defects were endemic to the mortgage servicing industry across the country. The sheer magnitude of the potential fallout from these defects demands that we undertake a full investigation to uncover the true scope of wrongdoing before providing blanket immunity to the perpetrators.

I am also concerned that reports of a settlement in the range of $20 billion, as recently reported, may not adequately compensate the victims of the foreclosure crisis. As a result of the pump-and-dump scheme perpetrated by the nation’s largest banks that inflated – and burst – the housing bubble, an estimated 14 million Americans are underwater, owing $700 billion more on their homes than those homes are worth. A $20 billion settlement is woefully inadequate to compensate the wrongfully evicted or homeowners struggling to stay in their homes. Much more should be required of banks to provide meaningful help underwater homeowners and compensate foreclosure fraud victims.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Washington is an important state in the context of the foreclosure crisis and the ongoing settlement talks between AGs and banks. Washington's Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna is running for governor and has long been viewed as being a potential get for people trying to stop a bad deal. McKenna's Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial race is Congressman Jay Inslee. Inslee has made stopping a bad settlement a major campaign issue and is collecting signatures on a petition against the rumored deal. Inslee is trying to wedge McKenna - either by making him look like a tool of the banksters or forcing him to do the right thing and help his constituents who were defrauded of their homes by the banks. It looks like Cantwell is aiding Inslee in that squeeze play, but the politics are really secondary to the potential outcome. Simultaneously, we are seeing another major politician standing up to the banks and demanding a halt to the consideration of a bad settlement deal. This is a very good thing. Read the rest of this post...

WaPo’s Wemple re Romney KKK brouhaha: "The reference on MSNBC was fair"

The Washington Post's Erik Wemple weighs in on the ongoing brouhaha over our reporting that Mitt Romney was employing a slogan on the campaign trail that was once used by the KKK. MSNBC mentioned our post yesterday morning, the Romney campaign went berserk, and then MSNBC began a long series of public apologies, including yet another one this morning. The only problem? They've not made clear what they're apologizing for, since the story was accurate. Here's Wemple's conclusion:

The unfortunate upshot of that moment is that Romney used a phrase deployed by the KKK in proximity to a reference to immigration policy. Therefore, the reference on MSNBC was fair, even if it lacked a response from the Romney people.

Not that they would have gotten too far with the inquiries in any case. The Romney campaign wouldn’t respond to questions on the controversy. When I sent along the link to a Los Angeles Times story reflecting the candidate’s use of the phrase and asked for confirmation that it was an accurate report, I got nothing in response. Huffington Post got a similar treatment. Through the stonewalling, the Romney campaign signals its intent not to give its side of things but rather to flack the story out of existence through a series of no-comments.

Look at what Roberts didn’t say with his much-examined words. He didn’t say that Romney sympathized with the KKK, nor did he say that the candidate borrowed the phrase from the KKK. He said merely that the phrase was used by the KKK. The overlap could be the result a distasteful speech-writing accident or something just as harmless.

The rhetorical echo isn’t so much fair game as it is obligatory game. If a modern presidential candidate uses a catchphrase that was once deployed by one of U.S. history’s most hateful and divisive groups, what’s the excuse for failing to point that out? Writes Aravosis via-email: “It feels like Mitt Romney yelled at the head of MSNBC, and he caved. And I think it’s fair to ask MSNBC to disclose the contents of any and all discussions they had with the Romney campaign yesterday.”

Who knows how it went — neither side is talking about the ins and outs. What is clear is that Romney has flirted with coded and creepy nativist language on the stump. And when the consequences of his stump language emerged, his campaign appears to have complained to the one outlet that reported on it and stifled others. If MSNBC’s actions were appalling, then those actions qualify as well.

So the big problem, according to MSNBC, is that their on air talent didn't get a statement from the Romney campaign before mentioning the story, when the Romney campaign is refusing to give a statement anyway? Would MSNBC's story really have been that different had they said "the Romney campaign refused to comment"? If anything, that would have made Romney sound even more guilty. In a way, MSNBC was doing Romney a favor.  But in any case, why did MSNBC apologize? Read the rest of this post...

Is Giuliani angling to be Gingrich’s VP?

Sure looks that way. Giuliani is now publicly criticizing Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper, and embracing Gingrich instead.

The problem is that Giuliani has a Romney problem. I.e., he's pretending to be a conservative when people know he's really a liberal.  Once he wanted to be president, Giuliani flip-flopped on gay rights - a lot.  He also flip-flopped on abortion.  In a very real way, Romney's reinvention is late to the game.  Rudy was the original chameleon.  And his embrace of Gingrich is just another effort to dispel a lifetime of liberalism.  Raw ambition can be an ugly thing. Read the rest of this post...

Chris Hedges & Michael Moore: Taking the long view of Unfettered Capitalism

More high-level stuff, the view from 15,000 feet. This is Chris Hedges (him) interviewed by Michael Moore about the world of "unfettered capitalism" — our world, in other words.

It's not long (8 minutes) and very tight, very listenable. The discussion is divided into three parts:

1. What is "unfettered capitalism"?
2. This culture is a dying one.
3. Unfettered capitalism is also killing life on the planet (i.e., we're at the limit of our ability to destructively exploit and move on — no more moving to the next green valley).

I disagree (fairly strongly) with point (2); my comment on that is below. However, points (1) and (3) are dead-on; I strongly recommend giving a listen. Good clear thinking:



About point (2), if you care: Civilizations dying in a blaze of 1920s Jazz Age exuberance — dancing their way to death — or in a fit of Nero-era excess à la Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is wonderfully colorful, but inaccurate. Rome lasted 400 years after Nero and peaked as a civilization long after Nero died, arguably due to a long decline in European population relative to other regions.

(Ask yourself, why was Augustus able to find the armies to defend the frontier, and not Theodosius, 300 years later? Answer: Decline in population of recruits — "inventory" as us predatory capitalists like to say.)

As for points (1) and (3) however, Hedges and Moore are right, in my opinion. The planet's true predators are filled with Triumph of the Will Trumpism ( which I define as "the glory of bending the world to your will").

As a result, they miss the fact that literally nowhere will be safe when the population dislocations are global. Even Blackwater won't be much help if your palace is named Bastille Place (or East Hampton).

GP Read the rest of this post...

NY Mag on Romney using KKK slogan brouhaha

From Brett Smiley at New York Magazine:

AMERICAblog's story appeared on its site on Tuesday, and it's backed by sources that indicate that the phrase was indeed used by the Klan. So then why did Hardball host Chris Matthews issue a vehement apology on behalf of MSNBC?

Was the report that Romney used a phrase once embraced by an extremist, white-clad hate group inaccurate? It appears not.

Matthews issued the MSNBC mea culpa for reporting what he termed an irresponsible and incendiary story, though, not an inaccuracy. Romney's campaign didn't specify what was misreported either, according to the New York Times.

We don't doubt that MSNBC is sorry for choosing the story, but probably not for the reasons cited.

Background on this story here. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Is your marriage muddled? Newt Gingrich has the answer!

From Andy Cobb and our friends at Second City:

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Human Rights Watch calls refusal to veto detainee bill "a historic tragedy for rights"

From Human Rights Watch:

US President Barack Obama’s apparent decision to not veto a defense spending bill that codifies indefinite detention without trial into US law and expands the military’s role in holding terrorism suspects does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The Obama administration had threatened to veto the bill, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), over detainee provisions, but on December 14, 2011, issued a statement indicating the president would likely sign the legislation.

“By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”

The far-reaching detainee provisions would codify indefinite detention without trial into US law for the first time since the McCarthy era when Congress in 1950 overrode the veto of then-President Harry Truman and passed the Internal Security Act. The bill would also bar the transfer of detainees currently held at Guantanamo into the US for any reason, including for trial. In addition, it would extend restrictions, imposed last year, on the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to home or third countries – even those cleared for release by the administration.

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You know who else said "Keep America American" besides Romney and KKK? MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan

We wrote yesterday about how GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has twice during his campaign, including just a few days ago, used the phrase "Keep America American," and how this is an old Ku Klux Klan slogan from the early 1900s (the NYT picked up the story as well).

Since MSNBC's multiple on-air apologies last night for daring to even mention this story, even though it's true, we've uncovered someone else who likes this phrase a lot: MSNBC's own Pat Buchanan, who used the phrase repeatedly during his failed run for the presidency in 2000.

From "Buchanan Ad," AP, October 20, 2000:

Lifting a page from former Gov. Pete Wilson's playbook, Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is airing a new TV ad warning that illegal immigration is ruining the country.

The announcer contends that Democratic candidate Al Gore and GOP nominee George W. Bush would do nothing to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

"One candidate will do whatever it takes to keep America America - Pat Buchanan," the ad says.

A Pat Buchanan campaign slogan about dark people. Yeah, nothing racist about that. Read the rest of this post...

CEO pay way up in US this year

Everyone obviously likes to make more money, but this is counter productive for everyone. The US is supposed to be a country that is dependent upon consumers, but if consumers are being squeezed with flat pay and high unemployment, how is the economy supposed to grow? For the remaining clueless people who don't understand why the Occupy movement has been so large and so popular, this is another great example to reference. The Guardian:

This year's survey shows CEO pay packages have boomed: the top 10 earners took home more than $770m between them in 2010. As stock prices began to recover last year, the increase in CEO pay outstripped the rise in share value. The Russell 3000 measure of US stock prices was up by 16.93% in 2010, but CEO pay went up by 27.19% overall. For S&P; 500 CEOs, the largest companies in the sample, total realised compensation – including perks and pensions and stock awards – increased by a median of 36.47%. Total pay at midcap companies, which are slightly smaller than the top firms, rose 40.2%.

GMI released a preliminary report on 2010 CEO pay earlier this year, before all the data was available. Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at GMI, said that report had shown a significant bounce but he had expected a wider sample to dampen the effect.

"Wages for everybody else have either been in decline or stagnated in this period, and that's for those who are in work," said Hodgson. "I had a feeling that we would see some significant increases this year. But 30-40% was something of a surprise." Bosses won in every area, with dramatic increases in pensions, payoffs and perks – as well as salary.

Interesting enough, the bankers are not at the top of the list, but a health care executive is at the top. Read the rest of this post...

Human Rights Watch: Syrian troops 'ordered to shoot to kill'

When this bloodbath ends, some people are going to be living their years in prison for crimes against humanity. Al Jazeera:

The report from Human Rights Watch names 74 commanders and military and intelligence officials as having allegedly "ordered, authorised, or condoned widespread killings, torture, and unlawful arrests" during the country's nine-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government.

The group urged the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to impose sanctions against officials implicated in the report.

Those named should be investigated "for their command responsibility for crimes against humanity," the report said.

Senior officials mentioned include Imad Dawoud Rajiha, the country's defence minister; Imad Fahed al-Jasem el-Freij, the army chief of staff; and the heads of various intelligence agencies, Abdul Fatah Kudsiyeh, Jamil Hassan and Ali Mamlouk.

Read the rest of this post...

Geography and history according to Fox News

Does Fox make 'mistakes' deliberately or are they just very sloppy? Or perhaps the sloppiness is also deliberate, an attempt to give plausible deniability for their intentional misinformation.



Media matters has this and a long list of similar 'mistakes'.

This sort of thing is the reason I try not to visit Media Matters without protective headgear. There is always the risk that the temptation to hit my head against a wall will prove too strong. The latest Fox News atrocities they document:

• According to Hannity (rhymes with inanity) we got Bin Laden "Thanks to George W. Bush". (As John notes, in part this is true -- the only reason President Obama was able to catch Bin Laden is because Bush didn't catch him earlier.)
  
• The drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6% was shown as remaining constant at 9%.
  
• The War on Christmas has replaced the War on Terror (don't tell the kids Obama has Santa locked up in Gitmo).
  
• The UN climate deal imposes 'reparations' on the US.
  

Funny how the 'mistakes' made by Fox News always tell a certain story.

And just as I thought this post might be finished they do this:

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