MILK is good food

I'm hearing from multiple friends that the new movie "Milk" is astoundingly good. My friend Chris (not Chris in Paris) just sent me the following email:

I don’t know if you’ve seen Milk yet, but Jose and I just got back from seeing it. Absolutely amazing. I usually avoid seeing movies that include characters that I know—not that I knew Milk—I was one of those kids who heard the word “gay” for the first time when Walter Cronkite reported his winning. But I’ve run across more than a few of the characters in the movie during my time working with the Bay Area – the writers and the actors just nailed it. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you have to. Sean Penn is absolutely breathtaking in this. The reviews are not an exaggeration.

Chris

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Trump Entertainment to miss $53.1 million payment

You don't really think Donald Trump would be treated the same as an individual homeowner, do you? Of course not. While people at the low end of the real estate market continue to be scape-goated by the Republicans for the Wall Street implosion, Wall Street and big gamblers like Trump continue to game the system and get away with risky schemes. Instead of risking a few hundred thousand dollars, the serious players are working with billions, so the rules are different. The bigger the gamble, the more more leeway and forgiveness that's offered. Heck, they probably will give Trump a bonus check just for the stress of such a screw up.

Facing tough competition and sliding revenue amid the economic meltdown, Trump Entertainment Resorts will have to skip a $53.1 million interest payment scheduled for Monday on its 8.5% senior secured notes due 2015 in order to maintain sufficient liquidity.

The Atlantic City, N.J., casino operator, with about $1.25 billion worth of the notes outstanding, said late Friday that it has a 30-day grace period to pay up and will meanwhile seek talks with its lenders to revamp its capital structure and improve its liquidity.

To be fair, casinos are not known for generating much revenue, so this could have happened to anyone. Read the rest of this post...

People make shit up during campaigns. Get over it already.

I'm getting annoyed with the media's ill-informed questions about "but, Obama said Hillary wasn't qualified during the campaign, and she said he wasn't qualified, so how, oh how, could he choose her and she choose him?"

Uh, because during a campaign you are required to beat the crap out of your opponent, even if you think they'd be as good as, or even better than, you in the job. This isn't rocket science, and every reporter knows it. Rivals always savage each other, and the candidate who wins very often chooses their rivals as VP and in the Cabinet (thus the reason people were surprised that McCain didn't choose Romney or Huckabee as his VP). This isn't news, and the answer is already known. Are reporters hoping Obama and Hillary are going to say "uh, because we both kind of exaggerated about each other during the campaign?" Not going to happen, and reporters know it's not going to happen, so why ask the question at all - and why not just tell the viewers the answer to the question, since the reporters already know it?

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Paulson talks, markets tank almost 700 points

My goodness, another horrible day on Wall Street. Can he just shut his mouth and stay away from a microphone until the grownups arrive? It seems like every time he says something - anything - the market drops hard. There are a lot of people out there who are counting the days until he's gone for good.

On top of that, we also are stuck with Bernanke who has managed to ignore recent history in Japan and still thinks we can rate cut our way into prosperity. Not. Going. To. Happen. There's only so much rate cutting that the Fed can or should do before it starts feeding the deflationary possibilities that are already floating around. I hope that they've identified his replacement and have that person ready to jump the second his term is up. Who knows. Maybe we will get lucky and Bernanke announce that he wants to spend more time with his family and resign. Read the rest of this post...

Deconstructing Mark Halperin, quite possibly the biggest tool in the political punditry

John wrote a post last week about Mark Halperin's hissy fit over election coverage. The guy who gets paid by Time Magazine to call Obama the "Land of Lincolner" thought media coverage was biased towards Obama. Halperin thinks if he says something that it is somehow true. He's just too painful.

So it gives me great glee to link to two posts by Jed Lewison on the subject of Mark Halperin. Jed took a look at the references to other political pundits from Halperin's cartoonish site, "The Page." He referred to Rush Limbaugh 113 times but Keith Olbermann got only 14 mentions. Sean Hannity and Drudge did pretty well, too. We see who really does shape the thinking of Halperin. (And as someone who writes on a political website, I tend to refer a lot to people, like Jed, who share my views.)

Then, Jed reviewed 92 articles about Obama from the New York Times to see if the pro-Obama bias existed. Jed didn't find it:

I'm not saying the articles prove any sort of systematic anti-Obama bias. But they do invalidate Halperin's claim about the NYT, in the process exposing his claim that coverage of the 2008 campaign represents "the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war" as totally unsubstantiated.

So Jed looked at the facts, but it seems Halperin had a gut feeling about the bias. But, that's because Halperin is under the influence of Rush/Drudge/Hannity.

Seriously, can't we have better pundits? Just because Mark Halperin thinks he defines the conventional wisdom, doesn't mean it's true. Can anyone who uses the phrase "Land of Lincolner" really be taken seriously? I know Jason Linkins doesn't think so.

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Lobbying and blissful ignorance led Bush to back off regulation

The Republicans continue to spin the credit crisis as the fault of the poor and minorities. Yes, the global credit crisis had nothing to do at all with repackaging complex securities where Wall Street made trillions in a program that would be commonly known as a Ponzi scheme or Amway-like. Nope. Just because Wall Street profited and paid everyone millions in bonuses at each step of the sales (and repackaging) cycle, it doesn't mean they had any responsibility for the collapse.

It was all the fault of the poor and Bill Clinton who forced Wall Street to give loans to minorities. Forget about the vast difference in actual numbers between loans to poor and minorities compared to the complicated, risky rubbish sold throughout the world. No one understood what was inside those repackaged deals, but they didn't care because the money was good, until the collapse. In the minds of the GOP, it's always the fault of the poor. Period. For the reality-based world, the story is slightly different.

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

"These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages," David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

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Dow closes down 679.95

8,149.09

Krugman on CNBC just said we're in an economic "free fall." "It looks worse than Japan." He recommended a $600bn stimulus in the first year. The crisis will likely go on into 2010, and he "wouldn't be surprised" seeing the recession continue into 2011.

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Tina Fey on Sarah Palin and sexism

There's a ridiculous article I just read on AP or Reuters (I don't know which, and don't plan to link), talking about how both Hillary and Sarah Palin were both victims of torrid sexism. Puhleez. First off, don't dare put Sarah Palin in the same camp as Hillary for anything. While I'm still not convinced that Hillary suffered any more sexism than Obama suffered racism, the idea of suggesting that Sarah Palin was somehow treated unfairly is simply ridiculous.

Here's Tina Fey's take on sexism and Palin (but I think it applies the same to Hillary):

Around the same time, Fey saw an entertainment reporter on TV say that Palin had been gracious toward Fey, but Fey hadn’t been gracious toward Palin. “What made me super-mad about it,” Fey says later, “was that it seemed very sexist toward me and her. The implication was that she’s so fragile, which she is not. She’s a strong woman. And then, also, it was sexist because, like, who would ever go on the news and say, ‘Well, I thought it was sort of mean to Richard Nixon when Dan Aykroyd played him,’ and ‘That seemed awful mean to George Bush when Will Ferrell did it.’ And it’s like, No, that’s not the thing. This is a comedy sketch on a comedy show.” “Mean,” we agreed, was a word that tends to get used on women who do satirical humor and, as she says, “gay guys.”

“I feel clean about it,” she says. “All these jokes were fair."

It's not sexism when you metaphorically beat the crap out of male candidates, so why is it sexism when you go after women in politics just as feistily? Because, I think, there's still an internalized sexism that makes people defensive of women when they're attacked politically - it's still "an attack," and we've all been taught that "you don't hit a girl." Read the rest of this post...

Tina Brown: Give "Meet the Press" job to Rachel Maddow

Huh. I don't disagree, but suspect NBC would find her too "partisan." As if Stephanopoulos didn't face the same problem, and overcome it mightily.

The Meet the Press panel needs fewer David Broders and more Christopher Hitchenses—irresponsible wits who can challenge the B-list senators and warhorse commentators who trundle on and download all that sonorous received wisdom. It needs fewer "Washington insiders" and more genuinely informed outsiders. (Fareed Zakaria last week did an electric interview on his CNN foreign affairs show with the young Brit historian Niall Ferguson on the financial meltdown which was better than any slog round the course with Chris Dodd.) And for the top spot, how about going way outside the box? How about bringing in the cool forensic skills of a David Boies? Or the fresh intelligence of a web star like Josh Marshall or Glenn Greenwald? Or the political/policy smarts of a journalistic intellectual like the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky?

Or how about… a woman? Since NBC has not heeded my last suggestion to appoint either the unsung cable Rottweiler Greta Van Susteren or a reinvented, post-Palin Katie Couric, I say give Meet the Press to Rachel Maddow. She’s smart. She’s quick. She’s witty. She does her homework.

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NBER: US recession started in December 2007

They're confirming what many of us already knew. This is going to be a long recession but at least the grownups are ready to take over from the kids.

The U.S. economy entered a recession in December 2007, a committee of economists at the private National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday. The economy reached a peak in December and has been declining since, according to the business cycle dating committee of the NBER. The committee does not judge a recession as two consecutive quarterly declines in gross domestic product; rather, it looks at four key monthly economic indicators, including employment, industrial output and sales. Employment peaked in December.

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'Twelve days of Christmas' up almost 11%

Bah humbug!

Given the economic downturn, even the most romantic might balk at the $86,609 price tag for the items in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

That's this year's cost, according to the annual "Christmas Price Index" compiled by PNC Financial Services Group Inc., which tallies the single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, purchased repeatedly as the song suggests.

The price is up $8,508 or 10.9 percent, from $78,100 last year.

"True loves may take it on the chin for a peck on the cheek," said Jim Dunigan, managing executive of investment for PNC Wealth Management, which has been calculating the cost of Christmas since 1984.

In this tight economy, what's a romantic to do?

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Obama on Clinton and Gates

Barack Obama is doing his news conference to announce his national security team right now. Here's the excerpt from the speech on Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates:

I have known Hillary Clinton as a friend, a colleague, a source of counsel, and as a campaign opponent. She possesses an extraordinary intelligence and toughness, and a remarkable work ethic. I am proud that she will be our next Secretary of State. She is an American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence; who knows many of the world’s leaders; who will command respect in every capitol; and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world.

Hillary’s appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances. There is much to do – from preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea, to seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, to strengthening international institutions. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department, and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda.

At a time when we face an unprecedented transition amidst two wars, I have asked Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense, and I’m pleased that he’s accepted. Two years ago, he took over the Pentagon at a difficult time. He restored accountability. He won the confidence of military commanders, and the trust of our brave men and women in uniform, and their families. He earned the respect of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle for his pragmatism and competence. He knows that we need a sustainable national security strategy – and that includes a bipartisan consensus at home.

As I said throughout the campaign, I will be giving Secretary Gates and our military a new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control. We will also ensure that we have the strategy – and resources – to succeed against al Qaeda and the Taliban. As Bob said not too long ago, Afghanistan is where the war on terror began, and it is where it must end. And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century.

It's critical to hear Obama talk forcefully about that new mission to end the war in Iraq -- and the focus on the mess in Afghanistan.

I know we've written many, many, many times about the failure of the Bush presidency. It's going to take a long time and a lot of work to overcome the damage he's done to our country. The contrast to Obama could not be more stark.

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Calif. priest tells Obama supporters to confess because voting for Obama was a mortal swin

And the Catholics wonder why their membership is declining.

A Roman Catholic priest has told parishioners they should confess if they voted for Barack Obama because the president-elect supports abortion.

The Rev. Joseph Illo says his parishioners at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto shouldn't risk losing their "state of grace" by receiving communion sacrilegiously. He delivered the message in a Nov. 21 letter and during mass.

In an interview this week with the Modesto Bee, Illo says he sent the letter because Catholic teaching requires that people go to confession when they commit a mortal sin.

It's creating quite the buzz. This has been the "Most Viewed" and "Most Emailed" article on the McClatchyDC.com website for the last day:
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GOP's New Leader, Sarah Palin, is campaigning in Georgia today for Chambliss

While many GOP elected officials and pundits cringe at the concept of Sarah Palin as their party's leader, she is. There's no doubt about it. Today, Palin is in Georgia to meet the GOP faithful. Ostensibly, this is a campaign trip for Saxby Chambliss. But, we all know it's just an early stop on Sarah's 2012 campaign:

Augusta — Several thousand people stood in the cold Monday morning for the chance to get inside the James Brown Arena to see Alaska Gov. — and new Republican star — Sarah Palin.

Palin was in Augusta to start a four-city campaign swing for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who is locked in a hotly contested runoff with Democrat Jim Martin. The race will be decided Tuesday, and Palin’s appearance is part of Chambliss’s effort to get conservative voters to the polls.

Her other stops include Savannah, Perry and metro Atlanta, with a rally at the Gwinnett Center scheduled for 4 p.m.

The Republicans deserve a "leader" like Palin. The scary thing is that she's pretty much the best that they've got.

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I was traveling on Saturday so didn't get to post Bob Geiger's compilation of the week's best editorial cartoons. There were so many good ones that I'm posting them now. Start the week with a few good laughs at the expense of George Bush, Sarah Palin and Henry Paulson.

Should be a pretty busy week. We've got the Obama announcement today on his national security team today. Tomorrow is the runoff in Georgia's Senate race. The automakers are back on Capitol Hill. And who knows what else will pop up.

So let's get it started... Read the rest of this post...

UK gives two week deadline to credit card companies

Hank Paulson was surely about to do this as well but somehow it slipped his mind. The US continues to allow the banks to get away with profiteering despite being saved from total failure, but that's the Republican way. As long as their friends can squeeze one last penny out of consumers (whether it's oil, banking, or any other business) then everything is OK. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is thanks to Bush and Paulson. (Hat tip D/M)

Credit card giants have been given two weeks to agree to stop charging exorbitant rates to borrowers or risk losing their operating licences.

Ministers said they were giving Britain's major lenders one last chance to prove they were not profiteering from the downturn. The ultimatum was delivered at a four-hour Whitehall summit called after The Independent disclosed some credit card and store card providers had raised interest rates – in some cases to 30 per cent – even though the cost of borrowing had fallen.

The credit card companies agreed last night to give borrowers who run into trouble paying their bills a "breathing space" of up to two months before they face action. They also pledged to draw up a clear "statement of principles" over their rates by 9 December. It will commit them to give clear information to borrowers, not alter rates constantly and charge "proportionate" levels of interest.

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and Gareth Thomas, the Consumer Affairs minister, told leaders of the industry that they were alarmed by lenders increasing their rates overnight without justification.

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Factories in Asia see decline in demand

Of course, how could the economies not be so tightly linked and dependent on each other? Now that credit has stopped in the West, who can afford to shop 'til they drop? The decoupling theory takes yet another hit as it falls back to reality.

New orders at Chinese factories tumbled in November while their U.S. retail customers used deep discounts to lure shoppers at the start of a holiday season overshadowed by fears of global recession.

Underlining the China data, South Korea's exports fell by the most in 7 years last month and both Tokyo and Beijing provided stark warnings on the challenges ahead for their economies, the second- and fourth-biggest in the world.

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My friend Tom wishes you a belated Happy Thanksgiving from Egypt

Dear Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving.

This year I find myself away from family and friends but after more than a week in the Middle East I feel closer to the rest of the world.

The news of Barack Obama's win has excited people here--in Jerusalem on both the Arab and Israeli side of the wall, in Cairo the informal capital of the Arab world and in rural Muslim towns along the Nile River north of the High Dam at Aswan. Children no older than 10 break out into chants of "Obama! Obama! Obama!" and in one school I visited a banner was made with a photo of Obama where children practiced their English by writing "Yes we can" and "I love you" on the paper. A glimmer of change.

Now I am on the River Nile cruising to Luxor aboard one of the many boats for this purpose. Luxor is close to Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. The scenery is almost biblical. Lush rice fields, palm date groves and banana groves for a few kilometers or so from the river followed by a stark break to desert and dry cliffs.

Periodically there is a village marked by the minaret of the mosque. At night it is lit with a green light and the call of the Hazan to prayer echoes across the Nile. Teen boys work the water in boats fishing. They pound the side of the boats with clubs to scare the fish into their nets. On shore camels are dragging gigantic palm leaves. Shephards prepare sheep and goats for market. The temperature is a cool 80 for this winter but the sun is intense.

The Egyptian people are very friendly. Quick with funny jokes or a smile.

There is inescapable poverty here but very low crime. The crimes are structural on the people, not by the people.

All of this is a reminder of the many things to be thankful for and for me that means you. Happy Thanksgiving.

From my iPhone on the River Nile,

-Tom

P.S. Photo of great pyramid at Giza. Read the rest of this post...