CNN: All talk radio suffering from Limbaugh fallout

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Santorum says climate change not real, CO2 not a danger, because plants like CO2

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum actually said today that the danger of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the resultant climate change it can cause, is nothing to worry about because: "Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is."

Well, under the same theory, if we locked one of the Santorum children in an airtight room filled with only carbon dioxide, then they'd flourish just like a pretty little rose, wouldn't they?

What a ridiculous argument.

And I guess they keep a lot of cyanide available in the Santorum household because cyanide is made up of carbon and nitrogen, and ask any barbecue fan how dangerous charcoal is, and ask any plant how dangerous nitrogen is.

All jokes aside, this is a sign of how extreme, and dangerous, the Republican party has become.  They're anti-science, and anti-facts.  In Santorum's case,  you almost believe that he believes what he's saying.  That he's too dumb to even see the logical fallacy in what he's asserting.  And it's something the Republican party does a lot.  They enjoy talking to their voters like they're idiots - it's the same thing Fox News does, pandering to the gullibility of their audience.  The thing is, it's not bias, it's far worse than that.  You can be biased and still make a reasonable argument.  They're not interested in reason.  As Santorum famously said the other week, only an elitist would want their kid to go to college.  Because the goal is to have the populace be as dumb as possible, and politicians as unrestrained as possible.

The real irony is that all its talk of the dangers of unlimited government, it's the Republican party that's trying to do away with the gate-keepers of government power, be they the media, the courts, science or facts. Read the rest of this post...

Quick Hits—Foreclosure market draws huge private equity investment

I've been meaning to point this out for a while. The huge U.S. market in foreclosed homes is drawing "private equity" — money from investment and equity funds — which sees the situation as a massive "buying opportunity."

Bloomberg from about a month ago (my emphasis):

Private equity firms are jumping into distressed housing as the U.S. government plans to market 200,000 foreclosed homes as rentals to speed up the economic recovery.

GTIS Partners will spend $1 billion by 2016 acquiring single-family homes to manage as rentals, Thomas Shapiro, the fund’s founder said. That followed announcements this month that GI Partners, a Menlo Park private equity fund, expects to invest $1 billion, and Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management LP will spend $450 million on similar housing.

“It’s a massive market,” Shapiro said in a telephone interview from New York. “We’re starting to see this as a billion dollar opportunity to buy rental housing.”

I can't comment on what the government is doing. That's not the point of this post, and the article has more on that. I don't know if the government offering is corrupt, a good deal for the economy, neither, or both.

I just want to point out three things:

(1) The market in foreclosed homes really is large:

About 7.5 million homes with a current market value of $1 trillion will be liquidated through foreclosures or other distressed sales by 2016, according to an Oct. 27 report by Chang.

(2) Big Boy money is flooding into this market, at least via these FHFA (which includes Fannie and Freddie) offerings. Is this because the government is dumping homes (as a stimulus to buying, presumably)? Or because the equity managers see this as a low, a place where they expect buying to start on its own?

I'm not sure. I do know that homes were once owned by us smalls are now in the hands of the bigs. All fair game, of course, but it shows you what happens in a crisis — the dinos lunch on the proto-primates and everything they own.

(3) As we've said before, the first time back in 2010 — In a deflationary market (which describes housing perfectly), cash is king. The value of cash rises just by existing, simultaneous with (in fact, because of) the fall of the value of things.

Or, as we wrote then:

Prices express the relationship between "things" and "money". It's like they're on opposite ends of a child's teeter-totter. When things go up in value, money goes down, and vice versa. One of the two is always gaining in value.

In inflationary times, things gain value and money loses value (i.e., the dollar buys less). In deflationary times, money gains value and things lose value (i.e., the dollar buys more).

Keep that last in mind. If you own things in inflationary times, you're in great shape. Things (your house, for example) are gaining in value. To do well in deflationary times, you need to own money, not things.

We currently have a small amount of inflation in the general economy, but many markets have been deflating for a while; housing is one of them.

Are the bigs indicating that this is a time for us to buy (those of us who can)? Not sure. This may be a one-time government-driven opportunity — which just happens to benefit said bigs.

But the general point is true: Hold onto your cash if you can, even at 0.01% interest. It appreciates in buying power the longer this economy fails to recover.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

Nice Alabama accent, Mitt

Listen closely to Romney's accent in Alabama today.

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140 advertisers dump Limbaugh

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

Think Progress gets its hands on an internal memo from Premiere Radio Networks that lists nearly 100 national companies that have asked that their advertisements not be played on the Rush Limbaugh show — companies that have not been publicly named until now. Think Progress claims that brings the total of sponsors who have pulled out in the wake of the “slut” controversy to 141 — far more than previously thought.

I’ve confirmed the authenticity of the memo with a spokesperson for Premiere, home to Rush’s show. It’s unclear for now what exactly it means.

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Interesting responses to the question of employing homeless people as wi-fi hotspots

I'd written earlier about the outrage many felt that homeless people were being used at the South by Southwest conference as roaming mobile hotspots (for pay). I felt the issue was a bit more complicated than many we're claiming. It seems our commenters agree. Here are a few of the most interesting comments:

Randy Riddle:

Let's cut to the chase - this makes people feel really uncomfortable because it cuts at the heart of the class divides in the US, having very visible "labor" do "grunt work" for some well-off people who can afford to attend a major geek conference and fret over checking their email on an expensive technology device produced with close to slave labor in China.

Doc:

Panhandling or selling blood is less of an insult to their dignity? I've got to be blunt: this sounds like a job to me, and even though it's not a job I'd choose to do unless I was in serious need, it's a way to make some money. If they were being asked to wear a costume, or behave in some undignified way, or something like that, I can see the trouble. As it is, I have to agree that it seems to be just a guilt reaction of some sort to decry this. I never like to see people having to wear costumes and wave signs by the road to advertise something, either, but that job might be supper for somebody's kids tonight. I've taken on jobs before myself that were not going to be long-term or lead to a career. I'd be thrilled if we could offer everybody well-paid manufacturing jobs with benefits, but until that day, I don't think we ought to see exploitation in every instance where the poor are asked to perform a service.

Lib4:

I find this offensive and heres why. This is nothing more than gross exploitation of the poor. There is NO sustainability to this project. As soon as SXSW is over the Mi-Fi program ends and what do you have left, a couple of humiliated homeless people with a little bit of money in their pocket. Whats the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”. Why cant the homeless be trained to make this a sustainable way of living. Give them the tools to start a genuine enterprise providing Mi-Fi and that IMHO would be a win-win for all involved.

NajaPallida:

I was just pondering posting about this myself. I am generally of the opinion that nobody is forcing them to do it, and if it helps them out a bit - it is certainly better than panhandling. Is it dehumanizing? Maybe, but then, most technology is. I think they could be approaching it better though. Instead of basing it entirely around being a service provided by "homeless people", they should just be considered volunteers... and try to get people who are not homeless involved too. There are a few different things I have seen in Austin. Homeless selling newspapers, selling roses, selling oranges, selling bottled water... I don't really think this is any different.

A reader in Colorado:

For my part, the question was asked - is this just a cynical stunt to take advantage of the homeless, or a genuine effort to help them? My answer: cynical stunt to take advantage. That's replying to the question that was asked. Do I begrudge homeless people from doing it? Of course not. But that's not the question that was asked.

Jim Morrisey:

Any other reaction to this than: "that's a good way for homeless people to make money" is just privileged guilt. If they are homeless and panhandling and are offered to make money this way and they choose to do so, what's the issue? If they were forced to and the government was monitoring in them in some way then I can see an argument against it.
If you've ever been poor, or desperate for money you'll take it where you can get it. Hopefully it will help pull some people out of homelessness and bring more awareness to the issue. The homeless are often invisible, maybe this will cause people to pay more attention to them and even result in them getting to know some of them personally which may lead to assistance with food/clothing, shelter etc.

Dembones:

I feel disgusted every time I see a person waving a sign for a nearby business on the corner. It makes me sick that it is cheaper to pay a person to stand out in the heat/cold/rain flagging down traffic than to actually market traditionally.

Selling wi-fi access on the street is a bit different, though. A homeless person is given an actual product to sell, which provides them a more honorable way to ask for money. The homeless person is not begging, but is marketing. The money he/she raises goes directly to them. While a customer is loading tweets or emails, he/she can be conversing, which brings the two participants together, even if only for a moment. That might increase sympathy and understanding, which might ultimately lead to mending our social safety net whose holes these wi-fi marketers have fallen through.

Unlike sign-twirling or cardboard-flying, this idea is dignified and humanizing, and I think it can result in some good.

Blueoysterjoe:

One other comment about this quote:

"Shouldn't it be up to the homeless themselves to decide whether they think it's too humiliating to their personal dignity to make a few bucks by selling wi-fi access? ... Are we in fact being elitist by thinking that this is somehow elitist?"

I think this is a great question that applies pretty much to all advocacy for the poor. If liberals like myself have faults -- and we have many, imho -- one of the biggest is probably our tendency to rain down sanctimony from our high horses.

But at the same time, our country is classist and many of us are upper class and therefore have a bigger voice. And with this bigger voice, we really need to speak up when we suspect someone is getting exploited.

Your question is a good one, though. I think it's important that when we do speak out, it's out of humility and compassion and not just out of sanctimonious navel gazing outrage. Once again, intent matters, I think.

Judybrowni:

I know a couple senior homeless women who are forced to work by panhandling: the safety net is so shredded that even if they've qualified for government support, it's not enough money to both feed and house them.

They have no choice but to do the only work that will feed them, and give them an occasional roof over their heads.

I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to wireless hot spots.

Mystic:

They are exploiting the homeless the way any employer could be said to be exploiting a low paid employee. It's a work from home job that could help them earn a few bucks which they sorely need. Plus it helps folks on the go ... Win/win ... I think it's brilliant but the practice should be monitored so that it doesn't get out of hand and spiral into exploitation of those unable to defend themselves ...there is of course the possibility of that ... On the surface however it seems like a pretty ingenious idea.

Ozzy:

My g_d, it's the Depression all over again. Grown men selling apples and pencils and paper flowers.

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A history of Rush Limbaugh's disturbing attacks on children

NOTE FROM JOHN: I'd like to welcome Gabriel Ortiz to the blog.  Gabriel will be writing on gay issues, immigration, and a little bit of everything else.
_______________

Rush Limbaugh’s disgusting anti-woman tirades over the past few days haven’t been limited to Sandra Fluke and women. An overgrown bully in every sense, Limbaugh’s disturbing rants over the past decades have extended to children, most notably First Daughters Chelsea Clinton, Malia Obama, and Amy Carter.

It’s no coincidence that the girls are also children of Democratic presidents – a quick Google search finds Limbaugh defending Jenna Bush from “liberal media” only a few years ago. Further searches reveal that neither Jenna nor her sister have been subjected to the same humiliating taunts, with Rush and his on-air cohorts only describing Jenna as “spunky.”

Consider Limbaugh's treatment of Malia Obama in 2010 when she was only 11 years old.  Limbaugh mocked Malia in a disturbing “skit” about the BP spill, where he tried to imitate the child’s voice and instead came out sounding like something out of “The Exorcist.” Malia’s inclusion in this topic was inexplicable, as the child had nothing to do with the spill, and was seemingly introduced as a gratuitous way for Limbaugh to humiliate her father.

In 1988, an adult Amy Carter – the sole daughter of President Jimmy Carter – reemerged to the national spotlight after protesting U.S. involvement in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. Instead of furthering civil discussion of these topics, Limbaugh’s response was to call her “the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country." He was forced to apologize, but not before adding an additional insult years later during his radio show: “She can't help the way she looks.”

Limbaugh’s most disturbing bullying incident stretches to a few years later, when he called a then-13-year-old Chelsea Clinton “the White House dog.” Limbaugh again half-heartedly apologized, but not before blaming the error on a technical glitch, saying that a picture of Chelsea was mistakenly displayed instead of the dog’s. “I don't need to get laughs by commenting on people's looks, especially a young child who's done nothing wrong,” he added. “I mean, she can't control the way she looks.”

Sound familiar?

While Limbaugh's attacks on Fluke and other women are despicable, adults are able to defend themselves. Picking on kids – as Limbaugh has done and continues to do – has no place in public discourse. When Limbaugh goes to this place, he ceases to be the commentator he claims to be and instead becomes the schoolyard bully who picks on the younger and more helpless kids in order to satisfy his own demented hunger for power.

What kind of a man picks on children? Read the rest of this post...

Is turning homeless people into wi-fi hotspots hideous or brilliant?

A sampling of Austin's current homeless hotspots

At first I read this article and thought, yeesh what a bad idea.  Then I got curious.  Then I thought yeesh again.  Then I started getting confused.

At the South by Southwest conference this week, a PR firm is working with local homeless advocates to help homeless people in Austin make some money by carrying around their own personal mi-fi boxes that they use to sell a few minutes of wireless access to people on the street.  Mi-fi is a kind of portable wi-fi emitter that creates a small bubble of wi-fi that you can use on the go (basically the same way that people can use their cell phones to create a small bubble of wifi for their ipads or their laptops).  It's a small electronic box, maybe the size of a cigarette box but thinner, and it can pick up an Internet signal via the air and emit it as wi-fi for up to 20 or 30 feet or something.  A number of the homeless are walking around Austin with these emitters, and charging people to get the password for 15 minutes or whatever.

So here's the dilemma.  Is this a brilliant way to help the homeless earn a living or is it some sickening Brave New World where homeless people have been turned into computer hardware for the benefit of the rich?

For all those who are mortified by this - and the overall reaction to this by people online has been uniform outrage - is this really the moral equivalent of dwarf tossing?  I.e., are we really taking advantage of the homeless?  How is selling wi-fi more demeaning than janitors cleaning our toilets, or blue collar garbagemen having to pick up the refuse of the rich?

I think part of the problem with this idea is the name of the project, "Homeless Hotspots."  That right there makes it sound like we've dehumanized these peolpe.  The second problem is the income divide.  These homeless are becoming hotspots to help some very wealthy people get online while walking down the sidewalk, something in and of itself a bit of a luxury.  Is that why this project offends some people?  Would it be less offensive if a group of homeless people thought, hey, let's get some mi-fis and sell wi-fi access to all the rich people at the conference, without the help of a PR firm - would we have then praised the ingenuity and spunk of those homeless people?  What if the homeless were selling wi-fi to other blue collar people who couldn't otherwise afford it, would that make this more palatable?  Or what if the homeless were selling ice cream cones, would that be okay?

When I saw this story last night, I thought this was some PR stunt to advertise a mi-fi service.  But it appears not to be.  It's quite literally a project to help homeless people.  Does that change your impression?

And one last question.  Shouldn't it be up to the homeless themselves to decide whether they think it's too humiliating to their personal dignity to make a few bucks by selling wi-fi access?  While all of us are poo-pooing how "awful" this is, clearly several homeless people don't agree (then again, the dwarf agreed to be tossed, but I'm not sure that changes the ethics of the moment).  And if I were desperate for money, I'd do it, wouldn't you? - though again, my desperation doesn't prove that people aren't using me in a demeaning fashion.

And how about this - Are we in fact being elitist by thinking that this is somehow elitist?  Aren't we actually hurting the homeless by judging this as beneath them, and trying to take away a much-needed source of income for the next few days?

I don't know.  Curious what you guys think. Read the rest of this post...

Doonesbury this week takes on GOP anti-abortion rampage, including Limbaugh

UPDATE: The Doonesbury strip, the first installment, is online now. It's good.

From the Guardian:

The strip deals specifically with a law introduced in Texas and other states requiring a woman who wants to have an abortion to have an ultrasound scan, or sonogram, which will show an image of the foetus and other details, in an attempt to make her reconsider.

It portrays a woman who turns up at an abortion clinic in Texas and is told to take a seat in "the shaming room". A state legislator asks if she has been at the clinic before and, when she says she had been to get contraceptives, he replies: "Do your parents know you're a sl*t?"

Later, she says she does not want an intrusive vaginal examination but is told by a nurse: "The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10-inch shaming wand." The nurse adds: "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."

I thee rape? Wow. Read the rest of this post...

GOP prez candidate having hard time connecting to southern voters

I find this paragraph particularly interesting:

“Southern people are conservative by need. You know, if you lived in the South 40 years ago, you’d know what I’m talking about,” said Donald Crocker, who has cut hair in tiny Leakesville since 1966. He meant that Southerners had learned to live poor, relying on their churches and their neighbors and not expecting government help. Even when their forebears received government handouts — cheese and powdered milk — they scrimped and saved and used it all. He still tries to live that way, charging just $9 per haircut and $10 for a flattop.

Well, if not relying on government help means not doing anything to help decrease infant mortality rates, not doing anything to help improve the education of our kids, doing squat to help the local economy improve - basically, not doing anything to help move people out of poverty - then yes, that would make you Republican. But it also makes you a bit of an idiot.

He felt strongly that President Obama would destroy this way of life, displaying a bumper sticker that said: “If you voted for Obama in ’08 to prove you’re not a racist, vote for someone else in ’12 to prove you’re not an idiot!” But he suspected none of the GOP candidates knew what he was talking about.

No, an idiot is someone who thinks that the biggest problems the South faces are gay marriage and abortion. I'd be curious if any of you from the South could explain a bit more about why these folks continue to vote against their own interests. Read the rest of this post...

Prosecutions unlikely against MF Global—prosecutors want a "smoking gun" or they won't act

Because, you know, that's how all prosecutions work in the U.S. — no smoking gun and the murderer / drug dealer / black driver in the "differently-hued" neighborhood skates. Because we, a forgiving people, have such high standards for who goes to jail in America.

Sorry, I forget myself. I was thinking of a country with Rule of Law. Our own murderers / drugsters / wrongly-hued will never get off. The whiff of a possibility of a crime, and you could even end up in solitary for years on end.

Only the 0.01% always escape justice. It's the old old story: "Rule of Law for thee; skatage for me and my friends." The wicked prize itself buys out the law; after all, it's why that money exists.

NY Times (h/t Masaccio; my emphases):

When the money first went missing, prosecutors in New York and Chicago scrambled to stake a claim. Now, four months later, both Preet S. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, his counterpart in Chicago, are shying away from leading the case, one of those people involved in the case said.

Indeed, a number of federal prosecutors have expressed doubts to others involved in the case that anyone at MF Global — including the firm’s chief executive, Jon S. Corzine, and back-office employees in Chicago — intentionally misused customer money, said people involved in the case who were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

That's the Patrick Fitzgerald, hero of the aggressively-cautious failed Cheney prosecution. And Preet Bharara? He's this upstanding fellow.

A note on how to read the press — People "involved in the case" means insiders on the prosecution team(s). "Not authorized to speak publicly" means "authorized leakage" — in other words, just the opposite of what the words actually say. This is the refusing-to-prosecute prosecutors playing out their cover story through anonymous insiders.

How do you know I'm right? Because this is the expected story — the story that says, unless Jon Corzine has the bleeding body of his babysitter leaking from the trunk of his car, he skates. The cops will always say, "Oh, it's you, Mr. C. Drive right through." Dog bites man, says "unauthorized source." See how that works?

What's the unexpected story? That someone like this can be arrested for anything, even by Pat Fitzgerald:

[Jon Corzine is] a Top 0.1% in spades: a Goldman CEO, a senator, a governor, and a major Dem fundraiser in an election year. If he does see a jail or a courtroom, it will be revolutionary.

Now if the anonymous source had said, "Corzine's headed for the slammer" ahead of the official announcement — that's a candidate for unauthorized leaker (also a candidate for unemployed prosecutor).

Will Jon Corzine ever be indicted? Will the sun set in the east? Stay tuned, but bring something to read.

Masaccio sarcastically adds more:

$1.2 billion disappears, but that isn’t a smoking gun[?] What’s the matter with these people? ... See, if it was Just One of those Things, then it wasn’t a crime. If you accidentally dip into my bank account and use it to pay your debts ... that just isn’t a crime. Circumstantial evidence isn’t enough to prove a crime any more [for the elite perpetrators]. You have to have an e-mail from someone saying: “I’m going to use customer funds to pay counterparties of MF Global.”

Investigators are closing in on the money. Within a week of bankruptcy, MF Global sent $165 million to an account at JPMorgan from an account that held segregated customer funds. Someone at MF Global instructed the back office to do it, and someone authorized the transaction. But we can’t expect a US Attorney, say Preet Bharara in New York, or Pat Fitzgerald in Chicago, to go to a Grand Jury and say something like this.

The payment was authorized by these defendants. Those defendants knew how much cash MF Global had, and they did nothing to stop the first defendants from paying more than that to counterparties. Here are the records.

Masaccio wants to let a jury of their peers decide the case. A former prosecutor himself, he lays out the prosecution and defenses deftly. Do read; it's fascinating.

But it's not like it matters, it seems. Will Jon Corzine ever be indicted? The New York Times is preparing us for No.

Update: This comment by Bucklerjc summarizes the situation perfectly, and also points out our own smoking gun, the original sin in America's Rule of Law "problem."

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

Fox News commenters react to Afghan killings: "A dead Muslim is a good Muslim"

First the story about what happened in Afghanistan. BBC:

A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.

He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.

Nato said it was investigating the "deeply regrettable incident".

He is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 local time (22:30 GMT Saturday) and headed to nearby villages, moving methodically from house to house.

Jesus Christ. I've been worried for a while now about how many young men and women are going to come back from ten years at war supremely messed up.

From LittleGreenFootballs:

I’ve looked at about a dozen right wing sites this morning to see how they’d react to the news from Afghanistan, and the comments at every single one of them were full of people celebrating the killings, praising the soldier who allegedly committed them, and denying there was any crime, while at the same time frantically trying to blame the crime on President Obama.

But the worst site by far is the right wing’s premier news channel, Fox News:

This is nothing! Wait until you see what happens to the n!qqqers here in the US of A when the new civil war starts!
[…]
THATS 15 LESS AFGAN POLICE WHO HAVE BEEN MUR D ER ING OUR TROOPS AND CIVILIANS
[…]
Obama just announced that he is personally going to provide fe la tio to every Afghani male to compensate for their loss.
[…]
The P O S P apoligizes to moooooooooooooslimes and doesnt have any respect for American solders ! Sent the ragehead obummerdeen and his entire family to Kenya where their dirty s c u m b a g b o d i e s belong !
[…]
This guy only did what the NewBIackPanthers promise to do to white babies.

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