Charlie Loves His MacAir

From TechCrunch:

Viewers of the Charlie Rose show tonight were stunned to see the normally composed Rose looking like he’d just been in a bar fight. He has a very bad black eye and a bandage over part of his forehead. I contacted the show’s producers to hear what happened. Earlier today, they said, Rose tripped in a pothole while walking on 59th Street in Manhattan. He was carrying a newly purchased MacBook Air and made a quick (but ultimately flawed) decision while falling: sacrifice the face, protect the computer. “In doing so, he pretty much hit the pavement face first, unfortunately,” they said.

Read the rest of this post...

John Edwards to endorse? Which candidate passes the moral test of our generation?

Rumors are swirling -- again -- that John Edwards is preparing to make an endorsement in the Democratic race. (FYI: This round of rumors was set off by Time Magazine.)

In October of 2007, Edwards laid out what he called the "moral test of our generation":

And a few weeks ago, around the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a leading presidential candidate held a fundraiser that was billed as a Homeland Security themed event in Washington, D.C. targeted to homeland security lobbyists and contractors for $1,000 a plate. These lobbyists, for the price of a ticket, would get a special "treat" -- the opportunity to participate in small, hour long breakout sessions with key Democratic lawmakers, many of whom chair important sub committees of the homeland security committee. That presidential candidate was Senator Clinton.

Senator Clinton's road to the middle class takes a major detour right through the deep canyon of corporate lobbyists and the hidden bidding of K Street in Washington -- and history tells us that when that bus stops there it is the middle class that loses.

When I asked Hillary Clinton to join me in not taking money from Washington lobbyists -- she refused. Not only did she say that she would continue to take their money, she defended them.

Today Hillary Clinton has taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any candidate from either party -- more money than any Republican candidate.

She has taken more money from the defense industry than any other candidate from either party as well.

She took more money from Wall Street last quarter than Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama combined.

The long slow slide of our democracy into the corporate abyss continues unabated regardless of party, regardless of the best interests of America.

We have a duty -- a duty to end this.

Very strong stuff. Will Edwards use his endorsement to fulfill his duty to end "the long slow slide of our democracy into the corporate abyss"? Who can pass the moral test of our generation for John Edwards? Read the rest of this post...

A few economic hurdles ahead

Thanks to years of bad policy, consumers have been encouraged to consume. In recent years the typical figure for spending among all Americans is around 106% of their income. Obviously that is unsustainable. As regular Americans cut back and budget, it's going to be interesting to see how they react to both the Wall Street bailout as well as the excessive executive compensation plans. Meanwhile, regardless of how traders are reacting today, there are some very painful issues still out there for American families. There are no easy answers and anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

Merrill Lynch's Rosenberg said that in the fourth quarter of 2007, Americans' household debt almost equaled 140 percent of their after-tax income and that they were spending 14.3 percent of their after-tax income paying down that debt.

"Simply put, that means Americans are spending more on servicing their debt than they do on food," Rosenberg said. "This is not just affecting stressed-out or soon-to-be-foreclosed home owners. This hurts everybody."

Rosenberg predicted Americans will start saving more, which he said will shave 1 percentage point off annual U.S. consumer spending growth for years to come.

"It is hard to say how bad things will get," Rosenberg added. "We're in unchartered territory at this point."

Read the rest of this post...

UPDATED: McCain makes a major mistake about a very basic Iraq issue -- two days in a row

UPDATED and BUMPED: So, McCain's major mistake today wasn't a one-time thing. According to the Huffington Post, McCain made the same incorrect statements about al Qaeda yesterday on the Hugh Hewitt show -- and they've got the audio:

As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq.

Al Qaeda is Sunni. Iran is Shiite. That's a pretty big mistake for someone who is supposed to be so steeped in foreign policy and Iraq.

And here's the question for the punditry via Mark Murray at First Read:

As one of my NBC colleagues just asked: What if Clinton or Obama had made this mistake?

Now the traditional media types have it in their heads that McCain knows foreign policy inside out. That's wrong.
_______________________________________________________

Wait. Isn't Iraq supposed to be McCain's strong suit? So much for that lifetime of experience constantly attributed to McCain by Hillary Clinton.

As we all know, McCain is using taxpayer dollars to undertake a campaign trip around the world. And, it is a campaign photo op. Today, McCain got confused over the most basic facts about who is doing what in Iraq and Iran. Very basic stuff:

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

The mistake threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.

Not so ready for that phone call after all.

Note from Jacki: I don't want to open the door to allegations of age discrimination (or to allegations of defending McCain in some way, for that matter), but it did cross my mind that these mistakes could also be products of age. The travel and time schedules of a presidential campaign are brutally taxing even for the sprightliest of contenders. McCain's 71. They don't call them senior moments for nothing. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying it's possible he misspoke rather than really didn't know. I do, however, think the juxtaposition of age is going to be BIG come the general election - especially if Obama wins the democratic nomination. In case you missed SNL this weekend, even they hit on the issue in a skit that declared McCain officially "crazy old." (If you can find a clip online, I will be happy to post it. Haven't had luck unearthing it yet.) Read the rest of this post...

“They would do anything to win, and that means anything”

Anything. The Obama campaign is expressing what has become a pervasive view among many Democrats:

Is it possible to win the Democratic nomination in such a way as to make winning not worth it?

The Barack Obama campaign thinks so. It thinks Hillary Clinton’s campaign is willing to take any road to the White House, including the low road.

“They would do anything to win, and that means anything,” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, told me Monday. “There is a frenetic energy around them to commandeer this election in any way they can.”

Axelrod went on: “She is the ultimate Washington inside player. She is always asking, ‘How do we wire the vote? How do we wire the system to get the results we want?’”

From his point of view, the Clinton campaign keeps trying to change the rules.

“When they started off, it was all about delegates,” Axelrod said. “Now that we have more delegates, it’s all about the popular vote. And if that does not work out, they will probably challenge us to a game of cribbage to choose the nominee.”

Another Obama senior aide told me he believed Clinton was willing to “destroy the party” just as long as she ends up with the nomination.

Team Clinton does have a desperation associated with it. Whether they are invoking GOP talking points against Obama, trying to change the rules they've already agreed to, refusing to release her tax records from 2001- 2006, whining when anyone challenges them or just making things up on their endless conference calls, they give the impression that she'll get this nomination even if it does destroy the party. It's not about the Democratic party or its principles. It's about the Clintons. Read the rest of this post...

Positive reaction to Obama's speech

As expected, commentators are weighing on the powerful speech delivered by Barack Obama. He seems to have exceeded expectations. Taegan Godddard has a compilation of what some pundits are saying about Obama's speech today. I think what Taegan himself wrote is right on point:

Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race this morning showed off exactly why he's become the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. He's absolutely willing to challenge the conventional way of how politicians approach controversy. In my opinion, it was the best speech so far in this campaign.

It was a great speech. As I wrote right after watching Obama deliver the remarks "one thing is true -- no other candidate could give a speech like this" Mark Halperin, who for whatever reasons seems to set the tone for the punditry, made these points in a post titled, "Obama Rises to the Occasion on Race and the Race":

Blows away the chattering class with Philadelphia speech.

Delivers historic remarks on race in address that was wide-ranging, personal, and (at times) passionate....

Widespread praise from anchors/pundits/reporters for sweeping remarks drawing on American history and his own biracial upbringing.

Here's the link to the video on YouTube.

Now, can we move on? It's time to wrap up this nomination battle so we can start running against McCain. Read the rest of this post...

Delta Airlines to start chopping - 30,000 jobs

They are offering severance for over half of the Delta workforce. If only this was the last such announcement. Read the rest of this post...

Obama on "A More Perfect Union"

Obama just gave a speech in Philadelphia titled "A More Perfect Union." It was a powerful speech and he laid out to America who he is and where he wants to take us. Now, the punditry can dissect and examine every word. But, one thing is true -- no other candidate could give a speech like this. An excerpt:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

Read the rest of this post...

Taking a look at why Clinton's down but not out

Chuck Todd's got an interesting article up on MSNBC this morning. Titled "Can Clinton Win Over Superdelegates?" Todd's write points out some primary-related issues being primarily overlooked. For example, here he is on why the Clinton legacy may dredge up bad memories for the Democrats:

Simply take a look at Bill Clinton's record from '92 to '00 and you’ll understand why they're having a harder time corralling party activists and elected officials to their side.

Remember, when his name was on the ballot ('92 and '96) the Democratic party lost Senate seats both times. Never mind the beating the party took in '94; a walloping often blamed on both Bill and Hillary.
Even in '98, which was, perhaps, the most successful Congressional election of the Clinton era, the party netted zero Senate seats and gained less than a handful of House seats.

Here's Todd on why the media's got Clinton still in the game:

A Clinton always finds a way to survive, so goes the myth.

Bill Clinton has escaped political death more times than any politician in history. And profiles of Hillary Clinton are rarely written without the word "resilient" being featured prominently.

Todd also spends some time explaining both the media bias towards keeping the campaign going and towards going with what history's taught:

Many a reporter believes that someone with the last name of "Clinton" should never be counted out.

My signif - who pointed me to Todd's write - often asks if there's media bias in covering the campaigns. I agree with Chuck that there's certainly desire to keep the contest going. However, it's most likely not an agenda outwardly discussed. It's much simpler than that. When there's actually something to talk about, it's better TV so too many producers and reporters fail to dig too deeply into whether there is really any there there.

But contrary to frequent assumption, I've never seen evidence of any larger conspiracy or agenda. Maybe something's happening with the suits well above my pay grade that I don't know about, but as for the newsies in the trenches where I've served, the grind is more about making a story come together and getting it on air in time than anything more complicated or coordinated.

DISCLAIMER: I've known Chuck for about 8 years now. I consider him to be one of the best and most sincere when it comes to dissecting politics and crunching the numbers. He's just a good guy who's good at what he does. Chuck knows his stuff. Read the rest of this post...

Oh, so the black guy "mugged" Bill Clinton, now I get it

And they wonder why they're losing:

Former President Clinton on Monday called the notion that he unfairly criticized his wife's rival, Barack Obama, "a total myth and a mugging."

One might even call it a "fairy tale." Read the rest of this post...

Follow the logic of the panic stricken Federal Reserve

American wages have barely moved in decades, resulting in less expendable income for purchasing. The US economy revolves around the American consumer spending. Estimates vary from 2/3 to 70% of the overall economy is from consumers. With less money to spend, the GOP Congress worked with fancy-schmancy financial people on Wall Street to make credit easy. Credit cards for everyone and never pay them off. When that gets maxed out, make it even easier to buy a house (no proof of anything required) and then lower interest rates (thanks Alan!) so consumers can borrow against the value of their house because real estate will *always* go up.

Slight hiccup and some bank we never heard of overseas has a run and needs to be bailed out. No problem, lower interest rates again. This weakens the dollar so oil - which every good American needs for their gas guzzler - becomes more expensive. Hmmm, better help Wall Street make loans easier, so give them billions to make loans at below inflation rates. What? They don't want to give away loans? They want to hunker down and deal with their own funny money deals? Well, lower them again. And again. And probably again. We need consumers to buy, but since they don't save, it needs to be on even more credit. Oh, they don't have any credit or money left because their retirement accounts are crashing and they're afraid to spend more because of the warning signs in the economy and maybe they will lose their jobs?

Well? Cut rates again, maybe that will help. At least it will help Wall Street and that's all that matters. Just tell people that inflation is low, even though it's higher than wage increases. See if that works. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big week for John McCain. He's on a taxpayer funded photo op excursion around the world. Pretty bold for a guy who beats up on wasteful spending to use government money to finance what is basically a campaign trip. Then, he's got the fundraiser in London, hosted by a British Lord. Imagine the outrage if a Democrat sent out a fundraising invite with the words "by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE."

But, most important of all, McCain is going to release is February FEC report. We'll see if McCain is breaking the campaign finance laws. If he breaks the spending cap, he's broken the law.

Actually, it's a big week showing what a hypocrite McCain is. The traditional media is too obsessed with Obama's pastor to pay attention to McCain's hypocrisy and criminality. But, the political reporters know McCain. He lets the ride on the bus with him. Maybe McCain will start giving them all pet nicknames like Bush did. The reporters love stuff like that. It shows how cool they are...so much cooler than the rest of us.

What are you hearing? Read the rest of this post...

Mr Bubble speaks on his last of four bubbles

Is this guy for real? He played a critical role in building this financial mess along with the Republicans. He never spoke out against this growing problem and only helped feed it. Why anyone gives him an ounce of respect is beyond me but he ought to be publicly shamed for his actions and inactions.

Writing in the Financial Times, the former Fed chief said much of the financial system's risk-valuation models failed, not because they were too complex but because they were "too simple to capture the full array of variables governing that drive global economic reality."

"The crisis will leave many casualties. Particularly hard hit will be much of today's financial risk-valuation system," he wrote.

While insisting that current risk management models and econometric forecasting methods remain "soundly rooted in the real world," he said risk management can never be perfect.

Proving again that's he's a complete ass as well as first class idiot. Read the rest of this post...

China blames Dalai Lama for violence in Tibet

Sure. Because he has such a long history of promoting violence, unlike the Chinese government who have never been known to use excessive force against its population. And because the Chinese government has always been so open about letting the people of Tibet live with their local culture. If China thinks this is difficult, wait until their own bubble bursts. Then they're really going to have trouble. The government has always been a bunch of bullies and while they may dress better today than 40 years ago, they're still just bullies. Read the rest of this post...