Open thread

I remember learning how to tie a knot as a kid. But every time I pull my earphones out of their case, they're in one big knot all by themselves. Anyone else find this odd? Read the rest of this post...

How Bush and McCain destroyed Iraq's 2,000 year old Christian community

From 60 Minutes:

White is among the last Christian ministers here, a savior with crosses to bear. Larger than life, stricken with MS, and by his own reckoning, driven a little bit mad.

He was first sent to Baghdad by the Archbishop of Canterbury nine years ago, well before the Christian persecution.

"You were here during Saddam’s reign. And now after. Which was better? Which was worse?" Pelley asked.

"The situation now is clearly worse” than under Saddam, White replied.

"There’s no comparison between Iraq now and then," he told Pelley. "Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They’ve never known it like now."

"Wait a minute, Christians have been here for 2,000 years," Pelley remarked.

"Yes," White said.

"And it’s now the worst it has ever been," Pelley replied.

Merry Christmas. Read the rest of this post...

Hadley: Bush Learned Of NIE’s Findings ‘In The Last Few Months,’ But Continued To Ratchet Up Rhetoric

From ThinkProgress:

This afternoon, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley held a press briefing on the new National Intelligence Estimate, which concludes that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. As ThinkProgress has documented, Bush administration officials — despite knowing of the NIE — have been ratcheting up their rhetoric on Iran in the past couple of months.

Read the rest of this post...

New mileage standards should bring U.S. automakers into the 1980s

Major breakthrough on mileage requirements brokered by the Speaker:

The latest version of the measure, if it becomes law, will force wrenching changes on the American car companies, from design studios to new-car showrooms to executive suites. Automakers now have to achieve 27.5 miles per gallon on cars, a figure that has not changed since 1984, and 22.2 miles per gallon for light trucks, including minivans, sport utility vehicles and pickups. Under the compromise, the companies will retain the distinction between the classes of vehicles, but must still meet a combined 35 m.p.g. fleetwide standard.

Ms. Pelosi called the compromise on mileage “an historic advancement in our efforts in the Congress to address our energy security and laying strong groundwork for climate legislation next year.” She said that she was confident it would win the backing of environmentalists, auto makers and labor and would clear Congress by the end of this year.

Mr. Dingell, in a statement, called the new mileage standard “aggressive and attainable.”

“After weeks of productive discussion and negotiation, we have achieved consensus on several provisions that provide critical environmental safeguards without jeopardizing American jobs,” he said. Critical to his agreement, he said, were incentives to the American auto industry for producing small cars in the United States and cars that run on a combination of gasoline and ethanol.

The Big Three automakers have warned that complying with the new fuel economy rules will cost them tens of billions of dollars and rob consumers of choices. But even if they meet the law’s mandate, the fuel efficiency of the American car fleet will still lag far behind that of other major industrialized countries.

Kudos to Nancy Pelosi for wearing down Dingell and the automakers. By the way, Dingell's wife works for General Motors (okay, the foundation, but still).

So, the U.S. automakers are going to increase fuel standards. This whole debate is pathetic. I started driving in 1976 -- 31 years ago. Look at all the advances in technology since 1976 (back before we had cable tv, cell phones, personal computers...the list goes on and on....) and realize that for the most part, your car still runs basically the same way. I rarely drive these days (have had my car for eight years and still haven't hit 30,000 miles). But, I get irritated every time I pump gas at just how archaic the whole system is. Unlike anything else I do, I pump gas the same way I did in 1976.

John Dingell and his allies on Capitol Hill have done the nation enormous damage. Don't tell me that with the technological geniuses this country produces that we couldn't be doing so much better than we are in the auto industry. Instead of saving the auto industry, Dingell has brought it to the brink of extinction. It's become a dinosaur, much like him.

Pelosi deserves a lot of credit, like I said, for staying on top of this one. It couldn't have been easy, but it is a step in the right direction. Read the rest of this post...

Bush is really cranky that the Senate Democrats outsmarted him

After all those years of having Hill Republicans giving George Bush whatever he wants with no questions asked, he hates not getting his way:

“In a political maneuver designed to block my ability to make recess appointments, congressional leaders arranged for a senator to come in every three days or so, bang a gavel, wait for about 30 seconds, bang a gavel again, and then leave,” Bush said. “Under the Senate rules, this counts as a full day. If 30 seconds is a full day, no wonder Congress has got a lot of work to do.”

Senate Democrats had held pro forma sessions throughout the Thanksgiving break to keep the Senate “in session” and block Bush from making recess appointments.

And, the Democrats succeeded. Bush can't get his appointments confirmed through the normal procedure because he appoints people who are unqualified or extremists. The Democrats stopped him. Good. The Democrats need to do more of this. Stand up to Bush. Stop him. Read the rest of this post...

"This package of dodgy debts stops being a dodgy debt and becomes a structured investment vehicle." "Ah . . ."

In the spirit of easing into the week, an absolutely hilarious (and sometimes cringe-inducing) analysis of the sub-prime debacle:



As a side note, while my economic expertise is limited, to say the least, I remember a few years ago the problem of questionable mortgages being discussed in terms of interest-only ARMs. I remember reading about them and thinking, basically, that people wouldn't be able to make the payments on them when the payments ballooned simply because not everybody on the planet was going to be making way more money in just a few years (and, of course, the additional notion that not all people with ARMs would be able to flip). But it's not like all ARM buyers had bad credit -- plenty of the ARMs were to people with decent credit who were simply buying far above their (respectable, in many cases) means.

Which makes me wonder a little bit why the whole thing has been reframed as a "subprime" problem rather than one of the mortgage structures more generally, unless a much larger proportion of ARMs than I remember were actually subprime . . . Read the rest of this post...

Latest NIE reports find Iran Stopped Nuclear weapons work in 2003

Yes, stopped in 2003. All this war-mongering towards Iran from Cheney, Bush, Kyl and Lieberman has been based on false and misleading information. The 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran isn't in the process of building a nuke weapon -- and hasn't been for four years. That's according to an article just out from Mark Mazzetti at the New York Times:

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and they come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” the estimate states.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. The report led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the N.I.E.’s conclusions turned out to be wrong. The estimate does say that Iran’s ultimate goal is still to develop nuclear weapons.

The new report concludes that if Iran were to end the freeze of its weapons program, it would still be at least two years before Tehran would have enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. But it says it is still “very unlikely” Iran could produce enough of the material by then.

Instead, the N.I.E. concludes it is more likely Iran could have a bomb by the early part to the middle of the next decade. The report states that the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this goal before 2013, “because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.”

Read the rest of this post...

If Larry Craig were gay...

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Obama Hits Stride and Leads Clinton In New Iowa Poll

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post is impressed by Obama. Joe was convinced weeks ago that Hillary was in trouble. I was less convinced. And I still think that, regardless of whether she wins or loses the first two primaries, she'll put it out in the end. But were Obama to win the Democratic nomination, could he win the national election? I'm constantly surprised by Republicans I meet who really like Obama. I think he has great cross-over potential for picking up Republican votes. But, there are some potential potential hurdles. To what degree will Obama's race be a problem with some voters? And does Obama, or his team, have the experience to take on the Republican attack machine? Just look what the Republicans did to John Kerry. Say what you will about Hillary, but her people know how to fight. Having said that, Obama seems to be besting Hillary, or at least starting to, so perhaps he knows something she doesn't. Read the rest of this post...

After saying "no Muslims need apply," Romney now giving speech on "religious freedom"?

Romney is a flip-flopping, two-faced, hypocritical liar. There aren't words strong enough to describe what a disingenuous, deceitful politician Romney is. This latest flip-flop, on religion, is part of an ongoing pattern with Romney ever since he decided he wanted to be president. You'll recall that only a few years ago Romney was pro-choice, pro-gay, and anti-gun. Now he's the opposite on every single thing he ever believed in. And we're seeing the same inconsistencies on his positions on religion. Romney was private about his religion, about religion in general, until he decided he wanted to run for president. At that time, he decided he wanted to woo the far right of the Republican party. To do that, he needed to pretend that he was a far-right Republican, rather than the liberal Democrat he truly is. So, Romney became a raging Christian and a raging Muslim-hater, as both of those have traction in the far-right of the GOP. And that's where Romney's Muslim-bashing comments of last week came from - Romney probably doesn't care whether or not there are Muslims in his cabinet. But he knows that much of the GOP cares, so he's just making stuff up at this point, trying to pretend that he's intolerant towards Islam in order to get some chits.

Only problem? You can't give a speech about being an oppressed religious minority in America only 5 days after you oppress another religious minority in America. Romney can't tell us that the religion of his cabinet is relevant but the religion of the cabinet's president isn't. It just doesn't work that way. Either a candidate for high office's religion is relevant or its not. This week Romney is going to tell us that it's not, though I suspect he's also going to try to con everyone into thinking that Mormonism IS Christianity, so at the same time he's telling us to ignore his religion he's going to be telling us that he's a bigger Christian than we are and that that is the reason we should vote for him. In other words, Romney is going to try to have it both ways this week, lying all the way. So what else is new? More from Soren. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senators break record for filibusters

Mitch McConnell should be so proud. His GOP caucus has broken a record for obstruction in the Senate:

The filibuster may be well established in the popular consciousness — think of long-winded senators speechifying for days. But because modern Senate rules allow lawmakers to avoid the spectacle of pontificating by merely threatening the act, filibusters and the efforts to overcome them are being used more frequently, and on more issues, than at any other point in history.

So far in this first year of the 110th Congress, there have been 72 motions to stop filibusters, most on the Iraq war but also on routine issues like reauthorizing Amtrak funding. There were 68 such motions in the full two years of the previous Congress, 53 in 1987-88 and 23 in 1977-78. In 1967-68, there were 5 such votes, one of them on a plan to amend cloture itself, which failed.

For policy making, this is the legislative equivalent of gum on a shoe.

It has produced a numbing cycle of Washington futility: House Democrats pass a bill, but Senate Democrats, facing a filibuster by the Republican minority, fail to get the 60 votes needed to end debate. Little wonder that approval ratings of Congress stink these days.

One solution is a filibuster proof Senate -- 60 Democrats. That's a big goal, but with all the GOP retirements and scandals, McConnell is leading his party towards that possibility. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary: "Well, now the fun part starts"

It's game on in Iowa according to Hillary Clinton:

Clinton, campaigning across Iowa on Sunday, appeared to be spoiling for a fight with her chief Democratic rival in national polls -- even at one point describing the battle as "fun."

"I have said for months that I would much rather be attacking Republicans, and attacking the problems of our country, because ultimately that's what I want to do as president. But I have been, for months, on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks. Well, now the fun part starts. We're into the last month, and we're going to start drawing the contrasts," she said.

That drew a swift rebuke from Obama. "This presidential campaign isn't about attacking people for fun, it's about solving people's problems, like ending this war and creating a universal health care system," he said in a statement. "Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the American people are looking for leadership that can unite this country around a common purpose."

It's going to be a long month on the campaign trail. As we get closer to Christmas, the question is whether people will be listening.

This is an otherwise very busy and stressful time for most Americans. Between holiday parties, Christmas shopping, final exams for the college students and all the other tasks associated with December, it's hard to figure how people -- even in Iowa and N.H. -- are going to fit in politics. We haven't had an election season that so intruded on the holidays.

At some point soon, I think the campaign will basically freeze. Where candidates are now is probably where they are going to be in early January when everyone emerges from the holiday fog.

It's going to be hard to gain momentum during December -- and it's also a very risky tactic to start being aggressively negative when most people have holidays on their minds. That could backfire.

So, now the fun part starts. Fun for whom is the question.

One other thing: We better not hear any complaining from people in Iowa and New Hampshire about how the caucus and primary are interfering with their holidays. Leaders in those states fought very hard to maintain their early status. They got what they wanted. So no bitching. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

The Iowa caucuses are one month from today - when real people actually start voting. It's getting really, really interesting.

Describing this as the year of the "non-politician" on the Today Show, Chris Matthews just said of Obama: "he's so fresh faced, so brand new, almost third world in his sort of presentation." Now, I think he meant that as a compliment, but what is a "third world" presentation?

Okay, let's get this Monday moving. Read the rest of this post...

Chavez loses referendum in Venezuela

This is a stunning result and a blow to Chavez's dream of eternal rule.

President Hugo Chavez suffered a stunning defeat Monday in a referendum that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and impose a socialist system in this major U.S. oil supplier.

Voters rejected the sweeping measures Sunday by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council. She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible.

Even just talking about eternal rule for any candidate is creepy and with Chavez in particular, yikes. I had flashbacks to my recent visit to Egypt where the locals complained about the eternal rule of Mubarak. Egyptians consistently grumbled about Bush/Blair though they always said "at least you can eventually get rid of those guys. We can't. We're stuck with Mubarak and his son forever." Read the rest of this post...

"Greenspan was an arsonist and a fireman combined"

Absolutely spot on. Here are a few highlights from an interview with Patrick Artus, chief economist of Natixis in France. Maybe people in the US are too close to the situation or don't want to admit that we allowed such a bad choice to stay in power for so long. Either way, the Greenspan-love defies all logic and few people except perhaps Hillary, ever bothered to call him out.

Artus: Greenspan was an arsonist and a fireman combined. He derived all his glory from his reaction to the savings-and- loans crisis, to the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP, and to Sept. 11, 2001. But LTCM and the savings-and-loans crisis were his doing. He absolutely failed to see where the malfunctions in the U.S. economy were.

Greenspan came up with a phrase, ``irrational exuberance,'' in 1997, but he didn't do anything about it.

Nayeri: How would you sum up his track record, then?

Artus: He was a very bad Federal Reserve chairman. He created four major crises: savings and loans, LTCM, new-technology shares, and subprime mortgages.

Nayeri: But surely you will acknowledge that Greenspan saved the planet at crucial turning points?

Artus: Yes, but after the fact. He's congratulated for his role as fireman, but he's the one who started the fire.

He had no vision of what was dangerous. Today, we're destroying the world banking system with this subprime crisis. Outstanding subprime loans add up to $1.2 trillion. That's the equivalent of Italy's gross domestic product.

Nayeri: But the world has enjoyed economic prosperity in the meantime.

Artus: The problem is that you pay for it later.

You can always manufacture growth by having extremely low rates and producing asset-price bubbles. But that's not a way to generate growth. You can't do that in the long run.

Read the rest of this post...