GOP Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, birther

As if the birthers would ever accept a President Jindal either.

Gov. Bobby Jindal would sign a bill requiring presidential candidates to provide a copy of their birth certificate to qualify for the Louisiana ballot if it reaches his desk, a spokesman said Monday.

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House and Senate GOP politicizing budget talks (now there's a surprise)

From HuffPost:

The White House's proposed deficit talks with Congress appear to be unraveling before they've even begun.

House and Senate Republican leaders announced Tuesday that their sole appointees to the May 5th meeting would be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)--neither of whom are budget leaders and both of whom function largely as political mouthpieces for their party. GOP leaders also each opted to send only one appointee, instead of the requested four, to the meeting.

"I remain skeptical that the administration will take this effort seriously, especially after it all but ignored its previous debt commission and President Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming to consider minimal spending cuts for the rest of this fiscal year," Cantor said in a statement.

"A serious effort to get our fiscal house in order is sorely needed, however, which is why I believe this commission should commence with a clearly defined target and purpose, under a time frame to produce that result -- so that it doesn't end up in the graveyard of previous commissions that failed to improve our nation's finances."

I disagree with the reporters' later-on comment that Pelosi's picks are bad too because they'll simply do what she says. It's a far cry from "they'll do what Pelosi says" to "the GOP has picked guys who are batsh-t crazy." Read the rest of this post...

John Boehner's $900/hour gay-bashing lawyer

It's nice to live in an age when no matter how large the deficit, you know Republicans will always be able to find another half million dollars to pay over-priced lawyers to defend bigotry. Read the rest of this post...

Roubini sees hard landing in China's future

The ghost cities and highways to nowhere will eventually catch up with China. What Roubini doesn't discuss is what happens next. That will be even more interesting to follow. Al Jazeera:

The problem, of course, is that no country can be productive enough to reinvest 50 per cent of GDP in new capital stock without eventually facing immense overcapacity and a staggering non-performing loan problem. China is rife with overinvestment in physical capital, infrastructure, and property. To a visitor, this is evident in sleek but empty airports and bullet trains (which will reduce the need for the 45 planned airports), highways to nowhere, thousands of colossal new central and provincial government buildings, ghost towns, and brand-new aluminum smelters kept closed to prevent global prices from plunging.

Commercial and high-end residential investment has been excessive, automobile capacity has outstripped even the recent surge in sales, and overcapacity in steel, cement, and other manufacturing sectors is increasing further. In the short run, the investment boom will fuel inflation, owing to the highly resource-intensive character of growth. But overcapacity will lead inevitably to serious deflationary pressures, starting with the manufacturing and real-estate sectors.

Eventually, most likely after 2013, China will suffer a hard landing. All historical episodes of excessive investment – including East Asia in the 1990's - have ended with a financial crisis and/or a long period of slow growth. To avoid this fate, China needs to save less, reduce fixed investment, cut net exports as a share of GDP, and boost the share of consumption.

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The Tea Party is over

The Tea Party has apparently lost its fervor. Funny how dispiriting things get once your own guys get in power. From ThinkProgress:

Yesterday was tax day and as in previous years, Tea Party activists rallied across the country on the movement’s most significant organizing day since it exploded on tax day 2009. But as observers wonder if the movement is waning in popularity, a ThinkProgress analysis found that in many cities, turnout was significantly lower at this year’s rallies than those on tax days in 2010 and 2009.

Moreover, there seemed to be fewer rallies this year than last. A listing of events on the umbrella group Tea Party Patriots’ website for Monday and Friday showed a total of 145 events — the same listing shows 638 events on tax day 2010. Notably, there was also no tax day tea party rally in Washington, D.C. this year, unlike in years past.

And in dozens of state capitals and major cities across the country, turnout at rallies on Monday and Friday (the typical tax day of April 15) was down precipitously from last year, as a small sampling from ThinkProgress’ analysis shows.

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Is Roger Ailes a few fries short of a Happy Meal?

Paul Krugman, via Jonathan Chait, points us to a Gawker article about Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, and his third wife, Elizabeth Ailes.

Let's start with the Gawker story:

The small-town newspapers in New York's Hudson Valley that Fox News chief Roger Ailes owns with his wife Elizabeth are in a staff revolt after employees caught Ailes spying on them with News Corp. security goons.

That lede just scratches the surface. The "staff revolt" involves serious "weirdness":

Ailes—who installed Elizabeth as the day-to-day manager of the papers while he finishes his tenure at Fox News Channel—has run the papers with the singularly paranoid and abusive management style he brings to all his projects, resulting in the defection of his hand-picked editor and two top reporters earlier this month after Ailes told them he'd had them followed, and their private conversations surveilled, to catch them saying mean things about him. The spying followed years of intense weirdness between the editor and the Aileses, who once asked him to personally stop a break-in at their home and who implied that, after Roger's death, he'd be expected to replace him in their marriage.

The editor in question is Joe Lindsley, the "27-year-old combative former Weekly Standard editorial assistant that Ailes had hired in 2009 to revitalize the papers and yank them firmly rightward." Seventy-something Roger, fifty-something Elizabeth, and twenty-something Joe can be seen in this picture. And yes, the "weirdness" that the Gawker story details has all the overtones suggested by my previous sentence.

While no one suggested any romantic entanglements, several sources familiar with the relationship say Lindsley was alternately—and confusingly—treated like a member of the Ailes’ family and a member of their household staff. He was so close to Elizabeth that he regularly attended church with her on Sundays in Roger’s absence. Indeed, in what associates describe as an exceedingly awkward moment for Lindsley, Elizabeth once joked to him that she was grooming him to replace her husband: ‘When Roger dies, you’re going to have some special responsibilities around here.’

Add to that Ailes' signature blend of paranoia, control, and obsessive spying. Think "Big Brother" style portraits of the Aileses in the paper's only bathroom. Is Roger Ailes crazy? Read the story and decide for yourself.

In fairness, the Gawker story is sourced anonymously to "numerous former employees" of the Putnam County paper, and Elizabeth has issued a denial to the article's authors, which reads, in part:

These rambling allegations are untrue and in fact not even reality based. The paper hoped for Joe's success in spite of his personal habits and lack of performance[.]

This is a fun, gossipy story to be sure, but making the rounds, including at The New Republic, where Jonathan Chait comments:

I actually think a surprisingly large number of people with prominent roles in public life are totally bonkers, not merely in their public philosophy but even in practical ways that people who agree with their ideology can recognize. Look at, I don't know, Newt Gingrich. He doesn't just have a different estimation of the efficacy of Keynesian multipliers than I do, or even merely different values than I do. He's clearly a nut. Michelle Bachmann hires chiefs of staff who agree with her ideology, but she runs through them like tissues, and they seem to come away thinking she would be a dangerous character as president. I think this holds true of every field.

I suspect, but I could never prove, that this is true on both right and left but more the former than the latter.

And here's where the problem gets serious. Some people really are crazy, and some of the really crazy are also really powerful. I've read many times about Michele Bachmann's trouble keeping staff. She's on her fifth, or possibly sixth, chief of staff, and one former chief has denounced her publicly as not fit for the presidency. Others intimate the same, including members of her own party:

After [former chief of staff Michelle] Marston's departure [in 2010], one GOP congressman told Politico ... "When your captain's crazy, it's time to find a new ship"[.]

Look at Howard Ahmanson, Jr. Apparently driven mad by his multi-million dollar inheritance, he emerged into something resembling balance with the help of R.J. Rushdoony, the Christian Reconstructionist, and has been on a mission ever since. Max Blumenthal:

And the reason that I was interested in him is because he embodies the sensibility of the movement that I’m writing about in my book, Republican Gomorrah, that controls the Republican Party. At age eighteen, Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. inherited $300 million from his father, who had just dropped dead. His mother died soon after. And he basically went crazy. He literally went crazy and wound up in a mental institution. When he came out of the mental institution, he found, as so many people do who have had a personal crisis and are seeking some kind of means of transcending it, evangelical religion.

And he found R.J. Rushdoony, who I talked about earlier. He became Rushdoony’s financial angel, and Rushdoony became his surrogate father.

Chait says, in true New Republic fashion, that both sides do it; that there's nutjobs everywhere.

Well, yes; but also, no. If the left has a special obsession, it's with Truth. If the right has an obsession, it's with Power. Obsession with Truth seems to interfere with the acquisition of Power. And certainly, obsession with Power interferes with the acquisition of Truth.

Roger Ailes appears to be one of those power-obsessed people that so populate the Right, in all times and climes. I often think that dealing with the power-obsessed is our primary cross to bear as a species. It certainly is our problem as Americans in this century. God help us, literally; we need it.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Pulitzer Prize for arch-conservative who thinks Fukushima wasn't a disaster

Looks like the Pulitzer Prize folks are feeling the need to pander to the right. I'm sure someone must have beaten them up. But seriously, giving the prize to a guy who thinks the Japanese nuclear disaster isn't a big deal?

One of his columns, from this past January 19, not among the entries (it was probably past the deadlline), continued the drumbeat. Its headline: "ObamaCare Howlers." Six days before that another one: "New Jersey Sits Out ObamaCare Fight. "

But young Rago is an expert on many subjects. Check out his March 21 punditry: "No Nuke Disaster.... the catastrophe that wasn't in Fukushima."

Just last week he co-authored a review of Obama's "toxic" budget speech: "Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign." And: "The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards."

An amusing note: Among the 10 entries was a column blasting PolitiFact for calling the right's (e.g. Rago and the Journal) successful branding of Obama's "government takeover of health care" as its "lie of the year." Nowhere did he mention that PolitiFact recently won a Pulitzer of its own. This didn't seem to bother the judges, although perhaps they agree: Pulitizers don't nearly matter as much as people claim.

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Voters want taxes raised on the rich by 2-1, want hands off Medicare/Medicaid

Let's hope the President is emboldened by this. There is no reason to even negotiate with the Republicans on this, other than to rub it in their collective faces. From McClatchy:

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Why do we poll Americans on issues about which they haven't a clue?

Yes, we're very nice people, we Americans. But like the citizens of any country, we're not exactly the brightest bulbs on the planet when it comes to complicated issues such as math and economics, to name a few. Then why is it that we care that only 16% of Americans want to raise the debt ceiling?

In a nutshell, the GOP has, yet again, done a great job selling snake oil to the American people. Down with the debt ceiling! Down with Obamacare! Tax cuts will solve everything! We're number one! Simply say it, and it will be true, and all of our troubles will float away on a beautiful white cloud.

We had the same problem during health care reform. The Republicans effectively convinced the American people that "health care reform" was "bad." But when asked about the details of the President's health care reform proposal, Americans loved it. In other words, they simply didn't like the label because the GOP had sold them on the notion that the label was bad, even though they loved what was inside.

And so it goes with the raising the debt ceiling. Our modern day Republican luddites have, yet again, convinced the populace that down is up, and that wrong is right. We simply must not raise the debt ceiling, the very people who got us into most of this debt now argue. And good lemmings that we are, an overwhelming number of Americans nod in comatose approval.

Now, do a poll that asks the American people how they feel about another severe recession, soaring interest rates on home loans, credit cards, car purchases and student loans - actually, that would be soaring interest rates on the money you already owe, and no more credit whatsoever for groceries, to pay the bills, to put your kid through school, or to buy a home. Ask them how they feel about cutting off salaries to our troops, about cutting off Social Security and Medicare to the elderly. And finally, ask the American people how they feel about the stock market plunging much father than it did a few years ago, wiping out every single investment they ever made, including their retirement money, just like what happened to grandpa in 1929.

Once a pollster asks Americans how they feel about all of that happening, then I'll start listening.

And until Democrats are willing to tell the American people, in clear simple English, what will happen if the Republicans get their way, then, yet again, our leaders get what they deserve. Read the rest of this post...

What has happened to Dick Durbin? He's criticizing Bernie Sanders over Social Security

Senator Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, used to be a fairly reliable liberal voice. Not anymore. He's now part of the Senate "gang of six" working on the budget, deficit, debt proposal.

One of the problems is that the "gang" will come up with what they view as a "reasonable" -- but it will become the starting point for negotiations with the hard-core GOP proposal offered by Paul Ryan. That means the final package will be closer to what the GOP wants. The very, very rich will continue to benefit. The safety net will be further shredded.

Durbin, as the senior Senator from Illinois, is considered one of Obama's closest allies on Capitol Hill. But, for whatever reason, he has lost his bearings. Now, using right-wing talking points, Durbin is even criticized Bernie Sanders over Social Security. Via ABC News:

Durbin criticized a resolution put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal independent from Vermont, that says Social Security should not be cut under a deficit reduction plan. Durbin said he would not vote for such a resolution.

"I think Bernie is going too far with his language," Durbin said.

"In 2037, as we know it, Social Security falls off a cliff," he said. "There's a 22 percent reduction rate in payments, which is really not something we can tolerate. If we deal with it today, it's an easier solution than waiting. I think we ought to deal with it. Many of my colleagues disagree, put it off to another day. But from my point of view, leaving it out makes it easier politically, including it, I think, meets an obligation, which we have to senior citizens."

Yep. That's Durbin adopting right-wing talking points. I think Durbin has already gone way too far with his language and his actions. This whole fiscal debate has been defined on the GOP's terms.

But, it's our fault for not getting it according to Durbin:

"Many of my friends on the left -- they are my friends, these are my roots politically -- are going through the stages of grief: denial, anger, frustration, sadness, resignation," Durbin said. "They are going through those stages because they understand that borrowing 40 cents for every dollar you spend, whether it's for missile or food stamps, is just unsustainable. But you've got to do something."

Yeah. Blame us. It's our fault the President and the Senate caved on the Bush tax cuts, among other things.

It's astounding how often some Democratic leaders sacrifice principles when critical issues are at stake. They cave -- constantly. But, then expect their "friends on the left" to do the work and give the money to reelect them. Read the rest of this post...

Being played in the Great Game of Aghanistan

There is a saying among professional gamblers that if you sit down to the table and you don't know who the sucker is, it's you. 

Every major power has a real, vital national interest in Afghanistan – except the U.S. and NATO – and the rest of them are all playing us for the fool. Afghan history did not begin on Sept. 11 2001. In Victorian times, playing power politics there was known as the Great Game because it played Great Britain, with its colonies in modern Pakistan and India, against Russia with China and Persia all involved, and the game pieces were local actors of unknown loyalties and shadowy motivations. Here are just some of the folks who are playing us:

Pakistan: Pakistan is India’s evil twin. Whereas India is stable, prosperous and has a long democratic tradition, Pakistan is/does not. Since splitting apart at independence in 1948, they have fought four wars -- and to Pakistan, the question is not will there be another, but when.  Pakistan’s worst nightmare is an Afghanistan allied with India against them. They want Afghanistan as their client state, not India’s. And their tool for accomplishing this has been the Taliban. Pakistani intelligence helped create and promote the Taliban originally. Their support for the Taliban continued until 9/11, and it is no coincidence that India supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.

After 9/11, Pakistan had to choose between the Taliban and its longtime alliance with the U.S. America backed Pakistan in the cold war because India’s non-aligned status was seen as titling towards Russia. After the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. flooded Pakistan, and especially the Pakistani military, with aid and other goodies. Now they are profiting from their part in the war on terror.

Continued war is in Pakistan’s best interest. Pakistan saw after the Russians withdrew how soon America’s interest in helping them dropped off. The war also keeps Afghanistan so self involved and weak that it could not think of turning to India. And with deep contacts on both sides, Pakistan is able to keep the pot boiling.

China: I’m surprised our troops can’t hear the laughter coming at us all the way from China. We are spending a hundred billion a year making Afghanistan safe for Chinese mineral concessions. Mountains have minerals, and because of the decades of chaos, Afghanistan has the most unprospected, undeveloped mountains in the world. The value of Afghan mineral wealth has been estimated at over a trillion dollars – a fact trotted out to justify our surge, even though the Chinese are the ones profiting from our military venture.

And boy is China snapping it up. In 2007, China paid $3 billion dollars to lock up the largest unexploited copper reserves in the world south of Kabul. Found by Soviet geologists, we chased them out before they could exploit it and now it is part of China’s increasing influence in Central Asia. China is building Afghanistan’s first major railroad – which will connect this mine and future mines back to China, while providing a captive market for Chinese goods. This railroad will connect to a deep water port being built in Pakistan. (Having read this far, you probably won’t be surprised that the Indians are building a deepwater port in Iran and financing transport that would allow Afghan minerals to flow out in a way that bypasses Pakistan).

 The Afghans: Let’s put it in macro-economic terms – the civilian Afghan GNP is $16.6 billion. We spend a hundred billion a year on our war there, and war is their biggest cash crop. It dwarfs opium and rug production. And it is income that Afghans wouldn’t want to lose.

I got a great insight into how we are being played by the Afghans by a New York Times piece I almost didn’t read. It was about the problems we are having with security for transport around Afghanistan, which didn’t seem a particularly interesting topic – but it was. Seems that we are spending billions and billions on private Afghan security firms to guard our shipments as they make their way through the country. Those firms have discovered that the most cost effective way to insure safe arrival of their shipments is to pay off the local Taliban not to attack them. Furthermore if the U.S. gives the contract to a different firm, they pay the Taliban to attack those shipments, or they stage the attack themselves with their now unemployed guards. Draw your own conclusions from the fact that President Karzai’s brother owns the largest of these firms.

Afghanistan can’t afford peace. And the newly minted millionaires buying mansions in Kabul, and just-in-case mansions in Abu Dhabi, certainly can’t afford for peace to break out. This explains why Karzai would promote chaos by denouncing the Florida pastor who burned a Koran. Chaos is his friend because it keeps the dollars flowing into Afghanistan.

The U.S. : The war on terror is over. We won. And we won in spite of our best efforts. The war was for the hearts and mind of the young of the Muslim world. The choice we presented to them was between the Mubaraks we were supporting and Osama bin Laden. But now the choice is between Tarir Square and suicide bombing, and we know what they are choosing now. Zawahiri tried for decades to overthrow the Egyptian government, that was his main aim, and he made not a dent. His way – the way of Islamic extremist terror – has been now totally supplanted by something that actually works.

And what of the $100 billion we spend in Afghanistan? We can no longer make that decision in some off-budget dreamland that pretends the money doesn’t come from somewhere. If we are spending that money there, then it is money we are not spending elsewhere. So the question isn’t a black and white "should we be in Afghanistan?", but rather, "what is the best place to spend that $100 billion?"  Can we really say that we wouldn’t be more secure spending the hundred billion on alternative energy or education? In every discussion of the budget, and every mention of various cuts to social programs, end your response with “and we’re spending $100 billion in Afghanistan.”

The Most Cost Effective Solution: The best solution I’ve heard is to take what we can and leave the rest. In the Taliban heartland, the Pastun area centered around Kandahar we will never control anything more than the ground we are standing on. We can take any area we want and it will revert to Taliban control the second we leave. That is 40% of the country. Just leave it be. Life there will suck, but it sucks in lots of places in the world, and we don’t send troops. If they set up any terrorist training camps, we destroy them with drones.  The rest of the country -- including Kabul, as well as most of the recently discovered mineral wealth -- supports us, out of hatred for the Pashtuns and the Taliban. We should be able to empower the people there with weapons and training to keep the Taliban out. Read the rest of this post...

Analysts dismiss S&P; criticism of US economy

It's not that the S&P; doesn't have a point, but let's step back and think about S&P;'s role in the current economic crisis. Their upgrades and downgrades do continue to carry weight and can cause debt financing to increase (as we've seen in Europe and some US states) but the S&P; and other rating agencies should have been downgraded out of business long ago. CNBC:

Many investors found the statement ironic, because they believe S&P;’s triple-A credit ratings on mortgage-backed securities were a key factor in allowing the investment banks to propel the housing bubble into the stratosphere on the back of bad loans disguised as good credit. It is the housing crash that is the number one reason for the budget shortfalls the country faces today.

“The emperor is naked, but he’s been so for years,” said Patty Edwards of Trutina Financial. “I’m struck by the irony that it is the tailor who sold the emperor the non-existent suit who is now pointing fingers.”

Reports from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations both asserted that S&P; and Moody’s were reluctant to downgrade mortgage securities they knew might sour because of the disruption it would cause with the Wall Street clients that were paying them to rate them, thus setting up the housing house of cards.

“The ‘negative outlook’ of U.S. debt has come about because of the inability of Standard & Poor’s to have performed their jobs rating mortgage backed securities,” said Barry Ritholtz on his Big Picture blog Monday. “Ultimately, this enabled the entire crisis, financial collapse, enormous budget deficit and now political [battle] over the debt ceiling.”

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Violence continues overnight in Syria

The protesters had organized a sit-in in the center of town in Homs and renamed the town square "Tahrir Square." So far no deaths have been reported from this latest clash. Al Jazeera:

An activist on the ground told Al Jazeera that security forces had opened fire on protesters. At least two people are reported injured while tear gas has also been used, according to Al Jazeera's correspondent in Damascus, Cal Perry.

Homs was shut down by the army with three rings of checkpoints surrounding the city, our correspondent said. Security forces had given protesters until 2.30am to clear the square, but gunfire was reported at 2.15am.

Most of the square was cleared with people scattering across the city, according to our correspondent. But some protesters say they are afraid to go to hospitals.

"They are afraid if they go to the hospitals the security forces will be waiting for them there and they will end up in detention," our correspondent said.

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EU planning to send troops to Libya for relief efforts

Securing the relief efforts is easy to understand but this still sounds like a big step in a potentially dangerous direction. The Guardian:

The EU has drawn up a "concept of operations" for the deployment of military forces in Libya, but needs UN approval for what would be the riskiest and most controversial mission undertaken by Brussels.

The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. "It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country," said an EU official.

The decision to prepare the mission, dubbed Eufor Libya, was taken by the 27 governments at the beginning of April. In recent days, diplomats from the member states have signed a 61-page document on the concept of operations, which rehearses various scenarios for the mission in and around Libya, such as securing port areas, aid delivery corridors, loading and unloading ships, providing naval escorts, and discussing the military assets that would be required.

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Scott Walker's budget to raise taxes on poor, middle class and students

There's nothing quite like asking students, the middle class and the poor to fund tax cuts for business. Didn't this guy promise not to raise taxes? More from ThinkProgress:

Low and middle income people would lose tax credits worth about $49.4 million over two years, the new Legislative Fiscal Bureau report said.

Those affected most by Walker’s proposal would include low-income families who qualify for the earned income tax credit program, and low-income homeowners who receive tax rebates under the homestead tax credit.

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