You can now rate posts

I've decided to add a "rate this post" feature beneath each post on the blog. This is a feature that we will also have with AMERICAblog 2.0, but as it's available now, I thought I'd test it out and see how folks like it. I'll be tweaking it some more tomorrow (the instructions are a bit confusing), and may be able to post a list of top posts, things like that. Stay tuned on all that for tomorrow, but in the meantime, if the spirit moves you, feel free to rate our posts. Read the rest of this post...

Mitt wins Michigan primary & Dems holding debate as I write

10:53 PM UPDATE: Hillary gets asked about playing the fear card, which she has done using vintage GOP talking points about Al Qaeda getting ready to strike us again. This is an issue that we find extremely annoying. She did seem to have a hard time with this one -- wanting to play the fear card, invoking the fact that she represents NY (which was attacked on 9/11, by the way, in case you didn't know)...she's prepared and ready. Obama says we've been dominated by the politics of fear since 9/11. And, he rebuked Clinton for basically using the fear card to score political points. But, she can't let it go...she accused Bush of using fear for political reasons, but she is doing exactly the very same thing even if she pretends she's not - she outright repeated the same line again tonight, that Al Qaeda could hit us on day one. This is the one thing that is most annoying about Clinton. And, she does it all the time. It is vintage Bush/Cheney.

10:32 PM UPDATE: As usual, it's harder to liveblog the Democratic debate. Liveblogging is more fun when we can mock the GOP candidates and their ridiculous answers. By and large, I tend to agree with the Democratic candidates and want one of them to be President. I think all of the candidates have had very good moments. I also think the questioning has been sub-par.

9:34 PM UPDATE: Okay, they've finished the first third of this debate and neither Brian Williams nor Tim Russert have asked a question with any substance. Not one. All the questions have been about the issues the punditry obsesses over...the candidates are trying to give relevant answers and talk about issues despite the questions. Pathetic performance from the moderators.

UPDATE: Hillary defends BET head Bob Johnson for invoking Obama's youthful drug use. Contrast that with Obama recanting on his criticism of Hillary - he fessed up, owned it, and said it was wrong. Wait, now Hillary says Johnson's comments were out of bounds and he has admitted as such. Um, no he hasn't - he actually criticized everyone for criticizing him, and Hillary stood by him and his comments only seconds ago.

Hillary and Obama are playing nice.

The polls closed in Michigan at 9 PM and NBC has already called it for Mitt Romney. This just makes the GOP contest much more complicated. They've got no front runner. John and I are going to live-blog the debate, should anything interesting come up. Read the rest of this post...

564 Americans want Michael Bloomberg to run for president

After a day of damn good publicity, that's just sad.

Read the rest of this post...

Early exit polls from GOP primary in Michigan

From Chris Cillizza at the Post:

McCain, who won the Michigan primary in 2000 during an unsuccessful bid for the White House, hopes to win again in Michigan with strong support from independents and Democrats taking part in the open primary.

However, early exit polling suggests that fewer Democrats and independents were taking part in the Republican primary than did eight years ago, according to ABC News polling director Gary Langer, which would be good news for Romney if that finding holds up. Less than 10 percent of voters in Michigan's GOP race are Democrats while more than two-thirds are self-identifying Republicans, according to ABC News. Among that group, roughly half call themselves conservatives.

The exit polling also found that the economy was the most important issue for Republicans in Michigan, well ahead of the war in Iraq and immigration.

Read the rest of this post...

Letter to the editor: Where's my reward for being cautious?

An AMERICAblog reader writes:

I'm one of those "lucky" ones who did the right thing when I bought my home back in the fall of 1999. I was just about to get married and just kind of went with it, got a fixed rate mortgage because that seemed prudent. I agree with the opinion that if someone can prove that they were suckered into something then they have just cause for anger and possibly damages. But if it's someone who thought they'd take a chance in order to make a quick buck, especially after seeing how easy it can be done via all those home makeover shows such as "Flip This House," then that's too bad. You gambled, you lost. And while I may feel bad for your situation, why should I be bailing out someone for doing something similar to a guy who starts his own restaurant? That person took a chance and the customers didn't show and the restaurant went belly up. Well so did the gamble on your house or houses. Where's my "reward" for being cautious?

John Patrick Gatta
Niles, Ohio

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Recession already hitting key states

The GOP is not going to like hearing this news. They might actually have to defend their disastrous economic policies to voters.

The US as a whole may yet escape a recession. But important individual states – some with upcoming primaries – may already be mired in a slump.

"California, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin: they're in recession. [And] they account for 25 to 30 percent of the nation's GDP," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, at a Brookings Institution seminar last week.

Compounding the problem will be the massive increase in mortgage problems hitting the traditional swing state of Ohio. Mortgage-aid hotlines have been flooded with calls, with ten times the number of calls in the fourth quarter compared to the first quarter of 2007. There's a lot of explaining to do out there by the GOP and it ain't going to be pretty. Read the rest of this post...

Huckabee, whose religion thinks Catholics aren't Christians, says we need to amend the Constitution to bring it more in line with God

From TPM Election Central:

At a Michigan campaign event last night, Mike Huckabee gave an interesting reason for why he wants to amend the Constitution to ban both abortion and gay marriage: Otherwise, the Constitution would be in conflict with God.

Huckabee first observed that some of his opponents don't want to amend the Constitution on both of these topics. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God," Huckabee said. "And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

So, would that include adding anti-Catholic language to the Constitution? I mean, clearly Huckabee's version of Christianity includes none of the rest of us Christians, or anybody else, so what he really wants to do is amend the US Constitution to bring it more in line with Baptist theology. That should put a shudder into every non-Baptist in America. Read the rest of this post...

Bad revelations about anti-cholesterol drug Vytorin/Zetia

Hey, so what if the results were in two years ago and the company didn't release them until right now, coincidentally right after (the Democratic) Congress got involved. I mean, sure, the drug doesn't really seem to work (and am I reading this correctly that it may actually make things worse?), but hey, it's only two years of people building up plaque in their arteries, and after all, who's ever died from a heart attack? How do these drugs even get approved? Why are we finding out now that it doesn't work, years after it was approved?

From the NYT:

A clinical trial of a widely used cholesterol drug has raised questions both about the medicine’s effectiveness and about the behavior of the pharmaceutical companies that conducted the study, cardiologists said Monday.

Merck and Schering-Plough, which make the drug, Zetia, and a pill that contains it, Vytorin, said Monday morning that Zetia had failed to benefit patients in a two-year trial that ended in April 2006.

Merck and Schering repeatedly missed their own deadlines for reporting the results, leading cardiologists around the world to wonder what the study would show. At the same time, millions of patients have continued taking Zetia and Vytorin.

Much more after the jump...

The drug companies blamed the complexity of the data for the delay. Now, barely a month after news articles noted the delay and Congress pressured the companies to disclose the study’s findings, the results are out....

In a press release, Merck and Schering said that not only did Zetia fail to slow the accumulation of fatty plaque in the arteries, it actually seemed to contribute to plaque formation — although by such a small amount that the finding could have been a result of chance....

“This is as bad a result for the drug as anybody could have feared,” said Dr. Nissen, a widely published researcher and senior consulting editor to the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Millions of patients may be taking a drug that does not benefit them, raising their risk of heart attacks and exposing them to potential side effects, he said....

Statins like Zocor and Lipitor have been shown to lower cholesterol by 35 to 60 percent in most patients and have also been proved to reduce heart attacks. Zetia, which works by a different mechanism, reduces cholesterol 15 to 20 percent, but it has never been proved to reduce heart attacks.

The Enhance trial was meant to prove that Vytorin’s combination of Zetia and Zocor would reduce the growth of fatty plaque in the arteries more than Zocor alone. Instead, the plaque actually grew almost twice as fast in patients taking the combination.

Reducing plaque growth is crucial, because plaque formation — known as atherosclerosis — can lead to the blockages and blood clots that cause heart attacks and strokes...

Read the rest of this post...

Live from MacWorld - Apple introduces world's thinnest laptop

Not politics, but cool. A friend is live-blogging me updates from MacWorld conference:

Apple introducing world's thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. MacBook Air is 0.76 inches down to 0.16 inches. So thin it fits in a manila envelope. It is thinner than one of those little notepads, it is thinner than a legal pad. Full size keyboard and screen, screen is 13.3". Instant on, lcd lit display. Full size keyboard, backlit keyboard, built in isight. Track pad with multi-touch gesture support. Demonstrating double tap, two finger pan, rotate, three finger pan, pinch zoom (just like on iPhone - pinch in shrink, pinch out zoom out). Macpro air has an 80 gig hd standard, and a 64 gbyte solid state disk as an option... very pricey but fast, and quiet. The mother board is so darned tiny, smaller than a pencil, powered by core 2 duo at 1.6 Ghz standard, and option for 1.8 ghz. It's totally wireless. No ethernet. portable dvi, headphone and magsafe, and usb. No optical drive. Powered accessory for $99.00 plug in externally. Most users won't miss the optical drive apple has innovated a new feature for software installation. Remote disk... shows all macs and pcs that have a wireless installer than lets you "borrow" a machine's optical drive and you can then install software. 5 hours of battery life. 2 gigs standard ram. It is cheap. $1799 shipping in 2 weeks. CD/DVD drive $99 extra. Read the rest of this post...

Iraq projections have gotten worse since "surge"

From the NYT:

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018....

His statements were slightly less optimistic than what he told an independent United States commission examining the progress of Iraqi security forces last year, according to the September report of the commission, led by a former NATO commander, Gen. James L. Jones of the Marines, who is retired. Then Mr. Qadir said he expected that Iraq would be able to fully defend its borders by 2018.

First off, 2018? Secondly, his expectation has worsened since the surge? No wonder John McCain said he had no problem with US troops staying in Iraq for another 100 years. I suspect he said that on purpose, to help the Bush administration yet again drag out the timeline, and lower expectations, for "victory." We're simply never leaving. And by the way, glad to see the surge is working. If this is success.... Read the rest of this post...

Wholesale prices jump highest amount in 26 years

With costs skyrocketing, this presents major problems for the Federal Reserve. If they lower rates too much, they can add to the inflation difficulties. If they don't take action or increase rates, then you have a credit problem. This is all the doing of Bush, the GOP and Mr Bubble who have left us with this headache.

The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.

What is bizarre is that "core inflation" was steady last year at 2% so as long as you don't purchase food or energy, you'll be fine. If you do, well, good luck keeping up. Read the rest of this post...

The GOP's "deep rifts"

On this Michigan primary day, I just read McClatchy's article about the demise of the GOP coalition. Have to admit that I love reading those kind of articles. I'll actually believe it when the next president is a Democrat. But, there is clearly great turmoil in the GOP. They can't find an acceptable front-runner this year. All of the leading candidates are despised by some faction of the party. From McClatchy:

The house that Ronald Reagan built is in danger of collapsing.

The coalition of fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, anti-tax activists and social conservatives that rallied behind Reagan in 1980 and has defined the Republican Party ever since is coming apart at the seams heading into the 2008 election.

The house that Reagan built was destroyed by Bush, Cheney and Rove. Remember how Karl was building a Republican party that would be dominant for decades -- and remember how the punditry drooled and accepted his every word. Yeah. Not going to happen. There's more after the break.

The GOP candidates all want to be Ronald Reagan. But, the GOP field has no star. Their nomination campaign could go on for months:

All the men running for the party's presidential nomination invoke Reagan's name repeatedly. But all of them offend at least one wing of the party enough that they'd find it difficult, and perhaps impossible, to pull the disparate elements of the old coalition together.

"It's gone," said Ed Rollins, who worked on Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign and now chairs the campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"The Reagan coalition is pretty much gone," added Karen Spencer, a Republican strategist in California who watched the Reagan phenomenon firsthand when her father served as Reagan's chief political strategist. "It's been 28 years. Maybe it is time for a change."

Oh, it's time for a change all right. A change from the Reagan-Bush-Bush legacy. Read the rest of this post...

Detroit now trying scare tactics against CAFE standards

Did you know that the new environmental regulations will cost Detroit $85 billion and they're going to make you pay for all of it? Wow, I'm shaking in my boots. So instead of gradually moving in this direction decades ago when foreign car makers decided the long term future was not gas guzzlers, Detroit used political muscle with goons like Congressman Dingell to delay the inevitable making it much more expensive for Big Auto. Let's all feel sorry for the management in Detroit that made these idiotic decisions, shall we? You know, the people who has dragged the industry down and fired tens of thousands of workers.

Detroit can certainly raise their prices and they probably will. If that's how they think they can become competitive, more power to them. With the weak dollar, they may even have a window of opportunity to pass the buck on to the consumer but that also will be a short term strategy. They can find all of the media stooges they want to tell us how tough it's going to be but it's still not going to help them compete. They made their bed, now they can go sleep in it. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good Morning.

It's primary day in Michigan. Mitt's hoping for his big, big comeback today.

Newt was on the Today Show pimping his new book. He also notes that the Republican nomination is the most open it has been for years -- and how there is no real frontrunner. Seems Newt wouldn't be too upset if the GOP can't decide on any of the candidates. I bet he'd selflessly offer himself as the savior for his beloved Republican Party.

Also, the Democrats are debating tonight in Nevada.

Start the threading, please. Read the rest of this post...

Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Countrywide CEOs invited to Congress

Pull up a chair fellows and let's have a talk. You have plenty of time to talk, don't you? Great. Mr. Waxman would like to review the comfortable severance packages in light of the incredible failures during your time at the helm. You don't mind chatting about these platinum parachutes while Wall Street removes billions in revenue from their books, do you? Yes, they would be the same "billions" that propped up your bonus/performance numbers.

Can we round up some of the board members too while we're at it? It would be enlightening to hear the juicy details of those much-too-cozy relationships. Just how do they justify paying their circle of friends such money for such massive failure? CEOs are going to pass the buck so let's bring in everyone so Americans can catch a glimpse of this wonderful system. Put them all in a room and let's hear how it works. Read the rest of this post...

EU rethinking biofuels and total impact

Maybe they're not the answer, or at least not the only answer. Deciding between fuel or food is ridiculous.

Supporters argue that biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the plants they are made from absorb carbon dioxide from the air. But a number of studies have raised doubts about the green credentials of many of the leading candidates, such as palm oil and ethanol made from corn. Critics say biofuels compete for land with staple food crops, and vast areas of rainforest are cleared to grow them.

Dimas told the BBC: "We have seen that the environmental problems caused by biofuels and also the social problems are bigger than we thought they were." He said the EU would "move carefully" on the issue. "We have to have criteria for sustainability, including social and environmental issues, because there are some benefits from biofuels."

Read the rest of this post...

Exit polls show Kenyan opposition won election by 8%

The December election was a blowout, with the opposition party somehow being blocked out with nothing more than promises of power sharing, just as on previous occasions. The US government has promoted reconciliation and asked both parties to work it out though this again runs contrary to the big talk about democracy. Power-sharing has never gone beyond talk and the US and EU have not taken any action to further the promises. Probably they just assumed that Kenya would remain peaceful without following rumblings on the ground. Nothing excuses the horrible acts that have been reported from Kenya though this poll adds more context to the story.

For years Kenya has been a peaceful, functional country but the recent events are pushing the country to the edge. The US and EU need to step up political intervention now before a bad situation becomes worse. Let's quit talking about democracy and do something real and constructive to promote democracy. Read the rest of this post...