Epiphany

So perhaps the secret to keeping down the blood pressure is simply this: get all news in written form. News outlets, blogs, doesn't matter. Also NPR, NPR is fine. The only thing that matters is that one avoids, at all costs, television news.

Because as soon as you turn on the cable, you will see and hear the incestuous paid anchors and analysts and assorted denizens of the echo chamber that is "I get paid to talk about this" TV news, and they will always- always- offer some tidbit, some SURPRISING observation, which will drive up the damn blood pressure once again.

So yesterday, after I had blogged about not having the capacity for shock, outrage, or snark these days, I turned on MSNBC for a bit and got to hear Pat Buchanan (and who isn't surprised that he's on TV at all?) say that we are in a "near 1930 situation in the financial sector, and hoping it doesn't spill over to the larger economy".

What fucking planet does he live on? Why is he ever on my teevee?

So that was, perhaps, my first surprise! for the new year. And the accompanying epiphany: If I need something to get angry about (because anger is often a prime inspiration for action), all I need to do is spend a bit of time with cable news.

Also not surprising

That the revising of history would start before the history was completed.

Buh bye, assholes.

My New Year's wish: surprise me

Over a month of no blogging! I think the reason is simple: nothing shocking has happened, and I am waiting for the new era to begin.

Sure, things have happened that are worthy of comment, but my capacity for shock and outrage and snark are seriously depleted.

I mean, really: is it surprising in the least that a candidate for the GOP chairmanship would send out an offensive "parody" disk to republicans around the country this season? We really don't need any more ammunition in the You Pasty Old White Boys Don't Get It And You Never Will argument, and yet, they just keep delivering. Also not shocking: the possibility that this stupid, stupid move will actually enhance his chances for the seat.

Oh but never fear, rank-and-file, your intellectual leadership has a plan! And it includes Twitter! Because Twitter and Republican are two proper nouns I'd like to see forever linked.

Bush, meanwhile, pardons a man whose father's campaign donations might effectively kill congressional republicans Eric Holder/ Marc Rich outrage machine. So then he decides to take the pardon away, within days of issuing it. Was anyone honestly taken aback by this? Has the Bush administration ever properly vetted anyone?

Congressional republicans are demanding "transparency" and there's talk of them shutting down the president-elect's stimulus/recovery plans if they don't pass GOP muster. They want "fiscal responsibility" again. Of course they do. Whatever.

Also, turns out that OSHA hasn't actually been in the business of occupational safety and health for about... 7 years. Question for the 10% of American workers who're injured on the job each year: does it surprise you that your government's chief concern has been not bugging your employer? Thought not.

Then there's the coal ash spill in Tennessee: turns out that no matter how "clean" your coal operation is, the ash still contains toxic levels of arsenic, lead, barium, chromium, and manganese; tens of thousand of pounds per year. Also turns out that the TVA asserted for days after the spill that the sludge was not toxic. Shocking, shocking shocking. Not.

And the situation in Gaza is terrifying, Bush is in Crawford riding his bike, and Condi isn't on a plane yet. Although, even if she got herself over to Riyadh or something, I don't know how much leverage she has left. And all it leaves me with is a sad sense of deja vu. It's been a long time.

So I'm waiting for a new year, and some new stories to open. A whole new cast f characters who maybe won't be so goddamn predictable and obvious and stupid.

(I had an hour or so of dismay over the Rick Warren thing, but ultimately I realize that the man I voted for reaches out in just this way, compromises in just this way, recognizing that the people who admire Warren and didn't vote for Obama and supported prop 8 need a president, too. Note to Barack, though: it'd be swell if you invited Rev. William Sinkford to the White House before his term is up this summer. Just sayin'.)

I'm waiting patiently for New Years Eve champagne, and then I'll be waiting in a cozy wash of ahhhhhh for January 20, 2009. After which I am certain there'll be lots to get worked up about, and hopefully a few surprises.

Hope

Via SFGate:

Outrage and anguish over the passage of Proposition 8 has spurred massive street protests throughout California, and leaders of the gay and lesbian community believe the backlash could spark an unprecedented nationwide push for gay rights.

Today, same-sex marriage supporters have planned simultaneous protests throughout California and in all 50 states, as well as cities in Canada, England and Australia.
It's a never-before-seen response, surpassing in size and scope even the 1969 Stonewall riots, which started the modern gay rights movement after New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar.

I had planned on heading downtown for the protest, but will instead join the locals in front of City Hall at 11:30 am.
If it's true that this vote has activated a new civil rights movement across the nation, then maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Maybe it leads to the repeal of DOMA and a Supreme Court decision that protects the Constitutional rights of every family, every couple.
We can hope.

Last word (for today)

Scott's comments are really very good. So here they are:

The day after Prop 8 passed, Vicki asked me some pointed questions about the nature of possible challenges and the validity of her brother's marriage about three months ago. My bottom line reply was that she was asking for $5 Million of legal analysis in 15 minutes, and that as good as I am I don't bill at $20 Million an hour.

Fortunately, the ACLU, LAMBDA, among others have all opened fire with direct review to the California Supreme Court. Along with several highly respected appellate firms, the plaintiffs challenging Prop 8 have the best representation possible.

Interesting issues include the procedural validity of Prop 8's purported amendment to the state constitution, retroactivity (the AG's statement is not precedent, although I agree with his analysis), and one meaty issue I noticed November 5 (apparently validated by ACLU), that Prop 8 speaks only to the validity of same sex marriages, but does NOT address the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution. Prop 8 could have avoided this thorny issue by adding the words "Notwithstanding the Equal Protection Clause of this Constitution . . ." So there is a patent contradiction between the purported amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

Prop 22, by contrast (which amended the California Family Code, not the state constitution) was struck down by the California Supreme Court as violating the state Equal Protection Clause. The constitutional right of course trumped the statutory restriction.

The absence of the prefatory language in Prop 8 was doubtless intentional, as the Mormon Church also has very good attorneys.

In the end this is purely political, even though the legal issues are fascinating. By not including that prefatory language, the drafters of Prop 8 simply created one more issue to litigate, thereby ensuring the “issue” remain active that much longer.

Not surprisingly, the backers of Prop 8 are in business, and business has been very, very good for them. Unfortunately the product they sell is hate and fear.

The longer they can keep the manufactured "issue" of gay marriage alive (cf. the politically conceived term "partial birth abortion"), the longer they can continue to sell their product: "we hate fags." We shouldn’t be overconfident, however, since in 2004 Karl Rove proved this to be a very, very successful product.

But take heart that the righteous fight for a properly expansive interpretation of equal protection under the law and for marriage equality is being fought by the best available. Until then, let’s raise our voices in righteous indignation.

Playing devil’s advocate is essential to being an effective attorney. I, however, am simply confounded by the opposition, meaning either that I’m lacking professional chops, or that the proponents of Prop 8 and its ilk totally lack logic and merit. I doubt very seriously that the problem is any lack of skill on my part.

ed note: Vicki is a friend of ours. Her brother was married this summer to the love of his life. The family rejoiced that, for the first time since he hit adolescence and knew who he was, he was a full member of society, with all of the rights and responsibilities and sheer joy that accompanies that.

California weeps, Arkansas sticks its head up its ass

Nate Silver reminds us that the vote for prop 8 was really a generational phenom, rather than a race or class or geography phenom. And Nate is always right, about everything. At least, so far.

And Dan Savage has an oped in the NYT today, reminding us that our state may be full of stupid, but at least we're not Arkansas.

But while Californians march and gay activists contemplate a national boycott of Utah — the Mormon Church largely bankrolled Proposition 8 — an even more ominous new law in Arkansas has drawn little notice.
That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Savage was also rather good on Colbert last night.

Sarah!

I'll be as thrilled as anyone when you run for president in 2012, believe me. But for the time being, just for a few months, maybe, could you just...

GO AWAY?!

A word on prop 8, and what we each do now

The passage of prop 8 in my state makes me sick. We were right to oppose it, the only arguments made for writing discrimination into our constitution were/are religious, emotional, or outright lies. The Equality For All campaign ran a straight up, honest, and simple opposition, which I think should have been more effective. It was the right campaign to run, and the fight is not over yet. Poised as we all are to continue the fight, I'm concerned now about the anger we're all feeling, and mistakes we may make that will have short and long term impact on our communities.

I spent all day working the polls for No on 8. I worked with a woman who'd just been married. I worked with an 18 year old boy whose conservative religious parents were voting no, for him, and because they realized that prop 8 was not a vote on morality, prop 8 is the denial of civil rights. Period.

I attended two training sessions for the No on 8 campaign, each conducted by very dedicated and talented field organizers, who also happened to be lesbians, who also happened to be married to each other. One of them is a minister, ordained in the Disciples of Christ in the early '80s. Talk about a trail blazer. And the local head of the effort is a good friend of mine. So over the course of the campaign, I became well versed in the aims and focus designed to beat this initiative. It was, and is, very simple. This is about civil rights. This is not about religion, or morality, it isn't really even about marriage. We are free to disagree on all of those fronts. This is about whether we, as a people, believe that our laws should be used to deny certain rights to a specific group, based not on their actions but on who they are. Based on god-given characteristics of their humanity.

The No campaign invested in very sophisticated marketing information. Early on, phone calls were made to the base- people who are almost certainly no votes, as determined by shopping patterns or whatever. Then, the calls shifted to the middle- the people who probably had not made their mind up one war or the other, or who perhaps leaned in our direction and needed to be committed. The press of time, the sheer number of people we needed to reach was the driving reason behind the decision not to engage probable yes voters.

This also meant that we did not intentionally go into the African American community, particularly its churches, and I believe this was the campaign's sole mistake. The African American community understandably does not appreciate it when people try to equate marriage or anything else with slavery and Jim Crow. But I do believe that talking about civil rights and denial of such by law may have touched a portion of the community.

Anyway. We didn't do that, and the courts will probably have to fulfill their traditional role here. Congress could do its part by repealing DOMA. That's worth fighting for. Get used to calling Washington. I think we may even get used to Washington paying attention to us in the coming years.

It's also worth it to get out into the streets, wave your No on 8 signs and rainbow flags, vent the frustration, just mourn the wrongness. Be a presence, a witness, for justice and equality and the values of the American Constitution. Let your heart break wide open with people who share your values, and be a comfort to each other.

While we're venting frustration and seeking our comfort, though, let's not go out of our way to close hearts on the other side. Over the week I've received several suggestions that just don't work for me, and I don't believe they'll do the fight any good.

- When you're painting your signs, refrain from calling people haters and bigots. Some people will change their minds on this issue, probably after some personal experience. They almost certainly will not change their mind because someone called them a name or accused them of bigotry.

- Asking the IRS to investigate the Mormon Church, or any other church, just isn't a good idea. Firstly, churches are within their legal rights to engage in issues based advocacy, and that includes organizing, lobbying, and fund raising. Hell, my denomination has a legislative ministry office in Sacramento and a Washington Office for Advocacy. We're the good guys, and the right loves to threaten us over our tax exemption (FUN FACT! The Nixon Administration even went after us, because our Beacon Press published the Pentagon Papers.). And remember All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena? The right went after them in 2004 after the minister did a sermon on war. They also held an interfaith No on 8 service two weeks ago.

I'm not trying to pretend that churches on the right don't engage in what is clearly disallowed partisan activity. But that isn't what this campaign was. Nothing comes from these IRS attacks, because the churches probably haven't done anything illegal. Don't stoop to the level of the Nixon administration.

- Likewise please don't go marching to churches and calling everyone inside bigots. I think it's wrong when nativists protest outside United Church of Christ in Simi for providing sanctuary, and I think it's wrong to protest outside a church who disagrees with us- even when what they have done is dishonest and hurtful. The marketing decisions were not made by the people who are entering the church for some sacred space and time. Leave them be. Doing otherwise will just harden people in their fears.

- While we're at it: do we really want to attack our local business community? I mean, if they had Yes on 8 signs posted in their windows, ok, avoid that store. I will, too. But what about Lassen's in Ventura, or El Coyote in LA? Lassen's owners, who've been part of our community for years and whose presence has always been positive, happen to be Mormon. And at El Coyote, a Mormon member of the family made a personal contribution to the Yes on 8 campaign. (Jess wrote about this perfectly, please read)

But these are individual, private actions, encouraged by the leaders of these peoples' churches. Will going to war with their employers or their storefronts accomplish anything positive? In the cases of Lassen's and El Coyote, do we really want to destroy places where we experience community bonds, meeting places where we are not merely anonymous consumers? Perhaps, instead, we could strengthen these community bonds by directly addressing the issue: by al means write to the owners of Lassen's and tell them why their support of this issue concerns you. Go to Margie's lunch at El Coyote and talk to her. Provide the kind of personal experience that leads people to change their minds on this issue.

When we win this battle, we will have done so on the merits. Because it is right. Let's not leave bruised and angry churches in our wake, suspicious of thuggery and ever more convinced of some militant "homosexual agenda". It just won't work.

The Constitution is on our side. Discrimination is wrong. We can disagree on religion, morality, and even marriage, but we cannot write discrimination into our laws. It's wrong. It's unfair.

People will change. With personal conversations and experiences, they will change. Like the parents of the boy I volunteered with. People will regret their support of this proposition, like Margie at El Coyote. But not because we bully them. Because it is right.

updated this morning because this is just not a well written post, but it's very important to me.

President Barack Hussein Obama

In 2004, I saw him speak and knew he would be our first African American President. And I am so proud of my country tonight- there are really no words.

I haven't blogged in weeks, I don't know why. Tonight, as I heard him speak again, I heard what I knew I would hear on the day we elected this man.

He said to the people "whose votes I did not earn, I hear you." He will never pretend you do not exist. He will never stand before you and say, "I earned political capital, and I'm going to spend it."

He said to all of us, this is our moment to move- not to stop and rest, this is not the achievement. The work will be pulling our country back together and putting it back on track, and all of us need to work toward that. All of us have to put our shoulders to the wheel.

This day- this is the promise. It remains our task to fulfill it.

And now that I have dried my tears of joy and started looking at California returns, I have to lament that at this moment, Prop 8 seems to be winning.

On the day that we stood up for inclusion and honesty and progress, we may have also written segregation into the California constitution.

I suppose numbers can still change. And I am staying up, for the recently married woman that I worked outside polls with today. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope alive. But I fear we may have done a really bad thing in this state.

More tomorrow.

Joe v. Sarah!

Still not recovered from a nasty bug, so my brain isn't churning out sentences of any merit. I am, however, awake enough to weigh in on the much anticipated VP debate.

Of course Biden wins, because he actually merits the place at the podium, because he knows what he's talking about and his debate prep was surely limited to not appearing condescending to the right's delicate flower/pit bull. He did a fine job, was commanding and sure, and human.

Palin, for her part, didn't deliver any huge embarrassments. When she used the phrase "rears its head", she mercifully was not referring to Putin, at the very least. She did the hokey accent and vernacular, blah blah blah. I'm not the person to sell with "I will be a great VP because I have children", but I suppose there are people who think that's a qualification, so she used it, repeatedly. I know when and where she stretched the truth or made outright misstatements, but I understand that a large portion of the country doesn't follow various details.

McCain needed a game changer, though, and she is not the one to deliver it. The campaign is working as though its base of wingnuts can really deliver this thing, but they can't. Not at this stage of the game.

The word all over the intertubes is pretty much the same, some saying it better than others, all in agreement that the race is still Obama's. So rather than delving deeper, I'll leave you with two bits that are off the main story.

Atrios was out last night, but preloaded discussion threads for users to discuss the debates live. Here are the titles for the threads, which cracked me up this morning:

20:15 Time to choose your debate drinking word.

20:55 If you chose "also" as your debate game drinking word, consider calling the ambulance right now.

21:15 "You know" was probably a bad choice, too.

Second item: Yesterday on Thom Hartman, guest Stephen Spoonamore gave a compelling interview on our voting systems, and how very insecure they are. Spoonamore's a life long republican, and a major architect of security systems for Mastercard and various other things you use every day. Last month, he testified under oath that the Ohio vote was probably hacked and flipped for W. In fact, he believes with certainty that Kerry won Ohio. Coverage of the case can be found at Bradblog.

This item is just here to remind you to remind every single person you know of voting age that their vote counts. If it isn't close, they can't steal it and get away with it. For every single point win, there's an opportunity for a stolen state. If you know any voters in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, or any of the light blue to trending red states, remind them of this.

"Breathtakingly Hairbrained"

Yglesias:

There are very few members of congress with whom I’ve ever had the opportunity to discuss a substantive matter of public policy. But as it happens, one of them — the one with whom I’ve had the second-longest exchange — is Mike Pence (R-IN) who I’ve seen on television today repeatedly discussing the Republican Study Group’s “plan” for the financial crisis. And I can tell you this about Mike Pence: he has no idea what he’s talking about. The man is a fool, who deserves to be laughed at. He’s almost stupid enough to work in cable television.

Ah, but not only is not working for cable, he's proposing "crisis" legislation. Let's see what Wonk Room has to say:

The phrase “breathtakingly hairbrained” comes to mind when considering the apparent tax cut proposal. We know that for the group authoring this proposal, tax cuts for the rich and corporations are the answer to every problem. But even the administration, which has relentlessly imposed that agenda for eight years, has recognized that the well was dry on that front for this crisis. But it gets worse. Not only is this another tax cut for the rich, it appears to be one that is dead-aimed at doing much more harm than good — abolishing the tax on capital gains.
[snip]
The idea of insuring mortgage backed securities almost seems like a cynical ploy to pretend to be doing something when actually doing nothing. The idea is that the government would sell holders of mortgage backed securities insurance against losses—and that it would charge such premiums that the government wouldn’t lose money on the deal. That’s akin to selling homeowners insurance in New Orleans after the dikes broke.
[snip]
What they propose on deregulation isn’t clear, but the fact that they’re even still talking about “deregulation” when it was slipshod regulatory oversight that got us into this mess shows a profound misunderstanding of what’s going on. One rumored target is the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations which, in fact, impose accountability on Wall Street — not something we want to do away with right now.

The whole thing is well worth a read.

I can't decide what the stupid to evil ratio is here. I suppose it depends on the member. Boehner, for instance, is 99% evil, with a touch of stupid to get him through the door.

Party before Country

Krugman: "Demolition Accomplished"

From his NYT blog:

How did we get to this point? It’s the culmination of many past betrayals.

First of all, we have the Republican Study Committee blowing things up with a complete nonsense proposal — solving the crisis with a holiday on capital gains taxes. How is that possible? Well, if a party runs on economic nonsense for 25 years, eventually many of its foot soldiers will be people who actually believe the nonsense.

More specifically, though, the failure to get a deal reflects the betrayals of the Bush years. Democrats weren’t going to trust Henry Paulson, because behind him they see the ghost of Colin Powell (and Paulson’s “all your bailout are belong to me” proposal, aside from being bad economics, showed an incredible tone-deafness.)

And after the way the Bushies and their allies double-crossed the Democrats again and again in the aftermath of 9/11 — demand national unity, then accuse you of being soft on terrorists anyway — there’s no way Pelosi and Reed will do the responsible but unpopular thing unless the Republicans agree to share ownership.

So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.

As a friend said last night, we’ve become a banana republic with nukes.

Now that's egotiscal posturing we can believe in, my friends

Yesterday morning, principles for the Wall Street bail out seemed to have been agreed upon, by both parties and the White House.

Early yesterday afternoon, Superman John McCain flew mightily snuck onto Capitol Hill, before proceeding to a White House meeting that he had requested.

Late yesterday afternoon, everyone was fighting, Paulson was on one knee before Pelosi. Boehner, who earlier in the week was demanding the congress pass a "clean" bill (GOP shorthand for give Paulson what he wants) was circulating a secret new plan to Blue Dog Dems and rank and file Republicans.

McCain was mostly quiet on the events of the day, humbly saying that America could determine for itself what his role had been.

Ok, so I've determined that McCain has devolved into a small, angry, sneaky, obstructionist fuck.

It's not that I love the bailout plan- even the tidbits of improvement over the original that've been trickling out. It's that you know damn well that Boehner and Shelby should've been pushing their ideas all week, at the bargaining table. If they were good-faith actors, that's what they'd have done.

Instead, they blew up the talks because of what Frank correctly assessed as "a rescue plan for John McCain".

I don't trust these motherfuckers to offer anything helpful- they're talking about insurance instead of cash, but all they're going to want to do is suspend capital gains tax and ensure that consumers get nothing out of the deal, let's be honest- I have no idea if resolution has to happen today to stave off world-wide depression, or if the immediate threat is greatly overblown, or if doing nothing is an option.

I do know that this bomb was a political stunt, that it's bullshit, and that John McCain set it off because his polling numbers are- rightly- diving.

I don't know what will happen today, but I really hope this explodes in fucking Boehner's face. And McCain's.

The bailout, even with strings, is not enough

So they keep telling us that we have to invest in junk debt to the tune of a few hundred billion or maybe a trillion dollars, because the whole financial system is on the verge of collapse. President Bush explained to us yesterday that the infusion of public wealth into private enterprise is necessary to keep lines of credit open for business, otherwise many of them will cease to exist, and for citizens, who otherwise will not be able to get loans for homes, cars, college.

Everyone and their brother has screamed for oversight, and it looks like that will be part of the package (though having the mechanism does not mean oversight will occur- look at Iraq for a sobering example). Equity stake? Maybe, though that's still opposed by the administration. Limits on executive compensation may be the big "win", if anything in this can be properly called a win.

My laundry list of adds includes things that will, apparently, not gain ground: The ability of bankruptcy judges to reset loan terms, moratorium on Wall Street lobbying, these things will be tossed. Most importantly, I am not hearing anything about investment in the much mourned Main Street.

I think it's important to remember something about the Great Depression: in addition to a needed regulatory regime and insurance structures, the Depression was addressed with substantial investment in the country's Main Street. Infrastructure projects and even humanities projects put people to work, creating wealth at the bottom, which in turn created the need and means for businesses to grow.

The idea that Main Street will recover this time with simply the ability to take on more debt is, I think, deplorable.

Another thing: while the New Deal helped stop the bleeding and enabled the slow healing of wounds, the wealth of the country really only picked up after we entered WWII and commenced massive war spending.

This time around, I think we'd all like to avoid a world war, so we should probably figure out what our government's investing priorities should be outside of the Pentagon and Wall Street.

Apparently, Wall Street does have a suitcase bomb

Because what else could drag John McCain back to the Senate at breakneck speed (after a Couric interview and a stump speech, that is), when we know because President Bush has told us repeatedly that really, really important work can be done from almost anywhere?

I'm looking forward to Obama showing up for the debate, and telling the assembled press, "I don't know, I've been on the phone with Republican Senator Coburn and Harry Reid and Speaker Pelosi and Hank Paulson, and they tell me they have it under control, so I really don't know what John's doing."

Maybe Wall Street has a suitcase bomb

Via TPM:

Cheney Heads to Hill to Quell Republicans

By Kate Klonick - September 23, 2008, 12:58PM

The White House dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to Capitol Hill Tuesday morning to help shore up support for the financial bailout of Wall Street.

Wonder what Cheney will tell them this time?

Economists For Obama

I keep forgetting how much I love Economists For Obama.

You wanna know who either candidate's economic advisors are? Check here. You wanna know how their numbers really play out? Check here. You wanna know what your taxes would look like under Obama's plan?

Check Here.

Good signs- but don't let up yet

Looks as if Paulson's ready to play, and the Democrats are pushing. Via Calculated Risk, WSJ is reporting that the administration will accept executive compensation limits, and Bloomberg says they're ready to ok an equity stake.

Light 'em up

I've sent emails to my rep, Speaker Pelosi, and my two senators. I will spend some time calling congress, too, as soon as I finish this post.

Don't think for a minute that staff isn't tallying calls and emails from taxpayers, and calculating the political consequences of their next move. Start here to find your rep's contact info.

I am so deeply angered by this situation. Talking the other night about what this means about our government, some of the terms tossed around and weighed were Communism, Fascism, Oligarchy, Hegemony.

Maybe it's because I've been reading Reformation history, but I keep coming back to Feudalism. You know, the princes (Wall Street) deplete the royal stores with their building cathedrals or fighting wars or whatever, and the Monarchy digs the country out of a hole by raising taxes on the serfs (you and me).

And yes, Senator McCain and my Republican friends, you better damn well believe that I want taxes raised on the Masters of the Universe that got us into this disaster. If I have to pay for their malfeasance, I want their responsibility to be substantially larger.

Some bright chatter from various corners this morning:
Brad at SN! shares his congressional talking points.
Matt Stoller has been communicating with members, and hopefully they fight as hard as they email. This one is my favorite:

I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

Krugman calls shenanigans.
Josh Marshall has questions about Phil Gramm's once and future role in all of this.
Robert Reich has a pretty good list of conditions.

Get on the phone.

The New Market emerging- guest post

I'll be back to posting just as soon as I can get my outrage formed into coherent sentences and without a Sweeney Todd reference. Until then, I give you the very reasonable Mack.

The largest financial bailout in United States history, which some traders are starting to call the ‘Securitized Housing Investment Trust’ (hint: think acronym), is causing an existential crisis amongst those who hold to purest free market ideology. Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, echoed this sentiment when he said, “The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America.” These ideologues doth protest too much, methinks.

Since the 1929 crash, the last time the nation faced an economic train-wreck of this magnitude, the U.S. Government has effectively been in the insurance business and it has generally served us well. The vast majority of laws and regulations are designed to mitigate risk. Drunk driving laws minimize the number of car wrecks, and the short-tick rule (until recently eliminated) prevented unfettered short-selling from forcing solvent companies into insolvency.

Government institutions enforce these policies. What is the purpose of the military but an insurance policy against attack from other nations? What is the key purpose of a central bank other than insurance against a run on banks?

In fact, the present-day capital market system, which has been responsible for raising living standards to the highest in world history, relies upon laws and regulations: the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Although not perfect (and definitely requiring an overhaul), these laws have served Wall Street and LaSalle Street very well over time.

The problem with fundamentalist free market ideology is that it is only theoretical, and ultimately not pragmatic. Truth is, without government establishing the premise of private property enforced through law and justice, contract markets would soon devolve and be quickly replaced by gangster capitalism akin to Putin’s Russia. There is a term for the unfettered combination of concentrated power, ideological adherence and capitalistic greed, it is called “fascism.”

There is another term “beta,” which defines the systematic return/risk of assets. This concept is related to Modern Portfolio Theory and underlies the oft-stated investment strategy of buy-and-hold. What is not well-understood, even by many sophisticated investors, is that this theory is flawed. The issue is portfolio construction. Accordingly, the definition of “true beta” or “true market portfolio” must be extended to encompass other economic factors.

What academics came to recognize was that approximately one-third of non-governmental tangible assets in the U.S. are owned by the corporate sector, and only one-third of these corporate assets are financed by equity. As a result, Jagannathan and Wang concluded that assumptions underlying the concept of beta must be altered in order to resolve anomalies in the model. In other words, “true beta” or the “true market portfolio” must include the “aggregate wealth portfolio of all agents in the economy.” This is a revolutionary view with both political and economic ramifications.

Business balance sheets do not in practice reflect public infrastructure assets which businesses are dependent on. For example, a trucking company’s greatest asset is not its fleet of trucks, but the U.S. Highway system. Likewise, public liabilities such as the cost of pollution are also not reflected on balance sheets. This is beginning to change with the idea of integrating regulations into “cap-and-trade” contract markets involving emission allowances.

It is time for a new economic ideology to take hold which adheres to a progressive view. Government and free enterprise are actually joint partners in promoting economic growth and well-being. Certainly, political will effects a constant tug-of-war between interests, but this is not unlike the struggle between a sales-trading desk which drive revenues for an investment bank, and internal compliance managers who ensure balance between risk and reward.

The problem with the prevalent populist stream of conversation regarding free markets versus socialism is that such dialogue is anachronistic. Rather, the conversation needs to shift to good versus bad governance, and public policy which enhances the value of the aggregate wealth portfolio of all agents in the economy.

Mack Frankfurter

Mack and I have done a lot of arguing about the state of the capitalist system. His "new beta" gives me faith, because it comes not from a liberal suburbanite like me, nor a liberal economist. It comes from a guy who loves capitalism, loves the markets, and makes his living there.

Thanks, Mack.

Bad Religion

This article in WaPo comes to me on the morning after a day full of what, for a Unitarian Universalist like myself, passes for religious ecstasy.

CHICAGO -- Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.
The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.
"For so long, there has been this cloud of intimidation over the church," ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. "It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It's not for the government to mandate the role of church in society."

Although I could argue the constitutional merits of the separation of church and state all day long, after a day like yesterday, I'm ruminating more on the very negative implications for religion in pursuing the weakening of that wall.

The tax code that the ADF has a problem with is very simple: to maintain tax exempt status, a church cannot engage in partisan political activity. We can, and do, and always have, organize issues-based advocacy. My church, for instance, has "No on 8" signs prominently displayed, because as a denomination we are passionate about marriage equality, which stems from our most basic and essential shared values.

Yesterday afternoon I attended the long-awaited dedication of our new church buildings. One of our former teens came up from college to attend with my family, it was a packed house with some overflow (we set up a simulcast in the social hall). Visitors from all over, including many clergy, UU and others from the local interfaith alliance, resplendent in robes and mantles. Powerful drums and the African Alleluia set hearts on high, and clergy from local and distant congregations congratulated us and charged us to remember who we are.

Tears streamed down my face as a local rabbi recited Hebraic verse and then exclaimed, "You are my people, my people are your people!" The minister from our sister United Church of Christ congregation recalled our long road together, and the battles we've fought and continue to fight, side by side. And then a luminary from Boston rose and gave a 15 minute old fashioned pacing rousing reminder, "We are the people who STAND UP!"

For those who don't do organized religion, it may be hard to understand, but this was one of those experiences that you want to relive over and over again.

We are the People Who Stand Up. This central part of our religious identity is what drew me to UU. Standing up together never fails to inspire in me a sense of what is divine. This means advocating for marriage equality. This means standing with the UCC in the work of the New Sanctuary Movement. This means that last week, Unitarian Universalist clergy and laity held a press conference in St. Paul calling for comprehensive sex education. This means that wherever I have marched or demonstrated, for peace, for women, for farm workers, UU clergy have always, always been at my side.

But we do not stand up beside a party or a candidate. If one polled my congregation, I think the democrats would probably hold a sizable majority, but one would also find republicans and libertarians and independents and greens. And while we are vocal and public on our issues, you will not find an Obama poster on our buildings, nor any other political candidate or partisan push. And that is as it should be.

Liberalism as a political philosophy is not the same as religious liberalism, something we try to remind our youth continually. Conflating the two cheapens religion, belies the depths that may be explored and the meaning that may be found.

The same is true for orthodox religion and conservative political philosophy. The two pollute each other, but religion comes out the big loser.

In religious terms, the larger issues of our world- war and peace and human dignity- must be examined and closely weighed against our stated values. If one is orthodox, one has sacred text and creed, and positions will be weighed against these sources, hopefully with honesty and openness. If one is religiously liberal, issues must be weighed against basic values, and one will examine the weaknesses and potholes carefully before coming to a conclusion.

What religion does not do: it does not give authority to an outside person for these considerations and conclusions.

An orthodox group may heed the word of their clergy, but supporting wholesale a political candidate or party would undermine entirely the authority of sacred text and creed. Wars were fought in Europe for hundreds of years over this: whose authority holds sway, prince's or pope's? The American answer was to give each responsibility for their own spheres, with final authority resting in the conscience (and action) of the individual.

For clergy to advocate support for a specific person or a political party means delegating to a secular body their responsibility to weigh carefully each issue through the lens of God's will. They risk, in other words, what the Hebrew Bible specifically prohibits:

Do not have any other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Understand idols, in this case, to mean princes or presidents or candidates or flags or posters of elephants.

For religious liberals, the responsibility for such judgment lies in each man and woman, and were our leaders exhort us to support a specific candidate or person for any secular office, that leader would be denying each of us the responsibility to think deeply and answer only to our own conscience.

Putting it another way: Clergy should cry loudly from the pulpit on issues of war. War means killing, it means inflicting inhumane conditions on many people, including the soldiers who fight. Taking a position from the pulpit on, say Iraq, and encouraging the congregation to pray for peace, or strength, or encouraging them to make their values known to decision-makers in government, this is what clergy do.

Crying from the pulpit that the flock should elect George Bush, or John McCain, or Barack Obama, because this is the man who knows best about this war: that is delegating moral authority to a single man, one that is responsible not for the conscience of the church, but for issues and actions of the secular world. That is bowing to a false god, that is removing the right of conscience from the faithful.

So, partisan political advocacy cheapens the experience of religion by delegating right and wrong to a secular body, relieving the clergy and laity from the responsibility of examining the world and our issues and how it all relates to what we say we most deeply believe. But there are practical problems for religion, too.

Take, for example, the Office of Faith Based Initiatives- which gave me shudders when Bush first announced his intention to open it. It is no secret now that the power and money of the office was, from its inception, directed to very specific religious organizations, those that would pass the muster of the "Mayberry Machiavellis" and the clerics who supported them. Only certain conservative religious groups got access and funding, liberal religious groups or those considered "weird" by traditionalist protestants did not.

Now consider election time. Is it not possible that a group who gives beds to the homeless and has funding from the office of faith based initiatives would want to keep the party that delivered this funding in power? Is the party's action on other important areas examined? Is it not possible to consider that another small group who houses the homeless but is denied access would want to oust those who run things, whether or not the party's other policies in other areas have been successful for the country?

How is religion strengthened, then, by being beholden to any political party or person?

I think these are problematic outcomes for religion, and they grow rapidly from a movement to mix private and public policy. More than one scholar has noted that the strength of religion in this country is most likely due to the very strong separation of church and state, which allows religion to flourish and deepen without state sponsorship or manipulation.

So I hope this little test case fails, and fails spectacularly. As a religious person, I resent- hugely resent- the framing of American political discourse in religious terms, and I resent the idea that it is in any way responsible for clergy to make their flocks beholden to a partisan body. As a citizen, I am as passionate about my secular government as I am about my freedom to practice my religion. Neither my government nor my religion is well served by the fundamentalist drive to conflate the two, in fact, both are threatened.

Oh, and by the way, congressman Westmoreland? Yeah, that's right, I quoted the 10 commandments, although I don't need to consult them to know how to treat people. Stupid cracker.

Updated post- stupid crackers

(sigh) I removed the previous quote and link, because until the source is verified in someway, I've decided I don't feel good about it.

h/t still goes to John Cole, who has been all over Palin's bullshit this week.

Instead of the unverified Palin allegations, I'll direct you to some hot hot Stephen Colbert.

This week, by the numbers

John McCain George W Bush's White House released a helpful Fact Sheet:

While these numbers are disappointing, what is most important is the overall direction the economy is headed. Last week, the economy posted a strong gain of 3.3 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter, led by growth in consumer spending, exports, and a well-timed and appropriately sized stimulus package. This level of growth demonstrates the resilience of the economy in the face of high energy prices, a weak housing market, and difficulties in the financial markets.

US unemployment rate now over 6%, worse than anticipated. 84,000 US jobs shed last month, 84,000 more men and women collecting unemployment.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac are about to be taken over by the Fed.

Under a conservatorship, the common and preferred shares of Fannie and Freddie would be reduced to little or nothing, and any losses on mortgages they own or guarantee could be paid by taxpayers. Shareholders have already lost billions of dollars as the stocks have plunged more than 80 percent this year.

FDIC just took over Silver State Bank- incidentally, until July Senator McCain's son, Andy was a director there. (h/t Atrios). This the 11th bank failure this year, if you're keeping track.

Foreclosures are at a 30 year high, and home loans 1 or more payments behind are at over 6% (though there are estimates as high as 9% ).

But the important thing to remember is that our economy is resilient!

The problem with John McCain the White House's analysis is, as always, that the Republican focus on "growth" ignores entirely that the growth has not translated to economic security or opportunity for American taxpayers.

That, my friends, is the straight talk.

This gets funnier by the minute

"It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

- Donna Tobin, Principal, WR Middle School

Update:

By late afternoon, McCain's campaign was characterizing the use of the picture as a way of illustrating the candidate's call "for public education reforms that empower parents and students before bureaucrats and labor unions," as spokesman Tucker Bounds put it.

Yeah. That's what it was.

But Tamar Galatzan, who represents the North Hollywood area on the Los Angeles Board of Education, was having none of that. She said she was "flattered that Sen. McCain chose to use a school from my district as backdrop to his remarks" but that more federal resources for education seems "not a priority for the McCain/Palin ticket."

Alaska Trooper-gate

Anchorage Daily News:

Palin's lawyer has asked the Legislature to drop its investigation. He had the governor file an ethics complaint against herself, in a bid to turn the entire matter over to the state Personnel Board, which would hire an independent investigator.

This is not an open and transparent attempt to establish Gov. Palin's accountability. It is an attempt to drag out the investigation until after voters decide the fate of her vice-presidential bid.

Hey national media: does this one pass your muster? Or would you rather continue to self-obsess over whether you're allowed to talk about her family?

Hi, I'm a member of the "Hateful Left"

Over the course of the Bush administration, I've repeatedly started and repeatedly stopped an essay or a letter on a theme that feels so huge to me, I can't ever get it concisely into words. I'm not sure I can today, but speeches at the Republican National Convention have picked scab after scab, and so I think I'll try to get this theme out, let it be my summation of two weeks of conventions.

My theme has always started with the words George Bush doesn't want to be my president. This week I have come to the conclusion that John McCain doesn't, either. Once I would have thought that, as different as we are, he'd at least assume that "willing patriots" included people like me. At the end of a full week of speeches by his surrogates and supporters, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that that John McCain, if he existed, is now too beholden to the radical community organizers who get out the ideological vote. The rest of us, you moderates and faithful liberals, you whiners, you 70% of the American public, have been cast aside.

Once the campaign of 2000 ended, when George W Bush took the White House still promising to be "a uniter, not a divider", his method for unity was creative: all citizens who disagreed with anything he said or did simply ceased to exist. All decisions were explained with The American People want..., any challenge to a decision was met with, The American People want.... Each time he made a decision, he chose the path guaranteed to be met with the greatest controversy and opposition, and then sneered at any opposition for not trusting his judgement for the sake of The American People.

(Except in his first stem cell decision, summer of 2001. This time, he made a wishy-washy 50-50 call, because The American People had to include both Nancy Reagan and James Dobson.)

When the March For Women's Lives brought over a million people to the National Mall in support of a vast array of policies: comprehensive sex-ed, access to contraception, canceling the deadly global gag rule, and yes: protecting Roe v Wade, We didn't expect the president to acknowledge us, really. He was up at Camp David, anyway, and even though he always acknowledges the comparatively tiny annual anti-abortion demonstrations in DC, it would have been a stretch to think he'd give us a wave.

What we didn't expect was that the media would for the most part ignore the sheer massiveness of the March, or that Karen Hughes would be trotted out to respond. The American People, she said, understand since 9/11 that the US is different from terrorists because we value a Culture of Life.

When challenged her words later, she said she had never compared pro-choice citizens to terrorists- which is true, strictly and carefully speaking. What she did, and what she was not challenged on, was sweep our very citizenship out from under us by excluding us from The American People.

The Bush administration, with back up from the press, did this consistently throughout his first term. There was no thoughtful opposition to the invasion of Iraq: there were Anti-War groups and Pro-America groups. Meaning that my position was, by default, Anti-American. Dixie Chicks CD burning rallies? Pro-America! Get a camera out there! March on the White House by veteran's groups? Never happened, as far as the administration and the media were concerned. A recent analysis of guests on the major news outlets during this period found that opposition to the invasion was consistently presented by foreigners. That is, Americans presented to us by the news media almost uniformly supported the invasion.

It's like being in a dream, where you keep trying to scream, but no sound comes out. Is it any wonder so many of us took to the streets?

This rhetorical exclusion continued apace until finally, Bush redefined the terms. After the election of 2004, rather than attempting to pretend that The American People wanted anything in unanimity, he said he would work with everyone, if they supported his goals. Which meant not Goals, like dealing with Social Security in such a way that the government meets its responsibilities, but specific policies: private accounts for all.

At least this time he was honest.

After the summer of 2005 (Camp Casey, Katrina, and falling poll numbers- trifecta!) surrogates like Mary Matalin, rather than ignoring us entirely, went on the air to offer cheap analysis and faux pity. It's just so sad, these people. They're so angry. Bush began to at least acknowledge that some of The American People disagree with him, on a lot. But that does not mean his style of governing changed, nor has the rhetorical exile for most of us. The press continues to court the fiction that opposing Bush on anything is "leftist" or "extreme", even when poll data belies that.

The party George Bush leads enjoys this kind of with us/ against us bravado, and has no desire to change it. In fact, the party's strength has always been in hardening that rhetorical divide- there is no political gain, for them, in respect for differences, in bipartisanship, in synthesis of ideas.

The mythology of John McCain lies in his perceived rejection of such division. Working across the aisle, all of that. This week, however, a week when he presumably needed to both fire up the Base and make an appeal to moderates and independents, the convention has been about nothing except defining, once again, the The American People who attended his convention and debasing the rest of us.

President Bush, confined to a few minutes from a remote location, still managed to remind the delegates why the campaign mattered: The Hateful Left is obviously still a threat, and John McCain won't let them win.

(Which is interesting, because on what may be described as McCain's two signature issues over the past 4 years- immigration and torture- he capitulated not to any Hateful Left, but to the nationalist right and President Bush, respectively.)

Romney sneered at us. Guiliani made fun of us. Sarah Palin skinned us like a recent kill. The Senator from Arizona? He made some noise about respecting Obama for what he's accomplished, but it rang empty when followed up with the willing patriots line. Let's face it: Patriot means, to them, whatever they've decided it to mean this week. Willing Patriot means supporting whatever it is they want to do this week. If they win, we are headed straight to rhetorical and practical exile, once again.

McCain does not have the Rove-built get out the vote organization that Bush did. He's counting on those red meat delegates and the Focus on the Family email list to win this thing. They do not want to hear that the other side has a rightful seat at the table, nor will they work to elect anyone who won't harden the divide.

I look forward to packing away my giant Sharpies and giving up the need to march in the streets. I'm hoping that we can have an administration for all Americans, one that won't pretend that faithful opposition and valid counter arguments don't exist, that won't seek to define everything outside of their preferences as "fringe", "left", "hateful", "angry". I am hoping that under such a presidency, I would lose the scream stuck in my throat feeling, and actual work could be done in the federal government, for the betterment of our country.

John McCain, like George Bush before him, does not seek to be my president. To my way of thinking, he doesn't deserve the office.

Of Green Screens and Middle Schools

Aside from the fact that putting McCain in front of a massive, unidentified lawn brought the Green Screen speech to mind, the question arises: What is that picture? Why is it there?

Talking Points Memo, with help from readers, found that it is a picture of Walter Reed Middle School, North Hollywood.

In a speech that was not focused on education, in a week where the coastal "elite" has been demonized repeatedly, why a Southern California school? Especially on with the word "Hollywood" right there in its address?

I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous.

Maybe ridiculous, but what possible context could this picture provide?

Barack on O'Reilly

on Iran: O'Reilly just interrupted repeatedly and then changed the subject.

on Iraq: "We have reduced the violence, but the Iraqi's still haven't taken responsibility." O'Reilly changes the subject.

on Afghanistan/ Pakistan: O'Reilly says no one will send ground troops into Pakistan. Obama says if Pakistan wants military support, the support needs to have strings attached. O'Reilly basically saying he's full of shit.

O'Reilly's stretching this out over several days next week. Probably because MSNBC is kicking his ratings ass.

Watching MSNBC earlier and O'Reilly now, it occurs to me again why so many of us go to John Stewart every night for the daily, sort of, round up. The rest of these guys don't know how to be respectful and tough at the same time. Their interview styles are either total asshole (O'Reilly) or talking points pipeline (Matthews and Gregory).

John alwaqys knows how to cut to the heart, while respecting his guests and even, seemingly, enjoying them. Well, except Doug Feith, but no one could stand Doug Feith, right?

OMG, this is actually funny

I'm watching O'Reilly and a blonde, um, journalist FREAK OUT over unfair and biased reporting in People or Us or whatever the magazine is that put Palin on the cover this week.

Now, I haven't read the article because, maverick that I am, I don't read celebrity mags for POLITICAL NEWS.

But O'Reilly and the blonde are incensed- outraged- over the unfair biased reporting therein.

"You don't just throw out incendiary remarks!"

This, from the folks who brought you the madrassa scandal, the "baby mama" shit, endless memes about Ayers, etc.

I almost believe I'm watching Colbert.

Barack up now.

Who's more scary: the racist "base" or the guys at the top?

The other night at a barbecue, a man asked me, regarding Obama:

Do you really think he'll live through his first term?

I answered first, I certainly hope so. Second, and more importantly, I don't think fear is a rational basis for making such a decision, so I don't contemplate that question very much.

It is very likely true, as Dave Neiwert posits, that when Obama takes the office, there will be a far-right backlash, sort of the '90s on steroids. It is also possible that we will avoid another Oklahoma City, and that presidential security is strong enough to thwart assassination. After all: meth-heads plotting assassination last week were arrested before they could leave their hotel room.

But Neiwert has a frightening post today on those meth-heads: why, when the FBI wanted them charged with conspiracy to assassinate Senator Obama, the Rove appointed US attorney declined.

Amy Goodman was charged this week with Conspiracy to Commit Riot for the crime of stepping off the convention floor and into the street.

These men had a plan and the equipment to carry it out, the fed has weapons and testimony to convict with, and the US Attorney declined?

Another funny thing: When a black man in prison sent a threatening letter containing baby powder to John McCain, Troy Eid brought down the full force of the law, complete with press conferences and public declarations that "We won't stand for threats of this kind in Colorado."
But when it’s a claque of white men with rifles, disguises, and all the accoutrement of a conspiracy – as well as open admissions to it – Troy Eid isn’t worried. After all, they just a bunch of harmless, tweakers, right? … Just like little Timmy McVeigh.
But then, when you’re a Karl Rove operative promoted to deliver justice the Republican way, as Troy Eid is, that’s the way the scales fall. As Marcy reported at the time, Eid in fact nearly didn't get the Colorado job because of concerns about "improper lobbying."
His failure to take this matter seriously is itself a serious matter. When law-enforcement officials let this stuff slip by, they send a dangerous message to other would-be plotters out there. And next time, they may in fact be more competent.

I really don't know what else to say.

Media morning with Palin

Gloria Steinem gives one of the best rebuttals to the idea that Sarah's somehow a feminist pick over at the LA Times.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
[...]
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Over at Salon, I have to disagree when Shapiro says:

Palin is unquestionably the Republican vice-presidential nominee least likely to be confused with Dick Cheney, in either a duck blind or the Situation Room. Even as an angry "hockey mom," it is impossible to imagine her browbeating CIA analysts to concoct new rationales for invading Iraq. It seems equally implausible that in a McCain-Palin administration, the vice president's office would be an outside-the-law power center running its own foreign policy. Palin is not a traditional vice-presidential nominee, but if elected she is apt to mark a return to a modest conception of the office that had been the butt of jokes for nearly two centuries.

I can easily imagine Palin bullying people into line. Less capable women have been very successful bullies over the past 8 years- Monica Goodling, anyone?

D. Aristophanes gets serious for a moment with a straight-up assessment at Sadly, No! And while I'm not sure the majority of voters appreciate the nuance, he makes a good point:

- They overplayed the ‘community organizer’ slam. The party that wants to shrink government says service outside of government is worthless? The only service worth anything is as an agent of the state? The Dems need to start talking up community work, church work, charity work, volunteering to coach youth sports, etc. Palin and McCain say Little League coaches and scout leaders and food drive volunteers aren’t doing anything useful?

Meyerson on the golden oldie theme of the evening, at the WaPo blog:

This is Republican Chestnut Night. The speakers’ attacks on the Democratic Party thus far are the very same that Ronald Reagan made 28 years ago, or Richard Nixon 40 years ago. “It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency!” Mitt Romney just vowed -- as if welfare reform had yet to happen. Romney chastised the government in Washington -- even the Supreme Court -- for charting a liberal course, seemingly forgetting who’s on the Court and which president put them there. A more partisan view of history hasn’t been heard from since Stalin wrote Trotsky out of the history of the Russian Revolution.

Over at the local paper, I ventured into the comments thread where people are IN LOVE with Palin's support for abstinence-only sex ed, because it's THE PARENT'S RESPONSIBILITY! And unwilling to question whether Sarah failed in her responsibility to teach her own daughter about birth control and the wisdom of waiting until you're an actual adult to become a parent.
Spoiler alert: if you support comprehensive sex-ed, you're obviously a nazi.

More than one webizen is wondering when teen pregnancy got so popular with the conservative base, by the way.

Sarah!

The writers devised some good, witty lines, and Palin, for her part, delivered them well. Much of the red-meat portion was lies and misrepresentations, of course, but it's a political speech, made at a rather desperate time.

The thing that nearly drove me over the edge was the cheering and screaming over her standard issue economic lines. Dems will tax you, Dems will make you lose your jobs, Dems will spend all kinds of crazy money.... and people eat that shit up.

I realize we are looking at THE Base here, the 27-30% of Americans who still think Bush is a GREAT president.

But my God, it is so obviously demonstrably patently WRONG to suggest that this country's economy is in better hands under Republicans.

Pop quiz: which two modern presidents have busted the biggest budgets and left office with the biggest deficits?

GWB and RONALD REAGAN

And under whose administrations does the middle class stand a chance at growth, while income inequality shrinks?

DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS.

I mean jesus, you fools: it's numbers. Why are they so hard to understand?

Update: It is true that when I graded her delivery, I didn't consider presidential points. I do think that anyone who came away thinking she sounded in the least bit Presidential really needs to examine some deeply personal issues.

Brokaw is, mercifully, reminding us that Republicans have held the power of the government for the past 8 years, with Dems holding a meager obstruction advantage for the past 2, so it's a bit cheeky for McCain and Co to run on any kind of reform agenda.

And I can't resist this, from the site of the Great Orange Satan:

From emailed comments

The best way to save the Republican Party now is to destroy it. In the marketplace of ideas, social conservatism is a viral infection contaminating the GOP. It represents an evolutionary dead-end whose logical conclusion is fascism if not outright totalitarianism.

Is it not obvious that the imposition of the evangelical ideology--any fundamentalist ideology for that matter--lies in direct opposition to a free people in a democratic land? Our Constitution, specifically the separation of church and state, no longer serves as a bulwark against the morality police, who seek to impose faith-based notions such as creationism upon those of us with rational minds.

Social conservatives aim to constrain freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom to pursue happiness. These freedoms live at the heart of an entrepreneurial and economically strong America.

No doubt, the diktat the social conservative movement wishes to impose upon ALL us Americans is antithetical to a free market system, and therefore exists as hypocrisy within the Republican platform. Privatize profits, socialize losses, and make religion the opiate of the masses.

Indeed, this has been a dark eight years of Orwellian doubletalk. Enough! I’m voting for Libertarian Bob Barr.

Another Sarah! update

John Thune (R- echo chamber) is sharing with Brokaw right now that America will really get a sense of Sarah Palin when she gives her speech tonight.

Really? Even though the speech was written for Romney?

Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch."

On the other hand, every now and again they get caught on an open mic:
Hear that "moderates"? Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy think Palin's a cynical, unqualified, image pick.

Update: Noonan would like to make clear (go to WSJ, I don't have the link) that when she called Palin's nomination "bullshit politics", she was merely hurting for dear Kay Baily Hutchison. Also note: Noonan is a water-carrying wanker.

P.O.W.

Since this campaign is, apparently, not about issues, but about fashion and POW status, I felt the need to share.

Regarding Sarah

If you want to keep up on Palin news, Talking Points Memo is probably the best place to bookmark. Such news is slow in coming, because the campaign has decided that shielding her entirely from the mic is their best bet right now, but there are muckrakers around the country digging up bits. Bits which go entirely unanswered by the campaign, which may be as telling as the bits themselves.

I'm going to quote one of their posts at length here, because it's a very very good one. Submitted to Josh from a friend:

Campbell Brown isn't the story - people are underestimating her, as they always have. No, the story is that Tucker Bounds went on national television without material to answer what is maybe the simplest, most straightforward follow-up question any reporter can ask: "What's your evidence for that assertion?" And I suspect that the reason they canceled Larry King is not to punish CNN (it doesn't work that way) it's that they still couldn't come up with an answer to the question by the time his show aired.
Now look at this comment from McCain honcho Steve Schmidt to Katie Couric last night: "Members of this campaign went to off-the-record lunches with reporters today, and they were asked if she would do paternity tests to prove paternity for her last child. Smear after smear after smear, and it's disgraceful and it's wrong. And the American people are going to reject it overwhelmingly when they see her."
First of all, that's the first time I've heard anyone in the campaign/political press throw out the notion of paternity tests. So Schmidt is to blame for bringing that issue into the mainstream. If anyone is smearing the candidate, it's Schmidt. This is as cynical a tactic as I've ever seen in politics.

Update: I made the mistake of turning on the teevee and checking the web at the same time, and I'm about to vomit.

The teevee is giving me (predictably) a slew of surrogates explaining why American Women Will Love Sarah Palin, and the "journalists" are buying into the mommy-wars-blame-the-media shit.

Meanwhile: why the fuck aren't they asking whether she has a preacher problem? What about whether she has a fringe-freak secessionist problem?

It is the economy; now let's ditch the stupid

I had a very interesting task assigned me a couple of months ago, by our friend Mack. He was preparing a paper for a Senate hearing on the futures trading market and whether speculation was driving up prices. He asked me to read the paper and make sure it was in English, essentially. That a reasonably smart person uninvolved with the markets could actually read the thing.

(I should disclaim before I go further that the analysis below is from my brain, not Mack's. He may or may not agree with what I have taken from this experience.)

I think the single most surprising part of this exercise for me was learning how much of the market is unregulated- the parts of the market that have brought the most staggering returns for a few people at the tops of their pyramids. The few people whom Alan Greenspan lauded for the "creative" products they packaged and sold, the very products which now are the most threatening to the stability of our economy. As explained on today's NYT opinion page:

Today, regulatory authority is divided among the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, state banking regulators and state insurance regulators. That’s too many players.
What’s more, this balkanized system supervises only half of the relevant financial universe. It neglects investment banks, hedge funds and institutions like mortgage companies that issue asset-backed securities. The assets of these unregulated entities total about $10 trillion — which is the same amount we see on the regulated side.
The unregulated institutions pose particular risks because they are highly leveraged and financed primarily through short-term money markets rather than customer deposits. And unlike big banks, many of them do not disclose their finances to the public.

This is something I didn't understand until I delved into Mack's paper, and I'll wager that most Americans don't, either.
The second most impressive thing that I took from reading this paper was not a surprise, but an illumination. The markets don't hold my interest the way, say, politics does, so I hadn't ever thought about it, but securities markets and commodities markets do not operate on the same principles.

Duh, says you. Well, sure. But the reason I hadn't thought much about it is that I'm not a commodities investor. My family is the typical passive investor model: 401ks that are diversified according to our choices, and if we buy anything else it's with a sort of Motley Fool philosophy: the market always, eventually goes up, so buy what you know and don't be afraid to hold, etc.
What I failed to realize is that the market doesn't just mean traditional securities anymore, it also includes securitized risks and futures, packaged and moved over from the commodities market.
And make no mistake: the passive investor doesn't belong in commodities. The futures market is not a hold and wait game, it is not a place for long term investment. It is not a place for Motley Fool readers. Mack likens it to a Nascar track, and the new investors (large funds that end up in, say, my 401k) are like little Ford Focuses with untrained drivers, jumping into the race without regard for the danger they're causing.

Many pundits have noted that in this election season the GOP is, in effect, asking Americans to just give their failed policies another chance. Forget accountability, they mean well, and if you can just ignore the past few years and our current realities and remember that they're the party of pragmatic no-waste government and personal responsibility, you'll see the very need to continue down their broken and debris-strewn path. Nowhere do they make this case louder than on the broad and complex topic of the economy.

They continue to broadcast that rewarding entrepreneurship (and what is Andrew Mozillo, if not an entrepreneur of the highest order) and trusting the "free" market will mean that we all can get rich- just watch the money flow and the trades grow. They toss around the threat of socialism. What they want you to fear is a country where government takes care of, and controls, the decisions of every citizen- which isn't socialism, they're actually invoking communism, but whatever.

What they want you to forget is that in this country, right now, industry's major losses are socialized for the greater good, and almost no responsibility assigned to the major players whose wealth is almost unimaginable to most of us, and whose decisions lead directly to the loss and collapse you and I pay for.

And they fail to point out that almost none of us know the rules of the game, and that once our playing dollars are gone to the guys who invented the rules and benefit most from them, we will also have to bail out their failures. In this game of Monopoly, our losing turns replenish the bank, which buys up the properties that the winners ditch after they take the Free Parking money. If we pass Go again, we try to buy up the bank's properties again. But the Free Parking guys always return, buy us out according to rules we still don't understand, and erect a bunch of hotels.

Again: many eminently more qualified than me have explained this very clearly, over and over again. It's time for all of us to start talking about the costs to the country and society, and to what sensible reform might look like. Which is why this NYT editorial today caught my eye.

I know Americans for the most part don't enjoy wonkiness. I know that sloganeering is employed throughout campaigns because it largely works. But the fact is, we are going to have to ignore the slogans of both parties and understand what a pickle we've found ourselves in, and demand some real reform in the regulation of the markets. Again, from the Times:

The next president must first create a single framework for the major financial borrowers, administered by the Federal Reserve alone. This wider regulatory umbrella should be more conservative. In particular, the minimum levels of capital and liquidity that financial institutions are required to maintain should be higher than they have been in recent years. And the institutions should put in place better and more detailed systems for reporting — internally as well as to regulators and the public — on all the risks they are taking.
These steps, as they make institutions more stable, will also reduce their financial leverage and thus their ability to generate earnings. Their managements won’t like it, but the institutions — and, indeed, the entire financial system and the Fed itself — will be less exposed when severe turbulence hits the financial markets again.
For its part, the S.E.C. should require that publicly owned financial institutions provide more data in their quarterly reports. Any risks that the institutions retain, whether on or off their balance sheets, should be disclosed. And they should better explain the methods they use to determine the values of their own assets.
To fulfill its wider supervisory role, the Fed should also be given the authority to collect data from firms that are not publicly owned, including hedge funds and commodities trading firms.
Finally, much stronger restrictions should be imposed on the kinds of predatory mortgage-lending practices that preceded this crisis. The Fed recently proposed new rules for banks that would, for example, require better verification of borrowers’ income and reduce onerous prepayment penalties. These rules should be applied to all mortgage lenders. For those institutions not managed by the Fed, the rules should be enforced by other federal agencies or state banking regulators.

A key political factor is in the 2nd paragraph above. Tightening up regulation will mean that management at the top of these institutions will have a tougher time generating earnings. They will fight hard, should any reform package be placed on the table. We will be told that the proposed regulation "inhibits entrepreneurship" and is therefore Anti-American.

But we're going to need to ask ourselves, when we talk about entrepreneurship and the American Dream, are we talking about imagination and creativity and earned rewards, or carpet bagging?

It seems to me that any system that enriches the very, very few and then corrects their failures with public money is an example of the latter. And I hope this country is grown-up enough to ditch the slogans and face that.

End note: Mack was, ultimately, depressed by the results of the Senate hearing. The results, he said, were just shallow talking points and didn't address complex market realities at all. So if the hearing was any indication of our readiness to ditch the fluff and pursue reform, it didn't bode well.

Unsurprisingly, the hearing was chaired by neo-Republican hero, Joe Lieberman.