Multi Medium

Wait… What?

Marc Ambinder explains why Evan Bayh quit:

Bayh is an anomaly of sorts; he really grew to dislike the influence of liberal activists on his Senate colleagues. To him, these activists increased the cost of doing business. Reaching out to the other side became more risky than rallying around an ideological pole, even though that rallying around contributed to stasis. When it became clear to Bayh that the White House wasn’t going to play his game — wasn’t going to sell out liberals at every turn — Bayh decided he had had enough.

What on Earth is he talking about?  In what universe do liberal activists have influence on the Senate?  In what universe is Obama not selling us out at every turn?

This is a great time to be a conservative Democrat: You have a President and a Majority Leader who will bend over backwards to give you whatever you want, even if it means gutting the President’s signature objectives and campaign promises, and you’re quitting? It’s like Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman walking away because they don’t think they have enough influence.

Add comment February 17th, 2010 at 11:24am Posted by Eli

Epic Analogy Fail

So Tucker Carlson’s conservative answer to the Huffington Post kicked off today, because if there’s the net doesn’t have enough of, it’s aggregations of right-wing wankers.  Exhibit A:

Legalized rape. What’s that you say? Rape isn’t sanctioned in this country? Then you must not live in a city with red-light or speed cameras, where it happens every day. Forget for a second that in one-fourth of all automated ticket cases, the ticketed  car owner wasn’t the one actually driving the vehicle at the time of the infraction (what other crime-fighting technology do we consider reliable that nabs the wrong person 25 percent of the time?) Just as heinous is that every year, more and more municipal governments pretend that they plant these all-seeing menaces in the interest of “safety.” Yet every year, their revenues tend to  increase from the very same technology. Meaning that the only deterrent effect the technology has is deterring your government from being honest about raping its own citizenry. If you’re going to slide me a roofie, Government, at least take me to dinner and a movie first.

Of course, this is both ridiculous and offensive.  Automated ticketing is nothing at all like rape – it’s more like the Holocaust.

Also, isn’t the GOP supposed to be the Law And Order “civil rights and due process are for pussies” party, or does that only apply to offenses committed by minorities and poor people?  Maybe these automated ticketing systems simply need to use some kind of cross-reference database so that they don’t send any tickets to rich white people, who were probably in a very legitimate hurry to do important rich white people things.  Or drunk.

Add comment January 11th, 2010 at 06:43pm Posted by Eli

A Day Without Bitching Is Like A Day Without Sunshine

Hey, you know what would be the awfullest thing ever?  If we got single-payer healthcare, EFCA, ENDA, gay marriage, strong financial and environmental regulations, an end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and prosecutions for all of BushCo’s criminals.  Why, us backseat bitchers wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves and would all become very sad.

So, to sum up Tweety’s argument:

o The netroots don’t really have anything substantive to complain about, we just complain for the sheer joy of complaining.

o The netroots never actually take any kind of action, just sit around and complain.  (Now, if he wanted to argue that we’re not nearly as effective at moving Congress or Obama than multimillion-dollar corporate donors and Fox News, I would probably have to concede that point.)

o The netroots know nothing about governance or campaigning, even though many of its members have run for office and/or worked in government for years.

o The people who actually do run our country have an abundance of both the desire and the knowledge to govern it, and are not just facilitating its continued looting by the aforementioned multimillion-dollar corporate donors.

o As usual, the Village and our professional political class are Serious; the netroots are Not.

That about cover it?

Add comment December 17th, 2009 at 06:54pm Posted by Eli

Come To Think Of It, I’ve Never Seen Them Together…

The resemblance is uncanny!

If only I had the juice (and cash) of sick, bloviating, untethered-from-reality-and-the truth Glenn Beck! The New York Times Opinionator Tobin Harshaw compares my call to shut down the gAyTM to the radical, racist, bigoted diatribes of Glenn Beck. His reasoning?

“We know that hard-line conservatives are riled up. But so are hard-left Democrats and their gay allies.”

Who knew my statement was equivalent to the nut-teabaggers and a radical call to arms:

(…)

She offers a call to arms along the lines of MoveOn’s:

I don’t know about you, but at the very least, it’s a peek at the kind the two-timing that goes on in national politics with constituencies they find “troublesome” or a perceived “liability” (save the $$$, of course). The difference is that the peek inside makes you realize how easily you’ve been had …Shut the gAyTM down; only give directly to candidates and organizations you believe are truly working in your best interest. Not a penny to the DNC; it’s the only leverage you have as an average citizen. The big donors in our community have to take a stand on this kind of nonsense, otherwise, they are enabling this kind of treatment of our community. It’s party-building at our expense each and every time …

Pam, you may not like to hear it, but that last line could just as easily have come from Glenn Beck. Just goes to show: it may be entertaining to watch your enemies rip themselves apart, but you might just want to keep an eye on the guy to your left.

What.

Apparently, saying “Let’s stop giving money to people who repeatedly take advantage of us” is exactly the same as saying that the president hates white people, organizing hate rallies, and rolling out a new insane black-UN-helicopters-are-trying-to-fluoridate-our-water-for-one-world-government conspiracy theory every night.  Who knew?

Add comment November 9th, 2009 at 09:01pm Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Anonymous White House “adviser” (and probably Obama, if this is an accurate reflection).

So does this mean that President Obama thinks Candidate Obama is part of the “internet left fringe”?

UPDATE: Well, at least the White House is saying the right thing now – I guess they’ve decided that maybe they shouldn’t go out of their way to antagonize the netroots any more than they already have.  That’s nice.

Add comment October 12th, 2009 at 10:06am Posted by Eli

Refreshing!

Chris Bowers has a somewhat different, but equally positive, take from mine on Alan Grayson kicking the Republicans’ ass:

Usually when Republicans and conservative media join together to throw a coordinated hissy fit against something “outrageous” a Democrat has said, it resulted in apologies (John Kerry in 2006), resignations (Van Jones) and public condemnations in Congress (MoveOn.org). Yesterday, however, Republicans actually backed down from their hissy fit when Rep. Alan Grayson stood up to them. Even as Grayson intensified his rhetoric, Republicans withdrew their resolution to condemn him on the House floor.

That just does not happen often enough.  Grayson laughed in their faces instead of cringing and begging for forgiveness, and it worked out pretty well.  Bowers goes on to point out Grayson’s specific tactics, which are very shrewd and, in fact, rather similar to those used very effectively by the Republicans themselves, i.e., use the firestorm of attention to your advantage, and rely on your outside messaging help in the media and the blogosphere.

It is a landmark moment for a freshman Democrat from a marginal, R+2 district to win a rhetorical fight with the Republican smear machine like this. Hopefully, it will become a teachable moment for other Democrats in Congress.

God, I hope so.  Imagine a world where all Democrats understand that the only way to make Republicans stop beating them up is to stand their ground and hit back.  I wonder if it’s too late to train Harry Reid…

2 comments October 1st, 2009 at 06:42pm Posted by Eli

Who Watches The Watchmen?

In the process of taking Joe Klein to the woodshed for being a tool and impugning his patriotism, Glenn Greenwald sums up in a few paragraphs what I’ve been trying to say for the past few years:

Establishment journalists have a very significant impact on the world.  They enthusiastically believe that to be true when it comes time to building their egos and establishing their own importance, but they instantly and emphatically deny it when it comes time to holding them accountable for what they do (don’t you have anything better to do than criticize the media?).  Their influence, thankfully, has eroded and continues to erode by the minute, but it’s still substantial.  That’s why entire industries exist, and vast resources are expended by the powerful and wealthy, to manage, manipulate and control what they say.

What they do and how they think matters.  They’re the filters through which the citizenry hears about and understands the actions of the government.  They can illuminate or deceive, disrupt or enable wrongdoing by the powerful, refute or amplify propaganda, expand or narrow the scope of accepted ideas.  They play a major role in whether we start wars, torture people, live under lawless leaders, maintain massive wealth disparities, allow a tiny group of corporations to own and control government. They constantly go on TV.  Their claims are aired to millions.  They’re given access to the most powerful people.  They’re the public face and voice of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world. They’re paid a lot of money.

It’s every bit as legitimate — and as vital — to hold them accountable as it is political officials themselves.  Far more than they are “outsiders,” they are now appendages of — spokespeople for — the political and financial establishment itself, as much as a Cabinet Secretary or White House Chief of Staff or an official in a large corporation.  I don’t see “political officials” and “establishment journalists” as two separate groups; I view them as merged, with the latter being important facilitators of (servants to) the former (which is why they’re able so easily to switch from one to the other).  That’s why I write as much as I do about media behavior.  What I learned from the very first political controversy on which I worked intensely as a blogger (the warrantless eavesdropping scandal) — when establishment pundits (including Klein) rushed forward virtually in unison to insist that Bush had done nothing wrong by breaking the law — media behavior can’t be extricated from any issue.  It shapes and determines all of them.

The media are supposed to be one of the critical mechanisms of accountability in this country, explaining and exposing the activities of corporations and government.  But they have become their willing agents instead (although they generally only protect the government so long as the government is acting to preserve corporate interests).  So now we are in the rather absurd position of requiring an accountability mechanism for our accountability mechanism.  Awesome.

(Parenthetical thought: In a sane and just world with a straight-shooting media, would George W. Bush be an even remotely electable presidential candidate?)

Add comment September 1st, 2009 at 10:00pm Posted by Eli

Fun Times At Netroots Nation

It was a pretty eventful evening tonight.  First I rescued El Medico Dean, whose handler called Marcy Wheeler in a panic because they got lost on the way to Democracy For America Happy Hour, and I was able to successfully direct them where they had to go.  Not as easy as it sounds – I’m not a native Pittsburgher, and downtown by the river isn’t an area I’m real familiar with.  (Gregg recommended that I embellish the story, so I considered saying that Dean called me personally, in tears, but decided against it.)

After that, it was on to PNC Park for batting practice and shagging fly balls, which was AWESOME.  My batting was Epic Fail (only made weak contact with one pitch), but I always need a lot of tuning before I can hit worth a damn.  After shaking the fielding rust off, I was able to return to my usual softball form, which is, well, still pretty awful.  The highlight was falling over backward and hitting my head on the warning track catching a fly ball, but I did catch it.  I shagged for about two hours, and now my feet are very stinky… and I’m still fishing outfield dirt out of my hair.

Also, I’ve been on C-Span twice now, once taking pictures at the Clinton keynote, and once packing up and leaving Christy’s panel as they showing everything winding down.  I can also be seen walking away in this photo here – that’s me in my favorite green bowling shirt walking away, upper middle.

Oh, and I made my hotel reservations for my baby sister’s wedding.  W00t!!!

6 comments August 14th, 2009 at 11:13pm Posted by Eli

Sara Robinson Wants The Right-Wing To Declare Themselves

She appears to be a teensy bit irritated with their nudge-nudge-wink-wink game of inciting hatred and then indignantly denying all responsibility when that hatred turns into violence.

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer — and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don’t insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are — and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this — but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did.

(…)

If your answer is yes, then stop this cowardly half-assed screwing around. You speak the language of war and honor; but the honor code of the warriors you pretend to revere demands that you declare your intentions. If you really believe that the only way to get the America you want is to negate a fair election, shred the Constitution, and violently cleanse the country of everyone who doesn’t agree with you, then man up and get on with it. If it’s a shooting war you want, do not doubt that there are plenty of progressives who will oblige you. If this goal is so important that you’re really willing to kill for it, please don’t forget that you will also need to be willing to die for it. Because, like martyrs Greg McKendry and Steven Johns proved, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to stop you.

If your answer is no, then you have just one other choice. Knock off the tantrums, grow up, rebuild your party, come back to the table, and sit down and govern with us. (We know this will be a stretch, but we think some of you are capable of it.) You will need to learn, many of you for the first time, to get your way as adults do — without fear-based politics, polarizing rhetoric, on-air threats against those who disagree with you, and repeating outrageous lies in the face of stone facts and irrefutable evidence.

And most of all: you need to stop feeding the crazies. You need to disavow them in every way possible — sincerely, emphatically, and with full awareness that every time one of these people acts, it destroys the credibility of “conservatives,” “Republicans,” and “the right wing” in the eyes of the country. You cannot assassinate your way back to power. And don’t doubt for a moment that the majority of Americans — even those who agree with your ideas — will abandon your cause forever once it realizes that’s what you’re trying to do.

Since you’re the ones funding the violent radicals on your flank, you need to stop sending them money. Since you know far more about their activities than any one else, you need to be the ones who turn them in. Since you’re the ones who make heroes and martyrs out of them, you need to be the ones who call them out as criminals. Until you do this — consistently, wholeheartedly, and responsibly — we can only conclude that these assassins are operating with your support and approval, and that you are intentionally trying to start an armed revolution in America.

There’s a lot more great stuff in the middle, so read the whole thing.  It’s very hard to believe the right wing’s protestations of innocence when they do so little to dampen or repudiate the crazies.

Add comment June 12th, 2009 at 09:13pm Posted by Eli

Website Of The Month

Awkward Family Photos.com.

Wow.

(h/t Wonkette by way of WT)

Add comment May 12th, 2009 at 07:43am Posted by Eli

We Don’t Get French Benefits

Mark Penn is always wrong:

Mark Penn has commentary up at the Wall Street Journal. Good heavens. For 1250 words, it sure is an intellectually lazy piece of crap.

Penn attempts to assert this:

In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters.

The way he arrives at this assertion is the craziest math I’ve seen come from Penn since he thought the Democratic Presidential Primaries were winner take all. I’m beginning to think his strategy skills and math skills are on par with each other.

Here is his stream of numbers:

The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That’s almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click — whether on their site or someone else’s.

Lane then goes on to explain why the idea that hundreds of thousands of people are making a living off their blogs is complete bullshit, but really, most people who follow the blogosphere already know that – Lane’s pretty much just trying to figure out how Penn arrived at his bullshit numbers.

I just can’t understand what Penn’s angle is here.  Is he just trying to show off his Deep Understanding Of The Online World, or is this some kind of elaborate ratfuck of the blogosphere?  Making the case that we’re paid corporate shills?  That we don’t need any additional support?  What?

For what it’s worth, I have no plans or expectations to make money off of my blog.  I’d be pretty screwed if I did…

4 comments April 21st, 2009 at 10:28pm Posted by Eli

Integrity

Glennzilla points out that unlike conservatives, progressive bloggers have stayed true to their principles by attacking Obama’s screwups instead of rationalizing them.  Critics, not apologists or sycophants.

I wish we weren’t given so many opportunities, but I’m proud to be on the team that didn’t sell out its core values.

Add comment March 25th, 2009 at 07:32am Posted by Eli

How Bill O’Reilly Stands Up For Rape Victims

…By harassing bloggers who repeat terrible, hurtful things… that Bill O’Reilly said about them:

On March 1, ThinkProgress picked up on a story by News Hounds, which noted that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly — who has made controversial comments about rape victims in the past — was slated to speak at a March 19 fundraiser for the Alexa Foundation. The group is committed to supporting rape survivors.

Our post — which never criticized the Alexa Foundation — highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2 about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.

(…)

This weekend, while on vacation, I was ambushed by O’Reilly’s top hit man, producer Jesse Watters, who accosted me on the street and told me that because I highlighted O’Reilly’s comments, I was causing “pain and suffering” to rape victims and their families. He of course offered no proof to back up this claim, instead choosing to shout questions at me.

All those rape victims were just starting to put their lives back together, mercifully unaware of what BillO said about them, until those horrible woman-hating women at Think Progress blew the whistle.  Such compassion BillO has, that he feels their pain so acutely that he has to send his goons out to attack more women!

That is some seriously ballsy spin, right up there with when the administration claimed it was suppressing the second wave of Abu Ghraib photos to protect the torture victims from embarrassment.

And that’s without even delving into the fact that Watters and his cameraman actually staked out Amanda Terkel’s house and followed her car for two hours before ambushing her and her friend.  No, that’s not creepy or stalkerish at all.  And also not at all in complete violation of O’Reilly’s own policies, which are worth less than the airwaves they’re insincerely bloviated on.

2 comments March 23rd, 2009 at 07:37pm Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Mat Bai just radiates smugness.  And contempt for bloggers.

Hindman’s data backs up what should be obvious about the political blogs, for instance–that they are populated by a small and fairly homogenous group of people who constitute their own kind of political elite. The founder of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, is a law school graduate who lives in Berkeley; the lead blogger on FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher, used to be the Hollywood producer of such family films as “Natural Born Killers”; Chris Bowers, the signature voice of Open Left, is (or at least was when I first met him) a graduate student in sociology. To suggest that the voices of 100 or so prominent bloggers of similar pedigree represent some new, more inclusive voice of the American everyman–which is what the bloggers themselves like to profess–is just fantasy.

And Jon Stewart is a wealthy TV personality… who channeled Everyman’s frustrated rage to utterly demolish the insidery, self-dealing, stock market cheerleaders at CNBC.  The problem with the Village isn’t so much who they are or what kinds of backgrounds they have – it’s who and what they care about, which is themselves and the establishment status quo.  When the supposedly elitist liberal bloggers start writing about how valuable corporations and rich people and the military-intelligence complex are, and how we can’t afford to hold them back, then I’ll start tuning them out.

Add comment March 16th, 2009 at 06:50am Posted by Eli

The Republicans’ Alternate Reality

Everyone should read the whole thing, but here’s the money part:

For going on seventy years the National Republican Party has consoled itself, sustained itself, and kept itself alive by telling itself and anyone who will listen an alternative history of the United States.  In this alternative history the New Deal didn’t do any good at all, the Cold War was fought and won entirely by super-patriotic Republicans, welfare not racism or systemic poverty destroyed the African-American family, anyway racism ended when Martin Luther King’s birthday became a national holiday (alternative to the alternative: racism ended with the election of Barack Obama), the 1960s are the root of all evil, the hippies and the liberals lost the War in Vietnam, 9/11 was Bill Clinton’s fault, the financial crisis was Bill Clinton’s fault, Barack Obama is turning America into a socialist dictatorship.

….The Party was taken over by the most retrograde and selfish members of its Big Business wing, which is to say by its would-be aristocrats who had to make common cause with Right Wing extremists, religious fundamentalists, and Southern racists in order to put together enough votes to win elections.  These groups had and have only one thing in common, a belief that they are the only rightful inhabitants of America and inheritors of its blessings and that everybody else is out to take away their privileges and wealth.  They are the people who self-identify as conservative, although there is nothing they want to conserve.  They are reactionaries who want to turn back time to a mythical golden age in which they ran things to their liking without any complaint or criticism from “the others.”    And as reactionaries, as people at war with progress and enlightenment, they have been on the wrong side of history since the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.  They need there to have been an alternative history of the United States in order for there to be a history in which they are not the villains and losers.

They need a history in which they would not have supported King George’s right to treat the Colonies however he wished, a history in which they would not have defended slavery, a history in which they would not have pursued their own selfish business interests at the expense of the nation’s interests and caused the Great Depression, in which they would not have argued that Hitler and Mussolini were doing some great things and maybe we could use some of their efficiency here, a history in which they would not have been cheering for a drunken demagogue as he terrified the nation and ruined countless lives with his lies, a history in which they would not have opposed the Civil Rights movement, a history in which they did not vote for a feckless and incompetent swaggering bully for President and cheer him on as he bankrupted the treasury, took us to war unnecessarily and then lost the war, let Osama bin-Laden get away, broke the Government’s regulatory system, allowed the banksters to loot and wreck the country, and, incidentally, played air guitar and went to birthday parties while a great American city sank into the poisoned water and people died waiting for him to help.

They need an American history in which their selfishness and resentments are justified and in which they, as the inheritors of an anti-democratic philosophy of government and economics that preaches that the single-minded pursuit of individual power and wealth leads to heaven on earth, are the true heirs of Washington and Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

They need an alternative history in which being angry, selfish, resentful, greedy, and defensive of nothing but their own right to be angry, selfish, resentful, and greedy is the definition of patriotism and in which instead of standing in the way of progress it’s the way to bring it about.

They need an alternative history in which acting as though the equation whatever I want = what’s best for America is true is not like insisting 2 + 2= 5.

(…)

[W]hat Jindal really did the other night was go before the American people and promise that the next time the Republicans get control of the government they will do they same stupid and evil things they did the last time.

They will let the nation drown and rot the way they let New Orleans drown and rot and then blame it on the Liberals.

Not much I can add to that.  Turning selfishness and hate into patriotic virtues is pretty much the hallmark of modern conservatism.

(h/t Julia)

Add comment March 1st, 2009 at 09:23pm Posted by Eli

Stimulus Perspective

Michael Bérubé offers a spot-on analogy for the difference between the Republican and Democratic approaches to dealing with the economic crisis.

Fighting fire with fire, indeed.

Add comment February 17th, 2009 at 07:04am Posted by Eli

Wingnut Welfare Reform

Oh, what a terrible depressing shame:

As the end of the first quarter approaches and we near the production phase of Pajamas TV, we will continue to build our emphasis in this area. As a result we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network effective March 31, 2009. The PJM portal and the XPressBlogs will continue as is.

Since our ad relationship continues for the time being, you should note that in order to be paid for the 1st quarter of 2009, you must leave the current Pajamas ads up until 12:01AM April 1. We will be sending you information in mid-March on removing the ads. As of April 1, 2009, you will be free to arrange syndication or re-sale deals.

We thank you very much for participating during the formative years of Pajamas Media and we look forward to working with you in other ways. One of those is, of course, Pajamas TV. If you have any ideas in that regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Our best wishes in the new year and again our deepest gratitude for your participation in Pajamas Media.

Sincerely,

Roger L. Simon

CEO, Pajamas Media

What this means is that as of April 1, I am officially out of work. So save going to a pay model, this site will likely have to shut down.

Small price to pay for helping PJM pick up an audience and credibility during its “formative years.”

It’s so unfair!  All those bloggers who shilled for the party of self-reliance and personal responsibility now have to go out and find actual jobs!  Oh, the indignity!

If only they had a sugardaddy like Soros who would support them through thick and thin like us lucky ducky liberals do.  (Yes, they actually believe that.)

5 comments January 31st, 2009 at 02:28pm Posted by Eli

Ian Welsh States The Depressingly Obvious

Every year, it gets increasingly more difficult to believe that our government really gives a damn about ordinary people as anything other than a source of contributions and votes.  Maybe a Democratic president and heavily Democratic Congress will start to change that, but I’m not super-optimistic.

So, let’s summarize: in exchange for 7 billion and some warrants that may never pay back, the government put itself on the hook for 250 billion dollars.  For 20 billion dollars or maybe a bit more, the government could have simply bought out Citigroup.

Now, it would make no sense for a private investor to buy Citi, but if the government has decided that it will never let Citi fail, and it’s hard to read the Citi bailout any other way, then it’s already on the hook for all of Citi’s debts anyway.  And if it is, then there is no downside to owning Citi: it gets all the upside if it turns Citigroup around, after all—not just a few warrants, but the ability to issue stock and pay dividends when it chooses, to itself.  There’s no taxpayer protection like that.

Add that to the fact that the current management of Citigroup is clearly incompetent, and there’s no reason not to take over Citi.  And with Citi under control, one of the world’s largest banks, the government could have used it as a policy instrument, having it lend in the overnight market at the rates the government determines, having it give out credit directly to consumers and businesses at government rates and so on.

So, Citi should have been taken over.  There was no reason not to, and every reason to do so, unless the first concern was to make sure executives kept their jobs rather than that Citi be viable, taxpayers be protected and the credit logjam be broken.

I’m sure that couldn’t possibly be it…

GM’s market cap as of this writing is slightly under 3 billion dollars.  Having GM go under would very likely bring down both Chrysler and Ford, because shared suppliers would go under at the same time.  Job losses would be in the 2 million to 3 million range.  GM going under could quite possibly turn a very bad recession into an actual depression.

Which is to say, in real economic terms, GM is just as much “too big to fail” as Citigroup is.  The question here is not “how much is it going to cost”, the question is “are we willing to let it fail?”  If the government really is, after throwing trillions at the financial industry, and the travesty of Citigroup, then the government is so captured by the financial interests who donate to it that it is no longer capable of looking after the interests of all Americans, but only key donors.

We have seen this again and again, where both parties go along with absolutely terrible, unjustifiable policies solely because their big donors demand it.  This is why telecom immunity was shoved into the FISA update virtually unopposed, why we got draconian “bankruptcy reform,” why we don’t have universal healthcare or a green economy or safe air, water, food, drugs, or workplaces.  Because a few corporations with a lot of money speak far louder than hundreds of thousands, even millions, of ordinary citizens screaming at the top of their lungs.

The number 1 rule of the financial crisis so far has been that the people who caused it must be left in charge of everything.

That about sums it up.

Maybe Obama and the Democrats are willing to buck their big corporate donors for the sake of the country, but I haven’t really seen a whole lot of evidence of it so far.  They have been far too accommodating to Bush’s wishes over the last eight years, even well after public opinion turned overwhelmingly against him.

Prove me wrong.  Show me something.  Please.

3 comments December 3rd, 2008 at 10:36pm Posted by Eli

Wait… What?

He can NOT be serious:

Check this post out by John Hinderaker. I know he adores President Bush and thinks he’s a genius and all, but this is a remarkable post.

The Importance of Being Careful

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly.

He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

Hinderaker actually believes this. It’s weird because most Conservatives do believe that Obama’s communication skills served him quite well during the election process. I guess he also missed this latest polling data that says Bush is leaving office more unpopular than Richard Nixon.

What presidency was Hinderaker watching???

5 comments November 11th, 2008 at 07:14pm Posted by Eli

What Bob Geiger Said.

You do not get to posture about how you support the troops and Democrats don’t, when you turn around and stab troops and veterans in the back every single chance you get.

Wankers.

Add comment November 11th, 2008 at 12:42pm Posted by Eli

This Just In

Barack Obama not actually a socialist.

Try to contain your amazement.

9 comments November 9th, 2008 at 10:09pm Posted by Eli

Obama And The Arab Blogosphere

The NYT op-ed page has a fascinating selection of Arab blog reactions to Obama’s victory, ranging from Hooray for America to Big deal, America will still treat us like dirt:

Tamem, Egypt (tamem.wordpress.com)

The victory of Barack Hussein Obama that we, along with the rest of the world, are witnessing today is another historic moment, not just for America but for the whole world by virtue of America’s huge influence, whether we like it or not. Personally I, like others, doubted Americans’ ability to overcome racism, but in electing “Abu Hussein,” they created a historic moment by accepting the first black president to govern not just America but the white West as a whole. With this, they removed all such doubts and the impossible dream of Martin Luther King became possible.

Syrian Dream, Syria (syriandream.com)

The world arose today to welcome Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States, and Africa danced with joy.

The whole world is optimistic about what he offers but doubts remain about him, a great question mark.

What will Syria’s fate be under him? Will he give the green light to bombing us?

(…)

Esra’a, Bahrain (mideastyouth.com)

I can honestly say that we can finally wave goodbye to the overwhelming anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry that we have suffered with for the past eight years under the Bush administration. We can expect less wars, less corruption, less political abuse. It won’t be perfect, but it will get better. I am so happy and proud of all the Americans who worked extremely hard for Obama, understanding fully well the importance of change in every sense of the word. This moment is not just historical but crucial to us here in the Middle East.

This is a win for all of us, not just America.

This is a win for civil rights and justice.

For all the pessimists out there, allow us to enjoy this moment. If you learned anything from this campaign, you would learn that it starts with hope — not cynicism. And hope is what I have right now, for America and the Middle East.

We can do it, and this time, we can be sure that we can do it together.

I haven’t said this in a really long time, but I am loving America right now.

(…)

Mashrabeya, Egypt (mashrabeya.blogspot.com)

Only time would tell if Obama is real, or just too good to be true!

Sometimes, it is not enough to have a Big Dream. What matters is to have enough strength to resist the pressures to give up a Big Dream!

Land and People, Lebanon (landandpeople.blogspot.com)

My take on this is that he is the president of the United States, and not Barack Obama. That said, I would really like to hope for change. After all, Obama showed that change was possible: he himself changed from a supporter of Palestinian rights into a man who believes that Jerusalem is the historic capital of Israel. He also changed during his campaign from “No Iraq war for me please, I’m trying to quit” into “All right I’ll have some, but a tiny piece please.”

(…)

But the question that really interests me is about the relationship between Obama and the true center of world power, Kapital. There was an awful lot of money in Obama’s campaign … A great chunk must have come from carefully planned investments by C.E.O.’s and multinationals. Will Obama be able to confront the mega-corporations? Does he want to? The poor and the colored population of the world, including that of the U.S., is the one that suffers most from malnutrition and hunger and food insecurity. We know now that mega-corporations, pushing for more profit at any cost, are responsible for most of the damage. Will Obama do something about that? Does he want to? Can he?

An Arab Woman Blues, Iraq (arabwomanblues.blogspot.com)

(…)

I also said that Obama will strike a deal with Ahmadinejad on Iraq and in particular southern Iraq.

And lo and behold, the vice president for the booma Obama is none other than J. Biden. J. Biden, the Zionist, is an ardent supporter of the partition of Iraq into three statelets. No wonder Maliki & Co. were also backing the booma along with Iran. I also know that Iran had generously contributed to the Obama campaign.

… I shall not congratulate you on your 44th president. He will simply finish off what the other Zionists had started — the final partition of my country.

To hell with all of you and all of your presidents.

Neurotic Iraqi Wife, Iraq (neurotic-iraqi-wife.blogspot.com)

For me, this is not just about history, this is about someone who was able to bring down the very people that broke my country. It’s a great punch to the very people that destroyed the individual Iraqi. And that to me is an enough victory.

I will only have to say to Mr. Obama, don’t let us down.

There’s a lot of hope, but also a lot of well-earned bitterness and cynicism.  I think the reality is probably going to be somewhere in the middle.  I don’t think Obama will stray outside the bounds of our historical Middle East foreign policy, but he also won’t be nearly as callous or malevolent towards Arabs and Muslims as his predecessor.

It won’t be The Dawning Of A Brand New Day in American foreign policy, but at least we won’t be trying to rule by fear and gratuitous violence.  Who knows, we might even stop bombing weddings.

Add comment November 8th, 2008 at 09:10pm Posted by Eli

I Was Wondering About That…

Namely, why is Lieberman so keen to hold onto a committee chair that he never actually did anything with?

Reid offered Lieberman a chance to stay in the Democratic caucus, keep his seniority, and become the chairman of some other committee. Lieberman thinks that’s “unacceptable” and reportedly “begged” to stay on as chairman of Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

(…)

This seems to be routinely overlooked, but take a moment to consider what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs actually does: it’s the committee principally responsible for oversight of the executive branch. It’s an accountability committee, charged with investigating the conduct of the White House and the president’s administration.

As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman’s House counterpart — Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee — was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.

And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn’t used? I’ll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.

Lieberman didn’t want to hold Bush accountable, but he seems exceedingly anxious to keep the committee that would go after Obama with a vengeance, effectively becoming a Waxman-like figure — holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching investigations against the Democratic president.

Lieberman doesn’t care about “reconciliation,” he cares about going after a Democratic administration. Why else would he fight diligently to be chairman of one committee instead of another?

This sounds exactly right, and exactly in character for a self-righteous, vindictive little prick like Lieberman.  I would love to see Obama magnanimously “reach out” to Lieberman to offer him a non-critical cabinet position.  Governor Rell would appoint a Republican, but consider:

1) We would get Lieberman out the Senate, out of the Democratic caucus, and out of his committee assignments (where he counts against the Democratic allotment of seats) four years early.

2) We would get a real Democrat into that seat two years early, as I doubt that Lieberman’s Republican replacement could get re-elected in CT.

…Or the Democrats could just kick him out of their caucus and let him scrounge a committee seat from the Republicans.

(h/t Phoenix Woman)

2 comments November 7th, 2008 at 10:40pm Posted by Eli

Hearts Of Darkness

Paul Krugman, predicting that the GOP will get smaller and uglier:

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.

The RNC, winning hearts and minds:

On Monday afternoon, the RNC blasted out a complaint from the California Republican Party charging that “Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use” for the trip. That proposed issue for the FEC to investigate is one of five violations alleged by California Republicans in their complaint (which you can read in its entirety here).

“Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund,” said California Republican Chairman Ron Nehring in a statement Monday.

Brilliant timing, guys. Classy.

But that’s nothing compared to the crazy hate-filled Republican base.  The people who compare Obama to a monkey, shout “Terrorist!”, “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” at McCain/Palin rallies, who kill innocent animals to express their hatred of Democrats, and who are now actually suggesting that Obama might have murdered his own grandmother to win sympathy votes.

TruthMonger: she was probably fine just a few days ago

and then “suddenly” and “mysteriously” took a turn for the worst – and it just happens to be great sympathetic press in the home stretch!

Lame Cherry:…Cynics in the PUMA branch will wonder if they dripped up Gram on morphine today to make her a public sympathy vote.

Dirjj: I’m of 2 minds here. On one side, I feel sad for her passing, on the other side, I wonder how much of this was orchestrated.

Face it. According to media reports 2 weeks ago, she was hospitalized with a broken hip, or something of that nature. One minute, she was terminal, and the next, it was nothing….

I would never put it past Obama, or the Democrats to “orchestrate” the passing of anyone for political gain. I’m already wondering what the Nevada Campaign Manager did wrong.

counterpunch: Cancer patients usually pass away from a planned terminal sedation.
This may be the first politically timed terminal sedation ever, though.

longtermmemmory: prayers for the humanity but

suspicion for the “right on cue.”

trust but verify as the great one said.

Frantzie: A PUMA in my office said she died last week and that this is a set up.

nikos1121: Did he have power of attorney over her? Did he decide to stop any kind of life support?

So will the Republican Party go down the crazy base land rabbit hole, or will they realize just how badly they’ve overplayed the hate card?  If Krugman’s right, the saner Republicans are the ones who are losing their jobs – and that won’t exactly make it easy for them to steer the party in the right direction.

3 comments November 3rd, 2008 at 09:59pm Posted by Eli

Do Not Read This

Chris Bowers explaining why Obama has it in the bag.

You still have to get out and vote to make it actually happen, people.

Add comment October 31st, 2008 at 07:23am Posted by Eli

Wait… What?

That’s A for Anne, it’s not by a elk.

Ann Althouse is actually less insightful than Anne Elk.  Altercation’s third Quote Of The Day:

You know, just because the thing I saw wasn’t there doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there that I didn’t see.

Alrighty then.  Glad we could clear that up.

(h/t dakine)

1 comment October 28th, 2008 at 11:22pm Posted by Eli

Memo To LCV: It’s “Conservation,” Not “Conservative.”

Stoller observe that the League of Conservation Voters are, not to put too fine a point on it, wankers:

I wanted to look at… whether according to their own criteria the League of Conservation voters is fair to Democrats.  The LCV scorecard is the major scorecard for the environmental movement, this is their measure of how friendly to the environment a candidate is, a selection of key votes that set goals for the large and sprawling set of green groups.  So one would expect them to treat all candidates the same and judge them strictly according to votes (with some wiggle room based on the type of district).  If you are a Democrat and the LCV endorses a Republican, too bad, the Republican is good on the environment and LCV looks at politicians without fear, favor, or partisanship.  We wanted to test whether that’s actually how LCV operates.

(…)

Basically, what the data suggests is that LCV has two sets of standards, one for Democrats, who have to meet a certain bar for support, and one for Republicans, who have to meet a lower bar for support.

Democratic Mean LCV lifetime score: 88
Republican Mean LCV lifetime score: 66

+22 advantage for Republicans

(…)

Here are some more facts:

• Every single endorsed Democrat except one has a lifetime score above 80.  Every single endorsed Republican except one has a lifetime score below 80.
• Every single endorsed Democrat in an even or Democratic district had a 2008 score above 90.  Every single endorsed Republican in an even or Democratic district had a 2008 score below 90.
• Endorsed Republicans are in districts that are 1.4% more Republican than endorsed Democrats.

It turns out that LCV doesn’t use its scorecard to make endorsements.  Judged by the data, Republicans have a consistent advantage when seeking the endorsement of this group.  Put another way, the League of Conservation voters is willing to endorse Republicans that are less friendly to the environment according to their own criteria simply because they are Republicans.

One can argue over whether single issue groups should treat Democrats better because they vote for a more progressive leadership of committees.  In fact, conservative groups tend to treat leadership votes as part of their checklist, and I think that’s probably a good idea for progressive groups as well.  Still, this argument is not actually the one we’re having.  I’m wondering whether there can possibly be an excuse for treating Democratic politicians worse than Republican politicians.  That seems to me to simply be a broken organizational model.

… If the way that LCV operates is a standard model for left-wing groups, it occurs to me that both right-wing and left-wing single issue groups give Republicans an advantage.  The conservatives help Republicans by considering leadership votes as part of their endorsement process, and Democrats simply cannot compete with Republicans on that score.  This is reasonable; Tom Delay is better for the NRA than Nancy Pelosi.  But liberal groups systematically boost Republicans by some arbitrary amount based on a perceived need to have access to ‘moderate Republicans’.

In other words, don’t expect to get credit for voting liberal if you’re a Democrat, but do expect to get credit for only being crazy some of the time if you are a Republican.

This is reminiscent of NARAL’s disgraceful praise (and subsequent electoral endorsement) of Joe Lieberman for voting against Alito after voting in favor of cloture to kill the Democratic attempt at a filibuster.  Willful blindness is not a winning strategy.

Add comment October 20th, 2008 at 08:42pm Posted by Eli

Laptops Are Weird

This is so true…

(Comic by xkcd)

Add comment October 17th, 2008 at 11:11am Posted by Eli

What We Can Look Forward To

A Rick Perlstein blast from the past, from the 2006 elections:

Republicans cheat. To what extend did their cheating on Election Day keep the will of the people from being fully registered? Just how close did it come to keeping the new majority from arriving? And what does the kind of cheating we saw Tuesday — and its antecedents in the past and its likely echoes in the future — portend for the project of turning liberalism once again into the dominant force in American politics?

(…)

In California’s 50th District — where Democrat Francine Busby had hoped to win a rematch against incumbent Brian Bilbray in Republican felon Duke Cunningham’s former seat — Busby staffers shut down their phone banks because they were reaching so many callers enraged at the “Hi-I’m-calling-with-information-about-Francine-Busby” deluge. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported receiving a tearful call from someone in Ohio explaining that she could no longer keep an open phone line to the hospice where her mother was dying on account of the calls. As for the calls’ political effect, a spokesman for Lois Murphy — who ended up going down to a narrow defeat against GOP incumbent Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania’s 6th District — relayed, “Some of our biggest supporters have said, ‘If you call me again, I’m not voting for Lois.’”

NRCC spokesman Ed Patrus offered the defense of scoundrels, not citizens: they’d checked with their lawyers; they weren’t doing anything illegal. They were “drawing contrasts” between Democrats and Republicans, he told The New York Times…. Another NRCC spokesman said: “We are a federal organization campaigning about a federal race. We feel that New Hampshire law does not apply to what we are doing.” A third added: “Phone banking is used by campaigns of all stripes and all these calls are made between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.” They also said the megavolume was the fault of their contractor, not the party; “It could be some kind of glitch.”

According to federal filings, the NRCC spent about $2 million on these contractors: some glitch. I’m guessing this whole project was the inspiration for President Bush’s eerily confident pronouncement on October 25: “We’re not going to lose.” Or maybe he had a panoply of dirty tricks in mind. In Maryland, homeless men recruited from out-of-state shelters were recruited to pass out flyers meant to trick voters in black neighborhoods into thinking the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Robert Ehrlich, and Senate candidate, Michael Steele, were Democrats…. In North Carolina college students asked voters if they were registered Democrats, and if they said yes, handed them a list of “our” judicial candidates — actually a list of Republicans. A California “information guide for Democrats” told voters to vote “no” on propositions backed by Democrats. Poll watchers brandishing handguns intimidated Latino voters in Arizona — a Republican trick there going back to 1962, when the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was allegedly involved. On election day in Colorado’s 5th District, the campaign of Democratic candidate Jay Fawcett reported finding that their office reeked of skunk, impeding the ability of the staffers and 200 volunteers to do their work. Police looked into the matter and believe that over-the-counter chemicals had been sprayed in the office.

(…)

In Virginia, the FBI continues to investigate calls received by Democrats in the final days of the campaign such as the following, to a man registered to vote there since 1998: “This is a message for Timothy Daly. This is the Virginia Elections Commission. We’ve determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote on Tuesday. If you do show up, you will be charged criminally.”

How many Democratic votes died aborning thanks to chicanery like this? We may never know…. Calling out one of America’s two major parties for potential election theft is not the preferred activity of a timid media.

That’s a colossal problem. Cheating is by now a constitutive part of Republican culture. Such false-flag harassment was a crucial part of “ratfucking” operations in Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign — to take just one example, Nixon agents circulated fliers in the Milwaukee ghetto advertising a non-existent “free lunch” sponsored by the Democrats. The Watergate hearings in 1973 and 1974 were full of these kinds of revelations. It didn’t shame Republicans into retreating. It just made them more careful practitioners — more careful, yet at the same time more brazen: consider those NRCC spokesmen. They could have denied the hustle. Instead, they owned up to it.

From now on there should be no excuse: anticipating such inevitabilities has to be made an active part of Democratic strategizing…. The narrative should teach even low-information voters to sniff out the signs of a dirty trick…. That way, the dirty trick boomerangs: “Oh, yes. That’s what the Democrats mean when they say Republicans cheat. God, I distrust those Republicans. I don’t want them back in power ever again.”

I would love to think that there will come a day when Republican dirty tricks backfire on them, but for now I would settle for aggressive prosecutions and stiff sentencing.  I know, I’m easy to please.

2 comments October 6th, 2008 at 10:05pm Posted by Eli

I Knew It!

I knew Paulson’s bailout proposal reminded me of something…

Dear American:

I cordially correspond today to request you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused urgent need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. For this inconvenience you will be rewarded with grand fees of 1/1,000,000th of 1% of possible profits due to off shore laundering of skim funds due to reprinting of said funds.

Please reply with mother’s maiden name, routing and account numbers of all of your bank account, IRA and college fund accounts and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

This sounds like a really swell awesome deal, plus it’s good karma to help out a struggling third-world country in need.

(h/t All Spin Zone & Jesse Wendel)

Add comment September 23rd, 2008 at 11:18am Posted by Eli