Lord Atrios says "Not all things are unknowable" about how bad the toxic/troubled/misunderstood Assets are. There is actual documentation for the subprime loans in the form of "LOAN TAPES" (caps in the original):

But the way to determine whether Geithner's and the banks' stated view of the toxic assets has any merit, is to demand an INDEPENDENT EXAMINATION OF THE LOAN TAPES, particularly looking to establish the prevalence of missing documents, misrepresentation, and fraud.

I'm not an economist but I think the point is: the Geithner plan aims to use trillions of taxpayer $ to prop up the price for toxic assets so the investment banks can sell them off.

The stated reason: the actual value of the toxic assets is supposedly "unknowable". The more likely explanation is that the investment banks don't want to know, and more importantly they don't want anybody else (taxpayers, investors) to know how crappy their toxic assets are.

But there are tapes Read more…

Shit happens. For a reason. While there is a worthy discussion going on in the internets about the varying degrees of morality on either side of the conflict, I particularly like to look at the policy-related causes and effects.

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.  Read more…

Just saw Cindy Sheehan on Market St. in SF doing some last-minute campaigning.

This morning I voted for her (as opposed to Leader Nance), Obama (happily but skeptically), no on Prop. 8 (anti-Ghey-marriage), and yes on naming the city sewage plant in honor of George W. Bush.

Do politicians in our system really need to earn *your* vote? Do individual choices really matter or does it only count when millions of people do the same thing at the same time?

This is in response to the question I see often on this blog: why is Obama not speaking to me and my concerns? The short answer is that he doesn't have to.

The longer answer has to do with what I think is an American cultural myth about the individual voter. Read more…

What's not to love? I guess if you're allergic to horse hair you might have a problem...

This is a public service announcement to all San Franciso Bay Area bloggers and readers: post debate wrap up and discussion and drowning of ailments at Zeitgeist (Duboce & Valencia) tomorrow 10/16/08.

To all Correntian readers and writers: please think of me as a dude in your creative writing class as opposed to a comrade denouncing you to the central committee.

I devote time to making snarky comments on this blog because I value the intelligence and independence of the readers and writers here.

Bottom line: I would rather have a beverage with you. Read more…

This whole thing about the Bush administration taking control of the US treasury, using the Nation's credit to buy junk and and selling it out the back door reminds me of something:

Davey Scatino: You told me not to get in the game. Why'd you let me do it?

Tony Soprano: Well, I knew you had this business here, Davey. It's my nature. The frog and the scorpion, you know? Besides, if you would've won I'd be the one crying the blues, right?

Davey Scatino: What's the end?

Tony Soprano: The end... It's planned bankruptcy. Hey, you're not the first guy to get busted out. This is how a guy like me makes his living. This is my bread and butter. When this is over you're free to go. You can go anywhere you want.  Read more…

Title is inspired by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and this comment by Leah in this very lively thread:

And if I note that your statement is a deeply racist one, are you going to go away and spend the next twenty-five years of your life traumatized because someone called you a racist.

And Lambert's response:

But the campaign that leveraged false charges of racism, and whose online supporters called me, personally, a racist, using the most toxic charge in American politics?* No, I don’t intend to be traumatized. But I do intend to hold them accountable, as is my right.

For months I've been thinking about why a lot of the posts on Corrente don't make any sense to me and are so irritating that I sometimes feel I don't want to read this blog anymore. I think I've figured it out: people like myself who were not completely invested in the primary battle are not the intended audience.

"Asshole Oborg commenters at dKos and elsewhere" are the intended audience. Pity that a lot of them don't read Corrente. It seems like the election-related posts on Corrente are just a continuation of comment-thread battles at other sites: retreat to the safe confines of the Mighty Corrente Building and lash out at your enemies from behind its high walls. Read more…

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Thank you Glennzilla:

It isn't that difficult to keep the following two thoughts in one's head at the same time -- though it seems to be for many people:

(1) What Barack Obama is doing on Issue X is wrong, indefensible and worthy of extreme criticism;

(2) I support Barack Obama for President because he's a better choice than John McCain.

Why is this so hard for so many in the progressive blogosphere and progressives in general?

Discuss... Read more…

Complaints by citizens concerned about losing their constitutional rights? Not so much:

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:

$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)

$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)

Digby:

The article duly notes that money isn't the only reason legislators vote the way they do, but it really doesn't get any more stark than this.

Digby is right, as always, but this reminds me of sense of puzzlement I perceive by some progressive bloggers as to why the Dems seem to be working so hard to grant the TelCo's and the Bushies retroactive immunity. Read more…

I believe this makes me the automatic winner of all youtube wars evar. Opinions may vary.

I bring you The Jam covers Curtis Mayfield, circa 1982:
Here's the original Move On Up: There is also a Kanye West version that has a good beat but a crap video.

Most folks in the blogosphere have chosen to give their support to one primary candidate or the other without really demanding anything in return. When the next election comes around, a different strategy may be in order.

Most liberal/progressive interest groups also gave away their support without really getting any policy guarantees from the candidates. Why?

It seems to me that groups and individual voters themselves were motivated by the Corporate Media-driven horse race hype more than anything else. This turns politics into team sports.

The primary coverage (progressive blogs included) focused almost exclusively on the ups and downs of the competition: the gaffes, the smears, the polls, etc. rather than "the issues" (boooring!).

Oh no! Your team is down, they're having problems, cheer louder!

Yay! Your team is up, victory is in sight, high fives!

But what do you get when your favorite team wins? You get to say "we won!" and a warm feeling, that is all.

So what does it mean to "support" a candidate? Read more…

Yesterday's McClatchy's article Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials? brought back some memories:

The first meetings with Ghorbanifar, which were disclosed in August 2003 by the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday, took place in Rome in December 2001. They were attended by two Pentagon Iran experts, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin; by an Italian military intelligence official, and by Ledeen.  Read more…

From the smoke-filled back rooms of Northern California Power Politics, where Bay Area Bloggers and Readers (BARBARians) decide the fate of candidates and ballot initiatives, I bring you these suggestions:

Proposition 98

98 is evil and must be destroyed.

I think that just about sums it up.

Proposition 99

99 doesn't really do any material harm to the actual function of eminent domain, and it does address the classic "turning retired nuns out into the street to build a shopping mall" problem that the property rights fundies *say* they're addressing, so a yes vote could turn this issue off for a few years.

Getting property rights fundies to STFU? That could be worth a yes vote.

State Senate Races Read more…

In the theme of "there are other things happening in the world besides the nomination pie-fight", here is something that really "hits home".

Proposition 98 is a deceptive measure that a group of wealthy landlords placed on California's June 3, 2008 ballot. These landlords want you to believe the measure is only about ‘eminent domain', but Prop. 98 is full of hidden provisions that would hurt Californians.

More on this and other measures on the CA ballot over the weekend, but this is the most important one. I would hate to see this bullshit pass because everyone is too caught up in other things. Read more…

Or maybe not. Glennzilla:

Yellin's admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government.

Scotty "Sucka MC" McClellan's new book is bringing some uncomfortable facts out of the woodwork.

Citizens can only make decisions based on the information they receive. Manipulation and control of news information means manipulation and control of citizens. Read more…

I hope nobody takes this as disrespectful. I think this short film captures the horror of watching our government send fellow citizens to die and kill for all the wrong reasons.

I hope it won't take seeing zombies in the streets for us to end this war or at least grant vets the benefits they deserve.

More info: Read more…

Maps by Electoral-Vote.com. Look for the head-to-head links in the bottom right of the main page. Updated daily with state polls. A great presentation of complex data.

Caveats: It's early in the election cycle, things may change a lot once there is a nominee. Also, the "barely" states are by margins of less than 5%.

However, I remember watching this site obsessively in 2004 and it was largely correct at predicting the outcome. [UPDATE: As CMike points out the map on that site fluctuated wildly. Showing Kerry way ahead for a lot of that summer.] Read more…

D. Aristophanes, in an extremely classy gesture, apologizes and asks:

...what do Obama and his supporters need to do today to get you into this car?

One answer is pretty simple: don't be jerks about it. That and more progressive policy positions.

The worst possible downside to the thousands of hours we have all spent paying attention to this campaign is that democratic voters who supported the losing nominee will be so pissed off that they won't show up to vote in November.

All it takes is a few percentage points in a few battleground states to lose this thing. Half of Americans don't vote and a lot of them just because they're too pissed off about something or other.

Another question:

why are you doing this?

Lambert and Vastleft can defend themselves. My impression of their reasons follows.

The good reasons: Read more…

Today's slew of "Democrats In Disarray" columns offer yet more proof of the time-honored axiom: there is nothing a Dem can do to avoid being attacked by the Right Wing and the Beltway punditocracy.

Even the candidate that has embraced the Unity Pony (the absolute fabrication that the problem with Washington is excessive partisanship) doesn't get a pass:

Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship.

But also the candidate whose family has been attacked relentlessly for the past 15 years:

Clinton had seeded doubts about her own character long before this campaign began through her record as a polarizing figure, her secrecy and her obvious prevarications.

That's right, the oft-referenced Mr. Whassammatta You, Kansas? himself, in his first column for (!) WSJ:

But I know one thing with absolute certainty. The media flurry kicked up by Mr. Obama's gaffe powerfully confirms an argument I actually did make: That as they return again to the culture war, what the soldiers on all sides are doing is talking about class without actually addressing the economic basis of the subject.

In this whole breathless debate, few have talked about the causes of the decline of the US middle class, and what should be done about it.

Read the whole thing, it has a great punch line.

Also, Kathy G. looks at the significance of a populist intellectual's column appearing in Rupert Murdoch's paper. Read more…

Perhaps. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area there are a couple of upcoming opportunities to explore the subject: a BARBARian drinkfest Saturday, April 12 in Bezerkeley and a first time Bay Area SadlyNo fest in Our Fair City tentatively scheduled for Friday, April 18. After all, movements are made up of strangers who get to know each other.

In anticipation of Petraeus' testimony this week, it might be helpful to have some reality-based talking points about recent events in Iraq to bulwark against the inevitable flurry of right-wing BS and journalistic laziness soon to come:

Juan Cole breaks most of them down very succinctly, referring also to Frank Rich in today's NYT (more on that later):

1. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Da'wa Party, which back Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, are closer to Iran than the Sadr Movement.

2. It was al-Maliki's parliamentary coalition that sought the cease fire by asking their Iranian patrons to broker it.

3. The main motivation for the attack on Sadrist neighborhoods in Basra was to ensure that ISCI wins the elections in that key oil province in October.

[paragraph broken into bullet points by me]  Read more…

Bobo Brooks goes to Memphis, takes a trip down memory lane and laments how well-behaved black people used to be:

Martin Luther King Jr. at least left behind a model of how to repair the social fabric. He was scholarly, formal, assertive and meticulously self-controlled in public.

The life's work of a great man and 40 years of historical facts, economics, sociology, politics and policy are washed away with a facile narrative about proper behavior and civility. That is the gist of Brooks' article. It's the The Santa-Clausification of Martin Luther King Jr.

The reason for everything that's happened in the intervening 40 years? Read more…

Respect the Medium Lobster!

Fafblog is back

Remember: every time you donate to a blogger you love, a Beltway media consultant sheds a tear. Read more…