Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
This post is in: Open Threads
Think pleasant thoughts. Something good and not irritating had to happen this week. What was it?
*** Update ***
Maddow is making fun of the music in the fearmongering commercial the Republicans released today, and it made me laugh, because I actually was writing a post this morning in which I was asking if the GOP knew any music besides Ride of the Valkyries and Carmina Burana and then just said to hell with it.
by John Cole| 57 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Sorry, I don’t believe you:
Federal regulators told the country’s 19 largest banks that they must raise $75 billion in extra capital by November, a more upbeat verdict on the health of the financial system than the industry had feared just two months ago.
Ten of the 19 bank holding companies deemed “too big to fail” by the Obama administration will be required to raise additional capital, according to the results of the government’s stress tests, released late Thursday afternoon. But the 10 banks will have to raise much less capital than some analysts had expected as recently as a few days ago.
I just have no faith in this being the case, and have no faith in the banks “only” needing 75 billion in capital. I keep hearing all these reports about the economy getting better, yet we just shed another couple hundred thousand jobs.
In the area I grew up, the Ohio Valley, they just announced that Severstal is shutting down a 3,100 more steel jobs, basically devastating Wheeling, Steubenville, Follansbee, and Weirton. Unless you are from the region, you probably will not understand how much losing 3,100 good jobs like this is going to wreak havoc on the region. This is a dagger to the heart.
So color me skeptical about this news about the banks and the stress tests and all the other rosy news we have heard lately.
Not to step on DougJ’s shoes, and I’m sure he’ll have something to add to this later, but Jeffrey Rosen is back at it again with a defense of his Sotomayor hit job. Glenzilla has the response worth reading:
What really happened here is now manifest — and typical. A couple of Rosen’s secret friends don’t like Sonia Sotomayor and called him to encourage him to smear her in the pages of The New Republic. Rather than do the work to determine if these “questions” about her abilities had merit — by, say, conducting a thorough survey of her key judicial opinions the way a conscientious law professor might — he instead set out dutifully to undertake the mission assigned to him by these “eminent legal scholars” by calling the people they handpicked for him, who then eagerly attacked Sotomayor. Rosen then mindlessly wrote it all down — including facts that were either false (the footnote) or highly distorted (Judge Cabranes’ New York Times statement about Sotomayor, which was clearly a compliment, not a criticism), and then sent it to TNR, which slapped a provocative and (by Rosen’s account) misleading headline on it and then happily published it. That Rosen himself was a chief champion of John Roberts, and had already expressed concerns that Obama might take diversity into account when appointing someone to the Supreme Court, undoubtedly made Rosen more than happy to be chosen to carry out this dirty task against someone who is most assuredly not part of his circle.
In other words, Rosen did what the modern journalist of the Respectable Intellectual Center does by definition: he wrote down what Serious People told him to say, agreed to protect their identity, and then published their very purposeful chatter without doing any real work to verify, investigate or scrutinize it. As a result, a woman who spent the last four decades of her life using her talents and intellect and working extremely hard to reach amazing heights in the face of great obstacles is now widely viewed as an intellectually deficient, stunted, egotistical affirmative-action beneficiary who has no business being on the Supreme Court — all thanks to the slimy work of Jeffrey Rosen, his cowardly friends of the Respectable Intellectual Center, and The New Republic.
The thing that really stands out for me is that this was so urgent, so vital, so important, that the TNR and Jeffrey Rosen had to smear this woman BEFORE SHE WAS EVEN THE NOMINEE. It wasn’t just that the initial piece was riddled with errors, that it was based on the catty and cowardly chatter of anonymous law clerks, nor that it was such an obviously fact-free smear job that even the Powerline refused to give it any weight and dismissed it as a “gossipy report,” but what seems so particularly egregious to me is that all of this was done before she was even the nominee.
This has irreversibly changed her life, her workplace conditions, and her relationships with the people she works with right now, and she may never be nor was ever in line to be the nominee. Regardless, thanks to Rosen and the editiorial genius of Franklin Foer, a substantial portion of the country has been presented a portrayal of her as “an intellectually deficient, stunted, egotistical affirmative-action beneficiary.” Does anyone here think that if they were in Sonia Sotomayor’s shoes they would be re-thinking their relationship with all their past and current associates? Wouldn’t you be looking around at your co-workers wondering which one had said nasty things about you, knowing full well there was no way to clear your name or defend yourself? What Rosen and these anonymous sources did to her was not only unprofessional and inexcusable, it was cruel and it was a pre-emptive smearing. How would any of you like a whisper campaign published against you in the TNR for a position you aren’t even seeking or probably aren’t even in line to receive? How would Jeffrey Rosen like it?
And given a few days to think about what he has done, Rosen obliviously comes out and apologizes not for what he has done, but for a headline he claims he had nothing to do with. But don’t worry, Sonia. He and his anonymous sources just had the country’s best interests at heart, and he did say that he, personally, thinks you are “able.”
Thanks, dick.
All My Anonymous Friends Think She Sucks, But I Think She’s “Able”Post + Comments (132)
by DougJ| 63 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Anyone who thinks it’s going to be easy to get any kind of reasonable health care reform through the Senate is kidding themselves. The way I see it, the United States spends an ungodly amount more on health care per capita than any other country on earth. Any reasonable reform — even if it’s something fairly watered down — will probably have to reduce this. That means money coming out of the pockets of insurers, of HMOs, of pharmaceutical companies, etc. We’ve seen what happens when you try to take money away from, or let’s face it, just reduce the amount of money being given to, well-heeled interests. They don’t take it lying down. Here’s a pretty clear sign from K Street that Big Pharma is going to fight health care reform tooth-and-nail:
Yet another pharmaceutical company is considering putting a Republican in charge of its Washington operations, frustrating some congressional Democrats.
[….]“It’s absurd, at a time when we have the Congress and the White House, that any company in this town would consider hiring a Republican to head their shop,” said a chief of staff for a senior Democratic congressman on a key health subcommittee.
Further aggravating Democrats, the in-house lobbying operations of at least eight of the nation’s largest drug makers are run by Republicans: Abbott Laboratories, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Genzyme and AstraZeneca.
I’m not sure this is so smart. The failure of cramdown legislation showed just how easily some Democratic Senators can be bought. But the thinking might be that 40 Republicans plus Ben Nelson or one of the LA Senators equals a bill defeated. That calculation probably makes sense too.
by John Cole| 73 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, War on Terror aka GSAVE®
The wingnut caucus of the GOP is back to their usual fearmongering, and are set to introduce a bill dictating where detainees at Gitmo can be moved:
The bill attempts to place restrictions on transfers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States, and has two primary features:
* It prohibits the Obama administration from transferring any Guandetainee to any state without approval from that state’s legislature and governor
* Before transferring any detainee to any state, it requires the administration to notify Congress of the name of the detainee, and to stipulate to Congress that the release would not hamper continued prosecution of the detainee and wouldn’t negatively impact the state’s population.
The political game plan, obviously, is to tie Obama’s closure of Guantanamo to the idea that its detainees could come to a community near you, in order to sow fears more broadly about Obama’s foreign and anti-terror policies. It’s also designed to pressure Congressional Dems, particularly in red states, to distance themselves from Obama’s policies or risk being painted weak on terror.
I know exactly where to send them. Here:
President Barack Obama has 240 terror suspects he has said will be moved out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. The city of Hardin has a brand-new empty jail.
A match made in heaven? Hardin officials think so; Montana’s congressional delegation thinks not.
The development authority in Hardin, a city of 3,400 people bordering the Crow Indian Reservation, built the $27 million, 460-bed jail two years ago and has been looking for tenants ever since. Its construction loans are in default.
The City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday in favor of a resolution supporting a proposal to house terror suspects currently detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay while they await trial.
“Somebody has to stand up and put (the Guantanamo prisoners) in their backyards. It’s our patriotic duty,” said Greg Smith, director of the city’s Two Rivers Authority.
You can read a more detailed story about this in the Billings Gazette piece. It goes without saying that the Montana congressional delegation, Democrats and Republicans, are against it. I’m not sure I see a significant downside- they have the facility, they need the work, and they are willing to do it. Those would probably be pretty good paying jobs and respectable work for good citizens. Why not?
Montana Residents: Manlier Than Your Average PoliticianPost + Comments (73)
by John Cole| 84 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links
Saw this on Fark during lunch and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share it:
Vicious e-mails and personal attacks by Smithfield Township Supervisor Christine Griffin have been the source of friction on the township’s planning commission. Now she has been asked to step down from the commission.
Long, rambling, sometimes incoherent messages have routinely been forwarded from Griffin to dozens of people both on and off the commission.
“Don’t you dare waste my time with your (expletive) you lying cheating son of a (expletive), sneaky back door (expletive) nut (expletive) sucker.” Griffin wrote to one recipient.
In another e-mail sent to multiple readers, Griffin wrote, —¦ all the banging in the bathroom didn’t tell you what I was made of, buddy?? no cement boots for me! Nice try though. a real drama rama! Reminder: I am the quintessential professional! decorum and common sense are my bylaws!”
I gotta admit, with a number of years in a fraternity, decades playing team sports, and almost a decade in the Army, I though I was pretty well-versed in the art of all things profane, but “sneaky back door nut sucker” is a new one for me.
Live and learn.
by John Cole| 89 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes, Going Galt
As we learned yesterday, nothing says “I’m hip” in libertarian circles like a smirk and a Jack Germond reference, but Fagin Nick Gillespie has upped his game today with this post:
“When It Comes to School Choice For Low-Income DC Residents, Obama Offers Crumb (And Is One)”
This is better than what he announced via Education Secretary Arne Duncan, which was simply to tell the voucher participants to take a hike. However, it still amounts to little more than an aristocrat flipping a coin out of a carriage window after running down a child in the street.
Poor Obama. Yesterday, Kim Jong Il, today, a Dickensian villain. It is early in the month, I am betting we can go full Godwin by June.
BTW, for a pretty interesting profile/fluff piece on the Chancellor of the DC Schools, Michelle Rhee, go to Time. I read that a while back while in a doctor’s office waiting for something.
Rich Gentleman Have It Boys, Indigestion!Post + Comments (89)