I have been deluged with pet pics, so I better start working through them or they will never all get posted. Here are a couple dogs and then one “alternative” pet:
Claim your kids.
Archives for 2009
The fall guy
I just got into London moments ago, so this piece may not go through the multi-layered editorial process we normally use here….
So you’ve probably heard that Michael Steele will get fired if Republicans don’t win the special election in NY-20. Steele’s an idiot and I wouldn’t blame them for firing him, but why is this his fault and not Eric Cantor’s?
A little background here. The race should be a gimme for Republicans: it’s a +3-4 Cook PVI for Republicans (too jet-lagged to look this up) and Republicans have a massive registration advantage, something like 18 points. The only reason Gillibrand ever won it is because she ran a perfect campaign and her opponent was caught beating his wife a few weeks before the election. In this race, Republicans have local legend Jim Tedisco (minority leader of the State Assembly) and the Democrats have someone with low name recognition, Scott Murphy (any Democrat will have low name recognition since all the local offices are held by Republicans). It should be a 10-15 point win for Republicans.
But it may not be. And the reason isn’t Michael Steele’s avant-garde theatrics, it’s Eric Cantor’s decision to make all Republicans vote against the stim bill. Tedisco won’t say he which way he would have voted on it, because voters in the district like it, but he can’t buck Cantor et al. Here’s the Times on this:
All the makings of a Republican rout.
Yet now when layoffs, foreclosures and anxiety are freezing the Catskills, Adirondacks and Hudson Valley like an economic ice storm, a single issue — the $787 billion federal stimulus package — appears to be providing the Democratic newcomer, Scott Murphy, with some traction in the campaign to succeed Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the House of Representatives.
His Republican opponent, James N. Tedisco, the minority leader in the State Assembly, refuses to say how he would have voted on the stimulus bill. To endorse it, Republican operatives acknowledge, would put him at odds with every House Republican and endanger his support from Washington.
There’s too many local editorials attacking Tedisco over this to count — here’s one from the main paper in the area, the Albany Times-Union. Here he is getting hammered by local tv about it. Of course, it doesn’t help that he demanded to know where Caroline Kennedy stood on the stimulus package (a perfectly reasonable demand, I might add).
If Tedisco loses, Cantor certainly won’t lose his job, but I do wonder if he’ll still feel like he’s back in the saddle again.
And wouldn’t you know it? The first black RNC Chair will take the fall for everything. I guess some things never change.
The Trend
This graph from Calculated Risk is getting uglier and uglier:
In the words of the Oracle:
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on CNBC that the economy “has fallen off a cliff” and that Obama’s team is sending some mixed signals about its approach, hurting confidence.
“The message has to be very, very clear as to what government will be doing,” said Buffett, an informal adviser to the White House. “And I think we’ve had – and it’s the nature of the political process somewhat – but we’ve had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don’t know what’s going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back.”
I suppose the good news is that compared to all the examples provided in that chart, we are probably at the halfway point. Who knows, though, really? Is it wrong to view this as the “correction” (and that may not be the right term) for both bubbles? And what will the basic economic structure look like when it is all over? Will we end the “too big to fail” practice? Are the days of global ginormous financial institutions over? Has anyone heard anything about a new regulatory structure, or is it just too early to worry about fire safety while the house is still burning down?
I sort of have the feeling that there just isn’t much that can be done to stop the current disaster, and while it is important to try to make this as painless as we possibly can, what is probably much more important is how we rebuild.
The Mess We Are In
This editorial seems to pretty reasonably explain the current mess and why Geithner may be reacting the way he is- he has no good options.
NAMBLA Versus Mecha-Godzilla
Limbaugh strikes back. We can only hope that Newt responds in 3D. But, dear lord, not smell-o-vision.
***Update***
Some think that Gingrich made a smart play by taking on Rush directly. That is simply false. How much good do you think that technically significant Republican bloc that hates Rush will do for Newt? My magic eight ball keeps flipping between little and none.
Here is why. For all its numbers the constituencies that power the GOP political machine are relatively small. The religious right delivers warm bodies to the polls. Rush moves his dittoheads to volunteer and donate money to candidates. Finally, wealthy donors like Richard Mellon Scaife fund thinktanks and astroturf groups that push the media zeitgeist in useful directions. Most of the rest are like my dad – one issue or another keeps them voting for whoever the GOP puts up but they have better things to do with their life than get involved with interparty spats between a loudmouth and a has-been.
Rush has a third of the Republican base in his pocket. The country doesn’t hold that many hyper-motivated, single-minded angry people with time on their hands, say a couple million at the most, but about half of them will clog a congressperson’s switchboard at the drop of a name on the Limbaugh show. That, and the disproportionate amount of money that dittohead types donate, makes them a serious concern for any Republican politico.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not a fair fight! Newt has guys like David Frum on his side. Still, other than than exiled doofuses who lost the party’s soul on the day that Karl Rove met David Addington, I’m not sure whose support Newt is looking for here. The “middle” that used to keep Newt in business hates the GOP now. Newt would have to be pretty stupid to think that another serving of clif’s notes Reaganomics will lure them back.
It doesn’t matter that from your perspective and mine people like Gingrich and David Frum unquestionably have the better part of this argument. Whoever the GOP has left to referee this kind of fight* doesn’t have the liberty to ignore the dittohead mob, but they can safely ignore the exiled doofuses who will back Newt. It doesn’t seem like a very hard decision.
* Honestly, does the GOP have anyone to referee these things? This is a serious question. After ten years of top-down rule by DeLay and the Bush team it seems feasible that the rest of the party never developed the ability to make its own decisions. Who was this ‘they’ who made Michael Steele apologize to Rush? Eric Cantor? The only unmoved mover I can think of is Rush.
How To Watch Lou Dobbs
I’m sitting here trying to watch Lou Dobbs, and as he goes from story to story ranting incoherently, sucking back in his dentures, I imagine this is what it was like to have a crazy grandfather at the holiday dinners. The cognitive dissonance of the contradictions as he whiplashes the audience from one topic to the other is just brutal, and there really are only three ways to watch him and maintain your sanity:
1.) Drink heavily.
2.) Pretend he is suffering from a multiple personality disorder, and that you should not try to balance what he said two minutes ago in a previous segment with what he is saying right now. Ditto for what he says two minutes from now.
3.) Every time he takes a pause, use the Davenoon approach to analysis and pretend that Dobbs has also said “I’m a crazy person” in between every sentence.
It really is pretty funny. “Obama isn’t doing enough for Wall Street!” Two minutes later: “Don’t bail out Wall Street! Why are we giving these shmucks more money!” then thirty seconds later feature a two minute segment in which you don’t even bother to wait to contradict yourself, you do it right then and there and insist that Obama listen to Warren Buffett, note Buffett’s own stock is down 39%, and then ignore the sound clip of Buffett saying the economy will be fine in five years anyway. Then chide Robert Gibbs for taking on an affected persona in his press conference, then sneer that “Isn’t change I can believe in!”
Lou Dobbs, standing athwart history shouting “Get off my grass, you Mexicans!”
Things I Don’t Understand
An incomplete list:
1.) Why anyone is paying any attention to Meghan McCain.
2.) Or Glenn Beck, who really seems intent on cornering the “batshit insane” market niche.
3.) Why I continue to get invitations to join the AARP, when I am nowhere near retirement age.
4.) Why the NY Times doesn’t realize stories like this make them seem out of touch, and why the people in them can’t find a happy medium in between extremes:
It is a sign of the times when Sacha Taylor, a fixture on the charity circuit in this gala-happy city, digs out a 10-year-old dress to wear to a recent society party.
Or when Jennifer Riley, a corporate lawyer, starts patronizing restaurants that take coupons.
Or when Ethel Knox, the wife of a pediatrician, cleans out her home and her storage unit, gives away an old car to a needy friend and cancels the family Christmas. “I just feel so decadent with all the stuff I’ve got,” she explained.
There is a wide range of consumer behaviors in between $10,000 cocktails and “OH SHIT LET’S CANCEL CHRISTMAS.” Also, if you have “old cars” just lying around that you can give away to friends without blinking, chances are you are still well off enough to explore that range of behaviors without too much hardship.
5.) Why we have to go through this nonsense with the Chinese in the first few months of every administration.
6.) Why the Republicans are so easily distracted. Stem cells- distraction. Limbaugh- distraction. Not to mention, how much attention do you really need to chant porkulus and talk about capital gains tax cuts?
7.) Why it is talking down the economy whenever Obama addresses the recession, but the media is silent when prominent Republicans glibly discuss bank failures.
8.) Speaking of Richard Shelby, when did everything to the left of him become socialism?
9.) Why anyone reads this website. Viewing the comments, it is obviously so they an pick on my poor cat. Bastards.
*** Update ***
Oh, goody. Lou Dobbs just promised to bring me two of the finest minds to discuss religious issues. Who could possibly be wingnutty enough for Lou Dobbs (who I am now convinced is completely insane) to consider them “fine minds?” I am gonna guess Tony Perkins and William Donohue.
Woo- the Kitty Pilgrim piece was rich. Apparently she and Lou have the vapors because we have not bombed China yet. Loved the inclusion of “most agree” and “some say” and “many think” in that report there, Kitty. Well played.
*** Update #2 ***
Am I amazing or what! I was right, the guests are Tony Perkins and William Donohue. There was no announcement they would be on the show, no hint of who it would be. My goodness this show is a joke.