We need one.
As important as the debates are tonight, I really am not sure I can watch another one. Are there really people who have not made up their minds yet?
by John Cole| 64 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
We need one.
As important as the debates are tonight, I really am not sure I can watch another one. Are there really people who have not made up their minds yet?
by John Cole| 24 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Hold on to your seats:
Although it is too soon to tell whether the United States has entered a recession, there is mounting evidence that a recession has in fact begun. Key measures of economic activity stopped growing in December and January or actually began to decline. The collapse of house prices and the crisis in the credit markets continue to depress the real economy.
***If a recession does occur, it could last longer and be more painful than the past several downturns because of differences in its origin and character. The recessions that began in 1991 and 2001 lasted only eight months from the start of the downturn until the beginning of the recovery. Even the deeper recession of 1981 lasted only 16 months.
But these past recessions were caused by deliberate Federal Reserve policy aimed at reversing a rise in inflation. In those cases, the Fed increased real interest rates until it saw the economic slowdown that it thought would move us back toward price stability. It then reversed course, reducing interest rates and bringing the recession to an end.
In contrast, the real interest rate in 2006 and 2007 stayed at a relatively low level of less than 3%. A key cause of the present slowdown and potential recession was not a tightening of monetary policy but the bursting of the house-price bubble after six years of exceptionally rapid house-price increases. The Fed therefore will not be able to end the recession as it did previous ones by turning off a tight monetary policy.
And:
For the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, all this could not come at a worse time. With the credit markets in disarray from the collapse of the housing bubble, Mr. Bernanke is cutting rates in a headlong rush to blunt the risks of recession.
But in putting its emphasis above all on reviving growth, America’s central bank, according to some economists and even a few Fed officials, may face a bigger inflation problem down the road.
“They are cutting rates with a bill to be paid later,” said John Ryding, chief United States economist at Bear Stearns. “The question is not, will we get inflation, but how much will it cost to stuff the genie back in the bottle. This has the feel of 1970s stagflation.”
If Democrats were smart, they would begin to brand this the Bush recession, as the Republicans have already shown their cards. In this case, the Democrats would even have truth on their side- this is a Bush recession, and he should get full credit for it.
by John Cole| 30 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics
I am trying to get a grasp on what this actually means:
Makers of medical devices like implantable defibrillators or breast implants are immune from liability for personal injuries as long as the Food and Drug Administration approved the device before it was marketed and it meets the agency’s specifications, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
The 8-to-1 decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which for years has sought broad authority to pre-empt tougher state regulation.
In 2004, the administration reversed longstanding federal policy and began arguing that “premarket approval” of a new medical device by the F.D.A. overrides most claims for damages under state law. Because federal law makes no provision for damage suits against device makers, injured patients have turned to state law and have won substantial awards.
The Bush administration will continue its push for pre-emption in another F.D.A. case that the court has accepted for its next term, on whether the agency’s approval of a drug, as opposed to a device, pre-empts personal injury suits. Drugs and medical devices are regulated under separate laws.
On the one hand, I like the comfort zone that FDA approval would provide to makers of medical devices, but on the other hand, I don’t like that it appears that there will be no real means for redress for those damaged by faulty products. What happens in the case in which a company lies its way to FDA approval (or, given the corruption and cronyism and incompetence of this administration, someone on the FDA does not do due diligence and approves a faulty product) and someone is hurt by their product? Is the family just screwed? I am notoriously bad at interpreting the outcomes of legal cases, so fill me in.
This post is in: Election 2008, Previous Site Maintenance
James Wolcott:
In my wild imaginings, I can’t help but hypothesize that Cindy McCain’s Hitchcock blondness–a taut cross between Tippi Hedren in The Birds and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest–is being high-buffed as a visual counterpoint to her presumptive rival for role of first lady, Michelle Obama. The more vanilla ice that Cindy McCain gets, the blacker Michelle Obama looks, making McCain the more traditional, formal, supportive, standing-behind-her-husband-speaking-only-when-it’s-appropriate classic model–the eternal prom queen presiding over the receiving line.
She has already been deployed by the McCain campaign as an editorial counterpoint, taken out of her cellophane wrapping long enough to soundbite that, unlike Michelle Obama, she’s always been proud of her country, always will be.
In this clip, McCain delivers the patriotic rejoinder with a plucky little hand gesture reminiscent of Liddy Dole at her most down-homey, but the more interesting bit is when she and her husband are asked to elaborate, and she simply repeats what she said before with a distinct lack of oomph, as if she’s afraid of going off-script and straying off-message, having not rehearsed a more fleshed-out follow-up.
Discuss. All I have to add is that unlike that faux stiff martinet Cindy McCain, I haven’t always been proud of my country, but I still love it. I will be even prouder when the current GOP and their bullshit games like this are banished to the wilderness.
*** Update ***
You know one thing I am proud of- so far Barack and Michelle have not played the bullshit game. I have not seen them rushing to cameras wearing flag lapel pins dressed in red, white, and blue while singing the Star Spangled banner to demonstrate how much they love the country. All I have seen is a minor clarification from both when asked by reporters. More of that, please. Ignore these petty gasbags.
This post is in: Election 2008, Politics
This post is in: Election 2008
I would and do support Barack Obama over Clinton any day. In an interview with Chris Matthews last night, Obama supporter, Senator Kirk Watson, can’t name a single legislative accomplishment that can be attributed to him. It’s going to be embarrassing for Obama if he wins the nomination and his supporters can’t answer a simple question like this, because Republicans are going to be beating him upside the head with questions that are a helluva lot tougher than that.
This post is in: Election 2008, Assholes
I will not tolerate more of this bullshit from them:
This morning brings the news that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has launched a new website where they are announcing how they are officially preparing to make the case that the rules of the Democratic nomination process should be changed.
Don’t like the rules- change them. Isn’t that precisely what has been wrong with the criminal Bush administration the past eight years?
The Clinton Strategy is clear. Remember the scene at the end of Platoon, when Captain Dale Dye, in the role of Captain Harris, orders in arty and bombing runs on his location when the base camp was over run:
Capt. Harris: Snakebite leader, Ripper Bravo Six, we’re gonna need you soonest be advised I’ve got zips in the wire down here, over!
Phantom Pilot: Roger your last Bravo Six, Snakebite lead we can’t run it any closer. We’re hot to trot and packing snape and nape but we’re bingo fuel. It’s your call, Six actual, Over.
Capt. Harris: Snakebite leader, Bravo Six, for the record, it’s my call. Dump everything you got left ON MY POS. I say again, I want all you’re holding INSIDE the perimeter. It’s a lovely war. Bravo Six Actual and Out.
Phantom Pilot: Roger your last Bravo Six. We copy it’s your call. Get em in their holes down there. Hang tough, Bravo Six we are coming cocked for treetops. Whiskey to Echo… Snakebite Two, this is lead. Last pass on zero niner. Watch my smoke to target, expend all remaining. Follow my trace…
That is their plan. Blow up the party and hope they are the ones still standing when the smoke clears.
I just sent 25 more bucks to Obama.