CHARLES M. BLOW: Who has surfaced as the saviors of the Republican Party? Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, otherwise known as the axis of drivel.
In the midst of all the RW charges that Obama is destroying America, it is helpful to remember that ...
Daily Kos' BarbinMD: Your Stimulus Money At Work
Last January, twenty-five police recruits in Columbus, Ohio, were told that rather than being sworn in as police officers, they were going to be let go due to budget cuts. But today, according to a White House press release, President Obama will speak at their graduation after money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved their jobs.
Meanwhile, Vice President Biden will be in Florida, meeting with officials to discuss the $4 billion in stimulus money to be used for state and local law enforcement, and "specifically for Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program funds - which will help keep police officers on the street."
These are the kind of programs that the Republican Party was trying to derail when they marched in near lockstep opposition to the stimulus bill. While they busily screamed in pseudo-outrage over condoms, they ignored the tangible help the bill would provide to individuals and their families, and to towns, cities, and states.
While Republicans took their cues from a radio host and rooted for failure, Democrats took action. And today, perhaps those same Republicans will hit the airwaves and explain why the party of law-and-order objects to having more police officers on the job and on the streets. Or they can talk about socialism.
Ezra Klein: BAD NEWS MARCHES ON.
8.1 percent unemployment in February, the highest in 25 years. We're now at 4.4 million jobs lost. Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi's office updates The Scariest Chart Ever with the new data:
The situation would look a little less dire if that chart were adjusted for population growth. But only a little.
Snark of the day, John Cole in response to the new (and horrible) jobless report: Clearly this news today makes the point that we must move quickly to cut the capital gains tax rate.
If this were funny, I would be laughing. But as Josh Marshall says:
Republican economic policies are Just A Joke
Let's just stipulate DC Republicans are simply not part of the discussion when it comes to repairing the US economy or arresting our slide into deep economic misery. And any reporters who aren't clear about this are just lying to their readers or viewers. The latest Republican plan, in the face of today's new spike in unemployment, is a freeze on federal spending. I'm not even sure it's fair to say that this is a replay of the disastrous decisions the magnified the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933. It's more a parody of it. When the crisis is a rapid and catastrophic drop off in demand, you handcuff the one force that can create demand (i.e., the federal government) in the throes of the contraction. That's insane. Levels of stimulus are a decent question. Intensifying the contraction is just insane and frankly a joke. It's time to recognize that the only debate here is happening among Democrats and sundry non-affiliated sane people. The leaders of the GOP are simply not part of the conversation.
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Bummer TPM headline: Siegelman Appeal: Court Upholds Most Counts
Marcy aka "emptywheel" parses the ruling:Three Republican-appointed judges have upheld most of the convictions of Governor Don Siegelman--while throwing out two counts of Mail Fraud.
The opinion starts by invoking the controversy surrounding the case--then nods to deference to the jury in retaining the convictions.
...
Furthermore, to the extent that the jury’s verdict rests upon their evaluations of the credibility of individual witnesses, and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from that testimony, we owe deference to those decisions.It's the jurors, fault, you see, even though several issues mentioned in the appeal pertain to problems with the jury.
You can read through the rest and see what you make of the Courts issue by issue treatment of Siegelman's appeal. But note, in particular, the centrality of Nick Bailey's testimony in the Court's decision to uphold most of the convictions.
That's important because--as 60 Minutes reported on its piece on Siegelman--there are allegations Prosecutors coached Bailey's testimony and then did not turn over notes from that coaching to Siegelman's defense team to use to impeach Bailey. Here's Scott Horton explaining what happened (and Mukasey's non-denial denial of the problem). ...
A better legal outcome, Benen on BIRTHERS LOSE IN COURT....
The Birthers' latest case was not only thrown out, by the federal judge mocked the plaintiffs for being so foolish and wasting the judiciary's time.Tim F.: In the end Republicans could have kept their yap shut and let the country think that a drug-addled ignoramus pulls their strings. Instead they opened their mouth and proved it.A federal judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship, lambasting the case as a waste of the court's time and suggesting the plaintiff's attorney may have to compensate the president's lawyer.
..."This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do," U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in his written opinion.
Robertson added, "Even in its relatively short life the case has excited the blogosphere and the conspiracy theorists. The right thing to do is to bring it to an early end."
Better yet, the judge called the plaintiff's attorneys "agents provocateurs" and described their local counsel as "a foot soldier in their crusade." Robertson ordered the lead counsel to prove why he hadn't violated court ruled prohibiting frivolous and harassing lawsuits, and why he shouldn't have to pay the legal fees of the president's attorney. ...
Tim F: on the grand Omabunist conspiracy involving Rush Limbaugh:
Here is the underpants gnomes version of Obama’s evil plot.Step 1: Publicly suggest that Republicans agree with Rush Limbaugh.
Step 2: ??
Step 3: Clear Channel replaces Rush’s show with Randi Rhodes and CounterSpin.Maybe Tom Robbins could put together a semi-plausible Step 2. I don’t have that kind of mojo.
Gail Collins (fast becoming one of my favorite columnists) suggests the repuglicans Just Steele Yourselves
Right question of the day, via Sully: Can Obama Legally Take Over The Big Banks?The Republican Party is not going to be cool. The Democratic Party is barely cool, and it has Barack Obama. The Republicans have Rush Limbaugh, a man whose popularity among Americans under the age of 60 is lower than a share of Citigroup stock.
The party was so desperate for a youth patina that it shoved Bobby Jindal into the spotlight when the governor of Louisiana was still a political newbie — like a tiny bud that can one day become a peach or an apple. Unless some desperate person yanks it off the tree and stuffs the bud on national television where the whole nation can watch it shrivel, leaving nothing behind but an interesting dispute on how much of Jindal’s story about pointy-headed bureaucrats interfering with Katrina rescues was pure fiction.
When the Republicans aren’t arguing about Steele they are arguing about Limbaugh. Steele helpfully made it possible to argue about both simultaneously when he went on TV and called Limbaugh’s show incendiary and ugly. (The content of the debate over this remark seems to center less on whether Steele’s statement was wrong than on whether making it was a good plan.)
Then Steele apologized, which ....
Pete Davis explains why nationalization is a bad idea. McArdle summarizes his first point:
No US institution currently has the legal authority to take over a multinational financial conglomerate. Banks are relatively simple operations, and the FDIC has extensive experience in resolution of a liquidation. But banking and insurance and stockbroking and securities underwriting and capital markets trading all piled into one institution are vastly more complicated--there is, after all, a reason why each of these businesses have different regulators. The argument for breaking banks into commercial and investment banking doesn't seem to have made much sense from an economic standpoint, but it may have made sense from a regulatory standpoint. At least in the US, no regulator had the expertise to oversee these giant companies.
Why is it that the fact that the government has no legal authority to take over these massive banking enterprises is all but absent from the current debate? Isn't it, er, a little bit relevant?
Jon Chait said:, "What's on display is the worst elements of political demagoguery meeting the worst elements of the instant-reaction internet culture. They think the very idea of trying to learn about something before you take a position on it is a joke." (h/t Benen)
Steve Benen: About a month ago, the New York Times' Frank Rich, commenting on the Republican Party's approach to the economy, said, "The nightmare is that we have so irrelevant, clownish and childish an opposition party at a moment when America is in an all-hands-on-deck emergency that's as trying as war." As "trying as war" strikes me as the key point that seems to go overlooked. The ongoing crisis is, by most measures, the economic equivalent of a 9/11-style terrorist attack. "Everything changed" in September 2001? Everything should change now. ... ... ... Perhaps, one of these days, Republicans will shake their "pre-recession mindset" and improve the government's ability to respond to the economic 9/11.
Bruce Bartlett via Benen:
"According to a recent Treasury Department study, Ronald Reagan proposed the largest peacetime tax increase in American history as part of a budget deal to get the federal deficit under control. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) of 1982 was signed into law on Sept. 3, and most of its provisions took effect on Jan. 1, 1983.
During debate on TEFRA, many conservatives predicted economic disaster. They argued that raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession was exactly the wrong thing to do. "Every school child knows you don't raise taxes in a recession unless you want to make it worse," The Wall Street Journal's editorial page warned. Said Rep. Newt Gingrich, "I think it will make the economy sicker." The Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. said it had "no doubt that it will curb the economic recovery everyone wants."
Looking at the data, however, it is very hard to see any evidence that TEFRA had a negative effect on growth. Indeed, one could easily make a case that its enactment stimulated growth."
...
One would like to think that being wrong, over and over again, about the exact same issue, might lead some of these characters to back off. Likewise, one might also like to think that major news outlets, recognizing how wrong these folks have been for the last few decades, might stop taking their prognostications seriously. Alas, this is not the case.
Bartlett concluded, "[W]hen Republicans claim that higher taxes will destroy the economy, they should be reminded that they made the same argument in 1982 and 1993 and that the actual economic results were the opposite of what they predicted. And when they denounce Obama's health plan for expanding the size of government, they should be asked how they voted on the Medicare bill in 2003."
Benen: NO ONE IS TRYING TO BLEED THE RICH...
Slate's Daniel Gross noted last night, "To hear conservatives tell it, you'd think mobs of shiftless welfare moms were marauding through the streets of Greenwich and Palm Springs, lynching bankers and hedge-fund managers, stringing up shopkeepers, and herding lawyers into internment camps. President Obama and his budgeteers, they say, have declared war on the rich." If only that were an exaggeration. Have you seen the latest cover of the National Review? The right has gone from merely misguided to wildly hysterical. If the unhinged rhetoric were limited to right-wing blogs and talk radio, ...Aravosis: RNC chair Michael Steele's blog is no more
The emasculation has begun. When will Steele learn that there's only one leader of the Republican party? And it's never going to be him. For people who scream and yell that Limbaugh isn't the story, that Limbaugh is irrelevant, Mr. Irrelevant sure took his pound of flesh out of Michael Steele, and continues to take it.
This post is just one more reason why Steve Benen should be on your daily "must read" list: THE WRONG HISTORICAL REFERENCE POINT....
The LA Times has a piece today on Glenn Beck, who can fairly be described as unbalanced, making the transition to Fox News from CNN's Headline News.Before Glenn Beck started his new show on Fox News in January, he sat down with Roger Ailes, the network's chief executive, to make sure they were on the same page.
"I wanted to meet with Roger and tell him, 'You may not want to put me on the air. I believe we are in dire trouble, and I will never shut up,' " said the conservative radio host.
But before Beck could say anything, Ailes shared a message of his own: The country faced tough times, he said, and Fox News was one of the only news outlets willing to challenge the new administration.
"I see this as the Alamo," Ailes said, according to Beck. "If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired, we'd be fine."
Um, Roger? As I recall, the Alamo didn't turn out too well.
As Oliver Willis noted, "Let's leave aside the notion of a television network designing itself in opposition to the president with the slogan 'Fair and Balanced' for now, and let's go to the tape on The Alamo. Almost everyone at the Alamo died at the hands of Mexican soldiers. Should we tell Steve Doocy goodbye?"
When evil needs public relations ....
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atrios says: Shitpile: Actually Really Shitty
As Krugman explains, someone really needs to sit Geithner down and explain to him that all those pieces of shitpile are indeed really shitty. This fantasy of undervalued assets is just a fantasy.
- ... Why do officials keep offering plans that nobody else finds credible? Because somehow, top officials in the Obama administration and at the Federal Reserve have convinced themselves that troubled assets, often referred to these days as “toxic waste,” are really worth much more than anyone is actually willing to pay for them — and that if these assets were properly priced, all our troubles would go away.
- atrios: Lighting A Pile Of Money On Fire I don't know if these people are corrupt or fools, but they're just shoveling money out the door as fast they can.
- atrios: They Fucked Everything Up, So Obviously They Can Fix Things
They made bad bets when they at least theoretically thought they could incur losses. Now the cunning plan is to hope they make good bets even though...no chance of losses!
- Anyone else see a small problem with this idea?
- "The government is seeking to resuscitate the nation's crippled financial system by forging an alliance with the very outfits that most benefited from the bonanza preceding the collapse of the credit markets: hedge funds and private-equity firms.
The initiative to revive the consumer lending business, outlined by officials this week, offers these wealthy investors a new chance to make sizable profits -- but, thanks to the government, without the risk of massive losses."
This is all going to end really badly.
Josh has Few Random Thoughts on the Economic Crisis
Looking over the consolidation of the financial services industry you see a distressing pattern. Find one company that brings together a lot of decently run and profitable companies under one roof. Then set up one subsidiary which sells a long run of risky and substantially fraudulent 'financial products' which sucks the entire conglomerated company to the brink of bankruptcy ... or rather into bankruptcy, but is held just on the brink by permanent infusions of taxpayer funds, much of which is siphoned off into bonuses to keep the prized talent at the bankrupt company from leaving and going to other de facto bankrupt companies.
Another point. The more I learn what got a lot of these companies into trouble, foolish bets or excessive risk taking don't really capture what we're talking about. A lot of this stuff just amounts to fraud. So where are the criminal investigations. Not just hassling CEOs up on Capitol Hill, which is fine. But accountability before the law for the people who ruined the economy? There may be some short term prudential argument for not getting distracted while we're in crisis mode. But I'm not sure I buy that. I lot of this was simply criminal.
It is a small subset of the larger problems we are facing. But when historians look back to write the history of this crisis, it will be difficult to explain why everyone conspired together to face the crisis with an unstaffed Treasury Department. It's truly astounding. There were hints of this back in January. But it's really only bleeding into the press now. Just yesterday, likely nominees for two critical positions pulled their names out of consideration.
The reasons for the delays seem clear at least in broad outlines. The Obama administration has set pretty stringent ethics requirements, relating to lobbying and conflicts of interests. That's taken lots of people out of contention. And that's been aggravated by the vetting snafus on Geithner and Daschle, which have probably made them still more gun-shy.
Then there's a whole separate obstacle. Lots of the people who would staff a Treasury at the moment are compromised by their own roles in the debacle we're facing. Whether that's because so many of the people with the requisite experience are tainted or whether it's just that so many of the people the principals -- Geithner, Summers, et al. -- know and trust are compromised is unclear to me.
Nor is it only people who caused the mess in the private sector but people in the regulatory agencies who enabled it or failed to prevent it.
To some degree, you can knock the Republicans for not helping to fast-track the confirmations of anyone who is immediately needed at Treasury. As I mentioned last night, Republicans are holding up two critical appointments on the National Economic Council for what they readily admit is payback. But fundamentally it's a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress. We're in the midst of the worst economic crisis in almost anyone's living memory. And we have a Treasury Department where a lot of the key offices are empty.
Schor: Obama Science Advisers Still Slowed as No Culprit Steps Forward
The slowdown in approval of President Obama's economic team, both at Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers, is getting a lot of attention today. But let's not forget that two senior White House science adviser-designates are still going nowhere: John Holdren, named to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Jane Lubchenco, named to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, remain in limbo.
The likely source of the culprit would seem to be the Senate Commerce Committee, although that panel approved the nominations last month. "I am unaware of any GOP Commerce Committee members who are raising questions," one Senate source said via email.
But other sources pointed me to Commerce -- so just in case, I reached out to all the Republicans on that committee. The next likely source of the slowdown would be GOPers on the Senate environment committee, particularly given Holdren's progressive views on climate change, but Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) office did not return a request for comment on the nominations.
Rest assured, however, that we'll stay on this story.
John Cole's Deep Thought: If the Beltway boys and girls think the number one problem with the Obama administration is trying to do too much, it would be nice if they paused their concern trolling and applied some pressure on the folks who are, for no reason whatsoever, delaying the votes of the people Obama has picked to join his administration help him get things done.
Gail Collins: The Rant List
I am having a tough time dealing with news that the former president of Countrywide Financial, the mortgage company that did so much to dig the hole in which we all now reside, is making a killing buying up delinquent mortgage loans from the government at bargain basement rates.
“It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer selling body parts to a clinic,” sniped one of my friends.
As Eric Lipton reported in The Times, Stanford Kurland, who was president of Countrywide during the years when it was selling mortgages with temporary low “teaser” rates that later turned into permanent unaffordable ones, now leads Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company, known to its friends as PennyMac.
In what one company official said was “off-the-charts good” business, PennyMac buys troubled mortgages from the government (which got them from failed banks) at rates like 38 cents on the dollar. Then it offers the beleaguered homeowners a chance to refinance at far more favorable terms. PennyMac makes money, the homeowner gets an affordable mortgage and the government gets a share of the profit.
Everybody’s happy! Except, of course, those of us who helped come up with the other 62 cents on the dollar.
Once again, we are reminded that life is not fair. Lately these unfairness bulletins have been coming so fast and furious that there isn’t time to get upset about all of them. Prioritization is essential.
....
Benen on why EMULATING REAGAN WON'T CUT IT....
.... according to a new Fox News poll, that won't work, either.
Are we still a center-right nation, as many Republicans continue to insist? And can the GOP revive itself through a return to the spirit of Ronald Reagan, as Rush Limbaugh has said?
Check out this question from the new Fox News poll: "What do you think the nation's economy needs more of right now -- the economic policies of Ronald Reagan or the economic policies of Barack Obama?"
The answer: Obama 49%, Reagan 40%.
Of course, it's probably worth noting that, as long-time Monthly readers may recall, Reagan's economic policies aren't quite in line with at least some Republicans' memories. Reagan did, after all, raise taxes several times, in order to help offset the costs of increased spending.
...
When respondents were asked about Obama's tax plan -- increases on households earning over $250,000 a year, cuts for nearly everyone else -- 66% approved of the idea (even 41% of self-identified Republicans endorsed the White House plan).
And for Ayn Rand fans, there was one other interesting question, flagged by Greg Sargent: "Do you think asking the wealthiest Americans to pay more in taxes is a good idea because it levels the economic and social playing field, or a bad idea because it punishes work and success?"
Despite the wording of the poll, a majority (55%) of the Fox News poll's respondents said it's a good idea to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
The John Galt movement is probably going to struggle a bit.
Maddow on a Reckoning for Rove March 5: Former Bush advisor Karl Rove is finally testifying to the House Judiciary Committee about issues ranging from the firing of U.S. Attorneys to his involvement in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Rachel Maddow is joined by Gov. Siegelman.
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Olberman and Hayes on Rove
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