Thursday, May 7, 2009

Thursday Morning: Whispers

atrios: Who Cares What Either Of Them Think?
I have no idea who - actually, or conceptually - wrote this headline, but...who the hell cares?
Opinion » The Conversation Who Will Replace Souter? Here’s hoping for someone Gail Collins likes, and David Brooks can live with.
Whatever flaws are existing system has, they aren't that random people employed by the New York Times might not have enough say in the outcomes.

via Daily Kos' BarbinMD:

E.J. Dionne has bad news for the wingnuttia:

We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into the category of "more Catholic than the pope."

To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has offered what one antiabortion Catholic blog called "a surprisingly positive assessment of the new president's approach to life issues" -- so positive, in fact, that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee was moved to criticize Pope Benedict XVI's daily.

DougJ: Sectarian Catholics

It’s not every day that I read an editorial in a Catholic magazine that I like, but this is good:

The divisive effects of the new American sectarians have not escaped the notice of the Vatican. Their highly partisan political edge has become a matter of concern. That they never demonstrate the same high dudgeon at the compromises, unfulfilled promises and policy disagreements with Republican politicians as with Democratic ones is plain for all to see. It is time to call this one-sided denunciation by its proper name: political partisanship.

[....]

Four steps are necessary for the U.S. church to escape the strengthening riptide of sectarian conflict and re-establish trust between universities and the hierarchy. First, the bishops’ discipline about speakers and awards at Catholic institutions should be narrowed to exclude from platforms and awards only those Catholics who explicitly oppose formal Catholic teaching. Second, in politics we must reaffirm the distinction between the authoritative teaching of moral principles and legitimate prudential differences in applying principles to public life. Third, all sides should return to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI that in politics there are usually several ways to attain the same goals. Finally, church leaders must promote the primacy of charity among Catholics who advocate different political options. For as the council declared, “The bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything which divides them” (“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” No. 92).

This is by Jesuits, whom I personally have a soft spot for. I’m no longer able to remember which things my grandfather said they taught him and which things Frank Pembleton said they taught him, but I know they teach people things.

Personally, I would take this editorial a step farther: if a bishop is clearly doing the work of the Republican party, his diocese should lose its tax exempt status.


Chris in Paris China moving on climate change
It's amazing what a change in government can do. The Bush administration's refusal to get serious about the environment was obvious to everyone, including China. Now the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases are at the table and ready to work out a plan. The Guardian:
China's official negotiating position is unchanged, but the government is understood to be preparing a set of targets up to and beyond 2020 to lower the country's "carbon intensity". This translates to cutting the emissions needed to produce each unit of economic growth.

Miliband said Barack Obama's pledge to reduce US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 has unblocked the international negotiating process.

"China used to think the developed world is not serious. That's what they were saying [at UN talks] in December," he said. "But now they know the US is on the pitch and ready to engage with them. It has made a real difference to what China is saying."
Beutler (TPM: Anatomy Of A Sotomayor SCOTUS Whisper Campaign
The campaign against Second-Circuit Court of Appeals Judge (and potential SCOTUS nominee) Sonia Sotomayor began in earnest when nameless former clerks on that court told The New Republic's legal correspondent Jeffrey Rosen that the Hispanic judge (and one-time George H.W Bush appointee) is too temperamental--and not intelligent enough--to serve on the Court.
I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York. Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court. Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.

The charges have been challenged loudly--almost immediately after the article came out, other people familiar with her work came forward to call the piece baseless. But once the cat was out of the bag, there was no stuffing it back in. Almost immediately, conservatives picked up and...advanced...the meme. National Review's Mark Hemingway called her "dumb and obnoxious," inviting a classy riposte from his colleague John Derbyshire, who cautioned that "Judge Sotomayor may indeed be dumb and obnoxious; but she's also female and Hispanic, and those are the things that count nowadays."

To The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, this represented evidence that "Sotomayor's public image [is] at risk" and today the Washington Post quoted an anonymous lawyer, supposedly involved somewhat tangentially in the Justice Souter replacement process, saying Sotomayor will be battling the perception that she "doesn't play well with others."

But the coup de grâce may have come last night when Sotomayor bashing traveled outside the beltway, and on to the Late Show, where David Letterman portrayed Sotomayor as a Spanish-speaking version of Judge Judy. Watch:

What remains unclear is what, precisely, has animated the whisper campaign. Glenn Greenwald raised one intriguing suggestion:

Jeffrey Rosen's brother-in-law is Neal Katyal, the current Deputy Solicitor General in the Obama administration. If Sotomayor's prospects are torpedoed, that could clear the way for one of the other leading candidates to be named to the Court: current Solicitor General Elena Kagan. The selection of Kagan (rather than Sotomayor) would almost certainly result in Rosen's brother-in-law (Katyal) becoming Solicitor General. Additionally, Katyal himself was once a clerk for a Second Circuit judge, obviously raising the question of whether he was one of the anonymous sources for his brother-in-law's hit piece disparaging Sotomayor's intellect and character.

But Katyal served as a clerk on the Second Circuit in 1995 and 1996, two years before Sotomayor was belatedly confirmed to the court on October 2, 1998 by a Republican-controlled Senate. I spoke to Rosen by phone today, and he characterized things differently from Greenwald. He says Katyal was not one of his sources. He confirmed that a number of people--former clerks and federal prosecutors--approached him in a span of about two weeks, each voicing similar concerns about Sotomayor's temperament and fitness. He says that they were nearly all Democrats and doubts that they were animated by any ulterior motives. But, he says, he will soon be addressing the controversy on The New Republic's website, and we'll bring that to you when it goes live.


Report rescinded May 6: An old Pentagon report, previously used to defend a questionable Bush administration PR practice, has been rescinded. Rachel Maddow is joined by Frank Rich, New York Times columnist and author of the book "The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

Chris in Paris Roubini: stress tests not stressful enough
On the positive side, Roubini is seeing some positive signs out there, though he is targeting 2010 as opposed to 2009 for working out of the recession. On the banking front, Roubini continues to see difficulties and thinks the weaker banks are not going to be able to raise private capital in this market so let's move forward with taking them over and cleaning them up so they can become productive and privatized again. The video is inside the CNBC link:
"(But) if you assume the results have been leaked are true, you're going to find out that a large number of financial institutions have significant capital needs," Roubini told CNBC.

He also warns the government's plan to make banks covert more preferred shares to common stocks could lead to a creeping nationalization of the banks.

"Weaker institutions are going to find it very hard to raise money in the private sector because they're going to be further diluted by the government converting preferred into common shares. So eventually we may go into a creeping process of partial nationalization of some financial institutions," Roubini added.
  • Drum: Stress Test Finale

    The Wall Street Journal reports on the results of the stress tests:

    The Federal Reserve directed at least seven of the nation's biggest banks to bolster their capital levels by $65 billion while effectively blessing the stability of six others, marking for the first time a bold line between some of the nation's stronger and weaker banks.

    All I can say at this point is that I'm baffled. If Geithner is right, then everything is fine and the banking system was never really in very big trouble. $65 billion is nothing. But if the IMF is right, American banks are nearly $300 billion short. If Nouriel Roubini is right, the shortfall might be even greater.

    So who is right? I have no idea. "All Americans should be confident that these institutions are going to be viable institutions going forward," Geithner said tonight, and I sure hope that's the straight dope. But these discrepancies are simply too large to wave away. Somebody is way, way off base, and I'd sure like to know who it is.

Marshall: "There's Fire There"
As you know, there's been this long-simmering question of whether federal officials forced BofA CEO Ken Lewis to complete the purchase of Merrill Lynch even after the company's mounting losses made it clear it wasn't a good deal on the business merits. Ben Bernanke testified earlier this week that there was no effort to do anything untoward, and that all the relevant federal regulators were on hand during the key meetings. But the House Oversight Committee has been reviewed notes of phone conversations and other government records. And a person familiar with the probe tells the Journal "there's fire there." They're apparently going to call everyone back up to the Hill next month to testify on the matter under oath.


Chris in Paris The bulldozer bubble?
In the big picture it may make sense but wow, what a strange story. Who knows how many of the millions of empty homes will meet the same ending. CNBC:
So this is what it has come to.

A bank in Texas is bulldozing four brand new homes and twelve nearly finished homes in Victorville city, California, about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Guaranty Bank of Austin acquired the homes in foreclosure and is destroying them, reportedly, to provide a "safe environment" for the neighbors.

Check out a local guy who posted the amazing video. He says the builder was being fined daily for the homes, but if they were already in foreclosure, then the builder should be out of the picture. Anyway, check it out.
Video inside the CNBC story is click here.

digby: Huckleberry Howls
We're going to hell in a handbasket:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Republicans would fight back hard if Democrats or liberal groups try to make the Supreme Court confirmation process about Sessions’ record, rather than about Obama’s nominee to replace Justice David Souter.

“If people try to go down that road, it’ll blow up in their face, because Jeff is a good guy,” Graham said. “My hope is that our Democratic colleagues — if you start listening to the bloggers — if we’re going to let the bloggers run the country, then the country’s best days are behind us.”
That's so true. Everybody knows the country should be run by radio talk show hosts.

Are they listening? May 6: Heavyweights in the Republican Party disagree about whether theirs is a listening tour or a talking tour. Rachel Maddow is joined by Ana Marie Cox, national correspondent for Air America and contributor to the Daily Beast.

Limbaugh hurting the GOP May 6: Countdown's Keith Olbermann and The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson discuss Rush Limbaugh's comments at a Heritage Foundation dinner, bragging about his $400 million contract and expressing his cynicism about the recession.
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