Next up: the Wasilla Witchcraft Project

Sarah Palin’s face-off meltdown with “America’s sweetheart” Katie Couric has left the Palin-McCain camp reeling and running out of secular options. Right wing commentators are hitting the panic button as the cringe factor grows. The reset button no longer works. Each time it’s pressed, Sarah Palin’s programming comes crashing down even harder:

That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters. … As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Ouch. Conservative columnist David Brooks said, “It’s embarrassing, it’s painful to watch those things, you want to turn them off.” If Palin can’t handle Couric, how can she possibly be expected to stand up to Putin’s disembodied head?

Kathleen Parker, the latest right wing columnist to push the Palin panic button, made a plaintive appeal to Palin’s patriotism:

I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

[…]

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

[…]

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Fat chance, Kathleen. Your scenario is as likely as ... well, Brooks’s whimsical vision of Putin’s head floating above Alaska’s aurora borealis.

What to do, you ask?

There’s only ONE solution that can save Sarah Palin: First, cast away those debate prep briefing books “festooned” with NeoCon talking points too numerous to memorize. Next, summon Palin’s witch-hunting pastor, Thomas Muthee.

Back in 2005 Pastor Muthee alighted on Wasilla and conducted a “laying of hands” ritual on sister Sarah to exorcise “all forms of witchcraft” in advance of her successful run for governor.

Here's the link to "Palin's Pastor Problem."

The Palin-McCain camp shouldn’t argue with success. You never know, the evangelical vote is still up for grabs. Time for another McCain Hail Mary?

In the name of JEE-ZUHS.

Proofreading 101

Typos are a fact of life for those of us who write for a living. This one, though, is one you HAVE to catch. From the AP:

Democrats also wanted to avoid an election-year clash with Bush that would have played in his favor. They are willing to take their chances that Democrat Barrack Abeam will be elected president in November and permit increases for scores of programs squeezed by Bush each year.

How embarrassing. Here's the story, if they haven't cleaned it up yet.

RIP Paul Newman

We will miss a great actor and an even better person.

CW

I am also fascinated by the contemporary wisdom that the "surge" has "worked."

Spending Freeze?

About the only thing that stuck out in my mind after the debate last night was McCain's comment about a spending freeze on everything other than defense and entitlements. Really, John? So screw the bridges and levees and education and climate change and all that? I know that the Giggling Murderer has spent the government into oblivion, but how's that going to sell in places like Minnesota or Louisiana?

Debate Post-Mortem

If condescension, ill-disguised contempt, and a patronizing attitude toward his opponent were part of the scorecard of presidential debates, then one might say that McCain "won" last night's debate. Unfortunately for McCain, his rambling, bullying performance may have been red meat for the base but did not endear him to that strange breed of voters calling themselves "undecideds" and "independents." Several post-election flash polls seemed to bear this out, giving Obama a clear "win" on points. At the risk of giving the TV punditocracy too much credit for another election 2008 buzzword, e.g. "pivot," which is then repeated ad nauseum, there was no "gamechanger" in this debate. Which is not good news for McCain.

Senator Obama wasn't at his best; he could, and should have, landed more punches on McCain. On the other hand, Obama stayed "on message," displaying his usual impressive command of the issues, and treated McCain with a deference and respect that the old geezer clearly did not deserve. Not surprisingly, this gentlemanly quality of Obama's resonated well with the viewers. At the same time, McCain did not help himself by his refusal to look Obama in the eye. The voters who will decide this election, and who were probably turning their full attention to the election for the first time, do not like to see unneccessary displays of rudeness from their candidates, and style matters as much as substance to such voters.

Perhaps it's not in Obama's nature to be combative. His "brand" (to coin another silly buzzword) would be tarnished by excessive partisanship. One could argue that Obama is where he is today because he is a brilliant politician who has figured out that Americans want a nonpartisan, conciliatory, consensus-building approach from their president. This is Obama's strength. But it could have turned into a weakness had he allowed McCain to roll him. It didn't happen, but there are those of us who would like to see more combativeness from Obama, especially in these dire times, with so much on the line in this election.

Newsflash: It went almost unnoticed that the leader of the Republican Party admitted the United States tortures prisoners. "Never again will we torture prisoners," said McCain. Am I wrong, or is this the first time a Republican officeholder with access to intelligence reports has made this assertion? Would the candidate care to amplify his comment before a war crimes tribunal in the Hague? For one who lectured Obama on what a potential president should or should not say, John McCain certainly strayed off the Republican reservation, even if confirming the obvious.

There's progress, and then there's John McCain progress

From the McCain campaign:

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon.

All the news this morning was about how there was a major breakdown in discussions, that there are two competing plans (the Dodd variant on the Paulson one, or something like that, and the House GOP insurance scam) that have nothing in common and where the House GOP members have dug their heels in and are posturing like they're the defenders of the holy land or something and how W is impotent and how the meeting yesterday was beyond bad and how Paulson got down on a knee to beg Democrats to not tattle on him, and that the GOP might not even send reps from the House to discussions today, etc.

That's "significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement"? This from the guy who only spoke at the White House meeting when prodded by his opponent?

Go jump in a woodchipper, Senator McCain.

Bailing on the bailout, or something

I'm not really sure what to think of what's going on with this whole bailout thing.

First of all, and rather importantly, Paulson and his crew have not spelled out just what the real danger is, so it's hard to know how important it is that something get done RIGHT NOW. Clearly, financial markets struggle under the veil of uncertainty, and as we saw last week, sometimes the mere insinuation that the government is planning to help calms things down, so there may well be value in some action.

Secondly, however, the Paulson plan is clearly DOA. No one wants to give him (and, really, his successor) $700 billion (a number they pulled out of their collective behinds, BTW) with no oversight of any kind. Thankfully, even der Chimpenfuhrer has acknowledged that, and the plan that Dodd was talking about yesterday as "an agreement on principles" was, apparently noticeably different.

Thirdly, however again, we don't have the details of Dodd's plan (or whatever the compromise plan is looking like). So everyone is still reacting to Paulson's crappy plan, and there is no effort to sell us on why the compromise is not just a better idea, but actually a *good* idea.

Fourthly, in comes Saint JohnnyMac and his House GOP cronies. They have put together a "plan" which is more laughable than the Paulson one. It includes, as you would expect from crazy people, reducing regulations and cutting corporate taxes. The assumption, of course, is that if the government just got totally out of their way, companies would assume these bad debts their own bad selves and somehow figure out how to make money on them. Yes, that will work. That's why when the government was begging banks to come up with funding for AIG (I think it was AIG, I'm getting confused with all the failures) they said no way.

So, here's where we are. There are three plans, two of which are laughably bad and dangerous and one which may be better (and on which everyone except the House GOP had signed off, basically) but we don't know what it is. W has no authority of any kind (his party is in absolute revolt), McCain is clearly trying to use this to somehow gain popularity as the man who fixed the problem, and meanwhile, overnight WaMu went belly-up.

I can see the following scenarios taking place:

1) The Dems give in and sign off on the House GOP plan (or the Paulson one), either of which would be a disaster. I don't think that will happen, in part because they've got the bit in their teeth somewhat (Barney Frank is goin' ape) and in part because this is like the only time they've ever gotten Bush to give in on anything (other than SSI, and that one he just pouted on) and they can't let him forget it.

2) Nothing passes, and the markets self-correct. McCain looks like a genius for stalling everything and being terribly non-commital.

3) Nothing passes, and the markets and banking industry continues to go down the toilet. If this happens, McCain's candidacy is doomed beyond comprehension, because everyone will remember how close they were to a compromise (for good or ill) and then it died.

4) Somehow, a plan that doesn't entirely suck gets passed - the banks get a couple hundred billion (but not 700) and regulations get increased and homeowners get something back in return.

Of course, I have no idea what will actually happen, and now I have to go to work.

Guest post by Dr.Pete

This was sent to me by a friend of mine:

The Senate’s Glass Dome

Unless you’ve been living in the basement of a sealed-off cave on the dark side of the moon, you’re probably aware that the 2008 election is “historic”. We’ve heard a lot about the barriers being broken by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, and rightly so, but what about the rest of our Federal government? As we edge closer to the possibility of a black president, are we making strides in other areas?

Since Barack Obama is a sitting Senator and the Senate has the mathematical virtue of having exactly 100 members, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Senate’s make-up compares to the country at large. Currently, the Senate’s official ethnic diversity page reveals that we have 5 sitting Senators who are racial minorities: the Senate is 95% white, 1% African-American, 1% Asian-American, and 3% Hispanic/Latino. At the time of the 2000 U.S. Census, the country at large was roughly 69% white, 12% African-American, 4% Asian-American, and 13% Hispanic/Latino.

According to that same census, women made up 51% of our population. The ratio of currently serving female Senators is 16%. Now, you may think that 16% is reasonably high, and that this could just be pure chance, the same as getting heads 16 times on 100 coin tosses. Just for the record, if we picked our Senators at random, the odds of getting 16 (or less) women are roughly 1 in 768,000,000,000.

So, how are we doing? I’m afraid the answer is “not very well”. While the make-up of any body will never completely mirror the country at large, and merit should always be our primary qualification for office, it’s painfully clear that we have a long way to go. We need to work to understand the forces and social pressures that still act to keep women and racial minorities from serving in the highest offices. Hopefully, the 2008 presidential election is at least a beginning to that conversation.

Quiz time, boys and girls

It is unlikely, but possible, that the electoral vote ends in a 269-269 tie.

No cheating--what happens?

Quote of the Day

Couric asked Palin, "Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?"

Palin: "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."

What the hell is she talking about? Giving $700 billion to rich people who lost their shirts will reform health care, reduce taxes, and create jobs? Is she on crack, or just as dumb as she sounds? BTW, I just watched the video, and Katie Couric gets huge props for not giving away how stupid that answer was.


h/t Balloon Juice

Let me get this straight

So, Senator McCain, last week "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," but now the economy is "cratering" (crater? I hardly know her! - h/t Paul Shaffer) and Friday's debate (as well as next Thursday's Veep evisceration, err, debate) need to be postponed or canceled so that you can do something you haven't done since last year - play at being a United States Senator? That's quite a turnaround, wouldn't you say?

World traveller Palin visits New York

AP:

At the start of her meeting with Talabani at a downtown hotel, the governor was overheard saying: "There's plenty to do here, isn't there? Plenty to see."

I love the smell of desperation

The AP, not buying the spin:

Even as McCain said he was putting the good of the country ahead of politics, his surprise announcement was clearly political. It was an attempt to try to out-maneuver Obama on an issue he's trailing on, the economy, as the Democrat gains in polls. He swiftly went before TV cameras minutes after speaking with Obama and before the two campaigns had hammered out a joint statement expressing that Congress act urgently on the bailout.

And while McCain's campaign said he would "suspend" his campaign, it simply will move to Washington knowing the spotlight will remain on him no matter where he is.

Obama repeatedly stressed at his news conference that he called McCain first to propose that they issue a joint statement in support of a package to help fix the economy as soon as possible. He said McCain called back several hours later, as Obama was leaving a rally in Florida, and agreed to the idea of a statement but also said he wanted to postpone the debate and hold joint meetings in Washington.

Obama said he suggested they first issue a joint statement showing bipartisanship.

"When I got back to the hotel, he had gone on television to announce what he was going to do," Obama said.

Rush's dumber brother, redux

I thought David Limbaugh below was just stupidity, but apparently it has become the official party line of the wingers--the Community Reinvestment Act and other housing laws "forced" banks to lend in "high risk" areas. That is a complete lie. First of all, no financial institutions were forced to suspend prudential lending standards. Secondly, these are not the loans that are the basis of the subprime mess, and of course, by mentioning "high risk areas," they use codewords for where black people live, and did you notice that Barack Obama is black???

The loans in question can be traced not to fair housing laws but to the securitization of mortgage pools and the separation of the underwriting risk from the making of the loan. Mortgage-backed securities and instruments such as credit default swaps (which I don't understand, and I'm a securities lawyer), sold through a deregulated market, led to the crisis.

Suspension

So JohnnyMac wants to postpone Friday's debate and is suspending his campaign (whatever that means) to do, y'know, his job as a US Senator (something he hasn't done in ages...). I've got two better ideas:

1) Suspend your pathetic campaign permanently and put yourself out of our misery
2) Have an unscripted and unplanned discussion on Friday night about the economy. Sit at a table with Obama and just talk. Show us how bipartisan and mavericky you really are, and work out a solution that doesn't just line the pockets of your rich friends.

From Rush's dumber brother

"Government politicians and bureaucrats forced lending institutions to make un-creditworthy loans and helped create unnatural demand in the housing market by priming the pump on bad loans. This created an unnatural price bubble in real estate, which was securing these ill-advised loans. When the bubble inevitably burst, the mortgages secured by the artificially inflated real estate plummeted in value, which left us with an epidemic of grossly under-secured loans."

That's some deep thinking for you.

Link

Is Vader losing his power?

From the AP:
Vice President Dick Cheney and Jim Nussle, the Bush administration's budget director, met privately with restive House Republicans, some of whom emerged from the session unpersuaded.

"Just because God created the world in seven days doesn't mean we have to pass this bill in seven days," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Added Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., "I am emphatically against it."

Six weeks left, update

The last week has generally not been a good one for humanity, poll-wise, but the trend over the last day or two is moving back towards Obama. Regardless, here's this morning's snapshot of the polls. See here for last week's analysis and an explanation of what I'm trying to do here.

Italicized states have trended (changed categories) towards McCain, bolded towards Obama.

McCain win: Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, South Dakota, North Dakota. Total: 155 EV (-61).

McCain likely: Montana, Missouri, North Carolina. Total: 29 EV (+18).

Obama likely: Wisconsin. Total: 10 EV (-18).

Obama win: DC, Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, California, Delaware, New Jersey, Iowa, Washington, New Mexico, Oregon. Total: 202 EV (+23).

Tossup: Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, Florida, Indiana, West Virginia. Total: 142 EV (+38).

The net trend since last week is McCain lost 33 EV from his column, while Obama gained 5 (and the tossup column gained 38). Combining the "win" and "likely" for each, we'd be at 184 for McCain and 212 for Obama. Not quite a dead heat, but close. PA and MI are still critical, but the trend was heavily in Obama's direction this week. If you include all states that are leaning one way or the other, you'd put WV, IN, FL, NV, and NH in McCain's column and OH, VA, CO, PA, MI, and MN in Obama's. That would give you totals of 302 for Obama and 236 for McCain.

Oh Madam Speaker...

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Please consider your decisions over the next few days VERY carefully.

If you push this bailout through the House, you are a complete and utter MORON, and you will have just handed the election to Grampy. That piece of crap will get to show up in the Senate, vote "no" on the bill and then, well looky here, ain't he maverick-y! Then he spends the rest of the campaign running against BOTH Bush and the Democrats and then we're screwed for four/eight more years.

Do the right thing. Please.

Wow

Bush has sunk below the Alan Keyes line, and that took some doing:

Overall, 19% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 76% disapprove, and 5% are undecided.

That's not the most amazing number in the data, however (19% still approve?):

No Americans say that the national economy is getting better, 13% say it is staying the same, and 82% say the national economy is getting worse.

From CNN

"The Bush administration's proposed $700 billion financial rescue began to take shape today with lawmakers debating whether to add provisions to protect taxpayers."

Only in Bush's America could protecting taxpayers (y'know, those of us footing the bill for this bailout idea) be something worthy of debate.

Bail! Bail!

This has already been said by others, but the simple truth is that if the banks and GOP feel like they can impose any conditions they want on their bailout, they must not need the money that badly. What's the threat - that they'll go out of business? Talk about cutting off your dick to spite Congress' face.

This isn't terrifying at all, I swears

NYT:
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed to Congress what could become the largest financial bailout in United States history, requesting virtually unfettered authority for the Treasury to buy up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets from financial institutions based in the United States.

The proposal was stunning for its stark simplicity: less than three pages, it would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, allowing the Treasury to buy and resell mortgage debt as it sees fit...

The plan, an ambitious effort to transfer the bad debts of Wall Street into the obligations of American taxpayers, was put forward by the administration late last week, after a series of bold interventions on behalf of ailing private firms seemed unlikely to prevent a crash of world financial markets.

Guest Post

From my friend Carlos

Selling the Cheap Knock-Off to “Swing” Voters

John McCain is attempting to foist on the American people an act of prestidigitation worthy of Houdini’s corpse in a George Romero zombie movie. With Frankenstein’s bride at his side—Sarah “Barracuda” Palin reading a Rovian teleprompter message of lies—McCain has emerged from the Dead Zone of the past eight, 20, 38 years (take your pick), robotically mimicking Barack Obama, “change is coming, change is coming, change.”

To achieve this horror show sleight-of-mind the McCain campaign, led by Rovian disciples of Joseph Goebbels, must do certain things. Not only must they sell McCain, outrageously, as the real agent of change, but at the same time insulate Sarah Palin from explaining her extremist views to the wicked “liberal media.” Never mind that only a few weeks ago, McCain held impromptu media interviews in his oxymoronic “Straight Talk Express.” Ironically, much of the good press McCain’s received, the uncritical exposure, resulted from his readiness to grant access to the selfsame mainstream media his campaign is now demonizing. Hypocrisy begets more hypocrisy.

Abraham Lincoln who would not, today, recognize the Republican Party, famously said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Proving Lincoln wrong is clearly McCain’s campaign strategy—a cynical tactic, contemptuous of the intelligence and attention span of the American voter—not just to reinvent, but rather, resuscitate the moribund candidate for a mere seven weeks as the “change agent.”

Time for Pushback

Fool me once: McCain, the “Mavrick,” read a sign in the Republican Convention (these people are not strong on basic literacy), has voted with Bush 90% of the time and his campaign is being run by Washington lobbyists.

Fool me twice: McCain’s economic “guru,” former Senator Phil Gramm, is an arch-conservative Texan whose claim to fame was to lead the repeal in 1999 of a New Deal banking regulation, precipitating today’s economic turmoil and foreclosures in the housing industry. The former general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, until he said the current economic crisis is all in our heads— “psychological”—and we’re a “nation of whiners,” remains the economic Rasputin in this gang of scoundrels. McCain himself has admitted, and has shown by his recent campaigning, that he knows nothing about the economy.

The Wrong Roosevelt:
Or How McCain is 100 Years Out of Touch

How “psychological” is a trillion dollar financial markets loss in a matter of days? McCain blames “greed on Wall Street.” The problem with his turn-of-the-century (20th century) thinking is that T.R. Roosevelt (McCain’s role model) railed against “barons of great wealth” without benefit of the economic reforms enacted during his cousin Franklin’s New Deal.

John McCain is rather like a pathetic historical “re-enactor,” desperately hoping to embody Teddy Roosevelt’s third term that never was, as if the last 100 years had never happened.

In truth, John McCain and his neoCon cohorts have waged a craven decades-long campaign against FDR’s legacy and everything it represents to this country. From deregulation of the markets to a failed presidential attempt at privatizing social security, the results are in: the greatest financial crisis our country has faced since the Great Depression.

What are the common links between these seemingly disparate events? On one side, Franklin Delano Roosevelt; on the other, well-funded oligarchs and the forces of reaction, with their political arm, the Republican Party.

History sidebar: The Republican Party of Lincoln died when Teddy Roosevelt bolted Taft’s business party to form the most successful third party in American history, the Bull Moose Party (unfortunate references to Palin notwithstanding). T.R. took with him the last remnants of progressivism in his Republican Party. After the election of 1912, many of these progressives found a home in cousin Franklin’s Democratic Party.

Greed and Ambition First, Family Second, Country Last

Now we are being offered a choice to vote the fox into the hen house. Does McCain’s “lipstick on a pig” campaign really believe the American people are this stupid?

But wait, they’re the “family values” party, right? Indeed, we’ve been treated to the spectacle of Sarah Palin: an anti-choice, anti-sex education, pro-abstinence, book-banning (presumably sex education textbooks too), vice presidential candidate who happens to be a pathological liar. The trashy, unqualified Palin, with her 60s beehive “do” and weird fundamentalist views, had no problem throwing her pregnant 17-year-old daughter under the bus in the name of political ambition. What “incentives” have this pistol-packing mom and Alaska secessionist dad offered the kid who impregnated their daughter? Fodder for the tabloids, which is perfectly fine with this Republican Party. The last thing they wanted was for this election to be about big issues.

Their strategy seemed to be working; that is, until a financial crisis rudely intruded.


An Economic Crisis Intrudes

Phil Gramm, McCain’s Treasury (what’s left of it) Secretary in waiting, is most responsible for the deepening economic crisis in our country and for the market meltdown on Wall Street. Forget “deregulation,” this is laissez-faire nonregulation—McCain, Gramm, and the Republican Party have presided over the partial rollback of FDR’s economic reforms which had, until now, survived the test of time and ensured growing prosperity for generations of Americans.

Gramm’s wife, Wendy Gramm, engineered the catastrophic deregulation of the energy industry as head of the CFTC and then served on Enron’s board of directors as it milked investors of millions of dollars, wiping out people’s life savings in a nanosecond. For her involvement in the scandal, Gramm and other Enron directors agreed to an $168 million dollar settlement in a suit led by the University of California. Ronald Reagan said Wendy Gramm was his “favorite economist.”

McCain, the NeoCon Extremist

John McCain may have voted with Bush 90% of the time on all issues, but when it comes to the war in Iraq he’s 100% with Bush. As the veneer of disinformation and propaganda is scratched from McCain’s “maverick” facade, we discover just below the surface a candidate obsessed with so-called “Islamic Fundamentalism.” In the early days of the campaign his eyes projected a fanatical glint when he spoke of this as an existential, generational threat, greater than any this country faces. In John McCain’s mind, this is a titanic struggle between competing civilizations. If required, we shall occupy Iraq for 100 years.

For Sarah Palin and her evangelical supporters, McCain’s worldview dovetails nicely with their religious fundamentalism. It portends Armageddon itself. Only last June, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

These are extremist positions. McCain’s fanaticism is not shared by most thoughtful foreign policy analysts, who do not consider the threat posed by Islamic terrorists, numbering in the thousands, equal to that posed by the combined armed forces of Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II. Someone in the campaign must have urged McCain to bring it down a few notches, because clearly this kind of talk alarms voters.

Nevertheless, the reality is that McCain has completely embraced the neoconservative, neofascist worldview that manipulated an empty vessel like George W. Bush into the Iraq fiasco. In some ways, McCain is more dangerous. He is a true “believer,” whereas Bush only reads off a prepared script. And now his distorted vision is on the cusp of merging with the Religious Right’s agenda in ways even the Bush regime could not achieve.

What it all Comes Down to: We Won’t get Fooled Again

Yet, for once in his mediocre political career, George W. Bush has the definitive word on this election: “There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."

Can McCain’s operatives sell the country, especially inattentive “swing” voters, on the McCain-Palin ticket as the ultimate cheap knock-off to Barack Obama’s message of change? Time will tell.

Until this week, the bottom line was it would probably come down to the debates. That is, until the bottom threatened to drop off our economy.

John McCain, the nine-home top-five-percentile oligarch, eerily echoes Herbert Hoover’s do-nothing paralysis trumpeting the “fundamentals of the economy are sound” from the deck of the Titanic, a.k.a. the U.S. economy, circa 1932. FDR won in a landslide. And so should Barack Obama in 2008.

The American people have no other choice.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Vice President of the United States

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiOIEGM7XEs

Memo to Grampy

John McCain said he would fire SEC Chairman (and Orange County Republican) Chris Cox. Memo to Grampy--while you nominaye the SEC chair as president, you have no power to dismiss the head of an independent agency.

In many ways, this is Hurricane Katrina all over, the failure of governance by people who don't believe in government.

The new White House occupant - Hugo Chavez

Hundreds of billions of dollars for corporate welfare? It's official - no big business ever fails, we just bail them out with taxpayer money, and of course that money can't come from the rich, otherwise they're just bailing themselves out, and we can't have that.

I wonder how expensive it would have been to have had competent regulation and oversight...

Wow, she's dumb

On CNN's Political Ticker, there's a story about Sarah Palin's arguments that she should run the country because she's an energy expert.

“And maybe if [Obama]’d been the governor of an energy-rich state, he’d get it."

Now, Barack Obama has never been the governor of any state, but we'll ignore that part. What we can notice is that Palin has no grasp on anything other than what's in her tiny little 5 colleges in 6 years mind, and that is that Illinois is actually an energy-rich state. Illinois is number one in terms of nuclear capacity (and hence McCain's lines about how Obama ignores nuclear power are absurd - actually, he haas been influenced by the nuclear lobby plenty of times) and 9th out of 28 states in coal production.

Man, I hate facts.

Life in crazyland

Clearly, only a crazy person would not want to ensure maintaining minimum survival needs for elderly people to the stock market. It is stable and ever-growing, and if only we'd invested the national retirement fund then the free market would have made sure that the bread lines were as comfortable as possible.

Melting Down

The mess is a result of a failed philosophy, deregulation and the Grover Norquist view of shrinking government to where you could drown it in a bathtub. Unregulated competitive capitalism, definitionally based on self-interest, is often not aligned with the public good.

There were two statutory measures that brought this on, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the commodities modernization bill. Clinton COULD and should have vetoed GLB (he used the threat of a veto to get some changes in the bill) but he was in effect powerless against the CFMA, given that it was attached to a spending bill and Chimpy already had the keys to the Oval Office. That was the one that jumpstarted the derivatives and swaps trading (and included the Enron loophole).

From there we have executive (the Justice Department deciding that antitrust was a silly concept) and regulatory policy (GOP majorities on the CFTC, SEC, etc. that stood idly by) out of the Bush administration that alowed the disaster to take place.

Are the Democrats blameless? Of course not. Clinton (I never figured out why the Republicans hated him so, he was practically one of them, signing GLB, the CFMA, NAFTA, CAFTA, the telecomm act, etc.) signed the bills, the Dems in Congress rolled over. But this was the implementation of conservative ideology which just shows again that while they are better than the Democrats at politics in many ways, they are unfit to govern.

What the internet is for

http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

Best. Headline. Ever.

Article here.

Seven weeks left, update on polls

The last week has generally not been a good one for humanity, poll-wise, but the trend over the last day or two is moving back towards Obama. Regardless, here's this morning's snapshot of the polls. See here for last week's analysis and an explanation of what I'm trying to do here.

Italicized states have trended (changed categories) towards McCain, bolded (if there were any this week) towards Obama.

McCain win: Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, West Virginia, Missouri, South Dakota, North Dakota, North Carolina, Montana, Florida. Total: 216 EV (+54).

McCain likely: Indiana. Total: 11 EV (-6).

Obama likely: Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington. Total: 28 EV (-21).

Obama win: DC, Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, California, Delaware, New Jersey, Iowa. Total: 179 EV (-32).

Tossup: Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire. Total: 104 EV (+8).

The net trend since last week is McCain put 45 EV in his column, while Obama lost 53 (and the tossup column gained 8). Combining the "win" and "likely" for each, we'd be at 227 for McCain and 207 for Obama. Not quite a dead heat, but close. PA and MI are still critical.

I'm looking forward to next week's data, when we're post-conventions more and leading up to the debates.

Sorry for the absence

Work, always there. Family, always there. Now, recovering from minor surgery (minor, but ouchy) but my absence has been inexcusable.

Long time, no see

I'm always amused by how Republican politicians LOVE laws that are over 200 years old (constitutional "original intent," which is more BS than you will find on a dairy farm) but hate 75-year old laws. You know, those pesky banking and securities laws that were passed after a meltdown to limit the chances of another one?

And gosh, who was it that led the way for the federal legislation that eliminated the regulatory barriers between banks and brokerage, deregulation that allowed a lot of these catastrophes to happen. Good ol' Phil Gramm. He's not tied to any political candidate, is he?

I don't know much about money

but the news sounds awfully not good. Can someone with a greater knowledge of these things fill me in?

Nine innings, zero hits

Phrase of the day

“We will take no lectures from John McCain who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern Presidential campaign history. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office he is seeking,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

h/t The Politico

LHC status

In case you want to check on the status of the LHC.

Holy catfuck, Batman!

h/t Think Progress:
Q But Osama bin Laden is the one that — you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 –

PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he’s sitting in jail right now.

Well, that's good.

Oh, and

I know Pete asked this one before too, but how are we supposed to greet each other today? "Happy Patriot Day?" December 7 has the much less jingoistic appellation of "Pearl Harbor Day," (which, btw, I found on a list of "Fundays" on a page for home schoolers, meaning that the people who help others home school are just as bright and aware as those who choose to screw up their own kids themselves).

Oh, wait. I can send a card. A google search of the phrase "patriot day" cards turned up 75,600 hits, with the ones on the front page, yes, from companies who supply a set of just-too-patriotic for words cards, some with soul-punishing flash animation. Peruse at your own risk.

Seven

Olbermann says it pretty well here, using big words and sentences and stuff. And I've written about 9/11 in this space before. I have neither the energy nor the interest in dragging up all that venom again. There's an eight week old boy who drains the energy from me (no, he's not a vampire) and who is far more interesting than anything the giggling murderer or any of his band of merry Constitution-raping war criminals can do. On the other hand, I cannot let another year of exploiting tragedy for personal gain and squandering an unasked-for but nonetheless real opportunity to actually make the world a better place without delivering this message to those who have spent the last seven years driving this country into the abyss, and to those who cheer on the insane, cackling Bus Driver of Doom, and to those who sit by passively and do nothing:

Fuck You.

Oh, and to Johnny Boy, who knows how to get Bin Laden but is apparently waiting until he's president so that he can get the glory? I hope President Barack Obama sends you overseas so that you can get freedom tickled by our operatives in Albania until you give up your secret on how to defend this country, you sick lying pathetic bastard.

end venom

Suck it, end-timers

The LHC is on, it's working, and we're still here.

Eight weeks out

One thing I've been rolling around in my mind is taking a weekly look at where the election stands, not from the minutiae of daily polls, but in a more comprehensive view. Clearly, we know that the national polling data is irrelevant except in how it frames the story of the election process. Right now, the GOP is riding on the crest of it's post-convention bounce (the democratic bounce got squished by the compression of the conventions as well as the Palin announcement, as McCain knew it would), and the scenarios are looking better for them now than they once did. We will see if that continues after the bounce settles next week.

What I've done is look at two websites doing projections - fivethirtyeight.com and electoral-vote.com. (Incidentally, 538 is run by Nate Silver, one of the wizards behind baseballprospectus.com, my favorite baseball analysis site.) E-V compiles polls and comes up with a composite spread (using a rather straightforward system). 538 is more complex, with a model they're still tweaking, and they assign not only a weighted average of polls (in part based on which ones tend to be reliable) but also a percentage likelihood of victory.

For example, right now, E-V gives Obama a 7 point win in Oregon, while 538 gives him a 7.4 point win and an 88% chance of winning. I put this data together and sorted it into five categories:

1. McCain will win barring something bizarre - McCain has a polling lead of at least 5 points in both models as well as a greater than 80% chance of winning.

2. McCain is likely to win - at least one of the three criteria above is met, but not all 3.

3. Obama is likely to win - at least one of the three criteria above is met, but not all 3.

4. Obama will win barring something bizarre - Obama has a polling lead of at least 5 points in both models as well as a greater than 80% chance of winning.

5. Tossup - the other ones.

To see if this makes any sense, let's first look at which states fall in which categories:

McCain win (in descending order of certainty): Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, West Virginia, Missouri. Total: 165 EV.

McCain likely: South Dakota, North Dakota, Indiana. Total: 17 EV.

Obama likely: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington. Total: 49 EV.

Obama win: DC, Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, California, Delaware, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico. Total: 211 EV.

Tossup: North Carolina, Montana, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire. Total: 96 EV.

So, what do we think? It looks pretty good to me. It's a little odd seeing New Mexico in Obama's column, but that state has evolved recently, and other than that, there's nothing on the Dem side that surprises me. Obama will do very well in Iowa (where he has an excellent ground game) and states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, where they're sick of Bush, and despite McCain's efforts, aren't really in play. I also don't see a chance that Washington goes for McCain.

I'm going to work through two scenarios - one pretty balanced and one heavily tilted towards McCain.

Scenario 1: All the "likely" or "win" states go in the expected direction. Before the toss-ups, it's Obama 260, McCain 182, meaning that Obama needs 10 more for the win. What are the odds of that? Treating all the toss-up states as 50-50 to go each way, there are 2^8=256 possible combinations. The only combinations where Obama doesn't get to 10 EV's are as follows:

Obama wins 0 of the tossup states (1)
Obama wins only one of the following: MT, NH, NV, or CO (4)
Obama wins two of the following three: MT, NH, or NV (6)

That gives Obama a likelihood of winning of 245/256 = 95.7%.

Scenario 2: McCain gets all his likely states, plus stealing Michigan and Pennsylvania (and getting Ohio in the process). Obama does hold on to Washington. McCain 237, Obama 222. In this model, there are 128 combinations, and Obama would need 48 EV (of the available 76), and since Florida is worth 27, the only way he can win without Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania is to win NC, MT, NV, VA, CO, and NH. Putting it all together, he'd have a 34/128 = 26.5% chance.

What does that tell us? At this point, McCain should be hitting the PA, MI, OH, and FL hard. Very hard. If he can grab all 4, or even 3 of 4, he's got a real shot. If he only takes two out of the 4 (say Florida and Ohio, two pretty big prizes), Obama needs only 10 more EV to win, and winning NH and CO (which would both be in his column right now, even with the GOP bounce) would put him over the top.

A new look for the election

Thought I'd change things up for the last 58 days. There's also some new links - check 'em out.

Good point

The GOP hypocrisy continues to be stunning at times. I tried to watch some of the proceedings last night, but since every time I flipped over something nauseating was going on, I stopped. But I did see the stories and read some of the excerpts. The SCLM and (obviously) the right wing loved that she didn't throw up on herself, that she can read a speech from a teleprompter and do a credible job at it, and that she can deliver attack lines. Of course, she fell short of actually either telling thr truth or having something to say regarding policy, but we all know that it's really the democrats who have no policies, right, Senator John (this campaign isn't about issues) McCain?

Anyway, over at Sadly, No!, they raised a good point: "They overplayed the ‘community organizer’ slam. The party that wants to shrink government says service outside of government is worthless? The only service worth anything is as an agent of the state? The Dems need to start talking up community work, church work, charity work, volunteering to coach youth sports, etc. Palin and McCain say Little League coaches and scout leaders and food drive volunteers aren’t doing anything useful?"

On the one hand, everything the government does is screwed up, and we should depend on ourselves, each other, and local resources to fix any problems, but on the other, anyone doing that has no responsibilities and is worthy of ridicule? It's good that the Bush presidency set the precedent of never answering questions that weren't pre-screened, because that would doom these clowns.

Ready from Day One?

Nate over at fivethirtyeight.com has a great post up today about one essential difference between presidents and vice-presidents: In a perfect world, we would all like a president who is Ready on Day One (TM); it is not uncommon for a newly-elected president to face a major crisis almost immediately upon taking office. But more commonly, a president takes the Oath of Office under relatively calm waters, allowing them something of a learning curve.

On the other hand, when a vice president takes over for a president, the nation is necessarily undergoing a crisis, because the death (or resignation) of a president is perhaps as traumatic an event as can reasonably be imagined (in the "best" case resulting from a slowly-developing illness, and the worst, an attack by terrorists or foreign adversaries).

Comparing 2008 and 2004

There's been a lot of talk lately about Obama slipping in the polls, and what that will mean come November. Now, I still think he's in the driver's seat, especially given that McCain has never really been anywhere near 50%. Reading some stuff at electoral-vote.com backs that up some. Here's a graph showing their electoral college numbers, assuming the polling data accurately reflects what's going on:



Clearly, you see Obama losing a lead there. And that's pretty comparable to what happened to Kerry in 2004:



That's scary, right? But there's a huge difference. Let's look at the same data, but get rid of the leaners, the states where the polling is within 5%:




What do we see here? Obama continues to widen his lead on McCain, while McCain stagnates almost 100 votes short. Obama needs a lot fewer things to break his way to get over the top. Again comparing that to 2004, we see that the situation there was fundamentally different:


http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2004-solid.png

By this time relative to the election (which was well after the swiftboating), Kerry wasn't anywhere near 270 when looking at the states he was doing well in, and Bush actually held the lead for a good chunk of the time as we got closer to the election.

The Speech

During Obama's acceptance speech last night, I liked it, but wasn't as blown away as I usually am. But in pondering it overnight, I think it was much better than I gave it credit for at the time. He kicked McCain's ass up one side of the stadium and down the other, was effective at not shying away from being a liberal, called McCain and the GOP out on their campaign tactics (I absolutely loved the line about making big elections about small things), laid out policy specifics, and didn't fucking smirk or giggle every time he delivered a good line. What was missing was the beautiful language and inspiring oratory that was, for example, the hallmark of his 2004 convention speech. However, while that stuff gets me going, and is the oratorical stuff dreams are made of for us liberal elite intellectuals, he needed to put his feet a little more on the ground and show those simpering moderates and undecideds that he had a real ground game. And, boy, does he.

Thank goodness that's over

Illinois yields to New York and Hillary moved that Obama be appointed the nominee by acclamation, and then they'll count all the delegates. Now they're playing "Love Train", for some silly reason.

So, John McCain doesn't know what rich is

Here's a clue - if you don't know how many houses you own, you're rich.

Tonight, I am proud to be a DEMOCRAT

Our party has FINALLY assured the nomination of the antidote for what ails the United States...

It's here, PA, it's finally here!

Please let it end.

I went to a debate and

the Festival of Banality broke out!

The republic is in serious trouble. The economy is collapsing, inflation is on the rise, we are despised throughout the world and caught in a nightmarish bungled occupation, our infrastructure is crumbling and higher education is beyond the reach of many. From that insipid disaster last night, you might well believe that America's greatest problems are caused by a retired minister, a University of Illinois at Chicago education professor and, of course, bitterness.

We do get the country we deserve.

In the silly season...

1) Which is more ridiculous, Mittens Romney as the "varmint hunter" or Hillary as "duck hunter?"

Wabbit season! Duck season!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga82ecXZuUs

2) Too damned funny

http://wonkette.com/379911/cindy-mccain-also-steals-recipes

and

3) Did anyone notice while the press was fulminating over "bitter" that the entire administration basically confessed to war crimes?

Paging Grizzly Adams

We had one of the snowiest winters on record, and now floods (my par 3 golf course is COMPLETELY under water). But beyond weather weirdness, we have critter oddities. In the last month I have seen several of these in town, the gray one below was in the library parking lot and at the commuter train station, the red one in front of my house.





But today took the cake. Reports to keep pets inside and a close eye on small children because of several sightings of one of these on the north shore:



Hello, I'm not Grizzly Adams? Coyotes? Cougars?

The coyote was interesting, and basically harmless, and the foxes are just cool. But a ****ing COUGAR?

So, Charlton -

Can we have that gun now?

Insert your own caption

Refresher Course

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

John Stuart Mill

It's not really a 1st/14th Amendment free speech question but...

it still stinks.

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

It isn't really a constitutional issue (the 1st Amendment applies to the feds, 14th to the states, as an aside) because private property owners have the right to manage their premises far beyond what the police can do in public, but it is still sad.

Story here.

AHHH!

So, they've got the Giggling Murderer in the booth. I changed the channel to avoid throwing anything important at the TV. He's been in there for like 20 minutes. Doesn't he have a fuckin' job?

Inappropriate humor of the day

On "Baseball Tonight" before the Braves-Nationals game, they were playing clips of US Presidents who have thrown out at first pitches at Major League Baseball games. The gang on the set began critiquing the throwing styles of the Commanders in Chief, and yes, some of them were awful. One of the biggest guffaws was at the expense of the president who served the US during the Great Depression and World War II. You know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, polio survivor.

Sigh.

How's that surge working?

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has taken a new and deadly turn with the escalation of violence with the Sadrist forces. We have gone from being occupiers to participants in a political purge.

This conflict lays bare the foolish and simplistic rhetoric that we are fighting "terrorists" in Iraq. We project our western impressions onto alien situations and manage to screw things up entirely. The militias are political as well as military entities, that provide security and order within their territories. Muqtada al-Sadr is a powerful and popular political leader as well as the visible head of the Mahdi army.

This mess came about because the Sunnis in majority Sunni regions were demanding new elections, and the band-aid of our bribe deal was collapsing. However, in southern Iraq, if new elections were held, the stooge government would lose badly to the Sadrist supporters (al-Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist, wants us out. Of course the stooge government wants us to stay so their gravy train of corruption and privilege can continue), destroying any claim of legitimacy.

So what does the stooge government do? It decides to take out the Mahdi army, and presumably Sadr's power along with it. This all happens with our full support and cooperation.

And just by chance, did you notice how close Basra is to the main oil channel in the region? And how close it is to Iran, a major supporter of al-Sadr? Stay tuned.

How's that surge working?

Headline

From the AP: "Bush sees Iraq violence as defining"

This, of course, is yet another example of his Orwellian up-is-down, any outcome clearly supports any actions he's chosen to take "logic." On the other hand, as does happen from time to time, it's also a case of him being correct, even though he knows not why. The violence in Iraq does indeed define his disastrous reign as a fascist murdering cokehound monkey. Bully for him.

I don't write about him or the rest of the scheming demons dressed in kingly guise that masquerade as our government very much anymore not because they're not doing horrible things, but because I'm tired of the inarticulate rage that bubbles around behind my eyes when I do.

How many levels of wrong is this?

From that deep thinker, Pat Buchanan, in a piece oh so cleverly titled "A Brief for Whitey":

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. [Pastor Jerimiah]Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American....We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude

Oh my God. Having generations of the best and brightest kidnapped and enslaved? Generations disrupted, families destroyed and entire civilizations ripped apart?

Excuse them for not sending thank you notes.

Go away. Now.

Dear Sen. Clinton:

You have been running on your experience.

The news of the last few days have shown how you lied about your experience, and did so in a stupifyingly lame way. There were reporters on the plane, Madam Senator. Remember? Did you think they wouldn't? It was such a dangerous mission that you were there with SINBAD??

It also appears from your own records, hesitatingly released, that you have your stories on NAFTA exactly reversed. It seems that you were an active advocate for this anti-labor and anti-American job measure.

Withdraw. Now.

Kisses,

Peter

How could you?

How could you? I know you have an important and stressful job, and that you need some levity occasionally. But how could you appear with someone like this? Why did you stand next to a cartoonish buffoon that no one believes in, just a fraud dressed up in a suit?

How could you, Easter Bunny?

Back from Away

Last night, Mrsdrmagoo and I finally made it back from Houston. I say "finally" not because the travel was tough - our flight was on time, and the drive home from O'Hare to Champaign was uneventful. I say it because downtown Houston is the most boring large city in the entire universe. Chicago is the third largest city in the country, and Houston fourth, which is bizarre because nobody's there. I've never crossed against the light so many times during the week in a business district in my life - there's just nobody there. Not only is the area around the convention center (which also houses the baseball and basketball stadia) dead in terms of people, there's nowhere to go to eat or drink. Every other city I've traveled to for conferences, especially in areas with this many large venues has, y'know, restaurants and bars and stuff where people can go, but not Houston. And if you do walk the 10+ blocks to the nearest handful of restaurants, your choices are fast food or $25 entrees. C'mon, folks. The worst is trying to find breakfast - it's either the hotel, where you're paying $8 for a bagel (once you figure in tip, etc), or Starbucks (which isn't really breakfast, at least not 7 days in a row). And all of that conveys an epic level of busy compared to Houston on a Sunday, a day which could best be described by Buzz Aldrin's comment about the moon, "Magnificent desolation."

The last day or so, we shared the convention center with the Foursquare Church, a group founded by Aimee Semple McPherson and which is so very excited about the imminent second coming. If they spend a lot of time in Houston, I can see why.

Pardon my skepticism

Time reports: Afghan and NATO forces killed more than 40 insurgents in an air and ground battle in southern Afghanistan, a security official said Sunday.

Insurgents? I'm sure.

Let's hear it for that foreign policy expertise

According to Sen. McCain, it is "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Well, it isn't that special. We ALL know that despite being sworn mortal enemies, Iran and al Qaeda are practically sharing a summer home. After Joe Lieberman whispered sweet nothings in his ear, he had to come back to the reporters with an Emily Litella-like "never mind."

Just keep 'em comin' John.

All from this morning's paper

No longer shocking story #1:

Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress'

BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

No longer shocking story #2:

NRCC Says Ex-Treasurer Diverted Up to $1 Million
By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer

The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- of the organization's funds into his personal accounts,GOP officials said yesterday, describing an alleged scheme that could become one of the largest political frauds in recent history.

For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, allegedly used wire transfers to funnel money out of NRCC coffers and into other political committee accounts he controlled as treasurer, NRCC leaders and lawyers said in their first public statement since they turned the matter over to the FBI six weeks ago.

"The evidence we have today indicated we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual," said Rep. Tom Cole R-Okla.), the NRCC chairman.

And no longer shocking story #3:

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest
EPA Scrambles To Justify Action

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

And that's just ONE day, folks.

Oh Madam Senator..

For all of the drama of Ohio and Texas, Obama has made up any gains HRC might have gotten out of last Tuesday.

It is almost a statistical impossibility for her to win the available electoral delegates. I know the "superdelegates" have a role to play, and I believe in playing by the rules, but in this year, with record voter turnouts, I think there will be hell to pay if these party operatives thwart the voter's will.

So exactly what is HRC up to? Why is she praising McCain at Obama's expense? What is this endgame?

On Elliot Spitzer

I know, it's all been done. He's an idiot. Why does his wife stand on the podium? Even questioning the nature of the investigation, wiretaps? On prostitution? Even a prostitution "ring?" All that said, it comes back to--he's an idiot.

Maybe I'll stop going to work

This morning, gas spiked again (originally to $3.50/gallon) to $3.40 a gallon - it was $3.15 yesterday. I drive 50 miles each way to work in a car that averages 30 mpg, and my monthly gas costs are roughly 100*the cost per gallon. In the not quite 4 years I've had this job, gas has gone up roughly $1.50/gallon. Somewhere around 40+% of the raises I've received in that time have gone entirely to paying for the increase in gas prices. Whee!

Maybe I'll stop going out to lunch

Last week, when I went out to lunch, gas was $3.05. When I came back, it was $3.25.

While there was a store brand that was cheaper, in my local Jewel, the Dean's milk was $4.01 a gallon.

Groceries, fuel, the necessities of life are becoming too expensive while jobs are evaporating around us. Welcome to Potterville.

I try not to spread email spam

But this joke made me laugh:

The Pope and Hillary Clinton were on the same stage in front of a huge crowd. However, both of them have been in front of crowds before, so, to make this time more interesting, Hillary said to the Pope, 'Did you know that with just one little wave of my hand I can make every Democrat in the crowd go wild?'

He said, 'O. K., show me.' She waved. Sure enough, every Democrat in the crowd cheered wildly. The cheering then subsided as quickly as it started.

The Pope, not to be outdone by such arrogance, thought about what he could do to answer her stunt. 'That was impressive,' the Pope said, 'but did you know that with just one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go crazy with joy? What's more, this joy will not be a momentary display like that of your people, but will go deep into the hearts of this crowd. They will forever speak of this day, and they will rejoice.'

The senator doubted this, of course, and said with a smirk, 'One little wave of your hand and all people will rejoice forever? Show me.'

So the Pope slapped her.

Now don't you feel silly

The president has set us straight on those God-fearing telecom companies and those pesky lawsuits:

Now the question is, should these lawsuits be allowed to proceed, or should any company that may have helped save American lives be thanked for performing a patriotic service; should those who stepped forward to say we’re going to help defend America have to go to the courthouse to defend themselves, or should the Congress and the President say thank you for doing your patriotic duty? I believe we ought to say thank you.

Damn, I'm really starting to hate her

TORONTO (AP)--Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff said someone in Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign gave Canada back-channel assurances that her harsh words about the North American Free Trade Agreement were for political show, according to a report by the Canadian Press.

The report comes just days after a Canadian government memo stated Barack Obama's senior economic adviser told Canadian officials that the Illinois senator's own comments about NAFTA were for "political positioning." The release of that memo helped Clinton defeat Obama decisively in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Ohio, where the trade treaty is unpopular.

On Wednesday, the Canadian Press quoted an unidentified source as saying that Ian Brodie, Harper's chief of staff, made the comment last week to a crew for Canada's CTV television network during a press gathering to discuss Canada's budget. According to a person with knowledge of the incident, the source was a CTV journalist.

The Canadian Press story said a CTV reporter asked Brodie about remarks by Clinton and Obama that they would seek to renegotiate NAFTA.

"He said someone from Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. ... That someone called us and told us not to worry," the journalist quoted Brodie as saying, according to the report.

The Fascist Ball

Apparently fascists like to dance.

War is the Health of the State

In Chimpy's world, at least...

No Need for Lawmakers' Approval of Iraq Pact, U.S. Reasserts

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States," permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs.

A so-called "emergency" authorization empowers the Bush administration to pursue endless war and permanent empire. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

It's not Karl Rove's math...

So, last night was a good night for the Clinton campaign. They learned that going negative gets them votes, and votes get them the media, and the media gets them the story. Congrats to them, and thanks for all the wonderment and joy.

But...

Did yesterday change anything? If so, how? And what has to happen in the remaining 12 races (WY, MS, PA, IN, WV, KY, ND, MT, NC, OR, Guam, and Puerto Rico) for her to win this thing?

Well, over at Daily Kos, a diarist named PocketNines has done a little bit of math (no, don't run away!) and we learn some interesting things from this diary:

Because of the way that the Democratic party splits delegates proportionally, merely winning a state or a district doesn't necessarily grant the winner a large margin of delegates.

In order to cross all thresholds except the initial break that give you a +2 delegate swing, you need to win by an extra 200/X%, where X = the number of total delegates at stake. Let's see how this works by easy example - West Virginia and its 10 statewide delegates. 200/10 = 20%. To go from 5-5 to 6-4 there you have to win by over 10% (55-45). But to get ANOTHER +2 you need to add 20% to your win and win by 30% (65-35).

What do we see here? In a district/state with 10 delegates, the "winner" gets 5 if they get less than 55% of the vote, 6 if they get between 55 and 65, 7 if they get between 65-75, 8 if they get between 75-85, 9 if they get between 85-95, and 10 if they win more than 95%. So, a 10-point win by either candidate only nets a +2 delegate margin, and to increase that they have to win by 30%. Trivia: In how many states has Hillary gotten more than 65% of the vote? Answer: One - Arkansas (70%)

What's the upshot of this? If Hillary was able to win every race by 10% and every district by 10%, she'd get a net gain of 58 delegates (Obama's lead is somewhere around 140-150 right now in pledged delegates). If we raise that number to 16.5% (58.25-41.75), then she gains 64 delegates on Obama. If she won every district by 24.9% (62.45-37.55), then she gains 110 delegates on him (and still trails by 30-40).

Putting it this way, there is no realistic chance that she'll catch him in pledged delegates, and likely not even get close. If she's still down by 80+ delegates, her means of victory are in SuperD's and/or Florida and Michigan. Of course, if she wins every state from here on out by 10%+, then her case to get the SuperD's is reasonable (not airtight, but it's certainly an argument with value). But if she splits the states reasonably evenly (which is still a good scenario for her), she won't gain any appreciable number of delegates on him, which means that she'll need a huge number of the remaining SuperDelegates to go her way.

Meanwhile, back in Frostbite Falls...

The beat goes on.

BAGHDAD - A pair of car bombings, at least one of them a suicide attack, killed 26 Iraqis and injured dozens in Baghdad yesterday, Iraqi security and hospital officials said.

Hard work, makin' progress...

A question for the resident physicist

Old I know (but so am I), but it came up recently in another forum.

What do you see in the Pentagon surveillance footage, from size and motion to the colors of the explosion?

My kid (17) wants to teach physics.

Will wonders never cease?

From the Colonel's paper. The Tribune endorses a, shudder, Democrat!

For Congress: Bill Foster

The race to succeed former House Speaker Dennis Hastert in the 14th Congressional District has gotten very ugly very fast. That doesn't say much for the candidates. It does suggest that a congressional seat once considered safely Republican is now in play.

You have Republican Jim Oberweis and Democrat Bill Foster running in a special election Saturday in a district that runs from the far western suburbs across northern Illinois almost to the Iowa border. The winner gets to hold the seat for less than a year. They'll run against each other again in November for a full term.

Oberweis, from Sugar Grove, is chairman of Oberweis Dairy. Foster, from Geneva, worked for 22 years as a physicist at Fermilab and started a company that manufactures theater lighting equipment.

This page is closer to Oberweis than Foster on several economic and foreign policy issues [Editor's note: D'uh, ya think???]. But we watched Oberweis in his races for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and for governor in 2006. We've watched this race for Congress. His campaign style has consistently been nasty, smug, condescending...and dishonest.

In 2004, he ran an ad in which he hovered over Soldier Field in a helicopter and said 10,000 illegal aliens come to the U.S. each day, "enough to fill Soldier Field every single week." The number was grossly inflated and the ad smacked of fear-mongering. In 2006, he ran TV ads that used headlines from the Tribune and other newspapers to attack an opponent. But the headlines were fake. They hadn't appeared in the newspapers.

This year, Oberweis' campaign is based on the notion that his opponent is a big-spending liberal. Oberweis' TV and radio ads quote Foster saying, "There's nothing in life that you can't improve by pouring money at it. ..." Foster did say that, at a League of Women Voters debate. But the transcript makes it clear he was talking about the federal government's "poor efforts" to improve air-traffic-control safety. His conclusion: "This is one example of a place I would look to save taxpayer dollars." And Oberweis' immediate response at the debate? He said: "I find myself in the almost embarrassing position of tending to agree with Bill on some of his comments there."

The sum impression of Oberweis from four campaigns: He sees public office as an opportunity to pick a fight. Bill Foster tells us that he will be a Blue Dog Democrat -- that is, part of the moderate caucus in the House that puts a high priority on controlling federal spending and returning to a balanced budget. He would almost certainly have to take a moderate Democratic line to hold this seat from a district that gave President Bush 55 percent of the vote in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000, and elected Hastert to 11 terms in the House.

He surely will be more willing than Oberweis is to listen to people with whom he disagrees. So we'll trust Foster when he says he would emphasize transparency, responsibility and bipartisanship in government. He is endorsed.

Call Hell and see if it's freezing!

Kudos to Nancy Nall

Nancy Nall, formerly of the wife's hometown paper, deserves a huge pat on the back for exposing one of the little Bush minions, a tiny troll named Tim Goeglein, as a shameless plagiarist. He was actually paid on our dime to minister to wingnut religious groups. Intellectual dishonesty in the Bush administration? I'm shocked I say, shocked!

Nice work, Nancy.

Hillary, meet Jabberwocky

Have a mirror handy?

The junior senator from New York, pandering on Iraq, stated that

We have given them the gift of freedom, the greatest gift you can give someone. Now it is really up to them to determine whether they will take that gift.

Hmmm, occupation is freedom, war is a gift, I don't understand...oh wait! I remember :

There was a book lying near Alice on the table...she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read, for it's all in some language I don't know,' she said to herself...She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. `Why, it's a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again."

Now where is that mirror?

Clinton's Laws of Politics

Bill in 2004:

One of Clinton's laws of politics is, if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.

That law still in effect, Bill?

Don't go away mad

Just go away, Senator Clinton. Stop it with the random attacks on Senator Obama - you've tried everything, and you look pathetic and desperate. Let's say something works, and you manage to drag things out until August ('cuz you ain't winnin' afore then). Doesn't that sound like a grand time - 6 months of ugly attacks by Democrats on each other? And stop it with trying to change the rules midstream. Right or wrong, everyone involved had the chance to know the rules beforehand, and if your campaign was dumb enough to not learn how things work in caucuses, or in Texas, or in any of the roughly half of the country Senator Obama has already won, that's your own damned problem. Don't sue. You'll win or lose, but do so on the merits of your candidacy, and within the rules. Republicans break the rules to win at all costs, and we all know how that's turned out.

Just Think of the Possibilities!!

Yes, this is a real Playmobil item.

It is so popular that Amazon.com is completely out of stock. I'm not sure if I'm more frightened than amused by this. On the one hand, the people who would most likely purchase this for their kids are the ones whose politics which be most offended by the message being sent. On the other hand, I would have loved to have been sitting in the corporate boardroom when the braintrust at Playmobil gave this the green light. I wonder if they have plans to sell accessories. I can see the need to add a security perimeter. Perhaps an armed federal marshal? I understand that the optional commercial version of the Boeing 737 can be converted to a CIA rendition plane with a few contact stickers...

How does he hide this on his resume?

We here in Chicago are used to signing high-priced free agents who fail to deliver between the lines, but were any of our many failures bigger flops than Mark Penn, the "genius" behind HRC's campaign? It is absolutely staggering what a bad job this campaign has done.

Quote of the day

The "before the opening credits quote" from tonight's "The Wire":

"A lie ain't a side of a story. It's just a lie."

I wonder if anyone has ever let the national media know this.

From "The Hill"

Hillary Clinton Should Withdraw (Brent Budowsky)

The most likely outcome is that on March 5 Hillary Clinton withdraws from the presidential campaign and endorses Barack Obama. At this moment, Sen. Clinton (N.Y.) has three options, two of which are acceptable, one of which would be disastrous for her and the Democratic Party.
In my view she should withdraw today, though she won’t. Her second option is to campaign through March 4 at least but suspend all negative attacks and whatever happens, do it with class and grace as a unifier.

Her third option is to continue and escalate the negative attacks in a wrecking-ball, demolition-derby, scorched-earth desperation play that will be rejected by voters and do permanent damage to her national stature.

Two facts are obvious. First, she cannot be nominated at a price worth the nomination. If she pursues the desperation strategy, it will be rejected by voters as her attacks were rejected in South Carolina, Wisconsin and nationally. Such a strategy would drive superdelegates to stampede to Sen. Obama (Ill.) and would be viewed as a direct attack on the prospects of the Democratic Party and on the aspirations of political independents that would make her nomination both impossible and worthless.

The worst case for Sen. Clinton is not that she loses the nomination, which is close to inevitable today, but that she loses in a way where she is seen as a destructive and divisive force that leaves large numbers of a generation of young people largely angry and bitter towards her for the rest of her career. The second fact is equally clear. Contrary to myths propagated by the pundits in the media and their embarrassing misreading of the history of our times, neither the voters nor the superdelegates want any part of any effort to steal the nomination, corrupt the democratic process of the Democratic Party or continue the politics of demeaning that the Clinton campaign has sadly trafficked in this year.

In the end, the superdelegates would never have considered violating and abusing the trust of the people who voted in primaries and caucuses. Equally ridiculous and offensive, the chance that Hillary Clinton could steal the support of elected pledged delegates is mathematically zero. The very notion that the Clinton staff would even consider this shows how far from the reality of 2008 the Clintons and their staff have been with tactics that have been a $150 million fiasco of division, mismanagement and self-destruction.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a good person, a good senator and a good public servant who has many years left in a career that could well ultimately lead to the presidency. She and her campaign have done some very bad things, in a very bad way, with very bad results.

It is time to begin a serious discussion of her upcoming withdrawal, and hope as Democrats and Americans that in the closing days of her campaign she acts as a healer and unifier who does credit to herself and a service to our party and our country.

Thoughts?