Year: 2007

Good for Barack Obama

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Senator Obama has put a hold on the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Elections Commission. The Republicans are threatening to filibuster any vote which is not up or down on all four nominees, and if there are no nominations, the FEC would have only two commissioners, and would not be able to do business.

Hans von Spakovsky is the worst person in the Bush administration with regards to suppressing minority votes, let me repeat: Hans von Spakovsky is the worst person in the Bush administration with regards to suppressing minority votes, in fact, he developed most of the voter suppression techniques used by the Bush administration and NO FEC is better than an FEC with him on it.

He is a very bad man, and he should not be allowed anywhere near any government bureaucracy, particularly one that is about free and fair elections.

What is the Bailout Fund?

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It seems rather complex, and I’m having a problem wrapping my head around the finer points, so I started with a principle that has never failed me, that it is a Bush initiative, so it will be a failure.

I am drawing on what is to my mind the single wisest thing written thus far this millenia, by one Daniel daves, this is a truism about the Bush and His Evil Minions™:

But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:

  1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
  2. It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
  3. It wasn’t in some important way completely fucked up during the execution.

So I start from the assumption that it’s screwed up. Then I looked at what was going on with this fund, and it appeared that banks were investing in their own brokerage funds, which is generally not allowed in the US, and was a primary cause of Japan’s financial crisis that ran over a decade, and I am even more convinced that this will be ineffective at best, and harmful at worst.

Then I asked myself the question that Nouriel Roubini, has been asking, “Is this this a liquidity crisis, or an insolvency crisis?” I.E. Is the problem that the money has stopped moving because of fear, and when things get back to normal, everything will be fine, or is the underlying value of the assets in these funds far less than previously reckoned?

Obviously, if it is the former, it’s a matter of reassuring markets with some sort of capitalist WD-40, but if it is the latter, then these funds, and some of the companies, will go bust no matter what is done, and any bailout scheme is simply an attempt to pass the losses off on unsuspecting rubes.

I lean toward the the latter, particularly since there is SIGNIFICANT federal support of the plan, because the Treasury department had to waive significant regulations regarding cross-ownership to allow this plan to come into being.

Then I read Dr. Roubini’s analysis on the bailout fund, “Super-Conduit or Super-Bailout Shell Game?“, (warning: it’s a bit dense), and he seems to agree: this is about attempting to pass the losses downstream.

Malawi Beats Famine by Ignoring Free Market Fundamentalists

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It’s really pretty simple. In 2002, over a thousand people in the country starved to death. In 2005, they had a famine crisis that had NGOs scrambling. This year, there is a 400 ton surplus of Corn (maize) much of which is alleviating the hunger in neighboring Zimbabwe.

So, what happened? The government ignored the free market fundamentalists, who are less idealogical than Osama bin Laden, and they did the right thing.

To quote Paul Harvey, and now, the rest of the story.

“What is different [this year] is the access to inputs,” explained Patrick Kabambe, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. “People are so poor they use recycled seed and no fertilizer. They can’t meet their needs that way and they grow no surplus. People sink deeper and deeper into poverty. It’s a vicious cycle. We had to do something.”

Starting in 2006, and on a larger scale this year, the government distributed coupons to low-income farmers to allow them to purchase 50-kilogram sacks of fertilizer for 950 kwacha($7) rather than the market price of 4,500 kwacha. As a result, the average farmer’s yield jumped to two tonnes a hectare from 800 kilograms.

Malawi had this program throughout the 1990s, but in 2000, donor nations insisted that they scrap the program, saying that it “distorted the market”.

Some blame fell on poor rains, but it was also true that the 75 per cent of the population who are subsistence farmers could not afford either fertilizer or seeds.

That left them vulnerable to what the development industry calls “shocks” – such as one household member contracting HIV or malaria and being too sick to farm – leaving them with too little to eat and forced to sell items of value to survive. At the same time, larger farmers and traders capitalized on the poor harvest by stockpiling, while the government made decisions that were both ill-advised and corrupt, and mishandled the national strategic grain reserve. The next few years were a disaster.

And the cost?

The fertilizer subsidy cost the government $62-million – 6.5 per cent of the total government budget, a “whack of cash” in the words of one top economist – but that pales in comparison to the $120-million the government spent importing food aid in the 2005 famine. And the sale of maize to Zimbabwe and other countries will inject an additional $120-million into the national economy, a sizable figure here.

I’ve come to believe that a lot of international aid is really about making sure that the economies do not develop, so that, when a famine hits, subsidized western farmers can make a killing selling food aid.

McConnell aide Smeared 12 Year Old Child In S-Chip Debate

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BTW, go to the end, and see the two year old saved by S-Chip. The Republicans are going after her too.

The “pro family crowd” are claiming that here parents were “irresponsible” for having her when they were poor.

Even most Republicans think that S-Chip is a good idea, so they can’t argue the merits, so they are trying to slime children.

Of course, none of this would have an issue except for the fact that the reporters have have the email accusing the Forsts of fraud.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children’s health insurance program.

But Don Stewart, the Kentucky Republican’s communications director, said he also wrote a follow-up e-mail later the same day that said a blogger he respected had determined that there was no story and that “the family is legit.”

Huh…That day? More like the next day, and late the next day at that.

Stewart said there was no effort by McConnell to discredit 12-year-old Graeme Frost, of Baltimore, or cast aspersions on the family.

“It would be kind of hard to ‘slime’ somebody when I was telling reporters there’s no story here and the family is legitimate,” Stewart said yesterday.

You sent an email around saying that they were welfare cheats. How on earth is that NOT an attempt to “slime”.

McConnell’s alleged role in depicting the Frosts as something other than what they claimed to be has been fodder for The New York Times op-ed page, bloggers and Democratic officeholders, among others.

Stewart’s comments were the first detailed explanation of the role McConnell’s office played in the controversy.

Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an e-mail yesterday that “spreading false rumors about a 12-year-old boy is despicable for any reason.”

“No matter how McConnell’s office spins it now, the e-mail makes clear that they were part of the campaign to smear a child who had the nerve to stand up and say children’s health insurance shouldn’t be cut,” Miller said.

…

All this kid did was to tell the truth about what happened to him.

BTW, those kids that Michelle Malkin is going after? Some pictures:


India-US Nuke Deal Off For Now

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Thank God!

The US-India civilian nuclear deal was supported by Bush and His Evil Minions™ because it was a big wet kiss (and no small subsidy to) the American civilian nuclear industry.

It cemented India’s position as a nuclear power, and in so doing stoked the fire of the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, and as I’ve said before, (see also here), this accellerates Pakistan’s program, and makes the loss of one or more weapons during civil unrest (Pakistan is in some ways bordering on being a failed state) to lord knows who.

Thank you to the Indian Communist party* for apparrently killing this deal. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister has apparently killed the deal for now.

*One of the joys of the Bush and His Evil Minions™ is that on at least a weekly basis I am saying things, at least to myself, that I would never have thought possible.

An SS and a Wehrmach Side of the CIA?

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That’s one of the quotes in Ken Silverstein’s Harper’s article.

Well over a year ago I reported on a brewing revolt within the CIA over the Bush Administration’s use of renditions, “enhanced interrogation” techniques (otherwise known as torture) and other tough tactics employed in the “war on terrorism.” One former official with whom I spoke at the time told me, “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don’t want to get caught up in it.” This person went on to describe a split at the CIA, saying, “There’s an SS group within the agency that’s willing to do anything and there’s a Wehrmacht group that is saying, ‘I’m not gonna touch this stuff’.”

Since then, it’s become clear that dissent within the agency on these matters has become even more intense….

He then goes on to explain Michael Hayden’s retaliatory investigation of the CIA’s inspector general, and relating the resignation of a senior CIA Lawyer over Bush’s pro torture policies.

Not only is Bush breaking the military, he’s breaking the intelligence agencies too.

Joel Kovel Specifically, and US Greens Generally are Idiots

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Joel Kovel ran against Hillary Clinton for Senate as a Green, and he typifies the smug, sanctimonious, and ineffective mindset that is the US Green Party.

I concur with Brad Delong. Where was Kovel when Al Gore was proposing a BTU tax to reduce carbon emissions in 1993.

People like Kovel are personally comfortable with the status quo, but want to feel virtuous, so they set the bar so high that it can never be attained, while they can still feel smug, superior, and sanctimonious.

Quote of the Day: From Hillary Clinton

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The New Yorker has an essay on Hillary Clinton’s laugh, they find it genuine, but they quote this little gem from Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s journals:

In later entries, Schlesinger writes of Hillary’s “charm and humor” and her “infectious joie de vivre.” But it must be said that she doesn’t always laugh, even when something’s funny. In 1998, at the height of the Full Monica, Schlesinger, then eighty-one years old, is seated next to the First Lady at a formal White House dinner celebrating the National Humanities Medals, one of which he has just been awarded. They’re having a jolly, dishy time—she’s “very easy to talk to”—when Arthur gets a little too expansive:

I made the point that the liberals had stood by Clinton while the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council] people had deserted him and described the miserable [Senator Joseph I.] Lieberman as a “sanctimonious prick.” Hillary said, “Well, he is certainly sanctimonious,” but showed no eagerness to pursue this line of thought.

(emphasis mine)
Of course Lieberman is no prick. A prick has a head.

General Calls Iraq a Nightmare in Stars and Stripes

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Ricardo Sanchez calls the Iraq war, “A nightmare with no end in sight”, and he does so in a an interview in Stars and Stripes which is is close as you can come to being the Army’s newspaper and not be a part of the Pentagon budget.

The Republicans, of course, going after him in ways that makes Moveon’s dumb-ass “Betray Us” ad seem like a bloody love in, but the fact that this is in Stars and Stripes is significant.

As to Sanchez himself? I think that he is looking at his place in history, and a possible life sentence in the Hague, and trying to backtrack.

Knights Templar Not Heritics, Vatican Says Paperwork Misfiled

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Really, I’m not joking about the last part. The Vatican will be publishing the minutes of the trials of the order of the Knights Templar (limited edition, 799 numbered copies and costing €5900 each), and the lost paperwork is no joke:

The most titillating part of the documents is the so-called Chinon Parchment, which contains phrases in which Pope Clement V absolves the Templars of charges of heresy, which had been the backbone of King Philip’s attempts to eliminate them.

Templars were burned at the stake for heresy by King Philip’s agents after they made confessions that most historians believe were given under duress.

The parchment, also known as the Chinon Chart, was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until 2001, when Frale stumbled across it.

And I thought that my desk was messy….700 years.

The Death of Christianity?

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Orcinus had an interesting analysis of a new study by the Barna group, an Evangelical research group.

The picture is stark:

Basically, it shows that Christians in general, and Evangelicals in particular, are losing the youth in a very profound way.

Here, I think is the money quote:

Roughly a quarter of both the Christians and non-Christians in the under-30 group also mentioned — without being prompted — that “Christianity has changed from what it used to be,” and that it “no longer looks like Jesus.” Their sheer frustration level over how far the modern Christianity had deviated from its roots took Kinnaman by surprise:

In our interviews, we kept encountering young people – both those inside the church and outside of it – who said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity. Their perceptions about Christianity were not always accurate, but what surprised me was not only the severity of their frustration with Christians, but also how frequently young born again Christians expressed some of the very same comments as young non-Christians.”

(emphasis mine)
Basically, the public face of Christianity, and by that I mean the Fallwells, Robertsons, etc. who have the shows and get the face time with politicians, have alienated the youth with their hate.

I don’t understand the finer points of Christianity, but I do understand how the pursuit of secular power corrupts religion. One only has to look at Iran to see that.

To the Christians reading this, you need to figure a way to convince people that the current public face of Christianity are not the preachers of hate that seem to appear on every talk show, and who dominate the religious air waves.

Deficit Balloons, Treasury Sales May Soar, Upping Interest Rates

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The deficit is ballooning, and as a result, sales of Treasuries may increase by 50%.

This kind of shock to an already precarious bond market could send interest rates skyrocketing, as public and private compete in the market for capital.

If correct, and I am not an economist, we could see s significatn (more than 1%) increase in interest rates in the next 6 months.

Bushonomics.

Mitt Romney Loses Nevada Straw Poll…To Ron Paul???????

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Yes you read that right Paul beat Romney, and he beat him handily: Paul 33%, Romney 16%, Hunter 15%, “Undecided” 11%, and the rest were in single digits.

It should be noted that it was a small conference, about 430 people, and Paul was not at the conference, but Romney and Hunter were.

While a part of it might be attributed to the libertarian streak of western Republicans, I think that a lot of has to do with the fact that polling shows that most Republicans favor us leaving Iraq too.

Ron Paul will not be the Republican nominee. Some of his positions regarding “social issues” and “law and order” are out of sync with the party.

That being said, the first mainstream Republican who says, “George W. Bush, Kiss My Ass, We are Leaving Iraq” would sweep the primaries. He might even have a chance in the general.

But no one running has the guts to do that.

George Bush Would Be Wetting His Pants

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Well, Vladimir Putin will be going to Iran, even though there is information indicating an assassination attempt may be in the offing.

Say what you will about Vladimir,but George Junior would refuse to go, and the right wing pundits would say how brave he was, lying on the ground in the fetal position sucking his thumb.

One interesting note, the attempt is supposed to bey by “suicide attackers”, and the Shia have not been doing suicide attacks. It’s more of a Sunni thing.

There are Sunnin in Iran, but they are typically not “Persian”, but Arab and other minorities, who are getting clandestine aid from the US (read Sy Hersh), so if this threat is real, and it could be an attempt by Putin to burnish his image with the Russian people, we would be in some way behind it, and Vladimir, ever the KGB agent knows this.

Quote Of The Day: Schadenfreude Edition

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There is a story about Larry Craig attempting further appeals. It’s unremarkable, except for we may now know why the Republicans are not going after him too hard, he is one seriously mean SOB.

“I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney,” Craig told Lauer. “… And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again.”

I know it’s not nice to get joy from someone else’s misfortune, but Senator Craig’s circumstances have me riveted the way that some cheap celebrity antics do for the mainstream press.

Gore Derangement Syndrome

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I love that Paul Krugman is no longer behind the NY Times firewall, because he just took a marvelous shot at the wingnuts, and in particularly at Charles Krauthammer*, when he described their reaction to his Nobel Piece Prize as, “Gore Derangement Syndrome“.

Just go read it. Hell, go read everything that Krugman writes.

*Krauthammer coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome”, one of his many violations of the canon of ethics for a psychiatrist, which prohibits this sort of long distance diagnosis under the color of professional authority.

Illegal NSA Wiretapping Began Before September 11

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I missed the bigger story on my last post on this, because I did not pay enough attention to the time line, but this is BIG. The NSA illegal wiretapping was not a part of “post 911 thinking”, because it was not post 911!!!!

Simply put, this program was being put in place in February of 2001, this was about a month after Bush entered office, and when by all available evidence, Bush and His Evil Minions™
had no concern with, nor even an inkling about the nature of the terrorist threat.

They were looking at Saddam, or at a resurgent Russia (Cheney-Rumsfeld the former, Condi the latter). As such, they had no reason for expanded wiretap powers.

[former Qwest CEO Joe] Nacchio’s account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.

There are only two possible reasons for this:

  • A mindless pro-surveillance mindset in the administration combined with an opportunistic bureaucracy in the state security apparatus.
  • A desire to engage in surveillance on political opponents.

My guess would be that it was a little bit of both. These are seriously bad people.