Month: January 2008

How I’ll Be Tracking the Polls

No Comments

As opposed to posting update posts, I’ve put a Google Spreadsheet on the top of my page.

To prevent useless scrollage, I’m going to not show the older results, but you can see the whole spreadsheet here, ready for things like export to excel or other analysis packages.

Anyone who uses these regularly, I have a couple of questions:

  • Is there a way to vary the weight of the borders?
  • Is there a way to automatically bold the leader in a poll (I’ve played around with Google’s conditional formatting, and ti does not yet quite make it there).

Otherwise, consider this an open thread.

CIA Coverup: Jane Harman Warned Them Not to Destroy Tapes in 2003

No Comments

This is significant, because her warning letter (reproduced from TPM below) specifically mentions issues of oversight.

Harman has been trying to get her letter declassified for some time.

February 10, 2003

Mr. Scott Muller
General Counsel
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505

Dear Mr. Muller:

Last week’s briefing brought home to me the difficult challenges faced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the current threat environment. I realize we are at a time when the balance between security and liberty must be constantly evaluated and recalibrated in order to protect our nation and its people from catastrophic terrorist attack and I thus appreciate the obvious effort that you and your Office have made to address the tough questions. At the briefing you assured us that the [redacted] approved by the Attorney General have been subject to an extensive review by lawyers at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council and found to be within the law.

It is also the case, however, that what was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions. I would like to know what kind of policy review took place and what questions were examined. In particular, I would like to know whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?

You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry. I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan. Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future. The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

JANE HARMAN

(emphasis mine)

This letter bolsters the case for obstruction, either of justice or of a federal investigation.

Economic Update

No Comments

Job growth was only 17,000 in December. The already anemic prediction had been 80,000 jobs, as opposed to the 115,000 in November.

What’s more, private sector employment fell.

As a result, unemployment hit 5%, a 2 year high, and this number is artificially low, due to things like discouraged workers, and statistical machinations of the Bush DoL.

So the job numbers, along with the markets dropping 2% today, have put more pressure on the Fed to cut rates.

BTW, generally the market rallies on bad jobs reports, because there is an assumption that falling interest rates will drive money to stocks.

In the world of $100/oil, we have the rebels in Nigeria’s delta area threating an escalation, though oil has dropped in response to the poor job numbers.

Do you remember Bankruptcy reform? Well it ain’t working. Bankruptcies have risen 40 percent in 2007.

Just so you know, the Fed is still pumping more money into the collapsing credit markets, so they are increasing the amount of money that they are auctioning on Jan 14 and 28.

You remember these loans…I made a crack about people putting up magic beans as collateral.

Just in case you are wondering how the credit crunch can effect you, the Massachusetts Secretary of State is looking into Merrill Lynch advice for Springfield’s reserve fund. They lost 91.4%, about $10 out of every $11 they invested by listening to their broker

There is, however, a bit of good news, asset backed commercial paper, a sort of short term loan used by businesses, has increased for the first time since August.

Of course, there has been an Augean level of currency pumped into the market by central banks, so I’m calling dead cat bounce.

Padilla Sues John Yoo

No Comments

I don’t quite get how this would work legally, Yoo is probably indemnified by the fact that he worked for the DoJ, but the fact that he’s being sued by a man whose tortured into near insanity is poetic justice, at least.

My damages would be to have him imprisoned for a few years under the conditions that Padilla was.

Or, we could just render him to Saudi Arabia.

Then, or course, my delusions of civilized behavior kick in, and I say, “Send him to The Hague, where he can cool his heels with other war criminals”.

Von Spakovsky says good-bye to that job at the FEC | Political Insider

No Comments

Hans Von Spakovsky resigns from the FEC, though the Bush Administration has not withdrawn his nomination.

This is a man whose professional career has been, “Keeping N***ers from Voting”, and the fact that he is exiting the scene is a good thing.

One final, more trivial note:

Between that picture, which looks like a Waffen SS photo, which, juxtaposed with his name, just gives me the creeps.

Of course, he’s not a Nazi SS member. He’s a bigot, and a lier, and a follower of Jim Crow.

All par for the course for a nomination from Bush and His Evil Minions™.

Bad Investments

No Comments

Interesting numbers on foreign investments in the US:

Foreign investors exploited the declining U.S. dollar during the past three months to snap up American companies, taking the biggest share of U.S. deals in at least a decade.

Buyers from Dubai to the Netherlands accounted for 46 percent of the $230.5 billion of U.S. mergers and acquisitions announced in the fourth quarter, the largest portion since 1998 when Bloomberg started compiling the data. The total excludes $17.9 billion of so-called passive investments by state-run funds in Asia and the Middle East in U.S. banks, including New York-based Citigroup Inc.

So, counting the “passive investments” we’re over 50%.

This reminds me of when the Japanese bought in the US in the early 1990s, and later sold at a 30% loss.

This time though, I think that it’s more likely that the losses will come from a plummeting dollar.

100 Years in Iraq???? WTF!!!

No Comments

H/t to GNB.

Yes, that is John McCain calling for 100 years in Iraq, and yes, that is Joseph Lieberman on stage with him, and yes, they are both batsh$# insane, and yes, he’s toast.

Most Republicans want out, and the number is overwhelming in New Hampshire, particularly when you consider the independents who might vote for him.

He is toast.

Biden, Dodd Drop Out of Race

No Comments

Oh well.

Biden had the best bon mot of the season, when he said that when Giuliani talked, what came out was, “a noun, a verb, and 911”

Christopher Dodd really cares about civil rights and due process, as the son of a Nuremberg prosecutor, it’s literally in his DNA. He was defeated Daschle for Dem leader 7 years ago, and I hope that he goes up against Reid next year.

Tata Motors to Purchase Jaguar

No Comments

So it appears that Ford will sell Jaguar and Rover to Tata Motors in India.

When I heard about this, I flashed back to the otherwise forgettable movie, Crazy People, in which Dudley Moore plays an advertising man who flips out, and starts writing completely honest ads.

He does one for Jaguar, he does one that goes:

Jaguar… For guys who want handjobs from beautiful women they hardly know (with accompanying “Yes! I want a hand job!” tear off flyers).

Somehow the juxtaposition of Jaguar and Tata leads me to places I should not be going.

Thankfully, a friend helped (thanks Asta), and I can now conclusively say that their next car will be called the…..

Wait for it…..

Wait for it….

The Bodacious Tata!

Classism

No Comments

Timothy Egan of the Times has a very interesting post about the establishment’s antipathy towards Huckabee. It sounds a lot like their rap on Bill Clinton (Rhodes Scholar) and Jimmy Carter (59th out of 820 at Annapolis) too.

Amazing it appears that the Washington Hive Mind™ is Republican, and that it hates authentic Southerners (GW Bush was born in Connecticut, and went to Phillips Andover and Yale).

The rap against Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher and ex-Arkansas governor now doing for the Republican Party establishment what three-alarm chili does for an afternoon nap, is that he’s too inexperienced to be president, too naïve — a rube straight out of Dogpatch.

Few of Huckabee’s critics have actually come out and said what many of them think. The language is coded, as it usually is with class and race in this country. The Wall Street Journal, the anti-tax jihadists at the Club For Growth, the National Review – these pillars of Old School Republicanism have signaled that Huckabee is Not One of Ours. But they’re careful to say it’s not about class, because, of course – it is!

Go Read the rest.