Month: March 2008

With Friends Like These…..

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Specifically Penny Pritzker, Obama’s national campaign finance chair.

It turns out that she was chairman of the board, and from all accounts an engaged and active one at that, of the, “borderline shady and failed Superior Bank”, which collapsed in 2002.

It appears that these guys were the folks who created the so-called innovations that have led in large degree to the subprime mess, and it led to their downfall in the middle of the most bullish housing market in history.

See here, here, and here.

If there is one lesson to be had from the Bush administration, it is look at who the candidate keeps around him.

I agree with Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s assessment, “If Obama’s for real on the sub-prime crisis, he’ll dump his campaign finance chair“.

Melanie Morgan Gets Well-Deserved Boot

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Citadel Broadcasting, which owns her station, KSFO, had declined to renew Malanie Morgan’s contract, see here and
here.

I wish that it was a sign that there are going to be limits to how scummy you can be, but a more likely reason is that they were trying to save cash.

Citadel is losing money hand over fist, and is also cutting extensively at their Chicago station, WLS, in what is described as bloodbath.

Kibosh Kommitted on Kansas Kangaroo Kourt*

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Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, who was defeated as Kansas AG because of his jihad against planned parenthood, has failed to get a grand jury to indict the clinic in Overland Park, KS.

This guy is like 0 for 12 now, with hundreds of thousands if not millions of taxpayer dollars down the hole.

Perhaps its time for the voters to remove him from public life.

*Yes, it’s immature. And you are surprised by this?

“Just a Slip of the Tongue”

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Well, we now have a report of at least one call from a Clinton phone bank where the caller screwed up, either intentionally or not, Obama and Osama.

It could be an accident, it could be on purpose, but whoever did it needs some time off.

I have a similar story.

When I was phone banking Wisconsin for Howard Dean in 2004, and I had developed my own patter, about Howard Dean was not one of those “blow dried and focus grouped politicians”.

I thought that I was pretty clever, and then I was talking with a nice lady, and said that he wasn’t one of those, “blow jobbed and focused grouped politicians”.

As soon as it came out of my mouth, I started apologizing profusely, and this woman, bless her heart, said, “Hon, I know what you meant, but maybe you should take a little rest.”

I hung up the phone, put my head down, and giggled helplessly for about 15 minutes.

Another Twist in Goolsbee/Canada Saga

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It appears that the sequence of events was rather different from what I had originally thought. Spefically, it appears that the Canadian consulate contacted Goolsbee and asked him questions, to which he responded.

They apparently did the same with Clinton’s and McCain’s economics gurus, and then they wrote up the responses and forwarded them upstairs, but once they reached the political levels of government *cough* right winger Canadian PM Steven Harper *cough*, they were leaked to do damage, because Harper Bush’s other poodle.

Goolsbee is largely blameless in this, though I’m not sure how much that means in presidential politics in the US. He still needs to stay away from the media for a few weeks.

Wanker of the Day: John Aravosis of Americablog

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John, for those of you who don’t know, is the proprietor of Americablog, and he has a post on the election titled What will the Republicans throw at Hillary Clinton in the fall?

Generally, I highly recommend his blog, just not this post:

…. But I’m not going to detail those things today because I’m, surprisingly, still pulling punches with regards to what I write about Hillary. I don’t want to damage Hillary should she become our nominee, as increasingly unlikely as that appears. I don’t want to write about very real scandals in Hillary’s past, scandals that we will be forced to revisit for the next 8 months, and 8 years. I don’t want to write about the rumors about Bill that no one has written about to date, even though the rumors include lots of details which are at least just as true as Obama being a Muslim. While Hillary’s campaign is pushing known lies about Obama, such as the “Muslim” connection, most of the stories about Hillary are anything but lies. They’re real stories that she will have to discuss publicly, again and again and again, to her and our party’s detriment.

But I’m not going to be discussing the details of those stories today because I don’t want to make our candidate damaged goods in the fall. You will notice that neither Obama’s campaign nor Obama’s official, or unofficial, surrogates are talking about the Clintons’ past or present scandals, the Clintons’ negatives, what a Clinton run for the presidency will to Democratic congressional races and governor races across the country. The Clintons are counting on the fact that none of us will write about their negatives, because we’re too nice. So they can get as dirty as they want, with impunity.

He then goes on to say that he will unload if Clinton does not get 65%.

This is bull%$#@. I disagree on any number of levels:

  • The empirical evidence, specifically the long primaries in 1976 and 1992 when the Democrats won the elections, indicates that prematurely wrapping up the nomination process does not create wins.
    • Just look at 2004. John Kerry was consistently ahead of GW Bush until he had locked up the nomination.
    • For that matter, look at 2008, where the only way that John McCain gets any coverage, now that he’s pretty much nailed down the nomination, is when a right wing bigot endorses him.
  • Clinton’s and Obama’s attacks on each other are really pretty tame, that “3am phone” ad is rather mild.
  • I’d like to see the Pennsylvania primary used to build the party there, and that will happen only if the primary means something.
  • At this point, we are talking about a 5-6% difference in delegate count.

I don’t want a brokered convention, but the fat lady has not sung, though it does appear that she has started warming up.

I certainly have my disappointments about the nomination process, John Edwards pulled out before I could vote for him, but the fact that that the Democratic candidates and the Democratic agenda is getting additional coverage because the process is ongoing is a good thing.

Economics Update

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Let’s lead off with the dollar on it’s way down, it’s at a 3-year low vs. the Yen, and a new record low vs. the Euro, which is one of the things that has oil breaking another all time record, $104/bbl.

The value of the dollar is dropping, so the price of oil, which is sold in dollars, is increasing. One wonders how many countries are considering a Euro oil bourse other than Iran.

In real estate, we have the largest drop in residential and commercial construction in 14 years.

So much for commercial real estate being “immune” from this contagion.

The poster child for the real estate meltdown, Countrywide, is still hemorrhaging on its mortgages, with 90 day delinquencies at 5.6% (up 900% from a year ago), and this is threatening to torpedo the deal with Bank of America to buy them out.

FWIW, there are more foreclosures than sales in a number of the states in the West, and Florida.

On the macro level, we have Warren Buffett saying that the recession is pretty much all ready here, and the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve saying that inflation is not important, and that the first priority is keeping the economy on track.

When a central banker says, “Inflation, no big deal”, you know that you are up a certain creek sans paddle.

Further evidence of a slowdown is the fact that Ford and Toyota sales declined in February. Ford having declines is not a shocker, but when Toyota is not selling cars, no one is selling cars.

The happy news is that the FDIC doesn’t see there being a surge in bank failures, though it does make one wonder why they are calling back retirees and generally staffing up.

They expect to be as busy as a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

In the world of municipal bonds, which should be safe-havens in a time like this, it appears that the costs are increasing, and the ratings falling, for municipal bonds, because of the collapse of the auction security markets.

In bond insurance, we have a new, or at least new to me, bond insurer bleeding, Security Capital’s to the tune of $1.5 billion on various complex investments.

It’s already been downgraded.

Finally, Buffet is now saying that his offer to buy the muni business of bond insurers is no longer operative.

Berkshire Hathaway is aggressively bidding on municipal bond portfolios, and as other insurers are downgraded, their position can only get stronger.

France On Diplomatic Offensive in Africa

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Nicolai Sarkosy is intends to renegotiate its military relationships in Africa, along with changes in economic policies to better involve African nations in world economic negotiations.

This is an artifact of the collapse of US Diplomacy brought about by Bush unilateralism. It has created a diplomatic vacuum that France intends to fill, and is just one area, beyond Roberts and Alito, where the damage done by Bush and His Evil Minions™ will last for years.

The Battle is Joined on the Tanker

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It appears that Seattle-area politicians are flipping out over the USAF tanker decision. No big surprise there.

Then again, this was the result to be expected if decided on the merits. The A-330 is larger, longer ranged, more modern, and not much more cost than the 767, which has never had the advances in manufacturing that were developed for the 777 and 787 incorporated back into its line.

That won’t prevent a knock down drag out fight, and it pretty much ensures that McCain loses Washington State, as he was the one who called out the USAF on the first tanker deal, correctly to my mind, on being a sweetheart deal for Boeing.

Memo Shows That Goolsbee Did Talk Down Opposition to NAFTA to Canadian Ambassador

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Austan Goolsbee needs to be released from the Obama campaign. The Republicans, and the McCain loving press, will “Gore” Obama over this if he doesn’t.

We now have documentation. The memo says of Goolsbee that, “He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

It should be stated that Goolsbee disputes this characterization, though, it would appear, not the meeting.

He may have done nothing wrong. It doesn’t matter. Goolsbee needs to be let go. He is now a liability for the campaign, though it would seem not as big a liability as Penn is for Hillary.

BTW, the original hed for the article wass, “Obama Adviser Denies Trade Remarks“, it’s now, “Canadian Memo Recounts Meeting”.

I’m sorry but the first headline was just plain deceptive. Not a fault of the reporters, who do not do the heds.

Wack Job Religious Fundamentalist Nutjobs Should Not Be Given Secular Power Over People: Israel Edition

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The story is in the New York Times.

Basically, a Jew, from a long line of Jews, wanted to get married, and the Rabbinic courts there made her jump through a series of hoops to prove she was Jewish.

I’d say that the officials on the Chief Rabbinate’s office can to go to hell, but that would be superfluous. They are already well on their way toward Gehenna.

Does McCain Know Anything About Anything????

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Yep, now we have McCain saying that Thimerisol causes autism.

It’s not true. It’s never been true, and there is no evidence of this.

Any evidence presented to indicate this has proven to be false, and there has been no change in the trajectory in conditions on the Autism spectrum since Thimerisol was phased out in the 1990s.

My wife recognized that my son might be on the spectrum at birth, though it was clearer at 3-4 weeks, well before any inoculations.