Month: June 2008

From a Man Who Advocates Beating Children and Pets….

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James Dobson, is suggesting that Barack Obama distorts biblical values, this from a man who advocates beating children and pets.

It appears that this attack was the result of Obama raising a very valid point, “Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?”

Which is a valid point.

Apparently, Dobson feels that Sharpton is a racist, and thus that Obama was tarring him as a racist.

If the show fits dude. A quick google finds many quotes where Dobson claims black genetic inferiority, revulsion toware mixed race marriage, etc.

Bizarro World: I Agree With Ramesh Ponnuru

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Writing in The Corner, he notes that while Time Magazine reporter Massimo Calabresi suggests that the FISA update drew attacks from both sides, Mr. Ponnure notes that he hadn’t, “heard much unhappiness being expressed from righties,” and that, “If that’s what they [Democrats] want to tell themselves, fine. It sure looks like they got rolled.”

Ponnuru is completely correct. The right has been unable to contain their glee over this abomination, and Mr. Calabresi is either very stupid, or allowed Steny Hoyer to hypnotize him.*

*Just in case the mouth breathers from The Corner come over, let me be clear, the hypnosis bit is a joke…

GAO: Surgee No Workee

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The GAO has just issued a report on the surge, and it has determined that, “The American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration’s goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines.”

You mean Bush and His Evil Minions™ screwed it up???? I’m shocked.

Once again, I am compelled to make the repeat the wisest thing that I’ve read this century:

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 f#$@ed up during the execution.

Seriously. I’ve yet to see anything wiser yet, and I’m using the loose definition of the 21st century which includes the year 2000.

FHA Still Backing Zero Money Down Home Loans

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It’s called the DAP, Down-payment Assistance Program, and it allows buyers to purchase a home with no down payment, even though FHA regulations require 3% down.

The offers — including “100% financing” — are made possible due to down-payment assistance programs run by nonprofit organizations. These programs are funded largely by home builders and also by private homeowners desperate to sell. The seller-funded groups provide enough down-payment money to buyers that they can qualify for a mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which requires at least a 3% down payment.

Basically, realtors and builders set up non-profits, and the home seller contributes to the non-profit to cover closing costs and down payments, which are made as grants to the buyers.

Of course, that money from the seller gets tacked onto the selling price. So if a condo were to sell for $100K, they would sell it for $110K, with 7K covering closing costs, and 3K covering the down payment required by the FHA.

Net effect: the buyer has no skin in the game.

They now account for 34% of downpayments on FHA loans.

Thankfully, the current FHA overhaul in Congress eliminates this…for a while, at least.

In any case, how about letting the pictures do the talking:


Zimbabwe

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Morgan Tsvangirai says that he will leave the Dutch embassy shortly, and the UN Security Council is now saying that the violence has made the runoff election a sham.

Needless to say, it does not help that the African National Congress has explicitly rejected any international intervention, though the Congress of South African Trade Unions has called Mugabe’s regime illegitimate.

As Will Bunch says, the only way to get a meaningful intervention there is to find massive oil reserves, so perhaps the MDC needs to start drilling.

Energy and Speculation…A Problem….Not So Much

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Well, we have analysts saying that oil and gas are have had twice their price doubled by speculation, but I think that this is a load of crap. I agree with Paul Krugman, that the effects are smaller than that. If you were to argue that there were a 5% effect on the price over the short term, I would buy that, but 50% is way out of ling.

Krugman had a nice picture on the relationship between oil futures, contracts for later delivery, and spot prices, where the oil is delivered immediately:
Simply put, there would be more of a spread if there were more of a speculative effect.

That being said, market volatility, which aggressive speculation exacerbates, does a lot of damage otherwise, so I do support some of the measures that the Congressis considering in order to reign in excessive speculation.

That being said, at its core, we have demand for raw materials outstripping supply. That’s why we are seeing things like a 96% jump in iron ore prices, a market in which there are no futures contracts.

And When We Talk About Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship

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We cannot leave out the retirement of Leonard Downie Jr. as the Washington Post’s Executive Editor, though I would argue that the WaPo is a sinking ship because of the aforementioned rat, as he not only piloted the Post into the ice berg, but has repeatedly backed up and run it into said block of ice again…and again…and again.

He will be out September 8.

As to what has happened to the Post, go to this link, and look for the phrase Washington Post Death Spiral Watch. Their OP/ED page gives the WSJ a run for its money on stupidity and lying, and their political coverage seems to have sprung full blown from Karl Rove’s wet dreams.

It may be better when he’s gone, but I doubt it. I think that Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate coverage was the exception, and not the rule, at the post, which has had a history of sucking up to the “very serious people” inside the beltway for a very long time.

Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship

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This time, it’s Republican New York State Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who has announced his retirement.

The ‘Phants have a 1 seat majority in the state senate, and I think that Bruno knows that this will change and that the Senate will go Democratic in 2008.

Hopefully, a redistricting at the state senate level will follow, because that body is ridiculously gerrymandered, since the Dems will then hold both state houses and the governor’s mansion.

An Update on Regina Thomas (GA-12)

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I just wanted to note that about a week ago, the Regina Thomas act blue page was under $5,000, and now she is at $35,713.00 $36,039.00. The campaign web page is here.

This is because the incumbent in the district, Bush Blue Dog John Barrow, is one of the major proponents of the FISA capitulation, and he has ardently advocated for telco immunity, and taken lots of telco money to boot.

Georgia’s 12th district has its primary on July 15. John Barrow is white in a district where 70% of the primary voters are black, and State Senator Regina Thomas is black, so knocking him off in the primary is possible, though it won’t be easy.

Barrow currently has $1,311,478 cash on hand, 55% of it from PACS, so the amount that Thomas has may not be enough.

The good news is that Barack Obama’s endorsement of Barrow has increased interest in Thomas:

In an effort to control my enthusiasm, I asked Thomas about the depressing news that Barack Obama endorsed Barrow and recorded a radio ad, which caused outrage this week on many blogs. Thomas would have none of it. “That’s the best thing that happened to me!” she countered. “People are angry about this! Here’s a man who has not served his district, and Obama is messing in our local businesss. I’m getting emails from Illinois, Pennsylvania, even Taiwan! A man in his 80’s with a small retirement was sending a check to Obama each month, and now he’s sending it to me. The response is incredible,” she said.

I asked if there were any polls. “We haven’t had the money for a poll, but Barrow took a poll and he didn’t like the results, because he got Obama to make the ad. He refuses to show up for debates, and is sending surrogates who look like me. But people aren’t fooled, they see right through it. Why is he afraid to debate me?” she asked.

(emphasis mine)

Things seem to be trending her way, and there are still 3 weeks to the primary, so check her out.

Dems To Try to Block Iraq No Bid Oil Contracts

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They are threatening to, “cut off financing for as-yet-unspecified programs in Iraq that are not directly in support of U.S. troops,” but in the end, they will once again collapse like a bunch of overcooked broccoli to George W. “@9% Approval” Bush.

Even though it is clear that these deals would “deepen political tensions in Iraq and put our service members in even greater danger,” when push comes to shove, I expect more capitulation from the Dems.

Economics Update

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Consumer confidence plunges to the 5th lowest level ever, 50.4, as opposed to the predicted 57, from 58.1 last month.

Considering that home prices are down yet again, this time the Case-Shiller index was down 1.4% from March, and 15.3% year over year, it’s natural that people won’t feel confident.

These numbers spooked the currency markets too, with the dollar trending down.

Oil prices are up again, largely because of concerns of instability in Nigeria, though retail gas prices are down $0.003 from yesterday.

And just in case you are wondering, energy inflation is hitting prices more generally, with Dow Chemical raising prices 25%, even though it raised prices 20% last month, and UPDATE: Lowe’s is seeing “unprecedented” price hikes from its suppliers.

Stagflation, here we come.

As to the “stag” part, the fact that Toyota is scaling back its sales goals because of weakness in the economy, even though there are are months long waiting lists for the Prius, would indicate that no one is making good sales right now.

In the interest of fairness though, there are reports that Toyota is cutting back on Prius shipments to the US, because they can get more money in Europe.

Gaza, Like This is a Surprise

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I get it. Israel agrees no offensive action against Hamas in Gaza if Hamas stops firing missiles into Israel.

So then Hamas lets Islamic Jihad (and yes, Hamas has a lid on the place, this does not go down without their making the decision to be inactive) fire rockets into Israel because of a in the West Bank, Nablus specifically, against militants who were not members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

I give the truce another 3-4 weeks before a complete collapse.

There Is More Than a Dime’s Difference, Go Figure

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Kevin Drum got a press release via email describing side by side interviews of Obama and McCain.

What do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy?

Obama: If we don’t get a handle on our energy policy, it is possible that the kinds of trends we’ve seen over the last year will just continue. Demand is clearly outstripping supply. It’s not a problem we can drill our way out of. It can be a drag on our economy for a very long time unless we take steps to innovate and invest in the research and development that’s required to find alternative fuels. I think it’s very important for the federal government to have a role in that process.

McCain: Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we’re in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.

A noun, a verb, and 911 from McCain. Truly pathetic.

White House Ignored Professional Advice on Torture

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Big surprise…..not.

It turns out that whenever someone who was not one of Dick Cheney’s butt boys suggested that there were limits to executive power, and getting congress to pass legislation supporting at least part of what they wanted.

Note that this is not moral objections we are talking about. This is professional lawyers saying that the courts will bounce this before the ink is dry.

Well, the Courts Finally Recognize That There are Limits

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Hazaifa Parhat, a Uighur (pronounced weeger) was declared an “illegal enemy combatant” because the Uighur separatists are occasionally friendly with people who are friendly with al Queida, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that this was insufficient in a unanimous vote.

Note that this was not under the Supreme Court’s habeas corpus ruling. It was under the “Detainee Treatment Act” that the Republithug congress passed in 2006 stripping everyone of habeas corpus rights.

There was no evidence. Not even after Bush and His Evil Minions™ declared them terrorists at the bidding of the Chinese government, and then tortured these guys on behalf of the Chinese Communists.

No evidence. And the only reason to call them “illegal enemy combatants” was because Bush wanted to make nice with the Chinese commies.

The specifics of the non-existent evidence are still not public, as the judgement has to be scrubbed of classified data, but that’s why a bunch of Republithug appointed judges.