Month: August 2008

Wanker of the Day: Cokie Roberts

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For saying that Barack Obama is somehow elitist for going to Hawaii, where his grandmother lives.

I spent 10 of my first 18 years on the west coast. Hawaii is not an exotic vacation location….It’s firmly middlebrow…Unless, of course, you think that going outside the DC beltway is a long trip.

Hawaii’s Congressional delegation weighed in too:

The comments, received a lot of backlash from Hawaii’s representatives in Washington.

“She’s a bit of a fool that’s the only thing you can say,” said Rep. Neil Abercrombie. ” Don’t forget Cokie Roberts and the whole Washington crowd live in a kind of an incestuous relationship to one another, they talk to one another, they see one another, they know nothing about ordinary people.”

In a statement, Senator Daniel Akaka said calling Hawaii “foreign” does a disservice to the hardworking patriotic Americans who call Hawaii home.

(emphasis mine)

I rather imagine that Senator Daniel Inouye, who lost his arm serving this country, did not have a quote suitable for publication.

The Cost of America’s Prison Society

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The court appointed overseer of prison healthcare in California has moved to seize $8 billion from the California treasury for healthcare for inmates.

California’s spending on prisons exceeded its spending on education the state university system some time in the early 1980s, and has aggressively pursued incarceration with the most aggressive “three strikes” law enforcement in the nation.

It looks like the people of California will have to start paying for their imprisonment fetish.

Hopefully, this will make the people of California think about the value of the war on drugs and our prison society.

There is a greater proportion of the US population imprisoned than any other society in history…ever.

Arkansas State Democratic Party Chair Shot and Killed

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I’m not claiming a conspiracy, after all, if you were going to do this, you would not choose someone in Arkansas like Bill Gwatney, which is not a likely location for a Republican pickup in Congress or an Obama victory in November.

I will say, however that the tenor of political discourse, with such things as David Boehner calling for Pelosi’s lynching contributes to these events.

With it increasingly looking like Obama will take the White House, there is a growing segment of the Republican base, who believe that God intends them to rule forever, who will be willing, even eager, to use terrorism in furtherance of their cause.

This is a Bitch Slap, and Obama Needs to Respond

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Joe “I’d Call him a Schmuck, but a Schmuck has a Head” Lieberman is now claiming that, “Obama hasn’t put the country first,” and the McCain campaign, despite John Sidney McCain III’s promise that he and his campaign would not question his patriotism, is endorsing the statement.

Obama needs to hit back, hard, because he has just been bitch slapped, and if he just takes it, it makes the statement that he’s, “Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.” (link)

What Roubini and Meyerson Said

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Nouriel Roubini, in The Decline of the American Empire, and Harold Meyerson, in The Drums of Change, both make a very similar point: that America’s time as the sole unchallanged “hyperpower” is coming to an end.

I would have to say that Meyerson is far less interesting than Roubini, he simply notes that the Chinese are growing more powerful by the day, and that Russia is exerting its muscles in its immediate neighborhood.

Roubini, on the other hand, makes it clear that he believes that, “three factors suggest that the US has squandered its unipolar moment and that the decline of the American Empire – as the US was in effect a global empire – has started.” (emphasis mine)

His factors are:

  • Excessive reliance on hard military power, and to unilateral a foreign policy.
  • That other powers, China, a unified Europe, a resurgent Russia, and the rise of regional powers such as Brazil, South Africa, and Iran will mean that the US will find more peers and near peers in the future.
  • That the, “US squandered its economic and financial power by running reckless economic policies, especially its twin fiscal and current account deficits”, which are increasingly financed by foreign governments and foreign investors.

He notes that the movement of foreign reserves from Treasuries to sovereign wealth funds in search of better returns is indicative of the fact that those creditors are nearing a point where they will make demands.

Speaking for myself, and not the good Dr., I would also note that the American way of life, or more accurately the standards of living for the top 1% and the phony economy of Wall Street, have not been sustainable for decades, and the transformation of the US from the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation during the Reagan administration shows this.

More Confusion, and Stupidity On Georgia

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First, I think that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili realizes that he’s lost, and that his support is now crumbling. At least that’s my explanation for his increasingly erratic rhetoric, where he went on CNN, and talking about fighting to the “last drop of blood”.

He gambled, and he lost, and at best all he can hope for is that he manages to hold out until the next elections.

This is also explains why he claims that the US will take control of Georgian ports, a claim what was promptly refuted by the Pentagon, “We are not looking to, nor do we need to, take control of any air or sea ports to conduct this mission,” said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesman. (emphasis mine)

It’s also why he said that the humanitarian aid was a part of a greater military involvement:

But while Mr. Bush said the United States “stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that its sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected,” his remarks contained no hint of an American military role in Georgia, other than providing humanitarian assistance.

However, minutes after Mr. Bush’s comments, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia characterized the import of the American aid as “definitely an American military presence” and called it a “turning point.”

Needless to say, Bush’s statements that he wanted to convey, “unwavering support for Georgia’s democratic government,” are not helping the situation.

Putin is the last person on earth that I would want to bluff if he knew it was a bluff, and he knows that Bush’s bravado is just a bluff.

Needless to say, the only person desperate enough, or stupid enough to believe this is Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

There is a Cease Fire in Georgia, Sort of

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It looks like there has been a cease fire accord signed between the Russians and the Georgians.

As to the net result of the accord, the Washington Post, being the paper that Bushies leak to when they want credibility (Moonie Times does not cut it), strongly suggests that Moscow capitulated to Western demands, because they were concerned about their role in international bodies.

I think that the reporting of the Los Angeles Times and the The Guardian, which see this as a Georgian capitulation.

The Georgian army has largely disintegrated, and the conditions of the terms are highly favorable to Moscow:

The key demands are that the Georgian leader pledges, in an agreement that is signed and legally binding, to abjure all use of force to resolve Georgia’s territorial disputes with the two breakaway pro-Russian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; and that Georgian forces withdraw entirely from South Ossetia and are no longer part of the joint “peacekeeping” contingent there with Russian and local Ossetian forces.

(emphasis mine)

The Russians are also maintaining their right to “additional security measures” until foreign monitors were in place.

This would support the reports that the Russians are still advancing (see also here, here, here, and here), and that the Russians had destroyed Georgian naval vessels.

Some of the reports had a convoy heading from Gori to Tbilisi, but this was denied by the Russian military, who said that they were, “Demilitarizing the area near the South Ossetia border so that Georgia could not launch new attacks.”

I don’t see the Russians entering Tbilisi, though I could see them setting up artillery in range of the city as a means of intimidation.

We are also getting reports of burining and looting in areas under Russian control.

It appears that the Russians are not doing this, but that Ossetian militias are, and the Russians are taking no action, to stop them.

Economics Update

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Let’s start with the really scary numbers that you need to know:

Meanwhile in Japan, their economy contracted at a 2.4% annual rate, once again showing that decoupling from the US economy is a failed theory.

Still, the president of the ECB, Jean- Claude Trichet is sending out signals that imply that there will be no Euro zone rate cuts, which would imply that the dollar may not have much strengthening left in it.

I would note that businesses don’t put much stock in the economy right now. Inventories increased, but at a less than ½ the rate than the rebate juiced spending by consumers in June, implying that they are expecting a major slowdown.

The saying that, “When the US economy gets the sniffles, the rest of the world gets a cold,” still applies, and so we are still seeing capital flight into the US dollar, which is why it strengthened today.

In energy, oil rose on thighter than expected inventory reports, and retail gasoline has continued its unbroken downward streak.

Bad Idea, Barack

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Woah, this is a full metal pander:

Obama appeared to agree, saying, ‘I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and trans-Atlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.’

It was this sort of statement that encouraged Georgia to get its war on and level a city full of women and children.

Additionally, it makes him look weak, because it makes him look like he is triangulating and that McCain is taking the lead on foreign policy.

And Sometimes Thomas “The Mustache of Pablum” Friedman is Right

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Such as when he criticizes McCain for not even bothering to show up for votes on energy policy, he has missed all 8 votes this year, while demagoguing the drilling issue for Bikers taking a break from a topless beauty contest:

Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid — so bloody stupid — that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they’ll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power — when you didn’t.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I guess.

Thomas “The Mustache of Pablum” Friedman is Proved Wrong Again

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Back in 1996, Thomas “The Mustache of Pablum” Friedman had a theory:

So I’ve had this thesis for a long time and came here to Hamburger University at McDonald’s headquarters to finally test it out. The thesis is this: No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other.

The McDonald’s folks confirmed it for me. I feared the exception would be the Falklands war, but Argentina didn’t get its first McDonald’s until 1986, four years after that war with Britain. Civil wars don’t count: McDonald’s in Moscow delivered burgers to both sides in the fight between pro-and anti-Yeltsin forces in 1993.

You know, you would do more for the betterment of humanity, if you flipped burgers, as opposed to writing OP/EDs for the Times.

H/T Matthew Yglesias, who gives us this picture of the Tbilisi McDonalds:

Out of the Mouth of der Spiegel

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Jürgen Habermas, writing in der Speigel, understands the problem with the proposed changes in EU organization:

The failed referendums are a signal that the elitist mode of European unification is, thanks to its own success, reaching its limits. These limits can only be surmounted if the pro-European elites stop excusing themselves from the principle of representation and shed their fears of contact with the electorate.

This is the basic problem. You create a, “referendum over a treaty that is too complicated to be understood,” and when it fails, the solution is to eliminate the democratic element of the decision making.

Michael Mukasey is a Completely Corrupt Bastard

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The US Civil Service was created because a disgruntled federal job seeker shot a president (Garfield), but in the matter of Bush Administration Minions using political appointees, Michael Mukasey won’t pursue any charges.

He says that it is just a “civil” violation, not a “criminal” one.

That is crap. They committed criminal conspiracy, just as surely as the thousands of wives and girlfriends who are in jail now because their guy dealt dope, and they took a phone message or two.

He will not prosecute because there is a real chance that folks like Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson might flip on folks higher up, and work their way up the chain, to the White House.

He won’t because if he did, some of the people would flip on higher ups. Thanks a lot, Charles Schumer, for vouching for this bit of human excrement.

Georgia Daily Update

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First, let’s go meta and explain why no nation on earth should trust Bush and His Evil Minions™ in a diplomatic context:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.

This is actually easily understood. She’s an academic, which means never allow reality to alter your view of the world, and never cut a vacation short.

In any case, the Russians have officially declared an end to military operations, though there is clearly some combat still going on.

Hopefully, it will die down in the next few days.

Of interest is the fact that Georgia must remove its troops from the area and sign a binding renunciation of force against both South Ossetia and Abhkazia.

If they don’t get that, then the Russians are saying, “no deal”, and if they do get that, then Saakashvili is done as a political force in Georgia.

I think that he’s done in any case.

Interestingly enough, I see a pattern of tribalism in this description of Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili’s comeuppance.

Specifically, it appears that much of his credibility in terms of the actions that he has taken, and the west’s view of him, come from the fact that he got his law degree at the George Washington University Law School, and when he purged the civil service and universities, he replaced them with other western trained personnel.

When I look at coverage he has received, and for that matter the coverage of other leaders of dubious records, it appears that those old school ties make a very big difference as to who the press covers what they do, particularly when it is less than savory.

Economics Update

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The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly fell in June, though I wonder how much of that will go away now that the dollar is about 6% stronger than it was that month.

I just wonder when people are going to start noticing that the Fed is printing money like a SOB with it’s aid to the financial industry.

Today’s bit of additional money comes to $25 billion with their financial toxic waste for cash exchange program, better known as the, “discount window borrowing facility”.

The dollar is down a bit today, but I see it as profit taking, as opposed to the realization that we in the US print more money than toilet paper though.

In energy, oil is down, even though BP closed its Georgia pipeline as a precaution.

Gasoline is down tow, by about $0.30 from peak.

Real estate, on the other hand, is beginning to look grim, with people finally noticing that prime mortgages are defaulting at higher rates too.

It explains why JP Morgan lost $1.5 billion on mortgage backed securities in July.