That's Too Real For Me

Chilling comments taken directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums and given voice (h/t Oliver Willis):



Meanwhile, Brian the Dog comes out as an atheist on Family Guy.

Year of the Boomerang

Andrew Sullivan is the latest to ring the bell on the events of November 1999, as they boomerang.

"Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy," - Larry Summers, on the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act in 1999.

Here's Rage:

Webb Introduces Prison Reform Bill, Other Senators Trying To Do Smart Things Too

Jim Webb is very cautiously expressing in very equivocal language that he may just be okay with marijuana legalization.

When it comes to the broader frame that far too many Americans are in prison, Webb is much sharper:

"America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace," said Senator Webb. "With five percent of the world's population, our country houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980. And four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals. We should be devoting precious law enforcement capabilities toward making our communities safer. Our neighborhoods are at risk from gang violence, including transnational gang violence. There is great appreciation from most in this country that we are doing something drastically wrong. And, I am gratified that Senator Specter has joined me as the lead Republican cosponsor of this effort. We are committed to getting this legislation passed and enacted into law this year."

Those are Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) words on introducing the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

Read more about it here.

Meanwhile, a couple other Senators are also trying to get some pretty important shit done. Maryland Senator Ben Cardin introduced a bill that would allow bankrupt newspapers to reorganize as nonprofit organizations. While this sounds like just another bailout of a dying industry, I see it as a legitimate chance to see unbiased investigative reporting once again.

A far more important effort--single payer health care--has been launched in the Senate by Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders.

That's What She Said

Grassley's been eating his Cocoa Puffs. Hope he doesn't feel bad about this later and, you know...

From the SPAN, (h/t Tommy Christopher):



I no longer have any questions about why we're in this handbasket.

Meanwhile, my fellow PMer Tommy has apparently expanded his empire yet again. Show a blogger some love.

Letterman Offers Perspective on Obama's Teleprompter

The teleprompter meme has spread all the way to late night television, where David Letterman whacks it aside.

What An Act of Congress Can Do

Fellow Unruly Mobster Unconventional Conventionist posted a look back at a little act of Congress they like to call Gramm-Leach-Bliley. I like to call it "When Shit Went Wrong". Head over to Les Enragés and join the unruly discussion in the comments section.

Lightning Round--Michael Steele Punks America Edition

Ragebot!:  Ikea wants to make cars.  Frogette does a spit-take so you don't have to.

America Blog: Redesigned after all these years, A-Blog has a killer post by Chris in Paris, who tells Republicans eager to drug test welfare recipients that we can do that while we're testing bailout recipients and politicians.

The Aristocrats:  God might call on Michael Steele to run for President.

MyDD:  Michael Steele is playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.  We can not even begin to unravel the mechinations of his shining, enlighted gray brain.

Oliver Willis:  If you were wondering what the neocons were up to, Oliver has an update.

That's The Problem Right There

In their desperation to respond to accusations by President Obama that they do not have a budget Republicans rushed in with... no one knows what it is, but it's not a budget.

Yesterday, House Republicans made a pretty big deal about unveiling their budget alternative.

In fact, we received this email from a House GOP spokeswoman, "Given the President’s comments [Tuesday] night that, 'we haven’t seen a budget out of [Republicans],' we wanted to make sure to make you all aware that we are introducing our Republican Budget Alternative tomorrow."

And then what happens today? House Republicans release a 19-page document that contains no hard spending numbers or deficit projections. Per the AP, "One of the few hard bits of information is a promise to simplify the tax code and cut income tax rates to 10 percent for people making $100,000 or less down. They also promise to cut domestic spending below current levels but don't say whether they are exempting Social Security. It's impossible to determine the projected deficit based on their offering."

So, they just changed the cover on a tax cut proposal, right?

Beware The Balance Monkey

The host of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, talks to former CNN anchor Frank Sesno about how artificial balance can distort the news as much as bias.



Speaking of balance monkeys, CNN's Ed Henry does damage control on the slapdown the President gave him last night. Laughable.

The Real Most Liberal Senator Places Hold On Obama Nominee

During the campaign, the National Journal called then-Senator Obama the country's most liberal Senator. The man who actually is the country's most liberal Senator, Bernie Sanders, has placed a hold on President Obama's nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler. Senator Sanders's reasons however, have very little to do with ideology and have everything to do with common sense:

While Mr. Gensler is clearly an intelligent and knowledgeable person, I cannot support his nomination. Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. He supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which allowed banks like Citigroup to become “too big to fail.” He worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron and the spike in energy prices. At this moment in our history, we need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.

Not only does Gensler have this Wall Street pedigree, so too does the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top adviser Lawrence Summers. Given that the obvious approach to stabilizing toxic assets is bottom-up--that is, bail out the mortgage holders, rather than top down--propping up banks.

The only answer to why the President would allow these guys to keep their hands on the wheel after driving the economy into the ditch has got to be because the banks still have enough leverage to scare the White House. Can they crash the system? Bring us all down with them? Of course they can.

So what is in play here? If I had to speculate I would say that Wall Street and the President have some kind of understanding of which will never know the details. My guess is Wall Street's power bought them one more chance--this very questionable plan that is being attributed to Geithner.

The problem is, there will be no time or resources left for plan B.

CNBC Hires Howard Dean

CNBC will never admit that they hired Howard Dean because their ratings dropped about ten percent after Jon Stewart spent a week eating their collective liver. In fact, they have gone on the record saying that hiring Dean had been in the works for quite some time.

Sure it was.

Anyway, here's Howard Dean at his new, very ironic, media home, CNBC:

Michelle Bachman Wants to Refresh the Tree of Liberty

This strikes me as somewhat, uh, treasonous?

Controversial Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said this weekend that she wants residents of her state "armed and dangerous" over President Barack Obama's plan to reduce global warming "because we need to fight back."

Asked about the White House-backed cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, Bachmann told WWTC 1280 AM, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States."

Bachmann also told her constituents she was "a foreign correspondent on enemy lines," sending Minnesotans warnings through her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. "I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington."

If Rep. Bachmann wants to drop the old Thomas Jefferson said we need a revolution every now and then bomb, then she needs to go ahead and start marching her militia toward D.C. I can't wait to see what happens when General Bachmann gets there.

Louie CK on Conan

Last month comedian Louie CK went on Conan's show and talks about how a depression might do us some good.

Ice Station Radio--This Is The Droid You Are Looking For Edition

The new Ice Station Radio podcast is here. This week it features news, opinion and music from KPOJ's Morning Show, The Young Turks, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Maron and Seder, The Submarines, Ben Lee, Paul Beribeau, and many more.

You can download it here.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

This episode marks the debut of our new Radio Droid, Roy. Roy most recently worked for C-SPAN 12 and before that WOMC in the Crab Nebula, a 1.21 gigawatt behemoth that on quiet nights could be heard in 6,000 star systems.

Obama On Leno

In case you haven't seen it, here's the President's appearance on The Tonight Show.

Thank You, Canada!

Here's a look at the streets of Ottawa ahead of former President George W. Bush's arrival there last week.

Teleprompt This

I think it's interesting that after eight years of a president who was remote controlled by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, depending on who got their hands on the remote, that Rush Limbaugh and so many other de fault Obama haters have chosen to single out the fact that he uses a teleprompter as a worthy line of criticism. The TP even has its own blog.

One thing they fail to mention is that the words coming up on the teleprompter were primarily written by him. Sure he has writers just like every other President in modern times, but he uses them far less than other presidents, especially the one with the wifi crammed into his suit.

The Real Redistributionist-In-Chief

Southern Methodist economist Ravi Batra measures Obama's "socialism" against the monumentally redistributionist policies of Ronald Reagan:

"Socialism" is a pejorative term in American politics and needs to be carefully examined. It usually refers to increased government control over the economy, or policies that promote the redistribution of wealth. There is no doubt that President Obama's economic measures, passed and proposed, will raise tax rates on the richest Americans to pay for increased government funding of health care, green energy and education. So the new president is indeed a redistributionist, but so was Ronald Reagan, except that Obama's plans will transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, whereas Reagan's bills transferred wealth from the poor and the middle class to the opulent. In fact, Obama's measures are puny, whereas Reagan's were massive. If the Democrat is a "small" socialist, Reagan was the Great American Socialist.

(more)

For those of you who like your economics a little more specific and a lot less rhetorical, The Bonddad Blog analyzes whether or not we have an inflation problem.

Meanwhile, the man I believe should be Treasury Secretary, or at least the next Treasury Secretary, Robert Reich, has advice for the President going forward. Hopefully Reich's blog is an exception to Obama's distaste for blogs.

Richardson Ends Death Penalty in New Mexico

Governor Richardson likely did more good today than he would have done in four years as Commerce Secretary.

(CNN) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill Wednesday repealing the death penalty in his state, his office confirmed.

"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime," Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.

He noted that more than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years, including four in New Mexico.

"Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe," he said.

(more)

Meanwhile, Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation to end the federal death penalty. AIG traders included.

Obama Reverses Bush, Endorses U.N. Call for Decriminalization of Homosexuality

The reversals keep on coming:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Wednesday formally endorsed a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign.

The move was the administration's latest in reversing Bush-era decisions that have been heavily criticized by human rights and other groups. The United States was the only western nation not to sign onto the declaration when it came up at the U.N. General Assembly in December.

(more)

All this and we get Bush's silence too. Unfortunately that doesn't extend to Dick Cheney and Ari Fleischer.

Work On It

This is supposed to be the world's first flying car:



Sorry inventors, I'm not impressed. Come back when it looks like this:

Obama Administration Takes Baby Steps On Drug Policy

Surprised no one seems to be calling for Obama's impeachment over this. Yet.

The Obama administration signalled today that it was ready to repudiate the prohibition and "war on drugs" approach of previous presidents, and steer policy towards prevention and "harm reduction" strategies favoured by Europe.

David Johnson, an assistant secretary of state, said the new administration would embrace policies supporting federally funded needle exchanges. The aim, he said, was to establish a policy based on public health needs. "This will result in a policy that is broader and stronger than the one we had in the past," Johnson said on the sidelines of a UN drug strategy conference in Vienna.

Too bad the situation is so bad that Obama now has a containment problem on our Southern boarder.

Writer Linda Valdez, of The Arizona Republic, calls for legalizing weed to end the violence.

Go Kill Yourselves

Senator Charles Grassley kinda snapped over the whole AIG thing today:

In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: "The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide."

UPDATE: Damn! Grassley is 2 hot 4 TV!

Carlson, Maddow Weigh in on Cramer v. Stewart

Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow did a short-lived MSNBC show called The Situation, not to be confused with the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. At that time Tucker was the alledged new star and Maddow was virtually unknown.

Now, in another life, or so it seems, Maddow is the media star and Carlson is a marginal has been grasping for traction.

Their takes on the week long saga that was Jim Cramer and CNBC v. Jon Stewart and Dora the Explorer show the stark difference bewteen the two, and inform why it is that they have switched places in the news media pantheon.

Maddow's take is rock solid. It fact-laden, but not with streaks of reasonable opinion.


Carlson's take? From outer space. He accuses Stewart of doing Obama's bidding and being "a partisan hack". Of course, none of that vitriol has anything to do with that time Stewart went on Tucker Carlson's former show Crossfire. Nothing at all.

Here's a look back at that:

Mortgage Crisis Fueling West Nile?

On Thom Hartmann's Friday show, he mentioned something in passing called "green swimming pools". These are the untended pools of houses in warm climates left behind by people abandoning or being kicked out of their houses because of the mortgage crisis and, apparently, they are a breeding ground for mosquitoes and, as such, contribute to concerns that more cases of West Nile Virus will turn up in these areas.

In May of 2008, the L.A. Times published an article that warned of this phenomenon while reporting that 13 birds with West Nile virus were found in Orange County that month. With even more abandoned houses around the country this year, this could be something we hear more about.

Stewart v. Cramer IV--The Final Chapter

I just watched Jon Stewart's interview of Jim Cramer from Thursday night. It was interesting to have an extra two days to build this thing up in my mind, as I read several commentaries on it. By the time I sat down this morning to watch it, I didn't even want to anymore because the whole thing seemed so overblown. Of course, I did my part to overblow it by blogging about all three Daily Show clips (part I, part II and part III) about CNBC and Cramer before this one. I'm not one to leave a story hanging, so...

After having seen it, I am prepared to argue that the fact that it's overblown shouldn't stop those who haven't seen this from watching. Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart does a magnificent job of clarifying a major problem that the financial channels represent. That being the question of who's side these TV personalities are on. Even if they are more entertainers than reporters, as Jim Cramer clearly is more of an entertainer, there's still a moral imperative for them to, at the very least, not be complicit in covering the asses of the people robbing the general public while their station runs ads touting them as experts who have your back in a crisis.

Stewart argues that these TV personalities ignored their obligations because they saw their audience as the Wall Street insiders rather that the victimized masses with 401Ks. 

To that I would add Cenk Uygur's point that a huge part of the reason CNBC lacks any journalistic credibility is because, like the rest of the mainstream media, it values access above all else. He writes:

The real problem [with CNBC] is their reporting -- or lack thereof. The CNBC reporters and anchors make the Bush press corps look like draconian inquisitors. They are obsessed with access. This is a problem with all of the media, and something Jon Stewart points out all the time. But it is particularly acute at CNBC (and all other business news channels).

Meanwhile, a lot of commentators are playing the part of balance monkeys, very eager to point out how Stewart and Cramer are the same. On a lot of levels perhaps they are, but not when it comes to access. 

Of course, Stewart has melted in the luminous presence of John McCain, John Kerry and Bill Clinton on numerous occasions, but there's no doubt that when it comes to weighing access against integrity Stewart is light years ahead of the rest of the media. 

I would love to see the tenacious Stewart from Thursday night hold the position that Tim Ruseert held prior to his death--inquisitor-in-chief. That is a separate title from host of Meet the Press. Stewart need not jump into David Gregory's chair to get that job.  But he will have to leave Comedy behind because, unfortunately, the power players in politics will never see The Daily Show as a place they must go to attain legitimacy. Still, I can imagine Stewart going after even the likes of my beloved President Obama--who I still think is doing a tremendous job--and asking honest, tough, and penetrating questions and getting serious, perhaps even satisfying, answers.  Not to mention what Stewart could do to the likes of Bobby Jindal or Sarah Palin in a fifteen minute interview.

Cramer should get some credit for going anywhere near Stewart. He was either too brave for his own good or too dumb. Cramer's promise to do a more responsible show sounds empty. Not because he doesn't have good intentions--now. But rather, because he lacks the ability to that kind of journalism. 

I also agree with Stewart's assertion that Cramer should not be the public face of this fiasco. It was Rick Santelli's insane performance on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where the ranting CNBC host blasted Obama for bailing out "loser" mortgage holders, that touched off Stewart's first "attack" on the night Santelli decided not to go on the show.  Stewart maintains that he was going to play the same material even if Santelli had appeared.  In retrospect, it looks like Cramer wound up taking the fire Stewart had intended for Santelli.

Digby has the response to the interview Cramer posted to his pay-to-read blog, where Cramer is all over the place--from Obama's biggest cheerleader to a co-member of the White House's so-called enemies list with Rush Limbaugh.  She also looks at some potential lawbreaking by Cramer himself. 

On that last count, Dan Solin thinks this interview is the death knell of Cramer's career:

[W]hen [Cramer] denied the plain meaning of his 2006 interview in which he discussed highly questionable conduct he engaged in while he was a hedge fund manager, he lost the last remaining shred of his much diminished credibility.

No responsible network executive who viewed the tape of Stewart eviscerating Cramer could possibly conclude that he has any credibility as an "investment expert." His antics may entertain some but they have hurt many.

For NBC and CNBC to continue to hold Cramer out as its investment guru would be a travesty that I don't believe even they will perpetuate.

Here is a prediction I will make: Cramer will be off the air in sixty days.

Today Amanda Terkel at Think Progress has a post up about how Cramer is now facing a rebellion among his staff who are pissed that he didn't mount any kind of defense of CNBC.  She also reports that Cramer is shocked at Stewart's tone.  She also adds that Morning Joe staff was asked by NBC not to respond to Stewart.  

By the way something, speaking of Morning Joe, Stewart's reference to "Doucheboro" is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

Here's the full, uncensored interview:  

Part 1:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

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Jim Cramer

Part 2:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

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Part 3:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

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Wha? I Didn't Do Nothing

David Fiderer rebuts Alan Greenspan's recent mea NOT culpa that was published in, you guessed it, The Wall Street Journal. Fiderer attributes Greenspan's culpability to playing politics in order to get a certain medal-awarding dumbass re-elected.

Fiderer writes:

In the years following the end of the last recession, which ended in November 2001, Greenspan lowered rates relentlessly in order to prime the economy for the 2004 election. By mid-2003, the fed funds rate was one percent, a 45-year low. Mortgage rates for both FRMs and adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) fell dramatically, but rates on ARMs fell more. And this is a critical point. By early 2004 the rate difference between FRMs and ARMs was two percent, the highest it had been in 10 years. In other words, if you had a $120,000 mortgage, your monthly payments would have been $200 less under an ARM.

The bigger the rate difference, the more likely homeowners are to elect to finance with an ARM. But in prior years when homeowners flocked to ARMs, interest rates were high, so the likelihood that homeowners would face sticker shock at the time of a rate reset, or the likelihood that home prices had been inflated by low interest rates, was fairly low. In early 2004, when 5-year ARMs hovered around four percent, compared to FRMs at six percent, the refinancing risk associated with an ARM was much greater.

And it was precisely at this point, going into an election year, when Greenspan threw gasoline on the fire, encouraging homeowners to try ARMs. "Greenspan says ARMs might be better deal," was the USA Today headline on February 24, 2004. "Alan Greenspan said Monday that Americans' preference for long-term, fixed-rate mortgages means many are paying more than necessary for their homes and suggested consumers would benefit if lenders offered more alternatives," the paper reported.

Again and again we get plausible deniability game pulled on us. It's fucking laughable. Like Ari Fleischer blowing bad wind at Chris Matthews last night.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's an incessant chant--"It's all too complicated to be understood." "Bush is the good guy." "We didn't start a war and wreck the economy to get a jackass enough votes to steal re-election"...

These liars are out of power (for the most part), but they're still inhabiting the TV with wicked, gigantic lies.

Matthew Yglesias has more on Greenspan.

Lightning Round--It's an Alternative Universe, Charlie Brown, Edition

Monkey Muck: Dr. Monkey looks at the Peanuts specials that never got made.

Cinematical: What would it look like if Frank Miller had done Peanuts?

And, breaking format...

Les Enragés: SadButTrue gives John C. Eastman of Chapman University Law School, the first ever Just Not Getting It Award.

USA Today: One of the newspapers that's still in business because they have pretty colors looks at the major shifts in American religious life measured by the new American Religious Identification Survey.

Postcards: Hans von Spakovsky lives! The master disenfranchiser will be testifying, I assume, before the Texas senate.

Agitprop: Blogenfreude ponders the Bush bodycount.

Some People Just Don't Instill Confidence

Last night the Treasury Secretary went on Charlie Rose's show and fared a bit better than he has in previous media appearances. He still looks spooked by what he knows.

Stewart v. Cramer III--The Saga Continues

This is probably the best trilogy since the first Star Wars, and Stewart pulled it off without any Ewoks. He did, however, have to call in Dora the Explorer.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish '09

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

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By the way something, who's Dora the Explorer?

Well, Allow Me To Retort

Jon Stewart provides context to this clip, then reiterates, "Fuck you [Jim Cramer]."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

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As far as I'm concerned ripping CNBC could be a great new format for Stewart's show.

Don Siegelman On Rachel Maddow

Last Friday, Rachel Maddow spoke to Don Siegelman about his ongoing appeal and the upcoming testimony of Karl Rove.

When Evil Needs PR...

...it has Burson Marsteller on speed dial. Rachel Maddow lists the peeps, from 3 Mile Island to AIG, for whom Burson Marsteller have done PR work.

Pre-Recession Mindset Infects GOP, Media

Steve Benen writes:

Democrats were (falsely) accused in recent years of having a "pre-9/11 mindset." It's time the political world comes to terms with the fact that Republicans are guilty of a "pre-recession mindset."

Imagine if, in late 2001, George W. Bush were putting together a team of national security advisors, and Senate Democrats put anonymous holds on his well-qualified choices because of something that may or may not have happened during Clinton's presidency. Most political observers would consider this crazy, and they'd be right.

And yet, here we are.

The financial networks are suffering from the same malady because they have no dissenters in house. Why isn't Paul Krugman running at least one of these channels?

Jon Stewart went on Letterman and likened the blindness we see on the financial news channels to turning on the Weather Channel during a hurricane and seeing... well, watch:

My McNuggets Are an Emergency

You may have heard the story about the lady who freaked out and called 911 three times when McDonalds couldn't come up with her McNuggets. It might be easy to point and laugh at such foolishness, but Marc Maron takes a deeper look at what's going on here.

We Knew That Already

The AP is reporting that several states might drop the death penalty because it costs too much. Hmm. I don't know. I think that the anti-death penalty movement has been making that point for many years. The loud squeal of the knee-jerk pro-death penalty crowd will make any governor thinking about a ban, no matter how cost effective, think twice.

Also, I love the journalist's commitment to the nonsense that this is some kind of a new revelation. She writes, "Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys." Turns out? Recent surveys?

Here are citations of three articles from over ten years ago questioning the cost-effectiveness of execution:

Bright, Stephen B.: "The death penalty as the answer to crime: costly, counterproductive and corrupting"; 35 Santa Clara Law Review 1211 (1995)

Dieter, Richard C.: "What politicians don't say about the high costs of the death penalty"; 1 Studies in Prolife Feminism 11 (1995)

Spangenberg, Robert L. and Walsh, Elizabeth: "Capital punishment or life imprisonment? Some cost considerations"; 23 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 45 (1989)

That took all of two minutes to find. Just saying.

Jon Stewart's Rage Waxes Hot

I love everything about this rip job Jon Stewart does of The Gambling Channel except for the fact that it took a schmuck like Rick Santelli standing him up to make him get mad and blow the whistle on these assholes.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

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Important Things With Demetri Martin

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Godspeed, Don Siegelman

Station Nation, if there's one thing we've learned over the course of blogging it out on the real lo these last three years, it's that justice is fleeting and arbitrary. For instance, Karl Rove is not likely ever to be in prison and that Don Siegelman most likely is on his way back. It's not the worst injustice in the world, but it's all kinds of fucked up in my book. Hang tough Governor, better days lie ahead.

Just When America Found Out He Had a Show

When I heard today that D.L. Hugley's show has been cancelled I immediately thought the worst of CNN--you know, that somehow D.L. got Rush'd simply for feeding Michael Steel the lines that he used to spew his sacreligious anti-dittoes.  

Actually, D.L., who is a decent host and he did well as an actor (he was one of the stronger links in the meanering Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip) but not so much with the stand-up comedy, asked CNN to relocate him to L.A.  CNN is accommodating him by making him a contributor for the network based in Los Angeles. CNN probably wasn't too broken up about it, since the show has performed poorly, but who the hell watches cable news channels on the weekend anyway?   

Meanwhile, Undercover Black Man has a bit of a problem with D.L.'s vocabulary, or lack thereof.

Here's a look at the show in question, from January:

Chinese Bloggers Blow Lid Off Media, Government Duplicity

Newsweek delves, albeit briefly, into the fascinating world of Chinese bloggers.

Meanwhile, the Obama-sold-out-America-to-the-Chinese rumor persists. This can now be rotated into the Obama conspiracies with the fake birth certificate and the anti-Christ material.

A Swing to the Left?

...It's about Time!

There's lots of talk in the blogosphere lately about the GOP's descent into the political abyss. This week that talk is centered on Rush Limbaugh, the controversial darling of the CPAC convention. Many on the left (including the White House chief of staff) hope and pray that Limbaugh remains the de facto voice of the Republican party for as long as possible. They rightly perceive that his extremist views will continue to sour the public on Republican and conservative 'values,' such as they are.

The thing is, RushBo hasn't backed off an inch from a statement he made a few days ago wishing that Obama's policies (and by logical extension, the country) would fail. And come to think of it, it wasn't too long ago that Rush and his ilk were saying that it was treasonous not to support the president 100%, whether you voted for him or not. Some people are quite likely going to remember that.

Some people are also going to remember that at the Republican National Convention the GOP were using a particular slogan -- Country First. Nobody was going out of their way at the time to explain that they were really talking about a style of music that is heavy on cowboy boots, fiddles and pedal steel guitars - so most of us assumed they meant something on the lines of, "Country before Party." In other words, bipartisanship, or maybe non-partisanship. The country-hating partisan Limbaugh being painted as the Voice Of The GOP makes them all look like liars. Big fat lying liars. So it's no wonder that Rahm Emmanuel and practically every citizen of Greater Left BlogSylvania wants to, as the Hollywood idiom has it, "hang a lantern on it."

Rachel Maddow does a characteristically terrific job of covering this story, but what I'd like to highlight here is the exchange she has with Howard Dean, which is very insightful on the subject of internal party dynamics. He should know. He obviously DOES know. This is television journalism as it should be, and Maddow has clearly emerged as The Next Great Thing at MSNBC.

Here's a brief transcript of the bit I liked:

They're in trouble. They've got the problem we had about 25 years ago, which is;
They have a hard group of ideologues who don't care what the facts are, and a fair amount of it's hate based. And, they've got a group of people who've just got elected to various positions who realize that if they don't bring the party somewhere back into the middle of the political spectrum, that they're never going to win an election. So they've got to have that fight, and it's an ugly bitter fight.

Imagine that! The Republicans having an internecine fight between moderates and extremists that can only have one of two end results.
Either;
a) they stay where they are or even become more extreme, and consign themselves to permanent political oblivion (this outcome could come to be known as 'The Limbaugh Stratagem')
or
b) they become more moderate, and the party and its policies move toward the middle, where a lot of the votes are. Votes that might actually swing back to the Republicans if they could only, you know, stop being so palpably batshit crazy.

I should point out here, although it should be perfectly obvious, that any move the Republicans make now toward the middle is a move TO THE LEFT. Unfortunately for them they've made it very hard on themselves to make that move, because every time they've moved to the right in the past they've immediately redefined their brand new political stance (the erstwhile extreme right) to be the middle, and declared their old position to be infested with the sharks of socialism.

For their part, the Democrats have to respond reciprocally. The problem is that in the recent past every time the conservatives moved their position to the right, the Democrats responded, not by pulling back, but by allowing themselves to be dragged into the newly-defined 'middle ground' between the parties - and that 'middle' has long ago crossed the line into middle-right approaching hard right on some issues. To stand pat and consolidate now is to merely occupy a position where they don't really belong, and frankly, where they shouldn't really want to be. They should have their sights set on a position to the left of where they've been for the last few years. Some warning shots should be fired about primary challenges to some key Blue Dogs between now and the 2010 midterms.

In that context I really like Rachel's idea that the Democrats should go into the next couple of battles 'as if the Republicans don't matter.' Should the unpopular minority choose to obstruct their efforts, the voters will bury them deep in the next mid-term elections. Looks to me like a win-win situation, while trying to compromise with the intransigent Republicans looks like trying to get water out of a stone.

Just Brainstorming Here, But Do We Need The First Amendment?

Michael Isikoff writes:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken.

What restraint!

By the way something, the new guys banned waterboarding this week. Baby steps back to democracy.

The Case For Marijuana

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron makes the case for legalizing marijuana and other drugs.

The Head of the Republican Party Is...

During the long, cold Bush Administration, we were repeatedly told by the media that former President Clinton was the de facto head of the Democratic Party, except for the times when the party had a nominee for President. After Gore lost, and later, after Kerry lost, the position always reverted to the Democratic Party's most recent president, Bubba.

So doesn't that mean that this guy:

is the head of the party? How could Rush and Steele be overlooking this? It's almost like they don't want Bush to be the head of their party.

Wingnutistan and the Deep End

I don't often listen to talk radio but for some reason I decided to check out KFTK 97.1 FM's live stream here in St. Louis last night. Their line-up includes O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Savage and Ingraham. "What were you thinking?" you might ask.

The 8:00-10:00 pm slot is hosted by Dana Loesch, a self-described Jesus Freak and conservative commentator. I particularly wanted to hear her take on the St. Louis Riverfront "tea party" she helped organize protesting the stimulus package.

I was checking news on-line while listening to the live stream. Suddenly, I heard talk of Sec. of State Clinton (via Obama) offering China, under the promise of eminent domain, American properties as collateral for stimulus bill loans. Loesch offered an article at Examiner.com as "proof"!

It wasn't so much as an article as it was a blurb linking to 2 sources: Patriot Room and LiveLeak. PatriotRoom updated its post stating that the story originated at the Hal Turner Show on Feb. 26, 2009. Hal's blog had comments that included the phrases "I'd like to see those slanty eyed fucks try and take my house" and "Die, traitorous, vile, filthy, pigs!". I don't believe either comment was pointing to the Chinese.

Turner, in kind, credits a Bloomberg story from Feb. 11th. Belinda Cao and Judy Chen wrote that "China should seek guarantees that its $682 billion holdings of U.S. government debt won’t be eroded by “reckless policies,” said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank."

Reading the entire article on Bloomberg, you will see absolutely no mention of "eminent domain". Contrarily, “These comments are some sort of a threat but of course China can never get such a guarantee,” said Thomas Harr, a currency strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore. The U.S. may assure China that it will clean up the financial system and that it “won’t push for a weaker dollar but they can’t promise not to increase the fiscal deficit,” he said.

In fact, Bloomberg followed up with this: "Treasuries rose, extending a two- week rally, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said China should keep buying bonds to help fund President Bacack Obama's economic-stimulus plans."

Last week, a national news story (NBC Nightly News?) discussed wealthy Chinese purchasing homes in America. Apparently the global economic downturn spurred them to buy in America, waiting for better economic conditions. I really think some wingnut (cough!HalTurner!cough!) took a Times Online story, morphed it wih the Bloomberg report and Clinton's visit to China. Voila! We have Obama capitulating to China using American properties as collateral. I didn't see the connection at all, did you?

We know that if any of this had a scintilla of truth, the Republican News Channel, aka Fox News, would be running a 24-hour Breaking News story.

Rick Santelli would be laying on the floor, pounding his fists and crying like a baby. Neil Cavuto would discuss the problem but show pics of wholesome young ladies in bikinis. Sean Hannity would run another poll asking if "armed rebellion" would be a good way to end the Obama administration and "take back our/his country". Bill O'Reilly would, well, he'd just lie and claim the Chinese government was out to get him for a story he never did.

But that doesn't stop people from ranting about an unsubstantiated rumor.

Conservatives and Republicans alike (could someone please explain the difference between the two?) complain about the "liberal MSM" but when they perorate and froth at the mouth over an unproven story, they are the ones who have gone off of the Deep End.

Another Memo to Pinky

Since the media is going berserk over Rush's CPAC speech, I would like to refute one of the unfair claims he made in that speech. In his justification of his repeated voodoo curse on President Obama he claims that Democrats wished for Bush to fail. That is not true at all. After the 2000 recount, most Democrats I know listened to Al Gore's reasonable and humble call for unity at a cathartic time. We were skeptical that Bush could be a decent President but no one I know wished for him to fail. After nine months that looked a lot like a President failing, 9-11 happened. No one wanted him to fail after that. His approval rating went up to 90% and I was right there approving too. Then Bush went out and failed over and over for the next seven-plus years no matter what anyone was wishing for. Do not ascribe your pettiness to others, Pinky. And put on an undershirt, you're scaring kids with that look.

Memo to The King of the Dying Party

Even at his chunkiest and pinkest, Al Gore never put his cleavage on display. Just saying.

Here's Rush and his blazing pink chest complaining about how Barack Obama wants to give his oxy money to a teacher or something.

PM and Snorting Koch

The book beings with a quote: "Why waste time discovering the truth when you can so easily create it?"

I'm reading "The Whole Truth" by David Baldacci. In his latest book, he writes about PM or "Perception Management" and how one organization uses PM to influence international politics. PM is similar to PR (public relations) but in a more wide-ranging, often dangerous way.

Mark Ames and Yasha Levine have an article in the new Playboy that ties Rick Santelli's infamous rant on CNBC last week to Republican right-wing organizations (the Koch family) and other web sites ready to jump on the "tea party" bandwagon. Apparently Santelli's Chicago Mercantile posturing wasn't exactly spontaneous.

Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli’s 'rant' last-week calling for a 'Chicago Tea Party' to protest President Obama’s plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere...

But was Santelli’s rant really so spontaneous? What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders.

What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.

The right-wing washing machine is on full spin cycle and will remain there for the next 4 years. Be warned!

UPDATE: Since drafting this post, I've discovered other links about this story. One link of interest is Barry Ritholtz and his observations.