The Franken Decade Begins?

Looking good for Al.

Palin Family Values

Levi Johnston's mother hit with drug charges.

I remember when Dan Quayle took on fictional character Murphy Brown for becoming a single mother. He said it sent a bad message about family values.

Now, Sarah Palin is the new failed VP values darling of the right, she's the new Dan Quayle. And her 18 year old daughter is about to give birth to a bastard child. Are they scorning her? No, they're cheering. My how times change.

The truth is the right has no issues, just their anger and sense of moral superiority. Reactionaries instinctively react. It's a reflex.

The Bush Legacy

Says Bush:

I was in the Roosevelt Room and Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson, after a month of every weekend where they're calling, saying, we got to do this for AIG, or this for Fannie and Freddie, came in and said, the financial markets are completely frozen and if we don't do something about it, it is conceivable we will see a depression greater than the Great Depression.

(How can we blame this on Clinton, or maybe Obama?)

So I analyzed that and decided I didn't want to be the President during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression.

Too late. You're also the President who lost the World Trade Center. Heck of a job Bushie...

God Closes a Door...

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid

First God didn't want Sarah Palin to be VP now he doesn't want her to be a Senator. I'm sure he's opened a door for her somewhere...

A Look Back.

As we confront the worst economic crisis in a generation, as we suffer with job losses, stock losses, massive budget deficits, economic contraction, let's remember where we started. Let's remember what Bush inherited and then squandered. From his first speech to congress as President:

My budget has funded a responsible increase in our ongoing operations, it has funded our Nation's important priorities, it has protected Social Security and Medicare, and our surpluses are big enough that there is still money left over.

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I have listened, and I agree. My budget proposal pays down an unprecedented amount of public debt. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.

At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire. That is more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history.

We should also prepare for the unexpected, for the uncertainties of the future. We should approach our Nation's budget as any prudent family would, with a contingency fund for emergencies or additional spending needs. For example, after a strategic review, we may need to increase defense spending, we may need additional money for our farmers, or additional money to reform Medicare And so my budget sets aside almost a trillion dollars over 10 years for additional needs -- that is one trillion additional reasons you can feel comfortable supporting this budget.

We have increased our budget at a responsible 4 percent, we have funded our priorities, we have paid down all the available debt, we have prepared for contingencies -- and we still have money left over.

That's where we started, lo those many years ago...

Operation Chaos!

Kudos to Rush Limbaugh and his Operation Chaos:

The dream end... I mean, if people say what's your exit strategy, the dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That's the objective here.

Well, the Democrats are united and victorious while the Republicans are unarguably in chaos. Well done Rush!

In Defense of McCain - A Crazy Theory.

McCain was always going to lose this election. He never really had much of a chance. The macro trends are heavily against him, the winds of change blowing too hard.

He could've run an honorable and decent campaign. He didn't have to appease the base with a reckless VP choice. He could've lost with honor. The country would've admired him for that.

But what lesson would the GOP take from that? They would conclude you can't win without fighting dirty, without playing to the base. They would redouble their efforts at being the party of hate.

Maybe, just maybe, and i know this is a crazy theory, John McCain figured that if he was going to go down, he would try to take Karl Rove, Fox News, and what they represent with him?

Now We Know Why McCain Thought He Could Win Pennsylvania?

TPM has the details of McCain pushing the hoax. Was this their Pennsylvania strategy? Did they instigate it? What will they do now?

Sarah Palin's Shopping Spree:

Everyone's talking about the hypocrisy. I think there's another angle.

We're in the midst of possibly the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Money is tight. This is serious.

Yet the RNC sees fit to spend $150,000 of their donors' hard earned money at places like Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue on clothes for the VP candidate?

How can these clowns possibly be trusted to manage our financial crisis, to handle our money responsibly? What better example of how the Republicans don't get it, of how they're the problem, not the solution?

This is Pretty Stunning:

The Deal Dissolves

NYT:

"The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support.

"If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down," President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.

It was an implosion that spilled out from behind closed doors into public view in a way rarely seen in Washington.

By 10:30 p.m., after another round of talks, Congressional negotiators gave up for the night and said they would try again on Friday. Left uncertain was the fate of the bailout, which the White House says is urgently needed to fix broken financial and credit markets, as well as whether the first presidential debate would go forward as planned Friday night in Mississippi. (...)

"We're in a serious economic crisis," Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, "My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly."

But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.

The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling press conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr. literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to "blow it up" by withdrawing her party's support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

"I didn't know you were Catholic," Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson's kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: 'It's not me blowing this up, it's the Republicans."

Mr. Paulson sighed. "I know. I know.""

(Bolding mine.) McCain is a coward. What will the spin be tomorrow?

Add the United States

to the list of enterprises George Bush has run into the ground. This is his M.O.: bankrupt the company, get bailed out with someone else's money, walk away...

Game, Set and Match...

Score a big one for Krugman:

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

McCain's utter and complete hypocrisy laid bare for all to see. That ought to do it, oughtn't it?

Headline on CNBC

"Stocks Soar on CNBC Report..."

Wow!

"It's Over..."

Don't take my word for it, take Peggy Noonan's...

Kevin Misses the Point:

Kevin Drum asks:

But seriously: are they really that easy to sucker? It's plain where McCain's true sentiments lie: he would have chosen a pro-choice partner if he could possibly have gotten away with it. He only picked Palin out of absolute political necessity. And yet the Christian right reacted as giddily as if he had genuinely seen the light.

So I guess the answer is: yes, they really are that easy to sucker. Pretty amazing.

They haven't been suckered. They've won a battle, they've successfully tested their power over John McCain and found themselves to be quite powerful. They're celebrating.

There is no actual principle involved.

Consider this: What if the Democratic nominee for President was on his second marriage and known to have cheated on his first wife many times? What if the Democratic nominee for VP had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter in high school?

What would the right say about this duo? About their fitness to lead? About the moral bankruptcy of the left? What are they saying about McCain and Palin?

There are no principles here, only rationalizations and exploitation. The right exploits a faith based belief Christian conservatives have that they are morally good while their opponents are morally bad. Nothing else matters. Deficits, wars, adultery, teenage sex, none of these things matter really. Only a sense of righteousness matters. This is moral relativism in moral absolutist clothing.

An Easy Case to Make

McCain and the Republicans are mocking Obama for advocating proper tire inflation. They're calling for tax breaks for oil companies and for giving them more federal land to drill on.

Why?

Because that's what they're being paid to do, with oil company campaign contributions. Mocking conservation, cutting corporate taxes and opening more federal land up to drilling all have one thing in common: they lead to higher profits for the oil companies.

It's not hard to understand. It's an easy case to make.

Who's Ben Stein Comparing to Hitler Now?

First it was Darwin, now it's Obama:

STEIN: I want -- I'm glad you brought up this Denver thing. I don't like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena. Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done. And I think whoever is advising Senator Obama to do this is bringing up all kinds of very unfortunate images from the past.

I'd think the more likely comparison would be to JFK's nomination acceptance at the Los Angeles Coliseum:

Barack Obama will give his acceptance speech at Invesco Field during the Democratic National Convention. In 1960, John F. Kennedy also delivered his acceptance speech at an outdoor venue — the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

But apparently Ben Stein has Hitler on the brain. Or maybe JFK is next on his list of secret Nazis?

What's Going On?

Is Obama losing because he's not leading by more? That seems to be the conventional wisdom these days and certainly it's a Republican talking point.

But here's the deal, i think: The media and John McCain are really worried that this election is going to be an Obama blowout.

So McCain is going heavily negative right now, throwing everything he has at Obama, now. He's afraid if he doesn't change the dynamic of this race right now, it's over for him.

And the media wants a horse race for obvious reasons...

Connecting The Dots

From my previous post (WSJ):

In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group's share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income.

And today from CBS:

The next president will inherit a record budget deficit approaching $490 billion, according to a new Bush administration estimate.

As Condi might say, "no one could've imagined..."

Kudlow isn't just Stupid!

He's a scumbag and a liar, a knowing propagandist, a charlatan...

In a recent blog he wrote:

Oh really. New IRS data released last month tell a very different story: In the aftermath of the Bush investment tax cuts, the federal income tax burden has substantially shifted onto the backs of the wealthy. Between 2002 and 2004, tax payments by those with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) of more than $200,000 a year, which is roughly 3% of taxpayers, increased by 19.4% -- more than double the 9.3% increase for all other taxpayers.

What Kudlow fails to mention is that the income of the wealthy is going up faster than their tax burden. Their burden as a percent of their income is actually going down.

The tax burden of the poor and middle class, as a percentage of their income, is actually going up. That pisses Kudlow off.

Let's say the richest man in the world owns 10% of America's wealth and pays 10% of America's taxes. Then 10 years later he owns 20% of America's wealth and pays 15% of America's taxes. Has his burden gone up or down? Kudlow would say it's gone up, though obviously it has gone down.

But don't take my word for it. Take it from the Wall Street Journal:

In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.
[Charts]

Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years.

Larry Kudlow is a jackass.

Why Exactly, Is McCain Running?

Now that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has endorsed Obama's position on American troop withdrawal from Iraq, what exactly is McCain's rational for running?

As one Republican strategist has put it (according to Marc Ambinder's blog), "We're Fucked."

Hope I Get Really Old Before I Die...

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Somebody Give Sam Seder a Show!

His whiner/millionaire routine is hilarious. Watch it here.

As I Was Saying...

Here's a great blog showing how much better economic performance has been under Democrats than Republicans.

For example, are Republicans really the party of job creation? Hardly.

The party of growth? Nope. Turns out tax cuts lead to bigger deficits and bigger gaps between the rich and poor, pretty much what a sane, rational person might expect.

And here's Kevin Drum backing me up on Larry Kudlow, pointing out that he is indeed crazy.

Mr. Motes

More Kudlow

Looks like i'm not the only one stupefied by his stupidity. Kudlow and his ilk are pathologically incapable of questioning their assumptions, assumptions they hold on faith, like religion.

Bush's tax cuts have directly contributed to our massive deficits. Republicans pay lip service to cutting spending but they never do it. It's just rhetoric to rationalize their looting of the treasury. They never cut spending. They only cut taxes.

That means deficits. That means a weaker dollar, higher oil, and a lot of what is dragging us down today.

The S&P is lower now than when supply-sider tax-cutter George Bush took office. The economy has underperformed in almost every measurable way during the Bush presidency.

How do people like Larry Kudlow explain this? They can't. All they can do is call for more tax cuts and inexplicably utter the word "Goldilocks."

It's laughably absurd. Unfortunately, it's also, to some extent, conventional wisdom...

Mr. Motes

Shit Piss Fuck Cunt Motherfucker Cocksucker and Tits...

George Carlin dead.

Finally: The Stock Market and Interest Rates Explained

Found this here. It's brilliant, and dead on...

Mr. Motes

Busted!

In this AP story, Colbert admits he's a fraud, that among other things, there is no Esteban Colberto, it's really just Stephen in disguise.

Another sly comment came during the writers strike, when Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom Inc., pushed "The Daily Show" and "The Report" back into production without writers. Colbert, desperate for material, rebroadcast an interview with CNN pundit Lou Dobbs, renown for his tough stance on immigration.

Dobbs' segment aired exactly as it had months earlier, but Colbert's side was redone with him dressed as "Estaban Colberto," a Spanish-speaking, mustachioed alter-ego (yes, alter-egos can have their own alter-egos). Estaban arrived at the interview by creeping under a chicken-wire fence.

Watch for yourself:




Wait till Comedy Central finds out. Colbert, aka Colberto, probably double billed them...

Mr. Motes

The Message of the Markets

I've become fascinated with Larry Kudlow lately. How can anyone be such an idiot? Don't take my word for it, read his blog.

His latest thing is this:

Last night on Kudlow & Company we discussed the theory suggesting the stock market sold off a hundred points earlier in the day -- despite Fed head Ben Bernanke's bullish King Dollar statement -- because of the AP headline announcing Obama's impending nomination.

Under Ronald Reagan, the S&P 500 roughly doubled. Under Clinton it quadrupled. Stunningly, the S&P 500 has done nothing during these long Bush years.

Yet the market is telling us it doesn't want fiscal sanity? It fears Obama will undue all this substandard economic performance we've experienced under Bush?

I'm left to wonder whether Larry Kudlow is a fool or a lying hack, a run of the mill propagandist for tax cuts...

I've got my money on all of the above.

Mr. Motes

It's 1996 All Over Again

I've been saying John McCain looks a lot like Bob Dole from 1996 and last night was no exception. Everyone is talking about this video highlighting just how bad McCain looked giving his speech in New Orleans, especially compared to Obama.

Bob Dole's rebuttal to Bill Clinton's 1996 State of the Union was equally brutal in comparison.

I don't think things are going to work out any better for John McCain than they did for Bob Dole.

Mr. Motes

Must See TV

Colbert on the O'Reilly melt down, you have to see this

Mr. Motes

Bush Powerless Without Magic Wand!

Maybe Harry Potter can save us? Was Bush under the impression that he wouldn't have to solve any problems that couldn't be fixed with magic?

"I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it, of course,"

Mr. Motes

A Global Warrming Ad for Stephen

Someone needs to remake this ad, make it about global warming:

Bush to Heal McCain's Leprosy!