Saturday, March 08, 2008

Foster

You can get better commentary elsewhere on this, but this district was a big deal because it was the [Republican] Speaker of the House's district, because he won by a bunch in 2006, and because the practically broke NRCC blew much of what little money they had on it.

Foster Wins

People still hate Republicans.

People Vote Too Often

Another election - special one to fill Hastert's seat.


...the district, by the way, is NSFW.

Obama Wins Wyoming

On to the next boutique state.

First We'll Get Really Stoned

I've been trying to come up with words to describe this...

The Bush Legacy


That's pretty much it.

Deep Thought

Laramie, Wyoming is in Albany County. Cheyenne, Wyoming is in Laramie County.

Cascade

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street banks are facing a "systemic margin call" that may deplete banks of $325 billion of capital due to deteriorating subprime U.S. mortgages, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), said in a report late on Friday.

JPMorgan, which sent a default notice to Thornburg Mortgage Inc. (TMA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) after the lender missed a $28 million margin call, said more default notices and margin calls were likely. The Carlyle Group's mortgage fund also failed to meet $37 million in margin calls this week.

"A systemic credit crunch is underway, driven primarily by bank writedowns for subprime mortgages," according to the report co-authored by analyst Christopher Flanagan. "We would characterize this situation as a systemic margin call."

Shocker

CNN finds Illinois Republican and John McCain supporter who says mean things about Obama.


But former Republican colleague Dan Cronin said the presidential candidate's campaign of bold change doesn't square with his past.

"There were no bold solutions; there were no creative approaches; there were no efforts to stand up to the establishment," said Cronin, a member of the Illinois General Assembly since 1990.

Cronin says he still respects Obama and his political skills.


Amazingly, ABC did the same thing last month.

"Big Metropolitan City"

I suppose we all find reason to quibble when the national news comes to town and tries to make sense of the place. I just learned that the rest of the state, including Pittsburgh, is very blue collar, but Philadelphia is not.

The city of Philadelphia is a very blue collar place. Sure we have the usual chunk of lawyers, health professionals, academics, and other higher end middle class professionals. But they're concentrated in a relatively small part of the city, mostly, though not exclusively, in Center City and University City. The rest of the city - areas containing the other 80%+ of the population or so - is highly blue collar. And I don't just mean in the "what kind of job they do" sense, I mean in basic class sensibility and culture.

The suburbs, which in some ways dominate the area, are a different story of course.

Stupid Economist Tricks

There are times when one wonders if glibertarian economists have any sense of how the world actually functions. Then they answer the question.

Wanker of the Day

John Pomfret.

More satire from John Pomfret's favorite humorist:

New York: In addition to writing here that women are "dim," at the Independent Women's Forum you've written that Hurricane Katrina might have been "the best thing" to happen to New Orleans, which is full of "whiners ... chiseling us taxpayers" out of money. Is that supposed to be satire too? Your sense of humor sure does seem hateful.

washingtonpost.com: What Really Happened After Hurricane Katrina (Independnet Women's Forum, Oct. 11, 2005)

Charlotte Allen: I said Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because it finally opportunity to a huge number of New Orleans residents living in passive dependency on welfare to get out of New Orleans and change their lives for the better. Thousands of them did exactly that--which is why there hasn't exactly been a huge flood of those former residents flocking back to live in passive dependency and do just that. New Orleans itself now has a chance to change into a more self-reliant city. As for the "whiners...chiseling taxpayers out of money," I was referring specifically to the large number of fraudulent claims for Katrina relief--well documented in news stories.

Media Matters

from Jamison Foser.

Thread

The most amusing thing I learned before I went to bed last night.

Signed,
Not Atrios

More Overnight Thread

Don't you DFH's sleep?

--Molly I.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Overnight

tgif

More Thread




I can haz more primary debates? Oh noes.

The Nation's Capital

John McCain:

"It's harder and harder trying to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan," McCain said of Washington.

End of the Week

Relatively light posting over the weekend I think. I read a lot of internets, and there's a lot of stupid on the internets. Sometimes it makes the brain hurt.

Bailing Out Citi?

I think Dean Baker has the right take on what's potentially going on.

IMHO, several large financial institutions are probably, absent pretending various financial assets they own are worth more than they really are, below reserve requirements.

Jobs

White House:

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures for February. The unemployment rate decreased to 4.8 percent, below the averages for the past three decades, but nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 63,000 jobs. Our economy has added about 860,000 jobs over the last 12 months – an average of 72,000 jobs per month – and more than 8.1 million since August 2003.


72,000 per month is only about half of what is needed to keep up with increases in the working age population.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Totals Matter

I agree with Chris that a Philly machine which supports Clinton (if) won't change the fact that Obama will certainly win here, but it could potentially impact vote totals in an area where Obama would need as many as he can get.

Margin

Cascading...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thornburg Mortgage Inc on Friday said its survival is at stake because it is unable to meet $610 million of margin calls.

The company also said it will restate 2007 results and take a $427.8 million charge as of Dec 31 for its holdings of adjustable-rate mortgages.

Thornburg said falling mortgage prices together with liquidity imperiled by a surge of margin calls from its own lenders "have raised substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern."

It said the margin calls "significantly exceeded" its available liquidity. Some analysts have said the company might need to file for bankruptcy protection.

"Any Bank, Almost Any Collateral"

Helicopter Ben is auctioning off more money to banks, and apparently accepting just about anything as collateral.

Patriotism Problem

When I'm fresh out of things to post about I usually ask myself, "Self? Did Joe Klein do anything stupid today?"

Yup.

AT & Treason

Free Katha or Dahlia Or....

The wanker Pomfret could redeem himself by hiring Katha Pollitt or Dahlia Lithwick or any number of other women to write for their pages on a regular balance. It isn't mere tokenism to suggest more women should be hired when the columnist gender balance is so out of whack. Obviously there are systematic problems in large part due to the apparent tenure system for columnists which ensures that we will be subjected to Richard Cohen and David Broder as long as they live.

Someone who writes about issues from Pollitt's perspective is basically entirely missing from any prominent newspaper real estate, and Lithwick is an excellent writer who already works for the Washington Post borg (slate). Other possibilities exist, of course.

Locally

Bill's in town, about 7 blocks from me as I type this. I highly doubt Obama ever imagined his courtesy endorsement of Chaka Fattah in the mayoral race would end up being such an important misstep.

Kudlow

"I don't know what the real story is there..." [regarding Countrywide, Mozilo, and this story]

Then why are you on my teevee talking about it?

Wanker of the Day

Christine Flowers.


...adding, that again this is a case where editors are at fault. I understand that they give opinion columnists pretty wide latitude, but their job is to produce and deliver a good product, not farcical gibberish which insults the intelligence of their readers.

Occasional Reminder

Not that anyone listens to me, but if the person who becomes the nominee fails to win the general election then he/she will become a reviled figure in Democratic politics.

Magic Market Fairy

It's rather funny watching a debate on CNBC about executive compensation, which as is typically the case is between someone screaming "MAGIC MARKET FAIRY MAKE PONY" and someone trying to explain that, no, it's a bit more complicated than that.


Top executive pay is set by insiders who have stacked the deck in their favor while doing everything they can do to insulate themselves from interference from those pesky shareholders, otherwise known as the owners. Any talk of reforming corporate governance is about making the magic market fairy work better, not worse, by aligning the interests of the top executives with the interests of the shareholders. Whether or not those interests are properly aligned is the question, not whether meddling regulators want to kill the magic market fairy.

Pollitt

On the wanker Pomfret:

A far more important question is this: Why did The Post publish this nonsense? I can't imagine a great newspaper airing comparable trash talk about any other group. "Asians Really Do Just Copy." "No Wonder Africa's Such a Mess: It's Full of Black People!" Misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice, and nowhere more so than in our nation's clueless and overwhelmingly white-male-controlled media. I can just picture the edit meeting: This time, let's get a woman to say women are dumb and silly! If readers raise too big a ruckus, Outlook editor John Pomfret can say it was all "tongue in cheek." Women are dingbats! Get it? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Here's a thought. Maybe there's another thing women can do besides fluff up their husbands' pillows: Fill more important jobs at The Washington Post. We should be half the assigning editors, half the writers, and half the regular columnists too (current roster of op-ed columnists: 16 men, two women). We've got those superior verbal skills, remember? Drastically increasing the presence of women isn't a foolproof recipe for gender fairness -- Allen is far from alone in her dislike of her sex -- but I have to believe a gender-balanced paper would reflect a broader view of women than The Post does at present.

A male editor with a lot of women colleagues on his level might think twice before proposing a sweeping denunciation, humorous or not, of "women." Ideally he would have come to respect women as equals from working with them -- but if he were just afraid of being seen as a total caveman, that would be okay too. And maybe this kind of editor would have flagged as tired cliches references to Oprah and Celine Dion; would have looked up the studies Allen claims prove women have the I.Q. of a bowl of cereal and found they don't say anything like that; would have wondered if more women bake doggy treats than subscribe to Scientific American or run marathons, and how does the treat-baker come to stand for all women?

And then, after all this, and seeing that Allen's piece still didn't ring even vaguely-kinda-sorta true, our imaginary editor would have asked a question. "You know what I think of this article?" a good editor would have said. "I think it's really stupid."

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

And the unders win.

U.S. employers cut payrolls for a second straight month during February, slashing 63,000 jobs for the biggest monthly job decline in nearly five years as the labor market weakened steadily, a government report on Friday showed.

The Labor Department said last month's cut in jobs followed an upwardly revised loss of 22,000 jobs in January instead of 17,000 reported a month ago. In addition, it said that only 41,000 jobs were created in December, half the 82,000 originally reported.

The back-to-back January and February job losses were the first consecutive monthly declines since May and June of 2003.

Your candidate still bites.

Why not ask your favorite candidates to start campaigning against the Republicans who are destroying our country instead of lobbing poison pills at each other?

Signed,
Not Atrios

Overnight

Rock on.

Deep Thought

Paul McCartney was about 21 when the first Beatles album was released, and about 28 when their final one was.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Under

Monthly jobs report comes out tomorrow. Consensus forecast is +30K jobs. As usual, I'll take the under bet.

More Thread

Threshold edition.

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

Feminine Fury

When I'm fresh out of things to post about I usually ask myself, "Self? Did Joe Klein do anything stupid today?"

Yep.

Texas

It seems that Obama will almost certainly win the delegate count in Texas once the full caucus results come in, as Clinton is only one ahead from the primary count.

Closing Triangle

It is true that the media are much more likely to declare a "controversy" about a Democrat due to the existence of things such as America's Assignment Editor, Matt Drudge, who happens to be a conservative Republican activist. But it's also the case that our elected officials are often slow to step into these things when the opportunities present themselves. A little late, but it's good that Pelosi actually chimed in on Hagee.

Your Moment of Zen





....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Even Worse

54+ killed in Iraq.

Yet Again

Does anyone remember the first time the Clintons "burn[ed] down the Democratic party?"

$55 Million

I suppose the money competition between the candidates is largely over, with both demonstrating a continuing ability to raise cash, but for completeness' sake that's what Obama raised last month. Clinton campaign had previously announced a $35 million take.

The real story isn't the money competition between them, it's that both have succeeded in tapping a large pool of small donors.

Meanwhile

More people enjoying their freedom.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Two bombs went off within minutes of each other in a Baghdad commercial district Thursday evening, killing 15 people and wounding 35, police and hospital officials said.

Speechifying

Man, Bush doesn't even bother to try anymore.



..."If you murder innocents to achieve a political objective, you're evil." Indeed.

Tears

Brett Favre just choked up on live teevee. Doesn't he know we're at war? What will al Qaeda think?

Feudalists

The gun nut branch of the glibertarians are basically feudalists who "know" that their gun collection will make them the local Lord. It's simply might makes right, and they're quite impressed with their own might.

A Fine Republican Entrepreneur

I don't see what the problem is.

The FBI is currently investigating, and it's not clear yet why Ward was so keen to hide the real numbers. But as the Times reports this morning, the signs are not good. NRCC internal audits since Ward's discovery show that "hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen." And it gets worse: there are apparently indications that "the financial irregularities might extend beyond the national committee to the campaign funds of individual Republican lawmakers who also worked with Mr. Ward, a longtime party operative."

Primary Hell

Please just make it stop.

Happy Housing News of the Day

Not so happy.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Home foreclosures soared to an all-time high in the final quarter of last year, underscoring the suffering of distressed homeowners and the growing danger the housing meltdown poses for the economy.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, in a quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market released Thursday, said the proportion of all mortgages nationwide that fell into foreclosure shot up to a record high of 0.83 percent in the October-to-December quarter. That surpassed the previous high of 0.78 percent set in the prior quarter.

...

The delinquency rate for all mortgages climbed to 5.82 percent in the fourth quarter. That was up from the 5.59 percent in the third quarter and was the highest since 1985. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.

AUMF

I tried to tell them this was a bad idea, but no one cares about my judgment.

The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States," permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs.

DHS

We should remember that the Last Honest Man in Congress, Joseph Lieberman, is the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:

Stumping for President Bush's ill-fated immigration overhaul in 2006, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff vowed that his department would wrest "operational control" of the nation's borders away from human and drug traffickers within five years.

That projection was based on the prospect of tough new enforcement measures as well as a temporary-worker program meant to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, including the most ambitious use of surveillance technology ever tried on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Two years later, the legislative overhaul has been shelved, development of the "virtual fence" has been delayed, and its designers are going back to the drawing board. Completion of its first phase has been put off until as late as 2011, congressional investigators say. The possibility of this outcome was flagged early on by internal and external watchdogs, who warned of unrealistically tight deadlines, vague direction to contractors, harsh operating conditions and tough requirements of Border Patrol end-users.

Free Trade

Since we'll probably be subjected to know-nothing bloviating from very serious pundits about the joys of this mythical thing called "free trade," I thought it was worth linking to the US tariff schedule.

Morning

And another day begins.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Late Night

enjoy.

Evening Thread



We have a schedule. Register or throw a few bucks to the Travel Fund--simels says there's gonna be a duel!




--Molly I. (proudly embracing the Zen space of my candidate sucking)

Polls

Some recent polls had been trending his way so it's nice to see one that doesn't.

Arizona Sen. John McCain kicks off his general election campaign trailing both potential Democratic nominees in hypothetical matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leads McCain, who captured the delegates needed to claim the Republican nomination Tuesday night, by 12 percentage points among all adults in the poll. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) enjoys a six-point lead over the presumptive GOP nominee. Both Democrats are buoyed by moderates and independents in the head-to-heads and benefit from sustained negative public assessments of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job and think the war was not worth fighting, and most hold those positions "strongly." A slim majority also doubts the United States is making progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, even as McCain and others extol recent successes there.


McCain's shadow campaign, otherwise known as The American Press, had better step up their efforts. I'm looking at you Time, NBC, Washington Post. McCain needs his base to step up their support!

High-Minded Obama Campaign

Thus far they should be credited for failing to make use of the copious opposition research from Alamo Girl.



(this is a joke, by the way)

Wankers of the Day

Washingtonpost.com

KO

It's quite interesting watching Keith Olbermann when he's in the mix with the rest of the MSNBC gang. He doesn't share the same set of basic assumptions about the world that most cable talkers, across the ideological spectrum, do. He's also more likely to tweak his colleagues a bit.

FU

And on and on.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - The United States may be forced to halt planned troop withdrawals from Iraq unless Iraqi authorities move faster to create jobs and improve basic services, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.

Major-General Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said both central and regional authorities had to take action if hard-won security gains were not to be reversed.

"I think we have six months to make a difference and this today is the start line," he said in an interview with Reuters and another agency at a conference where governors from seven northern provinces aired grievances with government ministers.

Asked what would happen if no progress was made on improving Iraqis' quality of life, he said: "It's going to be harder."

McCain Media Manlove

I really don't know what to do about this stuff.

Unpriced

Yes congestion pricing is a good idea. But absent political will to do so, a "second best" type solution is to subsidize competing travel modes which don't suffer from the same congestion problems.

"Crowded train" isn't the same as "sitting in traffic" as a cost.

Nasty

Sadly, I agree with Chris that this is going to get nastier. The campaigns and candidates themselves may not get nasty, but I get the sense that supporters of the various candidates are getting angrier at the other camp. Sure a lot of this is just relatively harmless virtual world internet flaming, but it has real world manifestations too.

I don't have a problem understanding why some people support Obama and some people support Clinton. It really puzzles me why lots of people don't get that simple fact. The point is not that the candidates are identical and no one should be a supporter or care who wins, it's that you should recognize that the other person's supporters aren't necessarily deluded or stupid. You may disagree with their reasons, but they have them.

Every Time I Try To Get Out...

I suppose the truth is that while I'm a political junkie, I actually don't really like the campaign part of politics. Polls, narratives, metanarratives, the backandforth, the stump speech...ehh.. just not for me.

It will be interesting to see where this goes from here, I suppose. There are plenty of places the campaign really hasn't gone yet. Wonder which battles both sides will choose to fight.

Overanalysis

A frustrating thing about primary season is that it seems like 80% of the country's reporters have been assigned to cover the campaign, unnecessarily and with very little for them to actually do. So they overanalyze, trying to construct meaning where often there is very little.

Most voters are relatively low information who don't spend their days tracking politics minute by minute. I don't say that as an insult and I'm not calling them stupid, I just mean that most people aren't political junkies.

By The Way

Your candidate still sucks.

I See Stupid People

Does the Washington Post have a policy of only publishing complete morons? Not all secular people are Democrats. Secular people understand that religious people... have religious beliefs (duh). Not all religious people want to "amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards."


I'm not especially interested in God and religion talk from politicians because I'm not interested in God and religion talk. But as long as it isn't exclusionary or suggest some kind of exceptionalism it doesn't bother me.

(Via tapped)

The Morning After

So I guess this thing's still going on.

Morning Thread

Well, that was unexpected.

--Molly I.

Overnight

whiz, wit.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

If It Continues

I'd sort of resigned myself to the weird and wacky world of 7 weeks of campaigns in Philadelphia, but for some reason it hadn't occured to me, until Mithras suggested it, that the national media are going to descend on this place too.

ug.

Stupid Haloscan

I'll see if I can find a temp alternative...hold on...

...maybe it's working now. Trying to catch up. It seems I've won Maine or something? That can't be right...

Details

Burnt Orange Report is tracking the results for Texas. As I understand it, they are updating a series of individual posts as new reports come in - the Democratic presidential results are here.

If you can get Haloscan to work, you might want to provide links to other sites doing this kind of thing for other states.

Signed,
Not Atrios

Out For The Evening

So you'll have to track results on some other fabulous web site. It appears haloscan is choking on its own vomit right now. Apologies, I don't have time right now to find a temporary fix. Perhaps if you chant Jeevan's name he'll hear you.

Out For The Evening

I'll be out, so you'll have to find some other fabulous web site to find results.  Haloscan appears to be choking on its own vomit. Apologies, I don't have time to find a temporary fix right now.


CNN Exit Polls

Texas:

African-Americans: 83 O/16 C
Latino: 64 C/35 O
60+: 67 C/31 31 O

Fresh Thread

Nice and warm out there. No treadmill for me today.

Waking Up Every Day

I wonder what it's like being Ken Pollack, waking up every day knowing you played a big role in causing hundreds of thousands needless deaths.

He's a stronger man than me. I imagine my brain would've snapped by now.

Long Game Or Short Game

NYT:

As voters in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and Texas headed to the polls potentially to decide the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged voters to settle in for a nomination fight that could roll on for months to come.

“You know this is a long process,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Tuesday morning outside a polling place in Houston.

It was an entirely different message from the one delivered by former President Bill Clinton just a few weeks ago, when he told Ohio and Texas voters that his wife would not succeed without victories in those delegate-rich states.



Curious what people think. Who thinks this is over tonight/tomorrow and who thinks it goes on?

Pause

Feels like everything has just stopped until they start counting the votes tonight.

Onward to Pennsylvania!

People Are Voting

A lot of them. That's good.


I'm too lazy to track down an example right now, but a couple of times I've seen this kind of "they still won't come out for the general election" idea, mostly directed at supposedly young Obama supporters but somewhat across the board. That, needless to say, is beyond absurd.

Fresh Thread

enjoy

Because It Makes Me Sad

I'm trying to stay out of the general candidate back-and-forth, but this one hits a bit closer to home. Whatever one thinks about Obama generally, this notion that opposing the Iraq war back when it was the most awesome war ever wasn't a big deal really pisses me off. It was a big deal, and I'm tired of the few courageous people such as Bob Graham who did oppose it getting written out of the script. Those were crazy days, and the "crazies" who stepped way out on that limb to yell "stop" deserve our praise and admiration for it.


The entire anti-war movement hasn't just been marginalized, it's been largely erased from our political narrative. It existed. It marched. It gave speeches. And some even cast their votes in Congress.

Ruh-Roh

Citi:

DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones) -- Mideast sovereign wealth funds may fail to save troubled U.S. banking giant Citigroup Inc. unless more cash is pumped into the lender, the head of a $13 billion Dubai-owned investment firm said Tuesday.
Sameer Al Ansari, Chief Executive of Dubai International Capital told delegates at a private equity conference that it will take more than the combined efforts of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Kuwait Investment Authority and Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to save the bank.
"It's going to take more than that to rescue Citi," Ansari said. He added that more write downs are expected and that Gulf investors would be required to bolster Citi.

And On And On

From email, the Obama campaign obviously doesn't expect this thing to be over today.

Dear Duncan,

More than 1,900 Obama supporters came out for trainings and voter registration canvasses this weekend in Pennsylvania.

But that was just the beginning of our organizing effort here.

Right now, supporters across the state are coming together and joining Neighborhood Obama Teams that will lead our grassroots efforts for Barack.

Whether or not you were able to attend a training on Saturday, now's the time to take the next step and join your Neighborhood Team:

Tuesday

Go vote for your sucky candidate if you live in one of those states.

Morning Thread

Jeebus Christ, people, get a grip.

--Molly I.

Overnight

enjoy

Monday, March 03, 2008

The Assbiting Strategy

Yglesias:

Bush waited pretty late into his lame duck period to pull this particular stunt, so it seems this is mostly a favor to his successor. He wants John McCain, Clinton, or Obama to be in a position to commit widespread abuses and not just hog all the glory for himself.


To the extent that this is about his successor, my guess is that they figure that Congress will rediscover its interest in oversight and objections to presidential executive power overreach. The very powers Bush claimed will, for a Democratic president, be the foundation for impeachment. They aren't just masters of hypocrisy, they're masters of "distinctions without differences." That is, when President ClintonObama does it, it's somehow different when President BushMcCain does it. Don't worry, Cliff May will explain it to Wolf Blitzer and Pete Hoekstra will explain it to Joe Klein and it'll all make sense.

Next Week In John Pomfret's Washington Post Outlook Section




(ht reader m and America's Finest News Source)

Even More Good News

Suck on this, assholes.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Kansas grand jury that investigated a Planned Parenthood clinic has refused to issue an indictment on allegations that it violated restrictions on the procedure.

The Johnson County, Kan., grand jury's decision was announced Monday evening, Planned Parenthood officials said.

Abortion opponents, through a petition, had forced the court to convene the panel and investigate the clinic in Overland Park, Kan., to determine whether it violated laws on parental notice and informed consent.

Buh-Bye

Take your hate somewhere else.


Melanie Morgan — the conservative radio talk show host who chairs Move America Forward, the group which has led efforts to shame and boycott Berkeley for its anti-U.S. Marine Corps recruiting stand — has lost her job at KSFO 560 AM.

Morgan, 51, delivered her final broadcast there today after 14 years at the microphone, she says in a news release. KSFO owner Citadel Broadcasting decided not to renew her contract as part of the company’s announced across-the-board financial cost cutting.


Some greatest hits.

More Thread

Tomorrow we shall all kiss and make up.

Evening Thread

Tomorrow, your candidate will still suck.

Bush Isn't In Office Much Longer

Yet he's still doing stuff like this.

But GOP Daddy McConnell would never do anything wrong, so it's ok.

Sorta Stupid Really

I guess conventional wisdom at this point (true or not) is that if Clinton wins the popular votes in Texas and Ohio then she'll stay in the race, no matter what the delegate count.

I think candidates can stay in the race as long as they want, though I do think they all have an increasing obligation to keep criticisms responsible for the sake of the general, but I'm not sure I understand this particular line in the sand. If, say, Clinton wins Ohio, wins Texas by 1 point, but loses Texas in the delegates, is this really different from the same situation except with her losing Texas by one point? It doesn't really seem to make any difference. I'm not trying to encourage her to drop out, I'm just not sure why that particular hurdle (if true) is meaningful.

Fresh Thread

Enjoy

Car Sales Down

Your happy economic news of the day.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. on Monday all reported declines in February U.S. sales, reflecting the tough climate for consumers during the persistent housing slump and credit crunch.
Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford said that it sold 196,681 cars and trucks last month, down 6.9% from 211,150 a year earlier. Another drop in fleet sales offset a strong showing on the retail side from the Focus sedan and the Edge crossover.
November 2007, which marked the end of a yearlong losing streak for Ford, was the last time the maker of the Blue Oval brand reported a year-over-year increase.
Ford's longtime best-selling F-Series pickup saw a 4.9% drop to 52,548 trucks, with demand stung by the decline in construction. Overall, trucks fell 5.6% while cars declined 9.3%.

Women Are Stupid

There was no other point.

Next Week In John Pomfret's Washington Post Outlook Section

PMS disqualifies women from having positions of authority.

Screwing Up

In my many years of paying attention to this stuff, I've been fascinated by the degree to which, as a class, journalists are unwilling to admit mistakes. Though I suppose it is rather hard to just come out and say, "On second thought, maybe publishing a long misogynistic screed wasn't such a hot idea..."


On the brighter side Little Debbie may be roused from her slumber and tut-tut this a bit.

Tongue-in-Cheek

I believe when John Pomfret talks about something being "tongue-in-cheek" he's referring to the tongue of one of Mickey Kaus's goats being in his cheek.


...adding, Charlotte Allen is a professional lady who hates ladies. It's her job to write crap like this, and not in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Next Week In John Pomfret's Washington Post Outlook Section

Wives: A firm hand helps keep them in line.

Nobody Could Have Predicted...

Ah, the adults.

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

Eesh Elo Kim

While everyone is rightly pointing out that McCain's BFF Hagee holds views which, if held by non-white male Christian, would lead to an hour of questioning from Tim Russert, it should be remembered that Joe Lieberman is also BFFs with Hagee, and no one has ever bothered to question him about that either.

Next Week In John Pomfret's Washington Post Outlook Section

When she says no, she really means yes.

Meanwhile

Over there.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- At least 23 people were killed and dozens were wounded Monday when two suicide car bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad, police said.

It Wasn't All A Bad Dream

And this still greets me at the Post home page.



Thanks, John Pomfret, we appreciate it.


...I didn't realize this was actually the new improved headline. Just kill me.

Things Don't Always Go Up

Municipalities are relying on rather unreasonable expectations of return it seems.

March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Philadelphia's $4 billion pension deficit is causing the city's retirement-fund manager to shun Treasuries at a time when the Bush administration needs him most.

Yields on 30-year U.S. bonds that fell to a record low of 4.10 percent this year are forcing pension funds to favor equities, corporate debt and commodities in an attempt to cover unfunded liabilities and meet return objectives of about 8 percent. Even the federal government's own Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said on Feb. 19 that it plans to shift $15 billion to stocks from debt.

``The reality is there's not a lot we can do'' other than buy high-risk securities to close a pension shortfall in a short period, said Chris McDonough, chief investment officer of the Philadelphia Pensions Department. The sixth-largest U.S. city will probably also issue debt, he said.

Morning Thread

--Molly I.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Fun times in the Asian stock markets.

I'd Like To Debate The Intellectual Inferiority Of Pomfret-Americans

Laura Rozen:

Here's how the Post dealt with another recent controversy, when an online contributor's essay offended some Jewish groups. The contributor lost his job at his home institute and the editors of the section apologized to readers, and then some. And that was apparently an online essay that had not even been edited by someone on the paper's payroll before it went up, as was this piece in the Post's Sunday print section front page. Can the Post Outlook editor promote the slurring of women (in the name of "voice") but not other groups as something that generates lots of discussion? Or can he commission articles to denigrate the intelligence of other racial groups as well in the same spirit of a lively and provocative debate? What's the Post standard on which groups can be legitimately denigrated on which page? Let's watch and find out. I bet the reaction will lean towards "tsk-tsk" in next week's ombudsman column and a hearty self congratulation from the Post to itself about generating such an important discussion about whether women are in fact dumb. At the very least, we can hope a few of the fine Post reporters who actually do journalism will professionally humiliate Outlook editor John Pomfret and whoever else in the chain of command is responsible for this piece internally at the Post in the way they deserve. That there is not already an apology on the Post site is pretty surprising.


It's always problematic to debate the relative pervasiveness and impact of sexism vs. racism vs. homophobia vs. etc..., and I don't think it's simple or useful to construct a hierarchy of problems in these areas, but I do think there's a shockingly high level of acceptable and often unexamined misogyny - often promoted by male editors who love to publish ladies who hate ladies - in our mainstream media.

Wired

Was off getting (mostly) caught up on episodes of The Wire.

Tonight's shocker: Omar is McNulty's brother!!!

More Thread

No fainting allowed.

Thread

Women like shopping. Men like football!

Deep Thought

Next week in the Post:

Jews: If you prick them they do not bleed, and if you tickle them they do not laugh.

No Bad News For St. McCain

There are a lot of reasons the different treatment of the two stories is telling, but the obvious one is that Donohue going after a liberal or a Democrat is pretty much the definition of a "dog bites man" story, while Donohue going after a conservative or Republican is much more of a "man bites dog story."

Afternoon Thread

Fight the Power.

Or at least crack wise.

Vulcans and Hystericals

You should be congratulated for choosing a candidate after carefully and rationally analyzing the situation.

Everyone else should be ashamed of themselves for letting their irrational emotions dictate their choices.

I Was Wrong

It turns out the Post did have someone on the "other side" of the "are women stupid" debate. It turns out the conflict was not between whether women are stupid or not, it's between whether they're stupid or fickle.

I can imagine the strategists for the senator from Illinois thinking, "What's that song in Verdi's 'Rigoletto'?" Women are fickle.

Turns out it's true.


Hopefully Camille Paglia will be along next week to tell us that the answer is, of course, both! Then we can put all this behind us and move on to more important issues. I suggest the inscrutability of Asians, or perhaps the brain/penis size tradeoff men face, but others may have some better ideas.

And Speaking Of Insulting 50%+ of Your Potential Readership

Little Debbie Howell wrote this a couple of months back:

Post editors are concerned that young women with children are not becoming Post readers as they get older. Younger mothers, ages 18 to 34, read The Post daily at about half the rate of men with children. That is true for women who work outside the home and those who are college-educated.

A Post task force is looking at the problem and will make recommendations. I'd love to hear from young mothers about this. If you know anyone who fits this demographic and doesn't read The Post, please send them my way.


It is truly a mystery.

Resolved: Women Are Stupid

One would have hoped that the Post would have least asked someone to address the other side of this controversial topic, but it appears editors will never grow tired of the "women trashing women" genre.

One can and should blame the writer, but really it's the editors who are to blame. There's apparently nothing better than having their fundamental misogyny confirmed to them by women. I suppose there's a tiny chance it's a hoax, but it seems like a fairly standard piece in this genre so I doubt it.

Casual Questions for a Sunday Morning

When is a person or topic "controversial" or "polarizing?" Who decides?

If a president did "unite the country," how would we know? Could we measure that?

Bobblehead Thread

Document the atrocities:
Washington Journal: 7:00 - Viewer calls; 7:30 am - Mark Niquette, Columbus Dispatch, Political Reporter; 8:00 am - Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) 14th District, McCain Supporter; 8:30 am - Adam Gelb, Pew Center on the States, Prison Report Director; Phone: Texas State Sen. John Whitmire (D), Criminal Justice Cmte. Chairman.

ABC's This Week: Howard Wolfson Clinton Campaign v David Axelrod Obama Campaign. Roundtable: David Brooks, Matthew Dowd, Donna Brazile, George Will.

CBS' Face The Nation: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM); Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) Obama Surrogate v Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) Clinton Surrogate.

CNN's Late Edition: Jaap de Hoop Scheffer NATO Secretary-General; Howard Dean DNC Chairman; Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-CA) Clinton Campaign v Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) Obama Campaign. Rep. Roy Blunt: (R-MO) Minorty Whip. Roundtable: John King, Gloria Borger, Candy Crowley.

Fox News Sunday: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Karl Rove, former White House senior adviser.

NBC's Meet The Press: James Carville (D), Mary Matalin (R), Bob Shrum (D), Mike Murphy (R).


--Molly I.

Overnight