It's pretty good, TV. But I like Sullivan (and Bill Maher, for that matter), so there's that.

Did she just advocate socialism in that clip?

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Did she just advocate socialism in that clip?

I think she's a socialist, yes, but the line about nationalizing Exxon probably was meant as a joke.

From the last politics thread:

LAExile wrote:In the year and a half the 110th Congress has been in session President Bush has vetoed eight bills. Aside from Bush’s first six years when he had a Republican Congress no President has vetoed fewer than eight bills in a Congressional session since Warren Harding 85 years ago. That was a Republican Congress. No President has vetoed less bills when the opposition held control of Congress since Andrew Jackson in 1833. Considering that in the first 40 years of this government the veto had only been used ten times and three Presidents never vetoed a bill it isn’t surprising Jackson didn’t use many vetoes. Grover Cleveland vetoed 414 bills in four years when his party was in the minority. It is unprecedented in the last 175 years to find a President and opposition Congress so in agreement.

Since we know Democrats agree with the President on nothing, as Barack Obama reminds us every day, the only reason I can see for this is the Democrats having no interest in actually changing Bush administration policy. If they did that they might fail to make things better. So they couldn’t run on the idea that the Republicans were ruining America. If they were actually successful Bush might get credit. Either way they might lose at the polls in 2008. When it came to a choice between doing what they said they’d do and getting bigger majorities in 2008, the Democrats chose the latter.

So your interpretation is that the Democrats have no interest in changing Republican policy because it might actually improve things, thus limiting their ability to win more seats in 2008. Did I get that right?

Another less cynical (at least cynical towards Democrats) is that the Republicans have obstructed the majority party's ability to pass bills more than any majority party in history, by far.

This chart, made in July last year, shows the amount of filibustering being done in the 110th congress:

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority's right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they've fallen short 22 times so far this year. That's largely why they haven't been able to deliver on their campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.

This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes — 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced an all-night session on the Iraq war this week to draw attention to what Democrats called Republican obstruction.

"The minority party has decided we have to get to 60 votes on almost everything we vote on of substance," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "That's not the way this place is supposed to work."

Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who's served in Congress since 1973, complained that "the Senate is spiraling into the ground to a degree that I have never seen before, and I've been here a long time. All modicum of courtesy is going out the window."

The projections for the whole terms seem pretty good if underestimated. There have been 134 cloture motions as of September 18, 2008. It's hard for Bush to have a lot of bills to veto if his party makes sure that no bill that Republicans don't want is ever voted on to begin with, if they can help it.

That chart shows that the filibuster is a tactic that had its highest usage when the Democrats went into the minority. The Democrats filibustered President Bush's judicial nominees that way, leaving many positions unfilled. The Republicans got angry and wanted to implement the nuclear option. The Democrats cried foul. How dare the Republicans want to end filibusters. At this point the Gang of 14 reached a compromise, angering many Republicans. Mike Dewine and Lincoln Chafee lost party support as a result. It's one of the reasons Republicans dislike McCain.

And now the Republicans are using the filibuster even more than the Democrats. And the Democrats are crying foul. Those that hated the filibuster are now using it and those that used it now hate it.

The filibuster forces the majority party to compromise and work out something that at least has some of what the minority party is looking for. The Democrats seem to have pledged to not do this. Since the Republicans were such pricks for six years, they'll do the same. It wasn't good when the Republicans did it and it certainly isn't when the Democrats do it. If you want to reach a compromise it isn't hard. You can do that or do nothing.

The most disturbing part of this is Harry Reid's stated desire to get 60 Democrats and "make the Republicans irrelevant." I have no problem with the Democrats working on their agenda. I do have a problem with Harry Reid's desire to disenfranchise anyone who doesn't support the Democratic Party and not consider what they have to say. That's not Democracy.

Laexile wrote:That chart shows that the filibuster is a tactic that had its highest usage when the Democrats went into the minority. The Democrats filibustered President Bush's judicial nominees that way, leaving many positions unfilled. The Republicans got angry and wanted to implement the nuclear option. The Democrats cried foul. How dare the Republicans want to end filibusters. At this point the Gang of 14 reached a compromise, angering many Republicans. Mike Dewine and Lincoln Chafee lost party support as a result. It's one of the reasons Republicans dislike McCain.

And now the Republicans are using the filibuster even more than the Democrats. And the Democrats are crying foul. Those that hated the filibuster are now using it and those that used it now hate it.

The filibuster forces the majority party to compromise and work out something that at least has some of what the minority party is looking for. The Democrats seem to have pledged to not do this. Since the Republicans were such pricks for six years, they'll do the same. It wasn't good when the Republicans did it and it certainly isn't when the Democrats do it. If you want to reach a compromise it isn't hard. You can do that or do nothing.

The most disturbing part of this is Harry Reid's stated desire to get 60 Democrats and "make the Republicans irrelevant." I have no problem with the Democrats working on their agenda. I do have a problem with Harry Reid's desire to disenfranchise anyone who doesn't support the Democratic Party and not consider what they have to say. That's not Democracy.

What does any of this have to do with your argument about the low number of Bush's vetoes indicating that the Democrats don't really want to change Bush administration policy?

The first couple minutes of this represents probably Obama's best anti-McCain argument. (Though I'd still like to see him articulate a positive, as in "I'm gonna do X and Y," big economic message.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDTlrd5lXw0[/youtube]

McCain and Social Security:

A few months ago, I drew up some goofy pictures to make the point as simply as possible. Since this issue has popped up again, I might as well put them up again. Here's the present system:



Under the present system, younger workers, on the left, pay for the benefits enjoyed by older workers, on the right. In time, the younger workers' benefits will be paid by today's toddlers.

Here's the proposal that John McCain thinks will make Social Security more solvent:



Here, the workers keep their own money, leaving Mr. Scream, who had paid the generation that came before him and been counting on being paid by younger workers in turn, with nothing. (Obviously, you can alter this picture in various ways. For instance, if people divert part, but not all, of their FICA taxes to private accounts, Mr. Scream can say: "Where's that part of my money?")

McCain has promised that Mr. Scream will, in fact, get his money. That money is the hole that private accounts blow in the deficit. If we don't want to leave Mr. Scream with nothing, the money has to come from somewhere, though: from the Social Security Trust Fund, higher taxes, or possibly Santa Claus.

You might wonder: since we, as a nation, have just bought a large insurance company, and are considering buying hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of toxic debt, is this really a good time to take on a project that adds trillions more to our national debt? Maybe not. But I'd be a lot happier if I thought that McCain knew that his Social Security proposal would actually cost money. The fact that he thinks it's a way of making Social Security more solvent is pretty scary.

Her line about journalists and policy literacy (not included here) is all too true. But I bet even they could grasp the concept of "adds $17.7 trillion in debt."

dajafi wrote:It's pretty good, TV. But I like Sullivan (and Bill Maher, for that matter), so there's that.

Well, I actually tried to watch it, but two minutes in Naomi Klein was still prattling on selling her book, so I ran out of patience. More and more, tv seems like that SNL spoof of The McLaughlin Group--The Sinatra Group.

Maybe that's why SNL isn't as good anymore--the thing they're trying to parody has just become too stupid to parody. I remember reading an article on Second City Television, and they tried to do a parody of Laverne and Shirley, but they just couldn't make it work.

I'm just thinking given recent stock market volatility, and the fact that the stock market hasn't done all that great and the fact that people really are mostly bad at investing and anyway with the growth of defined contribution plans, the whole put social security into the stock market doesn't sound all that great.

TenuredVulture wrote:So, wait, you take a guy from a washed never very good rap group, a blogger who's claim to fame is being both homosexual and a nominal conservative, and some lady who makes money telling rabid lefties what they want to hear.

Why should I waste even 8 minutes of my life watching that?

I think it's disingenuous to assume that anyone who likes Naomi Klein's work is just a "rabid lefty" who just wants to hear what he or she wants to hear. There's no doubt that I'm pretty liberal, but I like to think I'm very objective and open-minded. I watch RTWBM regularly and I think that the debates that they have are often intelligent and entertaining, and I probably wouldn't watch if it was just a bunch of liberals on there. It does happen that, with guests, liberals outnumber conservatives usually 3- or 4-to-1 but Maher is very sympathetic to the conservatives and will jump in if he's cornered.

Anyway, I didn't become a fan of Klein's simply because she wrote a book that rails against capitalists. There are a number of authors who have done that already; what drew me to Klein was her excellent journalistic work ethic (as a former journalism major, it's something I admire greatly) and her thoroughness in her research. Everything is validated by facts and those facts are cited. There is nothing in her book you can't check yourself.

I agree that anyone who is on the extreme left and right of the economic scale is a bit misled because both perfect capitalism and perfect socialism require utopias, and obviously, we have no utopias... yet. But a socialist-leaning mixed market economy seems to be correlated with a bigger portion of the world's more developed countries than other types of economies.

pacino wrote:No, you do exactly that when you seek for people to justify their votes. Then when they do, you challenge the very idea that they can vote for either horrible man. I just got tired of reading posts where you challenge people to justify their votes. It's ridiculous and you should be ashamed you do it on such a consistent basis. You should be ashamed for your views on 9/11 as well, and that completely invalidates anything you've ever written. You're opinions are a joke to many in this thread, and it frustrates me that some have replied to your posts as though you are a forbearer for Democratic Party thought (laexile). I've said my piece on the matter.

I don't think I've ever thought I was asking anyone to justify their votes. When I used the term Obamamania, I wasn't being flip or facetious, I was using it to describe what I thought was pretty common knowledge about the excitement that surrouned Obama that allowed him to move past Hilary who thought she had it in the bag. There was a palpable excitement around the country and felt right here in SF as well. I only referenced it to note, that it seems to have died down a lot. Palin-mania or Palin-hype has filled a lot of the major news outlets of late. I've been, wehre I can, trying to listen in to McCain and Obama on the campaign trail. To see what they are saying. The financial stuff mushroomed in the last week or two, and I had hoped Obama would seize that.

All I really was remarking, was that neither of them are inspiring me right now. There's been much discussion on the negative ads, and the nyah nyah stuff that gets personal. I was hoping Obama might figure out a tactic to rise up above and take control of the conversation. And that woudl require some really beef and messages, as well as a style. I merely asked if you felt he was doing that now.

I never EVER claimed to be a DNC Democrat, nor asked LAx to position me as such. I'm sorry it offends you, and didn't make any claim. I made it clear that in my values and analysis I'd go much further to the left than a Carter, Clinton or Obama Democrat. I also said Obama has my vote.

As far as 911, I'm not going to drudge that very volatile topic up again. But how dare you or anyone say they will dismiss me out of hand, becuase I don't believe the "official story." That I have serious quesitions and concerns. That's outrageous. You can think I'm wrong. You can think whatever supporting evidence I find credible to be totally bunk, and you can dislike me personally, style and content. But I think it's fairly clear by now, that I'm not some low iq idiot. I might be off base, misguided whatever... and perhaps in some of the threads on an off-topic area of a sports board, i may have come off hyperbolic and seemingly lazy in supporting some things I've put out there -- but I'm clearly literate, I clearly read, have an understanding of history -- and I have every right as an American to question and challenge things put forth by the govt and the corporate media. It's not offense to anyone who died that day, or who lived/s in NYC, or to anyone personally connected to those events in terms of losing a loved one, etc... It's like the people who say "support the troops" "America, love it or leave it" ... A phrase like "support the troops" is a mis-direction. I don't support the policy that put the troops in harms way. And I don't believe the official story about 911. It doesn't make me nuts, or un-American. Or wrong.

I'm not bringing that topic up ever again. It's too volatile, and I don't have all the answers, but I have a lot of unsatisfied questions. And my own study of history and world view, makes me lean in certain directions of mistrust.

dajafi wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:

pacino wrote:you will never be impressed, who cares

what's your problem?

why don't you tell me what Obama or McCain are putting out there right now on the campaign trail that is firing you up?

I think your reference to "Obamania," or however you put it, pretty much invalidates any complaint you might make as to the lack of substance.

pacino's right here. None of us are trying to convince you of anything, because your own views are so unassailably fixed. It would be a waste of time... which, for most of us, is really saying something.

That's really not true. I ammend my views all the time. But entire conversations happen within frameworks, and I think where I differ from someone like you at times Jeff is the framework, the starting point of discussion. You have a center-point of what you accept, and what you think of as reasonable, I do too, it's not the same point.

I haven't challenged anyone supporting Obama to justify that support. I've said that I don't think Obama is a real liberal, nor even if he was, would be in a position to implement a liberal agenda. The differences between the two parties and candidates are very real and very important and I will vote Obama, but they are not systemic differences. Both will maintain military expansionism, both will allow hte corporations to control out lives. Both will respond to big business before small business and individuals.

A lot of the thread for months now has been about the day-to-day chess match of the actual race for the White House, I caught a handful sound bytes from both on the campaign trail and was underwhelmed by both... just put it out there to see if anyone was feeling inspired or felt that, in this case Obama, has come up with some new words, ideas, was taking the financial mess and really figuring out a way to get people excited, get behind him as a leader, leading... that type of thing. It was a genuine question.

dajafi wrote:The first couple minutes of this represents probably Obama's best anti-McCain argument. (Though I'd still like to see him articulate a positive, as in "I'm gonna do X and Y," big economic message.)

Seriously? I mean it's all a cheap pander that'll appeal to people, but his three main points were that:

1. The fundamentals of our economy are weak.
2. More regulation is needed.
3. That Phil Gramm will be McCain's Treasury Secretary and that's awful.
4. That McCain is surrounded by Washington lobbyists.

While I know people believe the first two, they are easily arguable. The fundamentals of our economy were strong after the Internet bubble burst and sent us into a recession. The same thing with the recession of 1992 and the stock market crash of 1987. We're in a recession. They are cyclical. This recession isn't worse than the last one or the one before.

The idea that more regulation is needed is an abstract. What regulation is needed? Is the existing regulation being enforced? How will new regulations impact the economy?

Phil Gramm will be the new Treasury Secretary. That's news to the McCain campaign. Does Obama get to choose from people McCain knows?

Obama splits hairs on the lobbyist issue. David Axelrod is a lobbyist. If lobbyists are evil then why is Axelrod his chief strategist? Why choose Joe Biden, whose son is a Washington lobbyist? Why are lobbyists automatically evil anyway?

Obama has taken in six times the donations McCain has from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae PACs, more than any other member of Congress except the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Why are lobbyists evil but PACs not?

If you want to give reasons not to vote for McCain point out his overly aggressive foreign policy, conservative judges, anti-abortion stance, or his penchant to rush to judgement before thinking things through. People will believe what you tell them but those aren't compelling reasons not to vote for McCain.

IBD's Disspelling the Deregulation Myth:

OK, we'll say it if no one else will: Thank heaven for Gramm-Leach-Bliley. If you've been listening to the fulminations from Congress and the campaign trail, you know that we're talking about the 1999 law that dismantled the Depression-era barriers between commercial and investment banking.

Democrats largely supported it at the time, and one of their own, Bill Clinton, signed it. Now they frame it as a Republican bill that helped send the nation on the path to perdition.

In this respect, Gramm-Leach-Bliley has turned out to be smart policy indeed. By repealing the rule against banks owning investment firms, it has led to at least two crucial mergers — JPMorgan Chase absorbing Bear Stearns and Bank of America merging with Merrill Lynch. Morgan Stanley may be the next investment house to find shelter in a well-capitalized commercial bank.

You can spot the theme here: By taking down an outmoded firewall, the law is helping the financial industry cope with a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. Far from being the cause, this instance of deregulation, or whatever you call it, is part of the cure.

This was funny...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/35497/saturda ... roves-open

Current Minnesota Sentate nominee Al Franken is getting a lot of flack this morning in the press as he is the one that suggested the sketch and Seth Myers wrote it.

Can someone with a deeper understanding of macroeconomics than I (Werthless? drsmooth? Floppy? jeff?) explain to me why this proposed bailout deal isn't crap-yer-pants scary?

Someone used the phrase "moral hazard on steroids," which seems apt. Others have pointed out that giving around a trillion dollars to the brainiacs who brought us the Iraq post-war, the Katrina rebuilding effort, and a million other instances of ineptitude, cronyism and self-dealing isn't a very appealing notion; I'm not as sold on that one, only because Paulson seems a lot brighter than, say, Alberto Gonzales, and probably less of a stubbornness fetishist than Rummy was.

Still, though:

[I]t seems all too likely that a “fair price” for mortgage-related assets will still leave much of the financial sector in trouble. And there’s nothing at all in the draft that says what happens next; although I do notice that there’s nothing in the plan requiring Treasury to pay a fair market price. So is the plan to pay premium prices to the most troubled institutions? Or is the hope that restoring liquidity will magically make the problem go away?

Here’s the thing: historically, financial system rescues have involved seizing the troubled institutions and guaranteeing their debts; only after that did the government try to repackage and sell their assets. The feds took over S&Ls first, protecting their depositors, then transferred their bad assets to the RTC. The Swedes took over troubled banks, again protecting their depositors, before transferring their assets to their equivalent institutions.

The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

It's Krugman, yes, but he seems to be wearing his economist hat rather than the polemicist headwear. Is he wrong?

And am I wrong to fret that this whole massively consequential deal will go down without so much as a real national debate about it--in part because our media can't explain it, and in part because we're all too distracted and/or dumb to work it through?

My understanding, which is little better than yours, is that there is a huge risk to taxpayers here. On the other hand, the 700 billion cost isn't correct either--these assets have a value greater than zero. The problem is no one knows how much greater than zero.

Presumably, any deal will have to get through Barney Frank, who really does understand this stuff as well as anyone, and is well respected on financial issues by most major players.

On some right wing websites, Chris Dodd has gottne a lot of criticism, but I don't know enough to know if it's warranted.

Did I just watch a McCain commercial that said Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere"? I could have sworn I just saw that, but it can't be. I was waiting for it to be a sarcastic Obama ad.

She did (technically).