The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Democrats Solicit Volunteer Activists for 2011 Campaign Training Sessions

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 2 Comments

Democracy for America, the political action committee founded by Howard Dean after his 2004 presidential campaign, just sent this e-mail to its more than 1 million members:

Are you angry over the recent election? Good. You should be.
In 2011 we’re fighting back. We are not going to allow tea party radicals to dictate policy in Congress or the Statehouse. We are going to rebuild in all 50 states and focus on electing Democrats who will bring the bold change that our country needs.
But there are no silver bullets. No simple change of messaging or different White House strategy will be enough. We have to do the hard work of building up an army of skilled and trained organizers across the country with the goal of electing a real progressive majority.
Still angry? Good. Here’s what you can do right now.
Our National Field Organizers are working with grassroots activists like you right now to organize dozens of weekend campaign trainings in 2011. And you have the power to bring one of these great trainings to your city.
Apply to host a DFA Campaign Academy in 2011.
Since 2004, DFA has been building the progressive movement by training thousands of progressive activists and candidates every year. We’ve brought our training program to over 100 cities across the country and trained over 12,000 progressive activists.
A DFA Campaign Academy is more than just a series of interesting lectures. They are gatherings of like-minded and passionate progressives where we assess what’s worked before, learn cutting edge campaign skills and make plans for the future. We bring the best political talent in the country to your city to fire up the local progressive movement.
Want one of these trainings in your community in 2011? Then it’s time to get started now.
Apply to host a DFA Campaign Academy in 2011.
As we begin our 8th year of providing this great resource to progressive communities the demand is very high. We’re determining where in the country these trainings can have the biggest impact and we have to hear from you.
These elections were a disappointment to be sure. But I’m still here and still fighting. So is DFA and so are you. And we’re not going to be stopped because of one election.

-Matt

Matt Blizek, Field Director
Democracy for America

P.S. We’re scheduling our 2011 Campaign Academies right now and if you want one in your community you need to act fast.
Forward this email on to 5 of your local progressive friends and see if they want to help bring one of these great trainings to your community.

The e-mail contains links to a “DFA Campaign Academy Application.”

Category: Democrats

Charlie Rangel: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 10 Comments

Even his fellow Democrats can’t deny he’s a crook. Isn’t it amazing that a guy who’s been in Congress since 1971 — and indeed was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee — still manages to claim victimhood?

“How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room? . . .
“While I am required to accept the findings of the Ethics Committee, I am compelled to state again the unfairness of its continuation without affording me the opportunity to obtain legal counsel as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.”

Right. In all his corrupt swindling — his seaside resort in the Caribbean, arranging tax loopholes for his benefactors, setting up a bogus campaign consulting contract for his son, running a shakedown over rum taxes  — it never occurred to Rangel to set aside any of his ill-gotten gains to pay for lawyers to defend him if he were to get caught.

BTW, for youngsters who may not remember Watergate, the headline on this post is borrowed from a once-famous “Doonesbury” cartoon about Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell:

Youngsters probably also don’t remember when “Doonesbury” was occasionally funny.

Category: Charlie Rangel, Congress, Corruption, Democrats

Keynesianism and David Brooks

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | Comments Off on Keynesianism and David Brooks

Now that the election is over, we can return to our regular blogging schedule, and Tuesday is David Brooks Fisking Day hereabouts. Interestingly, Brooks isn’t half-bad today, as he mocks the presumptions of the neo-Keynesian consensus:

The economic approach embraced by the most prominent liberals over the past few years is mostly mechanical. The economy is treated like a big machine; the people in it like rational, utility maximizing cogs. The performance of the economic machine can be predicted with quantitative macroeconomic models.
These models can be used to make highly specific projections. If the government borrows $1 and then spends it, it will produce $1.50 worth of economic activity. If the government spends $800 billion on a stimulus package, that will produce 3.5 million in new jobs.
Everything is rigorous. Everything is science.

What Brooks is actually saying is that these projections appear to be rigorous and scientific, at least to liberals. He then continues by pointing out that this apparent “scientific” certainty is baseless — there are a lot of unpredictable factors in economic activity, and many consequences of government policy are not knowable until after the fact.

However, given several decades of experience with Keynesian interventionism to study, certain results of the stimulus-and-bailout agenda were actually quite predictable, and I did predict them: “It Won’t Work” (December 2008), “It Still Won’t Work” (February 2009), and “The Fundamentals Still Suck” (May 2009).

One would think that Brooks might take notice of the fact that, while he was busy admiring the crease in the president’s pants leg, others were warning that Obamanomics would not lead to recovery. (In February 2009, hundreds of economists signed an open letter from the Cato Institute to that effect.)

Or perhaps Brook supposes we have forgotten how in November 2008 he praised the incoming administration’s “overeducated Achievatrons” with multiple Ivy League degrees (“the personnel decisions have been superb”), and also does not expect us state-school-educated peons to remember that he was on the wrong side of every issue for the past two years. (February 2009: “Geithner’s plan is huge but also disciplined. It’s designed by someone aware of government’s limitations.”)

David Brooks never admits error. Still less can he ever admit that those he ridiculed were right, right, right when he was wrong, wrong wrong.

He “represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party.”

Category: David Brooks Fisking Day, Economics

Behind-the-Scenes Video: Fox News Colleagues Mocking Sarah Palin

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 17 Comments

Fox News pays Sarah Palin as a contributor to their network. And apparently to be “fair and balanced,” they also pay Judith Miller and Liz Trotta to make fun of Sarah Palin:

Read the story at The American Spectator.

UPDATE: Here’s what was said:

LIZ TROTTA: “Alessandra Stanley [of the New York Times] had the best line [in her Nov. 11 review]. She said the new [Palin TLC] show was like ‘The Sound of Music’ without the Nazis, without the romance and without the music.”

JUDITH MILLER (laughing): “Oh, the Washington Post hated it, too . . . [Post TV critic Hank Steuver] said [Palin has] the kind of sound of a voice when warning you to heed the bears – it would actually scare the bears. . . . He said you just get the sense that all she’s waiting for when she’s looking at this great outdoors is to get back to her SUV for enough bars to send out her latest twitter about the beauty of the environment.”

OK, that’s what was said during the commercial break. Here’s what was said when the show came back on the air:

SCOTT: She has gotten a lot of heat for that new show. Some lefty groups, Ellis, are pushing Discovery Communications to pull the plug. How about at that for freedom of speech?
[ELLIS] HENICAN: Strategic misstep on the part of the lefty groups, as you mentioned. Let the woman talk. Believe me, the more she talks, the better off they are.
(LAUGHTER)
[JON] SCOTT: Interesting that some of these folks who don’t like her — I mean, she puts eyeballs in front of television sets, right?
MILLER: Yeah, and she got a network to pay her a million dollars per episode to do this. But I found the most interesting review to come from Karl Rove, who is not exactly a left wing lunatic, who said this is not going to advance her presidential prospects. This doesn’t make her look presidential. I’d listen to Karl.
TROTTA: And the numbers keep going down every time she makes appearance, her popularity numbers. You have to keep track of those. The more you see her, the less you like her. And overexposure is something the Democrats have to pray for.
SCOTT: So you think that —
TROTTA: Plus the fact that they can bank on the timidity of most men, who are so absolutely spooked by feminism that they’re afraid to criticize her.
HENICAN: Give her something on the Cartoon Network.

You can send an e-mail to Fox News.

Category: Alaska, Fox News, Sarah Palin

Europe: ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 2 Comments

Following up on yesterday’s post about the economic crisis in Europe, let’s mention that Italy is also in trouble. Berlusconi’s government is falling apart and the guy who wants to replace him, Gianfranco Fini, is described as “a younger, charismatic right-wing leader” and a “former neo-Fascist.” That’s reassuring, huh?

Also reassuring is when Irish government officials feel the need to tell bank depositors that there’s nothing to worry about:

The Central Bank, economists and financial advisers all insisted that depositors’ savings would be safe if the country was forced to sign up for an international bailout.
Central Bank officials stressed that the State’s €100,000 guarantee for depositors has since become part of European law, which means the guarantee is now underpinned by the European Union.

Everything’s perfectly safe, as long as the EU itself doesn’t come crumbling down in the crash. And that could never happen, right?

Whenever things are about to go completely to hell, officials always go into Chip Dillard mode: “Remain calm. All is well.” So I’m not really persuaded by official happy talk, when the data looks bad and other people are bluntly saying that the bottom is falling out.

The euro fell to a 7-week low against the dollar in Asian trading overnight, as reported in a Wall Street Journal story that quoted a Japanese banker: “Speculation is mounting that Greece can’t avoid default.” And here’s Bloomberg TV with an analyst saying flatly that Ireland is going bankrupt:

Category: Uncategorized

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.16.10

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 11.16.10

TOP NEWS

Shanghai Apartment Block Fire Kills 42, Injures At Least 50

Firefighters work from adjacent building roofs to get fire under control

Search continues for bodies, survivors of midday fire in teacher & retiree residence

McConnell Reverses Himself
Will join House GOP leaders in calling for earmark ban

Rangel Ethics Trial Underway Without Rangel
Complains about lack of money, time to assemble legal defense; even Democrats on ethics panel unsympathetic

POLITICS

Schumer Gets His Reward For Bailing Out Reid

Senator Chuck "U." Schumer, D-NY

Will be new head of Senate Democrats’ “war room”, the Policy Committee

Coons, Manchin Sworn In To Fill Kaufman, Byrd Terms

Axelrod: No Permanent Tax Cuts For The Wealthy

THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Caterpillar Antes Up $8.6 Billion For Mining Equipment Maker Bucyrus

Buffett’s Berkshire Buys BNY Mellon, Increases Wells Fargo Stake

Market Disses Fed’s QE Plans, Dumps Long-term Eurobonds & Treasuries

Facebook Rolls Out New Messaging System; Integrates Texts, E-Mails, IM Chats

Apple Finally Scores Beatles For iTunes?

Google CEO Says Next Android Update Could Allow Phones To Replace Credit Cards

SPORTS

Buster Posey, Neftali Feliz Named Rookies Of The Year

Buster Posey, 2010 NL Rookie of the Year

Posey hit .305 with 18 home runs, 67 RBI; also had great post-season. First rookie catcher to play on a World Champion since Andy Etchebarren in 1966. Feliz notched 40 saves in his rookie year, going 4-3 with a 2.73 ERA; first Ranger to win Rookie of the Year since Mike Hargrove in 1974.

Reds Re-sign Catcher Ramon Hernandez

Redskins Extend Duncan McNabb 5 Years

Clinton Portis Inactive Against Eagles (Video)

Giants Deny Loss To Dallas Is Replay Of Last Season’s Choke

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

“Sarah Palin’s Alaska” Breaks TLC Ratings Record

Sarah Palin holds puppies on Punch Bowl Glacier

5 million tune in for largest debut episode ever on network

GQ Names Scarlett Johansson “Babe Of The Year”

Sebastian Bach Arrested For Biting Bar Owner

Britney Spears’ Divorced Parents Reconciling

NBC Unveils Dramatic Midseason Schedule Changes

Gekko Wins Again: Judge Denies Ex’s Suit For Share of “Money Never Sleeps” Cash

FOREIGNERS

Haiti Cholera Protests Target UN Peacekeepers

Israeli Defense Officials Urge Acceptance of Settlement Deal; Gift of 20 F-35 Stealth Fighters Included In Package

Suu Kyi To Seek Reinstatement Of Her National League For Democracy

Four Ministers Resign From Berlusconi’s Cabinet; Italian Government Could Fall Within The Month

BLOGS & STUFF

Protein Wisdom: McConnell Backs Crazed Whims Of Tea Party “Purists”

C4P: “Refudiate” Named Word Of The Year

Dan Riehl: DeMint Goes After Steele But Skirts The Point

Blackfive: Westboro Wankers Un-Wheeled

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Wow. I Think I Agree With Olbermann.

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 3 Comments

Of course, he buys into — and foments on his own — some fairly predictable liberal propaganda (e.g., Republicans were pro-Nazi circa 1940), but insofar as he seeks to point out the differences between factual reporting, opinionated analysis and the “the false god of objectivity,” he’s onto something here:

If only Keith Olbermann could be persuaded to examine the question of whether the neo-Keynesian economics of the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Democrats was doomed to failure from the beginning, so that he might have a Cronkite-in-Vietnam epiphany: “It’s a hopeless quagmire!”

Koppel’s criticism of Fox and MSNBC in the Washington Post, while not without merit, has substantial flaws:

The commercial success of both MSNBC and Fox News is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted observation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.

But it isn’t as if Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly never report facts. They report facts every night. Rather, each selects the facts he reports or emphasizes, according to the (presumed) interests of his audience. Olbermann reports facts that makes Republicans look bad, and his liberal viewers appreciate that. O’Reilly reports facts that make Democrats look bad, and his conservative viewers appreciate that.

Sometimes I watch MSNBC, just to see what they’re up to. As a conservative, this can be a painful experience, and not just because of the dreadful liberal bias, but because some of the facts reported on MSNBC genuinely do make Republicans look bad.

However, being a conservative isn’t the same thing as believing that Republicans are 100% wonderful. In fact, I’d love it if Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would devote themselves to destroying the reputations of certain Republicans that I hate even more than they do. For example, John Cornyn.

C’mon, Keith: Assign your researchers to dig up the vilest things possible about John Cornyn. Surely there must be some nasty skeletons in his closet — a hushed-up DUI, a mistress, bribery, kickbacks, transvestitism, something.  Take him out.

Category: Fox News, MSNBC

Not Just No, But Hell, No! John Cornyn Uncontested in Bid for NRSC Chair?

Posted on | November 15, 2010 | 16 Comments

Somebody hasn’t been paying attention:

Sen. John Cornyn is expected Tuesday to formally make a bid for another two years as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
GOP sources confirm to CNN that the Texas Republican will put his name up for nomination for re-election as NRSC chairman, as the Senate Republican Conference meets behind closed doors. According to the sources, the two-term senator is not expected to face any opposition in his bid to remain as NRSC chairman, and has already secured the support of a number of new Republican Senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

Are you freaking kidding me? Marco Rubio supporting that treacherous bastard who tried to put the fix in for Charlie Crist? And guess who’s playing kissy-face?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski received a warm welcome from fellow Senators on the Senate floor Monday and congratulations from National Republican Senate Campaign Chairman John Cornyn.

We’ll see about this . . .

Category: Marco Rubio, Senate
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