Dow Loses 213 Points on Debt Crisis in Greece, Portugal; Rachel Maddow Trying to Figure Out How to Blame Sarah Palin

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Let the blame game begin!

A downgrade of Greece’s credit rating to “junk” status sent stocks to their worst one-day loss in more than two months . . .
The Dow snapped a six-day winning streak, plummeting 213.04 points, or 1.9%, to 10991.99, suffering its worst decline in both point and percentage terms since Feb. 4.
Tuesday’s selling was fueled primarily by Standard & Poor’s decision to cut Greece’s credit rating by three notches to “junk” status, saying the move was the result of the firm’s “updated assessment of the political, economic, and budgetary challenges that the Greek government faces in its efforts to put the public debt burden onto a sustained downward trajectory.”

Portugal’s bonds haven’t yet reached junk” status, but . . .

Standard & Poor’s . . . also cut Portugal’s rating two notches. S&P also kept a negative outlook on the two countries’ ratings — meaning more downgrades are possible in the near term. . . . Stocks plummeted 6% in Greece, 4.7% in Portugal, 4.2% in Spain and 2.7% in Germany. . . .
As for Portugal — also struggling under heavy debt and facing poor economic growth prospects — S&P lowered its rating to A-minus from A-plus, citing “amplified fiscal risks.” Portugal, which so far hasn’t requested help from the rest of Europe, “could struggle to stabilize its relatively high debt ratio” until 2013, S&P said. . . .
The yield on two-year Greek bonds rocketed to 15.35% from 13.16% on Monday and 6.1% two weeks ago, a sure sign that the market believes Greece ultimately will seek to restructure its debt by cutting interest or principal payments, or both.
S&P said that if Greece restructures its debt, current bond owners may recover just 30% to 50% of their principal amount. . . .

What caused the European debt crisis? Out-of-control deficit spending, mainly caused by government obligations for entitlement programs like health care. Does that sound kind of familiar?

While your 401(k) circles the toilet — and Democrats and MSNBC look around for fat-cat right-wing scapegoats — you can at least muster an ironic smile at this news from Wall Street today: Goldman Sachs stock went up today. Because they’ve got important friends, you see.

The Progressive Legacy of Bill Ayers: Sloppy Seconds for Social Justice

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Van Helsing calls attention to a little-noted clause in the ’60s peace-and-love agenda: “Do it with my roommate, or you’re a racist!”

It was at the Undergraduate Library at the University of Michigan on a Friday night in November 1965. I was a sophomore and was living in a sorority house — Alpha Epsilon Phi. . . . Billy Ayers was standing on the first floor and started talking to me . . .
I was politically idealistic back then and believed in Tikkun Olam — that we had to do something to make the world better . . .
He asked me to go to a party with him and I did. . . . I think he got quite drunk and I suppose I drank too. . . .
I met Bill’s roommate who also worked at the children’s school. I also met Bill’s younger brother Rick. Bill was a year older than I and his brother was a year younger. He spent a lot of time at Bill’s apartment. . . .
I guess it was one of those evenings — maybe on the way back from the library, maybe just to get out of the sorority house, I don’t remember exactly. What I do recall is that when I was getting ready to leave Ayers told me I couldn’t go until I slept with his roommate and his brother. At this point Bill and I had slept together just once. I was sexually inexperienced, having had only one serious boyfriend with whom I had recently broken up.
At first I thought Ayers was joking. I got up; and went to the door. He moved quickly to block me at the doorway. He locked the door and put the chain on it. I went to the couch and sat down and told him that I had no intention of having sex with his roommate and his brother or him. He said that I had no choice but to do as he said if I wanted to get out of there. He claimed that I wouldn’t sleep with his married roommate because he was black — that I was a bigot. I had gone to school with black kids and had them as friends all my life. I couldn’t believe he was saying that to me
I felt trapped. I had to get out of the situation I was in and because he was so effective a guilt-tripper, I also felt I had to prove to him that I wasn’t a bigot. I got up from the couch and walked over to the black roommate’s bed and put myself on it and he f—-d me. I went totally out of my body. I floated beside myself on the outside and above the bed looking at this black stranger f— me angrily while I hated myself.
After that I had to go lie down on Bill Ayer’s bed for his brother to screw me. . . .

Tikkun Olam usually translates as “repairing the world,” unless you’re a liberal, in which case it translates as, “Sloppy seconds.”

UPDATE: It appears that Bill Ayers’ vision of social justice continues in the person of Amanda Kijera, an American volunteer in Haiti who is “grateful” for being raped:

Two weeks ago, on a Monday morning, I started to write what I thought was a very clever editorial about violence against women in Haiti. . . . Ever committed to preserving the dignity of Black men in a world which constantly stereotypes them as violent savages, I viewed this writing as yet one more opportunity to fight “the man” on behalf of my brothers. That night, before I could finish the piece, I was held on a rooftop in Haiti and raped repeatedly by one of the very men who I had spent the bulk of my life advocating for. . . .
I pleaded with him to honor my commitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for an end to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t care that I was a Malcolm X scholar. He told me to shut up, and then slapped me in the face. . . .
Black men have every right to the anger they feel in response to their position in the global hierarchy, but their anger is misdirected.
Women are not the source of their oppression; oppressive policies and the as-yet unaddressed white patriarchy which still dominates the global stage are. . . .
Not once did I envision myself becoming a receptacle for a Black man’s rage at the white world, but that is what I became. While I take issue with my brother’s behavior, I’m grateful for the experience. . . .

Exactly how the hell is the “white partiarchy” responsible for this crime? Whence her insight that a Haitian rapist is motivated by “rage at the white world”? Don’t bother asking Kathy Shaidle, who isn’t exactly doing the “sisterhood solidarity” thing with Ms. Kijera.

SPLC Spins Crazy Conspiracy Theory About Crazy Conspiracy Theorists

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Willy-nilly lumping together of libertarians, conservatives and kooks like Alex Jones? Check. Obligatory inclusion of high-profile Fox News personalities? Check. Time for somebody to do some actual reporting:

Catherine Bleish is a 26-year-old libertarian who was a Ron Paul delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention. She is a leader of the Liberty Restoration Project which, among other things, opposes the federal “War on Drugs” and denounces the Patriot Act as “an assault against the civil liberties of Americans.”
Perhaps you disagree with those views, but is Bleish dangerous?
The Southern Poverty Law Center seems to think so. In a special report called “Meet the ‘Patriots’” issued last week, the SPLC named Bleish as one of 35 people “at the heart of the resurgent movement.” The report — which also names WorldNetDaily publisher Joseph Farah and Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media — describes the movement thus:
“In the last year and a half, militias and the larger antigovernment ‘Patriot’ movement have exploded, accompanied by the rapid expansion of other sectors of the radical right. … [T]he so-called Patriots [are] people who generally believe that the federal government is an evil entity that is engaged in a secret conspiracy to impose martial law, herd those who resist into concentration camps, and force the United States into a socialistic ‘New World Order.’”
The SPLC’s scary references to militias and conspiracies and a “resurgent movement” very much echo Bill Clinton’s recent conflation of the tea party with Timothy McVeigh and, like Clinton, the Montgomery, Ala.-based organization singled out Rep. Michelle Bachmann, calling her an “enabler” of the Patriot movement. Also labeled “enablers” by the SPLC were Glenn Beck and Andrew Napolitano of Fox News, as well as Ron Paul, the Texas congressman whose quixotic 2008 presidential campaign helped turn Bleish into a full-time political activist. . . .

Please read the whole thing. Whatever you think of Ron Paul and his supporters, the SPLC’s insinuation that they pose a threat to public safety — The Libertarian Menace! — is unwarranted. And the Paulistas certainly aren’t part of a “movement” that also includes, inter alia, Cliff Kincaid and Michelle Bachmann.

It’s amazing what you can find out about the SPLC with just a little effort. Yesterday, I spoke to a guy who decided to spend his weekend reading their financial disclosure forms and said the $190 million organization apparently has accounts in the Cayman Islands. And another guy told me that, for the first time in three decades, SPLC founder Morris Dees has donated money to a Republican.

UPDATE: The Libertarian Menace!

‘Obama Derangement Syndrome’ Symptoms Include Ironic Flashbacks

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People who live in deranged houses should not throw crazy stones, as Tim Blair shatters Charles Johnson’s delusions of normalcy:

Born-again leftoid Charles Johnson denounces the “tidal wave of right wing nuttiness directed at Barack Obama”. Fair enough, in several cases; that birther obsession, for one, is downright crazy. But it’s a little rich for flippy Charlie to rail against “Obama Derangement Syndrome” when for several recent years Johnson himself was a serious sufferer.

Blair’s list of “a few examples” is damningly long, proving CJ didn’t succumb to Sudden Onset Crazy. It’s chronic.

UFC Fighter Marries World-Famous Porn Star. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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I mean, besides everything:

After being arrested following an alleged domestic dispute against girlfriend Jenna Jameson on Monday morning, a teary-eyed Tito Ortiz held a press conference with his attorney in Los Angeles late Monday evening to speak for the first time with regards to the incident in which he alleged Jameson is suffering an addiction to the narcotic pain reliever, OxyContin.
“Jenna has been fighting a battle with OxyContin addiction for the past year. For Tito and her family this has been an uphill battle. Unfortunately this morning she had a relapse,” attorney Chip Matthews said. “Tito was trying to help her, she has threatened suicide before. Tito has done everything in his power to protect her privacy and the privacy of their children.”
According to Matthews, on Monday morning the UFC champ confronted his girlfriend (and mother of their twin boys) about the drugs he had found and she denied it. Jameson was allegedly suffering an “emotional breakdown”, prompting a 911 call from Jameson’s father Larry who was reportedly not in the room at the time of the confrontation.

Let’s hear from Jenna’s side of the family:

Jenna Jameson’s father claims there were no warning signs that could have prevented the alleged domestic violence incident between Jenna and Tito Ortiz — adding the whole thing “came out of nowhere.”

Wow. Completely unexpected. The porn star is a dopehead and the fighter has a propensity for violence. Who knew?

Arizona über alles!

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The “Fourth Reich” meme has caught on, as predicted, with a Colorado Democrat invoking the Nazi specter:

“It is absolutely reminiscent of second class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II when they had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being Jewish,” Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo), who is Jewish, told POLITICO. . . .
“I think it’s a very fair comparison and I hope that we’re not headed on the same trajectory that Nazi Germany was,” Polis said. “But this was a very recent experience for Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide and it’s something that when we see similarities we start ringing alarm bells.”

You’ve got to love that “reminiscent,” as if Arizona had enacted some kind of latter-day Nuremberg Laws rather than merely authorizing cops to ascertain legal residency in cases of “reasonable suspicion” that someone was in the country illegally. (Hat-tip: Ace of Spades.)

Despite predictably misleading portrayals of the Arizona law as an Hispanic Kristallnacht — before the law has even taken effect, and before any example of actual harassment could be cited — it is discovered that 60% of voters agree with the Arizona law. And note this:

At the same time, however, 58% of all voters are at least somewhat concerned that “efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens.”

Have a majority of Americans suddenly become Brownshirts, or does the Arizona law reflect the kind of common-sense policy that most Americans have always supported? This poll seems to indicate to me that, as with the regretable hassle of undergoing security screenings at airports, Americans are willing to tolerate some infringement of “civil rights” in the interest of public safety. Abstract libertarian theory yields to practical considerations in the face of a dangerous reality.

Speaking of dangerous reality, how about those peaceful, law-abiding liberals? Dissent is suddenly patriotic again . . .

Via Memeorandum. More at Hot Air, Cassy Fiano, Gateway Pundit, Jammie Wearing Fool and Da Tech Guy. And of course, nobody plays the Nazi card like Rachel Maddow:

Where did Rachel get her guilt-by-association smear? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.

UPDATE: Even before Maddow’s Nazi smear, Ed Driscoll notes that the “obligatory MSNBC Godwin’s Law violation of the day” came from Contessa Brewer, invoking the specter of “neighbors are turning in neighbors or families turning against families” — sort of an Anne Frank scenario, you see — complete with the same “Papers, Please” chyron featured in the Maddow segment.

Allen West Must Win

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Citing a new poll about Allen West’s campaign in FL22, Dave Weigel says:

[T]his should be one of the 40 seats Republicans win if they take control of the House in November.

Exactly. A lot of pundits are sitting around predicting a 40+ pickup for the GOP, but those kind of big numbers overlook the details of specific races all across the country where individual candidates are taking on incumbent Democrats. In order to flip 40 or more House seats on Nov. 2, Republicans are likely going to focus their efforts on a “hot” list of 70-80 possible flips by Labor Day, so that they’ll have about a 30-40% margin for error in the final nine weeks of the general election campaign.

If you haven’t started paying attention to these key House races yet, this must-win in FL22 is certainly a good place to start.

ALLEN WEST for CONGRESS

Mitch McConnell Mildly Miffed, But In A Good Way

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by Smitty

The Senate Minority Leader was nearly moved to passion:

“Whether it’s the Stimulus, the debt, health care, bailouts — you name it — the concerns Republicans raised are being validated. And Democrats have the nerve, in this debate, to say that we’re the ones who are being dishonest.”


What would it take to move this man into Rated PG territory, one wonders?

Update: Some interesting tidbits in the WaPo, via Drudge:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) joined Republicans in voting to prevent debate from proceeding. When the outcome was clear, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) also voted no, a move that allows him to reintroduce the measure later.

While the procedural vote delays formal consideration of the overhaul bill, lawmakers in both parties have said they expect it will ultimately be debated — and passed — in the coming weeks, though the exact contours of the final legislation remain uncertain.

There are signs that at least a handful of Republicans will ultimately vote for some form of the bill. Democrats in recent days have increasingly coalesced around the far-reaching legislation. They are eager to pressure Republicans into a difficult vote, in which liberals could characterize those who oppose the bill as trying to protect Wall Street.