I Await His Resignation Any Day Now

Fox News executive caught admitting to lying/spinning the angle that Obama is a dirty Kenyan Marxist Muslim socialist:

Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to "socialism" as "mischievous speculation." Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that "privately" he had believed that the socialism allegation was "rather far-fetched."

"Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, 'spread the wealth around,' " said Sammon. "At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched."

Indeed, in the weeks leading up to the 2008 election, Sammon used his Fox position to engage in a campaign to tie Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism." AMedia Matters review found that Sammon - then the network's Washington deputy managing editor - repeatedly linked Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark to socialism during his October 2008 Fox appearances.

Just kidding. Resignations or the rush to strip federal funding are only for "liberal" groups like ACORN and NPR. IOKIYAR (It's OK If You're A Republican).

Further proof that Fox is a right-wing ideological crock of shit and not a news network. But don't look for other news outlets to cover this or make a controversy out of this story, because Sammons is a journalist just like they are, and journalists look after their own.

Quoted for Truth: Bob Herbert Edition

This:

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.

Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.

[...]

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

[...]

Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.

New ideas and new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed.

Pretty much.

Oh Look, New Opportunities for More Wars

Maybe we should round up some allies and start lobbing cruise missiles at this one too:

CAIRO — Military troops opened fire on protesters in the southern part of Syria on Friday, according to news reports quoting witnesses, hurtling the strategically important nation along the same trajectory that has altered the landscape of power across the Arab world.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a, on the border with Jordan, and in some other cities and towns around the nation took to the streets in protest, defying a state that has once again demonstrated its willingness to use lethal force. It was the most serious challenge to 40 years of repressive rule by the Assad family since 1982, when the president at the time, Hafez al-Assad, massacred at least 10,000 protesters in the northern Syrian city of Hama.

Human rights groups said that since protests began seven days ago in the south, 38 people had been killed by government forces — and it appeared that many more were killed on Friday. Precise details were difficult to obtain Friday because the government sealed off the area to reporters and denied access to the country to foreign news media.

Or maybe we have to wait until Syria is using its air force to bomb its dissidents and rebels. I'm not sure. I can't really keep up with our justifications for launching misguided conflicts anymore, but there's a humanitarian crisis brewing, so we should probably throw a billion or two at the problem while telling our own citizens to tighten their belts and get used to 9% unemployment.

It Pains Me To Say This

But....ugh, I agree with John Boehner:

Granted, Boeher's letter is not without partisan motivations. I have no doubt that at it's root, it is a cynical ploy to make Obama look bad, and I don't think he would be sending any such letters if a Republican were sitting in the Oval Office. Regardless, he brings up good points that deserve answers about our next huge embarrassing failure of an unnecessary and needless protracted foreign conflict.

Freedom Isn't Free

Via Balloon Juice, it's time to bring on the shared sacrifice: 

With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars -- and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it.

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

[...]

"The operation in Libya is being funded with existing resources at this point. We are not planning to request a supplemental at this time," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

Extra emphasis on the 'not planning to request emergency supplemental at this time.' When that time comes, you know we'll pony up the dough without hesitation, because there's nothing we like better as Amurikans than pissing billions down a hole in foreign conflicts as we export freedom and democracy and Jesus to the huddled masses. And no one could have predicted that foreign wars cost a lot of fucking money, because we certainly don't have any recent and relevant historical data from which we could derive that conclusion.

And this just cracks me up:

Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Richard Lugar, R-Ind., says Congress should have had the opportunity to weigh in on what he said will be “a very expensive operation, even in a limited way.”

Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Lugar said, “It’s a strange time in which almost all of our congressional days are spent talking about budget deficits, outrageous problems. And yet [at the] same time, all of this passes.”

I actually have some respect for Sen. Lugar, primarily because he's one of the very few non-batshit Republicans when it comes to foreign policy (I can't really speak to his domestic politics; I'm sure he probably toes that party line). But what does he honestly expect from a group of feckless idiots who spend their time writing letters to the President asking him to do what they should already be doing as legislators:

Dear President Obama:

As the Administration continues to work with Congressional leadership regarding our current budget situation, we write to inform you that we believe comprehensive deficit reduction measures are imperative and to ask you to support a broad approach to solving the problem.

As you know, a bipartisan group of Senators has been working to craft a comprehensive deficit reduction package based upon the recommendations of the Fiscal Commission.  While we may not agree with every aspect of the Commission’s recommendations, we believe that its work represents an important foundation to achieve meaningful progress on our debt.  The Commission’s work also underscored the scope and breadth of our nation’s long-term fiscal challenges.

They can't be bothered to the lead on the budget, so they sure as hell aren't going to do something as audacious as try to enforce their check on the executive for exercising foreign wars. They didn't even try. I'm pretty sure they all just rushed to the part where they flood cable news to give their uninteresting opinions on the matter. And Democrats are especially guilty of this - most of the time they sit and whine about a lack of leadership from Obama, rather than get off their collective asses and show some leadership of their own.

But back to the price tag of freedom:

Ultimately, the length and scale of the operation -- and of the U.S. role in it -- will be key to how much it costs. A weeklong operation involving a limited number of U.S. troops would be manageable within the existing defense budget. But if Odyssey Dawn drags on for weeks and months, the Pentagon would likely have to do some maneuvering to replenish its accounts.

For now, the United States continues to lead operations, although U.S. military leaders insist that control will soon be transferred to an as-yet unnamed coalition leader.

Complicating matters, however, is the fact that most of the coalition nations’ militaries, which operate on a fraction of the Pentagon’s yearly allowance, are grappling with budget pressures of their own. While the Defense Department hopes to transfer control to coalition partners in the coming days, the longer the operations over Libya continue, the more difficult it will be for allies to take the lead.

“If it goes on more than a month, we’re going to be in the forefront [of operations] or we’re going to let Qaddafi stick around,” predicted former Defense comptroller Zakheim, who served under President George W. Bush. “The choices aren’t very pleasant.”

So in the somewhat likely event that this drags on longer than anticipated, and the major players (France, Britain) in our coalition grow uneasy and want to back off, you know who won't hesitate to fill that void.

I know I have beat this point to death, but it just simply amazes me that we continue to finance our prized export of freedom at any cost while basically telling our own citizens to fuck themselves, get used to 9% unemployment, say goodbye to your Social Security because we need to send confidence and warm fuzzies to the free market Jesus, and suck it up and tighten your goddamned belts because all of this is going to be borne on the backs of the lower 90% of the population because we sure as hell aren't raising taxes, ever. It's just disgusting.

What I Learned About War This Weekend

1.  The UN Security Council resolution circumvents the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (and Congress doesn't seem to give a shit about this either - go figure)

2.  Bombing Muslim countries and policing the globe is totally fine, so long as you have the token approval of the Arab League as they sit on the sidelines, and an international coalition. 

3.  War is always a national fiscal priority and never has to be paid for. These things are free:

The Americans, working with the British, French and others, flew a wider array of missions than the day before, when Navy cruise missile barrages were their main weapons. They deployed B-2 stealth bombers, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and Harrier attack jets flown by the Marine Corps striking at Libyan ground forces, air defenses and airfields. Navy electronic warplanes, EA-18G Growlers, jammed Libyan radar and communications. British pilots flew many of the bombing missions, and French, British and American planes all conducted ground attacks near Benghazi, American commanders said.

You'll note that opening up a third foreign war won't be making it's way into the budget debate (unsurprising considering Congress could not even be bothered to exercise their power to restrict the Executive branch from unilaterally conducting wars), but we better get right on defunding NPR and home heating oil subsidies for dirty lazy poor people.

4.  We have no clue what the fuck we're doing over there (sound familiar?), or what we will do if/when the air strikes do/do not succeed.

5.  The usual assholes are already calling for escalation:

“I hope it’s not too late,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on the CNN program “State of the Union” Sunday. “Obviously, if we had taken this step a couple of weeks ago, a no-fly zone would probably have been enough,” he said. “Now a no-fly zone is not enough. There needs to be other efforts made.”

Would have never guessed that guy would be on another Sunday talk show either. Weird.

The early reports are not confidence inspiring to say the least. There seems to be a common thread that Qaddafi is digging in and that the air strikes are not having the immediate effect to which they were expected. Granted, it's very early, but this still isn't a good indication, especially given the fact that the United States does not "lose" wars and will throw every bomb, bullet, and soldier at their discretion at the problem, no matter how bleak or Pyrrhic the situation may be.

So bring on the "shared" sacrifice! I don't know about you, but I am totally stoked about having my Social Security gutted to pay for bullshit like this.

Hmm

Does anyone else find it ironic that we launched into military intervention in Libya on the eighth anniversary of the Iraq war?

Giuliani Makes a Funny

Another interview in the ongoing saga of Who Wants to Be the Republican Presidential Nominee?

That may be true, as one source close to Giuliani said he was "seriously considering" a run.

But there were signs during his interview with HuffPost that Giuliani was simply tapping the brakes on a car that's already out of the garage. Every other word that came out of the former New York City mayor's mouth seemed to be positioning himself in case he does run.

And why not? There hasn't been a Republican presidential primary this wide open since probably 1964.

In addition, foreign policy -- which is considered to be Giuliani's strongest policy area in large part because of his leadership in New York after 9/11 -- has shot off the back burner in the last two months because of unrest in the Middle East, the tragic earthquake in Japan, and the situation in Libya.

So...being the mayor of a city that suffers a devastating terrorist attack suddenly makes foreign policy your 'strongest policy area?' Mmk. Then again, the bar is not set very high in this area for Republican candidates. We can all recall how Sarah Palin was the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, and how she kept Putin from rearing his head. Or something.

But what about the other candidates?

"Romney fits in somewhat the same category as Newt. Romney has a lot of strong things that would argue in his favor: governor of Massachusetts, a real expert on business and the economy."

But Giuliani said Romney has "got big baggage."

"I mean, RomneyCare, particularly for Republicans, is a major issue," he said.

There is no greater sin among Republicans than attempting to provide affordable healthcare. Especially when we already have the Greatest Fucking Healthcare In The Whole World.

And this proves to me that Republicans only have one card in their deck to play:

But it's another indication that in addition to painting Obama as an ivory tower, big government meddler and business sector ignoramus, Republicans are increasingly focusing on the president's foreign policy vulnerabilities as they hone their attack messages in advance of 2012.

Nobody in their right mind gives a shit about foreign policy anymore, with the exception of overwhelming public support for withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq. This is not 2003. I can only hope that the eventual Republican nominee devotes a significant amount of effort in attacking Barack Obama on foreign policy, because with 9% unemployment the housing market and the economy still stagnating, I can't think of a less effective tactic.

Here's An Idea

I stumbled across this on HuffPost today by crooked Rep. Charlie Rangel:

It is because of these devastating statistics and the commitment our nation must make to sharing in duty and service that I reintroduced the Universal National Service Act, commonly known as the draft bill. Originally introduced in 2003 after my opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the legislation provides an opportunity for all of our children to be able to say with dignity that they honorably served their nation.

Having a draft does not necessarily mean that everyone called to duty would be required to serve in the Armed forces. Whether that service to our country is in our military, in our schools, in our hospitals, or in our airports, the Universal National Service act would require young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 to commit themselves to two years of national service.

[...]

Currently the burden of defending our nation is carried by an increasingly smaller segment of our population. Only 1 percent of the American population currently makes the sacrifice of laying down life and limb for our country.

Far too many are being forced into repeated tours of duty, sometimes as many as six deployments. This repeated combat exposure to our troops is why 25 percent of America's active duty military personnel suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is why the Army's current suicide rate is far above the civilian rate at 22-per-100,000. The rate for the Marine Corps is even higher.

So call me crazy, but here's an idea - don't go starting pointless bullshit wars on false pretenses, and then you won't have this problem. Or when once justifiable wars, ignored for the better part of a decade, turn into pointless bullshit quagmires, then maybe you should consider cutting our losses and withdrawing the troops. I fail to see how some kind of quasi-draft would solve any of this. And I wouldn't trust for a second that some sort of national service draft wouldn't be turned into something to fatten the ranks of the military. We all saw what happened with the National Guard during Iraq. And I would never want to be part of any such national service conscription - especially with how we refuse to make a priority out of even basic humanitarian services for our own population, but we think it absolutely necessary to spend more than the rest of the developed world combined on defense.

Let's Have A War

With the eighth anniversary of the Iraq war just days away, we're itching for another place to bomb:

The United Nations Security Council voted Thursday to authorize military action, including airstrikes against Libyan tanks and heavy artillery and a no-fly zone, a risky foreign intervention aimed at averting a bloody rout of rebels by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

After days of often acrimonious debate, played out against a desperate clock, as Colonel Qaddafi’s troops advanced to within 100 miles of the rebel capital of Benghazi, Libya, the Security Council authorized member nations to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, diplomatic code words calling for military action.

Diplomats said the resolution — which passed with 10 votes, including the United States, and abstentions from Russia, China, Germany, Brazil and India — was written in sweeping terms to allow for a wide range of actions, including strikes on air-defense systems and missile attacks from ships. Military activity could get under way within a matter of hours, they said.

"All necessary measures" is code for another open ended conflict without specifically defined goals or a clear plan for winding down this conflict. With the recent history of the last ten years or so, we have absolutely no reason to believe or trust in the ability of our world governments, not the least of which the United States, to conduct armed conflicts responsibly or expeditiously. The damned UN resolution was essentially written to allow them to do whatever the fuck they want, apparently with the exception of ground forces, but there are always opportunities for that later.


So what is the plan exactly? We bomb the fuck out of their military and defensive infrastructure, declare mission accomplished and then just walk away? What happens when Qaddafi doesn't go peacefully, and we decide it's time for boots on the ground? Or better yet - what happens when we deem Qaddafi a Dangerous Lunatic that Must Be Stopped and that it's time for regime change?

What Qaddafi is doing is horrific and deplorable. But so were the actions of Saddam Hussein.

What Constitutes An Emergency to Republicans

Defunding NPR:

House Republicans are holding an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee on Wednesday to take up legislation that would block funding to NPR in the wake of James O'Keefe's hidden camera prank on the news organization.

The meeting will examine HR 1076, introduced by Republican congressman and NPR-nemesis Doug Lamborn of Colorado, which would bar the government from providing any funding to NPR and its affiliate stations. The House already passed an amendment to its Continuing Resolution funding the government through September that would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports both NPR and PBS, but the Senate defeated the bill and the latest CR only cuts $50 million in scheduled increases to NPR's funding that the White House had already cut from its own budget proposal

I'd just love to see the emergency hearings and sessions that they hold to deal with the unemployment crisis. Oh, wait.

Poorest Nation on Earth

Reality and facts once again present challenges for Republicans and the fabricated fantasy land in which they live:

House Speaker John Boehner routinely offers this diagnosis of the U.S.’s fiscal condition: “We’re broke; Broke going on bankrupt,” he said in a Feb. 28 speech in Nashville.

Boehner’s assessment dominates a debate over the federal budget that could lead to a government shutdown. It is a widely shared view with just one flaw: It’s wrong.

“The U.S. government is not broke,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “There’s no evidence that the market is treating the U.S. government like it’s broke.”

The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand.

Yup...we're so broke that we can't pay our bills, and investors around the world frown upon us so greatly for being poor bastard deadbeats that they continue to view us as an AAA investment and accept record-low rates of return on Treasury securities. This is yet another example in the long line of bullshit served up by the Republicans, robotically embraced and repeated by the media, and the typical absolute failure by the Democrats to offer a competing vision other than a scaled back version of whatever the Republicans are demanding (i.e. agreeing that we must make budget cuts, but just smaller budget cuts than what the Republicans are proposing).

Steve Benen offers the following obvious comment, which is yet another truth that is never given the time of day:

And despite all of this, Republicans still say debt reduction is more important than economic growth, and are prepared to make unemployment worse, on purpose, because of their twisted priorities.

But if Boehner or his office were ever serious about defending the lie, perhaps the Speaker could explain why we're "broke" now, and not when he was adding $5 trillion to the debt during the Bush era. Is it just a coincidence that we're "broke" because we have a Democratic president who inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit from his Republican predecessor?

Duh - America isn't broke when you're doling out trillions of dollars in tax cuts to millionaires, fighting two endless wars on deficit spending, and a massive unfunded Medicare prescription giveaway to seniors (magically timed just before the 2004 election). I'm sure there are more than a few truly impoverished nations around the world that would love to have the problem of a $15 trillion economy.

I'm almost getting sick of writing about the budget/deficit, because it is just so damned incredibly stupid and wrong. And unfortunately, there's just probably no chance of it ever improving. Sure Chuck Schumer cited the NBC/WSJ poll that shows that Americans overwhelmingly support raising taxes on the wealthy, and sure a Democratic representative has introduced a bill raising taxes on millionaires, but giving lip service to a poll and actually passing progressive legislation are two entirely different matters. And with the GOP in control of the House with a sizable margin, you will simply never, ever see any legislation out of that chamber that includes any form of tax increase, unless it's on poor people or overpaid assholes that suck at the public teat and are ruining this country, like teachers and firefighters. It is heartening to see the Democrats actually introduce legislation that would seek to enact a progressive tax code, however. Even though it won't ever pass, measures like these are the first step in getting away from toeing the GOP line of doing nothing but cutting spending from trivial portions of the federal budget, and in actually presenting a coherent alternative.

But on the subject of our alleged poorhouse status, no one has come close to stating it better than Michael Moore:

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

This can not be repeated often enough.

Necons Beat the Drums of War, 2011 Edition

Neocons still think that deploying the US Military is like playing Call of Duty:

VAN SUSTEREN: What would you do about Libya?

GINGRICH: Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … It’s also an ideological problem. The United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission. We don’t need to have NATO, who frankly, won’t bring much to the fight. We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.

And don't forget this dick - who wasn't instrumental in cheerleading the Iraq war in the slightest:

KRISTOL: I think at this point you probably have to do more than a no fly zone. You probably have to tell Qaddafi he has to stop his movement east and that we are going to use assets to stop him from slaughtering people as he moves east across the country. We might take out his ships in the Mediterranean. We might take out tanks and artillery.

It really is amazing to me that we have pundits and politicians - many of the very same that told us all breathlessly at how badly we needed to invade Iraq yesterday, how it would be over in a week and only cost $100 billion and even then it would pay for itself - honestly advocating for some kind of military incursion in Libya after the fucking disasters that have become Iraq and Afghanistan. It's as if we went into both of those conflicts on spot on intelligence and with well-defined goals and concrete exit strategies, the way these assholes talk. And it's even more alarming that people still take them seriously on such matters or that they continue to be paid for their opinions, not to mention the fact that these are the same people that routinely parade themselves around touting how incredibly broke America is and how we have to cut funding for NPR and Planned Parenthood and home heating oil subsidies for the poor in order to make it to our next paycheck, and yet they are more than happy to launch another really fucking expensive military campaign (they don't come cheap, last I checked).

And yes, I understand that a no-fly zone is vastly different than an all-out invasion. But it is still an act of war, and war is not a mundane detail, Michael. And while the situation in Libya is deplorable, I don't see how we can be expected to go barging in militarily on every humanitarian crisis that presents itself. The whole world police thing is getting old.

And in discussing the neocon war fetish, Josh Marshall hits on something that I think is pretty true:

I have to confess that the sanest voice I've heard on this whole matter has been Secretary Gates saying that a "no fly zone" is not a video game. It's not a joke. It begins, necessarily, with a series of debilitating attacks on a country's military installations and anti-aircraft defenses to remove the opposing military's ability to threaten your planes. That's an act of war. Taking over a country's airspace is an act of war.

And I think therein lies the rub. Neocons like Kristol and Gingrich can suspend their Viagra prescription for a few days at the thought of sending the military into action, blowing shit up and saving the world for freedom and democracy and Jesus. It's their own personal video game, because they have no stake in any war, they don't have to pay for it since we just put all our wars on the national credit card, and when it ends badly, they pay no personal price or accountability as presently illustrated by the fact that they're still in the same place cheering on additional wars.

In fairness to neocons and Republicans, the frequent and liberal use of war is about their only idea when it comes to foreign policy, so they are just going with what they know. 

Not Nearly Enough

A few weeks back, I wrote about the $20 billion contemplated agreement between AGs and the banksters, which you should cheer because the banksters think it's a terrible idea and will bring Economic World War III. Ezra Klein writes the following about this idea:

The hope is that they can get something capable of stabilizing the housing market. For all that the economy is improving, housing remains a huge drag, with legitimate estimates suggesting we've still got as many as 11 million foreclosures in the pipeline. "The number one reason for nervousness about the economy in the next six to nine months is the foreclosure crisis," Moody's economist Mark Zandi told me last week.

With Congress no longer interested in acting to ease the foreclosure crisis -- or, it seems, the jobs crisis -- this settlement is perhaps our last shot at stabilizing the housing market. The big thing that advocates are looking for is "principal modification": a process in which borrowers who are underwater on their homes would see the amount they owe to the bank reduced. That looks to be in the proposed settlement, but the devil is in the details -- how much does the principal get reduced by, and under what circumstances? But if you can get those details right, a lot of experts think they could provide substantial relief. "I do think principle writedown would be very effective. If you could get $20 billion in a fund, you could provide half a million in very solid modifications," Zandi says.

I completely agree that principal reduction is necessary and the only way to right the housing market. The current situation is obviously unsustainable and more or less leaves homeowners indebted for the rest of their lives, as home values are unlikely to ever return to their bubble-era levels. But I still think that $20 billion is a pittance compared to the overall problem:

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth rose at the end of last year, preventing many people from selling their homes in an already weak housing market.

About 11.1 million households, or 23.1 percent of all mortgaged homes, were underwater in the October-December quarter, according to report released Tuesday by housing data firm CoreLogic. That's up from 22.5 percent, or 10.8 million households, in the July-September quarter.

The number of underwater mortgages had fallen in the previous three quarters. But that was mostly because more homes had fallen into foreclosure.

11 million or more mortgages underwater, and we're looking at fighting to get funds for principal reductions on maybe 500,000 of those. That sounds about on par with the stated goal vs. actual success rate of HAMP, which is not a good thing.

And in conclusion, obligatory snide reference to the fact that we couldn't act fast enough, couldn't appropriate enough emergency funds to throw at Wall Street post avoidable financial crisis economic blow-up, at which point they promptly went back to profitability and paying outsized bonuses and telling middle America to fuck itself when we try to get any sort of regulation, damages, or corrective actions in place, and that any said reforms would cause the economy to implode, which is ironically the very reason they used when begging for their bailouts in the first place.

The Hyper Partisan Liberal Media

So some NPR executives got caught by conservative darling douche bag James O'Keefe, who rose to teabagger rock star status (which is kind of like being an actual rock star, only more ignorant, untalented, and a big no-no to the sex/drugs because it upsets Jesus) from his purposeful misleadingly edited videos of ACORN employees and his attempt to illegally wiretap a Democratic senator that unsurprisingly resulted in him receiving no punishment. Dressed as a Muslim radical (which, if his costume was anything like his pimp costume, had to be hilarious), he baited NPR executive Ron Schiller into opining on his views of the tea party. Schiller's crime? Stating the plainly obvious truth:

SCHILLER: The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian -- and I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move... it's been hijacked by this group that...

"MUSLIM": The radical, racist, Islamophobic, Tea Party people?

SCHILLER: It's not just Islamophobic, but really xenophobic. Basically, they believe in white, middle America, gun-toting -- it's pretty scary. They're seriously racist, racist people

The immediate result is that Schiller has now resigned his position (voluntarily, I'm sure) and has been blacklisted of sorts in relevant media circles.

If you watch this video closely, you will notice that you do not see any Islamophobic, racist, gun-toting stupid fucks white people. None whatsoever. Schiller is a lying fucking asshole and deserved to be fired.

And this guy isn't white, paranoid, or alluding to being a gun-toting tough guy either:

Also these fellows seem like perfectly reasonable individuals:

And all the rest:

They can't be bothered to spell their racial slurs correctly. I'm sure if Schiller got caught saying shit like this, he'd really be screwed:

This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy — over and over again — who has a deep-seeded hatred for white people, or the white culture. I don’t know what it is. I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people. I’m saying he has a problem. He has a, this guy is, I believe, a racist.

And I'm sure this would be beyond the pale:

"He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America -- you don't take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?"

And any media figure going on the record with this would have definitely been facing down a career ender:

Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations. ... These massive programs are Obama brand reparations -- or in presidential speak, leveling out the playing field. But, just in case the universalness of the program doesn't somehow or another quench his reparation appetite, he is making sure to do his part to pay the debt in the other areas." 

Except the speaker of these ignorant, racist invectives has a multi-million dollar contract with Fox News, and boasts a significant (albeit declining) viewership, and spews this bile nightly. Spoiler alert: it's Glenn Beck.

Schiller termed white, gun-toting, racist assholes as white, gun-toting, racist assholes, so he had to go. But making constant references to slavery and reparations in regards to the the nation's first black president and implying he's out to get whitey is just a coincidence, there's really nothing wrong with it, and we should continue to reward this guy for his completely normal and not-at-all controversial behavior. 

The Democratic Embrace of So-Called Fiscal Conservatism

Digby:

What this adds up to is that last December, with a Democratic House and Senate our president agreed to extend massive tax cuts for the richest Americans and then in March, with only a Democratic Senate he agreed to massive spending cuts. I'm not really sure why I should applaud such a thing, particularly in light of the fact that every economist I respect says that this is the opposite of what any pragmatic technocratic, common sense leader would do in our current economic situation, much less a transformational progressive Democrat. I'm sorry, no clapping from me. The idea that we are supposed to accept the nonsensical idea that massive tax cuts for the rich combined with massive spending cuts to essential programs for ordinary Americans is a "victory" under those circumstances just doesn't make sense. 

I understand the politics, but it's simply not correct to say that the only possible way to govern is to slash spending, cut taxes and gush a lot of happy talk about "investments" and "winning the future" while hoping against hope that the economy improves enough (and the opposition is lame enough) to get reelected. Not when you have the presidency, the US Senate and a fractious, divided, opposition that should be easily leveraged against itself. 

Last session I was told that the president was powerless without more than 60 votes in the Senate and even then there wasn't much he could do. Now, he's powerless in the face of a GOP majority in the House and the smaller majority in the Senate will save us all from the Teabag dystopia. At this point I would think that the executive branch is fairly useless and we ought to get rid of it except for the odd fact that it seems to be able to function quite efficiently when the GOP is in power.

I will add that as the general election heats up, we will likely hear the same empty message from OFA/DNC that we heard in the midterms that Obama's supporters will come home to roost eventually, the economy sucks but we just need a little more time because you people are impatient and expect everything over night, and there was that whole healthcare thing so we should all be really excited about that, and never mind that the administration spent the last two years shitting on liberalism, swallowing GOP ultimatums, and failing to take a decisive antithetical stance to the GOP's retarded, draconian, failed, disproven fiscal policies, in the end 2012 will probably turn out all right.

If Obama and the Democrats truly believed in something other than Republican-lite fiscal policies, maybe we would actually see them fighting for them. Sen. Jeff Merkley shows us what that might look like:

The GOP budget plan will destroy 700,000 jobs. The last thing our nation can afford right now is further job losses. We need to be creating jobs, not destroying jobs.

There are common-sense budget cuts that could reduce our deficits without wrecking the economy or attacking working families. We can start by cutting back on the bonus tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that Republican leaders insisted on just ten weeks ago. We could end tax subsidies for oil companies and save tens of billions of dollars in the process.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner summarized his perspective on the Republican budget as follows: if people might lose their jobs, "so be it." You might think the House Republican leaders would show some humility after their failed agenda turned record surpluses into massive deficits in 2001, or after their policies reduced the wages of working Americans during the modest expansion in the middle of the decade, or after they burned down the economy with unregulated derivatives and predatory mortgage securities in 2008.

Apparently not. Their proposals are exactly the same: give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, shred the safety net, and eliminate investments that would help restore American economic leadership.

But Obama won't say that because it might hurt the GOP's fee-fees, and we all know how terrified Obama is of doing that. And as Greg Sargent notes later in that post, imagine what the 2012 election landscape might look like if Dems actually united behind such a message.

We're Sooooooorry

Soooooooooorry!

BP Plc's (BP.L) (BP.N) Chief Executive Robert Dudley issued an industry-wide apology for the worst offshore spill in U.S. history at a high-profile energy conference on Tuesday.

"This is the first chance I have had to address such a large gathering of industry colleagues and the first thing I want to say is that I am sorry for what happened last year," Dudley told the CERAWeek conference in a speech titled "New Era, New Responsibilities."

Well that should clean up some of the totally-not-there-anymore-oil from the spill. Good to know the new CEO is as contrite as the former:

Coon 2: Hindsight
Tags: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,more...

And this makes me laugh:

Dudley said BP was working to earn back the trust of the industry, state and federal leaders and Gulf Coast residents, in part by upping efforts to improve safety. That includes shutdowns of two offshore oil and gas production platforms to repair faulty equipment, and shutting down a producing field to enable pipeline integrity work.

The BP Oil Company: earning back the trust of industry, state and federal leaders, and Gulf Coast residents by now doing shit that we should have fucking been doing all along.

We're Broke

Via Balloon Juice, the Center for American Progress has made good use of its graphics department:

But teachers are overpaid and cops and firefighters have a machine gun to the head of state budgets, it's unconscionable to raise taxes on anyone during a recession, and American corporations suffer under the undue burden of the Competition Inhibiting Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the world. So in other words, that left-hand column has to go.

Bringing Down The House

The New York Times has an article up from late last week about the bipartisan plan to dissolve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While I do agree that something needs to be done about the two GSEs and the mass government guarantees of subprime mortgages, I am a little skeptical about this:

Life without Fannie and Freddie is the rare goal shared by the Obama administration and House Republicans, although it will not happen soon. Congress must agree on a plan, which could take years, and then the market must be weaned slowly from dependence on the companies and the financial backing they provide.

Some Republicans and Democrats say the price is too high. They want the government to pull back, letting the market dictate price, terms and availability.

“A purely private mortgage finance market is a very serious and very achievable goal,” Representative Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who oversees the subcommittee that oversees Fannie and Freddie, said at a hearing this week. “No one serious in this debate believes our housing market will return to the 1930s.”

[...]

Hanging in the balance are the basic features of a mortgage loan: the interest rate and repayment period.

Fannie and Freddie allow people to borrow at lower rates because investors are so eager to pump money into the two companies that they accept relatively modest returns. The key to that success is the guarantee that investors will be repaid even if borrowers default — a promise ultimately backed by taxpayers.

They are still kicking ideas around and this will ultimately take an inordinate amount of time to solve, but if recent history is any precedent, this sounds like another opportunity for government to give up the entirety of its role to the free market Jesus that will enrich Wall Street even further and leave the middle class paying even more for mortgages.

And if we're so concerned with removing subsidies and government backstops, then why the fuck don't we end this one?

MATT TAIBBI: Well, Greenspan—I think what people don’t understand about the Fed is what an important role the Fed plays in this entire mess. Going back, you know, 20, 25 years, every time Wall Street gets in a lot of trouble, the Fed has been there to bail them out. They even had a term for it on Wall Street called the "Greenspan Put," which essentially meant that every time the banks blew up a speculative bubble, they could go back to the Fed and borrow money at zero or one or two percent, and then start the game all over again.

After the crash in 2008, interest rates were slashed to basically nothing. The banks could go to the Fed and get money for free, and then they’re out lending it to us at five, six, seven—I mean, how much is your interest on your credit cards? It’s 15, 20 percent. It’s almost impossible not to make money in banking if your cost of capital is zero. That’s what banking is all about. And that’s what the Fed has done. It’s provided a massive subsidy system for the banks on Wall Street.

I forgot - Wall Street's continued ability to borrow at 0% interest from the Fed's discount window is just what the Invisible Hand intended, and the free market and capitalism can only flourish when Wall Street is able to have access to free capital, because they work really hard and eat what they kill, and the economy will explode if Wall Street misses a dividend payment or its bonus payouts.

CNN: Income Inequality Just A Fact Of Life

Via Crooks and Liars, I saw this segment on CNN the other day, and like most things on CNN, it was vapid, lazy, and an otherwise pathetic excuse for what they try to pass as journalism.

It's just the way things work! The rich have lots of money, and you have to do risky stuff and things to make more money! And the rich getting richer as a result of the financial crisis - well there's not a lot you can do about that either. It has nothing to do with the fact that our national economic policies have been heavily tilted towards the very wealthy for the last 30 years, or that we would LITERALLY rather let people die than raise taxes on anything, ever, and that we're constantly asking demanding the lower 90% of the population 'tighten their belts' and sacrifice its well-being and upward mobility as a central tenet of any modern fiscal policy.

But oh oops - out of time. We're gonna have to leave it there.

The Daily Show - CNN Leaves It There

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