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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Firedoglake's LiveJournal:
Mukasey collapses during speech.- Clinton to be announced SoS after Thanksgiving.
- So what about Richardson?
- The wingnuts' paranoia about the Fairness Doctrine.
- Franken edges closer to Coleman.
- Martin with the MOE of Chambliss.
- Contractors in Iraq could face charges.
- Palin's, uh, weird turkey "pardon."
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 | |
| 6:25 pm | Unhinged Saxby Chambliss Grabs Camera When Reporter Asks Him About Imperial Sugar Case Saxby's losing it. A reporter for the Florida Times-Union asked him about his refusal to honor a subpoena in the Imperial Sugar wrongful death lawsuit. Chambliss can be heard saying, "You can take it away now" as he pushes the camera away. Very dignified behavior from a sitting US Senator, isn't it? Chambliss, getting increasingly desperate to hold on to his Senate seat, has also resorted to gay-bashing fliers.
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| 5:30 pm | If I Was GM’s CEO, I’d Be On A Plane To China
Since the election, Team Obama has become "trial balloon central" (if they were genuinely serious about firing the leaker, Rahm Emanuel would hit the Chief Of Staff revolving door post-haste). They have been strategically using the media to test public opinion, but in this case I'd imagine they also did so with the intent to force the unions, bond holders and other stakeholders in the Big 3 into a more pliant negotiating position. It was interesting to watch how quickly the chess pieces moved yesterday in the Senate. As soon as the Senators from Big 3 states called a press conference to announce their bipartisan plan to repurpose the Energy Bill money as a bridge loan, Reid and Pelosi stepped on their press conference and said they were calling a special lame duck session to deal with the problem. They usurped the cameras and demanded the delivery of a restructuring plan to Dodd and Frank's committees on December 2 -- something Obama had quietly called for in his 60 Minutes appearance only last Sunday. If I was Waggoner, I'd be on a plane to China right now (probably coach). The Chinese have announced their desire to buy the Big 3. Why not? It would allow all their debts to be paid off so their suppliers and other creditors won't go under in a domino effect, their stockholders won't get shafted (which should make Wall Street happy), and they could easily make both interest payments to bondholders and the $35 billion payment to the VEBA fund that will take UAW pension and health care legacy costs off their books. However, there are some long-term implications that could make this less than appealing for the US. As Ian Welsh has pointed out, there's a reason the Chinese are so keen to buy a US automaker:
I'm supportive of Obama's idea that there needs to be a plan going forward for Big 3 viability before they get a bridge loan, but "viability" may not mean "profitability." If we're serious about converting to a green economy, when gas prices are low people want to buy the gas guzzlers that Toyota and BMW and Mercedes are still making in Richard Shelby's right-to-work state. You can't demand that the Big 3 be profitable and make fuel efficient cars that people don't want to buy, so you've either got to levy an unpopular gas tax or give people other incentives to make the cars attractive. The fact is that the Big 3 and the UAW have already made a lot of the structural changes and compromises that they need to make going forward, and holding the threat of "organized bankruptcy" over their heads when a buyer is standing there waiting in the wings seems unrealistic. If we're playing chicken here, let's let Richard Shelby and Jim Inhofe go back to their states and tell their constituents that Chevy is being sold to the Chinese (Inhofe visibly bristled at the very suggestion on CSPAN the other day). That'll go over well. |
| 4:48 pm | Baker, Krugman, Roubini, 375 Economists Agree: We Need a Massive Economic Stimulus Dean Baker, whose earlier excellent post provides a compelling argument for a bridge loan to the auto industry, reminds us (via TPM) that the economy needs much more to keep a likely deep recession from becoming another depression. Baker's plea joins those we've seen from Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini (video at right -- h/t Stoller) as well as 375 other economists signing a letter organized by the Center for Economic Policy Research. From Dean Baker:
So where are Congress and the Administration? Despite the growing economist consensus on what needs to be done, today Congress was able only to pass a narrow bill extending unemployment benefits a few more weeks. The President says he'll sign the bill. That's good, but this effort is trivial compared to what the country needs. We've a severe recession rolling through and a possible depression staring us in the face; another 500,000 workers applied for unemployment comp last month while prices and markets are in free fall. But Government is as frozen as the credit markets, primarily because an obstructionist Republican Party, already at its lowest disapproval level in decades, is still clinging to the delusion that they can resurrect themselves by restricting government spending while tanking the economy. They can't be driven out of town fast enough. |
| 4:07 pm | Lieberman To Grind Boot Heel In Your Face On Sunday’s Meet the Press
What, you weren't invited to the bipartisan drum circle? The least they could've done was keep him from parading his smug, sanctimonious face in front of the camera. For those who would rather take action than fume, we're building a list now to hand over to Tim Tagaris and Matt Browner-Hamlin for 2012. Oh and this? Best post of the week. |
| 3:33 pm | Obama Denies Planning “Pre-Packaged” Bankruptcy
Bloomberg had an article saying that Obama's team consulting on how to take the Big 3 into bankruptcy. Obama's team is now denying it. Barry Ritholz, who I usually agree with thinks that bankruptcy is the best option, but for once I have to disagree. Folks won't buy cars from bankrupt companies, so even if you're ok with breaking the union, and see dumping other costs as a benefit, it's not a good way to deal with the problem. |
| 3:00 pm | Be Grateful You Have A Job Or We’ll Send It To China There's plenty of room for criticism of the way the Big 3 have been managed, but there's one particular grating bias that permeates most of the reporting that's being done:
Consider for a moment that right-to-work states that make it impossible to unionize might have given an unfair advantage to foreign auto makers. The contempt for labor -- and for blue collar workers in general -- by people who would never work for the $14-16 an hour that a new union employee in the 2 tier system now makes in the latest UAW contract is oozing out of almost every story written. There's an expectation that workers should be happy with MacDonald's wages, and that asking for more is -- well, just plain greedy. We allow corporations to organize as individuals and engage in completely amoral behavior. The film "The Corporation" argues that "the DSM-IV’s Personality Diagnostic Checklist would diagnose a corporation as a sociopath, lacking as it is in honesty, regard for others and remorse." But we won't allow workers to organize themselves and speak with one voice, because that would be -- well, anti-corporate or something. How about we pass Employee Free Choice and make it easier for unions to go into right-to-work states and organize Toyota and Honda? How about leveling the playing field by letting workers' argue for a middle-class wage, rather than telling them they need to be the ones to sacrifice while their bosses fly around on private jets? The New York Times argued the other day that workers in the non-union factories like Toyota make almost as much as their Detroit counterparts, therefore unions aren't necessary. Do they really believe that Toyota would be paying their workers that much if they didn't have to compete with union wage rates? The level of class bias and lack of understanding among people who haven't taken the time to comprehend what the loss of three million jobs would do to our economy is gobsmacking. |
| 1:55 pm | The Boogeyman versus the New Bretton Woods Lots of people are posting this YouTube, but no one, as far as I've seen, has contextualized it. This seemingly organized snub took place, after all, at the end of the attempt on the part of the G20 to find some global solutions to our present economic crisis. The snub occurred after Bush welcomed his guests with a radio address pre-empting some of the demands those guests were making.
And the snub came during a summit in which Bush championed the adoption of a passage in the Declaration that came out of the summit that, once again, insisted the free market was working fine (this could have--and probably did--come straight out of Administration statements leading up to the summit).
And the snub came after the rejection of international regulation to control those purportedly functional free markets.
This meeting should have been the foundation of a new Bretton Woods--the start of new cooperation to prevent the kind of meltdown we're seeing. But Bush--a dead-ender to the last--refuses to see the catastrophe in front of him, and certainly refuses to work with others to solve the world's economic crisis. No wonder they wouldn't shake his hand. |
| 12:53 pm | Early Morning Swim |
| 9:30 am | “As Todd is my witness, I thought turkeys wouldn’t die” If you're like me, and I know I am, you are more than happy to see Sarah Palin disappear into the ever-thawing tundra. Except for when she lapses into hilarious self-parody... So I guess we'll be seeing her a lot. Just a few weeks, before the Palin/Joe the Plumber "Left Behind Tour" begins anew in Iowa for 2012. But in the mean time, please enjoy and be completely and utterly horrified at this video which shows just how violent irony can be (seriously). A moment clearly inspired by the video to the left. Stay tuned for when Palin recreates the Odessa Steps scene from the Battleship Potemkin, which she'll tell you her great grandmother virtually saw from Juneau -- after you tell her where Odessa is. |
| 6:00 am | Late Late Nite FDL: Key To The Highway The Derek Trucks Band - Key To The Highway. What's on your mind tonight? |
| 5:14 am | Toilet Paper And Soap Are Recession-Proof… Expensive Concert Tickets? Not So Much Friday night I was in Glendale trying to find a book on Senegal since I'm going to Dakar for 4 or 5 days on my way to Mali. As long as I was there I figured I'd have dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant on the east side of L.A. They know me well and I can usually slide right in, although sometimes on a busy weekend night, it's not so smooth. Friday was plenty smooth. About a quarter of the tables were empty. I asked the owner how business has been. He said it's following the stock market, "one day up and three days down." He also said that there's no possibility of a profit for 2008 and he's praying he can pay his rent, taxes and employees. And his business is only off by 15%! I asked because another restaurant I love may have to close, their business off by 25%. I was there the other night and I was the only customer. They closed early. That the entertainment business is notoriously resistant to macro-economic trends is a truism stemming from how well cheap entertainment managed to do during the Great Depression. It hasn't really be true-- or cheap-- since then. And this time around the Biz is being crushed by its own Bush-era greed and excesses. Despite boosterism from free-market admirerers, the entertainment business, especially the sectors involved in overpriced tickets, has been hemorrhaging red ink for a couple years; it's getting worse now. Nobody in the Biz wants to talk about it-- or admit that ticket sales are in the toilet... or already flushed down it. I'm on the Board of a business 100% dependent on concert ticket prices. We spent virtually our entire last Board meeting discussing how to cut back... on everything, and to prepare for the worst case scenario. I could be wrong about this but I think most music biz types shudder if they hear they or one of their projects has been mentioned in Bob Lefsetz's newsletters. His latest starts with a definitive attack on one of rock's last remaining heroes: "Neil Young is a jerk." I like Neil-- and his music-- a lot and I wouldn't categorize him in the same terms as Lefsetz. But Leftsetz isn't altogether wrong about one thing-- something that goes way beyond Neil. Concert tickets are way too high-- part of a bloated system as unrelated to delivering good music as HMOs are to delivering quality health.
Some artists still do, usually one with cult audiences like Madonna. With tickets to her shows selling between $350 and $55 a pop, every single one of her recent concerts sold out including 4 nights at Madison Square Garden, 2 nights in Chicago, 2 nights in Oakland, 2 nights in Boston and a night in East Rutherford, NJ. Lucky for her all those shows were before the gays decided to put all their boundless energy into fighting for equality and against Mormons. And if you're not Madonna... ticket sales are looking dismal, even beyond dreck like Charlie Daniels, Five For Fighting or the must-see nostalgia combination of Great White, Asia, Dokken and Sweet. Last week a panic-stricken Ticketmaster started experimenting with a new concept: easing off on brutally ripping off their customers.
The predatory monopolists have worked out a deal with The Eagles to bring down the cost of the tickets so that they band wouldn't suffer the fate of so many older artists and have to cancel their tour. High prices are turning off concert goers, even though promoters have actually persuaded musicians to stop gouging their fans and have actually started lowering ticket prices slightly after two dismal years. As the reality of the Bush Economic Miracle and what appears to be a full-fledged economic collapse, it may be too late. And even if fans are willing to scrape up the money for overpriced tickets, there is widespread fear in the music biz that they will be spending far less on merchandise and at the concession stands, a major source of income. The sports teams also having a tough time, having similarly priced themselves into a precarious situation in hard times. In Friday's NY Post Phil Mushnick reported an ugly scene in Memphis where the Knicks played the Grizzlies. Watching on TV he writes that "nearly every shot showed rows and rows of empty seats. The most expensive seats, from courtside and roughly 25 rows up, were almost all vacant. And expensive seats for Grizzlies games are on the NBA's low side, $100-$200 per. And this was just the Grizzlies' third home game of the season. The box score claimed that attendance was 10,129, eight more than the club's previous game in the 19,000-seat FedEx Forum. But if that were the case, most patrons were seated directly behind the TV cameras." An eyewitness claims there were 4,000 people there. And it gets worse.
If you follow hockey, you probably already know what a disaster that's been. Pat Hickey reporting for the Montreal Gazette paints a bleak picture that is bound to get much, much bleaker.
Economic reality isn't going to be denied and vast empires based on unrestrained greed are crumbling before our eyes. Lucky so many of us get by so well with virtual entertainment these days. |
| 4:42 am | Alaska Poker Players Left Cold by Palin Speech
Two excellent articles came out today on the climate Sarah Palin finds herself in as her administration prepares the FY 2009 budget, and she has to settle down to doing her real job again, for a change. Palin has never gotten along with big oil, which has always been fine with me in many respects. Even before she was selected as John McCain's running mate, however, Palin often claimed more credit for both the higher extraction rate now charged oil companies for removing Alaska's minerals, and for the AGIA deal. On the campaign stump this fall, she constantly claimed all the credit for these events. Every single bit of it. From several angles now, the AGIA deal with TransCanada is beginning to look more than a little dicey. Their financing package is nowhere near complete, and the environment for getting money now, both in small and large sums, let alone mammoth sums, is changing Tony Hopfinger, at Alaska Dispatch, has written an informative article about Palin's appearance Wednesday morning before the Resource Development Council. Here's a revealing extract:
No laughs for this laugh line from these hard-headed poker players, though. Ex-Alaska legislator Andrew Halcro has begun today what I think will be a series of articles on the prospects of both AGIA and Denali. He opens with this:
Halcro goes on to describe a working relationship between the major producers and TransCanada that has deteriorated since the time AGIA went through the legislature and was signed by Gov. Palin:
Go read Andrew's article. It is informative, to say the least. You might skip Wesley Loy's blog entry at the Anchorage Daily News political blog niche. Unless you're looking for more evidence of how much better our Alaska blogs are managing to cover the new ground upon which celebrity Sarah is going to tread this coming legislative session. The ADN clearly doesn't get this yet. Loy manages to |
| 4:20 am | Mukasey Reported to Collapse 
Dpt of Justice file photo The Wall Street Journal reports Attorney General Mukasey collapsed tonight:
h/t Boo Radley |
| 3:18 am | No Bread, Medicine or Fuel But George Says Let’s Chat When Hamas agreed to a ceasefire with Israel in June, hopes were raised that the yearlong blockade of Gaza would ease. Not only was there no relief on the existing restrictions, but since November 5 Israel has prevented all shipments into Gaza except for a 30 truck convoy on Monday. Israel is also refusing to let any reporters enter the area. Reporters without Borders has appealed to Defense Minister Ehud Barak to provide access and the Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association has
Some news is filtering out from humanitarian workers and it's not good:
Since shipments of cash are also blocked, the 98,000 Gazans who receive welfare are without funds and even Gazans with an income are now facing a lack of food. Abdelnasser al-Ajrami head of the Bakers Association detailed the situation today:
The blockade also prevents medical supplies from entering Gaza. A report from Oxfam on the Al Shifa hospital which is operating on generators (which are also threated by the blockage of all forms of fuel) details the conditions residents are facing:
The UN has issued appeals to Israel to lift the blockade as has King Abdullah of Jordan in a secret meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense minister Ehud Barak. The Israeli reaction has been quite clear, as the LA Times reports. Government officials are “claiming that the shortages are being exaggerated to stir international sympathy for Gaza.” The Israeli human rights group Gisha responded, noting that “Both sides must refrain from harming civilians, instead of deliberately targeting them,” and pointing out that Israel is violating it’s own promise to the Israeli Supreme Court to allow necessary supplies of fuel to Gaza. Gisha’s attorney Yadin Elam sent a letter to the Israeli Department of Defense demanding “the immediate reversal of all restrictions on the transfer of fuel, cooking gas and humanitarian products into the Gaza Strip" and insisting:
Rather than protest the blockade, President Bush will meet with Olmert on Monday "to review Middle East peace efforts that the U.S. leader had once hoped would produce an agreement before he left office." Don't hold your breath. |
| 2:33 am | Kucinich or Cummings for Oversight I said most of what I'm going to say about the Waxman-Dingell fight in this post (though I will reiterate my concern that Waxman--who will now be in charge of shepherding healthcare through the House--has said almost nothing about it thus far). Except that, now that Waxman has won, I think it crucially important that we find someone very effective to replace Waxman at Oversight. Waxman leaves some important unfinished business at oversight, including his investigation into the White House emails, the Bush Administration's lackadaisical policy towards leakers (including Scooter Libby), and recent oversight into the financial crash. Furthermore, Darrell Issa is by most accounts set to take over as Ranking Member on Oversight. Oversight is one committee where the Ranking Member has the means to be a real pain in the arse, and Issa is a bigger pain in the arse--and more effective--than most Republicans. Finally, I don't want to make the mistake the Republicans made; I want someone to exercise real oversight over the Obama Administration. For all these reasons, we need a real leader replacing Waxman at Oversight. I recommend either Dennis Kucinich or Elijah Cummings. The senior member on Oversight, after Waxman, is Edolphous Towns. I don't know all that much about Towns--though I find it telling that, as someone who watches a great deal of Oversight's hearings, I've almost never seen him contribute substantively (for that matter, I rarely see him, at all, at full committee hearings). That, plus he's the recipient of some big love from the Pharma/Health Care and Finance industries--two industies that must remain targets of oversight. Kucinich and Cummings are both relatively senior members of the Committee. And both have proven to be the kinds of effective Kucinich currently serves (opposite Issa) as Chair of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee (and many of the most critical oversight issues in the next Congress will be domestic ones). And his work on impeachment shows that his staffers have the ability to do great work and Kucinich has the ability to deliver them. Plus, he's the perfect kind of gadfly to keep our new President honest. I suspect that Kucinich would have a tough time getting the votes in a straight fight, but if there are multiple candidates, he'd have a shot. Cummings would probably fare better than Kucinich in a head to head fight (and having one African American take this seat from another African American would limit the sensitivity on the CBC, which worries that the Dingell loss represents a challenge to seniority and therefore to the chairmanships of other CBC members). And he is relentless in hearings at insisting on Congressional oversight--as his attack on chumps above makes clear. I'm trying to suss out who is bidding for this position. But in the meantime, I think that both Kucinich and Cummings would make excellent choices for the job. |
| 1:40 am | “Just How Angry Are Liberal Bloggers?” Boyce on Dean and Lieberman
Strong stuff. Nice to see FDL up on the screen at MSNBC. |
| 12:53 am | Ted Stevens: A Photographic Retrospective The Anchorage Daily News put together a photo gallery of some
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| 12:07 am | 1,836 and 705 - Lieberman Still Silent on Katrina
It’s about 1,836 confirmed dead, 705 missing, and the ten of thousands still displaced years after Hurricane Katrina. It's about the ethnic cleansing of one of America's oldest cities, the purging by gross negligence of one of our cultural treasures. That's why I'm still angry at Sen. Joe Lieberman for his dismal record under the 109th and 110th Congresses, and why I am still fuming that he retained his chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs Committee under the next session of Congress. There are critics who say that Lieberman is a problem with which the people of Connecticut will deal in the future when his seat is up for re-election. Not so, or at least Lieberman's seat in the Senate is a different issue, and one I do truly hope that Connecticut's citizens will get right this time. But the chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs committee is a matter for the entire nation to address, on behalf of the 1,836 dead and 705 missing and many more disenfranchised in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The dead and missing have lost their voice, and we owe it to them to replace him with an effective chair who will not only investigate why the levees failed, why the federal government responded in advance, during and after the storm so poorly. And we, the living, owe it to ourselves that a Senate committee chair not fail to do their job ever again. It’s not about revenge or retribution, as others have labeled the anger many progressives feel about Lieberman. It’s about doing the job one’s agreed to do, or getting replaced for failing it. It’s about getting to the bottom of unnecessary loss of American lives, and making sure that the miseries that felled them do not happen again. And I'm not going to forget as time goes by that Lieberman has failed those 1,836 and 705 every day he does not conduct a hearing on their behalf. Nor am I going to forget that he fails every damned day he does not conduct a hearing on our behalf to prevent such losses from happening again. |
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | |
| 11:28 pm | Blowback’s a B*tch: Somali Piracy Edition Somali pirates, in addition to seizing a super tanker, have seized 9 vessels in 12 days. An Indian frigate sunk a pirate vessel, but no one thinks that's going to mean much. The bottom line is this: solving this ideally requires a carrier, or rather a carrier task force. Normally that would be the US's job (it has half the naval tonnage in the world and plenty of carrier task forces) but US carriers are busy doing other things. Geopolitically speaking, a large part of what the rest of the world pays the US for is keeping the sealanes clear. Saudi Arabia hasn't spent decades investing money in the US for idealistic reasons: it has received security in exchange. If the US can't deal with this, other countries will (the Brits will probably wind up sending a carrier and escort ships to deal with it, in combination with other countries. Harriers are particularly useful for this sort of operation). I will also note that if Somalia had fallen under the rule of the Islamic Courts Union, rather than back into anarchy at Ethiopia's hand with America's approval and aid, then piracy would almost certainly not be this out of hand. The ICU had wanted international trade and recognition and would not have allowed pirates to wreck that. As it stands, in a country in absolute anarchy thanks in large part to US approved policy, piracy is one of the few ways anyone can make a living, let alone get rich and there is no central authority capable of dealing with it. I expect the problem will be dealt with, mind, the pirates have gotten too greedy and steps will be taken, probably including some shelling or bombing of coastal communities involved in the business. But it should never have come to this. |
| 10:30 pm | Franken-Coleman Recount Update: Is That Toast I Smell? The recanvassing is done, the initial vote tally was certified, and now the full recount has begun for the 2008 US Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken. So far, things are looking good for Al. As Nate Silver explains:
Bear in mind here that Nate's being a bit more cautious than many of the folks in his comments section. He's also being a bit more cautious than local blogger and longtime Minnesota DFL observer Flash, who believes that Franken is "likely" to win the recount. As Flash notes here, Coleman's strategy (and that of the RNC and its media surrogates) is to do everything possible to undermine the perceived legitimacy of the recount; they wouldn't be doing that if they thought Coleman was a lock to win it. Even the massive amounts of bogus vote-challenging they've been reported as doing won't help them much, as bogus challenges won't be allowed to stand. (To follow the recount live, go to The UpTake's site, where Mike McIntee's got out his calculator. So far Franken's temporarily lost around 17 votes in Minneapolis, but those are all from challenges, most of which will be dismissed by the board.) The only concrete way in which all of the Republican-generated water-muddying might actually affect the recount is by causing enough bogus FUD to throw the election to the US Senate -- which of course would be the basis for more bogus FUD on the GOP's part, as they would use this to claim that Franken, who would win in the Senate, would have an illegitimate win. |
