THIS IS A REFORM WE NEED

Locally, Bruce Ashe sponsors political ads on radio in which he almost always criticizes Democrats and liberalism. We're never told that Ashe is a member of the RNC and I think that's misleading.

Today, The Raw Story points out an article in Bloomberg News that describes how a couple of Democratic lawmakers are pushing to make ads more transparent by forcing them to list who actually is paying for them. In the case of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ads, the identity of the corporations paying for it would be disclosed.

JOHN McCAIN RE-WRITES TRUTH TABLES

In a desperate attempt to win the GOP primary in Arizona, Sen. McCain denies that he was ever a "maverick," despite the sub-title to one his is books: "Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him (Paperback)."

Politifact looked into Granpa's claim and came to this conclusion:

UNCLE ALAN PASSES THE BUCK

(via NPR)

Testifying before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Uncle Alan refused to accept any blame for the Housing Bubble and instead promoted the wingnut fantasy that Fannie and Freddie were to blame:

Greenspan said demand from the government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac inflated the housing bubble. He said the government policy of encouraging homeownership pushed Fannie and Freddie to create demand for risky loans.

UH OH, TOM COBURN IS IN A HEAP OF TROUBLE

He committed two mortal sins which I'm sure will lead to an attack by Mark Levin and the word about this has spread!

This is from the front page of YAHOO:



This is from the front page of YAHOO NEWS:

YOU CAN'T PLEASE WINGNUTS

I suspect that if Pres. Obama announced he was going to triple the number of our nuclear weapons, they'd still whine. As it is, these wannabe Hermann Kahn's are screaming that his decision to revamp our nuclear policy is extremely harmful to the security of America. (see here, here and here)

As usual, the reality is far different:

U.S. Keeps First-Strike Strategy
Obama Narrows the Range of Possible Targets in New National Nuclear-Weapons Policy
By JONATHAN WEISMAN And PETER SPIEGEL
APRIL 6, 2010
The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration will release a new national nuclear-weapons strategy Tuesday that makes only modest changes to U.S. nuclear forces, leaving intact the longstanding U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons first, even against non-nuclear nations.

The nuclear strategy will not take U.S. nuclear weapons off submarines, bombers and missiles that could fire them at a moment's notice.

A later WSJ article adds a little more information:

U.S. Narrows Role of Nuclear Arms
By PETER SPIEGEL
APRIL 6, 2010
The Wall Street Journal

The posture review stops short of declaring that deterring a nuclear attack is the "sole purpose" of U.S. nuclear weapons, however. The document says that because there are states that are not living up to non-proliferation promises, there remains "a narrow range of contingencies" in which U.S. nuclear arms still play a role in deterring a conventional or chemical attack against the U.S. and its allies.

The caveat appears to be a thinly veiled reference to both Iran and North Korea, countries that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but have either been cited for violating their commitments under the pact or, in the case of North Korea, have threatened to withdraw from the agreement.

At the same time, Mr. Gates wrote that the Obama administration will invest billions of additional funds to "rebuild" the U.S.'s existing nuclear stockpile, including a program to extend the life of current warheads.

In addition, the review found that the current "alert posture" of U.S. nuclear weapons—in which nearly all intercontinental ballistic missiles are on alert and a "significant number" of nuclear-equipped submarines are at sea at any given time—should be maintained

.

REMEMBER SEAT BELT LAWS?

I was living in NY state when mandatory use of seat belts was made a law and I recall that some people thought this was a terrible infringement on their freedom. I don't trust my memory so I used LexisNexis to search for some reports of this resentment and came up with this:

The Associated Press
October 19, 1994, Wednesday, PM cycle
Correction Appended
Seat Belt Foes Fight for Motoring Freedom in Three States
BYLINE: By ARLENE LEVINSON, Associated Press Writer
SECTION: Political News
LENGTH: 467 words

For much of motoring America, sitting in a moving car without a seat belt feels like driving undressed. But for some people in three states with seat belt laws on Nov. 8 ballots, that mundane strap is an un-American shackle on freedom.

"Everyone, plain and simple, is very sick and tired of government control," said Ed Netterberg of Sturgis, S.D. "South Dakota's seat belt law is an insult to free-thinking people."

I think this faux sense of freedom is behind some of the opposition to health care reform.

WILL ANY OF THE BECKSTERS LOOK THIS UP?

(h/t Daily Beast)

In this video, Glenn Beck condemns Pres. Woodrow Wilson for denying free speech to thousands who opposed America's entry into World War I.


There's no doubt that civil liberties were violated but what Beck didn't tell us is the target of the raids: socialists, communists and anarchists. Here's what the Dictionary of American History has on the raids:

From February 1917 to November 1919, federal agents deported sixty aliens of some 600 arrested as anarchists. More raids followed over the next two months, the most notable being the 249 persons, including Emma Goldman, deported on December 21 aboard a single "Red Ark," the Buford. The most ambitious raids occurred on January 2, 1920, with lesser efforts continuing over the next few days. In all, Hoover utilized 579 agents from the Bureau of Investigation and vigilantes from the recently disbanded American Protective League to orchestrate massive raids against communists in twenty-three states. At least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000 persons from thirty-three cities were arrested. Most were Communist Party members or suspected members.

This contradicts Beck's assertion that Wilson was in fact on the side of the communists and socialists.

FATS BLAMES AMERICANS

Now that the transcript is available, I can quote Fats attacking the American people:

RUSH: So what is it? Are these two young people right, our young generation and most Americans just don't have the stomach for the fight? You won't find the equivalence of the Founding Fathers among them. By the way, on this point, I've been talking with people about this personally, and, you know, we have in the Republican Party some of the big donors, some of the wealthiest Republicans really pride themselves on being moderates. They're the kind that would not like me, for example. These guys would no more take any action that might cost them a penny, such as repealing health care. I mean these people I'm talking about have the kind of money to pay whatever health care is going to cost 'em and not worry and not even miss it. Now, there aren't a lot of them, but they are the people who are going to oppose this kind of thing, and they're going to give money to other Republicans who oppose repeal. My point is that the Founding Fathers, even though back in the colonial days only one-third of the colonists were in favor of revolution, the leaders were in favor of it. But to say that we might have the equivalent of the colonist population, we don't. Ethnicity is one thing, but wealth is another.

MAINSTREAMING THE BAGGERS???

A few polls have come out showing that the demographics of Baggers are pretty normal but that's not the real issue, their politics is. As Steve Benen points out, the Baggers are conservatives on the fringe:

While about a third of the nation at large approves of the Republican Party, with the Tea Party crowd, GOP approval is a whopping 71%.

Seventy percent of Tea Party supporters say they're conservative, and only 22% say they're moderate.

NOTHING MUCH HAS CHANGED IN AFGHANISTAN

U. S. Special Forces are still killing civilians without any accountability.

U.S. Admits Role in Killing of Afghan Women
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: April 5, 2010
NY Times

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed.

...botched Special Operations attacks — which are blamed for a large proportion of the civilian deaths caused by NATO forces — continue to infuriate Afghans and create support for the Taliban.

And in what could be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

GOP SURGE IN NOVEMBER?

UPDATE: The RNC Chief of Staff just resigned.

Maybe not. First, RNC chairman Steele is whining that he doesn't get as many chances to screw up because he's black; in other words, he played the race card. Second, one of the biggest fundraisers for the RNC has quit.

LET'S NOT FORGET THE IRAQ WAR

(h/t Atrios)

and the party primarily responsible for that fiasco - the GOP. If we don't make this part of the accepted American narrative about the Iraq War, the GOP will be given implicit permission to do the same thing in the future.

At least a couple of conservative House members have come clean. From Matt Corley at Think Progress:

Yesterday, the libertarian Cato Institute hosted a panel discussion on conservatism and the war in Afghanistan with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN). When the conversation shifted to the war in Iraq, Rohrabacher said that “once President Bush decided to go into Iraq, I thought it was a mistake because we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan,” but that once Bush “decided to go in,” he “felt compelled” to “back him up.” He then added that “the decision to go in, in retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake.”

ROHRABACHER: I, I can’t. All I can say is the people, everybody I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.


MCCLINTOCK: I think everyone would agree Iraq was a mistake.

MCCLINTOCK: And, you know, again, I think virtually everyone would agree going into Afghanistan the way we did was a mistake. How many share my, my cynicism over this idea of a resolution of force, which I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution. And how many believe that in those rare cases where we go in, we put all of our resources behind our soldiers, I would say certainly more than half of the Republican caucus probably believe that.

THE HEALTH CARE BILL IS GOOD FOR SENIORS

This article by Emily Brandon in U.S. News & World Report describes 5 areas of improvement.

Free preventative care. Patient cost-sharing for preventive services such as cancer screenings will be eliminated on Jan. 1, 2011 for Medicare beneficiaries. Government payments to doctors for preventative services will be increased. Coverage of an annual wellness visit that includes a comprehensive health-risk assessment and a personalized prevention plan will also be added to the services covered by Medicare.

Prescription drug rebate. The new legislation provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who reach the Part D coverage gap in 2010. "More than 3 million people with Medicare have spending in the donut hole and those seniors will see an immediate reduction in their out-of-pocket costs," says Tricia Neuman, director of the Medicare Policy Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Donut filling. The donut hole will be gradually filled in before completely closing in 2020. Beginning in 2011, pharmaceutical manufacturers will be required to provide a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescriptions in the Medicare Part D coverage gap and in 2013, federal subsidies for generic prescriptions will also be phased in.

High-income retirees pay more. High-income retirees already pay higher Medicare Part B premiums than other Medicare recipients. These income thresholds typically increase each year, but the new legislation freezes the income thresholds from 2011 through 2019 at 2010 levels. "They are freezing the income threshold so, given inflation, it will start to affect more people over time," says Hoadley. Medicare Part D will now also charge high-income beneficiaries higher premiums.

Early retiree coverage. The health bill creates a temporary reinsurance program for employers that provide retiree health insurance coverage to former employees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

BLAME (MOST) AMERICANS FIRST!

Today, Fats Limbaugh is blaming Americans for their passivity in the face of what he describes as the destruction of America by the policies of Pres. Obama. This seems to be an admission that the country isn't as upset with our "Marxist" president as the gasbags were telling us just last week. Fats even quoted short, fat and bile-laden Kathy Shaidle to help make his point:

But the trouble with the Tea Party movement is that they tend to target their anger at only one source: Big Government.

However, angry Americans really need to face the unfaceable: that most of their fellow citizens are just as corrupt, incompetent and compromised:

Rahe talks about the American Revolution and so on. But the nation's ethnic makeup is different now, for one thing. Way more residents/invaders/settlers from "manyana" cultures. More illiterates, more people with no sense of history.

Plus there's the Katrina Culture. Did any of those "Help Us" types waiting on the "gubmit" to rescue them look capable of crossing the Delaware to you? They'd have been more inclined to steal Washington's boots.

A CRANKY OLD LADY

From this exchange, I'd say she has the dreaded entitlement mentality:

Spring forecast: Incivility with a chance of rage
By DAVID CATANESE | 4/4/10 10:15 PM EDT
POLITICO

MANCHESTER, N.H. – If the experience of this state’s two Democratic House members is any indication, the raw emotion and mistrust emanating from last summer’s congressional town halls never really went away.

Instead, the unrest simmered over the ensuing months only to return to a boil when Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Rep. Paul Hodes, who is running for U.S. Senate, returned home to meet with their constituents here during the first week of the Easter recess.

At a senior center in Manchester Wednesday, one woman turned away when Hodes offered his outstretched hand for an introduction.

"I don't want to shake your hand. You voted for health care, so just go," snapped Carmen Guimond, as she refocused on her lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes and waved him on.

When Hodes decided to stay at the table and launch a defense of what's considered to be one of the more popular provisions of the law — closing the "donut hole," a gap in prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients — she challenged whether he had read the entire bill and dismissed his explanation.

"Two hundred and forty dollars in the first year. That's all it is," she said, referring to the initial subsidy. "That's not much."

"And over time, by 2020, it closes the donut hole," Hodes explained.

"We'll all be dead by then," she deadpanned.

UNCLE ALAN FALLS OFF THE WAGON

UPDATE: Paul Krugman has more on Bubble Uncle.

In 2008, Alan Greenspan seemed to be on the way to recovery but like so many before him, he's had a relapse.

Greenspan: Financial Crisis Doesn’t Indict Ayn Rand Theories
April 04, 2010 11:28 AM
POLTICIAL PUNCH
ABC NEWS

TAPPER: You'll be testifying about the financial crisis on
Wednesday before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. When you
testified before Congress in October, you said that you finally saw a
flaw in -- in the way that you looked at markets, that markets cannot
necessarily be trusted to completely police themselves.

But isn't it -- isn't it more than a flaw? Isn't it an indictment
of Ayn Rand and the view that laissez-faire capitalism can be expected
to function properly, that markets can be trusted to police themselves?

GREENSPAN: Not at all.

THIS ISN'T NEWS

Some liberal sites think this is newsworthy. It isn't because we all knew this was likely to happen.

MEMO TO SEAN HANNITY...

stop lying about Afghanistan!

TPM has this great quote from Gen. Stanley McChrystal:

"I do want to say something that everyone understands. We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

BAGGERS ARE CLUELESS ABOUT MACRO-ECONOMICS

I recall Glenn "Weepy" Beck claiming that we should not have intervened at all in the collapse of the housing bubble and just let the free market run it's natural course and it seems that the Baggers like this idea. Digby has clips from Bagger activist Pam Stout in which Stout offers the same non-solution as Beck. (h/t John Amato at Crooks & Liars). This attitude is shared by Pat Toomey, the Club for Growth candidate to take Sen. Arlen Specter's seat in Pennsylvania, so the Baggers are like the extremists who believe in the Free Market Fairy.

WORSE THAN I THOUGHT

I wrote before that he MOTU sometimes manage to write contracts that are so complex that some credit default swaps are almost impossible to evaluate. I didn't think about a corollary to this: there is tremendous uncertainty about the banksters' balance sheets:

Capital can’t be measured

Simon Johnson and James Kwak are absolutely right. Sure, “hard” capital and solvency constraints for big banks are better than mealy-mouthed technocratic flexibility. But absent much deeper reforms, totemic leverage restrictions will not meaningfully constrain bank behavior. Bank capital cannot be measured. Think about that until you really get it. “Large complex financial institutions” report leverage ratios and “tier one” capital and all kinds of aromatic stuff. But those numbers are meaningless. For any large complex financial institution levered at the House-proposed limit of 15×, a reasonable confidence interval surrounding its estimate of bank capital would be greater than 100% of the reported value. In English, we cannot distinguish “well capitalized” from insolvent banks, even in good times, and regardless of their formal statements.

LIKE SOCIALISM, RELATIVISM HAS ALSO BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG TIME

Perhaps the clearest early expression of relativism is found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (350 BC), Book V, chapter 10:

It is the opinion of some people that all the rules of justice are conventional, because that which is natural is immutable and has the same authority everywhere, as fire burns equally here and in Persia, but they see the rule of justice continually altering.

But this is not altogether true, though it is true to come extent. Among the gods indeed it is probably not true at all; but in this world, although there is such a thing as natural justice, still all justice is variable.

YESTERDAY, I HEARD "FOAMER" LEVIN SAY...

"Democratic militia Hutaree" and I wondered how he could justify anything as preposterous as that. It turns out that freakshows at NewsBusters also tried this absurd gambit. (h/t Logan Murphy at Crooks & Liars)

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE...

The Guardians of Free Republics broadcast on this wingnut website, Republic Broadcasting, and I found another nest of online radio crazies at American Voice Radio Network. Right now AVRN is playing a substantial paranoid critique of Mormons and Mormonism.

UPDATE: Blog Talk Radio also has a fine selection of wingers.

WE LOSE, THEY WIN

In 2007, hedge fund manager John Paulson made $3.7 billion betting that the bubble would burst and in 2009, David Tepper made $4 billion betting that the government would bail out the largest banks.

I guess they've got us coming and going. :-(

BAD NEWS

I was hoping civil suits against the banksters would be successful but I guess many won't be.

Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Win Dismissal of Mortgage Bond Suit
By David Voreacos and David Glovin

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- McGraw-Hill Cos.’s Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Corp. won dismissal of a lawsuit claiming they defrauded investors who relied on their ratings before buying $63 billion of investment-grade mortgage-backed securities.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York also dismissed some claims yesterday against JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch and ABN Amro Bank NV, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, in a lawsuit filed by institutional investors.

Other Dismissal

In January, another judge in New York dismissed claims against the rating companies in a lawsuit by investors who bought $100 billion of mortgage-backed securities sold by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Moody’s, S&P and Fitch Ratings also won dismissal on March 29 of a negligence and fraud lawsuit by two California investors who lost money on highly rated bonds.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd in Sacramento threw out the case, saying the investors’ complaint wasn’t specific enough about the alleged fraud. He said they could refile the lawsuit within 30 days if they can include more detail, such as misleading statements by the companies.

I GUESS FATS LIMBAUGH HAD A MEMORY LAPSE

In an e-mail to POLITICO, he made this claim:

"Never in my life have I seen a regime like this, governing against the will of the people, purposely."

Well, I've seen this before:

Dick Cheney Calls Iraq War a 'Major Success'
Vice President Says Economy Has Hit a 'Rough Patch' but Doesn't Call It a Recession
March 19, 2008
GOOD MORNING AMERICA
ABC NEWS

When asked about how that jibes with recent polls that show about two-thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is not worth it, Cheney replied, "So?"

"You don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked the vice president.

"You can't be blown off course by polls," said Cheney, who is currently on a tour of the Middle East.

ANOTHER CLASSIC FROM FATS LIMBAUGH

From his Thursday, April 1st show:

RUSH: I missed this in trying to catch up with show prep for today. It's yesterday from Life and Health Insurance News: "The health insurance industry has agreed to comply with a provision of the health care reform law requiring them to provide insurance to children with pre-existing medical conditions within 6 months." So the caller was right. I was not wrong, I was just uninformed, but now I am properly informed. "The industry is doing so even though some of its lawyers dispute the scope of the provision in the law as interpreted by Congress and the administration. Health insurers’ view -- supported by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as well as healthcare lawyers and consultants -- is that the provision mandating that insurers allow parents to buy coverage for children with preexisting conditions doesn’t kick in under the law until 2014," but look, we didn't mean that. They meant it to happen pretty soon so we're going to go ahead and do it.

Media Matters has the audio.

PRE-EMPTIVE POST

I noticed that some of the conservative posters on this POLITICO thread didn't bother to read the article and instead relied on the wingnut narrative that nothing good has or will happen during the Obama Administration. Here's some facts from Bloomberg News...

U.S. Economy: Gain in Payrolls Shows Recovery More Entrenched
By Timothy R. Homan

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Employers in the U.S. created more jobs in March than at any time in the past three years, showing the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s is broadening and becoming more entrenched.

Private payrolls increased by 123,000 in March, the third consecutive increase and the biggest since May 2007. Employment at government agencies climbed by 39,000 workers, reflecting the increase in census staff. Budget-constrained state and local governments reduced headcount last month.

“The federal government didn’t hire nearly as many Census workers as thought,” Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc. in Holland, Pennsylvania, said in an e-mail to clients. “It was the private sector that stepped up to the plate. The growth was broad-based as well.”

THESE ANALYSES ARE TROUBLESOME

Jon Eisenberg, the trial lawyer who won the recent illegal wiretapping case, thinks that the Obama Administration is worse than the criminal Bush regime on this very important 4th Amendment issue. Worse, Dave Lindorff at Counterpunch makes a good case that on several other issues, the Obama administration is no different and sometimes worse than the Bush regime. (h/t Ken Hoop)

If the Rule of Law is to have real meaning in America, then the Obama Administration will have to reverse course on these matters.

PRES. OBAMA PUSHES BACK AGAINST THE RADICAL GASBAGS

Unlike Medved, Pres. Obama wasn't shy about naming a couple of the radio freaks who are trying to inflame their listeners. In a brief interview with Harry Smith on CBS' The Early Show, he spoke out:

Obama: Extreme Right-Wing Shows "Troublesome"
Tells Harry Smith He's Concerned about "Demonization" in Politics; Calls on Dems, GOP Alike to "Tone Down" Rhetoric

(CBS) President Obama has noticed the "vitriol" in the nation's political atmosphere these days and says it's time both sides cooled it.

In a brief interview with "The Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday before they shot some hoops on the White House basketball court, Mr. Obama called the extreme nature of some of the barbs directed his way on conservative talk shows "troublesome."

The remarks came in response to Smith telling him he's been listening to talk radio and "the kindest of terms you're sometimes referred to out in America is 'a Socialist.' The worst of which I've heard is -- called 'a Nazi."'

Asked by Smith whether he's "aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation" about him, Mr. Obama replied, "Well -- I mean, I think that -- when you've listened to Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck it's …"

"It's beyond that," Smith interjected.

"It's pretty - apparent," the president continued, "and -- it's troublesome. But -- you know, keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of -- this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when -- you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling that there's a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans."

IT'S NOT ONLY A REGULATORY PROBLEM, IT'S ALSO

a cultural problem. The Wall Street banksters and their enablers simply failed to control their greed and let the bubble grow until it exploded. Changing the rules will do some good but we have to change the culture and that means barring thousands from Wall Street.

Where was Moody's board when top-rated bonds blew up?
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, April 2, 2010

WASHINGTON — As the bottom fell out of the housing market and complex mortgage-backed securities began tanking in 2007, a strange thing happened at Moody's Investors Service, one of the largest firms that rate bonds for the risks they pose to investors.

Moody's blue-ribbon board of directors stopped receiving key information from an internal committee that was supposed to keep the board informed of risks to the company, a McClatchy investigation has found.

Instead, the ad hoc risk-management committee suddenly disappeared, precisely at the time when the board and management should have been shifting to higher alert as the financial world began quaking.

When the global financial crisis deepened in 2007 and the integrity of bond ratings came under attack, the captains of industry on the Moody's board seldom asked tough questions, according to former Moody's executives who made presentations to the board.

That's important, because the legislation to overhaul financial regulation that's now moving through Congress aims to empower ratings-agency boards by requiring a direct line of communication between the company officials who police for risks and the boards. It's not clear whether that would have made any difference at Moody's.

A NON-LUNATIC GASBAG

For a change, I listened to a bit of Michael Medved's show today and I was a bit surprised to find him denouncing other radio hosts who claim that Pres. Obama is a socialist or a Communist. Medved said those words don't apply at all to Pres. Obama, he's just an ordinary big government liberal. Medved also said those who claim that Pres. Obama has surrounded himself with Marxist adevisors are simply wrong because none of his top advisors and none of his cabinet members are Marxist. Van Jones was just a 4th tier bureaucrat who Pres. Obama barely knew, so he doesn't count.

It's clear that Medved is referring to Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and Mark Levin but he did not have the courage to mention them by name.

AND SUB-NORMAL CAN BE DANGEROUS

The combination of stupidity and ignorance make Bagger-types susceptible to crazy wingnut propaganda. Steve Benen wrote about a good example, Tina Stone, a member of the Hutaree terrorist group. Tina fell for this bogus viral e-mail:

"H.B. 1388 Passed.... It's bad news for us all," she wrote.

She added: "I'm peeved,,, when people in this country is getting kicked out of there homes everyday and our government passes a bill to spend more then 20 billion dollars to bring Hamas here and supplies them with food and homes that just wrong."

YEAH, BAGGERS ARE SUB-NORMAL

(h/t Wonkette)

There are a bunch of pics of stupid Bagger signs here. Here are a few to whet your appetite...

MORE EVIDENCE OF CONSERVATIVE BAD FAITH

(h/t David Edwards and Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story)

I posted before about how several prominent Baggers are taking full advantage of the welfare state they claim to despise and ABC News provides a little more evidence that this phenomenon is widespread.

In Idaho, a Militia Trains ... for What?
Health Care, Economy Rank High on Militia's List of Complaints About Federal Government
By RYAN OWENS and ELY BROWN
March 30, 2010
NIGHTLINE

"Nightline" visited a recent Saturday training session of the 21st Battalion of North Idaho's Lightfoot Militia -- a heavily armed force that, we're told, numbers more than 100.

Their leader is "Major" Jeff Stankiewicz, an unemployed welder with zero military experience.

Randall Klein is one of the newest members of the militia. He joined about a month ago after losing his job.

But, as we said, most we talked to -- including Stankiewicz -- don't have a job.

GOOD FOR YAHOO!

It's decided to give some front page space today to an article pointing out how ignorant conservatives are, especially Dick Armey.


The link goes to this McClatchy article, "Not satisfied with U.S. history, some conservatives rewrite it."

This also made the front page of Yahoo News:

THE FREE MARKET FAIRY IS AT WORK AGAIN

Do you remember what happened to the price of oil the last time speculators decided to play in oil futures? According to this report in McClatchy, they're at it again:

What's driving up oil prices again? Wall Street, of course
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, April 1, 2010

WASHINGTON — Oil consumption has fallen, demand from U.S. motorists for gasoline is flat at best and refiners that turn crude into fuel are operating well below capacity. Yet oil prices keep marching toward $90 a barrel, pushing gasoline toward $3 a gallon in many markets, and prompting American drivers to ask, "What gives?"

Blame it on the same folks who brought you $140 oil and $4 gasoline in 2008: Wall Street speculators.

Experts attribute much of the recent rise in prices to flows of speculative money into oil markets.

Here's what U.S. demand has been like for the past few years...

ANOTHER WINGNUT BOGEYMAN DEMOLISHED

The wingnuts often say that illegal aliens are costing us billions because they inordinately use government-provided services. A nice test case is the California public universities and community colleges. Overall, less than 1% of the enrolled students aren't legal residents.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEEING LESBIAN BONDAGE SCENES

For one, Tony Perkins of the Jeebus group Family Research Council has written to all of the FRC's Fundies and told them NOT to contribute to the RNC. He does give the OK for them to contribute to candidates they know are really conservative. He's also pissed because the RNC hired super-lawyer Ted Olson because he's also fighting for the legalization of gay marriage.

This becomes a little more interesting when we consider that the Tea Baggers haven't pushed social issues, so we may be seeing the beginning of the Fundies turning away from politics.

IS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AFRAID?

Glenn Greenwald has been following the charges of illegal wiretapping against the criminal Bush regime and the subsequent defense of the regime by Pres. Obama's DOJ. I'm wondering if the Obama Administration wants to prevent any finding of illegality because that would lead to very high profile trials of former Bush Administration officials.

GUIDE TO HOSPITALS AND DOCTORS

I've written before that people don't have ready access to information about how good their local health care system and its components are and today I found one source that seems to provide some of that information: Healthgrades.

Of more interest is a study of hospitals based on Medicare data:

HealthGrades identifies patient safety incidence rates among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation’s 5,000 nonfederal hospitals.

This I found most interesting:

From 2006 through 2008:

• There were 958,202 total patient safety events affecting 908,401 Medicare beneficiaries which represents 2.29% of the nearly 39.5 million Medicare hospitalizations (see Appendix C).

• These patient safety events were associated with nearly $8.9 billion of excess cost (see Appendix E).

I thought the excess costs would be much higher.

OK, LET'S SEE IF THERE WILL BE A REAL REFORM BILL

Treasury Secretary Geithner admits that the banksters' casino can no longer be tolerated but will the Administration enact real reform? If they do, then that will reduce the risk of the GOP getting control of the House this Fall.

Geithner: Disparity in recovery 'deeply unfair'
Apr 1 08:51 AM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday it's "deeply unfair" that some financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession than millions of ordinary Americans.

He acknowledged public outrage over that and said people watched with disdain as Washington protected high-risk banks and investment houses, even as the national unemployment rate was soaring to double-digit levels for the first time in a generation.

"What happened in our country should never happen again," he said. "People were paid for taking enormous risks. It was a crazy way to run a financial system." Geithner said, "It's the government's job ... to do a better job of restraining that kind of risk-taking."