FATS LIMBAUGH IS A FRIGGING SUPER-DUPER GENIUS

He points out what no one else could: If we had fewer billionaires, we would have less income inequality. From his 11/7/2011 show:

RUSH: Barron's, November 7th issue, editorial commentary. It's on page 47. Entitled, "Hard Come, Easy Go," by Thomas G. Donlan. "Twelve reasons..." This is the highlight of this piece.

"Twelve reasons why there is more inequality in the US are Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin [Google], Larry Page[Google], Michael Dell, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos," that'd be Amazon to you, "Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey..." Those are 12 reasons why there is more inequality -- and you could add this Zuckerberg Facebook guy for 13.

MORE HERMAN CAIN AMUSEMENT

Politifact has classed 3 of this statements as "pants on fire":

All statements involving Herman Cain

Herman Cain

They've had it for more than 40 years

China is "trying to develop nuclear capability."

Herman Cain

Oh yes he did. Three times.

"I did not say that I would not have them [Muslims] in my Cabinet."

Herman Cain

Only if by "genocide" he means "public health project"

Said Planned Parenthood’s early objective was to "help kill black babies before they came into the world

ANOTHER CONSERVATIVE DOPE-GENIUS

(h/t The Dish)

This time it's Jack Kemp, a supply-side economics Apostle:

“Here’s a black guy with the voice of Othello, the looks of a football player, the English of Oxfordian quality, and the courage of a lion,” - the late Jack Kemp on Herman Cain.

AFP CROWD LOOKS PRETTY WHITE TO ME

Mark "Foamer" Levin gave the keynote address to the Americans For Prosperity meeting in DC on Saturday and he was a bit subdued - not one rant.  You can watch the video here if your interested and I made a few screen caps of the crowd.

WHAT WILL FATS, THE BABY JESUS AND ESPECIALLY FOAMER SAY?

Neo-con Archduke-bishop (yes, there once were titles like that) William "The Bloody" Kristol admits that the GOP's candidates really are a clown show and that means Pres. Obama will be re-elected.

Bill Kristol concedes 2012 presidential race to Democrats
By David Ferguson
Saturday, November 5, 2011
THE RAW STORY

In a column at the Weekly Standard website, former New York Times columnist Bill Kristol opines that “assuming that presidential field remains as it is” for the GOP, “2012 won’t be a repeat of 1980″. He is referring to the election of Ronald Reagan after Jimmy Carter’s single term in the White House.

BILLY AND THE BIRTHERS

Billy Cunningham is still getting calls from die-hard Birthers.

THANK YOU AGAIN, MR. RITHOLTZ

Barry Ritholtz has been posting terrific articles on his blog, The Big Picture, for years and I've learned a great deal from him. Today he has an op-ed in the WaPo that demolishes the wingnut's Big Lie that Fannie, Freddie and the CRA were responsible for the Housing Bubble and gives us the true reasons behind the Great Recession.

What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral.
By Barry Ritholtz, Published: November 5

They all suffer cognitive dissonance — the intellectual crisis that occurs when a failed belief system or philosophy is confronted with proof of its implausibility.

And what about those facts? To be clear, no single issue was the cause. Our economy is a complex and intricate system. What cused the crisis? Look:

- Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent — levels not seen for half a century — and kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. This caused a spiral in anything priced in dollars (i.e., oil, gold) or credit (i.e., housing) or liquidity driven (i.e., stocks).

- Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities. Nearly all of them failed to do adequate due diligence before buying them, did not understand these instruments or the risk involved. They violated one of the most important rules of investing: Know what you own.

- Fund managers made this error because they relied on the credit ratings agencies — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.

- Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.

- The Securities and Exchange Commission changed the leverage rules for just five Wall Street banks in 2004. The “Bear Stearns exemption” replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. These banks ramped leverage to 20-, 30-, even 40-to-1. Extreme leverage leaves very little room for error.

- Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.

- The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.

- These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.

- “Innovative” mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers. These include 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, piggy-bank mortgages (simultaneous underlying mortgage and home-equity lines) and the notorious negative amortization loans (borrower’s indebtedness goes up each month). These mortgages defaulted in vastly disproportionate numbers to traditional 30-year fixed mortgages.

- To keep up with these newfangled originators, traditional banks developed automated underwriting systems. The software was gamed by employees paid on loan volume, not quality.

- Glass-Steagall legislation, which kept Wall Street and Main Street banks walled off from each other, was repealed in 1998. This allowed FDIC-insured banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the government, to engage in highly risky business. It also allowed the banks to bulk up, becoming bigger, more complex and unwieldy.

- Many states had anti-predatory lending laws on their books (along with lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency federally preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. Following this change, national lenders sold increasingly risky loan products in those states. Shortly after, their default and foreclosure rates skyrocketed.

PIZZA GUY CAN'T RUN WITH THE BIG DOG

Bill Clinton's popularity went UP after he was impeached by the House but Herman Cain is specializing in the slow fade:

Cain's support dips after sex accusations: poll
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON | Sun Nov 6, 2011 1:02pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Allegations that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain sexually harassed women in the 1990s have begun to damage his bid for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

The poll showed the percentage of Republicans who view Cain favorably dropped 9 percentage points, to 57 percent from 66 percent a week ago.

Among all registered voters, Cain's favorability declined 5 percentage points, to 32 percent from 37 percent.

A RARE EVENT

Some time ago, Media Matters had a piece about Ann Coulter's extremism and gave several examples of her many outrageous comments.  I almost posted that I thought a couple of them were funny, not extreme.

Today, Media Matters reports on a true right-wing nut, Dan Riehl, and I have to admit that I think Riehl is correct:

It's been clear that Conservatism has lacked for strong political leadership for some years. Fortunately, there are several bright young stars coming up that offer hope for Conservatism's future. I'm by no means writing it off completely as a movement. But that so many conservatives, driven by nothing more than negative emotions, would allow themselves to be drawn in by a jive talking huckster with silly cobbled together at the last minute plans designed more for pizza box sloganeering, than governing a great nation, is embarrassing.

I would go beyond Riehl and also call Palin, Bachmann, Gingrich and Perry jive talking hucksters and it seems Riehl might agree:

This isn't a serious political movement right now, it's a clown show, one with which I'm coming to resent being affiliated.

JUST EXACTLY WHICH BANKSTER FIRMS ARE "TOO BIG TO FAIL"?

The Financial Stability Board has a press release that lets us all know:

Bank of America
Bank of China
Bank of New York Mellon
Banque Populaire CdE
Barclays
BNP Paribas
Citigroup
Commerzbank
Credit Suisse
Deutsche Bank
Dexia
Goldman Sachs
Group Crédit Agricole
HSBC
ING Bank
JP Morgan Chase
Lloyds Banking Group
Mitsubishi UFJ FG
Mizuho FG
Morgan Stanley
Nordea
Royal Bank of Scotland
Santander
Société Générale
State Street
Sumitomo Mitsui FG
UBS
Unicredit Group
Wells Fargo

JUST LIKE FATS, DEMINT HAS ALSO CHANGED

Back in 2008, Fats Limbaugh said Romney was a perfect conservative and in the same year, Romney was endorsed by Sen. DeMint.  This year, DeMint isn't endorsing Romney or anyone else.

NO, FANNIE & FREDDIE WEREN'T TO BLAME

(h/t The Dish)
This is the money quote from an article by David Min:

Did Fannie and Freddie buy high-risk mortgage-backed securities? Yes. But they did not buy enough of them to be blamed for the mortgage crisis. Highly respected analysts who have looked at these data in much greater detail than [American Enterprise Institute's Peter] Wallison, [AEI consultant Ed] Pinto, or myself, including the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office [pdf], the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies [pdf], the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission majority [pdf], the Federal Housing Finance Agency [pdf], and virtually all academics, including the University of North Carolina [pdf], Glaeser et al at Harvard [pdf], and the St. Louis Federal Reserve [pdf], have all rejected the Wallison/Pinto argument that federal affordable housing policies were responsible for the proliferation of actual high-risk mortgages over the past decade.

I THOUGHT FAUX NEWS WOULDN'T GO THROUGH WITH THIS

Hiring Gov. Appalachian Trial doesn't seem to fit with FAUX's promotion of Family Values.

Mark Sanford Hired By Fox News: Former SC Governor To Become 2012 Election Commentator
10/22/11 03:46 PM ET
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is joining Fox News as a political commentator through the 2012 presidential elections, a Fox Channel spokeswoman confirmed Saturday.

The network spokeswoman told The Associated Press the two-term Republican governor has been hired as a contributor, though she declined to give any details on his pay or when he would start.

The folks who read FAUX Nation weren't happy about this:

BERTRAND RUSSELL ON CAPITALISM IN 1920

Russell is mostly known for his work in mathematics and philosophy but he was also active in politics.  He wrote Practice & Theory of Bolshevism in 1920 and gave us a clear-sighted view of the many shortcomings of Bolshevik ideology.   He also noted a serious problem with the capitalism of his day:

The graver evils of the capitalist system all arise from its uneven distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers or their services to the community. They control almost the whole of education and the press; they decide what the average man shall know or not know; the cinema has given them a new method of propaganda, by which they enlist the support of those who are too frivolous even for illustrated papers. Very little of the intelligence of the world is really free: most of it is, directly or indirectly, in the pay of business enterprises or wealthy philanthropists. To satisfy capitalist interests, men are compelled to work much harder and more monotonously than they ought to work, and their education is scamped....It is this sacrifice of the individual to the machine that is the fundamental evil of the modern world.

CONSERVATIVES IN DISARRAY

Fats Limbaugh defended Pizza Guy and Michele Bachmann attacked him, so the Cain Mutiny continues to divide the wackos.  Cain is popular enough to become the Democrats' best weapon!

MY VERY OWN WACKY IDEA

We know that early on, conservatives were terrified of the hippies so I'm wondering if a number of them decided to screw the middle class because that's where most of the hippies came from?

IF TRUE, THIS IS GOOD NEWS

(h/t The Dish)

I recall reading that the Scopes trial turned Fundies away from politics for generations.  Can I hope for another retreat?  Maybe...

Religious Right Still Lacking a Champion in 2012 Field
Nov 3 2011, 11:43 AM ET
Molly Ball
THE ATLANTIC

Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the GOP candidates' tough talk on illegal immigration, as well as their anti-government fervor, are alienating Christian voters.

"I am more of a Bushie than a Reagan or Perry on these issues. Reaganism believed that government is a necessary evil and we should have as little of it as possible. I happen to think government can be used as a way of empowering people to make good, positive decisions for themselves."

Land cited the post-World War II G.I. Bill as an example as well as a robust commitment to foreign aid. In addition, he bemoaned the demonizing of illegal immigrants.

ALMOST MAKING SENSE

Remember how major GOP pols like Cantor started treating OWS with a little respect because of poll numbers?  Well, Snow Snooki (Sarah Palin) herself makes also gives OWS a little respect before lapsing into agit-prop.  Here's her statement with the crap at the end left out:

I looked at [Occupy Wall Street] and was thinking these folks, they feel legitimate indignation about the Wall Street bailouts, financial institutions behaving recklessly and then we get stuck with the bill. And then three years later, many of us are still quite ticked off because we don’t have assurances that those who caused the financial collapse in the first place, that they are being held accountable, and that it won’t happen again.

REMEMBER BERNIE MADOFF?

He was a major MOTU and so was Jon Corzine yet they are both terribly dishonest.  We need to realize that Wall Street attracts and creates scum like these two.

I'M ENJOYING THIS

(h/t Memeo)

Gasbag Cain is finding out that the rules are different once you get out from behind the microphone.  By itself, Cain's ties to the Koch brothers won't hurt him in the primaries but if Cain has illegally gotten Koch money, he's in more trouble

PIZZA GUY REALLY IS JUST A BAD REALITY SHOW

When conservative extremists like this guy attack you, it's time to quit.

Erick Erickson / RedState:
The Herman Cain Campaign Is Stuck on Stupid

THIS IS ALMOST AS GOOD AS...

"I am not a witch," the ad which practically immortalized Bagger candidate Christine O'Donnell:

Rick Perry denies drinking or drugs influenced his strange NH speech
By Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket – 15 hrs ago

RADIO TIDBITS

I forgot to mention that John Gibson also thinks that Perry, Bachmann and Cain are toast and should all drop out of the GOP primaries.

Mark "Foamer" Levin surprised me today when he mimicked Glenda Beck by calling Woodrow Wilson a Fabian socialist.

THIS REPORT MAY BE THE TIPPING POINT FOR CAIN

A conservative talk radio host in Iowa who is admittedly no fan of Pizza Guy claims that Herman made several inappropriate remarks to his female staff members recently.  What lends a little more credence to his claim is the fact that Cain's campaign manager Mark Block admitted something like this occurred.

LET'S NOT CRY FOR CORPORATIONS

Some of them actually do pay near the top rate of 35% but many don't and its not clear to me how that can be economically justified.  :

Study: Many Fortune 500 cos. paid $0 taxes
By David Morgan
November 3, 2011 3:00 AM
CBS News

In a study comprising more than half of the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations, a quarter of those examined paid little or nothing in federal income taxes during the 2008-2010 period, despite registering profits in all three years.

Of those 280 companies, 78 corporations had at least one year during which their U.S. federal tax was zero or less, and many had more than one year paying no tax, despite recording profits; many of these companies also received tax rebates. In 2009 alone, 49 companies earned combined profits of $78.6 billion, yet paid no taxes - and collected tax rebates totaling $10.8 billion.

The following 30 profitable corporations paid no U.S. income tax from 2008-2010:

Company / 2008-10 Profits ($ millions) / 2008-10 Taxes ($ millions) / Effective 2008-10 Rate
Pepco Holdings $ 882 / $ -508 / -57.6%
General Electric 10,460 / -4,737 / -45.3%
Paccar 365 / -112 / -30.5%
PG&E Corp. 4,855 / -1,027 / -21.2%
Computer Sciences 1,666 / -305 / -18.3%
NiSource 1,385 / -227 / -16.4%
CenterPoint Energy 1,931 / -284 / -14.7%
Tenet Healthcare 415 / -48 / -11.6%
Atmos Energy 897 / -104 / -11.6%
Integrys Energy Group 818 / -92 / -11.3%
American Electric Power 5,899 / -545 / -9.2%
Con-way 286 / -26 / -9.1%
Ryder System 627 / -46 / -7.3%
Baxter International 926 / -66 / -7.1%
Wisconsin Energy 1,725 / -85 / -4.9%
Duke Energy 5,475 / -216 / -3.9%
DuPont 2,124 / -72 / -3.4%
Consolidated Edison 4,263 / -127 / -3.0%
Verizon Communications 32,518 / -951 / -2.9%
Interpublic Group 571 / -15 / -2.6%
CMS Energy 1,292 / -29 / -2.2%
NextEra Energy 6,403 / -139 / -2.2%
Navistar International 896 / -18 / -2.0%
Boeing 9,735 / -178 / -1.8%
Wells Fargo 49,370 / -681 / -1.4%
El Paso 4,105 / -41 / -1.0%
Mattel 1,020 / -9 / -0.9%
Honeywell International 4,903 / -34 / -0.7%
DTE Energy 2,551 / -17 / -0.7%
Corning 1,977 / -4 / -0.2%
TOTAL: On $160.341 billion in profits, they paid $ -10.742 billion in taxes, for an average effective tax rate of -6.7%.

THE CAIN MUTINY

So far this week, Sean Hannity, John Gibson and War Whore Laura Ingraham have all said on air that Herman Cain handled the harassment story poorly.   WWI also pointed out Cain's China gaffe.  The only Cain defender I know among the "back benchers" is Dennis "The Pious" Prager.

In another vignette of Cain's Bubble World, he walked by the Secretary of the Treasury without recognizing him (from the LA Times):

In one of the weirder moments, Cain, his entourage, the pack of reporters and a few police officers passed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a crowded stairwell. Geithner smiled as in disbelief and kept walking.

PIZZA GUY ON FOREIGN POLICY

Herman Cain said:

I don’t believe that you need to have extensive foreign policy experience if you know how to make sure you’re working on the right problems, establishing the right priorities, surrounding yourself with good people, which will allow you to put together the plans necessary to solve the problem. (h/t Ali Gharib at Think Progress)

and then proves that he doesn't have even a little foreign policy experience:

Herman Cain Warns China Is Seeking ‘Nuclear Capability’

REALITY:

China made remarkable progress in the 1960s in developing nuclear weapons. In a thirty-two-month period, China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb (October 16, 1964), launched its first nuclear missile (October 25, 1966), and detonated its first hydrogen bomb (June 14, 1967). SOURCE:Federation of American Scientists

THE GOP HAS BECOME THE TALK RADIO PARTY

(h/t The Dish)

Ed Rogers really is a conservative:

Ed Rogers is a co-host of The Insiders blog, offering commentary from a conservative perspective on Election 2012. He is also chairman of the lobbying and communications firm BGR Group, which he founded with now-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour in 1991. Rogers has been involved with numerous Republican political campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In the first Bush White House, he reported to chief of staff John Sununu. In the Reagan White House, he worked in the office of political affairs.

This is how he views the GOP primary voters:

And we don’t have much tolerance for too many facts or too much information. In politics, a bumper sticker always beats an essay.

WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG?

The Supreme Court decided that corporations are people back in January 2010 so why wasn't this bill introduced in February?

Sens. Udall, Bennet propose amendment to overturn Citizens United ruling
By Eric W. Dolan
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
THE RAW STORY

Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado introduced a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The proposed amendment would grant Congress and the states the authority to regulate the campaign finance system, but would not dictate any specific policies or regulations.

IT'S NOT JUST NILE GARDINER

Nile is a Brit wingnut who was adopted by the Heritage Foundation and radio gasbags and there are many others.  (h/t Atrios)

Liam Fox: A Wingnut from Across the Pond
October 31, 2011 at 6:04PM by Charles P. Pierce
ESQUIRE

But this latest from the Guardian demonstrates that Fox's connections to the American right are deeper and more involved than anyone had a right to believe
The organisation signed a special partnership with the American Legislative Council (Alec), whose motto is "Limited government, free markets, federalism." Overseen by Catherine Bray, a former adviser to the climate-change sceptic Roger Helmer, a Tory MEP, the project focused on "providing an arena for young conservative leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to build close personal and professional relationships.

REMEMBER LIFELOCK?

That's one of the major sponsors of wingnut radio gasbags, none of whom mentioned that the company paid a $12 million fine for deceptive claims. Well, Lifelock is not the only fraudulent company that supports the gasbags (h/t Atrios):

Goldline Execs Charged With Fraud
By MATTHEW MOSK and BRIAN ROSS (@brianross)
Nov. 1, 2011
ABC News

Goldline, a company that used endorsements from Glenn Beck and other conservative icons to sell hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers, has been charged with theft and fraud in a 19-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday by local officials in California.

The complaint alleges that Goldline "runs a bait and switch operation in which customers, seeking to invest in gold bullion, are switched to highly overpriced coins by using false and misleading claims," according to a statement released by the consumer affairs division of the Santa Monica City Attorney's office.

The company has been charged in the court filing with misdemeanors that include theft by false pretenses, false advertising, and conspiracy, the City Attorney's office said. In addition to the charges against the company, the complaint accuses former CEO Mark Albarian, executives Robert Fazio and Luis Beeli, and salespeople Charles Boratgis and Stephanie Howard of defrauding customers. Current CEO Scott Carter is accused of making false or misleading statements. Each of the charged offenses carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and maximum fines of between $1,000 and $10,000 per offense.