IT'S NOT JUST HUGH HEWITT

There is something in the conservative mind that simply can't grasp the pop culture of the young. A recent example is Hugh Hewitt suggesting that Jonah Goldberg is somehow hip. Decades earlier, even The Master, William F. Buckley, completely missed out on the obvious in 1964:

“The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic.”

THE CONSERVATIVES ARE CRUMBLING

Their national elected officials can't seem to offer any constructive ideas. The TEA parties may be leading to a 3rd party instead of a GOP resurgence and Glenn Beck disturbs even hard-core righties like Rick Moran and Allahpundit of Hot Air.

TEA FOR A 3RD PARTY?

Fats Limbaugh isn't the only winger worried about the rise of a 3rd party from the TEA demonstrations. The Ole Perfesser also sees a dark lining:

The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama's policies, aren't especially friendly to the GOP. When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago tea party, his request was politely refused by the organizers . . .

ANOTHER BAD TREASURY DEAL

How come the American tax payer didn't get at least as good a deal as the big banks (or Warren Buffett)?

Rescued Banks Balk at Chrysler Deal
Creditors Pushed To Surrender Claims Of Billions
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 17, 2009

About three-quarters of the $7 billion in Chrysler's senior secured debt -- or debt that takes precedence and is backed by assets -- is owed to the four major banks, the rest to an array of other financial institutions such as hedge funds. By contrast, Treasury officials expect that the government, which loaned Chrysler $4 billion earlier this year from the bailout program, would receive nothing back.

TEA PARTIES ARE NONSENSE

These people are whining about something that isn't a problem: Bruce Bartlett points out that effective Federal taxes on the median family are under 6% and that's lower than they've been for the entire period 1958-2002. On the other hand, income inequality has reached a level not seen since 1929 and that means the top 1% have been doing GREAT.

YES, WE DID MURDER IRAQIS

(h/t Attaturk and John Cole)

You may recall that Cpl. Lopezromo said the Marines considered all Iraqi men part of the insurgency and thus fair game. Well, that attitude really was widespread.

NCO gets life for slaying Iraqi detainees
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, April 17, 2009

VILSECK, Germany — "I ain’t no angel," admitted a 172nd Infantry Brigade noncommissioned officer shortly before a military jury sentenced him Thursday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the execution-style murders of four Iraqi detainees in 2007.

Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40, also was reduced to the rank of private and dishonorably discharged less than six months short of 20 years of service.

ANOTHER "SPITTING" STORY

A caller, who is somehow connected with Hollywood but I didn't get the name, related a story about a female armed service member who was at a restaurant in Maine back in 2006. A woman came over to her table and threw her plate in the lap of the service member and called her a baby killer.

HANNITY'S VERSION OF "CUT HIS MIC"

Geraldo Rivera was pointing out that Gov. Perry of Texas was on the fringe and finally Hannity couldn't take any more.




(h/t County Fair)

WHY CHICK-FIL-A?

In this Tucson TEA Party post, I noted that a woman handed out coupons for a Chick-Fil-A special offer. I thought this was just good marketing but it looks like it's a lot more than that. It turns out that Chick-Fil-A is owned and run by Fundies who back conservative causes. (h/t Faiz Shakir at Think Progress)

REP. PETER KING (R-TALK RADIO) IS IGNORANT

Riffing on the wingnut flap about the DHS report, King says this nonsense:

Look out for the fact that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police.

No cooperation? Here's what then-FBI Director Mueller said on 9/27/2001:

I want to add that I met earlier today with key leaders of the Arab American, Muslim American and Sikh American communities, and we addressed issues of mutual concern and discussed ways which we could together address those concerns.

I want to today acknowledge the outpouring of support and cooperation that the FBI has received from these communities, not only in the course of our investigation, but in response to our call last week for translators. We literally were inundated with volunteers from any one of the Arab American, Muslim American, Sikh American communities. And I want to thank those communities for their assistance in this regard, as well as their assistance in our investigations.

HAYDEN AND MUKASEY TRY TO EVADE THE TORTURE PROBLEM

In order to defend the legality of what any reasonable person would deem illegal interrogation procedures, they lapse into relativism:

Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.

This isn't simply a matter of changing tastes, it's a matter of what the law requires and that's what Hayden and Mukasey have deliberately avoided, as did Prof. Yoo when he tried to explain the torture memos as a product of circumstances rather than objective legal reasoning.

RIGHT-WING POPULISM?

On Hannity's radio show today, he played excerpts from a Country Western song that cast the Wall Street bankers in a bad light and I thought that this sentiment certainly goes against the GOP's well known catering to business interests and is another example of the inner contradictions of GOP philosophy. Arianna thinks this populism may work to the GOP's advantage because:

...a grassroots populist backlash fueled by the perception -- one based on a lot of reality -- that the Obama economic team is treating Wall Street with kid gloves, and acting as if the interests of the big banks are aligned with the public interest, even though again and again we are presented with evidence of how much they diverge.

I can't see the GOP successfully portraying the Democrats as the "Party of Wall Street Bankers."

THEY'RE GETTING WORSE

The governor of Texas goes to a TEA Party and tells the audience that Texas may secede from the Union and the Georgia Senate passes a resolution that states:

"...if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded. As an example, the resolution specifically states that if the federal government enacts “prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition,” the country is disbanded."

I'd like to pass these off as merely examples of sore losers but the problem is that some of the more extreme wingnuts will take these statements very seriously.

ANOTHER CHAPTER OF "WHAT REALLY HAPPENED"

The wingnuts are in an uproar over a misinterpretation of a DHS report on right-wing extremism. They spin it as an attack on the entire military. Here's the relevant excerpt that proves they are wrong again:

(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

— (U) After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military veterans — including Timothy McVeigh—joined or associated with right wing extremist groups.

— (U) A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are nowlearning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”

— (U//LES) The FBI noted in a 2008 report on the white supremacist movement that some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.

WHY CAN'T WE KNOW THE NAME?

In a Politico story about the release of some of the torture memos, there's this quote:

A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos "unbelievable."

"It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are," the official said. "We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. . Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again - even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."


"I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either one, the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against."

First, there's reason to think the torture wasn't at all useful. Second, why give this person anonymity?

RADIO TIDBITS

Fats made an interesting comment today about the TEA parties:

My greatest concern about this is that there are -- I don't want to impugn anybody here -- but there's a possibility that this is going to lead to a third-party movement, and that's death. Third-party candidates succeed in one thing, and that is electing their alternatives.

Also today, Mark Levin issued the same warning and I suppose that means that the TEA parties weren't an unalloyed success for the GOP.

Fats went on to make the political landscape perfectly clear:

I've been frightened about this Obama stuff for a long time, but it's clearly us versus them. It really is. It's us versus them. ... It really is, it's an us versus them, and "them" now includes the media, without question, without any doubt about this whatsoever.

TTP UPDATE

I may have drastically underestimated the crowd at the Tucson Tea Party. One of the local papers gives a much larger estimate:

Protesters throw a Tea Party
2,000 in Tucson join throngs rallying across US against spending
By Brian J. Pedersen
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.16.200

In comments on a previous post, others think the real number may be between 2800 and 3000.

AND SOME SIMPLY REFUSE TO GET IT

I tried to show a commenter at Politico that Sean Hannity was a liar and pasted an old post to prove it to him. Depite the link I provided to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this was his reply:

It is the truth. Any one can find phony numbers. You get your info from MoveOn? DailyKos? Your numbers are bull.

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET IT

Some of the people who attended the Tucson Tea Party were obviously collecting Social Security and Medicare but that won't stop them from railing against "Big Government." Atrios found this comment from an attendee at another TEA Party:

Anti-tax 'tea party' could draw crowd to downtown Syracuse
by Mike McAndrew / The Post-Standard
Wednesday April 15, 2009, 6:14 AM

Syracuse, NY -- Joanne Wilder has never protested anything in public before. She's never boxed with City Hall, let alone Washington.

"I've been a quiet little person my whole life," she said.

But today in downtown Syracuse, the 60-year-old great-grandmother will lead a Tax Day Tea Party protest against the spending policies of the Obama administration and Congress.

After a lifetime of working, paying taxes and raising three children on her own, Wilder is struggling.

She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors.

She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low.

"I don't want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we're in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines," Wilder said.

Social Security and disability payments are part of the welfare state, so Wilder seems to be willing to be homeless.

ANOTHER FAUX NEWS HACK GETS CAUGHT LYING

Jed Lewison at Daily Kos has this great clip proving that Neil Cavuto is a LIAR. Here's the transcript:

CAVUTO: Any estimates on how many people are here?

PRODUCER: No, we’re trying to get…

CAVUTO: There’s gotta’ be 5,000.

PRODUCER: Oh, at least. You know, I mean the cops aren’t going to tell us, and we’ve been trying to get ahold of the PR person to give us their number, but I think 5,000. You can say it’s starting at 5,000 [unintelligble, but sounds like “and maybe it’s more.”].

.....

CAVUTO: I know you cover a lot of these things Shep, so you’re probably better at estimating crowd sizes than I am. They were expecting 5,000 here, it’s got to be easily double, if not triple that.

And here's the clip:

HIGH U.S. TAXES???

(h/t Marc Cooper in the LA Times)

Bruce Bartlett dove into a bunch of OECD statistics and discovered that compared to many other developed countries, Americans are under-taxed. Here's the key quote:

The irony of these protests is that federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product will be lower this year than any year since 1950. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government will take only 15.5% of GDP in taxes this year, compared to 17.7% last year, 18.8% in 2007 and 20.9% in 2000.

In 2006, Ireland, the low-tax state the wingnuts love to use as a good example of what low taxes can do for an economy, the total taxes were 31.9% of GDP compared to only 28% in the U.S. In 2007, the top rate was the same for both countries, 41%.

DHS REPORT & WINGNUT HYSTERIA

The DHS released a report on the possibility that there will be an increase in extremist right-wing actions. The wingnuts are going out of their minds about this but here I'd like to note that 2 right-wing sites, LGF and Strata-Sphere, seem rational in their approach to this news. I consider this a very good sign because they may help restore conservatism to something approaching sanity.

TTP PICTURE

This is from a webcam provided by local wignut station KNST and was taken about 12:49 PM. The crowd seems to have thinned out since I left.

TUCSON TEA PARTY notes

I attended the party from about 9:40AM to a little before 11 AM. The crowd seemed to average about 400-500 although people were coming and going. All 3 wingnut radio stations, KVOI, KNST and KQTH, were represented and I know KQTH broadcast from the rally until 10 AM.

There was a brisk wind today so I wasn't able to hear most of the speakers but I did catch a few snippets from Dave Mason, a local wingnut computer show clown. He told the crowd that a good friend of his who is head of security at Sandia and Hanford was very upset that the Dept. of Homeland Security had called him a terrorist. This refers to a report issued by DHS that was sent to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to warn them about the possibility that radical, right-wing extremist groups may turn to violence.

I spoke with a middle-aged woman who sat next to me who recommended reading Mark Levin's agit-prop book, Tyranny and Liberty but other than that I didn't speak to anyone. A woman came around and handed out promos for Chick-Fil-E, offering a free Chick-n-Strips salad if you buy a medium coke. A middle-aged man came around to promote his radio show on KVOI called "America's Fabric" that airs from 8:00 to 8:30 AM on Sundays.

I spent most of my time writing down the slogans on the signs people had. Here's what I think is a representative sample:

"Capitalism Yes, Socialism No"

"Obama Lies"

"Defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights"

"Global Warming is an Environmental Scam promoting Socialism"

"Cap + Trade = Hidden Taxes"

"Hail to the Thief"

"Welcome back Carter"

"You are NOT entitled"

"PROTEST - not just for hippies any more"

"Stop killing our Constitution"

"Not on OUR dime"

"Got Change? We Don't!!!"

"No more bailouts"

"My freedom is not for sale"

"Don't tax me, Bro"

"Read my lips - No new taxes"

Several people had yellow flags with a snake and the motto "Don't tread on me" and there were also a couple of guys who had a standard U.S. flag with that motto printed on the bottom stripe.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE OLD JOKE ABOUT THE FUSE?

(Via Moe Tkacik at TPM Muckraker)

It goes something like this: The $2000 stereo shorted out to protect the 40 cent fuse. Well, cities and towns across America have been hit with something similar because they purchased credit-default swaps from monoline insurers like MBIA to lower the interest they would pay on their municipal bonds. When those insurers had their credit ratings lowered because they were exposed to the Big Shitpile, the cities and towns had to fork over more collateral for the bonds they issues.

YES, THE SOUTH IS DIFFERENT

(h/t Steve Benen)

Sen. Mitch McConnell stated last January that the GOP was in danger of becoming a regional party because it was only strong in the South. The South also seems more susceptible to conservative smears of France, Europe, NYC and San Francisco.

Maybe that's why I seem to hear a lot of Southern accents in the callers to wingnut radio shows.

ANOTHER CONTRADICTION IN A CONSERVATIVE NARRATIVE

The cons have been saying that government spending doesn't create jobs but with the new DOD budget proposed by Sec. Gates, they suddenly decide that it does creat jobs after all. From Think Progress:

KRUGMAN: What’s so wonderful is watching Republican congressmen saying, “But this will cost jobs!” The very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus, saying government spending never creates jobs, but cutting defense spending costs jobs. It’s wonderful.

HANNITY CAN'T READ

Media Matters has a video clip of Hannity claiming that Obama was forced to signoff on allowing deadly force against the Somali pirates and as I heard it, Hannity was implying that Obama really didn't have much say about using force. That's a preposterous claim to make about the CINC and I decided to look up Hannity's source, a Politico story:

Obama signed off on taking out pirates
By DAVID S. CLOUD & NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON 4/12/09 6:07 PM EDT Updated: 4/13/09 10:39 AM EDT

Obama's involvement in the decision to authorize lethal force was legally required, officials said, because it was a hostage situation, not combat, and unrelated to the already authorized U.S. effort against Al Qaeda and other terror groups, officials said.

“It’s not a combat operation, so the lawyers wanted to ensure this was done right," said a second defense official.

MAYBE BECK REALLY DOES HAVE A MENTAL DISORDER

His mother committed suicide when he was a teenager and there is evidence that depression has a strong genetic component.

DO YOU THINK FATS LIMBAUGH KNOWS BETTER THAN THESE TWO GUYS?

That's a simple yes or no question and I imagine you could also ask Hannity, Levin, Savage, Ingraham or any of the other war whores.

An Era Begins Closing On F-22

"We support the final four F-22s proposed in the fiscal 2009 supplemental request, as this will aid the long-term viability of the F-22 fleet. But the time has come to close out production. That is why we do not recommend that F-22s be included in the fiscal 2010 defense budget.

"Make no mistake: Air dominance remains an essential capability for joint warfighting. The F-22 is a vital tool in the military's arsenal and will remain in our inventory for decades to come. But the time has come to move on."

So concludes a piece in the Washington Post by Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz is chief of staff of the Air Force.

TEAM STUPID ON THE AFA WEB CAST

One of the clowns on the panel said South Carolina had been fiscally responsible. I guess that's why so many counties there are approaching unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression.

MORE ON FREDO'S ECONOMY

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been keeping track of the percentage of the population in the work force since 1948. The curve started heading South once Bush was elected.

DONALD WILDMON ALSO BACKS THE TEA PARTIES

He's the leader of the extreme right-wing American Family Association and he also likes Ann Coulter.

THE MARK LEVIN SOLUTION TO UNEMPLOYMENT

Create your own job! (If only it were that easy)

PARSHALL HASN'T CHANGED

I listened to an hour of her radio show and she's still pro-war, anti-abortion and anti-"ACLU judges."

A SIMPLE ANSWER TO A STUPID QUESTION

Hugh Hewitt: "Has the world really changed that much since 1990?"

YES

REAL PROFITS OR SOCIALIZED PROFITS???

Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have both reported profits for the last quarter but each of them received tens of billions from the U.S. Treasury directly or indirectly through AIG.

ANOTHER HANNITY LIE

On his radio show, Hannity has repeatedly claimed that Pres. Obama wants to unilaterally remove nuclear weapons from America's arsenal. In fact, the President wants to move to reduce nuclear weapons globally, not unilaterally. As you can see from the report below, Hannity is not mistaken, he's lying.

Obama pledges to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons
By Christi Parsons and Tom Hamburger
April 6, 2009
LA Times

Reporting from Washington and Prague, Czech Republic -- President Obama vowed Sunday to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons from the planet, telling a cheering throng in Prague that the United States is ready to lead an international effort to reduce atomic arsenals and the threat they pose.

"We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it."

In the outdoor speech, Obama promised to negotiate a strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia by the end of the year that will significantly reduce the number of nuclear warheads. A few days earlier, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed during meetings in London to produce a new arms control treaty to replace the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START, that expires in December.

The president also called for strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, meant to allow access to nuclear power for nonmilitary use and to secure nuclear weapons and ingredients from terrorists.

THE CRAZIES AND "THEY"

I saw the clip on County Fair and I had to get the transcript from LexisNexis so you can read it for yourself. This is from the April 10th Glenn Beck Show on FAUX¹:

BECK: You know, we were just talking in the break with the guests as they were getting to leave. And the book "American Progressivism" by R.J. Pestritto will just open your eyes and you will see how our founders were just betrayed and buried in the dust.

And I can't help but think what my great, great grandfather used to say - I haven't told you this before but my great, great grandfather is Thomas Paine. And we were like this. I mean, he really was. And he was a gateman and, of course, we were so close.

I remember when he used to take me fishing but that's a different story. If I could channel my great, great, great grandfather right now, gee, what would he say to America today?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB BASSO, "THOMAS PAINE":... Your complacency will only aid and abet to our national suicide. Remember, they wouldn't dare bomb Pearl Harbor, but they did. They wouldn't dare drive two planes into the World Trade Center, but they did. They wouldn't dare pilot a plane through the most sophisticated air defenses in the world and crash into the Pentagon, but they did. They wouldn't dare pass the largest spending bill in history and open defiance of the will of the people, but they did.

Yes, that's right, in BeckWorld, the stimulus bill is as bad as the 9-11 attacks or Pearl Harbor.

¹Fox News Network
April 10, 2009 Friday
SHOW: BECK 5:00 PM EST
BYLINE: Glenn Beck
GUESTS: R.J. Pestritto, Jonah Goldberg, Amity Shlaes, Robert Gellately, Bob Basso
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 7324 words

RICK WARREN WAS A BAD CHOICE

Pres. Obama really shouldn't have talked with him because he's no better than any other rabid theocrat (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

Right now, we are in a stage here in America where we’re going to decide a number of major factors. One of them is will America return to the historic roots, Christian roots, that are foundational for every one of our institutions. Or will we go the way of Europe, and go secular. The bottom line is that secularism doesn’t last, because no faith will always be filled by something else, and so that’s why Islam is making strong inroads into Europe, because faith of any kind will always beat no faith.

CHARLES JOHNSON IS NOT ALONE

Another major wingnut blogger - AJStrata, also thinks the Tea Party freakshows are bad for the GOP:

But I had no idea how fringe the ‘true conservatives’ were - until now. Charles Johnson at LGF posted the following video showing how far right lunatics have taken over the Tea Party movement - and in the process destroyed any hope of a ground swell arising from the grass roots to oppose the liberals in DC.

While in both cases there are occasional moments where these people come back to Earth, for the most part they have lost their minds and are suffering from serious delusions. This foolishness better not be the future of the GOP, because that leads to oblivion.

Please don't interpret this as an endorsement of AJ because he's still one of the lunatics who thinks the GOP has found its Joan of Arc:

I challenge all GOP congressional candidates to get Sarah Palin supporting their team and speaking on their behalf both in ads and on the stump. I would bet that by doing so, a wave of new GOP leaders could be taking their seats in DC in 2011 and begin rolling back the mess the DC liberals are putting in place.

WHAT THE WINGNUTS WILL SAY TOMORROW

Based upon what Billy Cunningham has been saying tonight, the radio gasbags will be whining about the possibility the U.S. will give the pirate who surrendered a trial.

FLEEING TOWARD ABSOLUTE MORALITY

Hayek noted that socialists are more likely turn into conservatives than liberals because they need moral absolutes and Thomas Sowell seems to fit that pattern:

Mind-Changing Books
By Thomas Sowell
April 12, 2009

The writings of Karl Marx-- especially The Communist Manifesto-- had the longest lasting effect on me as a young man and led me to become and remain a Marxist throughout my twenties.

THEY RARELY NAME NAMES

War Whore Victor Davis Hanson writes this absurdity in the NRO:

3) In academic circles the last two decades, pirates have been romanticized in a variety of contexts—as in pirates being contrarian individualists, admirable anarchists, Marxist redistributionists, sexually ambiguous, cross-dressing, transgendered libertines, and Lotus-eater-like sensualists, rather than as murderous criminals. Who knows, maybe such esoteric theorizing has filtered down to the U.S. State Department.

Notice that VD doesn't mention even one source to back up this idiotic claim. Even Crazy Davy Horowitz is better than that.

LOCAL WINGNUT STATIONS PROMOTE TUCSON TEA PARTY

This is from KNST's site:



and this is from KQTH's site:



According to KQTH's online poll, not that many are planning to show up:


According to KQTH, Publius Pundit will host the TTP. Here's who he is:

Publius Pundit was founded in January, 2005, by Robert Mayer as a manifestation of a developing political ideology based on small-government and liberal democracy as a means by which to improve the lives of all people and end major conflicts in the world.

Robert Mayer, the owner of Publius since 2005, is based in Tucson, Arizona, and will focus his actions first there as well as in the state as a whole in order to establish an Arizona Tea Party.

FAUX NEWZ IS STOOPID

Here's the title of an "analysis" piece by FAUX NEWZ:

Somali Pirates Hand Obama Foreign Policy Emergency With No Easy Solution

Here's part of the REALITY:

US sea capt. freed from pirates in swift firefight
Apr 12 01:56 PM US/Eastern
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and LARA JAKES
Associated Press Writers

BANKSTERS IN DENIAL

As a country, we simply can't afford to have bankers who are unwilling to face reality:

Economists at Goldman Sachs estimated recently that banks were valuing their mortgages at about 91 cents on the dollar, far more than investors are willing to pay for them. (NYT, 4/10/2009)

Let's recall that even on some formerly AAA-rated assets, the market value is about 5 cents on the dollar.

"TOP MINDS"???

The NY Times helps spread the mythology of how truly great the MOTU really are:

As Washington cracks down on compensation and tightens regulation of banks, a brain drain is occurring at some of the biggest ones.

They see a rare chance to upgrade talent and standing on Wall Street — and globally — by luring top minds who would not have considered moving from a Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley in flush times.

This is certainly a concern for the banks losing top talent.

Let's recall (1) that these geniuses were primarily responsible for the mess we find ourselves in and (2) keep in mind what Atrios wrote:

Financial institutions are middlemen, skimmers. They don't produce anything. "Financial innovation" is almost entirely a ridiculous concept.