THANK YOU MR. NOCERA!

(h/t Memeo)
Joe Nocera gives some push back on a favorite Bagger Lie:

The Big Lie
By JOE NOCERA
Published: December 23, 2011
NY Times

Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. and His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer.

Paul Krugman gives Nocera some love and Barry Ritholtz notes that the Pinto/Wallison Big Lie is finally getting debunked in mainstream outlets. Kevin Drum has some nice links to real facts about Fannie, Freddie and the Great Recession and Rortybomb has a graph I've been looking for which is originally from this July 2011 report by David Min.

Even using the bogus criteria of Pinto/Wallison, Fannie & Freddie still did MUCH better than private lenders.

IT'S NOT THE UNIONS, IT'S THE CULTURE

(h/t Forbes Magazine)

Conservatives have blamed unions for almost every economic problem in America yet the German auto industry is a powerful counter-example to their agit-prop.

A tale of two systems
Original Reporting | By Kevin C. Brown
Dec. 21, 2011
REMAPPING DEBATE

American autoworkers are constantly told that high-wage work is an unsustainable relic in the face of a hyper-competitive, globalized marketplace. Apostles of neo-liberal economic theory — both in the public and private sectors — have stressed the message that worker adaptation is necessary to survive.

But the case of German automakers — BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen — tells a different story. ... the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.

In 2010, over 5.5 million cars were produced in Germany, twice the 2.7 million built in the United States. Average compensation (a figure including wages and employer-paid benefits) for autoworkers in Germany was 48.97 Euros per hour ($67.14 US), while compensation for auto work in the United States averaged $33.77 per hour, or about half as much as in Germany, all according to 2007 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For Germany-based auto producers, the U.S. is a low-wage country.


Despite German companies’ relatively high labor costs in their home markets, these firms are quite profitable.

YES, VIRGINIA (& OHIO & MISSOURI)...

THERE IS NO NEWT NEXT YEAR!

The evidence that Newt Gingrich didn't intend to run a serious campaign is piling up:

Gingrich sets sights on nonexistent Virginia write-in slot
By David Ferguson
Saturday, December 24, 2011
THE RAW STORY

Having failed to qualify for the Virginia Republican primary, former Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich has announced that he intends to run in that state as a write-in candidate. This could present a significant problem for Gingrich because apparently, the primary ballot in Virginia does not allow for write-ins.

This is the third primary election that the Gingrich team has botched. Earlier this month, Raw Story reported that the campaign missed filing deadlines in Ohio and Missouri. 

TEA PARTY PATRIOTS REPLIED TO MY WEB MAIL

This wasn't the answer I was hoping for but I do give them partial credit for replying:

Leanne Livingston
DEC 23, 2011 | 10:11AM EST
Steven,

We do not endorse Newt. The strawpoll was taken like any other national strawpoll and does not mean we endorse. Tea Party Patriots has always prided itself on being a grassroots movement, so we do not endorse candidates in order for our members to vote for who they believe upholds their principles the best. If you'll notice, the article you quoted did not ever state we endorse Newt. It stated that he won our strawpoll. These are completely different things.

Thank you,
Leanne

I WONDER WHAT THEY THINK OF NEWT NOW?

Before he came out for arresting Federal judges he doesn't like, Newt won a Bagger straw poll:

Gingrich wins Tea Party Patriots straw poll
By Justin Sink - 12/19/11 10:43 AM ET
THE HILL

...the former House Speaker earned a big victory among social conservatives Sunday night, edging out Michele Bachmann to take the Tea Party Patriots straw poll.

Gingrich garnered 31 percent of the vote from nearly 23,000 Tea Party voters nationwide, besting Bachmann by three percentage points. Mitt Romney earned 20 percent of the voters, with Rick Santorum, at 16 percent, the only other candidate to earn double digits. Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman all earned 3 percent or less of the vote.

“An overwhelming number of activists from around the nation showed they are serious about electing a candidate who advances Tea Party principles,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, in a statement. “Just as in 2010, candidates like Newt Gingrich will need to show they will be fiscally responsible and protect the Constitution in the White House.”

I sent the Tea Party Patriots a web mail asking if they still supported Newt.

NO, JOHN BOEHNER IS NOT THE GOP'S PROBLEM

Following the historic collapse of the House Baggers on the payroll tax cut, I heard Huge Ego Hewitt ask Mary Katherine Ham and another wingnut if Speaker Boehner needs to be replaced because he's tactically and strategically incompetent. But that's not the real problem.

The Bagger ideology is the problem because it has been rejected by most Americans

LET'S TEST THE BANKSTERS INSTEAD...

Conservatives love smacking down on the least among us, accusing them of sloth, anti-social behavior and rampant drug use.  Some (like Rick Perry and Newt) want to mandate drug testing for welfare recipients but I have a better target.

Prostitution ring for Wall Street clients busted
By Bernd Debusmann Jr.

NEW YORK | Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:21pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seventeen people were indicted on Wednesday on charges of running a high-end prostitution ring that catered to Wall Street clients who often spent more than $10,000 in a night, authorities said.

The prostitution service, named High Class NY, was run 24 hours a day out of an office in Brooklyn and charged from $400 to $3,600 an hour for its services, according to the 144-count indictment. It also provided customers with cocaine and other narcotics, the indictment said.

OK, WHERE ARE ALL THE "CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVES"???

Newt Gingrich has openly shown his indifference to the Constitution and even the conservative Boston Herald:

Newt out of order
By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The fact that federal courts are supposed to be reading and interpreting the law, not “the American people,” is apparently lost on the former House speaker who is so eager to pander to Iowa voters that he would trash the very Constitution he purports to defend.

The idea that little more than a year from now this man would put his hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution for which he seems to have little regard is horrifying.

Even one of Huge Ego Hewitt's buddies came out strongly against Newt and other GOP freakshows:

GOP candidates: Bashing judges, threatening democracy
Americans should flatly reject rhetoric by Republican presidential candidates and remember that an independent judiciary enforcing the Constitution is crucial to our democracy.

December 20, 2011
LA Times

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of Law.

UPDATE: At least one person from the CATO Institute thinks Newt is wacked (from POLITICO):

Roger Pilon Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute :

As I wrote in the Daily Caller a week ago, Newt Gingrich's attack on the judiciary in chapter nine of his 21st Century Contract with America is a mass of constitutional confusions. It's a direct assault on judicial review and on "judicial supremacy," in particular - the idea that it falls to the courts to say what the law is.

...if this is a serious proposal for governing under our Constitution, it's deeply misguided - and dangerous besides.

MARY MATALIN WAS ON TO SOMETHING...

(h/t Steve Benen)

I noted below that she weakly implied that most Americans are sick of war and a new poll by CNN/ORC International:

(CNN) – Most Americans agree with the decision to end the war in Iraq, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday. Almost eight in ten said they support removal of combat troops from that country by the end of this year.

And although 96% are proud of U.S. troops who served in Iraq, just one in three consider the war a victory and more than half call it a stalemate.

Now, two-thirds say they oppose the war and more think the U.S. made a mistake sending troops to Iraq in the first place 53% to 46% over those who do not think it was a mistake.

Americans are similarly divided over whether they agree with then-Sen. Barack Obama's opinion that it was a "dumb" decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003 - 51% say it was dumb and 45% say it was smart.

If these opinions hold up over the next year, the GOP candidate will have a hard time trying to play the National Security Card.

WHO'S THE EXTREMIST?

Bachmann: Obama 'acting like we're a banana republic'

 

Gingrich: Capitol Police Could Arrest 'Radical' Judges

 

ANN COULTER SLAMS THE BAGGERS

Media Matters provides a clip of Coulter claiming that the Tea Party rubes only care about Pres. Obama's birth certificate.  This is another example of the disintegration of the Noise Machine in the face of a truly mediocre GOP presidential field.

A WINGNUT ZOMBIE LIE WALKS AGAIN!

I was listening to a local wingnut radio show this afternoon and I heard the host claim that 31,000 scientists don't think there is man-made global warming. Of course, that petition is pretty much a joke but the level of ignorance among Americans is widespread.

In 2010, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 908 climate scientists, who were defined as persons who had at least 20 publications on climate, overwhelmingly support the notion of man-made global warming. Below, "UE" refers to those climate scientists who are "unconvinced by the evidence" for man-made global warming:

The UE group comprises only 2%of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups (Materials and Methods). This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that ≈97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of ACC (2).