WHY ISN'T THIS PROGRAM CANCELLED?

The successor to Reagan's Star Wars ABM system STILL doesn't work:

13-NEWS-0006
July 5, 2013

Missile Defense Test Conducted

The Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, Joint Functional Component Command, Integrated Missile Defense (JFCC IMD) and U.S. Northern Command conducted an integrated exercise and flight test today of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System. Although a primary objective was the intercept of a long-range ballistic missile target launched from the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, an intercept was not achieved. The interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept.

MIROWSKI HAS CHANGED MY PERCEPTION

His book on the Great Recession and the economic ideology behind it initially struck me as a little too conspiratorial but after finishing it, I began to think that maybe there really is an enormous effort to turn America, Europe and the rest of the world into a Hayekian Paradise.  Consider for example this tidbit:

Let's go back to February 19th: Rick Santelli, live on CNBC, standing in the middle of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, launches into an attack on the just-announced $300 billion slated to stem rate of home foreclosures: "The government is promoting bad behavior! Do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages?! This is America! We're thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July, all you capitalists who want to come down to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start organizing."

Within hours of Santelli's rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli's "tea party" rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. 

DURING THE BUSH YEARS, TALK LIKE THIS WOULD'VE HAVE ENRAGED CONSERVATIVE MEDIA

But today, nada...

Steven Segal, Sheriff Joe Arpiao's best Hollywood buddy, thinks that Putin “one of the great world leaders” and said he “would like to consider him as a brother.” and Franklin Graham, son of Billy, said that Putin's "record on protecting children from gay “propaganda” is better than President Obama’s “shameful” embrace of gay rights."

UPDATE: I missed this one:

GOP Rep. Annoyed He Hasn’t ‘Gotten So Much as a Thank You’ for Defending Putin
by Noah Rothman | 3:03 pm, March 28th, 2014
MEDIAITE

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).
Rohrabacher has defended Putin from his seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared on the Kremlin-funded propagandist outlet RT to lend legitimacy to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and defended Moscow on Twitter.

WHY BAGGERS ARE SO UPSET ABOUT THE IRS & NON-PROFITS

First, there is almost no connection between Bagger thinking and educational value, so that ploy will fail for almost all of the Bagger non-profits.  Second, there really is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to create astroturf organizations to promote the insane libertarian views of the Koch brothers. More info here.

THE PARANOID STYLE IN CONSERVATIVE POLITICS

The DOJ has caught 3 Democrat politicians doing illegal stuff but super-MENSAs Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin see right through AG Holder's plot: save the arrests of corrupt GOP politicians until we get closer to the 2014  elections.

THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT RECESSION, ACCORDING TO GREENSPAN

I found a reference to Greenspan's testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Oct, 23, 2008 in Mirowski's book on the whole mess and here's the key part:

The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far fewer. But subprime mortgages pooled and sold as securities became subject to explosive demand from investors around the world. These mortgage backed securities being “subprime” were originally offered at what appeared to be exceptionally high risk-adjusted market interest rates. But with U.S. home prices still rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most sophisticated investors in the world, they were wrongly viewed as a “steal.”

The consequent surge in global demand for U.S. subprime securities by banks, hedge, and pension funds supported by unrealistically positive rating designations by credit agencies was, in my judgment, the core of the problem. Demand became so aggressive that too many securitizers and lenders believed they were able to create and sell mortgage backed securities so quickly that they never put their shareholders’ capital at risk and hence did not have the incentive to evaluate the credit quality of what they were selling. Pressures on lenders to supply more “paper” collapsed subprime underwriting standards from 2005 forward. Uncritical acceptance of credit ratings by purchasers of these toxic assets has led to huge losses.

Greenspan did not mention the CRA, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

IN THE ABSTRACT, THIS WAS A GOOD RULING

(h/t ntodd)

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a law that bars those convicted of domestic violence from possessing a gun.   In the grime of reality, I knew a guy who had been convicted but he got his hands on a gun anyway.   A good neighbor managed to hide it from him, so nothing tragic occurred.

I KNEW THE USSR PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN DEFEATING HITLER

(h/t p.m. carpenter)

I didn't know that it should be given the predominant role:

In what British military historian Andrew Roberts calls the central statistic of WWII, "It was the Russians who provided the oceans of blood necessary to defeat Germany, and it cannot be reiterated enough that out of every five Germans killed in combat--that is, on the battlefield rather than in aerial bombing or through other means--four died on the Eastern Front." Fellow British historian Max Hastings roughly concurs: "The Eastern Front, where 90 percent of all Germans killed in combat met their fate, overwhelmingly dominated the struggle against Hitler."

SOME GOOD FOREIGN NEWS

The Phillipines government has made a deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group, and Malaysia was the key mediator.  It's nice to have evidence that the U.S., the "indispensable nation", doesn't have to be involved to arrive at a satisfactory outcome.

SPEAKER BOEHNER HAS HIS GOOD MOMENTS

His decision to use a voice vote to pass a bill that would prevent a 24% cut in Medicare payments  to doctors was the right move for the country.  It sure wasn't pure democracy but on the plus side, it did piss off some House Baggers.

TOO MANY HORRID PEOPLE

Mark "Foamer" Levin was in the Reagan Administration and that is a good symbol of the problem with conservative government: they choose incompetent ("Heck of a job") & immoral people who only know a simplistic ideology.  They also have almost no sense of responsibility, so it makes perfect conservative sense for Rumsfeld and Rice to speak out about Pres. Obama's foreign policy despite being war criminals.  At the state level, perhaps Gov. Christie had nothing to do with the bridge lane closings but he did pick the people who are responsible.

UPDATE: At the local level, there are many to choose from but I live in Arizona, so...

Arizona vice mayor praises Fred Phelps on Facebook with link to satirical Onion obituary
By Travis Gettys
Thursday, March 27, 2014 10:42 EDT
The Raw Story

Edward Farrell, vice mayor of Maricopa, posted a satirical obituary Monday morning of Phelps, who founded the virulently anti-LGBT Westboro Baptist Church, published by the fake news site The Onion, along with a comment of his own.

“We need more Fred Phelps in this world. May you rest in peace sir,” Farrell wrote, in response to the piece that satirically credited the pastor as the “man who forever stopped (the) march of gay rights.”

Another Facebook user almost immediately asked Farrell if his comment was a joke.
“No, I’m not kidding!” Farrell replied, according to the Maricopa Monitor. “This world needs to get back to the biblical standards that our God made for us. This guy was not afraid to preach it, and I respect that.”

BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE...

I pretty much agree with Sen. Reid.   There are far too many people who are clueless about computers and the Internet and by "too many" I mean tens of millions.

Harry Reid: Obamacare Delayed Because ‘People Are Not Educated About How to Use the Internet’
by Noah Rothman | 1:33 pm, March 26th, 2014
MEDIAITE

“There are some people who are not like my grandchildren who can handle everything so easily on the internet,” Reid continued. “And these people need a little extra time.”

He added that many people, like a 63-year-old woman who was recently profiled on public radio, are “not educated” on how to interact with online tools.

ANOTHER HUGE PENALTY FOR A BANKSTER ORGANIZATION

Freddie and Fannie get some revenge on Bank of America:

Bank Of America To Pay $9.5 Bn Over Mortgage Bonds
New York (AFP) Wednesday, March 26, 2014 3:57:33 PM

Bank of America will pay $9.5 billion to settle US charges that it sold bad mortgage-backed securities to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ahead of the housing bust.

The settlement, arranged with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, involves securities sold by BofA as well as by Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, which were acquired by the bank.

The agreement covers four lawsuits alleging the BofA entities misled the two US mortgage giants about the quality of the underlying mortgages tied to $57.5 billion in securities sold to Freddie and Fannie.

Several other banks have also made payments to Fannie & Freddie.

SAVAGE BEATS HANNITY ON A SAME-MARKET BASIS

Hannity's decision to cut ties with Cumulus has cost him dearly in 4 major markets and I suspect the same is true for Limbaugh.

BRAGGIN’ RIGHTS: WestwoodOne is touting early ratings success for the network’s syndicated Savage Nation since host Michael Savage moved to afternoon drive. WWOne reports that Nielsen PPM ratings for February 2014 show Savage’s numbers besting fellow syndicated host Sean Hannity in Adults 25-54 on Savage’s new Cumulus Media-owned affiliates in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas. The Sean Hannity Show moved to new affiliates in all of those markets in January 2014, after opting out of negotiations with Cumulus to continue carrying his Premiere Networks syndicated show on the company’s owned-and-operated stations

WHERE THE MONEY IS IN RADIO

It's not in talk radio, as you can see from this list of the top 10 billing stations:
The First Five Billers of 2013.

• #1 is all-news WTOP and here’s the recent history - $51,750,000 of revenue in 2008. $51,030,000 in the hard recession year of 2009. Then $57,225,000 in 2010, $64 million in 2011, $64.6 million in 2012, and now a BIA/Kelsey-reported $63.5 million for 2013.

• #2 is KIIS, Clear Channel’s Los Angeles CHR. Back in 2008, it was the nation’s leading biller at $66.3 million. Then came the recession and it fell to $55 million in 2009 and $54 million in 2010. That’s the year that WTOP took the crown of “America’s top biller.” Now for 2013, KIIS is still #2 at an estimated $61.6 million.

• #3 is “Z100,” Channel’s New York City-market WHTZ. It did $43 million in 2010 and $46 million in 2011. For last year, 2013? $51.5 million.

• #4 is WCBS-AM New York. The CBS Radio property is one of four all-newsers on the BIA/Kelsey Top 10 list, and one of three owned by CBS. Going back a bit, it did $46.7 million in 2008, $43.6 million in 2009, $49 million in 2010, $47.5 million in 2011 – and now $50.5 million.

• #5 is WLTW, Clear Channel’s New York AC “Lite.” It’s higher than a couple of years ago, with $44.3 million in 2010, $42 million in 2011 – and now $45.5 million for 2013.

The Second Five –

• #6 is “1010 WINS,” the other CBS all-newser in New York City. It did a BIA/Kelsey-estimated $41 million in 2010 and $42 million in 2011. For last year, 2013 - $45 million.

• #7 is KBIG, the Clear Channel AC in Los Angeles that’s recently been going back-and-forth with KIIS for the 6+ share lead in L.A. It jumps in rank from #13 in the previous year to #7, at an estimated $44.5 million in 2013 revenues.

• #8 is WFAN-AM/FM, CBS Radio’s all-sports combo in New York City and the very first all-sports station anywhere, with more than 25 years in the format. It’s the only sports-formatted station to make the Top Ten, at $43 million last year. It did $40.5 million for both 2010 and 2011.

• #9 is KROQ, Clear Channel’s alt-rocker in Los Angeles. It billed an estimated $39 million in 2010, $42 million in 2011 – and $42.8 million last year.

• #10 is WBBM, CBS Radio’s all-newser in Chicago with a booming 50,000-watt AM signal at 780 and an FM signal (WCFS) that it tacked on to compete with the expected challenge from Merlin. The Merlin threat never materialized, and you wonder if CBS would like a do-over on that decision today. They blew up the billing on AC “Fresh” WCFS/105.9. In 2010, WBBM-AM by itself billed a BIA/Kelsey-estimated $42.5 million, then $48 million the following year – and $42 million for 2013. Speaking of 50,000-watt AM signals – Clear Channel’s talk KFI Los Angeles has dropped from the #3 biller in 2011 to #5 in 2012 – and is now out of the top 10.

CELINDA WHO?

CNN describes Celinda Lake as "leading Democratic pollster" and out of curiosity, I searched for her full name in LexisNexis under Newspapers.  The most recent hit was in 2010 in an article by James Carville in the Financial Times:

The White House, Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney-general, Celinda Lake, her pollster, congressional Democrats, the Democratic National Committee, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, are just a few of the circular firing squad that has sucked up every last breath in Washington this past week.

When I searched Broadcast Transcripts, the last mention of Lake was in January 2014 on the Rachel Maddow Show. The one before that is from 2013.

Overall, I don't see why Lake is described as a leading pollster.

I'M NOT SURE IT'S ALL DISCRIMINATION

A recent study by the US Dept. of Education revealed that black students are disproportionately punished in public schools but it did not correct for the much greater rate of violence among blacks in the US.  Perhaps the rate of violence within groups should have been used as a co-variate in a formal analysis of variance on the data.

SWORD OF THE LORD

Sword is a fundie publication that was started by John R. Rice in 1934 and is still being published.  The contributors are Grade AAA fundie wackos: Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., Dr Bob Jones, Jr., Dr. Carl McIntire and the Rev. Jerry Falwell.   Dr. Billy Graham served on the board until he endorsed the Revised Standard Version of the Bible and was denounced by Rice when Graham cooperated with the National Council of Churches. This is the kind of sectarian hostility that led our Founders to abjure any national religion.

SOURCE: The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America, p. 132

LIMBAUGH TRIES TO GAME THE SYSTEM AGAIN

His book "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims" has been nominated for The Children's & Teen Choice Book Awards and he wants his listeners to Freep the online poll:

We will link to the website where readers can vote beginning tomorrow (Tuesday). It's called the Children's Choice Book Awards, and I can understand the left being ticked off about it. It's the last thing in the world they thought would ever happen, and they're trying to exert pressure on this group to get me removed -- ah, the typical things that people on the left do.

Screen Capture of the above:

I'M PRETTY SURE THIS IS A RECORD FOR POLITICO

Its story about the Christian barbarians using charter schools to teach Creationism has 8,794 (now over 9,000) comments. Diane Ravitch had one of the better replies:

This is what might be called 12th century STEM education.

A goober at the NRO uses some non-linear logic to conclude that this is in fact an argument for vouchers.

IF YOU EVER THOUGHT ROBERT KAPLAN WAS WORTH READING...

this sentence from his latest attempt to make imperialism acceptable should forever disabuse you of that idea:

The dread of imperial-like retribution that accompanied Henry Kissinger’s 1970s shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East is nowhere apparent.

Kissinger FAILed, so Kaplan, like so many other pundits, is self-refuting.

POLITIFACT DOESN'T GET ALL THE FACTS

Despite quoting Pres. Obama on the Star Wars system that Bush had planned to install in Eastern Europe:

"I want to make sure it works, which is actually one of the problems we've got."

POLITIFACT didn't bother to give any background on these problems.

THE REPLIES REASSURE ME THAT WE HAVEN'T GONE COMPLETELY BONKERS

Steven M. points out that Joel Pollak at Brietbart is a lunatic:

Vladimir Putin seizes the Crimea, so we blockade the Bosporus. Iran defies the UN, so we sink its Persian Gulf fleet. China expands its air defense zone, so we start downing Chinese fighters. North Korea fires some missiles, so we send a CIA assassin with Dennis Rodman's entourage on the next basketball trip.

I went to Breitbart and found most of the comments were like these:

P. Nym • 5 days ago

More neoconservative nonsense from the war mongering Pollak.
Putin is correct: America's foreign policy has been "rule by the gun," and it's been that way for the past 100 years. It's time that it stops.

jnobfan • 5 days ago

Are you out of your freakin mind!
We have no business interfering in any country that has not attacked us directly and we sure as hell should have learned something about getting involved in foreign Civil Wars. Here is an idea for you. Secure our borders. Deport all Muslims with expired visa's and don't grant any new ones. Drill here and put Americans to work harvesting and shipping energy. We will have plenty of money for national DEFENSE
 

pabarge • 5 days ago

Mr Pollock,
You want to go to war? Pull on your combat boots and grab your son(s) and daughter(s) and head out.
Perhaps some others will join you. Good luck.

 

FOLLOW-UP TO "OBAMACARE & THE FUCKUPS"

I noted before that some people just don't have their shit together and now I have a little more evidence in another area, Obama Phones.  I recently had to re-certify that I was still eligible over the phone and it took me about 20 minutes.  The person I had written about earlier was unable to do that so his service has been terminated.