Monday’s Mini-Report

March 31, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The lede is encouraging, the details are not: “The Bush administration Monday proposed the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. The plan would change how the government regulates thousands of businesses from the nation’s biggest banks and investment houses down to the local insurance agent and mortgage broker.”

* Chris Dodd had the right response: “Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said he welcomed the plan offered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but questioned its relevance in addressing falling home prices, rising foreclosures and the imminent threat of recession. ‘To talk about overhauling the regulatory system is a wonderful idea. But frankly it doesn’t relate to the issues we’re grappling with,’ Dodd said on a conference call. ‘I would call this a wild pitch. … It’s not even close to the strike zone,’ he said.”

* And on a related note: “Both Democratic presidential hopefuls jumped on the resignation today of President Bush’s housing secretary to decry the ‘cronyism’ they said he represented and the inaction they said is worsening the housing crisis. ‘While Secretary Jackson’s resignation is appropriate, it does nothing to address the Bush Administration’s wait-and-don’t-see posture to our nation’s housing crisis, which is threatening to drive our economy into a painful recession,’ Hillary Clinton said in a statement.”

* NYT: “Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.”

* Shocking to the point of disbelief: “The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers…. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.”

* Go, Al, go: “Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.”

* Lou Dobbs seems to have trouble talking about talking about race.

* That doesn’t explain, though, why CNN scrubbed the transcript to clean up Dobbs’ remarks.

* Yet another compromise proposal is on the table with regards to Michigan’s Democratic delegates.

* Why does McCain always seem to be surprised by developments in Iraq? “As he launched a tour here designed to highlight his family’s long tradition of military service, Senator John McCain said Monday that he was surprised by the latest turn of events in America’s current war in Iraq.”

* Oh my: “With the soft economy reducing government tax collections, President Bush’s projected $410 billion budget deficit for 2008 could climb to $500 billion or more, according to new estimates.”

* Confused about what a “credentials committee” at the Democratic convention would do? Greg Sargent has a very helpful primer.

* Bush just isn’t good with numbers. That includes reading phone numbers from a piece of paper.

* Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill is asked what he thinks of John McCain’s confession that he doesn’t understand economics. “Yeah,” O’Neill replied. “That’s a great place to start from, isn’t it?”

* Hillary Clinton to run for governor in New York? Don’t count on it.

* Great line after Bush was booed at a baseball game in DC last night: “There’s a reason President Bush almost never appears before members of the general public: They really don’t like him.”

* And finally, what the heck is up with my server? Friday, I was supposed to move to a new, fancy dedicated server, which would fix all my problems. Apparently, there was some kind of problem, so that didn’t happen, which is why today has been such a mess. But tonight, my hosting company assures me, is the night, and tomorrow, everything should be running smoothly. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

“And finally, what the heck is up with my server? Friday, I was supposed to move to a new, fancy dedicated server, which would fix all my problems. Apparently, there was some kind of problem, so that didn’t happen, which is why today has been such a mess. But tonight, my hosting company assures me, is the night, and tomorrow, everything should be running smoothly.”

To your credit, you’re getting a lot of traffic. Make sure they’ve installed as much memory on your server(s) as possible.

  • “…Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions…”

    This is what 527s are for. Inform the electorate on the issues, and the electorate will drag the politicians, sometimes kicking and screaming, along (or elect new ones).

  • The New York Times has an article today about how impressed the Godfather of the vast right wing conspiracy, Dick Scaife, was with the positions Hillary took when they met last week.

    Earlier, CB linked to an article about how impressed John Edwards was with the positions Hillary took when she met with him about his endorsement.

    These two men, Scaife and Edwards, couldn’t be farther apart in philosophy and issues. Something tells me there’s some pandering (or winking and nodding) going on.

  • Paul O’Niell may be one of the least offensive of Bush’s appointees, but he’s not one of the brighter ones either. According to Ron Suskind’s book “Price of Loyalty”, O’Neill went to Uganda with Bono of U2 and concluded we could provide the whole country with drinking water for only 25 million dollars. When Bush was not interested in doing anything, O’Niell decided that since he was worth about 250 million, he could afford to adopt six or seven Ugandan children. His wife nixed the idea.

  • Jayinge, I would think Steve always needs donations…which is why I donate to the select sites that mean something to me. This one means something to me. If every one of us were to give those sites we go to often even $20 bucks…it goes a long way.

    Steve doesn’t have a million ads so he gets my donation. Of course I don’t speak for him but I am sure your donation would be appreciated.

  • Why does McCain always seem to be surprised by developments in Iraq?

    He doesn’t know the players; he doesn’t know who they are fighting; he doesn’t seem to know the issues driving the violence and he does not know the historical context of a Christian Nation occupying a Muslim country.

    McBush!

  • Shocking to the point of disbelief: “The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks.

    See here… Rape and pillage privileges are *guaranteed* to the occupying army. Always have been, always will be; it’s part of the contract. But, in I-wreck, it ain’t, exactly, *safe* to go out and get your fix. So what’s a randy soldier to do? Especially seeing as consensual sex, while on tour, is forbidden?

    Seriously though. US has always had a pretty “relaxed” attitude to rape. I remember reading, a couple of one paragraph reports in WashPo. One was right under the second and I’m sure they had been juxtaposed on purpose. The first one noted that a judge in one of the Southern states (don’t remember which one; it’s been 30 yrs ago or so) handed out 2-5yr sentences to a group of guys who gang raped a young girl. The second one mentioned that a judge in Soviet Union handed out 30yr sentences for the same crime (gang rape was considered a worse offense than a “plain vanilla” one, for which the mandatory sentence was 20yrs. IIRC). Personally, I’d like to see mandatory castration as punishment for rape but a 20yr sentence — giving one a good chance to get acquainted with rape from the other perspective — is better than nothing.

  • Steve,

    Do you know what the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman is?

    A used car salesman knows when he’s lying to you!

    Bu seriously, hope everything goes well. I’ve worked in IT and, although I’m an atheist, it’s made me a bit superstitious about saying claiming everything’s going to go well when going into a job. Because it seems to jinx things at times.

    Break a leg!

  • The “far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system” would essentially put almost all regulation in the hands of a Bu$h Fed. Tapping into every system and every account, in minute detail would make illegal telecom wiretapping look like a little old lady sitting on a parkbench. I’m not so sure we should be giving the Bushylvanians that kind of access. They could effectively seize control of the Republic—and we’d be none the wiser until it was far, far beyond being “too late….”

  • Hillary is probably trying to prove to the superdelegates what a fighter she is, but I don’t think the quality of her campaign would win her the general either.

  • Clinton’s campaign is becoming such a joke, and so desparate.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_primaries
    “Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused rival Sen. Barack Obama and his allies of trying to stop people from voting as some of his backers have called on her to drop out of the presidential race.”

    Really? A few Obama surrogates, whose sentiments Obama himself has dismissed, have said Clinton should leave the race, and that is tantamount to stopping people from voting? In what universe?

    In the meantime, there’s a diary up on dkos from an Obama supporter who said that Clinton supporters repeatedly challenged the credentials of Obama supporters at Saturday’s TX caucuses, making them spend hours going hither and yon to get credentialed. And I’ve read other reports about similar tactics by the Clinton supporters. Hello Hillary, THAT is “stopping people from voting”. Or at least attempting to do so. Disgusting.

    I’m an Obama supporter but was fine if Clinton were the nominee… until she started this bat-shi*t nonsense, starting out with the McCain and I are qualified and Obama gave a speech meme. And going on from there. Total classless, desparate, not helpful to the party or the country at all.

  • Dale #15

    Now now now…

    Don’t be so anti-woman and anti-feminist. You must hate women if you don’t vote for shillary….

    I know, cuz I have been told that many, many times in these threads.

  • OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!

    Hannah – you must REALLY hate women!

    If shillary wants to run a republican-style campaign of voter oppression/suppression, who are we to judge?

    After all, she is doing it for the military-industrial complex and the criminal cabal behind dur chimpfurher.

  • Should anyone be amazed that President George W. Bush is unable to read correctly a telephone number from a piece of paper that he is holding in his hand?

    He is an embarrassment to our country, who should himself feel embarrassed that he is unable–as both a grown adult in his ’60s and one who somehow was elected (?) president of the United States for, I gasp, two consecutive terms–to comprehend the simple, basic reading comprehension skills he should have easily picked up as a child in elementary school, if not as a graduate of an Ivy League college.

    My constructive suggestion to his wife, Laura, in her position as a former librarian and as current First Lady, would be that she teach her husband the basics of elementary reading comprehension and retention skills, so that he could avoid future embarrassment for himself as well as his constituency, the citizenry of this nation.

  • Re. Gore and his $300 million: Excuse me for not getting excited about it, but just what the hell is he doing? I’ve read whatever I could find on it and I fail to see what he thinks he’s going to accomplish. Convince the public to pressure the government to do what? He doesn’t have any solutions! Cap and trade? Gimme a break! It doesn’t do any good to put on generalized pressure if there aren’t any answers out there! He’s got nothing that I can see, and I’ve been watching him closely. If he’s going to be the white knight, the dude needs a steed. At this point he’s walking, and in armor, no less.

    Actually I’ve got a steed for the guy, but it is an absolute bitch getting through his nut filter, and even then it’s questionable how idealistic he really is. We’ll see once the solutions get out there (soon, I hope). Should be interesting to see his response once an actual feasible plan is presented.

  • Since we now know that the “Shock and Awe” moniker stands for a decades long planing by the Repocon’s to take over the world’s economy – isn’t it a little less than “awsome” the the Repocons just happen to have an extensive detailed plan about how to solve a problem that they have caused??? It is to be hoped that it will fail in its entirety.

    ***

    I doubt that any woman is shocked to the point of disbelief that women are violently raped when there are groups of men around. Or even one man. It is even less shocking in view of the history of the military’s use of derogatory names for women to humiliate males. What better way to prove their manhood than for those males to humiliate and degrade a woman?

  • What a great blog!

    I was a little disappointed I didn’t find anything about the controversy over Bush’s proposed missile shield in Europe, (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/01/bush.nato/index.html) or his push to get Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Understandably, Russia and other European nations are upset about this. Russia is especially concerned, and rightfully so. The US seems to pretend it has forgotten the Cold War; whereas Russia is quite clear it has not. Moreover, many former Soviet era Kremlinites whose egos were severely battered when they lost the Cold War may want the chance at another “stab” at it, and Bush’s unscrupulous pressure on this nerve only helps to provide an excuse to those who long for a return to the “good ol’ days” of the former Soviet Union.

    Is it not enough that Bush has to bankrupt the country with the Iraq war, and take away our rights as free Americans all in the name of his personal “war on terror”, that he has to now evoke the specter of global nuclear annihilation? Here’s a more pleasant thought…wouldn’t it be nice if, as a going away present, the American people impeached good ol’ bushy Bush?

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