The Rise Of The Tenthers

This is a very important article by Ian Millhiser for The American Prospect. Conservatives have found a new Amendment in the Bill of Rights to glorify, making a grand total of two, as they trash the other eight. Their entire Constitutional theory now rests on the tenth Amendment.

Almost a year after she called for an investigation to discover which members of Congress are "anti-American," Minnesota's nuttiest lawmaker is back. In a recent appearance with Fox's Sean Hannity, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann accused her colleagues of "forg[etting] what the Constitution says" because they are poised to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Not to be outdone, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told right-wing activists on a conference call last Thursday that health reform violates the 10th Amendment; he also called on state legislators and governors to "champion individual freedom" by resisting the bill. Two Florida lawmakers beat DeMint to the punch, having already introduced legislation to block health reform from taking effect in their state.

These efforts are all part of a movement whose members are convinced that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits spending programs and regulations disfavored by conservatives. Indeed, while "birther" conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these "tenther" constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.

Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the "True Constitution," exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government's powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama's health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.

I guess the words "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" don't appear in their pocket Constitutions.

Really, there's nothing new about Tentherism - it's basically nullification prettied up for the 21st century. But of course, nullification was a prelude to eventual secession and Civil War. It's not completely out of bounds to see us headed in that direction.

When George Bush sought to take money out of people's paychecks and deposit them in private retirement accounts, that was fine. Only when a Democrat takes office can the majority of actions of the federal government be seen as not only misguided, but actually in violation of the Constitution. Because conservatives consider it against the natural order of things for them not to control the government and distribute its Treasury to their favored corporate interests, a circumstance with them out of control must be criminal in nature.

This is an outgrowth of the right-wing populism we've seen in reaction to a recession and the uneasiness people feel with job insecurity and an uncertain economic future.

Today, however, the tenthers tap into the same populist outrage that inspired a generation of working-class religious conservatives to enthusiastically vote against their own interests. Fox News star Glenn Beck exhorts his audience to "be a constitutional watchdog for America" by lining up against health-care reform, cap-and-trade legislation, and the stimulus package. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who enthusiastically backed a tenther "state sovereignty resolution," told a right-wing radio host that he is "willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats." Tenther-inspired claims that federal spending violates the Constitution are so common at "tea party" protests that it is impossible to tell where the tenthers end and the tea baggers begin.

In other words, it is all but certain that tenthers will play a significant role in selecting the GOP's presidential nominee in 2012. And if that nominee wins, the tenthers could even come to dominate the administration in the same way that the religious right set its hooks into George W. Bush.

This is the inevitable point where all the anti-government rhetoric of the post-Reagan years was bound to go. Tenthers literally want a government that cannot govern, period. And the movement is growing. Ultimately, this is where the teabaggers meet up with the corporate interests who would thrive in an era of no regulation and no ability for the government to use their power.

But, you know, liberals are the Constitutional "activists."

The Stupid, It Burns!!!

Michele Bachmann wants you to know that she doesn't want the government controlling her body.

"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress," said Bachmann, "and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."

Can we get that in writing, Congresswoman? So you can vote strongly against efforts to weaken a women's right to choose, which gives government control over women's bodies? So you can vote for access to family planning and allowing legal medical services to be offered within Medicaid? So you can vote for end-of-life counseling benefits so the government doesn't make laws based on keeping one woman alive when her husband wants to choose to let her rest in peace?

Can we get the government to stop controlling our bodies in THAT respect?

The saddest thing is that this hack is actually a prime speaker for the corporate front group Americans for Prosperity. Republicans have actually put their eggs in her basket.

LaRouchies Get Their Moment In The Sun

I did not immediately recognize that the women in the Barney Frank town hall meeting video was a Larouchie. Apparently, they've been handing out the Obama/Hitler poster. But it shows you how far down the rabbit hole conservatives have gone this summer that the difference between them and Larouchies is no longer readily apparent. Dave Weigel points out that there pretty much is no difference anymore:

After noting that the disturbed woman who accused Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) of supporting a “Nazi policy” was a LaRouche cultist, I checked out the trove of videos that LaRouche’s Virginia-based organization has made available since the health care debate began; they upload new ones at least once daily at their YouTube channel. And comparing their rhetoric to the rhetoric of mainstream Republicans is downright eerie. Take this video, in which Leandra Bernstein of LaRouchePAC.com makes the case that a “mass strike” is on [...]



Now, obviously, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) would never make a comparison like that. But compare her rhetoric to the LaRouchePAC’s.

Two things:

1) That any mainstream political party could credibly be compared to the Larouche cult is really an incredible statement. In a way, modern Republicans and Larouchies are made for each other.

2) This shows you why these town halls should be absolutely dismissed. Anyone who's attended enough political events knows that you can always find a bunch of fresh-faced Larouchie cultists, smiling and handing out the most insane literature you've ever read while laughing so hard you could choke. Lyndon LaRouche has tried to run for office repeatedly as both an independent and a Democrat, but despite the faces singing in the hallways of political conventions and on outdoor promenades, he has never represented more than 0.05% of the national vote. He's the fringiest of the fringe, and absolutely nobody with a scintilla of rationality would consider Larouchies an important voice on anything in American life. Yet their bleatings on the health care bill are indistinguishable from mainstream conservatives.

There's a fallacy here of looking at the combination of Larouchies and teabaggers and presuming some broad-based movement. It's a bad poll and a bad sample.

Too Wingnutty For The Wingnuts

Michelle Bachmann is so out of her mind that the guy who called Barack Obama uppity and the Billy Zabka of the GOP are telling here to pipe down a bit:

Three Republican congressman have publicly chastised fellow Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for declaring that she would not fill out her census form.

"Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country," said Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives in a statement Wednesday.

Even conspiracy-theorist Fox News host Glenn Beck found Bachmann's anti-census stance baffling.

They apparently tried to approach Bachmann privately, and she wouldn't budge, so they decided to publicly embarrass her.

If the rightward drift of the Republican Party continues, I think she's a leading 2012 candidate now.

At What Point Do You Get Your House Speaking Privileges Revoked?

Michelle Bachmann, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, acting like Mrs. Malaprop.

BACHMANN: The recession FDR had to deal with wasn't as bad as the one Coolidge had to deal with in the early '20s, Yet the prescription that Coolidge put on that, from history, is lower taxes, lower regulatory burden, and we saw the Roaring '20s, where we saw markets and growth in the economy like we've never seen before in the history of the country. FDR applied just the opposite formula. The Hoot-Smalley Act, which was a tremendous burden on tariff restrictions, and of course trade barriers and the regulatory burden and tax barriers. That's what we saw happen under FDR, that took a recession and blew it into a full-scale Depression. The American people suffered for almost ten years under that kind of thinking.

None of this is right, but "Hoot-Smalley" deserves some kind of medal. Hoover signed Smoot-Hawley into law, by the way.

Bachmann is like a college student who skimmed the entire history book the night before the test, and knows a couple dates and places, and just connects dots randomly, making sense only to her.

Now I know where the people who think Stephen Colbert is a closet conservative come from - MN-06. Because clearly they elected one of their own to represent them.

It's "Interesting" That I'm A Complete Loon

Michelle Bachmann fails to grasp the difficult concept of the timing of Inauguration Day.

BACHMANN: I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.

Last US outbreak of swine flu: February 1976.

President of the United States at the time: Gerald R. Ford.

Michelle Bachmann: out of her gourd.

I'm not blaming her lack of a brain on Bachmann herself, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.

Here Come De Sludge, Here Come De Sludge

It's actually no different from how the Republicans have run this entire campaign - using smear campaigns to make the case that Barack Obama is somehow risky, radical, a terrorist, a Muslim, exotic, not like you or your family. The latest is that they're planting these stories in the newspaper - literally:

Citizens United, the conservative group headed by notorious Whitewater scandalmonger David Bossie, is distributing hundreds of thousands of DVDs attacking Barack Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers in newspapers in Ohio, Nevada, and Florida this week, a group spokesperson confirms to us.

A reader in Ohio reports to us that she received a copy of the DVD, called "Hype: The Obama Effect," in her copy of the Columbus Dispatch this morning.

We checked in with Citizens United spokesperson Will Holley, who confirmed to us that the DVD was distributed in the Dispatch today, and will be disseminated in copies of the Cincinatti Enquirer and Plain Dealer tomorrow, followed by the Palm Beach Post and the Las Vegas Review Journal on Friday.

The wingers tried this before by shipping Obsession, a DVD designed to stoke fears about radical Islam. But this one is directly focused at Obama.

However, as ridiculous as the smears against Obama have been, some of the sludge being shoveled in the downticket races is even worse. Elizabeth Dole's desperate attempt to save her career is downright slanderous, not just to Kay Hagan but to atheists.

Dole's campaign has been calling attention to a Sept. 15 fundraiser that Hagan attended in Boston with author Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan, who was on the advisory board of the Godless Americans political action committee and active in a group that promoted "secular" ideas.

The ad featuring Hagan airs a comment from one the organization’s leaders saying "There was no Jesus."

The announcer says "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor."

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

The best part of that story is the last line, "Recent polls have shown Hagan with a narrow lead over Dole." Well of course!

Kay Hagan is fighting back. She's a Sunday school teacher, for cryin' out loud. And the attack on "godlessness" evokes nothing so much as the 1940s. Apparently Liddy thinks she's running against Helen Gahagan Douglas.

Then there's outright assault.

On Friday, two Feder staffers approached Congressman Wolf in a public location to ask him some questions. Two different individuals who were accompanying Congressman Wolf (staffers? relatives? friends?) assaulted the Feder staffers, as you can see quite clearly in the video. The first Feder staffer was hit with a cane and then punched. The second staffer (as you will see on the video) was pinned to a wall and forcibly held there. All of this took place in the presence of Congressman Wolf, who stood by and did nothing to intervene.

The thug life has come to McCain-Palin rallies as well, but you knew that.

Fortunately, these clowns are suffering for their own attacks. Michelle Bachmann had almost a million dollars tossed at her from the netroots after her neo-McCarthyite rant. Robin Hayes in North Carolina said almost the same thing ("Liberals hate real Americans") and now he's losing to Larry Kissell. Scott Garrett connected his opponent, a RABBI, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and now Mike Bloomberg endorsed Rabbi Dennis Shulman. Every attack is having an equal and opposite reaction.

And us progressives have long memories. In 2002 Saxby Chambliss ran one of the most disgusting ads in recent memory, making a connection between Sen. Max Cleland (a war hero who left 3 limbs off the battlefield) and Osama bin Laden. Now, six years later, Chambliss is threatened in a race against progressive Jim Martin, and VoteVets is hammering him.



Payback's a bitch.

Tweety Tricked Me!

If you get into an intellectual war of words with Chris Matthews, and you lose, that's a disqualifying event for public life. Michelle Bachmann is just such a loser.

Chris Matthews laid a trap, and I walked into it. […]

Chris Matthews was using the term over and over, and I should not have used it. […]

This was Chris Matthews. I made a big mistake by going on the show. I never should have. […]

I just didn’t recognize — I never watched the Chris Matthews show before. I should have before I went on. I didn’t recognize that he would lay a trap the way that he did.

He laid this trap by allowing you to say what you were saying instead of cutting you off. And by taping it.

The D-Trip has an ad on the air in the district now, hitting her CONTINUED love of deregulation and the Wall Street cash she's taken for her campaign. I'm a little befuddled why they're not hitting the McCarthyism, but maybe the free media is doing that job for them. The idea that "hyper-regulation" caused the crisis is nutty, too. I hear that the NRCC might not save her from this one.

Bye bye Bachmann.

UPDATE: And now, in friendlier media outlets, she's just rearranging the words.

BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, “look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama.” And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.

It's all so simple. All she did is say that Obama's views are against America. Now if that makes him anti-American, well, you must be one a' them liberal elitez.

Annals Of Republican FAIL

The past few days have seen Republican lawmakers, now endangered in the harsh political environment, just making with the crazy and seriously damaging their re-election chances.

And I'm not just talking about the unholy merger of Katherine Harris and Joe McCarthy, Michelle Bachmann, who's now trying to wiggle out of responsibility for her own words. By the way, her oppponent El Tinklenberg used that bounty of campaign cash to put up a pretty solid bio spot that highlights his support for light rail!



Fantastic stuff.

But there's plenty more out there that that. In NJ-05, Chris Smith is a Republican from New Jersey who has decided he's from Virginia:

Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican who has represented central New Jersey since 1980, probably didn’t realize he was walking into a political minefield when his family requested a break on his daughter’s huge college bill.

Smith’s daughter, who until recently lived with him in the family’s Herndon, Va., home, obtained in-state tuition privileges at a prestigious Virginia university — saving the Smiths $20,000 per year off the $29,000 tuition charged to out-of-state students.

But what Smith saved in cash could end up costing him politically – Democrats says the claim to Virginia residency shows that Smith is out of touch with the New Jersey constituents he’s supposed to represent.

These residency switches always come back to hurt the candidate (see Rick Santorum in 2006). And Smith's opponent Josh Zeitz is a great progressive.

Then there's Bachmann II (Bachmann Turner Overdrive?), Robin Hayes, another Republican in a tight race who claimed that liberals hate America at a McCain event, and is now denying that he ever said it. That doesn't work in an age of YouTube.



We have another great opponent in NC-08, former textile worker Larry Kissell.

And then we get into some real problems for the GOP. Mitch McConnell is tied in his race with Democrat Bruce Lunsford, according to a Survey USA poll. McConnell is the Republican Minority Leader, and has run rings around Harry Reid with procedural motions and obstructionism in the Senate. The Republicans become MUCH weaker without McConnell. And you know he's nervous when he touts his ability to bring home earmarks for Kentucky. I don't think voters give a crap about seniority when they vote for a representative. I had written this off, but McConnell is in serious trouble. I'm not a Lunsford fan but this would really hurt the GOP.

And then, there's Bill Sali. This guy is a Congressman and not a junior high student?

"Congressman Bill Sali and his campaign staff disrupted a NewsChannel 7 reporter and a representative for his opponent during an interview Tuesday in Downtown Boise.

KTVB reporter Ysabel Bilbao was interviewing Walt Minnick's campaign director John Foster Wednesday afternoon. During the interview, someone loudly yelled and was laughing during the interview at the Grove plaza.

Bilbao and Foster initially ignored the intrusion, but quickly noticed the source of the heckling -- Sali and members of his staff. (...)

Foster said he saw Sali making faces at him and holding up "bunny ears.""

It's statesmanship like that which has seen Sali trailing in the polls to his opponent Walt Minnick. Yes, the Democrat is winning. In Idaho.

It really is falling to crap for Republicans...

Famous Last Words

Even I didn't expect the avalanche of cash raised mainly by the netroots for Elwyn Tinklenberg, the candidate running against neo-McCarthyite Michelle Bachmann in MN-06 after her disturbing comments on Hardball. Tinklenberg picked up nearly a half a million dollars in a matter of hours. Wow.

Meanwhile, Bachmann is denying what she said despite the existence of a little thing called videotape.

This morning, Bachmann tried to undo the damage. Appearing on WCCO (Minneapolis’ local CBS affiliate), Bachmann denied she ever called Barack Obama’s views “anti-American”:

HOST: You do feel his [Obama’s] views are anti-American?

BACHMANN: I feel his views are concerning. I’m calling on the media to investigate them. I’m not saying that his views are anti-American. That was a misreading of what I said. And so I don’t believe that’s my position. I’m calling on the media to take a look at what his views are [...]

That’s a lie. Here’s what Bachmann said on Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: So you believe that Barack Obama may have anti-American views?

BACHMANN: Absolutely. I’m very concerned he may have anti-American views.

It would be absolutely poetic to see Bachmann defeated.

UPDATE: The D-Trip is throwing down a million bucks, too. Way to nationalize your race, Michelle.

Like McCarthy, But Clumsy

If you put Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann together you still wouldn't add up to the stature of a Joe McCarthy, who was one of the lowest and most execrable figures ever to haunt the halls of Congress. Which tells you a lot about Palin and Bachmann.

Palin, who has now taken to using the Secret Service to cover up the hate rhetoric at her own rallies, went around today saying she was happy to visit the pro-American areas of the country (I don't think she was referring to my little patch of Santa Monica). In context, it looks worse. Apparently only small towns are pro-American. I guess that kind of spirit leads to pro-American behavior like assaulting journalists:

I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.
As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

"Hey, hey, " I said. "I'm trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay? "

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of "U.S.A" by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

"Oh, you think that 's funny?! " the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. "Yeah, that 's real funny…" he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

By the way, Joe Biden was perfect talking about this today: "It doesn't matter where you live, we all love this country, and I hope it gets through. We all love this country."

On Hardball today, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about the "pro-American" quote and she essentially called for journalists to investigate all liberal members of Congress.



I associate myself with Katrina vanden Heuvel's remarks: "Chris, I fear for my country."



These people have touched off something very deep in a dark corner of the American psyche. They aren't just demonizing their fellow Americans, they are calling them into question. They are accusing them of treason. They are inciting. They are delegitimizing. They are summoning hatred and violence.

Palin will meet her fate in the Presidential election. But Bachmann and her neo-McCarthyism needs to be repudiated as well. Elwyn Tinklenberg isn't exactly my kind of Democrat (he's been endorsed by the Blue Dogs) but he isn't a vehicle for hatred and factionalism like Bachmann, a parrot for the basest elements of society. He's not that far behind in the polls, either. If you want to put an end to this, you can help out Tinklenberg here.

Republicans In Disarray

It's worth understanding that the failure of the bailout package in the House was a failure of leadership, as I said last night. Nobody has confidence in the political system, and the political class closest to the people revolted. There's no trust and no belief, and so a popular uprising is the result. There will be incumbents falling that you never expected in November, if challengers figure out how to channel that anger. While the support of the bill was mixed, the opposition was quite vocal and almost nobody believed that regular people would get anything out of it.

But putting aside whether or not you wanted the bill to pass, this failure is more pronounced on the Republican side. The facts are that 2/3 of their caucus voted against the plan, after the leadership assured everyone that they would get half their side. Their leadership scrambled and tried to blame it on a partisan speech given by Nancy Pelosi, which their own membership later denied.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) threw cold water on a key rationale House Republican leaders have been employing this afternoon to explain why they couldn't deliver more GOP votes for the Wall Street bailout package.

At a Monday afternoon press conference, GOP leaders argued that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) cost the measure a dozen Republican votes by delivering an overly partisan floor speech in support of it.

But Bachmann, speaking at a Republican Study Committee press conference, told reporters, "I want to assure you that was not the case. We are not babies who suck our thumbs. We have very principled reasons for voting no."

Other conservatives said the same thing, and by the end of the day, even the leadership was backing away from this alibi.

The larger point is that nobody's in charge of the Republican Party anymore. Their President and their current standard-bearer urged a yes vote and they couldn't get it. And the "elder statesman" of the conservative base, Newt Gingrich, apparently stabbed leadership in the back:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was working aggressively behind the scenes to defeat the Wall Street rescue plan minutes before he himself released a public statement in support of the package, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported on Tuesday.

Gingrich was whipping up votes for the opposition, Mitchell said, apparently without the knowledge of the current GOP leader, John Boehner, who was responsible for recruiting enough support from his caucus to help ensure the bill's passage. Ultimately, the GOP was only able to rally roughly a third of its members.

"Newt Gingrich," she said on MSNBC, "I am told reliably by leading Republicans who are close to him, he was whipping against this up until the last minute, when he issued that face-saving statement. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know, it was socialism -- and then at the last minute [he] comes out with a statement when the vote is already in place."

Indeed, as Mitchell noted, shortly before the bill's failure, Gingrich "reluctantly" came out in favor of its passage: "Therefore, while I am discouraged at the final collapse of the Bush Administration, and frustrated by the Democrats' passion for the taxpayer's money, I would reluctantly and sadly vote for the bailout were I still in office."

Wow. That's just chaos. A lot of time we Democrats think that the GOP strategist class is a collection of evil geniuses, plotting away and cleverly setting up their opponents over and over. Actually, they might just be jockeying for power and headed toward a purifying self-destruction, without acting solely with the Democrats in mind. I think you're going to see new leadership elections on the Republican side after the elections, as more moderates retire or lose their races, and the conservative wackjobs consolidate their power with a smaller base. Expect more backstabbing and treachery between now and November. This is the picture of a political party in crisis.

When In Doubt, Blame It On The Darkies

I thought the idea that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 isn't responsible for the financial crisis of 2008 would be self-evident, simply because you would have to believe that the system worked fine for 25-30 years until now, which is just ridiculous. But I underestimated the ability of Republicans to willingly delude themselves. They are desperate to find a scapegoat that doesn't have an (R) next to their name, and people with dark skin are an inviting target. I mean, you have one House Republican getting out the Photoshop and painting his opponent as a bearded darkie (the guy is in fact as white as could be and clean-cut).

So here we go with the blaming of the CRA and minority homeowners, claiming that the government forced the banks to give bad loans out. It doesn't matter than the biggest foreclosure regions are in rural areas and exurbs. It doesn't matter that the CRA only applies to banks and thrifts, and not across the lending market, and certainly not where almost all subprime mortgages were created. Bonddad has the best refutation:

While we're on the topic -- the CRA had nothing to do with the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac either:

Note, too, that Fannie and Freddie have nonpareil lobbying operations and formidable political strength, owing to their hefty donations and penchant for hiring former political operatives. Besides, the agencies claim they've landed in their current predicament through no fault of their own. As Freddie Mac Chairman and CEO Richard Syron recently put it, the GSEs have been hit by a 100-year storm in the housing market, accentuated by some higher-risk mortgages that they were forced to buy to meet government affordable-housing targets.

The latter contention is more than disingenuous. A substantial portion of Fannie's and Freddie's credit losses comes from $337 billion and $237 billion, respectively, of Alt-A mortgages that the agencies imprudently bought or guaranteed in recent years to boost their market share. These are mortgages for which little or no attempt was made to verify the borrowers' income or net worth. The principal balances were much higher than those of mortgages typically made to low-income borrowers. In short, Alt-A mortgages were a hallmark of real-estate speculation in the ex-urbs of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, not predatory lending to low-income folks in the inner cities.

A simple Google search with help from Wikipedia would have revealed how clueless the CRA caused this mess claim is. But that's not the point. The entire financial system is under tremendous stress on the Republican's watch. It's their policies that are under the microscope right now. And they just don't look that good. So now the political game is to shift the blame to Democrats. And who better then to blame then ... Jimmy Carter.

It's just utter know-nothingism, but that hasn't stopped the Republicans before. Good for the CBC to challenge these racists directly, pivoting off of comments supporting this nonsense from Rep. Michelle Bachmann:

In a new letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) obtained by ThinkProgress, 31 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) call Bachmann’s claims “ridiculous” and ask Boehner whether her comments represent the views of the Republican Caucus:

It is clear from Rep. Bachmann’s comments that she believes that the bipartisan laws enacted over the past decade ensuring that minority communities have equal access to banking and other financial services are the cause of this financial situation. […]

There is no evidence to support Rep. Bachmann’s assertion that “minorities” caused the current financial crisis. Laws designed to open opportunities for equal access to credit do not require banks or thrifts to make loans that are unsafe or unprofitable. In fact, laws like the CRA mandate exactly the opposite. […] Additionally, research clearly shows that the majority of the predatory loans that have led us to this financial mess were originated by non-bank financial institutions and other entities that did NOT have a CRA obligation and lacked strong federal regulatory oversight. Shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to laws that allow equal access and opportunities to communities of color is ridiculous.

As members of the CBC, we simply ask if Rep. Bachmann’s position that it was lending to minority communities that caused the current financial crisis, represent the position of Republican Caucus?

I'm waiting for an answer.

The Drilling Endgame

The Hill reports that Nancy Pelosi has become willing to accept a vote on offshore drilling. She's really following the lead of the presumptive Presidential nominee here.

Republicans, reacting to high gas prices, have demanded a vote on additional oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf, where drilling is currently blocked by a moratorium. Until now, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted the idea as a “hoax.” But in an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, she indicated that she was open to a vote.

“They have this thing that says drill offshore in the protected areas,” Pelosi said. “We can do that. We can have a vote on that.”
She indicated such a vote would have to be part of a larger package that included other policies, like releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which she said could bring down prices in a matter of days.

“But it has to be part of something that says we want to bring immediate relief to the public and is not just a hoax on them,” Pelosi continued.

Here's the transcript. Staffers are claiming that this is not a change in position, but I agree with Stoller - Pelosi and Obama are setting a trap.

Here's Pelosi on Larry King Live.

King: Do you expect -- do you suspect the oil companies of having a lot of clout here, influence over the Republicans?

Pelosi: Of course. Yes, they rule. And that's what we'll find out.

And she is saying that a vote for drilling is possible, but only if it includes renewable energy standards, wind, solar, and biofuel incentives. And in all likelihood, the vote will include removing the subsidies for oil companies, which McCain will not do (he calls it raising taxes).

So basically Obama and Pelosi are going to try to put McCain and the Republicans in a box. They can have their drilling, but only if oil company subsidies are removed to pay for renewable energy programs for the long-term.

Their hope is that the public can see Exxon John and the Republicans unwilling to do anything for the future energy needs of the planet but drilling. Even this highly misleading Fred Hiatt op-ed acknowledges that drilling won't help with gas prices and won't be sufficient without strong investments in alternative energy. So they're hoping that this can be a teachable moment in November.



I'm a little skeptical, just because Republicans are masters of the hissy fit and they'll shriek that Pelosi is playing games and they won't allow a clean shot. Plus McCain won't show up to vote, which might be helpful in its own right, but doesn't hammer the point home. I don't have a lot of faith in Democrats to carry this message off, even though it should work in theory.

As for the SPR, I would agree to releasing some of it, but of course that's just a delay, because Republicans will then argue that we need more drilling to replenish the SPR. So that's not really an answer.

Republican House candidates are starting to use the drilling messaging, so if you're going to embarrass the GOP as whores to Big Oil, do it soon.

UPDATE: This of course won't work because, in the words of Michelle Bachmann, Jesus saved the planet, not Nancy Pelosi.

This woman is in the United States Congress.

UPDATE II: Calling Exxon John out on his position on wind energy is a good start. He actually has the nerve to feature wind turbines in his ads despite opposing tax breaks for wind developers in the latest farm bill.

Oh Yeah, About That Recession

I'm just bracing myself for tomorrow.

Fears that the United States is in a recession reverberated around the world on Monday, sending stock markets from Frankfurt to Bombay into a tailspin and puncturing the hopes of many investors that Europe and Asia will be able to sidestep an American downturn.

On a day when United States markets were closed in observance of Martin Luther King’s Birthday, the world’s eyes were trained nervously on the United States. Investors reacted with what many analysts described as panic to the multiplying signs of weakness in the American economy.

I guess Mr. Bush's economic stimulus plan was met with rave reviews, ay?

It's really not much of a prediction to consider tomorrow to be Black Tuesday. We have fundamental problems in the economy that giving a few hundred dollars to people won't be able to fix. It may prop up consumer spending for about a month, but that's it. The answer lies in actively examining the excesses of the market, and, as Hillary Clinton says, bringing it back into balance.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration [...]

She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards.

“If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”

She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.”

Exactly. But unfortunately for all of us, it'll be a year before that balance can reasonably be put into place. And that could be catastrophic for a lot of people. Until then, we'll get solutions like "just work two jobs, lazybones!"

News of the Odd

Just some fun stuff, some political, some not, I've noticed over the past couple weeks.

• This Jonah Goldberg mini-controversy is hilarious. Anyone who says he's writing a book that "is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care," especially when the book has a cover of a smiley face with a Hitler moustache on it and is called "Liberal Fascism,"... well, is there any need to mock? Oh yeah, by the by, the book is about 24 months late in publication. Probably because he is so diligently making it more thoughtful and more serious. And Wolcott has the last word:

Parenting Bleg [Jonah Goldberg]

Okay, so my four year old daughter desperately wants me to do more magic tricks. All I can really do for her are variations of "Hey, I found a quarter in your ear" stuff. And even then, the prestidigitation isn't really up to snuff. If she were five, she'd be on to me. So, I need really simple, stupid in fact, magic tricks that can be done with little skill, that will impress a four year-old. Any suggestions? -03/24 01:09 PM

Perhaps you could pull a completed manuscript out of your ass and watch those little eyes light up with wonder.

• Ann Althouse bullies yet another person who dares mention the fact that she criticized a liberal blogger for the unforgivable sin of having breasts. This one's on video, and it's pretty hilarious.

• Missile defense strike called on account of rain. Seriously, how much money have we sunk into this crappy system, which can't even FIND targets, yet alone blow them up? And if it rains, it gets washed out? Fortunately, thanks to global warming, that may not be a problem anymore.

• Batshit crazy Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann, bucking for the Katherine Harris scattered-mind-a-like award, wrote campaign supporters asking them to send in astroturf letters to local newspapers as a show of support. The only letters this plea elicited were from a State Senate staffer and the son of a Bachmann aide.

• The former "Pimp of the Year" is headed to prison for running a prostitution ring. Couldn't they have busted him the moment that he won the "Pimp of the Year"? For that matter, shouldn't the runner-up, and indeed every applicant for Pimp of the Year, be similarly arrested? Incidentally, this is serious, he abused these women he employed, but this is among the best quotes ever:

"If he gets out, I know he'll do it again," she said. "That's all he ever talks about - pimping and ho-ing."

• Scientists made a sheep that's 15-percent human. This is yet another example of the President not following through on his promises. He totally said he would ban human-animal hybrids (by the by, if you read that link, you'll see that human-animal hybrids actually have a role to play in medical science and should not be banned at all).

• Rahm Emanuel says Democrats should stay away from Stephen Colbert. Colbert fights back, calls him "Emanuelle," as in Emanuelle in Space.

• Three Jeopardy contestants ended up tied for the first time ever. Full disclosure: this should have happened to me. I was on Jeopardy (almost four years to the day before this tie) and ended up tying for first, and the third contestant would have tied as well, but in Final Jeopardy she crossed out the correct answer and put in a wrong one. I'm just peeved that I didn't get in an AP story.