Remember, though, Chris Dodd has declared himself the Scourge of Lobbyists and Favor-Seekers. Like last week or something.

Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony.

Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment.

Worth reading in full, though I can't quote more due to AP being a total dick about excerpts.

Among other nuggets: Dodd was permitted to contrive the "fiction" that both his Connecticut and DC homes were owner-occupied (that is, neither was second home). Second-home mortgages are usually charged higher mortgage rates, I guess because the odds of default are greater. (One will always make sure he has one home to live in; when money's tight, he may abandon the other. Dodd was allowed to claim that both of his homes were his primary residence.)

And he was told he was getting preferential treatment.

Dodd continues lying about that.

Posted by: Ace at 02:34 PM | Add Comment
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"Disaster" The Hill's word choice in the headline, mind you.

Nothing you don't know, but, like your favorite book from childhood, a pleasure to read again anyhow.

Despite a number of former Democratic members and aides working in the Obama administration, Democrats on Capitol Hill have grown bolder in defying their party leader. Many centrist Democrats are worried that Republicans will have the upper hand in the 2010 elections.

Paul Light, an expert on the presidency and a professor at New York University, said the president's problems with Capitol Hill reflect "a miscalculation by the Obama administration on how political capital gets spent in Washington."

Light said that capital, even for a president who enjoys immense personal popular support like Obama, is spent a bit at a time on each initiative or piece of legislation.

"I think the Obama administration has been spending political capital at roughly the same rate the federal government spends money," Light said. "Eventually, it runs out."

Light quoted President Lyndon Johnson, who said that "if you don't get it done in six months, you're not going to get it done."

One of the reasons Obama has spent so much capital, aside from his ambitious agenda, has been his willingness to cede so much control to Congress, Light said.

While lawmakers like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are allies of the president, his political capital is not necessarily a priority of theirs.

To that end, Light says, Obama has made a mistake in making Pelosi his "broker," spending his political capital but not always to his benefit.

The other misstep that has bogged down the administration on healthcare specifically is Obama's inability to communicate effectively to the American people, Light said.

While it is shocking to consider that Obama is anything less than one of the best communicators in modern political history, when it comes to healthcare, he simply has not been able to make the sell to people who do have health insurance.

And Wednesday night's primetime press conference was a "disaster," Light said.

Obama can't communicate his vision on health care because, 1, he largely is devoid of one, and 2, to the extent he has one, the American people would reject it if he announced it forthrightly.

The American public wants something it really can't have, no matter who is in office -- they seem to want subsidies for the middle-class for health care. The middle class wants more health care at cheaper rates. I think they vaguely have in mind "the rich" will pick up the tab.

That would be hellaciously expensive.

But apart from that, you can't really give the middle-class subsidies for health care until you subsidize the poor -- those without health insurance -- first. And the middle class sort of doesn't want to do that, for the simple and understandable reason that it doesn't help they themselves out at all. The opposite, really, as everyone will soon be paying for the health care of everyone poorer than himself.

Obama's plan is to insure the poor and tax the middle class. And, on top of that, institute a covert rationing system so that the tax on the middle class will be partially hidden; they won't see direct taxes rise quite as much, but only because they're having important services taken away from them on the sly.

So that rather than getting more health care for less money, the middle class will get less health care for more money.

Sort of, uhhh... the complete opposite of what they want when they say they want health care "reform."

Under these circumstances there's a limit to what Obama's overpraised communication skills can do.

Why, it's almost like trying to sell the nuke-crazy mullahs of Iran on a nuclear disarmament plan they don't want at all.

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (1)
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Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Add Comment
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This guy has been writing the same article for several weeks. This is the longest, latest version.

The Great Recession, which rolled over our financial lives like one of P.J. Keating's giant pavers, is most likely over. Home sales, while still far below the levels of a year ago, have risen for three straight months—a first since 2004. The stock market has rallied 44 percent since March, thanks to renewed optimism and improving earnings from big companies like Goldman Sachs and Apple. In June, seven of the 10 indicators in the Conference Board Leading Economic Index pointed upward, including manufacturing hours worked and unemployment claims. Macroeconomic Advisers, the St. Louis–based consulting firm, says the economy is expanding at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the current quarter. Economic activity "will increase slightly over the remainder of 2009," Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress.

Smooth sailing for Obama? Not quite, even if you buy all that.

Catastrophe may have been averted. But when economists proclaim a recession over, they're celebrating a technicality: they mean economic output has stopped contracting. And while that is good news, you might wait a while before adding Judy Garland's rendition of "Happy Days Are Here Again" to your iPod. GDP growth alone can't feed a family, or pay a mortgage. Cursed with a high national debt load and blessed with a dynamic, growing workforce, the U.S. economy needs annual growth of at least 1.5 percent just to feel like we're standing still.

Worse, the data point that means the most to our psychological well-being—unemployment—is likely to keep climbing. The loss of 6.5 million jobs since December 2007 has spurred the sharpest rise in the unemployment rate since the 1930s. As manufacturing jobs move overseas and companies struggle to further reduce costs, unemployment—which stands at 9.5 percent—is likely to rise above 10 percent. "There's a difference between having an expansion and an economy that has recovered," says Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser.

Having survived a near-death economic experience, Americans now need to focus on surviving what's likely to be a pokey, painful recovery. "I see 1 percent growth in the economy in the next few years," says New York University economist Nouriel Roubini. "It's going to feel like a recession, even when it ends."

He then starts hailing Obama's New Deal 2.0.

Bush, if you remember, had several years of terrific GDP growth and, eventually, a fairly low unemployment rate. The media focused relentlessly on the unemployment figure when GDP grew rapidly; and then, when the unemployment rate fell, they began focusing on "discouraged workers" who do not show up in the unemployment rate. In other words, even when the unemployment rate fell to good levels, the media simply discarded the statistic as unreliable and asserted anew that unemployment was quite high.

They didn't focus on the actual figure again until it began creeping up, just a bit, near the end of Bush's term.

Anyone think the media will play the end of Obama's recession (if it is the end) similarly? Or will we now be assured that a jobless recovery is just super-duper?

Political flacks and the media (BIRM) will tell us this is the best we can expect, and that we should praise Obama for accomplishing even this small thing. He inherited a recession, after all.

Oddly enough, the media did not praise Bush for overseeing a strong recovery despite inheriting a recession from Clinton and then, just eight months later, seeing the country through a calamitous attack on the United States which caused fears of a global depression.

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (1)
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Interesting:

A woman who called 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. makes no mention of race.

...

The caller, Lucia Whalen, says she saw two men pushing on the door of the house. She tells police she is not sure if the men live there or not. When pressed for a description by a dispatcher, she says one of the men may have been Hispanic.

Another tape is less interesting. Crowley is heard calling Gates "uncooperative" and tells dispatch to "keep the [other cop] cars coming."

Breitbart's article on Obama's "accidental gift on race" to the nation is worth reading.

Of course, the attorney general is essentially right in his assessment. Much of America is petrified to bring up race, especially in public forums - the media, in particular. But for exactly the opposite reasons Mr. Holder, the Obama administration and the brain trust of modern liberalism assert.

Americans, especially nonblacks, are deeply fearful that the dynamic is predicated on an un-American premise: presumed guilt. Innocence, under the extra-constitutional reign of political correctness, liberalism's brand of soft Shariah law, must be proved ex post facto.

...

And that is why the Case of Sergeant Crowley vs. Professor Gates is so important. As is expected from professional race baiters, Mr. Gates instigated a public brouhaha over race. And Mr. Obama, a man who attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist sermons for 20 years, used the bully pulpit to grant his friend a national platform to condemn a man for doing his job.

...

Now that the facts of the case show that his friend the professor was the man doing the racial profiling, the president wants to end the discussion.

Now we see what the attorney general meant when he spoke of cowards.

Incidentally, the New York Times is shocked that this uneducated racist cop didn't know who Gates was.

Well, here's the thing. I work vaguely in politics and I watch cable shout-fests and I went to law school. (Law books always contain some critical racial thinking type essays, so odds are I've seen his name in print.)

I have, in sum, pretty much the best possible general resume for knowing who Gates is, outside of being someone who works in the non-academic field of "African-American Studies," or being a liberal conference-goer where (I imagine) Gates occasionally speaks.

And do I know who he is? Well, I have heard of him. I did not previously know what he looked like. I have no idea whatsoever about what dubious contributions he might have made to scholarship, or what his schtick is. If you asked me what college he was at, I would have said Harvard, but that would have been an informed guess.

I've heard the name. That's it, pretty much.

And I have a reason to know him, sort of.

So I don't really share the New York Times' amazement that "Sergeant Crowley had no idea who he was. Days later, the sergeant was surprised when friends explained that he was one of Harvard’s most famous professors.”

Thanks to DanielA.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (4)
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Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Add Comment
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Just add it to the list of his failures--not that I mind on this particular point, but it doesn't hurt to rub it in what a weenie we've got in the White House:

White House officials last week tried to downplay their decision to postpone by six months a key report on what to do with Guantánamo detainees when the facility is shut down. But the delay reflects the daunting political obstacles facing President Obama as he struggles to meet his pledge to close the prison by January. Only a few weeks ago, the White House had considered a grand rollout of its Gitmo plans with a joint appearance on Capitol Hill by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., Defense Secretary Robert Gates and CENTCOM Cmdr. David Petraeus. But the president's aides concluded that a briefing would likely backfire, diverting attention from health care and giving Republicans fresh ammunition.

"There was no good reason to put it out there and have it attract fire," says a senior administration official who asked not to be identified talking about the internal deliberations. The White House announced last week's report delay in a late-afternoon press briefing that was embargoed until 9 p.m.—late enough to keep the disclosure off the network news and the cable talk shows with the highest ratings.

Most transparent Administration ever?

On his second day in office, the President promised that the detention facility would be closed by January 22, 2010. He was reluctant, however, to close it on his own authority. He wants Congressional cover and Congress hasn't been too helpful with that. Even Democrats, particularly in the House, oppose shutting down our primary overseas detention center and moving the detainees to the U.S.

To be sure, Guantanamo Bay is a military facility. The President can close it and move the detainees as part of his commander-in-chief powers (though things might get sticky if Congress passes a law saying otherwise). President Obama won't do that. He's too afraid. He will--like always--announce a policy and then vote "present", hoping all the while that someone else will do it for him.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:43 AM | Add Comment
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:15 AM | Add Comment
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There is so much wrong with this article it boggles the mind. My commentary below the fold...

more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:26 PM | Comments (1)
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Just a few more hours of freedom left before you have to return to that soul-crushing situation that you euphemistically call “a job.” Who the hell do you think you’re kidding anyway? Well, let’s see if we can ease your passage somewhat, though you’re still gonna’ end up crying yourself to sleep…just like you do every single night.

Item #1: So how about a three-fer from Cracked.com? No, I didnÂ’t say three-way. You just have a very dirty mind. And if you donÂ’t then youÂ’ve obviously stumbled into the wrong thread. Cracked loves lists (and who doesnÂ’t?) so here yaÂ’ go:

A) A cautionary tale/list of: 5 bizarre sexual conditions that can ruin your life. Only 5? I suspect a few were left out but youÂ’ll be more than happy to fill the rest of us in on those.

B) Or, you can get up to speed concerning 10 popular porn scenarios that seem highly implausible. Again, I think theyÂ’ve maybe gone a little overboard here. For the majority of us hanging around here, thereÂ’s really just one and only one implausible scenario that we need to be concerned with, and thatÂ’s simply gettingÂ’ any. Period. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

C) And finally, as if we didnÂ’t know already, we can find out about 6 ways that porn runs the world. Again, only 6? Must be a typo where they left out a few zeros after the 6.

Item #2: An article in L.A. Weekly helpfully informs us about the best peripheral EVAH! Presenting the USB Powered Chainsaw. As part of their press release, the manufacturer included a profile and image of their target demographic:

More nonsense below the foldÂ…

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:15 PM | Comments (4)
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