Steven D. notes:

"The FBI has a Terror Watch List of 400,000 names on it. Does that seem extreme to you? Because it seems absolutely insane to me."

If only there was someone in charge of this FBI thingy, someone who had the legal authority to do something about it? Perhaps someone who had taken an oath something like this one:

Nobel Peace Prize.

And, they say that it's "just" a recession. Chaos decided to roost in Detroit, today, as the truly despressed and distressed came out in droves seeking housing and utility payment assistance from the City of Detroit:

The economic tsunami washing over metro Detroit swept its casualties to the doors of Cobo Center on Wednesday in the form of 35,000 people so desperate for help with mortgage and utility bills that threats were made, fights broke out and people were nearly trampled.

Some were treated by emergency medical workers on site.

 Read more…

Obviously, I'm not a member of that curious breed, the "Democratic Strategist," nor do I play one on the teebee, nor do I have an interest in joining the League of Triple-A Democratic Strategists as a way to make it into The Show; and anyhow, if I were any good at strategerizing, somebody would be paying me to do it (Inside Rotisserie Baseball commenters take note).

Then again, because I'm not paid [except for your donations!], I can't ignore the obvious on health care insurance reform, and it seems to me that the "some bill, any bill" that the current Congress is going to emit will have some problems down the line. Among them:

1. Pffft. That deflated feeling, as of air escaping from a tire, will come when people compare the promise of "hope" and "change" to what is actually delivered -- and when (2013). As far at the [a|the] [strong|robust]? public [health insurance]? [option|plan], I still think my "baseline scenario" -- the mandate will force millions to buy junk insurance, bailing out the insurance companies -- is the most likely outcome, and it's not going to play well over time, especially with Obama's youthful base. Then again, we might think that the electoral process has become a stepping stone to lucrative jobs on K Street or on the teebee, and so what we think of as the politics or optics of it all is just not relevant to insiders and wannabe insiders.

Mystery solved!

On the housing market.

Or pretty much anything.

Good catch by Tyler Durden.

So, there's this garbage Orly Taitz's cult dreamed up about how in 1961 in a hospital in Hawaii, the son of a Caucasian woman and a Kenyan man couldn't possibly be a citizen, and therefore couldn't possibly be legitimately elected President. The GOP gleefully latched on. Happens this year's the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's becoming a state, so a Congressman introduced a congratulatory resolution. Michelle Bachmann blocked the resolution with an objection that there's no quorum, but the whole House passed it anyhow.

I just checked in on the latest news from China, and realized I'd completely missedthe election race for Chief Executive of Macau--the "Las Vegas of China"....

from RTHK in Hong Kong:

Macau will confirm its next Chief Executive today. The lone candidate on the ballot, Fernando Chui, will face a vote by a 300-member committee. He will need half the votes to seal his claim to the top job. Few surprises are expected as Mr Chui was nominated by 286 members, or over 95-percent, of the Election Committee. The same 300-member committee will cast their ballots this morning.

Yes, the system works!

Mike Lux on the healthcare fight:

This is the biggest issue for Barack Obama, and his ability to get anything else significant done will die if health care dies.

Er, no. Obama already faced his biggest issue - is this country a democracy or an oligarchy?* And on that one, he already made his decision - trillions of dollars for Wall Street, a pittance for the rest of America. Why do you think the costs of healthcare are such an issue? Because dude already spent all of our money on Wall Street.

America's children!


Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

hat tip Alegre

[Welcome, Digby readers!]

Below is a great, in-depth report by Al Jazeera on the failure of the richest state in the United States and how the government cuts deal a lethal body blow to Californians, particularly the working class and those below poverty. The rabid, right-wing is truly holding the state hostage with Da Governator leading the assault on the most vulnerable.

Part One

[Welcome, OFA readers! (The OFA page has no links for individual comments that I can find, so I can't cite back to the link. Therefore, I've included a screen dump of the thread below. -- lambert]

There were quite a few Organizing for America (OFA) health care organizing "kickoff" meetings in my area today. I chose to go to the one listed as sponsored by a slew of "your-organization-here for Obama" groups in order to do some outreach.

We United Statesians tend to do things to extremes. So if we're all Texans now, why would Texas bother to seceed? Florida, however, is probably superfluous.

Here's a summary and A Modest Proposal on the economic crisis.

It’s hard to understand it because we’re more accustomed to seeing numbers like that in the world of astrophysics or in Doctor Seuss.

Maybe this crisis will be over within 10 galactic years?

[Welcome to Digby's readers. -- lambert]

Lambert asked me to write on "the money thing" and "straighten it out" for people. Let me turn that around, what we are getting wrong is "the reality thing." The "money thing" is a consequence of getting reality wrong.

So what has happened? What has happened is that the outside world is willing to fund the United States only to do those things that the outside world values. The rest, the US has to pay for itself. The Bush era killed the goose that laid the golden egg for Americans, and that is the thing that needs to be explained, over and over again, in no small part because economists and policy makers are not getting what happened.

Lambert warned me about English majors, but it is the MBAs that I worry about, they write things like "pursuing synergies in multiple horizontally integratable vertical market universes." As an aside, the previous phrase means that they are going to lay people off from merging the two companies because the two companies, while not actually being connected, service the same kinds of people. Just to translate from the Corporatese.

Via goddammitkitty, who sometimes used to post around here until real life made her cut back. Language a bit NSFW for workplaces where you are forbidden from using vernacular terms to discuss excrement:

I hope this meets Lambert's standards for non-truthiness.

Isn't one of the main problems right now the fact that banks aren't lending? Isn't lending to businesses the grease that will make the financial wheels turn again? I thought so. Well, these folks aren't ready to help out. Hmm.

At a time when small business owners desperately need loans and credit lines to help them weather the recession, some of the industry's most active lenders have bolted shut the doors to their vaults.

 Read more…

Excuse me.
I'm trying to see what, exactly, the difference between corporate executives and Wall Street futures traders, and one-armed-bandit addicts is. Can somebody tell me?

It isn't the three-piece suits and hired drivers, is it? 'Cause the syndicate guys who own the casinos have those.

How is it more legitimate to engage in "futures trading" than throwing dice? I mean, I understand that it doesn't happen in Vegas, but apparently it does happen in alleys and break rooms -- and that instead of having some squirrelly kid watching for the cops, the Wall Street moguls have the media telling them what's happening not just in the game in NYC or Chicago but in London and Tokyo and Singapore.

Has Grover Norquist succeeded?

The nation is at an economic tipping point. Its weakened and getting weaker. So much so that a supposedly liberal President feels the need to speak repeatedly of "entitlement reform" which, to anyone paying attention, means services to the bottom 80% on the income ladder.

A follow up: Can a well intentioned "fool" (in the ignorant use of the word) lead to as much calamity given dire circumstances as an ill intentioned Grover Norquist type?

Hmm. Or is it: In which a little night musing apologizes for being prematurely cynical?

Headline on CNN:

hat tip

(edited to make screen cap a little bigger)

seed in it -- NOT sesame seed -- called?

The seeds in this bread are a mystery -- they're round, like millet seed. Crunchy. The color of pale honey. About the size of a round of 5-mm pencil lead -- too small to be uncooked couscous, for example.

The bread is chewy but not stiff, so not pumpernickel; its crumb is not as coarse as an Italian loaf, its crust not as leathery as a French baguette. It's not sweet-flavored nor does it have the characteristic whang of molasses-sweetened bread; alas, nor does it taste of buttermilk. It may not be a yeast-risen bread, but a quick-leavened bread. I know not, alas. Its color is like burnished leather, or like a chocolate (not fudge or devil's food, but cocoa-powder) cake.

The Manchester Hyatt in San Diego is boycotted by the LBGT community there and Unite Here the hotel and restaurant workers union.

Bill Clinton is scheduled to give a talk LA Times at the hotel to International Franchising Association Convention, a Republican tending association.

All letters, pleas, requests and discussions attempting to make Clinton change his decision failed.

What a shame!

[UPDATE It only just occurred to me that being labeled a stalker by David Sirota -- and all because I took umbrage at being told to "slither back to my rathole," with the rest of the Clintonites -- has to be worth some kibble -- especially during the heating season in Zone 5b. You may feed the hamsters at right. Send David Sirota a message about his meta! Haw. Thanks for the hits, Dave. --lambert]

The least Sirota could do is get his terms straight. He writes:

I've recently become aware that I have a few blog stalkers* - ie. people who spend inordinate amounts of time blogging about how much they hate my writing see [Corrente posts] here [1], here [2], here and here for just a few recent example

Two very short, "quick hit" posts pointing out specific problems, not with Sirota's "writing," but with his content? Now, I don't know what Sirota considers "inordinate" but believe me, I didn't have to invest a lot of time finding problems in the posts I linked to. Nor would I want to spend that time. For those who came in late, here are the posts that Sirota links to:

Not just the administration; Versailles. Bloomberg:

Driving investor doubts was Geithner’s failure to clearly address three issues at the heart of the crisis: Will banks saddled with toxic debt be forced to fail? How will illiquid assets be removed from bank balance sheets? And what will be done to arrest the decline in house prices that triggered the turmoil?

The Big Shit Storm started to hit when, a year ago? Seems like forever. And with the storm upon us now, The Powers That Be can't even agree on the size of the storm, its direction, the state of the levees, the condition of the pumps, an evacuation_{MR SUBLIMINAL Sorry for the unfortunate connotation!} plan, or even who's responsible.

Our Villagers are ignorant, predatory, unworthy of trust, or confidence, or power, or position. The only things they are good at are lying and looting, which is why they do so well where they are. Please, can we fire them all?

So my excuse for poor blogging today is that I'm trying to "work" while keeping at least one nosehair in the mess that is the implosion of the Obama Halo of Perfectedness. It's Hard, I tell you! Anyway, I got turned on to this bullshit post over at a place I adore and respect, and I've been having fun there all day. While not making money, that is, the better to pay taxes for bankers to have Hermes-appointed ass warmers.

Being Serious: now, like never before, is the time to kill the "libertarian" ideology for the bullshit it truly is. Hello? Massive numbers of the newly unemployed aren't so hateful of "government handouts" when its their house/job/health car on the line, yo? Don't get me wrong: for a "progressive," I'm actually pretty conservative, and I've defended Libs here more than once, and tend to agree with some of their...let's call them more "nascent" points. But I will not ever accept that a "tax free" society is some kind of utopian solution. It's just a stupid idea.

I've said time and time again: Libs are our friends; they just don't know it. It's a simple matter of making them understand who is really ripping them off. As you know, it's not Scary Brown People or Shiftless Welfare Immigrants. I ask again, how do we convince them of that? Because, as a friend of mine likes to say, "the rich stay in power by convincing one half of the poor to kill the other half." The debate between true progressives and uninformed libertarians seems very much like that to me, in this country. Feel free to flame away at my stupidity.

So, I was reading this article about continued trouble between the Israelis and Hamas, and caught this near the end of the article:

Responding to Israel's concerns, U.S. Army engineers arrived at the Gaza-Egypt frontier on Sunday to set up ground-penetrating radar to detect smuggling tunnels, an Egyptian security official said.

Inside the Rafah terminal — the gateway between Egypt and Gaza — four army trucks loaded with wooden crates and drills could be seen accompanied by four U.S. Army engineers. The Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.