“When the final report on the risks of the US financial system is released in 2010 — and it is likely to cause a stir internationally — only one of the people in positions of responsibility today will still be in office: Ben Bernanke.”

I have to watch the election from a distance, the Potemkin village that is our political system is no longer funny or charming. Who the next President is, is largely irrelevant. Why such a negative disposition?

Because the IMF is going to subject the databases of major financial institutions in the USA to a stress test. Yeah, oh shit is right.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via Context Crawler, comes this article from the Washington Post, by Shankar Vedantam on happiness surveys. We take it for granted, and it is supported by surveys, that people tend to be happier when their economic situation is more secure and overall better. That is fairly uncontroversial. And right now, the economy stinks, gas prices are through the roof, so, the mood is on the gloomy side. Straightforward as well. If the economy were better, people would be happier. What is the paradox then?  Read more 

Salon’s Rebecca Traister writes a thumbsucker on PUMAs without interviewing or even quoting a single, solitary soul except — making assumptions here — MSNBC chief Phil Griffin. Nice work if you can get it.  Read more 

The mildew continues to spread.

I’ve been been reading the New Yorker almost since I could read. I’m sure my parents weren’t the only parents who framed New Yorker covers for art, when they were coming up and poor. I still think of a table of contents, let alone a letters section, as innovations that pander to weak-minded readers, and I loved the five-part series on geology.* And the one on soybeans, too! The Mighty Corrente Building has Departments in homage to New Yorker; I admire—honor—revere the New Yorker, and not least because they publish Seymour Hersh.  Read more 

Colleagues are lauding the NBC News veteran’s work.

I won’t go into the whole “bury Caesar” speech from Shakespeare here. I’ll note that Russert died with his boots on, though, recording voice-overs for this Sunday’s program at the time of his collapse.

Brokaw’s pretty broken up over it.
The rest of the media, I don’t know; but by this time tomorrow, the sharks will be circling to replace him.

Is it wrong of me to hope the VRWC can’t find somebody more sympathetic to their agenda?

what the hell is he doing on my TeeVee on CNN telling me that Hillary should concede right now? Toobin knows legal issues like no one else but he has literally no idea about political campaigns. Holy cow.

And anytime I’m hearing discussions about her “tone” in a speech, I get annoyed. Anytime I hear “tone” mentioned at all in any way, I get annoyed. “Tone” discussions are almost always bullshit in my view.

How many times have you sent someone an e-mail that was carefully crafted and they complain about the “tone?” We’ve all had that kind of experience. That sort of argument is almost inherently emotional, not logical or analytical.  Read more 

[For those who came in late, the baseless, defamatory, and grotesque charges propagated by the NY Post and the Obama campaign, that Hillary wishes for Obama’s death, just like RFK’s, began with an interview Hillary gave to the Argus editorial board.]

What’s wrong with the Argus editorial board? Don’t they realize, like anybody who is anybody, that Hillary wants to kill Obama? All the Serious people are saying so! The A list is saying so! Keith Olbermann said so! Why, I heard important Villagers at parties saying so! And yet, shamefully, these people have endorsed her! Have they been affected by Clintonian Mind Control Rays™ beamed from Mount Evil? [Avarosis, fondling orchids: Hmmm…..] Are they, too, insane, to endorse this horrible person? Are they bitter? Do they cling to? Are they consumed by hate for the Unity Pony? [Axelrod makes note to self: Is there any way to suppress SD’s votes?] What’s wrong with them?

Oh, yeah, the Argus Leader endorsement:  Read more 

Polls last week confirmed the weak showing of Barak Obama in a couple of key states that will be crucial in winning November’s general election. They also showed that Hillary Clinton has maintained an Electoral College advantage over John McCain, while other polls show Clinton dominating McCain in overall voter preference.

With the flawed Democratic primary likely resulting in Obama leading Clinton in the primary race for pledged delegates but not by enough to win outright, the nomination decision will fall to a small group of leaders; Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. What should they do?  Read more 

Or maybe not. Glennzilla:

Yellin’s admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government.

Scotty “Sucka MC” McClellan’s new book is bringing some uncomfortable facts out of the woodwork.

Citizens can only make decisions based on the information they receive. Manipulation and control of news information means manipulation and control of citizens.  Read more 

Given that, beyond any doubt whatsoever, Hillary Clinton Uttered the Most Dangerous and Hurtful Comment Ever Made, one that could crush the spirit of a nation and inspire race-based political murders….

Was it a particularly good idea for the MSM and the Obama camp to take that statement, which was uttered in an obscure newsroom, and make it the Nightmare Invoked ’Round the World?

That was out loud, guys. Very, very out loud.

Now that reluctant media critic Howard Kurtz has returned from the long weekend, he’s crawling through the lekkage.

He marvels at the assassination-gate feeding frenzy, citing some of the relevant debunkings.

Still, like all Villagers, he can’t keep from feeding the beast a little, making Hillary ultimately responsible for starting the fire, even if he considers the four-alarm response disproportional.  Read more 

From the paper that brought you Judith Miller, Michael Gordon, Tom “Suck on This” Friedman, and Jayson Blair:

Is it even possible that Mrs. Clinton thinks someone out there was not offended by her remark, Kennedy relative, Obama relative, or just plain folks?

I hate to break it to you, Times Editorial Board, but you are fucked in the head.  Read more 

I think that it makes you think that it would be very awkward for a vice president to be on a ticket—for a vice presidential candidate to be on a presidential candidate’s ticket after she’s made repeated references to his potential death. Yes, that would be weird.

Of course, one could link to Cheetopia posts on this subject all night, and why not?

Anyway, here is one in which Hillary is likened to Eichmann and Faust:

…I look at her and can no longer recognize her humanity. She has made a Faustian bargain, and it shows. The banality of evil indeed.

Robert Paul Reyes:

Hillary Clinton is the pinata of politics, she’s such a despicable creature that nobody bats an eye when she’s ridiculed, criticized or condemned. This is not a perfect analogy, a pinata is a brightly-colored paper container filled with sweets and/or toys and Hillary is a dour and bitter woman filled with arrogance, spite, jealousy and all manner of evil.

A pinata does nothing to deserve its horrible fate; we can’t help but feel a tinge of sorrow when we see its shattered remains. But Hillary is so evil that most folks figure she had it coming when pundits and comics tear her apart.  Read more 

Stephan Andrew Brodhead at The Conservative Voice:

Hillary making reference to the RFK assassination was not a ’slip of the tongue ’!  Read more 

Thus sayeth blogger “Desperado” on the Houston Chronicle’s blog:

In my opinion, her intentions were crystal clear, to say that she needs to stay in the race in case some tragedy befalls Barack Obama.

The superdelegates need to convene NOW, not May 31 or June 3, TODAY. They need to throw their unanimous support behind Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee and put and end to this process NOW. They must rid their Party of the cancer that is Hillary Clinton before it spreads any further. Not just for the good of the Democratic Party, but for the country as a whole.  Read more 

Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent for The Australian, might want to consider taking the FITH self-diagnostic:

HILLARY Clinton has lost it. Her gaffe at the weekend that seemed to imply she’s staying in the race because her rival Barack Obama might be assassinated is one of the bigger blunders ever witnessed in a US presidential campaign.

…

How many nutjobs in the US, wrestling their demons, now might actually think Clinton was talking to them when referencing the Kennedy assassination, perhaps believing she was sending them a message and finding in them some kind of endorsement?

…  Read more 

Huffington Post is still huffing and posting about Hillary Clinton’s scandalous reference to “June,” a racially charged trigger word inexorably linked to the Cleaver family.

Yale professor David Bromwich’s huffy post today is so suffused with FITH Syndrome that an excerpt simply could not do it justice.

But here’s something you can do for justice…

Please send me (vastleft###vastleft.com [substituting an @ sign for the ###s]) links to the most egregious examples of “Hillary Hinckley” finger-wagging you can find.  Read more 

In case anyone has forgotten…This is only the last iteration of a long series of shameful lies and intimidations against Hillary by the media, the big Blogs and the Obama campaign. She’s immune to it. I’m not. I’m furious.

At CNN home page http://www.cnn.com/
Vote button is on lower right.

“Do you agree with Sen. Hillary Clinton that the press has ignored sexism in the campaign?”

GOP and Obama geeks dominate CNN, as usual, with these following astoundingly head-up-their-*#@! results:

Yes 42% 29581
No 58% 41631
Total Votes: 71212

On the morning of the West Virginia primary, Washington Post Associate Editor Kevin Merida published a blockbuster story about ugly racial incidents experienced by Obama campaign workers that continues to fuel debate.

Media pundits are now using it to prove that “Clinton is willing to ride these biases to the White House.”  Read more 

And why does anyone care what she thinks?

Lambert asks what is up with the latest craptaculence from Julie Bosman’s keyboard, and where have all the decent reporters gone? Good questions; there’s a story beneath the story here, and it encapsulates everything that is wrong with what is fraudulently passed off as contemporary “journalism.” Let’s dig down into the muck a bit, shall we?  Read more 

[Welcome, InstaPutz readers.]

[Welcome also, Taylor Marsh readers, thanks to Grey.]

After Hillary Clinton’s historic 41-point victory in the West Virginia primary, two questions loom: How long will Barak Obama cling to his shattered dreams of the presidency, and how much damage will be done to the Democratic Party by his stubborn and divisive refusal to accept the obvious?

UPDATE – Below: How will Obama win an Electoral College majority? at Salon by Paul Maslin, former pollster to Howard Dean. (h/t BDBlue)

UPDATE 2 – Below: Skirting Appalachia, an Op Ed in the NYT opining on Barak Obama’s Electoral College strategic options by Charles Blow, Art Director at National Geographic -and why not? (h/t again to the sharp-eyed BDBlue)  Read more 

I posted on it last night.

Today, both Susie Madrak and Digby join the fun.

We’re ahead of the curve, folks!