Late Night Laughs: Trump booed at WHCD

Posted: April 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 5 Comments

WHCD red carpet: THE DONALD

Tonight is the WH correspondents’ dinner.

via the NYT Caucus blog’s live coverage:

Donald Trump, who just arrived at the White House Correspondents Dinner, was booed while walking the red carpet. #WHCD#NerdPromstableford2 hours ago

Obama’s speaking right now… says tonight he’s going to release his birth video….

He played Lion King Circle of Life.

“I want to make clear to the Fox News channel. That was a joke.” — Obama

LOL.

Earlier… Powell and Albright share a moment:

Best pix WWR ever took at #nerdprom. WWR was chatting w/Colin Powell when another Secretary of State… http://twitpic.com/4rmk5o WestWingReport 3 hours ago

Also, here’s some more theater of the absurd from this week… Fake Obama v. Real Ron Paul on Stossel’s Fox show (h/t Stacy):

Breaking News: Gaddafi son killed in NATO air strike

Posted: April 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Libya | Tags: , | 26 Comments

from the BBC:

A Nato air strike in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, has killed the son of the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadaffi, a government spokesman has said.

Colonel Gaddafi himself was in the house which was hit by the strike, the spokesman added, but he was unharmed.

His son Saif al-Arab was killed, as well as three of the Libyan leader’s grandsons.

Saif al-Arab, aged 29, was the youngest of Muammar Gaddafi six sons …

also from the BBC:

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the villa was attacked “with full power.”

“The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Saif al-Arab Muammar Gaddafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader’s grandchildren,” he said.

“The leader with his wife was there in the house with other friends and relatives, the leader himself is in good health, he wasn’t harmed.” Col Gaddafi’s wife was also unharmed, he said.

“This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country,” the spokesman added.

Saturday: Sailboats at Sunset

Posted: April 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Hillary Clinton, morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Escaping Dystopia 2011...

Morning, news junkies.

Chris Hedges ushered in 2011 by calling it a brave new dystopia. For a brief moment in time, the Egyptian and Wisconsin protests provided a glimmer of “there’s something happening here,” but then we were returned to our regularly scheduled dystopic nightmare. I don’t know about you, but lately I’m finding that the actual headlines these days sound more satirical than the ones in the Onion. They leave me either wanting to lolsob…or just sob. So, on that note…

Above, to the right… from National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel:

This photo of sailboats at sunset has us yearning for the sea, which makes it an Editors’ Pick for week one of our 2011 Traveler Photo Contest in the category of Outdoor Scenes. The photographer Ken Michael Jon Taarup writes, “Boracay has never ceased to amaze many people from all over the world. With its white crystal sand, pristine blue waters, and beautiful sunsets, this place still tops the list of the most visited and beautiful resorts in the Philippines.”

That’s so you have something calming to visualize while you read my Saturday picks.

Alright, grab your morning cuppa if you haven’t already, and read on.

Let’s just get the biggest distraction out of the way first…

Tornado aftermath: Pictures say a 1000 words

“Depressing women’s history news of the week”

Being pro-choice means understanding that self-determination for women regarding sex, sexuality, reproduction and motherhood is a fundamental precursor to womens’ ability to achieve their own educational, economic and familial aspirations, a fundamental precursor to the health and well-being of individuals and families, and a core condition of the long-term stability and health of society. It therefore also means understanding the profound connections for women–supported by more than ample evidence–between economic and educational status and unfettered access to comprehensive sexual health education, contraception, family planning services, and abortion care.

The War on Unions… now brought to you by Dems in MA?

The bill will take a month before coming to the state Senate, but the overwhelming vote in the House, and [Gov.] Patrick’s kinder, gentler rights-stripping plan, make it look like something’s going to happen in Massachusetts. Time to get out in the streets in another blue state.

“I’ve played at hundreds of protests and demonstrations, and this was really unique,” he said. “It was every segment of society. It was radical students and cops on the same side, and I’d never seen that before.”

Hillaryland

  • The otherwise serious and reliable Laura Rozen overreacted a bit to Hillary taking a few days of Easter R&R time off with her family. There’s a reason Hill was dubbed the “Energizer Secretary.” The woman works non-stop. She has a personal life that she’s entitled to attend to and/or just recharge every few years or so.

Click to view HQ. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

When Bushies fight… Get out your popcorn

First of all, I didn’t have modest experience in management. Managing Stanford University is not so easy. But I don’t know what Don was trying to say, and it really doesn’t matter. Don can be a grumpy guy. We all know that.

As always, Black Agenda Report tells it like it is…

  • This is an instant classic! Please read and disseminate. Bruce A. Dixon’s Top Ten Answers To Excuses For Obama’s Betrayals and Failures. Note Number 9 — it’s for all the Obamaphiles who won’t accept that Obama is the third Bush-Cheney term. And, to quote a snippet from Numero Uno (Re: “It’s our fault the Obama presidency hasn’t kept its commitments. We need to ‘make him do it.’”):

You cannot make a US president do what he fundamentally doesn’t want to. Michelle Obama is nice to look at, but she is no Eleanor Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt used to publicly bask in the hatred of wealthy banksters. Barack Obama’s dream is mostly not to piss off rich people.

  • For more on the atrocities of Bush-Cheney III, give BAR’s April 25th podcast a listen. In the first segment BAR’s Glen Ford interviews Labor Notes editor Mark Brenner, who sees no growth and no jobs on the horizon and says:

“Absolute disaster for working folks. If we follow the Ryan plan or if we follow the Obama plan, none of it spells good news for the rest of us.”

  • In another segment, Clarence Thomas, former Local 10 union secretary-treasury, says “what one needs to understand is that this is not simply an attack on public sector workers, it is also an attack on public services.” Thomas says the goal is to put labor back where it was before the New Deal, noting that it is a corporate and rightwing agenda in which “the Democratic party is complicit.”

The ongoing crackdown on dissidents: Syria, China

In response to the brutality of the crackdown, President Barack Obama signed an executive order today instituting sanctions against the Syrian intelligence agency and two of Assad’s brothers, a White House official confirmed. Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council voted in Geneva today to condemn the Syrian crackdown.

“The [Executive Order] is a watershed,” Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Envoy. “This is the first time an Assad has been designated by the [U.S. government], and the first time the USG has issued an EO on human rights in Syria. Until a few months ago Human Rights was a distant fifth on our list of issues with Syria. Now it’s emerged as the center of our policy.”

Ms. Cheng was arrested on what was supposed to have been her wedding day last fall for sending a single sarcastic Twitter message that included the words “charge, angry youth.” The government, lacking a sense of humor, sentenced her to a year in labor camp.

Timeout: Art break

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Mitch Daniels: Flippity Flippity Flop

Posted: April 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: black women's reproductive health, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, religious extremists, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , | 12 Comments

Mitch Daniels told THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Andy Ferguson that the next president “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until economic issues are resolved.

Well, that was back in June, of 2010 … obviously the economic issues must all be resolved today, right?

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said today he will sign a controversial bill that cuts off government funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Indiana will become the first state to take such action.

“I supported this bill from the outset, and the recent addition of language guarding against the spending of tax dollars to support abortions creates no reason to alter my position,” said Daniels, a Republican.

You can’t trust any of them.  They say anything.  Way to call a truce, Governor … right on the backs of poor women!

Wonky Fed Post (hip waders advised)

Posted: April 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economy | Tags: , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

The Fed’s been doing some pretty nontraditional things recently under Ben Bernanke.  A lot of this was not unexpected given his record of academic research on the subject of the Fed trying to be more public about its actions and the role of Quantitative Easing in Japan’s lost decade recovery.  I thought I’d put a few things up about both.  I’m going to have to use some monetarist jibber jabber so please ask questions if the jargon is overwhelming!  It’s easier to explain the jargon downthread than write a long run on post with explanations included.

The Roosevelt Institute held a Future of the Federal Reserve Event. Here’s video via RortyBomb of Joseph Stiglitz discussing QE2 among other Fed issues. I mentioned something yesterday down thread about the effectiveness of transmission of monetary policy through the traditional interest rate channel into the real economy and Stiglitz has a fairly succinct comment on that.   There is some debate on how much the Fed can actually do much at this point–with zero bound interest rates–to get at unemployment and even the inflation coming from higher oil and food prices.  We know it can happen, it’s just we don’t have empirical evidence under similar situations–other than from Japan–to know the degree to which stuff can happen right now.  So it could be an infinitesimally positive effect even thought it’s a positive effect.

There’s been some discussion of this on economists’ blogs since the Bernanke Presser a few days ago. Mark Thoma tweeted this critique of both him and Brad Delong on the Bernanke Presser from a monetarist’s site from blogger economist Stephen Williamson.  My first masters was in Monetary Economics so I’m well-steeped in monetarist theory.

In standard form, Mark Thoma’s heartgoes out to the unemployed, as mine does. However, Mark is much more certain than I am that the Fed can actually help these people out. Here is what Mark would have asked Ben about, if he could:

The main question I wanted to hear Bernanke answer is, given that inflation is expected to remain low, why isn’t the Fed doing more to help with the employment problem? Why not a third round of quantitative easing?

And:

In retrospect, more aggressive action by the Fed was warranted in every instance. Perhaps this time is different — I sure hope so — but the recovery has been far too slow to be tolerable. Green shoots require more than hope, they require the nourishment, and with fiscal policy out of the picture it’s up to the Fed to provide it.

Well, the answer to the question: “Why not a third round of quantitative easing?” should be: “Because it does not do anything.” (see here). In retrospect, the Fed could not have done any more than it did, even if you think that sticky wages and prices matter in a big way. Mark may think that the level of employment is intolerable, but the Fed has to tolerate it in the same way I have to tolerate the soggy weather outside.

I wanted to put this up before I linked to Krugman’s Op-Ed today which argues that Bernanke may be unduly influenced by inflationistas and Ron Paul, of all people called “The Intimidated Fed” and that he can do more.  Because, I’m not so sure the FED can do much more or if it’s Ron Paul that’s the dragon needing slaying.  First, I think it more like that Bernanke is being influenced by two Fed Presidents sitting on the Board of Governors right now than by Ron Paul. But, I’m not a DC or FED insider so it’s pure speculation on my part.

Some background: The Fed normally takes primary responsibility for short-term economic management, using its influence over interest rates to cool the economy when it’s running too hot, which raises the threat of inflation, and to heat it up when it’s running too cold, leading to high unemployment. And the Fed has more or less explicitly indicated what it considers a Goldilocks outcome, neither too hot nor too cold: inflation at 2 percent or a bit lower, unemployment at 5 percent or a bit higher.

But Goldilocks has left the building, and shows no sign of returning soon. The Fed’s latest forecasts, unveiled at that press conference, show low inflation and high unemployment for the foreseeable future.

True, the Fed expects inflation this year to run a bit above target, but Mr. Bernanke declared (and I agree) that we’re looking at a temporary bulge from higher raw material prices; measures of underlying inflation remain well below target, and the forecast sees inflation falling sharply next year and remaining low at least through 2013.

Meanwhile, as I’ve already pointed out, unemployment — although down from its 2009 peak — remains devastatingly high. And the Fed expects only slow improvement, with unemployment at the end of 2013 expected to still be around 7 percent.

It all adds up to a clear case for more action. Yet Mr. Bernanke indicated that he has done all he’s likely to do. Why?

Second, I’m not sure Bernanke (i.e. The FED) is in a very strong position to do much that can influence the real economy right now.  The QE stuff really only shifts the FED portfolio around between long and short term debt which can influence yield curves, but, at the zero bound, there’s still a limited impact on real interest rates.  You really can’t go lower than zero in nominal terms.  Also, the FED’s bought all this crap from every one from Belgian cities to AIG to give them more liquidity and for the most part, that money’s not channeling back into the US economy in the forms of loans.  Monetary policy is never very effective when an economy is in a liquidity trap (extremely low interest rates) and its transmission channel–the way the policy gets to the real economy where GDP lurks–morphs during various economic conditions.  We’re not seeing anything resembling 20th century economic conditions.

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