"The Palins’ un-American activities"

The Palins were members and supporters of a radical Alaskan party that preached secession from the United States, by violence if necessary, and sought aid from the government of Iran.
Where's the outrage from the right?

The McCain-Palin Mob

Welcome to Middle America.

Obama responds: Say it to my face.

Also: BraveNewPAC has a well-documented ad on McCain's hot temper.

Two economic paradigm shifts

I think we're going to see two trends in the coming months and years:
First, the world, fairly or not, is blaming the U.S. for the global financial crisis. Not for a very long time will the U.S. have any clout anymore when it comes to telling other countries how to run their economies.
Second, the mythological virtue of economic interconnectedness has been busted. The whole world is suffering a crisis that should have been limited to the U.S. and maybe a handful of other countries with housing bubbles. The news that countries like Iceland and Pakistan are near national bankruptcy because their economies were so heavily interconnected and leveraged with global markets should give us pause. Interconnectedness was supposed to make countries more immune to shocks; in reality the opposite seems to be the case.
Whether this will - or should - translate into another era of protectionism, I don't know.

Yes We Carve

Carve a hopeful Barack-o-lantern this Halloween with a YesWeCarve.com stencil.

Obama: "Too risky for America"

McCain launches a 1:40 minute tv ad tying Obama to Richard Ayres. They ran a "radical" education foundation which "had no discernible impact on education" (subliminal hint: maybe they were really plotting terrorism...). "They wrote the foundation's bylaws...together." (Ooooh, terrorists writing bylaws...) "It's not about their friendship, it's about Obama's candor and judgment."

Well how about some candor from McCain: why doesn't he say straight out what he's accusing Obama of, instead of dropping subliminal hints. He wants people to think Obama is tied or sympathetic to present-day Islamic terrorists. He wants people to think Obama's not patriotic to America, but really some kind of traitor with ulterior foreign motives. So why doesn't he say it? Because it's a disgusting and factually bullshit route to take, and McCain knows it. So he hides behind the subliminal crap. He still has to "approve this message," though. When this is over, no one will care about the political consultants who made the ad: it'll be John McCain's honor that will have been permanently destroyed.

Nations on the brink

Iceland and Pakistan are on the brink of national bankruptcy.

(h/t: Andrew)

"My fellow prisoners"

McCain is losing his mind:

"Dear Jews: Stop the Obama Paranoia"

Jeffrey Goldberg makes a pre-Yom Kippur plea for Jews to "stop the Obama paranoia."

McCain's housing plan, cont.

Via Andrew Leonard in Salon, Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin, a specialist in bankruptcy and commercial law who has been studying proposals like McCain's new "American Homeownership Resurgence Plan", comments:

The McCain plan cannot work. The vast majority (80 percent+) of residential mortgages are securitized. The government cannot purchase mortgages directly out of securitization pools. There are a limited number of ways to actually get around the securitization problem:

1. Refi the mortgages directly, which would involve paying 100 percent of face value.

2. Buy up ALL the RMBS and CDOs and CDO2s, which will be prohibitively expensive and will result in paying close to face value.

3. Take the mortgages from the securitization trusts via eminent domain -- and pay fair value.

4. Permit modification of the mortgages in bankruptcy, or

5. Pass Gold Clause type legislation that changes MBS holders' rights in a way that will allow modification of the mortgages. There are several ways to do this. It might not ultimately be Constitutional, but I doubt any judge would issue an injunction, so by the time there was a final ruling, the matter would be over and done and the worst case is that the government would have to pay out some (maybe a lot) of money.

Because the McCain plan doesn't recognize the (admittedly complex) problems created by securitization it is simply unworkable. At best it will help a few homeowners, but Treasury is already authorized to do that.

Leonard adds:

But the easiest and quickest way to get real help to homeowners is point 4 -- permitting bankruptcy judges to make modifications of mortgages. But that proposal is being resisted so fiercely by the banking and securities industry that it was the first thing that Democrats dropped from their version of the bailout, in the face of strong Republican resistance.

Star Trek meets the elections

Played like fools

Thomas Barnett and Newsweek offer a glimpse of the dangerous relationship between John McCain and Georgian President Saakashvili:

Swigging a can of Red Bull, Saakashvili grabbed a phone and called the trusted friend and mentor he had turned to every night since Aug. 8, when the war began: John McCain. A source close to the Republican standard-beared, asking not to be named discussing a private conversation, says McCain voiced support for diplomatic and political pressure against Moscow. “Hang in there,” the senator said, according to a Saakaskvili aide on condition of anonymity. “We are not going to let this happen … We are doing everything that we can to stop this aggression.” It’s not surprising that Saakashvili, 41, known to Georgians by the nickname Misha, would turn to McCain at a moment of crisis: their decade-long friendship is among the closest McCain has with any foreign leader.

Nice to hear. A rogue, maverick senator advising foreign leaders—on the side—on how to restart the Cold War. Imagine if Obama did this, how the Republican realists would howl in contempt!
...
Again, isn’t it nice to let Saakashvili declare war between Russia and the West. And why not take our strategic cues from Osama bin Laden too, deciding the “central front” of the Long War is wherever he declares it to be. And why not let Ahmadinejad run our strategic choices throughout the Persian Gulf. Hell, why not let every piss-ant populist collectively determine our entire grand strategy?

I mean, we have to take their propaganda at face value, right?

Otherwise we might get played like fools.

McCain's housing plan

McCain criticized Obama for being associated with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, as if the institutions were criminal and Obama was an accomplice. F&F's mission was to create markets to facilitate mortgage selling. Democrats liked them because they helped create "affordable housing" (through sub-prime loans). So there's a valid argument to be made that the whole affordable housing / ownership society ideology was wrong, that F&F contributed to the bubble and the securitization that caused this financial crisis.

Yesterday in the debate, McCain proposed a $300 billion federal program to buy home mortgages and convert them to lower fixed-rate mortgages, so people who took bad loans can stay in their homes. "Will it be expensive?" he asked rhetorically yesterday. "You bet it will."

So I'm confused: how is that different from what Fannie & Freddie did? The federal government would once again be subsidizing or encouraging home ownership through sub-prime mortgages. The government would in effect subsidize the loans at the difference between their current rate and the new, lower rate. Real estate prices would again be artificially propped up by the government. How does that square with McCain's blistering critique of F&F? I don't get it.

A view from the other side

FakeJohnMcCain ("Apparently I fucked up last night by not saying Obama is a Nazi Muslim who will sell your kids as sex slaves to the UN") links to Andy McCarthy at The Corner:

We have a disaster here — which is what you should expect when you delegate a non-conservative to make the conservative (nay, the American) case.  We can parse it eight ways to Sunday, but I think the commentary is missing the big picture.
Here's what Obama needed to do tonight:  Convince the country that he was an utterly safe, conventional, centrist politician who may have leftward leanings but will do the right thing when the crunch comes.

Now, as the night went along, did you get the impression that Obama comes from the radical Left?  Did you sense that he funded Leftist causes to the tune of tens of millions of dollars?  Would you have guessed that he's pals with a guy who brags about bombing the Pentagon?  Would you have guessed that he helped underwrite raging anti-Semites?  Would you come away thinking, "Gee, he's proposing to transfer nearly a trillion dollars of wealth to third-world dictators through the UN"?

Nope.  McCain didn't want to go there.  So Obama comes off as just your average Center-Left politician.  Gonna raise your taxes a little, gonna negotiate reasonably with America's enemies; gonna rely on our very talented federal courts to fight terrorists and solve most of America's problems; gonna legalize millions of hard-working illegal immigrants.

McCain?  He comes off as Center-Right .. or maybe Center-Left ... but, either way, deeply respectful of Obama despite their policy quibbles.

Great.  Memo to McCain Campaign:  Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn't; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office.  You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

If that's what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing.

With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side.  I'm dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so.  Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do.  What am I missing?

What he's missing is that Obama is not the radical nutjob he makes him out to be. Otherwise he's spot-on.

The Elitist

Rachel Maddow points out on MSNBC that John McCain, like in the first debate, did not mention the phrase "middle class" even once in the whole debate. This is really bizarre. His campaign has to know that he needs middle class voters to win the election. He's not going to lose any base voters by using the phrase. Rich Republicans who think the phrase smells of class warfare could surely excuse him for using it. Is McCain himself unable or unwilling to utter those two words?

McCain's new proposal

A McCain surrogate just confirmed to Chris Matthews that McCain's proposal for the government to buy mortgages is in fact new. I wasn't sure, I thought maybe he was just referring to the bailout. How does buying mortgages off people who couldn't afford them and shouldn't have taken them (as he said himself) make economic sense or fit into a conservative agenda? It might be a good idea, it just seems lame to bring it up for the first time in a debate a few weeks before the election. Like it's another...what's that word... stunt.

Incoherence

John McCain's contempt for Obama spilled over tonight. His first answer to the financial crisis - energy independence - has nothing to do with the financial crisis. His proposal for the government to buy up mortgages doesn't square with the anti-government Reaganism he was espousing for the other hour and 29 minutes of the debate. The way he projects his own flip-flopping onto Obama - accusing him of changing his tax policies seconds before radically changing his own - is bizarre. "Tide" is a laundry detergent, not an alternative energy. He simultaneously brags about being the most unpopular Senator and about being able to create consensus. He criticizes subsidized mandates for employer-funded health care in one breath and has full confidence all businesses would want to give their employees health care in the next. He talks about being able to do all things at once, despite an economic meltdown, when he couldn't even run his own campaign and work with Congress on the bailout at the same time. He criticizes any belligerent talk about Pakistan but jokes about bombing Iran.

John McCain proved tonight that his campaign and his governing philosophy are totally incoherent. I seriously challenge any political theorist to explain how McCain's proposals fit into any kind of consistent or workable framework, or how the kind of demeanor McCain projects would be suitable for President.

Live-Blogging the 2nd Presidential Debate

(Watching CNN, election.twitter and current.twitter.)

9:04. Obama: Crisis is the "final verdict" on Bush. Tax cuts for the short run. Fix the system for the long run.
9:06. McCain: Fix the economy through energy independence. (How is that related to credit?) The Treasury should buy up mortgages (! new proposal! So many issues to think about later.) "It's my proposal, not Obama's or Bush's."
9:08. Brokaw asking questions directly: who would McCain pick as Treasury Secretary? McCain: someone who people can trust. Wants Meg Whitman (CEO of eBay) for the job.
9:10. Everyone loves Warren Buffett. Obama: "Prosperity's not going to just trickle down."
9:11. Question on how the bailout helps people. McCain bragging about suspending his campaign. Blames the crisis on Fannie & Freddie, "with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his friends and cronies." Charges Obama with being in their pocket. Obama smiling in the background. "Some of us" tried to stop it.
9:14. Obama explains how the bailout helps people: credit markets => loans => payroll =>jobs. "I've gotta correct a little bit of Senator McCain's history, not surprisingly." Blames the crisis on deregulation, which McCain pushed. Hits back at McCain's campaign manager for lobbying for Fannie.
9:16. Q: Will economy get much worse? Obama: No, if people are helped and markets are regulated. McCain: No, if cronyism is eliminated. "Give American workers their chance." (Was Bush not giving them that chance?)
9:19. Q: How can either party be trusted? Obama: Plenty of blame to go around. History lesson about Bush's deficits. McCain voted for most of Bush's budgets. Reform health care. Energy. College affordability. Investments and spending cuts, net cut.
9:21. McCain: Obama has never taken on party leadership. (A twitter poster writes, "that's because the Democrats are usually right.") Obama has "most liberal, big spending record in U.S. Senate." Obama would raise spending. Energy independence is key.
(T points out that the viewer dials always go down when the candidates attack each other.)
9:24. McCain: all priorities at once. Promises benefit cuts to entitlements. "Clear record" of bipartisanship. Energy: need wind, solar, tide, .... (what's tide?)
9:26. Obama: need to prioritize. 10-year goal to energy independence. Knows the local price of gas. Hits McCain on tax cuts for big corporations.
9:29. McCain: cut excessive defense spending. [I step out of the room for a minute.]
9:31. Obama brings up 9/11. (Really?) Lost opportunity to mobilize the country.
[geechee_girl tweets: "McCain says he can handle 3 things at once while president but couldn't address financial crisis & his own campaign simultaneously."]
9:34. Obama: Corporations need to "share the burden."
[brianeisley: "McCain is fidgeting. Maybe he's gotta pee."]
9:36. McCain: Obama keeps changing his tax proposals. Has "secrets you don't know." (Spoooky...) Claims he's for "leaving tax rates alone," doubling child tax credit. (Huh??? He just changed his entire tax platform.)
9:37. Obama: "The straight talk express lost a wheel on that one." Tax cut for 95% of Americans. (CNN dial shows women up, men lower.) McCain would give "the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700k tax cut."
9:41. McCain: "not tough" to fix Social Security. "I saw it done before." "I'm not too popular." (How the hell will he achieve concensus if no one likes him??) Criticizes Obama's record vs proposals.
9:43. Q: Why does Congress work so fast for financial crisis but not for environment? (Good question.) McCain: Disagreed strongly with Bush on global warming. (What about his running mate?) He loves nuclear power. "We can reprocess fuel like the French." (Put in on colonial islands?)
[Looks like Alex is drinking every time McCain calls for a commission.]
9:45. Obama: Energy "not just a challenge, but an opportunity." Could be an engine for growth like PC's. McCain voted against alternative energy. Tactic of saying McCain's ideas are "important, but..." (consensus-building tactic?)
9:47. Brokaw criticizes their time use for the 100th time. (Good for him, I guess.)
9:48. McCain calls Obama "that one." (This is my HOLY SHIT moment.)
9:49. Health care industry is very profitable - should it be a commodity? (Should answer: Yes, a regulated commodity.) Obama: people hurting from health care costs. [Women's dial drops on mention of mammograms.]
9:52. McCain: "Costs go up, skyrocketing costs." (Yes...) Mocks Obama for "government this, and government that." (What job is McCain running for again? Not the head of the U.S. government?) Portable plans across state lines. (Without consistent federal regulation, which he opposes, that means a race to the bottom.) "Obviously" small businesses want to give their employees health care. (Then what's wrong with mandating it?)
9:56. Obama: "In a country as rich as ours, health care should be a right." Mentions his mother who died young of cancer because of her insurance company. (McCain's mother is 280 years old so he can't relate.) "Crack down on insurance companies who cheat their customers." (I know about this first-hand.) Explains the race-to-the-bottom effect - "like banks in Delaware."
[FakeJohnMcCain: "This is a fundamental difference between me and Senator Obama. Notice how he talks about the government. I, on the other hand, am white."]
9:59. Q: How will economic stress affect our foreign policy? McCain: need judgment. "Nation of good." Obama wrong about Iraq and the surge.
10:01. Obama criticizes invasion of Iraq. $10 billion a month, Iraqis have a $79bn surplus. "We need that money" at home. History lesson: even greatest nations can't have superiority with economic decline.
10:04. Q: What about humanitarian crises with no national security issues at stake? Obama: "moral issues at stake." Historical counterfactuals about Holocaust, Rwanda. "If we stand idly by, that diminishes us."
10:06. McCain: if Obama's withdrawal plan had worked, troops would have come home in defeat. "I've been in those situations" [of deploying troops] "all my life" - (really?)
10:08. Q: Pakistani sovereignty vs fighting Al Qaida. Obama: goes back to mistake, "distraction" of Iraq. Need to end Iraq war to deal with Afghanistan. "Can't coddle a dictator" in Pakistan.
10:11. McCain loves the Rough Rider (TR)... "walk softly and carry a big stick." Obama threatens Pakistan needlessly: "remarkable." (Then why is he threatening Iran??)
10:13. Obama: "Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan." Mocks McCain's "somber and responsible" demeanor when he sings about bombing Iran. (Yes!)
[BeautifulCalam": McCain you look like a crazy man when you walk around while Obama's talking. Sit down & wait your turn."]
10:16. Q: Better to have benevolent dictator in Afghanistan? (Excellent question.) Obama: "Very clear" with Karzai: "needs to do better with his people." (Everyone there hates Karzai, for the record.)
10:18. McCain: Obama said Iraq "couldn't work, wouldn't work, still won't admit he was wrong."
10:19. Q: How to avoid another Cold War with Russia?
[Wow, my server just crashed from overload. Are hundreds of people trying to read my blog? Doubtful... Server back up, sorry for being distracted there.]
10:23. Q: Is Russia today an "evil empire"? (Silly question.) Nuanced answers from both. (Obviously.)
10:25. Q: U.S. troops unilaterally defending Israel? McCain: "obviously would not wait" for UNSC. "What would you do if you were the Israelis?... Obama wants to negotiate with them." (Is he running for Prime Minister of Israel or President of the United States??)
10:27. Obama: "Cannot allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon." Never take military options off the table, don't give UN "veto power" over U.S. interests. Need to use "all tools" to prevent this. Need to change Iran's cost-benefit analysis. (Yes!) Iran "quadrupled its nuclear capability" because of Bush.
10:30. Q: "What don't you know, and how will you learn it?" Obama: ask my wife. "But here's what I do know..."
Closing statements. Applause.

Why didn't we pay more attention?

Ron Suskind looks back on eight years of covering the Bush administration:

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heckuva lot easier. Just so long as I'm the dictator." --George W. Bush, December 18, 2000

One morning in 2001, one of President Bush's most senior economic advisors walked into the Oval Office for a meeting with the president. The day before, the advisor had learned that the president had decided to send out tax-rebate checks to stimulate the faltering economy. Concerned about deficits and the dubious stimulatory effect of such rebates, he had called the president's chief of staff, Andy Card, to ask for the audience, and the meeting had been set. ... He was convinced, he told Bush, that the president's position would soon enough be seen as "bad policy."

This, it seems, was the wrong thing to say to the president.

According to senior administration officials who learned of the encounter soon after it happened, President Bush looked at the man. "I don't ever want to hear you use those words in my presence again," he said.

"What words, Mr. President?"

"Bad policy," President Bush said. "If I decide to do it, by definition it's good policy. I thought you got that."

The advisor was dismissed. The meeting was over.

King George's decrees are good policy by definition the way the United States, for Bush's "base," is good and great by definition. Merits are irrelevant; what is actually done, the actual consequences, the actual course of events, are all irrelevant. We're great; whatever we do is great; if we do it, it's great. It's the politics of narcissism.

Sarah Palin is of the same mindset when it comes to critical policy thought, and speaks to the same base in the same was as Bush did about America's automatic exceptionalism. Let's not make the same mistake again.

Making Obama the mysterious, dangerous other

Chris Matthews just made a good point on Hardball: The McCain campaign is trying to create a mystery around Barack Obama, with three corners: associations with terrorists, his middle name, and Arabs on his donor list. This a few weeks after the anti-Muslim propoganda piece Obsession was direct-mailed to millions of homes.

And now, for good measure, the Bush administration helps him. Observe (emphasis mine):

FBI warns of potential terror attacks on public buildings

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives.

Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and operators to be aware of potential attack tactics."

They tried this before in 2004, and it worked then. Shame on all of them.

Taking McCain Head On

The Obama campaign isn't sitting idly by, as Kerry did in 2004, as the Republicans swift-boat him. They're taking McCain on directly. Today they released a 13-minute documentary called Keating Economics, reminding people of McCain's role in the Keating 5 scandal, related to the S&L crisis that is similar to our current financial predicament. Notice the source: it's directly paid for by the Obama campaign. They're not cowering behind some unofficial PAC like Bush did in '04. Watch it:



And they released this ad, again acknowledging McCain's attack directly, shooting it down, and firing back. Whatever you think of these tactics, you have to give them credit for being honest and direct about them.

Tweet the Debate

1. For the debate tomorrow, Current will be teaming up with Twitter for a live webcast with real-time viewer responses displayed on-screen.
2. Twitter's election feed is great.
3. FakeJohnMcain is also a great source of comedy and campaign news.

We've seen this movie before...

McCain cutting Medicare and Medicaid

Following a WSJ article on the McCain campaign's new plan to cut Medicare and Medicaid costs to keep their health care proposal budget-neutral without raising anyone's taxes, Jonathan Cohn reviews:

First McCain said he would elimine the entire tax deduction for health insurance, in order to pay for his new tax credit. This would have paid for itself, but it would have done so by raising taxes on a lot of people.
Then McCain decided he was keeping part of the deduction after all. While he would be raising taxes on a very few people, he'd be lowering them for most. Of course, that would also have meant running much bigger deficits.
Now McCain is saying, no, no, he's not going to increase the deficit with his health care plan. Instead, he's going to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid--which, at the levels he's discussing, might seriously weaken the program.
I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

To be clear: Democrats have been saying for years that Medicare costs should be cut - by rewriting the ridiculous corporate boondoggle of Medicare Part D, and using Medicare's size and clout to force drug prices down. But that would involve a government invervention in the health care market that John McCain and the GOP oppose. So how does he jam this square peg in its round hole?

TacTables offer a glimpse into a socially-interfaced future

(Cross-posted on the EchoDitto blog.)

Last Friday, we went on an office field trip to explore the tactile-interface technology developed by a local company called TacTable. Located in Cambridge a few minutes from the EchoDitto office and in business since 2001, they are pioneers in the field of interactive, tactile, multi-touch, social interfaces. Their demo TacTable, made of wood and about the size of a ping-pong table, contains a PC running Windows XP and a thick translucent glass cover, under which invisible projectors and wide-angle cameras create the image and detect contact. Distance sensors around the table add user awareness, and speakers somewhere in the mix add sound.

The interface is extremely intuitive. On an exhibit made for Sprint's flagship store, users tap on floating "orbs" or place uniquely marked coasters on the table to open games, music, or video clips. Tapping a music orb opens albums which can be dragged, rotated or thrown around the table. Tap the controls and music starts playing, mixed into whatever everyone else around the table is playing. To emphasize the social experience, the table won't help you politely ask the person across from you to pause their music - you have to do that the old-fashioned way. Tap an envelope floating around and a cartoonish keyboard pops out to write an email. A DJ orb lets you spin tracks on a virtual turntable.

TacTables are perfect for museums. The company's first product was a vertical "touchwall" for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in 2001, and an 18-foot "open ocean" wall operates in the Georgia Aquarium. On one exhibit, you roll a high-resolution scroll of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics across the table and translations and stories pop out. On another, you can clutter the table with colonial-era legal documents, as John Adams might have done, and read about the Puritans banning Christmas or about the Constitution. The possibilities seem endless, and one gets the sense that every computer in a few years will work like this.

The company fully expects that, in fact, which is why they emphasize their expertise in interface design - creating what they call "socially engaging multi-user experiences in public spaces" - over the "invisible" technology inside the tables, which already faces competition from huge players like Microsoft (with its Surface). "In theory," they suggest, "we could still create experiences using MS Surface as well." The particular technology they've developed becomes incidental; their hope is that "people will remember whether they enjoyed using the table because it was fun, aesthetic, and intuitive (and perhaps even magical)."

Of course, the prospect of every tabletop becoming a digital interface has its drawbacks. As a parody of MS Surface advertises to bar-hoppers moving tumblers around their digital table, "instead of interacting with actual human beings, you could just order the food right at your table." Like self-checkout kiosks at supermarkets, the thrill of gee-wiz interfaces and the desire to cut labor costs could produce some unfortunate gimmicks. But there's no doubt this kind of interface is going to be huge in a few years. The more I think about it, the more the single-point mouse cursor still used in every standard operating system seems very old-school. The iPhone figured this out for handheld devices (and created standards which people now expect for similar products), so it's only a matter of time before every flat screen has this kind of social, interactive potential built in, and TacTable is well positioned to take advantage of that trend.

Diplomacy postponed

The opening of an American quasi-embassy in Iran will have to wait until the next administration.

Fundraising scandal?

It looks like that conservative blogger who alleged an Obama campaign fundraising scandal months ago has finally made some headway: as part of its new attack blitz, the GOP is filing a formal complaint against Obama. Quote:

The Republican National Committee plans to file a fundraising complaint against Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign Monday, alleging it has accepted donations that exceed federal limits as well as illegal contributions from foreigners.

RNC officials acknowledged Sunday that they do not have a list of foreign donors to Obama's campaign. Instead, the complaint is based largely on media reports, including one from a conservative Web site.

The complaint asks the Federal Elections Commission to audit Obama's campaign fund, RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross said in a conference call with reporters.

Tradeoffs in affordable housing

I was flipping channels earlier and stumbled upon a Fox News special on the financial crisis. The slant of the piece was ridiculous: the roots of the crisis go back to FDR, LBJ and Carter; Democrats like Barney Franks and Chris Dodd were in bed with Fannie and Freddie, which caused the whole mess; Barack Obama made it worse in his community organizing work in the 80s; Republicans have gotten it right all along; and if only the market were left alone (unlike FDR's horrible meddling), all would be well again. It's Fox News, so what do you expect.

The piece did make one point that was worth considering, however. That is essentially that efforts to increase affordable housing actually had the opposite effect in the long run. As the piece describes it, Congress pushed Fannie, Freddie and private sector banks to sell subprime mortgages; this made demand for housing shoot up, so prices rose too, bringing in investment money from all over the world, which in turn made it possible to build and lend even more. Ultimately the bubble had to burst, because too many people owning the real estate collateral at the bottom of the pyramid couldn't afford it (or decided it wasn't worth paying the mortgage anymore on a home of dropping value); and then everything came tumbling down.

There are several problems with their narrative. Fannie and Freddie did not single-handedly cause a housing bubble. Democrats in Congress did not force investors to leverage MBS's 30 times over. Nor did they force mortgage lenders to use sneaky teaser rates and fine-print gimmicks to snooker people into bad loans. Nor was Barack Obama's work for affordable housing in the 1980's responsible by any plausible stretch of the imagination for the crisis in 2008.

The goal of having everyone in America own their own home, however, certainly needs to be revisited. The drive toward that goal was a factor in the real estate price bubble. It's probably a combination of the Democrats' zeal for affordable housing, plus the Republicans' zeal for an Ownership Society, that fed the housing bubble. But it was not the bubble itself that caused a global financial crisis; it was the over-leveraging and deceptive securitization practices (in which real risk was obscured or ignored) that brought Wall St down. The real estate bubble might have been inevitable, but those were not. The first rule of every financial advisor is always "Diversify!" - so how could the whole financial system have become so dependent on a tiny sliver (subprime mortgages) of the economy?

That's were regulation comes in. The government needs to have a role in ensuring diversification in the markets and limiting risk. The growth of a global economy built on the house of cards of subprime mortgages in the U.S. shouldn't have just set off red flags in the quarters of risk-averse investors; it should have been illegal. Deregulated free markets allow for tremendous short-term returns, but they also have no built-in protections against collapse. That's where the Republicans have been wrong and the Democrats have been right for the last decade. But it would behoove everyone involved in the system to reconsider their assumptions.

The Clean Senator

The NYT investigates deep into Joe Biden's past looking for wrongdoing, and comes up with zilch.

Heartless, or just not listening?

This was a crucial moment in the debate. Notice the viewer reaction dials at the bottom.


Roger Ebert, commenting on the theater of the debate:

One thing a critic of a live performance is sensitive to is any unanticipated moment. ... Biden said, "I know what it's like to be a single parent raising two children." He did not know if his sons would survive the auto accident that took his wife and daughter. For a moment, he lost his composure. Looking at the moment again, I believe, as I did at the time, that it was genuine emotion, and not stagecraft.

It could not have been anticipated by Palin. The next camera angle was above and behind her. She paused. The silence seemed to anticipate words of sympathy and identification from her. But Biden had ended in a sentence using the word "change," and her response, reflecting no emotion at all, cued off that word and became a talking point about McCain. This felt to me, at worst, insensitive and callous. At best, that she had not fully heard Biden. In either event, her response troubled me. If a man had responded in that way to such a statement from a women, he would be called a heartless brute.

Bernie Franks v Bill O'Reilly

Watch this.


Alex says, "there are times where I've wished I lived in Brookline just so this guy could be my congressman."
Bill O'Reilly needs to be pulled off the air.