More on Specter's Switch

And the hits keep coming for the G.O.P. Politically the news couldn't be worse. The Democrats now completely and totally control the House, Senate, and White House. They can (or will once the SNL alum is allowed to go to represent the people who elected him) do whatever they damn well please and the GOP has little or no way of stopping them. Some may think this is a bad thing, but the Democrats aren't nearly as united as the G.O.P. tends to be when in power. The only thing I think this might change is that health care reform, at this point, might actually get done. But even then, don't rule out filibuster support from Dems in states where they have a race on their hands. Nate Silver agrees.

I should also note that Specter's motives are obvious: He wasn't going to win reelection in Pennsylvania in 2010 as a Republican.

And that's what's really interesting about this from a political perspective. The "industrial" north is also socially liberal. Meanwhile the "rural" south is socially conservative. The Midwest is suddenly swimming to the left, while the West is thinking about it. The West Coast is--at this point--the East Coast without a stick up their ass.

The long term effects of Nixon's South stragity has killed his own party (oh yeah, and W's total lack of ability to do anything right). But there are two important trends as to why Our Father's G.O.P. is dead.

1) The G.O.P. of the 20th century was a party with libertarian roots and fiscal motives. It was a party that wanted the government to stay out of every one's business and lower their taxes. However, this was a poor election formal considering that many people lived through the 1930s and saw, or thought they saw, the effects of the New Deal Democrats. But as the Democrats tore themselves apart in the late 60s, Nixon was smart in thinking that he could pick up the South and flip it from red to blue (even if this happened for racist reasons).

This worked beautifully helping get H.W. Bush elected and then W. in 2000 and 2004 (Reagan didn't need the South all that much). However, to keep the new Southern party members happy, the Republicans had to throw them a bone, and that bone was a greater focus on social issues which lead the party to champion Southern Populist ideas. This anti-intellectual arm of the party turned off many Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast to the point where it's impossible to find a Northeast Republican. (There is probably also an interesting study about Roe vs. Wade and how that eventually would hurt the G.O.P. since a majority of Americans favor the woman's right to choose/abortion rights).

2) But this could only happen if the Democrats changed too. And they did. It took over 20 years, but beginning with Clinton (and before, but he was the sign that things had changed within the party), the Democrats started reading economic text books. Suddenly, Chicago School Economics wasn't evil if one throws in a dash of Keynesian economics and everyone tells unions that they're great. Bing, bam, boom, those who were fiscally conservative, the idea of voting for a Democrat wasn't so crazy. It's not that America has moved to the left, as much as the Democrats began looking to the right a bit.

The G.O.P. is it total disarray. There is no leadership. The party is being pulled five hundred different ways. The anti-intellectual, our way or the high way arm of the party seems to be in control. Moderates (i.e. pro-choice G.O.P.ers) are shunned. The party, right now, is fucked. They better get their act together or else Sarah Palin is going to lead this party to a defeat that only George McGovern could get tell her about.

R.I.P. Republican Party

More later, but with Spector becoming a Democrat, the Republicans are in serious trouble. Or at least, our father's Republican Party is. The 21st century, rudderless, socialist Conservatives live on. But they won't win too many elections.

The Root of All Evil

People wearing jeans. It's a problem. A major policy problem.

According to George Will.

I know, I know, the economy stinks, people are out of work, North Korea continues to be an issue and China and Russia has their back, East Africa is a mess and everyone seems to think that Mexico is on the brink, Canada has a conservative government, and Obama is talking to the leaders of the New World where Cuba will be issue #1.

Oh yeah, and there is still Iraq and Afghanistan.

But George Will is sick and tired of people wearing blue jeans. So I welcome George Will to the Policy Zone.

On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically -- running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans.

Oh, no, he's going to talk about race. This is not going to end well.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he (Akst) has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.

Huh? Jeans? Really? Blue jeans? Not credit cards? Not the 'smarter than no one' Wall Street yahoos? Blue jeans are the problem?

Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store -- discordant.

I'm speechless. I don't know about you, but what is so bad about jeans? And why is dressing 'better' than the 'working class' so awesome?

Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products.

Those effing Silicon Valley geniuses! Wearing comfortable clothing and not looking like squares! Don't they know the George Will lives in Washington, D.C. where wearing comfortable cloths is no-no! Don't they know that in DC only navy or black suits may be worn?!?! Don't they know that when it's 95 degrees with 93% humidity suits are the only way to go! This was a nation founded on being a square! How dare they even think about not wearing the national uniform!

Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote.

So what? If I were handing out suffrage cards, every white male over the age of 30 in DC would not be allowed to vote. Because guess who's more out of touch with America... that's right! The square in the black suit sweating his ass off!

In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you).

[Bada-Bing!]

Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters.

You know who does dress well. The Jehovah Witnesses. They dress well. So do those whack-job Mormons who walk around really poor areas in a dress shirt and drank pants and look totally out of place (and pardon my French because I really have nothing against Mormons, but those guys are reason I cross to the other side of the street when I'm out walking about).

I'm not saying that anyone should look like a bum, and if one is going on a job interview, then by all means wear a suit. But I'll be honest. I think we should wear jeans to 90% of all events in life. If I'm sitting in an office all day, why should I be in a suit (or nice pants)? Give me one reason.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

Frankly isn't listening to an iPod in public (like shopping, ordering coffee) or doing anything that may require human interaction five hundred times more insulting and disrespectful? If I'm sitting at the airport and I see some guy in a suit, I'm thinking one thing and one thing only: Loser who thinks he's more important than everyone else (this guy will also bitch if he has to check his bag, and the odds that he is white is 99%). If I see someone with an iPod while in line at a coffee shop I'm thinking one thing: Disrespectful jagoff.

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Ah, George longs for the 1940s! The truth comes out! The 1940s and 1950s, when few people owned cars, people held low paying manufacturing jobs, universal suffrage was something the Canadians did, and black men were finally allowed to play baseball in the major leagues! The good old days when war was cold and women didn't work!

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former senator Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

What did Mr. Bojangles wear? I think we can settle it right then and there.

Well thank YOU Mr. George Will for finally realizing that America needs to go back to the 1950s and that if we only didn't wear jeans, Medicare wouldn't be an issue any more. Because in a time like this, were the people who you identify with politically are organizing anti-tax rallies against nothing, you write a column about blue jeans. And how they're ruining America. Only, D.C. and the squares who think they're really important... they're the ones ruining America.

[end]

The real question is... does he think they should have fired Weis?

If you're a veteran of Catholic schools or a Catholic university then you know that nothing sets off the campus quite like a pro-choicer coming to campus to talk. So when it was reviled the President Obama was going to give the commencement speech at Notre Dame this spring it was only a matter of time before this turned into a Holy War.

The Right to Lifers are out in full force, stomping their feet, and talking to anyone in the press that will listen. They're ready to protest. They're ready to denounce Obama. Oh the fun.

Of course this is a case of the minority being really freaking loud. Catholics it turns out are to the left of the nation. This shouldn't be shocking considering the emphasis that the Church places on social justice (don't tell Richard Dawkins of course... because they he wouldn't contined to put his foot in his mouth). While Catholics have somewhat trended towards the GOP in the last twenty years or so, Catholics have been strongly Democratic voters throughout much of their history here in the U.S.A.

Why don't we hear about the non-blue-in-the-face-pro-life-Catholics? Because they aren't the minority--most Catholics don't vote on abortion or the death penalty or gay marriage--those issues are considered but how a 'good' Catholic should vote is for Div students to discuss over a pitcher of beer.

So what does this have to do with policy? Over all not much. There has only been one Catholic President (JFK) but Catholics who for so long were on the outside looking in when it came to the American economic, educational, and political system have become a powerful force in Washington and across the country (for example, five of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Roman Catholic).

But as they've become more and more important in the American political system, the Catholic vote has fragmented. It is no longer strongly Democratic (though Obama won Catholics by a large margin in November). And what that means is that the financially supported, well organized groups with in the Catholic community will be the most vocal and attempt to speak for the population as a whole (unofficially of course). Considering the far left of the Catholic Church in America live on in kind donations within the poor communities of America, the right wing of the Church will always be more vocal in American.

So this 'controversy' is much to do about nothing within the Church itself. Most Catholics (myself included) feel that it's some what hypocritical to have the pro-life groups protest Obama because of his views on abortion, but not W. over his views on capital punishment and the Iraq War.

But for the Catholic Pro-Life Movement in America, two wrongs do make a right.

So About Last Night...

Okay, so that post about Midwest Bank yesterday? I take it all back.

They moved down the street. So they're still there, just down the street. Maybe their lease was up. Maybe they got a better deal. But the branch is still there. Just a block and a half away.

I'm sorry.

But as I sort of joked about blogs in that post, it does prove a point about the criticisms of blogs. If I were a reporter for a newspaper, I would have to call Midwest Bank and find out what happened. If I had done that, they would have told me that the branch didn't close and they didn't lay anyone off, they just moved down the street. The story would have ended there.

Blogs are different because there is not fact checking process (well not much of one anyway). Observations are useful and provide great insight, but observations need to be checked. Any sort of reporting should actually be reported. Blogs don't work that way, you see it, you write it, you post it. And if it's not true, oh well.

So I'm sorry about that. Midwest Bank, my apologies.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

[Note: I totally misreported on this post. Go here to check out my mistakes. But there are a few interesting points about Mr. Beef and TARP that I think are worth checking out so I'm going to keep this up.]

So I hop off the #6 at Jackson (sorry New Yorkers, we're talking about a real city here), cross Michigan Ave on my way to work. And as I'm walking west on Jackson I notice something different.

An empty store front--an empty bank.

For months I walked by the Midwest Bank on Jackson and often thought, "I wonder if I'd be any good at banking..." but then dismiss the thought about a block later... but last week I didn't even get to ponder my banking prospects. Instead I was left wondering what happened.

Everything was gone--the computers, the paper, the waste baskets, all of it. All I saw was a big empty room with a few desks. Gone were the people I'd look at while I walked by, gone was the manger who had her own desk and who I'd see talking to the people she managed. Like a Gob magic trick, those employees of Midwest Bank were gone.

Two thoughts quickly came to my mind:

1) What happened to Midwest Bank? Did it go under? Were all those employees laid off?

2) This was the first tell-tale sign of the recession (well other than my classmates and my own struggles finding a good job even with graduate degrees).

I'll tackle the second half of everything first. I like to say that the exception doesn't prove the rule, but in this case it seemed like it did. The recession was real because Midwest Bank closed one of its branches.

Sudden the recession had a face. And that face was the empty Midwest Bank.

I didn't know those people at Midwest Bank, but I was seriously bummed out walking by the empty bank. I assume (probably incorrectly) that they were all laid off (I'm sure some were relocated and the rest let go). And while I know a few people who have struggled to find work, this felt more real. My daily routine had some how changed even though none of it effected me personally.

Over the years I've seen empty store fronts and I've seen a business close. But this is some how different. This is a bank, and banks don't close. Banks get bigger or they get bought out. LaSalle Bank becomes Bank of America. That's how banks work.

But there I was walking by an empty bank front.

So what happened to Midwest Bank? They've taken TARP money and want to close down Mr. Beef (the Mr. Beef story is actually very interesting). However, the CEO of Midwest Bank believes the bank is in a strong position even if it is taking TARP money. The CEO above is new, and the old CEO isn't going to receive a golden parachute because of the stimulus. And here is more on the Mr. Beef story. (the owner of Mr. Beef went to Congress to say that the big bad bank was screwing over the little guy, of course the big bad bank is a pretty small bank, and who knows if Mr. Beef was paying his bills... but hey, he wants some of that TARP money).

Nothing on Midwest Bank layoffs or closing branches. If I was a real reporter, I'd give them a call, but alas, something tells me that if I did give 'em a ring and say "Hey, it's the Policy Boy from ThePolicyBoy.com" they would give me the old Chicago run around.

The Things People Write When They Don't Understand Economics and Don't Want to Blame Obama For Anything

God I love her. I love Arianna Huffington. Why? Because she's an idiot with a platform. How did she get her? She married rich. Then she made friends with some people in Hollywood and BANG she had a website. And from this website that is loved by people whom I hope to never meet she gives us her opinion about politics and economics! And guess what? She's a complete idiot! So when Arianna speaks, I type.

On February 10th, the New York Times reported that there had been a "spirited" battle within the Obama administration over restrictions on executive pay and bonuses, and over attaching stringent conditions to any bailout money given to banks.

The clash pitted Tim Geithner, who opposed the restrictions and conditions, against David Axelrod, who favored them. According to the Times, Geithner had "largely prevailed."

Nice use of quotations, Arianna. Sweet back handed compliment, Arianna.

In light of what has happened since then, that outcome must now be viewed as a tragic surrender to Geithner, Summers, and the political/Wall Street class -- a "victory" that could lead to the unraveling of the president's entire economic policy.

Yeah. No. But sure. In political movie thrillers, then sure something like the A.I.G. bonuses could bring down the entire country. But in this little thing I like to call reality, I don't think so. In fact, the chances that the A.I.G. bonuses bullshit brings down the Obama economic policy (more on that in a second) are zero.

And speaking of the Obama economic policy... what is it? Yeah yeah, I know, stimulus and more TARP funds and toxic assets off the book, blah blah blah... but it doesn't have a name. It isn't a New New Deal or a New Fair Deal or a Gerater Society. In other words, Obama, like everyone including the FED is flying by the seat of their pants. So to say that the Obama economic policy may fail... well... the problem is there really isn't an economic policy. But it's Arianna's reality and we're just reading it.

Maintaining the public trust is always important for a leader, but especially so during hard times.

I fucking wish I had used this to open my three page paper on FDR in 8th grade history. Fucking fuck. That is an AMAZING opening sentence to an 8th grade paper. Seriously. Read that again. It's 14 year-old gold.

There is a fascinating chapter on Nelson Mandela in Stan Greenberg's new book, Dispatches from the War Room, in which Greenberg writes about how even the revered Mandela suffered a loss of public confidence when change did not come fast enough after he took office. "Don't assume the current euphoria, even with your high approval rating will carry you through," Greenberg counsels Obama, stressing the need to try to build up enough trust so that the public will stay with the president until they can actually experience change.

What? Nelson Mandela? Stan Greenberg counseling Obama? Where is this going? What is happening?

Geithner's feigned surprise at AIG has been a body blow to public confidence in the president. According to Sunday's Rassmussen poll, just 12 percent of those Rassmussen defines as "Populists" have a favorable opinion of Geithner while those Rassmussen identifies as "America's Political Class" have a 76 percent favorable opinion of him.

What is she talking about? Who calls one's self a populist? Where are these people? And secondly, what is her point? What is she trying to say to us? So 76% of the people who follow this stuff think Geithner is doing a good job. Is that her point? Or is Arianna attempting to tell us that she too is a populist? I'm confused. But I love her.

It was painful to watch Obama, just hours after Geithner had admitted his role in the Dodd/bonus loophole affair, go on Jay Leno and say that Geithner is doing an "outstanding job." Even before Frank Rich's Sunday column was titled "Has a 'Katrina Moment' Arrived?," Obama's assessment had more than a whiff of Bush telling Brownie he was "doing a heck of a job."

Wow. Just wow. Look, let's cool it with the Katrina stuff for starters. But I love how everyone is missing the point with the A.I.G. mess. Why is it that only David Brooks understands this? What is wrong with America? Has the 24 hour news really destroyed our intellectual ability? But wait, this is only going to get better.

My dictionary defines outstanding as "excellent, exceptional, superior to others in the same category."

My dictionary defines condsending as "Arianna Huffington".

So how could Obama say that and then, not a minute later, tell Leno that his administration plans to "open up separate credit lines outside of banks for small businesses" and "set up a securitized market for student loans and auto loans outside of the banking system" in order to "get credit flowing again"?

I don't know Arianna, I don't know how he could say such things. Did she cry when she wrote this sentence? Is it fair to picture Arianna, hair messy, mascarra streaking down her cheeks, saying out loud "How could you Barack! HOW COULD YOU???"

Back in January, after the Senate voted to release the second $350 billion tranche of TARP money, Obama had told the nation that he was "gratified" he'd been given the authority to "maintain the flow of credit to families and businesses."

Now, here he was, just over two months later, basically admitting that we have to find other ways to "maintain the flow of credit to families and businesses" -- completely contradicting a central tenet of the bank bailout, expressed by Axelrod in January when he told George Stephanopoulos that the president was "going to have a strong message for the bankers. We want to see credit flowing again. We don't want them to sit on any money that they get from taxpayers... And we have to make sure that the money doesn't go to excessive CEO pay and dividends when it should be going to lending."

Then Geithner happened. According to the Times, during the internal debate the Treasury Secretary "resisted those who wanted to dictate how banks would spend their rescue money." And we see how well that turned out.

Wait, Geithner was the only guy saying that the government shouldn't tell the banks how to spend their money? Isn't this the real story here? But that aside, let me say this, and I'm only going to say it once: life is not a fairy tail. I'm sure Obama, like everyone else in this country, hoped that the banks would lend out the TARP money. But then a little thing I like to call reality set in (and yes, I know I said that already, but the ObamaHeads need to hear that word a lot). Reality said this: The Banks are Screwed and need to balance out their sheets. When banks don't have a balanced bank sheet, they can't lend money. And yeah, it sucks. It stinks. It's too bad that we can't go into a bank and say, "Hey banker, don't you think I need $50,000 bucks to buy flat screen TVs and new jackets and a vacation to Disney World?" But those days are Ovar. Because banks don't have money. And this might actually be a good thing since the United States as a whole was completely and totally out of it's collective mind from 2003-2008. Cheap money is gone. That's okay. That's good.

The AIG bonus backlash is the first serious threat to the Obama administration. It has created an opening that allows conservatives to storm the populist barricades, suddenly acting like the second coming of Huey Long or Upton Sinclair.

Don't you love it when populists, conservatives, and Huey Long are all used in the same sentence? Should we tell Arianna that Huey Long was more leftist and less conservative? Should we tell her that the conservative moment is lost in the woods? Should we tell her the last conservative populist was George W. Bush?

Shameless opportunists like Mitch McConnell, Richard Shelby, and Eric Cantor, who have all argued against limiting executive pay and bonuses, are now positioning themselves in front of the populist parade, railing against AIG and pointing the finger at Obama for allowing this to happen on his watch.

Notice the non-ironic tone she's using with "shameless opportunists".

But the issue isn't Geithner's delivery, it's what he's delivering: an approach to the crisis that is as toxic as the assets that have hamstrung the economy. Geithner, brilliant and hardworking though he is, is trapped within a Wall Street-centric view of the world and seems incapable of escaping.

She does know that at this point this is a banking and financial crisis and having a guy who is stuck in Wall Street mode isn't a bad thing right?

That's why every proposal he comes up with is déjà vu all over again -- a remixed variation on the same tried-and-failed let-the-bankers-work-it-out approach championed by his predecessor, Hank Paulson. For Paul Krugman, this "insistence on offering the same plan over and over again, with only cosmetic changes, is itself deeply disturbing. Does Treasury not realize that all these proposals amount to the same thing? Or does it realize that, but hope that the rest of us won't notice? That is, are they stupid, or do they think we're stupid?"

It's official, we are in Blame anyone but Obama mode! Anyone but Obama! Tim Geithner is from Wall Street! Blame him! Anyone but Obama! Chris Dodd, you're an idiot asshole! Anyone but Obama!

I don't believe Geithner thinks we're stupid (although he almost certainly doesn't think we're as smart as he is). He just can't change who he is: a creature of Wall Street, habitually sympathetic to the people at the top of the financial system, who he clearly thinks were born to run the world.

Geithner's actions throughout his career are proof that the toxic thinking that got us into this mess is part of his DNA.

Okay, seriously. What. The. Fuck. Tim Geighner was the head of the Fed of New York. He worked for a consulting firm in DC. He worked for the Treasury Department. He worked for the IMF. He did not work for a Wall Street bank or firm.

While President of the New York Fed, he eliminated two key regulatory measures -- a quarterly risk report and a ban on major acquisitions -- that may have prevented (or at least lessened the impact of) the unraveling of Citigroup, which his office was responsible for supervising. Then, together with Hank Paulson, he was instrumental in the original bailout of AIG and the creation of the TARP plan. And he was a key player in the decision to let Lehman Brothers fail.

Look, Arianna knows nothing about what's going on. I don't know all that much. But I can tell you one thing: We need banks. These guys are a lot smarter than you or me when it comes to this stuff. So to have Arianna Huffington second guess the moves by these guys is sort of like any of us second guessing the placement of the bridge in a Beatles song. It's stupid.

And maybe Arianna missed the whole "HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE SKY IS FALLING" moment back in late September and early October when the credit markets totally stopped, the commercial paper market froze and the financial world was at DEFCON 5. But do you know why that is? Because Lehman failed. People got scared and they freaked. Well guess what? A.I.G. is bigger and even more important. If they fail it's gonna be Medieval Times for everyone (hyperbole).

Arianna writes some more stupid shit, but honestly... I can't do this any more. It's over. I can't take the bashing of anyone but Obama. I can't take the Obama can do no wrong BS. I can't take blaming Tim Geithner when he's dealing with half a deck of cards. I can't take Arianna talking about economics when it's clear that she has no clue what's she is talking about. I can't do this any more.

I'm breaking up with Arianna.