Still Here

I haven't written for a while because I've got a bee buzzing in my bonnet. What will happen to us once the Federal Reserve stops buying mortgages from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the end of March?

Not terribly sexy, I know, but my research so far shows, sadly, that it will affect all of us (negatively, it seems) and pretty darn fast.

But . . . the whole thing is complicated -- prepayment and default risks, for instance, and many competing views. I don't want to post on it until I understand it (which, frankly, might be never).

So I'm checking in to say I'm still here, researching this "stimulus withdrawal" or "reduction in quantitative easing" as the big boys put it.

In the meantime, let's give what brought us here another quick look. Because almost everywhere I look, I see reasonably intelligent people blaming George W. Bush for the subprime crisis and the ensuing meltdown. And it's utter nonsense.

Good politics don't always make good sense. Still, it seems that if the Democrats repeat something loud enough and long enough, people start to believe it is so.

Many minds much brighter than mine continue to debate the first trigger, why the crisis was so wide-spread, and who (or what) is to blame.

But many economists believe the Federal Reserve's policies, shaped by Chair Alan Greenspan, were a primary cause of the depression we find ourselves in.

Remember old Alan? Married to Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC? Alan, a pure free-market guy, served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Reagan, Clinton, and both of the Bushes. In the early to mid-2000s, he kept interest rates low, making money easy to borrow, and he nixed Brooksley Born's suggestion that derivatives be regulated.

After Clinton left office, Bush reappointed Greenspan. When he retired, Bush replaced him with Greenspan's protegee, "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke. Obama has kept Bernanke as chairman.

Both Greenspan and Bernanke were free market men, believing the markets would always right themselves, and ferret out fraud and misallocations of resources. Both men, many argue now, were wrong.

Greenspan did finally sound the alarm about Freddie and Fannie in 2005.

So on that bright note, I leave you with this incredible video.

It's a Congressional hearing from 2004 (back in the go-go days . . . remember them? When housing prices could only go up?). The Republicans were concerned Fannie and Freddie were loaning too loosely and that they did not have sufficient reserves to cover losses on subprime mortgages.

In response to these concerns, the CEO of Fannie, Franklin Raines, says (and sit down for this one) the loans Fannie issued were "riskless."

Yep, you read that right: riskless. Oy vey.

The video is long, I know (and I'm not endorsing the subtitles), but give it a watch as soon as you can. Bill Clinton makes a cameo appearance at the very end. And then write to tell me that this national, nay global, nightmare rests squarely with Bush and the Republicans.

Funny Videos and a Few Blog Updates

On Wednesday, Erroll Southers removed himself from consideration for the TSA job, "just weeks after revelations that he had provided misleading information to Congress prompted several Republicans to suggest that his nomination would not move forward without a fight. "

And of course, we knew the paternity score on John Edwards long before now. Today, he's in Hades Haiti, doing penance.

Here's my favorite video of the week: John Stewart eviscerates Keith Olbermann for his baseless, anti-Scott Brown rant.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Loved, loved, loved it.

Hitler, on the other hand, did not love it when Scott Brown won Massachusetts. See his reaction, below.



Happy Friday.

Greetings from an Exhausted Mass. Poll-Watcher

Once Brown surged ahead in Massachusetts, his campaign sent out an "all hands on deck" email asking for attorney volunteers to serve as poll-watchers. So I, along with hundreds of other lawyers, agreed to help out. We flew up to Massachusetts on Monday morning.

Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:00 a.m., hopped on vans at 6:10 a.m., and shipped out to various polling locations throughout the state, where we stayed for 13+ hours. (Massachusetts polls are open from 7AM until 8PM).

The next morning, we caught flights out of Boston to go home, and I've been sleeping ever since.

I'll be back with a full post tomorrow or Saturday, with stories from the ground.

Like the Coakley poll-watcher who thought Brown poll-watchers were there to torture small animals. By the end of the night, though, we were friends.

And then there was the precinct where two ballots were given to a single voter, on three separate occasions . . .

Oh, and the absentee ballot on which the voter had voted for two different candidates (the machine rejected it as being "over-filled") but the warden nonetheless said she was "calling" it a vote for Coakley.

The drama of challenging a vote. Oy vey.

But in the end, it didn't matter. The margin was too wide.

Best of all was shaking hands with Scott Brown -- and that poor man's hand was surely sore.


Oh, and last but not least, the story of when I stumbled blindly, wildly, with toothpicks holding my eyes open, into Norah O'Donnell, at the airport ticket kiosk. She kindly helped me find my gate, as I was blind in my old glasses.

These stories and more, coming up on Blogger Minutes.

In the meantime, I'm off to catch a few more ZZZZZZZs.

This Week's (mostly conservative) Links

Climategate: the plot stickens.

BPA super sucks. But we knew that already. It was the government that needed convincing.

So laugh at me all you want while I protest the naked-body radiation machines at airports. You know, the ones that have no quality control because, purportedly, the machines don't save the images? Jeer away. But one day, I'll be so "I so told you so," and it won't be any fun at all.

Speaking of concealed appendages -- we were, weren't we? Peter Piper got his pecker in a pickle. A guy in the U.K. showed up at the hospital with it stuck inside a pipe. "Medics at Southampton General Hospital could not get the man's penis out of the stainless steel pipe because the restricted blood flow had caused it to become aroused."

Ultimately, fire and rescue used a grinder to "safely cut the pipe off . . . in what a spokesman said was a 'delicate operation.'"

Yowza.

Turning to other news, check out the "Go Islam!" power point presentation Major Nidal Hasan gave during his grand rounds to fellow doctors. How, how, how did we miss this Fort Hood nut? Looks like heads will be rolling.

After seeing his grand rounds presentation, sadly I'm not surprised the Christmas Day underwear bomber fell through the cracks.

On the political front, the Massachusetts race is a dead heat.

Senatorial hopeful Dem Coakley is finally running hard against the heretofore Republican sleeper Scott Brown. But . . . she's falling flat.

Until today, this mock attack ad against him was fairly representative of her "real" ads. And the traction she's been getting with her real ads has been, umm, well . . . not much -- though things could certainly change. In any event, and no matter which side you come down on, the ad is pretty darn funny.



Coakley is running on fumes. Obama, who steadfastly maintained throughout last week that "Massachusetts is not on our schedule," flew into Boston today in a gallant, last-ditch effort to rescue her. But he had trouble filling his venue. Scott Brown, however, did not.

* Breaking news * and it's a real shocker! The White House believes Coakley will lose. Meh. It's probably just a strategy, designed to get the Dems out to vote.



Now then, about that bank tax. Would you believe liberal bloggers oppose it, as well?

If the Dems go through with their plans to favor union members over us regular Joes on their health care tax? And, if Brown wins, they ram the bill down our throats before he can be sworn in? Well, the country just might implode.

Whatever the case, politics certainly make for strange pajamas. And other non sequiturs. Like, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"

First, We Kill All the Bankers!

Remember Obama's interview on Sixty Minutes? Referring to the "obscene bonuses" the bailed out banks are handing out, Obama said the Wall Street fat cats "still don't get it." And why should they? Until now, anyway, now that Obama is proposing a "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee."

What a ridiculous name. If it looks like a tax, walks like a tax and quacks like a tax, it's a tax. It's as much a tax as the health insurance tax on "Cadillac" plans (unless *breaking news* you're a union member -- in which case your insurance plan is exempt), but I digress.


Obama wants to tax the banks' bottom lines to the tune of about 90 billion over ten years. Because the bonuses these bankers are paying themselves are, by golly, just wrong. The Democrats in Congress have hopped on the populist bus, too. Several are proposing a ginormous tax on bank bonuses, as well.

And a few Dems, desperate for any glimmer of hope in the Massachusetts senate race, go so far as to suggest this "responsibility fee" will be a game-changer and push Democrat Coakley over the finish line. What hooey.

Let's talk about responsibility for a moment. Did you know the biggest subprime lenders were . . . Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mammoth government sponsored enterprises? Together they loaned out more than five trillion dollars to questionable borrowers.

And now, because Fan and Fred are hemorrhaging subprime mortgage losses, Treasury gave these two GSEs a blank bailout check on Christmas Eve. In other words, our taxpayer bailout of these two incompetent agencies is unlimited.

Oh, and guess what else? Fan and Fred executives are getting bonuses in the millions, to be paid out, of course, from the millions of dollars you and I have paid in taxes. It was another little Christmas Eve present from Obama.

So why did Obama refuse to impose this "responsibility fee" on Fannie and Fred? Why is there no move by the Democrats to tax their bonuses? If we're going to tax "irresponsible" lenders -- so they can turn around pass the tax onto bank customers and make even fewer loans --let's at least start with the biggest purveyors of the subprime sludge.

On Wednesday, RealtyTrac said foreclosures have hit record numbers and "there's no end in sight." Consumer credit card charge-offs (where the credit card company gives up on collecting the debt) are at startling highs. The billions in stimulus spent on new roads and bridges did nothing to help local unemployment.

Obama is in big trouble. A majority of the public does not approve of the way he's handled health care, the bailouts, or just about anything else.

This bank tax is political opportunism and it makes for a revolting side-show. It is obviously calculated to satisfy the public's blood lust for the greedy bankers and help Spocky Obama "reconnect" with the voters, just in the nick of time.

Obama's big bank tax is meant to distract voters and take our focus off the staggering unemployment numbers.



But something more sinister may be going on.

The bank tax gives Obama cover against increasing calls to regulate the banks or, gasp, break them up. Wall Street would much prefer a tax in lieu of increased banking regulations. And the bankers may get their wish.

The euphemistic "financial crisis responsibility fee" may be a Trojan horse ready to trot down Main Street, filled with Wall Street bankers Obama has armed for battle.

So Easy A Caveman Can't Do It

Greetings. We just finished a harmonious family dinner involving . . . soup. And I felt like Corabeth.

Dear God, please tell me you remember Corabeth, the prickly, turn-of-the-century Miss Manners of Walton's Mountain? The woman with the Gibson Girl up-do who married Mr. Godsey, owner of Ike Godsey's General Merchandise?

The woman who smugly tried to "civilize" every person within a ten mile radius with her intricate doilies and pinkies-up poses?

Well, I channeled her tonight. I never mean to, but I did.

At the dinner table, here's how it went:

Me (to Mr. M): Please. Stop. Your caveman bearing is unbearable.

Mr. M: I'm not being a caveman.

Me: You look like you're bracing for an attack from rabid dogs.


Mr. M: Mom, there are no dogs here, just me.

Me: Just my point. Put that arm in your lap, please. You are not a wild animal. There is no need to protect your bowl.

Mr. M: silence and inertia

Me: Put that arm in your LAP, please. Now!

Mr. M (putting arm in lap): slurp.

Me: Stop the slurping! Outward, outward! The spoon is always moving outward. That's right. Now gently tip the contents into your mouth -- do not put the entire spoon in your mouth. That's why it's large and that's why it's called a soup spoon.

Mr. M (exasperated): Mom! With this bowl, I can't even get a full bite (he was right.) This is impossible (right again).

Me: You'll thank me for this when you're a grown-up. Do you know how many men I turned down for a second date, because of their manners?

Mr. M (slurping, surprisingly curious): No. How many?

Me (lying): Too few many to count. Uh-oh. You have a wayward bean on your place mat. Better get him.

Mr. M (grinning, and purposefully): SLURP.

Me: You know, if I were a girl on a date with you and I witnessed this caveman, slurping situation, I wouldn't go out with you again.

Mr. M (with now nearly perfect manners): You're a strict girl.


Me: Yes, yes I am. And you'd better hope you find a strict girl, as opposed to a, uh, loose girl who is not so strict.

Husband: I don't think anyone eats soup like that any more these days.

Yowza!

At that point I went into survival mode and thought it best to stop things right there, before I got any further behind.

But a word in my defense: there were no more slurps and there's no more soup.

And the recipe? So easy a caveman can do it. Here, the Caveman's Hearty Soup:

1 large potato, diced
4 c. water
2 cans Campbells' bean and bacon soup
1 chorizo (cured) sausage (and you can get it w/no nitrites/nitrates at Whole Foods)
1 can (do not drain) turnip or collard greens

Throw it all together in a big pot on the stove and cook until the potatoes are done. Then? Eat.

P.S.: On a completely unrelated note that I can't help but mention, is anyone watching the Massachusetts Senatorial Special Election polls? Even if you're not a political bug, this match-up deserves your attention. Seven weeks ago, it looked like the GOP had a better chance winning the lottery than beating the entrenched Democratic Martha Coakley. But now? It's looking like a jump ball.

Much Ado About Dialect

Here's the AP clip on Harry Reid praising Obama as an electable candidate, electable because Obama is "light skinned and has no Negro dialect unless he wants one."



And then came the inevitable comparisons to Trent Lott's remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100-year old birthday party.



Not one to be outdone, Rod Blagovich joined the party.

"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up," Blagojevich told Esquire magazine.

But then he elegantly backtracked. "It's not appropriate for me, a white person, to stand out somehow and claim to be a black person, that's just wrong."

Conservative columnist George Will stepped into the fray and defended Harry.

GEORGE WILL: I don't think there's a scintilla of racism in what Harry Reid said. At long last, Harry Reid has said something that no one can disagree with, and he gets in trouble for it.

CHENEY: George, give me a break. I mean, talking about the color of the president's skin...

WILL: Did he get it wrong?

CHENEY: ... and the candidate's...

WILL: Did he say anything false?

CHENEY: ... it's -- these are clearly racist comments, George.

WILL: Oh, my, no.

Well, Reid may not have been racist but his remark was certainly elitist, elitist and offensive to voters. Harry Reid, you see, doesn't think the great unwashed masses, us "stinky Washington tourists," are smart enough to recognize and vote for the best candidate, black or white.

Once again, we see the liberocratic oath in action: first, let them do themselves no harm.

But maybe Reid was right about the electorate after all, if Bill Clinton represents a large part of it.

Clinton reportedly belittled Obama when he was seeking Ted Kennedy's endorsement for Hillary, telling Teddy. "Just a few years ago, this guy would be getting us coffee." Nice.

These recent stories, about who's racist and who's not, haven't just grown legs. They've turned into a thundering herd of elephants.

The hoopla from both sides, I suspect, is really being driven by the health care debate.

The Dems need Reid to get health care passed. And perhaps they need these distractions.

News Big Media Would Rather Lose

Naked-body machines violate U.K. anti-porn laws.

"Very few of us would be willing to get naked in front of a uniformed agent for the privilege of getting on a plane. But the scanners would have the same effect. How graphic are their images? British authorities barred the use of scanners for travelers under 18 for fear of violating child pornography laws."

And the radiation from these virtual strip searches? Has received scant attention . . . so far.

A scarier 2010? PIMCO's Bill Gross predicts the second half of 2010 will be grim. In the absence of government stimulus, or is it stimuli(?), expected to be withdrawn by March, the last two quarters may be quite painful. Also? Umm, don't buy treasuries.

Prosecutors gone wild: The Montgomery County D.A. twittered the names of people arrested for DWI on New Year's Eve. Ah. Another John Law in the wild west of Texas.

More helicopter government: Minnesota is creating a government data base that will keep track of every Minnesotan's prescription pain pills. Next will be a data base that tracks how much alcohol each person buys. Thanks, Big Gov. The Liberalcratic Oath: "First, let them do themselves no harm."

We knew there was a bad guy on the plane . . . after it took off.

Independent herbivores are going conservative: Whole Foods is growing right-leaning independents in the produce aisle.

"There’s no law that someone who enjoys organic food, rides his bike to work, or wants a diverse school for his kids must also believe that the federal government should take over the health-care system or waste money on thousands of social programs with no evidence of effectiveness."

Me Fannie, you Goldman: When the big banks paid out their bonuses, the now-populist press went ballistic. But when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs got big year-end bonuses, wrapped up in a $42 million-dollar cash compensation package? Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. But don't blame beleaguered journalists for not reporting this hot item. The Administration did wait until Christmas Eve to make the announcement.


Oh, and at the same time, the Fed agreed to continue unlimited bailouts for these GSEs. CNBC's Rick Santelli did not take the news well. What was it he called them? "Government Sponsored Explosions"?

Santelli's New Year’s resolution is to:

"mention Freddie and Fannie and every day maybe ask what’s wrong with S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. Because for us to re-nationalize off balance sheets these trillions of dollars of lecherous accounting gimmicks without having it affect the U.S. credit rating in my opinion is reprehensible.”

Memo to GOP: shag the Tea Party at your peril. This movement's message is simple: smaller government, a lower deficit, and lower taxes. And if you've been wondering why these folks are so hot and bothered, or how they got started, watch this clip:



Jump in bed and cover your head. The unemployment numbers announced today were abysmal. Worse, real unemployment (which includes discouraged workers, people who can only find part-time work, etc.) is at the highest rate ever recorded: a whopping 17.5%

Virginia is for . . . spenders? Recovery.gov reports $9.5 million went to 14 zip codes in Virginia that do not exist. So where did it really go? Who knows, man. Who really knows?

Promises, Promises

More transparency! No more earmarks.



The health care debate will be covered on C-Span.



Oops!

Maybe tomorrow someone will ask her why there won't be a conference committee on this trillion-dollar bill.

No wonder so many dems are retiring.

P.S. Today, Robert Gibbs sounded like he wants to retire. Testy!

Glenn Beck v. The Simpson

Just when Glenn Beck is getting bored, just when Rush Limbaugh has checked out of the hospital, Obama throws them a bone.

Meet Amanda Simpson, President Obama's (first?) federal transgendered appointee.

On being tapped for Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department, Ms. Simpson said,

"as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others."

I hope, for her sake, Beck's on vacation this week.

Ah well. At least it takes the spotlight off of Southers.

Don't TSA Me, Bro!

Is Erroll Southers's memory lapse -- he's Obama's choice to lead the Transportation Security Administration -- really a big deal? I'm not sure.

But in this age of "isolated" underwear bombers and nifty naked-people machines, it certainly warrants further scrutiny. (Oops. Obama update: the "suspect" did not act alone.)

Things have gotten so bad, we'll soon have to pass through airport contraptions that radiate us twice, front and back, from head-to-toe. Full-body x-rays, they are. To better detect bombs in an Islamic jihadist extremist's underwear, you see.

And who could argue we don't need these naked-people machines?

Because nowadays, even a flying passenger (1) paying cash; (2) for a one-way ticket; (3) checking no luggage; (4) whose visa was denied by the UK; and (5) whose father makes repeated calls to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to say, "Watch out! My kid is a radicalized Islamic nutjob" . . . doesn't get flagged.

Because a bipolar Janet Napolitano says, "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked," on the Sunday DC-beltway shows, and the very next day whips out her sword and falls on it, exclaiming, "of course the system failed!"



Even pleasant-faced press secretary Robert Gibbs made the preposterous "the-system-worked" assertion.



Holy hell! The next time Obama goes on vacation, somebody sharp needs to be in charge. Which brings me back to Erroll Southers.

My quarrel is not so much with what he did, some twenty years ago (which is not to say I have no quarrel with it at all) but with how he described and then revised it.

On October 22, 2009, he told the Senate, essentially: "Oh, well, I got a buddy of mine at the San Diego police department to run a criminal check on my estranged wife's new boyfriend. Shouldn't of done it, but I was distraught; it was an emotional time. She had my kid and she was living with the dude. Sorry. Oh, and my FBI boss did reprimand me."

Okay. It was twenty years ago. It doesn't sound all that bad. And he did 'fess up. I can accept that.

Except that less than a month later, the day after the Senate Homeland Security committee voted to confirm him to head up the TSA, no less, Southers had a V8 moment.

"Oops! Now that I think about it, now that I've reviewed the FBI documents, umm, well, I personally looked up my wife's boyfriend on the confidential database, it wasn't my buddy . . . and yeah, I did it twice . . . and, uh, I downloaded the information and then . . . I, umm, passed on that information to my friend at the San Diego police department."

He passed on his wife's confidential boyfriend information . . . why? What, precisely, was he hoping would happen? What did happen? Mr. Southers doesn't say, leaving us to wonder.

And why did he remember the incident one way in October and then recall it so differently, such a short time later?

No telling. Although Mr. Southers admits his inconsistencies distress him, still, he maintains, the discrepancies were just an "inadvertent mistake."

Alrighty then. Say, I've got a bridge . . .

To be sure, his twice accessing what was supposed to be a confidential law enforcement data base was vindictive, scary, an abuse of power, and very likely criminal offenses.

But his claim, that he didn't remember what he had done until after he'd been confirmed, stretches credulity. He'd been officially reprimanded; it's in his FBI file. Less than a month passed between his two widely varying, sworn accounts to the Senate.

All this, from the guy who wants to run our Transportation Safety Administration, including the naked-people machines and the TSA employees behind them. The TSA folks who will be in another room and allegedly won't be able to put a face on your naked body, the folks who will allegedly destroy your naked image the instant you clear security.

(Gee, really? So if the TSA clerk makes a mistake and lets a bomber pass by, we can't go back and see if she did the job well? Umm, okay. I feel so much better. Now, about that bridge . . . )


Even assuming he really did just have an innocent moment of major forgetfulness, I have to ask: Is Southers the best we've got to lead our TSA?