Jon Stewart once again nails exactly how we feel.\

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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Op-Ed Columnist - Climate of Change - NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman is FINALLY happy. (And we all know that Obama was tailoring his economic policies to make Krugman happy.... LOL.)

Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.

The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.

For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start. And Mr. Obama plans to pay for health reform, not just with higher taxes on the affluent, but by putting a halt to the creeping privatization of Medicare, eliminating overpayments to insurance companies.

On another front, it’s also heartening to see that the budget projects $645 billion in revenues from the sale of emission allowances. After years of denial and delay by its predecessor, the Obama administration is signaling that it’s ready to take on climate change.

And these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in.

Read the rest at NYTimes.com.

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Two Documents You Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an 'epidemic' of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds. When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a 'weapon' to defraud we categorize it as a 'control fraud' ('The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime.' Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' 'weapon of choice' is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a 'criminogenic environment' (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)

Read more on HuffPo.

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Obama unveils budget blueprint - CNN.com

The budget for fiscal year 2010 includes substantial investments in health care reform, renewable energy and education.

The budget also includes big cuts for some programs, setting the stage for major political battles as political patrons fight to save budget items in the months ahead.

Based on the proposed budget, the administration projects the deficit for fiscal year 2009 will reach $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. That's a record in dollar terms and is the highest as a share of GDP since World War II.

Read the budget (pdf)

More from CNN.com.

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Face of the Day

Obama listening to House Republicans. They crowded around to ask for his autograph and then proceeded not to vote for the stimulus bill.

Jerks.

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Paul Krugman on the myth of wealth creation

Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.

At one level this should come as no surprise. For most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?

Yet until very recently Americans believed they were getting richer, because they received statements saying that their houses and stock portfolios were appreciating in value faster than their debts were increasing. And if the belief of many Americans that they could count on capital gains forever sounds na�ve, it’s worth remembering just how many influential voices — notably in right-leaning publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and National Review — promoted that belief, and ridiculed those who worried about low savings and high levels of debt.

Thanks Paul.

Read more at NYTimes.com.

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Don't miss a credit card payment, or the APR could soar - Los Angeles Times

Oh look, Americans are already paying to bail out banks...Oh yeah, we HAVE been paying for their junkets all these years.

Even in the best of times, carrying a balance on your credit card is a risky -- and costly -- proposition. These days, it can be downright foolish, at least if there's a chance you might miss a payment or two.

Millions of cardholders have recently received letters from the likes of Citibank, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co. notifying them that their interest rates are going up, in some cases to 30% if a single payment is missed.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest issuer of plastic, has begun charging hundreds of thousands of cardholders a $10 monthly fee for having carried large balances for more than a couple years.

Why? In part it's because default rates are rising and banks are dealing with additional risk. But lawmakers and consumer advocates say the higher rates also reflect banks' massive losses from betting wrong on the housing boom, and they're basically sticking credit card customers with the tab.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the committee chairman, said lenders are "gouging" customers to boost their bottom lines.

"The list of questionable actions credit card companies are engaged in is lengthy and disturbing," he said.

At the same time, rising layoffs and tough economic conditions have caused many people to lean more heavily on their plastic -- sometimes too heavily.

Corona resident Louis Martinez, 39, is carrying about $45,000 in debt on eight credit cards. He says it's not that he's been deliberately reckless. Rather, the debt piled up after his wife got sick several years ago and half the family's income disappeared.

"What can you do?" Martinez asked. "You still want to provide for your family."

He said he grows more anxious with each bank letter that arrives warning him of potential interest-rate increases.

"I've never missed a payment," Martinez said. "But with the way things are now, I wonder every day how I'm going to get through the month."

By ratcheting up the pressure on customers, major banks -- some of which have received billions of dollars in bailout cash from taxpayers -- are making it likely that a growing percentage will be forced to either default on their obligations or seek bankruptcy protection.

Last week, letters arrived at the homes of Citibank cardholders throughout California warning that their rates could rise to 29.99% if they miss a single payment -- even for cards with low-low-low introductory rates.

Citi customers have the right to decline any such rate hike. But if they do, their account will be closed as soon as the card expires. And that's one of the more generous conditions offered by a leading bank.

Other lenders say cardholders who don't want higher rates can close their accounts immediately and pay off the outstanding balance.

Samuel Wang, a Citi spokesman, blamed the rate hike on the "difficult market environment" and "severe funding dislocation." In other words, business has gone down the tubes.

Citi lost $18.7 billion last year and received $45 billion in bailout cash from taxpayers.

"In light of these unprecedented developments and others, Citi is repricing a group of customers in our Citi-branded consumer credit card business in the U.S. to appropriately manage these risks," Wang said. "We are carrying out this repricing in order to continue lending in this environment."

American Express cited a similar rationale to explain why it had raised interest rates by up to 3 percentage points for millions of cardholders last month.

"It was because of the challenging environment that we're in and the cost of doing business," said Desiree Fish, a company spokeswoman.

You can read more in the Los Angeles Times.

You know what kills me about the whining about "losing top talent" if you cap CEO bonuses? Into what OTHER industry do they think they're going to go? Who the heck do they think is going going to pay such absurdly, obscenely, outrageously huge "bonus" sums for abject FAILURE?

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Obama's poll numbers still high-- take that Rush Limbaugh

"With Barack Obama’s victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press—as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his Health Czar went down in flames and his second pick for Commerce Secretary walked away—the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.

Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don’t back it up.

Obama’s approval rating remains well above 60% in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they’d seen no diminution in the president’s sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans’ dismal numbers.

And that’s before the stimulus creates billions of dollars in spending on popular programs, which could, at least temporarily, further boot Obama’s popularity.

“It’s eerie—I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me,” said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest."

Read more on Politico.com.

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Martin Wolf on slaying zombie banks

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Why Obama’s new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks.

"The correct advice remains the one the US gave the Japanese and others during the 1990s: admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once. It is an important, but secondary, question whether the right answer is to create new “good banks”, leaving old bad banks to perish, as my colleague, Willem Buiter, recommends, or new “bad banks”, leaving cleansed old banks to survive. I also am inclined to the former, because the culture of the old banks seems so toxic.

By asking the wrong question, Mr Obama is taking a huge gamble. He should have resolved to cleanse these Augean banking stables. He needs to rethink, if it is not already too late."

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Arianna Huffington: Why is Obama Reluctant to Kill the Zombie Banks Threatening Our Economy?

Arianna Huffington: Why is Obama Reluctant to Kill the Zombie Banks Threatening Our Economy?:

"The big problem is Geithner is acting as if the crisis we are facing is a crisis of liquidity when, in fact, it's a crisis of insolvency. As Ann Pettifor puts it on HuffPost: 'Much of Wall Street is effectively insolvent. It's not that these banks lack cash or capital -- it's just that they're never going to meet all their financial liabilities -- i.e. repay their debts. Ever.'

Trying to prop these zombies up, as Geithner seems intent on doing, will lead to what Roubini calls 'a royal rip-off of the taxpayer' and the risk of 'turning a U-shaped recession into an L-shaped near-depression.'"

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Lessons From Japan in Stemming a Crisis

Ummmm, I have a really bad feeling about this. Anyone else feel like this is familiar sounding?

The Obama administration is committing huge sums of money to rescuing banks, but the veterans of Japan’s banking crisis have three words for the Americans: more money, faster.

The Japanese have been here before. They endured a “lost decade” of economic stagnation in the 1990s as their banks labored under crippling debt, and successive governments wasted trillions of yen on half-measures.

By then, Tokyo’s main Nikkei stock index had lost almost three-quarters of its value. The country’s public debt had grown to exceed its gross domestic product, and deflation stalked the land. In the end, real estate prices fell for 15 consecutive years.

More alarming? Some students of the Japanese debacle say they see a similar train wreck heading for the United States.

“I thought America had studied Japan’s failures,” said Hirofumi Gomi, a top official at Japan’s Financial Services Agency during the crisis. “Why is it making the same mistakes?”

Many American critics of the plan unveiled Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the plan lacked details. Experts on Japan found it timid — especially given the size of the banking crisis the administration faces.

More at the NYTimes.com.

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Judd Gregg Withdraws as Commerce Secretary nominee

What is the freakin' problem here?

"'I couldn't be Judd Gregg and serve in the Cabinet. I should have faced up to the reality of that earlier,' Gregg said. 'I've been my own person and I began to wonder if I could be an effective team player. The president deserves someone who can block for his policies. As a practical matter I can contribute to his agenda better--where we agree--as a senator and I hope to do that.'

'The fault lies with me,' Gregg said in an interview with Politico, refusing to discuss any conversations he has had with Obama himself. Asked if he felt the decision would be an embarrassment for the president, Gregg said, 'I may have embarrassed myself but hopefully not him.'

More in the round-up from HuffPo.

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Deal Reached: $789 Billion

Get it to his desk. Now.

Moving with lightning speed, key lawmakers announced agreement Wednesday on a $789 billion economic stimulus measure designed to create millions of jobs in a nation reeling from recession. President Barack Obama could sign the bill within days.

'The middle ground we've reached creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and costs less than the original House bill,' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the participants in an exhausting and frenzied round of bargaining.

The bill includes help for victims of the recession in the form of unemployment benefits, food stamps, health coverage and more, as well as billions for states that face the prospect of making deep cuts in their own programs.

It also preserves Obama's signature tax cut _ a break for millions of lower and middle income taxpayers, including those who don't earn enough to pay income taxes."

More from the AP.

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Mark Morford on American Monsters

Mark Morford has a screed today that pretty much hits all the points that I've been thinking about....

Whatever you call it, there's a bitter tang in the air, a nasty streak of anti-Everythingism, a collective bullet of disgust and frustration that's most violently aimed at the most precious American commodity of all: the rich, the overly entitled, the uberwealthy, the manicured bankers and CEOs and Wall Street cash jockeys we used to cherish like royalty but who now smell vaguely of death and foreclosure and Bernie Madoff.

Read more on SFGate.com.

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How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18

Frightening.

On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

Read more over at Zero Hedge.

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Obama Press Conference-Video

Helen Thomas, who had been snubbed by Bush in his final years, asked if Obama knew of any countries in the Middle East that already have nuclear weapons. Obviously, she meant: Israel (which reportedly has them). He said he wouldn't want to say but any escalation now would be bad. She interrupted him twice in mid-answer, pressing the point. And at very end she was still pressing.

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Polls say Obama Stimulus Effort Backed By Huge Majority

Remember those days of endlessly checking polls? Guess we're going to have to do daily checks again. Jake Tapper of ABC points out that under-reported in the press is that Obama's stimulus plan has HIGH approval ratings (67%), while Republicans DISAPPROVAL ratings on the same issue are high (58%).

Sixty-seven percent of the American people approve of how President Obama's handling his efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, as opposed to 48% for Democrats in Congress and 31% for congressional Republicans.

In addition, the disapproval rating for Congressional Republicans remains a 'staggeringly high' 58%. And the public continues to view the package as a matter of paramount concern. 51% of those polled consider the plan's passage to be 'critically important,' with 'Only 16% say it is 'not that important.''

Read more details, plus an interesting analysis of Republican stimulus bill changes on HuffPo.

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Obama's Elkhart, Indiana Town Hall Event

I'm watching this guy right now and he's brilliant. This format is perfect for him, but more importantly, it's a visceral reminder to the Republicans of what's happening in real America. Plus he just got a little dig in there at John McCain with his seven (eight, nine?) houses.

President Obama has left Washington today to appeal directly to main street for the backing of his stimulus plans. He's holding a town hall event in Elkhart, Indiana first. The local paper - The Elkhart Truth - has more information on the event. The full text of Obama's remarks is below.

On Tuesday, Obama will be in Fort Myers, Florida. HuffPost is providing live video streams of the Indiana event.

You can watch Obama's Elkhart, Indiana Town Hall Event on HuffPo.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Obama on the networks today

Barack Obama is slated to sit down with the five major television news networks tomorrow, a media play that is almost certain to be part of a broader effort to sell his stimulus package to the American public.

The president will conduct interviews in the Oval Office with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX News on Tuesday afternoon, according to the official White House schedule. The sitdowns come at a delicate time for the president, with concern mounting in Democratic circles that much of the debate over the stimulus has been dominated by the GOP.

More on HuffPo.

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Paul Krugman on Economic Prognostication

I love Krugman's snark-iness. In his op-ed "Lest We Forget":

"A few months ago I found myself at a meeting of economists and finance officials, discussing — what else? — the crisis. There was a lot of soul-searching going on. One senior policy maker asked, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

There was, of course, only one thing to say in reply, so I said it: “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?”

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Paradigm Shifting

A map of newspaper endorsements ===>

In the category of "wow" endorsements of the day, the Economist has come out in support of Obama: "In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency."

Politico looks at the effects Obama's voter turnout is having down the ballot: "Barack Obama is shaking up the South by greatly expanding the black vote and forcing Republicans to confront splits in the same white conservative base that has long fortified the GOP in Congress. Georgia's U.S. Senate race is Exhibit 1, as a record turnout by African-Americans in early voting has lifted the candidacy of Democrat Jim Martin against Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent. At the same time, Wall Street's meltdown — punctuated by the state's own fiscal woes — has soured the mood for Republicans, and Chambliss must win back conservatives, angered by his vote for Treasury's $700 billion financial rescue plan."

You know what I also love about this election? I love the reminders of what we have in common across the nation. I love that there's a guy in Salem, Virginia who apparently lives in the woods, who feels the same way a ballet-crazy liberal in Japantown, San Francisco does. He's obsessed with the election, and so am I. He blogs from his laptop constantly. And so do I. America, we're not so different as you might imagine.

Here's how far we've come. The Austin-American Statesman offers this story of 109-year old Texan Amanda Jones, whose father was born into slavery. "Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said."

In a Wall St. Journal op-ed, Daniel Henninger defines the shift embedded in this election's outcome. "The political planets are aligned to make this achievable. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, prominent Democrats, European leaders in France and Germany and more U.S. newspaper articles than one can count have said that the crisis proves the need to permanently tame the American "free-market" model. P.O.W. Alan Greenspan is broadcasting confessions. The question is: Are the American people of a mind to throw in the towel on the system that got them here? This would be a historic shift, one post-Vietnam Democrats have been trying to achieve since their failed fight with Ronald Reagan's "Cowboy Capitalism."

Here's a little tidbit for those West Wing fans out there: "Four years later, the writers of The West Wing are watching in amazement as the election plays out. The parallels between the final two seasons of the series (it ended its run on NBC in May 2006) and the current political season are unmistakable. Fiction has, once again, foreshadowed reality... Online, some West Wing fans are wondering whether the show will wind up forecasting the real-life result as well. In Britain, where the series remains popular in syndication, a recent headline on a blog carried by the newspaper The Telegraph declared: "Barack Obama will win: It's all in The West Wing."

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Bill's Lines of Reasoning

After the Informercial and the Daily Show, there was one more part to the Obamathon, maybe my favorite part of the night-- his appearance at a rally in Florida with Bill Clinton. In that way that only Bill can serve it up, he gave his four reasons to support Mr. Obama on Election Day next week: his philosophy, his policies, his ability to make a decision and his ability to bring change to people's lives. Watch the old master at work again:

There are four reasons that I can tell you in a way no one else can, because I've been there. And I want you to tell this to everybody. And they don't just have to be your neighbors. You can e-mail people all over America. There are all these exchanges going on where people who are still undecided are fessing-up, at least on the Internet.

And I want you to get on there and tell them there are four reasons they ought to be for Barack Obama. The four things that really matter in a president are: number one, the philosophy; number two, the policies; number three, the ability to make a decision; and number four, the ability to execute that decision and make changes in people's lives.

So I've been noticing this philosophical argument on television. You all been seeing that in this election? And Senator Obama asked me to say a word about it on the way up here. He's got the right philosophy which is America works from the ground up, not from the top down.

They talk about redistributing the wealth. They just presided over the biggest redistribution of wealth upward since the 1920s and we all know how that ended. In the last eight years 90 percent of the gains went to 10 percent of the people over 40 percent to one percent. Can you run a great democracy that way? I don't think so. So don't tell me about redistribution. When I served you, you had more than five times as many jobs as you are going to get out of this crowd. You had medium family income across all racial lines going up and now it's down. We paid down the debt. They've doubled the national debt. So don't tell me about redistribution.

What Senator Obama has is a plan that works from the bottom up. If there's a strong middle class and if poor folk can work their way into it and stay in it, there'll be lots of millionaires and billionaires. I know we made more millionaires and billionaires than they did and you just didn't know it because middle class incomes were rising and everybody had a good job and that's what Barack Obama will do again.

So he's got the right philosophy.

The second thing I want to tell you is he's got the right policies. And I've read them all. And I've read his opponent's. People used to make fun of me for being a policy wonk but I take it after the last eight years, we all know it really matters what people advocate. And let me tell you folks, is again something I can say because I'm not running for anything, the historical record shows that virtually every person ever elected president does his best to actually do what they say they're going to do in the campaign and Barack Obama's do-list is the better do-list.

The economic plan is better. The education plan is better. Young people, you read his plan. If you are willing to do community service it doesn't matter how rich or poor you are, you're going to be able to go to college, universal, everybody is included, no ifs, ands or buts.

And his health care plan is light-years better. And I can tell you there are people in this crowd, I know there, are who have lost their health insurance. There are people in this crowd who have children with autistic conditions or other disabilities that need help and nobody is helping them. And we're living in the government, last week one in eight Americans are not going to be able to afford their cancer drugs this year. America drops to 29th in infant mortality and we're spending more than anybody else in the world? They want to defend that.

Barack Obama wants to change that and he has a good plan to do it and we should vote for on Election Day.

And finally let me say his energy plan is better. And don't you be fooled by these oil prices going down because as soon as they can sucker us in to forgetting about being energy independent they'll go right back up again. And he's got the best plan to liberate Americans and create millions and millions and millions of jobs. So he's got the best policy.

Now the third thing he is, is the better decision maker. You know our current President said something that's really true. The President is the decider-in-chief. And in this election you've got a very unusual thing I've never seen happen before. You got to watch the candidates make, not one, but two presidential decisions. You always get one; who they pick as Vice President. He hit that one out of the park, folks, that was a good decision.

OK, then you got to see the reaction to the financial crisis in America nearly coming off the wheels. Having the wheels nearly run off. I saw this up close. You know what he did? First he took a little heat for not saying much. I knew what he was doing. He talked to his advisers, he talked to my economic advisers. He called Hillary. He called me. He called Warren Buffett and he called Paul Volcker. He called all those people and you know why, because he knew it was complicated and before he said anything he wanted to understand.

Folks, if we have not learned anything, we have learned that we need a president who wants to understand and who can understand. Who can understand; yes, he can.

The second thing and this meant more to me than anything else and I haven't cleared this with him. And he may even be mad at me for saying this so close to the election but I know what else he said to his economic advisers. He said tell me what the right thing to do is. What's the right thing for America, and don't tell me what's popular. You tell me what's right and I'll figure out how to sell it. That's what a president does in a crisis, what is right for America. And you know after this election there are going to be a lot of rough times ahead and you know it as well as I do. You have got to have a president who can understand and then has the fortitude to stand up and tell you, you hired me to win for America. I've got to make this decision now. This is the very best I can do. And I'm prepared to be held accountable.

I'm going to tell you something the way he handled this crisis and the way you saw him talk about it in the second and third debate showed that he will be a very, very fine decision maker working for the American people.

The last thing I want to say is this. Here's the last thing I want to say. All over the world I see this where I work now. The world is full of good, honest, smart, hard-working people with the best of intentions that cannot figure out how to turn their good ideas into real changes in other people's lives. If you have any doubt about Senator Obama's ability to be the chief executive, that's what the Constitution calls the president, just think about all of you. Look at this. Has there ever been a campaign that involved so many people, had made so much use of the Internet, that thought about how to solve problems, that gave people so much opportunity to give money, to give their time, to express their opinions, to do things.

He has executed this campaign in a way that is different from modern and forward thinking, something no one else ever could have done. He can be the Chief Executor of good intentions as president.

So I want you to get on the phone, and I want you to stalk your neighbors on the street, and I want you to get on the Internet and say if haven't made up your might you ought to vote for Barack Obama. He's got the best philosophies. He's got the best positions. He definitely has the decision making ability. And he is a great executor.

Folks, we can't fool with this. Our country is hanging in the balance and we have so much promise and so much peril. This man should be our president.

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The Fun Corner

Oddities and videos from around the web:

• Remember the old Wasssup Budweiser ad? New version this year. Wassup? Change. True.
• Singalong: "If We Vote to have McCain," to "If I only had a Brain."
• For the College set: a Barackapella concert from last February.
• For the kiddies... "The Vet who did not Vet."

• Faces to watch out for: Fifth grader Damon Weaver reports on Joe Biden's stop in Palm Beach. Added bonus: Biden actually explains what the VP REALLY does.
• Depress me, why don't you: Obama's new website that allows you to track the various robocall and leaflet attacks that are going on around the country. I guess those attacks are what the McCain camp would call "grassroots"?
• Obama's online programming is just really mindbogglingly fun. Here's his tax cut calculator. You put in your income info and it calculates what your estimated tax cut would be under his plan.

Joe Biden is leading HANDILY in his reelection campaign for Senate this year, but what happen if he becomes VP instead? From the Congressional Quarterly, an article about what will happen to those Senate seats. "No matter who wins the White House, somebody's leaving the Senate. Should the Democratic ticket win, Illinois and Delaware are in for replacement senators. If the Republicans win, Arizona gets a new senator and Alaska gets a new governor. Either way, for a short, intense period, single-state politics will be in the national spotlight as fill-ins are chosen to serve in the Senate until the 2010 election. Arizona and Illinois allow substitute senators to stay in place until the unexpired term is done, which would be 2010 in the case of McCain and Obama. In Delaware, where vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. is up for reelection this year, the replacement would stay until the next election, which is in 2010."Politico's Crypt blog notes that Jesse Jackson Jr is rumored to be in the running to replace Obama's seat.

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It's the Economy, STILL

Yesterday Barack held a panel discussion on the current state of the economy-- you can watch his opening remarks here. On the panel were governors of some of America's most swinging states as well as Eric Schmidt of Google and Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Chair who also advises Obama on economic policy. Unfortunately I can't find video of the rest of the panel's remarks, but you can get an idea here.

Also Helene just sent along this terrific, passionate speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. It's from much earlier in the year, but it lays out beautifully why the labor movement should get behind Obama, and why racism should be irrelevant to this election.

And in the unfounded rumor Dept.: Will Barack be on Saturday Night Live again? C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it...I guess we get a whole uninterrupted half hour of him on October 29 (8 pm, set your Tivo) so we can't be too greedy.

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Meet Me in St. Louis

On Saturday, Obama held massive rally in St. Louis in which 100,000 people showed up under Gateway Arch to hear him speak. The size of the crowd, second only to the crowd of 200,000 that he pulled in at Berlin's Tiergarten, seemed to surprise even the "celebrity," though it didn't take him off message. "It comes down to values – in America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it? I'm not giving tax cuts to folks who don't work. I'm giving tax cuts to folks who do work. That's right, Missouri – John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people 'welfare.'"

Ahhh, Berlin.... Every so often I have to muse on how cool it would be to be able to send Obama as our representtive to the G7 summit meetings. Steve Ketteman writes in today's SF Chronicle: "a President Obama would clearly be able to dive into the duties of the presidency next Jan. 20 with the knowledge that leaders in other countries see him as a welcome change in American politics. And that they see him as a fresh and different sort of partner in forging new directions, not just in U.S.-European relations but in common approaches to solving pressing common problems."

CONTINUE READING...

Six Degrees of Separation

Thanks to Dina for pointing out this hilarious little item. Oh the things that come out in campaigns... So, about Joe the Plumber, who's not really a plumber apparently, and not actually named Joe, but that's all beside the point. Point is, Wurzelbacher. Funny name. Some bloggers--and no doubt intrepid Googlers--have been asking if indeed he is related to Milford, Ohio's Robert Wurzelbacher, son-in law of Charles Keating, of the infamous Keating Five?

Barack Obama==>Joe Wurzelbacher==> Robert Wurzelbacher==>
Charles Keating==>John McCain

Really, I'm not suggesting any conspiracies by any means, I'm just marvelling at how elegant a place is the Universe.

Paul Krugman points out in today's column that your average plumber certainly has nothing to fear from Obama's tax hike on those who earn over $250,000. "You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of "plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters" in Ohio was $47,930."

And a blast from the past: back in August in Slate, Daniel Gross pointed out: "the business pundit class has been griping that people who make $250,000 a year aren't really wealthy, especially if they live in and around New York; San Francisco; or Washington, D.C. (Check out this CNBC debate, for example.) On Wednesday afternoon, CNBC's unscientific online poll found that (surprise!) only 35 percent of respondents believed an income of $250,000 qualified a household for elite rich status. I have two pieces of bad news for the over-$250,000 crowd. First, the reversal of some of the temporary Bush tax cuts is probably inevitable, given the Republican fiscal clown show of the past eight years. Second, I regret to inform you that you are indeed rich."

And digging deeper back into the past for economic perspective, thanks to Eric for forwarding this item from Common Dreams, which contrasts Supply Side economics with Demand Side: "According to Supply Side 'theory,' tax cuts should go to the wealthy for only they can afford to use the extra income to invest in the economy — to increase its capacity to 'supply' goods. But there is nothing to make sure they actually invest, especially in the U.S. economy. The new money might simply sit in the bank, or be spent on expensive foreign imports. It might be wasted in misdirected speculation, or invested in fast growing markets like southeast Asia. Without the ability to ensure that tax cuts are, in fact, invested in new productive assets, Supply Side Economics cannot ensure any real linkage between tax cuts and the hoped-for economic boom. Contrast this wishful thinking with Demand Side economics. Demand Side Economics, says that if taxes are to be cut, they should go to those who earn the least amount of money. The reason is that low-income workers spend virtually all of their incomes. Money given to them goes right back into circulation, fueling a boom in consumer spending...Bill Clinton reversed Reagan's Supply Side policies, raising taxes on the wealthy and lowering them on the working and middle class. What happened? The economy produced the longest sustained expansion in U.S. history. It created more than 22 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. Unemployment fell to its lowest level in over 30 years. Inflation fell to 2.5% per year compared to the 4.7% average over the prior 12 years. And overall economic growth averaged 4.0% per year compared to 2.8% average growth over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations."

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Anger Management Edition

Jesus God Almighty in heaven, please somebody, Help me! My head just exploded.

It's a good thing this was the last damn debate because I am ready to tear my last hair out and stamp myself into two pieces every time I watch one of these things. One more of those and I'll have an aneurysm.

Okay, okay, "Serenity NOW!" snarls Eric.

First things first. Debate transcript from the Times. Read it at your peril. The Times' Caucus blog also provides a liveblogged factcheck, as does the Washington Post.
Plus Politico's bite-sized debate videos.

Debate

So I ask you, who do you want next to the Big Red Button? The frantic, fidgety angry, old guy with a grudge, or the unflappable young guy who doesn't break a sweat even when the rest of us are about ready to pop both eyeballs out with apoplectic rage. If I had to watch McCain every day for four years, I'm fairly certain that I'd stick a freaking ice pick through my brain.

[Breathe... breathe... in with the good, out with the bad... in with the good...]

See, this is why I'm not running for president.

Why does John McCain always have to start things out by mentioning someone who's in the hospital? Talking about folks who are sick is like the ultimate Old Guy thing. "Your knee? My hip!!" First it was Ted Kennedy, now it's Nancy Reagan, who BY THE WAY, hates your guts because you dumped her friend Carol in order to marry a prettier, not-crippled beer heiress. Don't think she's forgotten.

Now, Joe the Plumber (plumBer, livebloggers, it's spelled with a "B", it's not "Joe the Plummer") needs to be put mercifully out of business. If I were drowning in broken pipes I wouldn't call Joe, so you, my friend, now have a dead business because we're bloody well sick of hearing about you. Sorry, you are now "Joe the Collateral Damage."

I loathe listening to McCain. He sounds to me not older and wiser, but actually more childish and petulant. He reminds me of a young friend of mine who, when I tell her she should do something, says "I KNOW. I know how to do it..." Now I can understand when she gets a little kvetchy-- she's six. He's 72 and he's rolling his eyes like a child. The whole ticket is like Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod.

It's like someone told both McCain and Palin that facial tics could win them votes. Watch McCain blink about 45 times when Obama tells him that Joe the Plumber will pay ZERO dollars in healthcare fines. Already, before the debate was even over, someone had started mashing up a YouTube video with the best moments of McCain, set to Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy."

Funny thing is, I had a whole subsection already earmarked for tomorrow called "Eye-rolling." I must be psychic. McCain's worst moment by far was his eye-rolling while Obama talked about free trade. Ah, the splitscreen...

The low point of the debate had to be when Bob Schieffer, (whom I dearly wish could have been replaced by Campbell Brown) goaded each of them to talk trash about each other, to their faces. Great. Thanks Bob, for elevating the discourse. But I have to say I thought McCain walked into a trap by going after the Lewis comment about violent rhetoric. Obama had the perfect opening to go right into a pithy line that works really well: "I think the American people are less interested in our hurt feelings than they are in the issues... I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks, what the American people can't afford is four more years of failed economic policies." What's even worse, is that as Obama is recounting that Palin never stopped her supporters when people shouted "terrorist" and "kill him," McCain is DOODLING on his yellow Pad.

Obama tries to take the high road and says that they can disagree without being disagreeable, McCain drags it right back into the mud.

And WHAT was with the "air quotes" when he talked about concern for a mother's health. McCain says: "He's [airquotes] health {air quotes] for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'" Really? Seriously? You put airquotes around the idea of being concerned for a woman's HEALTH?? Just to be clear, you mean to indicate that you feel that a woman's health is obviously a completely bogus issue compared to a fetus' health.

I take comfort in the fact that as he did the "air quote" gesture, you could hear dozens of cameras clicking away madly. Yes, my paparazzi friends, capture that moment of supreme condescension and absolute filthy insensitivity. At the UK Guardian, Melissa McEwan says tartly, "Ah, yes. Hello there, Straw-Woman Who Gets Abortions Willy-Nilly in Her Third Trimester Because She's a Silly Flibbertigibbet With a Hangnail. Nice to see you again. If McCain hasn't reached the nadir of his appalling campaign with that moment, I don't want to see it when he does."

Okay, must concentrate...finding my Temple of Positivity. I can only beg everyone to please, please, for the love of Mike, please put him out of our misery.

CONTINUE READING...

Workers of the World!

"The state is a large and well-bred horse, who is slow in his motions owing to his very size and laziness, and needs to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places I am there, to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

--Socrates, in Plato's Apologia, 7:30e-31c.

Financial Crisis

Another day of "what the heck was that?" in the financial markets as we ask ourselves yet again, are we happy about what measures the government is taking with our dollars? I can't watch the Dow anymore-- all the ups and downs make me nauseous.

Ben Bernanke takes the historical approach in a piece for the Wall St. Journal today: "Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has actively used all its powers and authority to try to help our economy through this difficult time. Central banks around the world have also consulted closely and cooperated in unprecedented ways to reduce strains in financial markets and to bolster our economies. We will continue to do so. However, clearly the time had come for a more comprehensive and broad-based solution. History teaches us that government engagement in times of severe financial crisis often arrives very late, usually at a point at which most financial institutions are insolvent or nearly so. In these conditions, the consequences and costs of inertia and inaction can be staggering. Fortunately, that is not the situation we face today.

Y'know, gosh, all of this government intervention and seizure of some banks and nationalizing of others to force them to start lending again, darn it, it sounds so familiar. Where did I read that...? Oh yeah, here it is, in the Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2: Proletarians and Communists: "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." Yep. Communist Manifesto. Hey, I'm just sayin'....I report, you decide. Socialist or Fascist? Which are we?

At RCP, Eugene Robinson is having similar thoughts: "Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days? It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with 'radical' or 'socialist' views when a Republican administration is tossing aside 'Atlas Shrugged' and speed-reading'"Das Kapital'...When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his 'Contract with America' brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power."

CONTINUE READING...

Policy: Work and the Workplace

(again from candidates' own websites)
Obama:

• cosponsored and is strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right to organize.
  
• cosponsor of legislation to overturn the NLRB's "Kentucky River" decisions classifying hundreds of thousands of nurses, construction, and professional workers as "supervisors" who are not protected by federal labor laws.
• ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.
• raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

McCain:

• is calling for National Commission on Workplace Flexibility and Choice to bring together a bi-partisan set of leaders representing workers, small and large employers, labor, and academics. The Commission would make recommendations to the President on how modernizing our nation's labor laws and training programs can help workers better balance the demands of their job with family life and to enable workers to more easily transition between jobs.

  The Commission would examine the following issues that McCain believes are important to workplace flexibility and choice:

• Modernizing the nation's labor laws so that they allow for more flexible scheduling arrangements
  
• Ensuring that the nation's labor laws don't get in the way of working at home
  
• Promoting telework so that workers can spend less time commuting
  
• Making health more portable so that workers don't lose their benefits when they switch jobs
  
• Ensuring that workers can choose retirement plans that best suit their needs
  
• Providing workers with more choice in job training assistance so that they can build the skills they need for new and better jobs

CONTINUE READING...

Foundations of Modern Capitalism

I guess Europeans are as quick to move as Americans are-- they finally got around to a statement. From today's London Times: "At a summit in Paris, the 15 countries using the euro pledged that no bank will be allowed to fail. The European accord follows Saturday's announcement by the Group of Seven industrialised countries of an "action plan" to thaw frozen credit markets. The two moves may be the prelude to a wider international gathering of world leaders. George W Bush has suggested he may convene such a meeting later this week where the very foundations of modern capitalism may be reassessed." George Bush... where have I heard that name.... Who is that again?

Paul Krugman, the Cassandra of the Financial World: "Last month, when the U.S. Treasury Department allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, I wrote that Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was playing financial Russian roulette. Sure enough, there was a bullet in that chamber: Lehman's failure caused the world financial crisis, already severe, to get much, much worse. The consequences of Lehman's fall were apparent within days, yet key policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they've reached a moment of truth: They'd better do something soon — in fact, they'd better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend — or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression."

Reuters has more on the global financial crisis, as it gets bigger than just the G7 countries...for obsessive crisis-monitors like me. A handy collection of international articles on who's going down. Apparently, if you're a poor country to start with, it's like being a poor person watching this crisis. "African economies have so far been only indirectly hit by global market turmoil but tighter credit markets may impact funding for projects, even profitable ones, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday."

And on domestic shores, GM and Chrysler appear to be in negotiations for a merger! "A merger would be a historic event, with two of the most iconic names in American industry coming together to survive in an increasingly difficult environment. Both have roots dating back decades in Detroit and, with Ford, long dominated the auto industry — until Japanese and other foreign car makers began making inroads into the American market...General Motors' stock has fallen from more than $43 a share last year to less than $5, and it is burning through its cash hoard at a rapid rate. Chrysler, as a private company, no longer needs to report its finances."

By the way, during the debate, McCain claimed that he too had written a letter warning of the dangers of a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac housing market meltdown, "I'd like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Senator Obama's name was not on that letter." ProPublica asks, um.... which letter was that? T'would be interesting if the McCain campaign could provide us the letter.

CONTINUE READING...

Policy: Where do you get the Energy?

So I've been trying to get to Energy policy for week now. But I'm a bit caught up on other things in life (just barely) so here we go. I'm going to try to fit in the last looks at policy in the last few day before the final debate! (Assuming McCain even cares to talk policy at the next debate.) In case you're interested,

Much of the following is taken from candidate websites: Barackobama.com and JohnMcCain.com. Also you can get more info at the NY Times' site.

OIL AND NATURAL GAS

Obama:

• Wants to eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years
  
• Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline. Obama will work with stakeholders to facilitate construction of the pipeline. Not only is this pipeline critical to our energy security, it will create thousands of new jobs.
• Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices. With oil prices doubling in the past year, Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump.
• A "Use it or Lose It" Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases. Obama and Biden will require oil companies to develop the 68 million acres of land (over 40 million of which are offshore) which they have already leased and are not drilling on.
• Oppose drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and lifting the federal ban on new offshore oil exploration.
• Establish a process for early identification of any infrastructure obstacles/shortages or possible federal permitting process delays to drilling in the Bakken Shale formation, the Barnett shale formation, and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax on excessive oil company profits to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families. Would use some of the money to pay for his middle-class tax cut, for people earning less than $75,000 a year, and for eliminating federal income taxes on elderly citizens who make less than $50,000 a year.
• Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation. Obama and Biden will close energy industry market loopholes and increase transparency to prevent traders from unfairly lining their pockets, while driving up oil prices at the expense of the American people.

McCain:

• Lift the current federal moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, which stands in the way of energy exploration and production. We have trillions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy.
• Keep more of our dollars here in the U.S., lessen our foreign dependency, increase our domestic supplies, and reduce our trade deficit - 41% of which is due to oil imports. John McCain proposes to cooperate with the states and the Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources.
• Promote and expand the use of our domestic supplies of natural gas. Within the United States we have tremendous reserves of natural gas. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
• Supported the ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2000. Sarah Palin does not support the ban.
  
• Reform the laws and regulations governing the oil futures market, so that they are just as clear and effective as the rules applied to stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments. Congress already has investigations underway to examine this kind of wagering in our energy markets, unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, because it can distort the market, drive prices beyond rational limits, and put the investments and pensions of millions of Americans at risk.
  
• Does not support a windfall profits tax. A windfall profits tax on the oil companies will ultimately result in increasing our dependence on foreign oil and hinder investment in domestic exploration.
  

CLEAN COAL

Clean coal is an oxymoronic umbrella term used in the promotion of the use of coal as an energy source by emphasizing methods being developed to reduce its environmental impact. These efforts include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, and carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas. These methods and the technology used are described as clean coal technology. Major politicians and the coal industry use the term "clean coal" to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation and use,[1] with no specific quantitative limits on any emissions, particularly carbon dioxide.

Obama:

• Enter into public private partnerships to develop five "first-of-a-kind" commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.
• Would consider banning new coal plants without "clean coal" technologies.
  
• Sponsored a bill with subsidies for development of liquid coal but later said he would support subsidies only if the fuel could be produced with 20 percent lower emissions than gasoline.

McCain:

• Commit $2 Billion Annually To Advancing Clean Coal Technologies. Coal produces the majority of our electricity today. Some believe that marketing viable clean coal technologies could be over 15 years away. John McCain believes that this is too long to wait, and we need to commit significant federal resources to the science, research and development that advance this critical technology. Once commercialized, the U.S. can then export these technologies to countries like China that are committed to using their coal - creating new American jobs and allowing the U.S. to play a greater role in the international green economy. Says coal-to-liquid may be viable if carbon capture and pollution control technology advances.

NUCLEAR POWER

Obama:

• Cites cost and safety concerns, but has not ruled out nuclear power as part of the energy mix.

McCain:

• Construct 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the goal of eventually constructing 100 new plants. Nuclear power is a proven, zero-emission source of energy, and it is time we recommit to advancing our use of nuclear power. Currently, nuclear power produces 20% of our power, but the U.S. has not started construction on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. China, India and Russia have goals of building a combined total of over 100 new plants and we should be able to do the same.
  

ETHANOL, BIOFUELS, WIND, SOLAR

Obama:

• Support a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020. We have vast potential in this country to produce clean renewable energy and reduce our reliance on dwindling domestic natural gas reserves. The investment certainty provided by a significant RPS will encourage innovation, bring down the costs of renewable power, encourage necessary investment in new transmission, inspire new domestic industries, and strengthen rural economies.
• Set benchmarks for production so that more companies will invest in production and create distribution facilities where the average consumer can access biofuels for cars designed to run on them.
  
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

• 

  Would require 60 billion gallons of biofuels to be produced in the U.S. each year by 2030.
• Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.Create the 5-E (Energy Efficiency, Environmental Education and Employment) Disconnected Youth Service Corps. This program will directly engage disconnected and disadvantaged youth in energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to strengthen their communities while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment. The program will engage private sector employers and unions to provide apprenticeship opportunities.
• Devote significant resources from a permit auction toward accelerating the development and deployment of low carbon technologies and addressing the economic challenges imposed on key industrial sectors.

McCain:

• Issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and $5,000 tax credit for each and every customer who buys a zero carbon emission car, encouraging automakers to be first on the market with these cars in order to capitalize on the consumer incentives. For other vehicles, a graduated tax credit will apply so that the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit.
• Establish a $300 million prize should be awarded for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars. That battery should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.
• Call on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to Flex Fuel Vehicles. American automakers have committed to make 50 percent of their cars FFVs by 2012.
• Believes alcohol-based fuels hold great promise as both an alternative to gasoline and as a means of expanding consumers' choices.
• Eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.
• Effectively Enforce Existing CAFE Standards--the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars.


• Establish a permanent tax credit equal to 10 percent of wages spent on R&D. A permanent credit will provide an incentive to innovate and remove uncertainty. At a time when our companies need to be more competitive, we need to provide a permanent incentive to innovate, and remove the uncertainty now hanging over businesses as they make R&D investment decisions.
• Encourage the market for alternative, low carbon fuels such as wind, hydro and solar power with an even-handed system of tax credits that will remain in place until the market transforms sufficiently to the point where renewable energy no longer merits the taxpayers' dollars. According to the Department of Energy, wind could provide as much as one-fifth of electricity by 2030. The U.S. solar energy industry continued its double-digit annual growth rate in 2006. To develop these and other sources of renewable energy will require that we rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits that provide commercial feasibility.
  

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

What is Cap-and-Trade?

A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common motive of reducing emissions.

Obama:

• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families.
• Increase fuel efficiency standards by 4% per year while providing $4 billion for domestic automakers to retool their manufacturing facilities in America to produce these vehicles.
• Create a new $7,000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles.

• 

  Lift the 60,000-per-manufacturer cap on buyer tax credits to encourage more Americans to buy ultra-efficient vehicles, and encourage automakers to make fuel efficient hybrid vehicles.
  
• Offer domestic automakers either assistance shouldering their health care legacy costs in exchange for investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles or generous tax incentives for retooling assembly plants.
• Put 1 million plug-in hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicle fuels sold in the U.S. by 10 percent in 2020 and require additional reductions of 1% annually thereafter.
• Weatherize one million homes annually. Obama and Biden will make a national commitment to weatherize at least one million low-income homes each year for the next decade, which can reduce energy usage across the economy and help moderate energy prices for all.
• Set an aggressive energy efficiency goal -- to reduce electricity demand 15 percent from projected levels by 2020.
• Re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) -- the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. They will also create a Global Energy Forum of the world's largest emitters to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues.

McCain:

• "Green" the federal government. The federal government is the largest electricity consumer on earth and occupies 3.3 billion square feet of space worldwide. By applying a higher efficiency standard to new buildings leased or purchased or retrofitting existing buildings, we can save taxpayers substantial money in energy costs, and move the construction market in the direction of green technology.
• Move the United States toward electricity grid and metering improvements to save energy. John McCain will work to reduce red tape to allow a serious investment to upgrade our national grid to meet the demands of the 21st century - which will include a capacity to charge the electric cars that will one day fill the roads and highways of America. And to save both money and electrical power for our people and businesses, we will also need to deploy SmartMeter technologies. These new meters give customers a more precise picture of their overall energy consumption, and over time will encourage a more cost-efficient use of power.
• Establish a Cap-And-Trade System that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging the development of low-cost compliance options. A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options. The cap-and-trade system would encompass electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business, and industrial business - sectors responsible for just under 90 percent of all emissions. Small businesses would be exempt. Initially, participants would be allowed to either make their own GHG reductions or purchase "offsets" - financial instruments representing a reduction, avoidance, or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions practiced by other activities, such as agriculture - to cover 100 percent of their required reductions. Offsets would only be available through a program dedicated to ensure that all offset GHG emission reductions are real, measured and verifiable. The fraction of GHG emission reductions permitted via offsets would decline over time.
• Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets And Timetables:
• 2012: Return Emissions To 2005 Levels (18 Percent Above 1990 Levels)
• 2020: Return Emissions To 1990 Levels (15 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2030: 22 Percent Below 1990 Levels (34 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2050: 60 Percent Below 1990 Levels (66 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  

Obama's Policy Speech in Lansing in August 2008 on Energy Policy.

CONTINUE READING...

Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."

--Adolf Hitler

Lies

So, McCain's campaign has come out with an ad that alleges Obama got advice from former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, which both Obama and Raines say isn't true. But in the ever-burgeoning "Isn't it Rich?" category, turns out that McCain's CAMPAIGN MANAGER, Rick Davis "was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations."

To be fair, Factcheck.org goes after Obama's comment about the McCain Social Security privatization plan. "In Daytona Beach, Obama said that 'if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week.' The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts.Obama would have been correct to say that many workers under age 58 would have had some portion of their Social Security benefits affected by the current market turmoil – if they had chosen to participate. And market drops would be a worry for those who retire in future decades. But current retirees would not have been affected."

Damned Lies

Steady your gag-reflex. Sydney Schanberg (of the "Killing Fields" fame) finally goes after the story Ross Perot has been after everyone to investigate, namely, that McCain knew there were POWs left behind in Vietnam and cut off their last hope. In case you don't remember this one, it came at the tail end of Jonathan Alter's piece on Ross Perot's rant against John McCain in Newsweek.

To recap, about twenty years ago, families and friends of American MIAs began pressuring the US government to reveal what steps were taken to follow up on intelligence regarding last-known-alive MIAs and POWs. When initial inquiries revealed important information had not been pursued, many families and their supporters asked for the public release of POW/MIA records and called for an investigation. John McCain was on the Senate Committee on POW/MIA Affairs as was Bob Kerrey and John Kerry, and the findings, which Schanberg refers to in his article above.

John McCain flashed his famous temper at Dolores Alfond, a representative of the families of missing soldiers, during the POW/MIA hearings. As writer Bill Mizner once said, "The worst tempered people I've ever met were people who knew they were wrong."

Statistics

And just to worry us for today. Is Michigan the next Florida/Ohio? "People here are suffering. They've lived with a deep economic recession much longer than the rest of the nation. And now they are demanding attention, and looking for the candidate with the best answers and solutions. Traditional party lines have evaporated -- which makes Michigan the ultimate swing state."

I don't even have a cute headline for Financial Disaster anymore

And away they go....Morgan Stanley and Goldman have changed their status to bank holding companies. "The decision means that the Goldman and Morgan Stanley will be able not only to set up commercial bank subsidiaries to take deposits, giving them a major resource base, but they will also have the same access as other commercial banks to the Fed's emergency loan program."

"A trillion here, a trillion there..." What does a trillion look like exactly? If you were to stack up one trillion $1000 bills, the pile would reach past the troposphere, through the stratosphere into the thermosphere.

"Cash for Trash" is how NY Times columnist Paul Krugman is referring to the bailout plan. And in case you were wondering if the rest of America has noticed that we just bailed out giant firms who took on more debt than they could handle (too big to fail), while ignoring the average Joes who took on more debt than they could handle (not big enough to notice) an article in today's Washington Post: "This may be a Main Street bailout backlash in the making. The details of the financial crisis are still hard for most people to follow -- what with talk of exotic "derivatives" known as "credit-default swaps" and so on -- but the central fact of the matter hasn't been lost on anyone in this Northern Virginia community: The taxpayers are on the hook for the bad judgment of others. And they say they don't like it. They didn't break it, but now they've bought it."

Politico looks at McCain's love-hate relationship with the New York Times. Politico sez: "'Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization,' McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt said on a conference call. 'It is a pro-Obama organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama.' That metamorphosis from what it once was must have happened awfully fast. McCain granted the paper an interview on the economy less than 24 hours before Schmidt sought to discredit it."

A reminder that life is longer than just our lifetimes. Workers clearing the area around New York's Ground Zero have discovered rock formations created by glaciers tens of thousands of years ago.

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So for a change of pace, I thought I'd offer some Debate Watching Recipes today -- you know, for those who are planning to settle in for the long haul on Friday when the debate starts at the University of Mississippi, 8 pm Central Time.

Today, Dow Jones Sliders and Truffled "Pop-Goes-the-Economy" Corn.

Dow Jones Sliders
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound ground chuck
8 (3-inch) buns or rolls, split in half
2 to 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
thin slices of cheddar, tomatoes chopped bacon or avocado (optional)

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Preheat a griddle to 350 degrees F.

Combine the onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

Line a jellyroll or sheet pan with parchment paper, and place the ground chuck in the middle of the pan. Cover the meat with a large sheet of plastic wrap. Roll meat with a rolling pin until it covers the surface of the pan; it should be very thin. Remove the plastic wrap, and sprinkle the meat with the seasoning mixture. Fold the meat in half, from side to side, using the parchment paper. Use a pizza wheel to cut the meat into 8 even squares.

Wrap the buns in foil and place in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, place the burgers on the griddle and cook for 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Remove the buns from the oven. Spread a small amount of mayonnaise on each bun and top with the burger and any other condiments, as desired. Serve immediately.

(Adapted from Alton Brown/Good Eats)

Truffled "Pop-Goes-the-Economy" Corn
Regular (i.e. non-microwave) popcorn is yummy, and no worries about being poisoned by diacetyl butter flavoring.

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon white truffle oil
• Salt, preferably truffle salt if you have it
  
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup popcorn kernels (7 ounces)
• Freshly ground pepper

1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Stir in the truffle alt, truffle oil and a pinch of salt; keep warm.
2. In a large, heavy pot, heat the vegetable oil. Add the popcorn kernels, cover and cook over moderate heat until the popcorn starts popping. Continue cooking, shaking the pan continuously, until the popping has almost stopped. Carefully pour the popcorn into a very large bowl, add the truffled butter and toss well. Season with salt and pepper and serve right away.
   

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For any um... political junkies out there--you know... who like to spend all day on Wonkette or HuffPo--the Washington Post has launched a new website called Political Browser. "The idea behind the Political Browser, expected to start Monday, is to brief political junkies on the top "must reads" of the day, from an article on a scandal to a humorous video making the rounds on Google Inc.'s YouTube." Check out its "Blunder Box" area.

Bill Clinton was on The View this morning--looking a lot less defensive than John McCain. Oddly enough, he praises McCain as much as he does Obama, but I think raises some good points.

43 days to the election. Remember that, for many states, would-be voters must register well in advance of the elections. RockTheVote's list of voter registration deadlines. And if you're voting absentee, Declare Yourself has links to each state' voter information page where you can find out how to get your absentee ballot. Feel free to harangue your friends in the swing states. LOL.

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