Where's the Outrage?

• Department of Justice has gone back to US District Court to ask for a stay in the court’s injunction preventing embryonic stem cell research.
• Although the mainstream press has tried to paint Glenn Beck has that changed man, I’m not sure that I saw much change. I know that he is not responsible for the actions of every single individual at his rallies but there was plenty of ugliness at his rally. Oh, by the way, was Glenn Beck’s rally much like a 12 step program?
• I’m not sure what it says about your preparation when you freeze during your opening statement. Governor Jan Brewer did just that. The governor has gone to greater and greater lengths to explain why she has to take such a harsh stance against illegal immigration. Back in July she stated, “our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded.” No news or law enforcement agency is able to verify this shocking claim. Reporters ask her about this discrepancy (below)

• While we are struggling through the worst recession since the Great Depression, it appears that many CEOs, especially those who’ve laid off the most workers, are doing just fine.
• We know that tax cuts for the rich work… this is just intuitive. We don’t need any data. We know this just like we know breathing is good and not breathing is bad. At least that’s what Representative Mike Pence would have us believe.
• House Democrats are saying no to Social Security cuts.
• Federal income taxes on the middle class are historically low levels. I wonder if McCain were in office if we would hear all of this about tax cuts.
• I know that the Dallas Cowboys beat the Miami Dolphins in the final preseason game of the year, I’m not sure that the Dallas Cowboys have given us, the fans, much to look forward to. Our offensive line has been simply awful. As far as I know, it is really hard to pass or run without an effective offensive line. I will not pretend to speculate on what’s wrong. I will only say that in the simplest of terms, the offensive line is about blocking someone on the defensive line for 1-3 seconds. We don’t seem to be able to do this. (By the way, do you have your fantasy football team lined up?)

Tags: Economy, House of Representatives, Sports, Stem Cell // View Comments

In a debate your opening statement should setup a framework. This is what you have done and this is why you should get re-elected. You can use your opening statement to attack your opponent. What you NEVER want to do is stare down at your notes like you don’t know what’s going on. You have had days to prepare your opening statement. There is no excuse for …

Wow. That was something. If you wanted everyone to think that you aren’t prepared and that they shouldn’t trust you, this was perfect.

Tags: Domestic Issues // View Comments

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Dear Congressional Democrats/Independents:

I’m not sure what it is that you’re focused on but America needs jobs. We need a lot of jobs. The number of people who are unemployed or underemployed is astronomical. Big business has rolled up big profits yet they’re not hiring. Medium-size businesses have also made money but like large corporations, they’re skittish about the future and are not hiring. Tax breaks are not to make corporations all of a sudden have a rosy outlook for the future and begin hiring. We need more.

For some time I’ve been talking about green jobs. I’ve been talking about major investment in solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy and any other sustainable energy. Yet, our investments have been modest.

We need major investments in our infrastructure. We need to rebuild roads, bridges and schools. Maybe investing in a light rail system is exactly the infrastructure project that we need. California, Texas, Florida and the Northeastern corridor desperately need efficient ways to transport large groups of people around their states. This would be a public works project that would put millions of people back to work. I am positive, that each state, already has plans for such a project. Investing in infrastructure be something that cannot be shipped off overseas. It would put Americans to work. This is exactly what we need.

I understand that the American taxpayer is tired of writing checks to everyone but themselves. I also understand that millions are frustrated. In my opinion, the source of the frustration is that most of the American people have not seen benefits to their efforts. After forking out over $750 billion, the stimulus package has reduced the unemployment rate from an astronomical 11.5% to the current 9.5% (new unemployment numbers should be coming out tomorrow). The stimulus package has saved or created over 3 million jobs. This is great but it’s yesterday’s news. We have to do more. You have to do more.

Finally, there seems to be a fixation on Capitol Hill in retaining both houses of Congress in the hands of the Democrats/Independents. Americans are in a Janet Jackson mood, “What If You Done for Me Lately?” If your answer is we almost reformed Wall Street, we bailed out the big banks, we’ve almost pulled out of Iraq and we sort of fix the economy, that’s not good to cut it with the American people. If you want to save your jobs, you’ll put America back to work. The unemployment rate has to be below 7%, in my opinion. Good luck.

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President Barack Obama told us in prime time that combat missions have ended in Iraq. More than 100,000 troops have been pulled out of Iraq. Then he kind of slipped in that troops still remain in order to train Iraqi forces and help hunt down terrorists. Isn’t hunting down terrorists what we have been doing for last two or three years? Haven’t we been training Iraqi security forces for more than three years? What’s changed?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Median income according to latest statistics is approximately $50,000 per year. (This statistic can vary depending upon how the data is collected and analyzed.) No matter how you slice up the information, the five fastest growing occupations are barely enough to put food on the table, gas in your car and keep the lights on. Only one occupation, registered nurse, has an average starting salary that is anywhere near the median income (about $60,000 by my calculations). The rest of these are far below the median.

From EPI:

While a lack of jobs is arguably the biggest problem facing the labor market, another major concern is the quality of the jobs that are being created. The Figure presents the five fastest growing occupations between 2006 and 2009 and shows that all but one of them pays below the median wage in May 2009 of $15.95 an hour.  The two fastest-growing occupations, home health care and food preparation and serving, pay closer to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour than the median wage. A food preparation worker’s typical wage of $8.28 an hour would earn an annual salary of $16,560, based on a typical 2,000-hour work year: That salary is just below the 2009 poverty threshold for a family of three. Warehouse stock clerks, another fast-growing occupation, would earn slightly more than $20,000 per year.

In addition, three of the five fastest growing occupations – home health aide, medical assistant and registered nurse — are in the health care industry. While registered nurses earn a median wage of more than $30 an hour, the disproportionate growth in health care jobs points to a lack of robust job growth across the labor market. The most recent jobs data show that every industry – with the exception of health care, education, and the government – has fewer jobs today than before the recession began, strong evidence that demand is weak across the entire economy.

Tags: Business, Economy // View Comments

Times-Picayune

I would like to say that I will come up with something brilliant never before said about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. I wish that were true. There have been endless books investigating the Hurricane Katrina tragedy from multiple angles. David Brinkley’s book, the Great Deluge, maybe the most complete. New Orleans’s own daily newspaper, the Times Picayune, has done a magnificent job at relentlessly chasing down details. Finally, Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke, personalizes some of the pain and suffering.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Georges hit the Gulf Coast in 1998 and narrowly missed New Orleans. This hurricane revealed several problems. City, state and federal officials met in 1999 in order to plan an adequate response. The state of Louisiana formally wrote FEMA and requested a planning exercise in August of 2000. It took four years before the exercise actually happened. In July 2004, Hurricane Pam began. There were over 300 participants in this five-day exercise. Hurricane Pam, by all accounts, was a realistic category three hurricane with sustained winds up to 120 mph. Using simulations from the National Weather Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, the participants simulated over 20 inches of rain falling in parts of southern Louisiana. The storm surge topped the levees. The simulation assumed that over 300,000 people could not get out of the city in spite of mandatory evacuations. They also assumed that over half million buildings would’ve been destroyed. Over 100,000 people were injured and 60,000 killed. This was serious.

After the simulation, an after action report was filed. The most remarkable thing about this after action report is the number of areas where the letters TBA (to be announced) up here in the report. The report is incomplete. Large responsibilities have not been decided. In football, there is a saying, “You play like you practice.” In this case, the simulation showed huge gaps in our response. In reality, there is huge gaps in our response. In my opinion, any serious look at Katrina must start with a look at Hurricane Pam and the inter-agency problems that Pam revealed.

Tags: Bush Administration, Katrina // View Comments

Really? Or has he infiltrated the clubhouses so much that he is everywhere? I know several conservatives that “never listen,” but they all know the things that he has said.

I have been blogging for over five years. I have thousands of posts. I would be surprised if you could find more than 10 posts on Rush. Maybe I have another 10 on Beck. For awhile I would listen to O’Reilly’s talking points memo and comment on a weekly basis, but it got boring.

In order to get attention you need to act a fool in today’s world. So Beck will say that Obama doesn’t like White society, Dr. Laura will use the N-word over and over again and Rush will refer to Obama as a half-frican. Their ratings will spike as liberals go crazy that anyone would say anything so crazy. Then the cycle will repeat over and over again.

Liberals have shied away from this type of ratings grabber which is why Air America went down in flames – several times. It was boring. Olbermann uses his Worst Person in the World segment as a substitute for what the right does. It has worked pretty well. None of the other shows have anything that is close to Olbermann’s ability to grab attention.

We have lost the ability to debate in this country. Half of us have our minds made up before the debate starts. At first there is some data presented on both sides. There may even be a third or fourth side of the debate at the beginning. Then the name calling starts as it becomes clear that neither side will give an inch. The third or fourth sides of the debate are now dropped. Finally, there have to be a couple of references to our forefathers, the Constitution and patriotism. There is no resolution to the issue and we move on to the next topic.

This is the sad state of political debate in our country.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Media, Party Politics // View Comments

There are several nationally known musicians associated with New Orleans, including Dr. John.

Artist: Dr. John
Tune: Goin’ Back to New Orleans

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Now, this is a nice jam.

Artist: Guy with Heavy D
Tune: Do me right

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Traveling back home today. I’m going to miss Glenn Beck’s Washington party. From the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Mr. Beck is going to do something. Now, I have know idea what Beck is going to say. I have no idea if God will speak through him to the American people.

I do have an idea of what Beck will not say. He will not talk about how Martin Luther King discussed Black children graduating high school reading at 8th or 9th grade level. He will not talk about the high rate of unemployment and under-employment in the Black community. (the other America speech)

I’m positive that Glenn Beck will not talk about why Dr. King was in Memphis before his death. He was there to support the garbage workers’ strike. They needed better pay and better working conditions. I don’t think that Beck will touch that.

Martin Luther King stood up for the poor and those who were not able to influence the politic process. He spoke out against the Vietnam war and voter suppression. I don’t suspect that Beck will cover any of the topics that MLK covered.

I don’t think that he will have anything to say on jobs and corporate privilege. I don’t think that he is worried about the millions of people living in the US without healthcare. I don’t think that he will say anything about green energy and getting off of our oil dependence. I don’t think that he will have much to say about the BP oil spill or the recovery on the gulf coast. I don’t think that he will make any attempt at bringing the country together. He will continue to do what has made him popular. He will divide America with inflammatory rhetoric. He will talk about taking America back. He will attack Obama and liberals. The only question that I have is will he cry and why should America care?

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We are all focusing on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as we remember Hurricane Katrina. Let me start by saying I love NOLA. I love the people and the culture. I started blogging just a couple months before Katrina. I knew that the levees had broken hours before MSN reported it because of discussion boards on the Internet.

I took this picture in 9th ward 3 years ago.

9th ward

So what are the lessons?

• there should be no political considerations when doling out aid
• experts are experts for a reason. They should be in charge of planning and resource management.
• we as Americans do a bad job of planning for future problems. Money was consistently diverted from the levees into projects that would give politicians “more to run on.”
• there is no excuse … We must get help to everyone within 48 hrs. There is no excuse.
• this could happen again.

What are your thoughts? What lessons have you learned?

From HuffPo (written by Janet Napolitano):

We’ve also made tremendous progress since Katrina and Rita in improving our country’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from major disasters of all kinds.

An example of this progress is the recovery efforts this summer following the worst flooding in more than a century in Nashville, Tenn. These floods took the lives of more than 30 individuals, devastated communities, and threatened the safety and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of residents. Despite this historic damage, our swift and effective response demonstrated what a difference preparation, coordination between federal, state, and local governments, and the quick deployment of resources to local communities can make.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, played a key role in the government’s response. But as our FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate would be the first to say, preparing for — and responding to — disasters truly is a shared responsibility. While we continue to strengthen and streamline efforts to prepare for disasters at the federal level, citizens, families, communities, faith organizations, and businesses all have an important role to play in our collective response to emergencies.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina // View Comments

If you haven’t seen Spike Lee’s new documentary on New Orleans, you haven’t seen a Spike Lee documentary on New Orleans. Yes, I know that his first documentary was great, powerful, in-your-face, raw, truthful, emotional and more. This is all that and more. The HBO special, If God is will and da creek don’t raise, is Lee’s latest look at New Orleans and the Gulf five years after Katrina. This is must-see TV.

So, we placed the blame for the slow government response on Michael Brown, the hapless head of FEMA at the time. New documents appear to show that Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, may have been the man with the deer in the headlights look in his eyes.

The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the “principal federal official” in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina’s early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff — not Brown — was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn’t shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department. (more…)

Tags: Katrina // View Comments

Michael Enright From NYT

I don’t pretend to understand what was going on in Michael Enright’s head. The details of this terrible act are coming to light. I hope that everyone will wait and listen to all of the evidence before condemning Mr. Enright.

It was the first fare of the cabdriver’s shift. A young man hailed him at the corner of Second Avenue and East 24th Street, wanting to go to 42nd and Second. It was 6 p.m. on Tuesday; the traffic was dense.

Once the fare, Michael Enright, a 21-year-old film student who had been recently trailing Marines in Afghanistan, settled in the back, he started asking friendly enough questions: Where was the driver from? Was he Muslim?

The driver, Ahmed H. Sharif, 44, said he was from Bangladesh, and yes he was Muslim.

Mr. Enright said, “Salaam aleikum,” the Arabic greeting “Peace be upon you.”

“How’s your Ramadan going?” Mr. Enright asked, Mr. Sharif said.

He told him it was going fine. Then, he said, Mr. Enright began making fun of the rituals of Ramadan, and Mr. Sharif sensed this cab ride might not be like any other.

From NYT:

“So I stopped talking to him,” Mr. Sharif said. “He stopped talking, too.”

As the cab inched up Third Avenue and reached 39th Street, Mr. Sharif said in a phone interview, Mr. Enright suddenly began cursing at him and shouting “This is the checkpoint” and “I have to bring you down.” He said he told him he had to bring the king of Saudi Arabia to the checkpoint.

“He was talking like he was a soldier,” Mr. Sharif said.

He withdrew a Leatherman knife, Mr. Sharif said, and, reaching through the opening in the plastic divider, slashed Mr. Sharif’s throat. When Mr. Sharif turned, he said, Mr. Enright stabbed him in his face, on his arm and on his thumbs.

Mr. Sharif said he told him: “I beg of you, don’t kill me. I worked so hard, I have a family.” (more…)

Tags: 9-11, Religion // View Comments

With ugly economic news raining down on us like a monsoon, I think it is important to ask if the stimulus helped. Was it worth it?

First the badness:

Sales of newly built homes dropped to their lowest level since the government started tracking the numbers more than four decades ago, with demand for home purchases down in all four regions of the country.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new homes sold in July at an annual rate of 276,000, down 12.4 percent from June and down 32.4 percent compared with the same time last year.

First, I would like to say what everyone knows. The housing sector was overbuilt. There are too many houses that are sitting empty now. New houses are not going to sell with so many old houses sitting idle. Loans for new houses are going to be harder to get and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The housing sector is not going to be our economic engine in the next decade. It can’t be.

Unfortunately, it is hard to cheer up a man who is watching his house burn by reminding him that at least he has your health. The Stimulus has saved millions of jobs. The American auto industry is selling cars again. Mark Zandi, chief economist for The Economist, stated:

Former McCain economic adviser, and longtime stimulus defender, Mark Zandi took issue today with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s criticisms of President Obama’s economic policies, and with multiple GOP calls for Obama’s top economic advisers to resign.

“I think we’d be in a measurably worse place if not for the stimulus,” Zandi said at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning. “If we had not had the stimulus…we’d have fewer jobs today than we actually have.”

Zandi was responding to Boehner’s contention yesterday that stimulus spending “has gotten us nowhere.” Asked whether he agreed with Boehner, Zandi said “no.”

“Without the stimulus spending,” Zandi insisted, “instead of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, we’d have an 11.5 percent unemployment rate.”

In addressing questions about the size of the stimulus he stated:

“I would have made it larger,” Zandi said. “I think we underestimated — significantly underestimated — the severity of the situation that we were in and still are in. And that that would have argued for a larger stimulus package.”

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I’m on the road. Going to give a couple of lectures on trauma.

Hopefully I’ll be able post something thoughtful this evening.

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Back in April I wrote about the failure of Countrywide and Indy Mac and Washington Mutual. At the time I was accused of glossing over Senator Chuck Schumer’s role in bringing down Indy Mac and the whole financial industry. The real story is long and more complex than simply Chuckie did it.  It was in late June 2008 when Chuck Schumer was making noise about Indy Mac. But what about months earlier? What about the little-known analyst who is stuck in the bowels of CIBC World Market and had the nerve to write the truth? She was specifically writing about Citigroup, but could’ve been writing about any of the large Wall Street firms. Their problems were similar.

She wrote:

Our thesis is simple. We believe in the near term, Citigroup will need to raise over $30 billion in capital through either assets sales, a dividend cut, a capital raise or a combination thereof. We believe such a catalyst will pressure the stock significantly lower and accordingly downgrade to sector underperformer from sector performer as of October 31.

Citigroup stock opened at $42 per share on October 29, 2007. This was a Monday. By Friday, after Meredith Whitney released her stock analysis, the stock dropped to $38 a share. Within weeks the stock was trading at $30 a share. Nearly a third of its value had been lost. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 350 points over $369 billion were lost.

Citigroup is currently a shadow of its former self. Its stock price and selling somewhere around $3.50. Its CEO, Chuck Prince resigned less than a week later. Interestingly, Prince took the CEO position in 2003. He was being paid $25 million a year and Citigroup stock did nothing besides lose value. So, for doing less than nothing, he got a severance package worth $140.1 million.

So, I guess, this puts Indy Mac into a little bit better perspective. Stanley O’Neal, CEO of Merrill Lynch, resigned in October of 2007 after reporting the largest loss in ML history. Citigroup gets called out by Meredith Whitney in late October 2007. They actually had to slash their dividend two weeks after her announcement, just as her analysis predicted. Meredith Whitney is now looking like a guru on Wall Street. The underlying problems of Wall Street, though, should have been seen by everybody. Everybody jumped into the pool of toxic mortgage derivatives. Whether Meredith Whitney was lucky or not isn’t the point. She was right more times than not in 2007 and 2008. She had the strength and the courage to stand up and say, “The Emperor has no clothes.” For this she should be applauded.

Tags: Economy // View Comments

The Great Dexter Gordon. What a sound.

Artist: Dexter Gordon
Tune: What’s New

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In the late 1970s, Sonny and Cher sang this cute tune. They were singing to each other. Now our Senators are singing the same song to Wall Street. Brown-Kaufman was a reasonable proposal. It limited the size of banks to a percentage of our GDP. The proposal went down in flames. Why? Wouldn’t limiting bank size actually help the middle class? I thought that’s what Congress wanted to do… help the middle class?

Simon Johnson has more:

The Brown-Kaufman SAFE Banking Amendment proposed a hard size cap on our largest banks, limiting their assets to a very small fraction of the size of our economy.  The premise was simple – and could fit on a bumper sticker (or in a campaign flyer for November) – “too big to fail” is too big to exist.

But this proposal to modify the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill failed in the Senate in early May, by a vote of 33-61, with 27 Democrats voting against the idea.  Since that time, Democratic supporters have been asking their representatives the obvious question: Why did you vote against Brown-Kaufman?

Interestingly, no senators yet have replied – at least on the record – that the power of the megabanks was too great to be overcome.  Instead, there are three main arguments going the rounds.

First, some argue that the Brown-Kaufman would by itself not have completely solved all the problems that can cause our financial system to meltdown.  As one senator put it in a recent letter, “[Brown-Kaufman] would not solve the problem of systemic risk and systemically important institutions in a comprehensive manner.” [Read more →]

Tags: Economy // View Comments

Much has been written (most of it worthless) on the controversy over the Cordora House in New York. Build or no build. I have written on it. I’m positive that I haven’t changed anyone’s mind.

Matthew Alexander adds his voice to chorus.

The Cordoba House would be a powerful symbol of U.S. tolerance and freedom that will stand in direct contradiction to al Qaeda’s narrative that Americans hate Muslims. As a symbol, its construction demonstrates that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and that Muslims are welcome in America. It communicates a message of moderation that stands in stark contrast to al Qaeda’s bankrupt ideology.

As I discovered as a high-level interrogator of al Qaeda members in Iraq, symbols like this matter. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the policy of torture and abuse handed al Qaeda its number one recruiting tool. Those who think al Qaeda will not be able to spin this controversy to their advantage are disastrously mistaken — but it can be a victory for America as well.

The political uproar over the Cordoba project, and in particular the use of harmful, bigoted rhetoric by some opportunists, leaves America facing a choice. It can project one of two symbols: One of integration, acceptance and positive affirmation of American values; or one of intolerance, rejection, and animosity. The former will work to undermine al Qaeda as part of a long-term strategy to defeat them. The latter will bolster Islamic extremists’ arguments that America is an intolerant country hell-bent on war with Islam, aid recruitment efforts and add support for more terrorist attacks.

The choice is obvious. Let’s build the Cordoba House.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Religion // View Comments