Her foot, however, is worn somewhere else

Mitch Berg defends Michele Bachmann today, saying that she "wears her heart on her sleeve." And what a wizened and calcified little ticker it is, too!

Mitch is upset at the heartless cad Chris Matthews, who just allowed Michele to be Michele:

Give me a break. Chris Matthew’s leg was so tingly, it could have generated static electricity.

Nothing like a little projection, eh, boys and girls?

Michele tries to play the ingénue, saying that she had never watched Chris Matthews' show, so she didn't really know what to expect:

"I had never seen his show before," she said. "I probably should have taken a look at what the show was like ... A trap was laid, but I stepped into it.

That, Michele, is even harder to swallow than you assertion that you didn't mean what you said on Hardball.

Technorati Tags: Michele Bachmann,Mitch Berg,Chris Matthews,Hardball

More McCain Robocalls

Again, it's not really a robocall. This time it was a barely intelligible woman with a thick southern accent telling me that Barack Obama is a socialist and, if elected, he will put our nation's children at risk. At this point, yours truly thought he'd mess with the program (note: the following is recreated to the best of my memory).

Mr. Sponge: Hold on a minute. What do you mean by "putting children at risk?"
Miss Missouri: (continues to read; picking up from "if elected")
Mr. Sponge: No, stop right there. I get that you can read what's in front of you but I'd really like to know what you mean by "putting children at risk."
Miss Missouri: I...
Mr. Sponge: What children are you talking about?
Miss Missouri: American...all American children.
Mr. Sponge: Barack Obama is going to harm all American children. How is he going to do this?
Miss Missouri: (starts to read again)
Mr. Sponge: No, I've already said that I get that you can read. You may even be able to read and chew gum at the same time. I want to talk about what you're telling me about Barack Obama. How is he going to put all American children at risk?
Miss Missouri: (continues to read)
Mr. Sponge: Good lord. Do you enjoy whoring yourself out like this? Do you believe he harms all American children? How much do you get paid to do this? Who is paying for this? Have you ever been to Minnesota?
Miss Missouri: That's all. Have a good day. (click)

John McCain is a coward and a liar who is unfit for office. He is paying for robocalls that are grossly inaccurate and divisive and he doesn't even have the balls to put his own name or voice on the call. I can't imagine how my 10 year old daughter would react if she picked up one of these calls telling her how Obama is a terrorist-loving socialist who will get Americans killed. This is absolutely pathetic.

Lobster and Leather

One of the more entertaining "stories" of the past week has been Michelle Obama's supposed room service order of Iranian caviar, two whole lobsters, a lobster hors d'oeuvres and champagne at the Waldorf-Astoria.

GOP radio hosts were quick to pick up on this little nugget from the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post. Here's Glenn Beck taking up the subject:

Meanwhile Joe the plumber, speaking of Barack Obama, who's just like you, you know, because he -- I mean, he hangs out with people like Joe the plumber and Joe the Senator, you know, Joe Biden. He's -- may I say something to you? He's -- Joe Biden is Joe Six-Pack -- well, not six-pack as much as, you know, Joe, a bottle of fine Chardonnay. But yesterday Barack Obama who's just like you, is taking at the Waldorf Astoria. "I've got to get to the Waldorf." So he's staying at the Waldorf Astoria and he and his wife just want to order a little something in their room. "What do we have? Honey, what do you say, let's just call for something up in room service. I don't know. Just something to pick at a little bit, maybe, I don't know, some peasant food of some sort. What do they have here at the Waldorf Astoria?" Well, apparently at 4:00 in the afternoon yesterday (phone ringing)... "Room service. Yes?" "Yes, this is the Obama room and we would like just to have something to pick at, just something simple. What do you have?" "Well, we have some quesadillas." "No, no, I was thinking something a little more like maybe some lobster hors d'oeuvres." "Oh, those hors d'oeuvres things?" "Yes, what you said. I'd like some lobster hors d'oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, a little Iranian caviar. Do you have Iranian caviar?" "Ooh, I don't know, hang on just a second. Are we still only serving the Syrian caviar or -- yes, we have the Iranian." "Oh, that's lovely. I love, love -- the only conditions that I will set is that my meal must include Iranian caviar. Anyway, we'd like a little Iranian caviar, the two whole steamed lobsters, a little lobster hors d'oeuvres and a little champagne. After all, you can't have the 4:00 hour go by without a little bubbly."

Here's GOP National Precinct Captain Rush Limbaugh:

Don't forget Kerry was the guy who walked into a famous Philly cheese steak shop in south Philly and ordered a cheese steak and then asked for Swiss. He asked for Swiss and they didn't have any. They don't put Swiss on a Philly cheese steak, anybody that's a real American, average American would know this. So here's old Barry writing about the starving in Port-au-Prince because of white greed, and old Michelle, I guess they let her out of the closet, took the duct tape off long enough for her to eat 'cause she ordered some lobster hors d'oeuvres and then two steamed lobsters and Iranian caviar and champagne, at four o'clock in the afternoon. Must have been teatime at the presidential suite at the Waldorf-Hysteria.

Of course, GOP blogs got in on the action as well. Here's Carol Platt-Liebau at Townhall:

Sounds pretty tasty -- and pretty expensive. I guess that's one way of "spreading the wealth around."

Look, I don't begrudge the Obamas their caviar and lobster. I like lobster, too (caviar? not so much). It's just that the whole mentality strikes me as typical of Democrat thinking.

In that world view, the "government class" -- those who "care" about the poor -- are entitled to caviar and lobster, although it may seem sharply at odds with their much-touted kinship to "working people." But "the rich" -- who can afford to purchase caviar and lobster because of their own hard work and talent -- are to be demonized as "greedy," eating lobster and caviar is to be touted as evidence of "excess," and their wealth is to be spread around.

That little post has what it takes to win the Extrapolation of the Year award.

There are many other examples. Feel free to perform a Google search of your own and leave whatever links you find in the comments.

The funny thing about all of this is that...well, it didn't actually happen:

THE source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too. Bread and water would be too good for such disinformation.

Somehow, I don't think this little slice of reality will matter to GOP hacks like Rush, Beck and Platt-Liebau. They were going to believe what they believed about the Obamas and Democrats regardless of any caviar dreams and champagne wishes.

What's really, really funny about all of this is that on the same day we found out that the story was completely made up, we...well, it's almost too funny to be true:

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Again, it's almost too funny to be true. Don't hold your breath for GOP flacks to devote entire segments of their GOP shows to this subject. Don't hold your breath for GOP hack bloggers to devote entire posts that explain to their readers how a lobster meal that never happened means that Michelle Obama is a filthy elitist but a $150k shopping spree means that Sarah Palin is just a good ol' hockey mom from Alaska. The mental jujitsu required to bridge such ridiculous gaps is too much for even black belts like Rush and Hannity to muster.

BTW: How did CJ miss this one?

UPDATE: An emailer suggests that Mrs. Palin should get her own Joe the Plumber nickname: Sarah the Shopper.

UPDATE ii: Bill Kristol, wrong again:

McCain didn’t just pick a politician who could appeal to Wal-Mart Moms. He picked a Wal-Mart Mom. Indeed, he picked someone who, in 1999, as Wasilla mayor, presided over a wedding of two Wal-Mart associates at the local Wal-Mart. “It was so sweet,” said Palin, according to The Anchorage Daily News. “It was so Wasilla.”

A Wasilla Wal-Mart Mom a heartbeat away? I suspect most voters will say, No problem. And some — perhaps a decisive number — will say, It’s about time.

I suppose it is only fitting that a political movement built around the worship of an actor would find something "real" in a joke of a candidate like Palin and a made up lie of an issue like Joe the Plumber. I believe Ned Flanders said it best:

"I wish we lived in a place more like the America of yesteryear that only exists in the brains of us Republicans."

Now this in Un-American

Another mini-documentary from Brave New Films:

Spot really hopes Dave will watch all the way through.

Technorati Tags: ACORN,voter supression,voter fraud

Marked to market? Oh my!

Here's a month-old butt gasp by Captain Fishsticks that has regrettably not passed out of Spot's memory; Spot already did a post about it here. However, there is one more teensy thing that Sticks said that should not go without comment:

When housing prices fell, homeowners saw their equity decline. As mortgages flipped "upside down" (subprime or otherwise) – properties were worth less than their mortgages. Holders of mortgaged-backed securities, absent a true market, had no means to price their investments. Lacking a market and under the "mark-to-market" accounting rules of the Sarbane Oxley Act [sic](another bit of panic-inspired legislation), those securities are virtually worthless. They have a value, but lacking a market, no one can actually determine what that value is. The result is what we see today – a drying up of liquidity in the credit market.

Now, on any given Sunday - or any other day of the week for that matter - Sticks is a capable of pitching horse apples, but this one is really ripe. Captain Fishsticks - the song sparrow of the free market - is complaining that willing buyers and sellers are not arriving at the "right" price for mortgage-backed securities, actually collateralized debt obligations generally.

Spotty, you're mixing your metaphors again.

Oh, thank you grasshopper; sorry. Where was Spot? Ah, yes.

According to Sticks, the market knows all: knowledge is "embedded" in the market. Now Spot thinks that sometimes knowledge is embedded somewhere else, and this is an example of Sticks' implicit admission of that fact.

Sticks is upset that Sarbanes-Oxley required some transparency in the valuation of assets held by public companies. Nobody on Sticks' side - the Delta Quadrant - complained about marked to market rules when asset values were going up and up. But now, well that's different.

Here is the briefest description of marked to market accounting and why it is important:

The savings and loan mess of the 1980s, which became such a big mess in large part because S&Ls didn't mark their assets and liabilities to market, provided real-world impetus for such a shift. Most S&Ls became insolvent in the early 1980s because of the mismatch between the double-digit interest rates they had to pay to borrow money and the 5% to 6% a year they were earning on the 30-year-fixed mortgages that made up the bulk of their assets. But the accounting standards of the day obscured this grim reality. Some S&Ls--like Washington Mutual--took advantage of the reprieve to trim down, shape up and get themselves out of trouble. [Although Wa Mu is back in the soup again!] Many others became what's known as zombie banks, lurching across the landscape running up ever bigger losses until taxpayers had to put up several hundred billion dollars to shut them down and pay off insured depositors.

Sticks apparently likes the old way better.

Technorati Tags: Craig Westover,zombie banks,financial meltdown,Delta Quadrant,marked to market accounting,savings and loan crisis

But bullshit spreads like warm butter

In a recent homily at the website of the Minnesota Free Market Institute, titled You Can't Spread Wealth Around, David Strom says, well, the title says it all. What Davey is talking about is the redistribution of wealth, Robin Hood style. But we've been doing a "reverse Robin Hood" for a long time now, concentrating wealth in the hands of the few. Davey's theory is that the rich know what to do with money while the hoi polloi does not:

Wealth redistribution schemes are a scam. By taking from the “rich” and giving to the “poor” the people in power get to appear to be the good guys, even as they hurt you. Handing out checks is a good way to get credit for making people better off. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that long-term prosperity can never be built on a foundation of wealth redistribution simply because it requires taking the money from wealth creation.

This is - unsurprisingly  - just a version of the old trickle down supply-side theory from the heady days of Ronald Reagan.

And Davey, it doesn't take a genius either to know that when things get sufficiently out of whack, we have a problem:

Ravi Batra's book "The Great Depression of 1990" has excellent discussions on a number of different cycles that lead to depressions, including social cycles, cycles of monetary growth, government regulation, as well as concentration of wealth. The book is well worth the read, in spite of its title (and very cheap at used book stores because of it). Batra points out that there is a large body of economic literature upholding the theory that recessions are caused by unequal distribution of incomes and concentration of wealth.

It works like this: As savings rise, consumption falls. Since the rich save more money than the poor, the concentration of wealth in fewer hands increases savings and decreases consumption. As demand drops, and economic growth fails to keep pace with growth in the labor force, unemployment rises. Classically, this is a self-correcting process; labor costs eventually adjust, excesses are flushed out of the system, and growth begins anew. But in a depression, the above process is accompanied by a collapse of the financial system. A recession is a normal, necessary part of the business cycle and will not, in itself, cause a healthy financial system to collapse. However, as wealth becomes concentrated, it has a detrimental effect on the financial system. As Batra goes on to explain, in a sound financial system, banks make loans only to credit-worthy customers who are unlikely to default on their loans. But when wealth becomes concentrated, the number of less affluent people increases, as well as their borrowing needs. These less affluent people, who now make up the majority, have fewer assets and are thus less credit worthy. Even in such an environment, banks cannot afford to be choosy -- they must make loans in order to stay "competitive" with their peers and simply to stay in business. Thus, as the concentration of wealth rises, the number of unhealthy banks with shaky loans also rises in a dangerous spiral, increasing the possibility of systemic failure.

A perverse side effect of the growing wealth disparity is the rise in speculative investments. As a person becomes wealthy, his aversion to risk declines, so the number of risky investments by the rich also increases. Money doesn't mean so much to the rich, so they're willing to take a wild chance on a flyer, if it will double, triple or quadruple their money. As Charles Kindleberger puts it:

The object of speculation may vary from one mania or bubble to the next. It may involve primary products, or goods manufactured for export to distant markets, domestic and foreign securities of various kinds, contracts to buy or sell goods or securities, land in the city or country, houses, office buildings, shopping centers, condominiums, foreign exchange. At a late stage, speculation tends to detach itself from really valuable objects and turn to delusive ones. A larger and larger group of people seeks to become rich without a real understanding of the process involved. Not surprisingly, swindlers and catchpenny schemes flourish.

(This is from a commenter on the website of a dealer in precious metals, but it is readable and squares with a lot of other analysis that Spot has read and agrees with.)

Does the above sound familiar, boys and girls? It should. The article was written in 2005, which makes the author look prescient.

Which brings Spot to Joe the Turd Herder. Joe is not only not wealthy, but he's apparently a license short of being a plumber, too. But he's going to be rich one day, after he gets his license and spends a lifetime unclogging toilets. And when that day comes, man alive, Joe doesn't want his taxes raised!

If Spot had a dollar for every moke he ever met who intended to be a millionaire, why, he'd be one himself.

Davey, naturally, thinks Joe is a great economic thinker:

Joe was worried because Obama’s plans to increase taxes on the “wealthy”—him—in order to give “tax breaks” (really just government checks) to people who make less than he does. Obama argues that doing this will somehow help create wealth from the “bottom up” instead of the “top down.”

Sadly, says Davey, Obama is wrong:

Obama’s “Robin Hood Economics” is based entirely upon the idea that taking money from job creators and giving it away to preferred groups will somehow “spread the wealth around.” That’s simply bad economics. In reality, taking money away from the small- and medium-sized businesses that Obama counts among the “wealthy” will hobble the engine of job creation and ultimately hurt our own income.

It might be nice to get that government check in the mail, but the price we will pay is fewer jobs, slower economic growth, and less investment and innovation in the economy. That’s what you’ll get by raising taxes on the so-called “wealthy.”

That, boys and girls, to mix our scatological metaphors, is so much happy horse pucky. As the quoted material above suggests, it is the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum that are necessary to create the demand that drives the economy, not the plutocrats who "deploy" their capital. Remember, there are four elements that are necessary for an economy: land (or bricks and mortar and equipment), labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.

That is why, not coincidentally, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson suggested today that another financial stimulus plan - on the demand side - ought to be considered.

One last point. As Spot has written until his paws ached, progressive taxation is not simply "Robin Hood economics" as Davey and his ilk suggest. It is simple fairness: the government provides much more that is valuable to the wealthy than the poor: the SEC, the banking system (such as it is these days), transportation infrastructure for the transport of goods, and the list goes on. Even national defense protects the assets of the wealthy abroad.

Davey, can you even say "equal marginal sacrifice principle of taxation?"

A thump of the tail to the 'Farian for the link to the NYT article and helping find the "Turd Herder" by a pipefitter.

Technorati Tags: Joe the Plumber,Robin Hood economics,David Strom,Minnesota Free Market Institute,progressive taxation

How nice to know

That the University of Minnesota does not view voting as legitimate reason to miss a class.

The university's policy on "Makeup Work for Legitimate Absences" says voting in national elections is not considered an acceptable reason to miss class.

How short-sighted.

But it underscores my earlier comment: Vote early!

Exciting the lizard brain V

Mr. Sponge has already posted the video of Michele Bachmann calling for an un-American witch hunt on Hardball.

Tild is on the case, too:

There are reports that the netroots dropped a half a million bucks in Elwyn Tinklenberg's coffers since the segment aired on Friday afternoon.

Lots of people are up in arms:

In a television appearance that outraged Democrats are already describing as Joseph McCarthy politics, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann claimed on Friday that Barack Obama and his wife Michelle held anti-American views and couldn't be trusted in the White House. She even called for the major newspapers of the country to investigate other members of Congress to "find out if they are pro-America or anti-America."

. . .

"What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America," she said.

There were additional nuggets here and there. But the whole episode was a sight to behold. It is hard to imagine how this type of message actually helps the McCain campaign. For starters, there has been a relatively respected rule to leave candidate's wives out of campaign attacks. Moreover, there is already a deep resentment towards the severity of the political attacks McCain and his surrogates have launched against Barack Obama. Having a like-minded member of Congress essentially call for a witch hunt within Congress isn't the practical-minded message that the Arizona Republican wants out there.

What makes the incident even more bizarre is that Bachmann is in a close congressional race and just this past week offered warm words to the Illinois Democrat. "If the presidency would somehow go to Barack Obama, I would welcome him to the 6th District as well," she said after a debate. "As a matter of fact, I would put my hand on his shoulder and give him a kiss if he wanted to."

"Practical-minded messages" are not what Michele Bachmann is about, is she boys and girls?

Technorati Tags: Michele Bachmann,Chris Matthews,Hardball,Joe McCarthy,witch hunts

Exciting the lizard brain IV

From the report of an incident yesterday:

CALEDONIA, Wis. -- Police in Caledonia are investigating the assault of a campaign volunteer as she was canvassing for Senator Barack Obama Saturday afternoon.

In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.

“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

Here are some words from Mr. Sponge from a couple of days ago:

When radio hosts like Hugh Hewitt tell their audiences that voting for Obama will literally get them killed; and when guys like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity go on and on about Barry Hussein Obama's supposed association with terrorists; and when the McCain campaign itself resorts to a strategy that paints Obama as a socialist Other who literally doesn't see America in the same way that good folks like John, Cindy, Sarah, and Todd do; how is it a surprise that GOP voters are putting 2 + 2 together by expressing fear and anger that the damn terrorist black Muslim might get elected?

Let me answer this for you in no uncertain terms: It is not a surprise that the GOP base is behaving this way. It is not a surprise that a constituency which has been the target of 8+ years of non reality-based drivel has suddenly woke up in a country that has two trillion-dollar mistakes, a drowned city, and all-around corruption; and that they can only bring themselves to point their fingers at the only villain they truly know: f'ing liberals.

How do you suppose that citizen of the leafy groves of Caledonia, Wis. gets his information, boys and girls?

And just yesterday afternoon the new MOB mayor tells us to go into survivalist mode because of the financial meltdown caused by the liberals:

And much to the surprise of the liberals that will have caused [the current financial crisis], the rich will get even richer as assets will return to their rightful owners as the wealthy scoop up many and varied bargains in equities and real estate discarded by those who have become under or unemployed.

So don’t wait for the effects of an Obama administration and an activist liberal congress to trickle down to your financial situation. Prepare yourself now.

That's right! Be armed, and be sure to beat every fifty-eight year old woman who comes to your door canvassing for Barack Obama.

John McCain and his handlers have decided to lose this one ugly, and the Republican party wants to be sure the country in ungovernable during an Obama administration. It may be already, with all the cronyism, looting and free booting, and general corruption of the last eight years, coupled with the fact that a big part of the wealth that many Americans believed they had was Raptured out of their pockets.

Technorati Tags: John McCain,lizard brains,Radio Rwanda,lose ugly

The unsinkable JRoosh

The new MOB mayor says today:

Mitch and Ed are talking about despondent conservatives on the radio on my credenza as I type. Many of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that we are likely to have a Democratic President, House and Senate and may even have lost filibuster protection in Congress. In a sick example of double jeopardy, Al Franken could be the last building block of a Liberal Supermajority.

The huns are at the wall. Soon, no one; nothing may stand between hard-working, self-reliant folks and those that think we are a people of the government, by the government, for the government, and not the other way around as Abraham Lincoln set forth in his Gettysburg Address.

JRoosh, the financial adviser who undoubtedly presided over the loss of hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions, depending on the gullibility of the public - of dollars for his clients, is now casting about for a villain. Of course, he finds one:

And much to the surprise of the liberals that will have caused [the current financial crisis], the rich will get even richer as assets will return to their rightful owners as the wealthy scoop up many and varied bargains in equities and real estate discarded by those who have become under or unemployed.

So don’t wait for the effects of an Obama administration and an activist liberal congress to trickle down to your financial situation. Prepare yourself now.

Yes, says JRoosh, put your remaining 401(k) funds into cases of pork and beans and ammunition for your AK-47! JRoosh's world is indeed coming to an end.

JRoosh, or perhaps just "J" to his friends, cannot imagine that all the grifters, confidence men, high-plains drifters, and carnie barkers that he calls his friends had anything to do with it. No siree!

Our friend, "J," one of those "hard-working, self-reliant folks" who couldn't build a bird house, is now face to face with the fact that he is a vestigial organ that the body can no longer afford. Sucking off the teats of the real economy will no longer do, "J"! Spot can see why you think it is time to head for the hills. For you, it probably is!

Meanwhile, all the people who know how to do things and make things and actually work will get by, albeit not without hardship, while at least some of the glad handers like JRoosh will perish.

Technorati Tags: JRoosh,Shot in the Dark,financial crisis,financial advisers,confidence men,high plains drifters

The Pro-America Part of Real Virginia

What on God's green earth is going on with Republicans talking about real Americans and pro-America parts of America? Here's McCain spokesperson Nancy Photenolufogus telling...well, take a look-see for yourself:




Really?

Sorry Alaska,

Ours is still the best:

Robo-Coleman

The Sponge household has already received 2 robocalls telling us all about how Barack Obama is a liberal terrorist who will destroy America. Today we received a live scripted call from 1-866-934-7538 telling us all about how Al Franken hates unions and working people. Who knew?

UPDATE: According to a few emails (and the comment section) the calls were paid for by Minnesotans for Employee Freedom. Jim Knoblach, King Banaian (of SCSU Scholars fame), and Phil Krinkie are listed as steering committee members. I'm sure Norm has no way of getting in touch with these guys to let him know that he doesn't believe in negative campaigning.

Block the Vote

A must read in this month's Rolling Stone.

To justify this battery of new voting impediments, Republicans cite an alleged upsurge in voting fraud. Indeed, the U.S.-attorney scandal that resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales began when the White House fired federal prosecutors who resisted political pressure to drum up nonexistent cases of voting fraud against Democrats. "They wanted some splashy pre-election indictments that would scare these alleged hordes of illegal voters away," says David Iglesias, a U.S. attorney for New Mexico who was fired in December 2006. "We took over 100 complaints and investigated for almost two years — but I didn't find one prosecutable case of voter fraud in the entire state of New Mexico."

There's a reason Iglesias couldn't find any evidence of fraud: Individual voters almost never try to cast illegal ballots. The Bush administration's main point person on "ballot protection" has been Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department attorney who has advised states on how to use HAVA to erect more barriers to voting. Appointed to the Federal Election Commission by Bush, von Spakovsky has suggested that voter rolls may be stuffed with 5 million illegal aliens. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is extremely rare. According to a recent analysis by Lorraine Minnite, an expert on voting crime at Barnard College, federal courts found only 24 voters guilty of fraud from 2002 to 2005, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. "The claim of widespread voter fraud," Minnite says, "is itself a fraud."

The article goes on to detail some of the measures taken to keep people's votes from counting.

UPDATE: You can read more about the article at author Greg Palast's own site. Palast and co-author Robert Kennedy, Jr have a companion site called Steal Back Your Vote. It even has a movie:


Steal Back Your Vote! from Greg Palast on Vimeo.

Palast is kind of a goof (who wears a fedora anymore?), and his presentation has a tendency to be a bit over the top, but the questions raised by the article and the movie are legit and should prompt viewers and readers to look up additional information. What say you?

The Four Factors of Winning Presidential Politics

Over the course of the past few months there has been a lot of commentary containing forced sports analogies that attempt to break down Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain's performances during the campaign. The comparisons are typically confined to the realm of football (Hail Marys), boxing (rope-a-dope, knock-out), and baseball (game winning hit, bottom of the 9th).

I have mentioned before that our political arena is becoming more and more sports-like so I am somewhat baffled by the omission of the most applicable sports analogy of all, at least in terms of this campaign: basketball, a sport that Mr. Obama plays on a near-daily basis. As a hoops junkie myself, I find the similarities between winning basketball and Mr. Obama's campaign to be quite remarkable and unmistakable.

For those of you with less than a passing understanding of the game, you may only know basketball as a sport that relies upon fantastic athleticism, amazing slam dunks, behind-the-back passes, and the NBA's over-the-top dog-and-pony show. While this sort of thing may move sneakers and get people to tune into ESPN, you may be surprised to find out that basketball is a free-flowing contest that provides a unique balance between individual performance and team-based proficiency; athleticism and IQ; pace and urgency; and so on and so forth. There is a good reason why it is likely the world's 2nd most popular sport. It truly is America's Beautiful Game.

Unlike boxing, winning basketball does not require a knock-out blow. Unlike football, winning basketball does not rely on single big plays. Except in very rare cases (Wilt and Shaq in their prime; possibly LeBron), raw physicality can be neutralized by competing factors such as b-ball IQ, solid fundamentals, and well-coordinated team play.

In his book Basketball on Paper, statistician Dean Oliver breaks down what makes for good and bad basketball:

After looking at a lot of teams over the years, I have come to realize that [the worst teams] are bad because they don't control four crucial aspects of a game:

1- Shooting percentage from the field
2- Getting offensive rebounds.
3- Committing turnovers.
4- Going to the foul line a lot and making the shots.

There really is nothing else in the game. These four responsibilities on the offensive side and these four responsibilities on the defensive side are it...If you aren't shooting from the field, you better be doing a few of the other three things. If you don't have the size to get defensive rebounds, you better force turnovers. If you can't take care of the ball very well, you better get shots up before you turn it over, then go after the boards. When NBC shows halftime stats and they say that New Jersey is "doing everything right" and beating the Lakers in field goal percentage and turnovers but losing on the scoreboard, you can guess that it's because the Nets are not going to the line very often or because they are getting beat on the boards.

-Oliver, pp 63-64

One of the most interesting aspects of the campaigns run against Mr. Obama by Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton is their focus on the "big play." By honing in on things like William Ayers, Reverend Wright, and the old war horse of raised taxes, McCain and Clinton thought that they could simply associate Obama with an idea or subject so rank that the American people would stop supporting him and the game would be over. Despite what our awful media may tell you, campaigns, like basketball games, aren't decided this way.

While John McCain was busy rallying his supporters with images of terrorists and ACORN, Mr. Obama was hard at work nailing down the Four Factors of Presidential Politics:

1- Being credible and trustworthy on national security
2- Being credible and trustworthy on domestic issues, especially the economy
3- Having a temperament suitable for the Oval Office
4- Having an intelligence suitable for the Oval Office

From the opening tip, Mr. Obama has run his campaign more like Greg Poppovich than Mohammad Ali. The other squad may have their runs and there will always be an ebb and flow to the contest, but ultimately, when the final buzzer sounds, his goal is simple: to win the majority of the four responsibilities that make up the game. He doesn't have the experience to compete with his opponent's resume so he spends his time convincing people that he is experienced enough with national security stances that are pragmatic and mainstream. He talks openly about raising taxes but with the intelligence to clearly walk people through the reasoning why such a step is needed. When GOP talking heads whine and moan about how John McCain should be winning because he is a war hero who opposes the Bush Administration on some key domestic issues, you can guess that Mr. Obama has convinced the majority of voters that his temperament and intelligence are superior to Mr. McCain's.

Perhaps the most effective part of the basketball analogy is what it says about the issues of race and pragmatism. Despite what you may read on right wing blogs or hear on GOP radio, Barack Obama is not winning because he's The One; an egotistical Messiah-like figure who has captivated a nation of mindless lemmings. Mr. Obama is winning because of hard work and campaign fundamentals. I'm sure there are cliched "little things" in every sport, but in basketball, you don't win the Four Factors without knowing how to set a good pick, box out, square your backside to the bucket on d, shuffle your feet, set up on offense in a 3 point stance, and so on and so forth. From ground game to peer-to-peer information sharing to TV ads, Mr. Obama is running one hell of a fundamentally-disciplined campaign. Each and every thing he does is geared towards a single goal: winning the Four Factors of Presidential Politics. On the other hand, Mr. McCain seems to be flailing about with no clear purpose but to hopefully land a blow that may or may not knock Obama out or to the ground. He has gone from calling his opponent inexperienced to asking if people know the "real" Barack Obama to appealing to the hypothetical business practices of made-up plumbers. Unfortunately for him, he's playing the wrong sport and 3 points is all you can make up on a single shot in the game of basketball. Plugging it into the political analogy, after 25+ debates and 2 years of solid campaigning, Bill Ayers, ACORN, and Joe the Plumber/Liar probably aren't even worth a single point. There are no knockouts in basketball, especially when you're down by 20 in the 4th.

Getting around to the issue of race, let me go back for a moment to the idea that Obama is The One. I feel pretty confident in saying that Michael Jordan is the greatest player in the history of basketball. In fact, there's really not even a close second. During his early years in the league, MJ was an athletic specimen. However, he didn't become the best player on the planet because he could jump high or because he was born with better athletic genes than other players in the league. Last year the T-Wolves featured a player named Gerald Green who is 6'7" with a vertical jump of 48 inches, which is absurd. He's quick and strong and the form on his jumper is something most ballers would die for. Yet, he is a terrible, terrible player. Jordan, on the other hand, worked his ass off, was extremely intelligent, and had a temperament suited to winning.

Minnesota's newest player, Kevin Love, is often described as something of an athletic oaf; a lumbering vertically-challenged white guy who makes up for his lack of hops with an extremely high basketball IQ and a "feel" for the game unmatched by his more athletically-gifted peers. Yet, during pre-draft combines, his athletic performance measured out as being remarkably similar to Al Horford, last year's runner up for Rookie of the Year who is generally viewed as being athletic and...well, black. This sort of thing happens a lot in basketball. From the playground to the NBA, there is a general perception that some people "play white" and others "play black". Unfortunately, this notion is often loosely translated to mean that white men can't jump while black guys are born with springs in their legs.

When I hear people criticize Mr. Obama as being "The One," or when they say that his support is because of who he is rather than what he stands for and how he goes about his business, the first thing I think of is how people are discounting his entire operation as "playing black"; that his appeal and strength come through innate qualities that he did not have to work for and refine--a political athleticism, if you will--rather than studying the fundamentals, being extremely intelligent, and possessing a championship temperament. Gerraldine Ferraro was the first person to be on the wrong side of this assumption and look where it got her. Bill Clinton tried his luck and not only is he now somewhere beyond the end of the bench, he's probably out of the arena. Ditto for Hillary. Hopefully, soon to be ditto for McCain.

It's a humbling thing to have your ass kicked on the basketball court. There are so many different things that go on during a game that you really are putting yourself on the line across the board. Your smarts, your work ethic, your temperament; it's all out there and you need to be fully aware of your weaknesses and strengths and how they help or prevent you from accomplishing the four things that will win you games. Do you have a mismatch or do you need to blend into the team and focus on defense and rebounding? If your defender sags away from you near the 3 point line, do you take advantage of the space for an open shot or a drive to the hoop?

In basketball, your opponent never beats you with a single play or because he's more athletic and can jump higher; he beats you because he accomplished a majority of the Four Factors of Winning Basketball. Barack Obama isn't kicking the crap out of John McCain because of who he is; he's doing so because...well, he got game.

BTW: one of the funnier aspects of basketball commentary is the near complete inability of announcers and half-time hosts to compare white players to black players and vice-versa. When Kevin Love was drafted, the talking heads on ESPN tossed out names like Brad Miller (white) and Brian Cardinal (white, also on the Wolves). Let me assure you: Kevin Love's game is nothing like either of these players. It goes the other way too. Getting around to the point of this final paragraph, and to really complete the analogy, you probably want to know what basketball player I view Mr. Obama as: John Stockton.

Things that used to make us mad but now just make us sad

Stories that start out like this:

The chief judge of the New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blasted pro bono work as “anti-social” and “self-serving” at a Federalist Society meeting this week.

Just very, very sad.

A bias for voting

That's the title of an editorial in today's PiPress. It explains why bogus voter registration cards - even those submitted by the notorious ACORN - are not the same as voter fraud:

But a filled-out card cannot be discarded even if it is obviously phony, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said. By law, it must be forwarded to the counties, where cards are checked against drivers' license and Social Security records. It is at that point that the "Mickey Mouse" registrations are put aside or referred to prosecutors.

So there is a difference between concerns about registration problems, such as we are hearing in Minnesota and elsewhere, and voting-day problems. Mansky said federal law requires verification of new registrations to weed out bad ones. While charges of questionable registrations are not unusual, allegations of illegal voting are extremely rare.

Given that sadly now, there can be but one outcome, we can expect to see the cries of voter fraud from the right grow louder and louder. Not because it's going to make a bit of difference in November, but because it sets up an atmosphere where the legitimacy of the electoral process and its results allow the losers to question it nonstop.

In an interview in Salon recently, Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College who has spent the last eight years studying the role of fraud in U.S. elections, described what she is seeing this year.

I am struck by the ferocity of the attack on ACORN. I am not privy to the campaign strategy of the Republican Party, but I have to assume that it is the result of a coordinated disinformation campaign aimed not only at undermining ACORN's work, but also as a part of a far broader effort to corrode public confidence in the electoral process.

* * *

I believe that what we are seeing are efforts to create mass public confusion, to turn people off, and to create chaos on Election Day. This is a campaign strategy to distract people from the voter suppression efforts that actually distort electoral outcomes and to preemptively discredit the potential Obama presidency as fraudulent.

What is happening is exactly that -- a preemptive attack on the legitimacy of the election and by implication on an Obama presidency. As bitter as many of us were about the 2000 election, I don't think our grudges will hold a candle to the ones we're going to see, both between November and January as well as over the next years.

An American Carol Candidate

I'll keep this one short because I'm not too keen on debate commentary, but I think the following conclusion/point is fairly obvious and striking, and therefore deserving of notice on the blog.

A while back I ran a post about how movie goers unfamiliar with GOP radio and the right wing blogosphere would pretty much need a translator in order to find the "humor" in the movie An American Carol. As you can see from the box office receipts, this little gambit isn't exactly paying off. During last night's debate with Barack Obama, John McCain boldly showed the world that he has adopted the American Carol Approach as his official campaign strategy.

While our more conservatively-conditioned readers are sure to have found the requisite applause lines, the rest of America just couldn't seem to wrap their head around why an angry old man kept on insisting that the young man across from him wanted to kill infants, raise everybody's taxes and pal around with terrorists. I'm pretty sure that by this point in the campaign they've grown a bit tired of the old man telling the young one about how he doesn't understand things that he obviously does. It probably also doesn't help that gramps keeps on claiming that the young whipper-snapper is guilty of doing outrageous things only to see him clearly explain a) that he really didn't do what he was accused of, b) that the accusation failed to contain accurate information and context, and c) here's what he's going to do instead of the ridiculous charge.

You see, while calling equal pay for women a "trial lawyers' dream" and poo-poohing the "health of the mother" as just another petty obstacle in the way of overturning Roe v. Wade may play like gangbusters on Rush or over at the MOB, it probably didn't sit well with that constituency we used to call "soccer moms"...or, perhaps, independent women from Ohio.

Who knew that the creator of Airplane! would be used as a GOP consultant in the 08 presidential campaign?

Sadly now, there can be but one outcome

Remember all those nature shows you watched when you were a pup, specifically the ones showing lions surrounding a zebra, or a wildcat cornering a rabbit? And then the narrator says something like, "Sadly now, there can be but one outcome," and the camera cuts away to avoid the unsettling carnage that follows? Spot was reminded of that narrator when he read this:

Every day (or close to it) until November 4, a series of writers and thinkers will discuss the election over instant messenger for nymag.com. Today, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and National Review's Byron York argue over the headwinds facing McCain, what Phil Gramm had to do with the financial crisis, and the importance of credit default swaps.

M.T.: So how are you feeling about McCain's chances today? [good Matt: no sense beating around the bush]

B.Y.: I've just finished an article for National Review — the actual magazine — about the headwinds McCain faces. I was going to look at three, and then I started to list them. I stopped at ten. New Gallup numbers out today show that George W. Bush's job approval rating remains at 25 percent, while his disapproval rating has ticked up to 71 percent. How hard is it to succeed a two-term president of your own party who is at 25-71? We don't know because it's never been done.

M.T.: Yeah, that's a damned shame, too. I feel really badly for the guy. [bad - Spot says that the state of being calls for a predicate adjective, not an adverb; note that Matt doesn't mind sticking the fork into the still-warm carcass, however] I suppose you think the media coverage is also a headwind?

B.Y.: Actually, I did not list media coverage among the headwinds. I listed the succeed-a-two-term-president problem, the right-track/wrong-track problem, the Republican-Democrat-enthusiasm gap problem, the Republican-Democrat-I.D.-gap problem, the financial meltdown, Iraq, Republican gloom on Capitol Hill, Obama's fund-raising advantage, and McCain's historical problems with the GOP base.

Taibbi and York go on to "chat" about the financial crisis and the role that derivatives (Spot misspelled that first time around and the spell checker helpfully recommended "depravities") called credit default swaps had in creating the mess.

The National Review guy, of course, clings to the canard that it was poor minority people who brought down Wall Street:

B.Y.: Did I suggest that headwinds are unfair? But on the financial meltdown in particular, if you're suggesting that that is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

M.T.: You don't think the unregulated CDS market was a major factor in the current crisis? Were you watching when AIG almost went under? Were you watching the Lehman collapse?

B.Y.: I think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also major factors. And I believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities: the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people who could not afford them. Again, I believe that if you are suggesting that the financial crisis is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. [italics are Spot's] The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

Taibbi goes on to give York a tutorial on credit default swaps, which Spot won't repeat but highly recommends.

Phill Gramm is an interesting character in all of this because he is the godfather of the deregulation of financial services, credit default swaps and the separation of commercials banks and investment banks. He is, not coincidentally, an economic adviser to John McCain.

York is just one of the legions of right wingers trying to pin the meltdown on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, the Easter Bunny or anywhere other than where it belongs: the dismantling of a regime of financial regulation that had its beginning in the hard lessons of the Depression.

A thump of the tail to John Cole at Balloon Juice for the link.

Technorati Tags: Phil Gramm,John McCain,Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac,Community Reinvestment Act,credit default swaps,Ponzi schemes,financial meltdown

Robocalls

The Sponge household received this little robocall (#1) last night from the McCain campaign.