Sticking To Their Bad Ideas

(Q) It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit. Read more of Thomas Friedman

Inflation Abounds

Click on Graph to View (Q) The Federal Reserve is now in day 1 of their two day meeting. The statement we get tomorrow, and the minutes we will read next month are likely to be intriguing.

Why? The longstanding official myth that inflation is modest, and contained is starting to be recognized for the fraud that it is.

Examples abound: The Times of London: Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family’s weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year (Era of cheap food ends as prices surge). Yet here in the US, the BLS has food prices up only 4.5% year over year (that's with the dollar down ~2% vs. the pound)

The price of rice has increased dramatically in recent weeks due to crop failure overseas and resulting hoarding… Rice has doubled in price in six months. (Bay Area Shoppers Asked To Limit Rice Purchases)

During the first week of April…leisure fares from traditional carriers on 280 major routes rose 13 percent from the previous year...We've got an industry that's in trouble," said Vaughn Cordle, chief executive and chief analyst at AirlineForecasts in Washington. "If oil prices stay anywhere near $100, $120 for the year ... we'll have a massive restructuring of the airline industry." (Summer travel headaches loom as airlines' woes deepen).

All these obvious price increases are begining to undermine confidence in the Federal Reserve. Courtesy The Big Picture

Obama Splits With Wright

In an extraordinary press conference here, Obama denounced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying that Wright's comments yesterday angered and saddened him -- and are antithetical to what his campaign is about.

"I've known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years. The person that I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church."

"They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Rev. Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well I might not know him as well as I thought, either."



Comments from Andrew Sullivan
That was a very impressive, clear and constructive re-framing of the core message of his candidacy; and a moment given to him by Wright. No one will ever be able to say that Obama threw his father-figure and pastor under the bus. We all know that the reverse happened. We also know that this clear repudiation of Wright's toxic, indeed "ridiculous" views on AIDS, 9/11 and permanent immiseration of people of color could not have happened unless Wright had made it necessary. Skeptics may wonder whether Wright actually deliberately did Obama a favor. I doubt it. But a favor it unintentionally is.

Maybe God does bring good out of bad. Maybe these racial and cultural divides can help us understand how better to move beyond them. Cynics may scoff - and certainly will. They will parse every nuance and try to paint Obama as another cynical, positioning pol. I don't believe it. He has more sincerity and integrity than the vast majority of politicians, more honesty, and more resilience in a very tough spot.

And today, we found that he can fight back, and take a stand, without calculation and in what is clearly a great amount of personal difficulty and political pain. It's what anyone should want in a president. It makes me want to see him succeed more than ever. It's why this country needs to see him succeed more than ever.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, NAACP Speech

Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Does he say something that offends you? Does he speak the truth? What are your thoughts?

As Democrats Battle On, Shields and Brooks Size Up Tactics

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are turning their attention to Indiana and North Carolina as the battle for the Democratic nomination rolls on while GOP Sen. John McCain has sought to hone his political message on the campaign trail. Analysts Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss the week's political news. See Streaming Video

Karl Rove: My Advice for Barack Obama

Four months ago, you took the political world by storm in Iowa. The media were agog. They called your words "gorgeous," your victory "a message to the world." You "made history" and Americans could "look at ourselves with pride" in "a moment to marvel."

Times change. The six weeks leading into Pennsylvania were difficult. You excelled at raising money and gaining endorsements, but got weaker as big problems emerged. Before you can fix them, you must understand them. In Pennsylvania, you won only 30 percent among Catholics and 29 percent among white working-class voters. Defections like this elect Republicans.

Even liberal commentators who adore you warn you can't win with a McGovern coalition of college students and white-wine sippers from the party's left wing. Saying small-town voters cling to guns, faith and xenophobia because of economic bitterness hurt you; it reinforced the growing sense you don't share Middle America's values. So did asking about the price of arugula in Iowa, dismissing the "true" patriotism of people who wear a flag lapel pin, being "friendly" (as your chief strategist, David Axelrod, put it) with a violent, unrepentant '60s radical and having a close relationship with an angry pastor who expressed anti-American sentiments.

You argue the son of a single working mom can't be an elitist. But it's not where you start in life; it's where you end up. After a prestigious prep school, Columbia and Harvard, you've ended up with the values of Cambridge, San Francisco and Hyde Park. So you're doing badly in Scranton, Youngstown and Erie, where ordinary Americans live.

HERE ARE SIX SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT TO DO.

Your lack of achievements undercuts your core themes. It's powerful when you say America is not "Red States or Blue States but the United States." The problem is, you don't have a long Senate record of working across party lines. So build one. In the coming months, say that you'll appoint Republicans to your cabinet and get a couple to say they'd serve. Highlight initiatives Republicans can agree on. Most importantly, push for a bipartisan issue now before Congress.

To read the other five

Strange Bedfellows...Times are Changing

Is the Fed Causing a Global Food Crisis?

The Federal Reserve's irresponsible bailout of Wall Street's most reckless players is having very significant repercussions, both in the US and abroad.

It starts with the US dollar, now off 40% from its highs earlier this decade. This has had a huge impact on commodity prices, and is the prime reason so many countries are considering dropping their peg to the US Dollar.

Overseas, price spikes in basic foodstuffs has led to riots and political unrest. Considering that in many regions of the world most of a family's income goes to basic survival purchases such as food shelter and energy, it doesn't take much in the way of price rises to lead to significant turmoil. According to Bloomberg, the average household in India spent 32% of its income on food last year. Compare that with 6% in the U.S., and 43% in Indonesia, or 36% for the Philippines.

Hence, the 50% rise in the price of rice in recent months is leading to increasing turmoil.

In the US, the results aren't nearly so dire. With Sam's Club and Costco limiting rice purchases to four 20 pound bags per visit, starvation isn't an issue. But the Government's credibility is, as more and more folks come to the realization that the official statistics are nonsense. And, the absurd Fed focus on the core rate of inflation has people shaking their head in wonder over how out of touch our Central bankers are. Consider this recent San Diego Union Tribune column:

"For the Federal Reserve, the core inflation rate amounts to a green light to continue its policy of lowering interest rates in order to keep the economy from falling into a deep recession. A higher inflation rate could conceivably make the central bank freeze or raise interest rates.

But many economists say the core rate does not show how inflation is affecting the typical consumer. Because salary raises for most people are not keeping pace with the rising cost of living, people are using a greater percentage of their wages to buy a smaller amount of goods."

That's typical of the sort of coverage that is gaining traction -- and it only took $120 Oil and $5 milk to get some attention focused on the issue.

We've been beating the drum on this for years now. The cat is out of the bag, and we will have to see if any of the candidates have the stones to step up and address the issue.

Digging deeper into this situation is the cover story of the May 2008 edition of Harpers is titled "Why the Economy is Worse than We know" (pdf). It contains a review of the myriad ways the government has corrupted the way official statistics are reported for jobs, inflation, GDP, etc. (I have a brief mention in it).

The article is by Kevin Phillips, the author of Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism.

Meanwhile, more and more people are recognizing the reality beneath the spin. The President and members of Congress seem genuinely perplexed at the public's negativity. (Public's View of Economy Takes Fast Turn Downward). They keep blaming the Iraq war for this, despite the fact media coverage has dropped significantly and completely disappeared from Fox News.

The Fed meets again next week, and the expectation is for "only" a quarter point rate cut. That is how distorted our perspectives have become -- parts of the world is having food riots, and merely taking rates down another 25 bps is somehow perceived as a moderate action. Courtesy The Big Picture

50 Shots=Not Guilty

(Q) I just keep thinking of Aunt Sally in Huck Finn:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A judge acquitted three New York Police Department detectives of all charges Friday morning in the shooting death of an unarmed man in a 50-bullet barrage, hours before he was to be married.

Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends.

Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.

Keep in mind that this case was decided by a single judge, rather than a jury. The cops weren't comfortable with the idea of a jury of their peers.

This verdict occurs at a time when the NYPD has lapsed into a pattern of unaccountability, where instead of pursing violations, cops are given a tongue lashing:

In 2004, 88 cases against police officers actually made it to trial. Last year, that number was eight. And yet, the police department claims that it's actually doing a better job of prosecuting bad cops. How? By employing a complex manipulation of statistics.

Complaints are prosecuted not by the CCRB itself but by the NYPD's Department Advocate's Office, which, since Julie Schwartz took over in 2004, has increasingly used a light hand with police officers who are found to deserve discipline. After Schwartz took over, the percentage of officers receiving "instructions" (what amounts to a talking-to, the lightest possible penalty) jumped from 29 percent of those disciplined in 2004 to 57 percent in 2005. In her second year, the number increased to 73 percent.

That's a lot of stern lectures.

The NYCLU referred to it as "a free pass to engage in misconduct".

Calling it a "seismic shift" in policy, Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU's associate legal director, asserts: "Between the dramatic increase in the number of CCRB [Civilian Complaint Review Board] cases the department is dismissing, and the large number of cases where officers get only a slap on the wrist in the form of instructions, the department has essentially given officers a free pass to engage in misconduct."

That's my concern with the Sean Bell verdict. With violations being punished less often and less harshly within the department, and these cops facing no consequences for pumping 50 shots at three unarmed black men, things will only get worse.

This was not a murder trial. The men were given lesser charges that I believe were more suited to their crime. These did not sound like bloodthirsty men who just wanted to pop somebody, they sounded like cops who got scared and behaved recklessly. A man is dead because of that, and I don't see any justice in allowing them to go free without consequences.

And I will say this: 50 shots at an unarmed target. That kind of thing never, ever seems to happen to anyone else. Courtesy Jack and Jill Politics

Is it the Shoes? or Video Imaging...

Is The Border Fence Working?

Mexican nationals storming the border near San Diego, day and night. That was the early 1990s.

Today, on that border is double fencing, stadium lighting, surveillance cameras and motion detectors. It's the most heavily fortified five miles of the border - all monitored from a command center near San Diego, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

"Over the years the San Diego sector has been able to incrementally gain operational control of this area," said Michael Fisher, the San Diego sector's chief patrol agent.

Proof? The number of people caught crossing illegally has dropped dramatically from 600,000 a year in the early '90s to just 153,000 last year.

Fewer apprehensions means fewer people sneaking across, says the Border Patrol.

Only 670 miles of the 2,000-mile border are to get fencing and that's behind schedule. The price tag: $1.2 billion, says the Border Patrol. That's up to $3 million per mile.

But factor in life-time maintenance and congressional researchers say the price could top $50 billion.

But won't they just move on down the road to the next property?" Whitaker asked.

"They will, they will," Hodges said. "It's just not going to stop as long as there's a market for illegals."

9.1 Percent

The Final Tally.

McCain's Reverend Wright?

(Q) John Hagee is the one who contends that New Orleans drew the wrath of God in Hurricane Katrina for a gay-pride parade that the city was planning. "What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God,'' Hagee told a radio talk show host again this week. "In time, if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become, it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it's called a curse... I\It was a city that was planning a sinful conduct.''

"To this day, Rev. Hagee continues to blame the sins of the people of New Orleans for the catastrophe of Katrina, and yet Sen. McCain actively sought his endorsement and has refused to condemn his comments,"

"On Sunday he maintained he was "glad to have" Hagee's endorsement.
However...when McCain ran for president in 2000, he chastized then-Governor Bush for “seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views,” saying that he “would condemn openly” such “agents of intolerance.” Now he says such intolerance is just “taken out of context.”

Catholic League president Bill Donahue has answered back:

"Did we also mischaracterize Hagee when he called my religion 'The Great Whore,' the 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ' and a 'false cult system'? McCain cannot ignore Hagee's lies any more than he can tolerate his bigotry. This is getting out of control."

It is interesting how John McCain is getting a pass on this from the Media? The Media is not asking, nor is John McCain willing to denounce/renounce/reject these statements...hmmm.

McCain Warns That Democrats Will Unify

From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report:

"Obama's difficulties and the prolongation of the Clinton-Obama confrontation have lifted Republicans from their slough of despondence to optimism about the presidential election. The transformation from deep pessimism to overriding optimism is such that McCain is privately warning supporters that once the nomination is decided and supporters of the losing Democratic candidate return to the fold, he will fall behind badly (though, McCain hopes, temporarily)."

Also: "High-level Republican contributors and fund-raisers complain that the McCain campaign has not got its act in order and is still badly disorganized. This comes from very heavy GOP hitters."

Homes Slide = Recession?

As expected, year-over-year sales and prices continue to get punished. The monthly year-over-year existing home sales fell 19.3%, while the national median existing-home price was $200,700, down 7.7% from March 2007. More @ National Association of Realtors

For Clinton it is All About...Women

(Q) So how did Clinton win so decisively last night? The answer is women, specifically white women. They continue to be as important to her success in these primaries as new voters and African-Americans have been to Obama. Per the exit polls, 47% of the Pennsylvania Democratic electorate last night was made up of white women, higher than any other race/gender subgroup. Clinton ended up winning them by more than 30 points, 66%-34%; in Ohio, she won this group, 67%-31%. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is: Why can’t Obama put Clinton away? The AP’s Ron Fournier takes a stab at answering this, and he points to five reasons (race, working-class voters, friends in trouble, inexperience, and mettle). But to us, women seem to be the bigger reason. They continue to rally to her side; nothing has shaken their confidence in her. If Clinton continues to beat Obama by 30-plus points among white women, how can he knock her out?

*** Rocking the suburbs: What’s more, Clinton must have won white women decisively across the state's geographic landscape, because there's no other explanation for her pulling off the upset in the Philly suburbs. To most lay observers, Obama looked to be a lock to win the Philly ‘burbs; the only question was by how much. But he didn’t win them. Overall, Obama carried just seven of the state's 67 counties. In his successful gubernatorial primary win over Bob Casey in 2002, Ed Rendell carried 10 counties -- and the big difference between Rendell's path and Obama's was that Rendell carried Montgomery and Bucks counties, while Obama lost MontCo narrowly and got clobbered in Bucks. This success by Clinton in the suburbs, by the way, might be the best talking point the campaign has going forward because it's the first evidence in weeks that Clinton has finally cut into Obama's coalition. Of course, Pennsylvania could simply be her Wisconsin, where everything that happens in the state, well, stays in the state. Remember Wisconsin? That was Obama's supposed big break through in cutting into Clinton's coalition of white, working-class voters and even white women. Wisconsin didn't take for Obama. Will Pennsylvania take for Clinton?

The Clintons And The Weather Underground

All campaigns spin. All candidates spin. But there is something about Clintonian spin that is...well, spinnier than conventional spin.

Here's an example. Last Thursday, following the mis-moderated Clinton-Obama debate of the previous evening, the Hillary Clinton campaign decided to follow up by blasting Barack Obama on two issues that had been tossed at him the previous evening: his past support of a handgun ban and his connection to William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who has become a distinguished professor and education expert. During a conference call that morning, Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer, two senior Clinton aides, hammered Obama for having held a fundraiser in 1995, during his first campaign for state senator, in Ayers' apartment. At the time, Ayers, who has admitted taking part in bombings during the 1970s (which never caused any loss of life) and who was never arrested for any of his radical actions, lived near Obama, and the two served on the board of a nonprofit that provided grants to groups working on poverty issues. Obama, Wolfson insisted, had "to be more forthcoming" about Ayers.

During that conference call, I asked Wolfson whether Senator Clinton supported the pardon Bill Clinton issued in 2001 to two Weather Underground radicals: Linda Evans, who was sentenced to prison for participating in a series of bombings in the 1980s, and Susan Rosenberg, who was charged with being part of a bank robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead. Whether or not the Ayers matter was a non-issue, if Hillary Clinton's aides were going to bash Obama for having once had a connection to a former radical who had never been arrested, it seemed fair to wonder if she had opposed her husband's pardons of two radicals who had served time for their crimes.

Wolfson did not answer the question. Instead, he noted that the pardoned Weather Underground radicals had never held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. I pointed out that was not the issue--and again asked if Senator Clinton supported or opposed those two pardons. "I don't know what she said," Wolfson replied. And in front of the dozens of reporters on the call, Wolfson promised he would get back to me. His Response...

The Shrinking Middle Class

Click for full interactive graphic
Let us hope that there is no correlation to 1930....

Falling Sales, Except at Gas Pump

Courtesy NYT's Floyd Norris:

"AMERICANS are cutting back on purchases of things they do not have to have, sending retail sales down sharply at many types of stores.

Those cutbacks, which now seem to be worse than at any time since the 1990-91 recession, are helping to slow the economy and to spur calls in Washington for more fiscal stimulus even before the government starts to send out money to most taxpayers next month.

Those checks could provide at least a temporary stimulus, but until they arrive, the slowdown in spending appears to be nationwide.

In its beige book report on economic conditions released this week, the Federal Reserve said that surveys by the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks found that “consumer spending was characterized as softening across most of the country.” The Fed said that in 10 of the 12 districts, spending on things other than cars was down, while car sales were generally reported to be flat or declining."

Kotecki TV...Say No More

48 Second Water Balloon

Nunn, Boren Back Obama

Former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), "who toyed with the concept of a non-partisan run for president last year," endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

"The former senator, considered one of the nation's preeminent experts on U.S. defense, met with Obama's foreign policy team this morning, we're told."

"Though not a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, Nunn carries a deal of gravitas in foreign policy from which Obama could benefit. As one himself, Nunn could also help reassure conservative Democrats still suspicious of Obama's position on the left-right political spectrum."

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe notes former Sen. David Boren (D-OK), another conservative Southern Democrat, also announced he would back Obama.

Ben Smith calls the endorsements "an acknowledgment that Obama's message has pretty well absorbed the high aspirations of the group Unity '08."

Road Trip into Blue America

David Jackson previews McCain's upcoming road trip into the heart of Blue America:

Starting Monday, the presumptive GOP nominee for president will stop in Alabama's "Black Belt," then move on to the struggling steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, and the Appalachian region of Kentucky. The Arizona senator is also trying to make it to New Orleans, which is still recovering from 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

"I want to tell people living there that there must not be any forgotten parts of America, any forgotten Americans," McCain told newspaper editors this week.

"A lot of moderate white voters want a president who can reach out to the disadvantaged," said John Pitney, a former House GOP aide and government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. "So McCain has to show he's making the effort."

Much of McCain's itinerary is in heavily Democratic areas.

McCain is slated to spend part of Monday in the heart of the Black Belt, which is named for the region's dark soil. The congressional district that includes this region voted for Democrat John Kerry over Bush in 2004 and is 62% black.

"Bitter" in the mail...Fall Preview

Of course, how it works in a GOP primary isn't quite clear. Shaner tries it like this:

"And although Republicans don’t have a competitive race for President, you can send a loud and clear message back to Obama by coming out and supporting candidates who share our values."

My thought is this...when is the last time the "Guns and God" voter cast their vote for a Democrat? So is this really that big of a deal? It could be if it helps bring more Republicans out to vote but the real question is...how do Independents react to the "Bitter" comment?

Debate Reaction

In a severe case of bad timing -- just days before the Pennsylvania primary -- Sen. Barack Obama gave his worst performance in a debate so far last night. It's not that Sen. Hillary Clinton "won" the debate, but Obama clearly lost it.

If you missed it, check out the "bests and mosts" from CQ Politics.

Chuck Todd: "Overall, with the spotlight on him very bright, Obama didn't step up. He got rattled early on and never picked his game back up. Clinton wasn't very warm (outside of he first few minutes), but she didn't have the spotlight on her very bright. And as we've noted here quite a few times, whenever the spotlight is on one candidate, the other seems to benefit. Last night, the spotlight was on Obama, and for a short period of time, expect Clinton to benefit. But the question is whether she can sustain any benefit since as the negativity goes on, she pays a bigger price than Obama. Let's see what Pennsylvania decides in five days. A big Clinton victory and this debate will be seen as an important turning point. But a narrow victory (less than five points) and she could find herself facing more calls to get out."

Walter Shapiro: "This was not an evening that will shimmer in Obama's memory book."

Andrew Sullivan: "It was a lifeless, exhausted, drained and dreary Obama we saw tonight. I've seen it before when he is tired, but this was his worst performance yet on national television. He seemed crushed and unable to react. This is big-time politics and he's up against the Clinton wood-chipper. But there is no disguising the fact that he wilted, painfully."

Marc Ambinder: "Keeping the score card, there's no way Obama could have fared worse. Nearly 45 minutes of relentless political scrutiny from the ABC anchors and from Hillary Clinton, followed by an issues-and-answers session in which his anger carried over and sort of neutered him. But Hillary Clinton has a Reverse-Teflon problem: her negatives are up, and when she's perceived as the attacker, the attacks never seem to settle on Obama and always seem to boomerang back on her."

Josh Marshall: "I don't think this debate will have much effect on the direction of the race. In fact, I've learned from past... experience that the candidate who wins on points in a debate often doesn't come out with the best result."

Joe Klein: "My guess is that Obama, simply by pointing out the dopiness of the questions in the first half of the debate, probably emerged from this better than Clinton did."

Justice Stevens' change of heart

(Q) Justice John Paul Stevens, the Chicago native who once was part of a Supreme Court majority that reinstated the death penalty in America in 1976, Wednesday indicated for the first time that he believes capital punishment is unconstitutional.

Writing to concur in the court's judgment in Baze v. Rees, the case out of Kentucky that questioned whether the method used for executing prisoners was unconstitutionally harmful, Stevens said he had become convinced that the death penalty no longer served a legitimate societal function.

Stevens noted that that when the Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it did so by identifying three purposes served by capital punishment: 1) incapacitation of the offender; 2) deterrence and 3) retribution.

He wrote that with the advent of longer prisoner sentences and the option of a life term without parole made incapacitation a weaker rationale. He then questioned whether the death penalty deters crime, long a subject of debate among researchers. "Despite 30 years of empirical research in the area, there is no reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact deters potential offenders," he said. Continue reading @ Swamp Politics

Bush and big crowd greet pope on his birthday

(Q) Pope Benedict XVI chose to address bluntly the sex scandal that has torn at the church here even before he landed Tuesday on his first official visit to the United States, saying he was “deeply ashamed” by the actions of pedophile priests.

His comments aboard his plane, in answer to a written question submitted by a reporter and selected by the Vatican, appeared to soothe many Catholics but left others demanding more action than words.

“It’s difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give the love of God to these children,” the pope said, adding that the church would work to exclude pedophiles from the priesthood.

“It is more important to have good priests than to have many priests,” he said.

The words were his strongest ever on the issue, one he clearly wanted to emphasize as he arrived on a six-day visit to Washington and New York. His comments were in response to the first of four questions he answered on the plane — chosen from 20 the press corps had submitted in advance.

It was unclear whether these would be the last words from Benedict on the issue, which ruptured the faith between parishioners and priests and has cost the church some $2 billion, or whether it was an opening signal of both reconciliation and more to come. Church officials have said they expected the pope to address the scandal more than once during his visit, and there is speculation that he may even meet with some victims. Continue @ NYT

Sunday Cartoon

Joseph Stiglitz On The Economy

(Q) An interview with Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia Professor who is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, with his overview of the economy.

Stiglitz recent books include Globalization and Its Discontents (2003) and Making Globalization Work (2006).

The professor pulls no punches -- about the economy, President Bush, and Fed Chair Bernanke.

Same Ol', Same Ol'

CORPORATE WELFARE UPDATE....The housing bill easily passed the Senate on Thursday:

The most expensive item is a tax break for homebuilders and other money-losing businesses that would cost the federal government more than $25 billion over the next three years. Missing entirely: A new mechanism to aid borrowers who can't afford their mortgage payments and, due to falling home prices, owe their banks more than their homes are worth, the group most at risk of foreclosure.

One of the bill's chief sponsors, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), called the measure "a major, positive step in the right direction," but he acknowledged that the package offers little in direct aid to the nearly 8,000 families thrown into foreclosure each day.

I'm totally conflicted on foreclosure aid. Is it a good idea because lots of people are hurting and need help — and if Wall Street is going to get help, why not the little guys too? Or is it a bad idea because it just helps to prop up housing prices, extending a bubble that needs to be allowed to pop?

I'm not sure. But that $25 billion tax break? No conflict there. It's right up there with ethanol subsidies in the pantheon of outlandishly rapacious corporate welfare legislation. Daniel Gross explains:

The technical term for this is a tax-loss carryback. But it should perhaps be known as a bubble-head tax break....Homebuilders argue that they need relief because their sector, which provides a great deal of domestic employment, is on the ropes, and they're finding it more difficult to raise capital. Which is as it should be. After bubbles pop, those who screwed up really badly fail and get taken over by creditors or opportunistic investors. Those who have sound underlying franchises but merely got a little carried away can survive if they take painful restructuring moves. This is what is known as market capitalism.

....The proposal to give new tax breaks to homebuilders and banks is yet another example of the pernicious trend of privatizing profit and socializing losses, which is gnawing away at faith in the system. Dilute the shareholders, not the taxpayers.

The "he gets it" quote is "the pernicious trend of privatizing profit and socializing losses"
The old addage, Americans dislike socialism is a falsehood.
I grant, socialism for the individual goes against the grain of American ethos in Individualism but Corporate Welfare has been rife for over a hundred years and Thursday's bailout of Corporate Financial America is just another example in a long line...Lee Iacocca

Will Clinton Over-Reach?

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan
The "bitter" spat is gold for Morris-Rove politics, which is why Clinton is exploiting it so baldly. It is exactly the kind of debate that has constructed American politics since Vietnam; it is exactly the kind of politics that Obama has been trying to transcend. Clinton will use anything at this point to destroy Obama's candidacy and message; but by adopting Rovism at its reddest, the Clintons do risk looking too obvious. Check out the comments in CNN's Politicker. At some point people will realize that the Clintons represent a continuation of the kind of politics that has made a serious engagement with this country's profound problems impossible. Or is acknowledging profound problems now unpatriotic?

Is this election about how to salvage the least worst option in the Iraq disaster? Is it about restoring some kind of fiscal sanity? Is it about doing all we can to unite Americans in a war against Islamic terrorism? Is it about restoring America's compliance with the Geneva Conventions? Or is it again about red-blue culture wars? We know what the professional political class is comfortable with. We know what Rove and Bush and Penn and Clinton believe. What we will find out soon is if Americans want more of the same. It's a free country - and people can vote. Goodbye to all that? Or hello again - for yet another cycle? A reader writes:

I am a rustbelt native. I live near Gary, Indiana and have never lived anywhere else. I’ll probably die here.

I read and, more importantly, listened to Barack Obama’s response to the Clinton cacophony after his remarks about blue collar/regular people/rustbelt voters. The difference between the two politicians is amazing. One is thoughtful and unafraid while defending a politically risky yet righteous position. The other is just noise.


My husband and I already have one child and grandchild living thousands of miles away and I fully expect the other to leave within a few years. I don’t blame them. In fact I always encouraged them to leave because I wanted them to realize the full measure of their talents and abilities and that isn’t possible here.

Obama’s right about guns and religion in that there simply isn’t much to do in an economically depressed area but hunt and pray. There’s nothing insulting or elitist about this, but people can be easily persuaded that an elitist has indeed insulted them.

That’s what worries me. People will forget their interests, will forget that their children are moving away en masse, will forget the political idiocy of the Clintonian hypocrisy that inspires Howard Beale-like angst in all of us. They may forget all of that just for the misguided privilege of feeling insulted.

And that's their right. Americans have had the presidency they deserved these past four years; the war they voted to continue; the debt they voted to increase; the incompetence they decided to reward. They also get to pick who comes next. If they want more of the same, they know who to vote for.

AP Confirms ABC News

Torture latest:

Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned. The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. They knew what they were doing. The law was "fixed" to back up what was already decided.

The parallel to WMD intelligence - the Downing Street memo - springs to mind.

And now more...Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

While the blogosphere explodes dissecting how big a snob Obama is, the president of the United States cops to authorizing torture:

Bush also said in an interview with ABC News that he approved of the meetings, which were held as the CIA began to prepare for a secret interrogation program that included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and other coercive techniques.

"Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people" by learning what various detainees knew, Bush said in the interview at the presidential ranch here. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

The remarks underscore the extent to which the top officials were directly involved in setting the controversial interrogation policies.

Bush suggested in the interview that no one should be surprised that his senior advisers, including Vice President Cheney, would discuss details of the interrogation program. "I told the country we did that," Bush said. "And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it."

Notice that for this president, the law is an obstacle to be overcome with opinions he orders up from his underlings. Also, can't you just see the president really wants to tell the people "you can't handle the truth!" Whether it be wrong or right....

Obama: No Backing Down!

One thing I like about Barack Obama is that when he hands himself lemons, he tries to make lemonade as you see in his response to those who criticized his characterization of the public mood in Pennsylvania. Recall that the whole meetings with the political leadership of rogue states started as a gaffe, but eventually became a synecdoche for willingness to move beyond the conventional wisdom of a broken establishment.

I have no idea whether this particular response to this particular controversy will "work" but it's still the correct approach and one that shows, I think, a more sophisticated grasp of media dynamics than we've seen from most Democrats over the past few years. Courtesy Matthew Yglesias
Barack Obama's original San Francisco statement here

Obama Closing in on Clinton in Pennsylvania

Sen. Barack Obama is catching up with Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Clinton now leads by just 6 points, 50% to 44%, among likely voters.

Last week Clinton had a 9 point lead in the poll.

Said pollster Clay Richards:

"With two weeks to go, Sen. Barack Obama is knocking on the door of a major political upset in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Obama is not only building on his own constituencies, but is taking away voters in Sen. Hillary Clinton's strongest areas - whites including white women, voters in the key swing Philadelphia suburbs and those who say the economy is the most important issue in the campaign."

Jayhawks Defeat Tigers In OT For First National Title in 20 Years

Click to see ESPN Video

Obama On Patriotism In Montana

More, please:

I love this country not because it's perfect, but because we've always been able to move it closer to perfection. Because through revolution and slavery; war and depression; great battles for civil rights and women's rights and worker's rights, generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise. And as long as I live, I will never forget that I am only standing here because they did... That is the country I love. That is the promise of America.

Our Daily Bread

(Q) The NYT reported on the price of rice last week:

The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

Paul Krugman devotes his column today to the rising price of grain worldwide:

Governments and private grain dealers used to hold large inventories in normal times, just in case a bad harvest created a sudden shortage. Over the years, however, these precautionary inventories were allowed to shrink, mainly because everyone came to believe that countries suffering crop failures could always import the food they needed.

This left the world food balance highly vulnerable to a crisis affecting many countries at once — in much the same way that the marketing of complex financial securities, which was supposed to diversify away risk, left world financial markets highly vulnerable to a systemwide shock.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

Top 14 Reasons Mark Penn Coulda/Shoulda Been Fired by Hillary

(Q) Courtesy Mark Halperin
1. He insisted on a message of “experience” in a “change” election.

2. He brought his near absence of visible professional humanity to a candidate that needs humanizing more than most.

3. He treated his colleagues with disdain.

4. He refused to give up his lucrative private sector work, even for clients who were politically toxic within the party.

5. He billed the campaign premium rates for his firm’s services.

6. He had little or no experience in winning Democratic nomination battles.

7. He simultaneously served as pollster and chief strategist — and no campaign should have as its
chief strategist its pollster or admaker.

8. He was an off-putting and gaffe-prone television, conference call, and post-debate surrogate.

9. He was a lightning rod for media and labor criticism.

10 He fought against the good ideas of his colleagues about how to reshape Clinton’s image.

11. He fostered a sense of ill will and distrust with virtually all of Clinton’s other top advisers, stifled creativity, and blurred lines of authority.

12. He can be a temperamental, often immature presence.

13. He appeared to refuse to take any responsibility for Clinton’s losses.

14. His work and strategic advice highlighted many of Clinton’s greatest perceived weaknesses: accusations of a say-one-thing-do-another ethos; charges of being too centrist; support for the Iraq War; coziness with Washington lobbyists and special interests; ties to certain less-beloved aspects of her husband’s presidency.

The story reads:
Mark Penn, the pollster who has advised Bill and Hillary Clinton since 1996, stepped down under pressure on Sunday as the chief political strategist for Mrs. Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign after his private business arrangements again clashed with her campaign positions. Read full story at New York Times

McCain keeps up with California talk

(Q) It's no secret that the McCain camp hopes to expand the map past the old red/blue divide, but the candidate himself seems to have one state in mind that most strategists in both parties see as being in safe Dem hands: California.

When I asked McCain last month in New Hampshire a general question about competing in left-leaning states, he immediately cited California (even though we were standing in a much more attainable blue state).

And now this morning, when asked by Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" about his intent to appeal to non-traditonal GOP voters, McCain pivoted again to the Big Enchilada.

"California can no longer be written off in my view," McCain said. "And that means going to all parts of that state and reaching out to Hispanic voters, independents, others."

Now, whether McCain will be speeding up and down The 5 on the Straight Talk Express in late October is an open question.

But it's apparent that the candidate — who has a place on Coronado and has been called "the third senator from California" — wants to at least give it a shot.

Something that, in early April, offers much more upside than not for somebody trying to persuade donors in the state to part with their cash.

An Amazing Story...

Please take a few minutes (6:51) to watch this story.

Soldier survives RPG hit.

Air Drop Bloopers

Bless you, men of Op For, for uncovering this genius video showing what happens when air drops go wrong. a "stupid gold mine," they proclaim. And what gold it is.

And Finally...the Tax Returns

Long-awaited, they arrive — when else — at 4:00 p.m. Friday.

The Clintons' joint returns show them earning more than $109 million over a period of seven years.

The biggest source of income is Bill Clinton's speeches — source of $51 million. He made another $30 million from books; Hillary made about $10 million from her book.

Spokesman Jay Carson says, in a statement:

The Clintons have now made public thirty years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information.

What the Clintons' tax returns show is that they paid more than $33,000,000 in federal taxes and donated more than $10,000,000 to charities over the past eight years. They paid taxes and made charitable contributions at a higher rate than taxpayers at their income level.

You can download them, and see a summary, here. They include detailed returns for 2000 through 2006, and the request for an extension for last year.

If you're poring over them, let me know what you find.

ALSO: The returns went early to Drudge — who has been extremely hard on Hillary for months — as good proof as any since the time of Machiavelli that it's better to be feared than loved.

UPDATE: The interesting part, of course, is the roughly $18 million that the summary doesn't account for -- (though it is accounted for in the returns).

Sobering Statistics...from the Other Track

(Q) The average black person in America is 447 percent more likely to be imprisoned than the average white person, and 521 percent more likely to be murdered. Blacks earn 60 cents to the dollar compared with whites who have the same education levels and marital status. The black poverty rate is nearly twice the white poverty rate. Blacks tend to die five years earlier than whites; the infant mortality rate among black babies is nearly 1 1/2 times the rate among white babies. And because of long-standing patterns of inheritance, blacks and whites begin life with substantial disparities in family wealth. To read the article...Unequal Perspectives on Racial Equality

Obama Raises More Than $40 Million in March

Sen. Barack Obama announced that he raised more than $40 million in March from more than 442,000 contributors across the country. More than 218,000 donors contributed to the campaign for the first time, and the average contribution level was $96.

Since the Clinton campaign isn't expected to come close to that figure, it's unlikely the campaign will announce anything until the mid-month filing deadline.

HRC's 20Pt. Lead in Pennsylvania...Gone

A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds Sen. Hillary Clinton leading Sen. Barack Obama by nine points, 50% to 41%, among likely Democratic primary voters.

Clinton held a 12 point lead two weeks ago.

Polls released yesterday from Rasmussen and SurveyUSA also found Clinton's lead narrowing in the last few weeks.

White House unveils Wall Street overhaul

(Q) The Bush administration Monday proposed the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.

The plan would change how the government regulates thousands of businesses from the nation’s biggest banks and investment houses down to the local insurance agent and mortgage broker.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled the 218-page plan in a speech in Treasury’s ornate Cash Room, declaring, “A strong financial system is vitally important — not for Wall Street, not for bankers, but for working Americans.”

The plan, which would require congressional approval for its biggest changes, seeks to trim a hodge-podge collection of overlapping jurisdictions that date back to the Civil War.

It would give the Federal Reserve more power to protect the stability of the entire financial system while merging day-to-day bank supervision into one agency, down from five at present.

Read More @ Plan to move more oversight to the Federal Reserve