brainrow

Atrios is introspective:

It’s important to remember that none of us are above the fray, that we all have hackish tendencies to suppress information which doesn’t fit our worldview and privilege information that does. We’re more likely to excuse behavior from people we like and exaggerate the ills of people we don’t like. I try to fight hackish tendencies especially during this intra-Dem battle, but I don’t claim to have superhuman Nonhack powers.

In a later post, he adds:

One reason for my Obama leaning ways is that it’s time to get some new blood into the Washington permanent floating ruling class system. I was never bothered by the personal element of the Clinton “dynasty.” That is, I wasn’t bothered by having another Clinton in office. But I was concerned with the ossification of the elite class structure in Washington. I was bothered not by the return to power of the Clintons, but by the return to power of Clintonites. I’m tired of seeing the same damn people on the teevee.

It’s not the same old people who bother me, it’s the same old ideas.

Politicians and pundits all seem to have a collection of tape loops. Ask about the economy, they all play a pre-recorded “economy” sound bite. Ask about health care, get the canned “health care” message.

Many of the tape loops have been unchanged for decades. When terrorists flew hijacked planes into American buildings, Bush Administration officials just pushed harder for the same irrelevant anti-missile systems and tax policies they had wanted before. Don Rumsfeld didn’t want to fight al Qaeda because there weren’t any good targets in Afghanistan, but there were lots of good targets in Iraq.

Tape loop minds don’t respond well to the unexpected.

How I would love to see people in government who are actively thinking about issues. How I long to see people on the teevee who have a light behind their eyes.

Obama’s got that.

Via Daily Kos, The Week looks at the Iraq money pit:

How much has the war cost so far?

About $600 billion since 2003, and the total is rising fast. Because of soaring fuel costs and the high price of repairing or replacing damaged equipment, the U.S. is spending about $12 billion a month this year, up from $4 billion a month in 2003. … The $600 billion figure does not include such costly consequences as higher oil prices, the interest on the billions borrowed to pay for the war (see below), and the burden of long-term care and benefits for Iraq war veterans.

So what’s a more realistic figure?

Anywhere from $1 trillion to $5 trillion. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently said that the war’s cost would amount to $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2017. Harvard researcher Linda Bilmes and Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, in their book The $3 Trillion War, say that the war’s long-term cost will range from $2 trillion to $5 trillion. Iraq is already the second most expensive war in U.S. history. Only World War II cost more, about $5 trillion, adjusted for inflation. …

Has the money been well spent?

In many cases, no. … Contractors hired to rebuild the country’s infrastructure or provide security have overcharged the U.S. for everything from soft drinks — $45 a can — to gasoline. Millions of dollars in no-bid reconstruction contracts were diverted to things such as Super Bowl tickets, prostitutes, watches, and jewelry. And much of the reconstruction work has been substandard.

…

The credit card war

The Iraq war, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, is “the first U.S. war financed entirely on credit.” When the war started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60 billion. But the U.S. budget was already in deficit, so the administration had to borrow money to finance the invasion. About 40 percent of the money was borrowed from China and other international investors — the first time since the Revolutionary War that foreigners financed a U.S. war. At the same time, the administration and Congress lowered taxes instead of raising them, as is customary in wartime. … Today, say Stiglitz and other economists, the bills for the country’s spending spree are starting to come due, in the form of higher prices, a weakened dollar, and lower living standards. “There’s no such thing as a free war,” Stiglitz said. “The U.S. — and the world — will be paying the price for decades to come.”

Oh, give it another hundred years.

Daily Kos notes the anniversary of VE Day:

CHEERS to real “Mission Accomplished” moments.  Today is the 63rd anniversary of VE Day, commemorating the surrender of the Nazi terrorists during World War II.  If Bush and had been in charge, we’d probably still be fighting that war … in Mexico.

This blog has already explored that particular alternate history.

Kos also notes that today is Harry Truman’s 124th birthday, so go there and scroll down to the Bush-Truman debate:

Bush: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Truman: In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn’t alarmed simply doesn’t understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.

History’s interesting, isn’t it?

Republicans can take heart: the Arizona Republic says McCain’s not such a maverick after all:

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party’s objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period.

…

But the votes also suggest that when McCain broke from Republicans, others often joined him, keeping the votes from being so close.

…

“He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues,” said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego. “By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate.”

Poole, who compiles a widely respected analysis of all Senate votes, ranks McCain as slightly less conservative than most Republicans throughout his career and near the far edge of the right while running for president.

So, no maverick. No moderate. But John McCain is flexible, especially during election years. What more could a Republican want?

Ever wonder where cartoonists get their wildest, wackiest ideas? Ruben Bolling got this goofy bit from Justice Scalia himself, on 60 Minutes:

“If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized by a law enforcement person, if you listen to the expression ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ doesn’t that apply?” Stahl asks.

“No, No,” Scalia replies.

“Cruel and unusual punishment?” Stahl asks.

“To the contrary,” Scalia says. “Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”

“Well, I think if you are in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody…,” Stahl says.

“And you say he’s punishing you?” Scalia asks.

“Sure,” Stahl replies.

“What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody…,” Scalia says.

“Well because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime … or that you know something that he wants to know,” Stahl says.

“It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you…you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract…,” Scalia says.

The man is a judge. Not just any old judge — he’s a Justice of the Supreme Court — the single U.S. court whose rulings can’t be appealed.

Wild? Yes. Wacky? Yes. Funny? No way.

And John McCain promises more judges like that.

Honestly, it boggles the mind.

The Daily Show brings us the presentation ceremony for the Pollies:

The best political ads have the ability to mislead us, demoralize us, and disenfranchise us from the political process. But on a night when we celebrate the attack ads that have touched so many, let us also remember those whose careers were so tragically lost.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States:

Now, let’s win in November.

The Daily Show opens Panderer’s Box (strong language):

The Daily Show goes to the Pollies — the Oscars of political advertising.

John Oliver: A candidate like Barack Obama has a hopeful glow about him. How would you extinguish that?

Ben Chao: It’s pretty simple. The first thing you would have to do is to undercut people’s ability to truly hope for his vision. So, if you undercut the vision of Barack Obama, you take away hope.

Stephen Colbert says McCain and Clinton’s “gas tax holiday” doesn’t go far enough.

I’m sure you’re asking, folks, how will we pay for unlimited free gas? Well, the answer is simple: I don’t care. Besides, have you forgotten about a little thing called our grandkids? Because they are very generous, even though they don’t know it yet.

Imagine, if you will, that it is January 20, 2001. Inauguration Day. George W. Bush is beginning eight years in the White House.

Now, imagine that you have a pair of magic binoculars, that let you look into the future. While Bush is taking the oath of office, you sneak a quick peek, and what you see is this Newsweek cover:

In America, we are still debating the nature and extent of anti-Americanism. One side says that the problem is real and worrying and that we must woo the world back. The other says this is the inevitable price of power and that many of these countries are envious—and vaguely French—so we can safely ignore their griping. But while we argue over why they hate us, “they” have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.

Okay, now imagine that it’s January 20, 2009, and that John McCain is being sworn in as president. Once again, you’ve got the magic binoculars. Do you really want to look into the future and see what America will look like after another four or eight years of Bush policies?

Amazingly, we still have power to change that view of the future.

Via Coyote Gulch, here’s a quick rundown of the entire Democratic race so far:

It’s nice to have an election about substance, huh?

Via Atrios, Bloomberg reports on one modern looting technique:

Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank, said it may not guarantee $38.1 billion of Countrywide Financial Corp.’s debt after taking over the mortgage lender, increasing the likelihood of a default.

“There is no assurance that any such debt would be redeemed, assumed or guaranteed,” the bank said in an April 30 regulatory filing, adding that no decision has been reached. Investors had grown more optimistic the bank would back Countrywide debt. Ratings firm Standard & Poor’s cut the mortgage-lender’s debt to junk today after saying it would raise the grade earlier this week.

…

“This confirms how tenuous this transaction is,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director at Institutional Risk Analytics, a banking research firm in Torrance, California.

Whalen expects Bank of America to absorb the best assets, including Countrywide Bank, while the debt remains with a new company created by the merger, Red Oak Merger Corp. Red Oak may then file for bankruptcy, shielding Bank of America from liability, Whalen said.

So bankruptcy law allows this? You can strip out the assets and isolate the debts in a shell company before declaring bankruptcy for the shell company?

If this is legal, we need some new laws.

History is closer than you think:

Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of plotters who attempted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944 with a briefcase bomb, has died. He was 90.

The German military said in a statement Friday that the former army major died Thursday night. It did not give a cause of death.

Von Boeselager was part of a group of officers who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, supplying explosives for the operation led by Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.

Von Stauffenberg placed the bomb in a conference room where Hitler was meeting with his aides and military advisers. Hitler escaped harm when someone moved the briefcase next to a table leg, deflecting much of the bomb’s explosive force.

Almost immediately afterward, von Stauffenberg and many of his cohorts were arrested and executed in an orgy of revenge killings that saw some hanged by the neck with piano wire.

Though many of those rounded up by Nazi officials were tortured in the hopes they would give up other conspirators, von Boeselager’s name was never divulged and he was never found out.

History trivia: twenty-five years to the day after the Hitler assassination attempt, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The Saturn V rocket that started them on their way was designed by a team led by Wernher von Braun, who had formerly designed rockets for the Nazi war effort. Small world.

I don’t know whether I’ve heard someone else say this before, or whether it just seems familiar because it’s one of those things that’s so obvious once somebody says it. Atrios on George W. Bush:

Watching Bush speak you realize he’s a really dumb person who thinks everyone in the room is even dumber than he is.

This is why he slows down on the three-syllable words, and why, as The Daily Show noted in 2006, he spends so much time explaining what his job is.

I believe I should thank Adam Chodikoff for that.