Paul Krugman on the 'Wall Street Whitewash'

In the world according to the G.O.P. commissioners, it’s all the fault of government do-gooders, who used various levers — especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored loan-guarantee agencies — to promote loans to low-income borrowers. Wall Street — I mean, the private sector — erred only to the extent that it got suckered into going along with this government-created bubble.

It’s hard to overstate how wrongheaded all of this is. For one thing, as I’ve already noted, the housing bubble was international — and Fannie and Freddie weren’t guaranteeing mortgages in Latvia. Nor were they guaranteeing loans in commercial real estate, which also experienced a huge bubble.

Beyond that, the timing shows that private players weren’t suckered into a government-created bubble. It was the other way around. During the peak years of housing inflation, Fannie and Freddie were pushed to the sidelines; they only got into dubious lending late in the game, as they tried to regain market share.

via nytimes.com

I do wonder if the GOP is backing itself into a corner where it can never, ever acknowledge that the free market -- as wonderful as it is -- might have some shortcomings or excesses. Thoughtful conservatives (and not just the ones that liberals like) recognize that and consequently allow that *some* regulation is needed. But if the market can do no wrong that isn't caused by the government, then regulation is always and everywhere wrong.

Fred Kaplan on why we're not winning in Afghanistan

Six times in the course of five pages, the report's authors note that, unless Pakistan does a better job of controlling its borders—the western tribal areas, where Taliban leaders find safe haven and move reinforcements and supplies into Afghanistan and back again—the U.S. military successes of recent months are for naught.

For instance, on Page 1, the report defines "our ultimate end state" as "the eventual strategic defeat of al-Qaida in the region," but it adds that this "will require the sustained denial of the group's safe haven in the tribal areas of western Pakistan."

On Page 3: The "denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan."

On Page 5: "Consolidating those gains [made in the fight against the Afghan Taliban] will require that we make more progress with Pakistan to eliminate sanctuaries for violent extremist networks."

Those italics (all mine) make the point: Clearing the safe havens in Pakistan is not just an important ingredient in achieving our strategic objectives in Afghanistan; it is a requirement. Without it, all other successes are merely tactical and, even then, probably short-lived ("fragile and reversible," as the report puts it).

via slate.com

You know what's awesome about North Korea?

Great propaganda rhetoric:

Meanwhile, North Korea’s official news agency assailed a plan by the South Korean military to stage a live-fire artillery exercise from Yeonpyeong Island, perhaps as early as Saturday.

The latest inter-Korean crisis erupted three weeks ago with an artillery barrage from the North that targeted Yeonpyeong and killed four South Koreans.

“The puppet warmongers are contemplating staging madcap naval firing exercises,” said the news agency, K.C.N.A., which also called the new South Korean defense minister “a war maniac keen to ignite a war” and “a puppy knowing no fear of a tiger.”

It's like Snidely Whiplash is in charge of North Korea's PR.

This is why Obama's failure to speedily nominate judges is so damning

I'm hoping for the moment when a federal judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the health-care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it.

Either way. Because the current lineup of decisions, in which two Democratic-nominated judges have ruled in favor of the law, one Republican against, is not healthy for the judiciary or the democratic process.

It is facile to think of judges as umpires robotically calling balls and strikes. But it is also dangerous to think of judges as players on a particular team, still wearing uniforms under their robes.

via voices.washingtonpost.com

Ruth Marcus is right that partisanship in the judiciary probably isn't great for democracy. But right now, that's the way the game is played. President Obama has been taking his time making nominations to the federal judiciary; the results are plain to see, and will continue to be.

It's like Charles Krauthammer has forgotten about Ralph Nader

Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go? Liberals will never have a president as ideologically kindred - and they know it. For the left, Obama is as good as it gets in a country that is barely 20 percent liberal.

via washingtonpost.com

It's possible that Krauthammer is being intentionally forgetful here, but a few liberals -- not a lot, but enough to make a difference -- cast their votes for Ralph Nader in 2000. Not because they thought he'd be president, but because they didn't think it mattered if a Democrat or Republican held office. The presidency of George W. Bush heightened the contradictions between the two major parties in ways that have given plenty of former Naderites pause since then, but there are plenty of liberals whose disgust with a centrist Democrat might cause them to A) abandon politics altogether for a cycle or two, or B) find the new Nader, or a lefty equivalent of Ron Paul. (Dennis Kucinich, I'm NOT looking at you.) The idea wouldn't be to win the presidency right away, but to begin building a serious, viable third party that could offer voters an alternative. I'm not saying it would be successful, but there *is* someplace for liberal voters to go.

The other reason Philadelphia is so walkable...

...is because it HAS to be, because nobody here knows how to drive with just a light dusting of snow. 

The State Department doesn't want its diplomats to know what every other diplomat in the world will know about American diplomacy

The Air Force may not want its personnel reading the WikiLeaks leaks on military computers, but the State Department has just made it clear that it doesn't want its personnel reading them on any computers. In a Wednesday memo to employees of the Consular Affairs-Passport division of the State Department, officials reminded their underlings that "unauthorized disclosure of classified documents in the media does not mean that the documents have been disclassified," and "accordingly, PPT employees shall not access any classified documents, including the 'Wikileaks documents,' during business hours or on their personal time."

via slatest.slate.com

Stupid.

ObamaCare and the individual mandate

Ben and I wrestle with the lawsuit against the health reform bill in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

Let's be clear: Conservatives didn't think the individual mandate was unconstitutional in the 1990s -- when the conservative Heritage Foundation came up with the idea, then pitched it as an alternative to President Bill Clinton's health proposals. No Tea Partiers shouted about "tyranny" just a few years ago, when GOP Gov. Mitt Romney made the requirement a centerpiece of Massachusetts' health law.

While some conservatives sincerely see the mandate as an intolerable infringement upon American freedom, it's not unreasonable to think the GOP is cynically moving the goalposts in its never-ending opposition to Democratic policy ideas -- even if those ideas were originally Republican.

The irony: The mandate was an effort to leave health insurance in the hands of private industry and avoid a true government takeover of the health care system.

During the 2009 debate, after all, many Republicans agreed reform should include a rule that insurance companies couldn't deny coverage to customers with pre-existing conditions. But that left open the likelihood people would wait to get sick before buying insurance -- saddling companies with the costs of sick patients without enough healthy customers to help pay the way. That would've driven the companies into bankruptcy and, in all likelihood, triggered the rise of a government-run "socialized" health insurance system.

So there are good policy reasons for the individual mandate. But as a political matter, many liberals recognize that the mandate is a particularly ugly way to make the sausage of health insurance reform -- more likely to trigger protests against the bill rather than make Americans grateful for the welfare state.

There less-burdensome ways to replace the individual mandate. Insurers could offer financial incentives for early sign-up and penalties for late arrivals, the way parts of Medicare work now. Other, market-friendly ideas abound. But never fear: Republicans would certainly oppose those ideas, too. They always do.

 

Reading the whole dang bill

Republicans will paralyze the Senate floor for 50 hours by forcing clerks to read every single paragraph of the 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.

Senate clerks are expected to read the massive bill in rotating shifts around the clock — taking breaks to drink water and pop throat lozenges  — to keep legislative business on track, according to a Democratic leadership aide.

via thehill.com

Mostly, I think this is cute. But if the clerks decide to skip a few paragraphs or pages here and there, who the heck is going to notice? It's not like senators -- even the Republican ones -- will be sitting in the chambers, listening to the whole thing. And I guess it's kind of funny when so much of the Congressional Record is made up of "speeches" that members never actually gave, but entered in the record. Maybe it's time Jim DeMint be forced to deliver his paeans to 3M's specialty film and media products division during actual Senate time.

About the "I (Heart) Boobies" school speech case

U.S. District Court saw some awkward moments today as a judge heard arguments about whether the word "boobies" is vulgar and therefore can be banned by school administrators.

The case came to court after the Easton School District forbid the wearing of the "I (Heart) Boobies" bracelets, and suspended two 8th grade female students who refused to remove them.

The teenagers said the word wasn't offensive to anyone, and a ban violated their right to free speech.

via philly.com

Given the Supreme Court's various precedents, I can't imagine the students will win their suit. And while I'm usually pretty staunch on the side of free speech, I do wonder what kind of *families* these kids come from -- that they'd go to court in pursuit of their right to be so flagrantly stupid. God bless the ACLU for standing up for even the most unsympathetic cases, but really: I can't muster any sympathy on this one.

NO MORE CAPS LOCK

THE END IS NIGH.

That's the message Google sent last week when it unveiled its new laptop, the Google Cr-48 notebook. The computer has all kinds of new features—Chrome OS, a simplified design, and free broadband. But perhaps the boldest change is Google's decision to ditch the Caps Lock key. In its place is a Search button, denoted with the image of a magnifying glass. Users can still designate the search key as the Caps Lock—they just have to take the time to change a few settings. But the default is that if you want capital letters, you have to hold down Shift.

via slate.com

The Cr-48 has been in my hands about a day now -- I'm blogging on it right now! -- and the lack of caps lock hasn't been an issue. I only use it for irony, anyway. And letters to the editor that end like so: WAKE UP PEOPLE!

If they want to have Jesus start waving a rainbow flag, I'm actually pretty cool with that

Anti-gay rights groups are accusing the gay rights movement of stealing the rainbow from them. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse: "We can't simply let that go by. Families put rainbows in their children's nurseries. Little Christian preschools will have rainbows...Noah's Ark and all the animals.... Those are great Christian symbols, great Jewish symbols."

via talkingpointsmemo.com

Me @Macworld: Flipboard adds Google Reader support, array of new features

Flipboard announced Thursday that it’s adding Google Reader support to its iPad application, part of a major and much-anticipated upgrade to an offering that has already been named Apple’s App of the Year for 2010.

via macworld.com

I'm pretty excited about this one.

Gail Collins on Boehner's tears

Besides the crying gap between men and women, there’s also one between Republicans and Democrats. On the one hand, you have the folks who can’t afford tears because it makes them look weak, and on the other, the people who are presumed to be tough and hard-nosed, for whom crying is an attractive sign of complexity.

Boehner is opposed to extending unemployment benefits for the jobless, and he wants to kill off the law that guarantees health coverage to all Americans. So you know when he starts weeping when his wife says she’s “real proud” of him, it’s not a sign of softness.

In 2007, he cried while delivering a speech on the floor of the House, in support of funding for the war in Iraq. “After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take them on?” he sobbed.

Then this year, he voted against providing money to take care of our fellow citizens who became ill while doing rescue and reclamation work at ground zero after the terrorist attack.

Twice.

via nytimes.com

Afghanistan quagmire watch

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — This city, once a crossroads in the country’s northeast, is increasingly besieged. The airport closed months ago to commercial flights. The roads heading south to Kabul and east to Tajikistan as well as north and west are no longer safe for Afghans, let alone Westerners.

Although the numbers of American and German troops in the north have more than doubled since last year, insecurity has spread, the Taliban are expanding their reach, and armed groups that purportedly support the government are terrorizing local people and hampering aid organizations, according to international aid workers, Afghan government officials, local residents and diplomats.

The growing fragility of the north highlights the limitations of the American effort here, hampered by waning political support at home and a fixed number of troops. The Pentagon’s year-end review will emphasize hard-won progress in the south, the heartland of the insurgency, where the military has concentrated most troops. But those advances have come at the expense of security in the north and east, with some questioning the wisdom of the focus on the south and whether the coalition can control the entire country.

via nytimes.com

You're seeing here, on a micro level, the bigger problem with trying to combat Al Qaeda by planting troops in Afghanistan: Wherever your troops go, the enemy goes somewhere else. And sometimes they go places -- Pakistan, say -- you can't really go all that easily.

We're about five years from Facebook killing us in orbit around Jupiter

Facebook announced on Wednesday that it would launch facial-recognition technology that identifies people in uploaded photos and suggests tags, reports AFP. The technology will be rolled out in coming weeks, with Facebook engineers claiming it will save time. "Now if you upload pictures from your cousin's wedding, we'll group together pictures of the bride and suggest her name," read a Facebook blog post announcing the move. "Instead of typing her name 64 times, all you'll need to do is click 'Save' to tag all of your cousin's pictures at once." The feature actually enhances privacy, say Facebook staff. "Tagging is actually really important for control, because every time a tag is created it means that there was a photo of you on the Internet that you didn't know about," Facebook Vice President of Product Chris Cox told CNET. "Once you know that, you can remove the tag, or you can promote it to your friends, or you can write the person and say, 'I'm not that psyched about this photo.'" Those who object to automatic tagging can disable the feature

via slatest.slate.com

Slow blogging today

Late night, late morning, nothing much is happening in the order it should today. Blogging will be light.

Bill Pullman joins 'Torchwood'

 Bill Pullman has just signed on to star as a series regular in the fourth season of Torchwood, the Starz-co-produced continuation of the Doctor Who spinoff that’s airing next year. Pullman will play Oswald Jones, a clever convicted murderer “boiling with lust and rage,” who becomes a celebrity after escaping a prison sentence on a technicality. (Pullman is actually the second film star to join the show in the past few days, with Mekhi Phifer recently signing on to play an ambitious CIA agent.) Of course, Pullman has ample experience with alien encounters, so he should fit right in. 

via avclub.com

I'm starting to have doubts about this new Americanized version of "Torchwood."

Walkable Philadelphia

A bit of blogospheric hubub about Richard Florida's post at The Atlantic about walkable cities being the post-recession future of America. "The great economic reset we are in the midst of extends even to Americans' choices of places to live," he write. "The popularity of sprawling auto-dependent suburbs is waning. A majority of Americans--six in 10--say they would prefer to live in walkable neighborhoods, in both cities and suburbs, if they could."

It's not just a lifestyle preference, though: It's also economics. We sold our car when we moved to Philadelphia in 2008 -- lured, yes, in part by Philadelphia's high ranking on Walkscore.com's list of cities. But our yuppified desires would've been somewhat restrained had we not figured that the high cost of living in the city could be offset, in large part, by going autoless: the money we don't spend on gas, parking, maintenance and car replacement has (at times) proven to be the critical and necessary edge we've needed to be able to afford to stay here.

It has also worked in reverse: Adding the cost of a vehicle -- or two, realistically, depending on where we would end up -- makes the idea of moving to a less-walkable city that much tougher to swallow. Would the lower rent and mortgages back in Kansas offset the hundreds of dollars a month we'd spend on getting around? Unlikely. And that's ok. It's a good excuse for us to stay in a town and Center City neighborhood where we can be at the grocery store in five minutes, or the coffee shop in two, or the pizza joint in six. We like life like that.

 

Inky: Police find woman’s body in Kensington

Philadelphia police found the body of another woman in Kensington Wednesday evening and the task force investigating the strangling of women in that area was on the scene.

Police were searching a weedy, vacant lot in the 100 block of East Tusculum Street, which is not far from where other women have been found dead.

"It is a suspicious death," said Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who arrived on the scene about 6:30 p.m. "She appears to be, maybe, in her 20s, Caucasian. She is nude from the waist down."

via philly.com