Now perhaps if the fourth estate had been doing it’s job from day one, the climate for releasing this would not have been arguably chilly, this is simply a continuation of punk performance and cowardace from the press – There was a day when journalism was a profession, taken damn seriously by most practitioners, not so with the current crop, most are just as self serving as the politicos. The bloggers, by and large, are the true fourth estate at present. The medial premadonnas are largely parodies of the role they think they play.

“I think Cheney probably told ISCI and Prime Minister al-Maliki that the way to fix this problem and forestall the Sadrists coming to power in Iraq, was to destroy the Mahdi Army, the Sadrists’ paramilitary. Without that coercive power, the Sadrists might not remain so important, is probably their thinking. I believe them to be wrong, and suspect that if the elections are fair, the Sadrists will sweep to power and may even get a sympathy vote. It is admittedly a big ‘if.’”

http://www.juancole.com/

Which makes it pretty much 100% BS. The other day I went and read Obama’s position stuff on his site, and then his econ speech. I don’t agree with everything, but there was intelligence running throughout. How refreshing.

A bubble occurs when prices are driven up too quickly, speculators move into markets, and these players begin to suspend the normal rules of risk and assume that prices can only move up — but never down. We’ve seen this kind of bubble before — in the late 1990s, we had the technology bubble, when money poured into technology stocks and people assumed that those stock values would rise indefinitely.

Or this:

Homeowners should be able to understand easily the terms and obligations of a mortgage.

Who is he kidding with this remark? Short version of your mortgage: pay or lose your house. The rest is just screwing with you so they can do it as economically as possible.

Then we get to the really crazy:

In financial institutions, there is no substitute for adequate capital to serve as a buffer against losses. Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

This is an idea just ripe for exploitation: accounting impediments to raising capital? Could we just get rid of accounting and guess at the financial condition of companies seeking our investment capital? Shades of Jay Gould and Andrew Carnegie. Tax impediments? Could we mean getting rid of capital gains taxes altogether?

But if you thought that was nuts, get a load of this one:

First, it is time to convene a meeting of the nation’s accounting professionals to discuss the current mark to market accounting systems. We are witnessing an unprecedented situation as banks and investors try to determine the appropriate value of the assets they are holding and there is widespread concern that this approach is exacerbating the credit crunch.

So much for transparency. Mark to market? Quaint idea, let’s throw it where we threw Glass-Steagall.

Finally, lest you think this is all about the money, here is his brilliant idea for helping homeowners:

We should also convene a meeting of the nation’s top mortgage lenders. Working together, they should pledge to provide maximum support and help to their cash-strapped, but credit worthy customers. They should pledge to do everything possible to keep families in their homes and businesses growing. Recall that immediately after September 11, 2001 General Motors stepped in to provide 0 percent financing as part of keeping the economy growing. We need a similar response by the mortgage lenders. They’ve been asking the government to help them out. I’m now calling upon them to help their customers, and their nation out. It’s time to help American families.

GM offered 0% car loans to help the economy grow? and not because it couldn’t sell cars any other way? And I’m so sure that Countrywide will be offering 0% mortgages. I seem to be having another snark failure, so I’ll stop now.

I’m not excusing Dems, but I just don’t want the Roves of the planet to muddy the waters by claiming that Dems were ‘equally at fault’. They were complicit, but they were also naive, and too well-intentioned to recognize the evil they confronted. Overlay these facts:
– the Dems were in the minority in both House and Senate, then add
– the BushCheney politicizing of DoJ (in part to prevent investigations by Lam and others, partly to protect their corrupt, legislative majorities),
– the political persecutions of Dems by a politicized DoJ (a la Siegelman and USAGs),
– the hacked voting machines (Gore 2000, Siegelman in Alabama 2002, Kerry 2004… etc)

It appears that the Dems didn’t recognize how many battles they needed to be fighting. By failing to put more focus on voting machines and campaign finance violations, the Dems lost all the other battles by default. They weren’t strategic enough to put more resources into understanding, fighting, and prosecuting voting machine hacking; the other losses then became inevitable, because they lost control of government.

Not excusing the Dems, but it’s also worth noting that each of the topics listed above has implications for NSA — because to pull off every one of those crimes must have required spying on private email, phone, and fax communications. Which underscores why the WH was so adamant and ‘over the top’ that their private spy network NSA snooping remain secret. So yeah the NYT was too late, but in the end they did print the story and it is still reverberating.

Let’s hope Siegelman can help people connect some very simple dots: casinos/K Street corruption + campaign finance violations + hacked voting machines (and stolen elections) + politicized DoJ = corrupt, corporate-toadying, economically disastrous government.

It’s really no more complicated than “This is the cow that tossed the dog that worried the cat that ate the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.” Each thing led quite logically and simply to the next.

That’s what the Dems didn’t figure out soon enough.
But the NYT still contributed a key piece of the puzzle, IMHO. For that, I think they deserve kudos, and to castigate them for publishing the NSA story plays right into Rover’s hands.

————
Speaking of Rover’s hands… GoogleNews says Houston Chronicle reporting that Siegelman has been released from prison and is on his way home. Good news.

the faith that the American people have in Congress even lower. I remember reading at one point it had gotten down to 20%.
Is this the sound of our country imploding?