Prairie Weather

New poll demolishes Dems

Although it's an "outlier" in statistical terms, as Nate Silver points out, the latest Gallup poll can't be dismissed.

The poll stealing the headlines this morning is from Gallup, and for good reason: it gives the Republicans a whopping 10-point lead on the generic ballot. This is, in fact, an all-time record for the Republicans: Gallup has been conducting this survey for almost 70 years, and Republicans have never managed to have quite that large of an edge before.

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If you're a Dem, or (better yet) a Progressive, one of our best may well lose his Senate seat.  Russ Feingold is dead even now with his Republican opponent but... BUT ... his opponent has three times the war chest invested in TV ads.  Please, please help Russ.

We're indispensable.

First we make up reasons to go to war. Then we bungle the war.  Then we say we need to stay to unbungle the war.  Then we say we need to stay to train the people in the country to take care of themselves.  Then we say they're awful slow about learning how to take care of themselves so we need to stay.  Then we set up new guidelines which set up new goals expressed in a new language specifically designed to cover up our inability to meet the original goals, a new language which will ensure that we have to stay.

What so many don't seem to realize is that America is indispensable.

Heads you lose, tails we win

The world of corporate America and the America the rest of us live in are very separate.  One (the first) is doing very, very well.  The other is hurting and will, probably hurt even worse as time goes on.

Can the Fed rescue the economy by making money even cheaper than it already is? A debate is being played out in the Fed about whether it should return to so-called "quantitative easing" - buying more mortgage-backed securities, Treasury bills, and other bonds - in order to lower the cost of capital still further.

The sad reality is cheaper money won't work. Individuals aren't borrowing because they're still under a huge debt load. And as their homes drop in value and their jobs and wages continue to disappear, they're not in a position to borrow. Small businesses aren't borrowing because they have no reason to expand. Retail business is down, construction is down, even manufacturing suppliers are losing ground.

That leaves large corporations. They'll be happy to borrow more at even lower rates than now -- even though they're already sitting on mountains of money.

But this big-business borrowing won't create new jobs. To the contrary, large corporations have been investing their cash to pare back their payrolls. They've been buying new factories and facilities abroad (China, Brazil, India), and new labor-replacing software at home.  ...Robert Reich at TPM

Where does the Obama administration fit into this picture?  Well, Wall Street, is getting over its little love affair with the un-Bush, according to Andrew Sorkin.

...Some of the president’s biggest supporters have ... publicly derided his policies, even at the risk of hurting their ability to influence the party in the future. Issues like the carry-interest tax on private equity or the Volcker Rule have become personal.

Why so personal? The prevailing view is that bankers, hedge fund mangers and traders supported the Obama candidacy because he appealed to their egos.

Mr. Obama was viewed as a member of the elite, an Ivy League graduate (Columbia, class of ’83, the same as Mr. Loeb), president of The Harvard Law Review — he was supposed to be just like them. President Obama was the “intelligent” choice, the same way they felt about themselves. They say that they knew he would seek higher taxes and tighter regulation; that was O.K. What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains. ...New York Times

What they are really saying is that a teensy big of regulation (regulation they can find ways of avoiding) is okay, as long as Washington continues to be a strong ally of unleashed capitalism.  When they start feeling the tug of the leash and the message that they can no longer go the limit, they show their teeth.  And then they bite.

If business leaders have a such a distrust of government, they won’t invest in the country. And perception is becoming reality.

Just last week, Paul S. Otellini, chief executive of Intel, said at a dinner at the Aspen Forum of the Technology Policy Institute that “the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here.”

Mr. Otellini has overseen two big acquisitions in the last two weeks — the $7.7 billion takeover of the security software maker McAfee and the $1.4 billion deal for the wireless chip unit of Infineon Technologies. If he is true to his word, those deals will most likely lead to job cuts in the United States, not job creation. ...NYT

Heads you lose, tails we win.

How come the richest in Congress got much richer in '09?

The wealthiest members of Congress grew richer in 2009 even as the economy struggled to recover from a deep recession. The 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier, according to The Hill’s annual review of lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms.

For the most part they're investors and 2009 saw a recovery in the stock market.  If you already have money, the market can make some big money for you.

The market's recovery, of course, benefited investors in terms of asset value, but it didn't (and this is a moral and economic fault line in the system) produce more jobs.  The unemployment rate was reaching 10% even as things were looking considerably brighter for the 27 Democrats and 23 Republicans who found themselves on the Top Fifty list of Congress's asset-holders.

Harry Reid, not one of the wealthiest, can thank his friends for their financial support.  Even Joe Lieberman is chipping in -- big time.  Also in The Hill is an account of efforts to keep Harry Reid in the Senate and in his job as majority leader. As a result, Reid's campaign chest is much, much bigger than his rival's.

Reid holds a wide fundraising lead over Republican candidate Sharron Angle — he had $8.9 million on hand at the end of June, compared to her $1.8 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

The Hill analyzed Reid’s and Angle’s FEC reports from January 2009 to June 2010 and found that Reid has more contributions from lawmakers.

Assange questioned

According to an AP report early this morning, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange has been questioned by the police Sweden about possible molestation.

Police started investigating Assange earlier this month after two Swedish women accused him of rape and molestation, but the prosecutor later closed the rape investigation.

Molestation is not a sex crime under Swedish law, but covers offenses such as reckless conduct or inappropriate physical contact. It can result in fines or up to one year in prison.

Maybe the rally wasn't a success

In fact, today people who had gone over to the Mall at mid-morningon Saturday said they were surprised to see a lot of people leaving already. Maybe that's why the tally came to well under 100,000. Maybe that's why, in an effort to regain the spotlight, Beck is getting more outrageous only 24-48 hours after his church picnic.

At the core of his latest blast is the declaration that Obama's form of Christianity is perverted, and if there's anyone who knows perversion it's Glenn Beck.  Out here in prairie-land, Beck is himself being accused of being the "anti-Christ"  and harsh words are being passed around about Mormons.

In its wrap-up of the aftermath of the rally, a Washington Post report reflects uncertainty about the size of the crowd.

Estimates on the size of the rally have varied widely. According to one commissioned by CBS News, 87,000 people attended the event. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), who also spoke at the event, told a reporter afterward that she thought more than 100,000 people had attended.

Beck said that the crowd was between 300,000 and 650,000, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), speaking at her own event after the rally, said that no fewer than 1 million people had been in attendance.

Democrats, on the other hand, are making hay as Glenn Beck's sun sets, if only temporarily.  Some Republicans are "avoiding any mention of it altogether."