Mitt Romney-- A Car Guy?

Mitt Romney blurted out a fatuous statement a few weeks ago about being "a car guy." Well... his father was. And owns lots of them (cars, not guys)-- and even an elevator for some-- but the closest he is to being a car guy is that he kind of resembles a used car salesman-- in the worst sense of the term. The most recent polling in Michigan shows him losing, 52-46%. That's not unexpected. But the polls have also shown Obama consistently ahead in Ohio-- and Romney has always known that that would be a death knell for his campaign. Tuesday they either steal Ohio or they have zero chance to win. And a lot of the explanation for why Ohio voters haven't bought into Romney has to do with cars. "Let Detroit go bankrupt," Romney's OpEd in the NY Times on November 18, 2008 plays badly in a state where so many jobs depend on the auto industry. That editorial is killing Romney's chances. and so are a slew of newspaper editorials reminding Ohio voters of it-- and of Romney's dishonest attempts to flip flop around the issue. Let's start with the editorial from the Akron Beacon yesterday, False Facts. It cuts Romney's credibility to shreds and shows why Ohio voters see him as a slimy, untrustworthy used care salesman:

The television ad launched by the Romney campaign this week about the auto rescue is accurate-- at least technically. President Obama did take General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Fiat did buy Chrysler, and Chrysler does plan to build Jeeps in China. Missing is the helpful context, the component that exposes just how misleading the Romney campaign has been in the way it has chosen to arrange its three facts.

That context has been provided in recent days by media fact-checkers, editorial pages, even executives at GM and Chrysler. Worth emphasizing is that Romney himself (at other turns in the race) has embraced the bankruptcy route, arguing it was his idea in the first place. In early 2009, the Obama White House weighed whether even to rescue Chrysler, its finances in such deep trouble. The conclusion was: Let’s proceed-- if favorable terms can be reached to make a sale to Fiat.

Chrysler will build in China, reflecting, if anything, the company gaining strength in the wake of the rescue, and more, a global firm doing the logical thing, building in markets where it sells. As the company stressed, that will not affect American operations, including Jeep production here, which has nearly tripled since the rescue.

The past three years, Chrysler has added more than 11,000 American jobs. General Motors reports that it has “brought nearly 19,000 back to work.” Remember, the Center for Automotive Research projected in November 2008 the loss of nearly 2.5 million jobs, many in Ohio, if one or more of the American automakers failed.

And that was a real prospect, GM and Chrysler running out of money, unable to secure private financing to keep operating in bankruptcy. Then, the Obama White House stepped up, the money coming as long as the automakers developed a credible plan for restructuring.

The barrage of criticism hardly caused the Romney team to flinch. It upped the ante with a radio ad suggesting the auto rescue helped China at the expense of auto workers here. The argument is as lame as its earlier contention that the bailout was all about favoring the United Auto Workers, a form of “crony capitalism.”

Actually, the auto workers joined others in getting a haircut, losing wages, benefits and job security. An independent trust fund with the job of managing the health benefits of auto worker retirees received a stake in both GM and Chrysler because the companies were broke and couldn’t meet their contractual obligation.

In other words, the trust took a risk. So did the president, and it has paid off for Ohio and other states heavily invested in making autos.

The day before, the Toledo Blade pounded Romney with a double whammy. Their editorial Auto Toxin was lethal: "In the final few days of the presidential contest, Mitt Romney evidently recognizes that his opposition to the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler is costing him voter support he needs in Ohio and Michigan. So the Republican nominee is conducting an exercise in deception about auto-industry issues that is remarkable even by the standards of his campaign." The Blade editors go on to explain to their readers that Romney's claims, simply put, rest on a tissue of boldfaced and purposeful lies. A business news story in the same paper the same day nails the point home, with hard facts about how well Jeep is doing in Toledo. (Of course, Romney-owned companies made a habit-- and still are today-- of shipping jobs to China and other low-wage hellholes even when companies were doing well, so Romney and his sleazy plutocratic partners could fatten their already bulging wallets regardless of what it did to working families-- or the American economy.

Chrysler, which owns Jeep and in which the Italian automaker Fiat has a majority stake, quickly denied the report. A company spokesman said Mr. Romney’s rhetorical leap “would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” But the Romney campaign launched an ad in Ohio that claimed that President Obama, who presided over the auto bailout, “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.”

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne removed all doubt about his company’s intentions this week in an email to employees: “Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,” he said. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different"

He acknowledged that Chrysler intends “to return Jeep production to China, the world’s largest auto market, in order to satisfy local market demand, which would not otherwise be accessible.” The company also wants to avoid heavy import duties. But that’s a long way from Mr. Romney’s insinuation that the automaker is shipping jobs from Toledo to China.

Mr. Marchionne noted that Chrysler is investing $500 million in its Toledo assembly complex and plans to add 1,100 jobs there by next year, largely to build a successor to the Jeep Liberty sport-utility vehicle. He vowed “that the iconic Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio, plant, will never see full production outside the United States.”

And Romney's been lying about General Motors as well-- the same lies to the same audiences and executives in that company-- who have also tried to stay out of politics-- are steaming mad at the Republicans now. GM, which has hired 4,500 new hourly workers and thousands more new salaried workers at plants across the country since being bailed out by Obama, finally spoke out about Romney's calumny: “At this stage, we're looking at Hubble telescope-length distances between campaign ads and reality.” GM spokesman Greg Martin said. “GM's creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

Turns out, of course, it isn't just auto executives who are angry about Romney's campaign of lies and deception. Greg Palast reported Thursday on how poorly that crap is going over with the UAW. They're going to sue him-- for profiteering from the auto bailout!

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon (November 1) he will be charged by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and other public interest groups with violating the federal ethics in government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bailout.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)  have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue. It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”

“While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation’s most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others,” King added.

The Romneys' gigantic windfall was hidden inside an offshore corporation inside a limited partnership inside a trust which both concealed the gain and reduces taxes on it.

...According to ethics law expert Dr. Craig Holman of Public Citizen-- who serves as an advisor on the charge-- Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust.  An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which presidential action can have little effect.  By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment. In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bailout fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain.  Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romney's tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi-- and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job-- 25,000-- and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

What about President Obama? Are you wondering if he's finally calling Romney on his bullshit. He sure is! He was in Ohio yesterday... and the glovers came off. About time!

[C]hanging the facts when they’re inconvenient to your campaign-– well, that’s definitely not change. But that’s exactly what Governor Romney has been doing these last few weeks. Right here in Ohio, you’ve folks who work at the Jeep plant who have been calling their employers, worried, asking if their jobs were being shipped to China. And the reason they’re been making these calls is because Governor Romney has been running an ad that says so. Except it’s not true. Everyone knows it’s not true. The car companies themselves have told Governor Romney to knock it off. GM said, “we think creating jobs in the United States… should be a source of bipartisan pride.” And I couldn’t agree more.

   And I understand that Governor Romney has had a tough time here in Ohio because he was against saving the auto industry. And it’s hard to run away from that position when you’re on videotape saying the words “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” And I know we’re close to an election but this isn’t a game. These are people’s jobs. These are people’s lives. These car companies are put a lot of effort to make great product but also to make sure everybody in America knows how committed they are to making cars here in America. And so you don’t scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That’s not what being President is all about. That’s not leadership.

When I first made the decision to rescue the auto industry, I knew it wasn’t popular. Despite the fact that one out of eight jobs in Ohio are connected to the auto industry in someway, it wasn’t even popular in Ohio. But I also knew it was the right thing to do. I knew betting on American workers was the right thing to do. Betting on American ingenuity and know how was right thing to do. That bet paid off. It paid off in Lordstown, where GM is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their auto plant. It paid off in Toledo, where Chrysler is adding more than 1,000 new jobs on a second shift-- not in China, right here in Ohio. Right here in the United States of America.

When Democrats brought up the auto bailout it passed the then Democratically-controlled House 237-170. All the Republican leaders-- Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, Sessions-- and many who find themselves in tight electoral battles today-- like Buck McKeon (R-CA), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Ed Royce (R-CA), Todd Akin (R-MO), Steve King (R-IA), Connie Mack (R-FL), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Dan Lungren (R-CA), Brian Bilbray (R-CA), John Kline (R-MN), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC) and Heather Wilson (R-NM)-- voted with Romney against bailing out the auto industry. They were on the wrong side of history. Every one of them should be defeated at the polls Tuesday.

   I think it's almost funny that the 32 Republicans who did the right thing and voted with the Democrats against their own leadership are 100% silent on the issue now. You don't hear Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, Dave Camp, Peter King, Joe Barton, Don Young or Mike Rogers bragging today that they weren't with their sociopathic leadership on this one. They're all laying low-- even though they made the right decision for a change.

Streams Of Consciousness, Dec. 7

Does Pelosi Have Any Teeth?
This was her tweet about the outrageous Obama/McConnell plan to continue concentrating the nation's wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer families:


She's probably feeling morose because Obama left her appointee, the hapless Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), out of the negotiations. But in the end will she just buckle under and round up the Democratic votes needed to augment the 170 or so Republicans who are drooling to pass this monstrosity? Jennifer Rubin at the Washinton Post

There really is no other way to say it: the Republicans won, the liberal Democrats lost, and the president sided with the Republicans... A Republican House aide tells me tonight it is "a damn good deal."

Pelosi could do something else. She could allow an open rule which will open the debate to amendments so that it isn't a-take-it-or-leave-it package legislators have to face. She may be morose and even pissed off, but nothing from the last two years should lead anyone to believe she's that morose and pissed off.

Durbin, who lost 100% of his credibility with progressives when he switched his vote to support the Cat Food Commission's findings this week, is making pathetic noises about walking away from the deal. He has no credibility whatsoever but are there enough votes, between extreme right DeMinters (backed by the Club for Growth), a retiring George Voinovich, and progressives to successfully filibuster this nightmare? I doubt it could be a reality. Or do you think counting on Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer-- recipient of more Wall Street cash than any non-presidential candidate in history ($17,720,436)-- could be counted on to stand behind some principles or values?

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., his party's leader in the Senate, reacted coolly to the plan.

"Now that the President has outlined his proposal, Senator Reid plans on discussing it with his caucus tomorrow," his spokesman said in a statement.

In the Senate, liberals led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., have been adamant that they don't want to extend tax cuts for the rich. Though they fell short of blocking such an extension Saturday, they have more than enough votes to launch a filibuster to block the new deal.

...White House aides said the plan would extend the benefits for 13 months, covering the 2 million out-of-work Americans whose checks run out this month and another 7 million who would run out of benefits over the next year.

They also predicted that the extended benefits would create 600,000 jobs as the out-of-work quickly spend their checks, sending that cash percolating through the economy.

The average family receives $290 a week in unemployment benefits. Normally, benefits can last up to 99 weeks, depending on state's jobless rate.

On the estate tax, the Bush tax cuts had cut the tax, then eliminated it altogether for this year.
As that law expired, the tax would have returned to 55 percent of all estates of more than $1 million. Under Republican pressure, it will be set for two years at 35 percent on estates of more than $5 million.

At least one prominent liberal said he doesn't like the deal, but called it the best that Obama could get now.

"The Republicans got tax cuts for the best-off 2 percent and lower estate taxes for the very wealthiest families, neither of which will do much if anything to create jobs," said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute. "President Obama won policies that will put or keep money in the pockets of the families of the unemployed and middle and low-income families, which will increase spending and create jobs."

No one with any sense expects anything from the Congressional leadership but the grassroots is burning. In fact, according to today's Roll Call, "Liberal activists angry about President Barack Obama’s concession on tax cuts for upper-income Americans crashed phone lines at the White House and are gearing up for another onslaught of calls to Senate Democratic leaders in an eleventh-hour push to kill the deal."

And Hoyer, of all people, is grumbling aloud... as though someone is supposed to believe that he would ever oppose Obama and the Republicans on this!

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today expressed serious reservations with the tax cut framework President Obama reached with Senate Republicans, and declined to say whether his caucus would support the plan or even whether the leadership time would whip votes to ensure that it passes. However, Hoyer also chastised Republicans for their willingness to let all the Bush tax cuts expire, suggesting Democrats will figure out a way to assure the President's plan doesn't fail entirely-- including, perhaps, by making some changes to it.

"There was no consensus or agreement reached by the House leadership," Hoyer told reporters this morning, reiterating the broad view of the Democratic caucus that "giving tax cuts to high-income Americans is not appropriate."

Sure... when pigs fly. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison, speaking for the House's largest caucus, seem to be rejecting the Obama/McConnell deal out of hand. This was their statement this afternoon:

“We call on our Congressional leaders in the House and Senate to hold firm on passing a middle class tax cut with no strings attached. We also call on Congressional Republicans to stop using unemployed Americans as bargaining chips in exchange for another tax break for the wealthy.
 
Tax breaks for billionaires don’t create jobs. The George W. Bush presidency and the Republican recession are proof of that. Giving rich people more money just for being rich does nothing to help the economy. It only increases the national debt. No amount of Republican rhetoric can change that fact.
 
We simply cannot afford to borrow another $700 billion to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who aren’t paying their fair share, especially when there are millions of Americans still looking for work. Just 1 percent of that $700 billion would pay for almost 142,000 elementary school teachers for an entire year. That money should be used to create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure and educate our children, not for the wealthy to buy more yachts.
 
We agree with the President that there is no time to delay-- the recovery is fragile, and American families are hurting. We need to make the right decisions right now to boost our economy. The unemployment crisis is a harsh reality for millions of Americans, and giving more money to the super-rich won’t do anything to solve it.
 
This holiday season should be about supporting middle class Americans, not another taxpayer-funded present for the wealthy.”

Obama angrily rebuked progressives (who else?) when asked by a reporter if his cave in shows he has no core principles.

This notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years. But because there was a provision in there that they didn't get, that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for maybe 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness, of compromise.

If that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let's face it: We will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position, and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are.

And in the meantime the American people are still saying to themselves, [I'm] not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out. That can't be the measure of how we think about public service. That can't be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat. This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us. I know that shocks people...

This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door at this country's founding. If we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a union.

Olbermann was on fire tonight. I hope Obama was watching.



Even Wall Street Shill Mary Landrieu Says She's Undecided

Maybe she's waiting to see how much Republican support it gets but Landrieu (D-LA), one of the half dozen most conservative Democrats in the Senate, was pointedly unethusiastic this afternoon. She called what Obama and McConnell cooked up "morally bankrupt," an easy way to take a cheap-- if well-deserved, shot at a president who is very unpopular in her state. "What is new to me is a concept that we're going to borrow $46 billion according to the Obama-McConnell plan-- and that's what I'm calling it...we're going to borrow 46 billion from the poor, from the middle class, from businesses all sizes, basically, to give a tax cuts to families in America today that despite the recession are making over a million dollars. This is unprecedented. Put me down as undecided, strongly objecting to that provision. Are there other provisions that I like in there? Absolutely."

But Obama's Boyfriend Ryan... He's All For It

I wouldn't be surprised if it was all Ryan's idea. It sounds a lot like the kind of crap he's always pushing anyway. He doesn't want to jump up and down and break into song but he's backing the Obama-McConnell deal.

“All things considered, I think it’s the best deal we were going to get,” he says. “It’s clearly not a good as we would’ve wanted, but far better than the alternative route.”

He stressed the importance of not decoupling the tax rates for upper-income earners, and thus rejecting the “class-warfare economic doctrine” that is harmful to economic growth.

He says the two-year extension was expected, and while he would much rather have seen a permanent arrangement, it’s still a good start. Ryan says he is ready to lead a debate over taxes starting in 2012. “I see this as a great way to set the stage for fundamental tax reform in 2013,” he says.

And Boehner was pushing that around Washington today.

Boehner Feels The Wrath of Teabaggers And Ron Paul Supporters

The Republican Steering Committee, which Boehner controls, disappointed teabagger-oriented rightists today by backing chairmanships for two unacceptable Boehner cronies. One, Hal "Prince of Pork" Rogers (R-KY) will be the shockingly corrupt new chair of the all-important House Appropriations Committee. The teabaggers wanted Jack Kingston, a lunatic fringe sociopath from Georgia. The other key chair went to moderate Republican Fred Upton of Michigan instead of right-wing favored (and Big Oil favored) Joe Barton. But that was nothing compared to a rumor that swept Wingnutia this week that Boehner was pulling strings behind the scenes to make sure Ron Paul, next in line based on seniority, would not become chairman of the Subcommittee for Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. Wall Street and their Boehner puppet were working hard to stop Paul from taking over.

Five GOP leadership aides, speaking anonymously because a decision isn’t final, say incoming House Speaker John Boehner has discussed ways to prevent Paul from becoming chairman or to keep him on a tight leash if he does.

...Boehner and the establishment Republicans rode to victory last month on the shoulders of the Tea Party movement. Prior to the election, Tea Party activists in Maine, Colorado, and Utah focused on abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Some predicted that if Republicans were to sweep the House they would become much more confrontational with the Federal Reserve. “The popularity of Tea Party candidates in U.S. elections could spell renewed efforts to curtail the power and independence of the Federal Reserve, which has been cast as an emblem of big government overreach,” Reuters reported in late October.

Many establishment Republicans agree with senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who insists the Tea Party and its vision of less government has no long-term vision or prospects for political viability.

...Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and a handful of other House and Senate renegades who are not reading from the bankster script like John Boehner and the establishment Republicans will not be allowed to hold the Federal Reserve to account.

It will take the collective outrage of grassroots supporters of Paul’s End the Fed movement to force Congress to reconsider moving against the banksters and their cartel.

Today the Republican Liberty Caucus sent this open letter to Boehner making it clear that many grassroots Republicans are more concerned with Ron Paul's reform agenda than with the GOP Leaderships' Wall Street agenda:

Dear Speaker-elect Boehner:

When word went out last week that you may seek to block Congressman Ron Paul's appointment as Chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee, grassroots Republicans, Tea Party members and advocates of constitutionally limited government were alarmed. The implied message of such an action is one of indifference towards the concerns of those who helped move you into a position of power as Speaker of the House. We urge you to reconsider.

The resounding message of November 2nd was not just a referendum on big-spending Democrats. It was also a signal to Republicans who have forgotten the principles of limited government and fiscal restraint on which the party was built. As a matter of ethics and integrity, we see no justification for preventing Congressman Paul from taking a position that he has earned, and for which he is uniquely qualified.

Congressman Ron Paul has been an unyielding advocate of transparency, accountability, and fiscally conservative principles. He has strongly opposed policies that have brought us to the brink of disaster. As Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) aptly pointed out, "The depth of [Ron Paul's] knowledge on monetary policy, his understanding of it all, is second to none." His message resonates with the grassroots who will continue to play a large role in the success of the Republican Party as they did in the recent election.

We are united in our belief that no one would be better qualified than Congressman Paul to head the Financial Services Subcommittee and we hope to see him in that position in January. It is a position  where he will be able to make important contributions to our nation's economic policies and move us toward the limited, accountable government voters are demanding. We strongly urge you to give him that opportunity.

RLC Chair

Boehner already kept Michele Bachmann out of the House leadership. If he does this to Ron Paul he will alienate a far larger Republican constituency than has ever supported him.

Will Redistricting Do In Georgia Blue Dog John Barrow?

Republicans redistricted him out of his original Athens-based seat, so he moved to Savannah and won what was created, though not technically under the Voting Rights Act, as an African-American district. He was nearly defeated in two primaries because he has studiously ignored his African-American constituents in a pursuit of conservative whites. But, like a cockroach, he's survived over and over. But will he survive a Republican state legislature determined to get rid of him once and for all? There are two ways for Republicans to gerrymander Barrow out of his seat this time.

One is to move more of heavily Democratic Savannah into Kingston's district in the southeast; the other is to take more of heavily Democratic Augusta and move it into Broun's 10th district in the northeast.

But it won't be easy. The Cook Political Report's David Wasserman said Republicans might have to defend such a move in court, because it would dilute the black vote in Barrow's district.

"The easiest way to crack that district is to divide Savannah and Augusta, but you're asking for a lawsuit," Wasserman said.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that the Voting Rights Act doesn't require states to draw "crossover" districts, which are favorable to minority candidates even though minorities don't comprise more than half of the district. But much remains unsettled in this section of the law, and the court's decision doesn't necessarily mean Republicans have carte blanche to dismantle such a district.

It's worth noting that Indiana Blue Dog Joe Donnelly, who survived this year by the skin of his teeth, is also likely to be gerrymandered into extinction.

By adding all of Michigan City back to Rep. Pete Visclosky's (D) district, they would be making Donnelly's seat more winnable but still very competitive. If they really want to push the envelope, though, they could try to stretch the district further east, incorporating its current base in Gary with Michigan City and, further east, South Bend. South Bend, as at happens, is Donnelly's base.

Donnelly would effectively be left with a choice between running for reelection or challenging Visclosky in a primary.

Republicans could make Donnelly's current district pretty uninhabitable by borrowing heavily Republican Elkhart and Kosciusko counties from the neighboring 3rd district and using them to replace the population from Michigan City/South Bend.

A Democratic strategist who does a lot of work in Indiana said Donnelly will likely run wherever South Bend is.

Will Cheney Get Bail?

Cheney now has an arrest warrant out for him but I suspect Interpol isn't as interested in him as they were in publisher Julian Assange. Cheney's just a war criminal and thief. Assange is the most important revolutionary in decades. But Nigeria has charged him and 8 of his cronies in a bribery and conspiracy scheme over the construction of a liquefied natural gas facility in the country that took place while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton.

General Motors Is Back In Business-- The Business Of Bribing Congressmen

General Motors, which was saved from bankruptcy by Obama and the Democrats, started making political donations to candidates in July-- "184 individual donations totaling more than $330,000 between July and Election Day, with 52 percent benefiting Republicans." Over 25% of the donations went to politicians who opposed the bailout, politicians who wanted to see General Motors fail and go bankrupt.

Streams May Be Less Regular For A Short While... But Consciousness Will Be Acute

Streams Of Consciousness

Someone at the DCCC told me they hire the same media consultants to make their ads-- and steer hapless candidates to those firms as well-- not because DCCC employees have ownership stakes in them but because they make the best ads anyone has ever made. Problem is that objectively, their ads are-- at best-- mediocre. They don't motivate people to vote for a candidate. They're just a giant money suck-- with millions and millions of dollars in commissions and rake-offs for the usual suspects. A recent U.S. Senate candidate told me today that he begged the DSCC not to waste money on more useless TV ads when he desperately needed the money for a GOTV operation. They ignored him; he lost. Above is a well-made ad that accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's done professionally, not by some clowns more concerned with 15% commissions than with winning elections.

Who's Hack Of The Year?

If David Broder is the 4th worst hack, I'm at a loss to imagine who numbers 3, 2 and 1 are. I know Jonah Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, Laura Ingraham and Marty Peretz already got their numbers but did George Will already get one? Do Palin's twitter and Facebook ramblings make her eligible?

He has a simplistic understanding of politics and no understanding of the electorate except as an abstract concept. His hatred of partisanship is actually a thinly veiled disdain for popular rule itself. He defines extremism as principled adherence to any sort of ideology. When he wants to understand what The Voters are thinking, he asks a think tank academic. Despite his disdain for the fiery populists that the idiot voters repeatedly send to our sadly broken Congress, he remains convinced that The American People are a wise and noble breed who long for sensible, bipartisan moderation in all things.

And then sometimes David just up and writes something truly insane, like his recent column about how President Obama needs to start a good old-fashioned war to get the economy humming again.

What Do Doctors Know?

I don't have much faith in what Republican politicians routinely call the "best health care in the world." They're good at broken bones and stopping bleeding. Beyond that... it gets dicey. And a study released today in the New England Journal of Medicine, says that efforts to make American hospitals safer over the past decade have largely failed. I always get the feeling that going to a hospital is a possible death sentence.
Researchers found that of 2,300 patient admissions in 10 randomly selected hospitals 588 patients "were somehow harmed as a result of medical procedures, medications, or other related causes... [and that] 63 percent of the incidents were avoidable."

"Of 588 harms that were identified, 245 (41.7%) were temporary harms requiring intervention… and 251 (42.7%) were temporary harms requiring initial or prolonged hospitalization," Landrigan and his colleagues wrote. "An additional 17 harms (2.9%) were permanent, 50 (8.5%) were life-threatening, and 14 (2.4%) caused or contributed to a patient's death."

...The results of the study show that "harm resulting from medical care was common" and that there is "little evidence that the rate of harm had decreased substantially" from 2001 to 2007, the researchers said in their report. They added that their findings "validate concern raised by patient-safety experts in the United States and Europe that harm resulting from medical care remains very common."

Republicans Aren't That Unique

In fact, they're just like Conservatives in the U.K.-- same bunch of piggish social parasites.

David Cameron was under pressure tonight to evict a new Tory peer from the party after he suggested that welfare changes would encourage "breeding" among the less well-off.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats denounced the "shameful" remarks by Howard Flight, who was rewarded with a peerage by the prime minister last week after helping to raise millions for the Conservative party in the runup to the election.

Downing Street was forced to distance itself from a second Tory peer in a week after Flight warned that plans to remove child benefit from higher-rate taxpayers would deter the middle classes from having children.

His remarks followed the claim last week by a former Thatcherite cabinet minister that most people were better off in the recession. Lord Young of Graffham was forced to resign as Cameron's enterprise adviser after suggesting that most voters had never had it so good as during the "so-called recession."

Flight told today's London Evening Standard: "We're going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it's jolly expensive... But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. Well, that's not very sensible."

This is the second time Flight, a former Tory deputy chairman, has fallen foul of the party leadership. He was barred from standing as a parliamentary candidate by Michael Howard in 2005 after suggesting that Tory spending cuts did not go far enough.

And this post can only end one way, my favorite campaign commercial of 2010: