Magpie

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Will the Wall Street bailout fix the ailing US economy?

Nope, says an excellent piece by McClatchy's Kevin Hall:

A principal risk now for the American economy is that the spate of bad news will feed on itself, creating a downward spiral.
For example, the wave of bank failures and mergers is sure to lead to large layoffs in the financial sector, and already computer makers like Dell and Hewlett Packard have announced job cuts in the expectation of a worsening sales environment.
As the number of jobless grows, the number of delinquent home loans grows larger. And defaults on car loans rise. More consumers will fall behind on credit card payments, restaurants will shutter their doors because of fewer diners, and fewer restaurants will cut demand for farm and processed food products. It's all inter-linked and becomes a spiral.

Kinda like the spiral already caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. Which, of course, many of the architects of the current bailout plan didn't see as a problem.

You can read the full article here.

Labels: Bailout, Economy, Incompetence, Wall Street

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:57 PM | Get permalink

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Where was Sarah, hmmm?

Here's the latest sign that Republicans know what a disaster Sarah Palin is as a VP choice: While Dem VP nominee Joe Biden was all over the media after last night's debate, praising Obama's performance, Sarah Palin wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Palin's absence from the debate postmortems isn't all that surprising, given this item from progressive radio host Ed Schultz:

The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as "disastrous." One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, "What are we going to do?" The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is "clueless."

This magpie is, of course, anxiously awaiting Palin's performance in next week's VP debate—allowing, of course, that the Republicans don't find a way to keep her from fulfilling her obligation.

Labels: Elections, GOP, Incompetence, McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:54 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, September 2, 2007

The upcoming attack on Iran.

Over at Daily Kos, Maccabee has a much-linked and much-commented upon post in which he relays news from a friend who's a Landing Signals Officer in a US Navy carrier group stationed near Iran. According to the friend, the preparations for an attack on Iran are done and, she says, the military needs only the word from Washington for the bombs to start dropping.

In reading the post, though, I found the following part of the LSO's comments scarier than the news that an attack could be imminent:

"I know this will sound crazy coming from a Naval officer", she said. "But we’re all just waiting for this administration to end. Things that happen at the senior officer level seem more and more to happen outside of the purview of XOs and other officers who typically have a say-so in daily combat and flight operations. Today, orders just come down from the mountaintop and there’s no questioning. In fact, there is no discussing it. I have seen more than one senior commander disappear and then three weeks later we find out that he has been replaced. That’s really weird. It’s also really weird because everyone who has disappeared has questioned whether or not we should be staging a massive attack on Iran."

"We’re not stupid. Most of the members of the fleet read well enough to know what is going on world-wise. We also realize that anyone who has any doubts is in danger of having a long military career yanked out from under them. Keep in mind that most of the people I serve with are happy to be a part of the global war on terror. It’s just that the touch points are what we see since we are the ones out here who are supposedly implementing this grand strategy. But when you liason with administration officials who don’t know that Iranians don’t speak Arabic and have no idea what Iranians live like, then you start having second thoughts about whether these Administration officials are even competent." [Emphasis added]

I don't know what I can possibly add to that. Be very afraid.

Labels: Incompetence, Iran, War

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:01 PM | Get permalink

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Tancredo to New Orleans: F*ck you!

GOP presidential candidate Tom Tancredo continues to show that he's the epitome of compassion.

The Hill reports that Tancredo has called for an end to federal aid to the Gulf Coast areas hit by Hurricane Katrina, and that the hurricane's survivors need to realize that ' the taxpayer gravy train [has] left the New Orleans station.'

"The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called 'recovery' efforts has been mind-boggling," said Tancredo, who is running a long-shot presidential campaign. "Enough is enough...."

"At some point, state and local officials and individuals have got to step up to the plate and take some initiative.... The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end."

The lawmaker criticized in particular the amount that has been wasted through fraud and abuse, estimated at $1 billion.

"This whole fiasco has been a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence at all levels," he added.

This magpie is tempted to agree with Tancredo on that last point, except that I'm certain the gentleman from Colorado doesn't think (as I definitely do) that the 'corruption and incompetence' emanates directly from the White House.

Labels: Big fat idiots, Hurricane Katrina, Incompetence, Tom Tancredo

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:45 AM | Get permalink

Monday, August 27, 2007

Another rat leaves Dubya's sinking ship

I see that attorney general Alberto Gonzales resigned from his post this morning.

The rumor is that his replacement will be Michael Chertoff, the current head of the Department of Homeland Security. The prez apparently feels that Chertoff's major role in bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina makes him ideally qualified to lead the Department of Justice.

Via Agence France Presse.

Labels: Al Gonzales, Attorneygate, Dubya, Incompetence

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:29 AM | Get permalink

Monday, August 6, 2007

About those 190,000 weapons missing in Iraq.

This magpie wasn't surprised to hear the news, given that Dubya's military has this longstanding problem with keeping tabs on armaments.

If our Dear Leader couldn't see that arms were kept out of the hands of Iraq's insurgents in 2003 and 2004, why should his minions be doing anything different now?

Labels: Dubya, Incompetence, Insurgency, Iraq, Occupation

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:35 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Adding insult to injury.

In its continuing quest to discover new ways of making life miserable for people who already have a world of trouble, Dubya's administration decided to cancel thousands of disaster loans to people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Wrongly. And without notice.

The agency canceled nearly 8,000 loans without calling the borrowers or mailing them a notice, according to the audit by the agency’s inspector general. The homeowners did eventually receive a letter contending that they had voluntarily given up their loans, the report says, even though many told auditors that they actually needed the money.

The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on the report. [Emphasis added]

Like I always say, every time I figure that Dubya and his cronies couldn't sink any lower, they do.

Via NY Times.

Labels: Dubya, Housing, Hurricane Katrina, Incompetence

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:29 AM | Get permalink

Friday, April 20, 2007

About Gonzales' memory.

Yesterday, I said that the attorney general gave some variation on 'I don't recall' around 45 times during his Senate testimony.

I was wrong. Gonzales' memory 'failed' him 64 times.

Via Washington Post.

Labels: Al Gonzales, Attorneygate, Incompetence, Investigations, US attorneys

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:37 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Why the f'n hell does the US need a 'war czar'?

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Dubya is having trouble finding anyone who's willing the be the 'war czar' — a new position that will 'oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies.'

A big question went unasked in the Post's article (and in the blog comments that I've seen): Doesn't the US already have someone whose job it is to oversee the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq? Someone called the 'commander in chief'?

Just asking.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Afghanistan, Dubya, Incompetence, Iraq, Pentagon

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:23 AM | Get permalink