Spending the afternoon with friends at the 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition at Fort Mason. 1,500 wineries pouring 4,235 wines. The competition is over (for results click here), and today is an open house event for the general public.
From Joe Jervis:Virgin Megastore has announced that it will close its San Francisco location at the end of April. NYC's Times Square store closes then too, with the Union Square store following at the end of May. That leaves the chain with three remaining locations: Denver, Orlando, and Hollywood. However an industry insider tells me today that those three stores will shutter in May as well. Virgin just isn't saying so yet because they are trying to negotiate an exit with their landlords. Sad, sad, sad.Everyone is buying their music via download off the web these days. (Hell, I can't even remember the last time I bought a CD.) Between that and the economy, music stores are closing at a fast and furious rate.
President Obama and senior administration officials have begun receiving a daily CIA report on the global economic crisis in addition to briefings on terrorist threats and other national security issues, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday.And the do-nothing Republicans rail against administration efforts to stabilize the economy? 2010 candidates, take note...this an opportunity to beat the fascists in the GOP at their own game. "Why do Republicans support the terrorists?"
The CIA's role in producing the report underscores the level of anxiety within the administration over how rapidly the economic downturn is spreading, as well as its potential to hobble foreign governments and trigger instability overseas.
For the record, of the 35 years of budget deficits graphed above, Republicans held the presidency for 28. Although Clinton ran deficits in his first term, it is plainly evident that he was lowering them until, eventually, they turned into surpluses. Carter ran deficits as well, and while I'm not defending him, a look at the graph above shows he kept them low. Our debt didn't start spinning out of control until Reagan took office.
And for those "women on the go" who are watching their budgets in these recessionary times, the Gallo Family presents this rather bulky yet affordable wine purse. Calling it an "easy to carry handbag equivalent to 2 bottles of wine," this unfortunately designed purse/box retails for a mere $22.95. However, unlike the Cliquot Traveler, this one does not double as a evening handbag (unless, of course, you require nothing for your evening but cheap wine at the ready).
The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 1003 Feb. 18 by a wide margin, 83 to 13, resolving, "That the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. "The language of HJR 1003 further serves notice to the federal government "to cease and desist, effectively immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers."The actions of these fascist-fucks would be laughable if they weren't so scary. I don't know about you, but when I read things like this I smell the beginnings of a secessionist effort by these bat-shit lunatics.
Not even an industry-wide peanut scare inflicted as much damage on the food company's reputation.
He truly is the Ronald Reagan of the left: Confident, in control, and literate; offering high hopes and big aspirations.
Socks, the beloved White House cat during the Clinton administration, died yesterday after being euthanized following a diagnosis of cancer in his jaw. He was 20.
Throughout her life, she has been Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Street and Mrs. Smith. She was also Mrs. Moyer, Mrs. Massie, Mrs. McMillan, Mrs. Berisford, Mrs. Chandler and Mrs. Essex.
Born Linda Lou Taylor 68 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, she claims to possess the largest ball of dried paint in the world, yet made the Guinness Book of World Records for another reason entirely.
She's been married 23 times.
Two husbands were homeless. Two were gay. More than a few stepped cheated on her. One choked her and turned her lip inside out. Another secured the fridge with a padlock and a chain.
Once again my movie-going habits fell by the wayside this year. Keep that in mind as you read this year's Oscar predictions...
February 20th:On this winter day, people go out at noon, wave their hands over their heads and chant "Hoodie-Hoo".
It is a day to chase away winter and bring in spring. After all, everyone in the northern hemisphere are sick and tired of winter at this point and a little crazy being cooped up inside all winter and not seeing the sun.
The number of laid-off workers receiving unemployment benefits hit an all-time high of nearly 5 million, and new jobless claims are at levels not seen since the early 1980s. The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people receiving regular unemployment benefits rose by 170,000 to 5 million for the week ending Feb. 7, marking the fourth straight week [unemployment] claims have hit a record.And Business Week's Michael Mandel thinks the coming decade will be about as dire as the Great Depression.
Presidential popular vote:The day before the election, I posted my thinking behind the predictions. You can see that post by clicking here. I thought for sure there was going to be a slight "Bradley effect." Nothing serious enough to lose Obama the election, but I thought white rural voters in Indiana and Ohio, as well as white confederates in North Carolina and Florida would swing those states to McCain.
Obama 51.2% (53.0%)
McCain 47.0% (45.6%)
Electoral College:
Obama 311 (365)
McCain 227 (173)
Senate:
Democrats 58 (58*)
Republicans 42 (41*)
*We are still awaiting the outcome in the Minnesota race.
House:
Democrats 249 (257)
Republicans 186 (178)
Westboro Baptist Church haters Fred and Shirley Phelps have planned a trip to the U.K. to protest tomorrow's production of "The Laramie Project" in Basingstoke, Hampshire. However, officials say Fred and Shirley won't be allowed into the country:The pair will be stopped by immigration officials if they arrive and placed straight on a flight back to the U.S.Well, now, wait a minute. We don't want them back. Can't we simply leave them in some sort of diplomatic limbo out over the Atlantic? Or perhaps a lovely, barren island up near the Arctic?
Bay City Rollers front man Les McKeown recently confessed to his wife of 30 years...on a reality TV show...that he spent their entire marriage cheating on her with other men.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by her Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, in Jakarta, Indonesia on Wednesday. Reaching out to the world’s most populous Muslim country and the boyhood home of her new boss, Secretary of State Clinton traveled to Indonesia on Wednesday to pay tribute to its hard-won political freedoms.
...Reaching out to the world’s most populous Muslim country and the boyhood home of her new boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Indonesia on Wednesday to pay tribute to its hard-won political freedoms.
I think abstinence is, like — like, the — I don’t know how to put it — like, the main — everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it’s not realistic at all.Whoo! I see a dazzling career in Alaska politics for this real life Juno. But, I digress.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
A week from today Obama will convene a fiscal responsibility summit in Washington designed to examine entitlement reform.In addition to an eventual tax hike, addressing the issues of Social Security and Medicare are part of a series of bitter pills the American public are going to have to swallow over the coming decade if our country has any hope of putting its financial house back in order.
Listening to President Obama, I was struck by how well he understands that most voters are not driven by ideology and are not searching for politically orthodox leadership. Most want leaders who speak to their needs — especially in this time of economic crisis — and a government that works.No one knows how well the economic stimulus will work, if it does anything at all. But one thing Americans do know right now is that the Republican Party are acting as obstructionists when they should be functioning as a loyal opposition who bring productive arguments to the table during this time of economic peril.
Republicans in Congress — all but completely united in their effort to build a wall of obstruction in the path of President Obama’s economic revitalization effort — seem to be missing this essential point.
When I asked [the President] if there was any reason to believe that the G.O.P. had made a good-faith effort at bipartisanship, given the fact that only three Republicans voted for the stimulus plan in the Senate and none in the House, he said he did not want to question the motives or sincerity of those who opposed the plan.
But he made a point of adding, “Now, I have to say that given that they were running the show for a pretty long time prior to me getting there, and that their theory was tested pretty thoroughly and it’s landed us in the situation where we’ve got over a trillion-dollars’ worth of debt and the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, I think I have a better argument in terms of economic thinking.”
...beyond his specific policies (and whether one supports them or not), Mr. Obama is emerging as the very model of the type of person one would want in high public office. He is intelligent, mature, thoughtful, calm in the face of crises and, if the nation is lucky, maybe even wise.
From the Washington Post:...the new math of Obama-era politics gives Maine influence out of proportion to its size."The Democrats have 58 members in the Senate (if you include two independents who caucus with that side of the aisle), and the Republicans have 41 members. There used to be a day when such a comfortable majority would roll most legislation through for the president's signature without much effort. If a member of the opposition wanted to filibuster, they would have to stand up and give speeches, debate the issue, or in some other fashion delay voting on the bill in question by speaking non-stop until the body was able to put together 60 votes to put an end to the action. (Read a book, read the Bible, read a pamphlet...anything, so long as they kept speaking. This was portrayed brilliantly in the film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.")
The reason: Democrats need to woo Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate.
Republicans on the other hand, thought we should figure out what is at the root of the problem, then see how much it would cost to fix.-Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Republican-AK), in the Republican response to President Obama's weekly radio address.
Let’s start with the politics.John Cole responds:
One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years.
But it’s now clear that the party’s commitment to deep voodoo...is as strong as ever. In both the House and the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans rallied behind the idea that the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts.
And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.
It’s “generational theft,” said [2008 presidential loser] John McCain, just a few days after voting for tax cuts that would, over the next decade, have cost about four times as much.
And the ugliness of the political debate matters because it raises doubts about the Obama administration’s ability to come back for more if, as seems likely, the stimulus bill proves inadequate.
For while Mr. Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.
Officially, the administration insists that the plan is adequate to the economy’s need...And it’s widely believed that political considerations led to a plan that was weaker and contains more tax cuts than it should have...
...for all I know, he may be right- that may be what the economy needs, the current bill may be inadequate, and so on.This is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and the Republicans in congress have offered no credible reason for opposing the stimulus bill (they can't argue against budget deficits after spending the last eight years backing the Bush budgets on the premise that "deficits don't matter"); nor can the minority party offer any real alternative that hasn't already been tried and found wanting.
But the point remains that a larger bill was not political feasible. At all. The current bill just barely [got] the support from the three Republicans it [needed to prevent a filibuster in the Senate]. A bigger bill simply could not happen in this climate.
...the United States is compiling the best possible team we could have at this time to deal with the threat to our national interests posed by a continuation of the Israeli-Arab conflict. President Barack Obama is, by all accounts, as intellectually engaged with the complexities of the region and how they impact American interests as as any president since Eisenhower. He has compiled a team at the State Department and the National Security Council of hard headed realists committed to promoting US interests in the Middle East who recognize many of the linkages between ending Israel's occupations, a successful US withdrawal from Iraq, a successful negotiation of our relationship with Iran, our wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and bringing al-Qaeda to justice.-Amjad Atallah, Co-Director of the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force, guest-posting Wednesday at the Washington Note.
Judd Gregg approached the Obama administration to see if he could be a part of it...assuming that his own party wasn't going to adopt a policy of total warfare against the newly elected president in a time of enormous economic peril.
[One can't help but be] taken aback by the force of the Republican assault. Even in a downturn as swift and alarming as this one, even after an election that clearly favored one approach over another, even after the most conciliatory efforts by an incoming president in memory, these people have gone to war against the President. The President should stay cool.
The rest of us should realize [that the Republicans have declared war on Obama]. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.
...it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.First and foremost, I hope the stimulus bill works because America needs it to work. But when I see shit like this, I also want it to work so that the President and his party can go to voters in 2010 and say, "these guys didn't want to fix the economy, and in fact hoped it would fail." If things are going at least nominally well by the mid-term, that argument will hand the GOP a third straight devastating loss. And it will be more than deserved.
This stimulus bill is huge, so disastrous, and so harmful to our country that even though Obama has been in office for less than a month, I think it's already fair to label him as one of the worst Presidents in American history.-John Hawkins at Right Wing News, having shit-fits over the passing of the economic stimulus bill.
I'd like to amend what I said just a little bit. [Obama is] one of the worst Presidents in American history - and the worst is yet to come!With people like this spouting off the party line, it's very easy to understand why the Republican Party has been absolutely battered at the polls in the last two federal elections.
...After watching Obama's horrific cabinet appointments, all the broken campaign promises, the arrogance, the terrible policy decisions, and the incompetence -- I think it's entirely possible that he will turn out to be the single, worst President in American history. This guy is like the anti-Lincoln. What Lincoln saved, Obama is working to destroy.
House and Senate negotiators agreed to a $789 billion stimulus package this afternoon.I am confident this will go a long way toward turning this economy around. It'll be a very rough year or two, but had the government done nothing we could have seen a major depression through the end of the next decade.
Final votes in both chambers could come as soon as Thursday with the bill reaching President Obama's desk on Friday.
Despite the messiness of the legislative process, it's a very big victory for Obama. In the short run, massive amounts of spending on popular projects around the country will only enhance the new president's stature. He also scores points for acting in a bipartisan fashion even if few Republicans voted for the deal.
Of course, in the longer run, Obama's fate is ultimately tied to whether the economy turns around. Time will tell.
It is very interesting to watch how this crisis reveals and highlights character: the sniveling privileged Wall Street upper-crust, the semi-hysterical, uninformed punditocracy, the puerile Republican opposition - and Obama, cool as a cucumber, playing his game, five steps ahead, setting up moves that won't come to fruition for months or years, while his opposition flails at the thin air where he used to be. I love it.My take? I think the stimulus bill is nowhere near perfect, but I understand that everything possible needs to be done to rescue our economy.
It's the future that is calling Obama, not the present.
The Republican reaction to this stimulus package is on a par with McCain suspending his campaign during the primary to "handle" the economic crisis back in Washington. Completely clueless, cynical empty gestures. They think we'll forget. They're wrong. What Karl Rove wanted, and was willing to steal by any means necessary, Obama will get, handed to him as a free gift by the American people: real political power, the power to transform society for a generation or more.
Dusk' til Dawn - Ladyhawke
Handsfree - Sonny J.
Woman - Barrabas
Streetwalker - Delta Spirit
Take a Bow - Duncan Sheik
Never There - Cake
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Undeniable - Mat Kearney
Sooner or Later - Fleetwood Mac
Something Big - The Mick Fleetwood Band
Rome Wasn't Built In a Day - Morcheeba
Thinking of You - Sister Sledge
What is in [the plan]:Megan McArdle:
1. Super-TALF: a big expansion of the Fed’s quantitative easing, with Treasury backing. I’m OK with that.
2. Private-public purchases of questionable assets; as I understand it, private investors would be the junior partners, so this is probably not a big giveaway (unless there’s huge public financing, in which case it amounts to ring-fencing after all). I also suspect it wouldn’t accomplish much, but no harm, no foul.
3. Stress test: everything depends on how this is actually implemented. What happens if, or more likely when, a major money center bank is stress-tested and found to have negative net worth? One possibility is that the auditors are told to come up with a different answer; that’s a big concern. The other is that the bank is effectively nationalized; as I read the language that could be achieved as part of the public capital injection.
So what is the plan? I really don’t know, at least based on what we’ve seen today. But maybe, maybe, it’s a Trojan horse that smuggles the right policy into place.
No details at all on the foreclosure program, and precious few beyond platitudes about the mechanisms for dealing with toxic assets. The only real new information is the amount: $1 trillion total, $500 billion to start. I don't envy Geithner his position. But he's known this was coming for months. I expected a little more than telling us that he wanted to spend a lot of money to help banks clean up their balance sheets. We knew that much already.Andrew Sullivan:
The lack of detail has spooked some. But isn't selling of bank stocks a good sign? I mean: the market has accepted that banks will face a reckoning. Which is what we need if we are to move beyond this.
...This is a process, and not a declaration. The stimulus package may not be perfect but it will surely help arrest a downward spiral in demand; the bank bailout will require pragmatic adjustment, just as we were forced into in the 1930s, but the goals are clear enough, and the means of accountability pretty open.
...This is a pragmatic president and people are hoping for total ideological clarity and swift, complete answers in the first few weeks. Well, when I say "people" I mean Washington. I get the sense that most Americans out there are ready to give him some time.
