What's News Tonight

Earth Moon Full Policy

2010-09-01T18:47:06Z

In The Shape of Things to Come.

This Mercury Messenger robot snapshot of Earth and Moon in the brightness of reflected sunlight makes me relax for the scale of our ambition to describe what is and how it got here. Also makes me snicker at the closed-mindedness of the Washington ops. Take a breath, guys. Look up! What's your policy noise to that? What is POTUS and his evasiveness to that. The part of the Obama administration that grinds me the most each week is the arrogant blindness to NASA and the uses of NASA. The Obama team does not comprehend how NASA is the stuff that dreams are made of. Sure, NASA is pork. But it is well worth it pork, to get our eyes up on the planets. And someday we will have folk looking back at Mother Earth just like this. Where did we come from? Those two companions in the night sky. And what about the galactic center (below)? This is where the sun came from, that convergence of dust shoved around by clumps of dark matter and held to be ever expanding (at faster speeds?) because of the mysterious unperceived presence of dark energy. We are destined to get out there, perhaps physically, perhaps with information download (homo sapiens are energy consuming information uploads).

"What does Earth look like from the planet Mercury? The robotic spacecraft MESSENGER found out as it looked toward the Earth during its closest approach to the Sun about three months ago. The Earth and Moon are visible as the double spot on the lower left of the above image. Now MESSENGER was not at Mercury when it took the above image, but at a location from which the view would be similar. From Mercury, both the Earth and its comparatively large moon will always appear as small circles of reflected sunlight and will never show a crescent phase. MESSENGER has zipped right by Mercury three times since being launched in 2004, and is scheduled to enter orbit around the innermost planet in March of 2011."

Amateur Zero Hour Oval Reset

2010-08-31T17:38:15Z

Jerry Seib Works Hard to Reset POTUS.

The eve of POTUS's second Oval Office speech, this time on Deepwater Iraq, the estimable and trenchant Jerry Seib, WSJ, measures the Obama administration foreign policy in the ummah and finds it "reset." This is generous and ambitious at once. POTUS has no policy in the ummah. Iran describes another idea that POTUS cannot figure and does not seek counsel to figure. With regard Iraq, POTUS remains against the war. With regard Afghanistan, POTUS remains certain that this is the necessary war. With regard Israel and Palestine, POTUS remains certain that by bringing peace to the region, palaver, palaver. In sum, POTUS arrived at the Oval Office with a fresh posture and little information, and over the last 20 months, despite his unique access to information, POTUS has remained at "reset." POTUS disdains foreign policy. POTUS disdains domestic policy. POTUS asserts and asserts on camera. Off-camera, POTUS retreats to his certainty without information. POTUS is more an amateur today than he was when he chose to run for POTUS in December 2006, two months after Senator Obama's bagman, Tony Rezko, was indicted for graft. POTUS was then and remains now an amateur cipher. No psychology needed or useful. Reset is POTUS. Each day. What does this mean for the so-called "direct talks" between Netanyahu and Abbas? Very little. SecState Clinton is taking an unusually strong part here. No reset to HRC. HRC learns. POTUS surprisingly uninvolved. VPOTUS Biden a liability to the Democrats, not to POTUS. POTUS disdains Biden and the Democrats. POTUS disdains Washington. This is not psychology. It is POTUS taste, perhaps also to be found in reset Oval Office design colors. Taupe, beige, neutrals -- did I say beige? Does POTUS think he is beige? I am beige. Are you beige? What is taupe? Reset beige may be taupe. RESET POTUS is zero.

Where in the World Is Zhou?

2010-08-31T01:43:16Z

Central Banker Mischief.

Unusual, already-denied (and yet still unexplained and puzzling) rumor out of China in the middle of the day that the big boss of the Central Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, is in big trouble. Defection was mentioned. The trouble points to major losses in US Treasury holdings. The losses were said to be $430 billion. This would be nearly twenty percent of China's $2.5 trillion holdings. The number appears preposterous. The source of the rumor looks to be an unreliable and non-confirmed and even manufactured report out of a Hong Kong website, Ming Pao. The same website published a denial and said it had nothing to do with the report. Of note, Zhou's name was put behind government firewalls in order to prevent searches. Odd behavior. However, little about the story stands up to logic. Let us review: Midday (while China is supposed to be asleep) Barron's Tiernan Ray moved a summary:

Currently circulating the Interwebs is the note from Stratfor this morning that Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, has fled the country, apparently because of a $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasurys suffered by the People's Republic, according to Stratfor.

The matter is clouded by the fact that a report was published on Saturday attributed to Hong Kong-based news agency Ming Pao and subsequently denied by Ming Pao. But the rumor has continued to circulate anyway. Stratfor says it can't corroborate the matter but judges the spread of the rumor as "significant" given possible Communist Party leadership changes in 2012....

Later in the Day, the Denial.

In the early evening, Jeff Stein, WaPo, put out a denial from Stratfor about the defection story. The denial knocked the losses rumor. It did not solve the firewall detail.

Stratfor, the global intelligence analysis group, reported Monday that Chinese-language blogs were reporting that Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, "may have left the country."

But George Friedman, chief executive officer of Stratfor, said that the swirling rumors, which also accuse Zhou of overseeing a $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasury bonds, have little basis in fact and may instead signify a power struggle in advance of a leadership change in 2012.

"We don't believe it either," Friedman told SpyTalk, referring to the alleged $430 billion investment loss. But he added, "I'm less concerned about the number and the specific charges than the politics of a senior banker clearly under attack without the government stepping in and backing him. We really don't know what it all means, if anything, but the numbers aren't important."

According to Stratfor, the rumors were built on a foundation of intrigue.

"The rumors appear to have started following reports on Aug. 28 which cited Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-based news agency, saying that because of an approximately $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasury bonds, the Chinese government may punish some individuals within the PBC, including Zhou," Stratfor reported.

"Although Ming Pao on Aug. 30 published a report on its website indicating that the prior report was fabricated by a mainland news site that had attributed the false information to Ming Pao, rumors of Zhou's defection have spread around China intensively, and Zhou's name has been blocked from Internet search engines in China."

Two knowledgeable government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had no evidence of Zhou's defection and that he was not in U.S. custody.

That Lehman Brothers Rumor Once Upon a Time.

Another source asks me, "How hard is it to locate a Central Banker?" Where in the world is Zhou? Let us stipulate that Zhou is not missing with the money, that China has not lost $430 billion. Let us stipulate that the US government has no clue where Zhou is this morning. The fact of the rumor is of significance by itself. Do you recall how the shortseller rumor on Lehman Brothers worked? During the meltdown of Bear Stearns in mid-March 2008, there was wild talk of short-selling of Lehman. Lehman denied all around. Bear Stearns was offloaded to Jamie Dimon with Ben Bernanke money and all was well. Except six months later Lehman did fail (gallows understatement), and the short-sellers were gamely rewarded if they stuck it out. What to make of the March rumor? Wild guess? Just gaming the market?

Later Still.

Stratfor is reporting the Jeff Stein report that US government officials deny that Zhou has defected. Chinese authorities remain non-reporting on Zhou. Stratfor argues trenchantly that rumors about a senior Party member indicate that there is turmoil. Gordon Chang often relates the observation that the 2012 succession deadline approaches, and the Hu Jintao cohort of the cadres may be reluctant, unprepared, unwilling to hand over power to the younger generation. Rumors about Wen Jiabao earlier this year did not prove accurate. Now a rumor about Zhou. Why is the firewall up? Why not show him on Xinhua? Is he under investigation? Game is afoot. Who is playing the game?

Mission Summer Accomplished Recovery

2010-08-29T20:45:11Z

Long-term, Grinding, Deflating Federal Hooey.

Steve Moore, WSJ, makes the easy and correct case that the Obama administration's ballyhooed stimulus and budget and various housing magic maneuvers have delivered up a Recovery Summer that is anemic, mortal, corpse-like -- may be an animated flesh-eating zombie that is ravenous and relentless. POTUS spoke at Xavier University this news cycle, to commemorate five years after Katrina, and Sean Miller, The Hill, surprised by reporting on air that the event was listless and poorly organized by the White House. Too many VIPs jammed into too small a space. POTUS making exactly the same remarks he made recently during his few hours in Florida. POTUS avoiding the number one issue, which is not Katrina or the Deepwater Horizon spill but rather the moratorium on deepwater drilling. Louisiana wants to talk about jobs, and POTUS wants to play to the Dress Circle in California and Florida for the midterms and talk green and environment and renewable energy. POTUS puts in a subpar performance after his missing holiday week. POTUS also has little to say about the bad GDP revision on Friday 27 -- and not much about the "Recovery Summer" palaver: POTUS tells Brian Williams of NBC, "...a constant evolving debate about what are our obligations to each other..." Try to stay focused, Mr. President. Jobs debate is over. Your team is losing. And the remark about the "...birth certificate plastered to my forehead..." was just plain weird. Does he hate the job he's got? Is he ready to go back on vacation?

Jackson Hole.

The debate about the slowdown, a/k/a "The Great Stall," did not find any illumination at the Federal Reserve's annual confab at Jackson Hole. The deflationistas remain cocksure. The inflation hawks are silent and brooding. Ben Bernanke asserts he will do what he "can." No comfort. If Bernanke cannot, then it cannot be done. The limits of the Fed. The ski slopes will be especially uncrowded this winter. Bernanke may be in denial. Bernanke may believe that, if he holds his breath, he can fly like an eagle. Calculated Risk looks to the jobs number coming on Friday 3 September. Grim tidings. The Jackson Hole gang is out of big bullets. They are going to try small caliber stuff next. After that, we will try rocks.

Unemployment Benefits: At the end of July, the qualification dates for the various tiers of Federal unemployment benefits were extended through November 30th. This extension was also made retroactive to June 2nd. Some people who have given up might rejoin the labor force to collect additional benefits. If this happens, the participation rate might increase in August - and that would push up the unemployment rate. Although the number is uncertain, if 250,000 workers rejoin the labor force to collect benefits that would push the unemployment rate to 9.7%. If 500,000 workers rejoin the labor force, plus the 125,000 from the teen adjustment, the unemployment rate would increase to around 9.9%.

Attack of the Zombie Republicans: Part 1

2010-08-28T15:41:42Z

Glenn Beck's Festival of Fools

by John Batchelor

The celebrity Glenn Beck has organized a festive and apparently harmless public event for the Washington Mall that he calls "Restoring Honor." This theme is so deeply bland that it invites us partisans to look for inner meaning, such as the fact that August 28 is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's revolutionary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, or such as Beck's Fox News Channel seeking a low-budget reality show to sell for the dog days of summer programming. The trick here may be that Beck's event, which will feature the celebrity Sarah Palin, is not about anything at all. It is a farce of an event in the way the bookish Karl Marx meant it, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

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...The original Martin Luther King event was the opening act of a tragedy that hurtled America toward violence and King's murder five years later. This makes the Glenn Beck event exactly what Beck says it is: not King-significant, not partisan, not strident, not Tea Party--a lot of "not" about this or that. Beck admits to his ignorance of the day, "I had no idea August 28th was the day of the MLK speech when we booked it... I'm sorry, media, that I forgot the, oh, so important detail of the date." Beck also denies a partisan logic, "Well, it's not a political event because I haven't found a lot of honor when it's followed by an 'R' or a 'D.'"

It would be tidy just to leave the event be--a well-organized gathering of amiable, energetic, kindly citizens, and friends on a sunny, dry, lucky day in a space designed for hundreds of thousands of people to enter and leave swiftly.

• John Avlon: I Have a NightmareYet this is not the whole story, and the part of Glenn Beck that is a natural performer knows it, which is why he adds oddly discordant remarks to his explanation of the event. "I've been examining the problems of this country and I've been trying to come up with ways out," Beck observes. "We're entering our last exit, last exit. We need to get off this highway." Later he warns, "Make no mistake, the flame of freedom is dwindling. The shining city on the hill, the sun is setting. If you don't want it to go out on our watch, then you must stand in the blaze. The fire of truth that does not burn those who stand in it, but consumes everything that is not. Point others to the truth."

What is Beck talking about? What is it that the folk who watch his afternoon TV show hear when he starts prophesying about "ways out" and "the sun is setting" and "the fire of truth"? The answer may be disappointingly simple. Beck isn't talking about anything historical, that is, genuinely threatening, since he is not politically astute, intellectually curious, or even much of a kvetch. Beck is an entertainer, and he does his job with hambone energy and handfuls of self-mockery. There is no threat here. Beck is bootlessly earnest, as he says; Beck is pleasantly harmless, as he says. Beck is a fool in the manner of a court jester, a fool whom FNC properly features as foolish--a braniac with a pipe in-mouth, or a lecturer-in-chief with chalk in hand, or a handsome lad mugging to the camera as if he'd just dropped his own birthday cake in his lap. I think of him now and again as Quasimodo Lite, a deaf bell-ringer swinging from the Notre Dame of Fox, a man who is eager to confess his own unsightly warts--"I've screwed up most of my life"--and who is also heroically delighted to be our slightly stooped "Pope of Fools," because this accidental role, in this Festival of Fools called 2010, wins the cheers of the crowd.

Listen to Beck's monologues on the videos posted on the "Restoring Honor" site. Beck mutters random famous names like pop brands and offers a deal of extemporaneous sighing about loss, regret, children, monuments. It takes a strong man not to break down laughing at the tinkling piano soundtrack as Beck rambles, "People say, all the time, that trying to fix Washington, we need a George Washington, or, or, or we need a Thomas Jefferson or a Ben Franklin. Where are they? I haven't seen them. But then I realize, it's because, we haven't grown them in an awfully long time..."

That Glenn Beck continues to ape revolutionaries and pontificators is not a measure of Beck, who is a hard-working stunt artist, but a measure of the moment of this jobless, deflating "Great Stall," the virulence of want and doubt, when it is easier for us to debate an actor babbling nonsensical metaphors about a highway exit than it is to do the labor of robust conversation that leads to resolve and prosperity.

As for the August 28 event, it makes me smile that Quasimodo Lite will be on the stage with his Esmeralda again, this time played by Sarah Palin, and that the cheers of the crowd will convince both Beck and Palin that they are listened to. In the original tragedy, you will recall, the king ordered Esmeralda hanged as a witch, and it was many years later that they found the corpse of Quasimodo curled up next to her grave, starved to death rather than leave the one woman who ever showed him kindness. Victor Hugo understood our appetite for stern romance. Beck and Palin understand our desire for cushy sentimentality. Their fates are likely to be much sunnier than those of Quasimodo and Esmeralda, as we celebrate our fools until the commercial break.

Moby GDP

2010-08-27T17:54:52Z

Dead Whale Economy.

At 1.6% revised GDP growth for the 2nd quarter, the US economy and the Obama administration are floating adrift while losing jobs and suffering more uncertainty and gloom. POTUS is out of policy ideas except patience, or stalling, or waiting for the GOP to arrive and start acting extreme so POTUS can act responsible. Not much of a policy, to depend on the other guy. The partisans are not fundamental to what has happened. The disinflation, or the deflation, means that we are cautious and reluctant and in the Great Stall. What will move the economy to growth remains unknown. Plenty of room to the downside. We must get past the Hindenburg Omen before we look again at a rally based upon expectation that 2011 will show relative year-over-year growth. Steve Moore, WSJ, mentions growing at 8% to restore the jobs lost. Mary O'Grady makes the astute point that POTUS and the Democrats cannot change direction on taxes and healthcare and cap and trade without admitting to dummy mistakes in the last two years of major legislation passed by all-Democratic votes. In sum, POTUS cannot reach for a cure because it will kill off his team. Moby Dick of the American GDP is dead in the water. Ahab Obama and Ahab Bush stand on the dock, waving to us. Neither the Bush TARP nor the Obama stimulus did more than kill the whale. Metaphor is dead, too. Look to a savior. Ishmael Clinton, surviving as he clings adrift to a coffin?

Creative Unruliness

2010-08-26T19:29:16Z

Alan Grayson Deserves Credit for the Sunshine.

The despair and panic in the Democratic elite is an inspiration to the troubled and self-financed Alan Grayson, FL-8, who responds with a video that takes your breath away with its Simple Simon triteness. Wearing his trademark American Flag tie, the amateur stand-up salesman-turned-millionaire member of Congress presents himself as the Pied Piper of Orlando. Joe Biden and Alan Grayson are simpatico. Joe Biden takes credit for the 500,000 new jobs every month starting July 2010 (as soon as we can find them); and Alan Grayson takes credit for the schools, the sunshine, the Florida weather and the way bacon crisps on the skillet. This is creative and unruly. Yes, it is also over the top, but the present cycle requires fresh thinking. Cheers for Alan Grayson, a man who made himself into a tall sunflower as a freshman member, and now faces the ons and offs of the tall sunflower syndrome facing playful fate in a purple district.

Grumpy Electorate.

Spoke Shane D'Aprile, The Hill, and John Fund, WSJ, about the creative, unruly voters revolting from the GOP itself in Alaska and rushing to push unknown and resourceful West Pointer and former judge Joe Miller into the lead over the establishment Lisa Murkowski. The restlessness is coast to coast and unpredicatable. This is a rough year to be an incumbent facing an unknown or iconoclast. Anything is possible. Spoke Devin Nunes, CA-21, who was in the CD of Tom Latham, IA-4, and he reports surprising surges of anti-Democrats in heretofore deeply blue CDs in California. One blue district with an incumbent who was re-elected with 74% of the vote in 2008 is now holding on to 50% and sinking against a poorly funded GOP rival. Meg Whitman goes ahead of Jerry Brown 48-40% in the Rasmussen. Carly Fiorina extends her lead over the well-funded Barbara Boxer, who now fights a come from behind race for the first time in decades.

Castle Foreclosure

2010-08-25T18:00:46Z

Speaking Kris Hudson, WSJ, re the spreading gloom of major developers' walking away from commercial real estate properties in exactly the same fashion as homeowners' giving up paying mortgages and abandoning the family castle. The story behind the tale is that the banks are weakening as the big projects come back to the banks that made the loans, and that the default rate climbs again on CRE. This was the phenomenon I heard when I spoke to Bloomberg News about the transparent condos in NY (Trump Place, etc) that are eager to win renters just to keep the lights on, and needed permission to rent from the banks. Now the developers are throwing the keys at the same banks that have used "extend and pretend" as a hiding place. The transparent buildings (no customers for tenants) are across America on major thoroughfares and in unusual places in big cities. See-through black holes. The banks too big to fail knew this day was coming, which is why they have been building up all that free money from the Fed and not pushing out new loans. The nation is vastly overbuilt in commercial space. Mort Zuckerman of Boston Properties just bought cheap Harry Macklowe properties in Midtown Manhattan, chiefly because Macklowe couldn't carry the loan any longer. That is one grand castle gone to the rehab pile. More coming. The glass and concrete stuff from out West and in the South will likely go begging for buyers. Who needs a retail mall when the customers are online and out of work? I cannot point at POTUS on this cliff-diving. This is banking USA meets the property geniuses of the biggest markets. These guys were betting on trees growing to heaven. Location, location, location has limits. I could rent out Atlantis faster than sell a Manhattan condo or Vegas office complex. Then again, POTUS and the geniuses at Treasury knew that CRE was a time bomb, and they bet all their chips on the stimulus to get the market stabilized. Wrong bet. What we need are time and severe mark-downs. Nothing is broke that the right price won't fix. And take the "Trump" off of the Trump Place, and you will get buyers again when it reads "Mean Place." From Kris Hudson and A.D. Pruitt, WSJ:

"More landlords are expected to follow suit. Of the $1.4 trillion of commercial-real-estate debt coming due by the end of 2014, roughly 52% is attached to properties that are underwater, according to debt-analysis company Trepp LLC. And as the economic recovery sputters, owners of struggling properties are realizing a big property-value rebound isn't imminent."

Flash Crash

2010-08-25T00:41:20Z

Dennis Berman, WSJ, and colleague Simon Constable, WSJ, discuss the Flash Crash of May 6, 2010, which remains under investigation by the SEC. The NYSE plunged 600 points in a moment at about 2:30 PM Eastern Time, and the theories are most diverse as to why. Spoke Graham Bowley, NYT, about the preliminary result from the SEC. A benign theory is that there are several exchanges and networks that feed into the central tape, and there was a confusion among them when buyers backed out of an already-weak market. Another theory is that the supercomputers that are used to trade the market in waves of milliseconds between buy and sell bids fell into a contest with other and started printing wild numbers way out of the money zone in order to misdirect each other (see chart, red for sell, green for buy). Another is that the wildness was the result of clogging by the waves of computer orders -- and that this caused certain exchanges to slow down, so there was a difference between the tape and the tributary exchange. This accelerated and widened the spreads. Another theory is that this clogging was willful, and that there was a villain behind the event who took advantage of the price spreads. My favorite theory is that the computers went to war with each other for no rational basis, and fought it out until they were shut off. This is the Hal 9000 version. From Dennis Berman's remarks, it appears that whatever caused the Flash Crash, this moment was a product of decentralization, bargain-hunting and a disorderly market. One result is that investors have stopped trusting the market as transparent. New regulation? Likely. But whatevr the cause, there is always a better mousetrap. Awaiting FC II. My new secret favorite explanation is that it was May 6, 2010 -- the 73rd anniversary of the Hindenburg crash at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Red Green Julia

2010-08-23T04:45:11Z

Spoke Peter Cameron, Liberal/Conservative frmr member Parliament, and Andrew Shearer, frmr National Security Adviser, John Howard government, re the long wait after the General Election in Australia. The projections are for 73 for Labour, and 73 for Liberal/Conservative Coalition, with four seats to decide the required 76 majority. The expectation is that the Green seat will join with Labour team. The three independents are all men from the rural areas of the North, former Conservatives, who are negotiating now with Tony Abbott to form a Minority Government. The best that Oz can suppose at this time is that the results wil read 76 for Liberals and 74 for Labour -- an unstable minority government at best. Andrew Shearer comments that such a government would last only as long as someone didn't resign or perish. The uncertainty is not happy. However, the overall theme is that Labour was elected three years ago in a rush of good feeling about Keynesianism, cap and trade and higher taxes all around. Kevin Rudd was removed by a union faction of nightcrawlers, and Julia "Red Julia" Gillard, the Atheist Champ, was installed as PM. Now, the tie. Suprising the similarities between Rudd's fall and POTUS Obama's slippage, decline, hesitation, reloading, stumble? Mention that Andrew Shearer is concerned that if Labour forms a minority with the Green seat, that the Greens will pull Labour to the "Loony Left" that wants to break off with the US, close uranium mines, dismantle the nuke reactor and return to 1911. The Greens are considered the big winner in that they took a deal of Labour votes away from Gillard's chances and gave the opening to the sudden rise of Abbott's Libs/Conservatives.

"...certain sections of New York..."

2010-08-22T18:28:20Z

Bret Stephens, James Freeman and Kim Strassel, WSJ, surround the mosque at Ground Zero tale with wit, confidence and the genius of confidence. Paul Gigot is their boss, so this is a matter of reporting to the man with regard a story that is entirely about the skills of Manhattanites' facing off against all manner of creative invaders. So far, Manhattans are winning by 2 to 1 in the national polls as well as the local polls. Peace-mongering may want to call a time-out, or even to concede the game; however, for now the Manhattanites will continue the airland battle against the White House, POTUS, the Democrats, the usual suspects in the Middle East and the useful cable co-dependents of CNN and MSNBC. For Manhattanites, the narrative is taste and location, or chiefly location, location, location. Only New Yorkers understand that moving the mosque a few blocks from the Burlington Coat Factory site (damaged in the 9/11 attack) makes all the difference. The outsiders, also known as the Bridge and Tunnel Crowd, or Tourists, want to use a bland, fifth-grade civics lesson about religious freedom to explain their endlessly righteous and aimless Error of the Third Kind -- answering the wrong question precisely. POTUS seems weakened by his discovery of the First Amendment in All Things. Victor Hanson, Hoover, remarks that this is not about tolerance, it is about taste. Smile. Remind the outsiders (Tourists), of the wonderful line in Casablanca, when the Nazi villain taunts Rick (Bogart) about a Nazi conquest of New York:

Major Strasser: "How about New York?"

Rick: "Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

Money at Ground Zero

2010-08-22T02:48:03Z

White House Knots.

Imam Feisal Rauf is a double-talking sharpie who has been practicing his malarkey for a decade on various political actors in both parties (Democrats are no more sucker for it than the credulous GOP) - all in preparation for the big stage of the mosque at Ground Zero and checks with many zeros. It's about the money; it was always about the money. Rauf and his spouse, the obtuse Kashmiri Daisy Khan, are playing to the TV cameras now (on a State Department junket to the Gulf), knowing that the hot ticket is to be on FNC and MSNBC and NBC for the sheiks back in the Gulf and the sultan crowd in Malaysia and Indonesia. The mosque tale is now toxic for POTUS, and the White House wishes it will disappear behind the peace process palaver with regard the ragtag Palestinians. Notice how the mosque at Ground Zero makes the Israeli maneuver with the PA crowd look like weak tea. The Obama administration is in despair for the fact that no one is fooled by the Palestinian "direct talks" announcement. The assertion from administration sources that Iran is a year from the nuke fuel for weapons is another flabby try by the White House to divert attention from Feisal Rauf and Daisy Khan and their carney skills. I recall a cartoon early in the war. Two guys wrapped in dynamite talking about a third guy in the distance, who wears only one dynamite stick on his belt. The joke is, "He's a moderate." The fact is that jihad is absolute intransigence and First Cause bloodymindedness. Rauf knows this. That he remains alive and nimble is a measure that the jihad knows he is useful. Rauf chats in American about peace and moderation. In his natural Arabic (he is Kuwaiti), he chats anything at all with the sheiks and the princes. The White House is in knots. And the mosque? Talk, talk, talk all night in Arabic while the zeros grow and grow. It's about the money; it was always about the money. Speaking Sunday 22 with Claudia Rosett, FDD, and Andrew Bostom, author, re the latest on the the money at Ground Zero.

Behavior of Passionate Partisan Bunnies

2010-08-20T18:29:38Z

Worth Watching.

Charlie Cook is a pro's pro who makes calls based on moving numbers and historical models and is entirely absent of palaver or rancor. He could be talking about the behavior science of passionate, partisan bunnies and it would sound the same witty and modest wise observation -- the sort of talk when men hold their hands out, palms upturned, and shrug while looking in the near distance. (Jerry Seib, WSJ, is a first-rate political pundit as well as a careful, quiet, discreet Democrat -- most trenchant and reliable.) The numbers show a wave election that will sweep the GOP into the House and leave it a few seats short in the Senate -- with a much better opportunity for the Senate in 2012 even if the GOP puts up a sentimental zombie for a top of the ticket. The trends in place for the House show a gain of 35-45 at the very minimum -- not because POTUS is a Muslim bunny, nor because Nancy Pelosi is a flippant Frenchwoman, but rather because the jobs numbers are ghastly, and the housing numbers are fake. The Obama administration went for the stimulus to prod the economy just enough by election day in order to make the claim that we are on the right path. The markets do not believe Washington and have started talking randomly about the next Black Swan (known only after the fact) and those Hindenburg open-tickets to Lakehurst. Shrug. The housing program is the monster in the basement. The foreclosure gambit by the Treasury means that we have fake housing numbers because folk have been allowed to game the system and stay in their houses after stopping their mortgage payments. This keeps the house off the market, keeps their houses without overhead, and completely wrecks the comp prices on their streets and in their towns. Who can have confidence to buy when the Feds and the banks are warehousing inventory that is 30-50% overpriced and won't be marked down until after you buy at the phony price? See the video below from my favorite Jim the Realtor re how Fannie is scheming in North San Diego County to hide the real decline in house prices in order to prop up the banks (who would have to mark down their asset sheets) and to hope and hop and hope and hop that prices rebound so they can move their shadow inventory stuff. Shrug. They pretend to fool us and we pretend to be entertained. The midterm is nearly now locked in as a wave swamp tsunami that will make the GOP feel important. What we do to the GOP after it has the House is not for the family hour programming. There will be blood.

Hindenburg Reverse "R" Hope

2010-08-19T17:32:51Z

Jobs in Reverse.

The last fig leaf fell off the Obama administration's hope and change with the first-time unemployment filing going to the Hindenburg Omen-worthy 500,000 the week ending August 14, reported today (as presciently pointed to by Joe Brusuelas, Bloomberg, when we spoke last Friday 13). The markets now prepare themselves for a slide and drift, as there is no going higher with this much uncertainty and gloom. The Phildelphia Fed manufacturing number declined for the first time since the depths of July 2009. No one plans to hire, because there is a weakness in orders that leads to weakness in inventory build-up. They are going to let their shelves empty again and wait for the election. POTUS campaigns on the statement that the GOP wrecked the economy (not untrue) and that the Democrats have saved the economy and are moving in the right direction. This is no longer accurate. The economy is now going in reverse, with an "R," -- which is not useful for POTUS's drab wit when he says the GOP will put the car of state in reverse. Ooops. "R" for Reverse Hope. Shrug. Larry Kudlow tells me that Larry Summers is soon gone from the POTUS econocoven, and James Pethokoukis, Reuters, does not disagree. With Christina (Cheerful) Romer already out the door, with the markets already prepped for the Hindenberg Omen, nothing like a morning bath in arsenic and ashes to plump up the corpse of the Democratic Congress. Speaking David Drucker, Roll Call, re the GOP strategists now saying it is okay to attack Obama directly, as he is toxic. The Democrats are telling their guys just to avoid POTUS as much as possible, but it is okay to use him for a fundraiser. Just don't talk policy. Prepare Hindenburg. Hydrogen gas ready. Lakehurst, New Jersey, here we come. (Steve Russolillo, DowJones, tells me that there is a 25% chance of a crash, back-tested to 1988.) Oh, the humility!

CHART OF THE DAY: Goldman Sachs Thinks the End of the Stimulus Is Going to Crush GDP Growth

Airstrike Jackass

2010-08-19T02:27:28Z

NRSC Launches on Democrats.

Using the theme of "extreme," the National Republican Senate Committee goes at the polls, especially POTUS polls over the mosque at Ground Zero, but also at the bailout, healthcare, stimulus and jobless polling, and then slides in a gingerly fashion into the polling that shows the GOP candidates leading in critical Blue State races, enough so that the Senate could easily shift into GOP hands. It is mid-August. Nothing is written in stone. However, the polling on Independents from Rasmussen shows that the Democrats are leaking Indie support in the important states. Is it entirely the mosque? Nah. It is the sum total of jackass (original mascot of the Democrats, a pun on Andrew Jackson) mistakes and deafness these last months. The complaint is that POTUS is preaching and not conversing. Spoke Salena Zito, re POTUS visit to Columbus, Ohio, for Mary Jo Kilroy, where POTUS remarked "No regret" to a staged question about his Friday evening opinion on the mosque. Salena points to the polls throughout the Rust Belt as evidence of the sagging Democratic message of healthcare costs, government intervention, higher taxes and apparent directionless jobs programs. Spoke Devin Nunes, CA-21, who says POTUS may be coming to the very alienated and unemployed San Joaquin Valley -- just because the regional Blue CDs are at risk from the White House palaver and Democratic majority mismanagement. When I joked with Devin that the traffic jam created by POTUS in LA strectched all the way to Seattle, he rejoined that there are no jams in the Valley because folk are too reduced to drive around and waste gasoline. Some of the local CDs that were solidly 60% Democratic in the last election may be tipping to the GOP; that is how desperate, mad and wild the election is breaking.