I was worried that when the Dems got around to making this a campaign issue, they would portray Ken Buck as "soft on crime" or too cozy with defense lawyers, neither of which is remotely true. Happily, the ad primarily focuses on the ethical implications of Buck's actions. I wrote up the whole story here. [More..]

The oldsters continue to lose at Survivor. I hope they send Jimmy T. home, he's such a loser. Looks like it might be Danny instead.

Also on: America's Next Top Model and the Defenders.

In other news, the iPhone is coming to Verizon next year.

Big companies are getting waivers from the new health care law.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Twenty new grand jury subpoenas have been issued in the federal investigation into whether John Edwards violated campaign financing rules with respect to money the campaign provided Rielle Hunter.

The subpoenas were ordered at the behest of Main Justice:

According to our source, when that process wrapped-up, prosecutors in Raleigh sent the case to the Department of Justice in Washington for a review. The Justice Department then told prosecutors in Raleigh to interview more people and get more information about the people who donated money to help Edwards' former aide Andrew Young, his wife and Rielle Hunter live a life on the run.

It sounds like the investigation has moved from whether the payments to Rielle were legitimate to whether there was hush money paid afterwards. The relocation expenses were purportedly paid by now-deceased attorney Fred Baron, who was Edwards' campaign manager in 2004 and 2008. He told the Dallas Morning News: [More...]

Not that it needed saying but, the Secretary of State said:

"I don't believe what I read," Clinton said laughing during an appearance at the 12th Annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, adding: "I have absolutely no interest and no reason for doing anything other than just dismissing these stories and moving on."

Someone explain to me how this helps Woodward sell books exactly? I'm not following the theory. Sure Woodward is briefly mentioned in the story but then he's not and it's over. I don't get it. Any PR wizards out there to explain this one to me? I understood the Casey "I believed" nonsense back in the day (who else remembers that?) and other gossipy stuff from Woodward's book, but obviously this is not about Woodward's book. IS my writing this post also helping Woodward sell his book (FTR - I have no clue what Woodward's book says - something about Afghanistan I know, but other than that . . .)

Speaking for me only

Mainstream media suffered another loss yesterday with the announcement Howard Kurtz would be leaving the Washington Post and joining the Daily Beast.

A few weeks ago, Huffington Post announced the hiring of Newsweek's Howard Fineman.

Every week it seems the list of prominent MSM writers defecting to online media (now called digital media) grows while layoffs become more prevalent at newspapers and magazines like Newsweek.

Digital media is clearly winning. Here's an interview today with Daily Beast editor and founder Tina Brown. And yes, the Daily Beast is in "discussions" with Newsweek. Sounds like a merger of some sort may be in the works.

In another media shift, a number of former well-known newspaper reporters have joined the National Journal.

How will the newspapers cope? My guess is they will probably stop offering their content for free. But will there be anything left worth paying for to read?

U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, presiding over the case of former Guantanamo detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, ruled today that Hussein Abebe, a key government witness, may not take the stand because he was identified as a result of statements Ghailani made during secret CIA interrogation using harsh interrogation techniques, alleged to be torture. The Government, to avoid litigating the legality of the CIA's action, previously assured the judge information obtained during the interrogation would not be used at trial. Jury selection has been postoned until next week to give the Government time to regroup or appeal.

"The court has not reached this conclusion lightly," Kaplan wrote. "It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live. But the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction."

Ghailani is charged in federal court with the 1998 Africa embassy bombings. He was captured in 2004, transferred to a CIA secret prison overseas, where he allegedly was tortured. He was then transferred to Guantanamo, where he stayed for almost three years. In 2009, he was charged in federal court in New York and transferred.

NYTimes:

Don�t look to Jan Hatzius, the highly respected chief economist at Goldman Sachs, for a pep talk on the near-term state of the economy. As he writes in a client note today:

We see two main scenarios for the economy over the next 6-9 months � a fairly bad one in which the economy grows at a 1�%-2 percent rate through the middle of next year and the unemployment rate rises moderately to 10 percent, and a very bad one in which the economy returns to an outright recession. There is not much probability of a significantly better outcome. The reason is that �short-cycle� factors such as the inventory cycle and the impulse from fiscal policy are likely to continue deteriorating through early 2011, keeping G.D.P. growth very sluggish.

(Emphasis supplied.) Welcome to your new reality.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias writes:

You can like the 111th Congress or you can dislike it, but there�s just no way to deny that it did a lot more stuff than the four or five congresses before it.

I dunno, just off the top of my head, I remember that those Congresses blew a trillion dollar hole in the budget with tax cuts for the rich, authorized two wars, one the most insane one in recent history, passed the most vicious assault on civil liberties in a generation with the Patriot Act and the rewriting of FISA, enacted a budget busting prescription drug benefit, and passed the atrocious No Child Left Behind Act.

That seems like a lot of "stuff" to me. But of course, the REAL objection is not about the measure of the amount of "stuff" that was done - it is that people don't agree with the Beltway Bloggers about how AWESOME the "stuff" passed by this Congress was. Yep, it's "nuts" to disagree with the Beltway Bloggers. Also read Susie Madrak.

Speaking for me only

After going all wonky depressing on you this morning, I was looking for something fun. Nothing caught my eye. This post from Balloon Juice did however. Setting aside the upside down premise that it is Latino voters who should be concerned about voting Dem, as opposed to Dems being concerned about getting Latinos to vote for them, this part bothered me:

[N]o political party is going to take a minority with a one-election attention span seriously. [. . .] It�s hard work and it�s going to take more than an election or two. [. . .] I have no doubt that we�ll find a home in the Democratic party, but Latinos need to make a home there on their terms, so their influence will go beyond a one-election marriage of convenience.

And here I thought Latinos were a solid part of the Dem base. One election? In case anyone is wondering, Latinos voted for Clinton by 61-24 in 92, by 72-21 in 96, and for Gore by 62-38. John Kerry, terrible candidate, even won Latinos by 53-44 (oh BTW, W and Rove really did a lot of Latino outreach in case anyone noticed.) One election? Really? Maybe we need pols who at least pretend to care about Latinos. See Clinton, Bill.

Open Thread.

Via Matt Yglesias. it's good to remember that when Michael Kinsley is good, he's very good. Kinsley's column is ostensibly about "intellectual honesty, but what stood out to me about it is this part:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a master spin artist, plays on this social insecurity among journalists. Barbour doesn�t literally wink as he spins, but he manages to send the message: This is all a big game � a big wonderful game � and you have the privilege of playing it with me. [. . .] Far from being a �low bar,� >absolute intellectual honesty is something I�ve never actually seen in anyone inside Washington or out, politician or journalist or diplomat.

Pols are pols and do what they do. And as some readers often remind me, pundits are pundits and do what they do. And guess what, people are people and do what they do. More . . .

Now that actual effective economic policy for our current economic conditions (fiscal stimulus) is off the table, a lot of Center Leftists are focusing on the Fed. But as Paul Krugman explains, while more Fed action can't hurt, it simply won't do the job of steering the economy back to health:

I wanted and still want fiscal expansion because it�s relatively certain in its effect: if the government goes and buys a trillion dollars� worth of stuff, that will create a lot of jobs. [. . .] The truth is that it�s very hard for central banks to get traction in a zero-rate world. This doesn�t mean that [the Fed] shouldn�t try. [. . .] I didn�t and don�t think that we can count on monetary policy to do the job; blithely declaring that the Fed should target nominal GDP misses the difficulties. And that means we need fiscal policy.

Of course, at this point, with the loss of political will, it looks as if we�re going to see an attempt to do the trick with quantitative easing alone. I hope it works, but I wouldn�t bet on it.

Two points - actually there is no information I know of that in fact the Fed is going to expand quantitative easing. So I think Krugman is optimistic that there will even be an attempt. More importantly, it simply will not work. The policy that WILL work, fiscal stimulus, will not happen. So we're doomed to a Lost Decade. At least my children are young and may see better days when they reach employment age. We sure won't.

Speaking for me only

As Atrios points out, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's looming decision to spike the new train tunnel from New Jersey to NYC under the Hudson River is so obviously bad policy that it does not even merit much discussion.(Here is an explanation if you need one.)

But politics is stupid. Even Chris Christie knows it would be stupid policy to kill the tunnel project, which gives New Jersey billions of dollars of FEDERAL money already and will give it billions more to come in the future. (Not to mention the jobs, economic growth that would be spurred, improvement of New Jersey as a business destination, etc.) From New Jersey's perspective, this is as big a no brainer as you can get. But New Jersey's highway funds are in a serious shortfall right now. Like most states, New Jersey funds it highways with tolls and a gas tax. But raising the gas tax apparently is a third rail in New Jersey, which has not raised the gas tax in 21 years (which amounts effectively to a huge cut in the gas tax):

[Zoe] Baldwin suggested that instead, Christie look at raising the state�s gas tax, which is the third-lowest in the country and hasn�t budged for 21 years. �We�ve raised all kinds of other fees and taxes, she said, but the gas tax and other transportation fees have been untouchable.� That�s led to a years-long crisis in transportation funding for the state.

Christie knows all this. He's not stupid. But some Democrat will be running against Christie in the next election and would no doubt run ads decrying 'the largest tax increase in New Jersey history!' Politics is stupid.

Speaking for me only

Margaret Cho went home tonight on DWTS. She and Louie were in the bottom two, along with Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas.

Bristol is wooden, has zero musicality and even less dance ability. The judges seem to be afraid of hurting her feelings. Unlike every other contestant, she has no pre-existing fan base of her own. She didn't star in a reality show or any tv show, she's not a comic, a singer, or a top athlete.

The politicization of the show this season, casting this unaccomplished, untalented, non-star with no resume of her own, only because her mother is famous and polarizing which will bring in viewers, has left a permanent sour taste. [More...]

Just for sh*ts and giggles:

Some called a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton pairing the "Dream Ticket" in 2008. [That was me, BTD.] It didn't happen. But what about 2012?

"It's on the table," veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward told CNN's John King in an interview Tuesday on John King, USA. "Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012."

That would stink for Hillary imo. She has the 2016 nomination if she wants it no matter what. Not being Obama's VP gives her some distance in case things go way south with his Administration. For Obama, I think it is a marginal plus, but what about Biden? Anyway, it will never happen.

Speaking for me only

For all the sturm und drang over the "incivility" of Markos Moulitsas' book American Taliban, it is quite ironic how willing the Beltway Bloggers are to call Dems who don't agree with them delusional. Here's Jon Chait (who has a long history of this sort of thing):

Every time a Democratic leader tells the base to stop whining and wake up to the fact that this is the most successful period of liberal governance in more than four decades, liberals just get more petulant. But, seriously, look at results like this, per Greg Sargent:

A new poll from Pew and National Journal contains a really striking finding: Only one third of Democrats think this Congress has achieved more than other recent Congresses. Meanwhile, 60 percent of Dems think it has accomplished the same or less.

This is just nuts. This is, objectively, a very productive Congress.

Yes. VERY "objective." It's the old "I'm objective and you're not" routine. What a bunch of clowns.

Speaking for me only