South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) has called on President Thabo Mbeki to resign amid claims he conspired against its chief.
It comes days after a judge suggested the president had interfered in a case against party rival, Jacob Zuma. The ANC's Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told reporters Mr Mbeki had "welcomed the news", but it is not clear if he has agreed to step down. Mr Zuma is expected to succeed Mr Mbeki in scheduled elections next year.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC). The committee, which is made up of mainly Mr Zuma's supporters, cannot force Mr Mbeki, who denies the allegations, to go. Mr Zuma toppled his rival as ANC leader in bitterly contested elections last year, while Mr Mbeki fired him as deputy president in 2005.
Mr Mantashe said the NEC had "decided to recall the president of the republic before his term of office expires". He said Mr Mbeki "did not display shock" at the decision. "He welcomed the news and agreed that he is going to participate in the process and the formalities," Mr Mantashe said.
Earlier this month a High Court judge dismissed corruption and other charges against Mr Zuma, saying there was evidence of political interference in the investigation.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/20/2008 09:00 ||
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I hear drums
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 9:43 Comments ||
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#2
So, South Africa moves from a President who doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS to a President who acknowledges HIV but believes that a shower after having unprotected sex with an HIV+ woman protected him.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/20/2008 15:19 Comments ||
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The second most senior Muslim policeman in Britain has been suspended, officials said on Friday, days after the country's top Muslim officer was forced to take leave after alleging racism by bosses.
The move against Commander Ali Dizaei, which comes in the wake of Assistant Commissioner Tariq Ghaffur's suspension, prompted claims that London's Metropolitan Police has a problem in handling ethnic minority officers. Both the suspended officers work for the city's force, which declined to comment on the latest developments.
National Black Police Association President Dizaei is reportedly alleged to have advised defence lawyers on how to undermine a prosecution involving Metropolitan Police. Ghaffur was suspended earlier this month by the force's head Sir Ian Blair after commenting publicly on his race discrimination claim against Blair and other senior officers, prompting an extraordinary public spat.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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I don't get it. Wish they would explain it so that a dumb American can understand. This dumb American doesn't understand what the fuss is about.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/20/2008 11:38 Comments ||
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#2
He bellowed "Racism" his bosses said "Cool it" he didn't so was told to go home (On leave) and think it over.
Simple
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/20/2008 13:48 Comments ||
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#3
Call me when it becomes "suspended by the neck".
President Evo Morales offered Friday to include eastern provinces' autonomy demands in his proposed new constitution, raising hopes for a solution to Bolivia's bloody political crisis.
But the leftist leader and his adversaries in the conservative lowlands have been battling over greater local self-rule since Morales took office in 2006, and it is far from clear whether the president's offer will lead to an agreement.
On Friday, the two sides discussed the autonomy question _ a hot-button issue in Bolivia, whose feeble but heavily centralized government struggles to contain the country's deep racial, cultural and geographical divides.
Morales _ riding high after winning 67 percent support in last month's recall election, including surprising gains in the traditionally hostile lowland east _ is now pushing for a national vote to approve a new constitution granting greater power to Bolivia's long-oppressed indigenous majority.
"Who knows, maybe it's a problem, maybe it's a crime to work on behalf of the forgotten," Morales said during a brief visit to Panama. "But that's the most important thing _ these transformations of democracy."
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, note that Morales lost in three of four lowland provinces and say voters there back demands for regional autonomy left out of the draft constitution.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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A guy in my office has a niece with the Peace Corp in Bolivia --
She's on her way home to the States. They were all pulled out because of the "political unrest."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has eroded democracy by stacking the courts and dampening freedom of expression during his nearly 10 years in power, a rights group said on Thursday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch praised Chavez for a 1999 constitution that enshrines basic rights but said the leftist leader and fierce critic of the US government had failed to implement its laws. The report was published a week after Chavez expelled the US ambassador in a tit-for-tat diplomatic fight that also saw Venezuela recall its top diplomat from Washington and prompted the US government to sanction senior Venezuelan officials it accuses of helping drug smugglers.
It prompted an angry reaction from Chavez allies, who view human rights groups and nongovernmental organizations with suspicion and often accuse them of trying to undermine the president. Human Rights Watch said the biggest single attack on Venezuelan democracy in recent history was a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez, but it criticized the president for using the putsch to justify discrimination against his opponents.
"Unfortunately the Chavez government has exploited it ever since to justify policies that have degraded the country's democracy," said the group's Americas director, Jose Miguel Vivanco. He also called for Venezuela to review the naming of 12 additional magistrates to a 20-member Supreme Court, stacking the tribunal in favor of the government. Government supporters dismissed the report and accused Vivanco of being on the US government payroll.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Venezuelan democracy"
Now there's an oxymoron.
With the emphasis on the Chavez moron.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/20/2008 1:09 Comments ||
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#2
Barb, they do have a vague semi-functional democracy. Hugolito lost the last referendum. The November elections will tell.
"We ... will do everything possible to restore regular, friendly relations," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday at a meeting with representatives of public organizations. Meanwhile, he accused NATO of provoking the conflict in Georgia last month, and called for new pan-European security arrangements.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#3
I'm sure we won't get the real story so we're left with estimating that 'things did not go as planned' in the execution department. The other posting on a 25% increase in Offense Defense spending [when foreign investments are drying up] implies they discovered some serious holes in their ops and equipment. This is the 'saying nice doggie while reaching behind for another rock' phase.
#5
Russia's invasion of Georgia should become the new dictionary definition of "fail". It is like the scene in a bad comedy when the hero slams the door to his car and it completely falls apart, leaving only the frame, seat and detached steering wheel in his hands.
If Medvedev and Putin are smart, they need to back burner every ambitious idea they have and do what is necessary to get their economy at peak efficiency.
To a great extent, this means re-democratization, replacing most of the FSB government managers with successful businessmen, and adopting the national slogan: "The business of Russia is business." None of their other concerns matter to a fraction as much as doing this. It's not because they want to, it's because they have to.
One of the few intelligent things that Jesse Jackson once said was that "If 100 businessmen agree on something, it becomes the law." And while he said it derisively, it is not untrue.
But the zinger is that it is not easy to get 100 businessmen to agree on *anything*, so if they do, there are probably a very, very good reasons to make it the law.
This is because the invisible hand of economics is the closest thing there is to the invisible hand of god.
President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he did not want disputes with the West to push Russia behind a new Iron Curtain, and blamed NATO for provoking last month's conflict in Georgia.
"We are in effect being pushed down a path that is founded not on fully-fledged, civilised partnership with other countries, but on autonomous development, behind thick walls, behind an Iron Curtain," Medvedev said in an address to a gathering of civil society groups. "That is not our path. For us there is no sense going back to the past. We have made our choice," he said.
Protecting Europe: He also said the NATO alliance's role in the Georgia conflict showed it was unable to provide security in Europe, creating a need for a new security mechanism. "That is understood even by those who in private conversations with me say ... 'NATO will take care of everything'. What did NATO secure, what did NATO ensure? NATO only provoked the conflict, and not more than that."
No war: Meanwhile, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said on Friday there was no possibility of a war with the United States and the European Union should guarantee security in Georgia. "Regarding the possibility of war between the United States and Russia, this possibility is ruled out," Yakovenko told reporters in Moscow. "We hope that the European Union will guarantee security" in Georgia.
Yakovenko also criticised the United States for acting in "bad faith" by not granting visas to representatives of the disputed Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - the scenes of a military conflict last month. "The US has been blocking the issuing of visas. We consider this bad faith in carrying out its obligations as a government that undertakes to organise the United Nations. We think visas... must be given," Yakovenko said.
Russia recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the war in Georgia. No other country except Nicaragua recognises the territories, which broke away from the rest of Georgia with Russian support in the 1990s. The Russian minister also said that the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), the main guarantor of a ceasefire in Abkhazia, should have its name and mandate changed or move out of the disputed territory.
"It's logical to move it to the territory of Georgia, since the main threat to stability comes from there," Yakovenko said, referring to UNOMIG which has headquarters in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and separatist Abkhazia.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
KOMMERSANT > MEDVEDEV HOPES THAT WASHINGTON WON'T CHOOSE PRESIDENTS FOR RUSSIA. Infers that US elements are desirous of exerting [pro-US?]decisive influence on a host of Russ professional, managerial, labor and political classes, etc.???
#2
Amazing what a turn around the Russians have made. Apparantly being dissed by the world and having investment dry up and financial markets meltdown has helped the Oligarchs come to their senses.
#4
This is just the Russian's way of saying, "Nice continent you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it."
The Soviet's, and now Russia's, goal for the past 60 years has been to split Europe from the USA.
Posted by: ed ||
09/20/2008 8:57 Comments ||
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#5
The Soviet's, and now Russia's, goal for the past 60 years has been to split Europe from the USA.
Even if were to watch History Channel, it is clear how the U.S. purposefully aided and abetted to the partition of Europe into the "zones of influence" first in Yalta in 1943, then in Potsdam in 1945. That goes for the "Soviet" goal.
As for Russia, it does not have such silly goals.
#6
Russia is a criminal enterprise. GC's propaganda notwithstanding, they got a dose of reality in their stock drop this week and the fleeing of investment when the thuggery became more obvious.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 9:35 Comments ||
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#7
General_Committee of the CCCP must have forgot his Yalta history lessons. That's where Truman and Churchill demanded free elections and Stalin demanded a sphere of influence (sounds familiar even today). So GC where were the free elections Stalin promised?
Posted by: ed ||
09/20/2008 9:55 Comments ||
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#8
Someone here has forgotten that the Red Army occupied most of Eastern Europe by May '45. And the lines of separation pretty much were the result of both sides committing their total resources just to get where they did. While Lend-Lease aided the effort, the heavy load was done by the Soviets themselves. So I'm interested in the 'rationale' explanation of what alternative [outside the ridiculous proposition that we should have made a deal with Hitler or that we should have gone immediately to war directly with the Soviet Union] both the US and England had in moving them out of where they stood.
#14
While Lend-Lease aided the effort, the heavy load was done by the Soviets themselves.
Soviet Union vastly exagerated its 1941 and 1942 (the numbers simply don't match when you contrast what was on the front and what the Germans alleged to have destroyed) so the Allie"d contributions looked indignificant by comparison.
Also Russai din't build a single locomotive in teh war. It was the Allies who provided so the Soviets could cioncentrate on tanks not to mention the contributions in factory equipment or raw materials.
Also in 1941, the resources used in building U-Boots would have allowed to double the production of the Mark IV (the best Ger!an tank). IN 1942, 40% of German war spending was used to fight the allies.
I will pass what would have happened to 19444 and 1945 Soviet aces if they had meet in 1942 when they were still green all those planes and seasoned Germn pilots who were fighting the Allies. Not to mention the havoc those thousands of 88 guns would have caused on the Soviet Armor if they had been deployed in the East as AT guns instead of in the West in the AA role.
But all of this is a moot point. It was Soviet Union's backstabbing of Russia and indirect help lent to Germany againbst France who caused Germany beung so close to win teh war and the Allies having to undertake the ibdredibly difficult operation of an amphibious landing.
#16
Everybody's stock numbers went up on Friday, General_Comment, after the US$500 trillion bailout was announced, coupled with the temporary halt of naked short selling.
#17
JFM's post is a bunch of linguistic vomit, so I'll skipp addressing that one altogether, except noting that U.S. has done virtually nothing until late 1944. Speak with German war veterans, they will tell you that the Eastern Front was the "hell on Earth," and if they had a choice they would have picked up the Western Front any second. Also, if you look at German's losses, that's where the major losses occured. Land lease since you mentioned it was a drop in the bucket.
#18
What U.S. does matters less and less in view of the rise of China. Also whatever U.S. does with Russia is just 4% of the Russian foreign trade.
Even if everybody's numbers went up, the fact the numbers went down before that just verified my point that RTS is populated by sleazy american speculators.
#19
Why American speculators, General_Comment? The problems in the U.S. stem in significant part from very large sums of money coming from Asia and the Middle East, from what I understand. Sleazy speculation is a hobby of the monied around the world, and the monied Russians are no less enthusiastic hobbyists than the rest.
#21
German war veterans preferred the Western front because their Western opponents were civilized. Those conquered by the Germans preferred to be liberated by Western armies for exactly the same reason. And of course, General_Comment, you will note that World War II, like World War I, started as a local European war that required the U.S. to cross the ocean to end. I say this despite the fact that my maternal grandfather earnt an Iron Cross for something or other in the first one, which of course mattered not a whit to the Nazis his countrymen elected before the second.
#22
Primarily U.S. based pension funds, and hedge funds.
The more fools they, then. Russia has been called the Wild East because of the lack of rule of law ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. When Mr. Wife's company expanded there after he'd been involved in opening the Eastern European markets, they made a point of owning* the factories and distribution centers, to at least control quality and reduce the percentage of deliveries that went missing. The experience was quite useful when the company entered the Chinese market.
*I can't remember whether it was Russia or China or both that allowed foreigners to own only a 49% share of domestic companies. However, the American company Mr. Wife works for always makes sure they have control. No Chinese milk debacles for them.
My assertions are based on facts and statistics (and spare me chapes jikes about statistics. I can gibne the complete numbers for every one of my quantitative assertions.
There were two who are npt quantitative. That Soviet Uniojn aallied with the Nazis to bri,ng down Poland and that Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany against France by providing it with raw ùaterials (notably oil) and through the action of the Communist Party.
Anyway I stand by what I said, if Sovoet Unuion lost so many men it was duie to her own treachery. It was not teh white knight in its shining armor but a gangster in conflict with another gnsgster.
Alos: I wnated to praise the Russian soldier who was not guilty of Stalin deeds and whose superiors
disn't hesitate a second in using him for clearing mines by detonation. Then I rembered the rapes. I can understand but not justify what happened in Germany ((with Stalin's poet Ilya Ehernburg calling for "breaking the racial pride of the German woman") given what Germans had done in Russia, but they did the same as well in Hungary or Rumania (on paper Axis allies) as in Poland or Czechoslowakia. So sorry I cannot praise them.
#24
Alos Germas who fought in Normansy told of the Material Schlage. Never in teh East front had they met such firepower. Never had they been stopped on the trcaks the way they were in the West.
And unlike in the Eastern Front Allied artillery strikes diid not stop after a few salvos (the Soviets had nay guns but few shells per gun) or as soon as the front moved a few miles (the Soviets relied on filed phones) and unless that by luck the target was on a preset point the Soviet artillery was never able to send shells just five minutes after a German movement was detected like the Allies routinely did.
#25
"German war veterans preferred the Western front because their Western opponents were civilized. Those conquered by the Germans preferred to be liberated by Western armies for exactly the same reason."
TW, I just have one question for you: were Germans civilized between 1939-1945????
#31
EC - my comment was my own, and not trying to interpret yours. I stand by mine. GC? I'll respond to any comments I wish, this is not Russia, where dissenters are silenced.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 18:12 Comments ||
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#32
When manners were distributed some went into hiding, obviously
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/20/2008 18:12 Comments ||
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#33
directed to GC
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/20/2008 18:13 Comments ||
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#34
FG, you CAN respond to any questions you want, another question is SHOULD you?
#37
I enjoy tweaking you. Weak authoritarians have such thin skin. That's enough for today, maybe ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 18:21 Comments ||
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#38
FG, I am not necessarily authoritarian, but even if I were I would not have the thin skin, b/c I do not feel the need to apologize . . . . Those who feel the need to justify or apologize can be "tweaked."
#39
TW, I just have one question for you: were Germans civilized between 1939-1945????
Do you think the Germans were civilized during that period, General_Comment?
My formerly German mother just called me to say hello, and wished me to share her thoughts on the question. In her opinion the Germans at the time certainly considered themselves to be civilized, but she strongly disagrees. Are they now, is perhaps a better question. Mama shared the following tale to illustrate her answer:
It seems the gentleman who hid my grandparents and a dozen or so other Jews during the war was proposed for the Verdienstkreuz for it, the highest honorecently ur Germany can award a civilian. A ceremony was arranged at which the German ambassador to The Hague made the presentation to the elderly hero, now a professor emeritus. But it quickly became clear that the ambassador knew nothing of the man to whom he was awarding the medal, nothing of the exploits for which the country he represents chose to honour him, and rather resented having to take time from his busy schedule to be there. Openly insulting, in other words.
That is the behaviour of a man the German government hired to represent them to the outside world, to show the world what their very best look like. Mama asks, "Would you call that civilized?"
#40
I give the Soviets a ton of credit for stopping the Nazi's with the blood of the Russian people. Well done. Then what happened? Don't even try to justify any other Soviet acts on this board, we all know history a bit too well for any of that nonsense to float.
#46
Interestingly, according to the editors of the Wall Street Journal, the top two holders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt are the Chinese and Russian governments. link -- scroll about halfway down. Perhaps that has something to do both with the situation of the Russian stock exchange and President Medvedev's statement.
#50
don't provide it, deny the Stalinist information collection at all points
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 21:27 Comments ||
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#51
Old enough to remember the cold war and all the bullshit russia pulled all over the world. Arming marxist guerillas in central and south america and invading Afghanistan. Not old enough for the duck and cover stuff, but old enough to be constantly reminded that we WOULD have a nuclear war some day and it would destroy the planet. Young enough to be a Beavis and Butthead fan.
Old enough to be a John Wayne fan.
Young enough to go back and get my degree.
Old enough to remember watching the wall come down-live.
That's my age bracket.
#52
bigjim-ky, a poetic response, dude.
Go have fun with buddies, drink some beer, leave this stuff to professionals.
And now a joke: American geologists were surprized to discover that above a significant deposits of an American oil there was . . . some Arab country! :)
#53
to #39 TW: As you can see that's basically supports my point about being careful to use the term "civilized." It is loaded and sometimes is a code word for "we are better than you are."
#61
expectations are destined to be dashed. Expect away ...heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 23:13 Comments ||
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#62
General_Comment -- your "clever" sayings, your attempts at American humor, are beginning to wear a little thin --
Come with some facts, some thoughtful words -- and your stay will be extended.
Otherwise -- some reasonable actions are being considered.
Oh -- and get your time zones right... if you are going to banter with our regulars here, at least get to know where they are from. Sending folks off to bed (isn't it past your bedtime) at 4:00 in the afternoon -- just adds more to your not understanding, or having even enough knowledge to contribute here in Rantburg U.
(I don't often comment, 'cause I too, have little knowledge of topics often discussed here, but I do know when I can add a few cents to the conversation)
But, I'm smart enough to know, we Mods are watching... you might want to go play somewhere else, where your school-age humor, your lack of fully understanding our American slang doesn't so stand out with lots of the remarks you make..
You seem to want to practice your words, and our ways with us... trying on words, but your methods are lacking.
I really don't want to be witness to seeing you ban from Rantburg U. But, you just are not yet ready.
#63
Why don't GC or the others ever recognize the War in the Pacific or India, or Oz or Alaska or China or the seas when they yell about the Soviets in WW-II
You would think the only theater of action was the Eastern Front.
The US was everywhere but the Eastern Front (although we did have experts observing it and some help...)
We supplied the fricking Eastern Front.
While the war raged we built over 130 carriers (all types) thousands and thousands of all else.
Fricking soviets didn't help in the East until after we basically won the war and then stole everything they could.
Bastards even imprisoned or pilots and troops that end up on their eastern shores..
Japan said Thursday it had shot down a mock missile in the US desert, taking another step to build a shield with the United States against a possible North Korean attack.
Japan became the first country other than the United States to test the new US-developed Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), a surface-to-air missile that tracks and hits incoming targets, the defence ministry said.
In the test Wednesday in the southwestern US state of New Mexico, Japan's air force shot down a mock missile that was launched from 120 kilometres (75 miles) away, a defence ministry spokesman said.
"The success of the test was significant as it proved that Japan's missile defence system will function effectively," the spokesman said.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will meet next week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in New York, on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, according to Afghan officials in Washington.
The meeting is part of a broader effort to demonstrate the Alaska governor's ability to handle foreign policy issues, at a time when she has come under fire for a lack of experience on the international stage. The opportunity to speak before the United Nations annually draws the world's leaders to Manhattan, and the GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), plans to use the occasion to introduce Palin to those officials, McCain aides have said.
"It's a great opportunity for Governor Palin to meet and interact with some of the world leaders she will deal with as vice president," said one McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her U.N. schedule had not been made public. "She'll talk about the issues facing the world."
Palin will meet with Karzai, and possibly other foreign leaders, during a midweek campaign swing through New York.
"Unfortunately, a few meetings at the U.N. won't change the fact that John McCain is promising four more years of the same cowboy diplomacy that has shredded our alliances and set back our ability to fight international terrorism," said Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Palin, governor of Alaska for two years, has had limited experience abroad. She took one trip to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq in 2007, but barely crossed the Iraq border. She has also traveled to Canada. Democrats have mocked Palin for citing knowledge of Russia because she can see the nation from her home state.
While acknowledging her lack of a long foreign policy portfolio, McCain advisers have described Palin as a smart and decisive executive who has spent much of her time in office dealing with worldwide energy issues.
The request to Karzai for a sit-down came from Palin's team early this week and Karzai sent his agreement yesterday, officials at the Afghan Embassy said. Karzai, who will travel to Washington later in the week for a White House meeting with President Bush, expects to have separate telephone conversations with McCain and with Obama during his U.S. stay.
Palin's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), who has traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, will also travel to New York for the General Assembly's opening. He plans to meet there with new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Obama sent Zardari a message of congratulations following his election early this month but has not spoken to him directly. McCain called Zardari to offer his congratulations, as well.
Zardari will spend most of the week in New York. A source close to the Pakistani president said there is a possibility that he might see McCain, but that if Palin requests a meeting, he will see her.
#1
I must have gotten it all wrong. I thought I had read somewhere that her first meeting with a foreign, Islamic politician would be with Barack bama.
In a report sure to spark a national conversation on race, an AP-Yahoo News study reported Saturday that white prejudice could be a significant enough factor to undermine Barack Obamas bid to be the first black president of the United States.
The AP-Yahoo study concluded that white Democratic racism may cause 2.5 percent of voters to "turn away from Obama because of his race," roughly the margin of George W. Bush's victory over John F. Kerry in 2004.
The AP-Yahoo study found that one-third of white Democrats cited a negative adjective when describing blacks and, of those, just 58 percent said they planned to back Obama. For example, AP reported that more than a quarter of white Democrats agreed that if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites. Four in ten white independents agreed, while a quarter described blacks as "violent."
White Democratic supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton were almost twice as likely as Obamas primary supporters to cite a negative adjective in describing blacks a finding consistent with trends in earlier polling. Only 59 percent of Clintons white Democratic supporters wanted Obama to be president.
The report may now begin a conversation on race, one notably absent considering the historic nature of Obamas bid and his own call for such a conversation in a speech delivered after racially charged remarks from his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright emerged during the primary season. Just last month Obama accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Throughout the 2008 presidential race, pollsters have been struggling to accurately gauge the degree of prejudice among whites and how that may affect the final outcome of this election. Democratic primary exit polls suggested that racism was a factor in the vote of as many as a fifth of white party members.
Analysts have long presumed that racism was under reported, as some who factor race into their vote would not be willing to admit that prejudice to pollsters.
Any possible latent racial prejudice among white Democrats has been of particular interest to analysts because it could potentially undo Obamas presidential bid. The AP study found that racism pervades political identity but that Republicans are already predisposed to support John McCain, regardless of their views on race.
To detect unreported racial biases, the study, among other metrics, sat those interviewed in front of monitors, using black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. The survey then used statistical modeling to estimate the how representative those interviewed were of the electorate overall.
The survey's conclusions are likely to be controversial. AP reported that its team of pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats.
The study, and report, both ignore other weaknesses widely considered by seasoned analysts to also undercut Obamas bid, among them his inexperience, generally liberal record and the fact that no northern Democrat has been elected president since 1960.
Still, analysts have also long agreed that race was a crucial unknown factor in this presidential race. The study also notes that race has helped Obama win near uniform support among blacks who have long tilted overwhelmingly Democratic though it does not consider whether some whites are also supporting Obama because his victory could symbolize a large step forward in race relations.
#2
So, properly speaking, would that statement be that "one-third of white Democrats are bigots", "one-third of white Democrats are racists", or "one-third of white Democrats are prejudiced."
And, left unsaid, how many black Democrats are bigots, racists, or prejudiced. Certainly many, judging from remarks by black "leaders", like Reverend Jeremiah Wright, this year.
So between the two groups, are 40% of Democrats bigots, racists, or prejudiced, or more like 50%?
#3
That seems to be the theme "du jour" for the donks and their proxies in the MSM. White shame. A vote for McPalin = racism.
This indicates that the donks and their friends in the MSM are becoming increasingly frightened they may lose this. More importantly this could actually backfire on the donks. Some of the rational voters who will not figure out who they will vote for until they get behind the curtain will remember this, resent it, and pull McPain.
#5
The report may now begin a conversation on race, one notably absent considering the historic nature of Obamas bid
I don't think so. The Obama/Axelrod 'hip-urban primary campaign' did a pretty damn good job of alienating traditional Democratic groups. The convention and post-convention antics have done further damage. Throwing in the continual-repeating line of "you won't vote for him because he's black" isn't going to help.
If there's going to be a 'conversation', I've a feeling it's going to be of the Clinton-era, encounter-group sort.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign, which has inspired a multitude of songs by stars and amateurs alike, is now getting an official soundtrack. Next up...official action figures, play sets, backpacks, breakfast cereals, lunchboxes and Happy Meal toys. Get them all now, and be one of the kewl kidz!
''Yes We Can: Voices of a Astroturf Grassroots Movement,'' which takes its title from an Obama campaign slogan, features Kanye West, John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder and others. It will be available for sale exclusively through Obama's campaign starting today.
Proceeds from the CD ($24.99 for a digital download, $30 for a physical product) will help fund Obama's campaign until Nov. 4, Election Day, according Hidden Beach Recordings, which created the CD.
Steve McKeever, CEO and founder of Hidden Beach, a longtime Obama supporter, said he had been talking to people within the Obama campaign about a project like ''Yes We Can'' for a while. ''We had conversations quite some time ago about how to harness what was happening really organically and naturally with so many artists,'' he said. ''The whole concept (was) how do we translate that to inspire and invigorate and also give people a keepsake that they can own while at the same time providing some important capital needed for this campaign.'' If the recording gig goes south, he's a natural speechwriter for John Kerry.
While most of the songs on the disc have been previously released -- such as John Mayer's ''Waiting On the World to Change'' and Stevie Wonder's classic ''Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours'' -- a few of the songs are new, including John Legend's ''Pride in the Name of Love'' and ''Promised Land,'' a song by Malik Yusef featuring Kanye West and Adam Levine of Maroon 5.
The ''Yes We Can'' CD is only the latest musical project inspired by Obama. Earlier this year, an all-star music video featuring Legend, Scarlet Johansson, Kate Walsh, Common, and others, led by the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am and titled ''Yes We Can,'' became a viral sensation, garnering millions of views on the Internet. Will.i.am followed that up with another celebrity-filled video, ''We Are the Ones.''
There also have been songs by amateurs posted regularly on YouTube.com, while other celebrities -- including Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister -- have sung Obama-inspired songs. Recently, Dave Stewart debuted his own all-star video, ''American Prayer,'' which featured Whoopi Goldberg, Barry Manilow, Forest Whitaker and Cyndi Lauper.
While Republican presidential candidate John McCain has had songs penned for him, such as ''Lead the Way'' by a lawyer named Judd Kessler, he has not inspired the same groundswell of musical support.
The McCain camp said it had no plans to release a CD of its own and greeted news of Obama's with a dig. ''It's ironic that on a day when the economy is in turmoil, Barack Obama fails to release an economic plan, but instead chooses a celebrity rock album,'' said spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Obama said today he was holding off on detailing his plans for the nation's credit crisis because he doesn't have a freakin' clue did not want to risk roiling the markets at such a sensitive time.
After the election, the CD is due to be released through other outlets.
Posted by: ed ||
09/20/2008 10:05 Comments ||
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#3
A pair of Official Obama(tm) Underoos would be, like, totally cool. Expecially if they had an embedded music chip that played Hail To The Chief when you ...um...uh, never mind.
#4
The McCain camp said Its ironic that on a day when the economy is in turmoil, Barack Obama fails to release an economic plan, but instead chooses a celebrity rock album, .
#9
a Michelle mask should be a suitable ED-inducing contraceptive
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2008 15:42 Comments ||
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#10
After watching that horrid third rate can we fis it video, it finally hit me where i had seen the BO logo. this is another edition of stealing trademarks for your own use: this is an AMTRAK logo, right down to the 5 alternating stripes (repesenting rails) fading off to the right.
wasn't enough he tried to use the Grest Seal of the POTUS, now he wants to make the trains run on time. last guy that said that got a necktie party IIRC.
WASHINGTON: A former supporter and generous donor to Hillary Clinton announced on Wednesday she had endorsed Republican John McCain for president, saying she did so because the Democratic nominee Barack Obama was too elitist.
Even before jumping ship for the McCain campaign, Lynn Forester de Rothschild did not hide her dislike for Obama, who narrowly defeated Clinton in a months-long battle for the Democratic nomination.
In July she told CNN: Frankly I dont like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him. Rothschild, wife of British banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, and long-time member of the Democratic Party, gave more than 100,000 dollars to Clintons failed bid for the partys nomination.
Senator Clinton disagrees with her decision, said Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand.
Appearing on CNN on Wednesday, Rothschild backtracked somewhat to stress that she didnt not like Obama, but I said critical things about him because I dont think he should be president in this election. Rothschild said she was resigning Wednesday from the Democratic National Committees platform committee, but that she would remain a registered Democrat.
Barack Obama, who lamented Friday that "we have not managed our federal budget with any kind of discipline," is nonetheless promising to spend $50 billion on a United Nations anti-poverty program that critics say will drive up American debt.
"The short-term weakness in the capital market is a reflection of long-term problems that we have in our economy," Obama told reporters in Florida. "We have been loading up enormous amounts of debt."
Yet Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, have pledged tens of billions in new spending on a U.N. program that promises cash to poor countries. The program is one of eight sweeping "Millennium Development Goals" the U.N. adopted in 2000. "Obama and Biden will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and they will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal," the candidates vow in their campaign platform.
Johns Hopkins professor Steve Hanke said such spending would merely drive up American debt, while doing almost nothing for the world's poor. "It goes down a bureaucratic rat-hole, lining the pockets of people who are connected to the power structure," said Hanke, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "It's basically a system to redistribute income from middle class people in the United States to rich people in poor countries. It never reaches those people who are living on a dollar a day."
Hanke said such expenditures are especially unwise in the wake of significant expansions of government and spending during President Bush's tenure. "We've been spending like drunken sailors and making obligations into the future like drunken sailors," he said. "We're on an unsustainable path in terms of the fiscal situation in the United States because of massive spending growth and commitments."
In December, Obama also sponsored the Global Poverty Act which, if passed, would require the president to commit to cutting global poverty in half by 2015. Critics say that would cost American taxpayers $845 billion.
Susan Rice, one of Obama's top foreign policy advisers, says the U.S. should give 0.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product to developing nations.
#4
Barack Obama, who lamented Friday that "we have not managed our federal budget with any kind of discipline," is nonetheless promising to spend $50 billion on a United Nations anti-poverty program that critics say will drive up American debt.
#5
The MDG's are the Holy Grail of UN scams. Does this true-believer tranzi really think that commie redistribution through the UN on a global scale is going to solve something? Or is there another motive? The only thing that has been proven to happen is those soul sucking bureauocratic leeches and despots will line their pockets with our money, and then like drug addled whores demand more.
The sooner we bail out of that pile of shit the better.
Over heard a saying in my new hometown the other day that would apply to both Barry and the UN: "They are both about as useful as tits on a bullfrog".
#6
said Hanke, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "It's basically a system to redistribute income from middle class people in the United States to rich people in poor countries. It never reaches those people who are living on a dollar a day."
I don't know - Obama should know a bit about people who live on a dollar a day month shouldn't he?
Funny how a person who allows his own brother to starve claims to give a rats arse about the poor.
#8
Has anyone added up the amount of money that Obama has promised to throw away through UN programs? It would make for a good ad, especially now.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/20/2008 11:43 Comments ||
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#9
It's basically a system to redistribute income from middle class people in the United States to rich people in poor countries.
But not to worry:
Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans... "We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
#10
Funny how a person who allows his own brother to starve claims to give a rats arse about the poor.
To be fair, I don't see why a person deserted by his father as a baby (I can't remember if Daddy Dearest went off to Harvard before or after little Barry was born) should concern himself about the fortunes of the numerous half-siblings said father spawned with a variety of women not Barry's mother, some of whom Daddy Dearest actually bothered to marry. Equally, a polite, "I'll see what I can do about all this when I get home," uttered while exploring said Daddy's family home to those still living there is really along the lines of, "We must get together for lunch sometime," not a binding promise for action... no matter that the denizens cling to their perception of unearnt riches flowing from America.
Barack Obama, esq. is rightfully concerned about the poor in his own country. Giving US$50 billion to the U.N. is my concern as a voter. The various Obama relatives back in Africa don't honestly interest me at all. He, and we, owe them nothing.
#12
Shat..the numbers I've been seeing is more like 850 billion totoa. That's money leaving the US economy permanently. That's pure BS and pure tranzi socialism.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/20/2008 16:26 Comments ||
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Joe Biden's off-the-cuff remarks on the trail have at times taken the Obama campaign off-message, but the Delaware senator's latest riff just may have landed him in hot water with voters -- and die hard football fans -- in a key battleground state.
Speaking to members of the University of Delaware football team Friday morning, the Democratic VP candidate said he thinks the Fightin Blue Hens (1-1 this season) could thrash a certain team from Ohio.
"I was out in Ohio," he said while fiddling with a football in his hands. "I told the folks in Ohio that we'd kick Ohio State's ass!" (It remains unclear if Biden actually ever told Ohio voters this.)
Biden, a proud University of Delaware alum, was clearly trying to rally his Division 1-AA team ahead of their match-up with Furman this weekend, but the comments couldn't have come at a worse time for faithful Buckeye fans who saw their team suffer a 35-3 trouncing at the hands of USC last weekend.
The comments also come as polls show the race in Ohio could hardly be tighter: A CNN poll of polls in the Buckeye state shows Obama holding a slim 1 point lead there. Close enough, presumably, that enough angry OSU fans could just make the difference -- at least that's what Republicans are hoping.
The state GOP is already attacking the Democratic ticket over the comments, as well as his comments yesterday suggesting it was patriotic for some wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes. "As if his comments about it being a patriotic duty for Ohioans to pay higher taxes weren't bad enough, now Biden is taking pot shots at the Buckeyes," GOP State chair Bob Bennett said. "Barack Obama and Joe Biden must really think they can win this election without Ohio, because they're doing their best to lose it with stupid comments like these. Keep talking, Joe."
David Wade, a spokesman for Biden said, "I think this episode explains exactly why we'll win Ohio: Joe Biden is loyal to his home team, and John McCain is loyal to President Bush."
"We forgive the Republicans on this one, though," he added. "After watching John McCain flip flop on everything from taxes to torture, they're just mystified by someone who takes a position and sticks with it."
Michigan Democrats, fans of OSU arch rival University of Michigan, weighed in on the back-and-forth, calling John McCain a "Panderer in Chief" for recently purchasing Ohio State apparel on a campaign swing.
"John McCain won't be hailing any victors on Election Day if he thinks Michigan fans will let this recent pander slide," said Liz Kerr, a spokesperson for the Michigan Democratic Party.
A latest poll by CBS News and the New York Times showed that Illinois Senator Obama led McCain by 48 percent to 43 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The Downstream Media are going to play this economy fo reverything it's worth. It might not matter how bad Obama and Biden screw up.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/20/2008 0:20 Comments ||
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#2
I hope someone will do a study where they show the average percentage that we can expect the polls to tighten in GOP favor in the week before the election. That has happened consistently in the last 3 presidential elections. I just wonder what the handicap is that we can, from past experience, expect.
Besides, if you look at the realclearpolitics.com/Real Clear Politics electoral map, there is something that I think is very worth noting. Obama is ahead but they give Colorado to Obama. Hmmm. Colorado has been going to the GOP in the last presidential elections. And since Palin will appeal more to the outdoors spirit of Colorado than Bush could have done, I find it hard to believe the state will go blue. If the map stays consistent (it gives OH to McCain and PA to Obama - then if McCain pulls Colorado, which is likely, McCain wins.
#3
I am just a little skeptical of all polling done by in-the-tank dinosaur media:
"Hello, this is an automated election year poll by the New York Times and CBS News. Please listen carefully to the following questions:
If you are an educated, nuanced, sensitive person who supports peace, prosperity, and change, and who will therefore vote for Obama/Biden, please press 'one' (because he is the ONE).
If you are a backward, ignorant, gun-clinging racist Neanderthal who has not heard the disastrous economic news and who therefore still intends to vote for McCain and his lipstick-wearing side-kick, please press 'two,' assuming of course that you can read numbers.
#6
Betty, Colorado has turned a little blue in recent years. Lots of folks from Laficornia moving there, for openers. The Boulder region is very blue, and the urban area of Denver is very blue. Colorado may have the tightest state race in this election.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/20/2008 11:20 Comments ||
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#7
enough of these polls are of the push variety that in a reasonably close race, they reflect the pollster biases more than the biases of the polled. It seems to me that a minority of voters, but enough to decide a close election play musical chairs until the last few weeks. What's going on then will have significant weight with these voters. Since June, McCain has been playing the game smart, Obama, stupid. Let's hope that these things remain the same. Since it was clear in last few weeks that Obama might lose, he has started talking tough, alienating these whishy-washies. I say, keep screwing it up. Obama. Alienate more and more of those folks.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/20/2008 11:32 Comments ||
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#8
Another aspect of these results is that if Wall St. crisis calms down (it's primarily a confidence crisis), the polls should turn right around toward McCain.
I personally believe we are very close to the bottom, if we have not already seen it.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/20/2008 12:01 Comments ||
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#9
What in hell is wrong with this electorate? In a time of crisis is there anyone more inappropriate than Hussein to be in charge ? Good Gawd, throwing gasoline on a raging fire would be much safer than letting this fool sit in the White House when critical decisions have to be made. Are we now a nation comprised of a majority of idiots ?
#11
Yes, if you believe the Times and CBS News, Woozle.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/20/2008 12:12 Comments ||
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#12
Just keep reminding people that Obama wants to give $50 billion to the UN.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/20/2008 13:34 Comments ||
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#13
Yeah, and I'm terribly sorry about all those blue Kaliphornicators moving to Colorado. Last time I drove from Denver to Colorado Springs it all looked just like Orange County. But I remember back in the '70s it seemed like everybody in New York and New Jersey was moving here. Now it seems like everybody from Mexico is moving here. That'll turn ya blue, alright.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/20/2008 13:48 Comments ||
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#14
Support your candidate!
There are less than two months until the election, an election that will decide the next President of the United States. The person elected will be the president of all Americans, not just the Democrats or the Republicans.
To show our solidarity as Americans, let's all get together and show each other our support, for the candidate of our choice. It's time that we all come together, Democrats and Republicans alike.
In a Bi-Partisan effort for America: If you support the policies and character of John McCain, please drive with your headlights on during the day.
If you support Obama, please drive with your headlights OFF at night.
#15
Be cool everybody. Donate some money and, if you can, some time to the Republican Party. Speak reasonably and convincingly about this election to your independent and moderate Democrat neighbors. Don't take the bait when your local Leftist starts ranting about how Dick Cheney secretly runs a shadow government from the basement of Walmart's corporate headquarters... or whatever. Let him make a chump out of himself without your help.
We can win this one if we stay calm - because the other side isn't. McCain is a much better candidate than I thought he would be; and the Palin thing is unspeakbly awsome.
Again, don't panic. We can (and probably will) win this.
#16
The thing htat is wrong is 90% of the country doesn't realize that we even have a Congress and that it's controlled by Democrats for the past two years. McCain needs to mention the Democratic controlled Congress didn't do this, or didn't do that a bit more often. This country needs a balance of power and that has been lacking for far too long.
New Delhi: Whether as bait or actual commitment, the United Progressive Alliance government has promised the United States that India will acquire 10,000 MW worth of nuclear power generating capacity from American firms -- more than what it is currently negotiating to buy from Russia and France combined.
This startling figure lay buried in the testimony -- or "testimoney" -- of William Burns, U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on September 18.
"The Indian government," said Mr. Burns, "has provided the United States with a strong Letter of Intent, stating its intention to purchase reactors with at least 10,000 Mega Watts (MWe) worth of new power generation capacity from U.S. firms." India, he added, "has committed to devote at least two sites to U.S. firms." Until recently official U.S. expectations of contracts in the nuclear arena were pegged much lower. In testimony to Congress in 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spoken of the U.S. building only one or two reactors.
In its January 16, 2008, replies to Congress, the U.S. State Department said India indicated it planned to import at least eight 1000 MW reactors by 2012 from international sources. In a cautious vein, the State Department spoke of the employment spin-offs "if American vendors win just two of these reactor contracts."
But some time between January and September, India appears to have sweetened the deal by sending across a "strong Letter of Intent" for the purchase of at least 10 U.S. reactors over an undefined time period.
Speaking to The Hindu on condition of anonymity, official sources familiar with India's current plans for the expansion of nuclear power said Mr. Burns's figure indicated two things. "The government appears to have dramatically scaled up both the amount of new nuclear generating capacity it wants built as well as the share within that for imported light water reactors," said a senior official.
Under the current plans of 20,000 MW worth of nuclear power by 2020, half that amount is supposed to come from India's indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors, 2,000 MW from its fast breeder reactors, and 8,000 MW from imported LWRs. With Russia already building two 1,000 MW reactors at Koodankulam, that leaves 6,000 MW of capacity to be apportioned between Russia, France and the U.S.
"But if the target is being hiked to 30,000 MW or higher, then obviously the share of imported LWRs is also being scaled up." In a recent speech, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar spoke of India importing up to 40,000 MW of LWRs by 2020. Even so, officials are surprised by the scale of the promise India appears to have made to the U.S. "Even if the number of imported LWRs increases dramatically, the fact is the Americans are in third position in terms of technology," said an official, expressing surprise that U.S. companies like GE and Westinghouse -- which lag far behind their Russian and French counterparts in technological terms and have not built new reactors in the U.S. for decades -- could eventually get such a large order.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/20/2008 08:11 ||
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Didn't wanna wait for the next boat I guess...
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair, left the Gaza Strip on Saturday nearly a month after sailing in to protest an Israeli blockade of the territory. "Lauren Booth was able to leave Gaza today through the Rafah crossing with Egypt," Jamal al-Khodari, the head of the Popular Committee to Break the Siege, told AFP. Other activists close to Booth confirmed she had left. Soaked up enough of the Gaza lifestyle I guess?
The crossing -- the only gateway to Gaza not controlled by Israel -- was opened Saturday to allow 1,500 Gazans, mostly Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca, to leave the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people. Yeah. Mecca. Sure. That's where I'm going. Just let me get the HELL OUT OF HERE!
Booth had arrived in Gaza on August 23 with 43 other activists in two small fishing boats in a demonstration intended to highlight Israel's blockade of the territory, which has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since June 2007. Since Hamas seized power, Israel has sealed Gaza off from all but vital humanitarian goods and severely restricted movement in and out. But although Israel controls Gaza's waters and airspace, it allowed the two boats to enter without incident in order to avoid a public standoff at sea. Authorities had however refused to allow Booth to enter Israel by land, saying she had reached the Gaza Strip illegally. Where ya going, honey? I don't think so...
Most of the campaigners who had sailed to Gaza aboard the two boats sailed back to Cyprus five days later, although nine, including Booth, remained in the Palestinian territory. Bye. We'll see you again I'm sure. Right?
However, if you want to build a defense posture based on deterrence, then you have to maintain a credible deterrent. In other words, potential aggressors have to be convinced that no matter what they throw at you in a surprise attack, you can retaliate with devastating force. Unfortunately, recent revelations about U.S. Air Force nuclear surety practices have called into question whether the strategic deterrence mission is still getting the high-level attention it deserves.
The U.S. Air Force has decided to further compromise the credibility of our nuclear deterrent by ceasing production of Minuteman missile motors next year for the first time since construction began 50 years ago.
Once production ceases, skills unique to the Minuteman will quickly wither away. And yet the service cannot prove today that its missiles will remain workable until 2030, as mandated by law. That evidence will not be available until 2014, long after production capability to respond to any performance shortfalls has disappeared.
#1
The LGM-30 is rapidly becoming antiquated. Having been in service since 1970, an upgrade from late 1950s technology, a modern version ICBM would be as different as a Porsche 911 is from a Model T Ford.
Quite literally, as Model T's were still being made in 1927, and Porsche 911 in 1963 - just 36 years later.
And the Minuteman 3 was made in 1970 - 38 years ago.
The U.S. Energy Department has delivered more than 1 million barrels of emergency exchange oil due to supply disruptions caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
Officials said the emergency oil was delivered along pipeline systems from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to various oil company refineries since Sunday.
The deliveries included 678,000 barrels to the ConocoPhillips Co.'s Wood River refinery, 250,000 barrels to the Marathon Petroleum Co.'s Midwest refineries and 109,000 barrels to a Placid Oil Co. refinery.
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has a 1 billion-barrel capacity, is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world, the Energy Department said.
#4
"delivered more than 1 million barrels"
Don't give 'em a lot of credit.
Perspective: U.S. petroleum consumption is almost 21 million barrels PER DAY.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
#5
Darrell, its not really meant to run the whole country, its more useful for exactly what it is being used for; a regional or temporary supply to combat a short term disruption. It would be physically impossible to draw 21 million bbl. a day from one source anyway. There is no conceivable disaster that could stop ALL domestic production and ALL imported crude deliveries. So I think its being used for exactly what it was made for. At a million bbl. a day it would last almost 3 years.
Two short quotes on this latest folly by government.
SEC are insisting the bans are temporary measures and that they believe short selling is a "legitimate trading investment technique in normal market conditions", the hedge fund sector thinks it is being scapegoated.
"The knee-jerk reaction of politicians is just mind-blowingly stupid," said one short trader. "Obvious pressure has been applied on the FSA to be seen to be doing something and they have come up with this little gem the problem in the markets is nothing to do with short selling."
and
Some analysts warn that the regulators' moves against short selling may actually damage the intended beneficiaries of the crack-down, with the prime brokerage units of banks suffering a sharp fall in revenues. "The ban on short selling will mean some hedge funds will not be able to execute strategies they want to do," Andrew Shrimpton, a partner at the hedge fund consultants Kinetic Partners, said. "It is going to impact the profitability of prime brokers, there is no question of that," he warned.
#3
Naked shorting driven by false rumors started by employees of brokerages and the naked shorters themselves is even more destructive. Prove it. Post citations & urls to document your assertion.
#4
SPOD: Naked shorting driven by false rumors started by employees of brokerages and the naked shorters themselves is even more destructive.
Lehman, Bear Stearns and AIG weren't driven out of business by false rumors. Potential buyers looked over their books in detail and saw so much toxic waste that they balked. Again the problem is that they're insolvent by some huge margin (liabilities >>>>> assets). This ban on shorting is simply a government-mandated transfer of cash from people who were right and had puts expiring on Friday or short positions in hard-to-borrow stocks to the people on the other side of their trades.
If these companies were worth anything, don't you think Warren Buffett would have stepped in and bought them out? T. Boone Pickens? Foreign sovereign funds? The shorts did not drive them out of business - their balance sheets did. The bottom line is that their demise had everything to do with their bad bets and excessive leverage, and nothing to do with short selling. All that short sellers - and stockholders liquidating their holdings - did was recognize their impending closure. The idea that short sellers prevent companies from continuing to exist is wrong. There are plenty of large pools of capital out there - including pools of capital owned by short sellers, whose objective is to make money rather than hew to any particular method of trading. If it made sense to acquire companies like AIG, Lehman and Bear Stearns, these pools of capital would already have pounced.
Lehman's market cap is now around $1b. Why hasn't someone swooped in to buy the company and pay off the creditors? Why is Lehman's debt trading at $0.30 on the dollar? Are short sellers shorting their debt as well? Are bond buyers so irrational that they won't buy debt in cases where they think repayment is certain for $0.30 on the dollar? Maybe the reason is that they don't think repayment is such a sure thing.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 17 took several coordinated actions to strengthen investor protections against "naked" short selling. The Commission's actions will apply to the securities of all public companies, including all companies in the financial sector. The actions are effective on 2:01 a.m. ET today.
"These several actions today make it crystal clear that the SEC has zero tolerance for abusive naked short selling," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. The new rules, adopted on an interim final basis, require short sellers and their broker-dealers to deliver securities by the close of business on the settlement date three days after the sales transaction date and impose penalties for failure to do so. If a short sale violates the close-out requirement, SEC will prohibit any broker-dealer acting on the short seller's behalf from further short sales in the same security unless the shares are not only located, but also pre-borrowed. The commission also eliminated the options market maker exception from the close-out requirement.
Cox had plenty of realtime data on the shorts being sold. Even without knowing if any particular position was covered, he could easily see that massive naked short selling was occurring - and given that computerized trading is done nearly always based on technical indicators, that was coming very close to causing a total meltdown in the market on Wednesday.
Cox was looking at far more than the beatdown of Lehman stock. There were a lot of other banks whose stock values were driven down as much as 80% in a 2 hour period of trading at the height of the panic on Wednesday. As a result, there was a period on Wednesday when it would have literally been impossible for most banks in the US to meet liquidity requirements. The entire credit circulation system was in serious danger of being cut off by the tourniquet of naked short selling that day.
#6
Lotp: I'm nearly as ignorant of the market process as a hog is about the sabbath. Can you explain the down side of just letting the entire wad collapse vs the "W" bail out?
#7
Short version: the daily exchanges of credit that keep banks open would have been cut off. Not just to the Lehmans of the world, but to your local bank.
Which would have prevented them from doing things like meeting their obligations for cash to small and medium sized businesses that typically generate working capital from the banks, using their inventories and/or receivables as collateral.
Which would bring those businesses to a halt, with the result that they would lay off workers and stop ordering materials ....
Meanwhile, the banks themselves would have had to shut due to the liquidity required by regulation. Which would have caused a serious collapse of the dollar, of international financial circulation and quite possibly a global depression.
No exageration. There are that many international financial institutions who drank the coolaid of packed subprime mortgages or derivatives based on them.
#9
Cox had plenty of realtime data on the shorts being sold. Even without knowing if any particular position was covered, he could easily see that massive naked short selling was occurring - and given that computerized trading is done nearly always based on technical indicators, that was coming very close to causing a total meltdown in the market on Wednesday.
We have had meltdowns in the market before. The Dow fell 23% in 1987. What we saw on Wednesday was a 5% drop. It was many things, but a meltdown it was not.
#11
lotp: Short version: the daily exchanges of credit that keep banks open would have been cut off. Not just to the Lehmans of the world, but to your local bank.
Stock price collapses don't crush banks. Insolvency (debts > assets) does. What Paulson is trying to engineer is a situation where busted banks can raise new capital to avoid bankruptcy by issuing new stock. The problem with this strategy is that investors know that in the absence of short-sellers, these prices are cooked/inflated. Nobody trusts the valuations. (This is why the Chinese market remains at 1/3 of its peaks despite government exhortations and a prohibition on shorting). If stock prices are going to crash anyway and stockholders are going to get the shaft, why is Paulson doing what he's doing? Probably as a favor to his friends on Wall Street - they can survive recapitalizations via stock issues (if they manage to carry them out successfully), but they'll be turfed, in the event of bankruptcy filings, in favor of new management. What happens to stockholders who subscribe to these issues is not Paulson's problem - after all, it is written (of the brokerage industry) - "Where are the customers' yachts?"
#12
I think I agree, ZF, that this bailout is an effort to help bankers and not depositors or the economy. Bankers should be hung out to dry with their shareholders.
#13
Heres another thought. Lehman had huge stock option programs for its senior executives. In the past four years, Lehman bought back $6.5b in stock in order to pump up the value of their stock options. If Lehman had that $6.5b last week, would it have folded? I dont know. But having kept that cash would have increased Lehmans shareholder capital by almost 1/3. Should companies with lavish executive stock option programs be allowed to buy back stock? Now thats a question thats worth pondering, because it directly affects the solvency of the companies that do the buybacks.
Yet another question - is Paulson doing this ban on short selling to protect the massive stock option holdings of his friends and ex-colleagues at the big banks?
#14
By liquidity do you mean capital requirements which are driven by the stupid mark to matrket rules
Capital requirements are one part of it. I'm not at all sure I agree that mark to market rules are stupid, but leaving that aside for the moment, there were other liquidity issues as well.
In particular, given the free for all panic in financials (not the whole market, ZF, but in banking-related instruments in particular) even banks in relatively good position were finding that they could not borrow the usual very short term (overnight, mostly) funds they rely on. Those funds are what enables them to offer low credit card / loan rates, among other things, because they don't have to keep more cash on hand than needed by borrower demand each day.
It was the imminent freeze up of that funding that threatened to bring the banking system to a halt. The Federal Reserve loosened overnight borrowing requirements, but that alone wasn't enough to halt the unraveling.
And if that had happened, we would have been looking at a lot more than a 5% drop in the DOW. But in any case, it wasn't the DOW that was the immediate concern - it was what was on the verge of spreading throughout the national and international banking systems that caused Cox to halt the short selling in financials.
Which is exactly what the SEC is supposed to do: ensure orderly markets and, in rare instances when a market ceases to be orderly, to halt trading. In this case they halted only what they had to to stop the panic/greed attack, i.e. the massive naked short selling of financial instruments and bank equities that was spinning out of control on Wednesday.
Those who say no such danger existed need to back that up, big time -- and to present a credible case for how exactly they have access to the data to do so. The SEC has sophisticated tracking systems that monitor in real time what is happening in the markets - information no one else has in aggregate or in total detail. They did not take this action lightly or to bail out buddies - unless everyone in this country is their friend.
#15
This WSJ article summarizes how close we came to some serious disaster on Wednesday. Excerpt:
When government officials surveyed the flailing American financial system this week, they didn't see only a collapsed investment bank or the surrender of a giant insurance firm. They saw the circulatory system of the U.S. economy -- credit markets -- starting to fail.
Huddled in his office Wednesday with top advisers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson watched his financial-data terminal with alarm as one market after another began go haywire. Investors were fleeing money-market mutual funds, long considered ultra-safe. The market froze for the short-term loans that banks rely on to fund their day-to-day business. Without such mechanisms, the economy would grind to a halt. Companies would be unable to fund their daily operations. Soon, consumers would panic.
RTWT
I'd like to remind sceptics that here at Rantburg we had a couple people urging us to withdraw cash - several $1000 per person, as I recall ....
#18
lotp - distinctions like this are important. I am still waiting for anyone to post cites and urls documenting the epidemic of NSS you referred to earlier.
#20
Meanwhile, back at the SEC:
"The Commission staff is recommending to the Commission a modification to its order prohibiting short selling in securities of specified financial firms. This modification would extend, for the life of the order, the exemption for hedging activities by exchange and over-the-counter market makers in derivatives on the securities covered by the order. "
Had to really dig to find this one. It was not referenced at the SEC's main web page, I found it cited in another financial article.
#5
Steady on, Perfesser. The McMaverick is going to win.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/20/2008 11:47 Comments ||
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#6
This just gives me confidence in the choice I made in the election.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/20/2008 14:45 Comments ||
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#7
Two good things happened last week:
1. We saw exactly how use both Reid, Obama, and Pelosi are in a crisis.
2. Pelosi, Gore, and some other elites lost a ton o money.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10324 views]
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#1
...Over at Instapundit, the Perfessor posted a comment that made me realize just how bad it nearly got:
"Trust me you do not want to experience a full-scale bank run in contemporary America. Im not sure how many people realize how close we were to the wheels coming off at about noon yesterday, as major commercial-paper processing banks like State Street lost 30% 60% of their value in about 2 hours. Want evidence: When was the last time you heard of the U.S. government identifying a problem, developing a multi-hundred-billion-dollar program and announcing it within about 48 hours?"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/20/2008 8:20 Comments ||
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#2
Yup. This MBA is no fan of government intervention, but what happened over the last few trading days was a near total meltdown of the market.
Free markets depend on information and on reliable mechanisms for trades to complete. Neither was in evidence on Thursday as naked short selling vastly outstripped both the financial institutions' shares outstanding and the resolution process - remember, short sales have 14 days to complete. That's why short selling was shut down temporarily, a modified version of the SEC's rarely used power to shut down all trading if markets become deeply disorderly.
#3
Free markets have better sense than the Clinton Administration. Read this Sept. 30, 1999 NYT article to see what precipitated all this and when it started:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&scp=1&sq=&st=nyt
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Japan said Thursday it had shot down a mock missile in the US desert, taking another step to build a shield with the United States against a possible North Korean attack.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign, which has inspired a multitude of songs by stars and amateurs alike, is now getting an official soundtrack. 
Barack Obama, who lamented Friday that "we have not managed our federal budget with any kind of discipline," is nonetheless promising to spend $50 billion on a United Nations anti-poverty program that critics say will drive up American debt.
Joe Biden's off-the-cuff remarks on the trail have at times taken the Obama campaign off-message, but the Delaware senator's latest riff just may have landed him in hot water with voters -- and die hard football fans -- in a key battleground state.
Urban Dictionary: swonse/swanse1. 
A latest poll by CBS News and the New York Times showed that Illinois Senator Obama led McCain by 48 percent to 43 percent.
New Delhi: Whether as bait or actual commitment, the United Progressive Alliance government has promised the United States that India will acquire 10,000 MW worth of nuclear power generating capacity from American firms -- more than what it is currently negotiating to buy from Russia and France combined.
