Well, tomorrow will be… interesting. I’m still figuring out what I’m doing for Election Night, but one way or another, FDL will have full coverage throughout the evening at the Mothership and at the Elections site. Election days are often incredibly slow news days, as everyone waits to see what the polls say.
The rest of the rest (including some weekend links I missed):
• More mortgage horror stories. But clearly these people are a bunch of deadbeats, so they should get their houses taken from them. Meanwhile, the bankers, actually guilty of committing fraud before the court, don’t face the same kind of accountability.
• So would you keep on paying your underwater mortgage, despite how it anchors you to your home, or would you live in default rent-freee, supposedly “cashing in” with a stealth stimulus? I think both articles make major mistakes in terms of accurately explaining the psychology of the issue. People want to pay their mortgage if they can; if they can’t, they seek solutions and modifications but are rational enough not to throw good money after bad in every case.
• Is Goldman Sachs having trouble in the post-Dodd/Frank world? It looks to me that their fixed-income trading market share is falling due to increased competition and possibly an image hit. Even investors might look at a company playing both sides of every deal and wonder if they don’t have better options.
• The SEC investigation between JPMorgan and Magnetar could wind up as a major deal. This also concerns banks betting against their clients.
• Racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio was apparently cooking the books in Maricopa County.
• Really fascinating NYT Mag article about behavioral economics and peer pressure in GOTV messaging. I guess I’m just surprised that Democrats are even thinking about this stuff.
• Ryan Grim writes the definitive story – political obituary? – for Harry Reid. All hail long-form Web journalism!
• Halliburton explains that the Gulf explosion was all BP’s fault, and coincidentally that would get them off the hook for billions in penalties!
• The mail bomb plot was thwarted by a tip from a former Al Qaeda member in Saudi Arabia.
• I don’t buy for a second that rich people are figuring out how to die in the next two months because of the expiration of the estate tax holiday. Figures that Rep. Cynthia Lummis refuses to name names.
• Duncan is right, the Blue Dogs could simply extend an invitation to new members if a lot of their number get knocked out tomorrow, and because of the attention and fundraising they would be promised, a lot of Congresscritters would take them up on it.
• The seizure of a Catholic church and subsequent raid that killed dozens in central Baghdad shows the extent to which the “successful” war in Iraq hasn’t ended at all.
• I want to know how Julius Genachowski walks without a spine. He doesn’t see net neutrality as an “important near-term goal,” by the way.
• Sign of the times: a child walks into the backyard of his neighbor’s foreclosed home, falls into the algae-ridden pool, and dies.
• Fourth-degree assault is the charge for the man who stomped a MoveOn employee in the head outside a Kentucky Senate debate.
• It’ll likely be 8 years for child soldier Omar Khadr, but the jury delivered a 40-year verdict, even higher than the prosecution sought.
• Would a Sharron Angle victory mean the return of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump? Well Nevadans, it’s your choice, isn’t it?
• Russ Feingold will probably lose his Senate seat to a guy who thinks Congress shouldn’t publicly challenge a President about wars. Sheesh.
• The city of the original tea party sounds like a terrible place to live.
• I will miss some of the cast of characters of this election, like Christine O’Donnell, who claimed “mainstream media sabotage” of her half-hour closing argument to Delaware voters without mentioning that they had placed the ad on a public access station. Yes, Big Public Access is notoriously liberal and all-powerful. Apparently the thing is running now.
• I can’t wait to watch the 1980 Jerry Brown for President infomercial directed by Francis Ford Coppola. You can see it too, right here.
• RIP Ted Sorenson. Here’s the President’s tribute.
• All Presidents should be judged by the snap on their fastball.
• My continuing Silvio Berlusconi fascination – he gave a belly dancer $7,000 for sitting next to him at one of his sex parties. He didn’t ask for anything more after he found out she was underage, citing “problems in the past with another underage girl.” This is the longtime Prime Minster of Italy.




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About FDL News Desk
Would it be too much to ask if we could have more Berlusconi stories?
• Ryan Grim’s piece on Harry Reid leaves out all the good stuff–like the use of political connections to enrich himself and his extended family. It’s like those “making of” segments on a DVD where the stars heap praise on each other and never say anything of substance.
• If I were that head-stomper dude, I’d ask for a jury trial. I don’t think you could find a jury in Kentucky that would unanimously convict that guy.
• The military tribunals aren’t justice if they wanted to give Omar Khadr 40 years. Blackwater employees did much much worse and weren’t even prosecuted.
• Goldman Sachs share of fixed income is actually up to 19% from 15% before the crisis. I’m not going to lay awake worrying about them.
• JP Morgan-Magnetar seems identical to the Goldman-Paulson case. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a big settlement there.
You can love or hate Feingold’s principles. But there isn’t too much doubt he has some.
Unless you vote in Wisconsin, that is.
It is amazing how easily duped voters are by this “I am a businessman and I know how to create jobs” myth that is floating around. It must be desperation.
I don’t think the midterms will be as bad as the polls suggest. But Feingold is a real loss in more than one sense of the word.
It speaks well for him that he told the party machine to stay out of the election. He’s kind of like the Hamlet of Wisconsin.
Good night, sweet prince.
Another first:
For first time ever, US facing scrutiny of UN Human Rights Council
:The [US Human Rights] Network produced a 400-page report criticising “glaring inadequacies in the United States? human rights record,” including the “discriminatory impact” of foreclosures, “widespread” racial profiling and “draconian” immigration policies.
. . .
“The United States has also faced widespread criticism by UN rights monitors in recent years over its handling of terror suspects and suspected torture, while concern over the conduct of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been revived in recent months with “Wikileak” reports on leaked confidential documents.”
LINK.
Where else besides Kentucky would getting a concussion from someone’s boot not be considered an injury?
“Sign of the times: a child walks into the backyard of his neighbor’s foreclosed home, falls into the algae-ridden pool, and dies.”; this would be a slamdunk legally if the foreclosure part wasn’t so screwed up; truly feel bad for the parents; real great welcome for them in the U.S..
“I want to know how Julius Genachowski walks without a spine. He doesn’t see net neutrality as an “important near-term goal,” by the way.”
Spinelessness is why Obama picked him. Birds of a feather.
Nazi Germany!
• Russ Feingold will probably lose his Senate seat to a guy who thinks Congress shouldn’t publicly challenge a President about wars. Sheesh.
RIP Senator Byrd, you did attempt to warn America about the dangers of a policy shift orchestrated by “neoconned-fascists” from a defensive war posture to a preemptive war posture, after 911. Rot in hell oil boy Cheney! The Nazis invaded Poland, preemptively after the Gleiwitz Incident, to protect the homeland from Polish saboteurs. During the war crimes trial is was found the incident was staged buy the Nazi propaganda machine. Funny how these things happen in history and it is forgotten!
•
seems fair to me.
On this election day, I’d like to invite you to cast your vote in this unconventional referendum on our banking system.
The basic premise is that we should level the playing field, wipe the slate clean, forgive all debts, and let the entire banking system collapse.
It would be replaced with a new nonprofit banking system that is directly owned and democratically controlled by the citizen themselves, one person, one non-transferable vote.
Insured deposits at the commercial banks would be honored by this new citizen-owned bank, which would have the authority to create capital as required by society and agreed to by consensus.
http://define.com