Actually, just another excuse to post this picture:

Didn’t See This Comin’ Now, Didja’?

“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”

Read that answer as many times as you want – you are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy. On the contrary: at another point in the conference call, the same executive (who I’m not naming because he didn’t know I would be listening in) explained that “loan dollars are down significantly.” He added, “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.” In other words JPMorgan has no intention of turning on the lending spigot.

(So When Will Banks Give Loans?, NY Times, 10/24/08)

And this post isn’t going to get any prettier …

First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.

Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.

But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.

(Deciding how to use bailout funds, Philadelphia Enquirer, 10/26/08)

“It’s clear that the government would like us to use the money to make loans,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s CEO Jamie Dimon at a recent earnings conference call with analysts. “I don’t think the government is telling us what to do with the capital.”

(Temptation for banks to risk bailout funds, SF Chronicle, 10/19/08)

“We will have the opportunity to redeploy that (bailout funds),” John Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER), told The New York Times. (NYSE:NYT) “But at least for the next quarter, it’s just going to be a cushion,” he said.

Other bankers privately made similar remarks, the Times reported Friday.

(Banks may hoard bailout funds, UPI, 10/17/08)

Oh, and about those preferred shares we, the people, are ostensibly getting in return for our donations to the rich and powerful of the financial industry and Wall Street?

(My bold emphasis)

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., which acquired Baltimore’s Mercantile Bankshares last year, said yesterday that it is acquiring Cleveland-based National City Corp. for $5.58 billion, becoming the first bank to use fresh investments from a federal bailout program to make an acquisition.

The deal came within hours of PNC Financial receiving approval for $7.7 billion in cash from the government under the $700 billion government program aimed at relieving the continuing credit crisis.

. . .

The government will receive warrants to acquire a 15 percent stake in PNC Financial. The warrants will be good for 10 years unless retired by PNC, the company said.

(PNC using bailout funds to acquire National City, Baltimore Sun, 10/26/08)

Don’t know what those “warrants” are? They’re nothing more than a temporary promissory note … ie, for the next ten years we, the people, will have a legal right to 15% of PNC Financial, and then after ten years that all goes buh bye. (See this link for some discussion of warrants.)

Democratic Surrender, copyright Rama Schneider, 2007

We’ll just keep surrendering ’till we got ’em on the run

Just like we tucked our tails when this dumb ol’ war begun

When they’re sick of winning it all

We’ll watch them turn and flee

Yeah, we’ll just keep surrendering our way to election victory

“In our days of glory,” said the Democratic pol to me

“Everything that George Bush wants, you can be sure he’ll receive”

“We’re gonna end this Iraq war, of that you have no fear”

“It’s just gonna take a lot time, maybe we’ll start in a year”

We’ll just keep surrendering ’till we got ’em on the run

Just like we tucked our tails when this dumb ol’ war begun

When they’re sick of winning it all

We’ll watch them turn and flee

Yeah, we’ll just keep surrendering our way to election victory

“What’s a few more billion?” said the Democratic pol to me

“And who really cares about some ol’ Iraqi family”

“And the folk of our America who we send to kill and die”

“We all know they’ll keep doing their job without ever asking why”

We’ll just keep surrendering ’till we got ’em on the run

Just like we tucked our tails when this dumb ol’ war begun

When they’re sick of winning it all

We’ll watch them turn and flee

Yeah, we’ll just keep surrendering our way to election victory

“The important thing is next year,” said the Democratic pol to me

“If things are bad it only helps my electability”

“Cause I know I can scare you into joining my failed fold”

“I’ll scream your only option is the Republicans of old”

We’ll just keep surrendering ’till we got ’em on the run

Just like we tucked our tails when this dumb ol’ war begun

When they’re sick of winning it all

We’ll watch them turn and flee

Yeah, we’ll just keep surrendering our way to election victory

I posted some of this back in May about the last days of the Clinton campaign.  This new edition is about the McCain Campaign.

If you study behavioral psychology, you’ll learn about a concept called “the extinction burst.”  

The specific example I use when I teach is this:

You’ve got a child who is throwing tantrums.  In the past, the tantrums have gotten the child attention, which is exactly what the child wants.  Therefore, you have been providing positive reinforcement to that child’s behavior.  It’s “positive” because you’re adding something (attention), not because it’s good.  It’s “reinforcement” because it increases the behavior.

The much more effective approach to reducing tantrums is negative punishment.  “Negative” because you’re removing something and “punishment” because it reduces the behavior.  When we talk about “punishment” in behavioral psychology we don’t necessarily mean anything specific; it’s just any act in a behavioral context which reduces the frequency of a given behavior.

But here’s why many parents don’t use negative punishment: the extinction burst.

You have a child who’s throwing tantrums and you decide to reduce the tantrums through not paying attention.  You try to ignore them completely.  This will generally work.  But before it works, it gets worse.  The child, knowing that the tantrums have worked in the past, thinks that the tantrums are just not loud enough.  

So they get worse, before they fade out entirely.

This last ditch effort to make the tantrums work is the aforementioned “extinction burst.”  It’s perfectly human: something that has worked in the past is losing its power so you don’t try something different.  You do what you’ve been doing all along, but push harder.

Here are some examples of the extinction burst in action:

Per CNN:

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue.”

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls — recorded messages often used to attack a candidate’s opponent — “irritating” even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

John McCain just making crap up:

Per Yahoo News:

Pennsylvania Republicans are disavowing an e-mail sent to Jewish voters that likens a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to events that led up to the Holocaust.

“Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008,” the e-mail reads. “Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let’s not make a similar one this year!”

Per Huffington Post:

Sarah Palin had a few memorable moments during her campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. But the most eye-opening of them all came, it would appear, when the Alaska Governor somehow drew a connection between Barack Obama’s tax policy and an encroaching, nightmarish, communist government. The Illinois Democrat, she hysterically suggested, would, through his proposals, create a country “where the people are not free.”

Per Raw Story:

After several political signs were stolen or vandalized from his front yard, a Missouri man installed video cameras in an attempt to catch the vandals in the act.

And that’s exactly what he did.

A video below shows a woman stepping out of a truck and kicking Mike Brown’s Obama/Biden political signs before running away.

“I’m just a guy who has a sign in his yard, and this is the first election that I have ever felt was important enough for me to voice my opinion in the form of a yard sign,” said Brown.

Hey, let’s pretend terrorism isn’t terrorism:

Hey, what about Ayers?:

ust 28% of voters believe that John McCain’s campaign has been helped by talking about the relationship between Barack Obama and William Ayers. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 50% believe talk of that issue has hurt McCain’s effort while 15% say it has had no impact.

How about we play the POW card and lie about Obama’s record?

Finally, per Talking Points Memo:

John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain’s Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the “B” stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

Stay classy, McCain campaign!

The Nuclear Free Jubilee was a smash today. Approximately 900 people showed up to watch or be part of the Bread & Puppet procession down Main Street. The parade ended on the Brattleboro Common and Bread & Puppet founder Peter Schumann led a performance that ended in casting away Entergy Vermont Yankee.

Following Bread & Puppet was the amazing Reverend Billy. Reverend Billy delivered… and exorcized Vermont Yankee from Windham County, “Nuclearluja!”

After Reverend Billy came Deb Katz of Citizens Awareness Network, Peter Shumlin, Anthony Pollina, Gaye Symington and many others. Narissa and Katryna Nields also did a spectacular show that ended with people jumping on stage for their final song.

A great event on a great autumn day. Here’s a snapshot of today’s events. Hope you enjoy.

– Christian

Note: I didn’t live in Vermont when we were getting into the whole civil unions things, though I’ve heard it got fairly nasty at times.  This, I think, is demonstrably worse.  I posted this to Daily Kos and thought it might be good to include here as well, even though it’s not local.  So…

I’m going to give a little bit of personal history here.  I am openly queer, and have been for most of my adult life.  I am 5’1.5″ and though I am physically stronger than I look, there are a whole lot of people who could fairly easily beat the crap out of me if they choose to do so.  Everything I’m talking about here on a personal level is old.  I haven’t had cause to feel for my safety due to another person’s malice in more than a decade.

That said, I’ve been threatened and chased on several occasions.  I once had a knife pressed against my throat.  I’ve had death threats left on my answering machine.  While engaged in an anti-war protest once, I had an ROTC student grab me by the throat and press his arm against my neck until his friends pulled him off.  

All of this was scary.  Some of it was very scary.  I don’t know how much of what happened was real danger as opposed to people just trying to intimidate me.  

But this crap (with a hat tip to Pam’s House Blend) scares me in ways that I can’t entirely articulate.  I will warn everyone now that this video disturbed me deeply, and I would not recommend you allow any kids to see it.  It’s that bad:

The Face of Proposition 8 from Theremina on Vimeo.

The text posted with this video (linked here) includes the following:

This footage was recorded 10/23/08 in Oakland, CA, on a public street corner near Lake Merritt. I was on my way home from the Lakeshore district when I encountered this group of supporters of Prop 8 (proposition to ban gay marriage). After turning my vidphone on, I was screamed at, physically intimidated and eventually attacked by one of the sign-wavers.

About two dozen men and women were standing under the I-580, chanting “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” and “Mom and Dad, not Dad and Dad”, etc. There were at least three counter-protesters present as well.

[…]

Something to keep in mind: when I hit the record button, I hadn’t said a single word to anyone, or interfered with the rally any way. I stood a fair distance away from the sign-wavers (remaining at least four feet away from all of them…until they approached me). But as soon as they noticed me filming them, I was greeted with curses and threats of violence. “Get that shit out of here. I’ll knock it out of your hand.” None of these folks knew me, yet they instantly knew they hated me.

Eventually, as you can see, some of the protesters surrounded me and began poking at me with their signs. Others, some of the most visibly angry and hysterical among them (apparently minors), hid their faces behind their banners while continuing to scream at passing traffic.

[…]

The woman continued to poke at my face with her sign and call me “nasty.” Genuinely disturbed by the complete lack of rational behavior I’d seen up to this point, wanting to look into her face and possibly connect on some level with her as a fellow human being, I pulled a corner of the sign down away from my eyes and asked “why are you calling me nasty?”

That’s when she attacked, clawing, grabbing and then shoving. I didn’t fight back; she was much bigger than me. After calling me a “nasty fucker” and threatening to kick my ass, she pried my phone out of my hand and tried to break it in half while her friends egged her on.

[…]

After she took away my phone, I stood there stunned, not really sure what to do. One of the counter-protesters (the woman who you see saying “No on Prop 8” towards the beginning of this clip) intervened and calmed the attacking woman down enough that I felt safe enough to dart forward to try to take my phone back. After a second or two of grappling, she let me have it back and went back to screaming at cars from a lawn chair near the side of the road.

[…]

I stood there for another minute or two, checking the phone’s applications for damage. One of the other sign-wavers, a teenage boy standing nearby, leaned over and whispered “fuck you, dyke.”

Even though I wasn’t hurt besides a small scratch on my hand, and my phone was okay, being attacked definitely shook me up. I was a bit tearful. Call me naive, but I never thought I’d actually be in physical danger just for shooting footage and pulling the edge of a person’s sign out of my eyes. Verbal insults, sure. But attacked? Yikes.

The man holding the “Vote No” sign noticed that I was in tears and approached me. We hugged to a chorus of jeers, exchanged some reassuring words, and I turned to leave. Someone screamed after me: “keep crying, and keep walking.”

So that’s exactly what I did.

I’m voting no on Prop 8. I’ll take love over hate any day.

I don’t know if I have this kind of courage.  I hope that if I were in these circumstances, I would show the strength not to run, but I just don’t know.  I see stuff like this and my hands just start shaking and I get pulled back to that sense of vulnerability that happens, like when a group of homophobes started shouting at me from their car when I was on my bicycle one day and then proceeded to chase me in their car, yelling and threatening me the whole time (fortunately for me, bicycles can go all sorts of places cars can’t get to and it was a heavily trafficked area, so there was no opportunity for them to catch up, but still).

So I see this.  I read it.  I watch it.  And I just think… wow.

I get violence.  I understand it.  I think it’s ineffective and futile, but on a raw psychological level, I get why people become violent and I get how mob mentalities can go a bit crazy from time to time.   I’ve studied the psychology.  Hell, I teach the psychology.  But there’s a big difference between abstract understanding of violence and really knowing it for what it is.  I know violence for what it is in the direct, personal level.  I’ve seen enough of that.  

But this… this… involving children in it?

This isn’t just violence.  This isn’t just mob mentality.  This is sick.  This is pure, unadulterated hate.  

We’ve got to show these people for who they are, everywhere we can.  We have to publicize this and make sure that everyone knows what the Proposition 8 movement is, at its core: violent, dangerous and anti-person.

Loud and clear: we have to expose this everywhere we can.

(Musician and philosophy professor Oliver Carling of Buel’s Gore, Vermont gives us all some timely voting encouragement.   – promoted by Maggie Gundersen)

Crossposted at www.vermontbloggernaut.com

This little ad on the TV has me amused. This is not the first time we’ve seen this ad, with the very same people. It’s the one he uses campaign cycle after cycle, and to effect. It’s not an attack ad, nor is it negative really. Kind of a neutralizer ad suggesting the democrats may not fully support their candidate.

I must say hands down this is my favorite go to tool in the whole Douglas Campaign re-election chest. It’s predictable, we see it campaign after campaign. But my question to Governor Douglas is that are we to think the ad’s still current? I mean here we are a couple years later, has their opinion of Douglas not to have changed? How will these “democrats” vote this election cycle?

To me it’s kind of reminiscint of the whole Douglas theory of governorship; take old ideas, give them a new spin, repackage it, and sell it to the people as what they need. I’m not buying it, it’s a rope a dope, a shell game. Watch one hand while the other does what it wants.

He’s had a fair shake at being Governor of Vermont, what has he really done for us? Sure, he can point fingers and blame everyone but Douglas, but is that moving our state forward? Are any of us better off now than we were before he became Governor? We need to think about this dearly as we vote for the next governor.

I still don’t know how this election will playout with the record turnout predicted. It’s quite possible that a vote for anyone other than Douglas, may do nothing but help Douglas out. It’s a sticky situation. If the election gets tossed to the legislature, a majority of Vermonters would have not voted for Douglas, but he’d be the candidate with the most votes. This would mean Vermonters wanted a new governor, but were unsure of who among the other candidates.

What would the legislature decide? Boy, that’s a whole other can of worms, makes who you vote for this fall awfully important. Lots of things to think about in the weeks leading up to the election…….  

In the waning days of peace and prosperity brought to us by the last Democratic administration, a really crappy Belgium Beer infected pop-culture with a viral commercial, which became the functional equivalent of a mass media “I'm with Stupid” t-shirt (clarification, NOW it's a Belgium Beer & it still tasks like yeasty seltzer).  Of course it's fitting that Democratic administrations lose deficits while, under Republican administrations, we lose multi-national employers.

For those of you who enjoy the “WHERE ARE THEY NOW” entertainment genre, this follow-up succinctly demonstrates what happens when voters entrust peace, prosperity, national security, fiscal responsibility, global economic leadership and competitiveness and the governance of the U.S. to the Republican party.  

Truly, we have come to point in U.S. history where there is no legitimate, objective debate that incompetency and fidelity to failed policies is the baseline “credential” to be a Republican leader. (and don't forget that corruption and deceit receive extra-credit for climbing the GOP leadership ladder). Fiscal irresponsibility, lost wars of ideological choice, regressive taxation, crony capitalism, rule-of-law and equal protection are jettisoned and fear is the structural foundation of every national policy and political campaign waged by GOP leaders. From the incompetency of the Reagan years to the lawlessness of the Bush years, this is the legacy of Republican rule.

Flip over for more memory lane, . . . 

With less than two weeks to go to this year's election, do you remember when Governor Dean took health care and economic development seriously?

With less than two weeks to go, do you remember when President Clinton dedicated his administration to peace and prosperity while the Republican congress dedicated itself to tearing the country apart and engaging in class warfare and competitive corruption?

With less than two weeks to go before the election, do you remember how Vermont's last Democratic Governor made it his job to call or visit at least 10 of Vermont's significant employers EVERY WEEK of every year he served us as Governor to ask these employers what the State could do help them grow their Vermont businesses?

With less than two weeks to go before this year's election, does it matter that Jim Douglas' Republican administration has overseen the loss thousands of good paying jobs, the cultivation of low paying benefit-less jobs, the institution of continual under-employment and wage stagflation and the abandonment of Vermont's economic development initiatives?

We have less than two weeks, WASSSSSUP

(Numbers all over the map, and put together. Interesting….not too helpful. – promoted by odum)

From Pollster.com (you can drag your mouse over the colored dots … very carefully … to see specifics of each data point):