News Cut: September 29, 2008 Archive

Live-blogging Midmorning: Policy, the presidential debate, and the bailout

Posted at 5:00 AM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (49 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

You've had a few days to think about it, and this morning I'll be live-blogging Kerri Miller's first hour of Midmorning, as she looks back at Friday night's debate. Guests are: Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, professor of communication studies at the University of Minnesota; William Doyle, author of "Inside the Oval Office: the White House Tapes from FDR to Clinton" ; and Christopher Whalen: senior vice president and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, which focuses on the banking industry.

That's right! We're going to talk about issues, which is why we want your comments. Just submit them below and I'll cull through the best ones to read on the air. We'll be having a conversation here while listening to Kerri's conversation.

On Sunday, by the way, both candidates were on Sunday morning talk shows, both gave some support to the $700 bailout. Which reminds me: The best question Friday night was the one both wouldn't touch : What won't you be able to do in your administration because of the money necessary to fund the bailout?

Live-blogging

9:01 a.m. - We will be talking about the bailout for the first 10 minutes.

9:08 a.m. - Chris Whalen, financial whiz, is on the phone. Says the bailout is "largely irrelevant and ineffective." We've had four banks in Europe nationalized or injected with capital, Wachovia takeover and with each there's increasing government involvement. "The problem with the bailout is it's fighting the problem of six months ago," he said.

9:11 a.m. - Do the holders of the rights to It's a Wonderful Life get any money whenever a financial analyst invokes a scene from it to explain the financial woes on Wall Street? I'll hang up and listen.

9:12 a.m. - Here's his Web site.

9:15 a.m. - The next red flag in the "crisis"? "We'll see more resolutions," he says. Then he says "people listening to this program should not be concerned. If I only had a dollar for every time I've heard that in the last six months.... This is the only crisis in the country I can remember that has reached fever pitch ith pols and analysts telling us not to be concerned.

Let's turn to the debate!

9:18 a.m. - E.J. Dionne, in the Washington Post, said McCain lost.

9:20 a.m. - While we're talking about the history of Mississippi, let's think a bit about this week's vice presidential debate. Let's see, how can we best do that?

9:23 a.m. - Houston Chronicle: Neither candidate landed a knockout punch.

9:23 a.m. - Doyle, Campbell, and Kerri are talking about historical mentions of civil rights in debates. Didn't come up Friday night, of course. Campbell says neither side wants to touch the subject.

9:25 a.m. -- Caller Karen from Minneapolis: "Mostly discouraged. Neither candidate has the strengths I'm looking for. I've always voted Republican."

Bobometrics She's right here in terms of content of the debate. Both, as pols tend to do, looked for ways to go to their stump speeches. One was the question about what candidates won't be able to do because of the bailout. The other moment was the discussion about Russia, when Obama connected it to oil and then went to the stump speech on energy.

9:27 a.m. - McCain didn't mess up, but he was "like the demolition derby. He got to where he was going but in such a bizarre kind of way. He says he forgot phrases within his own stump speeches.

9:29 a.m. - Campbell says McCain was trying to project himself as a maverick. The problem is "what he's proposing is so traditional."

Commenter says:

In-laws said that McCain was much stronger in debate on foreign policy.

Bobometrics: McCain's strongest part of the night was his analysis of the Russia-Georgia problem.

9:32 a.m. - Caller listened to the radio instead of TV. Says Obama was a better speaker. McCain knew more.

9:36 a.m. - Sudden realization: neither guest nor host is aware of political debate drinking game concepts. Out of touch with America?

9:40 a.m. - Why didn't McCain look at Obama. "Because he grew up in a culture where if a black man looked into the eyes of a white man, it was a threat," analyst "David" contends. OK, that's a leap. It's a guess. Presented as fact based on the fact McCain went to Annapolis and "is of that generation."

"I thought this was a way to reflect that Obama isn't qualified so he doesn't have to be treated as an equal," says Campbell.

9:45 a.m. - The Kissinger flap. Who's right? The Christian Science Monitor takes a whack at it.

9:50 a.m. - Back to the racist allegations of not looking at each other. I found this:

9:52 a.m. - Back to what would Kissinger do, this quote from the Christian Science Monitor article:

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized," the email reads. "He says, 'Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain."

9:57 a.m. "White lady" calls to say "it gave us the creeps everytime McCain said, "he doesn't understand."

"It so spoke to the 'he's pretty smart for a Negro,'" she said.

Says Doyle, "A truth is laid on the table that blows up in your face. It's this revulsion that white people have that there could be an atom of racism in a soul. I bet younger people see it (Bob notes: Why younger people? See my post last week that younger people do NOT have a substantially different view of race than older people),..."

==>> Well, now, the show is over, but we sure have an issue to talk about now, don't we? So talk. See you in comments. <==

10:10 a.m. - Another picture of McCain looking at a black guy.

Comment on this post

Johnson for Coleman?

Posted at 11:49 AM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Any time a big-name Democrat endorses a Republican in one of the hottest Senate races in the country, one has to stop and think for a moment.

Doug Johnson isn't such a big name since he left the Legislature, where he was the powerful head of the Taxes Committee. He's endorsing Norm Coleman against Al Franken.

Perhaps an old MPR profile on Johnson, just before he launched a DFL gubernatorial bid (in the same election in which Norm Coleman was the Republican candidate) provides a similarity between the two:

Johnson can also set himself apart from the other DFLers by being from outside the Twin Cities; in the words of one political wag, he's the only "pro-gun, pro-life, pro-hockey-puck" candidate, and if the Big Three split the metro vote, Johnson could win the nomination.

It's not as though Johnson was, by default, already philosophically or culturally aligned with Al Franken.

The Minnesota Independent says there's a different sort of connection -- money. Johnson is a lobbyist for Excelsior Energy, a "clean coal" energy plant on the Iron Range, loan guarantees for which Coleman authored in a Senate bill.

The $2 billion project near Taconite doesn't get a lot of coverage in the Twin Cities, but it's a big story on the Range. Last week, the Office of Legislative Auditor ordered a small amount of a multi-million dollar loan returned to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board because some of it may have been used for lobbying. The Legislative Auditor, however, found the federal financing appropriate.

Aaron J. Brown, who writes what is probably the best blog on the Iron Range, and worked on Johnson's gubernatorial campaign in 1998, sees the benefits of a personal relationship between Coleman and Johnson as responsible for the endorsement. And he doesn't think it'll change the race much.

A little, maybe, but probably not much. Johnson has been out of office for six years and has mostly been lobbying (and fishing) since. He has loyal supporters in the more rustic environs of the Iron Range, but I don't know that vast legions of DFL voters follow his advice on the Senate race. The Franken people know they need to close the deal on the Range because of the nontraditional nature of their candidate, and I suspect that the end result will be based on their success in handling the "temperament" attacks coming in all parts of the state.

Comment on this post

Should pastors be allowed to preach politics?

Posted at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (22 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Religion

Some preachers around the country spent yesterday endorsing John McCain for president, apparently in violation of IRS rules that do not allow non-profit organizations who have a tax-exempt status from actively engaging in campaigning for an individual candidate.

Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church was one of them. So was George Marin at Grace Christian Church in Albert Lea.

"I'd like to see that the IRS is not in the business of prohibiting religious speech, that's for sure," Booth told me this afternoon. "They have made a statute that is in competition with the Constitution. I feel like the Constitution has given me a First Amendment right to say what I want to say and I don't lose that when I step behind my pulpit."Listen

This isn't the first time Booth has challenged the law. In May he delivered a sermon about the Democratic candidates for president.

"If you are a Christian, you cannot support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama....Both Hillary and Barack favor the shedding of innocent blood (abortion) and the legalization of the abomination of homosexual marriage."

Has he heard anything from the IRS yet?

"That's the only question I cannot answer, because of my attorney's advice," Booth said.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, called Booth's actions last May "a flagrant violation of federal tax law."

"Booth is free to endorse anyone he wants to as a private citizen," Lynn said in a press release announcing the filing of a complaint with the IRS. "But when he is standing in his tax-exempt pulpit as the top official of a tax-exempt religious organization, he must lay partisanship aside. The IRS needs to look into this apparent violation of federal tax law."

"I don't have to pay for free speech. We're a non-profit organization and we're by nature not even taxable. So we don't even have to be a 501-C3 to not pay taxes. We're not taxable. We're non profit so you can't tax us," Booth says.

He won't be preaching politics again anytime soon. "I've already done it twice, so I doubt that I'm going to preach again this election year on it simply because when you preach on the same subject over and over again, you're not being a good pastor... it's irrelevant after a few Sundays." Listen

Booth says his congregation has been supportive of his challenge to the law. But he also acknowledges he hasn't seen any cars in the church's parking lot sporting Barack Obama bumper stickers.

Religious scholar Martin Marty, sees no legitimate debate about religious freedom in the "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" protest...

No doubt myriad violations occur in pulpits and church bulletins, but most of them tend to be casual or subtle or only semi-substantial. The Pulpit Freedom Sunday of the Alliance Defense Fund does not want to be casual or subtle or less than substantially substantial. The preachers it backs and propels want to make this a law-defying act of "freedom." We can be sure that opponents of this generally right-wing political cause will be provoked into counter-testing, asking the IRS and the feds to insist on support of law. Is this a real "pulpit freedom" issue? Some want to compare it to Martin Luther King and conscientious objectors and any who appeal to a "higher law." But King and the objectors know that they are vulnerable to arrest or penalties, and have often paid them by sitting in jails. The Pulpit Freedom advocates appeal to no "higher law;" they simply want the freedom to break existing laws.

A call to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has not been returned.

Booth is appearing appeared on the second hour of NPR's Talk of the Nation.

Comment on this post

Bailout goes belly up

Posted at 3:22 PM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

The big bailout package has gone toes-up and there are smarter people than me on the site who can tell you the big high falutin' meaning of it all.

Many of us just want to pull the covers up , stuff a pillow over our head, and maybe dream that somewhere it's still "the way it used to be."

One disclaimer. This piece was actually produced last April, back when the feds thought they had the mortgage crisis "contained," although I can't remember if that was the first time they had it contained, or the second time.

Comment on this post

Web sites crash for most reps who voted 'no'

Posted at 3:57 PM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Tech

As of 4:06 p.m. the Web sites for most Minnesota representatives who voted 'no' on the bailout bill aren't working. The ones for those who voted 'yes' are.

Is it directly related to the bailout bill, which failed today? The main House Web site has crashed.

"We haven't seen this much demand since the 9-11 commission report" was posted on the site in 2004, said Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the House Chief Administrative Officer. "We're being overwhelmed with Web traffic about the bill."

Among the "no" voters, Rep. Tim Walz' page and Collin Peterson's page loads a blank page. Rep. Jim Ramstad's site connects but doesn't load a full page. But Rep. Michele Bachmann's page is working.

Among those voting "yes," the Web sites of Rep. John Kline, Rep. Betty McCollum, Rep. Jim Oberstar, and Rep. Keith Ellison are all working.

Ventura told the Associated Press the Web sites are working, but many computer users
are getting the equivalent of a busy signal when they try to visit the site. Once users are on the site, it works at reduced speed.

Still, it would appear many more people are interested in contacting the "no" reps, than the "yes" reps.

(h/t: Willie Vogt)

Comment on this post

The bailout bill

Posted at 10:24 PM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

That bill we've been referring to as the "$700 billion Wall St. bailout" bill? It actually has a title:

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes

That's the official title. The unofficial (short) title is Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Here's the full text of the bill. Here's a fascinating dissection of it on PublicMarkup.org.

The bill, HR 3997, was originally known as the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2007.

The HEART Act allows combat pay to be used as earned income for purposes of claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit. It makes permanent expiring Tax Code provisions that allow active duty reservists to make penalty-free withdrawals from their retirement plans, and let employers make contributions to retirement plans on behalf of an employee who has been disabled or killed in combat. It also includes tax benefits for other volunteers by clarifying that rebates of state and local taxes for volunteer firefighters and that reimbursements for expenses incurred in the line of duty by volunteer firefighters are not taxable.

It passed the House unanimously last November. Another version passed the Senate. It was known as the Defenders of Freedom Tax Relief Act of 2007. A final bill was agreed to and then it died from inaction with the last legislative action dated December 20, 2007.

The bill had been loaded up. It aided education for returning veterans, prohibited group health plans that provide medical, surgical care and mental health care from imposing coverage limits on mental health. It has been brought back a number of times to forgive nursing student loans. It died originally, apparently, because of a provision for an exit tax for Americans who renounce their citizenship or terminates residency in the U.S. In other words, people who were trying to avoid paying taxes.

Sometime after its late December death, the original provisions of the bill (and the Exit Tax) resurfaced in another bill last spring, HR 6081. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in June.
That left HR 3997 still hanging around with nothing to do, so it was used for the bailout bill, with its official title still intact, and no longer making any sense.

With its defeat, it apparently is still available for future uses, too.

It actually sounded easier on Schoolhouse Rock.

Comment on this post