Left In Lowell

I’ve been interested in the race for Jamie Eldridge’s open Rep seat in the 37th Middlesex, partly because I know we have a great candidate to replace him, Jen Benson, but also because her opponent is the former “independent,” now Republican, Kurt Hayes (who raised a lot of his money from anti-gay forces where “nearly 40% [of his] itemized contributions come from pro-discrimination donors who live outside of the 37th Middlesex state House district”). Of course, Hayes doesn’t like to admit he’s Republican, neither putting it in prominent display on his little website, nor anywhere on his literature, but he represents some of the worst in Republicans. (I still don’t understand the state Republican tactic - run candidates who are not really moderate. They would fare better if they ran candidates palatable to the average MA voter.)

But, the question needs to be asked, is Kurt Hayes for teaching creationism in schools? Because if he is, I think the voters of 37th Middlesex should know about it.

The question comes up first because of Hayes’ membership in Trinity Church of Bolton (no, it’s not you, their website sucks and is half broken). The tenor of the church is severely fundamentalist, and I have listened to some of the sermons (available in MP3 here). One in particular is quite disturbing, dated July 27, 2008. It starts with a reading of Genesis 1, and then the pastor David Smith begins his sermon with a list of science theories on the origins of the universe dating back to Kant in the 18th century, then goes into some length on the Big Bang Theory (emphasis is his):

The one that perhaps most of us are familiar with would be the Big Bang Theory, it’s about 50 years old now. Became very popular in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and even today, it recieves a lot of funding for those who want to research this particular theory. According to the Big Bang Theory, some 10 to 20 billion years ago, all matter and energy in the universe was compressed into a cosmic egg, or a plasma ball of some sort, consisting of sub-atomic particles and radiation. No one really knows where this cosmic egg came from, but there it was. And for no inexplicable reason, this cosmic egg exploded. As matter and radiation expanded, so this theory says, that it cooled sufficiently for elements to form as protons and neutrons, and electrons, combined to form hydrogen. These gases expanded radially, in all directions, until they collapsed upon themselves in local areas by gravitational attraction, forming an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe. How many of you have heard of the Big Bang Theory? I think probably most of us have in some form or fashion.

He then lists the “flaws” with the big bang theory (the one where it expects uniformity, not “clumping”), mentions in passing the Plasma Theory, then says,

There are many other theories of the beginning of the universe which come and go with different passing generations. Now since there was no one there to observe it, we can never know for sure how the world began. Unless there was someone there who could report back to us on how it happened.

And actually there is someone, isn’t there? God himself. And he records for us how he created the heavens and the earth in the book of Genisis. The Bible begins not trying to describe that God existed, it simply states that God exists and the very first verse in the Bible says it this way: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” The Book of Genesis stands alone for accounting for the actual creation of space and mass and time continuum.

His conclusion on the age of the earth?

Sometimes we like to try to date it. And certainly from my perspective I know that in a church like Trinity there’s a lot of different views on how old the earth is, and nobody really knows, but from my perspective and looking at the geneologies, even if they are incomplete, from Adam on, if you add a few other people along the way, you come up with an age of the universe of around 10,000 years old. Otherwise the whole geneology is worthless, and it’s pointless. Why in the world would all these names be back to Adam if it wasn’t some kind of at least close approximation of that.

Some crazy stuff. But par for the course for these churches, and certainly he can believe whatever he wants to believe, all evidence to the contrary.

But does Mr. Hayes subscribe to this belief, and if so, does he want our public schools teaching it? There are scattered reports of him approaching voters and telling them he’s for teaching creationism in schools, and given his membership, and indeed, leadership within this church (he’s head of the “Boy’s Brigade” - who came up with that militant name anyway?) it does make you wonder.

No one bothers to ask the question. So I will. Mr. Hayes, are you for or against the teaching of creationism in our public schools?

Tristero on Digby hits on the real tragedy of the Palin speech on science and earmarks…not only is she completely ignorant of the subject of which she speaks (worthy of a Phelps rant?) but the fact is, that policy speech had to have put together by the upper echelons of the campaign, some of the “great brains” of Republican leadership:

Sarah Palin isn’t the issue here. Sure, I’ll concede that this illustrates Palin’s breathtaking ignorance AND her stupidity. After all, she agreed to repeat it. But what it really demonstrates is how unqualified the upper echelons of the Republican party are to run this country. She certainly didn’t write this speech: John McCain’s advisers did and approved every appalling word.

The subject is government funding of scientific research:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

If you know anything at all about science in the 21st century, then you know that the study of fruit flies (aka Drosophilia melanogaster) has led to some of the most important discoveries in biology, genetics, and related topics.

And yet, their best argument for electing them these days is that we need to balance the one-party rule of Democrats (both nationally and in this state). You know, if you got balance, but it’s on the edge of a cliff, I’d prefer to back away from the cliff, to hell with their brand of “balance.”

John is right, this is damned creepy. Blast from the past from The Onion, where “Bush assured… that ‘our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.’”

Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that “our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.”

President-elect Bush vows that “together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us.”

“My fellow Americans,” Bush said, “at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us.”

Bush swore to do “everything in [his] power” to undo the damage wrought by Clinton’s two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

“You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,” said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. “Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?”

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

*shudder*

From the not-so-way-back machine. Good judgment, thy name is not John McCain:

(Via Laurel, great find.)

Keep reminding yourself that SecTreas Paulson is, himself, a giant of industry, formerly of Goldman Sachs, a company that would directly (and highly) benefit from Paulson’s proposed bailout (despite the fact that this company is in less trouble than others).

So, Paulson tells Congress, bail out my friends no strings attached, and sometime in the future, think about oversight, which is the privilege of Congress. You know, long after we have any ability to hold the current bunch of crooks accountable..as they’ll have happily jumped off this crashing plane via sweet, cushy, well-stocked golden parachutes.

Nice. (If you haven’t called Niki Tsongas to tell her to vote against any bailout that gives Paulson even remotely anything he wants, you should do so ASAP. Call our Senators too, while you’re at it.)

Quietly, so as not to alarm potential voters, three Republican candidates for state office have been getting thousands of dollars from members of an anti-gay group. This from a press release on a memo put together by the state Senate campaign of Jamie Eldridge. Bold mine.

Dubbed “The New Gang of Three,” Republican Steven Levy of Marlborough, Kurt Hayes of Boxborough, and Arthur Vigeant of Marlborough were revealed to have raised between twenty and forty percent of their itemized contributions for 2008 from a single group of pro-discrimination activists.

One political action committee, the Massachusetts Independent Political Action Committee for Working Families, or “MIPAC,” and its supporters have sent thousands of dollars in contributions to Levy, Hayes, and Vigeant. MIPAC’s singular purpose is to have discriminatory language eroding individual rights and equal protection under the law written into the Massachusetts state Constitution.

Further, The New Gang of Three have been curiously quiet about their political benefactors as this one divisive special interest group silently funds significant portions of their legislative campaigns.

This is rather disgusting to me. Folks, if you can, I really encourage people to donate time or money to Jen Benson, who already has my endorsement, or give to Jamie Eldridge, who I also endorse. Or to take a second look at Danielle Gregoire, Vigeant’s Democratic opponent, if you want to fight such insidious funding. These are races that we can, and must, win, if we are to not only protect equality, but keep what makes Massachusetts work for all people (as opposed to the social and economic right wing). We cannot have a backslide in our principles now, that we have made so much progress.

The actual memo in question is below the flip if you want to read it in detail. (more…)

Stirling Newberry is back at dkos with his first post in almost two years, with his usual dazzling array of information and commentary (though he has been contributing to The Agonist). He pulls us back and out to the extremely macroeconomic in order to make the point that the Bush-Paulson bailout is a complete confirmation of the status quo (despite looking like a backtracking from “free markets”) and that other, opposite measures would actually not only help us contain the damage in the shorter term, but also fix the structural stupidities that drove us here in the first place.

He also argues that giving Paulson this unprecedented dictatorial power over money and finance is a constitutional crisis in and of itself.

It is a long post, but well worth the total read. You will feel like you have a bigger grasp of what is at stake here. An excerpt:

As Paulson’s little demand for dictatorial powers makes clear, this is not really a financial crisis. Instead, it is a political and constitutional crisis. Paulson told Barney Frank that putting in an amendment to cap executive pay would be a “poison pill.” If this were really a catastrophe in the making, one where the American public’s money was needed right now, or else, then Paulson would have accepted almost any conditions, even if he intended to renege on them in practice. After all, with 700 billion to spend, it would have been trivial to make sure that a few billion sloshed to the people whose golden parachutes he took away.
…
The key to the constitutionality of this is that in order to pay back the massive sums of debt taken on by the failed Bush executive, which will probably amount to some 8 trillion dollars when all of the dust is finally cleared out of the air and everything is accounted for - some new source of value must be created. There is no way, with current rates of oil production, the global expansion of the middle class, and current rates of oil consumption, for the US to ever produce enough houses, at high enough prices, to print enough money to grow our way out of this debt. It is physically impossible, just as there ever being enough physical gold to pay off the debts of the First World War and its aftermath, because interest multiplies like rabbits, and gold does not.
…
This means that while HOLC/RTC proposals are useful the most important step right now is to meet the demands of the Treasury Secretary for arbitrary powers head on, and select a different entity to manage any bail out, and to forbid bailing out of specific securities, but only of whole entities. In short, before the public will by any more toxic assets, the public will have the authority to remove the people who bought, created, and sold those assets.

There is already an entity whose purpose it is to evaluate failed institutions, collect insurance, and merge institutions into healthy ones. That entity as Robert Reich correctly observed in a recent radio interview, is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Since we have, effectively, taken responsibility for the global financial system, it is time to accept that the principle of insurance, direction, and regulation is required.
…
Thus the centerpieces of a counter congressional bill are:

1. Expansion of the FDIC to include money market funds, brokerages, and other financial funds. Institutions which are out of this expansion, if any, will be allowed to fail as a class. Assign the CBO as the Congressional means of oversight and give the CBO authorization to extend credit to the FDIC, which can be waived if, after Congressional review, the money is justified. Basically, anything that Bush does on the way out the door must be subject to review by the incoming Congress and Administration.

2. Authorization of an HOLC type cram down of mortgages with government liens, the profits of which are split between home owners and the mortgage system, now in taxpayer hands anyway. Place this process in the hands of the FHA, and have the CBO assigned to continuous oversight. Authorize some 20 billion dollars in stock to be purchased by the government.

3. Declaration of a national emergency, without expansion of the debt ceiling, and also with explicit judicial review. In the national emergency specific authorization can be given to review any transfer of effective control of banks or other financial entites. In this declaration can be rationing of gasoline, imposition of conservation and other austerity measures.

4. Dramatically expand safety net programs for the inevitable economic shock: food stamps, unemployment insurance, suspension of interest on student loans, loans to the government by members of the National Guard, active Military, or Reserve and so on.

This excerpt, however, is just a taste. I really recommend you take the time to read the whole thing.

Also, we need to call our US Reps and Senators and tell them to fight against the Bush-Paulson bailout. You can reach Rep. Niki Tsongas’ DC office at (202) 225-3411. Senator Edward Kennedy: (202) 224-4543. Senator John Kerry:
(202) 224-2742.

More is coming to light on the details (or rather, lack thereof) of Secretary Paulson’s free-for-all (or rather, free-for-Wall-Street) government takeover of their bad debt.

David points out that Paul Krugman and Bill Kristal are in agreement against this bailout. If there’s anything that represents matter and anti-matter coming together, it’s this.

We now see this expanding to international bailouts, as Paulson extends his proposal to include foreign banks, who lobbied hard for this all weekend. Hey, if the US government is handing out free cash to big corporations, why not just make it happen for the whole world’s corporations? I mean, the US taxpayer’s a bottomless pit, right?

Rep. Barney Frank, thank goodness, appears ready to scrutinize this new Bush blank check. It is worth the risk of taking our time to be sure we don’t create greater problems down the line. Paulson couldn’t care less that this mess was avoidable if we’d have been sane years ago. Instead, he wants his friends to have their headaches cured, at the expense of the American taxpayer. They spent years letting Wall Street print their own money, so to speak, and now that the bill’s due, they would hate to have the rich people have to pay the piper.

Here’s an idea (from Senator Bernie Sanders): tax the rich for their own bailout. Leave the middle class and the poor the hell out of it. The banks and their rich investors wanted to make money hand over fist forever with no consequences, and now that the hangover’s begun they whine that their heads hurt. Poor babies.

Update: This bonddad post is a must-read. As to why this bailout bill is TEH STUPID. Well, unless you’re rich, then it’s a nice handout.

Secondarily, if you want context and history about how this whole damn mess came to be, you must read this.

As the federal government grasps at straws to keep the market from imploding, is it really just postponing and exacerbating the inevitable crash?

Via digby, there seems to be a picture developing that says, yes, indeed.

This is nothing short of a total panic by people who have no clue what they are doing. And to think, I mocked Russia for being a nation run by market commies.

This is the ultimate bailout attempt, which will have repercussions far far beyond our imaginations:

1) We suffer a loss of Market Integrity; The US is now a Banana Republic

2) Blatant market manipulation: this is nothing more than an attempt to force markets higher;

3) 60 days prior to a presidential election? This is a none-too-subtle attempt to influence the elections — especially coming on top of the Fannie/Freddie bailout;

4) The coming pop will create a huge air pocket, ultimately leading to us crashing much lower;

5) Expect a huge increase in volatility — upwards first, then down;

Expect the markets to love the idea of the Federal Government stepping in to take on their bad debts (and in fact they have, looking at the DOW); but make no mistake, this doesn’t fix the problem, not by a long shot.

The problem is, is that it’s too late: there must be pain. This is like 19th century medicine. Infection in the leg? Sorry, it needs to be cut off. Only then, the patient has no leg to stand on.

Preventative antibiotics should have been applied years ago, to stop the infection from spreading in the first place. Now, it may be too late. We’ll lose that leg no matter what. And the solution is going to hurt us even worse than the original infection did.

As a followup to yesterday’s post about the economy, this CNN Money article outlays the core of the collapse as well as any I’ve seen - the housing bubble.

But because of the depth of the housing problems, it may take a long time before real estate prices head higher again. Here’s why.

Home prices, while sharply off from the 2006 peaks, are still high in comparison to long-term gains in income, rents or overall prices, suggesting that they still have a way to fall, according to experts.

The reason housing is wreaking havoc even on insurers like AIG and big investment banks, who do not make mortgage loans, is that during the boom, trillions of dollars of mortgages were packaged together into securities that promised to pay investors with the proceeds of those loan payments.

Those securities paid better rates than other types of assets during the boom years. So many investors from around the globe poured as much money as they could into those securities.

Faced with this demand, lenders starting making more loans to riskier borrowers, including people who might not be able to afford their mortgage payments in the future and even many with no proof of income.

When prices were rising, this wasn’t a problem. The risk of loan foreclosure or default was limited because many homeowners were able to sell their house for more than they owed and make a profit.

But once prices topped out and began falling, loan defaults and foreclosures started shooting higher as homeowners found it more difficult to sell their house. This created problems not just for subprime borrowers but even for those with good credit and income.

When foreclosures rose, the value of the various types of securities tied to mortgages started to fall, causing huge losses up and down Wall Street. It also made banks less eager to extend credit because of the risks involved.

The crux of this problem was in the securities being sold to investors in bundles. A bank had no incentive to worry as much about the risks of lending because a) they would be selling these off as securities to investors and b) housing prices were on the rise, so…what risk?

The bottom line is, money isn’t smart. It sometimes makes the dumbest short-term-gain decisions, in order to make a profit now, that will result in chaos later - and some of the biggest government socialization programs in history…our government bailout of these gigantic companies. Fact is, the entire idea of a free market economy is a myth. How many times do we have to find this out the hard way before we stop undermining the sane regulations that check and balance the best interest of the public with the best interest of money?

(Update: Check out this article as to how this all ties into Phil Gramm, McCain’s close economic adviser who also called those of us who think this economy’s bad “whiners.” Hat tip: waittilnextyear.)