The Hollywood Liberal

GOP Funk: Top Dems Have Twice As Many Donors

Politico.com
Excerpt
From Congress to the presidential campaign, Republican fund raising is lagging while Democratic donations are surging.

Yet beneath the record-breaking million-dollar totals lies another statistic that could be more ominous in 2008 for Republicans: a yawning gap between the presidential primary fields’ donor bases. According to campaign figures, the Democrats’ top three candidates received donations from about 204,000 individuals. The first-tier Republican trio drew checks from 110,000, roughly half as many. That donor disparity helped give the Democrats a big first-quarter financial advantage.

The Democrats’ top three candidates reported having $61 million in cash at the end of the quarter, compared with $29 million posted by the top Republicans. Of the nine presidential hopefuls who raised more than $1 million, six are Democrats, compared with three Republicans. Two of the Democrats’ second-tier candidates — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd — matched or beat the quarter-end cash balance of the Republican front-runner, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

HLs Take
The Dems are getting way more donation because people have realized that Republicans only care about war, and more profit for themselves and their business cronies, and screw the people. At this point I would say that no republican has a chance to win the presidency. America will be a lot better off for it. Maybe this time people won’t forget the peace and prosperity of The Clinton administration to vote for the war mongerers as they did last time due to media manipulation on an unimportant matter that had nothing to do with governing.

Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market. Trouble in Squanderville

Counterpunch
Excerpt
Two years ago, anyone who wrote about the housing bubble was dismissed as a conspiracy nut. Now hardly a day goes by that the headlines aren’t splattered with the details of the massive meltdown in the real estate market.
What changed? The facts are essentially the same today as they were back then. In fact, the “Economist”–as well as many independent journalists–had already shown that the Fed’s low interest rates had inflated the biggest equity bubble in history which could potentially bring down the entire economy.
Now, all of a sudden, the media is acting as if the problem sprouted up overnight?
Why?
The notion that the media was unaware of what was going on is ridiculous. The business pages in America’s newspapers are written by some of the country’s “best and brightest”; most of them have MBAs which they earned at our finest universities.
Is it possible that they were oblivious to the trillions of dollars that were funneled into the real estate market to unqualified loan applicants? Or that they didn’t know that the rising prices had no relation GDP, increases in wages or productivity.
Is it possible that some of our best educated business prognosticators don’t understand the effects of low interest rates or the speculative bubbles they naturally create?
It’s simply not possible—-the effects of interest rates are the first thing that one learns in Econ 101.

HLs Take
About 3-4 years ago I was looking at houses in the ridiculously overpriced Southern California market. Back then Houses would go on sale on Monday, and be sold on Wednesday for considerably more then the original asking price. I quickly realized I had no chance of affording one, so I stayed in my apartment. Little did I realize at the time that the market was being glutted by people who had no business buying a house but did anyway through the subprime market. Prices were skyrocketing so fast it made your head spin. I have to put some of the blame for that on the people who are now going into default because their higher interest rates are kicking in and now they can’t afford the payments. How do you get into such a huge commitment without reading the fine print? Of course the government and lenders know that a lot of people are that negligent, and pumped up the market to people that couldn’t afford it so they could all make their commissions and worry about the rest later. Kind of like the way the Bush administration operates. Now houses are staying on the market for 6 months or more but owners have not yet lowered their asking prices because they hope somehow the market will rebound. Soon enough they won’t be able to hold on any longer, then look out below. Excellent article by Mike Whitney, click through and read the whole thing

Convention plan includes preparing for 3,000 arrests

Minneapolis Star Tribune
Arrestees at NYC Convention in 2004. HL in There Somewhere
Excerpt:About $550,000 for a possible open-air, fenced detention facility to hold protesters next to the Ramsey County Workhouse; $1.7 million for overtime, and $62,000 for biohazard decontamination equipment….
These are among the items included in a $4.4 million budget proposal by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who was told by St. Paul police to plan for 3,000 arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

The idea of developing a plan for 3,000 arrests drew sharp criticism this week from the American Civil Liberties Union in Minnesota, which said it was far too high and represented an overreaction by authorities.
Also included in the projected expenses is $350,000 in riot equipment and Tasers to control protesters engaged in civil disobedience….

The county thinks St. Paul will agree to cover the costs through a $50 million appropriation expected from Congress to cover convention security.
Charles Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said the Republican Convention in New York drew hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, far more than are predicted for St. Paul in 2008, yet New York had fewer arrests than St. Paul is planning for.

While it has not been decided, the Sheriff’s Office is considering transporting arrested protesters to a fenced field with tents and temporary cooling units next to the workhouse. He said he expected most protesters would be released in two to four hours.
“I hope it is a nice warm, dry day,” Samuelson said. “Otherwise, because of the lawsuits, this could be the most expensive thing they do, if it doesn’t work right.”
Told about the possible open-air detention facility, Mary Beaudoin, director of Women Against Military Madness, a local protest group, said, “It’s hideous, it’s terrifying. Are they going to have us wear orange jumpsuits and hoods, too? It sounds like Guantanamo Bay

HLs Take
Guantanamo Bay indeed. Last time it was Guantanamo on The Hudson. If you are planning to go to the convention to protest Bush, and the republicans be prepared to be arrested because you will. Arrested for excersizing your constitutional rights to peaceful protest. Not only that they are using your money to do it with. Congress is to appropriate $50 Million of your money to arrest you for doing what the constitution says you can do. Is this a great country or what. Longtime readers of this site know that I went through the same BS in New York in ’04. They are going to try to use the lessons of NYC to prevent as many lawsuits as possible, but if it don’t work out the Republican National Committee will bail them out. Its worth all the money to them not to have their facisim exposed more then it already is.

Articles of Impeachment To Be Filed On Cheney

Washinton Post
Excerpt:
Looks like he’s reached his boiling point.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
Kucinich has made ending the war in Iraq the central theme of his campaign. He has even taken aim at the leading Democratic presidential candidates in the field for their votes on authorizing the war.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and “all civil Officers of the United States” for “treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

HLs Take
This is why I am voting for Dennis in the primaries, and why you should too. He is the one who is doing the most to try to end the corruption, of the Bush/Cheney regime. Not just playing lip service.