Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1391.8 | 2.8 | 0.20% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2387.0 | 14.5 | 0.61% |
| Oil (WTI) | 91.27 | -0.1 | -0.14% |
| LIBOR | 0.439 | -0.001 | -0.11% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 82.35 | -0.024 | -0.03% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.55% | -0.02% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 188.1 | 0.7 |
Markets are slightly higher this morning on a deal to rescue Knight Capital. There are very few economic releases this week, and Europe should be quiet as we get into August. Bonds are up half a point, while MBS are up a few ticks.
As some lenders exit the correspondent business, others enter. While Bank of America and GMAC are leaving or scaling back, Redwood Trust is applying for Fan and Fred approval in order to increase their focus from just jumbo loans. Redwood Trust is the main issuer of MBS without a government guarantee.
Knight Capital received a $400MM rescue from Getco LLC. Interestingly, the rescue was put together by Knight’s customers who fear too much concentration in market makers. While the trading error that caused it will undoubtedly draw regulatory scrutiny to high-frequency trading. Maxine Waters is already looking to hold hearings on it. Wonder if they will look to the unintended consequences of Reg NMS, which basically destroyed the business model of traditional market-making. HFT is what is left. If investors don’t want to pay commissions or bid / ask spreads, they will probably have to accept the volatility that goes along with computerized trading.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Hi, Brent – we truly welcome your return.
During the summer of 1964 I worked for a small broker in Newark, NJ and developed a little niche scouring the Pink Sheets [do they still exist?] for some local market maker who closed with a lower price on stock than we could sell for. Usually a small broker like us who closed early for an event, or whatever, caught with a pre-closing price. I would buy on the ticker at his opening. My understanding was that NMS was directed at ending the locality arbitrage. What else did it do?
Brent, Scott, and Don Juan – I read early this morning that most current Euro instrument purchases by American banks are now
“backed” by CDFs. Are the current CDFs truly sound? Capitalized? Or will AIG repeat if the Euro craters?
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For QB. I think he will appreciate this:
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I would eat at ChickF to support the company’s right to a permit in Chi but they use too much salt at the one near me.
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“Living inside the Washington Beltway does affect your thinking”
this is how you score an 11 on the bubble test.
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In a side note, too bad there are all those Americans on the Mars Rover Team:
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/people/MER_Women_Team.html
Imagine what they could have accomplished if the job was given to one of those countries that “beat” us in education scores!
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mark:
If you’re talking bonds, I will leave that in the capable hands of our specialists.
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I am making money today based on “optimism”. I lost money on Thursday based on pessimism.
So much for logarthmic trading programs.
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Funny how so many bloggers have no problem with anonymous accusations and consider the accused innocent until proven guilty, as long as the accused is Romney.
What is so difficult about saying if you don’t think he has released enough returns, that’s an excellent reason not to vote for him?
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I wonder if this is going to back fire on “Mr. Clean Face”, Harry Reid?
That is the code name given to him by one mobster in wiretaps when he was head of the Gaming Commission apparently because that was the only part of him that was clean.
What do you say Harry, how about opening the FBI files on yourrself? Seems only fair.
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If they wanted to take this to the mat, Romney should challenge Reid to resign if he releases his tax returns and they disprove the allegations.
Regardless, the fact that Romney who was effectively running for President since 2006 didn’t restructure his income in such a way as to prepare for this is about as big of an unforced error as you can get in politics. What was his plan if he was the nominee in 2008?
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fun video on the 100 meter dash over the history of the Olympics.
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A post at Plum Line prompted me to look up the polling data for the 1980 election. During that research, I found this nugget:
Note this:
“The same day Carter’s congressional liaison, Frank Moore, resigned after
repeating the unsubstantiated story of the Ayatollah’s cancer.”
The idea that someone in politics would have to resign after repeating an unsubstantiated story seems so quaint in the post Harry Reid era.
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Worth noting:
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jnc
The idea that someone in politics would have to resign after repeating an unsubstantiated story seems so quaint in the post Harry Reid era.
I’m not enamored with this game of political chicken Reid is playing but I would hardly blame him for the “first” unsubstantiated story that changed political discourse. I would prefer our politicians hold themselves to a higher standard but Harry Reid is hardly the first to push the truth envelope.
One way or another, if Mitt wants to win this thing, he’ll have to release more tax returns. He should have done it very quietly on a Friday before all the furor began. Obama finally had to provide a certified copy of his birth certificate to the public and the press because it became too much of an issue to ignore. Why should Mitt be held to a different standard?
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Reid’s certainly not the first to repeat an unsubstantiated story by any means, but as head of one House of Congress, I’d argue that he’s taken it to the next level. I don’t see any limitations on the dissemination of unsubstantiated rumors about political foes going forward. What was once done by the likes of Karl Rove in conversations with reporters, usually on background, is now done by the politicians who are party leaders themselves, on the record, in the floor of the Senate.
Richard Cohen on Reid:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/harry-reids-gutter-politics/2012/08/06/b3546bfe-dfcf-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html
Romney’s tax return situation is absurd. As I’ve mentioned before, as he has been effectively running for President since 2006 there’s no excuse for him not taking steps to restructure his income in preparation for the release of the returns. It is inexplicably incompetent and half-assed of him.
Yet again, I draw solace in my ability to vote for Gary Johnson instead of Romney or Obama. My indifference between the two major party candidates knows no bounds.
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What did Obama gain by releasing it? I venture nothing. With birthers, he could point to them and tar all opposition to him as ridiculous and extreme. Now, not so much.
Though he’ll never, ever abandoned the “all opposition to me is racially motivated.”
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Worth noting:
Worth a reread in light of the above:
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We all agree that Romney should and perhaps will release more returns, and probably also agree that at this stage he will neither gain nor lose any votes by doing so.
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Jeeze you guys are a tough crowd today.
jnc, I’m sorry but you made it sound as though Harry Read had opened some previously sacred door which I think is pretty far fetched. I seem to remember Wilson’s shout out in the State of the Union. He may not be a leader but it was pretty lacking in decorum IMO. And the lukewarm comments from many of the Republican leadership personalities re Obama’s citizenship have not been impressive. Like I said, I think Reid’s approach is wrong but it’s hardly a break with current standards of behavior at the congressional level.
And McWing
Though he’ll never, ever abandoned the “all opposition to me is racially motivated.”
I’d be curious to know what Obama has said to make you think he believes that.
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“lmsinca, on August 6, 2012 at 12:55 pm said:
…
Like I said, I think Reid’s approach is wrong but it’s hardly a break with current standards of behavior at the congressional level.”
I’ll agree with that. It’s an evolution and progression (or devolution). It does represent a contrast with the standards that apparently prevailed in 1980 though.
Plus “post Harry Reid era” gets points for pithiness.
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John, I think Romney must believe he will lose votes by releasing them, no matter what the rest of us think, otherwise he would have released them already.
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Okiegirl – let me know if you are checking in at ATiM today. I have a response to one of your points on Plum Line, but there’s no point in posting it if you aren’t here.
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Plus “post Harry Reid era” gets points for pithiness.
Yes, I’ll give you that.
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“lmsinca, on August 6, 2012 at 1:00 pm said:
John, I think Romney must believe he will lose votes by releasing them, no matter what the rest of us think, otherwise he would have released them already.”
John Cassidy summed it up perfectly:
I believe that Romney has determined that his effective tax rate and associated use of complex vehicles and shelters is a political liability. He clearly represents part of the problem with the current system of taxation. He could probably get away with it if he had a real plan for reform that he could advocate for, but he doesn’t.
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Speaking of pithy:
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I was short handing for the campaign. Look at what his surrogates imply, or that idiot Tomasky (BIRM), wrote for example that Romney was racist for using “Obamacare” at the NAACP. Holder is also notorious for implying that Congressional oversight at Justice re F&F is racially motivated and that he’s targeted because he looks like Obama.
They just cannot help themselves as they’ve been steeped in “America is fundamentally racist” dogma all their lives as well as having to keep their base motivated, so stoking the racial furnace is an absolute must.
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lms:
I would say that the other possibility is that weeks will be spent in analyzing his returns during which even more informtation is demanded and Senate Democrats demand the IRS investigate him. (even though none of them release their returns either) I don’t think there is a single person in the US who believes the controversy would end with their release.
I think the time for doing so has long past by at least a year.
I believe that Romney will be look upon by the GOP as a “what were we thinking candidate” like Dukakis was for the Dems.
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I absolutely oppose this:
“Census chief Robert Groves: We’ve got to stop counting like this
By Carol Morello, Published: August 5”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/census-director-weve-got-to-stop-counting-like-this/2012/08/05/daccaee6-dda2-11e1-af1d-753c613ff6d8_story.html?hpid=z11
The census should remain a “hard count” of each individual household with the use of statistical sampling prohibited by law. There has to be an actual data baseline against which to validate the sampling methodology to begin with and I absolutely do not trust the government when it comes to creating households out of thin air based on statistical models for Congressional reapportionment purposes.
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I think we should use surveys and polls for virtually everything. After all the people behind them tell us how scientific they are. Plus it will validate Greg Sargent’s very existence as a columnist.
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McWing
They just cannot help themselves as they’ve been steeped in “America is fundamentally racist” dogma all their lives as well as having to keep their base motivated, so stoking the racial furnace is an absolute must.
That’s a very disturbing opinion. When I think of Obama’s race at all I think of him as being post racial as are many of his followers and detractors. There is always a percentage of each party’s base that can be ginned up with rhetoric that appeals to their mis-construed notion of “the other” (and I don’t mean that in a racial connotation), but I would hope that in general we’ve moved beyond that. One of the reasons I can’t go back to the Plumline on a regular basis is because of the racial and bigotry slurs from both sides.
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Morgan Freeman a very weird man but a good actor says that Obama isn’t the first black president but the first mixed race president.
I’m not sure how we check the racial purity of people anymore or why it matters.
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Lms,
I agree that it is very disturbing and that we have, here, moved beyond that. I do not think though that Obama and those around him and surrogating for him have.
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lmsinca, you may find this of interest:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/kamau-bell-comedian-totally-biased-fx-chris-rock
He’s quite good.
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“Troll McWingnut or George, whichever, on August 6, 2012 at 1:37 pm said:
Lms,
I agree that it is very disturbing and that we have, here, moved beyond that. I do not think though that Obama and those around him and surrogating for him have.”
I have my issues with President Obama, but I’ve never seen him personally make this argument. In fact, he seems to go out of his way to avoid it.
Surrogates are another matter. Speaking of which, I hope that Aaron Sorkin and HBO have disclosed The Newsroom as an in kind campaign contribution to Obama 2012.
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McWing
I’m not a huge Obama fan but I do believe that Obama has definitely moved beyond racial identity politics. I do think some of his surrogates may not always be able to do the same and are set off by some on the right who intentionally set them off for whatever reasons of their own, or possibly their own life experiences that have colored their perceptions. It’s a sad state of affairs AFAIC.
I know for a fact that people can and have moved beyond race but I think both sides still use it as a political tool which makes honest discussion much more difficult for the rest of us.
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lms:
I’m not a huge Obama fan but I do believe that Obama has definitely moved beyond racial identity politics.
How, then, do you explain this?.
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I’m always curious, and I’m not trying to be insulting or snarky, but what does, in your opinion, an honest discussion of race encompass? I’ve heard/read this before but I don’t understand.
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McWing, ideally it would involve a racially mixed crowd ironing out their differences, such as they are. When a bunch of white people get together and talk about how racially diverse they are, and vice versa, I’m not impressed.
Look, I’ve been through all the racial tension life has to offer from having parents who were really racially challenged (it’s hard to call your own parents bigots) to having a best friend for over 30 years who is black. She and I have had so many frank discussions it would probably raise the hair on the back of most people’s necks. Her family was part of the migration from the South in the 50’s and 60’s and her father explained a lot to me in many of our discussions. I just don’t think either side of the aisle is exactly pure when it comes to talking about race but I wouldn’t even entertain the idea that Obama plays the race card personally.
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“racially challenged”
nice. 🙂
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Gibson settles:
“August 6, 2012, 2:32 pm
Gibson Guitar To Pay $300,000 in Penalties and Lose Seized Tropical Hardwood
By ANDREW C. REVKIN”
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/gibson-guitar-to-pay-350000-in-penalties-and-lose-seized-tropical-hardwood/
Clearly a higher priority for the DoJ than investigating Wall Street.
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This link is to a partisan source, so fair warning, but I think the author is right in his analysis. YMMV.
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lms:
When a bunch of white people get together and talk about how racially diverse they are, and vice versa, I’m not impressed.
Nor am I, though I’m wondering to what the “vice versa” refers.
it’s hard to call your own parents bigots
My parents are bigots.
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You are correct that this is over the top rhetoric:
The basic contours of American politics and society won’t be changing, regardless of who wins.
It’s more of the “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” inflated self regard that the President has for himself.
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OT (not off topic but Olympic Talk)
Maybe it has something to do with age or maybe not. But the difference in expressions of two siver medal winners is really striking.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics–mckayla-maroney-misses-shot-at-u-s–history-after-falling-in-vault-and-takes-disappointing-silver.html
http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/photos/olympics-u-s-medal-winners-slideshow/carmelita-jeter-u-holds-her-national-flag-placing-photo-211847767.html
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Mike
though I’m wondering to what the “vice versa” refers.
Sorry, I read what I wrote again and was afraid it sounded rather ambiguous. I don’t think a uniformly black group of people can get to the heart of racism without input from their white friends and neighbors either.
Actually, a prime example is the accusation from Obama supporters claiming very subtle comments from conservatives or non-supporters are always a dog whistle to attract racists and by the same token McWing’s example above shows the other extreme, IMO. I’m not accusing McWing of anything but I think the author of the piece went too far in his interpretation. I see the same thing in fairly innocuous comments from conservatives.
I’m not claiming that these things don’t occur just that they’re not as prevalent as they used to be and sometimes dissecting the discussion in a racially diverse atmosphere can clear the air.
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jnc – From the article – ““…Gibson has acknowledged that it failed to act on information that the Madagascar ebony it was purchasing may have violated laws intended to limit overharvesting and conserve valuable wood species from Madagascar, a country which has been severely impacted by deforestation,” said Assistant Attorney General Moreno. “Gibson has ceased acquisitions of wood species from Madagascar and recognizes its duty under the U.S. Lacey Act to guard against the acquisition of wood of illegal origin by verifying the circumstances of its harvest and export, which is good for American business and American consumers.”
How is this good for American business and American consumers? Why does the Asst AG of the US care about the deforestation issues of Madagascar? And how am I going to get a Madagascar ebony guitar?
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Dave!
Probably not just age, but expectations as well. Maroney was supposed to be head and shoulders above everyone else, so everyone expected her to win handily, except she screwed up. Jeter, though the reigning world champion, knew she was in for a fight with Fraser and Campbell-Brown. She ran an excellent race and was just beaten by the faster woman.
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lms:
I don’t think a uniformly black group of people can get to the heart of racism without input from their white friends and neighbors either.
I thought that was what you meant. Don’t forget the other colors of the melanin rainbow out there. Race shouldn’t be a binary discussion in the US, though whites and blacks tend to make it so.
Attacks like the WI Sikh temple shootings remind minorities that there still are pockets of violent white racists out there.
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I tend to think we spend much too much time discussing race, especially with our mixed racial group of friends. I say that given the old adage “actions speak louder than words”. My approach, which has come to this over many years, has been to simply treat people in the MLK way – by the content of their character. I think that trying to get at the heart of racism or discussing issues ad nauseum, many times the same familar known issues on both sides, time and time again, is counter productive and works to reinforce predjudices and sterotypes and hard feelings. If I treat my black or hispanic or asian, middle eastern, african, etc friends the same way I do my white friends, things tend to work out great…because I treat them as friends… not black friends or hispanic friends. I trust they treat me the same.
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Mike and Dave, obviously to both of you. I do think that race is still an issue that is worthy of discussion among people though. I’ve discovered there are still a lot of underlying assumptions, even between friends. More often than not my friend and I just laugh over things that happened when we were younger now. One example is the time she took our two daughters and her son to McDonalds and some busy body came up and said, “Oh, they must have different fathers”, her retort was “Yeah, and different mothers too”. It made her mad at the time but now it’s a standing joke between us that always causes us to crack up. Even in CA there was still a lot of racial nastiness 25 or 30 years ago that she and I remember very well and sometimes that back ground affects the way you interpret what others say and do.
I do think the generations coming up will have much less to deal with regarding race than my generation and older. Sometimes my first instinct still is to jump to a conclusion that someone is being racist rather than give it some thought and them a little benefit of the doubt.
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I guess what I caught from the analysis of Obama’s race card playing is his associating his opponents, Republicans, as being desirous of reintroducing racial coloring as a determinent of ones success. I don’t know why else he would bring the matter of race into the discussion.
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A couple of the more interesting experiences I had with black friends were in ultra-liberal Oregon. The first time Clint and I were traveling to visit a Oregon National Guard unit in LaGrande, and when we stopped at a small grocery store there in town a woman came up to me and started complaining about one of my father’s policies. It turned out that the mayor’s daughter was married to the only black guy in town, so this woman had just assumed (even though both of us were in uniform, complete with berets) that when she saw a black man and white woman together I was the mayor’s kid.
The second time, Barron and I were out on the Pacific coast in a small town (again in a grocery store–maybe that’s the common theme here!) and a little boy–about five or six–walked up to Barron, licked his arm, then turned to his (mortified) mother and loudly exclaimed “He’s doesn’t taste like chocolate!”
I also remember numerous times (probably at least a dozen) when grown women would walk up to one of us and either ask to feel Barron’s/Clint’s/my NCO SFC Thomas’s hair or ask me like it was to run my fingers through their hair while we were having sex. None of us were ever able to come up with a snappy answer to that last question, although Barron did once pop out with “I don’t know, but I’ll ask my wife next time we’re having a threeway!”
I do think that there will be fewer issues with younger generations, just as there are with gays; I got to spend time this weekend with my “adopted” gay nephew–he’s “adopted” because he’s right in between my oldest and second oldest nephews in age, and he became best friends with the two of them when–due to school hopping–he ended up spending a year in school in each of their grades. I found out about him about five years ago when I noticed that on Facebook my brother had an extra son listed. . . and I was pretty sure that I knew all of D’s kids by that point! So when I asked my (ultra-Conservative-with-a-big-C) brother about him he explained that Jayke had come out to his dad and been thrown out of the house and had moved in with D and his kids. . . because to my two oldest (also pretty Conservative) nephews it wasn’t any question about whether or not something was wrong with Jayke but what they could do to help. So now I have a 24-year old gay nephew who just picked up stakes and moved to San Francisco on a whim for a few months to see what it’s like to live where he’s considered pretty normal. He stopped in SLC for the day and we read through all of the stuff from Brian’s memorial services and went up into the hills to scatter some of his ashes; Jayke had never met Brian but had heard all the family stories and he wanted to find out more about him. . . we had a wonderful time and I’m still pretty damned proud of my nephews that they persuaded my family to take Jayke in in his time of need. I think that’s the kind of stuff that will be happening more and more as time goes on. . .
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McWing
I just re-read the piece you linked and noticed the dates are a bit old for those quotes from the President and First Lady. They could very easily have been talking about immigration issues as anything else. I don’t think Obama would be the one to bring his own race up as an issue in the campaign. We’ll see I guess.
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Michi, those were great stories too. When my friend’s daughter was born 3 months premature we told everyone at the hospital that I was adopted by her family so that made me the baby’s aunt and they let me go into the neo-natal unit to hold her and rock her whenever I wanted. We thought we were so clever by supposedly convincing everyone that a black family had adopted a poor little white girl. Silly.
ps- her parents went along with it too.
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Dana Milbank says of course Reid is lying but it doesn’t count as a lie because he does it so often:
“But if Reid’s accusation against Romney is reckless, it isn’t necessarily a lie. More likely, it’s an instance of Reid taking a piece of information he heard — in this case, he attributed the information to a Bain Capital investor — and running with it, much like he did in 2008, when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said in a private meeting with Reid that insurance companies were in financial distress. Reid left the meeting and spoke publicly about “a major insurance company, one with a name that everyone knows, that’s on the verge of going bankrupt.”
Insurance shares plunged, and Reid’s office had to walk back his wild allegation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-harry-reids-latest-broadside/2012/08/06/91d99cae-e012-11e1-a19c-fcfa365396c8_story.html?hpid=z5
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Lms,
All I can say is that those speeches were for his re-election campaign and do not seem all that distant. Again, there is no good reason to introduce the subject of race in the context of his speeches as no one, including Republicans, is advocating for a return to the days when one’s color effected one’s opportunities. This tactic of his would be sad if it weren’t so damaging to the country as a whole.
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Yay (for me anyway, maybe not for you!), I’m back. Was offline at home for a bit and then had some difficulty with logging into my google account. (Pretty silly for a kinda smart person not to think about the fact that I could have been reading here even if I couldn’t comment, but then we’re not all perfect.) You have left me a lot of great stuff to catch up on! Mark, I especially like your series on Congress. Spending extra time on PL sure made me miss this place.
jnc: “Okiegirl – let me know if you are checking in at ATiM today. I have a response to one of your points on Plum Line, but there’s no point in posting it if you aren’t here.” I wasn’t here yesterday but will try to be in and out today and would love to hear what you have to say.
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I’m real glad you are back, Okie. We read about the ridiculous heat wave and the arson and hoped you were safe in the shade.
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Funny stories, ‘Goose. Illustrative in their way. Never having been approached like that when having lunch with a black colleague or client, male or female, in the last 19 years, your experience seems foreign. Still, I have some recollections from an earlier time.
When I was in my twenties on two different occasions I went on a date with a black woman. Each was the sister of a friend, and someone I had known for years, and neither were romantic dates. In one of the situations, which occurred in western Massachusetts, we found ourselves eating ice cream at a place called Friendly’s. The looks we got ranged from curious to daggers. We were uncomfortable. The other occasion, with the sister of my HS classmate and FB, was completely unremarkable. Carolyn was an athletic 5’11” and soon to become the head psychiatric nurse at a large hospital unit. I was more scared of her brother than I would have been of anyone who tried to make us uncomfortable.
In 1966-7 I clerked in the TX Legislature for a group of 6 newly elected state reps, one of whom, Curtis Graves, was and remains black. We drove in a van to east TX to attend a one day conference on administrative procedure overhaul, which happened to be the key reform interest of these guys and my legal writing assignment from them. 77 mi. east of Austin and at 6:15 AM Curtis was refused service at breakfast. It actually stunned us. We ate in the van.
He was a state frigging legislator.
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McWing, it’s clear we’re not going to change each other’s minds. All I can say is that the most recent speech quoted was in April and one of the ones that matched the words almost exactly was to a group of Latinos. The words “no matter what you look like” were always followed by “no matter where you came from” so I still think my position has merit and the speeches are open to interpretation. I tend to give Romney the benefit of the doubt re “poor people” and “culture” so I’d easily do the same for Obama.
I try not to get into the race wars and so-called dog-whistle territory so I think I’ll just leave it at that. Scott once said something along the lines of “race” and “abortion” were hot topics (or something like that), in that they bring a lot of emotion to the table and those are the ones I personally try stay away from, not always successfully. I tried to bring in a couple of funny stories to de-fuse the potential for at least me becoming angry. I realize there is no love lost between most conservatives and the President but I think your accusations, are if not unfounded then at least, questionable.
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I tend to agree with Lulu on this, George. But that raises another question. There really are honest disagreements about policies toward undocs and IAs. Does that debate have to be framed as ethnic warfare?
Strikes me as election year pandering and not a contribution to the honest debate.
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Hi Okie, glad you’re back.
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And “Hi” right back at ya, lms. I did not mean to ignore you.
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I agree with this article’s POV about work rule waiver. There might be a rationale for a temporary suspension of the work rules, at any given time, but I fear the slippery slope back to the dole we ended in the late 90s, to the benefit of both taxpayers and welfare recipients.
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444860104577558701241637894.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk
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Thanks, mark. The heat wave continues, as does the drought, but I am safe in my A/C cocoon. I still cannot get my head around somebody setting fires intentionally, but I have not followed that story closely. The whole state is a tinderbox ready to ignite; in our case it is grass fires rather than trees.
Interesting discussion on race/racism above. I too have a lot of stories about such experiences in OK, especially given the time frame. I’ve seen a vast improvement during my lifetime though there still is a long way to go. Here in OK, prejudice against Native Americans has been just as great, if not greater than, that against blacks, but a thriving Vietnamese community does not seem to have suffered that fate. I can say that I have not perceived racism to fall out along partisan lines. Most recently I’ve had some interesting discussions with a niece who lives in Atlanta and a year ago adopted a black baby. Does she have some stories! Some are heartwarming, some are funny, and some just made me angry. So far, her 4 y/o biological son is oblivious to the implications, but I wonder if that will change when he starts school.
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Mark, thanks for the WSJ link. It does not present anything new, but it is succinct. I generally also agree with the POV expressed and have concerns about the slippery slope. But I am hopeful about moving control of it to the states. If the states abuse the waivers, somebody will have to deal with it. However, I do not see the waivers as “gutting” the 90’s sorely needed welfare reform.
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Does that debate have to be framed as ethnic warfare?
It shouldn’t be Mark. I’m trying to figure out a way to say this as a non-Hispanic in CA. I think the Arizona bill singled out people of Hispanic origin in a way that was at least partially racist in nature and I found it very discouraging. Perhaps I’m wrong but I know what our Latino friends and family members thought of it and that’s the way it felt to them. When our little city here signed a proclamation in support of the bill, as if that was a necessary thing to do, I’ve never been so disappointed in my fellow citizens. I was ashamed really. A few of us fought the thing tooth and nail but the council and their cronies decided it was important for some reason.
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the Arizona bill singled out people of Hispanic origin in a way that was at least partially racist
if not in intent, then in result, because only chicanos and other latinos were going to be stopped without traffic violations occurring in plain view. I take your point.
As I have mentioned before, Austin sends more IAs to ICE than Phoenix or any other city. This is achieved through targeting arrested suspects of actual crimes. Thus there is no blowback of resentment based on arrested for being brown. The result is community cooperation.
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mark:
if not in intent, then in result…
Racism is a state of mind. If there is no intent, how can it sensibly be called racism?
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Lms:
The first step to solving the immigration issue is getting the border effectively closed. We certainly can’t deport 10 million people under any conditions but you can’t clean up from a flood until you fix the hole first.
Afterward, some from of generalized amnesty is the obvious solution.
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“Afterward, some from of generalized amnesty is the obvious solution.”
I think guest worker program is more realistic. “tall fence, wide gates” is the slogan I like best. there was a WaPo article a week or so about about remittances to Mexico and how they are basically creating a middle class there from wages earned in USA.
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Scott
I don’t actually feel the need to explain it. Perhaps the better question is why do black and Hispanic Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats? Identity politics has been around forever so I don’t think we can blame Obama for that too.
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lms:
Perhaps the better question is why do black and Hispanic Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats?
That is certainly a question, but definitely not a “better” question in the context of a claim that Obama has “moved beyond” racial identity politics.
Identity politics has been around forever so I don’t think we can blame Obama for that too.
I’m not blaming Obama for inventing identity politics. I am just disputing the notion that he has “moved beyond racial identity politics”. Quite obviously he has not. He makes appeals to racial identity politics all the time. It is a central part of his campaign.
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if not in intent, then in result, because only chicanos and other latinos were going to be stopped without traffic violations occurring in plain view. I take your point.
Exactly. I can’t judge their intent but the result was brown people felt targeted, including citizens.
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Lms, we’ll agree to disagree on the motivations behind why Obama introduced that particular (strawman) subject. I hope I didn’t make you think I was getting angry. I wasn’t.
Some of Our difference may be attributable to giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. I have no such desire. Also, some feel that all of us harbor racist positions or opinions, that’s not a world view a I share either.
The other thing I was interested in, in regards to the honest discussion on race, was the idea that each side get together to “iron out there differences.” What if I don’t have any differences to resolve. Am I still obligated to listen to the grievances? I’m not being snotty here, is it more an obligation I have that I should listen to others complaIn, for lack of a better word?
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some feel that all of us harbor racist positions or opinions, that’s not a world view a I share either.
I don’t share that view either, so we found something to agree on. And there’s no obligation to discuss race at all. Your comment “Though he’ll never, ever abandoned the “all opposition to me is racially motivated.” was just something I was responding to as I didn’t agree with it. Perhaps I wandered too far afield………………it’s been known to happen.
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Scott
Quite obviously he has not
Does that mean you agree with McWing’s comment which I quoted above, all opposition to me is racially motivated, because that’s where the discussion began and the point I was attempting to argue?
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lms:
I suspect that Obama knows that very little of the opposition that he faces is racially motivated, but he also knows it is to his advantage to portray as much of it as possible as being racially motivated. After all, as you noted earlier, blacks vote in overwhelming proportions for Dems. Without such overwhelming proportions, Obama cannot possibly win. In order to maintain this near monopoly, he will do what D’s have been doing for years… he will appeal to their fears by pretending that R’s are motivated by racism.
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Scott, I don’t have time for more than this, but racism = state of mind is your definition. Not mine. State of mind is barely relevant for me. You could hate Jews, but if you treat Jews as you would any other neighbor, you would not be an anti-semite, in my book. This is a matter of conduct and behavior, for me. We simply disagree on the definition.
I notice that at the BHO site he leads with an excerpt probably from one of his own speeches to the effect that the experiences of African-Americans are part of the American experience. Aiming at an identifiable audience? Sure. Injecting race? Depends on how you look at it. Seemed to be defusing “race” to me.
Suppose WMR, aiming at an identifiable audience, said “the rapture requires the return of the Jews to Israel, before the end times, but we must treat Israel as part of our over all FP goal, which is to secure the United States, first, last, and always, while being mindful of the rights and liberties we must preserve at home.” Injecting religion? Defusing it?
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Mark:
State of mind is barely relevant for me.
I think it is singularly relevant. How I treat someone may (or may not) be a manifestation of how I think, but it is how I think that makes me a racist (or not). If I am perfectly cordial with my Jewish neighbor but then complain to my wife about how the neighborhood is going downhill because the Jews are moving in and we should really think about moving, then I am an anti-Semite regardless of my interaction with them. On the other hand, if I treat my neighbors Jewish neighbors with contempt and suspicion and tell my wife we should move because the new (Jewish) neighbors next door are drug dealers and are bringing the neighborhood down, then I am not an anti-Semite.
You may be unconcerned with extant racism that does not manifest in revealing behavior, such that you don’t care what I think or say behind the backs of my Jewish neighbors, as long as I treat them as I would anyone else. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is the thought process underlying actions, not the actions themselves, that define racism.
This is no minor semantic dispute. An action that may be perfectly acceptable for one reason (my Jewish neighbor is a drug dealer) may become unacceptable racism for another (my Jewish neighbor is a Jew). Again, the thought process behind the act is singularly important. To label an act or a law “racist” without examining the purpose or thought process behind the law is, it seems to me, a classic case of playing the race card, and an attempt to win a policy dispute by default, and not on the merits.
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BTW, I thought it was clear that I don’t think Obama plays the race card personally, what Democrats do in regards to attracting AA votes or Republicans do in attracting evangelicals, for example, is an entirely different discussion IMO.
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he will appeal to their fears by pretending that R’s are motivated by racism.
I would say he’s appealing more to everyone’s fears that R’s are catering to the extremely wealthy but I see you and McWing have settled on a theme you like better. I could come up very easily with a counter claim of which fears Republicans appeal to on the part of their constituents, but I won’t.
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lms:
I would say he’s appealing more to everyone’s fears that R’s are catering to the extremely wealthy
He will do that, too. Appeals to race is only one of the many ways that D’s play the identity politics game.
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Mark, wouldn’t that be a “dog whistle” for evangelicals? Why else introduce the topic of the rapturein a discussion of US Middle East FP?
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“dog whistle”
Maybe, but I wouldn’t tend to see it that way. Seems to me it would be saying “I know your heartfelt belief, and while I respect it the parameters of my job are clear” while also suggesting that it is right for the audience to think about American security and American liberty.
My point was that I saw the BHO site as telling a group he understood them but they were part of the bigger American scene.
Thus, while either is a pander to a group, IMO neither would be race or religion card playing.
I am skeptical that there is even a “race card” to play. Most Americans discount race as a factor even while being conscious of race. Mike found a survey that suggested race was the primary factor in the heads of 3-5% of voters and shared it with me. My extended family includes a black cousin-in-law, a Taiwanese cousin-in-law, a Chicana toddler niece, a gay first cousin who had three kids before he came out at 51, retired soldiers, a female niece who is a Rabbi near Kansas City; I don’t even think that is very exceptional in America any more. I think QB has some similarly non-singular family connections.
So maybe I am desensitized to so-called “dog whistles”.
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Mark:
Most Americans discount race as a factor even while being conscious of race.
What factor besides race could explain the percentages in which blacks vote for Dems over R’s?
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Scott, all politics is identity politics, racial, age, income, gender, sexual orientation, gun ownership, etc. etc. but that’s different than saying someone is essentially running a campaign that sees a racist around every corner. I realize there are people out there who do that, some of them we’ve come across at the Plumline, but I’m saying that I don’t think Obama is one of them or even running a campaign that is playing that kind of card. There are also people who see a socialist around every corner, also some of them at the Plumline, but I don’t think Romney is one of them. That’s all I’m saying really. Maybe you disagree but I think the debate has moved too far afield for me at this point.
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lms:
Scott, all politics is identity politics, racial, age, income, gender, sexual orientation, gun ownership, etc. etc.
I disagree. My politics have nothing whatsoever to do with identity politics.
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i’ve always considered racism to mean bigotry + power. if you don’t have power over someone, you can’t systematically discriminate against them.
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On the other hand, if I treat my neighbors Jewish neighbors with contempt and suspicion and tell my wife we should move because the new (Jewish) neighbors next door are drug dealers and are bringing the neighborhood down, then I am not an anti-Semite.
Unless you assume they are drug dealers because they are Jewish, but we will never know will we?
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lms:
Unless you assume they are drug dealers because they are Jewish, but we will never know will we?
I don’t understand this. The situation was a hypothetical. We “know” whatever we assume to be the case.
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My politics have nothing whatsoever to do with identity politics
That may be true for you but most politicians appeal to voters on some level of cultural, social, political or financial basis that identifies who we are as people. It’s hardly unique to Democrats or Obama. It’s why I said the discussion McWing and I were having was of a different sort IMO. By claiming that Obama is telling us “all opposition to him is racially motivated” stepped up the ante I thought and that was what I was disagreeing with. Do you think that’s what Obama is saying in those speeches?
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lms:
Do you think that’s what Obama is saying in those speeches?
I think that when Obama makes references to “what you look like”, he is making an obvious reference to race, and is trying to stoke fears about racism.
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Scott
trying to stoke fears about racism
Thanks for the clarification and that’s where we disagree.
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I don’t understand this
I simply added another layer to your hypothetical, one that deals with intent, which is very difficult to determine.
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