Shakesville

D'oh!

Justice Dept. Admits Error in Not Briefing Court: The recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, which held that using the death penalty as punishment for the rape of a child is unconstitutional, may be asked to reconsider the case based on an error by the Justice Department.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion, founded in part "on the conclusion that because child rape was a capital offense in only six states, and not under federal law, the death penalty for the crime did not meet the 'evolving standards of decency' by which the court judges capital punishment," was wrong—Congress added rape of a child to the military death penalty in 2006, and President Bush issued an executive order in 2007 that "added the new provision to the current version of the Manual for Courts-Martial."

In a highly unusual admission of error, the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday that government lawyers should have known that Congress had recently made the rape of a child a capital offense in the military and should have informed the Supreme Court of that fact while the justices were considering whether death was a constitutional punishment for the crime.

Hmm. Maybe stuffing the government full of graduates of Pat Robertson's fourth-tier backwater Regent University wasn't a good idea after all.

Missing Vermont Girl Found Dead; Rape Apology and Victim-Blaming Commence

[Trigger warning.]

This is just a brutally sad and upsetting story. The 12-year-old girl, Brooke Bennett, who was the focus of Vermont's first Amber Alert, has been found dead, and her uncle, Michael Jacques, is the primary suspect, based on the testimony of a 14-year-old girl (also related to Jacques) who was also victimized by him as part of a "sex ring." Additionally, Brooke's former stepfather, Raymond Gagnon, has been charged with obstructing justice for conspiring with Jacques to alter Brooke's MySpace page "to make it appear that the 12-year-old had discussed a secret rendezvous shortly before she disappeared."

I feel, as ever, equal parts reluctant and compelled to use this tragedy to make a point—I worry that I must come across as just utterly heartless; a girl is dead and all you can talk about is the shitty news coverage. I guess I just need to say I'm not unaffected by these tragedies. The truth is, deconstructing how we collectively talk about the victims, and how that may be associated with creating victims, is the way I deal with it. It's a teaspoon: The more people who refuse to accept a child "has sex with" an adult, the more people who won't turn a blind eye to abuse and justify it with rationalizations of a consenting child, the more people on juries who will convict sex offenders, the fewer survivors who will question whether they are somehow responsible for their own victimization. At least, that is my fragile, desperate hope.

To that end, there are two serious problems in the linked story.

In an affidavit unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Burlington, the FBI said an unidentified 14-year-old girl told investigators she was present on June 25 when Jacques tricked Bennett into thinking she was going to a party and took her to his Randolph home to be initiated into a sex ring.

The teenager said she was led to believe Bennett "would have sex with adult males" during the initiation. The 14-year-old said she herself had been having sex with Jacques since she was 9, as part of the sex ring.

A 14-year-old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult, no less a 9-year-old. And the casual passive voice here is just disgusting: She'd been having sex with the alleged child rapist and murderer, as opposed to he'd been allegedly repeatedly raping her for five years. Or sexually assaulting. Or assaulting. Or any other word that conveys that a child cannot consent to "have sex with" an adult.

Gary Finch, Bennett's homeroom and math teacher last year, said she was an energetic and enthusiastic learner whom he loved having in class.

…Finch said that when school started last fall, Bennett was nervous about transferring from her small elementary school to the high school.

"She conquered that," he said. "She didn't conquer this."

I imagine that Finch was saying that ruefully, broken-heartedly, rather than trying to suggest Bennett should have been able to "conquer" being kidnapped and killed. I want to make clear my gripe isn't with him—it's with the AP and its decision to place that quote, without any of the qualifications I've just made, at the end of the story, making its last line, and the lingering sentiment with which a reader is left: "She didn't conquer this."

In a perfect world, that might not be a problem, but in the extremely imperfect world in which we live, victims are blamed for their own victimization—and media outlets cast 9-year-olds as consenting seductresses, ahem—so there will be many people who read this story and read the line "She didn't conquer this" even as they're wondering what this girl did to get herself raped and killed.

Some of them will be overt victim-blamers; others will merely be well-meaning parents, sick in their guts at the hint of the thought they won't let themselves fully consider, wondering what they should do to make sure the same thing never happens to their daughters, possibly focusing, as is so very easy to do, so hard on the fallacious thought that rape is preventable by the victim that they inadvertently plant in their children the seeds that will blossom into flowers of guilt, should they ever have the dire misfortune of being victimized. And guilt, shame, feelings of responsibility for one's own abuse—these are the things that make crimes go unreported.

She didn't conquer this. A dangling suggestion that it was conquerable.

How simple. How dangerous.

[H/T to Shaker Stephanie.]

Patriotic Image of the Day

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Quark

This sitcom was a Buck Henry-created send-up of sci-fi shows (see: Star Trek), which aired in the late '70s. If you want to watch the rest of this episode, part two is here and part three is here. It's, uh, definitely a product of its time, lol.

What a Feeling!

Boba Fett does Flashdance.

To borrow a phrase from The Deekster: "Awesome. Totally awesome."

Need Some Wood?

Bush Stimulates The Porn Industry With His Economic Package:

When President Bush announced his economic stimulus in January, he bragged that his package was the "right size" and would "boost" the economy... The adult pornography industry reports that has seen a huge uptick in business thanks to Bush's package.

According to a press release from the independent market-research firm Adult Internet Market Research Company, there has been a recent "upswing in sales" on porn sites since the stimulus checks were issued, and, despite summer generally being "a slow period for this market," some sites have reported a "20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May."

Jillian Fox of LSGmodels.com (nsfw) said that in a survey to its members, "thirty two percent of respondents referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership."

..."Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his 'stimulus package,' but we'll take it," said Fox.

Reached for comment, President Bush said: "Presidenting is hard work."

That's what she said.

---------------------

[For those wondering about the post title, in one of the 2004 presidential debates, Kerry and Bush had the following exchange:

KERRY: The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things. That's just not right.

BUSH: I own a timber company? (LAUGHTER) That's news to me. (LAUGHTER) Need some wood?

Of course, it turned out Kerry was right and Bush was a liar.]

Get Well Soon, Brian Beutler

Progressive blogger and journalist Brian Beutler was shot and seriously injured in an attempted mugging last night in D.C. (Additional info here.) He is out of surgery and expected to make a full recovery.

I don't know Brian, but I know his work; I wish him a speedy recovery and send lots of good, healthy, healing thoughts from Shakesville...

Question of the Day

The husband's birthday is coming up this month, and I've been trying to figure out what I'd like to give him this year. I'm the Simpsons nut in this family, but he's got a particular affection for Ralph Wiggum. So, I went to the very cool 80's Tees.com hoping to find a Ralphie t-shirt for him.

Now, I'm a big dummy, so I started browsing the site. Much to my shock, I found that they had about six t-shirts featuring The Greatest Movie of All Time*, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. "Holy Shit!" I yipped, and immediately ordered three. Yes, I'm unemployed and shouldn't be doing this, shut up.

Well, the shirts arrived today (My precious...), and it struck me when taking them out of the package that, for a relatively obscure movie from the 1980's with very little merchandise connected to it, I believe I own everything.

Okay, not everything. There's a series of truly droolworthy masks and costumes from "Bump in the Night Productions" (love that name) that are more than I can afford, but I've got several t-shirts, the action figures, magnets, buttons, and even an original movie poster. I'm obsessed and I don't care! I have a friend with a similar obsession with Plastic Man. You'd think it would make gift-giving easy, but more than likely if I find something with Plas on it, he owns it already.

So, Shakers- Is there anything you're so obsessed with that you're compelled beyond reason and sanity to own everything connected with it?

And if anyone wants to buy this for me, I'd be ever so grateful.

(For the record, they did have a Ralphie t-shirt, but the husband refuses to wear red shirts. Fail!)

* Don't question me.

And Another Thing!

As if I haven't yapped enough about Obama's embracing of Bush's Faith Based Organization (FBO) plan, if you'll excuse me, I think I saw this dead horse twitch. I just wanted to rant a little more about a few things I noticed while putting together my earlier post.

First, as I stated in that post, the AP updated the original article discussing Obama's expansion of FBOs. When I went back to take a look at it this morning, I was struck by the opening three paragraphs:

ZANESVILLE, Ohio - Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest aggressive reach for voters who usually vote Republican.
Obama contended he is merely stating long-held positions — surprising to some, he said, after a primary campaign in which he was "tagged as being on the left."

In recent days, with the Democratic nomination in hand and the general election battle with Republican John McCain ahead, Obama has been sounding centrist themes with comments on guns, government surveillance and capital punishment. He's even quoted Ronald Reagan.

Forget that "taking a page from President Bush" makes my skin crawl. Forget the "aggressive reach" for Republicans. Forget the "centrist themes" in regards to guns, spying on Americans (I refuse to call it "government surveillance") and capital punishment. Forget the use of Reagan. All of this give me hives, but riddle me this, Batman:

Why the hell should I be excited and agog about a Democratic Presidential candidate who is so goddamned eager to distance himself from "the left," progressives, and everything I value?

Part the Second - From Obama's site, where the speech in which he outlines his plan for FBOs is posted:

With these principles as a guide, my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will strengthen faith-based groups by making sure they know the opportunities open to them to build on their good works. Too often, faith-based groups – especially smaller congregations and those that aren't well connected – don't know how to apply for federal dollars, or how to navigate a government website to see what grants are available, or how to comply with federal laws and regulations. We rely too much on conferences in Washington, instead of getting technical assistance to the people who need it on the ground. What this means is that what's stopping many faith-based groups from helping struggling families is simply a lack of knowledge about how the system works.

Well, that will change when I'm President. I will empower the nonprofit religious and community groups that do understand how this process works to train the thousands of groups that don't. We'll "train the trainers" by giving larger faith-based partners like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services and secular nonprofits like Public/Private Ventures the support they need to help other groups build and run effective programs. Every house of worship that wants to run an effective program and that's willing to abide by our constitution – from the largest mega-churches and synagogues to the smallest store-front churches and mosques – can and will have access to the information and support they need to run that program.

So.

Obama recognizes the fact that many FBOs, as opposed to social services organizations, secular or otherwise, that are trained and experienced in providing services that have had their budgets gutted by the Bush administration, may not be equipped to provide best services. Instead of returning that money to the organizations that were already doing good work, he's going to give more money to the organizations that may or may not know what they're doing.

Then, his big plan for training these FBO's is to take already overworked organizations that are struggling to provide services for their clients with minuscule budgets and staff, and have them train these FBO's to do their jobs. Isn't that just a brilliant bit of outsourcing?

In addition, is "training the trainers" optional? If so, then there will be some FBO's that will be paid to provide services they're not trained to provide, or if not, they will be told by the government how to provide their services. How does that work with the separation of church and state? And how is that fair to FBO's?

I'm living in a cuckoo clock.

News from Shakes Manor

One of my favorite pastimes is annoying Iain. (This is fortuitous, given that one of his favorite pastimes is annoying me; it's why our relationship works, you see—so much in common.) And one of the easiest ways to annoy him, and hence amuse myself, is to tune the telly to a station broadcasting something likely to agitate him, in the hopes of eliciting a response not dissimilar to the infamous (and totally hilarious) Regis Philbin Rant.

So, last night, I'm flipping around, and I'm pretty sure I've hit the jackpot when I find a new Dana Carvey stand-up special, but it turns out he's so unfunny that it overshoots Irritating altogether and just lands in Contemptible. Onward…

I try a couple of other things, but nothing seems to be clicking. Even a losing Cubs score just manages to make him wince. Then I turned to NBC, on which was airing "America's Got Talent," the dreadful "Gong Show"-wannbe that has all the entertainment of a high school talent show with none of the promise. I was hoping there might be a tragically obnoxious act that would pique Iain's ire, but it merely took a shot of the judges' table to set him off on one.

Specifically, this guy:

Iain: What the fook? Is that The Hoff?

Liss: [laughing] Uh huh.

Iain: The Hoff?! Oon a Tschoosday?! I canny handle the Hoff oon a Tschoosday! Oon a Soonday moorning, maybe. Tooking into me coornflakes, half asleep—then I can handle the Hoff. Boot noot noow. Noot with fooll consciousness. Noot oon a fooking Tschoosday!

Liss: HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Iain: Toorn it the fook ooff! Fooking Hoff oon a fooking Tschoosday. Christ's sake, Liss!

He's so waking up to find this on the bathroom mirror one day.

And it's so gonna be a Tuesday.

Patriotic Image of Day

Hey, Shakers—it's Kenny Blogginz again. I couldn't help but notice how much you people hate America. I don't know why. It's obviously the best country. I suppose you all just want to move to France and eat snails off the genitals of your same-sex partners while surrendering to Islamofascism!? Anyway, I'm starting a new daily segment to try and bring some true American Patriotism back to Shakesville. Hopefully, some red, white, and blue rays of light will penetrate those thick ABBA-worshipping skulls of yours.

I don't remember where I got this image, but it should be noted that Professor X has seen fit to lend Senator John McCain his hover-wheelchair from the animated X-men series, and if Professor X can support Senator John McCain, then what's your problem?

Blub, Part II

Part I is here. At the time I posted that, I said: "Some things just make me cry with happiness. And I'm not even sure why. This is one of them."

Still true.

Find out more about Dancing Matt here. H/T to Shaker Constant Comment by email and Shakers DBC and Linkmeister in comments. (If anyone else left this in comments, remind me, and I'll update the post.)

Destroying Hillary Clinton, Part II

Part two of the two-part article Zuzu and I wrote, as mentioned yesterday, is now up.

Meanwhile, a hatchet job on Bill Clinton in Vanity Fair - rife with rumor and speculation, either unsourced or anonymously sourced, precisely the kind of journalism the Left blogosphere would once have almost universally rejected, irrespective of its target - was peddled by some progressives as though it were fact. And we were meant to care what the Moonie Times had to say about ancient Clinton scandals.

Increasingly, it looked as if many on the left had never spent a moment believing those attacks to be untrue, or the Clintons defensible, in the first place. And eventually came the posts of regret for having ever defended the Clintons in the 1990s, a curious position if those defenses were merited in the 1990s.

Perhaps the left had never defended the Clintons on the merits, instead merely playing a game of partisanship that once required rejecting rightwing frames, even while they internalised them. Perhaps the "vast right-wing conspiracy" had reached further than we once imagined.

Read the whole thing here. Part one can be read here.

Boggled, Bothered and Bewildered

I'm just shaking my head at the things I'm reading today. Kind of like yesterday. Remember yesterday? I got my knickers in a twist over Obama's expansion of Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives, and his embracing of welfare reform. Well, the welfare reform story died with a whimper, both in comments on that post and in the left blogosphere, much to my chagrin. But everyone was all a-twitter over the faith-based organization (hereafter shortened to FBO) story, for the most part because the AP got it wrong. They originally wrote:

CHICAGO - Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

People were quick to point out that Obama did not technically say this; what he is saying is this:

Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea – so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.

Now, that's pleasing to the ear, so why am I not pleased? Well, it seems to me there's a pretty large loophole in that sentence. I can't use grant money to proselytize, and I can't use grant money to discriminate. If you can manage to do these without spending a dime, well, I suppose you're okay. I think we can all agree that there are evangelicals out there that will exploit this loophole. After all, the root of that word is "evangelize," or, convert to Christianity.

My argument in comments in my post yesterday was that this is completely pointless unless there is a way to police this discrimination. It would be time consuming, expensive, and next to impossible to do this on an individual basis. In addition, should discrimination charges come up, I have next to no faith, pardon the word choice, that it will be effectively prosecuted. How many churches with national exposure have lost their tax-exempt status for playing politics, after all?

But, to be fair, this is a speech, and isn't written policy. So we'll see what happens. Also, to be fair, I'm glad to hear that federal dollars will only go to secular programs, and that there will be some kind of accountability for successful programs, just like traditional social service organizations. Again, it would be nice to hear how this actually will be done, but I'll try to be a little patient.

Anyway, this post isn't about religious discrimination.

Part of the reason I'm so upset is because of the reaction of many on the left to Obama's speech. Apparently, once Obama stated he was going to "hold up the Constitution," everything was A-OK, and we could go on about our lives. At Salon:

There's simply nothing wrong with this. If Obama honors church-state separation and keeps the safeguards in place, as he clearly said he would, there's no reason the government can't partner with ministries willing to provide a secular social service.

That said, that AP feed really got me nervous there for a minute...

Well, actually, there's plenty wrong with this, but I'll get to that in a minute. I'm just gobsmacked by that final sentence. "Phew! I thought I might actually have to think critically about Obama for a minute, but now that I'm assured everything's OK, I can get back to cheering HOPE and CHANGE!" It's that outright dismissal without thought once one is assured that Obama couldn't possibly be in the wrong that really sticks in my craw.

At Pandagon:

It always struck me that the problem with Bush’s approach to faith-based initiatives was that he viewed their purpose as paying churches to proselytize, rather than viewing them as partners in government-led action. Obama’s plan actually follows the more moderate path that Ohio’s FBCI took after years of Taft’s office funnelling money who knows where - looking at faith-based organizations (note: organizations, not just churches) as potential partners the same way you would other nonprofit organizations, rather than looking to simply pay churches for being churches.

The critical part is also the fact that agencies which accept federal funds must abide by federal hiring guidelines in the use of said funds - a necessary compromise unless the government wants to step into the process of hiring denominational clergy . The other benefit is that the lack of ability to discriminate using federal funds will likely push out many of the fundamentalist organizations that made the initial faith-based initiatives so problematic.

Ah, well, I know this probably isn’t the most popular position. Fire away.

Actually, looking at the comments, this appears to be a pretty popular position. I'm not saying that Jesse is wrong about how he feels, but as I remember it, the discrimination was not the problem when Bush initially began his FBO push.

The problem most on the left had concerned money being directed from traditional, non-religious social service organizations to FBO's. The problem was with the separation of church and state. The ability to discriminate wasn't a huge concern until people did some digging and began reporting.

So, needless to say, I find it a little distressing that people are so willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt as long as he's "upholding the constitution," when there is a very big problem with FBO's. As I said; there's plenty wrong. They are intrinsically discriminatory against LGBTQ people.*

Now, I'm not saying that all FBO's are homophobic. Many FBO's and churches are tolerant of, supportive of, or even openly embrace LGBTQ folks. (And many of these FBO's provide good services.) But that does not change the fact that by their very nature, they are creating a barrier to help for LGBTQ people.

I speak from several years experience working in LGBTQ service organizations, and LGBTQ-friendly FBO's. Due to a, shall we say, less than amicable history between LGBTQ people and religion, the majority of LGBTQ people are simply not comfortable with receiving services from a FBO. Therefore, they will travel incredible distances to receive their services from a non-religious, LGBTQ-friendly organization to ensure they are in a safe space; in a worst-case scenario, they simply go without services and suffer.

Some examples, just from my experience:

• When I was working in the LGBTQ health center pharmacy, trans people would travel for hours to come there to meet with their doctor, and receive their hormones from the pharmacy. Hostile reactions in their home pharmacies caused them to seek out a safe space, regardless of cost or inconvenience (can you imagine traveling three hours to pick up a prescription?). In general, the trans people traveling this far were coming from rural areas, where most, if not all, services were FBOs. These were, to them, not a safe space.

• Nearly 100% of the trans people coming to this health center for mental health services, particularly the youth, were receiving services there due to hostile reactions from other mental health providers, or fear of hostile reactions. Again, many of these people were traveling great distances in order to escape the FBOs in their areas and receive non-judgemental mental health services from a safe space. Imagine driving five hours to see your therapist every week. One client did this.

• I worked at a FB residential home for homeless people with HIV. This particular residence had a large population of gay men. The reason for this is that the senior staff was made up of gay men, and they were not receiving the same discriminatory, homophobic (and in some cases, violent) treatment that they experienced at other residential homes. They all stated that, should the senior staff change, they wouldn't hesitate to find other places to live that were not FB. (Interestingly, the gay men's support group at this house originally met in the chapel. They eventually moved to the only other available room in the house, a cramped conference room much too small for this large group, because they were extremely uncomfortable in the chapel.)

• Nearly every person I met for assessment or individual therapy had some sort of negative relationship with religion. One client, for example, had grown up gay in a rural area. He had been raised in a very religious family, where he would hear every week in church that he was evil, corrupt, and was going straight to Hell. He was consumed with self-hatred and internalized homophobia as a result, not to mention a severe substance abuse problem that he was having difficulty controlling, due to his extreme negative reaction to "religious" twelve-step programs. Fortunately, he lived in a city with an LBGTQ mental health center that he could use (and that would accept him without any medical insurance), but if a FBO was his only choice, what would he do?

I could go on and on; I'm sure you get my point. The fact of the matter is that the majority of LGBTQ persons would rather go without help than go to a FBO. When Obama states that he is going to pour more money into these organizations, but does not plan to increase funds to non FBO social services, he is doing a disservice to LGBTQ persons. As Melissa said yesterday:

Not every faith-based program is explicitly (or at all) anti-gay or anti-birth control, but that's a pretty big question mark when you're seeking services. This is particularly problematic for trans women and men, especially those who don't easily "pass." LGBTQs risk facing real hostility at faith-based service centers, especially in faith-based programs that service men and women separately.

In other words, one of the most at-risk populations for addiction, depression, homelessness, and suicide face significant deterrents to seeking help from faith-based programs.

That's not going to change under Obama, nor would it under anyone else. It's an inherent problem with faith-based programs, which is why the government's involvement with them is crap. Period.

This is why people that call themselves progressives/liberals should not simply accept Obama's plan as long as he's "upholding the constitution." This will cause harm. You will note that, in comments at Pandagon and in the comments thread in my post from yesterday, the discrimination of LGBTQ persons by FBO's was brought up by Pam Spaulding and Melissa. And they received no response. This cannot be ignored or forgotten, especially by progressives; this is not simply a case of being discriminated against due to religious beliefs. This is, once again, the neglecting of LGBTQ Americans. And there's simply everything wrong with that.

Barack Obama expanding Bush's Faith-Based Program is not something we should be cheering.

*(This could, of course, apply also to women seeking to control reproduction, or to Athiests, Pagans, Wiccans, etc. If a FBO is your only choice, what will you do? And Obama specifies that he will (somehow) ensure that no one is discriminated against on the basis of their religion. Discrimination against women and LGBTQ folks appears to still be acceptable. Or, at the very least, they'll look the other way.)

more dog blogging

"I am not amused. I will have my revenge."
Sam has hot spots in his forearm armpits (the vet thinks they came about thanks to a bite from something when we went hiking this past Friday). Sam is really quite good about wearing it, though I think he'd really rather not.

Wednesday Blogaround

What's the frequency, Shakers?

Recommended Reading:

Elle: Louisiana, Lord, Louisiana

Jeralyn: National Sex Offender Guidelines Released

Jess: Survey Shows Politicians Not Immune from the Rape Culture

Kathy: The Opt-Out Myth

Tom: I'll Be Your Mirror

Rox: David Brooks Writes Something I Agree With

Leave your links in comments...

There Goes the Neighborhood

Barack Obama got a 0.315% discount on his mortgage from the Northern Trust.

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors. "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust," he said in a statement.

It's a scandal! It's an outrage! No, it's just like the Lending Tree commercials on TV: "when banks compete, you win."

Sheesh. I'd be concerned if someone running for president didn't have the business sense to negotiate for the best deal possible. (It also has something to do with being smart with your money. On my meager government-bureaucrat income, I got offered a lower rate when I applied for a mortgage because I pay my bills on time.) But that won't stop the righties from getting all worked up about some kind of "sweetheart" deal and implications that there's somehow something illicit or illegal about it, and they'll toss in a reference to Tony Rezko (the article helpfully leaves that door opening by mentioning the fact that he once owned property in the neighborhood).

And at some point, someone is going to slip in ever so artfully the question of why Barack and Michelle Obama would want such a big house ("six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen") in such a fancy neighborhood; the implication being that if they're such advocates for the poor and downtrodden, they shouldn't live in a place like that. They would never dare call them "uppity," but you know that's what they mean.

(Cross-posted.)

Senator McCain, I Do Believe Your Pants Are on Fire

Within days of asserting that "Senator Obama's word cannot be trusted" and "the fact is that I'll keep my word to the American people, and you can trust me" and proclaiming that "The most precious commodity I have with the American people is that they trust me," presumed GOP nominee John McCain replied to a question about his repeated statements that he needs to be educated about the economy by denying he ever said that shit.

Q: You have admitted that you're not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy and many have said –

McCAIN: I have not. I have not. Actually, I have not. I said that I am stronger on national security issues because of all the time I spent in the military. I'm very strong on the economy. I understand it. I have a lot more experience than my opponent.

Lies. And his breathtakingly stupid economic proposals belie any claim to be "strong on the economy."

Although he might be an "economics supergenius."

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Space Academy

Question of the Day

What do you usually eat for breakfast? It's the most important meal of the day, you know!

For most of my life, I've eaten breakfast only sporadically, because I'm usually just not hungry in the mornings. (And I'm not keen on most breakfast foods, especially eggs—eugh!) But I've been trying to get into the habit, because it's good for you blah blah. So most mornings now I have a bowl of shredded wheat with Silk, or nonfat yogurt with fruit.

This morning, neither one sounded good, so I had some baby carrots and spinach. Weird, but it was what I was in the mood for.