Public criticism over the ticket policy has sent church officials scrambling to explain itself as the big day approaches — although many would-be attendees remain unsatisfied by their explanation.
Church officials said they'd hoped to have some tickets available for the public but ran out when they couldn't satisfy demand among church members, who got the first crack at tickets that sold for $500 to $2,000.
Church officials said they decided to charge admission for people who wanted a chance to see the Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls because of the expenses to stage the event and provide television feeds to a host of networks.
On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession. He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The audience seemed skeptical, even dismissive. As Roubini stepped down from the lectern after his talk, the moderator of the event quipped, “I think perhaps we will need a stiff drink after that.” People laughed — and not without reason. At the time, unemployment and inflation remained low, and the economy, while weak, was still growing, despite rising oil prices and a softening housing market. And then there was the espouser of doom himself: Roubini was known to be a perpetual pessimist, what economists call a “permabear.” When the economist Anirvan Banerji delivered his response to Roubini’s talk, he noted that Roubini’s predictions did not make use of mathematical models and dismissed his hunches as those of a career naysayer.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Former congressman Bob Ney of Ohio has been released from a halfway house in Cincinnati after serving a sentence in connection with a public corruption scandal.
Posted by Atrios This cat has been hanging around the southern end of the Hawthorne neighborhood where I live. Doesn't seem feral. Could be someone's lost cat.
New information filed late Thursday by federal prosecutors says Sen. Ted Stevens made more than $100,000 in profit off a Florida real estate deal after a friend secretly loaned him $31,000 interest-free to buy a condominium.
The condo deal came to light in a motion describing what sort of evidence federal prosecutors plan to introduce in their case against him.
There's a lot of this nonsense floating around today by pampered commentators who want to find a new world historical conflict to write bracing commentary about before we're done with the one from last week.
This tendency of people to link themselves to events which they have nothing to do with is pretty weird, along with their desire to not clean up the last 5 messes they made.
Go read a novel or something. That can be exciting too!
Posted by Atrios
Suspending a license is a tremendous punishment which severely limits the ability of many to function in society.
With young motorists losing their driver's licenses like never before under a tougher state law targeting teen speeders, state hearing officers are increasingly overwhelmed with desperate youths pleading to keep their licenses.
The emphasis of the article is how nasty and rude those bad teenagers get when their licenses are taken away. But being a teen in many places without a license really sucks. A bit later the article finally gets at the actual issue:
It is a message most people do not want to hear. "There's hostility in this office," said Brownell, "from children and adults." They complain about the new junior operator penalties. They contend that the $500 reinstatement fee is too stiff and the suspension harsh. Living without a license, especially in the suburbs, leaves youths stranded, said student James Dexter, 18, whose license has not been suspended.
"Kids have to work," said Dexter, who will be a senior at Danvers High School this fall. "It's just wrong. They should be able to do that. They should be able to give you a warning first."
I have no opinion about whether licenses should be suspended after one speeding ticket, but I do think more families should consider what it means to have their kids grow up in a place where their mobility is severely limited unless they have a license.
Posted by Atrios
McCain sez that the Russia/Georgia conflict is "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression."
I suppose this is a pretty good strategy for pretending the last 8 years didn't happen. Fred Hiatt will probably play along, too.
WASHINGTON — President Bush Wednesday promised that U.S. naval forces would deliver humanitarian aid to war-torn Georgia before his administration had received approval from Turkey, which controls naval access to the Black Sea, or the Pentagon had planned a seaborne operation, U.S. officials said Thursday.
As of late Thursday, Ankara, a NATO ally, hadn't cleared any U.S. naval vessels to steam to Georgia through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the officials said. Under the 1936 Montreaux Convention, countries must notify Turkey before sending warships through the straits.
Pentagon officials told McClatchy that they were increasingly dubious that any U.S. Navy vessels would join the aid operation, in large part because the U.S.-based hospital ships likely to go, the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, would take weeks to arrive.
"The president was writing checks to the Georgians without knowing what he had in the bank," said a senior administration official.
Posted by Atrios
Maybe if a few more politicians get hit with copyright suits they'll rethink their support for extending copyrights to infinity.
Singer, songwriter, liberal activist and now John McCain scourge Jackson Browne filed a lawsuit today against the presumptive GOP nominee and the Republican Party for failing to obtain a license to use one of his songs in a television commercial.
The song, "Running on Empty," has been used by the Republican Party apparently against Browne's approval. The music icon also claims that in doing so, the false perception is created that he is endorsing McCain's candidacy.
Posted by Atrios
I, too, don't really get the obsession by some with the platform. I remember in 2000 (and after) hearing from a lot of Naderites things like, "Well, all Al Gore had to do was let Ralph write a couple of planks for the platform and he would've dropped out." Even leaving aside the fact that this was unlikely to be true, it would've been really strange to strike a grand bargain over an utterly meaningless piece of paper.
Posted by Atrios
Here in Philadelphia we actually still have several lines which run, though it'd be quite nice if they restored the ones they promised to bring back when they shut them down a 15 years ago.. But, yes, they are a good thing and it's good that more cities are bringing them back.
Philly trolley map. Green and light green still run. Red ones suspended in 1992. Blue ones killed in the 80s. Black are the two subway/El lines, and the yellow and pink are high speed trolley-like vehicles.
Posted by Atrios
The number of people killed in car crashes every year is quite stunning.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday.
Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006. It was the fewest number of highway deaths in a year since 1994, when 40,716 people were killed.
Posted by Atrios
One of the mysteries to me during the expansion of the housing bubble was just how so many people could afford expensive houses. At the time I had no idea that lending standards had been basically tossed out the window, so I assumed that all of these home buyers had decent credit and 10 percent down. That wasn't the case. Simply put, a lot of people bought homes they couldn't afford over the long run. Irvine Renter:
So where does that leave Irvine's housing market? Without Alt-A, people will not be able to get the loans necessary to support today's still-inflated prices. Buyers will actually need to qualify for loans based on their real income, and they don't make that much money. And since many previously Alt-A borrowers have defaulted and are now Subprime, and since Subprime is currently defunct, the buyer pool in Irvine has gotten much, much smaller.
Once it became clear that the housing bubble had been largely fueled by giving loans to people who couldn't afford them, it was obvious that home prices in many areas and price ranges were going to fall. A lot. Not enough people make nearly enough money to afford them.
Posted by Atrios
I know I should leave the psychology to the psychologists, but one does have to wonder about the psychology of people who are only made happy by the prospect of death and destruction in far away places.
The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell by 10,000 last week but remained at levels that show labor markets under severe strain.
The Labor Department said on Thursday initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits dipped to a seasonally adjusted 450,000 in the week ended Aug. 9 from an upwardly revised 460,000 in the prior week. That was still well above the 432,000 claims level that economists polled by Reuters had forecast.
...
In addition, the number of people remaining in the benefits roll after drawing an initial week of aid shot up by 114,000 to 3.42 million in the week ended Aug. 2 , the most recent week for which the data is available. That was the highest level for continued claims since November 2003.
More frequent buses. Late-night trains. Better weekend service.
That's what SEPTA promises in the next few weeks and months as it launches what it calls its most ambitious service expansion ever.
After decades of cuts, SEPTA will announce today a $10 million project aimed at easing overcrowding and improving daily service. The first of the 65 upgrades will begin Aug. 25, and all of the changes are to be made by Nov. 3.
The changes will include bigger buses on busy Route 14 along Roosevelt Boulevard between Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County, more frequent service on Route 23 between Chestnut Hill and South Philadelphia, and after-midnight trains on the R5 Paoli/Thorndale, R6 Norristown, and R7 Trenton Regional Rail lines.
Posted by Atrios
I am surprised given the lack of substitutes most people have. Though that fact suggests that high gas prices lead to a pretty big aggregate welfare loss.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans scaled back their driving during June by almost 5 percent in response to soaring fuel costs, the government said on Wednesday -- a day after announcing the biggest six-month drop in U.S. petroleum demand in 26 years.
The Transportation Department said U.S. motorists drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June compared to a year earlier, marking the eight month in a row that travel declined in the face of record gas prices as Americans change their driving habits, buy more fuel-efficient cars and switch to public transport.
Posted by Atrios
Since he's been making the rounds, it's worth re-running this again. I don't remember who tipped me off to the fact that Corsi was a Freeper, but it was quite satisfying that it jumped pretty quickly from Media Matters to the mainsream media quite soon after Media Matters was launched.
Things were different back then, in ways which are hard to explain or even comprehend now.
"You're right," Pelosi said. "Joe Lieberman has said things that are totally irresponsible when it comes to Barack Obama. Here we have a leader for the future, really a great leader for the future and one that comes along only every now and then, and they know it so they have to undermine him. And one of their best weapons, of course, is someone who is considered by some to be a Democrat."
Pelosi bluntly explained that Senate Democrats are leery of challenging Lieberman because his vote is crucial to maintaining the Democrats' 51-49 majority in the Senate. But she warned that Lieberman's top spot on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee could be in jeopardy next year if the Democrats gain seats in the Senate in November.
"The Democrats in the Senate are in a tough spot. They have 51 votes. Joe Lieberman organizes with them," she said. "In 85 days or something, they will have five more Democrats they won't need him to make the majority. And it will be interesting to see what the leadership in the Senate, the Democratic leadership in the Senate, does at that point in terms of Joe Lieberman's chairmanship of his committee."
You just hope that we haven't soured an entire generation on the necessity, from time to time, of using force because Iraq has been such a debacle. That would be tragic, because Iran is a grave threat. They're everything we thought Iraq was but wasn't.
CNN Recruits Key Political Experts for Campaign Coverage
Brody, Castellanos, Milbank, Rosen, Wall Span Spectrum of U.S. Politics for CNN Analysis, Commentary
Building upon its winning coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign and other political contests, CNN has added five more top political reporters and commentators to its deep bench of political contributors and analysts. Each of these respected observers of politics will provide analysis and commentary as CNN continues its political coverage.
The contributors, who will appear across CNN’s numerous platforms in the coming days, include:
·David Brody, senior national correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. A veteran journalist of more than 20 years, Brody writes the political blog, “The Brody File.”
·Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist and former campaign consultant for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Castellanos is a partner in National Media Inc., a political and corporate consulting firm.
·Dana Milbank, a Washington Post staff writer and author of the thrice-weekly “Washington Sketch” column. A veteran of political coverage, he has also worked for The New Republic and The Wall Street Journal, and his latest book is Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government.
·Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist and currently the political director and Washington editor-at-large for HuffingtonPost.com. In a previous role, she was chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.
·Tara Wall, deputy editorial page editor and columnist for The Washington Times. Previously, she served as director of the office of public affairs at the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and as director of outreach communications for the Republican National Committee.
"She's a bit of a fool that's the only thing you can say," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie. " Don't forget Cokie Roberts and the whole Washington crowd live in a kind of an incestuous relationship to one another, they talk to one another, they see one another, they know nothing about ordinary people."
Posted by Atrios
I know that official Washington has decided that wars are actually free so it's wrong of me to mention it, but am I the only one who has noticed a tremendous overlap between the traditional "fiscal hawks" and the "go to war with lots of countries hawks." These twin missions are a wee bit in conflict.
Posted by Atrios
Like BooMan, I've long been frustrated by the set of people who are liberal, follow politics, and think NPR and Maureen Dowd (Tom Friedman, too) are on their side. I hope there are fewer of them than there used to be, but I'm not sure.
July was another month of weak sales at retail outlets, adding to evidence that the spending power of American consumers has weakened considerably, despite help from the government’s tax stimulus program.
Retail sales declined 0.1 percent in July, led by a sharp drop in sales of motor vehicles and related parts, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. Restaurants and health care providers also saw a drop-off in demand.
The decline follows a 0.3 percent increase in June, which was revised higher from the government’s initial estimate.
Posted by Atrios As Yglesias suggests, our current development patterns exist due to some combination of rules and consumer demand. Changing the rules in some places has long been desirable, and now changing consumer demand might force those changes to happen.
Since no matter how much I write about this stuff there are still people who misunderstand me let me spell out my radical plan to convert all of America into Manhattan:
1) More money for mass transit, including, where appropriate, subway, light rail, better bus systems, commuter rail, and high speed medium haul trains. In development corridors, right of ways should be preserved for future rail lines, with strong commitment to build them when the population moves in.
2) Changing land use rules especially around transit stops and stations, encouraging higher density and mixed used zoning.
3) Better pedestrian integration between nearby lower density development and higher density development near transit stops.
4) Reverse trend of construction of single access road development.
5) Within existing urban areas, a reversal of the car-centric planning which damages the urban streetscape.
None of this is actually all that radical and will only have a direct impact on a relatively small geographic footprint. There are lots of existing transit corridors where local residents have resisted higher density development; these people will be affected. Both existing and newer suburbs would essentially retain their character, just be more like the 40s versions and less like the 90s-00s versions. All this would ideally reduce car dependency and give more people easier access to mass transit and at least some small walkable town center type areas. Aside from shifting a wee bit of that Iraq money to build some SUPERTRAINS, the policy changes I imagine are actually surprisingly minor, though over a longer period they could have larger impacts on how we live.
It's important to remember, again, that what happens results from an intersection between consumer demand and policy. Suburbs exist the way they do in part because people like them and in part because they're the natural outcome of certain policies which are pretty universal in this country. I'm not telling people how they should live, I'm suggesting that relatively minor tweaks to those policies might result in the potential for better places which still have the character that people want.
I imagine more people than currently do would like to live in a world where they don't have to have one car per driving age family member, where their non-driving teens have some independent mobility, and where they can walk to get a cup of coffee or a beer occasionally. And, yes, their yards too.
Growth in the center has now reached the point where the challenge isn't saving inner-cities, it's working to maintain affordable housing. Research has shown that limited access to employment opportunities is a huge burden for poor households. In the 1980s and 1990s, lower income workers often lived in central areas while jobs were increasingly located in wealthy suburbs, unreachable except by car (which many poor households are unable to afford). As job growth in central cities takes off, it's important to ensure that lower income households maintain access to employment opportunities.
Philadelphia's somewhat strange is that even as the center has boomed there are still plenty of not awful places which are still somewhat affordable. Obviously for the very poor affordability is always an issue, but for those of modest but not awesome means Philadelphia is very affordable relative to Boston, Chicago, etc. But basically the city really needs more mass transit, and to some extent better exploitation of the existing transit system.
Posted by Atrios
As I've written before, the Veep choice isn't super important to me. Still it really does seem to be the case that Obama just cannot choose Bayh for much the same reason that Kerry couldn't pick Dick Gephardt.
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Almost one-third of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last five years now owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, according to Zillow.com, an Internet provider of home valuations.
Posted by Atrios
I've never been to Tysons Corner so I haven't been able to get a good sense of all of this.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors could approve plans as early as next month that would allow developers to transform traffic-clogged Tysons Corner from suburb to city, but critics are growing louder in their opposition to a vision that they say will ruin Tysons and surrounding communities.
...
Efforts to transform Tysons are intended to take advantage of a planned Metrorail extension through the business district and out to Dulles International Airport and to ensure that the area with Virginia's largest concentration of jobs stays vibrant. Traffic is choking Tysons Corner, and the hope is that a new, urban Tysons where people can live, work, shop and play will reduce congestion and keep the high-paying jobs coming.
Posted by Avedon
Ruth wants you to help us push for good healthcare, and Diane is talking about physician-assisted torture - and their comments still work, so you'd be welcome to hang out there.
Posted by Atrios
And McCain's people know it's two- or three-fer. The press will only notice if Obama officially notices, and when Obama does the overwhelming bellowing noise from deep in the heart of Wingnuttia, residing somewhere inside Pat Buchanan, will be that Obama is a bad person for noticing the obvious.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some Wall Street companies might not resume paying New York City taxes for "a number of years" because they can offset future profits with the losses they are currently suffering, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday.
"I think it will be a number of years before they start paying taxes again," the mayor told a news conference. "Look at those losses. They can carry them forward for a number of years."
Posted by Atrios
I don't really have any clue what the Bush administration should be doing, but it is pretty amazing that they don't care about what Bush appears to be doing.
Back in 2005, speaking before a crowd of more than 150,000 exuberant Georgians cheering "Bushi! Bushi!", President Bush made a promise to the people of that former Soviet republic: "The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone. Americans respect your courageous choice for liberty. And as you build a free and democratic Georgia, the American people will stand with you."
So where was Bush as Russia launched a major military attack against Georgia? Monkeying around with the U.S. women's volleyball players -- and otherwise amusing himself at the Beijing Olympics.
This is not to suggest that Bush should have sent in the Marines. But his impotence in the face of such a gravely destabilizing move highlights not only his personal loss of stature, but how deeply he has diminished American authority on the world stage generally and, particularly, in the eyes of Russia.
Maybe it's better. I'm not a fan of "something's happening so we must be involved or at least appear to be involved." Still it's a bit weird that war preznit bunnypants is still clowning around at the Olympics.
Posted by Atrios
I admit to ignorance of the whole situation, but I do sit puzzled at all of the impotent foot stamping by the "left" in addition to the right. Any time something goes on in the world - some parts more than others of course - The Wise Old Men Of Washington step up to say We Must Do Something.
Posted by Atrios
I've long been puzzled by Bush's apparent love for baseball, as he really doesn't seem like the kind of guy who has the attention span to sit through a 3+ hour game.
Posted by Atrios
And dirty fucking hippies who think otherwise are stupid.
As Yglesias says, the conservative pundit response to anything around the world is to offer up an argument which strongly suggests that anything other than bombing stuff is deeply unserious, or some such rot, but yet they usually stop short of actually advocating that we go bomb some stuff.
Non-bombing stuff options: silly.
Bombing stuff: Probably the right idea, but I'm not going to actually say so.
Posted by Atrios
I'm not sure how much I like this Obama ad, though the Huggy Bear shots are definitely good. Still the real question is whether it'll be put on permanent loop on cable news like McCain's ads always are?
BAGHDAD — Hampered by years of violence, a decimated infrastructure, a lack of foreign investors and a flood of imports that undercut local businesses, Iraq’s private sector, particularly its small non-oil economy, has so far failed to flourish as its American patrons had hoped.
In its absence, the Iraqi government has been sustaining the economy the way it always has: by putting citizens on its payroll. Since 2005, according to federal budgets, the number of government employees has nearly doubled, to 2.3 million from 1.2 million.
It's one of the many lost narratives, but "Iraq as libertarian paradise" was one of the big goals of the people in charge. It has become a glibertarian paradise, which is no surprise to anyone.
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.
Obama has clearly sided with our enemies, the Iraqis. Er, uh, splutter ZZZZTTTTT
Posted by Atrios
I really wasn't interested in most of the internal Clinton campaign stuff, but I suppose it's useful to have proof that Mark Penn is as much of a scumbag as we imagined.
Posted by Atrios
Once you get a few miles from the California coasts, you're deep into wingnut territory. Not just Republican territory, but hard core full on wingnuttery. Could be changing.
The GOP's decline is most obvious in Fresno County, where the losses have turned into an avalanche, even as the party gears up its efforts to keep the White House in GOP hands by electing Arizona Sen. John McCain as president.
The most recent voter registration numbers show the Democrats are closing the gap and are now fewer than 9,000 voters behind the Republicans.
At the peak in 2004, GOP registrations were ahead by more than 23,500 voters.
ABC's "This Week" — Govs. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., and Bobby Jindal, R-La.
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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President Bush.
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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
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CNN's "Late Edition" — T. Boone Pickens, chairman of the energy investment fund BP Capital and creator of an alternative energy plan; Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Carl Levin, D-Mich.; Govs. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., and Charlie Crist, R-Fla.; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston.
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