What Brown Can Do For Us

While Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts last night has prompted much soul-searching and teeth-gnashing among Democrats (and high-fiving among Republicans) at the very least it provided one more piece evidence that Republicans are still always wrong.

How so? I’m referring to this:

[...]CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer says that Scott Brown's Massachusetts Senate win tonight will mean a "gigantic rally" is in store for stocks tomorrow.

Ooops. Not so much.


And then there’s this from ABC News at 1 pm yesterday:

The Dow Industrials are up almost 100 points at this hour and traders say the potential for a Republican to win Ted Kennedy’s senate seat is behind the rally.

Double oops.

And my utmost favorite:

Fox and Friends Suggests Brown Win Will Boost Your 401k (VIDEO)

Not yet!

The stock market has been tanking today. And I do mean tanking. Is it because of Scott Brown? Of course not. Reuters blamed bank results and earnings reports from IBM. The AP blames China. In other words, the usual smoke-and-mirrors voodoo magic bullshit that causes stock market fortunes to rise and fall on the tiniest sneeze from some far-flung corner of the financial world.

But Republicans peddling that whole “vote Republican and get rich” meme are looking a little silly today. One thing Brown did not do for us today is rally the stock market.

Cold comfort, yes, but there’s that.

And here’s something else I’m sick of hearing. I’m tired of hearing how the Democrats have now lost their filibuster-proof majority, which seems to be all the mainstream news media can talk about. Ohmygosh that glorious super majority that did us all so much good for the past year, what will we do without it?

Puh-leeze. When did we ever have a super majority? Here’s “Party Of Joe” Joe Lieberman threatening to join a GOP filibuster. And here’s Democrat Ben Nelson threatening to filibuster the post-conference healthcare bill if it’s not to his liking. Here’s Ben Nelson again threatening to filibuster healthcare reform if it doesn’t have the Stupak Amendment. Oh lookie, here’s Democrat Blanche Lincoln threatening to filibuster the public option.

And here are eight Democratic Senators joining the GOP in support of the filibuster on cap and trade.

So give me a break. When members of the supermajority decide they aren’t getting enough attention and threaten to filibuster their own party's key legislation just because, you know, they can, then we’ve got a bigger problem than how many D's and R's are in the Senate.

Democrats need to grow a pair. I’m sure the predictable result from the Scott Brown win will be that Democrats conclude they need to be even more “Republican light.” Already Jim Webb has called for a halt to all healthcare votes until Brown is seated. And this makes me very sad, because it tells me Democrats have no fucking clue as to what's happening in the country.

I don’t think Scott Brown's win was a “referendum on healthcare reform” so much as it was a "referndum on the status quo." For one thing, Massachusetts already has universal healthcare which is in many regards far superior to that which the rest of the country would get if healthcare reform were to pass. So near as I can tell the federal healthcare legislation wouldn’t affect people in Massachusetts one bit.

I think more than anything people are tired of the status quo. Brown was an unknown state senator, from a party that had not held that Senate seat for an entire generation. People want change, and in Massachusetts that was Scott Brown. In another state it could be someone else, from a different party.

People are frustrated. They want Washington to work again. We were promised change with President Obama and we didn’t get it. We were promised an end to lobbyists running our government and we didn’t get it--the healthcare bill proved that.

So to the Democratic Party I send you a cautionary piece of advice: either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Your epic fail in Massachusetts signals a problem far bigger than just being too liberal or too conservative. You were handed the reins government and you promptly twiddled your thumbs. We've got the same corporate control of government and our discourse that we had under Bush. That is what people are tired of. We're tired of banks and insurance companies and Wall Street brokerages getting all sorts of wonderful legislative boons that ordinary citizens never get.

So people are frustrated and they want someone, anyone, different. Remember the root of populism isn't left or right, it's people. So, dear Democrats, focus on things that help actual people and you might be okay. Continue to bend and scrape before the mulitnationals and, well, see ya.

Ben Stein Is An Idiot

It shouldn’t take a little ol’ blogger from Nashville, Tennessee to explain the obvious to a great, big, important person like Ben Stein. But in yesterday’s New York Times column, Stein said something about the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer contretemps that was so stunningly stupid, so obviously missing the point, and that same stupidity was repeated by Chris at TV Newser, so I guess I'll have to point out the obvious.

Stein wrote this:

During the colloquy, Mr. Stewart lambasted Mr. Cramer as failing to anticipate events and inform his audience about those events.

No.

No, no no. Jon Stewart was not criticizing Jim Cramer for failing to anticipate events. He was criticizing Jim Cramer and the rest of the business press for knowing the system is gamed, and not informing the public. For being willing participants in a fraudulent scheme that stacks the deck against average investors--people who have far more at stake and far more to lose than Wall Street bigwigs who basically gamble with other people’s money.

I shouldn’t be shocked that Ben Stein doesn’t get that. He’s part of that gamed system, after all.

Still, we aren’t stupid, Mr. Stein. You, on the other hand, obviously think we are.

Dear American Media: Stop Hurting America

It speaks volumes about the sad state of current affairs that we’ve looked to a comedian/satirist not once, not twice, but three times now to speak the truth about the failure of the American news media.

Jon Stewart first started this with his 2004 appearance on the now-defunct “Crossfire,” when he told Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala to “stop hurting America.”

Stephen Colbert’s appearance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Assn. dinner was a biting scold to the journalists who should have protected us from a rush to war, the loss of civil liberties, and stolen elections. Those people chose to simply play along, instead of doing their jobs. For shame.

And last night Jon Stewart again stepped into his advocate’s role. His interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer was painful to watch. Stewart tried to get Cramer to admit that the financial news media knowingly sold snake oil to boost ratings and profits, instead of giving actual news that Americans needed to make informed decisions about their finances.

Stewart got angrier and angrier as Cramer offered lame “no one could have anticipated this” and “they all lied to me” excuses, completely dodging any responsibility he and his network had in creating a false picture of the financial world. Said a visibly angry Stewart:

"I understand you want to make finance entertaining. But it's not a fucking game," he told Cramer. Then, referring to that video, he continued:

And I -- when I watch that, I get, I can't tell you how angry that makes me. Because what it says to me is that you all know. You all know what's going on. You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this weird Wall Street side bet... Listen, you knew what the banks were doing and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was. And so now to pretend this was some crazy once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that no one could have seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.

It took 20 minutes for Cramer to finally admit, “I’m a commentator. [...] I’m a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business for people to watch.”

Yeah. An entertainment show. Nice of you to finally admit it. I wonder if CNBC ever will?

One of the reasons I’ve said I hate those E*Trade commercials with the talking babies and the Asian immigrant family urged to “push the button, Mr. Lee!” is that the financial markets are not child’s play. It’s serious business with serious consequences, yet over the past 10 years we’ve been fed this lie that the markets are a fun little sandbox that everyone should play in. And that general attitude has spread from the Washington politicians trying to privatize your Social Security to the financial news outlets who peddle “entertainment shows” as serious information. What they don't tell you is that behind the scenes some Oz-like character is manipulating the rules of the game.

I close with this exhortation to America’s news media -- financial, political, and every other kind. It’s the words of Jon Stewart from his 2004 “Crossfire” appearance:

“Come work for us .... we need your help. Right now you’re helping the politicians and the corporations. You’re part of their strategies.”

America needs a robust news media. Not Kabuki theater and “entertainment.” Come work for the American people. We may not pay as well as the other guys but at least you’d have your integrity.

Cramer v. Cramer

The Huffington Post dug through the memory hole and found this damaging 2006 interview CNBC’s Jim Cramer gave to TheStreet.com's Aaron Task. In it, Cramer brags about manipulating the market, shorting stocks and other malfeasance when he ran a hedge fund:

-On manipulating the market: "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures."

-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls "fomenting"): "You can't foment. That's a violation... But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it." He adds, "When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment."

-On the truth: "What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction," Cramer advises. "You can't take any chances."

Did Jim Cramer really indict himself in the heat of an interview?

The only thing bigger than Cramer’s loud mouth is his ego. Why he’d admit to illegal activities as a hedge fund manager is beyond me. Why CNBC continues to employ this charlatan is even more puzzling.

Is CNBC’s Jim Cramer A Fascist?

Hey, I'm not one to throw that particular "f" bomb around, but I'm just wondering what else Jim Cramer could possibly mean by this comment:

Government of, by, and for the corporation is perishing from the Earth… our country is now run by a president and a Bolshevik-leaning Democratic Party that are unfavorable to stocks and the people who own them.

Of, by and for the corporation? Gee, I don’t think that’s exactly how Abraham Lincoln phrased it in his Gettysburg Address, but Mussolini sure would be proud.

I seem to recall right-wingers getting all foamy-mouthed last October when then-candidate Obama talked about spreading the wealth around a bit. Communist! Socialist! Bolshevik! ZOMG!!!!1!!!11!

I guess this is another one to throw at CNBC spokesman Brian Steel. CNBC is starting to look increasingly like a bad parody of Fox Business.