Let's hear it for fair and balanced!

"Olbermann, Matthews removed from anchoring political event coverage at MSNBC"

Just a week ago, Keith Olbermann opened a two-hour report from New York on Hurricane Gustav, far away from where the Republican National Convention was (not quite) getting underway. The tone of his revised responsibility in the anchor chair struck me as a little solemn -- even a little chastened. Today the announcement leaks out that he and Tweety will give way to the odious Dancing David Gregory in the lead seat for the debates, as well as election eve and other notable political reporting at the cable arm of NBC/Universal/General Electric/K-Mart (I love that joke; it was on the Alec Baldwin profile on 60 Minutes again last night).

This was due in no small part to the caterwauling from every single conservative corner about "Bias" in the media. Both the White House and John McCain's campaign have been whining about it for months now. But when heavydeadweights Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams started piling on, the corporate fatcats decided they had to do something.

Glenn Greenwald makes all the salient points about how and why NBC knuckled under, that MSNBC has always knuckled under -- going back to Phil Donahue's show, their highest-rated at the time getting suddenly canceled at the start of the Iraq War -- and much more. Or, as Barb notes:

Translation: NBC bent over and took one for the GE team because of complaints from Republicans. So kudos to NBC ... America can't have too much fair and balanced news coverage.

Update: kos has the "nail, meet hammer" on why NBC caved: because McCain threatened to pull out of the debate to be monitored by Brokaw.

The Weekly Wrangle

Ah, the first Monday after Labor Day ... the air finally feels a little cooler, the shadows are definitely a little longer, the excitement and sense of urgency associated with the approaching elections -- or maybe that's football season -- is as welcome as the first frost on the pumpkin. Actually here in Houston frost is months off; we'd settle for Ike staying away.

Here's this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly round-up, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Two Bartonville (or is it Argyle?) Republicans are indicted for voter fraud, a 3rd degree felony. The Texas Cloverleaf follows the story.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that right-wing Republican, anti-immigrant, 14th Amendment-hating state rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) is taking steps to launch a campaign for governor in 2010.

jobsanger points out that McCain may not want to use the "P" word but still wants to privatize Social Security, and tells us the investigation into Palin's ethics is getting messy (and weird).

Harry Balczak has another Reminder to You People over at McBlogger. In this edition: Joementum Loserman, disrespectful Republicans and their hatred of veterans.

Off the Kuff looks at some polling data and suggests there isn't much room for a Palin bounce, especially in Texas.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme sees Republican love/hate over the Hispanic vote. Meanwhile, some Hispanics say a pox on both your houses.

Texas Liberal asks just how is it the government could come and take your gun.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is suspicious, What Is Condeleeza Rice REALLY Doing Over There?, and why the media puts this on the back page.

nytexan at BlueBloggin points out the recent activity with the McCain Palin team in Alaska is the continuation of the Bush administration corruption in McCain-Palin Troopergate Stonewall Is Bush-Cheney 2.0

dembones at Eye On Williamson posts a synopsis of this week's candidate forum in HD-52: Maldonado and Daniel make their case before Hutto EDC.

Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole declares himself a dead man walking, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs notes his pending exit with a heartfelt "so long, and thanks for all the fish".

refinish69 at Doing My Part For The Left tells everyone who is who's fired up.

North Texas Liberal listens in on Republican commentators Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy as they tell us how they really feel about McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin when they think the cameras are off.

EV 9/7: Obama still bouncing upward

The most recent ND and OH polling gives Obama two-point leads in both states, so they flip (North Dakota goes from red to blue with no pause at grey). No sign yet of anything resembling a GOP convention bounce, though in fairness it's still too early to tell.

For the record, I place no emphasis whatsoever on the national media-sponsored head-to-head horse race polls. Just ask Al Gore if that 500,000-vote lead nationally in 2000 made any difference to his White House hopes.

The most interesting rumor overheard this past week was that Ron Paul would assume the mantle of both the Libertarian and Constitution Parties, by mutual acquiescence of their respective nominees Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. Far-fetched, but intriguing nonetheless. I would rate the chances of this happening as greater -- much greater -- than Barr succeeding in having both Obama and McCain disqualified from the Texas ballot.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Sunday Funnies (Mooselini edition)

There's so many people doing toons lately that it's difficult for this weekly post to be original. Still going to do my best to supply you with the ones you may not find on those other blogs. RJ Matson at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has done some good ones ...





And then there's the wickedness of Steve Bell, and the best of the
rest ...

"These are your cousins Freddie and Fannie. They're going to be living with us now."

Those words were common among a previous generation's children, when hard times meant that families had to double up. There are many Americans of late who have taken in a family member (or five) in light of more recent troubles. But the cousins whom we're ALL taking in very shortly are, of course, the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the multi-billion dollar failure of which is going to dwarf the S&L crisis of the '80's:

Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday informed top executives of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that the government was preparing to seize the two companies and place them in a conservatorship, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

The plan, effectively a government bailout, was outlined in separate meetings that the chief executives were summoned to attend on Friday at the office of the companies' new regulator. The executives were told that, under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced, shareholders would be virtually wiped out, but the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

It is not possible to calculate the cost of any government bailout, but the huge potential liabilities of the companies could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the nation's largest ever.

It's likewise impossible to calculate what the long-term effects beyond the simple cost of the initial taxpayer bailout are going to be. With America's automakers teetering on the verge of collapse as well, the United States is entering dangerous economic territory (and it's not as if any of this this was an unexpected development). Take a look at two of the most recommended comments in that link above:

... Privatize the profits, and socialize the loss ...Welfare state for coroprations (sic) and tough love for middle class and below . This bailout is nothing but a massive transfer of wealth from the US taxpayers to astronomically rich private investors and foreign governments. The biggest foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie's debts are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Do you want to bail them out with your tax dollars? Think this needs to change?

... all other news will pale in comparison in terms of something that will impact our lives. This decision, so rife with moral hazard, will shake the very foundations of our financial system and add even more debt for our children to pay off.....what a sad farce...

This, and the adverse financial developments that will ripple from it, make considerably weaker our credit markets, our currency, our economy and our national security. Do we really need to consider what John McCain and Sarah Palin and top economic adviser Phil Gramm -- who still insists some people are just whining about a recession -- might do about the crises to come?

That would be nothing, in case you were wondering. Absolutely nothing.

The Republican party is going to own this failure for generations to come.

We don't like Ike

Eric Berger:

2 p.m. UPDATE: The early afternoon model runs have come out and they're increasingly clustered around a track that could bring Ike (now back up to 115-mph) into the central Gulf of Mexico.

I sure hope the evacuations we rehearsed for Gustav don't have to be reprised. If there's one thing I have learned it's that people tend to make a decision about how they will respond to the threat of a hurricane based on whether their reaction the last time was justified. Many people who left last week -- particularly in SE Texas -- will be thus disinclined to do so again.