High finance

From Yves Smith (ultimately from Rajeev Syal at The Observer):

Wow, so it wasn’t Turbo Timmy, the AIG rescue, the alphabet soup of Fed currency facilities or the currency swaps that saved the global banking system. The marginal suppliers of capital, according to the UN, were drug lords. That means that the UN is saying that the banks went into the money-laundering business on a much greater scale than before as a matter of survival.

Honduras Coup, Act VI, Day 20

Radio Gualcho says it might be off the air tomorrow. Now talking about Llorens’s visit to Zelaya.
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(Image from La Tribuna. Who’s the criminal? 21 year-old Hermes Tercero has been accused of the drive-by assassination of Nicolle Cabrera).

HondurasCoup2009 says that 100.07% of the vote has been counted, and they’re still at it. Now they’re up to 100.09%. Of 2,298,080 votes, there are 153.6K blank/spoiled ballots, leaving 2.1 M votes: a 49% turnout. There was 55% turnout in the 2005 presidential elections (only 46% for Congress). HC2009 also links to a story in La Tribuna about Ambassador Hugo Llorens visiting Zelaya. Last time Llorens went on vacation, the repression went way up. Interestingly, Tiempo isn’t covering this at all.

Via Adrienne, the non-profit May I Speak Freely? Media says:

A report, slated for release Dec. 17, by the Honduran Women’s Rights Center and other rights’ groups documented at least 235 separate human rights violations—the group had to stop counting—during the 10-day period immediately before and after election (Nov. 25-Dec. 5). Cited abuses included illegal searches of alleged resistance members’ homes, illegal detentions, police and military surveillance of resistance members, voter deterrence efforts in resistance-heavy neighborhoods, and five confirmed resistance-related deaths.

In Case It Wasn’t Clear To You That The GOP Is The Party Of Racism

Piggybacking on Charles’ discussion of the intellectual and moral death spiral of the modern conservative movement, I would like to pass on this recent example of racist-directed dogwhistling, courtesy of nepotism beneficiary Jonah Goldberg, an example which is tucked into the body of a column ostensibly about Those Filthy Modern Celebrities And Athletes (emphases added):

It’s not all bad news, to be sure. The elite minority’s general acceptance of racial and sexual equality as important values has been a moral triumph. But not without costs. As part of this transformation, society has embraced what social scientist Charles Murray calls “ecumenical niceness.” A core tenet of ecumenical niceness is that harsh judgments of the underclass — or people with underclass values — are forbidden. An added corollary: People with old-fashioned notions of decency are fair game.

Long before the rise of reality shows, ecumenical niceness created a moral vacuum. Out-of-wedlock birth was once a great shame; now it’s something of a happy lifestyle choice. The cavalier use of profanity was once crude; now it’s increasingly conversational. Self-discipline was once a virtue; now self-expression is king.

And just in case you didn’t get the point, he throws in a zinger at Tiger Woods at the end (as if the sport of golf didn’t have any white sinners before Tiger came along — John Daly, anyone?).

Setting aside the irony that the only reason Jonah Goldberg has a paying gig is because of his mother’s celebrity among the get-Clinton wing of the conservative movement, or that most of the states with the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates happen to be in the “old-fashioned notions of decency” Bible Belt and Confederacy areas, let’s look at the guy Goldberg cites as an expert in cultural values, Charles Murray.

Y’all remember who Charles Murray is, right?

The guy who gave us The Bell Curve?

The guy whose racism and academic quackery has kept him largely ostracized even by the mainstream of the GOP/Media Complex, yet is still worshiped in conservative circles like Jonah’s? (And especially so at openly-racist sites like VDARE’s? )

The guy who burned a cross in front of his hometown police station in Newton, Iowa?

Yeah, that guy.

That should tell you something about Jonah Goldberg and his conservative readership, that he could cite someone as vile as Murray despite Murray’s being debunked to hell and back.