Meet ACORN

The Smirking Chimp hosted an article by Intrepid Liberal Journal and an associated podcast of an interview with Wade Rathke, who has been one of the prime movers behind ACORN. I have tried unsuccessfully to get ACORN to comment about Wade Rathke to answer criticisms of the handling of the firing of his brother Dale, who allegedly embezzled a lot of money from ACORN (but then repaid it). I’m mostly not happy because one gets the sense of poor board oversight and a blurring of functions between the board and the leadership, which are arcane topics for most people.

While he didn’t speak to governance issues, it was worth the listen to get a sense of the man. I commend it to you.

Monday Morning News Roundup

— Even as paid coupista apologists write panegyrics on Micheletti’s behalf in the US media, his gang has no kicked out TeleSUR, the last truly reliable TV network reporting on the ground in Honduras. This is an ominous sign and indicates that the coup plotters are planning to seriously up the violence factor.

— The US trade gap is still narrowing, and is now at its smallest amount since November of 1999; even though we’re importing more from China, we’re importing far less overall.

This is seen as an example of the weakness of the US economy. That could be so, but there is also this hypothesis: The fuel price shock of last year, which I suspect was one of the triggers of the worldwide collapse of the economy, suddenly made it a lot more costly to import things to the US. Up until last summer, it cost around $2000 to $3000 to ship a standard container to the US. As of September of last year, it cost from $7000 to $9000. Even though the price of oil has dropped in the wake of the collapse, it’s still not cheap enough for shell-shocked overseas economies to be able to start importing things on a pre-collapse scale. So while we’re weak, other economies are much weaker still.

— The current favorite right-wing revisionist history talking point being dutifully transmitted by conservative media writers (and thus e-mailed among hardcore conservatives) is that Sarah Palin was being attacked from the get-go by the US media. TPM’s Josh Marshall takes a little time to blow that sucker to smithereens.