The business of business is business and increasingly that means business with Democrats (Wall Street Journal, generously quoted because it is subscription only):

Freshman Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois is facing the Republican Party machine in her re-election bid. Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have headlined money-raising events for her opponent. The National Republican Congressional Committee has budgeted $1.5 million to attack her.

But Ms. Bean has won an unexpected ally with clout to counter the Republican heavyweights: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Usually a stalwart of Republicans, the chamber has run about $700,000 in advertisements defending the Democrat and plans to help get out the pro-business vote for her in the fall.

Ms. Bean is among more than a dozen Democrats in key races across the country that the chamber is backing this year. Half of them also have benefited from the chamber's first-ever television ads for Democrats. Partly, the organization is rewarding these Democrats for votes in favor of free trade and other issues it holds dear. It also is sensing possible Republican defeats in congressional elections on Nov. 7, and is hedging its bets by spreading some of the organization's wealth to the other side of the aisle.

The chamber's move mirrors a subtle but significant shift across the business community, which has begun anticipating that the Republican majorities in Congress could shrink, if not collapse. [...]

The changes also point to an emerging rift between the Republican Party's business and social-conservative constituencies, as their interests clash over some hot-button issues. In Missouri, for example, some Republican businessmen are donating to Democrat Claire McCaskill in her challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent, largely because Mr. Talent opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the strongest single business voice in Washington, representing thousands of trade associations and three million large and small businesses. It is the top spender on lobbying in Washington and is expected to spend $40 million on state and federal races this year. Employing an army of 36 full-time lobbyists, the chamber often takes the lead on major political issues close to the business community's heart.

The Bush brand of conservatism is anti-tax but also anti-growth, anti-public investment, anti-stock market, anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-science, and, perhaps most profoundly, anti-responsible and anti-accountable fiscally.

Any commercial enterprise not named Halliburton or Bechtel or ExxonMobil, and therefore shut out of the Bush Iraq/DHS crony economy, is suffering and now seeking alternatives. And that can only be good for Democrats and the country as a whole.

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.

{ 9:49 AM }

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Lying leaders and bleeding economies. The turmoil in Hungary stems from the fact that people have abruptly realized their leader lied to them (WSJ):

BUDAPEST -- The streets here are boiling with violence not seen since Soviet tanks rolled along the city's medieval cobblestones in 1956. This time, it is a capitalist who is pushing people to the brink.

Demonstrators protested outside Hungary's Parliament for a third straight day yesterday following clashes earlier in the week with police armed with water cannons. The protests were triggered by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's admission that he had lied "morning, evening and night" about the state of the economy ahead of April elections that returned him to power.

But it's only Hungary, right? We have nothing in common with them.

Actually, we have more in common with Hungary and Romania than we do with Japan or Germany — a flailing stock market, a weakening currency, massive federal and trade deficits — and it isn't pretty...



And who is the US ambassador to Hungary? April Foley, Bush's ex-girlfriend.

{ 11:06 AM }

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Veterans of Future Wars. "It seemed logical to Lewis Gorin that if present-day veterans could get their war bonuses early, why shouldn't future veterans also receive their money up-front — before they had fought in a war. After all, given the global political situation, it seemed inevitable that all the young men in the country would soon have to go off to fight. Why shouldn't these men be given their money now, while they could still enjoy it, instead of having to wait until after the conflict, when they might be dead?"

{ 12:20 PM }

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The amazingly unbelievable 2-year oil price cycle. Oil prices apparently no longer have anything to do with supply and demand, but instead with pre-election Octobers in the USA:

The likelihood of finding $2-a-gallon gasoline in some parts of the U.S. is increasing by the day.

The nationwide average at the pump is already below $2.50, and with a huge decline in oil and gasoline futures today analysts say the outlook for motorists is only getting better.

"We'll see sub-$2.25 a gallon retail (prices) by October [2006]," said Tom Kloza, director of the Oil Price Information Service, adding that prices below $2 can already be found in Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina and other states.

Surprise, surprise. This is exactly what happened two years ago: "Saudi Arabia may be hatching an October [2004] surprise to benefit President Bush by lowering crude oil prices before the November election, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward said in an interview aired yesterday. Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan - the longtime ambassador to the U.S. and a close Bush family friend - told the President that oil production will get a boost to strengthen the U.S. economy, said Woodward, author of a new book on White House war planning for Iraq."

Only this time, not boosted production but "lessened demand" is providing the "official" "explanation."

See also this chart and look at the overall trend in gas prices during Dubya's tenure from 2001 to the present. Contrast with the Pax Clintonia of 1993 through 2001.

{ 3:53 PM }

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Martin Amis on extreme Islamism.

{ 10:30 AM }

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Cheney, his mafia, and his fans. It never fails to astonish me that the editorial and the opinion pages within the same Wall Street publications can seem to come from different universes. The Wall Street Journal and Barron's immediately come to mind, and it is in the latter we find the latest from Alan Abelson, who is clearly mentally deranged:

Vice President Cheney ... has been the constant target of vicious attacks by mean-spirited Democrats for what they claim is his habitual obstinacy in refusing to concede that he's human and hence not blessed with perfection.

Just recently, the veep took some fierce blasts of heat when he averred that even had he known back in 2003 Saddam didn't have so much a toy mock-up of a weapon of mass destruction, "We'd do exactly the same thing."

At first blush, that's the kind of patently absurd statement that makes Mr. Cheney sound like he's absolutely convinced he walks on water, and tempts the disinterested spectator to try to persuade him on the benefits of complete rest. What both his enemies and his anxious sympathizers fail to recognize is that Mr. Cheney's very special position in the administration prevents him from ever saying he's sorry, much less acknowledging he's ever made even the most minute mistake.

For Mr. Cheney is the godfather of this administration. And as John Gotti or Marlon Brando could have told you, to fill that role successfully demands unquestioned authority, which means simply that you're always right. Always. Period. If at times, your adamancy appears irrational and monomaniacal -- no sweat, you're a godfather, in whose menacing presence underlings and enemies alike quake in their boots. If he wanted to be a goody two-shoes, Mr. Cheney confides, he'd have been secretary of state.

There they go again — praising with faint damnation.

Abelson's goofy attempt at satire is as flat-footed and repulsive as its target. For what purpose do so many Wall Street media types cast themselves as the Leni Riefenstahl propagandists of the Bush administration, always building up what deserves to be torn down, particularly when so much actual evidence of the administration's incompetence and/or evil can be found within the pages of their own publications?

See two posts down from this one for another story from Barron's, this one about someone who actually manages money instead of just writing about it in a tone of faux-cuteness.

{ 3:37 PM }

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