The trailer for Joel Connelly’s latest column is out. “Just get me there!”

House prices continue in free-fall.

In the past year the median sales price fell 13.2% — the largest decline since data collection began in 1968 and likely since the Great Depression — to $181,300. Separately, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that U.S. home prices fell 7.5% over the 12 months ending in October, according to a monthly index that includes prices for houses with mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae… (or Freddie Mac.)

At The Big Picture, Barry Ritholtz observes:

I find the monthly spin from the NAR laughable. They attribute November’s results to a “weak stock market, job losses and low consumer confidence.” They never seem to recall that Real Estate prices remain too high relative to incomes and rental prices. This is the hangover from the credit bubble.

With the always necessary caveat that there are individual real estate agents and builders who are honest, stand-up individuals, the house building and selling industry bears a huge portion of the blame for this hellish economic mess. It strains credulity to think that the absurd loans and absurd prices came about without widespread criminality and malfeasance.

True capitalists will realize that effective regulation is required in the future. Of course, that won’t stop the stink tank denizens from railing against all things governmental, but I still fail to understand why progressives have to be the only pragmatists.

There needs to be a dramatic change in the zeitgeist in this state and country that defines conservatives in terms of their outdated, delusional and dangerous preconceptions about economics. It’s kind of sunk in, but not widely enough. Neo-liberalism was not only wrong, it failed so miserably that I wouldn’t be surprised if historians someday equate it with the demise of Soviet Communism.

The bidness guys and gals have sneered at everyone for so long, with such utter contempt, that this is the perfect time to teach certain corrupt industries that the government is there to protect all the people, including consumers of major purchases like houses. I mean, you buy a car you get a warranty, you buy a house, well, you know, good luck with that! You should have known the plumbing contractor hired summer help and inspected each pipe yourself before you bought it, and you should have waited out the housing bubble even though you like, needed a place to live.

When the corrupt industry starts its facile whining that they are being “punished” and promise doom and gloom forever, as they do with any proposed regulation whatsoever, they can be sternly reminded that basic consumer rights are not a punishment, they are a normal way to regulate industries that have proven they can’t be trusted. And right now there is no industry more untrustworthy than the house building, selling and finance industry. If restoring the house market requires restoring consumer confidence, reform at both the state and national level is urgently required, seeing as we’re throwing trillions of our dollars at the problem.

Hard times in newspaperin’ everywhere:

Less than a year after moving into a new building downtown, The Columbian newspaper’s newsroom and business staff will return this weekend to its former headquarters in an effort to cut costs.

The newspaper is looking for a buyer for the new building, and the asking price is $41.5 million.

But the threat of bankruptcy — mentioned in October when the building move was announced — appears to have subsided.

Editor Lou Brancaccio is taking stock in the spirit of the season:

I am grateful for those who oppose us and say bad things about us. Does this sound strange to some of you? It shouldn’t. Of course I’m most grateful for those who criticize us in a constructive way. Still, I accept those who simply are bitter. It takes all kinds to make the world go around. Ironically, it is the free press that has helped to guarantee that their bitterness is heard.

Meanwhile the editorial staff itself is brimming over with holiday joy:

Jeers: To the close-minded, agenda-anchored über-liberals who are castigating Barack Obama for inviting Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration on Jan. 20.

Warren’s allies in California are spreading Christianist love all over the court system, with the help of none other than Ken Starr:

The sponsors of Proposition 8 on Friday argued for the first time that the court should undo the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters banned gay marriage at the ballot box last month

Nice.

Look, if Obama wants to call Rick Warren in for a nice chat about why the fuck Rick Warren and his fundamentalist allies think it’s legitimate to revoke people’s basic civil rights, fine. They can talk all they want.

That’s not what’s happening. Warren will be delivering the invocation at the inauguration, with all the attendant symbolism that entails.

Progressives have a moral duty to point out what Rick Warren and his ilk actually stand for, and it’s not a pretty picture, all the glossy trappings aside. If it makes editors feel better to harrumph and snort about how middle-of-the-road they are, also fine, but they’re missing the entire point.

(NOTE–I see Goldy posted below about trying to raise scratch to send Josh to Olympia. I think that’s a fabulous idea.)

The Advance, the relatively new blog of the state House Democrats, notes an Andrew Garber article lamenting the shrinking pool of traditional reporters that will cover the session in Olympia. A key bit from Garber cited by the Dems:

During the past 15 years, the state population has increased by 25 percent and the amount of tax money spent by the state has more than doubled. Yet the number of print, television and radio journalists covering the state Legislature full time has dropped by about 70 percent.

It is a long-term trend that accelerated this decade and finally fell off a cliff this year because of plunging advertising revenue in face of the recession and a changing media landscape.

In 1993, there were 34 journalists covering the Washington state Legislature. By 2007, there were 17. This year, there may be as few as 10 full-time journalists, mostly newspaper reporters.

The Advance chimes in:

For those of us who work in the Legislature, we would add the point that reporters also keep each other honest. When fewer of them are trying to cover the same amount of news, it’s harder for them to make sure their facts are straight and their stories are objective.

So the seasoned, can’t-pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes Dave Ammons is no longer around to drill legislators about the nitty-gritty details of budgets and bills? The Columbian apparently won’t be sending Kathie Durbin up from Vancouver to be embedded in legislative life for the few months of session? How much does it matter? When we see this same trend across the country and in the D.C. press as well, what does it mean about the Fourth Estate’s ability to keep tabs on Congress and the White House?

I don’t know, smells like opportunity to me. And for once I mean that in an earnest rather than a snarky way. Out of destruction comes rebirth and all that, you know.

News gathering is hard work, at least if it’s done well. I’ve done a small bit of it in my time, in college and with an alternative newspaper here in Vancouver, and most folks are not going to do it without getting paid at least something. Plus there is no substitute for having eyes and ears on the ground.

Talking Points Memo is the exemplary national example of an internet site that does news gathering. Other members of this site, especially Goldy and Josh, certainly gather news. Not sure if the TPM model could be adapted to this state, but the need is clearly present.

The internet has paradoxically created the ability for interested citizens to seek out large volumes of information from multiple sources, including media outlets outside their home market, blogs and primary sources such as government documents.

But normal people still expect the news to be delivered to them, and as time progresses I hope we’ll see a move towards building a progressive infrastructure that can do some more grunt work news gathering. Opining is loads of fun, but we need both.

Your liberal media: Juan Williams NPR sound file.

Very rough translation, with liberties: ideology is bad, so it’s good Obama is working with moderates who hate ideology, because today the term “ideology” is a cudgel used without any analysis of the beliefs any particular ideology actually embraces.

The implicit assumption is that progressive are an exact and opposite force to movement conservatives and hence equally loathsome, no matter the evidence. Torture, universal health care, whatever. Ideology ideology ideology! Regular Americans hate all of them, even the ones that are for them!

And BTW, Rick Warren supporting Prop. 8 is not at all ideological. Obama is, in fact, a genius for reciprocating! Rick had Obama over and now Village decorum dictates Obama have Rick over, like it’s the PTA or something.

They’ll probably just talk about the weather and pie and stuff, maybe how the brain dead can smile.

Obama must reach out to people who will never vote for him in a million Pleistocene epochs, because it angers the left.

These are the defined, clinically insane parameters of American politics, and within such confines we must confront the greatest economic challenges (perhaps) of all time.

If making hippies and the gays mad were money, problem solved!

The chair of the Oregon GOP says he is surprised at the accusations against one of the accused Woodburn bank bombers. Two law enforcement officers were killed and another gravely wounded in last Friday’s explosive attack. From The Oregonian:

And the arrests of two members of the Turnidge family — which decades ago helped start the Salem Academy Christian schools — have left those who know the family incredulous.

“I would be very surprised if Bruce Turnidge was involved in that,” said Vance Day, the Oregon GOP chairman and a Salem attorney who has known brothers Bruce and Pat Turnidge for several years. “I know him to be strong, very pro-American. He doesn’t believe in violence of that sort whatsoever.”

Marion County prosecutors arraigned the son Tuesday on six counts of aggravated murder, which, if Turnidge is convicted, could carry the death penalty. He also faces two counts of attempted aggravated murder, manufacture of a destructive device, possession of a destructive device, first- and second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit all of the crimes with one or more unidentified persons.

To be clear, the persons accused by authorities in the case are Joshua Turnidge and his father Bruce Turnidge.

People are presumed innocent in this country until proven guilty. Still, with law enforcement yet to offer a possible motive, it’s one hell of a strange and disturbing case.

More questions than answers about the alleged perpetrator of the bank bombing last Friday in Woodburn, Oregon, that killed two law enforcement officers and seriously injured a third.

A 32-year-old Salem man whose family has deep roots in the area was arraigned this morning on aggravated murder for the deaths of two police officers in Friday’s bank bombing in Woodburn.

A probable-cause statement released to reporters this morning details much of what happened at the West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn last Friday, and says that the OSP bomb technician killed in the blast believed that the bomb was a hoax device before the explosion.

Joshua Abraham Turnidge was arrested late Sunday afternoon at an undisclosed northeast Salem address in connection with the bomb that detonated inside West Coast Bank along Oregon 214.

All sorts of questions remain, like did he act alone? Is his family somehow notable beyond having lived in the Salem area a very long time? Why are authorities not even discussing a possible motive?

Obviously, authorities deserve leeway to conduct their investigation. Hopefully at some point the public will get a better idea what the heck was up with this terrible attack.

UPDATE 2:33 PM: Joshua Turnidge’s father, Bruce Turnidge, has also been arrested, according to the Associated Press. (Tip of the hat to our Cesspool friend Mr. Cynical.)

It’s snowing in Portland. Stop being a dumbass, carry chains or have traction tires. Slow down you idiot, I’ve got kids in the car.

We now put on the football game you were going to watch. If you want to know if it’s snowing at your house, look out the window.

Sounds pretty bad.

A bomb exploded at a West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn Friday, killing at least one person, and injuring at least two others.

The bomb detonated late afternoon around 5:45 p.m. at the bank in the 2500 block of Newberg Highway.

A Marion County deputy medical examiner said he was en route to the scene, saying that he was told of at least one fatality. He added that police were concerned about a secondary device in the area.

The bank had been evacuated before the bomb detonated, according to West Coast Bank chief executive Robert Sznewajs. The branch has been there for at least 10 years, he said.

Things are getting weirder. Turns out the Ghosts of Sixties Past are not as scary as the real life monsters in the bedroom right now.

The most exclusive kleptocracy in the world refuses to act.

A frantic, last-ditch attempt to forge a relief package for the auto industry collapsed in the U.S. Senate, dealing a giant blow to the immediate hopes of the Big Three.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada suggested the $14 billion wouldn’t be revisited until January. “It’s over with,” he said.

The talks, which appeared close to a deal several times, broke off due to a sharp partisan dispute over the wages paid to workers at the manufacturing giants.

Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings regular Americans lose. Maybe the Senate can send workers an enrollment in a jelly of the month club.

Worst since 1994.

The mood of uncertainty was evident in a local report this week showing that only 318 new and pre-owned houses sold in Clark County in November. That’s down 37.3 percent from the 507 home sales in the same month last year. November’s total was the lowest for that month since 1994, according to “benchmarks,” a tracking service of Vancouver’s Riley & Marks appraisal firm.

“Uncertainty” is probably the key word, as the article explores somewhat. How bad are job losses ultimately going to be? Will interest rates be set at 4.5%? Who knows?

Ill. governor and aid arrested. From TPM:

Beleaguered Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was taken into custody by law enforcement authorities at his home this morning, reports the Tribune Company, sourcing a US Attorney’s office spokesman. The governor’s chief of staff, John Harris, was also arrested.

Hours earlier, the Chicago Tribune reported that the federal probe of pay-to-play politics in the Blagojevich administration had expanded to include the question whether the process of filling Barack Obama’s US Senate seat — for which the governor is responsible — had become tainted.

Quite the turn of events. Don’t know much if anything about Illinois politics or Blagojevich. Obviously these are very serious allegations.

Then again, it’s not as if the Bush Justice Department has ever been accused of targeting a Democratic governor for political reasons.

I guess we’ll just have to see how this sorts out.

UPDATE 9:15 AM–Here’s one quick take by Josh Marshall on the charges against llinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D):

A few of you have written in to ask whether this is a case of Siegelman redux — that is, something akin to the case of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democratic governor sandbagged by Republican partisans in the US Attorney’s office.

Short answer: Don’t bet on it.

Needless to say, I haven’t had any real chance to evaluate the specific charges themselves. But I would be extremely cautious about jumping to such conclusions. Patrick Fitzgerald, the US Attorney in Chicago, put the previous Illinois governor away too. That was Republican George Ryan. Fitzgerald was also the special prosecutor who investigated the Plame Leak case.

I remember a few years ago I was having lunch with a prominent Democratic consultant who told me that Fitzgerald was “naive” about how politics worked — relative to his work in Chicago. I just listened and waited to move on to another subject. What is true is that Fitzgerald takes a pretty stringent view of political corruption. But that’s not such a bad thing.

Goldy has also stated sentiments along the same lines. I think that’s a fair analysis at this point, and as the story unfolds, it’s becoming clear that those familiar with Illinois politics are not exactly surprised. I’ve read the word “idiot” associated with Blagojevich about ten times in the last twenty minutes.

Allegedly criminal oligarch arrested:

But when the lawyer, Marc S. Dreier, stepped off a flight from Canada on Sunday night, federal authorities in New York arrested him in a $100 million fraud scheme, portraying his recent undertakings as more high-stakes grifting than high-end lawyering.

In brazen and carefully choreographed scams here and in Canada, Mr. Dreier, who in 1996 founded a 250-lawyer firm that bears his name, is said to have tried to take advantage of the current financial crisis by selling phony debt to hungry hedge funds looking for deals.

It’s quite the story if you click through, worthy of its own tee-vee drama if you ask me. Much more interesting than starlets exposing themselves.

There is bleating going on by the right about how we need efficiency in government. And you know, we do need efficiency in government. But we also need efficiency and accountability in the private sector. If someone can sell over $100 million in utterly fake and worthless notes to hedge funds, there’s not much accountability there. Basically Wall Street became home to a type of organized crime. Instead of burying bodies they buried the entire economy.

Time to dust off those RICO statutes and get even busier.

Oligarchs win, workers lose.

Tribune’s board was advised by a group of bankers from Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which walked off with $35.8 million and $37 million, respectively. But those banks played both sides of the deal: they also lent Mr. Zell the money to buy the company. For that, they shared an additional $47 million pot of fees with several other banks, according to Thomson Reuters. And then there was Morgan Stanley, which wrote a “fairness opinion” blessing the deal, for which it was paid a $7.5 million fee (plus an additional $2.5 million advisory fee).

On top of that, a firm called the Valuation Research Corporation wrote a “solvency opinion” suggesting that Tribune could meet its debt covenants. Thomson Reuters, which tracks fees, estimates V.R.C. was paid $1 million for that opinion. V.R.C. was so enamored with its role that it put out a press release.

Unbelievable. Obviously no sector is immune from shoddy practices and insane financial contortions.

My crystal ball is at the state capitol protesting atheism by showing “It’s a Wonderful Life” on a loop, but some wags are predicting there is going to be a major US city without a daily newspaper in the near future.

Before anyone breaks out the champagne, they might want to consider all those people in suits and pantsuits who walk around city halls and state capitols hatching all sorts of schemes under less scrutiny now than they deserve. The idea of a major US city being “watch dogged” mostly by local television reporters should send shivers down the spine of any citizen. Not every crooked mayor is going to be carrying a puppy around.

Speaking of Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, why isn’t there a stink about the apparent purging of state Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, from Ways and Means?

Something smells there. We are facing the mother of all budget crises, and the Democrats in the Senate waste a guy whose professional expertise is budget analysis, seemingly to appease a senior member who felt threatened. Not a smart move.