"Fred Rogers" Jindal

New York Times:

A day after Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s widely ripped Howdy Doody-meets-Mister Rogers response to President Obama’s address...”

I think the reporter is on to something. If Jindal's previous response to demon possession is any indication...

“I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leav­ing it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.”

He's allowed himself to be possessed by Mister Rogers! Quick, call an exorcist!

Sea Ice Brouhaha

Following up on Wednesday's post...

You can believe George Will:

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Or your lying eyes (via Arctic Sea Ice News): George Will wants you to focus on one short period of "global" ice growth - September 2008 to now - and conclude, from what has happened during this period, that climate change is not real. He asked you to completely ignore the extent of the summer declines in the Arctic and to focus solely on what has happened in the most recent few months, forgetting long-term trends and all of the accumulated data that points to climate change.

Unfortunately, science does not work the way impulsive George Will wants it to work. Scientists don't draw wide-ranging conclusions based on the latest bit of data (which Will didn't even bother to report correctly) taken in isolation. If the Washington Post, with all of its fact checkers and college-educated columnists, can't get this stuff right, and if the bossman, Fred Hiatt, is on board with Will's willful distortions, then the paper deserves to go out of business. It says a lot about the abysmal state of education in this country that the second most important paper in the country can't get it right.

[source]

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO AREN'T SIERRA CLUB MEMBERS (Join!)... Here's a nice little summary of the WP flap over environmental "alarmism"

Will-ful Deceit at the Washington Post
Josh Dorner

After years of soft-pedaling the science around global warming and actively abetting the Bush administration's strategy of sowing doubt about the problem, it seemed like the media had more or less gotten its act together when it comes to reporting on climate change. This past couple weeks, however, we got an unfortunate reminder that denialism is alive and well on the editorial pages of some of America's most prominent newspapers.

Two weeks ago George Will, occasional bow-tie wearer and one of the media elite's favorite conservative blowhards, penned a column (based at the Washington Post but syndicated nationally) attacking the so-called alarmist doomsaying (read: reality) around global warming. Conservatives ranting about global warming alarmism is of course nothing new, but this column struck a nerve because it blatantly misstated (read: lied about) some basic scientific facts around sea ice and global temperatures.

Others have done an excellent take-down of the distortions, so I won't waste time there. The real story is the ridiculously cack-handed response from Will and the Post.

First, the brand-spanking new ombudsman, Andy Alexander, dug the hole deeper by defending the Post's "fact-checking" and editing process. He pointed out that an astonishing FIVE editors at the Post had looked over the column. He then not only refused to concede the column's obvious and glaring errors, but doubled down on them in Will's defense. No correction has been issued.

This stands in marked contrast to the New York Times, which offered repeated corrections to arch-conservative Bill Kristol’s notoriously shoddy columns during his brief tenure on their opinion page. It's somewhat ironic that after being kicked to the curb by the Times, Kristol is now going to start writing a column for the Post.

(It should be of additional embarrassment to the Washington Post that the Center for American Progress discovered that Will has essentially recycled this same column approximately ten times over the years -- stretching all the way back to 1992.)

The blogosphere was already seething and the Post's non-response response was so troubling that Sierra Club and other groups wrote a letter of protest to Alexander (noting, in part, that Will was entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts), but things really kicked up a notch when Andy Revkin of the Times took on Will. (Revkin also misguidedly attacked Al Gore by equating his supposed overplaying of warming to Will's lying, which then caused its own separate flap in the blogosphere.)

And its not just bloggers, enviros, and media watchdogs who are upset. The Oregonian had refused to run Will's column and Galen Burnett, the paper's commentary editor, had this to say of the Post's response: "I was a little troubled by the response from the Washington Post editors which was basically dismissive of people's challenge of the column. That's the more troubling aspect to me. I would expect more of the Post."

And then it just got totally nuts. Speaking to the Columbia Journalism Review, the Post's opinion page editor, Fred Hiatt, not only defended Will, but then bizarrely asserted that those demanding accuracy and truth when it comes to science were in some way advocating censorship. It gets better. Hiatt then defended Will's right to interpret science as he sees fit and even said that Will has no obligation to even mention that the scientists he is citing vehemently disagree with his characterization of their research.

The escalation has only continued today, with Will writing a new column attacking his naysayers (including Andy Revkin) and doubling down on his original lies. Revkin then hit back, citing scientists discussing science (what a novelty). Our friends at Media Matters and bloggers continue to pile on. Should be interesting to see if Andy Alexander actually does some ombudsman-ing in his column this Sunday or just continues to defend the nonsense being spewed by Hiatt and Will?

At this rate, I'm guessing the hole under Fred Hiatt's desk may reach China before Will makes the rounds on this Sunday's talk shows.

--from Sierra Club Raw
Issue #2756
Feb 27, 2009

In addition to complaining about the mainstream media, find true alternatives...

[source]

Think Progress:

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured op-eds by Henry Kissinger, David Broder, Bill Kristol, David Ignatius, and George Will. Today’s brings op-eds from George Will, Michael Gerson, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Kinsley, and Eugene Robinson.

That’s ten columns total. One is by a liberal (Robinson), one by a contrarian who may lean left (Kinsley), two by centrist Villagers (Broder and Ignatius - and remember, Village centrists are typically to the right of the actual center.) And six are by staunch conservatives - Will (twice), Krauthammer, former Nixon aide Kissinger, former Bush I aide Kristol, and former Bush II aide Gerson.

The Washington Post is a mainstream newspaper. Even if it tried to be more balanced on its op-ed page, it would still represent a massive rejection of progressive values.

Unless we glue our collective eyeballs to, and promote, the myriad progressive alternatives to the mainstream media, we will never transform this country.

Obama = Bush III

Glenn Greenwald:

One of the worst abuses of the Bush administration was its endless reliance on vast claims of secrecy to ensure that no court could ever rule on the legality of the President's actions. They would insist that "secrecy" prevented a judicial ruling even when the President's actions were (a) already publicly disclosed in detail and (b) were blatantly criminal -- as is the case with the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, which The New York Times described on its front page more than three years ago and which a federal statute explicitly criminalized. Secrecy claims of that sort -- to block judicial review of the President's conduct, i.e., to immunize the President from the rule of law -- provoked endless howls of outrage from Bush critics.

Yet now, the Obama administration is doing exactly the same thing. Hence, it is accurately deemed "a blow to the Obama administration" that a court might rule on whether George Bush broke the law when eavesdropping on Americans without warrants. Why is the Obama administration so vested in preventing that from happening, and -- worse still -- in ensuring that Presidents continue to have the power to invoke extremely broad secrecy claims in order to block courts from ruling on allegations that a President has violated the law?

[...]

Ultimately, the real question is not whether you think Obama will use these powers the same way Bush did (nobody can know that), but rather: do you want the secrecy and detention architecture built by George Bush, Dick Cheney and David Addington to remain in place so that -- even if it remains dormant now -- Obama or some future President can decide at any time to revitalize and use it at will? Thus far, Obama's answer to that question seems to be a resounding "yes."

Daily bailing

[source]

Check out the Daily Bail!

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Bears & Balls - Company Bailouts

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Joke of the Day
Stand-Up Comedy

By the throat...

New York Times on the A.I.G. bailout:

A quarter of a trillion dollars, if it comes to that, is an astounding amount of money to hand over to one company to prevent it from going bust. Yet the government feels it has no choice: because of A.I.G.’s dubious business practices during the housing bubble it pretty much has the world’s financial system by the throat.

In other words, they are dragging down the entire economy and there is nothing we can do but take it. As taxpayers, we are to close our eyes, fall into a swoon, and wait for the inevitable sucking sound.

Here’s what is most infuriating: Here we are now, fully aware of how these scams worked. Yet for all practical purposes, the government has to keep them going. Indeed, that may be the single most important reason it can’t let A.I.G. fail. If the company defaulted, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps would “blow up,” and all those European banks whose toxic assets are supposedly insured by A.I.G. would suddenly be sitting on immense losses. Their already shaky capital structures would be destroyed. A.I.G. helped create the illusion of regulatory capital with its swaps, and now the government has to actually back up those contracts with taxpayer money to keep the banks from collapsing. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.

[source]

It's time.

We Are Not a Christian Nation

I found this great site Alternative Reel which posted the most wonderful comments from our Founding Fathers, definitively proving that AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION. Read on, friend, read on...

---

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
—Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758

"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, January 1774

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."
—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774

". . . no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
—Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter, 1787

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see, but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity, though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure."
—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
—John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813

"Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he has known nothing but what has passed under his own eye."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1823

---

And a great reader comment: The founding fathers were a combination of Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, and Deists. The first amendment was added to separate the state from religion and to allow religious freedom because many of the founders were, indeed, non-Christians. The largest Christian denomination was Anglican. After long debate, it became clear to the framers of the amendments that separation of church and state was the most desirable route. In fact, such founding fathers as Patrick Henry, a Catholic, were in favor of the 1st amendment. The bottom line is that, because of their intent, the US is a secular state, not a Christian (or any other religion) state.

[Can you say, AMEN!]

BLECCCH!

If this doesn't qualify as a viral video, nothing does. Rockers, get ready to hurl: Celine Dion covers AC/DC's "You Shook Me." This is what they get for selling their greatest hits exclusively and Mao Mart.

Putting GM in perspective

[source]

Doug Henwood last week:

And as I’m writing this, I just learned that GM’s market capitalization—the value of all its stock outstanding—just dipped below $1 billion. (Latest: here.) GM, once the mightiest corporation in the world, whose fate was held to be consubstantial with the USA’s, is now worth about 1/60th as much as McDonalds, and not quite twice as much as the makers of Celestial Seasonings teas.

Maybe it's sleepy time for GM.

The Economy is Dead in the Water

New Homes: months of supply is at an ALL TIME RECORD 13.3 months (January).

New home sales are at a RECORD LOW.

In Q4, the GDP declined 6.2%.

California unemployment is nearing the record level of 11% set in November 1982.

Continuing unemployment benefits have topped 5.1 million.

This chart should scare us all:

Beyond a pity that we waste the government kitty on shitty fucking Citi

Make. It. Stop. Big Picture:

To review: Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made a terrible investment on behalf of the taxpayers by purchasing a 7.8% stake in Citigroup (C) for an initial $25 billion dollars. He further put the US on the hook by guaranteeing against 90% of future losses on $301 billion in assets. Subsequently, we (the taxpayers) injected another $20 billion dollars.

At the time, Citigroup had a market cap of about ~$50 billion dollars. Today, its worth ~$13 billion.

So for about 100% of the market value of Citi, plus insurance guarantees worth of as much as 500% of its value (~$275 billion), we got less than 1/10 of a company that in total was worth 1/5 of our investment.

Pretty good deal, eh?

That $45 billion dollar stake now has a market value of just over a billion.

And, its about to get even worse.

[...]

Its just another example of why these insolvent banks should be nationalized, or for you squeemish free marketers, FDIC mandated, pre-packaged Chapter 11, government funded reorganization.

First we poured 45 billion into Citi - equivalent to what the entire company was worth - but only received a 7.8% stake. Now that 45 billion dollar investment could buy the company more than 3 times over. And our 7.8% stake is worth only 1 billion.

45 billion --> 1 billion. Poof!

It's time for the government to get out of the investment business and into the bankruptcy and nationalization business.

Citi has behaved like the crook in its own commercial.

"It's not like I'm actually paying for it..."
Nope, you're not. The taxpayer is.

Digby gets mad, we all should

[source]

[complete wall stats: here]

This is what I love. You have these vastly wealthy fiscal responsibility wankers running around telling old ladies they are going to have to eat cat food for the good of their country while they are all larding themselves up with as much government pigfat as they can get. And if they can't [get] it directly from the treasury, they grease the palms of politicians to deregulate so they can screw their investors --- and then get it from the treasury when their scams fall apart. [source]

Only class warfare will stop corporate welfare

I want to blog, I want to blog, I want to blog...

Dedicated to El Generico...

You know something has gone horribly wrong when...

McCain Backs Obama's Iraq War Plan

[...]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), President Obama's campaign opponent, went to the White House Thursday for a briefing on the president's plan for a timetable for a troop drawdown in Iraq. Before heading down Pennsylvania Avenue, he said he was already largely on board.

[...]

The Huffington Post asked McCain, if he had been elected president, whether he would have implemented roughly the same plan that Obama intends to carry out in Iraq.

"Oh, I'm sure," he said, "because that's what our military and civilian leadership has recommended. I can't say exactly, but certainly it seems to me it's a viable strategy."

That's 50,000 troops too many

Oh, all the promises we made
All the meaningless and empty words

Raw Story:

President Obama took steps today to bolster support for his as yet unofficially announced troop withdrawal plan that would leave up to 50,000 troops in Iraq by inviting a small group of Congressional leaders over to the White House for a Thursday briefing.

Feingold is not on board:

"Our presence in Iraq has cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives, overburdened our military, fueled anti-Americanism and distracted us from the global threat posed by al Qaeda. I am concerned, however, by reports that tens of thousands of U.S. troops may remain in Iraq beyond August 2010. I question whether such a large force is needed to combat any al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq or whether it will contribute to stability in the region."

As Leahy prepares to immunize Bush lawbreakers, Pelosi calls for prosecutions

Isn't that special? She's talking tough now that the "truth commission" - which will likely immunize wrongdoers - is on the verge of going forward. The spinelessness knows no bounds.

MADDOW: This is something that liberals have really been pushing. And you have stated your support for John Conyers convening an investigation into potential lawbreaking in the Bush administration.

PELOSI: Absolutely.

MADDOW: You've been outspoken about contempt of Congress charges related to the politicization of the Justice Department and that investigation. You have been less specific about how Congress should proceed on warrantless wiretapping and torture. Why is that? . . .

PELOSI: Senator Leahy has a proposal, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is a good idea. What I have some concern about though is it has immunity. And I think that some of the issues involved here, like the services part, politicizing of the Justice Department, and the rest, they have criminal ramifications, and I don't think we should be giving them immunity.

On education, Obama gets it

I was very happy to hear him focus on education last night.

Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.

This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. [source]

The California Dropout Research Project presents some scary facts about California's situation:

The dropout crisis threatens California’s future economy. If present trends continue, by 2020 California will have twice as many workers without a high school diploma as there will be jobs to support them.

Compared to high school graduates, dropouts earn lower wages, pay fewer taxes, are more likely to commit crimes, are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be on welfare, and are less healthy. For example:

more than two-thirds of all high school dropouts will use food stamps during their working lives; the probability of incarceration for a Black male dropout is 60%; an “average” high school graduate earns $290,000 more over a lifetime—and pays $100,000 more in federal, state, and local taxes—than a high school dropout.

In 2005-06, 349,191 California high school students graduated. Comparing that figure to the number of ninth-graders four years earlier (520,287) suggests that
only about two-thirds of California’s students graduate on time, with more than 170,000 students dropping out or failing to graduate.

Jindal's self-hatred

Jindal last night:

"The strength of America
is not found in our government.
It is found in the
compassionate hearts
and enterprising spirit of our citizens."

Jindal is a governor - a GOVERNMENT employee. Is he saying that what he does for a living is not worthwhile? Why is he in government service if he thinks that government sucks? Does he REALLY believe that government employees can't be compassionate and enterprising?

673,654 individuals work for the Department of Defense. The Department of Justice employs 107,405 individuals. Is he including all those folks in his dismissive remark?

The sooner this exorcism-promoting ass gets off the national stage, the better.

Liberal Oasis:

The Republican hatred of government was on full display. The governor told us a story about Hurricane Katrina, the moral of which was that we don't need government to help us with anything. (This is kind of surprising since the governor's mother used to work for the government.) That was a lesson that he and other Republicans learned from Hurricane Katrina. They learned the government just can't function. I may be wrong but if you're running an agency in which disaster management expertise is called for from an agency and it is headed by a guy that has no experience in that field, it would seem to me that the agency may not function as well as it should.

And it's 1, 2, 3, this is what we're fighting for?

Baby girl severely injured (eyes lost) during 12/14/06 car bomb attack in Sadr City Baghdad.

From Dahr Jamil's Mideast Dispatches

“This is 20 month-old Iraqi baby girl, who was severely injured and mutilated, in a blast by a car bomb in Al-Sadr City 21 days ago,she lost her two eyes.

“Her name is Shams-means sun in Arabic-… well not anymore, her mother was killed during the accident. Shams lies now in a surgical specialty hospital in Baghdad, and as we live in these terrible conditions in Baghdad she has not much chance to get any proper medical care…

“She is an innocent element amid this turmoil. I have a kid almost the same age and I feel aching pain inside for her. Shams was sent for my consulatation for her but I could do nothing. If she could make it she would live with a broken soul forever. Who could bring back her cherubic childish smile again? I hope that the criminal who did this sees part of his accomplishment.”

Isn't it time we cut the the DoD budget and used the money to help our country and provide health care for America and aid around the world? Do we really need to invade Afghanistan?

Feudalism Triumphant

"The primacy of finance over
the rest of the economy will be affirmed."

Michael Hudson asks why we are trying to patch a broken economic system when the system represents a re-imposition of the feudalistic ways of property and control that took centuries to escape. An excellent article that asks us to more closely examine what we mean when we say "free market," "socialism" and "nationalization." Hudson served as Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor durng the 2008 presidential campaign.

Exactly what does "a free market" mean? Is it what the classical economists advocated - a market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests - a market protected by the rise in public regulation from the Sherman Anti-Trust law of 1890 to the Glass-Steagall Act and other New Deal legislation? Or is it a market free for predators to exploit victims without public regulation or economic policemen - the kind of free-for-all market that the Federal Reserve and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have created over the past decade or so? It seems incredible that people should accept today's neoliberal idea of "market freedom" in the sense of neutering government watchdogs, Alan Greenspan-style, letting Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide, Hank Greenberg at AIG, Bernie Madoff, Citibank, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers loot without hindrance or sanction, plunge the economy into crisis and then use Treasury bailout money to pay the highest salaries and bonuses in U.S. history.

[...]

Doublethink and doubletalk with regard to "nationalizing" or "socializing" the banks and other sectors is a travesty of political and economic discussion from the 17th through mid-20th centuries. Society's basic grammar of thought, the vocabulary to discuss political and economic topics, is being turned inside-out in an effort to ward off discussion of the policy solutions posed by the classical economists and political philosophers that made Western civilization "Western."

Today's clash of civilization is not really with the Orient; it is with our own past, with the Enlightenment itself and its evolution into classical political economy and Progressive Era social reforms aimed at freeing society from the surviving trammels of European feudalism. What we are seeing is propaganda designed to deceive, to distract attention from economic reality so as to promote the property and financial interests from whose predatory grasp classical economists set out to free the world. What is being attempted is nothing less than an attempt to destroy the intellectual and moral edifice of what took Western civilization eight centuries to develop, from the 12th century Schoolmen discussing Just Price through 19th and 20th century classical economic value theory.

[...]

The fact that today's neoliberals claim to be the intellectual descendants of Adam Smith make it necessary to restore a more accurate historical perspective. Their concept of "free markets" is the antithesis of Smith's. It is the opposite of that of the classical political economists down through John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and the Progressive Era reforms that sought to create markets free of extractive rentier claims by special interests whose institutional power can be traced back to medieval Europe and its age of military conquest.

Economic writers from the 16th through 20th centuries recognized that free markets required government oversight to prevent monopoly pricing and other charges levied by special privilege. By contrast, today's neoliberal ideologues are public relations advocates for vested interests to depict a "free market" is one free of government regulation, "free" of anti-trust protection, and even of protection against fraud (as evidenced by the SEC's refusal to move against Madoff, Enron, Citibank et al.). The neoliberal ideal of free markets is thus basically that of a bank robber or embezzler, wishing for a world without police so as to be sufficiently free to siphon off other peoples' money without constraint.

"Their Counter-Enlightenment is
creating a world that would
have been deemed a dystopia a century ago."

Rejoice! Something good has happened.

Senate confirms Solis as labor secretary

Senate confirms Hilda Solis as labor secretary after GOP concerns, tax issues caused delays

SAM HANANEL
AP News

Feb 24, 2009 16:57 EST

The Senate has confirmed California congresswoman Hilda Solis as President Barack Obama's labor secretary.

Solis' confirmation gives the agency a decidedly pro-worker tilt after eight years of business-friendly leadership under the Bush administration.

The 80-17 vote comes after more than a month of delays. Some GOP lawmakers were concerned over her work for a pro-union group that supports legislation easing the process for workers to organize unions.

She also had to answer questions about tax liens filed against her husband.

Solis is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. Despite what George McGovern says, that's a very good thing.

Billions for wall street fat cats, $13/week for us

Middletown Journal:

According to the American Recovery and Reinvestment — the economic stimulus package — workers making less than $100,000 a year will receive a $400 tax credit, $800 for families. That amount will be broken down to $13 additional income on worker paychecks beginning in June. The package also includes a one-time payment of $250 to recipients of Social Security and government disability support.

[...]

13 items you can buy with $13

1. 13 value menu burgers [don't do this to yourself]

2. Seven gallons of gasoline [not in California!]

3. A new necktie to wear at a job interview [who wrote this article?]

4. Two 6-packs of beer [to wash down the value burgers]

5. A movie matinee ($6) and a large soft drink ($5) [this does not compute in L.A.]

6. A Netflix subscription [fantasize about Trading Places]

7. An eyebrow wax [ouch!]

8. Two hair cuts at Great Clips [no tipping allowed]

9. Two $5 foot long subs with a drink and chips [hopefully, those are vegetarian subs]

10. Six loaves of bread [more than you would have gotten from Jesus]

11. Two packages of socks [or one package of Thorlos, but you are worth it]

12. A 13-minute chair massage [the fat cats have their spas, you get chair massage at the mall]

13. A YMCA membership [join 20,916,698 other Americans at the Y and start a revolution]

Thanks, Barack! Thanks, Congress! I'm looking forward to those new socks.

FYI, in 2010, the credit drops to $7.70 a week. Have fun stimulating the economy.

Where's Stella?

This pretty much explains it
Visiting and posting pending...

Fuck Peter G. Peterson

The grand assault on our Social Security is underway. We must not let the bastard billionaire and his lackeys in Congress get their way.

Robert Kuttner:

The Peterson Foundation is joined by leading "blue dog" (anti-deficit) Democrats such as House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina and his counterpart in the Senate, Kent Conrad of North Dakota. The deficit hawks are promoting a "grand bargain" in which a bipartisan commission enacts spending caps on social insurance as the offset for current deficits.

[...]

Since the early 1980s, Peter G. Peterson has been warning that future entitlement deficits would crash the economy. Yet when the crash came, the cause was not deficits but wild speculation on Wall Street.

Now, with 401(k) plans swooning and health benefits being cut, Social Security and Medicare are the two bedrock programs that keep tens of millions of elderly Americans from destitution. Why perversely cut these programs to pay for the sins of Wall Street? The attack on social insurance is really an ideological assault, dressed up as fiscal high-mindedness.

Can you imagine? Cutting Social Security to pay for the recklessness of Wall Street? Will Obama go along with this madness?

Krugman: "Why not just go ahead and nationalize?"

Paul Krugman:

The real question is why the Obama administration keeps coming up with proposals that sound like possible alternatives to nationalization, but turn out to involve huge handouts to bank stockholders.

For example, the administration initially floated the idea of offering banks guarantees against losses on troubled assets. This would have been a great deal for bank stockholders, not so much for the rest of us: heads they win, tails taxpayers lose.

Now the administration is talking about a “public-private partnership” to buy troubled assets from the banks, with the government lending money to private investors for that purpose. This would offer investors a one-way bet: if the assets rise in price, investors win; if they fall substantially, investors walk away and leave the government holding the bag. Again, heads they win, tails we lose.

Why not just go ahead and nationalize? Remember, the longer we live with zombie banks, the harder it will be to end the economic crisis.

Time to take the revised Investment Risk Quiz:

A month Three months after you buy it, an investment falls 15 80 percent in a market correction. Assuming none all of the fundamentals have changed, you:

Hold it, and hope it recovers.

Sell, sell! Get out while you can!

Buy even more of it. It's an opportunity for a huge government infusion of cash.

Which of these investments would you feel happier about?

A certificate of deposit that saved you from losing money in a market downturn.

An aggressive mutual fund that doubled your money.

A bank stock in a company that the government will never allow to fail.

What would put the biggest smile on your face?

A visit from Ed McMahon with a $100,000 check!

A $100,000 inheritance from a rich relative.

Earning $100,000 by risking $2,000 in the options market.

A guaranteed government bailout that makes a $100,000 investment in penny bank stocks a risk-free investment.

You're at the craps tables in Las Vegas, and you've lost $500. How much are you willing to risk to break even?

Not a penny more.

$100

$250

$500

As much as it takes! There's more where that came from in your risk-free, government-backed bank stock portfolio!

Email lawsuit killer Obama = Bush III

Raw Story:

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails in a stunning reversal of Obama's rhetoric about Bush secrecy on the campaign trail.

Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President, including one of the groups that helped derail former House Speaker Tom DeLay, say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush's eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama's Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration's bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.

No desire to pursue justice, no need to recover those incriminating emails.

The torture continues on Obama's watch

Glenn Greenwald:

These allegations that Binyam Mohamed was brutalized at Guantanamo in the last several weeks -- while the Obama DOD was "concluding" that conditions there comported with the Geneva Conventions -- are coming from highly credible sources. The Obama administration has the obligation to make available an official in a position of real authority to speak on the record and attempt to reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable stories. The pledge to end the brutality and secrecy of the Bush detention regime was one of the centerpieces of Obama's campaign. One would think, on their own, they'd be eager to address these allegations in a forthright and candid way.

Sounding too much like a bullshit artist

Andrea Adleman, AlterNet:

Well yes, we all expected better, and on a lot of fronts. It is tough times all over, but I can remember being very moved attending an Obama speech when he said more or less that the irresponsible and perhaps illegal anti-terrorist policies of the Bush administration were, in part, responsible for the decline of America at home and abroad. When he was president, that all would change. Well, along with his statements on NAFTA and other topics, Obama is sounding too much like a bullshit artist, and a lot less like the inspiring moral voice he was when running for office. Given all the bad news around, it is not a happy day when one of the few good things in our lives -- the Obama presidency -- is making our mouths run sour.

"If the detainee dies you're doing it wrong."

John Fredman, from Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting Minutes, October 2, 2002:

"Under the Torture Convention, torture has been prohibited by international law, but the language of the statutes is written vaguely. Severe mental and physical pain is prohibited. The mental part is explained as poorly as the physical. Severe physical pain described as anything causing permanent damage to major organs or body parts. Mental torture described as anything leading to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality. It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you're doing it wrong. So far, the techniques we have addressed have not proven to produce these types of results, which in a way challenges what the BSCT paper says about not being able to prove whether these techniques will lead to permanent damage. Everything on the BSCT white paper is legal from a civilian standpoint. [Any questions of severe weather or temperature conditions should be deferred to medical staff.] Any of the techniques that lie on the harshest end of the spectrum must be performed by a highly trained individual. Medical personnel should be present to treat any possible accidents. The CIA operates without military intervention. When the CIA has wanted to use more aggressive techniques in the past, the FBI has pulled their personnel from theatre. In those rare instances, aggressive techniques have proven very helpful."

After reading the minutes, an officer remarked: "Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this." What he doesn't realize is that we don't do looking back. We move forward ceaselessly, ignoring the crimes of those in power, à la Obama's "what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past" and Pelosi's "generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back" and Reid's "we are not looking back. We are looking forward."

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Human rights? Hillary says "why bother?"

Via Daily Kos:

"We pretty much know what they are going to say" on human rights issues such as greater freedoms for Tibet, Clinton told reporters traveling with her on a tour of Asia. "We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere" with dialogue on other crucial topics.

Way to go.

Obama = Bush III 2

Joan Walsh:

Late Friday came news of something Obama actually has done, and it's appalling: He's backed the Bush administration claim that terror suspects held at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights, according to the Associated Press.

[...]

After the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees had the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts, four Bagram prisoners tried to challenge their detention in U.S. District Court in Washington. The prisoners say the American military had detained and interrogated them without any charges and without letting them contact attorneys. According to AP, the suit was filed by relatives on their behalf; that was their only access to the legal system. The Bush administration defended against the suit by claiming all Bagram detainees have been deemed "enemy combatants" who had no right to U.S. courts. Today lawyers for the Obama administration decided to embrace the Bush defense.

[...]

They've now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law," the ACLU's Jonathan Hafetz told AP. "The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney who represents one of the Bagram detainees. "We all expected better."

Ah, yes. Change we can believe in. This President has been slavishly imitating Republicans for so long that he is becoming almost indistinguishable from the assholes with whom he vies for power.

Classy Class Warfare

Meanwhile, in California, a movement is afoot to reduce benefits for existing and prospective public-sector retirees. Spread the word.

SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General’s official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

RENEGOTIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PENSION CONTRACTS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Eliminates certain state constitutional restrictions on renegotiating public employee pension contracts. Allows vested pension benefits to be reduced for existing and prospective public sector retirees. [continues]

Role Reversal

Speak eloquently, make policy that sinks like a brick

The Swamp:

In the weekly radio and Internet address which Obama delivers today - one month-plus into the new presidency, we have grown accustomed to a new brand of communication that involves not only a weekly radio communiqué, but also the president himself, appearing in person, via the video wonder of broadband service - the president states, no fewer than six times in today's radio and online address, that, "because of what we did,'' things will get better.

Yet in the past two weeks alone, there is an argument to be made that, because of what the administration has not done -- not adequately explaining how all of its economic rescue efforts will really work -- financial markets have slid into even worse shape than they stood a month before for lack of confidence that what needs being done is actually getting done.

Is it just a matter of instilling confidence and saying the right thing? Screw the eloquence. It's time for Obama to stop listening to rich bankers, start listening to his inner Roubini, and begin asking hard questions about his failing policies.

Roubini:

"And I think, in the bubble years, no one asked the hard questions. A good journalist has to be one who, in good times, challenges the conventional wisdom. If you don't do that, you fail in one of your duties."

No one asked the hard questions when times were good. Hardly anyone is asking the hard questions now, including the President. David Lindorff understands what the President needs to think about:

The country is being dragged down by monstrous businesses, all of which, we’re told, are just “too big to fail.” As a consequence of this, the nation’s taxpayers, and their progeny born and yet unborn, are having trillions of dollars sucked away to prop up these giant rotting corporate corpses.

Zombie banks, zombie automakers, zombie insurance companies, all bigger than nation states, and all on life-support.

There is a simple answer to this problem. Bust them up. Then sort through the pieces and let the worst parts go bust.

[...]

The tools are already at hand to tear all these anti-democratic, anti-social and uneconomic corporate monstrosities apart. So let’s fire up the legal chainsaws and start cutting them down to size. Instead of bailout, we need to start hearing the word anti-trust in Washington.

Michael Hirsh understands that size is getting in the way of recovery:

If it weren't for the fact that too many of these banks are too big to fail—"systemic risks," in the jargon—we would have been through a lot of the worst already. Bankruptcy and oblivion is supposed to be the fate of market players who make bad choices. That's how capitalism works. The system gets cleaned out, the survivors deservingly pick up their failed rivals' business and get richer, and the economy comes back to life quickly. But that's what is not working now. Oversize screw-ups like AIG and Citigroup survive on, zombielike, with Fed and Treasury "commissars" on the inside watching their every move, because no one can bear the thought of how many other institutions they would take down if they failed.

When the crisis hit, what did the banks try to do? They tried to form even bigger banks, as if gigantism would protect them from disaster. And it has. To our detriment.

"This bad bank band-aid must get pulled."

Keep away from the children, Nancy.

U.S. News & World Report wins the "most offensive poll-of-the-day" award:

If you had a choice of four daycare centers run separately by Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, which would you choose for your kids?

1. 44.0% First lady Michelle Obama's
2. 51.84% Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's
3. 2.93% Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
4. 1.23% House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's

From The Onion Radio News Network: "Norway Returns to Pillage-Based Economy"

For my brave and strong Stella--we'll make it there someday:

Meanwhile, in Utah...

DEFENDER OF GOODNESS & LIGHT

Senator Chris Buttars of Utah seems to be distinguishing himself as the Joe McCarthy of the "homosexual agenda." Yesterday's ABC 4 News reported on a recently (January 30th) filmed documentary titled 8: The Mormon Proposition, which includes some stunningly bigoted comments by Buttars, who--true to form--last year caught the attention of the NAACP with his remark (in reference to a bill), "This baby is black...this is a dark, ugly thing."

Although the documentary has not yet aired, ABC 4 reports that, in his interview, Buttars expresses pride in having "killed" every LGBT rights bill during the past eight years and refers to gays as "mean," lacking in "morals," and bent on recruiting people into their "radical movement" (fairly standard accusations on the part of the Radical Right, but particularly hideous coming from a U.S. senator speaking ex cathedra).

My comments to ABC 4:
"I find it interesting that Sen. Buttars referred to gays as "mean." Some of his comments, as reported in this article, are among the most mean-spirited that I have found issuing from the mouth of a senator in his official capacity as a public servant.

His contention regarding the "recruiting" activities of homosexuals also fits into the typical fear-mongering tactics of demagogues who seek to arouse the paranoia of their society against marginalized groups that conveniently substitute for the real problems that beset the nation (or are posited as the *cause* of these problems, in place of a more rational analysis): economic catastrophe, a never-ending war, lack of healthcare for a vast sector of the population, etc.

Mr. Buttars needs to get some psychiatric help--and he needs to step down from his office before he does any more damage."

The news site's update indicates that part of my wish came true, but I don't think that Buttars and the supporters of Proposition 8 are going to evaporate any time soon.

Happy Friday.

When you gonna wake up, Nancy?

Via TPM:

"We should have full examination, I'm not denying that. You asked me a specific question: 'Should they be charged?' I think that further information might take us to that place, but what we want to do is unify the American people."

Nancy, the last time we were even remotely unified was after big planes flew into tall buildings. That unified us. Very briefly. Absent a major disaster, we argue, behave like divisive jerks, and yell a lot. Unity is the exception. It's time to prosecute the Bush administration folks who committed crimes.

When you gonna wake up, Barack?

Greenwald:

The only way to argue that Bush officials should be immunized from investigations and prosecutions for the brutal torture they enabled and authorized is to argue either that (1) these principles [the Geneva Conventions] are invalid and should no longer be applied and/or (2) that they are valid in general but that the United States (as opposed to all other countries) is not required to adhere to them.

Greenwald is right, there is no choice but to prosecute. Problem is, Obama doesn't have the guts to do it. Excuses will be made, bucks will be passed, temporizing will replace action, and the hope will be, whenever new aspects of this horror story are revealed, that news cycles will bury each one of them. It's the American way.

Dragging out the crisis

Obama, quoted in U.S. News & World Report:

It's all about stabilization. As the president himself said, "If we act boldly and swiftly to arrest this downward spiral, then every American will benefit. It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy. ... And by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everybody."

Should we really be shoring up housing prices? Weren't high prices what got us into this mess? If home prices aren't allowed to correct to a sane level, especially in California, the crisis will be prolonged.

As Big Picture reported in November:

There seems to be this idea going around -- both parties, both candidates, lots of economists -- that the way to "fix" the economy is to stabilize home prices.

This is incredibly misguided. Prices are still terribly elevated, and until they revert back to levels that are affordable and clear out the massive excess inventory of new and existing homes, there can be no stabilization.

[...]

Until price reverts back towards historical norms, the excess inventory will not be removed, the foreclosures will not stop, the total sales will remain depressed. The sooner Washington D.C. figures this out, the better off the economy, and the homeowners and buyers in the US will be.

Home prices in Southern California have dropped to 2002 levels. Prices need to get down to 1999 levels before the bubble can be said to have burst completely.

California gets halfway all the way to a budget package

Sacramento Bee:

The state Senate voted early Thursday to approve a massive budget package of tax increases, spending cuts and borrowing to close a $40 billion deficit after granting major concessions to one holdout Republican senator.

Lawmakers had been at a five-day impasse until Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders Thursday agreed to give Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, major changes he demanded in exchange for providing a crucial 27th vote for the state budget.

As part of Maldonado's agreement, lawmakers approved constitutional amendments establishing an open primary system and banning legislative pay increases during deficit years. But legislative leaders refused to grant him his proposal to eliminate legislative pay altogether when the budget is late.

New York Times:

LOS ANGELES — After five days of intense, nearly nonstop negotiations over how to close a $41 billion gap, California state senators early Thursday morning agreed on a budget that raises taxes, cuts deeply into services and borrows far into the future, leaving nearly every person in the state scathed in some way.
[...]
The package of bills was quickly given the nod by the State Assembly — where lawmakers were less intransigent — just before 7 a.m. Pacific time.

Republicans want to be able to vote in Democratic primaries and influence the outcomes of Democratic elections by voting for weaker Democratic candidates. They are saying, in effect, "may the worst person win." Just another example of Republicans wanting to screw things up for California.

Cup in hand, automakers go begging for more...

Aimee Mann: Wise up (it's not going to stop)

New York Times:

DETROIT — The price tag for bailing out General Motors and Chrysler jumped by another $14 billion Tuesday, to $39 billion, with the two automakers saying they would need the additional aid from the federal government to remain solvent.

In thanks for all that money, car makers promise to slash thousands of jobs and stop selling a lot of crap. What a deal.

In return, the two companies also promised to make further drastic cuts to all parts of their operations, in the hope that they can eventually strike a balance between their bloated cost structures and a dismal market for new car sales.

G.M., for example, said it would cut 47,000 more of its 244,000 workers worldwide; close five more plants in North America, leaving it with 33; and cut its lineup of brands in half, to just four: Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick.

Saving Wall Street, destroying Social Security

William Grieder:

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system.

They tried to privatize it. That failed miserably. Now they just want to rob us blind.

...the Social Security system has accumulated a vast surplus--now around $2.5 trillion and growing. This is the money pot the establishment wants to grab, claiming the government can no longer afford to keep the promise it made to workers twenty-five years ago.

[...]

Uncle Sam owes these trillions to Social Security retirees and has to pay it back or look like just another deadbeat. That risk is the only "crisis" facing Social Security. It is the real reason powerful interests are so anxious to cut benefits. Social Security is not broke--not even close. It can sustain its obligations for roughly forty years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, even if nothing is changed.

Nowhere to go but into receivership...

Dayton Business Journal:

Investors’ growing nervousness about the depths of the banking crisis hit shares of major banks on a day when the stock markets saw one of the largest drops in recent months.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) saw its shares hit a new 52-week low, closing at $13.69, down $2.07 or 13 percent.

U.S. Bank (NYSE:USB) also hit a new 52-week low, closing at $10.73, down $1.67 or 13.5 percent.

J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) closed at $21.65, down $3.04 or 12 percent.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) closed at $4.90, down 67 cents or 12 percent.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) closed at $3.06, down 43 cents or 12 percent.

Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: HBAN) closed at $1.31, down 38 cents or 22 percent.

Fifth Third Bancorp (Nasdaq: FITB) closed at $1.67, down 33 cents or 16 percent.

KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) closed at $6.07, down 98 cents or 14 percent.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. closed at $26.47, down $1.73 or 6 percent.

Not that I give a shit, but Greenspan also calls for nationalization

Financial Times, via TPM:

The US government may have to nationalise some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman has told the Financial Times.

In an interview with the FT Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.

"It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring," he said. "I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do."

Daniel Kahneman reflects on Greenspan:

Obama = Bush III

N.Y. Times:

In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.”

These and other signs suggest that the administration’s changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.

Will we need a truth commission for the Obama administration one day?

The right to kill in the name of democracy shall not be infringed

Powerful people commit crimes. Hoards of people come to the defense of the wrongdoers. This time, it's the Washington Post:

Obama and the Democratic Congress are entitled to revise and reject any or all of the Bush administration's policies. But no one is entitled to hound political opponents with criminal prosecution, whether directly or through the device of a commission, and those who support such efforts now may someday regret the precedent it sets. Claims that the Bush administration abused presidential powers have been thoroughly reviewed by several congressional committees, and the Justice Department is capable of considering whether any criminal charges are appropriate. If H.R. 104 or a similar bill is passed by Congress, Obama should nip in the bud this recipe for a continuing political vendetta and veto the legislation.

The authors are suggesting that anything goes as long as you are the President. The sociopaths we elect are allowed to do whatever they like. It has to be this way so that the next sociopath to inhabit the White House can kill innocents with the same impunity. The right of the President to behave like a barbarian shall not be questioned by our media elites. The right of the President to behave like a barbarian trumps those ever-so-quaint notions we call laws. The right of the President to use arms shall not be infringed. That is what America is all about. Our nation was founded on the fundamental freedom to arm ourselves and to use those arms against other countries, no matter what. If anyone makes even a little stink about it, countless screaming nuts will attempt to silence them in an instant. Enjoy your crucifixion, Pat Leahy. They're coming for you. The distraction-o-phobes. The lunatic fringe. Fox. Your own party.