Monday Reads

Posted: December 6, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , | 70 Comments
good morning!!

There’s another Wikileaks release on BP, Gitmo, and BOA on deck.  I’m dying to get my hands on the BP and the Bank of America data drop.  Right now, they’ve been sorted out to various people to publish should Assange disappear or meet some other bad end.  This has all the stuff of a real good IRL thriller and I’m just gleeful about it all.

That’s probably going to hit some time this week and will shoot to the top of the news.

This is from The NY Post.

The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, believed to have been supplied by Bradley Manning, who was arrested in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a US airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.

We will do a live blog as the information becomes available.  You can also find a teaser on Fox News. Additionally, there’s an interesting bit up at the UK Guardian on the Chinese Government hacking Google.  Both of these come via Memeorandum.

The hacking of Google that forced the search engine to withdraw from mainland China was orchestrated by a senior member of the communist politburo, according to classified information sent by US diplomats to Hillary Clinton’s state department in Washington.

The leading politician became hostile to Google after he searched his own name and found articles criticising him personally, leaked cables from the US embassy in Beijing say.

That single act prompted a politically inspired assault on Google, forcing it to “walk away from a potential market of 400 million internet users” in January this year, amid a highly publicised row about internet censorship.

The explosive allegation that the attack on Google came from near the top of the Communist party has never been made public until now. The politician allegedly collaborated with a second member of the politburo in an attempt to force Google to drop a link from its Chinese-language search engine to its uncensored google.com version.

There’s more interesting tidbits up at the Daily Mail.

UK firm Rolls-Royce lost out on a £200million contract to supply helicopter engines to Spain after the U.S. lobbied Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in Madrid. The deal was eventually signed by American company GE.

And European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told a U.S. ambassador that European troops were still in Afghanistan only ‘out of deference’ to America.

I’m sure the mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and sons and daughters of those dead European Troops certainly appreciate the ‘deference’ statement.  Whoa!

Here’s a really interesting link at The Economist.   I have to admit that I have a fairly limited attention span for management professors since I’m of the school that says you either got it or your don’t, but Henry Mintzberg who is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University had me reading from the headline forward.

Too many corporate “leaders” have trashed their enterprises, taking with them America’s legendary sense of enterprise. The scorekeepers cannot fix that. To understand the basis for such a sweeping claim, add up the stories you have heard about the goings on in so many of the largest American enterprises. Then you may get it.

Get it, not just about the scandal of executive compensation, but also about its destructive consequences. Any chief executive who accepts a compensation package that so singles him or herself out from everyone else in the company is not a leader. Leadership is about conveying signals that engage other people in the company. How many leaders are left among America’s large enterprises? There is an Israeli expression that a fish rots from the head down. So too does an enterprise.

Many economists and journalists see the CEO as the be-all and end-all of corporate success. The worst CEOs believe it. They thus allow themselves to be paid accordingly to “shareholder value”, which is a fancy term for increases in the price of a company’s stock.

There are two basic ways to increase the price of the stock: by exploring and by exploiting. Explorer companies achieve this by doing better research, making improved products, and offering superior service. This is hard work, and it takes time. Exploiter companies have it easier: they depreciate the brand, cut investments in research, confuse the customers with bamboozle pricing, and stay as close as possible to the letter of the law while lobbying politicians to reduce its level. These behaviors can raise the price of the stock long enough for the executives to cash in their bonuses and run, as have so many in the large American companies.

It’s typical management professor talk, but the point that he makes that CEOS are way too often part of the problem and not part of the future or solutions is true.  They are still way over compensated for wrecking companies.

So, here’s a suggestion from the NYT: Cleopatra’s Guide to Good Governance.  Hey, I’m willing to look at Cleopatra as a role model.  Cleopatra as the ultimate central banker?

Egypt’s economic affairs were dismal when Cleopatra ascended to the throne. She devalued the currency by a third. She issued no gold and critically lowered the value of her kingdom’s silver. And she ushered in a great innovation: she introduced coins of various denominations. In an early prefiguring of paper currency, the markings rather than the metal content determined their value. A coin might feel light in the hand, but if Cleopatra said it was worth 80 drachmae, it was worth 80 drachmae. The arrangement was both lucrative to her and encouraged an export-driven economy.

Oh, well, back to the present and our central banker. I’m not sure if you caught the 60 Minutes segment on Ben Bernanke, but if you didn’t, here’s the transcript. You will also find taped interviews at the site.  Here’s Bernanke’s take on employment.

Chairman Ben Bernanke: The unemployment rate is just not going down. Unemployment is just about the same as it was in mid-2009, when the economy started growing. So, that’s a major concern. And it looks that at current rates, that it may take some years before the unemployment rate is back down to more normal levels.

Scott Pelley: We lost about eight million jobs from the peak. And I wonder how many years you think it will be before we get all those jobs back?

Bernanke: Well, you’re absolutely right. Between the peak and the end of last year, we lost eight and a half million jobs. We’ve only gotten about a million of them back so far. And that doesn’t even account the new people coming into the labor force. At the rate we’re going, it could be four, five years before we are back to a more normal unemployment rate. Somewhere in the vicinity of say five or six percent.

Four or five years. And Bernanke told “60 Minutes” something else that makes that even more painful.

Bernanke: The other aspect of the unemployment rate that really concerns me is that more than 40 percent of the unemployed have been unemployed for six months or more. And that’s unusually high. And people who are unemployed for such a long time, their skills erode. Their attachment to the labor force diminishes and it may be a very, very long time before they find themselves back in a normal working position.

Bernanke seems to be about the only person within the beltway who cares about the level of  unemployment  This bit from Bloomberg indicates he’s willing to take more steps because he believes that those in charge of fiscal policy will not do the right thing.

Bernanke and other Fed officials have defended the central bank’s announcement that it will purchase $75 billion in Treasury securities a month through June to prop up a recovery so weak that only 39,000 jobs were created in November. The unemployment rate last month rose to 9.8 percent, the highest level since April, the Labor Department said on Dec. 3, three days after the Bernanke interview.

The economy, which grew 2.5 percent in the third quarter, is so weak that Bernanke said growth could fizzle out without support. “It’s very close to the border,” he said. “It takes about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment stable and that’s about what we’re getting. We’re not very far from the level where the economy is not self-sustaining.”

I’m not sure people know exactly how odd it is for a FED chair to say this and what it means to say that the “we’re not very far from a level where the economy is not self-sustaining”, but let me tell you it’s rare and alarming. Washington is playing parlor games and our lives are their pinatas.

In some ways it seems we’re very much on the verge of a much worse recession because things are no longer emanating from the financial markets.

Two Republicans, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and Indiana Representative Mike Pence, last month proposed removing the Fed’s maximum employment mandate to focus the central bank on stable prices alone. Corker plans to introduce such legislation next year.

Bernanke said fears of inflation are “overstated” and that keeping consumer prices under control isn’t a diminished priority for the Fed.

The rate of inflation has slowed this year, with the personal consumption expenditures index, excluding food and energy, rising at a 0.9 percent annual pace in October, the slowest in 50 years. Including all items, the index increased 1.3 percent.

Without action by the central bank, the economy might have tipped into a period of deflation, or a prolonged drop in prices, Bernanke said.

I cannot emphasize enough that no matter what these people say to appeal to your inner demons, there is no problem with inflation and we desperately need stimulus for demand.  Sustaining tax cuts at the very high levels will not do it because rich people simply do not spend money like poor people do.  Additionally, more foreclosures will not help the housing market and loss of jobs will not help the economies of states.  I cannot believe that after so much information coming from the last 60 years that we still have to have these conversations.

Here’s an interesting piece from Medical Daily: People with a university degree fear death less than those at a lower literacy level.  Since I’m not the psychologist on board at Sky Dancing.  I’ll leave the explanations to Dr. BostonBoomer.

People with a university degree fear death less than those at a lower literacy level. In addition, fear of death is most common among women than men, which affects their children’s perception of death. In fact, 76% of children that report fear of death is due to their mothers avoiding the topic. Additionally, more of these children fear early death and adopt unsuitable approaches when it comes to deal with death.

I’m not sure you want to hear this news from NPR, but it is what it is:  Gingrich: A Run For President Is ‘Doable’.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he’s more inclined to run for president in 2012 than not to make a bid.

Gingrich says he probably won’t make a decision until late February or early March. But he says that talking to friends and thinking about such an undertaking have made him more inclined to believe that “it’s doable.”

We are so f’d.

What’s on your reading and blogging list this morning?

Saturday Reads in Sheroville

Posted: December 4, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: | 51 Comments

Greeting Madame Secretary. Dec. 2, 2010, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. (AP/Anvar Ilyasov)

Good morning, news junkies! Wonk here, under the weather with a terrible sinus bug. I hope this roundup is semi-coherent.

It’s Saturday, December 4th, 2010, and on this day in history in…

1791: The first edition of The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, is published; 1881: The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published; 1943: The Works Progress Administration ends; 1961: Birth control pill ‘available to all’ (BBC)— Women who wish to take oral contraception may do so on the National Health Service; 2000: The Supremes rule on Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board.

The Pill, The Papers, The Works Progress Administration, oh my! Oh, and we sure could have used another WPA instead of another Bush.

Of course, on this day in the present… Tax Cut Theatre presents… drumroll please… “Inside the Beltway: A Deficit of Purpose” (that’s from the NYT editorial board in today’s Gray Lady). Here’s a Reuters overview of the provisions in the Tax bill expected to fail in the Senate today. I’m sure the day will be filled with coverage of this kabuki, so enough of that for now.

Onto a Wonk the Weekend link parade, with a Shero emphasis on who else…

Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger: (Reuters) – “Hillary Clinton said Friday she would not run for president and her current job as secretary of state was probably her last public position and she would focus on women’s advocacy work after leaving office. Clinton, who has repeatedly laughed off suggestions she might still want to take command of the White House, told an audience of Bahrain students that she was not contemplating a repeat run for president after losing to Barack Obama in 2008. ‘No, I’m not,’ Clinton said. ‘I think I’ll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children.’” (Alright, that’s my cue: As much as I love blogtrotting with Hillary as she travels around the globe, I can’t wait to see The Hillary Rodham Clinton Foundation finally realized when the day comes.)

It’s been a Wikileaks Week of Diplomacy Havoc for Secretary Clinton (wikileaks link goes to the Guardian’s coverage), with the Vast Right Idiocy exhaling from the grave to say their ugly-nothings (or as Taylor put it the other day, “Because Dick Morris is a Jackass.”)

As Obama passes the domestic buck yet again (click for C-span video of Obama talking to troops on a surprise visit to Bagram), he is no doubt breaking the heart of yet another batch of supporters who “wanted to believe.” Then, there is his Secretary of State, connecting with the grassroots everywhere she goes —“Hillary Clinton’s Bahrain ‘Townhall’ goes a-Twitter” (via Meera Rani at the Khaleej Times):

“Meanwhile, in the audience, a quick poll showed that young Bahraini girls were more keenly aware of world politics than the boys. Although Hillary Clinton is too big a name for anybody to not to know, many boys said they were unclear of her exact role in the US government. Bahraini girls, on the other hand, were full of questions that they would have liked to ask her about her work-life balance, her career path and world view. Aysha Hamad, 25, said she would like to understand how Clinton got out of the shadow of her powerful husband to carve a career for herself. Perhaps the most promising observation came from Isa Aziz, 19, who shrugged that while he was not personally interested in politics, he would definitely vote for women in Bahrain because progress ‘..was about ability and not gender!'” For the rest of the Bahrain townhall, you can view the state.gov transcript.

Speaking of the Energizer Secretary, heard at the Hillary Townterview in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday (via state.gov): “MODERATOR 2: How many hours do you sleep? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it really depends upon what else is going on. I’ve been kind of busy this week, so I haven’t slept many hours. But I try to get six hours. And then on the weekends, I try to make up for it, because you can’t go too long with too little sleep. It starts to impair your judgment. And so even when I can’t sleep a lot during the week, I try to catch up on the weekends.”

Also heard at the townhall in Kyrgyzstan… Hillary, in Ah-the-remnants-of-sexism wry smile mode: “MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer? SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes? MODERATOR 1: Yes. SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question? (Laughter.) (Applause.) MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not. (Applause.)”

Now that’s a charm offensive!

One more snippet: “MODERATOR 2: What inspires you? SECRETARY CLINTON: People who have the courage to stand up for human rights of themselves, and particularly others. That I find very inspiring. Leaders who put the needs of their people and their rights ahead of their own personal benefit.”

People and rights before personal profit. Obama is inspirational, but it is Hillary who is inspired. (BTW, people-over-profit, how do you translate that in Caviar commission-speak? On second thought, I can’t imagine there are any terms in the CC manual for the concept of good governance.)

Back at Hillaryland.gov (in an ideal world, that would be a valid url), on Friday: “Ambassador Verveer welcomes participants to a conference on International Day of Persons With Disabilities.”

***

Need a Laugh? Try Brother Husbands! (h/t Fredster)

***

Peter Daou earlier this week: “It’s a nightmarish joke that Republicans and Tea Partiers want to assail President Obama for denying American exceptionalism, while doing everything possible to undercut it.” Perfectly said, but of course, on the other side of the mockery, the great DLC/Clinton Slayer That Never Was… wants to call himself a Blue Dog, not to mention do everything to undercut the domestic policy legacy of FDR and LBJ. Another sick joke for sure, though it is no surprise. (See Politico, March 2009: “I am a New Democrat.” –a newly inaugurated President Obama )

Of course I could quote the dead giveaways from the ’08 primaries, as well, but ’tis the season to be generous and it’s not even necessary to go to that well. This so-called Democratic president’s declarations of independence from core Democratic principles has been on trainwreck display for everyone left-of-center to see and hear with their own lying eyes and ears since his tabula rosa took the oath.

From Wednesday on nakedcapitalism. Matt Stoller says End This Fed. Check out Dakinikat’s comments on Stoller’s thread and her post if you missed it. I wanted to include it in my roundup because the image that struck me while reading all this was a bit chilling: B. Hoover Obama has stuck the shiv in the Democratic party, and the right-wing scavengers have arrived to openly feast on its remains. Yeesh!

The one other story I wanted to touch on briefly and open up for conversation is the dustup over Angelina and her Bosnia movie — link takes you to Melissa Silverstein‘s writeup of the situation at Women and Hollywood.

Also from Hollywood Reporter (H/T Minkoff Minx): “Jolie asked that the women hold their judgment until they have seen the movie, which features a love story between a Bosnian woman and Serbian man. ‘There are many twists in the plot that address the sensitive nature of the relationship between the main characters,’ she said. Jolie explained that she originally decided to write a screenplay to highlight her frustration with the length of time it takes the international community to intervene in conflicts. ‘It kept leaning toward Yugoslavia at the time, I wanted to learn more about it and the people, the more I read and learnt I was drawn to that part of the world,’ she said. ‘I met artists from that part of the world and found they were extraordinary for what they’d gone through, so I wanted to give them a platform.'”

Hmm. Reminds me of the Hindi film Pinjar (based on the novel by the same name–this is a link to a writeup on a lecture series from a couple years ago). The word literally means “skeleton,” but it can also mean “cage.”

So, let’s dish!

What’s your take on the Angelina story? Sounds to me like a case of the media’s three favorite pastimes: hype, misinformation, and mischief.

I say Let Angie Direct, and the calls for her to be stripped of her UN role over a script that we have only a vague plot idea about are over the top.

What’s next for Hillary? Will she go straight back to her public advocacy roots whenever she moves on from Foggy Bottom? Or, is she playing women-dimensional chess?

I’m skeptical as ever Hillary running again, but she still has my vote if she ever needs it.

And, back to where we started– So what about that corporate mush that will be masquerading as a Senate vote today? My two, you ask? Like I said a few days ago, it all boils down to… We are so f’d.

On that note, this is Wonk signing off and wishing everyone a serendipitous Saturday. Here is a mini-photo bomb, shero-style, to cheer you up. Click to view full size & Enjoy!

Hillary is greeted by Kyrgyz First Deputy Prime Minister Amangeldy Muraliyev at Manas airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Dec. 2. (AP/Maxim Shubovich)

Madame Secretary signing agreements in Uzbekistan, Dec. 2. (AP/Anvar Ilyasov)

Roza & Hillary: Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva (R) shakes hands with Secy. Clinton, Dec. 2. (Reuters)

Hillary meets with employees of the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Dec. 2. (AP/Maxim Shubovich)

What are you … …reading and ruminating on this morning?

Cross-posted at Let Them Listen, Liberal Rapture, and Taylor Marsh.

Friday Reads

Posted: December 3, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , | 52 Comments

Good Morning!! TGIF! It sure has been a busy week for news. Yesterday, the House passed a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts for people who earn less than $250,000.

Using a wily procedural maneuver to tie Republican hands, House Democrats managed to pass, by a vote of 234-188, legislation that will allow the Bush tax cuts benefiting only the wealthiest Americans to expire.

Democrats were not united on the issue. Twenty voted with Republicans to kill the tax cut bill, as they hold out for extending additional cuts to wealthy Americans — though 3 Republicans, including Reps. Ron Paul (TX) and Walter Jones (NC) voted for the tax cut extensions. However the outcome will (and was designed to) allow Democrats to draw distinctions between themselves and Republicans during the 2012 election cycle.

Of course the chances of this bill passing the Senate are slim to none, since it will take 60 votes to get by a Republican filibuster. I hate to be completely cynical, but do you suppose the House Dems did this just for PR, knowing the bill would never become law?

At Huffpo, Howard Fineman, Ryan Grim, and Sam Stein (it took three people?) report that Democrats are afraid that Obama will “cave” and give the Republicans an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts. Now where would they get that idea? Oh yeah, because Obama caves on everything. It’s what he does.

I can’t figure out a way to excerpt this article. It’s a long treatise on process, and it’s just plain crazy-making. After reading it, I understand why it took three people to report it. Read the whole thing if you dare.

Republicans keep claiming over and over again that Americans voted for them in order to get more tax cuts for the rich. But according to a CBS News Poll, that just isn’t true:

“The American people want us to stop all the looming tax hikes and to cut spending, and that should be the priority of the remaining days that we have in this Congress,” incoming House Speaker Rep. John Boehner said Thursday. Boehner added that a House vote Thursday to extend the cuts for all but the highest-earning Americans amounted to “chicken crap.”

According to a new CBS News poll, however, Boehner is off-base in his claim that Americans “want us to stop all the looming tax hikes.”

The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White House, which wants to extend the cuts only for incomes less than $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals.

Just 26 percent of Americans say they support extending the cuts for all Americans, even those earning above the $250,000 level, which is the GOP proposal.

The House also chose to publicly humiliate one of their oldest and most popular members yesterday. Charlie Rangel had to stand in the well of the House and listen to Nancy Pelosi censure him for some financial misdeeds.

As Representative Charles B. Rangel’s awkward day unspooled, the jammed House floor was buzzing for this once-in-decades happening. The press rows were busy. Traffic, though, was light in the high-up visitors’ gallery, grade school classes here earlier having left too soon to watch history.

Mr. Rangel entered alone, dressed well for the event in a buttoned dark suit, light blue tie and matching pocket handkerchief. Half his years had been spent in this workplace.

He sat among some of his keenest allies, Representative Robert C. Scott from Virginia and three members of the New York delegation, Representatives Joseph Crowley, Jerrold Nadler and Anthony D. Weiner.

All real liberals, you’ll notice… After the dirty deed was done,

A chastened Mr. Rangel asked for one more minute to speak. He called what had happened to him a “new criteria” and said there was more politics than justice on display. Then he finished by saying, “At the end of the day, compared to where I’ve been, I haven’t had a bad day since.”

As Dakinikat pointed out today, Tom DeLay was never censured. Neither were any of the other Congressmen who were involved with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. What is the real reason for the treatment given to Charlie Rangel? Did Obama want him off the Ways and Means Committee as punishment for supporting Hillary?

Is Julian Assange on the Obama assassination list? The U.S. wants him very badly, and Sweden wants to talk to him about sexual assault charges that according to his lawyer consist of having sex with two different women without using condoms.

James D. Catlin, a lawyer in Melbourne, Australia, says in an article published Thursday that Sweden’s justice system is destined to become “the laughingstock of the world” for investigating rape charges in two cases where women complained that Assange had had sex with them without using a condom.

Catlin, who confirmed to Raw Story that Assange retained his services for a “limited duration” in October but did not provide details, also said both of the accusers “boast[ed] of their respective conquests” after the alleged crimes had been committed. “The Swedes are making it up as they go along,” he wrote.

Catlin’s claims are likely to add fuel to speculation that Sweden’s investigation of Assange is politically motivated.

Raw Story links to this article by Catlin: When it comes to Assange rape case, the Swedes are making it up as they go along. Catlin writes:

Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for rape, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to rape. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual sex that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the sex was not consensual.

He also writes that

Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

The Christian Science Monitor wonders if Assange has already been indicted by the U.S.

US officials publicly will only say that they are investigating the matter and that no legal options have been ruled out. But an indictment in such an important federal matter would be handed down by a grand jury, and grand jury proceedings are secret, notes Stephen Vladeck, an expert in national security law at American University. There may be an empaneled grand jury considering the Assange case right now.

“We wouldn’t know what they’re doing until the whole thing is concluded,” he says.

A judge could order an indictment of Assange sealed until such time as the US is able to apprehend him, or until he is in custody in a nation from which he is likely to be extradited. The purpose of such secrecy would be to keep the WikiLeaks chief from going even further underground.

At least one prominent US legal analyst thinks this is just the sort of thing that is going on.

“I would not be at all surprised if there was a sealed arrest warrant currently in existence against [Assange],” said CNN legal expert Jeffrey Toobin on Wednesday. “That question is whether the American authorities can find him and bring him back to the United States for trial.”

On the other hand, it might be faster and easier for President Obama to just have Assange killed. Obama has claimed the right to assassinate anyone on just his say-so. If Assange turns up dead, I for one won’t have any doubt who order the hit.

Obama and his “Justice Department” are pulling out all the stops to capture Julian Assange, but they aren’t at all interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for torture, for outing a CIA agent, or for starting two war based on lies.

Nigeria appears to have more cajones than Dear Leader: they are planning to charge Dick Cheney with bribery and ask Interpol to arrest the former VP.

The indictments will be handed up within three days, said Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, speaking Wednesday. An arrest warrant for Cheney will be transmitted through Interpol, he said.

Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, when he left to become then-Gov. George W. Bush’s running presidential mate, eventually winning the election.

“As the [former] CEO of Halliburton, he has the responsibility for acts that occurred during that period,” Obla later told AFP.

How will Obama handle this one? Will he try to strong-arm Nigeria like he did Spain? Andrew Belonsky speculates about this at Death and Taxes Magazine:

The idea [of] Cheney being arrested sounds absurd, and the Nigerian news has been received by many with an amused shrug, and no small amount of dismissal. ‘Washington Post’ reporter Al Kamen, for example, wrote, “It’s not as if Cheney, now suffering from some very serious heart problems, was planning to take the family on a cruise up the Niger Delta any time soon. The odds of his showing up in Africa – except maybe for a hunting trip – are zero.” I doubt the Obama administration’s taking this as lightly.

Despite what you may think about Interpol, the group does not command an international army of coppers and flatfoots. Its more of an information-sharing agency, one that helps coordinate information and efforts among its 188 member countries, whose own governments are meant to enforce potential warrants. It’s not Interpol‘s responsibility to arrest Cheney. That honor goes to the associated government, which puts Obama’s Department of Justice in a compromising position.

Political implications of arresting a former vice president aside, Obama and company are presented with two choices.

First, it can ignore the warrant, thereby straining relations with resource-rich Nigeria, and also undercut its current leadership role in Interpol, which is currently headed by American Ronald Noble, who worked for the Treasury Department during Bill Clinton’s presidential tenure.

The second option: move forward and nab Cheney.

Not bloody likely. Our Reagan-wannabe President is too afraid of angering Republicans.

Finally, Paul Krugman has taken the final step and accepted that Obama is really being Obama:

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?

What’s even more puzzling is the apparent indifference of the Obama team to the effect of such gestures on their supporters. One would have expected a candidate who rode the enthusiasm of activists to an upset victory in the Democratic primary to realize that this enthusiasm was an important asset. Instead, however, Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.

Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.

That’s right, Paul. We’re on our own, with zero leadership from the WH!

That’s all I’ve got. What are you reading today?

Thursday Morning Reads

Posted: December 2, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 49 Comments
good morning!!!

In an interesting on-and-off again policy, the Obama administration  announced an offshore drilling ban. This has heads spinning down here in the Gulf.

“We are adjusting our strategy in areas where there are no active leases,” Salazar told reporters in a phone call, adding that the administration has decided “not expand to new areas at this time” and instead “focus and expand our critical resources on areas that are currently active” when it comes to oil and gas drilling.

In March–less than a month before the BP oil spill–Obama and Salazar said they would open up the eastern Gulf and parts of the Atlantic, including off the coast of Virginia, to offshore oil and gas exploration. On both of those new areas, the administration said it would start scoping to see if oil and gas drilling would be suitable. The eastern Gulf remains closed to drilling under a congressional moratorium, but the White House indicated it would press to lift the moratorium if necessary.

Wednesday’s announcement is sure to please environmentalists while angering oil and gas companies as well as some lawmakers from both parties who have pressed for continued offshore energy exploration in the wake of massive Gulf of Mexico spill.

While the Democratic administration pleases environmentalists with the ban, Agent Orange probably has them unhappy with this move.

Created in 2007 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to draw attention to the causes and effects of climate change, the committee didn’t have much of a chance to survive the upcoming Republican takeover. Wednesday, the axe fell.

“We have pledged to save taxpayers’ money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “The Select Committee on Global Warming – which was created to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats’ job-killing national energy tax – was a clear example, and it will not continue in the 112th Congress.”

With the end in sight, Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) organized what was billed as an “all-star” cast of witnesses to testify Wednesday on the dangers posed by climate change.

If you’d like to see what the government considers ‘no oil left’ in the Gulf, here’s a good place to start.  The blog The Gulf Oil Project, has some brand new photos up today. I see oil; lots of it.

The longtime residents of Perdido Beach are angry and frustrated; others just bury their heads in the sand and pray BP will go away.  In Gulf shore sands stretching from Louisiana to Florida amphipods are hopping mad, isopods are flatly frustrated and mobile-home dragging hermit crabs are conspicuously absent this winter.  They are just a few of the local folks that share theses beaches; make it what it is, and have become collateral damage in the war in the Gulf.

The normally tranquil beaches of the Gulf barrier islands are the kind of idyllic place where northerners flock by the thousands in winter.  They have been coming here for generations – Sanderlings and Sandpipers from the Arctic, Turnstones from Maine, Plovers from Hudson Bay, Willets from the central grasslands – all have seen there seasonal beaches turned into a battle field; a mechanical minefield for those that work the tide-line for their very lives.

Robert Fisk looks at the diplomatic cables and into U.S. attitudes towards the Middle East in this provocative piece in The Independent.

It’s not that US diplomats don’t understand the Middle East; it’s just that they’ve lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington’s Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.

There is virtually no talk (so far, at least) of illegal Jewish colonial settlements on the West Bank, of Israeli “outposts”, of extremist Israeli “settlers” whose homes now smallpox the occupied Palestinian West Bank – of the vast illegal system of land theft which lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian war. And incredibly, all kinds of worthy US diplomats grovel and kneel before Israel’s demands – many of them apparently fervent supporters of Israel – as Mossad bosses and Israel military intelligence agents read their wish-list to their benefactors.

He goes through a lot of the best cables from the region so you don’t have to.  There’s some other news from the middle east.  The first of a group of soldiers accused of  killing of Afghans–for sport–has been sentenced.  I’m kind’ve speechless here on the sentence but, maybe I’m missing something.

The first soldier to face a court martial in connection with alleged sport killings of Afghan citizens pleaded guilty to four of five charges against him Wednesday and was sentenced to nine months in military confinement.

Staff Sgt. Robert G. Stevens was also reduced in rank to private — the lowest grade in the Army — and ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances during his imprisonment.

The investigating officer, Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks, accepted Stevens’ plea and imposed sentence Wednesday night.

Stevens had asked the court to allow him to stay in the Army; the prosecution had asked for a dishonorable discharge.

Stevens is one of seven soldiers “facing charges of serious misconduct while deployed in Afghanistan,” the Army said in a statement.

The Catfood Commission report has got seven vote of confidence now. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and retiring ranking Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.) said they would  back the proposal.  Getting it any where still appears to be a long shot, but they are trying.

To appeal to Democrats on the commission, the chairmen eliminated a provision that converted the federal share of Medicaid payments to a block grant. This would have prevented federal spending from increasing alongside rising Medicaid costs.

The new proposal also does more to spur on the short-term economic recovery by proposing $22 billion less in domestic spending cuts in 2013.

In a nod to Republicans, the chairmen proposed a temporary payroll tax holiday.

But the chairmen also retained a number of politically unpalatable provisions, including the proposed elimination of popular tax provisions like the mortgage interest tax break. They also kept a proposal to reduce Social Security benefits by gradually raising the retirement age to 68 by 2050 and to 69 by 2075.

The WSJ reports that the Bush Tax Cuts will likely be extended temporarily. There’s a lot of cyber ink being written on this topic.  It appears to be the Republican Rubicon.

…conversations, described as preliminary, have taken place over the past few weeks. They have considered short-term extensions of a number of business and individual tax provisions that are expired or expiring, such as a popular research credit and middle-class protection from the alternative minimum tax. A likely outcome includes a one- to three-year extension of the Bush-era income tax rates and a two-year extension of the business provisions, according to aides. The package could include Democratic priorities such as extension of tax breaks that benefit the working poor, as well as further extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

An agreement on temporary extension of all the current rates and breaks would represent a breakthrough after months of partisan infighting. It would signal lawmakers’ intent to avoid the public outrage that could result if the two sides failed to reach a tax deal this month. Many retailers and economists worry that the tax increase could tamp down household spending and further weaken employment and the fragile recovery.

Underscoring that risk, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, sent a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday, warning that postponing extension of some breaks, such as a measure to diminish the bite of the alternative minimum tax, could be “extremely detrimental” and risk significantly delaying refunds.

The CSM reports that any extension of unemployment benefits will be held hostage until the Republican give rich people their tax cuts.

Efforts in the Senate to extend the unemployment benefits were trapped in a procedural wrangle and never allowed on the floor for consideration. It fell to Sen. Scott Brown (R) of Massachusetts to object on behalf of the Republican Party to one proposed measure that required unanimous consent to move to the floor.

“We are in the midst of a historic economic crisis. I realize that,” he said. But to avoid ”burdening future generations,” the $56.4 billion measure must be offset with cuts elsewhere, he said. Senator Brown proposed tapping unspent federal dollars in other programs, such as the 2009 Obama stimulus plan.

Senator Reed objected, noting that the Republican plan to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts gives the wealthiest Americans a $700 billion tax cut that is also not offset – and, unlike the employment benefit, would not expire.

I can’t put the video here, but I can link to it.  The Economist interviewed my economist hero Joseph Stiglitz over a hot cuppa. Stiglitz says were a ‘long way’ from back to normal and has concerns that we may have a very inadequate new normal.  He doesn’t think unemployment will come down any time soon.  He sees 5-10 years of a “Japanese-style malaise” especially because of austerity cuts being suggested by policy makers.  He labels this “fiscal madness”.  Stiglitz also says that “banks are undermining the rule of law in America” and that “bad mortgages still fester”.   You’ll notice he’s not blaming the FED because that’s a red herring.

As you may know, I’m not much for TV.  But, I may try to watch ‘The Kennedy Detail’ series starting on the Discovery Channel. The program features interviews with JFK and Jackie Kennedy’s secret service detail.   It’s based on the book by Gerald Blaine.

Well, that’s enough from me this morning.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Wednesday Reads

Posted: December 1, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , | 96 Comments

Good Morning!! We had a big news day yesterday; I wonder what today holds in store?

Right now I’d say the top story is that millions of Americans are going to lose their unemployment benefits, because Congress failed to extend them.

Without a new program, by the end of the year about two million long-term unemployed will lose weekly benefits that are 100% federally funded. About 4.7 million people currently receive these special federal payments, and without an extension, all of these beneficiaries will eventually lose payments in coming months.

While Democrats have been pushing to provide additional benefits through emergency spending, Republicans have criticized widening the deficit.

Lawmakers may consider a new proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, to extend eligibility for federal benefits for one year. However, Republicans are expected to vote against that proposal.

You’d think the President would have been on every network and cable channel today excoriating Republicans about this outrage, but instead President Obama met first with Republican and then with Democratic Congressional leaders, and then he set up another committee. Their job will be to work out a “compromise” on extending the Bush tax cuts–and as a side note, he said maybe they could do something about the unemployment issue too.

President Obama suggested Tuesday that a group of congressional leaders he has asked to work out a compromise on expiring tax cuts will also try to work out a compromise on expiring unemployment benefits.

“We discussed working together to keep the government running this year — and running in a fiscally responsible way,” Obama said. “And we discussed unemployment insurance, which expires today. I’ve asked that Congress act to extend this emergency relief without delay to folks who are facing tough times by no fault of their own.”

Obama first asked lawmakers to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits at the beginning of October, but Congress has failed to prevent the benefits from lapsing at least temporarily. Now it looks as though a deal crafted by the four members of Congress tasked with compromising on tax cuts may be the only way to save the jobless aid.

Well, whoop-de-doo. A little leadership would help, but we don’t have a leader–just this spineless wimp the progs stuck us with.

I love this article from the Boston Globe on Senator Scott Brown’s (R-MA) “feisty speech” on the Senate floor.

imploring his colleagues to put greater emphasis on the economy and chiding Democrats for what he considers to be unwarranted diversions.

“We spent seven days on food safety!” the Massachusetts Republican said, referring to a bill approved earlier in the day. “Listen, I love to eat like the next guy, but give me a break! We should have spent seven days working on the one thing that the people in November sent a very powerful message — and that is getting our economy moving again. Focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs.”

So far so good. Brown continued,

“I have complete and total sympathy and understanding, and I want to help,” Brown said of those whose unemployment benefits could expire. “More than anybody here, I want to help. But to just keep throwing money that’s not paid for at a problem…makes no sense to me.”

“Are we going to do it from the bank account, or are we going to put it on the credit card?” he added. “I know what I want to do. I’ll use the bank account. Let’s use money that’s already in the system and put it to good use immediately, by 12 o’clock tonight. Let’s do it!”

But Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) punctured Brown’s balloon with a bit of reality:

“My colleague from Massachusetts has made a rather vigorous and passionate statement,” Reed said. “What I sense, though, is that he’s quite willing to put $700 billion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans on the credit card, but not extend unemployment benefits — as we have done decade after decade — without offsets.”

Brown supports extending tax cuts for everyone – and without including a method of payment for them – while Democrats want the tax cuts to continue only for those who make less than $250,000.

And so Congress continues to bicker while real people struggle to survive.

What about that food safety bill? I hope Sima will weigh in on this one. The Senate passed the bill today, and the Washington Post has a brief summary of the major parts of the bill. It:

l Would require farmers and food manufacturers to put in place controls to prevent bacteria and other pathogens from contaminating food.

l Would require the Food and Drug Administration to regularly inspect all food facilities, with more frequent inspections in higher risk facilities.

l Would allow the FDA to order a mandatory recall of any product it suspects may harm public health.

l Would improve disease surveillance, so that outbreaks of food poisoning can be discovered more quickly.

l Would require farmers and food-makers to maintain distribution records so that the FDA can more quickly trace an outbreak to its source.

l Would require foreign food suppliers to meet the same safety standards as domestic food-makers.

l Would exempt small farmers and food processors.

l Would add 17,800 new FDA inspectors by 2014.

But Les Blumenthal of McClatchy says the bill doesn’t deal with issues related to meat and egg safety.

…the measure does nothing to sort out the overlapping jurisdictions among the FDA and other federal agencies that regulate food safety. The new bill doesn’t cover meat, poultry and eggs because the Department of Agriculture regulates them.

The Senate bill would give the FDA new powers to recall tainted food, increase inspections of food processors and impose tougher food-safety standards on producers. The action came after contaminated eggs, peanuts and produce sickened hundreds of people this year, and more than 550 million eggs suspected of salmonella contamination were recalled.

But the measure requires the FDA to inspect what it defines as “high risk” producers only once every three years. The bill also exempts small farms from the new requirements.

That doesn’t sound so good.

At CNN, Elizabeth Landau says food safety advocates argue that the bill has “no teeth.”

This bill “clearly gives the FDA authority to prevent foodborne illnesses and not just react to them,” [ Sandra] Eskin (director of food safety campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts) said.

But the FDA cannot file criminal charges against producers who knowingly put contaminated food into the market. That’s something Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety in Washington, sees as a failing of this bill: that the FDA doesn’t get the “teeth” to regulate strongly enough.

A food producer who deliberately allows food to make people sick and even die is “as criminal as it gets,” he said.

It’s also hard to know exactly what kind of funding will end up going to toward these efforts. Greater appropriations are needed to accomplish the food safety goals outlined in the bill, but it’s unclear what dollar amount would support it, Kimbrell said.

An unfunded mandate without sufficient punishments to deter wrongdoing? That doesn’t sound so good either. Again, I hope Sima and others weigh in, because I know nothing about this bill.

The FCC is investigating Comcast based on a charge from

Level 3 Communications that Comcast had unfairly erected a toll booth that “threatens the open Internet.”

Level 3’s claims raise the specter of network neutrality, which the F.C.C. is preparing to take action on.

[….]

Level 3, which provides connectivity for Web sites like Netflix, made the charges in a statement on Monday, days after Comcast allegedly demanded a recurring fee to “transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast’s customers who request such content.” Comcast denied that the fee threatened the open Internet, chalking it up to a “simple commercial dispute.”

The dispute comes at a sensitive time. Mr. Genachowski [FCC Chairman] is gearing up for a debate about net neutrality, which posits that Internet traffic should be free of any interference from network operators like Comcast. The issue is thought to be on the December agenda of the F.C.C., which has a meeting scheduled for Dec. 21.

At the Daily Beast, Casey Schwartz has a post about an electostimulation device called the Fisher Wallace Stimulator that is supposed to relieve depression, insomnia, and other problems right in your own home.

The device, which is about the size of a Game Boy, is available with a prescription, which anyone with a license in electrotherapies, whether a doctor or a masseuse, can provide. Its fans include the singer Carly Simon, who has said it helps her stave off depression and mania.

[….]

An enthusiastic convert to the device, Dr. Richard Brown, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, characterizes the effect on brain waves as being similar to that of meditation.

Brown claims to be seeing an 80 percent success rate among the patients to whom he prescribes it, many of whom suffer from major depression that has not responded to any other form of treatment. If Brown’s experience is representative, the Fisher Wallace device has a big future. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor drugs, or SSRIs, today’s go-to for treating depression, show a success rate of roughly 50 percent.

Research suggests that the electrical current from the Fisher Wallace device targets the limbic system, which contains brain structures linked to the experiencing of emotions, and that it stimulates the release of the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin.

No word in the article on how much the device costs.

I guess that’s about it for me. What are you reading this morning?

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