Voodoo Economics on Steroids

Posted: August 16, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Surreality, The Media SUCKS, We are so F'd | 26 Comments

I’ve been ranting about how there is a confederacy of dunces between journalists who refuse to fact check their guests and themselves and people with absolutely no knowledge of economics making absurd comments on the economy.  Here’s a premier example from Media Matters.  Rush Limbaugh–the usual big, fat liar–has been saying on air that Obama inherited an unemployment rate of 5.7.  Hannity has now gone on Fox claiming the rate was 5.6.  Fact checking these idiots and liars shows the unemployment rate in January 2009 was 7.2 percent.  That’s the real inherited rate that the horrible Dubya economy left the intellectually and morally adrift Obama administration.

How are we supposed to get any significant and correct economic policy when so many people listen to media punditry that can’t even get the basic facts straight?

There’s this continual meme dancing around the media now that says nothing can be done about the current economic situation and that we just have to live with it.  That’s unbelievably false.  There’s even a fear among mainstream Democrats of using the word “stimulus”.  Stimulus is an act committed by Reagan in the 1980s, Nixon in the 1970s, and Eisenhower in the 1950s and yes, Democratic presidents before, in between and after them.   Much of this is Obama’s fault who pushed through an inadequately sized, tax cut heavy stimulus  after the Great Recession when much more bold action was required. From what I now know, administration economists Larry Summers, Christine Romer, and Jared Bernstein warned him. He took the politically expedient cave-in path.   Also, he completely took his eye off the economy to chase down his vanity Health Care Reform which spawned the Tea Party nonsense and a series of law suits. He spent his first two years when something could be done doing something that was unsupported by the public and led to his current issues with the House of Representatives. Now, even the White House says there are no options.  This is simply not true.

Economists all over the world are calling for the same policy prescription and it’s the same BIG option.  Here’s the latest from former French Minister of Finance and now Madam President of the IMF, Christine Lagarde writing in the FT.

So there are no easy answers. But that does not mean there are no options. For the advanced economies, there is an unmistakable need to restore fiscal sustainability through credible consolidation plans. At the same time we know that slamming on the brakes too quickly will hurt the recovery and worsen job prospects. So fiscal adjustment must resolve the conundrum of being neither too fast nor too slow.

Shaping a Goldilocks fiscal consolidation is all about timing. What is needed is a dual focus on medium-term consolidation and short-term support for growth and jobs. That may sound contradictory, but the two are mutually reinforcing. Decisions on future consolidation, tackling the issues that will bring sustained fiscal improvement, create space in the near term for policies that support growth and jobs.

By the same token, support for growth in the near term is vital to the credibility of any agreement on consolidation. After all, who will believe that commitments to cuts are going to survive a lengthy stagnation with prolonged high unemployment and social dissatisfaction?

Will the markets buy such an approach? In some countries, they seem to be pushing for sharp fiscal adjustments. And some policymakers have decided that is the road to follow. But in many countries a short-term focus would be wrong. We should remember that markets can be of two minds: while they dislike high public debt – and may applaud sharp fiscal consolidation – as we saw last week they dislike low or negative growth even more.

Many resources in this country were spent bailing out investment banks, commercial banks, and other financial institutions whose policies and actions brought this country and Europe into a terrible recession  from which recovery has been extremely lacking. No one is discussing the fact that solid economic growth is one way to return sovereign debt to sustainable levels.  Instead, emphasis is being placed on policies that will continue to shrink economies, cause joblessness, bankrupt productive businesses that lack customers, and remove programs meant to sustain economies in recession.  Insanity continues because ignorance rules supreme.

There’s a really good discussion of inter-macroeconomist tit-for-tat going on at Brad DeLong’s blog right now where obvious Republican shill Greg Mankiw is trying to walk back earlier assertions on stimulus.  You can wade through the back and forth if you want, but I’d like to call attention to DeLong’s conclusions.

The U.S. government right now can borrow at a nominal rate of 2.24%/year for ten years in an environment where expected ten-year inflation is around 2.5%/year. The short-term nominal interest rates the Fed usually targets are zero, turning its preferred policy tool–open-market operations–into relatively ineffective swaps of one zero-yield government asset for another. Asset prices tell us that our current macroeconomic distress is that the private sector is desperately hungry not for liquidity (which could be provided for the Federal Reserve) or savings vehicles of substantial duration (which could be provided by inducing businesses to invest) but rather for safe assets, which right now can most easily be provided by having credit-worthy governments spend and borrow.

An open-minded and nuanced look at the current situation strongly leads to the conclusion that conventional fiscal policy is, in situations like today, the demand management tool of first resort.

Exactly.  The bond market continues to see yields drop and prices rise despite S&P downgrades and bond vigilante politics.   Here is one of our biggest problems via Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg.

I thought about this man when I heard, at the end of 2008, that GM was shuttering the Janesville plant, and I thought about him again as I read a compelling and disturbing new book about the U.S. unemployment crisis called “Pinched,” by Don Peck. (Peck is a colleague of mine at the Atlantic magazine, but I’m not involved in his coverage of the economy.)

Peck explains, with coolness and concision, the brutal new realities faced by Americans without college degrees. And he delivers a dystopian vision of a country in which the American dream will soon be dead to the majority of its citizens.

He describes an already entrenched two-tiered U.S. economy. The upper tier is populated by people without elaborate toolboxes but with advanced degrees and superior analytical, creative and interpersonal skills. These people congregate in places like Washington, Boston and San Francisco. They feel few, if any, effects of the recession.

The lower tier is made up of people in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas and Tampa, Florida, who are educationally and even dispositionally ill-equipped for a globalized economy. The recession was a body blow to these people, of course, but they are also suffering because of some longer-term and more systematic problems, such as our neglect of our national infrastructure (think of the jobs that would have been created if we had taken care of our bridges, highways and airports over the past 30 years), our long journey away from manufacturing, and the painful consequences of increased automation and globalization.

As much as I hate referring to John Edwards, I will lift one of his political themes.  There are two Americas.  The vast majority of people live in the second America that never reaches the lying eyes or mouths of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or any other Washington Journalist or Politician.  This is the America that yells disapproval in polls and is ignored because only money counts in politics these days. Here’s some disturbing evidence of that. Congressional Asshole Paul Ryan is no long holding free, in-person town halls.  He’s only holding appearances in pay-for-view, friendly environments like local Rotary Clubs. That’s one helluva obvious way of ignoring the voters and pandering to your donors.  That’s a prime way to stay in the frame of mind that everything you think and do is hunky dory when it is actually hurting the very people you are elected to represent.  He’s thinking of running for president now.  The voters in Wisconsin should throw him into one of their rivers instead.

Right now, there’s a bus some where in Iowa with a President that’s talking about what a hopeless situation he’s found himself in because every one else won’t do his homework.  There’s a few other buses in places where there’s elected officials saying gay families aren’t real families,  monetary policy is treason, and that all the answers to our problems lie in the gold standard and confederate ideas of state’s rights.  As of right now, we can either elect people whose ideas are firmly planted in 19th century ignorance or a person that refuses to fight for anything.  That’s Second America’s Hobson’s choice.

I realize that I’ve just inadvertently written yet, another rant.  Economists all over the world are talking until they are blue in the face.  The only ones that understand what’s really necessary are those majority of folks that live in Second America.  Unfortunately, our elected officials and media pundits all appear blissfully ignorant and dwell in that small little gated corner of First America where only the upper 2% of the population can afford to live.

Tuesday Reads: Debt Ceiling Chicken, Roberts vs. Roe, Rove on Obama, NewsCorp, and Casey Anthony Rumors

Posted: July 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, Barack Obama, John Birch Society in Charge, just because, morning reads, Psychopaths in charge, Republican politics, Surreality, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Good Morning!! I know we’re all sick and tired of the debt limit battle, but there is going to be a vote today in the House–on a stupid bill that includes a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. What a joke! And with only about two weeks to go until armageddon.

Anyway, let’s get the depressing news out of the way first. From Politico: Debt ceiling debate turns ‘scary’

Washington’s frayed nerves showed through Monday amid tough talk on the right, a White House veto threat, canceled weekend passes and the top Senate Democrat likening default to a “very, very scary” outcome even for those “who believe government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub.”

“What will it take,” asked an agitated Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), “for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the fact that they’re playing a game of political chicken with the entire global economy?”

House Speaker John Boehner confirmed a POLITICO report that he had met again privately with President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday to try to get debt talks back on track. But ignoring Obama’s veto warning, Boehner will press ahead Tuesday with House votes on a revised debt ceiling bill that shows no sign of compromise on the spending and tax policy differences behind the crisis.

Indeed, with the Aug. 2 deadline exactly two weeks away, the House GOP is doubling down its bet with 10-year statutory spending caps intended to wring $5.8 trillion in unspecified savings from the government during the next decade — more than twice the $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase that is allowed. And in his haste to act, Boehner will bring the so-called Cut, Cap and Balance bill to the floor under exactly the type of procedure he has said he abhors: limited debate and with no real review by any legislative committee.

Yes, the psychopaths and John Birchers are in charge, and there’s nothing we can do but wait and hope.

The Nation has a good article about the ongoing war on women by Amanda Marcotte and Jesse Taylor: How States Could Ban Abortion With Roe Still Standing

The Supreme Court granting states the power to ban abortion with Roe still standing seemed outlandish even just a few years ago, but the appointment of John Roberts to Chief Justice shifted the equation. Roberts specializes in decisions that reverse the spirit of precedent while leaving intact the letter of it, like when he squashed large chunks of Brown v the Board of Education while claiming to uphold it. To make it legal to ban abortion in the states, all the court needs is a law that eliminates legal abortion while dodging the logic of Roe v Wade.

Many state legislatures appear to be doing just that, writing legislation which Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, describes as “part of an ongoing effort around the country to choke off women’s access to abortion by any means necessary – either by forcing doctors out of practice, banning procedures outright or demeaning women.”

How would the Roberts Court invalidate Roe without actually overturning it?

Until recently, Roe has been considered an insurmountable obstacle to states that wish to ban abortion. The conservative side of the Roberts bench, however, will likely view the Roe decision as a seesaw with women’s rights on one side and the state interest in the fetus on the other. Currently, most of the weight is on the woman’s side for three months, some weight moves over to the state’s side for the next three months, and then most of the weight moves to the state’s side for the last trimester.

Roberts has two options for reshaping Roe: the first is to claim the state’s interest in fetal life starts even sooner, using bogus science to claim we know more about the fetus than we did 1992, when Planned Parenthood v Casey was decided. The second option is to change the court interpretation of individual state rights and compelling state interest, while leaving Roe’s framework technically in place. The court could, for instance, define the state’s interests more broadly, allowing it to regulate differently within the (technically) still-operative Roe framework. This would allow a state like Kansas to claim to still have legal abortion while burying would-be abortion providers under so much red tape they couldn’t keep a clinic open. It would also allow states like South Dakota to create so many hoops for women to jump through to get abortion that women simply wouldn’t be able to do it. The right to choose would theoretically exist, but only to the extent states deign to recognize it.

Yikes!

This struck me funny–Karl Rove isn’t all that impressed with Obama’s fund-raising.

According to CBS radio’s Mark Knoller, who also serves as the unofficial White House press corps statistics king, the president attended 31 fundraisers in nine states during the last three months. That is more than a fundraising reception or dinner every three days.

Rove doesn’t think Obama can keep up that pace.

Thirty-one fundraisers in a quarter is a big strain on any president’s schedule. Mr. Obama can’t keep that pace up and not just because he’s got a day job. There are also just so many cities capable of producing $1 million and only so many times you can hold a million dollar fundraiser in them.

Here’s the funny part:

Even though at least $35 million (almost half the total Obama/DNC haul) can be credited to just 244 well-connected “bundlers,” Team Obama made a big thing of their 260,000 new small dollar donors. But that means only 292,000 donors from his last campaign have renewed their support for the re-elect so far. That’s just 6.6 percent of the 3.95 million people who donated to the ’08 Obama effort, only a quarter to a third of what most reelect campaigns could expect from renewal efforts at this point.

Perhaps there really is donor fatigue among the legions of stalwarts who put Mr. Obama in the White House the first time.

Yeah, I’d say there’s probably quite a bit of “donor fatigue” among the unemployed and underemployed masses.

British police are still insisting that the death of News of the World whistleblower Sean Hoare is not suspicious; but no one trusts the police because they were apparently taking bribes from Murdoch employees to help in stalking celebrities and other NOTW targets.

We’re being prepared to find out he died of an overdose by being reminded that Hoare had drug and alcohol problems. But so far we don’t have a cause of death. I say he was suicided. Even if he died of natural causes, no one will believe it.

Some people are beginning to question whether Rupert Murdoch can keep control of NewsCorp in the face of this growing scandal.

Independent directors of New York-based News Corp. have begun questioning the company’s response to the crisis and whether a leadership change is needed, said two people with direct knowledge of the situation who wouldn’t speak publicly. Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief who Murdoch backed until last week, was arrested yesterday in London.

“The shell of invulnerability that Rupert Murdoch had around him has been cracked,” said James Post, a professor at Boston University’s School of Management who has written about governance and business ethics. “His credibility and the company’s credibility are hemorrhaging.”

Murdoch’s son James is also in big trouble and may not survive the investigation.

Finally, despite the threats of the media and the public alike to boycott Casey Anthony and consign her to oblivion, lots of people are still obsession about her. The latest frenzy is the media’s efforts to find out where Anthony has disappeared to. I thought that’s what everyone wanted her to do?

The Orlando Sentinel asks: Where in the World is Casey Anthony? My answer is “who cares?” But it seems lots of people still do. News crews and helicopters attempted to follow the SUV that Anthony got into after she walked out of jail, but

Anthony’s exact location was lost when the SUV stopped at the parking garage of the building where fellow defense team member Cheney Mason works.

Droves of journalists and spectators waited for hours at nearby Orlando Executive Airport, where many guessed Anthony would board a private plane and head out of town.

But there was no clear sign of Anthony boarding a plane and no flight manifests immediately available that would indicate who was on board the handful of flights that departed the airport early Sunday.

The secrecy surrounding Anthony’s whereabouts continued to fuel the rumor mill Monday as the media and public tried to figure out where the 25-year-old is holing up and when she’ll resurface.

The latest rumor is that Anthony is staying at Geraldo Rivera’s residence in Puerto Rico, but Rivera denies it.

Defense attorney Cheney Mason says that Anthony is “safe” and that hundreds of people have offered to help her.

Whatever. I really thought ignoring her was a good idea, but I guess it isn’t going to happen.

That’s all I’ve got for today. What are you reading and blogging about?

Should US Congressmen be able to make Financial Bets Against the US?

Posted: July 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: John Birch Society in Charge, Psychopaths in charge, The Media SUCKS, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , | 34 Comments

Just about the time I think I’ve seen about the worst of the worst coming out of the US congress, another Congressman finds a new bottom.  The WSJ has reported that House Majority Whip Eric Cantor stands to gain financially from a U.S. default on the debt ceiling . (Basically, he’s shorted Treasuries). That’s something Cantor seems hellbent on happening. Congressman Cantor has made bets against US Treasury bonds that stand to pay if he can make it happen.  Unfugginbelievable!

Putting his money where his mouth is? Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip in the House of Representatives, bought up to $15,000 in shares of ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF last December, according to his 2009 financial disclosure statement. The exchange-traded fund takes a short position in long-dated government bonds. In effect, it is a bet against U.S. government bonds—and perhaps on inflation in the future.

Salon‘s Jonathan Easley looked into the potential financial windfall for Cantor right after Cantor shut down talks with Biden and other Democrats on the budget and the debt ceiling.  Cantor is the House Majority Leader so he plays an important role in getting the majority to vote for any potential deal.  Even if a deal can be reached, Cantor could stall it and make money.

Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

“If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, investors would start fleeing U.S. Treasuries,” said Matt Koppenheffer, who writes for the investment website the Motley Fool. “Yields would rise, prices would fall, and the Proshares ETF should do very well. It would spike.”

The fund hasn’t significantly spiked yet because many investors believe Congress will eventually raise the debt ceiling. However, since Cantor abruptly called off debt ceiling negotiations last Thursday, the fund is up 3.3 percent. Even if an agreement is ultimately reached before Aug. 2, the fund could continue to benefit between now and then from the uncertainty. (One tactic some speculators are using is to “trade the debt ceiling debate” — that is, to place short-term bets on prices as they fluctuate with the news out of Washington.)

A Completely Unofficial Blog About Eric Cantor has more information on the disclosure statements filed by Cantor that indicates he has taken multiple positions against the U.S. Government.  Besides buying into a vanilla mutual fund, Cantor specifically went after investments that would pay if U.S. Government finances were troubled.

Picking individual financial products is more trouble than buying mutual funds. When Eric Cantor took the trouble to pick individual investments,  he chose the following:

$1-15,000     ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TBT)
$1-15,000     iShares Barclays TIPS Bond Fund (TIPS)
$1-15,000     WisdomTree International Basic Materials (DBN)
$1-15,000     SPDR SP Metals Mining (XME)

So yeah, that acronym TIPS ring a bell? It should if you read Paul Krugman..
TIPS, as I read it is basically the interest difference between nominal U.S. Bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities.

Eric Cantor’s bet on the iShares Barclay’s TIPS Bond Fund is ANOTHER bet that U.S. Treasury Bonds will lose value (relative to inflation). That story from last year is actually twice as bad as it sounds.

There are huge implications here:

1. When Eric Cantor had a spare $2,000 to $30,000 laying around, he didn’t just go and buy some extra shares of Exxon or FOX stock or gold or whatever average wingnuts buy, he actively sought out a way to bet that U.S. Treasury Bonds would decline in value. He literally bet against America.

2. Eric Cantor is in the Republican leadership, and has been making open threats that he may push the United States toward defaulting on their bond obligations. If he does this, he has set himself up to profit from it. This is a really big conflict of interest.

You can learn more about how this deal works at Seeking Alpha.  Hedging and speculating with these kinds of funds is not exactly a beginning investor operation.

PoliticusUSA draws the logical conclusion.

Cantor has a history of betting against America. The difference is that in 2011, he now has the power make sure that his bets pay off.

Conflict of interest, abuse of power, it doesn’t matter what you call it. Eric Cantor’s desire to make a profit based on the pain and misery of very people that he has taken an oath to represent is just plain wrong.

Eric Cantor is the Republican House leader who can’t wait to see America fail.

In fact, he’s counting on it.

Your financial destruction will be Eric Cantor’s gain.

I guess this is what Republicans mean when they refer to one of their own as a “Real American.”

So, while the country was obsessed with sexted pictures of Anthony Wiener’s junk, Eric Cantor was putting the country in the position where could make money and the rest of us could suffer.  Who has the real ethics problem here?

Update:  From Amanda Terkel at HuffPo

House Democrats are circulating a resolution accusing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) of having a conflict of interest in the debt ceiling debate, a move that could provide an awkward C-SPAN moment for one of the lead Republicans in the budget negotiations.

The resolution goes after Cantor’s investment in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, a fund that “takes a short position in long-dated government bonds.”

The fund is essentially a bet against U.S. government bonds. If the debt ceiling is not raised and the United States defaults on its debts, the value of Cantor’s fund would likely increase.

The Democratic resolution, obtained by The Huffington Post from a Democratic source on the Hill, argues that Cantor “stands to profit from U.S. treasury default, which thereby raises the appearance of a conflict of interest,” and that he “may be sabotaging [debt ceiling] negotiations for his own personal gain.” It’s not clear how widely the measure was being circulated, with a House Democratic aide saying they hadn’t seen the resolution or heard it being discussed.

“Majority Leader Cantor has compromised the dignity and integrity of the Members of the House by raising the appearance of a conflict of interest in negotiations with the executive branch over raising the debt ceiling,” adds the measure.

 

Thursday Reads: DADT Decision, Bachmann Surging, High-Profile Trials, and Mega-Wombats

Posted: July 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Crime, morning reads, Republican presidential politics, Team Obama, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

Good Morning!! I think I have some interesting reads for you today, so let’s get right to it.

The biggest story of the day is that the Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals has ordered the Obama administration to quit stalling and get rid of DADT immediately.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a two-page order against the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” in a case brought by the group Log Cabin Republicans.

In 2010, a federal judge in California, Virginia A. Phillips, ruled that the law was unconstitutional and ordered the government to stop enforcing it. That decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which issued a stay allowing the government to continue enforcing the policy as it made its way through the courts.

Congress repealed the policy last year, but called for a lengthy process of preparation, training and certification, still under way, before ending it….

Judges Alex Kozinski, Kim McLane Wardlaw and Richard A. Paez stated in their order that “circumstances and balance of hardships had changed” since their initial ruling: the Obama administration had informed the court that repeal of the policy was “well under way,” and in a filing in another case on July 1, the Department of Justice took the position that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be subjected to tough scrutiny. The government, the judges wrote, “can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay.”

And the credit goes to the Log Cabin Republicans, because Democrats are too weak and cowardly to do anything useful anymore.

As I predicted, Michele Bachmann is making gains on Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, according to the latest PPP Poll.

When PPP polled New Hampshire in April Michele Bachmann was stuck at 4%. She’s gained 14 points over the last three months and now finds herself within single digits of Mitt Romney. Romney continues to lead the way in the state with 25% to 18% for Bachmann, 11% for Sarah Palin, 9% for Ron Paul, 7% for Rick Perry and Herman Cain, 6% for Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty, and 4% for Newt Gingrich.

Bachmann’s surge in New Hampshire is being built on the back of the Tea Party. Among voters identifying themselves as members of that movement she’s leading the way at 25% with Palin and Romney tying for second at 16%, and Cain also placing in double digits at 11%. Only 33% of Republican primary voters in the state identify themselves as Tea Partiers though and with the remaining folks Romney’s way ahead with 33% to 13% for Bachmann, and 10% for Huntsman and Paul.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The 14 men (and 5 boys whose names are being withheld because they are juveniles) who gang raped an 11-year-old Texas girl were due in court yesterday.

Four of the accused face charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child, while the majority of the men have been charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. All defendants are expected to appear in the Liberty, Texas courtroom today for status updates, according to the Associated Press.

Cleveland police began investigating the case in December of last year after cell phone video showing the alleged sex attack started circulating among students at Cleveland schools, according to court documents. The video shows the girl engaged in sexual acts with several men….Most of the men who face charges are free on bond. One of the accused men, Marcus Porchia, 26, has been implicated in another unrelated case for sexual assault.

The trial has been postponed until October because of delays in DNA testing.

“I’m going to pressure the state to pressure the DPS lab to get whatever analysis as quickly as possible,” state District Judge Mark Morefield said.

Morefield reset the 14 men’s cases for Oct. 3. Five juvenile boys also have been charged.

During the hearing, Warren told the judge his office was in tentative negotiations with at least one of the defendants, Jared McPherson. Warren did not say if he was referring to a possible plea agreement and he declined to comment after the hearing. McPherson’s attorney also declined to comment. A gag order is preventing those connected to the case from commenting.

Something tells me this trial won’t get as much publicity as the Casey Anthony trial. I hope I’m wrong, because this is a horrendous crime against a child, and these men need to be put away for a very long time.

Actually the next high profile trial I expect to follow is that of Amy Bishop, the professor who opened fire in a faculty meeting after failing to get tenure. So far the judge is planning to keep the trial open to the public. I hope it will be televised. Once Bishop finishes that trial, she’ll have to go to Massachusetts and face murder charges in the shooting of her brother in 1986.

There’s already a true crime book out about the Bishop case.

The Amy Bishop story inspires fear, confusion, and now 258 pages of true crime drama.

Attorney Mark McDaniel says the lawyers involved in the case will be hurrying to read the book.

McDaniel says, “I promise you the defense lawyers and the prosecutors are reading that, probably reading it today.”

And then there’s the Whitey Bulger trial. Bulger pled not guilty to 19 murders today.

The retired state police colonel who oversaw the unearthing of the remains of several of the people James “Whitey” Bulger is accused of killing from crude mass graves said he felt some personal satisfaction yesterday in seeing his notorious nemesis “a broken man” in chains before a judge.

But retired Col. Thomas J. Foley said that for the families to hear Bulger, 81, plead not guilty to 32 charges, including 19 murders, extortion, machine-gun possession and money laundering, “I’m sure had to be a difficult pill for the families to swallow.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly said that should the case go to a trial, he expects prosecutors will need at least a month to present evidence and up to 40 witnesses.

J.W. Carney Jr., Bulger’s public defender, would not say whether his client, who faces life imprisonment here and could face the death penalty in murder cases pending in Florida and Oklahoma, is interested in striking a plea deal.

Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis is asking Whitey’s politically powerful brother Billy Bulger to get Whitey to talk.

William M. Bulger, former president of the state Senate and the University of Massachusetts, sits in the front row in a charcoal business suit, a look of implacable rectitude frozen on his pale face.

Around Billy in the courtroom are the wives, brothers, sons and daughters of some of the 19 people Whitey is accused of killing. Billy knows they are there, but never acknowledges them. Strange for a man who began his star-crossed career as a lawyer taking cases in South Boston District Court.

As this circus lumbers forward, it will become increasingly obvious that the only man who can clear a path to something called justice is Billy Bulger, the man some people still think of as “The Good Brother.”

Billy should do what he refused to do 10 years ago before a grand jury and a congressional committee. He should have the courage to confront his brother and urge him to give some small semblance of peace to the families he’s wounded by coming clean. Billy should ask Whitey to take ownership of his sins.

I’ve got a few reactions to the verdict in the Casey Anthony case. James Wolcott says he didn’t follow the case closely, but based on what he did see he wasn’t surprised at the not guilty verdict.

I seemed to be one of the few whose world didn’t flip sideways–I wasn’t that surprised and if anything pleased that the jury made up its own collective mind in defiance of the lynch-mob clamor on the cable channels.

It can’t be said that the know-nothing know-it-alls on Fox News and Nancy Grace’s Sweeney Todd cooking school accepted the jury’s verdict with modesty and maturity. After expressing shock and taking turns to tell us how “stunned” they were, they accused the jury of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome (staring at Casey Anthony’s face somehow melting their reason and resolve), appearing to resent that fact that the defendant might be freed soon (since she might be granted time-served on the lesser charges, having already served years behind bars), and acting peevish that they didn’t get their way, having already convicted Casey Anthony on the airwaves for years now and treating the trial as an audiovisual demonstration of what to them was self-evident.

“Appearing to resent” and “peevish” are too mild, actually–many of the instant commentators on cable were visibly, audibly angry at the AUDACITY these acquittals.

Failed OJ prosecutor Marcia Clark thinks the verdict in the Anthony case is even worse than what happened with OJ.

…it was a circumstantial case. Most cases are. But the circumstances were compelling. Maybe not sufficient to prove premeditated murder—and I never believed the jury would approve the death penalty—but certainly enough to find Casey Anthony guilty of manslaughter at the very least.

Why didn’t they? My guess, since I’m writing this before the inevitable juror cameos, is that the jury didn’t necessarily believe Casey was innocent but weren’t convinced enough of her guilt to bring in a conviction. The thinking goes something like this: Sure, Casey’s behavior after her daughter’s death looks bad—dancing, partying, lying—but that doesn’t mean she killed the baby. Sure, that duct tape was weird, but that could’ve been done after the baby was already dead—no way to know who or when that tape was put on the baby’s face. Sure, the chloroform computer search seems damning, but that may not even have been done by Casey (her mom took the fall for that one).

And so, every bit of evidence presented by the prosecution could’ve been tinged with doubt. At the end of the day, the jury might have found that they just couldn’t convict her based on evidence that was reconcilable with an innocent explanation—even if the weight of logic favored the guilty one.

It’s a thoughtful article, highly recommended. Clark may be right about the jury, because at least one juror is already talking. She says she felt sick to her stomach at having to vote not guilty.

I wonder why she didn’t push for manslaughter then or at least child endangerment?

Jeralyn wrote a couple of good posts on the Anthony case yesterday: The Meaning of a Not Guilty Verdict and So Many Ignorant Reactions to Casey Anthony Acquittal. She had a few choice words for the HLN vampires.

HLN…proceeded to blast the defense team for holding a victory party and sharing a toast of champagne. Excuse me? This team didn’t work as hard as the prosecution? With fewer resources? The defense team saved a life today. That’s as close to G-ds work as it gets for criminal defense lawyers. Why shouldn’t they be proud? They held the state to its burden of proof and the state failed to meet it.

[….]

One viewer said the jury got it wrong because unlike everyone else, they weren’t privy to what was being said on Facebook and Twitter. The host agreed, saying the jury was in a vacuum in the courtroom. Hello? The jury was in the courtroom and heard and saw all the evidence. They were sequestered so they would be free from outside influences and prejudice. The jurors were the ones who received the judge’s instructions on how to apply the law. Did anyone bother to post or read all the instructions on Facebook and Twitter?

[….]

I wish the news media would stop saying no one will ever be held accountable for the little girl’s murder. It hasn’t be proven there was a murder. The defense argued it was an accident. The state took its best shot and came up short.

Congratulations to Jose Baez, Cheney Mason and everyone else on the defense team. They represented their client with pride and dedication, and with enormous sacrifices to their personal lives and law practices. They successfully battered the junk science, and prevailed in the long run — despite the unprofessional conduct of a prosecutor who smirked throughout their closing argument.

Modern day wombat

A fossilized “mega-wombat” has been dug up in Australia.

The fossil of a car sized mega-wombat has been unearthed in northern Australia, scientists said Wednesday — the most complete skeleton of its kind.

Weighing in at a whopping three tonnes, the herbivorous diprotodon was the largest marsupial to ever roam the earth and lived between two million and 50,000 years ago.

A relative of the modern-day wombat, the diprotodon skeleton was dug up in remote Queensland last week — the most northerly specimen ever discovered — and scientists believe it could shed valuable light on the species’ demise.

Mega-Wombat

Along with Australia’s other megafauna, which included towering kangaroos and gigantic crocodiles, diprotodon became extinct around the same time that indigenous tribes first appeared and debate has raged about the role of humans.

Very cool.

That’s all I’ve got for today. What are you reading and blogging about?

Forget giving away the store — Obama is handing the store to Republicans and inviting them to burn it down.

Posted: July 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: income inequality, Medicare, Psychopaths in charge, Republican politics, Surreality, Team Obama, The Great Recession, The Media SUCKS, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Please read this shocking story at The New York Times — there’s no way for me to excerpt all the important parts.

Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues.

Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.

What this really means is that more doctors and hospitals will refuse to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, and nursing homes will turn away frail elderly patients who can’t pay out of pocket–because Medicaid will no longer be able to assist those who are poor or have already spent their life savings on health care.

“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.

Mr. Minnix, the president of a trade group known as LeadingAge, is urging nursing homes to “bombard your senators with the message that Medicaid cannot be cut by $100 billion” over 10 years, as President Obama and many Republican lawmakers have suggested.

A coalition of hospital lobbyists, worried about the direction of the budget talks, has begun a national advertising campaign to block further cuts in the two health care programs, which account for about 55 percent of hospital revenues. The hospitals have made a commitment to spend up to $1 million a week through August on television, print and online advertising.

Now check this out: Chuck Schumer, supposedly a Democrat, is quoted in the article as saying, “We are very willing to entertain savings in Medicare. Medicare gives very good health care very inefficiently.”

Really? Medicare has almost no overhead, and it pays way below the going rate for health care services. That’s why so few private doctors accept Medicare patients right now.

Now think about what Dakinikat has told us about the dangers of cutting federal spending and read this:

Medicare and Medicaid insure more than 100 million people, account for 23 percent of all federal spending and are likely to be an important part of any budget deal. Military spending, which accounts for about 20 percent of federal expenditures, is likely to be included as well.

President Obama and his Republican pals are on a mission to bring down the American economy and bring on a repeat of the Great Depression. Can anything or anyone stop them? We need riots in the streets, but can elderly people do it alone?

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