I always preferred this to “Satisfaction”
Do you realize that it was 49 years ago when the Rolling Stones played their first concert?
July 12, 1962 at the Marquee Club.
I Feel Old
I always preferred this to “Satisfaction”
Year: 2011
I always preferred this to “Satisfaction”
Obama says debt impass could stop social security checks
Talk about a Shot Across the Bow
I really don’t think that he had it in him, but Obama just fired one f%$# of a shot across the Republicans bow on the debt ceiling:
It was a striking thing today to see the President of the United States say that he cannot guarantee the 27 million Social Security checks that are due to be mailed on August 3rd.
August 3rd is the day after the U.S. government will default on its debts if Democrats and Republicans do not agree to increase the nation’s borrowing limit. Both sides say they won’t raise the limit without a deal to massively cut the federal deficit. A U.S. default could shake the world economy. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Time is growing short.
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley met the president this morning at the White House on another day of deadlock. The question is whether a deal to cut the federal deficit will include tax increases as Democrats insist or rely only on budget cuts as Republicans demand. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner started the day with a vow that the house will not raise taxes – period.
You know, I really did not expect him to pull out that one.
His normal course of action is to negotiate with himself, and bring a knife to a gun fight, but he just pulled out an AN602 Tsar Bomba.
I really did not think that he had it in him.
What’s more it appears between this threat, and the fact that raising taxes by a penny will enrage the base, has Senate minority leader coming up with a Blackadderesque* cunning plan to obscure the fact that he feels compelled to capitulate:
Desperate to get out of the political box they helped to create, Senate Republicans are actively pursuing a new plan under which the debt ceiling would grow in three increments over the remainder of this Congress unless lawmakers approve a veto-proof resolution of disapproval.
In effect lawmakers would be surrendering the very power of approval that the GOP has used to force the debt crisis now. But by taking the disapproval route, Republicans can shift the onus more onto the White House and Democrats since a two-thirds majority would be needed to stop any increase that President Barack Obama requests.
“It gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility for increasing the debt limit if he chooses not to have any spending reductions,” Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican Conference chairman, told reporters Tuesday.
This is the about the lamest example of “declaring victory and beating a retreat” that I have heard in a long time ………… OK, it’s the lamest example by a Republican. I think that we get this sort of sh%$ from Democrats, and in particularly the Obama administration, on an almost weekly basis.
And then we have John Boehner doing his best 13 year old throwing a tantrum:
Burned by the fact that their prescription for reducing the deficit and increasing the national borrowing limit either can’t pass in Congress or doesn’t cut spending enough to warrant, in their minds, a significant debt ceiling hike, House Republicans returned to the Capitol Tuesday to ratchet up their demands, and shirk responsibility for avoiding default.
“Where’s the President’s plan?” asked House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) at a press stakeout after a GOP caucus meeting. “When’s he going to lay his cards on the table? This debt limit increase is his problem.”
This is a massive departure for Boehner and the GOP, who before the debt limit brinksmanship became central to U.S. politics, regularly acknowledged that raising the debt limit was his, and Congress’, imperative. Today, he and other caucus leaders answered President Obama’s demand that the GOP figure out a way to raise the debt limit through 2012 by offering to toss non-starter Republican wish-list items back into the negotiating mix.
This is certainly a welcome event.
If we see more of this, then I will see it as evidence of a learning curve, but for right now, absent any sort of a pattern, I will put it down to dumb luck.
Still, it’s better to be lucky than it is to be smart in the short term.
*Only his writing is a lot worse than the show, and Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) has a lot more personal appeal.†
†Hell, Tony Robinson (Blackadder’s dogsbody, Baldrick) has more personal appeal than Mitch McConnell.
God Bless The Onion
The Newscorp Scandal is Exploding
It’s not just News of the World it’s the Times of London, specifically the Sunday Times, which hacked personal records of Gordon Brown, including financial records, legal records, and the medical records of his child with Cystic Fibrosis:
Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account and legal file as well as his family’s medical records.
There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it is not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.
Separately, Brown’s tax paperwork was taken from his accountant’s office apparently by hacking into the firm’s computer. This was passed to another newspaper.
Additionally, we now have a retired New York City Police officer who has, “alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.”
Much of Murdoch’s power comes from the fear that he inspires in authorities, and now that seems to be falling away, and the next few weeks should get very interesting.
They Should Worry
It appears that senior Senate Democrats are worried that Obama’s eagerness to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is threatening to squander their advantage on those issues:
Top Democrats in charge of keeping the Senate in Dem hands and maintaining the political health of the party — DSCC chair Patty Murray and messaging chief Chuck Schumer — have privately expressed frustration that deep Medicare cuts risk squandering the major political advantage Democrats have built up on the issue, people familiar with internal discussions say.
Senators Murray and Schumer, along with other Dems like Debbie Stabenow and Mark Begich, have warned against deep cuts in recent leadership meetings, a source familiar with the meetings says, another sign of the unrest that the possibility of serious entitlements cuts is creating among Congressional Democrats.
“We shouldn’t be giving away our advantage on Medicare,” said a source familiar with Murray’s thinking, in characterizing her objections in private meetings. “We should be very careful about giving away the biggest advantage we’ve had as Democrats in some time.”
This, by the way, is why the Democrats won’t retake the house, and will lose the Senate, in 2012.
Because it’s increasingly Obama finds the concept doing anything that might benefit the party as distasteful and gauche.
I Call This Sanity
The fact that the Obama administration has suspended military aid to Pakistan is a sign that a bit of common sense has emerged in American foreign policy:
The U.S. is withholding about $800 million in military aid to Pakistan over actions by the nuclear- armed country since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
“They’ve taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid which we’re giving to the military, and we’re trying to work through that,” Daley said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” program. “Until we get through these difficulties, we’ll hold back some of the money that the American taxpayers have committed to give.”
The problem is that most of the Pakistani state security apparatus, and truth be told, most of the Pakistani body politic has defined itself in terms of a Ragnarok with India, which, given that they are both now nuclear powers, is completely insane.
Once you understand this, it means that any arrangements with Pakistan are the temporary result of a temporary confluence of interests.
No,
But I’d click through if it said “Ann Coulter in jail”:
Yes, this is yet another add served up by Google™ Adsense™ and no, I am not including a link.
Well better a fraction of a cent to my pocket than in theirs.
Still, I’d love to find someone who does a better job of serving ads that you know, actually aren’t completely ludicrous when juxtaposed with my reader(s).
My standard Google™ Adsense™ disclaimers below:
Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.
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Quote of the day
This pretty much encapsulates my concerns as well:
I think the President’s goal is exactly what he says it is: to do Big Things. I just don’t think it matters much what the substance of those Big Things is.
Well, This is a Pleasant Surprise
Not much to watch, and Maddow was interviewing some ‘Phant, so I was flipping and AMC was showing Kill Bill.
After all the hand wringing I read over the violence, I find it stylish and quite watchable.
A Non-Wisconsin Wingnut Recalled
In this case, it’s the wingnut Arizona state Senate president, Russell Pearce, one of the main architects of the radical right wing agenda in that state:
A citizens’ group that opposes the Arizona senate president because of his stance on illegal immigration and other issues has collected enough signatures to force a recall election for him, officials said on Friday.
Republican state Senator Russell Pearce rose to national attention as the chief architect of the state’s tough anti-immigration law that was signed into law last year, but has been blocked by the courts.
Maricopa County elections officials certified the group Citizens for a Better Arizona has collected over 10,300 signatures in their effort to force a recall election for Pearce, said Yvonne Reed, a county elections spokeswoman.
The group only was required to collect 7,756 valid signatures under state law, Reed said.
Barring any successful legal challenges, officials said the recall election for Pearce, who represents Mesa, Arizona, could be called for November or March.
I think that this is actually a long shot, unlike other states, there is no separate ballot for the recall and the election, just a new election, and if no serious Republican runs against him, it’s unlikely that a Democrat, even a ConservaDem, would prevail, but it’s nice to put the fear of the electorate into this ratf%$#’s heart.
Australia Intends to Institute a Carbon Tax
Well, this is a good policy, at least until 2015, when they turn the whole idea over to the Vampire Squid* and its ilk:
The Australian government has unveiled plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at A$23 ($25; £15) per tonne from 2012.
The country’s biggest economic reform in a generation will cover some 500 companies. In 2015, a market-based trading scheme will be introduced.
(emphasis mine)
Once the market based trading scheme is implemented, we can expect to see the investment banks come up with all sorts of opaque trading schemes (Carbon Default Swaps anyone?) that will serve primarily as a means to extract fees and other rents from the process, and then we will see another orgy of fraud and speculation bring the market down.
Of course, this won’t happen immediately, particularly since there would be floor and ceiling prices for the first few years, but it will happen, and money that is extracted from the public will go to private speculators rather than the public good.
*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.
The Incredible Shrinking Speaker
John Boehner has decided to drop any attempt at a grand bargain with Obama, because he could get no one, not even the Majority Whip or Majority Leader, his closest lieutenants in the house, to agree to close a few tax loopholes in order to have Obama cut the Democrats throats with Social Security and Medicare cuts:
House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more modest package offers the only politically realistic path to avoiding a default on the mounting national debt.
On the eve of a critical White House summit on the debt issue, Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama that their plan to “go big,” in the speaker’s words, and forge a compromise that would save more than $4 trillion over the next decade, was crumbling under Obama’s insistence on significant new tax revenue.
“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement released less than 24 hours before the White House meeting was scheduled to begin. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”
Boehner’s decision leaves negotiators reexamining a less-ambitious framework — aimed at saving roughly $2.4 trillion over the next decade — that had been under discussion between Vice President Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. But that framework is hardly complete; the group broke up last month when Republicans walked out over the tax issue.
The sweeping deal Obama and Boehner had been discussing would have required both parties to take a bold leap into the political abyss. Democrats were demanding more than $800 billion in new tax revenue, causing heartburn among the hard-line fiscal conservatives who dominate the House Republican caucus. Republicans, meanwhile, were demanding sharp cuts to Medicare and Social Security, popular safety net programs that congressional Democrats have vowed to protect.
There is only one way that I can see this debt limit thing, which is an artifact of what Obama wanted in December, turning out well, and that is by generating an export led recovery, and no small amount of inflation, if the dollar drops by 30+%.
That being said, while there House Speakers who have been profoundly weak, Tom Foley comes to mind, as does Tip O’Neill from 1981-83, I have never seen such a profoundly impotent speaker as Boehner.
It’s stunning.
Unsurprising News of the Day
It turns out that academic economists are not interested in their profession adopting a code of ethics:
The world’s largest association of economists is considering ethics guidelines after outrage about undisclosed conflicts of interest, but only a handful of its 18,000 members have bothered to offer any input.
The American Economic Association earlier this year charged a five-person panel with looking into ethics and economics — in part a response to the 2010 documentary “Inside Job” that vilified a number of big-name economists for arguing in favor of deregulation while on Wall Street’s payroll.
The film also notably skewered former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, who wrote a glowing paper about Iceland’s financial system in 2006 — for which he was paid by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. Two years later, the country’s financial system collapsed.
The panel, chaired by Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow, asked for input from the broader membership, with an end of June deadline, but so far, Solow said, he has received at most a dozen responses.
They then follow with a quote from some pissant by the name of David Card, an Econ prof at UC Berkeley, suggesting that it’s not necessary, because they don’t make that much.
But as Yves Smith wryly observes, “Last I checked, economists are much better paid than other social scientists, and lesser paid professions, like nurses and teachers, have codes of ethics.”
This is a Righteous Rant
While I don’t agree with Riverdaughter’s suggestion that Hillary Clinton should primary Obama in 2012, Hillary is a spent force in presidential politics, but her basic thesis, that Mr. Hopey Changey is a “weak Republican in disguise,”, is one that I have maintained since October 21, 2007 (see the full story of what informed my opinion here).
I have to agree with Kevin Drum, this stuff ain’t eleventy dimensional chess. He declined to extend the debt limit, and as a result now proposes gutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, because that is what he really wants.
In any case read Riverdaughter.
When Liberal Policies Save Money
Philadelphia, PA effectively decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana and saved big bucks in the process:
Just over a year ago, the powers that be in Philadelphia effectively decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana by offering offenders the chance to enroll in a three-hour class that would expunge the offense from their records. Not only did this give Philadelphia police more time and energy to focus on more serious crimes, it has also saved the city a pretty sizable Ziploc bag of green stuff.
“We were spending thousands of dollars for when someone possessed $10 or $15 worth of weed,” District Attorney Seth Williams tells the Philadelphia Daily News. “It just didn’t make any sense.”
Under the program, being caught with up to 30 grams of marijuana is no longer a misdemeanor but a summary offense. By simply paying $200 to attend the three-hour class on the ills of drug use and abuse, the arrestee’s record is wiped clean of the offense.
Before this change, offenders faced up to $500 in fines and possible, though unlikely jail time. If the suspect fought the charges, this meant expenses for the city — prosecutors, judges, lab tests, public defenders, etc. By all but decriminalizing pot, Williams estimates that the city has saved $2 million in the last 12 months.
Additionally, police tell the News that there has been no noticeable impact on the quality of life in Philadelphia since the program went into effect.
No big surprise.
When the DA notes that, “The current way most U.S. authorities treat drug possession is shortsighted,” he ain’t kidding.
If I were a governor, this would be the first place that I would balance the budget.
Which Murdoch Is Going to Jail
Because it has been discovered that Newscorp systematically wiped its email archives of everything relating to their phone hacking activities, which pretty much had to had the assent of James, and probably Rupert, Murdoch:
Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.
The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005, revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International (NI).
According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted “massive quantities” of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair. The allegation directly contradicts NI claims that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal newsgathering.
The alleged deletion of emails will be of particular interest to the media regulator Ofcom, which said it had asked to be “kept abreast” of developments in the Met’s hacking investigation, so it can assess whether News Corp would pass the “fit and proper” test that all owners of UK television channels have to meet.
So now we have a fairly clear case of obstruction of justice and most, if not all, of the information that was deleted is still likely squirreled away in the system where it can be found with a extensive investigation.
I cannot imagine that this did not go on without the explicit approval of one of the Murdochs.
Job Report Sucks Need about 175K to keep up rate climbes to 9.2%
Yesterday’s news, that unemployment claims remain stubbornly high was not great news, but the the monthly non-farm payroll report was horrific, with just 18,000 jobs created. about 1/3 of , and May’s number was adjusted downward from about 50,000 to 25,000.
Additionally the unemployment number (U3) rose to 9.2%, and the more inclusive U6 rose by 1% to 16.4.
This was about ⅓ of the forecast, and to provide some perspective Canada, with a population only a tenth of ours, created 22,000 jobs, and in order to accommodate natural growth in the workforce, you probably need 175,000 jobs a month to be created.
What is going on here is that we are on the trailing end of the stimulus, so even without the current mania in Washington, DC to cut government spending, we would be seeing contraction government spending, which, unsurprisingly results in contraction.
Until we goose the economy with sufficient government spending, and establish policies that encourage banks and businesses to part with their cash reserves, we won’t see much improvement.
Considering Obama’s mania for austerity and the confidence fairy, I’m beginning to think that the only way we get a recovery is if something like the debt limit triggers a precipitous fall in the US dollar, which would then create an export driven recovery.
We are completely f%$#ed.
It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!
It’s been a busy week, with closings of both bank and credit unions this week, 3 banks, one credit union, which is the most action we’ve seen since mid May.
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
- First Chicago Bank & Trust, Chicago, IL
- Colorado Capital Bank,Castle Rock, CO
- Signature Bank, Windsor, CO
And here are the credit union closings:
- Borinquen Federal Credit Union, Philadelphia, PA
So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):
It’s better than last year but still plenty ugly.
Wisc ‘Phants Try to Redistrict Ahead of Recall
Now here’s a surprise.
Facing the possibility of the control of the Senate flipping back to the Democrats with the recall elections, the Republicans are calling a special session to get it done before the August elections/:
Republican leaders released their plan Friday to redraw districts for the Legislature, setting up possible votes on them over the next two weeks and more controversy at the Capitol.
A quick vote would allow GOP lawmakers to approve the maps before recall elections are held this summer that could shift control of the Senate from Republicans to Democrats. That would let Republicans lock down advantages at the ballot box for the next 10 years by drawing maps in their favor.
Democrats in the Legislature won’t necessarily have a say in what the maps look like. But a lawsuit has already been filed, meaning a federal court could still weigh in on the process.
A hearing on the new maps is scheduled for Wednesday, and the Legislature could act on it as early as July 19 in extraordinary session.
Somehow, I don’t think that they are particularly sanguine regarding their chances during the recall elections.
The interesting thing here is that redistricting is supposed to be a sort of bottom up activity in Wisconsin, with local authorities drawing up wards before the legislature draws districts, but they are rushing the process.
I’d love to see their internal polling data, because they are so scared that they are willing to allow a vote on emergency unemployment benefits too.
When I Called Him the Manchurian Democrat, I Had No Idea…
Nancy Pelosi heard that Barack Obama was looking at gutting cutting social security, and it sounds like her response was to call him out:
After a contentious White House meeting with President Obama and other Congressional leaders, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) returned to the Capitol and drew an important red line: Members of her caucus won’t vote for a grand bargain to raise the debt limit and reduce future deficits if the final deal includes cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits — and that means it probably won’t pass.
“You [asked], ‘could the changes compromise the vote?'” Pelosi said at a Thursday afternoon briefing near the House chamber. “I said yes.”
It’s widely believed that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will need Democratic votes to raise the debt limit. Democratic leaders, including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have offered to help him out — but not on Boehner’s terms alone. Pelosi has her own terms.
“We have been very clear Democrats are not supporting — House Democrats are not supporting any cuts in benefits for Social Security or Medicare,” she said.
I think that her calling him a bitch, which is what she did, might have something to do with the fact that he gave no advanced warning of his decision to Congressional Democrats:
Multiple senior House Democratic aides tell TPM that caucus members were caught off guard by news stories about President Obama’s push for deeper deficit and spending reductions — and particularly about the White House’s willingness to cut Social Security as part of a grand bargain to raise the debt limit.
At a private caucus meeting Thursday morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told her members that if Obama’s serious about putting Social Security on the chopping block, he’d left her in the dark about it. And after an at-times-contentious meeting about how open Dems should be to significant entitlement cuts, leaders departed to the White House to read Obama the riot act.
And just to ensure that the day is a complete mess for Barry, his proposal to kill the New Deal and give it to the bankers was just enthusiastically endorsed by the craziest motherf%$#er in Congress, Allen West:
Reports that President Obama could discuss with Republicans the idea of cuts to Social Security and Medicare is picking up praise from a source that doesn’t usually have anything good to say about the President: Rep. Allen West (R-FL).
In fact, this is coming from a man whose military career ended after a torture-related incident, who has called Obama a “low-level socialist agitator”, and who has said that Medicare will destroy America: “I gotta tell you something: if you support Medicare the way it is now, you can kiss the United States of America goodbye.”
Seriously, when you look at how this is handled has me wondering if the production staff who created Gigli are running the White House staff.
It’s not only bad policy, it’s criminally stupid politics.
At some point, you have to start wondering if this crap is just stupid, or it’s what he really wants.