Year: 2015

Look Out Below!

No Comments

If there is a rule in modern investments, it is that they will become increasingly complex, and then the small investors get in, the “Smart Money”, who created the complexity, and there is a crash, where retail investors lose.

It follows fairly simply from Saroff’s Rule.*

Well, it’s happening again, less than 7 years after the last crash:

People buying homes to live in – rather than as investments to be rented out – form the bedrock of a healthy housing market. It was once called the American Dream. Then came the bubble, its collapse, and the new boom that is already a bigger bubble than the prior one in many cities. And in some metro areas, investors are now the majority of buyers!

 In the first quarter, the proportion of owner-occupant buyers fell to 63.2% of all residential sales, down from 65.8% in the fourth quarter last year, and down from 68.6% a year ago, RealtyTrac reported today. It was the lowest quarterly level in the data series going back to 2011.

 Who were the other buyers? Investors. The report defined them as buyers who purchased a property but then had their property tax bill mailed to a different address. And these investors accounted for a record of 36.8% of all home sales.

 In some metro areas, investors went hog-wild, elbowing owner-occupants into minority status. Here are the metro areas with a population of at least 500,000 where this miracle of our “healed” housing market has occurred in Q1, the miracle being that investors make up the majority of all homebuyers:

………

 But “institutional investors,” entities that buy 10 or more units a year, accounted for only 3.4% of total sales in Q1, the lowest level in the data series, down from 6.2% in Q1 2014, and from 8.7% during the heyday in Q1 2013. These big investors, including large PE firms that used to buy tens of thousands of units – the “smart money” – have been losing interest for two years. But in the last quarter, they just about pulled up their stakes:

The investors that are now piling into the market like never before are “smaller, mid-tier, and mom-and-pop investors,” explained RealtyTrac VP Daren Blomquist.

And these investors are much more highly leveraged:

Of all investors, 44.7% were all-cash buyers, down from 61% a year ago. Cheap debt is just too tempting. A large variety of easy-money financing options have become available for small investors as “a new crop of nationwide companies has emerged offering financing specifically for investment properties,” Blomquist said. I can attest to that; I get their spam in my inbox.

Look out below.

History may not repeat itself, but there is some seriously heavy duty rhyming going on right now.

I expect another bust sometime in the next 2-3 years.

If some of the banksters were breaking rocks in a Federal Penitentiary, it would not have repeated itself so soon.

It would have taken at least a decade for the finance industry to create a new infrastructure of fraud.

* Saroff’s Rule: If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive.

I am not so Eager to Fly in a 787

No Comments

One of the innovations on the aircraft is a move from hydraulic to electric actuators.

The need for higher led to the use of Lithium-Ion batteries, which are more prone to fires, and briefly grounded the aircraft.

It now appears that a counter rolling over could cause a complete loss of electrical power:

A software vulnerability in Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner jet has the potential to cause pilots to lose control of the aircraft, possibly in mid-flight, Federal Aviation Administration officials warned airlines recently.

The bug—which is either a classic integer overflow or one very much resembling it—resides in one of the electrical systems responsible for generating power, according to memo the FAA issued last week. The vulnerability, which Boeing reported to the FAA, is triggered when a generator has been running continuously for a little more than eight months. As a result, FAA officials have adopted a new airworthiness directive (AD) that airlines will be required to follow, at least until the underlying flaw is fixed.

“This AD was prompted by the determination that a Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all alternating current (AC) electrical power due to the generator control units (GCUs) simultaneously going into failsafe mode,” the memo stated. “This condition is caused by a software counter internal to the GCUs that will overflow after 248 days of continuous power. We are issuing this AD to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane.”

………

 The memo doesn’t provide additional details about the underlying software bug. Informed speculation suggests it’s a signed 32-bit integer overflow that is triggered after 231 centiseconds (i.e. 248.55 days) of continuous operation.

This is computer programming 101, and it’s bullsh%$ that no one thought of this.

This was something that was present in in Windows 95 and 98 in the last millennium, where the system would crash after 49.7 days (equal to 232 milliseconds).

The embarrassing part for Microsoft was that it took about a decade before it was found, because no one could keep the systems running that long.

Seriously?  New electrics, new actuators, new structures, new manufacturing configuration, all done at the same time ……… I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!! (on Saturday)

No Comments

We had two credit unions closed on Thursday, bringing the total to 5:

  1. TLC Federal Credit Union, Tillamook, OR
  2. ​New Bethel Federal Credit Union, Portsmough, VA

Here is the Full NCUA list.

The odd bit is that this means that there have been more credit union closings than commercial bank closings, 4 banks and 5 credit unions.

If someone amongst my reader(s) knows if there is some sort of regulatory or financial condition that has caused this, contact me.

This is weird.

I Have an Endorsement for Democratic Presidential Nominee

No Comments

And it ain’t Hillary, it’s Bernie:

Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, announced Thursday that he was running for president as a Democrat, injecting a progressive voice into the contest and providing Hillary Rodham Clinton with her first official rival for the party’s nomination.

Avoiding the fanfare that several Republicans have chosen so far when announcing their candidacies, Mr. Sanders issued a statement to supporters that laid out his goals for reducing income inequality, addressing climate change and scaling back the influence of money in politics.

“After a year of travel, discussion and dialogue, I have decided to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president,” Mr. Sanders said in an email early Thursday.

Mr. Sanders’s bid is considered a long shot, but his unflinching commitment to stances popular with the left — such as opposing foreign military interventions and reining in big banks — could force Mrs. Clinton to address these issues more deeply.

It won’t force Clinton to address these issues, it will force her to pay lip service to her campaign.

I’m a bit starry eyed, but I want Sanders to win, so I have added him to Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Of course, I would expect a lot of establishment Dems to do whatever they can to subvert his campaign. (See McGovern in 1972)

An Article that Needs Musical Accompaniment

No Comments

Green Day’s American Idiot

Amanda Marcotte writes of the
anti-science bent and the enthusiastic embrace of ignorance by the American right wing:

Spouting off about stuff you know nothing about is traditionally considered unwise. But as the Republican war on science intensifies, ignorance has started to become not only less of a handicap, but a point of pride. In the face of expertise and facts, being belligerently ignorant—and offended that anyone dare suggest ignorance is less desirable than knowledge—has become the go-to position for many conservative politicians and pundits. Sadly, it’s a strategy that’s working, making it harder every day for liberals to argue the value of evidence and reason over wishful thinking and unblinking prejudice.

 The strategy of holding out ignorance to be the equivalent of expertise and simply daring your opponents to try to do anything about it was epitomized recently in the Ohio legislature. Republican state legislator John Becker introduced a bill that would ban all insurance plans in the state from covering abortion. It was a horribly misogynist and intrusive bill, but Becker didn’t stop at just trying to outlaw abortion coverage. He also insisted that IUDs, the most effective contraception available, be outlawed from insurance coverage. His reasoning was that he believes IUDs cause abortion, because he believes they work by killing fertilized eggs.

 He is, of course, factually wrong in multiple ways.

 An “abortion” is a procedure that stops a pregnancy, and if a fertilized egg fails to implant—and about half fail to implant, regardless of a woman’s choices—then you were never pregnant in the first place and therefore cannot get an abortion. But it’s also factually wrong that IUDs work by killing fertilized eggs. Like nearly all other forms of contraception, IUDs work by preventing sperm from meeting egg.

 When confronted with the facts, Rep. Becker just blew them off. “This is just a personal view,” he said. “I’m not a medical doctor.”

Well then, sir, by all means. Let your random “view” pulled directly out of your hiney supersede the actual opinions of people who are considering the evidence before drawing conclusions.

There is just one problem with the article, no musical accompaniment, so I have posted an appropriate music video.

Of course, Green Day is the obvious choice.

Bridgegate, the Gift that Keeps on Giving

No Comments

Pass the Popcorn

It appears that David Wildstein has cut a deal, because the announcement of his guilty plea was followed immediately by the indictment of two of what were Governor Christie’s most senior aides:

After a 16-month federal investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closings scandal, a judge in New Jersey unsealed indictments against two people close to Gov. Chris Christie, outlining a conspiracy made with a third confidant to exact political vengeance against a mayor for not endorsing the governor’s re-election.

The United States attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, announced the indictments at a news conference on Friday, breaking his long silence about a scandal that started as an inquiry into the cause of a traffic jam and has since led to a host of other investigations into the Christie administration, threatening the political future of one of the nation’s leading Republicans.

Mr. Fishman said that the conspirators “callously victimized” the citizens of Fort Lee, N.J., purposely scheduling the lane-closing plan to coincide with the first day of school. Then, he said, they sought to cover up the scheme with a “sham” story of a traffic study on the bridge to Manhattan. He said that there was evidence to suggest that using a traffic jam to exact revenge was discussed as far back as 2011.

Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, were charged with nine counts, including conspiracy to commit fraud by “knowingly converting and intentionally misapplying property of an organization receiving federal benefits.”

David Wildstein, another former Port Authority official and a high school friend of Mr. Christie, pleaded guilty at the United States District Court in Newark to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy against civil rights.

Mr. Fishman said that Mr. Wildstein corroborated the allegations in the indictment.

This is getting interesting.

I don’t expect Christie to be indicted, I think that he is familiar enough with the prosecutorial process to avoid his fingerprints being on this, but I think (hope) that this will end his political career.

Charges for Murder and Manslaughter, but the Bigger Picture is Worse

No Comments

All 6 police officers have been charged in death of Freddie Gray:

The six Baltimore police officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray – who died after being injured in police custody – have been charged criminally, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced Friday.

 Mosby’s announcement on the steps of the War Memorial Building was greeted with cheers and applause. Mosby said she told Gray’s family that “no one is above the law and I would pursue justice upon their behalf.”

 The city was gearing up for another round of demonstrations after the announcement. Baltimore City and Maryland state offices granted workers in the city liberal leave early Friday afternoon.

 After the charges were announced, Desmond Taylor, 29, shouted in jubilee in front of the War Memorial Building.

 “I did not expect this, but I prayed for it,” he said. “This day means that your actions bring consequences in Baltimore City.”

 Reacting to news of the charges, President Barack Obama called it “absolutely vital that the truth come out.”

 “What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth,” the president said. “That’s what people around the country expect.”

 All six officers were in custody and being processed at Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center as of 2 p.m., said Gerard Shields, a spokesman for the department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

 Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 45, who was the driver of a police van that carried Gray through the streets of Baltimore, was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, two vehicular manslaughter charges and misconduct in office. A man who answered the phone at Goodson’s home declined to comment and hung up the phone.

The rest are charged with, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and false imprisonment in various combinations.

I would have liked to seen obstruction of justice added, because, given the circumstances, that charge would be pretty clearly guaranteed conviction.

The big picture, of course,  is that sort of stuff happens every day, because random arrests of black people, and brutality against them, along with the inevitable revenue generation.  (Properties don’t seize themselves.)

It is incredibly rare for a police officer to be investigated, much less charged.

Interestingly enough, the charge of murder is based on the rather interestingly named “depraved heart murder”:

The term “depraved heart” means something more than conduct amounting to a high or unreasonable risk to human life. The perpetrator must realize the risk his behavior has created to the extent that his conduct may be termed willful. Moreover, the conduct must contain an element of viciousness or contemptuous disregard for the value of human life which conduct characterizes that behavior as wanton.

But, as I said before, for each of these 6 police officers, there are tens, if not hundreds, of other cops who have done the same thing, albeit it probably did not result in a death, or massive protests and riots.

In Space, No One Can Hear You File a Workplace Complaint

No Comments

Which explains why Amazon chief Jeff Bezos is getting into the rocket business:

Blue Origin, a startup space company owned by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, launched an experimental suborbital spaceship from Texas, the first in a series of test flights to develop commercial unmanned and passenger spaceflight services, the company said on Thursday.

The New Shepard vehicle blasted off on Wednesday from Blue Origin’s test facility near Van Horn, Texas, and rose to an altitude of 58 miles (93 km) before the capsule separated and parachuted back to Earth.

“Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return,” Bezos said in a statement.

The descent of the liquid hydrogen- and liquid oxygen-fueled rocket, however, was not successful.

“We lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent,” Bezos noted. “Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system … We’ll be ready to fly again soon.”

Who cares about the landing? 

After the astronauts have done their job, they are not Bezos’s concern, just like the employees in the Amazon warehouses have to wait unpaid in long lines to punch in and out.

The New New Republic is Much Better than the Old One.

No Comments

This was an Actual TNR Cover

If just because the old one was run by a racist who would have directed the magazine write something about white anxiety in Baltimore, while the post Marty Peretz version actually calls out the Washington Post‘s Baltimore PD source as a liar:

………

Ever since we first saw citizen video evidence of his arrest shortly after it happened and learned of the fatal injuries he suffered, we’ve all been wondering exactly what happened to Gray. Up until last night, we only know that Gray suffered some kind of “forceful trauma” that nearly severed his spine and crushed his voice box; we also learned he received no medical treatment from the officers on hand. But on Wednesday night, the Washington Post published a report that stemmed from that police leak, containing the alleged account of a prisoner who had been placed in the same police van as Gray after his arrest. The unnamed prisoner, who is still in jail, could not see Gray in the van—yet according to the Post, he told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself.” The Post story hadn’t been published for more than an hour before local journalists like WBAL’s Jayne Miller began debunking it, saying that it didn’t match her earlier reporting: Police commissioner Anthony Batts told media last Thursday that the second prisoner in the van said that Gray was “mostly quiet” and that there was no evidence that Gray was causing himself any harm. “We disagree with any implication that Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord,” said Jason Downs, a Gray family attorney. “We question the accuracy of the police reports we’ve seen thus far, including the police report that says Mr. Gray was arrested without force or incident.”

Let’s entertain this notion, for a moment, that Gray had decided to injure himself or end his life over an arrest that began with an errant look at an officer, or because he happened to be carrying a switchblade. Is it realistic to believe he would have succeeded to this tragic degree? Whoever at the Baltimore Police Department leaked this clearly relied upon us not understanding how much physical force is required to nearly sever one’s own spine and crush a voice box, all while handcuffed. One doctor told the Baltimore Sun that Gray’s injuries were more consistent with those seen from high-speed vehicle crashes. The van made several stops while he was in it, but did not crash even at a low speed.

Granted, this wasn’t the first time someone tried to explain away what common sense tells us was police brutality. Conservative outlets had circulated nonsense about Gray having a pre-existing spinal condition that required surgery days before his arrest. But now we have the Baltimore Police Department, using the Post as an uncritical conduit, trolling the public and the media. Yes, that seems unwise in light of the violent unrest we’ve seen this week. Far more disturbing than a question of their policing strategy, however, is what this leak indicates about this department and the answers it’s willing to offer.

No matter how many shouts are heard or windows smashed, the Baltimore police have asserted that they control the narrative, and that they alone determine what we get to know about why Gray died. They have no respect for Baltimore’s anger. That’s a lot more chilling to me than teenagers tossing bricks.

The language is a trifle florid, but this is also much better than what the “Old” New Republic would written, which would have at its focus comforting the comfortable.

This is F%$#ing Brutal

No Comments

Part 1


Part 2

Jon Stewart interviewed Judith Miller, one of the most egregious propagandists in American journalism, and he took her apart.

You need to watch the whole thing, but Stewart’s statement to towards the end of the interview gives one a sense of how Stewart gave Miller a bad time:

We’re obviously never going to see eye-to-eye on itI appreciate you coming on the program. These discussions always make me incredibly sad because they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility for it, and they pass the buck to every individual but themselves. It’s sad.

Miller came off as pathetic and evasive, which pretty much matches her career as a “Journalist”.

Nice Job of Abusing Your Interns

No Comments

Jonathan Chait decided to determine how many times that conservative legacy admission William Kristol invoked Hitler, Churchill, Chamberlain and Munich:

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, writing in opposition to the Iran deal recently, observed, “One is reminded — as one so often is these days — of Churchill’s great speech in Commons after Munich … ” It is true that Kristol is often reminded of Churchill and Munich these days. This may not tell us anything about the current situation with Iran, however, since Kristol is reminded of Churchill and Munich on a great many days. It is a historic reference he has used to explain a great many episodes.

I recently asked New York interns Claire Landsbaum and Claire Voon to compile a list of Kristol’s public references to the Munich agreement and its main players. This research ordeal, presented in reverse chronological order, represents the sort of character-building exercise, I am sure Kristol would agree, that today’s youth badly need.

I’m sorry, I think that you are torturing Claire Landsbaum and Claire Voon.

Forcing them to read everything that Bill Kristol has written back to at least 1997 constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Free Speech for Thee, and Not for Me

No Comments

It looks like the Supreme Court has finally found a limit to campaign donations, limits on soliciting donations by candidates for Judgeships:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld state laws that bar elected judges from asking for money to support their campaigns.

In a 5-4 decision, the court rejected a free-speech claim brought by a Florida judge.

“Judges are not politicians, even when they come to the bench by way of the ballot,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “A state may assure its people that judges will apply the law without fear or favor — and without having personally asked anyone for money.”

The decision marks one of the few times the high court has rejected a free-speech claim involving politics and campaigning. Roberts split from the court’s four conservative justices to uphold the Florida law.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UC Irvine, called the ruling a surprise.

“This is a huge win for those who support reasonable limits on judicial elections. And getting Roberts on this side of the issue is surprising, welcome and momentous,” he said.

In the last decade, critics of judicial elections, including retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, have argued that the public’s confidence in judges is being undercut by big-money campaigns. Even worse, these critics say, is having judges personally solicit contributions from people and companies who may have cases before the courts.

Until Wednesday’s ruling, however, the Supreme Court had moved in the direction of allowing judges to campaign freely. In 2002, the justices struck down state bar rules that had prohibited elected judges from taking public stands on controversial issues.

The Supreme Court has been remarkably dismissive of the idea that campaign donations are corrupting, but when they look at their own profession, suddenly, it’s an issue.

Seriously.  How about connecting the f%$#ing dots, you black robed morons?

And Maryland has Among the Worst “Police Protection” Laws in the Nation

No Comments

A package of police reform bills that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is scheduled to sign into law today, in part as a response to the death of 25-year-old Baltimore resident Freddie Gray, was weakened under political pressure from Maryland police unions, a major force in state politics.

The bills will allow police to wear body cameras, increase the liability cap for lawsuits against government employees, and encourage the state to collect more data on police behavior.

But more substantial reforms, including legislation to add a civilian review process and to have state prosecutors investigate all killings by police, were shot down during a legislative hearing in Annapolis earlier this year.

So, despite the new measures, procedures for prosecuting police misconduct in Maryland will remain the same.

A recent report from the ACLU of Maryland found that at least 109 people died in police encounters in Maryland from 2010 to 2014.

Freddie Gray’s death — which came after his spinal cord was severed when he was in police custody — has become the latest national symbol of brutal policing in African-American communities, and has called particular attention to the poor relations between police and residents in Baltimore. Gray’s funeral sparked riots in Baltimore last night.

………

Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights, one of the strongest such statutes in the nation, is a considerable barrier to police reform. The LEOBR, enacted in 1974, shields officers from oversight by establishing a narrow standard for reviewing police misconduct and limiting the ability of victims to press charges. Current LEOBR law states that officers may not be questioned by their superiors for 10 days following an incident. And once an internal investigation is underway, disciplinary action can only happen after a recommendation by a hearing board comprised of the officer’s colleagues.

………

Though emotional witnesses testified about incidents of police violence and racism, legislators remained skeptical.

“I left Missouri 29 years ago. I live in Maryland now,” said Del. Deborah Rey, a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Rey questioned the need for police reform bills because the sponsors cited abuses in “Ferguson, Missouri, not Maryland.”

When a witnesss interjected to say that the failure to prosecute Ferguson police officers was a perfect example of the problems surrounding police oversight, Rey cut him off. “We’re not going to adjudicate Ferguson,” she said.

Deligate Ray, perhaps we should adjudicate Baltimore?

Unfortunately, until some bit of police excess creates riots, there is simply no political will to make police accountable to the laws that they are charged with enforcing.

And You Wonder Why I Do Not Believe This………

No Comments

Someone in the Baltimore City state security apparatus has leaked a report that Freddie Gray intentionally injured himself to the Washington Post:

A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

 The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.

 The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.

Yeah, it’s clear that Mr. Gray snapped his neck and crushed his larynx all by himself.

This reminds me a LOT of that cigar video that the Ferguson police released, or the videos of the victim that were recently released by the Tulsa police department in an attempt to justify the shooting by their septuagenarian “reserve deputy” sugar-daddy.

Joan F%$#ing Walsh is Calling Obama a Liar?

No Comments
Joan Walsh, former editor-in-chief for Salon magazine, has been a long time, and vehement supporter of Barack Obama.

Well, she just called the President a liar on the Trans Pacific Partnership:

I’m on record declaring that the “split” in the Democratic Party over economic populism has been over-hyped by the media, the GOP and conservative Democrats. Democrats have way more in common, when it comes to addressing growing income inequality and declining social mobility, than differences.

But the divisions over the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are real, and they’re getting ugly. President Obama has apparently decided reasoning and lobbying isn’t going to be enough to win over skeptics; he’s lately resorted to personal insults. Telling Chris Matthews Tuesday that “I love Elizabeth [Warren]…but she’s wrong on this” was a big wet kiss, compared to what came later.

On Thursday Obama compared critics of the deal to Sarah Palin and other wingnuts who peddled “death panel” lies about the Affordable Care Act, in a speech to supporters at Organizing For America, the offshoot of his campaign juggernaut Obama For America. He escalated his attacks when he jumped on a conference call with reporters on Friday.

“The one that gets on my nerves the most is the notion that this is a ‘secret’ deal,” Obama said. “Every single one of the critics who I hear saying, ‘this is a secret deal,’ or send out emails to their fundraising base saying they’re working to prevent this secret deal, can walk over today and read the text of the agreement. There’s nothing secret about it.” He singled out “unions” among the wrongheaded critics of his TPP plans.

I confess: I haven’t paid close enough attention to the TPP controversy. But when the president started attacking Warren and unions so personally, I got interested. He’s saying they’re either stupid, or lying, or both. It reminded me of the dark days before the 2010 midterm “shellacking,” when Press Secretary Robert Gibbs attacked “the professional left,” and Vice President Joe Biden told progressives to “stop whining.” That didn’t work; the election was a disaster.

The anti-progressive rhetoric is getting uglier – and this time, some of it’s coming from the president. The AFL-CIO’s Thea Lee has worked on global trade issues for 25 years, and “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it quite as bad as this,” she says.

Sure, both sides are using strong rhetoric, but the president’s attack on his critics as “dishonest” would imply that he’s the one telling the truth. In fact, here are three big ways the president is lamentably shading the truth when it comes to TPP.

Secrecy: It’s true that members of Congress can personally “walk over” and “read the text” of the agreement. Alone, without staff, and without taking notes. And they’re prohibited by law from discussing the details with the media or their constituents.  The administration has deemed the negotiations “classified.”

………

So that’s what Warren means by a “secret deal.” She and Sen. Sherrod Brown wrote to the president this weekend asking that he declassify the latest negotiated text and release it, before demanding a “fast track” vote on the agreement.

Marginalizing opposition as Warren and “the unions.” Warren is joined by Democrats ranging from frequent ally Brown to pro-business voices like Sen. Chuck Schumer to moderate Sen. Bob Casey. While the president hoped to win support from the Congressional Black Caucus, skeptics remain. And yes, labor has been a loud voice against the deal – along with the rest of the Democratic base, and then some.

The coalition opposing TPP includes the National Resources Defense Council, Doctors without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation; critics of certain aspects of the likely deal include New York Times food writer Mark Bittman and the AARP. They are concerned about the way TPP could affect not only manufacturing jobs, but drug prices, intellectual property, environmental regulation and food safety. Obama is facing a remarkably broad-based pushback to his plans, and his effort to isolate Warren and unions is disingenuous.

Denying the vast, pro-corporate power of the “Investor State Dispute Settlement” panel. The wrangling between Warren and the White House over TPP isn’t new. Ever since her March 4 op-ed denouncing the “Investor State Dispute Settlement” provisions of the trade deal, frankly, administration officials have been trying to make Warren look a little batty.

………

“I think if you could get my colleagues to be honest, on the Democratic side,” Sen. Sherrod Brown told the Huffington Post, “they will say they’ve been talked to, approached, lobbied and maybe cajoled by more cabinet members on this issue than any issue since Barack Obama’s been president…I wish they put the same effort into minimum wage. I wish they put the same effort into Medicare at 55. I wish they put the same effort into some consumer strengthening on Dodd-Frank.”

So far, though, the pressure hasn’t worked – and now the administration is distorting the truth. The president can do better than this – and he’s likely going to have to. Hillary Clinton shouldn’t take bad advice from the media about arbitrarily “distancing” herself from the Obama administration. But this is a real conflict for the 2016 frontrunner. And on this one, she might have to choose between the president and much of the party base.

The statements are remarkable primarily because of its source.

Joan Walsh is someone I would describe as an Obamabot, and if he’s lost her on this issue, this is an indication of a significant shift in attitude among Obama supporters.