Blah, blah, blah!The US Air Force is now blocking the New York Times, The Guardian and a number of other news outlets because they are reporting on the contents of the cables.
You know, I think that the fact that US authorities have gone completely batsh%$ insane over this might be doing a lot more damage to our credibility worldwide than anything in those damn cables.
We are all Julian AssangeBut the Swedish prosecutors promptly appealed the decision, meaning that he spends at least another 48 hours in custody, which in his case means rather harsh isolation.
On the other hand, it appears that reports of a grand jury investigating an indictment under the 1917 espionage act may be baseless.
Truth be told, a good prosecutor can find an sitting already sitting grand jury, and Mr. Assange from a legal perspective is certainly a ham sandwich.
Were I a prosecutor, I would not begin any process until Assange were in Sweden, where extraditions appears to be more likely than in the UK.
Of course, while this is going on, the internet is still being roiled by attacks on both sides of the issue, with Anonymous emerging from 4chan to hit the financial and IT companies that cut Wikileaks off, and other hackers going after Wikileaks, in a game of dueling DDOS attacks.
Hanging over all this is Assange’s poison pill file, which has been distributed to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people, waiting for the decryption key that will be distributed if anything happens to him or Wikileaks by a dozen or so of his colleagues.
And then there is the absurdity that Amazon, after tossing Wikileaks from their servers, is now selling copies of the cables for the Kindles.
In the mean time, here are the crucial government secrets that we now know as a result of the cables:
Of course there is some truly sensitive and shocking information out there, specifically that, the DPRK (North Korea) was willing to take significant steps to reassure the US and the ROK (South Korea) in exchange for an Eric Clapton concert in Pyongyang.
Merciful heavens, we can’t let the citizenry know about that.
The final word on this is Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg’s, “EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.“
Social Security and Medicaid together do not match Medicare’s costs
Really, he just expressly said that to Steve Inskeep of NPR:
Actually, I think that if you talk to economists, both conservative and liberal, what they’ll say is the problem is not next year. The problem is, how are we dealing with our medium-term debt and deficit, and how are we dealing with our long-term debt and deficit? And most of that has to do with entitlements, particularly Social Security and Medicaid.
(emphasis mine)
It’s not helpful that he leads with a lie.
Anyone who has the vaguest idea of how to count knows that the elephant in the room (pun not intended), is not Medicaid, but Medicare, but Obama realizes that that the political consequences of going after that are simply too dire for him to mess with the seniors.
The alternative, of course, is something private, which means higher costs, since we know that both Medicare and Medicaid deliver healthcare for a lower cost than the private sector, and the expense ratio (the cost of managing the money) for Social Security is on the order of 1⁄10 that of most private plans out there.
We now understand why Barack Obama has been so deferential to the insurance and finance industries: It’s because they own him, and he wants to sell the rest of us to them.
H/t Gaius Publius.
Essentially, the speaker notes that the Koran is a far more nuanced document than either the fundamentalists or the islamophobes would imply, and that you really cannot understand it in translation.
Certainly that is my experience with the study of Torah, where I really don’t think that I can claim to have ever even read it, since with my pathetic grasp of Hebrew, I do not know more than a smattering of words and a few greetings.
In any case, listening to Lesley Hazelton is a good way to spend 9 minutes.
H/t Yves Smith.
Considering China’s recent problems with inflation, this decision is a bit of a surprise.
My guess as to what is going on here, I think that this is a reflection of the fact that the People’s Bank of China is more concerned about the Yuan appreciation than it is about inflation, and increases in interest rates would tend to drive their currency up.
The Senate voted for cloture on the Republican wet dream tax bill.
Notwithstanding the “nonbinding” vote in the House Democratic Caucus last week, I expect it to pass the house largely unchanged.
I simply do not think that there is enough guts in the house to push back in a meaningful way against this.
Point 2: he is now arguing that Democratic Party support of Obama’s awful tax deal is essential to the survival of the party.
Taking political advice from Mark Penn is like taking investment advice from Jim Cramer.
But once again, I agree with Ron Paul, organizations like Wikileaks are a necessary, and beneficial, force for openness and transparency.
He draws the proper parallels between Wikileaks and the Pentagon Papers, and notes that these sorts of operations are essential in uncovering official wrongdoing.
Basically if craptacular DINO Senator Mark Warner wants to rail against regulation in an editorial, then perhaps he should name a few regulations that he actually thinks harm the economy.
It’s classic, “The problem is too much regulation ……… Except for that regulation ……… And that regulation ……… and that regulation ………”
This sort of posing does a great deal of damage to our body politic.
Thank God!!!
Michael Steele has announced that he is running for reelection as chairman of the RNC.
His special blend of stupidity, arrogance, and an uncanny ability to put his foot in his mouth up to his hip socket make my life as a blogger, and the lives of innumerable professional comedy writers. so much easier.
Note however, that the judge, Henry E. Hudson, is a well known serious wingnut, and even he did not have the stones to issue an injunction, nor did he rule the rest of the law unconstitutional, and two other Federal District Court judges dismissed the cases pretty much before the ink was dry on those petitions.
Of course, this does mean that it is likely to make it to the Supreme Court, where Justice Roberts is busy trying to recreate the bogus “Freedom of Contract“. (See also Schechter).
In any case, the Obama administration’s response is predictable:
The administration acknowledges that if the insurance requirement falls before taking effect in 2014, related changes would necessarily collapse with it, most notably provisions that would prevent insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or charging them discriminatory rates.
Once again, the Obama administration is capitulating before the fight has even started.
Let’s assume that the Supreme Court rules the mandate unconstitutional. What happens then is that, if nothing is done, the insurance industry is in risk of collapse in the very short term (less than 18 months).
It’s time to ask for single payer, or a public option, not to wring your hands and repeal the bill.
With the threat of a veto, and the ensuing collapse of health insurers across the US, you can get some decent non-insurance company friendly provisions, like the public option and a repeal of ERISA preemption.
But of course, in Obama’s world, the predators that are the health insurance industry are “partners” to be protected, not a profit driven source of pain and suffering, so he will go to the mat for them.
Courtesy of Jane Hamsher:
It’s hard to “fight” when the head of your party runs his political operation with the emotional maturity of an overheated teenage boy in the latest installment of Twilight.
Positively brutal, but true.
Ms. Hamsher has come to the same conclusion as me, that Barack Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone, because ……… I don’t know why, but my guess is because in his heart of hearts he makes Bill Clinton look like “Red” Ken Livingston.
He is the computer programmer who was charged with stealing Goldman Sach’s high frequency trading software.
Here are the New York Times and Wall Street Journal stories.
The Times version has a video (unfortunately not embeddable) of Fordham University law professor Joel Reidenbert, who basically says that what would ordinarily be a civil matter, a potential breach of confidentiality agreements, was made into a criminal case to make an example of the “US Attorney doing the heavy lifting for Goldman.”
He doesn’t come out and say it, but I infer from his that this was a hit by the US Department of Justice, with the active and aggressive collusion of federal judge Denise Cote, to do the Vampire Squid’s* bidding, as the article notes, “During the two-week trial, Judge Denise L. Cote closed the courtroom to the public several times to protect Goldman’s proprietary source code,” and “Before dismissing the panel, Judge Cote warned them that if they were going to speak about the case, they must not discuss anything related to Goldman’s code.”
It stinks to high heaven.
*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.
Over 100,000!!!!!
My car, a 1998 Saturn, which I got from my Grandmother when she stopped driving about 5 years ago, broke 100,000 miles on the odometer yesterday.
I think that the car had about 22K when we got it.
The idea that Canada would buy anything but a US aircraft, particularly with a significant long shot, but the fact that both companies are pitching their aircraft as an alternative to the F-35 JSF:
Representatives from the German-based Eurofighter Typhoon and Sweden’s Saab Gripen appeared at committee and told members their planes can meet Canada’s air force demands, and are far cheaper than the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jet the government agreed to buy in July.
Canada intends to buy 65 F-35s for $9 billion — plus maintenance costs — to replace the aging fleet of CF-18s, with delivery expected to start in 2016.
Antony Ogilvie with Saab said they could supply Canada with 65 upgraded Gripens, with 40 years of maintenance costs included, for under $6 billion.
I am unsure of the maintenance costs of the F-35, but it is safe to say that the life cycle costs for the F-35 are at least twice as much as the diminutive Swedish fighter.
If the Gripen ever reaches sales critical mass, it could be the F-5 of this era. It’s half the life cycle cost and size of its competitors while offering decent performance by the standards of the day.
Truth be told, it’s likely that the Eurofighter will probably be cheaper over its lifetime than the JSF as well, and while not offering the all aspect stealth (or stealthish if you listen to the critics) of the JSF, it does offer a known price and operating cost, a wider array of munitions, greater agility, supercruise, and higher ceiling, with the advantage of known operational and purchase price and a 2nd engines for safer operations over the largely uninhabited, and rather inhospitable, areas in northern Canada.
Patty cake.
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
We broke 150 failed banks for the year.
Around July, it looked like there would be about 190 failed banks for the year around July, but the pace has slackened significantly.
For historical reference, here is the Full FDIC list for banks, and the Full NCUA list for credit unions.
So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):
Both good pieces of news:
A rise in U.S. consumer confidence to its highest in six months and a much bigger-than-expected contraction in the country’s trade deficit pointed to a firmer economic recovery on Friday.
………
Consumer sentiment in December rose to its highest level since June and was at its third-highest since the start of 2008, according to a Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey. Government data showed U.S. exports in October rose a robust 3.2 percent while imports declined slightly.
………
The survey’s preliminary December reading for consumer sentiment came in at 74.2, up from 71.6 in November. That was above the median forecast of 72.5 among economists polled by Reuters.
This is unalloyed good news.
It’s particularly good news because we are in the Christmas shopping season that accounts for a disproportionate amount of consumer spending.
My guess is that the the exports are helped by the general trend down with the dollar over the past month. (see graph pr0n)
In an odd way, if Obama’s disastrously bad tax capitulation compromise may actually help our economy if it convinces the currency markets to go short on the dollar.
So, the Senate failed to end a filibuster and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal is dead, probably for at least the next 4 years.
Obama started calling people about this yesterday, so much for fierce advocacy, and the witch hunts and separations continue.
With financial reform, he was pushing back to keep it as small as possible.
With healthcare reform, he cut a deal that made us all slave labor for the insurance companies.
And not a peep from the administration about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
And then there is the tax deal, which lowers the inheritance tax, and gives the Republicans a wedge to defund Social Security.
As I have noted before, he appointed Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, both supporters of “privatizing” Social Security to chair his debt commission.
I am beginning to think that he’s not a bad negotiator, but that he is getting everything that he wants, and what he wants are largely Republican policies.
I’m beginning to think that he bay actually getting he wants.
Talk about eleventy dimensional chess.
* It’s an old joke.
To the “good” folks at Westboro Baptist
Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting and spewing their anti-gay vitriol at the funeral for Elizabeth Edwards.
Here is hoping that the police called in to keep the anger at these folks from ending in a beat down does get called away to rescue a cat in a tree.