Like a Bad Penny

Un-Dirty-Word Believable

She keeps coming back.

Sarah Palin has endorsed Newt Gingrich, and Newt Gingrich has said that Sarah Palin would have a "major roll" in his administration:

Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he would consider former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for a "major role" in his administration if he is elected president.

"Certainly, she’s one of the people I’d call on for advice. I would ask her to consider taking a major role in the next administration if I’m president," Gingrich said on CNN. He added that he has not discussed the idea with Palin, who he called "a very good reform governor."

Palin told Fox News on Tuesday that she would vote for Gingrich in South Carolina "in order to keep this thing going."

Palin has not endorsed a candidate in the Republican race, and her comments Tuesday weren't exactly an endorsement either, although Gingrich characterized them that way on CNN.

You see, Sarah Palin is saying that the problem is that in 2008, there was a candidate who was not properly vetted (@ about 1:10 in the vid), and she's referring to Barack Hussein Obama, not Sarah Louise Heath Palin.

Who says that Irony is dead?

It's A Start

Love the mug shot

You know, it's refreshing when a billionaire ignores a judge, and the judge throws his ass in jail:

The elderly billionaire owner of Detroit's Ambassador Bridge has been jailed today for failing to meet court-ordered deadlines on a multimillion dollar construction project.

Manuel 'Matty' Moroun, along with company president Dan Stamper, has been sent to jail until his company complies with a 2010 court order to get the work on the $230m Gateway project done.

It is not yet clear how long the men will stay behind bars, but the work could take up to a year.

Well, were freed on appeal, so they only spent one night in the clink.

That being said, I want Wayne County Judge Prentis Edwards on the Supreme Court.

Ha Ha!

The latest PPP (pp)polling, Rick Perry is in third place in Texas.

Normally, even in losing a Presidential primary contest, one tends to pick up a bit of stature both locally and nationally, in the case of Rick Perry, I think that it may very well have destroyed his future prospects in the state.

Rick Perry has three big problems: Collapsing poll numbers, worse debate performance than J. Danforth Quayle, and … let's see … I can't … The third one, I can't … Oops.

And in the Further Adventures of Walker Wisconsin Asshole

They turned in the petitions for his recall.  They needed 540,208, and were hoping for about 750K.

They got more than one million!

That's more than ¼ of all registered voters.

The wind is blowing in from Wisconsin, and I smell toast ………… My bad that's Scott Walker, who smells a lot like toast right now.

BTW, it's not just Walker"

Democrats and union members also collected about 850,000 signatures to recall Republican Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and 20,600 names to recall [Republican] Senator [Leader] Scott Fitzgerald, about 4,200 more than necessary. Also targeted are Senators Pam Galloway, Terry Moulton and Van Wanggaard.

So, where was the Governor when this was all going on? He was in New York, raising money with Maurice "Hank" Greenberg at a $2500 a plate fundraiser.

Why was he raising large chunks of out of state cash from one of the prime architects of the AIG fiasco, whose bailout continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars?

Why because those pesky lefties are flooding Wisconsin with masses of out of state dirty money.

Who says irony is dead?

Well, Damn! This is Interesting

William Cohan, Bloomberg Columnist and former investment banker unloads on Mitt Romney with both barrels:

By bidding high early, Bain would win a coveted spot in the later rounds of the auction, when greater information about the company for sale is shared and the number of competitors is reduced. (A banker and his client generally allow only the potential buyers with the highest bids into the later rounds; after all, you can’t have an endless procession of Savile Row-suited businessmen traipsing through a manufacturing plant if you want to keep a possible sale under wraps.)

For buyers, the goal in these auctions is to be one of the few selected to inspect the company’s facilities and books on-site, in order to make a final and supposedly binding bid. Generally, the prospective buyer with the highest bid after the on-site due-diligence visit is selected by the client — in consultation with his or her banker — to negotiate a final agreement to buy the company.

This is the moment when Bain Capital would become especially crafty. In my experience — which I heard echoed often by my colleagues around Wall Street — Bain would seek to be the highest bidder at the end of the formal process in order to be the firm selected to negotiate alone with the seller, putting itself in the exclusive, competition-free zone. Then, when all other competitors had been essentially vanquished and the purchase contract was under negotiation, Bain would suddenly begin finding all sorts of warts, bruises and faults with the company being sold. Soon enough, that near-final Bain bid — the one that got the firm into its exclusive negotiating position — would begin to fall, often significantly.

Of course, some haggling over price is typical in any sale, and not everything represented by sellers and their bankers is found to be accurate under close examination. But Bain Capital took the art of negotiation over price into the scientific realm. Once the competitive dynamics had shifted definitively in its favor, the firm’s genuine views about what it was willing to pay — often far lower than first indicated — would be revealed.

And then there is the closing line:

I have no idea how Romney might behave in office. I do believe, however, that when he was running Bain Capital, his word was not his bond.

This guy has clearly been waiting for years to unload on Romney, and this take-down is truly a thing of beauty.

H/t The Shrill One.

A "Black Door" to Co-Opting Occupy Wall Street?

Glen Ford's thesis is that the recent involvement of prominent African American clergy is an attempt by the Democratic Party powers that be to co-opt the movement, and I am inclined to agree:

The Occupy Wall Street movement has, to date, “been effective in warding off cooptation by Democratic Party fronts such as Rebuild The Dream and MoveOn.org.” But OWS’s recent alliance with Black clergy-based (and Russell Simmons-backed) Occupy The Dream raises serious questions in this election year. “It appears that Occupy Wall Street’s new Black affiliate is also in ‘lock-step’ with the corporate Democrat in the White House.”

The Democratic Party may have entered the Occupy Wall Street movement through the “Black door,” in the form of Occupy The Dream, the Black ministers’ group led by former NAACP chief and Million Man March national director Dr. Benjamin Chavis and Baltimore mega-church pastor Rev. Jamal Bryant. Both are fervent supporters of President Obama.

Occupy The Dream’s National Steering Committee is made up entirely of clergy, as are its Members at Large, but its secular inspiration comes from media mogul (and credit card purveyor) Russell Simmons, who was a frequent visitor to Manhattan’s occupied Zuccotti Park. Simmons is co-chairman, with Dr. Chavis, of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, whose website is now mainly dedicated to the Occupy The Dream project. It is through Simmons that the ministers hope to attract entertainers and athletes to Occupy The Dream events.

………

Far from tamping their Obama fervor, the OWS brand equips the “Dream” ministers (and Simmons’ entertainment assets) to accomplish a special mission: to insulate the president from the Occupy movement and the national conversation on economic equality – or, better yet, to make him appear to be part of the solution. If they so choose.

………

We do, indeed, face a test in 2012: Will the Democratic Party be enabled to swallow up the Left – as it does every four years – including the fragile and tentative structures of the Occupy Wall Street movement? And, will the Democrats enter through the Black door?

Let's be clear, if Obama's campaign political operatives are not trying to co-opt OWS, they are incompetent, and this seems to be a low risk-high payoff tactic to accomplish this, so I'm inclined to believe that Plouffe's or Axelrod's finger prints are on this.

H/t Yves Smith.

Only In America

There's a deli near where I work, the Charwood Deli.

It's a little shop located in an industrial park.

It has the full range of deli sandwiches, along with hot sandwiches like cheese steaks, and their fries are very nice.

The proprietors are Korean, and they have about a dozen Korean and Korean inspired items which are quite good.

Well today, I got a Gyro, the Greek lamb based wrap.

Greek ethnic food cooked up for me, and done quite well, by Korean immigrants.

This is a microcosm of the immigrant experience in the United States, and something to be admired.

Buh Bye Jon

Huntsmman, that is.

Fundamentally, this is not really news.

The only people who really cared about him were the pack of reporters covering the Presidential campaign.

I think that the Republicans learned their lesson from the McCain debacle, when they decided to nominate someone for whom the press corps(e) had a man crush.

Yawn.

Yes

Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street Asylum?

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

Another Gem From Matt Taibbi

His latest is called, "Wall Street: Everything You Need to Know."

The nickel tour is that this is about one Jeffrey Verschleiser, who went beyond what Obama calls, "Immoral but not illegal." He engaged in what was pretty much black letter fraud, and not only has he not been called to the dock, he is flush enough to buy all 94 rooms in an Aspen hotel for his daughter's Bat Mitzvah.

This is a guy who was at the core of Bear Stearns' corrupt financial transactions that took down the firm, and he was telling his associates that he was "putting lipstick on a pig", and some of his actions appear to be straight out embezzlement.

Why he is not facing criminal prosecution is beyond me.

Read Taibbi's piece. It puts it all in context.

You Know It's an Election Year, Because ………

The Obama administration has come out against the most draconian measures in the rent seeking anti-piracy bills in the House and Senate:

The Obama administration won’t back legislation to combat online piracy if it encourages censorship, undermines cybersecurity or disrupts the structure of the Internet, three White House technology officials said.

Their statement, posted yesterday on the White House website, was a response to online petitions on legislative proposals to combat online piracy. The movie and music industries support such measures as a means of cracking down on theft.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” Aneesh Chopra, Victoria Espinel and Howard Schmidt wrote in a blog post.

The statement marks the administration’s most significant foray into a fight between content creators and Internet companies that has been playing out in Congress. The Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote Jan. 24 on starting debate on an anti-piracy bill.

The first thing to note is that this is a very tepid condemnation.

They didn't make a Friday night release of this blog post, it was around noon on a Saturday when it was competing with the NFL playoffs, and Obama himself has not made a comment here.

That being said, I think that this is the first time that the Obama administration has come out against rent seekers as versus the general public.

I think that the Obama administration has made a tactical decision that they will get plenty of money for the campaign, and so they it isn't necessary at this time to sh%$ on a motivated and tech savvy part of the electorate.

Another Example Why the Credit Default Swap is the Toxic Waste of the Financial World

On an article about how Greek government debt may take down the Euro, we find this little gem:

Lagarde’s demand for a larger haircut smacked into an onslaught of leaks from the bond-swap negotiations between the government and private sector bond holders. First, there were rumors that the banks had largely agreed on a deal. Then there were rumors that hedge funds that had acquired some of these bonds at a discount were refusing to go along with anything. They were betting that they could profit from a default because it would trigger CDS payouts. And if the majority agreed to the haircut, they would also profit because Greece would eventually redeem the bonds.

Now, there are rumors that the government wants to compel these hedge funds to join the bailout majority. Tool: retroactive “collective-action clauses”—if a majority of bondholders agrees to the deal, the recalcitrant minority could be forced to go along.

Of course, the question is how you can make money for this.

It comes down to the fact that there is something called the "naked" credit default swap.

The nickel tour is that a CDS is an insurance policy, you pay your premiums, and in the event of "something" happening, you get a payout for the "loss".

The reason that I put "loss" in scare quotes is because unlike most forms of insurance, there is no requirement to hold an interest in the continued existence of whatever you are insuring.

This has been case since 1746 (!) when Parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act.

Basically, if I purchase a CDS on something risky, like Greek sovereign debt, I have to pay a lot of money, but let's engage in a little mental exercise:

• Assume a billion dollars in a specific debt issue.
• Buy $1 million dollars in debt at a discount from someone who is scared, let's say it's 50¢ on the dollar. So you spend $500,000.
• You purchase a CDS on the whole issue, let's assume that it's a 30% payment, or $300 million.
• Refuse to accept a haircut, triggering a default, and a full payout on the CDS.
• So, you spent $300.5 million, and get a $1 billion payout.

This is vulture capitalism at it's worse.  You don't just wait for something to die, you figure a way to pluck out the eyes to hasten the demise.

This is a microcosm for everything that is wrong with "Anglo Saxon" hyper-capitalism.

Good News on the Campaign Front

On the Congressional side.

First, in Maryland's 4^th district, Donna Edwards will be running unopposed in the primary, former PG County States Attorney (DA) Glenn Ivey declined to run, which basically means that she will be reelected.

The primary was actually a matter of some concern, because the redistricting moved a lot of Montgomery County was moved out, and a lot Anne Arundel county moved in.

Because AA county is more Republican, it meant that PG County, and the (largely corrupt) PG County machine had a lot more influence over any primary contest, and Edwards is not a their friend, having taken down their golden boy, the then-incumbent Al Wynn in 2008.

Not only is she honest, but she is an unabashed liberal, so 2 snaps up.

Additionally, in the Massachusetts Senate race, Elizabeth Warren out-raised Scott Brown in 2011, $8.9 million for the year and $5.7 million for the quarter as versus $8.7 million and $3.2 million, though Brown still has about twice her cash on hand, $12.8 million versus $6 million.

Considering the fact that Brown is Wall Street's favorite Senate candidate, this is surprising, and welcome, news.

Seriously, We Are Becoming Incapable of Develping New Weapons Systems

We've seen this with the Future Combat Systems, EFV (the landing craft former known as the AAAV), the Comanche helicopter, DDG-10000, and the slow motion implosion of the LCS and the JSF.

We see that the programs start with over-ambitious requirements, which lead to protracted development schedules, escalating costs.

This leads changes to the requirements, leading to further schedule and cost slippage, rinse, lather, repeat.

I'm generally not to concerned about this, I'm of the belief that superior training, tactics, and situational awareness will win the day. The success of the F4F Wildcat versus A6M Rei-sen (Zero) is an example of this.

Superior tactics and situational awareness are largely function of effective communication, so to my mind the cancelation of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a bigger deal than most of the higher profile cancellations:

…

What tied them down was their radios: a forest of plastic and metal cubes sprouting antennae of different lengths and sizes. They had short-range models for talking with the reconstruction team; longer-range versions for reaching headquarters 25 miles away; and a backup satellite radio in case the mountains blocked the transmission. An Air Force controller carried his own radio for talking to jet fighters overhead and a separate radio for downloading streaming video from the aircraft

…

Almost fifteen years ago, the Army launched an ambitious program, the Joint Tactical Radio System [3], aimed at developing several highly-compatible “universal” radios. Together, the JTRS radios would replace nearly all older radios in the American arsenal, greatly simplifying communications and freeing up combat units “to tap into the network on the move,” according to Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman.

But JTRS, pronounced “jitters,” failed to live up to its promise. Overly ambitious, poorly managed and saddled by incompatible goals, the program burned through $6 billion dollars while producing little working hardware. Delays forced the Army to spend $11 billion more on old-style radios to meet the urgent demands of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Army eventually reduced the planned purchase of JTRS radios and cut the types of radios in development. In October, it canceled the vehicle-mounted version of JTRS, the most important of the new radios, which by then had grown to the size of a dormitory-sized refrigerator. For all practical purposes, JTRS is dead — at least in its original guise.

…

JTRS’ history is one of grand but naive technological ambition colliding with the unbending laws of physics and the unforgiving exigencies of modern warfare. After years of work, the Army discovered for itself what experts had been warning all along: It’s impossible for a single radio design to handle all the military’s different communications tasks.

The more capabilities that the Army and prime contractor Boeing packed into JTRS, the bigger, more complex and more expensive it became — until it was too bulky and unreliable for combat. In its relentless drive for conceptual simplicity, the Army found itself mired in mechanical complexity.

The Army wasn’t alone in its doomed pursuit of a technological pipe dream. The past decade has by many accounts been an era of grand ambition, flawed management and wasted treasure for all the military branches. A lengthy Harvard Business School study for the Pentagon concluded in April that despite many attempts at reform, “major defense programs still require more than 15 years to deliver less capability than planned, often at two to three times the planned cost."

Unlike most of the high tech systems, which have next to no relevance in our current conflicts, there are very real shortcomings in the complex and frequently non-interoperable hodgepodge of communications equipment used by our forces. (The article linked above refers to one such situation in Afghanistan)

If our defense procurement and R&D system takes 15 years to take a radio system from concept through cancellation, we are completely f%$#ed.

Our own corrupt military-industrial complex appears ready to implode under the weight of its own dysfunction.

This is not the Best Newspaper Correction Ever

Correction, New York Times, 30 December 2011

Yes, it's an amusing correction, but it's not the best ever.

The reigning champion, this year, as it has been for nearly 100 years, the Grauniad's^* Corrections and amplifications column.

The material there is extensive and voluminous, but I believe that the best correction of all time comes from their effort on 2 February 2009:

The absence of corrections yesterday was due to a technical hitch rather than any sudden onset of accuracy.

Seriously, corrections simply do not get any better than that.

^*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It's nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, "The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad."

Your Friday Scott Walker Dump

First, it looks like they will deliver something like ¾ of a million signatures to recall him, about a 50% buffer, some time next week.

What's more it looks like a major scandal is brewing, we could see major revelations just in time for the recall elections.

First, we have 3 of his aids accused of embezzling from a veterans charity, and one of them was tied to his room mate's trolling for child sex.

And finally, his 2010 campaign is charged with over 1,000 violations of campaign finance law, and faces over $½ million dollars in fines.

Pass the popcorn.

The Future of Unskilled Labor

Dean Baker on the fact that the people who lauded Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan upon his retirement in 2006 still have lucrative jobs working in senior management at the Federal Reserve:

BTW, as noted in the article, many of the people at these Fed meetings are still in top policy making positions. This shows that the U.S. economy still produces good-paying jobs for people without skills.

H/t Atrios.

Heh.

It looks like it will be just Romney and Paul on the Virginia primary ballot, because the VA Republican party actually started verifying signatures:

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who came within a few votes of winning the Iowa caucuses, didn't get on the ballot in Virginia or the District of Columbia. His campaign also filed incomplete slates of delegates in Illinois and Ohio, which could limit his ability to win delegates in those key states.

Virginia has been a tough ballot to crack for several GOP candidates because the state requires campaigns to collect signatures from at least 10,000 registered voters. Romney and Paul were the only ones who made theballot for the March 6 primary.

Perry sued, and was later joined in the lawsuit by Gingrich, Huntsman and Santorum. But on Friday, a federal judge in Richmond refused to add them to the ballot, saying the candidates should have challenged Virginia's primary qualifying rules earlier.

Whatever you say about Paul, his campaign has it's sh%$ together, and Romney, with his high dollar campaign, is on all the ballots as well.

The rest of them are running a junior varsity campaign.

It's On (Sort of)

Stephen Colbert has passed the Colbert super PAC to Jon Stewart, (the special effects involved could be best described as "low budget") and established an "exploratory committee" to "explore" run for the Republican nomination in his native South Carolina.

Cool.

He could probably beat John Huntsman.

The video will be up on Comedy Central tomorrow some time.

Good News Everyone! Bigots Don't Get to Steal Property.

So a bunch of bigots were upset with the Episcopal Church not hating on te ghey enough, so they left the Episcopal Church, and affiliated with a "Kill the Gays" Anglican Bishop in Nigeria.

Well, now a judge has ruled that their churches are property of the Diocese of Virginia:

A Virginia judge has ruled against seven conservative congregations that broke away from the Episcopal Church in 2006, rejecting their argument that they should be able to keep some $40 million in church real estate that the national denomination also claims.

The case has drawn worldwide attention because it involves a cluster of large, prominent churches with well-known conservative pastors and because the issues at hand — particularly the Episcopal Church’s acceptance of same-sex relationships as equal to heterosexual ones — are roiling much of organized religion. Various Protestant congregations in particular have wound up in litigation across the country.

The 113-page ruling was handed down Tuesday by Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows.

A spokeswoman for the congregations said they were considering their next step, but a letter sent to some 4,600 congregants sounded as though they are bracing for the worst. Each congregation has a contingency plan if they have to vacate, said Caitlin Bozell Manaois.

Couldn't happen to a more repulsive group of people.

For too many people, religion is just an excuse to hate.

BTW, it appears that Caitlin Bozell Manaois is Brent Bozell's daughter.  (She works at CRC Public Relations, which is one of his front groups)

Brent Bozell is the head of the "Media Research Center" and is probably best known for referring to Barack Obama as a, "skinny ghetto crackhead."

Manning is Referred For Court Martial

22 counts, including "aiding the enemy, which carries a potential death penalty, for leaking thousands of files to Wikileaks.

It appears that the "the enemy" is the American public.

It's a f%$#ing kangaroo court, as evidenced by the convening authority refusing to allow the most of the defense's witnesses, because the goal, of both the military and the Obama administration is to suborn perjury from Manning, so that they can manufacture a case with which to prosecute Julian Assange.

It's Jobless Thursday

Not good news.

Initial claims just rose to 399,000, up 24K from last weeks "already revised upward" number, basically the dividing line (rule of thumb 400K) between getting worse, and not getting worse, with the less volatile 4-week moving average rising by 7,750 to 381,750, with continuing claims rising as well, though emergency claims fell.

One step forward, one step back.

Supreme Courts Says that there are Limits to Campaign Donations

So, if you are a foreign person, you are still forbidden from making campaign donations:

In a terse four words, the Supreme Court on Monday issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections.

The decision clamped shut an opening that some thought the court had created two years ago in its Citizens United decision, when it relaxed campaign-finance limits on corporations and labor unions. On Monday the Supreme Court, upholding a lower court’s decision in Bluman, et al., v. Federal Election Commission, refused to extend its reasoning in Citizens United to cover foreigners living temporarily here.

Foreign nationals, other than lawful permanent residents, are completely banned from donating to candidates or parties, or making independent expenditures in federal, state or local elections.

The Supreme Court’s order did not discuss the merits or suggest that there was any dissent among the justices.

It sounds to me like they just said that foreign persons cannot make campaign donations, but under Citizens United, foreign corporations can.

Our political system, brought to you by BMW, the ultimate driving machine.

I Don't Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumours…*

Because the one of the Vatican's child safety coordinator has just been sentenced to jail for downloading child pr0n:

He was arrested after uploading images of pre-pubescent boys on to the Ning social networking website.

Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.

The court heard that 4,389 images were found on the laptop and memory stick.

The majority, 3,721, were at Level One, the lowest level for abusive images.

But there were 120 at Level Four, which includes scenes of child rape, and 12 at Level Five, which can include scenes of torture and sadism.

Jarvis, who the court heard claimed he was abused as a child, was sentenced at the city's crown court after admitted 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images at a previous magistrates' court hearing.

You know, notwithstanding the assertions of people like ……… You know ……… the Pope that it's all an aberrations and caused by our wicked society.

I think that a bit of self examination is order here, because lashing out at the rest of the world over this seems to be just a bit delusional.

H/t Americablog.

^*The refrain from the Depeche Mode song Blasphemous Rumors is, "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor, And when I die I expect to find Him laughing."

The New Beige Book is Out

It's showing some improvement, but nothing to crow about, the quote, "expanded at a modest to moderate pace," is a pretty good description.

The improvement is pretty modest, but it's in eleven of the twelve Fed Banks' regions.

OWS Update

Good news everyone!

---

I invented a device that makes you read this in your head using my voice!

Civil rights group have gotten the police to take the barricades around Zuccoti (Freedom) Park.

H/t MP at the Stellar Parthenon BBS, who is probably at the park as we speak.

Honestly, I expect Mike Bloomberg's bully boys will find a way to ignore the law in just a couple of days.

Videos of some cop beating up a crippled child at a protest to follow in a few days.

Full statement after the break.

City Removes Illegal Barriers at Zuccotti Park One Day After Rights Groups Send Threatening Letter

January 10, 2012 —  NYPD officers removed barriers tonight at Zuccotti Park, just one day after the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild put New York City on notice that its arbitrary and inconsistently applied rules and security measures restricting the public’s access to the park violated city zoning laws.

"We're pleased the city is finally giving the park back to the people," said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. "We hope Zuccotti Park can now resume its rightful place as a center for meeting and protest in New York City."

On Monday, the groups sent a letter New York City Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri urging him to promptly address the violations and ensure that Zuccotti Park is open and accessible to all members of the public on an equal basis. Metal barricades had encircled the park since the NYPD cleared the Occupy Wall Street encampment there on Nov. 16. Until tonight, the public could only enter the park through two gaps where security personnel selectively subjected people to searches.

The groups said that these security measures and the constantly changing, selectively enforced and unwritten park rules violated zoning laws, longstanding city policies, and park-owner Brookfield Properties’ legal obligations under a 1968 special zoning permit that established the park as a “permanently open park” for “the public benefit.”

Louis Freeh to Account Holders, Drop Dead

You knew it was coming when this corrupt rat-bastard was appointed trustee. Now he's trying to f%$# the account holders out of the money that JP Morgan Chase and the rest of the usual suspects stole from the:

MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MF)’s creditors should have some priority to be repaid by the bankrupt estate, said Chapter 11 trustee Louis Freeh, citing intercompany loans made between the failed parent and its operating unit.

Freeh, representing the interests of creditors of the parent company, commented on the legal principles that will govern repayments in papers filed late yesterday in Manhattan bankruptcy court. Former customers of the broker-dealer unit, seeking an estimated $1.2 billion missing from their accounts, are being repaid in a related case overseen by a different trustee, James Giddens, appointed under the Securities Investor Protection Act.

The holding company has “substantial intercompany claims” against the broker-dealer unit on account of former intercompany loans, and any recoveries of that money shouldn’t be “diverted” to customers, giving them a priority at the expense of creditors of the parent company, Freeh said.

Freeh is concerned that “an inappropriate interpretation” of the law may lead Giddens to deny the rights of creditors to recover from property that was never deposited by them, lawyers for Freeh wrote.
Customer Pool

The conflict is “not whether certain estate property can be distributed to customers, but whether estate assets that would otherwise be available for distribution to MF Global Inc.’s creditors can be reallocated to the customer pool,” Freeh said.

Seriously, the assets he is referring to were stolen by those "creditors".

First, he obstructs the investigation of the theft of client accounts, and now he's trying to f%$# the account holders.

It must be nice to be able to be so blatantly corrupt and get paid for it.

Mitt Wins, Huntsman is Toast

Basically, Huntsman needed to come in 2nd place, and he's a distant third:

Mitt Romney swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, turning back a ferocious assault from rivals who sought to disqualify him in the eyes of conservatives, in a contest that failed to anoint a strong opponent to slow his march to the Republican nomination.

Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, won by a double-digit margin, a validation of his strategy to use his neighboring state to cement his standing as the front-runner. The candidates who had hoped to use the primary to emerge as his leading rival fared poorly, leaving a fractured Republican opposition.

“Tonight we celebrate. Tomorrow we go back to work,” said Mr. Romney, who strode into his victory party at Southern New Hampshire University less than 30 minutes after the final polls closed to present himself as the candidate to beat for the Republican nomination.

Representative Ron Paul of Texas, whose candidacy has never concerned Mr. Romney, finished second. Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah, who staked his entire campaign here, placed a distant third but pledged to fight on.

A week after winning the Iowa caucuses by just eight votes, Mr. Romney pieced together a coalition of moderate and conservative voters. The margin was more comfortable than commanding, but he will benefit handsomely by having five rivals still competing against one another to emerge as his main opponent as the race moves to South Carolina.

So, it's now Mitt's race to lose:

• Huntsman bet it all on New Hampshire, and lost.
• Paul won't win, ever
• Santorum flamed out, Google Bombed out, lobbyist cashed in out, and crazied out.
• People now remember that Newt Gingrich is that guy who used to be Newt Gingrich.
• Rick Perry is too stupid for people who fondly remember George W. Bush.

What will be fun is watching Newt going after Mitt for being a successful capitalist while the Frothy Mixture and Perry compete for the Neanderthal vote, which is big in the Palmetto State 'Phant primary.

The only question now is whether Perry of Santorum gets outed in an airport bathroom first.

Next, Dump Geithner

In a move that should spurprise no one, William Daley is leaving his post as Obama's Chief of Staff:

President Obama announced Monday that the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, was stepping down, jolting the top ranks of his administration less than a year before he faces a difficult re-election. Mr. Daley will be replaced by Jacob J. Lew, the budget director and a seasoned Washington insider with ties to Capitol Hill.

Mr. Daley, a fellow Chicagoan who was recruited by Mr. Obama a year ago to help strike bipartisan legislative deals, struggled to find his footing in a ferociously partisan Washington and failed to help his boss broker a huge budget agreement with Congressional Republicans last summer. His departure interrupts a run of good news for the White House, with tentative signs of life in the job market, victory over Republicans on the payroll tax and Republican presidential candidates assailing one another on the campaign trail.

This was inevitable once much of his duties were pulled a few months back.

Basically, he was incompetent, and he got Harry "Milquetoast" Reid to hate his guts, which appears to be a fairly tough thing to do.

Of course, the masters of the universe in finance must be reassured at all cost, as when Daley (JP Morgan Chase), replaced Emanuel (Fanny Mae), he will be replaced by Jacob Lew (Citigroup).

Lew made a lot of money betting against the housing market for Citi, so we can expect more ass-kissing directed Wall Street's way.

If this is an attempt to reshuffle his organization and political posture for the upcoming election, he's firing blanks.

If Obama really wants to win the election, he needs to start prosecuting the banksters, starting with Robert Rubin.

He's carry more than 40 states if he did that.

Just When Thought that the 'Phants Could Not Get Any More Repulsive

They have slipped a provision into the payroll tax extension which would deny unemployment compensation for people who lack a high school diploma:

For legislation to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012, House Republicans are expected to push for a provision on unemployment insurance (UI) that is appalling even by current Washington standards. Neither President Obama nor Congress should accept any payroll-tax legislation that includes it. Here’s why:

The provision, part of a full-year payroll-tax bill that the House passed in December, would deny UI benefits to any worker who lacks a high school diploma or GED and is not enrolled in classes to get one or the other — regardless of how long the person worked or whether he or she has access to adult education, which itself has been subject to significant budget cuts in the past few years and is heavily oversubscribed.

The proposal would deny UI benefits to hundreds of thousands of workers — many of them middle-aged — who have worked hard, played by the rules, and effectively paid UI taxes for years and who then were laid off due to no fault of their own.

This would violate the basic compact that the UI system has embodied since its creation under President Roosevelt in 1935 — that people who have amassed a sufficient record of work, and on whose behalf UI taxes have faithfully been paid, may receive UI benefits for a temporary period if they are laid off and are searching for a new job.

Republicans need to find a way to blame the victim. It's in their DNA.

Just put on the f%$#ing glasses, and look.

Just really look, and understand that these are two sorts of people with the 'Phants, the aliens, and the people who gleefully say, "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."

Outside Fenway, In the Cold, Shaking Hands

That's one Elizabeth Warren, and she looks like she is enjoying herself.

This is a big change from Martha Coakley's infamous quote, "As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?"

It's why she's leading Scott Brown by 7% in the polls right now.

I'm just hoping that she can sustain the inevitable assault from the 'Phant slime machine.

There's a Reason You Aren't Seeing Pat Buchanan on MSNBC

It appears that he has been suspended, and looks on his way out the door for his latest bigoted screed, Suicide of a Superpower.

It's only about 4 decades late. 

This guy has been peddling bigotry since he was a speech writer for Nixon.

I only hope that his suspension becomes permanent.

(on edit)

I think that his appearances on white supremacist radio to hawk his book might have had something to do with this.

Irony, Neh?

Have you heard the latest joke?

It goes like this, Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum has declared that Iran must not have nuclear weapons because they are a theocracy.

This from a guy who had declared himself Jesus' Candidate.



Who says that irony is dead?

We Are Doomed…

A few days ago, I wrote about the wife of Switzerland's central bank president engaging in insider trading.

Well what do you know, it ain't the wife after all, it turns out that it was Philipp Hildebrand, president of the Swiss National Bank doing the insider trading:

Switzerland's central bank was embroiled in an insider trading scandal after bank chief Philipp Hildebrand was accused of speculating on currency transactions only weeks before he instituted dramatic policy changes that shifted prices in his favour.

The accusations, which have rocked the Swiss banking industry, were made by Swiss weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche in a statement before its Thursday publication. It said that previous reports that Hildebrand's wife was responsible for the foreign exchange transactions were misplaced and it was the bank chief who was behind the purchase and selling of currency that triggered an investigation by the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

The bank chairman also made several other dollar and euro transactions on the foreign exchange market between March and October last year, according to Die Weltwoche, which is close to the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP).

Let me explain just how f%$#ed we all are.

The guy in charge of regulations for the Swiss is engaging in insider trading.

If the Swiss are screwing with banking, it's not just the end of banking as we know it, it's the end of the the concept of money as we know it.

Stockpile canned goods and ammunition, because you can't eat gold.

OK, This is Good Policy from the White House

But I'd approve of anything that had the effect of f%$#ing the airlines:

Starting in late January, the Obama administration will force airlines to be more transparent about the full cost of tickets they often disguise in ads touting cheap fares. Low-price airlines Southwest, Spirit, and Allegiant are going to court to stop the rules, arguing that they violate corporate free speech rights.

But consumer advocates say the changes are a positive development for travelers who have been swindled by airlines for too long:

………

This is common sense regulation, and as to the argument business have a free speech right to defraud consumers, talk to the cat.

First Ron Paul, Now RuPaul

Are politicking in New Hampshire:

Drag superstar and reality TV host RuPaul made an appearance on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday.

Looking spruce in an ice blue tailored wool coat and studious-looking, horn-rimmed glasses, the nearly seven foot tall “Supermodel” singer was “campaigning” in the state. He announced that his goal is to raise awareness that he is not Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), and that he is not running for president. The latter piece of news was met by the assembled crowd with some disappointment.

The International Man/Woman of Mystery then issued a challenge to Ron Paul and all of the other Republican candidates before reminding the crowd, “You better vote.”

If he were in the debates, it would be one for the ages.

The oddest thing here is that if he were running for the Republican nomination, I think that it would actually make it a more reality based community.

We are living in very strange times.

The Euro Crisis Starts to Hit Defense Contractors

It looks like Italy is having 2^nd thoughts about its JSF purchase:(paid subscription required)

The Italian government is ushering in a new round of defense cuts in which, for the first time, the fate of Rome’s participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be seriously threatened.

The newly launched defense review not only has sweeping implications for Italy’s defense ambitions but also rings in a further belt-tightening in Europe among countries that are just beginning to come to grips with the scale of their budget and debt problems. Spain, where a new conservative government is grappling with greater-than-anticipated economic troubles, may follow with budget reductions. France is also expected to scale back defense spending after presidential elections in May.

In Italy, much of the work on the military review remains to be completed. Nevertheless, a sharp reduction in the number of F-35s Italy will buy is virtually certain, military officials say. At least a third of the 131 fighters slated for procurement will likely fall under the budget ax, with some minority parties arguing for an outright program termination.

Rome is one of the largest international buyers of the F-35—after the U.K. drastically cut its procurement objective in its 2010 spending review. Italy plans to spend €13 billion ($16.7 billion) to buy and sustain both the F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing and the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions, though it has not ordered any aircraft yet.

I wonder how people are going to start feeling about the austerity fairy fixing everything now that it's defense spending on the block.

The folks who endorse austerity always seem to think that it's just things like healthcare and the social safety net that need to be cut, and that somehow, the bloated derfense procurement programs all over the world will somehow continue apace.

I think not.

Well, What Do You Know, Another DoD Cost Overrun

The Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in the first new US carrier class in 35 years is seriously over budget:

The Navy has estimated a worst-case cost overrun of as much as $1.1 billion for the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the service's most expensive warship.

The carrier is being built in Newport News by Huntington Ingalls Industries under a cost-plus, incentive-fee contract in which the Navy pays for most of the overruns. Even so, the service's efforts to control expenses may put the company's $579.2 million profit at risk, according to the Navy.

A review of the carrier's rising costs began in August after the Navy's program manager indicated that the "most likely" overrun had risen to $884.7 million, or about 17 percent over the contract's target price of $5.16 billion. That's up from a $650 million overrun estimated in April, according to internal Navy figures made available to Bloomberg News. The worst-case assessment would be about 21 percent over the target.

I would suggest, given the record of the DoD, as well as the well documented issues with getting its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapult, that the worst case assessment is at least 10% below the final overrun.

Yes, Some of these Folks are Actually Guilty of Bad Things

But it's right to dismiss charges against all the kids that the cash for kids judges sent up:

A judge brought in to clean up after a "kids for cash" scandal has expunged every juvenile court case decided by a Pennsylvania jurist convicted of corruption.

Senior Judge Arthur Grim was selected almost three years ago to review juvenile court cases decided by former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who's serving time in jail for his involvement in the corruption case.

As a result of Grim's efforts, records have been expunged for more than 2,000 juveniles sentenced by Ciavarella.

Ciavarella and another ex-judge are serving federal prison sentences for sending juveniles to for-profit youth detention centers in return for money.

Grim called the handling of juvenile cases in Luzerne County a judicial process "run amok," and he gave recommendations to prevent such renegade justice again.

Pennsylvania State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille said Thursday that Grim has suggested many reforms that require legislative action, but the courts have already changed certain rules to treat kids more fairly.

When the checks and balances fail so badly that judges manage to get kickbacks for sending kids to private prisons, and no one says anything for years, expunging every conviction is least that we owe them as a society.

Background here.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

Well, there are no bank failures so far this year, but there was a credit union taken into conservatorship

And here are the credit union closings:

1. People for People CDCU​, Philadelphia, PA

Full NCUA list

No picture yet, because the graph is only FDIC closures.

The Non-Farm Payroll Numbers Are Out

And the numbers are good in an anemic sort of way, with unemployment (U-3) falling from 8.7% to 8.3%, and non-farm payrolls rising by 200K.

So how good is this?

Not very good, according to the Shrill One:

First, note that there are still about 6 million fewer jobs than there were at the end of 2007 — and that we would normally have expected to have added around 5 million jobs over a four-year period. So we’re 11 million jobs down — and we need at least 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with working-age population growth. Do the math, and you’ll see that it would take 9 or 10 years of growth at this rate to restore full employment.

Alternatively, note that during the Clinton years — all 8 of them — the economy added around 230,000 jobs a month. As it did that, the unemployment rate fell about 3 1/2 percentage points — which is about what we’d need from here to get back to something that felt like full employment. Again, this suggests that we’re looking at something like a decade-long haul to have full recovery.

Not good enough.

Deep Thought

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

I Know Who I'm voting for This Year

I'm voting for Canada.

I'm, so glad that I don't live in a swing state, because don't have to hold my nose and choose between voting for Gordon Gecko (Mitt Romney), and a Gordon Gecko fanboi (Obama/Geithner).

Well, Now We Know Why Louis Freeh Is the Preferred Agent of Choice for a Coverup

Because he is a thoroughly dishonest ratf%$#, and the tell on this is that he refuses to use email:

As Eric Falkenstein observes:

People who meticulously avoid email should not be trusted, because it is simply too calculating, as if they know they are regularly committing crimes. A phone conversation can always be disavowed, you just say you were talking about last weekend's bar mitzvah.

If his behavior as MF Global bankruptcy trustee, where he is refusing to turn over information to regulators about where customer account money went, (He's making a bogus claim that the evidence of theft is covered by attorney client privilige) is an indication, he's going to be a little boy rapist's best friend at Penn State, where he is in charge of the coverup investigation.

Between his incompetence and his corrupt hackery, it's a wonder that anyone hires him.  It's like hiring John Dillinger to be in charge of your bank's security.  Bernie Madoff has more credibility.

Just Desserts

You know, generally, I'm not in favor or murder. 

That being said, when I heard about this Chinese Tycoon's poisoning, and I looked at the recipe, I thought, well, he had it coming:

Poisonous Herb Spices Cat Stew in Felonious Pot

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — There was one very disagreeable ingredient in the steaming hot pot of stew that may have killed a Chinese tycoon. And it was not the cat meat.

The police have detained a local township official on suspicion that he murdered the tycoon, a business associate who may have caught the official cheating, by dropping a poisonous herb into a cat-meat hot pot, a shared stew that is a local delicacy, China’s state-run news media reported Wednesday.

(emphasis mine)

I understand that they have different customs and dietary habits, but cat?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Another Very Nice Takedown

I love it when economists mud wrestle, but a number of the conservative fresh water^* economists, Kantoos and Tyler Cowen, have complained that Krugman is being mean about them.

I love Krugman's response to this criticism:

So Alex Tabarrok thinks I treat everyone who disagrees with me as mendacious idiots, and Tyler Cowen says that I always demonize my opponents.

I plead innocent. I only treat people as mendacious idiots if they are mendacious idiots.

Seriously: I have some big disagreements with Ken Rogoff, but if you use the little search box up there on the upper right and enter “Rogoff” I think you’ll find that I have always treated him with respect. On the other hand, enter “Heritage” and you’ll find me pretty scornful — but with very good reason! And I always document what I’m saying.

Now, what about people like Cochrane? You need to bear two things in mind. First, he and his friends entered this whole debate by declaring that Keynesian economics of any stripe was total nonsense, “fairy tales” that nobody serious believes. Then they proceeded to make howling, basic errors. And I was supposed to respond politely? I’ve never gone ad hominem on them — but I’ve called nonsense and ignorance when I see them. So?

I think that this is a valid response, and fairly straightforward, and measured.

On the other hand, Brad Delong goes seriously medieval on John Cochrain, and ends with:

What do I see here? A bunch of overheated and largely false rhetoric. A bunch of apparently false claims about the way the world works. A bunch of false claims about pretty basic economic theories. Occasionally correct claims that are then--almost invariably taken back--by something that claims (for reasons I do not understand) to be a refutation.

Overall, it does not seem to me to add up to a coherent argument.

Kantoos, what else do you want me to do with this?

Seriously, it's a very nice Fisking.

It also proves a point that Krugman is wont to make, that salt water economists can cogently discuss fresh water economics, but fresh water economists cannot cogently discuss salt water economics.

Basically, when salt water economists teach, they teach both theories, and fresh water economists only teach their theories, which is why we see things like the walkout from former Bush Administration Economist Greg Mankiw's intro to economics class at Harvard (yes, technically a salt water school, but Mankiw is a fresh water economist) because they found narrow and parochial.

This for a bloody introductory survey course that should expose them to the full range of theories.

But I think that I'm ranting here a bit.

^*If you look at schools of economics, those in the center of the country, (fresh water) on lakes and rivers, tend to be extremely conservative, either Austrian, or Milton Friedman, while those on the coasts (salt water) tend to be more liberal.

Jon Stewart is Right

At about 3:30, but it's worth it to watch the whole thing

You can make fun of Rick Santorum without having to resort to making ass juice/frothy mixture/Google jokes.

There's simply way too much insanity even without Dan Savages bit of literary genius.

Case in point, he just said that the "American left" "hates Christendom", because, among other things, they think that the Crusades were an aggression against the Arab world.

Because, the mass slaughter in Jerusalem, and the pogroms and murders that swept through Europe was all hunky dory.

On behalf of my ancestors, who were doubtless murdered and raped by your ancestors, go Cheney yourself.

H/t The Reality-Based Community, who asks the obvious question, "Is he going to endorse the Inquisition next, and expose Voltaire as an undercover jihadist and proto-Marxist?"

Seriously, I'm not sure if Santorum is simply bat-sh%$ insane, if he's just used to saying this crap because it's what College Republicans do to tweak people in order to get their juvenile jollies.

Truth be told, it doesn't matter.  The end result is the same.

It's Jobless Thursday

Pretty good news today, with initial unemployment claims falling to 372K, a drop of 15,000, from last weeks (adjusted upward) claims, with the 4-week moving average falling to the lowest number since July 2008 (!), 373,250, with continuing claims falling, though emergency claims rose slightly.

Additionally, the ADP survey, (same link) indicates a 325,000 increase in private sector jobs, though I'll wait for tomorrow's NFP numbers for the official word.

We also saw the ISM's manufacturing index grew strongly and the non-manufacturing index rose modestly.

All in all, it's pretty good news, I'm just wondering how much government jobs have hemorrhaged over the past month.

If You Were Wondering Just How Crazy Ron Paul's Acolytes Were…

Scandalous, imagine someone actually knowing Chinese, and speaking Chinese while he is ambassador to ……… you know ……… China:



What can I say:


I think I bruised my forehead.

While Ron Paul, like a stopped clock, may be correct occasionally, his followers are real pieces of work.

Well, What Do You Know, the FDA Supports Antibiotic Resistant Microbes

They have given up on attempting to regulate the massive overuse of antibiotics in livestock:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled a Scrooge move just before Christmas. The agency published an entry in the Federal Register declaring that it will end its attempt at mandatory restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. The agency isn’t advertising the shift, though: This news would have remained a secret if not for Maryn McKenna’s Superbug blog over at Wired. McKenna, who specializes in writing about antibiotics and their link to pathogens, caught the Federal Register notice.

This is a sorry end to a process that began in 1977 (!), but McKenna created an excellent timeline that traces the history of the issue back to the 1950s. In 2009, the Obama administration breathed new life into a moribund process because the top two Obama appointees at the FDA, Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her then-deputy Joshua Sharfstein, strongly supported restricting antibiotic use in agriculture.

But despite Hamburg and Sharfstein’s many supportive statements, the FDA has only produced a draft set of “voluntary” guidelines. And, with this latest announcement, it looks like that’s as far as they’re willing to go.

The depressing thing, in addition to the fact that this practice creates "superbugs" that kill people, is that we know how much this would cost the consumer, based on the Danish experience, and it's less than 10¢ a pound.

By way of putting this into perspective, antibiotics used at sub-therapeutic levels in feed accounts for 80% of all antibiotic use in the US.

Our feedlots are a petri dish for MRSA, antibiotic resistant E. Coli, etc.

This is Not a Sudden Case of Balls

It's just that, at least until November 2, Barack Obama is more scared of the Occupy movement than he is of the Republicans, hence his recess appointments today:

President Obama kicked off the election year aggressively, picking a fight with congressional Republicans by sidestepping the Senate to fill the top job at the government's newly created consumer protection bureau.

He also filled three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board, which referees labor-management controversies — a priority of his allies in labor unions.

The appointments Wednesday, which had been stalled in the Senate, came as Obama moved to make confronting Congress a central part of his strategy for reelection. His job approval rating remains low, but Congress' standing is even lower — "as unpopular as Ebola virus" — as one administration aide recently put it. In a confrontation between the two, the president will have the upper hand, White House aides say.

Actually, the NLRB appointments might be more significant, because the Republicans had shut down the board for lack of quorum.

I don't expect the CFPB doing much, because Obama was dragged into the entire idea kicking and screaming, and his closest financial regulation adviser, Tim "Eddie Haskell" Geithner, hates it, and with Elizabeth Warren effectively neutered by virtue of her running for Senate, which pretty much requires her to be in lock step with the Obama administration, I expect to see a remarkably passive posture from Richard Cordray.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Barack Obama will do the right thing, once he believes that he has no alternative.

Damn!

Michelle Bachmann has dropped out of the Presidential race.

If Rick "Miss Malaprop" Perry drops out, as seems likely, I may have to start writing, because it's getting to the point where the snark does not write itself.

John Stewart Goes Postal on Barack Obama

Brutal!

John Stewart gives Barack Obama a righteous, and justly deserved, beat-down over the President's signing of the "f%$# the Bill of Rights" indefinite detention defense authorization bill.

It's remarkable how much eloquence he (and to be fair, his writers) gives to the absolute outrage through humor than the outrage expressed by other commentators.

If you want to show someone who doesn't get why what happened is so wrong, this conveys it more succinctly than anything I've read from Greenwald, or Taibbi, or the Rude Pundit.

Stewart is a national treasure.

The Weirdest Sh*$ Out of Iowa

A Santorum Salad, Really?!?!

Actually, the weirdest Santorum in Iowa.

Seriously, a restauranteur in Boone has christened their chicken salad a Santorum Salad.

I'm not sure whether or not this guy is aware of the neologism (first link) or not, but that chicken salad does look a lot like I imagine Santorum would look.

Yes, despite my complaints, I'm going to have to post about Iowa today, but this little taste of the surreal makes it feel a little bit better.

It's Too Close to Call Between Mitt and "The Frothy Mixture."

They are still tabulating votes in Iowa, and it's too close to call between Romney and Santorum,with Paul being a close 3^rd:

Returns from 1,703 of 1,774 precincts showed Santorum with 24.6 percent, Romney with 24.5 percent and Paul with 21.3 percent. Santorum had 29,046 votes, Romney 28,928 and Paul 25,121.

It's pretty clear that, no matter how it turns out, Mitt wins this.

Rick "The Frothy Mixture" Santorum has no funds and no organization, and he won't play well in New Hampshire, and Ron Paul is … Ron Paul, so it's now Mitt's race to lose, regardless of how the next few thousand votes break.

Romney needed to lose, and lose big for someone to be in a real position to challenge him.

Then again, considering my record of prognostication…………

Damn! This Makes Matt Taibbi Look Like Thomas Kinkade!

Mark Ames has just posted an epic take-down of bought and paid for pimp for mass murderers Joshua Foust, and by extension, his employer, Atlantic Magazine.

Here is a sample:

Last week, some troll named Joshua Foust attacked my article about the massacre in Kazakhstan on December 16. I really had no idea who Foust was until I started getting emails from readers telling me “some guy with a goatee is having a meltdown on Twitter.” What upset Foust so much about my article was that I dared to report a death toll number, “up to 70,” that differed from the official figure of 15 that the regime in Kazakhstan wanted the outside world to believe. Why did Foust take on the role of massacre-denier for Kazakhstan’s notoriously brutal, corrupt regime?

Foust, it turns out, has spent much of the past decade getting paid by defense contractors to front for them as one of their paid PR monkeys. One example: Last year, Foust published a hit piece in the Columbia Journalism Review attacking an award-winning Washington Post investigative series about the vast hidden defense contractor industry, without disclosing the fact that Foust was an employee of Northrop Grumman–one of the largest defense contractors in America.

Foust’s job is the opposite of journalism—he gets paid by war-profiteers to lie to the public, to cover for them while they soak the public for government contracts. That’s what Joshua Foust does for a living; and besides carrying the water for defense contractors as a “strategic communications” flak, Foust has spent the past few years talking up Kazakhstan’s despot-for-life, Nursultan Nazarbayev—and talking down the appalling human rights records both in Kazakhstan and in Uzbekistan.

This is truly epic.

It's harsh, but perfectly justified, and it's really a thing of beauty.

I love savage writing.

Make it Stop!!!!…Make it Stop!!!!…Make it Stop!!!!…Make it Stop!!!!…Make it Stop!!!

It's F%$#ing January F%$#ing 3^rd, and we already have the F%$#ing official start of the F%$#ing Presidential F%$#ing Campaign.

It's too early for the campaign to officially kick off, but they are already F%$#ing caucusing in F%$#ing Iowa!!!!

Please tell me that I'm not alone in this.

Well, Knock Me Over With a Mackerel!

Congress has ended both the subsidy on corn ethanol and the tariff on imported Brazilian sugar based ethanol:

Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, an ethanol trade group, clearly wasn't thrilled with the decision, but in an interview earlier this month he claimed the ethanol industry would survive without government handouts stating, "The blenders' tax credit initially helped the ethanol industry develop. But today, we don't have a production problem, we have a market access problem. Without the tax credit, the ethanol industry will survive; it will continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, create jobs and strengthen our economy."

By some estimates the total gifts to corn ethanol business totalled $45B USD since 1980.

The subsidy cut -- approved by a 73-27 Senate vote in June -- also is accompanied by the end of a tariff on the importation of Brazilian ethanol. Brazil has an excess of sugarcane ethanol, but the U.S. government had previously penalized this fuel stream as a means of allowing U.S. ethanol producers to escape competing on the free market.

The ethanol debate has divided both political parties and even set federal representatives within certain corn-producing states against each other.

I wonder if this says something about the increasing irrelevance of Iowa caucuses this year.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this development.

Finally Cashiering the Bloated General Officers in the Pentagon

It's a start, but considering that there is an officer for every 5 enlisted men, up from 1 for every 10 men that was the standard over the past few hundred years, it's only a start:

With the Iraq war over and troops in Afghanistan on their way home, the U.S. military is getting down to brass tacks: culling generals and admirals from its top-heavy ranks.

Pentagon officials said they have eliminated 27 jobs for generals and admirals since March, the first time the Defense Department has imposed such a reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.

The cuts are part of a broader plan to shrink the upper ranks by 10 percent over five years, restoring them to the their size when the country was last at peace, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The changes are projected to save only a modest amount of money, but defense officials said they are symbolically important as the Pentagon adjusts to an era of austerity. The Obama administration proposes to squeeze $450 billion from defense budgets over a decade. An additional $500 billion in cuts will be triggered if Congress cannot agree on a deficit-reduction plan in the next year.

This does not even qualify as a baby step in tackling the bloat at the Pentagon, but  it  is a positive development.

Matt Taibbi is Right

When the Vampire Squid recommends a buy, sell as fast as you can:

It seems Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman's Asset Management department, is predicting that the United States stock market may go up "15 to 20 percent." O'Neill apparently believes Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will resort to another round of money-printing, and finally green-light the long-awaited "Qe3," or third round of "Quantitative Easing."

The QE programs involve the Fed printing hundreds of billions of dollars and pumping them into the marketplace, where they ostensibly stimulate the economy (although recent experience tells us that the money mostly ends up being swallowed by the financial services industry – but that's another subject for another time). Anyway, Bernanke declined to go ahead with a third QE program in late 2011, but O'Neill apparently thinks we'll get it in 2012. From Bloomberg:

"If QE2 doesn’t work, then we’ll get QE3," said O’Neill, who was named chairman of the money manager in September after working as the co-head of global economics research and chief currency economist at New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. since 1995. There’s a "good chance" the S&P 500 will rise 15 percent to 20 percent in the next 12 months, he said.

O'Neill added that he thought a 20 percent bump would be "relatively straightforward" for the U.S. S&P.

They pumped also pumped up the BRICS, and then shorted them, and aggressively sold their customers European bank stocks earlier this month.

Goldman Sachs is really nothing more than a ferociously criminal enterprise. They earn commissioners by advising their customers, and then they cheat them.^*

The only reason to do business with them is to capitalize on their exquisitely honed revolving-door government connections.

If a prosecutor were to aggressively to pursue a RICO investigation against them, they would be toast, because the (to my mind dangerously low) standard of a, "pattern of racketeering activity," is not a high bar to clear.

^*Note to self. I need to get libel insurance.

Yes, the Complete Absence of Oversight of Central Bankers is a Good Thing…

So there is nothing to worry about with the wife of head of the Swiss National Bank shorting the SFr just days before it's devaluation by her husband:

My kind of story in the Swiss papers today. I love it when big shot central bankers get their dirty laundry made public.

Kashya, the wife of Philipp Hildebrand (head of the Swiss National Bank) sold Swiss Francs just a few days before the Swiss National Bank initiated exchange controls and devalued the Franc. The timing of the transactions was nearly perfect. The suggestion is that “pillow talk” between husband and wife lead to the trades.

Don’t expect heads to roll over this transgression. There has been a complete review by Swiss authorities and the conclusion is that there were no insider trading violations by the wife. That’s not to say that trades did not happen.

Apparently, Kashya Hildebrand bought ~$500,000 when she shorted the CHF. This relatively small transaction netted the Hildebrand family only ~$50,000 in less than one month. Being that the amount is so small, the conclusion is that nothing nefarious has taken place. ………….

Seriously, if I stole $50,000, I'd be in jail, with a prosecutor asking for a big chunk of bail money, but because this is one of the bankster elite, it's no harm, no foul.

I'm, really beginning to think that we don't need to just prosecute the financiers, but we need to go after the corrupt regulators, including the central bankers, as well.

To quote Sigourney Weaver, "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

H/t Atrios.

And No Carriers, What a Bummer

It looks like the Latin American customs union, Mercosur, has declared that Falklands Islands flagged ships are banned from their ports, which amounts to a (rather porous) blockade:

Argentines call them las Malvinas. The British call them the Falklands. In news jargon, many assume that to use one name over the other is to take a side, mostly because these islands are the source of an acrimonious dispute that led to a non-declared war between the two countries in 1982.

Enter Mercosur, the trade agreement between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay - with Chile as one of the associated member states - which, a week ago, decided to ban ships that fly the Falklands flag from their ports. The measure, a blockade in simple terms, was taken to show solidarity with Argentina on the issue.

Of course, things are different from 1982.

The British no longer have any aircraft carriers, and won't for many years to come, and the Chinese are explicitly endorsing the Argentine claim.

Truth be told, the only Falkland's flagged ships out there are probably a few fishing boats, but the fact is that if this escalates, there is very little that the UK can do to to maintain its controls over the islands.

Truth be told, I think that any escalation would come from the British side, as Cameron, remembering Thatcher's electoral benefit from the earlier war, will try to make a similar play for electorate.

I May Be Wrong About Eric Holder

Because it does appear that he is actually investigating allegations of police brutality, with investigations being described as having, "mushroomed to unprecedented levels," involving investigations of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department  (Joe Arpaio), Seattle's police department,  Newark, East Haven, Miami, and Puerto Rico.

The cynic in me notes that Obama's closest move toward action on this matter was his now-disavowed comments on the arrest of professor Henry Louis Gates, which, when juxtaposed with his history is one of studiously avoiding involvement in any issue that might remind people that he's black, would lead me to conclude that he is studiously uninvolved with this issue.

Compare this to clear White House directives on torture and the banksters, where it is clear that the word went out that there would be no prosecutions.

I'm assuming that the fact that actual law enforcement is occurring here because the Obama administration is largely uninvolved with this.

Best Siri Prank of Last Year

Someone programmed a display model Apple iPhone to cuss out anyone who attempted to talk to it"

A LAD of 12 who tried out the new iPhone 4S in Tesco was stunned when it told him: "Shut the f*** up, you ugly t***."

The phone's Siri system, which answers spoken questions, came back with the foul-mouthed insult when Charlie Le Quesne asked: "How many people are there in the world?"

Charlie's horrified mum Kim said: "The phone was a demo version and was low enough on the shelf for Charlie to have a go with it. He asked it a simple question and we couldn't believe the filth it came out with.

"I thought I must be hearing things. So we asked again and the same four-letter stuff blared out.

"I asked for the manager and after staff heard it they agreed to unplug it."

Apologetic staff at Tesco in Coventry told Kim pranksters had tampered with the phone's set-up instructions.

The Siri system refers to the phone's user by name — using information stored in its contacts system. The jokers had entered the rude seven-word phrase as the user's name — so the phone blurted it out when it answered a question

Heh.

OK, I Didn't Expect This in Maryland

But two doctors have been charged with fetal homicide for late term abortions:

Two doctors who Maryland authorities say botched an abortion last year in Elkton have been indicted on murder charges — in what appears to be the first use of the state's fetal homicide law involving a medical professional performing surgery.

"We're in uncharted territory," Cecil County State's Attorney Edward D.E. Rollins said Friday. He declined to comment further because the indictment remains sealed until the suspects are arraigned in Maryland. They were arrested Wednesday in New Jersey and in Utah.

Dr. Steven Chase Brigham, 55, of Voorhees, N.J., faces five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Dr. Nicola Irene Riley, 46, of Salt Lake City faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Authorities would not describe the indictment in detail. A statement from Elkton police says some of the charges relate to an abortion that went awry 16 months ago. Detectives investigating that case — in which a teenager had to be rushed to a hospital and survived — said they found nearly three dozen late-term aborted fetuses in a freezer in Brigham's Elkton clinic.

Maryland is one of 38 states with a fetal homicide law. But unlike many, Maryland does not define when it is too late to perform an abortion. Under the law, enacted in 2005, it is illegal to abort a fetus deemed viable, or showing signs of healthy development.

In case you are wondering, Edward D.E. Rollins is a Republican, and this is fairly clearly a case where they are trying to use this as another wedge against Roe v. Wade to the Supreme Court.

What is interesting here is that they aren't charging the mothers in the conspiracy charges, when, if there is a conspiracy, they are clearly co-conspirators.

Prosecutors love conspiracy charges.  They are easier to prosecute, and they are a remarkably effective tool for turn witnesses, but we aren't seeing its use here, because this is all about an anti-choice political agenda.

I expect to see this before the Supreme Court in the next 2-3 years.