NSFW French anti-homophobia video

It's funny, and not safe for work. (H/t JoeMyGod)

Read More......

CA Sup Ct Prop 8 decision rumored to be imminent

They're placing police barriers in the Casto District in SF. Hardly a good sign. And the SFPD is rumored to have let it slip that they've been told to get ready for a decision Thursday morning. Read More......

What's the value of saving Wall Street from total failure?

Maybe not nearly as much as was suggested in the past during the worst of the crisis. Something tells me Geithner's Treasury will do little to maximize the return on investment for taxpayers so that Wall Street can maximize their own profits because the run up to the crisis wasn't profitable enough for Wall Street. The government overpaid for trash so it won't be shocking to see them get under-rewarded on the other side. NY Times:

But now banks, eager to get Washington out of their hair, are pushing to undo those investments as quickly — and cheaply — as possible. If the Obama administration acquiesces, billions of taxpayer dollars could be left on the table.

At issue are so-called warrants that the government received from the banks last autumn, when the financial world was teetering. Like options, warrants give their owners the right to buy stock at a set price over a certain period of time, in this case, 10 years.

Now, with many banks itching to return their bailout money, the warrants are raising some thorny questions. What are these investments worth? Should the government drive a hard bargain, or let the banks off easy? Should it maximize profit for taxpayers, or minimize pain for banks?

Read More......

WSJ: 600 banks fail stress test

Recovery is just around the corner. Or something like that. When you look at the foreclosure rates plus the rising unemployment which will only feed the foreclosure rates, it's difficult to see a strong near term for many smaller banks. There's little left to hand out to the small banks because Wall Street already grabbed what was there.

The Wall Street Journal has run its own version of the the Fed's stress test on 900 small and midsize institutions, and it claims they'll see losses of about $200 billion by the end of next year.

In such a scenario, at least 600 of the banks would see their capital levels shrink to a level that would be deemed unsafe by regulators.

The biggest culprate? You guessed it, commercial real estate, which could contribute about $100 billion in losses. Continued home loan losses is next, at about $49 billion.

Read More......

Michael Steele thinks teabagging is a wonderful thing

Now that's change we can believe in.

Read More......

Krugman: Recovery years away

There's a big difference between the economy bottoming out and actual recovery or growth. The cheerleaders and some in Washington are flogging the big news about the bottom coming soon. Finding the bottom is good news but in no way does that mean that happy days are here again so go back to spending like it is 2006. Hardly. Tough days are ahead including higher unemployment and slow (or flat) corporate earnings. More Krugman via the AP:

Krugman said that he would not be surprised if the U.S. recession, which began in December 2007, ended in August or September this year. But job losses were likely to continue into 2011, meaning "the period of a depressed economy" could last until 2013 or 2014, he said.

Krugman, who teaches at Princeton University, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences last year for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns. He also writes columns for The New York Times.

The U.S. economy, the world's largest, contracted a worse-than-expected 6.1 percent on an annualized basis in the first quarter. Americans increased purchases of cars, furniture and appliances, but businesses cut back spending and exports had their biggest drop in 40 years. The U.S. unemployment rate hit 8.9 percent in April and many economists expect it to reach 10 percent by year's end.

NOTE FROM JOHN: This is why the stimulus package was necessary. This is why the Republican arguments, that a lot of the stimulus pending won't happen until after this year, and thus it's really wasteful pork, are specious. Read More......

Religious mom skips town with boy dying of Hodgkins

I say dying because, as I wrote about the other day, mom and dad are refusing to give the boy chemotherapy. Rather than obey a court order telling them to treat their son, mom fled with the boy, and dad let them. Killing your child for God. I'm pretty sure that, short of Abraham, such things are frowned upon nowadays. Read More......

Pentagon has no plans to end Don't Ask Don't Tell

The Pentagon's official f-you to their commander in chief has begun.

"I do not believe there are any plans under way in this building for some expected, but not articulated, anticipation that 'don't ask-don't tell' will be repealed," [Pentagon spokesman Geoff] Morrell told reporters at the Pentagon.

And Mr. Morrell is a Republican holdover from the last administration. Surprise.

I was there in 93 when the military, under Colin Powell, practically committed mutiny in order to undercut their commander in chief. This is how they do it. And this is how they are already doing it to President Obama.

Had the White House made clear to the Pentagon that the President's campaign promise to lift the ban was going to be kept, and that it was only a matter of time so that the repeal could be done efficiently and effectively, we wouldn't be reading these kind of clearly duplicitous statements from the Pentagon's spokesman, and others in the national security apparatus, including the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Adviser. Had Obama made clear what he wanted, Morrell would be saying "yes, the commander in chief has indictated that the ban will be lifted, and we are preparing for that eventuality."

But that's not what he's saying. Either because the Pentagon is outright defying the President, or because the President hasn't made clear to the Pentagon that he is going to keep his promise.

This is bad. This is very bad. We've now had equivocal statements, left and right, from this White House and their representatives, over and over again, for over a month. One flub is a mistake. Five is a pattern. If the White House doesn't start speaking with a position of strength on this issue, they are going to get destroyed if and when the issue comes up. And then it's going to be Bill Clinton all over again. Running headlong into an issue that you didn't do your homework on, and didn't prepare adequately for the battle in advance.

These ongoing anti-gay bimbo eruptions from administration spokesmen need to stop now. Read More......

Mormon Utah state rep. says Obama nominee for ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, will try to convert China to Mormonism

Well this should go over well. As the Utah state representative explained in a Web posting that was quickly removed - unfortunately for him, Google lives on - soon to be US Ambassador to China, Republican governor of Utah Jon Huntsman, himself a Mormon, is under ecclesiastical mandate to proselytize to the Chinese when he goes to there to be Obama's ambassador. He has no choice.

Let Huntsman deny it. Let Obama deny it. It doesn't matter. Our next Ambassador to China will be using his post to try to convert the Chinese to Mormonism, and more generally, to let the Mormons into China where they can then run around the country and spread their ideology.

I suspect the Chinese, not know for their tolerance of dissident groups trying to indoctrinate their people, are going to flip.

Here is what the Utah state rep. wrote:

This is a big deal for the Governor, Utah, the United States, and…the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Although the LDS church’s missionary program has an ecclesiastical presence throughout many parts of the world, the countries with the largest population bases (China and India) are not currently open to the church’s missionary efforts. Huntsman served his LDS mission as a 19 year old young man in the Taiwan Taipei Mission in the early 1980’s. He has since been back to the Far East on a number of occasions. Huntsman not only takes to China his political acumen but also a lifetime of membership in the LDS church. This should bode well for the LDS church’s mission to spread the gospel throughout the world, since all members of the LDS faith are under divine mandate to…”Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt 28:19)

Huntsman’s ambassadorship not only puts him in an excellent position to address US-China relations, it puts him in an even better position to teach the gospel…in Mandarin.

And let me explain one more time. We are not dealing with a religion that believes in "live and let live." We are not dealing with people who tell the truth when they say "don't worry, we won't really impose our views on you." The Mormons have spent the past two decades secretly baptizing dead Jewish Holocaust victims and forcibly converting them to Mormonism against the wishes of their immediate families, even though they promised publicly that they'd no longer do it. This is a group of people who think nothing of dropping tens of millions of dollars to impose their views on people who live far away from them in distant lands.

It doesn't matter what Huntsman now tells us. The Mormons have a tenet in their faith called "lying for the lord." It means they outright lie when asked about their church, in order to protect and promote their church. And as we've seen with their treatment of the Holocaust victims, and their absurd excuse for why they secretly baptized President Obama's mother only last year, in matters concerning their faith, they have shown that you cannot trust them at their word. Their promises come second to their faith.

If Jon Hunstman is required by God to secretly help the Mormons infiltrate China - and he is - then that is what Jon Huntsman will do as our next Ambassador to China. You can bet on it. Pity the poor Chinese. They have no idea what's about to happen to them.

Welcome to our world. Read More......

Newt Gingrich, the face of the "new" GOP

If this GOP gets any newer, they'll have to open up their own AARP branch.

The latest news on the Republican rebranding effort being led by number two Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, is that former House Speaker, and uber-conservative attack dog, Newt Gingrich is joining Cantor's group. Cantor says that Gingrich has been pushing conservative ideas for the past couple of years, so he's a perfect fit.

Actually, Gingrich has been pushing conservative ideas for the past couple of decades, and then some.

It's as if the GOP is planning a wedding and just can't find the courage to cut the invite list back. (They have to invite Aunt Newtie, you know, because she's dad's cousin's daughter's mother-in-law, twice removed.)

How is angry, intolerant, old Newt Gingrich the face of the "new" GOP? The face of the current decrepit and dwindling GOP, absolutely. But the new, younger, hipper, more tolerant GOP? Newt? Read More......

Reader MG writes about Health Care Reform

In response to my post yesterday about Blue Cross trying to gut Obama's health care reform effort, I got the following email from reader MG:

My insurance premiums will jump significantly July 1st. I tried to get a "new plan" they were offering that was cheaper but they denied me because of preexisting conditions, none of which are life threatening or even that serious. In the past three years, I have never even used my insurance for two of the pre-existing conditions and the other required a doctors visit and a dose of antibiotics.

My agent mentioned something interesting I wanted to pass on to you. We all have been hearing about "no denial for pre-existing conditions" being part of new health care plans, whatever they are. They may not be able to deny you, however, they still may be able to "rate you up" if you have a condition they don't like. So, by law, they may have to approve you for insurance, but it may cost you $1000 or $2000 a month. So this little trick has to be watched in the upcoming debates. Rating up is almost as bad as denial.

As far as I'm concerned, the health insurance industry must be destroyed as we know it and we need single payer in its place. We need French health care. But I'm afraid this country is way to corrupt and dysfunctional for that to happen.

Read More......

Dems abandon gun control

If they just abandon enough of their positions, everybody will like them. Uh huh. In all fairness, the gun control groups share the blame for this little fiasco. Where have they been the past ten years? Every year or so we have a major gun crisis in the news - e.g., Colombine, the DC sniper, the Virginia Tech massacre. And where are the gun groups when this happens? Politely sitting back quietly so as not to be seen to be "taking advantage" of the situation. But to some extent they can't help themselves. They're liberal. And liberals don't fight back. They don't seize opportunity. They play nice with a firm belief that in the end justice will prevail. Well, justice just bought herself a gun.

This is my larger concern about the health care reform debate, about gay rights, about every issue Democrats care about. Our large non-profit advocacy groups, on the whole, don't have what it takes to win. They don't know how to fight back. Hell, they don't want to fight back. They think fighting back is "mean." And cumbaya Democrats don't do mean. So, we talk tough like we always do, all the while our enemies know that when push comes to shove, Democrats and their non-profits will be the first ones to blink, like they always are.

Where are the big campaigns on health care, guns, gay rights, women's issues? Oh sure, some of them, like health care, "exist." But are they making news? Are they taking advantage of the random blips in the news cycle? Are they fomenting, and influencing, a national debate? Are they going for the jugular and putting the fear of God into their opponents?

Are they? Read More......

CNN's Cafferty: Prosecute the sins of the Bush-Cheney era

CNN's Jack Cafferty on prosecuting Bush and Cheney.

The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our history are addressed, the pain won't go away....

It's the secretive meetings with Enron and other energy executives and the wholesale firing of federal prosecutors. It's trying to get the president's personal attorney seated on the Supreme Court and that despicable Alberto Gonzales sitting in front of congressional investigators whining, "I don't remember, I don't know, I...etc."

It's the domestic eavesdropping in violation of the FISA Court, the rendition prisons, and the lying. It's looking the other way while the City of New Orleans drowned and its people were left to fend for themselves.

It's the violations of the Geneva Conventions, the soiling of our international reputation and the shredding of the U.S. Constitution. It's the handing over of $700 billion to the Wall Street fat cats last fall, no questions asked. Where is that money? What was it used for?

Imagine what the Republicans would do if a Democratic president had done all of that? Of course, they'd have never sat back and let a Democrat get away with all of that. Read More......

Obama admin. won't appeal DADT case to Supreme Court, but will "defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system"

The Wall Street Journal looked at the Don't Ask, Don't Tell issue today through the case of Major Margaret Witt. The Obama administration didn't appeal Witt's win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which was a good sign. But, the Obama administration is going to keep defending the law at the District Court level, which isn't good. John explained the mixed signals we've all been seeing from the Obama White House:

Some advocates for gay rights say they are becoming frustrated with what they see as mixed messages on the law on gays in the military. "This is a positive step but it's in the middle of a slew of negative steps so we're not really sure what's going on," said John Aravosis, an advocate who blogs on the issue.

Mr. Aravosis said he is concerned that the White House Web site section on civil rights was recently edited and some of Mr. Obama's promises to the gay and lesbian community were no longer listed, including his promise to repeal the don't ask, don't tell policy. After complaints, a reference to the military policy was restored.

Someone over at the White House needs to figure out that this isn't 1993. It's 2009 and the LGBT community is much more energized than ever before. That whole Prop. 8 experience made us realize that rights can be taken away. I'm starting to get the sense that gay Americans are viewing their rights the way gun owners do. That's the level of intensity we need. And, that's something our allies in the White House don't quite get.

This quote is particularly disturbing:

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the president remains committed to repealing the law "in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security" but added: "Until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system."

If you listen to the language of the Obama administration, "sensible" and "sustainable" are the code words for not acting on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Mushy words. But the bigger question is: Why defend a law that the President wants to repeal?

Is this defense of laws with which Obama disagrees consistent across all policy areas, or just gay issues? An administration doesn't have to defend a law with which it doesn't agree or thinks is unconstitutional. Hell, Bush didn't even follow laws that he disagreed with.

There's a case in the pipeline on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) already, which challenges Section 3 of that law. The lawsuit, Gill, et al. v. Office of Personnel Management, et al., was filed in March. The head of the Office of Personnel Management is gay, coincidentally. Will the Obama administration defend DOMA in court, too? Will the gay head of OPM defend DOMA?

If the White House thinks signing the hate crimes bill is enough, which it appears they may do soon, they're wrong. And, a beautiful proclamation about gay pride won't cut it either. The times have changed and the President and his people need to catch up -- fast. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I really hate health insurance companies. John blasted Blue Cross last night after we found out the company is preparing ads against health care reform, specifically the public option. This explains why just yesterday I found out my monthly premium is increasing by 25%. They need the money for ads. The Democrats on Capitol Hill better not screw this up. We'll need to keep an eye on which Democratic lobbyists are undermining the reform effort, too. This is going to get very ugly. The health care industrial complex cannot be trusted. Our health insurance system is an embarrassment...

Okay...let's get started... Read More......

China and US holding secret talks on climate change

Having the two largest polluters on the planet working on such a deal is really big news. The news out of Washington yesterday about stepping up the gas mileage for US cars is another positive move. If China can demand a 38 mpg minimum today from the car industry, there is no reason why the US has to settle for less. The Guardian:

The initiative, involving John Holdren, now the White House science adviser, and others who went on to positions in Barack Obama's administration, produced a draft agreement in March, barely two months after the Democrat assumed the presidency.

The memorandum of understanding was not signed, but those involved in opening up the channel of communications believe it could provide the foundation for a US-Chinese accord to battle climate change, which could be reached as early as this autumn.

"My sense is that we are now working towards something in the fall," said Bill Chandler, director of the energy and climate programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the driving force behind the talks. "It will be serious. It will be substantive, and it will happen."

Read More......

DOJ takes action against Big Pharma

Big Pharma has not yet figured out that the Bush years are over. Their flip-flopping on cutting costs shows an industry in disarray. The world of Big Pharma is so bizarre these days that they are even giving away free viagra to the unemployed. Republicans have never had the stomach to demand cost control from any part of the health care industry, preferring to throw the burden on consumers to try and negotiate against one of the most firmly entrenched industries in the US. That was a fixed fight if ever there was one. The latest edition of elections matter.

The Justice Department on Monday accused Wyeth, one of the nation's biggest drugmakers, of cheating Medicaid programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for a stomach acid drug.

The Justice Department and more than a dozen states have joined in two whistleblower lawsuits against the Madison, N.J.-based drug company filed in federal court in Massachusetts.

The government is seeking financial penalties against the company of up to three times the amount lost by Medicaid. And if a settlement is reached, the two whistleblowers who filed the original suits likely would be entitled to some share of the sum.

Read More......

Digital data to double in next 18 months

And it's already massive today. The cheaper storage becomes, the easier it is to hoard documents, photos, music, movies, online social networking sites, etc. As always, it's the consumer who is driving this business.

At 487bn gigabytes (GB), if the world's rapidly expanding digital content were printed and bound into books it would form a stack that would stretch from Earth to Pluto 10 times. As more people join the digital tribe – increasingly through internet-enabled mobile phones – the world's digital output is increasing at such a rate that those stacks of books are rising quicker than Nasa's fastest space rocket.

The large files from digital cameras and the world's burgeoning army of surveillance cameras account for a significant proportion of the digital universe. The rapid increase in so-called machine to machine communications – such as when an Oyster card is touched on a reader or a satellite navigation system requests information about its location – has seen the number of individual digital creation events balloon, despite the economic recession.

The digital universe is expected to double in size over the next 18 months, according to the latest research from technology consultancy IDC and sponsored by IT firm EMC, fuelled by a rise in the number of mobile phones. At the time of their first Digital Universe report in 2007, the pair reckoned the world's total digital content was 161bn gigabytes.

Read More......

Lloyds Bank chairman to retire

Considering the costly mess that he created, it's hard to imagine why he wasn't given the boot already but that's what happens when you get a wink and a nod from politicians at cocktail parties. The fact that he's retiring is not necessarily big news though the disturbing part of this story is that the board - his closest friends - were unanimous against him leaving. That says a lot about the banking problems today. They need to be flipped upside down, shaken until the loose pieces all fall and then restarted. I credit Obama/Geithner for starting the process of changing the board of directors at banks where the US is a major shareholder. Reuters:

Victor Blank is to step down as chairman of Lloyds Banking Group in the next year, following intense criticism of his part-nationalized British bank's purchase of troubled rival HBOS.

This year's takeover of HBOS has saddled Lloyds with billions of pounds of losses from HBOS's more risky loan book, forcing the government to provide rescue funds and prompting investors to call for Blank to quit.

Lloyds said on Sunday the decision to retire was Blank's, and its board was unanimous in wanting him to seek re-election for another three years.

The old boy network is rotten to the core and desperately needs to be changed before we move on. Read More......

UK companies using drug tests to avoid redundancy pay

Just a guess, but something tells me those at the top of the heap have not experienced the same drug tests. They can afford better attorneys to fight for the chunky payouts. If only the corporate world spent as much time figuring out how to stop payouts to the so-called leadership who lead into this recession we'd be much better off.

Employers are increasingly using drug testing to get rid of staff without having to make redundancy payouts, as a way of ­cutting costs during the recession, a ­charity has said.

Release, which focuses on drugs, the law and human rights, reported a four-fold increase in calls to its drugs team about problems with workplace testing in the first three months of 2009 compared with the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2008, the team received 493 calls, with just 31 (6.2%) related to testing at work. In the first three months of this year, 548 calls were received with 145 (26.4%) about this issue.

In many cases callers have been getting in touch in a state of distress, having been tested for the first time after years in the same job. Often a programme of voluntary redundancies was announced, followed by workplace medicals for the remaining staff, including a drug test.

Read More......