It's raining fish in Australia (seriously)

They couldn't just settle for cats and dogs.

WHILE the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has had fish falling from the sky.

The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine.

Mrs Balmer, the aged care co-ordinator at the Lajamanu Aged Care Centre, said her family interstate thought she had lost the plot when she told them about the event.

"I haven't lost my marbles," she said, reassuring herself. "Thank god it didn't rain crocodiles."

Or men.

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Bunning drops filibuster, benefits bill passes 78-19

GOP Senator Bunning has dropped his filibuster, finally. The final vote to pass the bill was 78-19, a rather extraordinary margin, suggesting that Republicans were not pleased with Bunning's ongoing charade.

It seems to be beyond the ability of political reporters to wrap their minds around it, but there was an important matter of principle involved in opposing GOP Senator Jim Bunning's filibuster of unemployment payments. Reporters can't see beyond the political optics of the situation - clearly good for Democrats - but there is an economic principle that was reason enough not to cave to Bunning's temper tantrum.

The bill that Bunning was filibustering extended the provisions of the stimulus package for another month to fund various transportation bills, unemployment benefits, COBRA, etc. What Bunning wanted to do is pay for this extension with taxes or spending cuts taken out of... the stimulus bill!

In other words, he was trying to eliminate the stimulus effects of this spending. Deficit spending is what a stimulus IS. If we fully offset stimulus spending then WE DONT HAVE A STIMULUS!!! So what Senator Bunning was trying to do was undermine the very ability of the govenment to stimulate the economy, and thus undermine economic recovery itself.

The Republicans were wrong when they wanted to do this in the 1930's and they are still wrong today. Channelling Herbert Hoover is not a good way to run our economy. Read More......

Evan Bayh is worried that going the reconciliation route could make Republicans filibuster lots of bills, which is what they're already doing

If Democrats are forced to use reconciliation because Republicans refuse to permit an up-or-down vote on the health care reform "fixes," Evan Bayh fears that it may inspire Republcans to do what they're already doing:

But if Congress does go that route, [Bayh] predicts that little else may get done on Capitol Hill in the remainder of the year, in part because it would erode the political will in the Senate.

“The consequence of that would be to pass health care, but to possibly sacrifice the other items on the agenda,” he said.

No shit, Sherlock. And if the Congress doesn't go the reconciliation route, little else is going to get done on Capitol Hill for the remainder of the year. It doesn't matter what Democrats do, Republicans are going to continue calling us un-American, lying about our agenda, and filibustering everything. For how many years have we heard the old "we'd better not anger the Republicans" line, only to watch the angry Republicans beat us up anyway?

Democrats can either continue appeasing Republicans, while Republicans continue filibustering practically every piece of major legislation, or Democrats can find procedural ways to break the Republicans' procedural ways of shutting down our country.

Show some spine, people. At this point, it really can't hurt. Read More......

Increasingly likely Dems will force Bunning to hold a real filibuster, all night long

I know. Increasingly likely. At least it's something. Read More......

Obama: Dems will use reconciliation to pass HCR fix if GOP blocks up-or-down vote

This is great news. And remember, we're not at this point talking about passing the entire bill via reconciliation. The bill's major provisions have already been passed with a majority in both the House and Senate (and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate). We are only talking about passing a separate "fix" bill that will address some House Democratic concerns about the Senate bill, and will, apparently, add some proposals that the Republicans wanted. So no one is talking about passing "this huge bill" via reconciliation. The huge bill already passed. We're talking about stopping the Republicans, in essence, from filibustering their own recommendations. Read More......

Scenes from a KKK rally in Georgia, February 2010. Yes, the KKK in 2010.

You have to watch this video of the recent KKK rally in Nahunta, Georgia. They pretty much hate everyone, except themselves. You'll actually see a rally participant praise Hilter because "he had it going on" for trying to annihilate the Jewish people.

Yep, it's 2010, but they're still around:

I'm sure they're all really happy that Obama is visiting Georgia today. Read More......

Business leaders don't see recovery until 2011 or later

The stimulus clearly made a significant difference but the reality is, business is not growing quickly. Sweden has fallen back into recession and there remains a concern that other countries could easily do the same. This again shows that the US needs more stimulus money to keep the economy moving. Of course, the GOP is already lining up to say "no" again though they need to be ignored. CNBC:

Grant Thorton's Business Optimism Index, a quarterly survey of U.S. business leaders fell slightly to 58.8 in February, down from 60.4 in November 2009.

Only 43 percent of the business leaders surveyed expected the economy to improve in the next six months, down from a 53 percent in November.

Meanwhile, 49 percent now believe that the economy will not come out of the recession until 2011 or later, a figure that has more than doubled since November, when only 22 percent believed the recession would end in 2011 or later.

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Obama avoided taking jab at Bunning today, didn't want to seem partisan

A few minutes ago on CNN, Ed Henry reported that he'd been tipped off by the White House that Obama was going to take "a jab" at Senator Bunning today when he got off Air Force One today in Georgia. Bunning certainly deserves the jab.

Didn't happen.

According to Henry, the White House informed him that the Bunning line was removed from the President's speech because Obama felt it would be too partisan. And, in any case, the brain trust at the White House doesn't want to involve the President in every minute detail of what the Senate does.

Bunning's filibuster has blocked benefits for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans. It's stopped construction projects. It's not a minor thing. Time after time, Republican filibusters have put the brakes on Obama's agenda. And, why not? There are no consequences. The President sure doesn't hold them accountable. What Bunning is doing is probably one of the most egregious filibusters to date. But, he's getting a pass from Obama.

It might be a good idea for the President to engage himself in the Senate's proceedings when the consequences are so enormous. People might like to know that their President is fighting for them instead of avoiding a fight. Read More......

Why Rahm's historical revisionism is dangerous for the Democratic party

Joe wrote this morning about a Washington Post piece today proclaiming that had Obama only listened to Rahm, the President wouldn't be in the pickle he's in today. Joe discussed the political implications of the President's Chief of Staff mounting a campaign in the media to blame his boss for having poor judgment. I want to discuss another part of the article, this one dealing with health care reform. First, the snippet, then why I think this kind of messaging is dangerous:

When health-care reform became the administration's focus, Emanuel's public persona was that of a partisan field marshal. But before Obama and his advisers settled on a policy of expansive scope, Emanuel back in August suggested a smaller bill that would be easier to pass, according to another administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

When the larger measure stalled, Emanuel harangued Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and later argued to Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to strike the public option from the legislation to expedite passage, the source said. Reid insisted on putting it in.

"One thing that has frustrated Rahm," said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), "is how the Senate works."

As health-care negotiations inched along at the end of last year, Emanuel grew impatient about addressing national joblessness concerns. One Democratic senator who wanted to pivot to unemployment said Emanuel shared his thinking. " 'I understand, I understand. We have to get to jobs,' " the senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, recalled Emanuel commiserating. In a meeting with the president and chief of staff, the senator stated his case, but Obama decided the priority was seeing health-care reform through.

"It was the president's call," said the senator, who added that Emanuel showed no trace of objection. "A play was called, and he was running the play."

There are several problems with this story line:

1. If true, it's appalling that by August the White House still hadn't decided what it even wanted out of health care reform. The President should have had a plan from day one, and during the campaign he told us, repeatedly, that he did.

2. Why was Rahm suggesting passage of a smaller, easier bill in August? The President hadn't yet started fighting for the bill, any bill, at this point. Remember, in August the White House was still, inexplicably, leaving things up to Max Baucus and the "gang of six" to work out a bipartisan deal, rather than having the President engage. And, as noted above, the White House hadn't even settled on what they wanted out of the bill. Yet, they were already discussing throwing in the towel and settling for something less than what they promised, when they hadn't even as of yet unleashed the President to actually fight for anything?

3. "One thing that has frustrated Rahm," said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), "is how the Senate works."

You're the White House chief of staff and you didn't realize how the Senate works? It's your job. If it's too difficult to work within the known confines of our democratic system of government, then quit and let someone else take over. But whining about how the Senate "frustrated" you, as an excuse for why nothing got down? Why didn't Rahm unleash the President if he was so frustrated that things weren't getting done? For that matter, what did the President do last year to push health care reform. He gave some speeches. What else? Seriously, name what he did. You can't think of much, can you, beside the joint session of Congress speech.

4. "As health-care negotiations inched along at the end of last year, Emanuel grew impatient about addressing national joblessness concerns."

Cute. We learned earlier in the article, as Joe wrote this morning, that it was Rahm who sided with efforts for a smaller-than-necessary stimulus. The reason the nation needed our government to do more about joblessness after passage of the stimulus was because the White House, under Rahm, didn't even try to pass the larger stimulus plan that all the experts, including their own chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said they needed to pass in order to avert another Great Depression and 10%+ unemployment. Instead, Rahm was "responsive" to Olympia Snowe's bid to cut the stimulus back even further. Yet, just a few months later, Rahm is complaining that we should cave on the President's health care reform promises because we need to address the very joblessness that has remained unaddressed because of Rahm's earlier cave on the stimulus.

Precious.

5. If the article is correct, and Rahm is the ignored genius in the White House, then someone else is to blame for the colossal mess that we are currently in. So who is Rahm blaming? It's got be one of a select group of people: Obama; Axelrod; Gibbs, Jarrett, or possibly Messina. Who else could it be? If Rahm isn't to blame, then who is to blame?

And finally, the danger posed by this kind of revisionism. Look, the White House, and Democrats in Congress, screwed up royally. We the people handed them a super-majority in Congress, control of the White House (and a sizable victory in the electoral college and in raw numbers), insanely high approval ratings, an utterly destroyed and demoralized GOP, and a nation yearning for (and promised) historic change.

What did we get?

In a little over a year, the President is despised by a sizable minority of the public, Democrats are about to lose control of the Congress, health care reform has been gutted (still isn't finished, and the President is compromising again tomorrow), and promises on immigration, climate change, gay rights and most other major issue areas are nowhere to be seen. All that in just 14 months.

We are not in this sorry state simply because no one listened to the boy genius whispering in the President's ear. And we are certainly not in this mess because the President didn't compromise enough. We are in this predicament because Democrats, including the President himself, refuse to fight. Until Democrats in Congress grow a spine, and until the President realizes that he is more than a figurehead whose sole job is to give moving speeches about things he's never going to do, history is going to repeat itself. The Democrats will remain weak, the President will remain aloof (and irrelevant), and the Republicans will continue to define the debate until they are controlling House, the Senate and the White House. And then, God help us. Read More......

Yesterday Susan Collins blamed Harry Reid for Bunning's filibuster, today she's helping Reid break it

Yesterday, Susan Collins was blaming Harry Reid for the Republican filibuster that took unemployment benefits away from millions of Americans. Today, Susan Collins is stumbling over herself to help Harry Reid break the filibuster. Guess the pressure was a bit too much for Collins. So is she now a socialist too? Read More......

What it means to lose $1 trillion in economic growth

Paul Krugman wrote yesterday about what the economy has lost as a result of the recession - $1 trillion worth of growth. Krugman was upset that official Washington is acting like the crisis is over, and thus isn't interested in trying to close the $1 trillion gap with more stimulus spending. I was curious what $1 trillion lost actually means, so I asked our resident economist, Professor Steven Kyle of Cornell, to weigh in. Here is what Steve sent me:

A trillion dollars lost means that GDP is a trillion dollars lower than it would have been without a recession, or could have been with an adequate stimulus package. While it is fashionable in some quarters to mock GDP as a measure of anything useful it is worth remembering that GDP growth is highly correlated (in fact very highly correlated) with every measure ever proposed of things that ARE considered useful by these critics (including things like life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality, etc.)

A trillion dollars is a lot when the total GDP is a little more than 14 trillion. Especially when the losses are concentrated among those who can least afford them. What people don't connect is that these numbers mean millions of people are without incomes. That ruins lives. For others it means they never fulfill their potential because, e.g., during their younger years they don't go to a good college or perhaps don't go to college at all. Many will go hungry or sick as a result. Many marriages won't survive. Crime will go up. You get the picture. You can tell endless stories but these are real people. Millions of them. Our fellow citizens. It is sad enough that it happens but when you think that we have it easily within our power to prevent it, but don't do it for political reasons, it is enough to make your blood boil. These are the people the Dems are supposed to be fighting for.

It is in my opinion immoral to do nothing about this when we have the tools at our disposal to fix the problem, by passing another stimulus. Yes, it will result in bigger deficits and bigger debts. But acting would not only address the humanitarian problems now, but, if we add the trillion dollars back to our output now, in the future we will have more than enough revenue to pay back the debt (and then some). It is win-win, and is the main lesson we learned from Keynes and the Great Depression.

What is depressing from a political point of view is that we have exactly the same teams lined up pro and con on this issue, and they are using exactly (and I do mean exactly) the same language to argue the point. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are now arguing that deficit reduction is more important than growing the economy out of the current crisis. Unfortunately, the Dems in this era seem not to have the courage of their convictions - which is far less excusable now that we KNOW the tools work, as opposed to the 1930's when it was the first time we tried to do it. But maybe the Dems will find their courage soon - a big win would help a lot, but it will take some unambiguous leadership from the President.

I'd add that even for those of us who aren't unemployed, a lot of our paychecks went down drastically last year (I won't know for sure until April 15, but I'll bet my income last year was cut at least in half by the recession). That means we spend less money than we would have - on food, things for our home, travel, medicine, education - which sucks that much more money out of the economy, hurting those businesses we would have frequented, but aren't, which hurts their profits, which hurts their employees, which sucks even more money out of the economy when they cut their spending. The ripple effect is quite large. And it's why stimulus matters - you turn that ripple effect to your advantage. Read More......

Farouk is on fire

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It's Rahm's White House and everyone else works for him, including Obama

Rahm Emanuel is continuing his p.r. offensive in the Washington Post today with a front-page article proclaiming him to be the smartest person in the White House. If only Obama had the sense to listen to Rahm, all would be good in the world.

Rahm must think he's in trouble if his people are pushing out these kinds of stories. Almost the exact same story was written by Dana Milbank just a week or so ago (meaning, someone is pushing these stories out there). Everyone else in the White House, including the President, should be really worried that the Chief of Staff is trying to convince the world that he is smarter than the President, and it's all the President's fault for not listening to Rahm:

Rahm Emanuel is officially a Washington caricature. He's the town's resident leviathan, a bullying, bruising White House chief of staff who is a prime target for the failings of the Obama administration.

But a contrarian narrative is emerging: Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.

It is a view propounded by lawmakers and early supporters of President Obama who are frustrated because they think the administration has gone for the perfect at the expense of the plausible. They believe Emanuel, the town's leading purveyor of four-letter words, a former Israeli army volunteer and a product of a famously argumentative family, was not aggressive enough in trying to persuade a singularly self-assured president and a coterie of true-believer advisers that "change you can believe in" is best pursued through accomplishments you can pass.

No thought, of course, is given to the idea of passing legislation that will actually work. What if politicians on the Hill, and in the White House, actually pursued accomplishments upon which they campaigned, too? What a concept.

This is one of my favorite passages:

When it came time for the economic stimulus plan, Emanuel -- arguing that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste" -- was the White House's point man in the Senate. There, too, he valued the plausible over the perfect.

Snowe said he was "responsive" to her interest in removing $100 billion in spending from the stimulus bill. "He understood it operationally and legislatively, what needed to be accomplished, and was very straightforward," she said.

At the time, the President's approval rating was soaring and the economy was on the brink of collapse. Everyone was talking about another Great Depression, and economist were saying we needed $2 trillion in stimulus spending. The President's own chair of his Council of Economic Advisers said we needed $1.2 trillion. So Emanuel's first instinct was to compromise and go for less (less than what was needed to avert a Depression and keep unemployment far below 10%). If he were the hard-ass we'd all been led to believe he was, Emanuel would have sent Obama to Maine to campaign for the strongest bill possible, in order to get Snowe's and Collin's votes. That's what a real tough Chief of Staff would have done, instead of caving as quickly as possible on the medicine needed to save the country from economic collapse. Emanuel made Obama look weak right off the bat -- and the Republicans saw it immediately.

This p.r. offensive is offensive. Rahm is making himself more important than the President and it's making Obama look bad. If I understand the role of the President's Chief of Staff, making the boss look weak and a bad decision-maker isn't part of the job. Any Chief of Staff who does that shouldn't keep his job. Read More......

Dodd now supports GOP to deliver consumer regulation via the Fed

Sorry, but does anyone in the real world have any faith in the Federal Reserve to support consumers? These are people who owe their positions to thankful bankers. The Federal Reserve is a bankers institution. Dodd has completely lost his mind if he thinks anyone outside of the banking industry believes this is a good move. He can take his ridiculous compromise and shove it. How long until his term expires and he goes away?

Embracing the proposal marks a turnaround for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has lambasted the Fed repeatedly over the past year for not protecting borrowers from lender abuse. It is unclear whether other Fed critics, both Democrats and Republicans, will follow suit. The Fed already is responsible for writing consumer-protection rules, but it did not prohibit some of the most abusive mortgage and credit card lending practices during the housing boom.

The proposal by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) would place a presidential appointee inside the Fed with an independent budget and a mandate to write rules protecting consumers. Those rules, however, would be enforced by existing banking regulators.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is heading to Savannah, Georgia today to talk about jobs and the economy. Tomorrow, he'll be making another speech on health care reform, revealing the latest incarnation/compromise.

I just had to watch Matt Lauer ask Mitt Romney what the short and long term reactions will be if the Democrats use reconciliation to pass health care reform. If I had to bet, I'd bet neither one of them really understand what the term means or know that the GOPers used it repeatedly to pass its agenda. But, that's just a bet.

Meanwhile, Mitt's GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill continue to block passage of the unemployment bill. Jim Bunning, who is now the face of the Senate GOP, isn't backing down. Apparently, the Republicans view inflicting pain on the most vulnerable as a winning political strategy.

Let's get to threading the news... Read More......

Goldman repeatedly rejected shareholder demands for pay investigations

Big surprise. I've said numerous times that non-binding votes are a complete waste of time. Until votes mean something, they are going to be ignored. If Congress wanted to gain a bit of credibility with voters, they might promote binding votes by shareholders.

Goldman Sachs' board has rejected several demands from shareholders that it investigate recent compensation awards, recoup excessive compensation and reform pay practices.

Wall Street's dominant bank, criticized for paying billions of dollars in bonuses soon after the taxpayer bailout of the industry, reported the board's decision in an annual regulatory filing on Monday.

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How did credit checks for jobs become legal at all?

It's a positive sign to see that many states are making changes to the law but how did this ever happen in the first place? Everyone knows about how quickly a health situation can destroy the life savings of Americans so why should credit checks have anything to do with applying for a job? Perhaps there are some specific exceptions but as a general rule, it's nonsense.

Wisconsin state Rep. Kim Hixson drafted a bill in his state shortly after hearing from Terry Becker, an auto mechanic who struggled to find work.

Becker said it all started with medical bills that piled up when his now 10-year-old son began having seizures as a toddler. In the first year alone, Becker ran up $25,000 in medical debt.

Over 4 1/2 months, he was turned down for at least eight positions for which he had authorized the employer to conduct a credit check, Becker said. He said one potential employer told him, "If your credit is bad, then you'll steal from me."

"I was in a deep depression. I had lost a business, I was behind on my bills and I was unable to get a job," he said.

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Sweden falls back into recession

Whether they are the only country to falter again is doubtful. Technically it may not be as bad as it sounds, but it's still not good news. Reuters:

Gross domestic product contracted 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, against forecasts for a 0.3 percent increase.

The third-quarter GDP figure was revised to show a 0.1 percent quarterly decline from an original 0.2 percent gain, the statistics office said. This meant the economy fell back into recession, based on a widely held definition of the term.

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