Peter Orszag is first Obama cabinet official to say he's leaving

The New York Times reports that Peter Orszag will be resigning his position as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Of late, he's apparently been one of the officials urging less spending and more deficit reduction:

In recent months, Mr. Orszag, 41, espoused deficit reduction strategies in administration debates against those who pressed for more stimulus spending and tax cuts to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. He will leave before the bipartisan debt-reduction commission that Mr. Obama formed earlier this year — and which Mr. Orszag championed — is due to report its recommendations by Dec. 1.

Mr. Orszag has said that even if the panel fails to reach agreement, the Obama administration could adopt some of the ideas it leaves on the table for the administration’s next budget.

Earlier today, we posted Paul Krugman's column from today, which urged our leaders to spend now with a plan to save later. I side with Krugman over Orszag on this one. Hopefully, Obama's next Director of OMB will too (but I doubt it.) Read More......

Decoy Jews

Sad. Cops in Amsterdam are having to use undercover officers disguised as Jews to stop anti-Semitic violence.

Secret tv recordings by the Jewish broadcasting company Joodse Omroep broadcast on Sunday showed young men shouting and making Nazi salutes at a rabbi when he visited different areas of the city.

Here is the video. Read More......

Preliminary war crimes investigation against Swedish foreign minister Bildt

From Swedish Radio (translated by a friend):

”Prosecutor Magnus Elving decided today to initiate a preliminary investigation on accounts of human rights violations i Sudan during the years 1997 to 2003. The background is a number of accusations against - amongst other companies - Lundin Oil from a report published by a number of human rights groups on the oil prospection in Sudan.

Foreign minister Carl Bildt was on the Lundin Oil board of directors (previously Lundin Petroleum) from 2000 until 2006, when to took up the position as foreign minister.

According to the report, Sudanese soldiers in cooperation with militia groups have indiscrimenately attacked the civilian population in the area where oil companies were drilling for oil. The report is based on eye witness accounts as well as aerial and satellite images.”

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Grill baby grill

Funny. Read More......

Did former First Lady Laura Bush hype a stomach flu (or some other virus) into a mythical assassination attempt in order to sell books?

Yahoo News:

Did former First Lady Laura Bush hype a stomach flu (or some other virus) into a mythical assassination attempt in order to sell books? When Bush's memoir, "Spoken From the Heart," was released last month, dozens of headlines blasted out its most tantalizing tidbit: Bush suspected that a mysterious illness that befell her, her husband and their staff during the 2007 G8 summit in Germany may have been the result of an attempt to kill or incapacitate the 43rd president.

"Exceedingly alarmed" by the illness, Bush wrote, "the Secret Service went on full alert, combing the resort for potential poisons. In the past year, there had been several high-profile poisonings, including one with suspected nuclear material, in and around Europe. The overriding fear was that terrorists had gotten control of a dangerous substance and planted it at the resort. [W]e never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one."

That's the sort of shadowy intrigue that's landed many a book on the bestseller list — just ask Dan Brown. However, there's no record of the episode ever happening, at least according to the Secret Service. Yahoo! News filed a Freedom of Information Act request looking for any documents — e-mails, investigation reports, incident reports, etc. — related to the alleged incident. In reply, the Secret Service informed us Monday that its review of records "indicates that there are no records or documents pertaining to your request in [our] files."

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Aung San Suu Kyi is 65 today

From Doug Bandow:

Nobel laureate and Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi turned 65 today. She has spent 15 of the last 21 years in prison or under house arrest. There is no end to her, or her nation's, agony in sight.

Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta, won its independence after World War II. But popular independence leader Gen. Aung San -- Suu Kyi's father -- was assassinated and the new government failed to provide political autonomy to Burma's many ethnic groups, triggering a war which continues to this day.

The military seized power in 1962. Since then only the names of the men wearing the stars have changed. Democracy protests broke out in August 1988 and were put down with massive force; between 3,000 and 6,000 demonstrators were killed. The junta then called a relatively free election in 1990, which Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won in a landslide. The military voided the results and launched a political war against the NLD, jailing Suu Kyi and many of her followers. Periodic protests, such as in Rangoon in 2007, were suppressed brutally.

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Scott 'Bankers gave me $450k in 6 days' Brown doing their bidding to weaken Wall St reform

The teabaggers claimed Scott Brown as one of their first victories. So, what's he doing now that he's in the Senate? Aiding and abetting the lobbyists for Wall Street. Yes, as the conference committee on the Wall Street reform bill enters its final stages, the NY Times reports:

As Congress rushes this week to complete the most far-reaching financial reform plan in decades, the banking industry is mounting an 11th-hour end run

And, who is doing the bidding of the bankers? Scott Brown:

The three main changes under consideration would be a carve-out to exclude asset management and insurance companies outright, an exemption that would allow banks to continue to invest in hedge funds and private equity firms, and a long delay that would give banks up to seven years to enact the changes.

In particular, the provisions, sought by Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, and several other lawmakers, would benefit Boston-based money management giants like Fidelity Investments and State Street Corporation.

But the biggest Wall Street firms would be helped as well. For example, JPMorgan Chase would be able to retain its Highbridge Capital Management unit, and Goldman Sachs could hold on to several large hedge funds, including its flagship Global Alpha franchise. Morgan Stanley could keep FrontPoint Partners and several other smaller hedge funds.

Why would Scott Brown be doing so much for the bankers? Because, they funded his campaign. Heavily funded him. That's the dirty little secret about Brown's campaign. He didn't win because the teabaggers liked him. He won because Wall Street bankers poured money into his campaign. And, now he's showing that he's a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. $450,000 in six days:

In a six-day span just before the US Senate election, Republican Scott Brown collected nearly $450,000 from donors who work at financial companies, a sign the industry is prepared to spend heavily in the upcoming midterm elections to beat back new controls and taxes President Obama wants to impose.

The donations, from hundreds of financial executives, far exceeded what Brown received from doctors and others in the health care industry in the final days of the campaign.

They're getting their money's worth now as Brown tries to weaken the Wall Street reform bill.

I've posted this before, but it's still relevant. On January 19th, the day Brown won, I was listening to a Boston radio station and tweeted one of the things I heard:

Just heard on Boston's WBZ: "I voted for Scott Brown. I'm a banker. There isn't a banker alive who voted for Martha Coakley"

That quote makes even more sense on June 21, 2010. Read More......

Obama urges Europe not to drop stimulus, but hasn't he dropped it himself?

I remain confused as to what the Obama administration actually thinks about the current need and efficacy of stimulus spending. Last year, they were, frankly, more interested in getting any bill passed than in getting the right bill passed (that's why the White House never pushed for more than $800bn or so, and it's why they gave away 35% of the bill to near-useless tax cuts). Then, earlier this year, after relentless "the deficit is going to kill us all!" drubbing from the Republicans, the President reversed course and started embracing "deficit reduction" just at the time that economists were saying we needed a second stimulus to make up for the fact that the first one was half the size (or less) of what it needed to be.

So, what is the President now doing lecturing Europe about how they shouldn't drop their own stimulus measures?

Now, I'm sure the White House will argue that they never abandoned the current stimulus measures, they simply gave up on any future stimulus legislation. Fair enough. But, as is often the case, the President's nuance is lost on the public, and often has the opposite effect of what the White House says was intended. From the NYT:

President Obama signaled on Friday that countries in Europe should not withdraw their extraordinary spending programs too quickly.

In a public letter to other leaders of the Group of 20 nations in advance of a summit meeting in Toronto next week, Mr. Obama wrote, “Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard and strengthen the recovery.”

There's more:

The United States is trying to pare its own substantial deficit. Mr. Obama reiterated a pledge to cut the deficit, now about 10 percent of gross domestic product, in half by the 2013 fiscal year, and to 3 percent of G.D.P. by the 2015 fiscal year, a level he said would “stabilize the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio at an acceptable level” by then.

But American officials are concerned that fiscal retrenchment by too many countries at once could imperil the global recovery.

Mr. Obama warned of the risks of a double-dip recession, which most economists consider unlikely but not impossible.

“In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avoid a slowdown in economic activity,” he wrote.

Do as we say not as we do?

President Obama is arguing that, should the economy take a turn for the worse, we should all be prepared to pass more stimulus? Good luck with that. The President already killed nearly any chance at passing a second bill by signing on to the deficit-reduction brigade earlier this year, rather than taking the Republicans on, blaming Bush for the majority of the deficit, and explaining to the public that the Democrats just saved their asses from another Great Depression by passing the first stimulus bill - and that if more was needed, he sure as hell was going to move full steam ahead with more.

The President is still trying to have his cake and eat it too - be for deficit reduction and stimulus at the same time. It doesn't work - and in fact, they cancel each other out. Rather than playing semantic gymnastics, the President ought to pick a side and defend it. His desire to be all things to all people is screwing things up yet again. Read More......

Rahm does good

Even a broken Rahm...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Sunday ratcheted up the Democrats' effort to turn a House Republican's apology to BP into a political pivot point, saying last week's comments by Rep. Joe L. Barton (Tex.) were a reminder of the "governing philosophy" that Republicans would bring into power if they win big in November.

Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, apologized to BP chief executive Tony Hayward last week after the White House demanded that the company create a $20 billion escrow fund to pay for damages wrought by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a demand Barton termed a "shakedown." Under fire from Democrats and under pressure from fellow Republicans, Barton apologized for his apology.

On ABC's "This Week," Emanuel said Barton's comments were further evidence of Republicans' pro-business tilt. Emanuel also cited their opposition to the pending financial regulatory overhaul and Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul's assertion last month that the administration's anti-BP rhetoric was "un-American."

"The approach here, expressed and supported by other voices in the Republican Party, sees the aggrieved party as BP, not the fishermen and the communities down there affected. And that would be the governing philosophy," Emanuel said. "And I think what Joe Barton did is remind the American people, in case they forgot: This is how the Republicans would govern."

Seriously, though, this is further evidence that the administration is finally understanding that it lives in a partisan universe, and that in order to survive, in order for Dems in Congress to survive, the White House needs to start playing partisan. Read More......

Obama rips Republican 'obstruction'

This is excellent. It's the kind of effective thing presidents do to help their own party.

President Barack Obama used his Saturday radio address to slam Republican “obstruction” in Congress, accusing the GOP of standing in the way of job-saving economic programs and saying, “Gridlock as a political strategy is destructive to the country.”

Obama unleashed a torrent of criticism against the Republicans – accusing them of blocking votes on bills that would save jobs for teachers, lift a $75 million liability cap for oil leaks like the BP spill and help people buy their first home.

“All we ask for is a simple up or down vote. That’s what the American people deserve. Just like they deserve an up or down vote on legislation that would hold oil companies accountable for the disasters they cause – a vote that is also being blocked by the Republican leadership in the Senate,” Obama said. “We should remove that cap. But the Republican leadership won’t even allow a debate or a vote.”

The President is clearly getting the message that the Democrats need help and that he hasn't been helping nearly enough. This is a very good turn of events. Read More......

Krugman to Congress: Be responsible. Spend now. Plan to save later.

The Senate still hasn't passed a much-needed jobs bill. Last week's effort to obtain cloture was thwarted when Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins sided with Mitch McConnell over Maine. There's still hope that the Senate will pass this already scaled down legislation.

But, too many in Congress, of course, have their priorities wrong. They're worried about deficits when they should be worrying about unemployment. Paul Krugman tried to explain how that thinking is wrong and dangerous for the long-term. But, Krugman's only a Nobel Prize winning Economist. What could he possibly know?:

The responsible thing, then, is to spend now, while planning to save later.

As I said, many politicians seem determined to do the reverse. Many members of Congress, in particular, oppose aid to the long-term unemployed, let alone to hard-pressed state and local governments, on the grounds that we can’t afford it. In so doing, they are undermining spending at a time when we really need it, and endangering the recovery. Yet efforts to control health costs were met with cries of “death panels.”

And some of the most vocal deficit scolds in Congress are working hard to reduce taxes for the handful of lucky Americans who are heirs to multimillion-dollar estates. This would do nothing for the economy now, but it would reduce revenues by billions of dollars a year, permanently.

But some politicians must be sincere about being fiscally responsible. And to them I say, please get your timing right. Yes, we need to fix our long-run budget problems — but not by refusing to help our economy in its hour of need.

Our economy is still in need after the battering it took from the Bush/GOP economic policies. How anyone can listen to the Republicans pontificate on the economy is beyond me. And, I'm still not sure how it is that Democrats don't understand that high unemployment is dangerous for their political futures.

AFSCME is on the air in Maine urging Snowe and Collins to do the right thing:
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Oil rig worker had identified leak weeks before explosion

Once again, the story gets worse by the day. BBC:

A Deepwater Horizon rig worker has told the BBC that he identified a leak in the oil rig's safety equipment weeks before the explosion.

Tyrone Benton said the leak was not fixed at the time, but that instead the faulty device was shut down and a second one relied on.

BP said rig owners Transocean were responsible for the operation and maintenance of that piece of equipment.

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is doing an event to honor Fathers Day. He's going to talk about the "Father’s Day Mentoring Barbeque." Later today, he's hosting a "Father’s Day Mentoring Barbeque."

The Senate should try again this week to pass the jobs bill. As I wrote over the weekend, Senators Collins and Snowe had promised to vote for cloture. After all, the legislation would help Mainers. But, as is so often the case, Collins and Snowe voted with McConnell over Mainers -- again. They're not the moderates they pretend to be.

Rahm Emanuel is back in the spotlight today. He was the guest on "This Week" yesterday. Today, rumors are abounding that he's going to quit after the midterms. Why wait? Anyway, that rumor will have everyone buzzing today -- and generate another round of stories about the effectiveness of Rahm's tenure. I think this chart with Obama's approval ratings tells that story.

Should be a busy week... Read More......

BP now estimates up to 100,000 barrels per day leaking

A strange update that the government needs to look into since it's so much higher than their own estimates. If accurate, this would be a radical departure for BP who has under estimated pretty much every previous figure.

BP Plc estimates that a worst-case scenario rate for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be about 100,000 barrels of oil per day, according to an internal company document released by a senior U.S. congressional Democrat.

Its estimate of up to 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day is far higher than the current U.S. government estimate of up to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) gushing daily from the ruptured offshore well.

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Regulations and boring sounds pretty good

Oh Canada.

The banks are stable because, in part, they're more regulated. As the U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries over the last 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also aren't as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.

There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks don't package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.

In Canada's concentrated banking system, five major banks dominate the market and regulators know each of the top bank executives personally.

"Our banks were just better managed and we had better regulation," says former Prime Minister Paul Martin, the man credited with killing off a massive government deficit in the 1990s when he was finance minister, leading to 12 straight years of budget surpluses.

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