Waxman to support net neutrality bill

Well done.

"Industry will benefit from clarity, consistency, and predictability with regard to Net neutrality," Waxman said at the hearing. "I think that the time is right to formally establish, through legislation if required, the rules of the road with respect to Net neutrality."

Waxman said he would sign onto a bill cosponsored by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) that would prevent telecom and cable operators from blocking, slowing or charging more for certain traffic to run on their networks.

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Hyatt hotel fires entire housekeeping team and outsources

They could get jobs on Wall Street or as lobbyists with this kind of sneaky trick. There are plenty of business hotels to choose from so keep this horrible story in mind the next time you book.

Several hundred hotel workers and their supporters turned out yesterday for a raucous rally in front of the Hyatt Regency Boston for the 100 housekeepers who were fired by the hotel chain. Politicians called for businesses to boycott the Hyatt, and workers banged on drums, rattled detergent bottles filled with rocks, and chanted “Hyatt, shame on you’’ as they marched in front of the hotel with picket signs.

Hyatt Hotels Corp. laid off the entire housekeeping staffs at the Hyatt Regency Boston, Hyatt Regency Cambridge, and Hyatt Harborside Hotel after the morning shift had ended on Aug. 31, citing challenging economic conditions, and immediately replaced them with workers from an out-of-state staffing firm. The housekeepers had been training those very workers, from Georgia’s Hospitality Staffing Solutions, who they were told would be filling in for vacations.

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Moody's: decade or more for house prices to recover

Ouch. Again, is there ever going to be any justice or will the US let Wall Street completely get away with this? Why such meek action to date? People deserve a hell of a lot better than this yet the foot-draggers in Washington barely notice. Some of the greatest destroyers of wealth like Charles Prince, Angelo Mozilo and Stanley O'Neal all walked away from the wreckage with tens of millions in their pockets.

Moody's Investors Service threw cold water on optimistic projections of a V-shaped recovery in the battered U.S. housing market, predicting it could take more than 10 years to get back to boom-level prices.

"For many reasons, the rebound will be disproportionately small compared to the decline," Moody's said this week in its latest outlook on the residential market. "It will take more than a decade to completely recover from the 40% peak-to-trough decline in national home prices."

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Mainers support the public option. Will Senators Snowe and Collins?

The public option, which is opposed by Maine's two GOP Senators, is very, very popular in Maine according to the DailyKos poll of voters in the state. McJoan broke down the numbers for us. Overall, the margin is 58% - 29% in support, with 13% not decided. For independents, the breakdown is a startling 67% - 20% with 13% undecided.

This does beg the question: Who are Senators Snowe and Collins representing? It's pretty clear their constituents want something that the Senators won't give them.

The Maine Twins, as McJoan dubs them, have truly benefitted from taxpayer-funded health care, as I've noted before:

I did a little research on the Senators from Maine, both of them have had publicly funded health care for most of their adult lives. Olympia has been in the federal system since 1978 when she was elected to Congress. But even prior to that, she served in the state legislature and was a staffer for a Congressman. Collins was a Hill staffer for twelve years, spent several years working for the State of Maine and the federal government before she was elected in 1996. For both Senators, health insurance has always been available -- and funded by taxpayers.

Also, there's a lot of attention focused on Senator Rockefeller's revelations that Senator Snowe is being treated quite badly by her fellow Republican Senators. Let's face it: Olympia Snowe really doesn't belong in the same caucus as Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, David Vitter and Jon Kyl. She was right when she said her party had has changed. It has. For the worse. Read More......

O'Reilly supports the Public Option

I think this just might give the Democrats a wee bit of cover now. Unless O'Reilly is the left of the left?

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The one about the fanny pack and the beautiful blonde flight atendant

I've been telling a few tales of foreign language mix-ups on my relatively new Facebook page, and folks seem to be getting a kick out of it, so today I told them about the time the gorgeous blonde Virgin Atlantic flight attendant took my fanny pack before take off. When I asked for it back, I got a bit more than I bargained for.... I've posted the whole story on my Facebook page. Check it out. I'm using the page for everything NON-politics. Photography, my cultural observations about France (yes, I'm still here - the doctors won't let me fly until October, but fortunately my eye is healing), and more. Read More......

Why not punish bankers too?

If only Wall Street was treated as harshly as ACORN. Obviously ACORN needs better lobbyists. More from Cynthia Tucker:

Democrats really had no choice but to join with Republicans in punishing the organization, as the House did today with a vote to strip the agency of all federal funds. The politics demanded it.

But now that lowly ACORN has been severely punished for its misdeeds, can we muster the gumption to do something about the bankers and financiers who have done such serious damage to the country?

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Hispanic leaders ticked at CNN's Dobbs

I finally watched him the other night for the first time in months. It's amazing how much he's changed. I actually used to enjoy his show, back when he was a financial guy. But now, he's like some thing out of FOX News. The reporting they did on Jimmy Carter - they tried to connect him to terrorists, in order to discount his concerns about the racist criticism of President Obama. It was pure FOX News. It was even something you might see on that "other" CNN. But not on this CNN. It's pretty clear that if CNN ever does get rid of Dobbs, he'll go to FOX along with all the other crazies, like Glenn Beck, who worked for the "other" CNN as well. But CNN needs to decide what kind of network it wants to be. They have no hosts as nutty, as biased, as fringe as Dobbs on any of their shows. If they're going to keep Dobbs, then they need a liberal counterpart on his show or another, someone of Rachel's or Keith's caliber, a true liberal. Otherwise, CNN will be guilty of political and racial bias. Read More......

Obama admin. continues defense of DOMA

NOTE FROM JOHN: At this point, the Obama administration is cutting our community's legs off. This case is considered one of the best cases ever for our community, in terms of its chances of success. This is how we win our civil rights. It's how President Obama's people won their civil rights. It is ridiculous that President Obama is fighting us in court on a major civil rights challenge. This is really quite abominable. Would the Obama administration have opposed Loving v. Virginia? You know, to show how much better they are than the Bush administration. Yes, as Joe notes below, this time they dropped the incest language. That's nice. You're still trying to kill our chances to get our civil rights. At some point, President Obama needs to decide who he wants to be, and stick with it. Because this is utter bullshit.
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Another DOMA brief filed by the Obama administration's Department of Justice. It's another Department of Justice brief defending DOMA's constitutionality (without the hateful rhetoric this time, so I guess we should all be happy.) The case in question, Gill, et. al., v. OPM, brought by GLAD, is viewed by many of the legal types as to be one of the best challenges to DOMA.

At some point, it would be good if the Obama administration actually took some action to repeal DOMA instead of just talking about it and writing it in court filings. Read More......

FOX says the f-word on the air

If this is for real, then it wasn't on cable, it was on real TV. And that means FCC regulations apply, I do believe. And if so, we're talking a massive fine, I'd think, because it wasn't just the f-word, it was used in a sexually vulgar manner that was likely, in and of itself, proscribed by FCC regs too. Anyone up for filing an FCC complaint?

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Insurance company cancels 17 year old girl's policy because she didn't disclose a cough, fatigue, a dizzy spell, and a wrong cholesterol test

Think about it. If you ever in your life - we're talking some of us have been around for decades - went to the doctor and complained of a cough, of feeling dizzy, of feeling tired a lot, or if you ever had one single test that showed high cholesterol, but since then your cholesterol was fine - if you didn't declare all of those as pre-existing conditions, your insurance thinks they have the right to drop you when you really get sick.

Seriously, who out there has any idea of every single little thing you've ever mentioned to your doctor of the past twenty or forty years? A cough? Fatigue? This is outrageous. It's also typical. We need far more regulation of this decrepid industry than is being proposed. And sending them millions of more customers is a truly scary thought. Read More......

Krugman: If Baucus bill gets watered down any more, walk away from it

Krugman says that if the Baucus bill gets amended to include the public option it could be acceptable. But he also warns that if the bill gets any worse, Democrats should vote against it:

It would be disastrous if health care goes the way of the economic stimulus plan, earlier this year. As you may recall, that plan — which was clearly too weak even as originally proposed — was made even weaker to win the support of three Republican senators. If the same thing happens to health reform, progressives should and will walk away.

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Bangor, Maine paper slams anti-gay TV ads

Posted at gay.AMERICAblog.com. It uses terms like "falsehood" and "baseless," and asks the following about the anti-gay forces funded by the Catholic Bishop of Maine:

Are they knowingly misleading people by claiming schools will be forced to teach the details of gay sex, or are they genuinely ignorant that same-sex couples are among us, and that their children are in our schools?

Knowingly misleading or genuinely ignorant? Both. Read More......

Republicans reject Pelosi's call to shun rhetoric that could lead to violence

Towleroad has video of Rachel Maddow discussing Pelosi's plea, yesterday, for the Republicans to tone down the rhetoric, lest it lead to violence.

Rachel shows a number of photos of anti-Obama protesters, including those outside Obama's speeches, carrying huge guns. CNN carried the photo, above, in a big story they've got on Republicans toting guns at anti-Obama rallies where the president is just inside. The Secret Service, oddly, says that this does not pose a threat to the president:

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan acknowledged the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona, but said he was not aware of any other recent events where protesters attended with open weapons. He said there was no indication that anyone had organized the incidents.

Asked whether the individuals carrying weapons jeopardized the safety of the president, Donovan said, "Of course not."

That's interesting. Because I gotta tell you, if we held an anti George Bush protest near the White House, and brought guns, we'd be speaking Spanish in Gitmo right about now. Since when is it not a threat to the president to bring a huge gun to a political protest outside where he is speaking?

If the Dems had any balls, if the Dems were Republicans, we'd be offering up legislation to ban guns within 500 feet of any event where the president is speaking, or at least ban them from protesters when the president is in the area, or something. Let the Republicans defend protesters bringing HUGE guns to protests where the president is speaking. Let them. Then see how well the GOP fares in the polls. But of course, Democrats won't touch gun control, because it's - let's all say it together now - "controversial." So, better to just let Republicans with a few screws loose bring huge weapons to political rallies that have recently become violent. We really an embarrassment.

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France to increase cost of one night in the hospital by 25%! It's going from $24 to $29.

It's apparently a huge controversy. My Parisian doctor was telling me about it the other day. You see, this is the land of "socialized medicine," and it's gotten so expensive for the government to support that whole single-payer thing that the French govt. is now having to raise the prices for consumers. And boy are people hopping mad. They're talking about raising the price you have to pay for a one night hospital stay by 25%.

Yup.

A night in a French hospital is going to go up from $23.50 a night to $29.40 a night.

The French are also saying that there's such a HUGE deficit - because all of that communist fascist medicine is just too costly - that the state may have to cut the rate at which it reimburses private citizens for the aspirin they buy over the counter. Yes, the state currently reimburses Frenchmen 35% of the cost of... aspirin. Because of the "deficit," the reimbursement may have to go down to 15%.

So, when things are going "badly" in the land of socialized medicine, when they have to cut back because government-paid health care has just gotten too expensive, a hospital stay is still cheaper than the cheapest, sleaziest, low-rent hotel.

Still think we're number one? Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning and Shana Tovah to everyone celebrating the New Year.

There's nothing really big on the president's schedule. The House and Senate are not in session. I hope we're seeing the end of gimmicks like co-ops, triggers and something called "pilot programs" from the brain trust on the Hill. Members of Congress and their staffs often over-complicate things instead of just doing the right thing. Stop the gimmicks. Pass a strong bill that will work.

The Values Voters Summit is in DC this weekend. The theocrats are here in full force at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which is just a couple blocks from my place. If I get inspired, I'll go over and gawk at the cretins.

I did go to a real event last night, for an issue that matters. I was on the board of the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) for almost ten years and one of my friends who is still on the board invited me to sit at his table for the group's "Take A Stand" event. I don't really go to many DC events (they're usually pretty boring with too many speeches.) But, this one was actually fun. I did not know that Lynda "Wonder Woman" Carter was a singer, but she is. And, she performed. As, did the wonderful Patti Austin. But, the best part of the evening was hearing from Kalyn Risher from Sisters Acquiring Financial Empowerment (SAFE). She is a very impressive woman who is changing the lives of abused women every day. That was always true of my fellow board members, too, especially the women who ran, and still run, state-wide domestic violence coalitions. They're very strong, powerful and just know how to things done. That's true for NNEDV: The first Executive Director is now Congresswoman Donna Edwards. Our second Executive Director is now the White House Adviser on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal. (Yes, she's a czar.)

Let's get started.. Read More......

Financial reform may hit the House floor in 2009

Nothing pushes along an issue in Washington quite like bad press. On the one year anniversary of the fall of Lehman the talk has been all about how little has changed despite the big talk. Wall Street hasn't missed a beat and despite investors struggling to get back to break even, Wall Street is paying itself royally again. They're also taking the same risks again with the full understanding that no matter what, Washington will back them up and cover their failures. Last night there were comments from the House about the issue drifting and people being angry and this morning, it's suddenly back in play. Barney Frank insists that the issue will start moving again. Great. Let's see it. Let's also keep Wall Street's hands off of this for once. They're the ones who bungled the economy so let them face the consequences.

Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, hopes to move a single, consolidated bill on financial regulation reform to the House floor for a vote in early November, a Democratic committee aide said.

Frank plans to handle the financial reform agenda in coming weeks in closely spaced committee hearings and drafting sessions involving a half-dozen or so separate pieces of legislation, the aide said.

The first sessions will involve Obama administration proposals to form a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and to regulate over-the-counter derivatives. Then the committee wants to consolidate those into one bill to be brought to the floor for a vote, the aide said.

I want to believe that the Democrats will do the right thing but after watching them drop the ball repeatedly this year on health care and Wall Street reform, I remain cautious. If they want to side with Wall Street (again) then good luck in 2010. Read More......

SEC takes a few more 'baby steps' towards regulation

Flash trading makes up a small percentage of trades though it hardly sounds fair. As an outsider it sounds like gaming the system with whoever has the fastest computer. Cracking down on the ratings agencies has to be stepped up. The ratings agencies are now being sued by California and others due to their questionable ties to the businesses that they rate highly. Wall Street is not the only industry with such incestuous business relationships but when so much money was invested and then lost based on ratings, it's an easy target. NY Times:

The S.E.C. on Thursday proposed banning what are known as flash orders, which use powerful computers to glimpse at investors’ orders. The practice is often associated with a controversial corner of finance called high-frequency trading, which has grown, largely hidden from view, into a potent force in the markets.

The proposed ban was announced on the same day that the S.E.C. put forward new rules for credit ratings agencies, which were widely criticized for their role in the financial crisis. Together, the moves telegraphed a tougher line from the commission after a series of prominent missteps, including its failure to spot the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernard L. Madoff.

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Greenpeace calls for murder charges in toxic dumping case

A financial penalty may not be enough in this extreme case. The Independent:

Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping of tons of toxic waste in one of the world's poorest countries, could be prosecuted for murder after a dossier of evidence was submitted to a court in the Netherlands yesterday, alleging that the sludge caused deaths and serious injuries.

A complaint filed by Greenpeace Netherlands calls for a Dutch prosecution arising from Trafigura's actions in July 2006 – when a chartered tanker carrying the contaminated waste arrived in Amsterdam – to be widened to include events in Ivory Coast a month later which caused thousands of people to fall ill after tons of the foul-smelling slurry was dumped in the port of Abidjan.

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Financial crisis inquiry to begin

It's a start though the moment seems to have passed in Washington. With more problems ahead for the banks (such as commercial real estate and increasing unemployment) this should help move along the process. The difficulty here is that Washington let the Wall Street lobbyists run wild for months and take control of the issue. Reuters:

A U.S. financial crisis fact-finding panel will hold its first meeting on Thursday, in what may be the Obama administration's best hope of reinvigorating a push for tougher financial regulation.

The 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission -- headed by an ex-California gubernatorial candidate -- is charged with getting at the roots of the debacle that late last year brought world banks and capital markets to the brink of collapse.

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