VIDEO: Cat plays on stairs

(H/t to our seriously warped friends over at HuffPost Hill.) Read More......

Meet TSA's Miss December

Oh là là ! More of the TSA pin-up calendar from Towleroad. Read More......

Will DREAM lead to more illegal immigration?

Sen. Jeff Sessions opposes the Democrats' lame-duck push for the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants if they attend college or enter into the military. Politico reports:

None of the bills has been reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee or undergone a cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, wrote Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

“This shell game makes it nearly impossible for members of this body, and their constituents, to properly review and consider the legislation prior to a vote,” he said. “It is an abuse of the process and on that basis alone members ought to oppose cloture.”

What's most frustrating about this sort of "process argument" from Republicans -- It's not that I don't like what you're doing; it's the way you're going about it I don't like -- is that it's entirely disingenuous. Republicans only care about things like reconciliation when it's not them employing it (it was okay when it was used to pass the Bush tax cuts, but not health care), and their problem with the DREAM Act isn't that Democrats are going about it the wrong way. Later in the Politico story, you get to the real reason Sessions is making such a fuss about vetting the DREAM Act: "by rewarding illegal behavior, [it] will encourage future illegal immigration."

That's what Republican opposition to immigration reform is all about (besides an excuse to exclaim their favorite word, "amnesty!"): being "tough" on those who live in the country without authorization. When it comes to DREAM, they think providing citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants is amnesty by proxy -- and fear it will encourage more parents to cross the border illegally to provide their children the opportunity to become citizens.

One can see how Republicans might see this as an incentive. Many parents do come to the United States hoping to provide their children a better life -- and they've been willing to work low-wage jobs in construction, agriculture, and the service industry without health care, Social Security, or any chance of participating in civil society -- to do it. However, the DREAM Act would only provide current residents under a certain age -- not new ones -- with the ability to earn citizenship.

But it's actually quite telling that Republicans are afraid of the possible incentive giving college grads and military members citizenship would provide for people to cross illegally. Anti-immigrant activists like to pretend that those who are here illegally have just chosen to hop the fence instead of going through a straightforward immigration process. But what this says is that getting a college degree or fighting on a battlefield are actually easier than going through our immigration system -- otherwise, why would it be such a draw? Now that seems like something "immigration reform" should focus on. Read More......

Peter 'Save Social Security' Orszag is negotiating his next job – Citigroup

Via Digby, we discovered this little love note in the business press:

Citigroup Inc., recovering from its $45 billion bailout in 2008, is in advanced talks to hire former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Orszag, 41, may take a job in the New York-based firm’s investment-banking division, the people said, declining to be identified because the discussions are private. An announcement may come as early as today, one of the people said.

So let's see, the sequence is:

2005 Peter Orszag, already at the Brookings Institute, proposes the Diamond-Orszag Plan, "Saving Social Security" (pdf; intro here; comment here). He wants (surprise) benefit cuts. The Diamond-Orszag Plan is now incorporated into the Bowles-Simpson (Mr. 310-Million Tits) Deficit Commission Proposal.

2006 Orszag is picked to direct The Hamilton Project, created by Robert Rubin "to think about what a future Democratic administration would do" in the economic sphere. Senator Obama attends the opening.

2007 Orszag goes to the Congressional Budget Office, where his specialty was analyzing the effect of health care costs on the federal budget.

2009 Orszag runs OMB for President Obama, where he makes Deficit Fear his specialty. During the run-up to the health care bill:

Orszag ... had meetings with insurance executives and health experts as the White House made health reform its top legislative priority after enacting the $814 billion stimulus.

2010 Orszag leaves OMB in August and immediately raises his head in September with a NY Times editorial arguing for extension of the Bush tax cuts.

November 3 Orszag writes a NY Times column arguing again for "saving Social Security" by cutting benefits.

It's now barely December, and Orszag has already been spotted negotiating his earthly reward. (Psst: The record is 30; I'd go for 31.)

From Rubin to Obama to Bowles-Simpson to Citi. Not bad for a guy who had to climb his way up from Exeter. As Groucho once said, "Clip me off a piece of that."

GP Read More......

Rumors of White House cave on tax cuts, DADT, Dream and more

UPDATE: I just got a call from someone in the White House who is knowledgeable about the negotiations, and the White House denies that any deal has been struck to kill the DADT compromise, and that, rather, they are still fighting for it. (We were mostly talking about DADT, so I can't speak to the other issues.)

FURTHER UPDATE: Sam and Ryan have updated their story to include the following:

"Both the White House and Senate Democrats stressed that any compromise on tax cuts would not affect efforts to push two other party priorities -- the DREAM Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell. But even then, there was doubt on the Hill that the other provisions could be passed by the time Congress left for recess."

I worry that the WH is working out the grand compromise with the Rs, and even if they leave DADT and DREAM out of it, that in essence kills them anyway. It's kind of like leaving legislation out of a Senate Unanimous Consent agreement. You can argue you didn't kill the legislation you left out - on the contrary, you didn't even mention it! But the result of not mentioning it is that it's not part of the final deal, so there's no other chance to make it happen. What other legislation will the Republicans let the Senate pass than legislation that is included in this deal? The DADT can be just as easily killed with silence.
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Sam Stein and Ryan Grim have the story, but we've been hearing rumors all over town that the White House has pretty much caved on everything. It seems clear that Democrats on the Hill are permitting this story to get out in order to give the White House some spine. Whether it's true or not is unclear. But ask yourself: Would you be surprised if President Obama caved in a negotiation?

More from Sam Stein and Ryan Grim:

The deal Democrats fear will be pushed by the White House would give the GOP a two-year extension of all tax rates. In exchange, Republicans would allow for an extension of unemployment benefits for a yet-to-be-determined period. Democrats would also get smaller tax provisions that they have been pushing for this past year, such as the Make-Work-Pay tax credit. They would also secure a vote on the START Treaty, a nuclear non-proliferation pact with Russia.

"All of this could change rapidly," said one top Hill aide. "It is clear the White House has been pursuing the strategy for the last 24 hours or so. The question is how will it be perceived in the caucus?"

The sense from aides privy to past talks was that such a deal would simply not be enough for such a retreat, considering that what Republicans would be "giving up" [permitting the START treaty to be ratified] originated with President Reagan. "The idea that Republicans would give us a vote on their fucking treaty--I mean, this was Ronald Reagan's treaty, we're just extending it--is crazy," said one top Democratic aide. "We have the White House and the Senate. Why should they get their top choice when we aren't?"

And of course, DADT is dropped as a part of this deal.

And get ready for your heads to really explode. Who do you think is negotiating for "our side" with the Republicans? Treasury Secretary Geitner. Read More......

More talk of trouble in Belgium, but Italy too

Next year may have a bit more excitement than most expected. Just as many US states will have a rough year as the federal dollars disappear, many EU states are increasingly under scrutiny.

But even as concern mounts that Portugal and possibly Spain may seek financial aid after Greece and Ireland requested bailouts, investors have started asking whether their economies may be the next weak links in Europe’s monetary union.

Italy and Belgium have a lot in common: Both have big domestic surpluses and are less dependent on foreign creditors than Greece or Ireland. But each is plagued by severe political dysfunction, which has raised questions about whether they can ever repay a mountain of debt, respectively the second- and third-heaviest loads in the European monetary union after Greece.

Debt and political problems have long histories in both countries, but were free to devalue their own currency to climb out of an economic downturn before joining the euro. But none of that seemed to matter until this week, when investors, transfixed by debt fears in other countries, drove borrowing costs in Italy and Belgium to near record highs.

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Senator Sanders: 'Has the Federal Reserve become the central bank of the world?'

It's a valid question that needs to be discussed. This type of information should have been public a long time ago and this should make everyone even more uncomfortable with the Fed having too much authority to call the shots. And yes, that includes having oversight with the recent financial regulations.

As painful as this recession has been for Americans (and others around the world) should the US Federal Reserve really be bailing out foreign banks to such an extent? It's not immediately clear how this is in the best interest of the American taxpayers or the American economy. Help is one thing but this does sound rather extreme. I also can't help but think back to all of the countries around the world who complained (hypocritically) that the US stimulus was unfair because it was supposed to favor US companies over foreign companies. Somehow those same countries overlooked the Fed saving their ugly financial problems.

Federal Reserve data showing UBS AG and Barclays Plc ranked among the top users of $3.3 trillion from emergency programs is stoking debate on whether U.S. regulators bear responsibility for aiding other nations’ banks.

UBS was the biggest borrower under the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, with $74.5 billion overall, more than twice as much as Citigroup Inc., the top U.S. bank recipient, according to the data released yesterday. London-based Barclays Plc took the biggest single amount under another program that made overnight loans, when it got $47.9 billion on Sept. 18, 2008.

“We’re talking about huge sums of money going to bail out large foreign banks,” said Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent who wrote the provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that required the Fed disclosures. “Has the Federal Reserve become the central bank of the world? I think that is a question that needs to be examined.”

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Maine's new GOP/Teabagger Governor will review 'burdensome' regulations on child labor laws

Maine's Governor-elect, Paul LePage, is in DC today to meet with the President. Yesterday, he was meeting with Maine businesses to talk about cutting regulations. Among the items on the chopping block are child labor laws. Not kidding:

Tuesday’s forum was sponsored by the Maine Business Association Roundtable, a group of lobbyists for chambers of commerce and trade groups that represent general contractors, merchants, auto dealers and real estate agents.

Twenty-eight representatives of these groups sat at a table with LePage on Tuesday and listed an assortment of regulations they described as well-intended but burdensome — regulations related to the environment, civil rights, public health, child labor laws and tax policy.

And, we wonder why Collins and Snowe are veering right. This is their Republican party. Read More......

Sec. Gates says Senate should pass DADT repeal -- or the Courts will do it

We're monitoring the hearing on the Pentagon's DADT study over at AMERICAblog Gay.

Secretary Gates cited John McCain (who is determined to be the Senate's leading homophobe) in his opening remarks. He urged the Senate to pass repeal -- because, otherwise, the Courts will do it. That seems to be the new potent talking point from Gates, thanks to the Log Cabin Republican's successful DADT lawsuit.
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WikiLeaks: Russia a 'virtual mafia state'

Interesting, but hardly a surprise.

Russia is a corrupt, autocratic kleptocracy centred on the leadership of Vladimir Putin, in which officials, oligarchs and organised crime are bound together to create a "virtual mafia state", according to leaked secret diplomatic cables that provide a damning American assessment of its erstwhile rival superpower.

Arms trafficking, money laundering, personal enrichment, protection for gangsters, extortion and kickbacks, suitcases full of money and secret offshore bank accounts in Cyprus: the cables paint a bleak picture of a political system in which bribery alone totals an estimated $300bn a year, and in which it is often hard to distinguish between the activities of the government and organised crime.

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Besides cutting unemployment for 2 million, GOP says 'no' to child nutrition

So how much more nasty can they be? These are not the kind of people who you can negotiate with in a friendly manner. The Republicans are tripping over themselves to help the ultr-rich but once again, it's all about screwing everyone else in the process.

House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier. First lady Michelle Obama has lobbied for the bill as part of her "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity.

House Democrats said the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The big event today is the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Pentagon's DADT report, which begins at 9:00 AM ET. The witnesses are Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen and the authors of the report: Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and General Carter Ham. The Senate Armed Services Committee will livecast the event here. The hearing will also be broadcast on C-SPAN 3.

Yesterday, the entire GOP caucus signed a letter stating that there will be no action on anything until they get their way on government spending and tax cuts. Yes, the Republicans suck -- and Susan Collins is a hypocrite and fraud if she abandons her commitment to equality. But, let's not forget that we're in this mess because of the strategy concocted by the White House. Back in February, there was a deliberate decision made to release the Pentagon report on December 1st. That would leave little time to finish the work before the Congress adjourned. So, here we are. There's still time to do this if there's the political will. And, if it doesn't happen, there's plenty of blame to go around. But, it's is a "political disaster" for the President -- and he needs some wins these days, not more losses.

The Washington Post has a very strong editorial calling for passage of the DREAM Act. That should be another no-brainer.

I know I'm stating the obvious, but it really feels like there is no decency whatsoever among so many elected officials. None.

It is the holiday season, though you wouldn't know it by the way members of the GOP are acting on Capitol Hill.

Happy Hannukah to all who are celebrating. Read More......

Winter weather has arrived early this year in Europe

A nasty cold front blew in last week and it's due to stick around until this weekend. Even here in Paris, which is typically rainy and gray, we've had snow flurries and are expecting more the next few days. Maybe this is the worst that we're going to see for the year and it's going to stay mild the rest of the winter. That's what I like to think, at least.

Heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures disrupted road, rail and air transport in many parts of northern Europe on Wednesday while the Mediterranean island of Cyprus suffered in the heat after its driest November in more than a century.

Britain labored under its worst early winter weather in almost two decades, with Edinburgh airport and London's Gatwick airport closed. Snow blanketed much of the country, causing delays on major roads and railway lines.

British gas and power prices rose sharply on increased domestic consumption and demand for electrical power from neighboring countries such as France and Belgium which have also been hit by the cold.

Read More......