Music that makes me happy

Sometimes it's nice to take a short break from politics.

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Oh to be a fly on the wall of the RNC...

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Whaling ship collides with activists in Antarctic

The most ridiculous thing is that the Japanese have to give the whale meat away back home. It's hardly popular and only supported by an extreme minority though the AP only calls the anti-whaling activists "radical." This situation is trending in a bad direction.

A boat carrying a group of radical anti-whaling activists collided with a Japanese whaling vessel in the Antarctic Ocean on Friday in a clash Japan condemned as "unforgivable." No one was injured.

Activist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said his boat was trying to prevent a Japanese ship from dragging a whale on board when another Japanese boat shot in front of Watson's vessel, causing a collision.

"The situation down here is getting very, very chaotic and very aggressive," Watson told The Associated Press by satellite phone from his boat, named after the late Australian conservationist and TV personality, Steve Irwin.

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Brace yourself, but Bush may have overpaid for bailout

And yeah, maybe the Democrats could have played hardball better as well. When have Republicans not catered to big business? Who really thought Paulson wouldn't take good care of his friends on Wall Street? More from the AP:

The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year's overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms.

The findings added to the frustrations of lawmakers already wary of the $700 billion rescue plan, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Congress approved the plan last fall, but members of both parties criticized spending decisions by the Bush administration and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

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Top GOP Strategist: Saving the economy through bipartisanship is for "wussy Republicans"

Just in case we all weren't sure how the Republicans really felt about bipartisanship, top GOP strategist Alex Castellanos explained it tonight on CNN. Bipartisanship, even to save the economy (which lost 600,000 jobs last month alone) is for the "wussy Republicans." Apparently, the real macho Republicans would rather let the economy fall into a depression before they ever support a Democratic recovery package:
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There's apparently a deal in the Senate on the stimulus

CNN is reporting the "Breaking News" that there's a "tenative deal" on the stimulus that could get 60 votes. They're hearing it's a $780 billion package.

AP has heard the same thing:

Democratic sources on Friday reported a tentative deal in the Senate on President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package.

Details were not immediately available, but the package earlier teetered after hours of backroom meetings failed to produce an agreement that could attract crucial GOP votes.

UPDATE @ 6:27 PM: AP has already updated its report:

Amid stunning new job losses and yet another bank failure, key senators and the White House reached tentative agreement Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan.

Two officials said the emerging agreement was for a bill with a $780 billion price tag, but there was no immediate confirmation.

The tentative agreement capped a tense day of back room negotiations in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sought to attract the support of enough Republicans to give the measure the needed 60-vote majority.

Officials strongly suggested that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vote would be needed to assure passage. The Massachusetts Democrat, battling a brain tumor, has been in Florida in recent days and has not been in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day more than two weeks ago. The senator's office did not comment.

Reid met privately in the Capitol with members of his rank-and-file to present the proposed deal.

ANOTHER UPDATE @ 6:33 PM: CNN GOP analyst Alex Castellanos just said "The Democrats still own this bill, Wolf. He's getting a few, it looks like a few Republican votes in the Senate but it's kind of the Democratic-lite Republicans...it's the wussy Republicans." Read More......

$123,322 salary in NYC equals $50,000 in Houston

A new study shows that if you make over $100,000 a year in New York City, you're only middle class. NY Daily News:

A New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston.

In Manhattan, a $60,000 salary is equivalent to someone making $26,092 in Atlanta....

The average monthly rent in New York is $2,801, 53% higher than San Francisco, the second most expensive city in the country.

This is a point that I've tried to make repeatedly in a number of posts. Congress and the administration need to stop making federal financial benefits, such as home tax credits and tax cuts, contingent on salary unless the salary caps take into account where in the country you live. It makes no sense to give someone making $70,000 a year in Houston a $7500 first-time homebuyer tax credit, while telling a New Yorker who makes $101,000 a year that she's too rich to get the same credit - when in fact, the New Yorker is actually making significantly less money than the Houston resident, once you take into account the cost of living both cities. Read More......

Why does Ronald Reagan hate America?

The Republican attack machine is in full swing. Former Bush chief of staff, Andy Card, blasted Obama this week for wearing a dress shirt and tie, but no jacket, in a recent photo in the Oval Office. Card didn't bother mentioning that his own boss, George W. Bush, went jacketless in the Oval Office as well. So did Carter, and Ford, and Reagan, and Kennedy, and Clinton.

This is what Republicans do. They lie. And the media dutifully repeats their lies until repetition breeds truth. (WMD's in Iraq, anyone?) At some point, the media needs to stop acting like they were quite literally born yesterday. But more importantly, when will Andy Card be apologizing to Barack Obama, and the American media, for lying? Read More......

Barbara Boxer calls out Lindsey Graham's theatrics

The term drama queen comes to mind, too:
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Murdoch's News Corp bleeds $6.4 billion

The media ringleader for the right wing of the world crashes again. Let me guess...tax cuts! Oh sorry, that wasn't the answer? Oh well, I guess the right wingers haven't quite figured out how to make a profit in a tough business climate but that's not really a surprise since they ushered in this era in the first place. Gosh, I hope they're OK and didn't gamble too much with credit to make flashy purchases. Somebody should have warned people about those bad business practices that the GOP rolled out.

News Corp., the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, slashed its fiscal 2009 profit forecast a second time after slumping advertising and a writedown led to the first loss in 13 quarters.

Operating income will fall about 30 percent in the year ending in June, more than a November forecast of a percentage drop in the “low to mid teens,” the New York-based company said today on its earnings conference call.

“The downturn is more severe and likely longer lasting than previously thought,” Chief Executive Officer Murdoch said in a statement. The company is implementing “rigorous cost-cutting,” including “major” expense reductions at local TVs, he said on the call.

The global recession is reducing ad sales at News Corp.’s Fox TV stations and newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, bought by Murdoch in December 2007 as part of the $5.2 billion acquisition of Dow Jones & Co. Operating income slumped 8.7 percent at the newspaper unit and 93 percent at the TV stations.

The company recorded an impairment charge of $8.4 billion before taxes in fiscal second quarter to reflect the declining value of its TV, newspaper and other assets. Excluding the impairment, profit fell to 12 cents a share. Analysts projected 19 cents, the average of 19 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

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Don't divorce them

Powerful new video from the Courage Campaign:

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Krugman: "It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive." And, it sounds like Obama is getting fired up.

Sometimes, it seems like Paul Krugman is the only one who gets it. Admittedly, I'm a huge fan, but it seems like Krugman, not Geither and Summers, is the economic mind that can save our economy. He sure nails the absurdity of the current situation:

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

As one of my friends messaged me today, "it's like the Republicans won the election." How did the Democrats let that happen?

What's important now is solving the problem. Of course, Krugman has sage advice there, too. Obama would do well to listen to Paul Krugman right now and not his high paid political consultants and advisers who came up with that failed plan to get 80 votes in the Senate, which actually just empowered the Republicans. "The Obama strategists" who leaked that to the Politico last month are idiots. That not only didn't work, it's been a disaster. Americans need leadership from our president and Krugman has a strategy:

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

Obama started to do that yesterday. Our president needs to go all out now -- just like he did during the campaign. He's fighting against the same failed policies now that he fought in the fall. But, now the situation is even more dire -- and Obama has to fix it.

Last night, at the Democratic House Caucus retreat, Obama sounded pretty riled up. Here's an excerpt from the White House transcript:

But what I have also said is -- don't come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis. (Applause.) You know, all of us here -- imperfect. And everything we do and everything I do is subject to improvement. Michelle reminds me every day how imperfect I am. (Laughter.) So I welcome this debate. But come on, we're not -- we are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. (Applause.)

We can't embrace the losing formula that says only tax cuts will work for every problem we face; that ignores critical challenges like our addiction to foreign oil, or the soaring cost of health care, or falling schools and crumbling bridges and roads and levees. I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV -- if you're headed for a cliff, you've got to change direction. (Applause.) That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.(Applause.)

So the American people are watching. They did not send us here to get bogged down with the same old delay, the same old distractions, the same talking points, the same cable chatter. (Applause.) You know, aren't you all tired of that stuff?

Yes, we are tired of the same old Republican stuff and the same painful cable chatter. That's the Obama we need to see.

With the horrible news about unemployment this morning, he's got no time to lose. Read More......

Unemployment rates hits 7.6% -- worse than expected. 598,000 jobs lost in January

While Republicans continue to play cynical political games on Capitol Hill, the number of Americans who have lost their jobs is skyrocketing. It's even worse than expected:

U.S. employers slashed 598,000 jobs in January, the deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years as the national unemployment rate shot up to 7.6 percent, according to a Labor Department report on Friday that underlined a deepening recession.

January's job losses were worse than the 525,000 that had been forecast by Wall Street economists, who also had expected the unemployment rate to come in lower at 7.5 percent. The bleak employment data is certain to be cited by the Obama administration as a fresh reason for Congress to speed up debate over a multibillion-dollar package of proposals to try to stimulate economic activity.

This is getting really, really scary. The Senate better pass the stimulus bill today. Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, big day in the Senate. Either they reach a deal today or the Majority Leader invokes cloture, which means a vote to cut off the debate on Sunday. Lots of games being played up there. But, the GOP Senators showed their true intentions on Wednesday night when 36 of them voted for an amendment offered by that right wing nut job from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, to remove ALL spending from the stimulus. No stimulus spending when the economy is collapsing. That's the real GOP plan. And, yet, Obama is supposed to deal with those clowns in good faith? Just not possible. If any media types were actually paying attention, the DeMint vote would tell them all they need to know about the Republicans interest in saving our economy.

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Unemployment numbers out today - forecast is 7.5%

This report is going to highlight the need for movement on the stimulus plan. The GOP wants to block anything and everything and the economy is in shambles because of their bad choices. They never offer anything constructive to the process and only block and say "tax cuts" for every question. What visionaries.

With news of fresh layoffs creeping into the markets every day, investors are bracing for another bad nonfarm payrolls report Friday, which could bring the total job losses of the past two months to more than 1 million.

And the numbers are not likely to get better until the second half of the year, analysts said.

Nonfarm payrolls likely dropped by 525,000 in January, according to economists surveyed by ThomsonReuters. Those polled by Briefing.com predicted a drop of 540,000, on average.

And there are a number of predictions much higher. Analysts at ING, who still maintain their view that "we could at some point see 1 million payrolls decline," predict a plunge of 750,000 in January.

The unemployement rate is expected to rise to 7.5 percent from 7.2 percent in December. Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.2 percent.

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Tony Blair: world needs more religion

For those who wondered why a seemingly intelligent person like Blair was so close to Bush, here it is. The man who helped launch a war that opened up religious strife in one of the most tense areas in the world is back to lecture us on the need for more religion. Great. After the last eight years of religion being shoved down our throats, this is the last thing I want to hear from a Western political leader. The upside is he's out of power so there's only so there are limits to how much time he gets in the news. Go pray for someone else and keep me out of it. Keep your damned religion out of my government while you're at it.

Tony Blair gave an extraordinary speech about the global importance of religion yesterday, telling an audience which included the newly-inaugurated President, Barack Obama, that faith should be restored "to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future."

The former prime minister also said he believed the 21st century would be "poorer in spirit" and "meaner in ambition" if it was not "under the guardianship of faith in God." He had been invited by President Obama to lead the prestigious US National Prayer Breakfast, a spectacular event in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel.

Mr Blair also managed to rain on Gordon Brown's parade, meeting the President before any European leader. He dashed ahead of the Prime Minister and other political heavyweights, including Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Vladimir Putin, to lay on the hands and tell the President: "It is fitting at this extraordinary moment in your country's history that we hear that call to action; and we pray that in acting we do God's work and follow God's will."

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British House of Lords is useful on occasion

It doesn't happen often, but in this case they are making a valid case. CCTV has been helpful to police but at the same time, how much surveillance is enough? And when is there too much information to digest, anyway? Neither party in the UK seems interested in personal liberties though it has been under New Labour that the surveillance society has expanded right down to tracking cars.

The steady expansion of the "surveillance society" risks undermining fundamental freedoms including the right to privacy, according to a House of Lords report published today.

The peers say Britain has constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world in the name of combating terrorism and crime and improving administrative efficiency.

The report, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, by the Lords' constitution committee, says Britain leads the world in the use of CCTV, with an estimated 4m cameras, and in building a national DNA database, with more than 7% of the population already logged compared with 0.5% in the America.

The cross-party committee which includes Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, and two former attorneys general, Lord Morris and Lord Lyell, warns that "pervasive and routine" electronic surveillance and the collection and processing of personal information is almost taken for granted.

Although many surveillance practices and data collection processes are unknown to most people, the expansion in their use represents "one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the second world war", the report says. The committee warns that the national DNA database could be used for "malign purposes", challenges whether CCTV cuts crime and questions whether local authorities should be allowed to use surveillance powers at all.

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British bank sacks board

Let this be the example for Wall Street. Now that the government is such a large shareholder (if not majority owner) it's time to clean house. Limiting salaries was a start and perks have to be next but dump the overpaid board members who sat there and did little more than cash in while the banks went down this dangerous path.

Philip Hampton, the new chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, is wielding the axe in the loss-making bank's boardroom in a determined effort to exert his authority over the troubled operation.

Seven non-executives are expected to leave the board as Hampton roots out some of the longest-standing members of a board that presided over as many as 24 acquisitions during the eight years in which ousted chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin was at the helm. The taxpayer will soon own 70% of the bank.

The dramatic clear-out of the RBS board will include the long-standing non-executive directors Peter Sutherland and Bob Scott, the senior independent director who was the main point of communication for disgruntled shareholders.

The former Treasury mandarin Sir Steve Robson is also expected to depart along with Jim Currie, Janis Kong, Charles Koch and Bill Friedrich.

Their departures will signal a major change in the management of RBS, which the former chairman Sir Tom McKillop was forced to defend last year when he declared there were "no patsies" on the board.

Three new government-approved non-executive directors will join the board as stipulated by the government as a condition for the injection of £20bn of taxpayer funds. Those appointments were being finalised last night and could be announced as soon as today.

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Squeeze the banker?

I don't know. Call me when they have a cat litter box scoop with their faces. That might be more appropriate and more functional than a stress ball. Maybe even a pooper-scooper for dogs.

Who do you hold responsible for the economic mess we're in — Paulson? Bernanke? Greenspan?

Well, now you can hold them accountable — literally — with the Squeeze the Banker line of stress dolls from boutique agency CreativeFeed.

"We thought that a stress ball in the shape of the principal icons of our financial system was a funny (and maybe healthy) way of facing the strain we are all under," said Arthur Ceria, CreativeFeed's founder. "These stress dolls are a symbolic effort at turning the tables on what for most of us is a source of considerable strain," he said.

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