Consumers go back to basics

The great spending boom won't be happening this year and maybe not in 2010 either. As unemployment increases it's not surprising that consumers are pulling back.

Retailers were posting disappointing monthly sales Thursday as consumers curbed spending amid higher gasoline prices and rising unemployment.

In addition, wet weather dampened demand for summertime merchandise.

Even before these factors, chain stores were facing difficult comparisons with the year-ago period, when consumers had a little extra cash in their pockets from economic stimulus checks.

Based on comment from retailers, shoppers continued to trade down to less expensive products and focus their spending on the essential items. This doesn't bode well for retailers, who are beginning to stock merchandise for the back-to-school shopping period.

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China arrests foreign mining employees after deal folds

Once again, take a good look at the world business partner. The Australian mining giant Rio Tinto recently pulled out of a multi-billion dollar deal and now their employees have been arrested and charged by the Chinese government. Beijing is completely unstable and untrustworthy. Why would any foreign company want to risk doing business with this bunch? The high mark may indeed be over or coming to an end. CNN:

Four employees of the world's second-largest mining company were arrested in China on suspicion of espionage and stealing state secrets, after having been detained days earlier, state-run media said Thursday.

Four employees of Rio Tinto -- one Australian and three Chinese -- had been held since Sunday, said Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.

Under Chinese law, suspects are officially charged when they are arrested, a distinction from being detained.

Officials with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered conflicting information at a news conference, saying the four workers were detained, not arrested.

China's reason for holding Australian Stern Hu "came as a surprise" to the Australian government, Smith said.

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The devil, and details

One of the problems with this entire health care reform debate is that most of us have no idea what the details are of the various plans that the various Senate and House committees are debating. Nor will we have any idea what the Congress passes, if at all, until a long time after the bill becomes a law. That's one reason why health care reform advocates have been talking about the "public option." Their logic is that at least push for a critical component in the plan, if you can't know all the details of the specific plans the Senators and House members are discussing behind the scenes. Still, this detail, below, is an example of even the "good" plan - the House bill that the health care reform groups support - isn't exactly Sweden.

Under the House bill, a couple with joint income of $75,000, before taxes, would not receive a subsidy. And if they are self-employed, and receive no help from an employer, the premiums that they would be expected to pay could easily run as high as $13,000 a year. After taxes, if they live in a high-tax state, they might take home $65,000 a year—or less. This means that health care premiums would eat 20 percent of their income—or more.

A joint income of $75,000. That means each of you makes $37,500 a year. That's it. And you're cut off from federal assistance with your premium payments. Now, if the premium payments aren't exorbitant, maybe this is okay (but under the analysis above, that's a hell of a lot of money for someone to pay). But I, like you, have no idea if these plans will help me when I'm in my 50s and Blue Cross is charging me well over $1,000 a month for my single person plan (we also have no idea if they'll actually give us real prescription drug coverage, etc.) It's very difficult to support a plan when you have no idea what the plan is, nor what its impact is actually going to be on YOUR coverage. Read More......

Illinois Senator Roland Burris, appointed by Blagojevich, not running in 2010

Burris is out, which is a good thing. That Blagojevich association was never, ever going to be beneficial. Read More......

Video of the ACT UP protest, shutting down the US Capitol Rotunda today

There are two videos. More on the protest.



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Ensign's parents gave nearly $100k to mistress and family

This is starting to sound like blackmail territory. The man is a sitting US Senator. Who is increasingly looking compromised.

Sen. John Ensign ’s parents gave $96,000 to a former campaign staffer with whom he had an extramarital relationship and her family, his attorney said Thursday, denying that the payments violated campaign finance laws or Senate ethics rules.

“The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts,” lawyer Paul Coggins said.


Coggins said Ensign’s parents “decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time” after learning about the affair.

Yeah, because you usually pay your son's mistress' parents $100k, just cuz.

How long until the FBI enters the picture? Read More......

Buffet: get cracking on the stimulus Viagra

How long before the Republicans call Warren Buffet a socialist? Reuters:

"We're not in a freefall, but we're not in a recovery either," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "We were in a freefall really in the last quarter of last year, starting in the financial markets and spreading to the economy, and we had this huge change in behavior."

Buffett, a supporter of President Barack Obama during last year's election campaign, said a second economic stimulus package might be needed. The Obama administration says it does not see a need for a second stimulus yet.

"I think a second one may well be called for. It is not a panacea. A stimulus is the right thing. You hope it doesn't get watered down," he said.

He likened the first $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress to "half a tablet of Viagra and then having also a bunch of candy mixed in --- it doesn't have really quite the wallop."

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A deal has been reached in the New York State Senate

The dysfunctional New York State Senate may be back in operation, according to The New York Times:

Senator Pedro Espada Jr. will return to the Democrats as majority leader, ending a monthlong stalemate that has hobbled state government, as part of a deal worked out by Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

Mr. Espada’s return would give the Democrats 32 votes in the Senate, a clear two-vote margin that would re-establish their control of the chamber. Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, leader of the Democratic caucus, would be president for an undetermined period as part of the deal, which must be approved by the rest of the Democratic senators.

We'll see if this deal holds. Then, we'll see what, if anything, this development means for the same-sex marriage bill. The NY Assembly passed its version of the marriage equality bill back in May. The Senate has been the roadblock for marriage equality in New York State. There were high hopes when the Democrats took control of the Senate this year, for the first time in decades. But, there was no Senate action before Espada and one of his colleagues defected last month, throwing the whole place into chaos. Let's see if the Senate Democrats can redeem themselves -- at least on marriage equality. Read More......

Lovely music video

I promised myself, that on getting home from Sweden, I would not use the word "lovely." One of my new Swedish friends, Bjorn, who I've mentioned before, studied in England. He therefore has an English accent. He therefore uses the word lovely. I tried to explain to Bjorn that lovely in American English is, well, lovely, but also a tad, um, gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are gay. All kidding aside, how did lovely become such a word non grata in male American English?

Here's the lovely video, posted first by Andrew Sullivan.

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Greenpeace unfurls banner on Mt. Rushmore

Now that's ballsy. More here. And on the same day that ACT UP shuts down the US Capitol Rotunda. Politically, this is very interesting. Read More......

GOP Senator Ensign allegedly paid mistress $25,000. Was it federal taxpayer money?

In the wake of the Mark Sanford revelations, Senator John Ensign's affair fell off the radar screen. That probably made Senator Ensign and his GOP colleagues pretty happy. But, last night, the husband of Ensign's former mistress, Doug Hampton, appeared on Las Vegas TV to provide additional details about the affair and its aftermath. Remember, Doug Hampton and his wife, Cynthia (the mistress), both worked for Ensign. Mrs. Hampton was on the campaign staff. Mr. Hampton was on the Senate staff.

According to Mr. Hampton, his wife was paid $25,000 when she left her job (and Ensign.) Also, we learn that Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK and widely known as Dr. No) served as Ensign's marriage counselor:

Doug Hampton spoke publicly for the first time today about the affair his wife had with Sen. John Ensign, saying the Nevada Republican continued his pursuit even after intermediaries tried to get him to stop.

Hampton said that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others urged him to end the affair and help the Hamptons pay off their home and move to Colorado. But Ensign was so infatuated that he continued, Hampton said.

John Hart, Coburn's communications director, released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying Ensign should have ended the affair.

"Dr. Coburn did everything he could to encourage Senator Ensign to end his affair and to persuade Senator Ensign to repair the damage he had caused to his own marriage and the Hampton’s marriage," according to the statement. "Had Senator Ensign followed Dr. Coburn’s advice, this episode would have ended, and been made public, long ago."

Hampton’s comments came during an exclusive two-part interview with Sun columnist Jon Ralston, to air tonight at 5:30 p.m. and tomorrow on “Face to Face with Jon Ralston.”

“In response to today’s television interview, Senator Ensign said Doug Hampton was consistently inaccurate in his statements,” Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said in a statement.

Cynthia Hampton was the treasurer of Ensign’s political action committee and re-election campaign, while Doug Hampton served as a senior aide on Ensign’s Senate staff.

Hampton said Ensign paid the woman more than $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for the senator.

Wait, so you mean he may have used federal money to pay off his mistress? Read More......

Chuck Grassley's sweet federal health care plan

Earlier today, I posted a video of GOP Senator Chuck Grassley telling an audience that if they want health care coverage as good as he gets as a member of Congress, they should go work for John Deere or the federal government.

I asked a health insurance expert friend of mine to detail for me exactly what kind of health insurance plan Senators like Chuck Grassley actually get as members of Congress. Is it true that members of the US Congress have a sweet deal as compared to the US public at large? His answer: Yes. Here's his analysis.

Ok, so it's probably best to compare family plans, as that's the number quoted in the video, and Grassley has/had a family.

Here is the info on the FEHBP plan Grassley got until he was 65:

(we're using Blue Cross because it's standard and what most people end up buying)

On the last page, you can see the rates. $356.59 per month for the entire family. The benefits are great (see page before the prices, standard benefits, summery of benefits):

$20 co-pay, $200 for any hospital stay of any length, $0 for outpatient services, all subject to a $300 deductible, so you only pay max $300 per visit. Dental included. Annual limit is $5,000.

Compare that to a typical plan for a typical Iowan age 64 with a wife and a kid from http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/

I'm using the bestseller, benefits pasted below.

Monthly costs are $541.23. Deductible is $15,000 ($5,000 per person). You still pay 20% of costs even after the deductible is reached. Annual limit is $21,000.

So, let's take a scenario. Chuck Grassley, the Senator, gets indigestion but thinks it's a heart attack and goes to the emergency room. The most he pays for that is $300.

John Doe the Iowan has the same problem. He could be stuck paying $5,000, more if the full bill is higher (he pays 20% of all charges over that).

So you see, it's only socialism when you and I want the same sweet deal that members of Congress like Chuck Grassley, Max Baucus, and Mary Landrieu have. Read More......

AIDS activists shut down US Capitol rotunda over Obama reversal on AIDS policy

Part 1 of 2:



Part 2 of 2:



UPDATE: That White House Web site pledge to support repeal of the federal ban on needle exchange? It appears to be gone.

Woah. Joe and I got wind of this last night. (Great picture on the home page of Roll Call.)

A group of 26 AIDS activists chained themselves to each other in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday morning, startling visitors, shutting down the landmark area and prompting their arrest by Capitol Police.

The group, which was protesting President Barack Obama’s failure to get rid of a ban on funding needle exchange programs, arrived at the Rotunda around 10 a.m.

Candidate Obama said he would help overturn the ban on needle exchange. President Obama reversed himself and banned federal funding for needle exchanges in his budget this year.

The quote from Obama's spokesman is priceless:

Obama, during the primary campaign, pledged his support of needle exchange programs to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. When he took over the White House, the administration website affirmed: "The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users."

Yet Obama's budget includes language that bans spending federal money on needle-exchange programs.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration isn't yet ready to lift the ban - but Obama still supports needle exchange.

"We have not removed the ban in our budget proposal because we want to work with Congress and the American public to build support for this change," he said.

Let's see...

1. The candidate promised to lift the ban.
2. The White House Web site reaffirmed the president's commitment to lifting the ban.
3. The White House Web site no longer reaffirms his commitment to lifting the ban.
4. The president now refuses to lift the ban.
5. The president actually affirmatively makes things worse by administratively supporting defending the ban.
6. The spokesman reiterates the president's support for lifting the ban, some day, once Congress gets around to it.

Sound familiar? Read More......

I don't know if Jeb Bush is a child molester

Define child molester for me. Read More......

New CBC study does, or doesn't, shed light on racism on the Hill

The Congressional Black Caucus just released a study which, they say, shows that white committee chairs in the House hire fewer black staffers than black committee chairs. (Of course, you could spin the study another way: that black committee chairs in the House hire fewer white staffers than white committee chairs.)

It's really not clear if there's a problem, or where the problem lies, until you look at the exact numbers:

The 31-person Democratic staff of the House Agriculture Committee and the 24-person Democratic staff of the House Rules Committee, for example, each have a single black aide. Conversely, the Homeland Security and Oversight and Government Reform Committees — both run by African American chairmen — have Democratic staffs that are 45.5 percent and 44.4 percent black, respectively.

When blacks are 13.5% of the US population, one black aide on an entire 31-person committee - i.e., 3% of the staff - strikes me as more than a bit scant, so the CBC has a point. But 45% of the staff on a committee chaired by a black member of Congress is black? According to the 2007 census data released last year, here is the minority make-up of America:

Washington -- Slightly more than one-third of the population of the United States -- 34 percent -- claims “minority” racial or ethnic heritage, a jump of 11 percent from 2000....

There are 45.5 million Hispanics living in the United States, accounting for 15 percent of the U.S. population. Blacks comprise the second-largest minority group, with 40.7 million (13.5 percent), followed by Asians, with 15.2 million (5 percent).

While I'm not one to suggest that congressional committees need to match exactly how many whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics, women etc. are in the population, it would be nice if they at least got in the ballpark. At least as it concerns minority representation (which begs the question - even if you think that minorities should be represented, more or less, according to their numbers in the population at large, does the same apply to white representation?)

Whites are around 65% of the population, according to the 2007 census. African-Americans are 13.5% of the country. Yet, African American committee chairs are giving as much as 45% of their staff jobs to blacks. Is that understandable affirmative action that makes up for past discrimination, or does the racial hiring problem on the Hill cut both ways? What do you think? And does it change your view to know that, in fact, African-Americans have more representatives on committees overall than their numbers in the population? (Basically because the black committee chairs overcompensate while the white committee chairs undercompensate.)

Overall, the survey found that African Americans account for a percentage of committee staff — 18.7 percent — that is higher than the 12.8 percent of the national population that is black.

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New jobless claims down, continuing jobless number up

Another mixed bag, though the continuing numbers look ugly.

The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits last week fell to lowest level since early January, largely due to changes in the timing of auto industry layoffs.

Continuing claims, meanwhile, unexpectedly jumped to a record-high. While layoffs are slowing, unemployed workers are having a difficult time finding new jobs. The unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent last month and is expected to top 10 percent by the end of this year.

New claims for unemployment insurance plummeted by 52,000 to 565,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's significantly below analysts' expectations of 605,000, according to Thomson Reuters. The last time new claims were below 600,000 was week of Jan. 24.

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GOP Sen. Grassley: If you want a better insurance policy, go work for John Deere or the federal government

And Grassley is the "good" Republican on health care reform. He's the guy who Democratic Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), who has been selling us out to the insurance industry, has been trying to broker a deal with. Grassley's idea of health care reform - his explanation of why he wants you to have worse health coverage than he gets as a federal employee - is that everyone go work for the federal government, or John Deere, then you'd get the same coverage as him! Why is Baucus trying to work with people so divorced from reality? Unless Baucus is just as divorced from reality himself. Perhaps people should ask Baucus if he thinks the solution to America's health care woes is that everyone go work for the government, or John Deere: (202) 224-2651

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Greenwald on "presidential post-acquittal detention power"

From Glenn Greenwald over at Salon:

Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt: "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention."

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CIA "misled" and "affirmatively lied to" Congress

Some people, i.e. Capitol Hill Republicans, seems surprised that the CIA wasn't honest with Congress.

The last president of the U.S., George Bush, affirmatively lied to Congress, the press and the American people about the war in Iraq (and other issues like outing a CIA spy.) Why would anyone think his minions wouldn't be lying too? What is surprising is that the Director of the CIA is admitting his agency's failings:

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, referred to Mr. Panetta’s disclosure in a letter to the committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, Congressional Quarterly reported on Wednesday. Mr. Reyes wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.”

Remember the GOP and media frenzy when Nancy Pelosi first asserted that the CIA had been misleading Congress? She was right all along. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is still in Italy at the G-8 summit. He's going to be meeting with Pope Benedict the 16th Century tomorrow. According to Robert Gibbs, they're going to have a "frank" talk when the subject of abortion comes up. Frank? The Pope sees the world through a very narrow lens. Very narrow. Although, he does love Prada.

Joe Biden will be in Ohio and upstate New York today to tout the benefits of the stimulus package. That's a good project for Joe Biden, especially after that comment earlier this week, "We misread how bad the economy was." I suspect people in Ohio and upstate New York did know how bad the economy was. Biden should have listened to them instead of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.

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

UK softens positions on banking regulations

While there is some movement on the important issue of carrying enough capital for risky investments, overall the news is not good unless you work in the City or Wall Street. Their point about carrying more cash is valid though because if they are handing out fat bonuses, this could easily mean they are investing in risky ventures again which means they will now be forced to have more cash on hand to support those risks. Besides that, it's business-as-usual in the UK as well combined with a touch of unclear talk of the future.

Alistair Darling stepped back today from a radical overhaul of Britain's banks when he ruled out caps on bankers' pay or breaking up the biggest City institutions.

Pointing to the importance of 1m jobs in financial services and the £250bn of tax generated by the sector in the past nine years, the chancellor's much-anticipated response to the current "severe financial crisis" rejected demands for major reforms by opposition parties and the Bank of England governor Mervyn King.

But Darling told the Commons that "irresponsible pay practices made banks take too much risk" and that bank boardrooms "had little appreciation of what was going on inside their own businesses". Proposals for boardroom reform will be announced in an interim report by the City grandee Sir David Walker next week.

While Darling outlined steps to give the Financial Services Authority (FSA) new powers for financial stability, the current "tripartite" system involving the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury will remain largely intact after today's 176-page white paper on reforming financial markets. Banks will be have to hold more capital but it is not immediately clear how much, or what the impact of that will be.

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Murdoch's News Corp in trouble again

Illegaly spying on people including politicians never goes down very well and paying hush money raises even more questions. This new development should probably lead to even more legal action against Murdoch's business. The charges also could impact the director of communications for the UK Conservative party leader David Cameron who has been implicated in this report.

Rupert Murdoch's News Group News­papers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public ­figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

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G8 agrees on climate change, developing polluters balk

It's good to see the US outside of the grouping with the developing world polluters including China, India and Brazil though the US remains at the top of the list on a per capita basis. China is at the top overall. After the "I don't care" years of Bush, this is progress. Building out the green energy business is going to take time though this industry could provide both jobs to grow the troubled economy and environmental benefit. The Guardian:

The Group of Eight industrialised economies, including America, today agreed for the first time that they must limit worldwide temperature rises to no more than 2C, but failed to reach agreement with developing nations on how that should be achieved – a disappointment to those expecting Barack Obama to break a decade long deadlock.

The G8, representing the richest nations, also agreed for the first time that it should collectively cut emissions by 80% by 2050, and that the world should be able to cut its emissions by 50% by the same date.

In a fudge designed to recognise the difficulties different rich countries will face in meeting this target, the agreed G8 communique released at the L'Aquila summit set a fuzzy baseline for their 80% cut "of 1990 or more later years". The communique also acknowledges baselines may vary but "efforts must be comparable".

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