Harry Reid's GOP opponent, Sharron Angle, backs off language about 'taking out' Harry Reid

She's a nut. Though, interestingly, she, like Rand Paul, is beginning to learn that while being a nut is great for your CV in a GOP primary, it's substantially less helpful for the general election. Read More......

Woman says vampire caused car crash

How could I not post this? From KDVR Denver:

The woman claims she spotted a vampire in the middle of a dirt road near Fruita, Colo. Sunday night. She told Colorado State Troopers she was startled by the undead being, threw her SUV into reverse, and crashed into a canal.

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EU passes new law that limits bankers to 1/3 of bonus in cash

Something drastic needs to happen to change the current culture within this industry. This may not be enough though it's a decent start. As the world economy starts to falter again, it would be nice to see those in power start thinking more about how to deliver actual change instead of cosmetic change to an industry that continues to cause more problem than benefit. It's about time the bankers thought more about the society that rescued them instead of their precious bonuses that have barely been scratched.

Bankers in Europe will not be allowed to take home more than a third of their bonuses in cash from the start of next year, under planned new rules, a leading EU lawmaker told Reuters on Tuesday.

The new regime, which goes further than American rules agreed on last week, would be the first cap on how bankers are paid and a victory for EU lawmakers who have otherwise become bogged down in efforts to regulate banking.

"The bankers have shown that despite the crisis, they are not able to show self-restraint. This law will do it for them," said Arlene McCarthy, the Labour-party lawmaker who negotiated tougher rules on behalf of parliament with European countries.

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A grueling day for Kagan

Via HuffPost Hill:

Klobuchar: You had an incredibly grueling day yesterday, and did incredibly well, but I guess it means you missed the midnight debut of the third "Twilight" movie last night. We did not miss it in our household, and it culminated in three 15-year-old girls sleeping over at 3 a.m. So I have this urge to ask you about this --

Kagan: I didn't see that.

Klobuchar: I keep wanting to ask you about the famous case of Edward v. Jacob, or The Vampire v. The Werewolf.

Kagan: I wish you wouldn't.

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Wall Street reform passes House 237-192

Just happened. Roll call will be here (not up yet, as of when I posted this). Castle, Jones, and Cao were the three Republicans who voted in favor. Read More......

Reid to call another vote on unemployment benefits Thursday night, still short of votes

The Republicans, along with the $500,000 man, Ben Nelson, are still intent on removing food from the mouths of millions of unemployed Americans.

The two GOP senators supporting the measure are Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, their offices confirmed to POLITICO.

But with Byrd's vacancy and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska telling reporters he will not support the bill, Reid will need to flip the votes of two more Republicans. Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and George Voinovich of Ohio, who both have voted with the Democrats on emergency extensions this year, are likely targets.

Without an extension of the pending benefits, unemployment payments would continue to be phased out for more than 200,000 people per week. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis added that more than 1 million people have already lost benefits.

I suspect the Republicans figure that anyone unemployed must be a Democrat.

They are now. Read More......

Obama hits Boehner for calling economic crisis 'an ant'

Bra-vo.

“We’re on the verge of passing the most comprehensive financial reform since the Great Depression—reform that will prevent a crisis like this from happening again. It’s reform that will protect our economy from the recklessness and irresponsibility of a few. Reform that will protect consumers against the unfair practices of credit card companies and mortgage lenders. Reform that ensures taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes.

“But most of our friends in the other party are planning on voting against this reform. In fact, just yesterday, I was stunned to hear the leader of the Republicans in the House say that financial reform was like using a nuclear weapon to target an ant. That’s right. He compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their lives savings.

“Well if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant. He should ask the men and women who’ve been out of work for months at a time. He should ask the Americans who send me letters every night that talk about how they’re barely hanging on.

“These Americans don’t believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it’s what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again. The Republican leader might want to maintain a status quo on Wall Street. But we want to move America forward.”

“We already tried the other side’s ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.”

This is how you win legislative battles - by hitting back, hard. We're seeing a lot more of this from the President lately, in contrast to his earlier efforts to make friends with the Republicans at the expensive of his policy promises. Now he's putting what's best for the country first. It's a bit late, but still, this will help. Read More......

Arguments for and against the Wall Street reform bill

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft argues, in detail, why the bill is a good thing. Senator Feingold explains why he's opposed. Read More......

FL GOP held male-only events; Crist was there

Funny. Charlie Crist attending men-only events. Who'd have imagined it.

From former party (and Charlie Crist) finance director Meredith O'Rourke: O'Rourke stated that she was aware of Greer having "men only" meetings. As an example, O'Rourke recalled a "Thank You Trip" that Greer planned for the major donors to Governor Crist's "Yes on 1" amendment dealing with property taxes. As a thank you to major donors, Greer took several major donors on a trip to the Bahamas. No female staffers were allowed to go on the trip although Delmar Johnson and Greer's travel aide, Jeremy Collins went on the trip. O'Rourke also recalled speaking to a female lobbyist friend, Beth Kigel who relayed to her of a "men's only" meeting at the Governor's Club in Tallahassee, Florida wherein Greer and Governor Crist were attempting to solicit major donors for the Governor's "Yes on 1" initiative. Kigel informed O'Rourke that she was excluded from the meeting while one of her clients, a male client, was allowed in to the meeting....

Read More......

Rand Paul dodges question on how old the earth is

I guess someone has learned his lesson. Read More......

CNBC's 'Tea Party' Santelli goes nuts again

If you thought his last insane rant was a spectacle wait until you see this. Unfortunately the part where he yells at the CNBC anchor and tells him to "go back to Russia" but you'll get the point. Santelli flogs his usual Austrian economics story while ignoring what respected economists such as Krugman and Stiglitz say about slashing spending. (There are decades of evidence that shows the end result which is not economic growth, but quite the opposite.) The full horror story at Think Progress. Read More......

31% of home sales were on foreclosed homes in first quarter

The good news is that it's only 30 points higher than the pre-recession number.

Foreclosure homes accounted for 31 percent of all residential sales in the first quarter of 2010, with the average sales price of properties that sold while in some stage of foreclosure nearly 27 percent below homes that were not in the process, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said.

"In a normal market, only 1 to 2 percent of home sales are foreclosures, so this is certainly a significant level," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac, said in an interview.

Total U.S. foreclosure sales in 2009 were up more than 1,100 percent from 2006 and more than 2,500 percent from 2005. Foreclosure sales accounted for 29 percent of all sales in 2009, up from 23 percent in 2008 and a mere 6 percent in 2007, the real estate data company said.

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Bachmann blames Obama for trying to force US into a global economy

Is she trying to be like Sarah Palin or is she really that much of an idiot? And to think the GOP gets defensive when the Democrats rightly link current problems to Bush. Bachmann may not like this crazy "new" global economy thingy, but others such as Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft probably feel differently about it. In fact, quite a few US-based companies have been increasing their profits thanks to business overseas in that "global economy" world that she so fears. Exports from the US into this nutty "global economy" have been one of the bright spots for the US economy. So why does Bachmann want to destroy economic growth? More from Think Progress:

In an interview on Scott Hennen’s radio show today, Bachmann claimed that the purpose of the G-20 was to “bind together the world’s economies.” Neglecting the already interconnected nature of the global economy, Bachman declared that “President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy”:

BACHMANN: What really concerned me was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that we don’t want to see one country’s economy doing better than another. What? This is the U.S. Treasury Secretary? We don’t want to see Zimbabwe’s economy do better than the United States? Aren’t we supposed to be about the United States and making sure that our economy can be the greatest in the world. If you look at the G20, what they’re trying to do is bind together the world’s economies. Look how that played out in the European Union when they bound all of those nations economies together and one of the smallest economies, Greece, when they got into trouble, that one little nation is bringing down the entire EU. Well, President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy where all of our nations come together in a global economy. I don’t want the United States to be in a global economy where, where our economic future is bound to that of Zimbabwe. I can’t, we can’t necessarily trust the decisions that are being made financially in other countries.

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Biden says GOP Senators threatened with chairmanships if didn't vote for filibusters

This is probably true. It would explain a lot as to how the Senate Republicans are able to always vote in one bloc. And while Biden is right to criticize it - well, right to take advantage of the disclosure to embarrass the GOP since the public likely won't like hearing about this - I do wish the Democrats would try something like this, rather than keep trying something like this.

"I know at least 7 [GOP] senators, who I will not name, but were made to make a commitment under threat of losing their chairmanships, if they did not support the leadership on every procedural vote," Biden said at a fundraiser Monday night.

"Every single thing we did, from the important to the not so important, required for the first time in modern American history, majority votes required 60 votes. All the sudden a majority became 60 instead of 50," the VP added, according to a pool report of the event.

And for those who argue that this is "dirty politics," and by not doing it, it shows how much better the Democrats are than Republicans, that will be great consolation to the people of the Maldives as their country sinks into the ocean because we just couldn't muster the votes to do the right thing on climate change.

Governing isn't always pretty. And, generally speaking, when someone cares more about "clean government" than "good governance," they're naive and end up a failure. Read More......

Democrats fold, remove bank and hedge fund fees

So is it the Democrats' messaging that completely sucks or are they just complete, gutless cowards? You know they are in bad shape when they can't even pass this mild "reform" because they're too afraid to fight the GOP who can't stop supporting Wall Street's bad behavior. Either way, they suck. Why do we vote for these people?

House and Senate negotiators hoped for a vote in the House on Wednesday and to secure the votes of three straying Republicans in the Senate. The Senate vote, however, is not likely until after Congress' weeklong July 4 break.

The death of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., this week and fresh objections from Republican Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine had threatened to derail the bill, already a year in the making.

Eager to salvage one of President Barack Obama's legislative priorities, Democrats altered the formula that would have paid for the legislation by eliminating a contentious $19 billion fee on large banks and hedge funds.

Instead, House and Senate negotiators, voting along party lines, agreed to pay for the bill with money generated by ending the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program — the $700 billion bank bailout created in the fall of 2008 at the height of the financial scare.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is heading to Racine, Wisconsin today to talk about the economy. Also, in Wisconsin today, the state's Supreme Court will determine whether the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions should be overturned over a technical issue. (UPDATE: The Court upheld the ban.)

The Senate Judiciary Committee continues its hearing on the confirmation of Elena Kagan today. She'll be taking more questions from Senators today. So far, no real drama. In response to a question from Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Kagan was unequivocal in her opposition to DADT.

We've been helping the congressional campaign of Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet. He's a gay, married dad challenging incumbent Mary Bono Mack. She recently voted against the DADT repeal compromise. And, this one is personal. Several years ago, during a hearing on Hate Crimes, Bono accused two gay witnesses of lying about being victims of hate crimes. One of those witnesses was our colleague, Tim Beauchamp. He wrote about that experience here. Pougnet can beat her -- and should. We've got an ActBlue page for Pougnet here. Help send a gay, married dad to Congress -- and take out a nasty GOPer along the way.

Should be another busy news day. Read More......

Why did Geithner and Paulson so strongly favor the banks during the bailout?

Besides cozy relationships, it's hard to explain why both the Bush and Obama administrations were so friendly to the banks yet so harsh with AIG and Chrysler. Wouldn't it be nice is either of the two administrations were honest with the public about their reasons for favoring the banks that delivered the global recession? The long term love affair hasn't even ended regardless of who is sitting in the White House, unfortunately.

The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008 when it forced Chrysler’s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out the auto giant.

As a Congressional commission convenes hearings Wednesday exploring the A.I.G. bailout and Goldman’s relationship with the insurer, analysts say that the documents suggest that regulators were overly punitive toward A.I.G. and overly forgiving of banks during the bailout — signified, they say, by the fact that the legal waiver undermined A.I.G. and its shareholders’ ability to recover damages.

“Even if it turns out that it would be a hard suit to win, just the gesture of requiring A.I.G. to scrap its ability to sue is outrageous,” said David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The defense may be that the banking system was in trouble, and we couldn’t afford to destabilize it anymore, but that just strikes me as really going overboard.”

“This really suggests they had myopia and they were looking at it entirely through the perspective of the banks,” Mr. Skeel said.

Read More......

Hurricane shuts down oil skimming in Gulf

Of course, it could be much worse. The hurricane could be heading straight into the spill zone.

Dozens of small skiffs, huge shrimp boats and even a swamp tour boat were tied to docks, winds whipping their flags and waves rocking them even in the sheltered marina.

Most days, the fleet would be skimming oil from the Gulf of Mexico and ferrying workers and supplies. But Hurricane Alex churning in the Gulf turned many people fighting the massive 11-week-old spill into spectators on Tuesday. And they will be for days.

"Yesterday we had redcaps instead of white caps," said Jesse Alling, a marine science technician with the Coast Guard.

Read More......

Wacky religious right general no longer testifying at Kagan nomination hearing

We reported yesterday that a controversial religious right general, who claims he speaks with the Holy Spirit, was chosen by the Republicans to testify at Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing. I'm told he's now been pulled.

Oh, deny me three times, general! Read More......

CNBC: Washington's Anti-Stock Agenda?

Um, no. Let's turn this around and how about we talk about Wall Street's anti-average-American investor agenda? If anything, Wall Street should be kissing the feet of the Obama administration who was much too kind to the financial industry. Despite massive profits by the leading bailed out financial organizations, normal investors haven't really seen the same kind of rewards. They're recovered from their lows but it's nothing like profits that Wall Street has experienced. For the health care industry, they too have been handsomely rewarded in the new legislation which is why they are able to give their CEOs over $100 million during the worst economic crisis in decades.

Be angry with the pampered lot in those industries who have barely been scratched in terms of financial reward but let's not get carried away and blame Obama for being anti-investments. Why aren't those companies trimming their costs? If they can afford to pump up these outrageous lifestyle salaries, maybe that's where blowhards like Cramer ought to be looking for answers. The stock prices are still overvalued and until there are some serious changes in the way those companies operate, blaming Obama is complete BS.

With multiples lower across the board, stocks might seem cheaper, Cramer said Monday, but they're actually just worth less for fear that future earnings will be "crimped" by the government.

The fear is widespread, Cramer said, as "it's impossible to find a company that isn't threatened by the dominant agenda in Washington."

Financial regulatory reform gave banks an earnings "haircut," Cramer said. The debate over health-care reform gave those stocks a similar cut a few months earlier. He thinks the ban on offshore drilling will crush oil-service companies along with the oil companies that need to find oil to keep their reserves up. Elsewhere in the energy space, natural-gas names are expected to get slammed by the Environmental Protection Agency investigations into hydraulic fracturing – a reason multiples are shrinking for Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Chesapeake Energy and Schlumberger.

Cramer said more damage will be done with forthcoming items on the Congressional agenda, including cap-and-trade on carbon emissions and “card check” unionization. Making it easier for workers to unionize would hurt Walmart, as well as big banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase if their tellers were to join the union. Cap-and-trade will come down on "any industry that pollutes," as well as the utility companies, he said.

If anyone has been threatened here it's the average American. Asking for accountability by the corporate world is hardly threatening. Until they can give something back to the rest of the country besides the bill for gambles and environmental disasters, it's crazy to have such a discussion. But hey, we're talking about CNBC and Cramer, after all. Read More......

BP Gulf research grants now being treated as pork

It seems the White House made things worse.

University professors in the gulf region responded with delight last month to BP's pledge to put up $500 million for academic research into the Gulf of Mexico's ecology over the next 10 years. With no significant federal grants on the horizon and an urgency to begin work, some of the academics had taken to using their own credit cards in hopes they would soon be reimbursed.

But their excitement at the windfall turned to chagrin last week after the White House ordered BP to consult with Gulf Coast governors before awarding research grants.

Elected officials in the region responded by demanding that the financial bonanza not spread beyond their own state universities, potentially leaving out such distinguished oceanographic institutions as Woods Hole in Massachusetts and Scripps in San Diego.

The political intervention has transformed the normally independent, merit-based process of matching grant money with researchers into a parochial tug-of-war for BP's millions. The imbroglio also has galvanized scientists who bristle at the notion that elected officials could direct sophisticated academic research.

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BP's bad science

I'm sure this story will surprise you. From Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) are pressuring BP to ditch a private contractor, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), that it hired to do public health response in the Gulf. The company, they say, has been "cited in a long line of controversial cases" in which it has botched data collection methods and supplied bad data. These bad test results, Capps and Welch say, have served to promote the "corporate interests" of CTEH's employers over the protection of public health.

Read More......

White House blasts Boehner as out of touch with America

Good. Excellent, in fact. This is the kind of thing the White House should have been doing a year ago, but it's still excellent they seem to understand that now.

The White House harshly criticized Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the top House Republican, on Tuesday, calling him “completely out of touch with America” because of his opposition to new regulations on Wall Street.

People care about substance. They also care to see whether their politicians have balls. Read More......

Boehner thinks the global financial crisis is 'an ant' in terms of its importance

More from the article Joe wrote about this morning. It seems the man who would be Speaker thinks the global economic crisis is not that a big deal. This is consistent with what Republicans were saying around the time of the stimulus. You'll recall that the GOP felt the stimulus wasn't necessary because America wasn't in that big a crisis, they claimed. So it's not surprising after the last year of economic hell, the Republican leader still thinks the economic crisis is akin to "an ant."

Boehner also thinks that Obama "over-reacted" to the oil spill in the Gulf. Now, many things have been said about the President's response to the spill, but "over-reaction" is not one of them. Yes, Boehner would have taken the spill as even less of a big deal.

The Democrats have been doing a poor job of arguing why they deserve re-election, while Boehner, on the other hand, makes the choice perfectly clear. The Republicans are still run by far-right nuts. They've learned nothing since the Gingrich years. Nothing. Read More......

Scott 'Bankers gave me $450k in 6 days' Brown forcing Wall Street reform back to conference

Remember all the hoopla when the Wall Street reform conference committee reached a deal at 5:39 a.m. last Friday. Yeah, that was a big deal. Except, it wasn't. The Senate doesn't have the votes to pass the conference committee bill, so the House and Senate are going back to the negotiating table.

Chris Bowers has been tracking the developments.

Via The Hill, it's pretty clear that President Scott Brown (having usurped the title from President Olympia Snowe, for the time being anyway) is calling the shots:

Senate and House conferees on Wall Street reform are reconvening Tuesday because of Republican objections to $19 billion in fees that would be placed on big financial firms.

The meeting follows Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) letter to the chairmen of the conference committee on Tuesday, in which he said he would oppose the Wall Street overhaul bill as it stands.

Brown is the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from bankers. Money well spent by the bankers because he's doing their bidding.

It's classic. The anti-establishment teabaggers claimed to elect Brown -- but he's doing the work of the Wall Street establishment now that he's here in DC.

Brown, like most GOPers, is for sale to the highest bidder -- and Wall Street pays way more than the teabaggers. Read More......

More 'Speaker' Boehner: GOP will cut Social Security benefits to pay for war

More of what America would get from Speaker Boehner:

Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he’d favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.

"We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke," Boehner said. "If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you’re retired, why are we paying you at a time when we’re broke? We just need to be honest with people."

Did you hear that senior citizens? The GOP leader admitted he's going to cut your benefits to pay for the war. He's not threatening to end the tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. You remember how Bush and the GOP cut taxes for the rich despite our engagement in two wars. Nope. He's coming for Social Security benefits.

You've been warned, senior citizens.

This is how the GOP will govern. Wall Street bankers will be coddled. Working Americans will get screwed (again.) Read More......

First they came for the segregated swimming pools, and I did nothing...

John Boehner is worried that Democrats are "snuffing out" the America he grew up in. You know, the America where we had different drinking fountains for white folks and black folks. The America in which women were expected to be nurses and stewardesses instead of doctors and pilots. The America in which gay people shut up, hid themselves, and silently committed suicide when they became too old to hide it. This is what's underlying the ongoing GOP assault on Thurgood Marshall at Kagan's confirmation hearings. They long for an America that was once racist, sexist and homophobic. We already knew this, but it's rather remarkable to hear them admit it. Read More......

Haley Barbour's lack of preparation now causing problems

So much for the old "it's not a problem" mentality. Because Barbour failed to take the spill seriously oil is washing ashore and Mississippi is scrambling for solutions including skimming equipment. Maybe he was waiting for the oil to self-regulate and take care of itself. Then again, he could have been praying with Sarah Palin and God simply wasn't listening to either of them.

Just weeks ago, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour claimed that oil was not a big threat to the people of the Gulf Coast. Now, with oil hitting his state's beaches for the first time since the start of the BP spill , the Republican governor says his state isn't prepared for the spill and needs more help.

Earlier in June, Barbour said, "Once [oil] gets to this stage, it's not poisonous," though he said it probably wasn't a good idea to brush one's teeth with it.

With black gobs of oil now sullying Mississippi's white beaches, the governor is taking a more serious tone, asking for more resources to combat the problem he had dismissed.

"We have to be honest with the public. Right now we don't have enough skimming capacity if everything that's off our shores continues going north," Barbour said.

On day 70 of the spill, local officials say they're sorely lacking in supplies to fight the oil. The mayor of Ocean Springs, Miss. told ABC News they're not seeing the response they need from state and federal officials to an urgent problem.

Read More......

Boehner on Dems: 'They’re snuffing out the America that I grew up in'

Two words that should scare all of us: Speaker Boehner.

"They’re snuffing out the America that I grew up in," Boehner said. "Right now, we’ve got more Americans engaged in their government than at any time in our history. There’s a political rebellion brewing, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since 1776."

And, he's unabashed about proclaiming his anti-health care reform and pro-Wall Street agenda:

If Republicans retake control of the House, Boehner promised a vote on a bill repealing the health care law and replacing it with a scaled-down package of tax breaks and court reforms. Democrats likely would maintain control of the Senate, and Obama could veto the proposal, all but eliminating its chances of succeeding.

"We are going to do everything we can to make sure that this law and this program never really takes effect," Boehner said. One option would be to repeal the $534 billion in Medicare cuts, which pay for more than half of the law’s provisions. "They’re going to need money from the Congress to hire these 20,000-plus bureaucrats they need to hire to make this program work. They’re not going to get one dime from us."

Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.

That "political rebellion" of which Boehner speaks is allegedly about anger towards the establishment. Much of that anger has been aimed at Wall Street. Yet, you can bet Wall Street bankers are pouring money into the GOP's coffers. Wall Street bankers know they'll be the biggest beneficiaries of a GOP-controlled House. And, they're the ones who snuffed out the American dream for many families in this country. Read More......

It sure does pay to be a health insurance CEO

There aren't many individuals who made over $100 million in 2009 but somehow, the UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley managed. With that kind of money being thrown around, it's pretty obvious why there was so much of a fight against reform. Read More......

Mew heart wrenching video footage of the oil slick; dolphins try swimming through the oil

The video starts off depressing and gets worse as it approaches the seven minute mark. There you can see dolphins trying to swim through the oil as well as a sperm whale breaching the surface, covered in toxic oil. More fly-over videos of the oil leak on BP Slick. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's a busy day here in DC.

The President is meeting with 22 Senators this morning "to discuss passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year." Among the Senators expected at the White House are seven GOPers: Alexander (TN), Collins (ME), Gregg (NH), Lugar (IN), Murkowski (AK), Snowe (ME) and Voinovich (OH). They're always such a cooperative bunch. And, where's Lindsey? He's always in a snit about something.

Obama is also having lunch and a meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today. Then, he's got a meeting with 22 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The CHC, comprised of all Democrats, has one Senate member: Robert Menendez (NJ).

Questioning from Senators starts today in the confirmation hearing for Elena Kagan. Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was the subject of derision by GOPers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. They're really a shameless, hate-filled bunch, those GOP Senators.

Also, today, the Senate Armed Services Committee holds a confirmation hearing for General David Petraeus. Now, this is a hearing where there should be some hard questions, but Senators won't challenge Petraeus. His confirmation will sail through. Very few members of Congress have asked any hard questions about the war in Afghanistan for the past nine years. That's one reason why we're still mired in that conflict.

And, what else? Read More......

BP bet future of company on deepwater drilling

Even the warnings that were coming from the Macondo Deepwater drilling operation didn't make a difference. It's easy to see how they could ignore the warnings though because they were only doing what the rest of the corporate world had done quite (financially) successfully in the credit crisis. The deepwater drilling was Big Oil's answer to the casino culture that was and is so present on Wall Street. From Big Oil's perspective, they just watched Wall Street gamble and lose everything yet still get bailed out so how could they lose?

Much like Wall Street, sure, some companies may not make it beyond this gamble but they'll be paid handsomely on the way out the door. For the victor will be the reward of even larger than too-big-to-fail which will translate into even more money. Maybe BP will end up being the near term loser but they just as easily could have been the winner in this casino culture. The end result for everyone else is even greater reliance on fewer but even larger oil companies.

Obama has the misfortune of inheriting this mess from Bush and the GOP but it doesn't mean he should accept it and stay the course as he's done with Wall Street. A bit of change to the ridiculous self-regulation and economies of scale lies needs to addressed sooner than later. Bringing order to these gamblers needs to happen immediately.

BP staked its future on expanding offshore drilling a month before the catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon triggered the United States' worst environmental disaster, according to company documents revealed yesterday.

The investigative web site ProPublica published a March 2010 strategy document in which BP named "expanding deepwater" as its number one area for long-term growth.

But even as the document was drawn up, engineers were struggling to control the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, which had already gained a reputation as a risky operation, according to industry sources.

The strategy paper claimed BP now held a global lead over its competitors in deepwater production – even though its costs were considerably lower. Earlier this month the executives of BP's rivals, including Exxon and Chevron, told a congressional hearing they would have taken more safeguards on the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig.

Read More......

Report: Some governments may not be able to withstand another banking crash

As necessary as the bank bailouts were, maintaining the exclusive lifestyle of bankers was hardly necessary. If anything, propping up those least in need was rewarding bad behavior setting up this potentially difficult next phase of the economic cycle. In the case of the US, Obama has differed little from the Bush administration in its handling of the banks. Giving the banks a free ride by pushing out global regulation is indeed owned by Obama and the rest of the G20 leaders who failed badly on this issue, again. The Independent:

The BIS has previously said that the ultimate calamity - payments systems freezing and cash machines running out of money - was only narrowly avoided when the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. A deeper economic slump was averted by nationalising other banks and making loans amounting to $10trn (£6,620bn).

But the BIS report implies that governments may not be able to repeat such a bailout in the event of a second crisis, which some commentators fear could be triggered by another economic shock.

Despite the warnings, the G20 nations significantly eased the pressure on banks this week by delaying the introduction of tougher rules on the amount of capital they must hold to deal with potential crises. The new regulations were planned for the end of this year but are not now due until 2012. Countries will also be given far more leeway inhow the rules must be applied. Critics say this amounts to a watering down of the reforms needed to stave off the sort of disaster the BIS fears.

The BIS alsowarned that the "fragility" of public and private balance sheets in the UK,France, Germany, Spain and the US "severely limits the scope for fiscal policy intervention if another bailout is needed". It added: "The side effects of the financial and macro-economic supportmeasures, combined with the unresolved vulnerabilities of the financial sector,threaten to short-circuit the recovery; the reforms necessary to improve the resilience of the financial system [have] yet to be completed.

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From CNBC to MSNBC

For those who haven't yet followed Dylan Ratigan here's a chance to learn a bit more about him. Ratigan worked at Bloomberg and CNBC before moving to MSNBC where he's been a vocal critic of the financial system and its coziness with Washington. It's an issue near and dear to my heart so I always find what he has to say interesting.

As someone who follows CNBC (where he used to work) closely, I'd have to agree with him that for the most part the network does more good than bad. I often disagree completely with their points though it's important that they raise so many points about what is happening on Wall Street. Other networks don't even cover most of the debate and that in itself if a problem.

Mr. Ratigan does not just have a point of view, he has a point — one that he repeats relentlessly and feverishly, sometimes with props like buckets and Monopoly money. To hear Mr. Ratigan tell it, the American people are being held hostage by a banking system that acts like a government subsidized casino. His analogy: “My mother is paying taxes to the government. The government is giving her money to the banks. The banks are gambling like they’re watching ‘Fast Money.’ But my mother didn’t sign up for that.”

Mr. Ratigan said flatly, “As long as there’s been banks and governments, banks and governments have been conspiring to take money from the people.” What has changed now, he said, is that “we have the ability to engage it directly,” through fair elections and a free press. The first step in his playbook, then, is to end the denial about it through his show.

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RBS warns customers of 'cliff-edge' in banking and economy

From my perspective, it's hard to argue against this warning. Besides shifting the banking problems to the taxpayers, little has changed.

The credit team at RBS in London are getting very bearish and warning clients to "get ready for the cliff-edge," where prices of stocks and commodities will "collapse."

RBS credit chief Andrew Roberts said the edge is just around the corner for the European banking industry and the economies of Europe and the US.

"Surely risks associated with us being wrong are low, i.e. rates stay where they are," Roberts wrote in a research note.

"But risks associated with us being right are 10 percent returns in (10-year US Treasurys) and at the same time that equities/commodities will collapse far beyond what even some equity bears anticipate."

As a result Roberts is advising investors to get into maximum long-duration bonds in safe-haven markets.

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Woman on oxygen dies after power cut by utility company

This unfortunately reminds me of the horrible incident when an elderly man in Michigan died over the winter when his power (and heating) system was shut down. What is the matter with a system that can't help someone like this?

A woman who needed powered oxygen equipment to breathe died after she did not pay the power bill and a utility shut off her electricity, police said Friday. State officials were investigating whether any regulations were broken.

Kay Phaneuf, 53, died Thursday at Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, Mass. She had been in critical condition since her husband found her unconscious Monday about an hour after power was cut to their home in Salem.

"She can't survive without it," Salem Police Capt. Shawn Patten said of the oxygen equipment. "They cut the power to the house, the power to whatever machine she had went out, and that was it."

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Banks survive global regulations at G20 summit

Nothing pays back quite as much as a heavy dose of lobbying and good friends inside world governments. Will they be as powerful after the next round of banker layoffs begins? Probably. Even after causing the global recession and in their weakened state, they remain as powerful as ever.

Giant banks, while bracing for a wave of tougher regulation in Washington, will not have to face a new set of global rules on capital and liquidity anytime soon.

The world’s biggest economies have been developing rules that would require banks to hold more capital and be better equipped to absorb losses when financial conditions sour. But it became clear on Sunday at the meeting of the Group of 20 countries that it could be years before they take effect.

The rules are to be finished at the next G-20 leaders’ summit talks, in Seoul, South Korea, in November.

While the participants here said they aimed to adopt the rules by the end of 2012, they cautioned that the standards would be “phased in over a time frame that is consistent with sustained recovery and limits market disruption.”

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GOP invites rebuked religious right general, who says he speaks with the Holy Spirit, to testify at Kagan confirmation hearings

This should be a riot. The Republicans want to make the hearings about who should be running America. So who do they bring to testify against Kagan? A religious right general with a long, long, long history of embarrassing controversy.

From Steve Clemons:

I just learned that the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling none other than the God-connected, crusade-obsessed saber rattler retired Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as one of four military witnesses raising questions about Kagan's policy of making it tough for the military to recruit at Harvard when there was a conflict over the Pentagon's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policies.

I think DADT is a relic that should be tossed out -- but reasonable people can disagree and debate.

But Boykin? If this party is engaged in such self-destructive theatrics, why can't the White House do a better job of dividing up the Republicans into smart and not-so-smart factions.

Because they're spending far too much time dividing their friends into different factions? More from Wikipedia on this nut - this is just a sampling, there's a lot:

Boykin achieved widespread media coverage for his statements that appeared to frame the War on Terror in religious terms, first broadcast on NBC News, October 15, 2003. William Arkin, military analyst for NBC-TV News, was the source of the video and audiotapes of Boykin. The following day the Los Angeles Times ran a piece on Boykin. Amongst several quotes, the LA Times article revealed Boykin giving a speech about hunting down Osman Atto in Mogadishu: "He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Boykin later clarified this statement, saying that he was implying that Atto's true "god" was money.

President George Bush distanced himself from the statements, saying that Boykin didn't "reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration."

Some news commentators, such as Republican Patrick Buchanan, believed that there was nothing wrong in what Boykin said.

Boykin also believes that he speaks with the Holy Spirit. Read More......

Joe Stiglitz needs to stop making sense

He's getting in the way of some fantastic right wing nutty rants around the world who believe chopping budgets (and punishing the poor) somehow makes sense. By the time the budget choppers realize their mistake it's going to be too late. If anyone is looking for places to cut, corporate handouts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sound like much better options. Unfortunately the poor have a really crappy lobbyist program so they're going to take the brunt of the new nastiness programs.

There's so much more in this article so click through and read it all. Reading this is frustrating though because Obama has chosen an economic team who are part of our economic problem rather than part of the solution, like Stiglitz.

The result is that, following the attacks by the financial markets on Greece and then Spain, everybody is now in a mood of retrenchment. "It's not just pre-Keynesian, it's Hooverite," he says. By which he means governments are not just refusing to stimulate, they are making cuts, as Herbert Hoover did in the US in 1929 – when he turned the Wall Street Crash into the Great Depression. "Hoover had this idea that, whenever you go into recession, deficits grow, so he decided to go for cuts – which is what the foolish financial markets that got us into this trouble in the first place now want."

It has become the new received wisdom throughout Europe. But it is the classic error made by those who confuse a household's economics with those of a national economy.

"If you have a household that can't pay its debts, you tell it to cut back on spending to free up the cash to pay the debts. But in a national economy, if you cut back on your spending, then economic activity goes down, nobody invests, the amount of tax you take goes down, the amount you pay out in unemployment benefits goes up – and you don't have enough money to pay your debts.

"The old story is still true: you cut expenditures and the economy goes down. We have lots of experiments which show this, thanks to Herbert Hoover and the IMF," he adds. The IMF imposed that mistaken policy in Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina and hosts of other developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s. "So we know what will happen: economies will get weaker, investment will get stymied and it's a downward vicious spiral. How far down we don't know – it could be a Japanese malaise. Japan did an experiment just like this in 1997; just as it was recovering, it raised VAT and went into another recession."

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Santorum, who doesn't exactly have an Anglo-Saxon name, says Obama can't relate to Americans because of his background

Among the reasons failed former GOP Senator Rick Santorum thinks President Obama isn't very American is the fact that he grew up in the American state of Hawaii.

"Obama is detached from the American experience. He just doesn't identify with the average American because of his own background. Indonesia and Hawaii."

I have my issues with the President (who I voted for), but to suggest his background isn't American based on which American state he was raised in, well that's simply bizarre. And then to talk about Obama having spent some time living abroad as a child, that this is also a disqualifier. My mother lived abroad as a child, as she immigrated from Greece. Lots of people's parents and grandparents and ancestors immigrated to this country - actually, most of them did. What is Santorum suggesting, that our immigrant ancestors weren't fully American? The founding fathers? Read More......

EPA is 10 years behind schedule on some air quality standards

Hmmm, now what happened in the year 2000 that might have caused such a delay?

The Environmental Protection Agency is 10 years behind schedule in setting guidelines for a host of toxic air pollutants, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general.

The report, which was released last week, found that the agency had failed to develop emissions standards, due in 2000, for some sources of hazardous air pollutants. These included smaller sites often located in urban areas, like dry cleaners and gas stations, but also some chemical manufacturers.

The inspector general also found that the agency had not met targets outlined in a 1999 planning document, the Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy, including tracking urban dwellers’ risk of developing health problems from exposure to pollutants.

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After slamming 'activist judges, Beauregard Sessions III doesn't think Kagan is activist enough

From ThinkProgress:

Sessions laid out a simple test that judicial nominees must overcome: They must not use the courts to thwart democracy:

SESSIONS: The question is: does the judge understand that they can’t utilize the power, the lifetime appointment, to redefine the meaning of the constitution — to have it promote an agenda in an activist way that the American people won’t vote for.

Yet, just seconds earlier, Session attacked Kagan because she does not subscribe to a radical “tenther” philosophy that would eliminate elected national leaders’ power to address national challenges:

SESSIONS: I think this nominee does have serious deficiencies, issues that need to be raised. The American people are concerned about their courts. They’re concerned about a growing expansive government that seems to be beyond anything they’ve ever seen before. And they’d like to know what their judges might have to do about it. So I think that’s kind of where we are.

I wonder how much government we could contract if we removed southern racists from office. Read More......

Krugman says we're heading for a Depression

And there you have it. He and I differ as to motive, but not as to result.

Paul Krugman (emphasis mine):

The Third Depression

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

. . . I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.

Read it and weep.

GP Read More......

Supreme Court strikes down gun law, and tells anti-gay bigots to take a hike

Two important Supreme Court cases decided today:

1. Supreme Court rules college doesn't have to recognize group that discriminates against gays

The Supreme Court says a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join.

The court on Monday turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

2. U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Chicago gun law in key gun rights case

The U.S. Supreme Court today found that the constitutional right to bear arms applies to local and state efforts to regulate guns, a ruling that could place limits on some gun control laws across the country.

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When will West Virginia's special election be to replace Robert Byrd?

From Cillizza at the Post:

West Virginia law states that if there is a Senate vacancy more than two and a half years before the incumbent's term ends, a special election would be called for this November. That two and a half year mark is July 3 -- four days from now.

But, as the Post's Paul Kane notes, the language of the law is unclear as it sets up a schedule that would begin the special election process after the "primary next", meaning, according to Democrats, in the spring of 2012. Such a schedule would place the special election in November 2012 when Byrd's 9th term would have ended anyway.

The decision of how to read the law will almost certainly come down to Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat and the person seen as the most likely long term successor to Byrd in the Senate.

And, either way, Manchin will be required to appoint someone to serve out Byrd's term -- whether it is determined that the term ends this fall or in the fall of 2012. One name being mentioned for that caretaker appointment is state Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey.

More from Hotline OnCall:

State law says Manchin's appointment will be valid "until a successor to the office has timely filed a certificate of candidacy, has been nominated at the primary election next following such timely filing and has thereafter been elected and qualified to fill the unexpired term."

The WV primary took place May 11, making it unlikely that a special election will take place this year. And odd-year elections, used in many states to pick local officials, are a rarity in WV. In recent years, voters went to the polls only in '05, when they voted on a constitutional amendment. No elections were held in '07, '03 or '01.

Because the primary has already occured, the next opportunity to "timely file" will be Jan. '12 -- when Byrd's seat would have come open anyway. A primary would follow in May, with a special election to be held in concurrence with a general election later that year.

There is settled case law on the point. In '94, Kanawha Co. Circuit Court Judge John Hey resigned in April. A local GOP party chairman sued then-Gov. Gaston Caperton (D) to try and compel a special election for the following Nov. The state Supreme Court, in Robb v. Caperton, ruled against the local party chairman and said Caperton's appointee would serve until the '96 election, when the office would have come up for election anyway.

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Kagan hearings start today. Barring 'extraordinary circumstances,' GOP won't filibuster.

The Kagan confirmation hearings start at 12:30 PM Eastern time today. We'll get opening statements from all of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during today's session. That will be painful and boring, but we'll get some clues about the GOP's strategy. Tomorrow, Kagan will begin answering questions from the Senators:

But influential GOP members of the Judiciary Panel say they have not yet seen any “extraordinary circumstances” that could justify a filibuster. Extraordinary circumstances is the standard the Senate adopted in 2005 for judicial filibusters.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has declined to rule out a filibuster but other Republicans have said that President Barack Obama has a right to appoint his preferred choice to the court.

“I want to challenge this judge but my view of my job next week is not replace my judgment for President Obama’s; he won this election,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Thursday. “I go into these hearings with a view that these elections do matter.”

Graham said he has not yet seen anything in Kagan’s record that would qualify as an extraordinary circumstance and call for a filibuster.

So, Republicans have won't be filibustering Kagan's nomination, barring some kind of "extraordinary circumstances." Of course, who really know what "extraordinary circumstances" means to Republicans. They probably don't even know themselves, yet. But, they'll know it if they think they see it -- or something like that.

The New York Times would like to hear some real answers from Kagan:

If these hearings proceed like the information-free set pieces we have seen in previous cases, we may never find out. Republicans will, as always, rouse their supporters with provocative challenges on guns, gay rights and abortion. Democrats have the tougher task, and should not stick to inoffensive questions. They have much at stake in holding back the aggressive activism of the Roberts court, which will soon have to rule on the health care law, the rights of corporations, and the evolving balance between civil liberties and national security. Both parties should cast aside their talking points and try to illuminate the authentic mind of Elena Kagan. Her moment to oblige them has finally arrived.

That's a worthy goal, but I suspect real answers could result in "extraordinary circumstances." Read More......

Oil hits Mississippi yet no skimmers in sight

Perhaps Haley Barbour is using them to deflect criticism of his own efforts. After all, he has assured everyone that the oil really wasn't a problem and people would be safe from the problems that everyone else claims are problems. McClatchy:

A morning flight over the Mississippi Sound showed long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving into the Sound between the barrier islands. What was missing was any sign of skimming operations from Horn Island to Pass Christian.

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor got off the flight angry.

"It’s criminal what’s going on out there," Taylor said minutes later. "This doesn’t have to happen.”

A scientist onboard, Mike Carron with the Northern Gulf Institute, said with this scenario, there will be oil on the beaches of the mainland.

“There’s oil in the Sound and there was no skimming,” Carron said. “No coordinated effort.”

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Lots of news today.

Obviously, the big story is the death of Robert Byrd. Then, there ar the implications of that on upcoming Senate legislation, including the Wall Street reform bill, which hits the Senate floor this week. Then, there will be lots of talk about his succession.

Confirmation hearings begin today for Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We'll actually hear her speak this week. And, we'll see that committee's leading Republican, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, in action again.

The President is back in town after the G-8/G-20 summits. He doesn't have any public meetings on his schedule today, but that can always change.

Expect another busy week... Read More......

Robert Byrd dead at 92

The longest serving member of Congress in the counry's history died earlier today. From the Charleston Gazette:

Robert Carlyle Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress in United States history, who spent much of his career as a conservative Democrat and ended it by fiercely opposing the war in Iraq and questioning the state's powerful coal industry, died Monday. He was 92.

"I am saddened that the family of U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., tearfully announces the passing" of the senator, Jesse Jacobs, Byrd's press spokesman, said in a statement.

Byrd's life was the Senate -- and his little dog. Byrd was "one of Congress's most famous dog lovers."

There are, of course, immediate political implications from Byrd's passing, which the NY Times was quick to point out:

Mr. Byrd’s death comes as Senate Democrats are working to pass the final version of the financial overhaul bill and win other procedural battles in the week before the Independence Day recess. In the polarized atmosphere of Washington, President Obama’s agenda seemed to hinge on Mr. Byrd’s health. Earlier this year, in the final days of the health care debate, the ailing senator was pushed onto the Senate floor in his plaid wheelchair so he could cast his votes.

So, yes, immediate implications, which will unfold this week. Read More......