Haitian ambassador responds to Pat Robertson's remarks today about Haiti paying a price for making a pact with the devil

Watch what Robertson said here, then see the Haitian ambassador's response on Rachel Maddow's show.


(H/t Joe My God) Read More......

Bank of America sued for seizing wrong house

Some people are so picky about having their house repossessed when they didn't even have a bank loan let alone a loan from Bank of America. And sure, once BofA cut the power, 75 pounds of fish rotted, leaked from the fridge and smelled up the house but suing the bank is so extreme. As the bank says, this case is completely without merit.

A West End property owner is suing Bank of America Corp., asserting its agents mistakenly seized a vacation house he owns free and clear, then changed the locks and shut the power off, resulting in the smelly spoiling of about 75 pounds of salmon and halibut from an Alaska fishing trip and other damages.

Dr. Alan Schroit filed the lawsuit Monday in the 122nd State District Court in Galveston against the bank with which he has neither a relationship nor a mortgage.

Schroit, a retired professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, is suing for wrongful invasion of his house in the 4100 block of Green Heron Drive in the Pointe West subdivision.

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Mrs. Robinson's chocolate balls

You may remember the story from the other day about the 60 year old wife of the conservative leader in Northern Ireland who was having an affair with a 19 year old young man. (She's also a conservative British MP herself, and once compared homosexuality to child abuse.) Well, the story just got juicier on so many angles. Seems she was sleeping with father and son. Read More......

More on Harold Ford's possible Bank of America bail-out bonus

Adam Bink delves into the issue of whether Harold Ford got a bail-out bonus from Bank of America. Read More......

On saving the legacy of Ted Kennedy: 'This Tuesday, January 19 everything is on the line.'

Today, Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy sent a letter seeking support for Martha Coakley:

This Tuesday, January 19 everything is on the line. The people of Massachusetts will decide who will be their next Senator, and we need Martha Coakley.

The importance of having a voice and a vote that you can count on in Washington has never been more evident than during this ongoing health care debate. And we’re going to need every vote again.

Ted fought for national health care reform for 40 years. He believed that every American deserved their chance at the American dream, but that as long as an illness or preexisting condition could bankrupt an American family, that great goal could never become a reality. We need Martha Coakley to continue our shared fight for national health reform, to reduce costs for businesses and families and increase coverage in Massachusetts and throughout this country. This race will be very close and we need you to get us to victory.

Everything is on the line. Scott Brown cannot replace Ted Kennedy. In the first couple hours after this email went out, it raised over $350,000.

Mrs. Kennedy focused on health care. Our friends at Stonewall Democrats have weighed into the race, too. Yesterday, the group started raising money for Coakley at ActBlue. The message is clear: "Protect Ted Kennedy's legacy from anti-marriage equality Scott Brown by supporting Martha Coakley."

Martha Coakley has to win. John and I contributed via AMERICAblog's ActBlue page and I even called my cousins in Mass. to make sure they vote. Coakley should win. Her opponent, Scott Brown, is a homophobe while she's been a leader on gay issues. He's also been endorsed by two known hate groups. On the other hand, shortly after the Obama administration filed that disastrous brief defending DOMA, Coakley filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of DOMA -- she was the first (and only) state A.G. to challenge the law's constitutionality.

This election should also be a teachable moment for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. They need one. I'll have much more to say on that later. For now, Martha Coakley needs to win. And, she needs to get down here and show some real liberal leadership, just like Teddy did. Read More......

Army tells single mom to deploy and put 10-month-old son in foster care. She says no way. They prosecute her.

If these are the facts, it's outrageous. From ThinkProgress:

Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old Army cook, refused to deploy to Afghanistan in November because she had no one to take care of her 10-month-old son. Hutchinson said when she brought her situation to her superiors’ attention, they told her that she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care. “For her it was like, ‘I couldn’t abandon my child,’” her civilian attorney Rai Sue Sussman told the AP. After skipping her unit’s flight out of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, GA, millitary police arrested her and confined her to the base while prosecutors decided how to proceed. Today, the Army filed charges against her and, if convicted in a court-martial, she faces several years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.

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Harold Ford refuses to say if he got one of those rich Wall Street bail-out bonuses

Remember those bonuses? It seems Harold Ford, working there at the time, refuses to say if he got one. If he didn't get one, you'd think he'd say. From Ben Smith:

Ford fills the sort of hazy role at Merrill traditionally occupied by political stars at New York investment firms. They’re rainmakers an image-buffers, there to impress clients, make connections, and put a politic foot forward in public settings.

But Ford arrived at the tail of the boom, and stayed at Merrill through its absorption by Bank of America and through a controversial round of bonuses at the end of 2008. His spokesman, Davidson Goldin, refused to say whether he’d received one, but New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has requested information on the bonuses from the bank, which received federal support to weather the crisis.

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Obama and Dem. leaders in marathon meeting on health care

UPDATE @ 6:56 PM: Mark Knoller from CBS just reported that the Obama meeting with the Democratic leaders has ended after eight hours.
__________
The President's schedule for today, sent via email last night, included this:

The President will meet with Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and members of the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate in the Cabinet Room. This meeting is closed press.

In the afternoon, the President will travel to Lanham, Maryland where he will tour Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee Center (IBEW Local 26 and NECA, Washington DC Chapter). The tour is pooled press.

This morning, there was an update:

The President and the Vice President will now meet with members of the Democratic Leadership at 10:25AM in the Cabinet Room.

We were also informed that the trip to Maryland was cancelled.

The White House meeting already passed the four hour mark according to a recent tweet from Jeffrey Young, who covers health care issues for The Hill. I've been watching CNN and still haven't seen the leaders emerge from the White House, so the meeting could still be taking place -- if so, it's approaching five hours. (UPDATE @ 3:46 PM: Confirmation via a tweet from Rep. George Miller's Education and Labor Committee that the meeting passed the five hour mark. And, it's not over. After a break for House members to vote, the meeting will "resume shortly.")

This is one long meeting. Among the attendees were Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and other key players on the health care issue. I think this is the first time Obama has had one of these marathon meetings with members of Congress. And, he even canceled that jobs-related event in Maryland to stick around for the session.

My growing sense over the past couple days is that many Democratic House members are incensed that they're just supposed to accept the weak Senate bill. Many of them, like Rep. Peter DeFazio, have gone public (which we know because of Mike Stark.) Ramming the Senate bill to final passage was part of the master plan from the White House brain trust. But, there's been intense pushback from Democratic members. Hence, this unprecedented meeting today.

We'll keep an eye on what's happening at the White House. Either there's a deal -- or not. But, we'll have a sense of just how the health care negotiations are. Read More......

Pat Robertson today: Haiti 'swore a pact to the devil' to get 'free from the French' and 'ever since they have been cursed'

Want to see the devil, Pat? Look in a mirror. From Media Matters:

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How do Delta and Continental retroactively raise baggage fees?

I received an email update today that Delta would be retroactively charging luggage fees and wondered how that is even possible. I had a transaction with Delta seven days ago - all paid, tickets in hand - yet now they are adding more to the cost of the ticket. The luggage fee is ridiculous enough with their prices but to re-charge for a completed transaction doesn't even sound legal. It's hard to imagine any other industry getting away with such a stunt.

According to the carrier's website, the fee to check a first bag for domestic travel is rising to $23 from $15, and the charge to check a second bag is being raised to $32 from $25. The fees apply to economy-class travel.

The higher baggage fees apply to tickets bought after January 5 for travel beginning on January 12. Additional fees apply when checking in via ticket counter, kiosk, or curbside, the carrier said on its website.

Continental is doing the same thing, raising fees and working it retroactively.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Gee, what a coincidence. Two airlines raise their fees exactly the same amount, retroactively to around the same day. At what point does Congress investigate the obvious anti-competitive collusion involved here? Also, $23 extra on a $230 ticket is a 10% tax, just to give you a sense of how outrageous this is. We're talking luggage, people. It's not like this is some added accoutrement you can do without. They're simply trying to hide the fact that they're raising ticket prices, by hiding the increase in the luggage fee that you pay WAY later, after buying the ticket. I suggest folks try to fly Southwest or JetBlue and get away from these jerks:

On discount carrier Southwest Airlines, the first and second checked bags are free. JetBlue offers a free first checked bag and charges $30 for the second.

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Hundreds of thousands dead in Haiti, Prime Minister says

Wow. Read More......

Nat Hentoff: Feds are using Facebook and Twitter to spy on us?

Actually, Hentoff's piece is about much more than that. He goes through the entire Obama policy towards civil liberties. Let's just say he isn't pleased:

I increasingly wonder whose Constitution Barack Obama was teaching at the University of Chicago. China's? North Korea's? Robert Mugabe's?....

I often disagree with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero—though I'm almost always in synch with his lawyers in the field—but Romero is right about Obama creating "Gitmo North": "While the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proved guilty and the right to confront one's accusers. . . . The Obama administration's announcement contradicts everything the president has said about the need for America to return to leading with its values. American values do not contemplate disregarding our Constitution and skirting the criminal justice system."

If Dick Cheney were a gentleman, instead of continuing to criticize this president, he would congratulate him on his faithful allegiance to many signature policies of the Bush-Cheney transformation of America.

But never let it be said that President Obama is neglecting the patriotic education of America's young. On December 13, Clint Boulton reported on eweek.com, "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Berkeley's Samuelson Clinic have sued the Department of Justice and five other government organizations (including the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) for cloaking their policies for using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to investigate citizens in criminal and other matters. [The plaintiffs] want to know exactly how, and what kinds of information, the feds are accessing from users' social networking profiles."

Maybe Dick Cheney can ask Barack to confirm him as a friend on Facebook.

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Bank execs used corporate jets to fly to DC for hearings on financial meltdown

I suppose that it's progress since they're actually showing this time instead of dialing in remotely, like they did with Obama. For most people in business, they fly in the day before to avoid any last second travel problems but the bank executives are too important to do such a thing. They're important, you know. Much more important than anyone else, including the president of the United States. As long as everyone understands that we will be just fine and dandy.

The hearings on the financial meltdown started today. From CNBC:

Some U.S. bank executives are taking the corporate jet out for a spin to Capitol Hill, as they explain the causes of the banking crisis to a U.S. Congressional panel.

At least two of the four bank chiefs scheduled to testify on Wednesday in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are arriving in Washington by corporate jet.

The commission is a 10-member group formed by the U.S. Congress to examine the causes of the financial meltdown.

SEIU is liveblogging the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) hearings. The hearings are also being televised and livestreamed on C-SPAN2. Read More......

In Haiti, 'This is a catastrophe' says the First Lady (Updated)

The news from Haiti just gets worse by the hour as more information becomes available.

President Obama will be making a statement on the catastrophe at 10 A.M. Obama's full statement can be seen here. This is an excerpt from his remarks:

I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives. The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief -- the food, water and medicine -- that Haitians will need in the coming days. In that effort, our government, especially USAID and the Departments of State and Defense are working closely together and with our partners in Haiti, the region, and around the world.

I've been reading various reports. The Miami Herald, a publication in a city with a large Haitian population, has extensive coverage. One of its reporters, Jacquie Charles, is en route to Haiti and will be livetweeting. From the Herald:

According to media reports, survivors were digging through the rubble and stacking bodies along the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti' capital, after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the island nation Tuesday afternoon. The earthquake has left the nation virtually isolated with countless crumbled buildings, including the historic National Palace.

[Haitian President René] Préval and first lady Elisabeth Préval were not in the palace at the time of the quake.

Préval said he he has not slept since the earthquake. Other people slept in the streets because they were afraid to sleep in their homes, he said.

``This is a catastrophe,'' the first lady said. ``I'm stepping over dead bodies. A lot of people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers."

Catastrophe may be an understatement.

UPDATE @ 10:05 A.M.: CNN's Anderson Cooper just landed in Haiti by helicopter. He said "I just flew over Port-au-Prince and seeing it for the first time, it's a city I know well, it's incredibly shocking." Read More......

Health care negotiations have 'serious problems'

Leading negotiators on both sides of the Hill are warning of troubles in the talks to find a final bill. While the focus has been on 60 in the Senate, 218 in the House can't be taken for granted:

Congressional Democrats face “serious problems” in getting a healthcare reform bill to the president’s desk, according to a House panel chairman.

“We’ve got to get a bill that’s more compatible to the House,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “Forget all the other questions. Two-hundred-eighteen [votes] is the most important issue we are dealing with… We have serious problems on both sides of the Capitol. Serious problems.”

Rangel’s comments come a day after Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said health reform is “hanging by a thread.”

There has been an expectation that the House would take the Senate bill -- with a few minor tweaks to make it look like there was some give-and-take. But, House members are holding firm on some key issues, including the tax on the policies that cost more (inaccurately dubbed the "cadillac" tax.) From the New York Times:

But Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said: “The view of many progressives is that the tax is unacceptable. It would affect a lot of middle-income people.”

Mr. Nadler said the politics of the tax should worry Democrats. In effect, he said, “the tax tells blue-collar workers that you should pay higher taxes and get lower benefits to help finance coverage for the uninsured.”

And, that's just one issue of contention.

House Democrats hold their "issues conference" tomorrow and Friday. Obama is expected to attend. From what I understand, Obama's visit to the House Democratic caucus in November, before the final vote on the health care bill, didn't change one vote. Let's see how this next visit to the caucus goes. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

That situation in Haiti is just horrible. I was surprised when I saw that such a large earthquake had hit that part of the world. But, scientists had been predicting it. As today unfolds, we're going to be witnessing untold destruction. A number of sites have been set up to aid the Haitians, including this one on Facebook.

Today is Day 3 of the Prop. 8 trial in San Francisco. But, some of the action could be in D.C. as the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the use of cameras in the court room. Justice Kennedy's stay is in effect until 4:00 P.M. today.

And, the action is heating up on the health care negotiations between the Senate and the House. Looks like the House is not rolling over as the White House and Senate expect. More on that soon.

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

As we all thought already, Blair agreed to join Iraq invasion months before invasion

Oh, but he was really pushing for peace. Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

The contents of the notes, which were written by the former Prime Minister and only seen by a small group of senior ministers and advisers, were revealed for the first time at the Iraq inquiry yesterday as it heard from Mr Blair's head of communications, Alastair Campbell. In the correspondence, described as "very frank", Mr Campbell said that President Bush was given the overriding message that British troops would be beside their US counterparts in any invasion, should Saddam Hussein continue to defy the disarmament demands issued by the United Nations.

"I would say the tenor of them was that... we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed," Mr Campbell said. "If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there."

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EU court criticizes UK Terrorism Act

Thanks to Tony Blair, the UK moved aggressively in many ways to limit freedom including the over-use of so-called anti-terror laws. It rapidly became a catch all to arrest anyone such as photographers and activists. The EU ruling doesn't stop the process though it may force the UK government to change the law or at least limit the use of the law. The Guardian:

But the judgment – in the case of Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton, who were stopped and searched on their way to a demonstration outside the Excel Centre in east London in 2003 – is far wider than that. It criticises the entire process by which section 44 stop and searches under the Terrorism Act 2000 are authorised by the home secretary, and highlights a lack of adequate parliamentary and legal safeguards against abuse.

The judges say that because officers' decisions about whether to stop and search someone in a designated area are based solely on a hunch or professional intuition, the effect is "a clear risk of arbitrariness".

The concerns over this power being so widely framed have led the judges to draw attention to a serious risk of discrimination against black and Asian people, and misuse against demonstrators. There were more than 117,000 searches under these powers in 2008, by 12 police forces across England and Wales, which shows that what is at stake is a key element of the government's counter-terrorism strategy. Home Office lawyers were tonight combing the judgment to see if they could advise the police to carry on with searches while lodging an appeal to the 17-member grand chamber of the European court of human rights.

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