You knew this was coming. If the same doesn't happen at the federal level it will be a big surprise. People want services and the money has to come from somewhere. Borrowing is less of an option these days. CNNMoney:
States are poised to pass as much as $24 billion in tax and fee hikes in coming weeks, as they struggle to balance their budgets amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a report released Thursday found.
The spike blows away the $726 million in recommended increases for fiscal 2009.
At the same time, state budgets are set to shrink for a record second year in a row. The recession has caused tax collections to plummet and the need for social services to soar.
I think that I'm starting to like the new SEC. CNBC:
The SEC will charge Angelo Mozilo, former chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial, with insider trading, according to people familiar with the situation.
The SEC will also charge the company's former chief operating officer, David Sambol, and former financial chief, Eric Sieracki, with securities fraud for failing to disclose the firm's relaxed lending standards in its 2006 annual report.
The charges, which are expected to be announced by the SEC later today, will not be accompanied by any criminal indictments.
Me likey. And not just because the DCCC is currently running an ad on the blog (promoting a contest for a free trip to Washington to have dinner with Obama and probably hundreds more if not thousands, but you do get your photo with the prez, and that means you get 5 secs to ask him about the torture photos, gay marriage, or any other hot button topic that you might not be pleased about - it's free, so why not enter). Anyway, the D-trip, as we call them, is the Democratic party organization in charge of getting Democrats elected to the House. They're going to be using Google Ads next week to harass Gingrich. It's smart. And fun.
PS It would be nice if the DSCC ever ran ads on the blog, considering how often they ask for help, and we give it. A girl can dream...
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"We need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and fearful lawmakers, being led to believe that big government is the answer, to bail out the private sector, because then government gets to get in there and control it," she said. "And mark my words, this is going to be next, I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states. Then government gets to get in there and control the people."
"Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of principles, providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord," she said. "Those principles it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here."
Though the bulk of her remarks focused on government encroachment into the private sector, and praise for former President Reagan's views on limited government, the former vice presidential candidate briefly touched on national security. She told the crowd that "the terrorists are still dead set against us" and that her son Track is still deployed in Iraq.
"It is war over there, so it will not be war over here," she said. "And it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose."
Apparently she still hasn't learned proper English. The folksy stuff is cute, but makes her sound like an uneducated neanderthal. She's never going to understand that only 20% of the population (i.e., Republicans) find the dumb beauty queen schtick an asset for leading the country (or being a TV commentator).
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And productivity numbers are up. That's the bounce needed after yesterday. Reuters:
Fewer U.S. workers filed new claims for jobless benefits for a third straight week last week and productivity rose at a stronger-than-expected pace in the first quarter, data showed on Thursday, supporting budding hope that the recession was losing force.
Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits fell 4,000 to 621,000 in the week ended May 30, the Labor Department said.
The week covered the Memorial Day holiday, which could have had an impact on the data.
There was even more goods news in the report as the number of people staying on the benefit rolls after collecting an initial week of aid fell for the first time since January.
Seriously. He wrote that today. But before we totally mock Rove out of hand, his statement is not a slip up. We've written before that Republicans, the few remaining 20% that they are, do not think the economy is in trouble. That's why they opposed the stimulus package. That's why they're offering no solutions for the economic crisis. They don't believe there is a crisis. Rove is simply reflecting the political reality that even far-right Republicans - well, they're all that's left - are starting to acknowledge that the economy, if not in trouble, is at least "an important issue" to the overwhelming majority of Americans who recognize that it is in trouble.
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I considered doing the same last November when Blue Cross cut me off. I asked my doctor if I could just stop taking my asthma medicine for two months. She wasn't amused. I'm not surprised people are cutting back - insurance simply doesn't cover a lot of things, even for those of us who buy the best policies that exist for people in our category (i.e., I'm self-employed). It's one big scam, and it needs to be fixed for everybody, rich, middle income, and poor. Everybody.
One recent Wednesday, James S. Crawford, newly discharged from the hospital after his third heart attack, fanned six green slips across the counter as if showing a hand of cards. There were a pair for high blood pressure, one each for angina, cholesterol, and acid reflux, and a renal vitamin for his kidney disease. “I need to know the prices,” he said.
Ms. Suber, the pharmacist, explained what each drug was for and listed the co-payments under Mr. Crawford’s Medicare plan, ranging from $8.25 to $18.49 for a one-month supply. The renal vitamin, at $21.89, was not covered.
Mr. Crawford, 61, who makes do on $1,800 a month in Social Security and veterans’ benefits, decided he could afford only the heart, blood pressure and acid reflux pills. “If I can rob a bank,” he said, chuckling, “I’ll be back for the others.”
Before leaving, he handed over yet another prescription, just for safekeeping. It was for Plavix, an anticlotting drug that helps coronary patients avoid new blockages, and it had been written in early February after Mr. Crawford’s second heart attack. At $160, the co-payment was so high he had never considered filling it.
As you know, last week the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, the proposition which repealed the right of gay couples to marry. Obama was asked about gay marriage three days after the Prop 8 decision, and a good month after numerous states suddenly legalized gay marriages. There is no way that Obama wasn't prepared for a question on gay marriage. Yet, when he got one, he gave a somewhat haltingly answer that seemed to suggest he wasn't prepared for, or comfortable with, the question. Watch this video, it's only 42 seconds long, then I'll provide a bit more analysis.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Do gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry in this country have a friend in the White House?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think gays and lesbians, uh, have a friend in the White House (pause) because I've consistently committed myself to civil unions, making sure that they have the ability to visit each other in hospitals, uh, that they are able to access benefits, uh, that they are, uh, have a whole host of legal rights that they currently, uh, do not have. Uh, I don't think that, uh, it makes sense for, uh, the federal government to get in the business of determining what marriage is, uh, that isn't, uh, traditionally the federal government's role.
A few things. First, to his credit, Obama is trying to slowly and gingerly back away from his previous opposition to gay marriage. He no longer said he opposes gay marriages, but rather, he enumerated a few rights he does support (including hospital visits), and then said that the federal government has no business being in the business of marriage.
As for that last part, it was the only part of the answer where Politician Obama, who dominated the first part of the answer, gave way to Professor Obama, the guy who's an expert on constitutional law. When you strip away the calculated politics of the first part of his answer, Obama seems to believe that the federal government shouldn't be in the business of regulating marriages, period - straight or gay. That's a very interesting, and I suspect somewhat controversial, answer. Yes, traditionally states set marriage law. But, fortunately for Obama's parents, as we saw in Loving v. Virginia, the famous Supreme Court miscegenation case, there are times when the federal government steps in and tells states that they're wrong.
And Obama's answer about believing gay partners should get benefits, but that gay marriage isn't a federal issue, doesn't make sense at all. Because of DOMA, because of the 1200 or so federal benefits accorded to marriage, it is very much a federal issue. Obama will need to lead the way in getting Congress to overturn DOMA, otherwise his promise of partner benefits is meaningless.
Obama gets 2 points for trying to moderate his previous statements against gay marriage. But I suspect Obama's position against marriage was a politically expedient lie from the beginning, and now the effort to slowly undo that lie is tying Obama in contradictory knots.
The question is posed once again: Who is advising Obama on gay issues? Whoever that Rasputin is, speaking in Obama's ear, they've made a real mess of a man who once was clear cut on where he stood on these issues.
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To be fair to the Republicans, they are owned by the banksters that got us into this global recession so they're only following orders. The banksters would like to get their money's worth, or at least the taxpayer's money since they're all broke and had to be bailed out. How bizarre is this? We save these miserable bastards only to fund their efforts to screw the nation one more time? Enough is enough, but as long as the Democrats dance around and avoid getting tough this is what we will see for a while. We expect such behavior from Republicans but the Democrats are going to have to plant their feet in the ground and take a stand one day.
As the Obama administration works toward a mid-June unveiling of a sweeping package of regulatory reforms for the financial sector, Congressional Republicans are preparing their own offensive in the coming week.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and Rep. Spencer Bachus (Ala.), the ranking GOP member of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, have planned major strategy sessions next week ahead of the House panel’s first public hearings on the subject
GOP lawmakers have been quietly working on a regulatory reform package “for months,” according to one knowledgeable House source, who shared extensive details of the “working proposal.”
“The GOP alternative will draw heavily from this,” the source said.
The meetings may even involve the participation of corporate leaders and trade groups, according to another source.
By hook or by crook. Looks like the crooks are lining up.
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This is really pathetic. When I tell people here about Americans fearing financial ruin when they get sick they look at me as though I am from Mars. This was exactly what happened when my father was diagnosed with cancer. Even though he had insurance he was still worried that somehow it would not be covered and he would leave his wife of 43 years with nothing but debt. Like others, he heard horror stories of high costs and lack of coverage so he made an irrational decision and went with treatment at the VA, which was about as bad as advertised.
Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported Thursday.
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote. "Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."
The researchers, whose work was paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.
Any negotiations with the medical industry is going to be brutal and if it's not, it probably means the end result will be terrible. Another horrible part of this story is what happens to those who become sick with something serious. The statistics (which are inside the link) are grim. Insurance companies move quickly to throw trouble makers (i.e. people who bother to use their insurance) out leaving them with even more limited options.
Maybe the health care initiative will work out but so far I still don't see much stomach for the fight. I see Democrats caving so they can avoid they don't anger anyone in business. Tough luck for consumers/voters who don't have the lobbying power to match the deep pockets of the medical industry. Those profits had to go somewhere, after all.
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The New York Times profiles Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and the supposedly tough job he has of reining in all those right wing lunatics who have been viciously attacking Sotomayor:
As a member of the Judiciary Committee and the senator responsible for winning Republican Senate races next year, Mr. Cornyn worried that such disparaging attacks on the first Hispanic Supreme Court candidate would not only poison the confirmation hearings, but also undercut his party’s standing with an increasingly important voting bloc.
He quickly challenged the standing of the judge’s critics, like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, noting that they were not Republican officeholders and held no real responsibility for passing judgment on President Obama’s choice for the court.
“We are going to treat this nominee with the respect that she is entitled to,” Mr. Cornyn said in an interview this week.
But, that's all B.S. And, the New York Times fell for it.
We find out what's really going on via The Hill. In fact, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office is urging the right wing groups to keep up the attacks:
In public, Senate Republicans have kept their distance from conservative attacks on Sonia Sotomayor — but behind the scenes, they have encouraged activists to keep their crosshairs trained on the Supreme Court nominee.
Lanier Swann, an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told a private meeting of conservative activists Wednesday to keep up their pressure on Sotomayor.
“Swann told us she wanted to encourage all of us in our talking points and that we’re having traction among Republicans and unnerving Democrats,” said an attendee of Wednesday’s weekly meeting hosted by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
“The point was we should keep it up,” said the source. “She told us at this meeting to put our foot on the pedal.”
So, Cornyn goes out to sympathetic reporters and paints a picture of a Republican Senate caucus trying to rein in the crazies. Meanwhile, the Republican Senate leader is trying to rile them up.
GOP Senators really are beholden to their right-wing, extremist base.
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The titular leader of the GOP (and leading Obama hater) reiterated to a fellow Obama hater that, indeed, he does want the President of the United States to fail. Courtesy of Think Progress:
Missing from Rush's rant is any acknowledgment that Obama is cleaning up the mess, the massive failures, left behind by George Bush and Dick Cheney. The GOP destroyed the middle class. Obama is trying to rebuild it.
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The president just finished delivering his speech to the Muslim world, beginning his remarks with the traditional arab greeting: assalaamu alaykum.
The White House really wanted Muslims to see this speech. In addition to cable coverage, it was live streamed and aggressively pushed it via twitter and Facebook. I only caught the end of his remarks, which touched on all the hot-button issues while telling the story of Barack Hussein Obama.
Expect endless analysis from the American talking heads today. But, the speech wasn't aimed at them -- it was directed to Muslims around the world, many of whom have unfavorable views of our country. So, it'll be almost humorous to watch well-paid, usually clueless U.S. pundits tell us how Obama's speech played to Muslims.
It's hard to imagine 20 years later, this image is famous around the world except in China. Paranoid as always, the Beijing government has increased security on this sad anniversary.
A massive police presence ringed China's iconic Tiananmen Square on Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, as the government continued an overwhelming drive to muzzle dissent and block commemorations.
An exiled protest leader — famous for publicly haranguing one of China's top leaders 20 years ago — was also blocked from returning home to confront officials over what he called the "June 4 massacre."
Foreign journalists were barred from the vast square as uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard across the vast plaza that was the epicenter of the student-led movement that was crushed by the military on the night of June 3-4, 1989.
Security officials checking passports also blocked foreign TV camera operators and photographers from entering covering the raising of China's national flag, which happens at dawn every day. Plain clothes officers aggressively confronted journalists on the streets surrounding the square, cursing and threatening violence against them.
Yes, the Olympics helped changed their ways. The new communist China looks just like the old communist China, except the cars and suits are fancier courtesy of export dollars.
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Leave it to the financial industry to choke out much needed business. Maybe the bonuses weren't looking strong enough or they needed to raise salaries again? Nobody is asking the banks to hand out risky loans but why force a double digit decline when it's not necessary? Washington Post:
A rise in interest rates has put a damper on a mortgage refinancing boom, according to industry data released yesterday, and created another potential stumbling block to a housing recovery.
Mortgage interest rates, at historic lows for weeks, rose to 5.25 percent for a 30-year fixed rate loan last week, a level last seen in January. That led to a 16.2 percent seasonally adjusted drop in mortgage applications, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume.
The tumble mainly reflects a drop-off in refinancing activity. The index tracking refinancing applications fell 24.1 percent last week, while the purchase index increased 4.3 percent. Refinanced loans make up the majority of the market, but a smaller piece as of last week, according to the industry group.
The UK Labour Party was in trouble even before Tony Blair left. Since his departure the New Labour (a US Republican-lite model, similar to the Democrats) economy that Blair and Brown put together has crumbled. As Prime Minister, Brown has never left anyone with much confidence in his ability to govern which only becomes more obvious as the party splinters and MPs on all sides, including his own party, call for him to resign and call elections.
It's hard to even imagine Labour becoming any less popular than it is today under his leadership so holding off until next year may actually make sense. Surely they couldn't drop into single digit support, could they? Cabinet reshuffles and mass resignations don't exactly build confidence with the public.
Gordon Brown was tonight clinging to his premiership as he was stunned by a concerted backbench revolt to unseat him and the shock resignation of communities secretary Hazel Blears on the eve of tomorrow's European and local elections.
In a move timed to weaken his grip on power ahead of the election test, Blears became the second member of Brown's cabinet to quit in the space of 24 hours.
The scale of the rebellion from the backbenches became clear as details emerged of a covert email operation to gather signatures from MPs calling for Brown to step down in the interests of both the Labour party and the country.
But tonight the prime minister appeared to have repulsed the first wave of the attempt to topple him when senior figures in the cabinet rallied to his standard, including a clear vow of loyalty by the health secretary, Alan Johnson, the man seen as most likely to succeed him.
One of Brown's closest aides vowed "the prime minister will only be taken out of Downing Street in a box", adding: "If he is ousted, no successor would be able to withstand the demands for an immediate general election, and that will destroy us for a generation."
Just increasingly horrific. One thing I did find odd - Brazil's defense minster saying that the possibility of terrorism hasn't even been considered. Considered and discarded is one thing, but not even considering it?
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