The Budget, as haiku

From HuffPost Hill's 'Brad the Internet':

Budget

huge deficit was
preexisting condition
no press coverage

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China censors own president's press conference in US

Such a pitiful government.

@vhernandezcnn From our CNN producer in Beijing: CNN broadcasts of the President Hu & Obama presser is being blacked out in China

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Harry Reid defends Social Security to David Gregory

Harry Reid did a great job recently of defending Social Security on Meet the Press. As you watch, note Reid's argument and tone. But don't ignore David Gregory — listen to his tone.



So two points. First, our nice president is trying to figure out whether to attack Social Security (in the nice way, of course) during his State of the Union speech. It looks like Reid is sending a message — Don't.

Why? Because Obama will sink the Democrats in Congress if he does. For Reid, who barely survived his own recent Teabag attack, that's a decent reason.

(You can make the same case to your own congress-type, by the way; just pick up the phone.)

Second, does David Gregory sound like a questioner, or an eager advocate for the other side? To help you decide, here's a transcript of the conversation, thanks to Crooks & Liars (my emphasis):

DAVID GREGORY: Social Security-- how does it have to change? [Note the assumption.] What they put on the agenda is raising the retirement age, maybe means testing benefits. Is it time for Social Security to fundamentally change if you're gonna deal with the debt problem?

HARRY REID: One of the things that always troubles me is when we start talking about the debt, the first thing people do is run to Social Security. Social Security is a program that works. And it's going to be-- it's fully funded for the next forty years. Stop picking on Social Security. There're a lotta places--

DAVID GREGORY: Senator are you really saying --

HARRY REID: --where you can go to save money.

DAVID GREGORY:-- the arithmetic on Social Security works?

HARRY REID: I'm saying the arithmetic in Social Security works. I have no doubt it does.

DAVID GREGORY: It's not in crisis?

HARRY REID: The ne-- no, it's not in crisis. This is-- this is-- this is something that's perpetuated by people who don't like government. Social Security is fine. Are there things we can do to improve Social Security? Of course.

Sounds to me like David Gregory is incredulous, or acting like it. (If so, who's the target of that incredulity — Reid? Or you?)

Because you would think that a name journalist who is not a retainer would already know for sure that the arithmetic clearly works (pdf; scroll to the Trust Fund info). And he'd be willing to say so.

But hey, I've been wrong before.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Vatican claims newly released documents are 'misunderstood'

Of course they are. Surely the Vatican had nothing to do with covering up child rape, right? After everything that has come out about the decades of abuse, why would anyone believe what the Vatican has to say now? It's a little too convenient to dismiss it as a misunderstanding.

In a new round of damage control, the Vatican insisted Wednesday that a 1997 letter warning Irish bishops against reporting priests suspected of sex abuse to police had been "deeply misunderstood."

The Associated Press on Tuesday reported the contents of the letter, in which the Vatican's top diplomat in Ireland told bishops that their policy of mandatory reporting such cases to police "gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature."

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James Galbraith on Defending Social Security

Here's Professor James K. Galbraith, who's both knowledgeable and clear, on the coming Social Security attack. The interviewer is Sam Seder:

Tons of info in this rich discussion. "Why don't we do something that's based on pure common sense?" Why indeed. The life expectancy (non-)issue is discussed at 3:00. Galbraith's own proposal is discussed at 4:50. The deficit discussion starts at 8:15. The administration position is discussed at 16:04.

This is a case where good policy and good politics are perfectly aligned. Nevertheless, even as we speak, our nice Democratic president, Barack Obama, is huddled with his crack team at the White House, trying to decide whether to drive the first stake into the heart of FDR's most successful program.

What you can do — Tell your local Democratic congressperson and senator that if Obama takes down the Democratic party, he or she could personally be next to join the unemployed.

Suggest that your local Democratic official talk him out of it, if only for survival. Be polite, firm, and persistent.

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Hillary calls out Cheney

Good for her. Read the rest of this post...

'WikiLeaks has caused little lasting damage, says US state department'

This is a two-part story. First, according to the Guardian, the State Department is claiming privately that WikiLeaks has done little real harm:

The damage caused by the WikiLeaks controversy has caused little real and lasting damage to American diplomacy, senior state department officials have concluded.

It emerged in private briefings to Congress by top diplomats that the fallout from the release of thousands of private diplomatic cables from all over the globe has not been especially bad.

This is in direct opposition to the official stance of the White House and the US government which has been vocal in condemning the whistle-blowing organisation and seeking to bring its founder, Julian Assange, to trial in the US.

It's a little more nuanced than that, but this is the gist. The article itself has the details.

Now the second part, from the same article:

A congressional official briefed on the reviews told Reuters news agency that the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. "I think they want to present the toughest front they can muster," the official said.

In other words, the world has been lied to by the administration so they could publicly paint WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization and run an ops campaign to make it disappear by any means necessary (death for the org, and Bagram for Julian Assange, or the cell next to Bradley Manning).

So is the Swedish prosecution of Julian Assange part of the op? We'd need a Wiki-leak to find out. We do know that Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon were on board. (MasterCard: Running government ops against their customers—the cost of doing business. Getting caught doing it—priceless.)

Glenn Greenwald's take is here. This story not over by a long shot.

(By the way, if WikiLeaks is a terrorist, I think we need a new definition. How about, "Anything that threatens the elites"?)

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Poll: Opinions on gun control haven't changed since Tucson shooting

Opinions haven't changed, but I did get a chuckle (a very sad chuckle) out of the last line in this paragraph.CNN:

According to the survey, several restrictions, however, are widely accepted. More than nine in ten Americans favor background checks to determine whether a prospective buyer has been convicted of a felony. Six in ten favor a ban on semi-automatic assault guns, and on the kind of extended ammunition clips which Jared Loughner allegedly used in Arizona. Fifty-five percent questioned say they also favor limiting gun purchases to one per month.

One per month? Yeah, that'll fix things. Read the rest of this post...

Health Care Reform repeal vote open thread

11:43 AM Las Vegas Sun editorial rips the GOP for trying to repeal health care reform.

11:35 AM GOP congressmen explain why it's okay for them to accept a $700/month govt subsidy to pay for their health care, but they don't want the government to help you with yours.



11:34 AM Hey, another GOP southerner against health care - now there's a shocker.

11:26 AM Only 18% of Americans support full repeal of HCR, which is what the GOP is seeking.

11:25AM Amazing surprise that so many of the GOP House members that want to take health care away from people with pre-existing conditions are all from the south.

The Republicans are having the House vote on repealing health care reform today. The House is currently debating the bill, which should be voted on in a few hours. Read the rest of this post...

Obama to review regulations to help promote business growth

If Obama said this at the beginning of his term, one might conclude that he wanted to see how regulations are stifling competition, as is the case in the US today. That he's saying it after shifting towards an even more business friendly team, it's very worrying. The US regulations are already heavily titled in favor of the large corporate powers such as banking, telecom, internet and phone and something tells me Obama is not about to lift a finger to help consumers in any of those areas. There is an outdated belief within the administration that helping those powers will translate into jobs. They're wrong. New job growth will come from small businesses and not the big corporates. As I've said before, it's in the best interest of the big corporate executives to ship jobs overseas and they're doing a lot of that these days.

It's GOP-Lite. Once again Obama is playing right into the hands of the GOP. Each day he sounds a lot more comfortable supporting the GOP world view.

President Barack Obama ordered a review of U.S. regulations to remove or overhaul those that inhibit economic expansion without helping consumers, advancing his outreach to the business community.

Obama wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today that he is mandating “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.” The initiative is part of an executive order he signed today, which he said would codify a “balanced” approach to regulation.

The president has sought to counter perceptions that his administration is insensitive to business interests, appointing a former corporate executive as his new chief of staff and planning to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce next month. While the American recession ended in June 2009, employers have yet to step up hiring enough to pull the jobless rate below 9.4 percent.

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American Muslim groups nervous about GOP hearings

Politico:

American Muslim leaders, who have struggled to present a clear public voice or organize politically in the decade since Sept. 11, are increasingly apprehensive about the direction Rep. Pete King will take when he convenes hearings next month on the threat posed by radical Islam in America.

King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, plans to focus on the Times Square bombing attempt and the Fort Hood shooting, both involving American-born Muslims, as well as other incidents and on what he sees as the failure of Muslim leadership to combat extremism.

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Report: JP Morgan Chase overcharged and foreclosed on military families

Even for the financial industry, this is low. And to think Jamie Dimon was talked about as a potential Treasury Secretary. Then again, Geithner had been a candidate to take over Citi after their implosion. More from Huffinton Post and NBC:

NBC's report (see video below) focuses on one military family's five-year battle with the mortgage giant, who overcharged them by as much as $900 a month. While Marine Captain Jonathan Rowles was away on active duty, his wife Julia got calls demanding $15,000 they didn't owe. "It's been a nightmare, it's been my living nightmare," Julia Rowles told NBC News.

To protect them from financial stress, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act ensures soldiers on active duty have their mortgage interest rates dropped to 6 percent and shield them from foreclosure. Rowles, who is currently in Beaufort, South Carolina, said she hadn't missed a single mortgage payment, but had calculated payments with the 6 percent interest rate she and her husband were entitled to. Chase instead charged the Rowles family, and thousands of others, up to 10 percent.

Chase admitted that 14 military families lost their homes thanks to the mistake, and 4,000 active service members have been wrongly overcharged. In a statement, JP Morgan Chase said they would be refunding around $2 million to families who had overpaid. The families who have been thrown out of their own homes will be allowed to move back.

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Tunisia's unity government struggling to win over public

Not every country is as open to political retreads, apparently. Good for them. Maybe they can teach us how to push back when the same old people are brought back over and over, regardless of how much they damaged the system the last time. Is our system with constant war and bailouts for the richest of the rich really all that different? It used to sound like a stretch but not now.

After only one day in existence the temporary government, designed to prepare for full democratic elections after the fall of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's dictatorship, was in difficulty. Three ministers in the important opposition UGTT trade union quit, including transport and labour ministers, saying they had "no confidence" in a government that still featured members of the RCD party that ruled under Ben Ali. Then the health minister, Mustapha Ben Jafaar, head of the FTDL opposition party, quit for the same reason.

Several hundred protesters, led by trade unionists and leftwing opposition parties, took to the streets of Tunis demanding that the new cabinet be purged of the old guard that had served Ben Ali. The peaceful protests were violently repressed by riot police who fired teargas into the crowd and pummelled protesters to the ground with batons and kicks. The protesters, singing the national anthem, repeatedly tried to regroup around the city and were repeatedly brutally broken up and forced to flee screaming into side streets.

"I am afraid our revolution will be stolen from me and my people. The people are asking for freedoms and this new government is not. They are the ones who oppressed the people for 22 years," said Ines Mawdud, a 22-year-old student at the demonstration. Peaceful protests calling for the RCD to be disbanded were also held in Sidi Bouzid, the city where criticism of Ben Ali's government first erupted last month, and two other towns.

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'Baby Doc' Duvalier charged with corruption

His welcome back visit didn't go quite as well as he had probably expected. It's possible that people who are suffering don't want to be reminded of suffering from decades ago.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have urged the authorities to prosecute the former dictator for jailing, torturing and murdering thousands of people during his time in power. His longtime companion, Veronique Roy, when asked whether Duvalier was being arrested, simply laughed and said nothing.

The scene evoked memories of 7 February 1986 when crowds danced in the streets after widespread revolts and international pressure led to his departure.

His Swiss-banked fortune long used up in divorce and tax disputes, Duvalier returned to Haiti without warning on Sunday on a flight from Paris, saying he wanted to help. "I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the reconstruction of Haiti."

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Tea Party governor of South Carolina approves massive pay raises for staff

Remember, the Tea Party and the GOP are all about being fiscally conservative. Who hasn't rolled out double digit pay increases during a recession and when your state has a budget deficit?

Haley started things off by giving her new chief of staff, Tim Pearson, a 27.5 percent pay raise. Pearson will make $125,000 a year – or $27,000 more than Scott English made while serving as chief of staff to former Gov. Mark Sanford.

Pearson will also have a full-time assistant who makes $60,000 a year.

Haley’s deputy chief of staff for communications and legislative affairs – Trey Walker – will be paid $122,775 a year. That’s a 42.3 percent increase over the second-highest paid staffer in the Sanford administration.

Haley’s top lawyer, Swati Patel, will be paid $102,000 a year – which is a 36 percent increase over the $75,000 a year that Sanford paid his top lawyer.

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