Class warfare billionaire accuses Obama of being a divider

If he was talking about Obama dividing Democrats, perhaps, but in this way, the Karl Rove donor is completely off. Only a month ago Ken Langone was saying that billionaires like himself should be paying higher taxes to pay down the debt but now he's cranking out the radical right classics. If only Obama actually bothered to do more than talk about fat cats and jet airplanes. The reality is that Obama has been good friends to the fat cats which is why they are donating millions to his reelection campaign.

Get a grip and see who is winning this class warfare. It's people like Ken Langone and it's not even close. Langone really needs to go Cheney himself and go away.

"He is dividing us as a nation," Langone said. "He's not bringing us together. He's willfully dividing us. He's petulant."

The co-founder of Home Depot sharply criticized the president for promoting class warfare through his repeated attacks against "fat cat" business executives and his targeting of tax loopholes.

In sum, the behavior is symptomatic of Obama's disrespect for the office he holds, Langone said.

"Ronald Reagan would never go into the Oval Office without his jacket on—that's how much he revered the presidency," he said. "This guy worked like hell to be president...Behave like a president. Let me look at you as a model to how we should behave. What does he say? Fat cats, jet airplanes. What is the purpose? Us versus them.

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Krugman: The West is sinking into the west

Sorta. Metaphorically at least. And in the short term.

Paul Krugman correctly points out that the advanced economies (U.S., Europe, Japan) are all stuck in similar self-killing & elite-promoted morasses — austerity now, for thee but not for me — at the same time that the growing markets, the emerging economies, are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Krugman (my emphasis):

The Halt and the Lame

Simon Johnson writes about who’s worse — America or Europe? Basically I agree with his assessment: Europe has more fundamental problems in sheer economic terms, because it adopted a single currency without the necessary institutions to make it workable. America has a long-run budget problem, but our current mess is entirely political. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to solve.

What’s extraordinary, though, is the paralysis that has taken over essentially the entire advanced world. America is hamstrung by its crazy right; Europe by its single currency that can be neither abandoned nor accompanied by sufficient reforms to make it work; Japan by lousy demography and monetary timidity that is now deeply ingrained in expectations.

About the U.S. we all see the obvious: the Crazies are in charge of the right wing of the RightWing, and the NeoLibs are trying to finesse them through the next election. How's that working out? Not so well?

About Europe, Krugman writes in a separate post:

In short, what the markets seem to be seeing is disaster on the periphery and the Japanification of the core. And I can’t say they’re wrong.

"Japanification of the core" means even the Germans aren't getting off Scot-free (click the link). After all, those geniuses hold that eagerly-incurred and corruptly-induced Greek debt.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Senior US Arctic scientist under investigation

Is he guilty of something real or was he an obstacle to the oil drilling plans in the Arctic? If the Obama administration approves drilling there, we might have a clue. The administration has been accommodating enough with Big Oil, so it's not an outrageous thought that they might be (again) siding with the oil industry. The Guardian:

Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.

"You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas," said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic."

The group filed an official complaint on Monnett's behalf on Thursday, accusing the government of persecuting the (PDF) scientist and interfering with his work. It seeks his reinstatement and a public apology.

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All the way back to Truman, it’s the R presidents who added the most debt

Click chart to see larger version

A fascinating chart via Wikipedia. In addition to showing how much debt was added during each presidency, all the way back to Truman, the chart also shows debt relative to GDP. The reason for that is that $1 trillion in debt in 1950 was a heck of a lot more than $1 trillion in debt today. So the ratio gives you a sense of how big the figure really is in the dollars of the time.

What do we see? That during Democratic presidencies, all the way back to Truman, there was a decrease in the ratio of total debt to GDP. But during Republican presidencies, all the way back to Nixon, there was an increase in the ratio of total debt to GDP. And it doesn't seem to matter much who is in congress, per the data. What does seem relevant is who was in the Oval Office, an R or a D. Ds always showed an decrease in debt/GDP, while Rs almost always showed an increase.  Even Obama, who had to deal with the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression (and one he inherited from George W Bush), "only" increased debt/GDP by 9%.  Bush increased it by 20%.

And if you prefer to add up the raw numbers, from Truman to Obama, Democratic presidents added $3.43 trillion to the debt, while the Republicans added $9.83 trillion. Read the rest of this post...

House debt bill passed. It’s up to the Senate (and let’s not call anything a "victory")

The House just passed the GOP debt plan legislation by a vote of 218 - 210. All 188 Democrats who were present voted no (five did not vote.) And, 22 Republicans also voted no.

It's a short-term extension. If the GOP version becomes law, when we go through this again, the Balanced Budget Amendment must be on its way to ratification in order to lift the debt ceiling:

It would also mandate that the second hike of the ceiling could occur only occur after a balanced-budget amendment passed both chambers of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. Previously, a vote on such an amendment was all that was required for that second increase, which under the Boehner plan would likely be necessary early next year.

As Think Progress notes, when the GOPers controlled both houses of Congress and the White House from 2003-06, they never pushed that amendment. The Republicans have learned that hostage taking pays off for them. So, why not keep upping the ransom?

So now, to the Senate. It's going to be a busy weekend in that body. The first Senate vote could occur very early on Sunday morning, like 1:00 AM early. The Senate being the Senate, that could all change. If things slide, Obama will accept a two-day extension in the debt ceiling.

Whatever happens, I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Walker:

From a political perspective it would be the Democrats who actually raise the debt ceiling and Democrats who are responsible for putting in place an austerity package of all spending cuts during a major recession.

On a policy level the Reid’s plan is nothing but support of an all out war on progressive values. It is spending cuts during a jobs crisis. It would foolishly reduce demand, during an economy downturn, a prolongation of pain and lowering demand, which would make the economy worse. It is also a major deficit reduction plan without tax increases. Doing this will fully legitimize the conservative framing that we have a “spending problem not a tax problem.”

This will be seen by the GOP as a validation of the “no new taxes” demand. It will only encourage Republicans to be even more intransigent in the future.

Worst of all Reid’s plan contains the Catfood Commission II. It would pave the way for cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits using a special legislative process designed to destroy basic democratic accountability.

We're facing the possibilty of seeing more damage to Social Security and Medicare while the Democrats control the White House and the Senate then we saw when the GOPers had the White House, the Senate and the House. And, the Democrats are going to claim this as a victory. Stunning.

Imagine if Washington put as much time and energy into creating jobs. We might actually start making a dent in the deficit. Read the rest of this post...

My unexpected stop at a US-Afghan military base

Greetings from Jalalabad, Afghanistan -- last stop for those on their way to and from Pakistan. We're so close to that world, they actually prefer Pakistani money over their own national currency.

While I knew I was coming to do work in Jalalabad, I hadn't realized that arriving by air from Kabul (the main road continues to suffer from inconsistant security) meant having to take an old Russian Helicopter into a joint US-Afghan military base. An unexpected stop that gave me a chance to briefly look around and see how things look and feel as I make my way from the helipad to the front gate. I was both curious and concerned to be in a Forward Operating Base.

As I step off the tarmac I notice a group of soldiers with the US flag on their arms. They don't seem happy to see me, maybe I look like a do-gooder hippy who doesn't belong on a military base. Either way, after some unpleasant small talk I walked on, noticing the different facilities and signs along the way. As I walk along the wide lanes, between walls and temporary buildings, soldiers in shorts and T-shirts jog by listening to their ipods. They're not surprised to see me and they're firmly focused on their workout anyway. Up in the guard towers I notice Afghan Military, they give me a hard look as I walk past. Again a jogging soldier runs by, followed by a foot patrol chatting with another soldier. Interestingly the closer I get to the gate, the more I notice the high percentage of Afghan soldiers running things. Gates, doors, towers, I said to myself, "I guess they're slowly taking control of the base operation, maybe in preparation for the troop reduction." Not very difficult to deduce, I know, but still, it was interesting to see. The Afghan troops I encountered looked very capable. I could be wrong, but their posture and attitude gave me the impression of well trained and capable. An impression I have not had when meeting, say, the Afghan National Police patrolling city streets.

As I pass exit after exit, eventually I'm standing on a narrow lane with vegetable plantations on either side of it. There are kids and adults hanging around chatting and trying to escape the heat under a tree. I'm relieved as I see a driver pull up who knows my name and has been assigned to come get me. We ride into Jalalabad and my eyes are fixed on the never-ending shops and tiny enterprises along the road. Everyone is busy working on something, and dotting the urban landscape are these massive Pakistani trucks, hand painted with jaw dropping fresco's. The other common site are community centers, many used for training and education, in English and Pashto (the language in this region). Seems like most of the big players in international assistance, as well as many unknown smaller ones, are working here, and their buildings are bustling with activity. Are they reaching the people they had hoped to? The journalist in me is tempted to try and find out, but I've got my own assignment, as the car drives on.

Once you're well clear of the base and into the city, you can almost forget there is anything like a war going on, or that there is a risk of some kind of attack. Life goes on and keeps everyone quite busy. Occasionally a military armored patrol vehicle drives through and everyone gets out of the way. But their presence doesn't phase anyone, and just like me, people are busy living life as best as it can be lived in this place under these circumstances.

The next night, some tweets come in from journalists in the region about an attack on a NATO airbase in Jalalabad. Not the one I arrived at, but another one nearby. Together with friends, we climb to high ground to catch a glimpse of what is happening. We don't hear much and the night sky is calm. Later we learn that the attack was easily thwarted. Still, it is a reminder that while there may be many a good day, the attacks are still coming, and anyone living here (or just temporarily working here) shouldn't forget that fact. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: "Obama’s continuing insistence on compromising ... is looking obsessive and compulsive"

More about Obama (my thoughts, as usual, after that).

Via Paul Krugman, we're shown this, by Bruce Bartlett (my emphasis everywhere):

Now we are in the midst of a debt crisis that stems largely from Obama’s inability to accept the intransigence of his political opponents. Last December, he caved in to Republicans by supporting extension of the Bush tax cuts even though there is no evidence that they have done anything other than increase the deficit. There were those who told Obama that he ought to include an increase in the debt limit, but he rejected that idea[.] ...

Obama has continued to reject any proposal that might give him leverage in the negotiations even as House Republicans appear unwilling or incapable of raising the debt limit before a default occurs.

And this, by Yves Smith:

Some historical accounts of the Great Fire of Rome, which destroyed three of the city’s fourteen districts and damaged seven others, depict it as an urban redevelopment project gone bad. Emperor Nero allegedly torched the district where he wanted to build his Domus Aurea. Hence any lyre-playing was not a sign of imperial madness, but a badly-informed leader not knowing his plans had spun badly out of control.

President Obama’s plan at social and economic engineering, of rolling back core elements of the Great Deal out of a misguided effort to cut spending in a weak economy, is similarly blazing out of control. The debt ceiling crisis was meant to be a scare to provide an excuse for measures that are opposed by broad swathes of the public. ...

[W]hat an appalling display of misguided ego, inept negotiating postures, bad policy thinking, and utter disregard for the public interest are on display in this fiasco.

Krugman's summary:

Obama’s continuing insistence on compromising, his continuing faith in bipartisanship despite two and a half years of evidence that these people don’t do compromise and will never make a deal, is looking obsessive and compulsive. It’s deeply frustrating.

And that's Krugman trying not to psychoanalyze.

Me, I prefer to give Obama credit for knowing what he wants and trying to get it. I disagree with Bartlett: the Bush Tax Cuts Cave was part of the plan, the setup that makes the current dramatics possible. Yves Smith is right-on with the Nero comparison: the best-laid plans of emperors oft burn down the town.

If you really want to see Obama's goals laid out (like a patient etherized upon a table), just look at the Simpson-Bowles report. Hand-picked chairs for a hand-crafted 14-guaranteed-vote commission — Obama's fingerprints all over it. So here's what the Deficit Commission co-chairs recommended, per the NY Times:

Under the plan, individual income tax rates would decline to ... 23 percent on the highest bracket (now 35 percent). The corporate tax rate, now 35 percent, would also be reduced, to as low as 26 percent.

That's in addition to this...

benefit cuts and an increased retirement age for Social Security

... as well as cuts to Medicare and a cap to federal spending at 21%, a move that Dave Dayen said would "stop progressive governance permanently."

Krugman's summary of this plan: "A major transfer of income to a small minority of wealthy Americans."

You don't need psychology to know what Obama wants. You just need a willingness to take him at his word.

Word.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Faith-based Initiative head disses separation of church and state

Denver Post:

"If your focus is first and foremost serving people in need, then there's not a tremendous amount of time left to debate the finer points of the church- state relationship," said program director Joshua DuBois.

Actually, if you're in the business of walking a very fine line just this side of violating the constitutional separation of church and state, you ought to be very interested in the finer points of the church-state relationship.  That quote belies an arrogance completely inappropriate for someone running an already questionable office.

UPDATE from Joe: Given this statement from Joshua DuBois, I guess it's not a surprise he wouldn't speak to Kerry Eleveld for her recent article exposing how Obama has continued Bush's faith-based policies. Some very right-wing and extremely discriminatory entities are benefiting from DuBois' lack of concern about the "finer points" of the U.S. Constitution. Read the rest of this post...

NBC’s Chuck Todd blames entire debt stand off on GOP right-wingers

Chuck Todd just now on MSNBC:

Everybody's fed up that a small ideological wing of one party can do what they've done, which is, hold this thing up for days.

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Robert Reich: It’s not a budget crisis, but a jobs crisis

Why is it so difficult for Congress and the White House to grasp this? The numbers are clear with voters, who want a solution for the employment crisis. What's going on in Washington is a side show and theater. Robert Reich:

The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate. Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.

In economic terms, we will not “run out of money” next week. We’re still the richest nation in the world, and the Federal Reserve has unlimited capacity to print money.

Nor is there any economic imperative to reach an agreement on how to fix the budget deficit by Tuesday. It’s not even clear the federal budget needs that much fixing anyway.

Yes, the ratio of the national debt to the total economy is high relative to what it’s been. But it’s not nearly as high as it was after World War II – when it reached 120 percent of the economy’s total output.

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Last two quarters, dismal growth: 0.4% and 1.3%

The economy just got sent to the ICU, as Krugman and Stiglitz predicted all along. And the debt deal, whatever form it takes, won't do a thing to help the economy, and will actually likely suppress growth even more.

There's going to be a bloodletting the next election. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose the White House and the Senate, while the GOP loses the House. And regardless of what I want to happen in the election, with no one focusing on the economy I'm not sure an all-around bloodletting isn't deserved.

From MarketWatch:

A new government report on the nation’s output showed the economy in much weaker shape than anticipated, casting doubt on the strength of the expected recovery in the final six months of the year.

Gross domestic product expanded at a paltry 1.3% annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday, below the 1.6% growth rate that economists anticipated. See MarketWatch economic calendar.

But it was a drastic downward revisions to first-quarter GDP that stole the show and set economists on edge.

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Obama speaks on the ongoing debt and default debacle

Scheduled to begin at 10:20 AM ET (still waiting at 10:35 AM):
Read the rest of this post...

Time Magazine: "The Speaker has gone lame"

Another day closer to default and another day to watch the national embarrassment that is the House GOP caucus. While no one looks good in this mess, the debt debacle could claim its first political victim: John Boehner.

The failure of the House Republicans to agree to Boehner's plan doesn't bode well for his future according to Jay Newton Small at Time Magazine:

House Speaker John Boehner failed to muster enough GOP votes to pass his plan to raise the debt limit on Thursday night, throwing into question the fate of Boehner's proposal as well as that of his speakership. Republican leaders must now rewrite the legislation in order to attract more conservatives as they try to pass a revised version on Friday. But considerable damage has been done. Boehner's negotiating stance in the ongoing effort to trim deficits and raise the debt ceiling by next Tuesday's deadline is hobbled; any credibility he had in claiming that his restive members could get behind a consensus debt deal has vanished. The Speaker has gone lame. (emphasis added)

Lame. Ouch, but true.

And, Boehner's got limited options:

But it's clear now that Speaker Boehner will need Democratic votes to get any compromise through the House. And that leaves the Republican leader with two options: abandon Tea Party freshmen and form a coalition between his most moderate members and 150+ Dems, or potentially allow the last best hope for a debt ceiling deal to fail in his chamber, with nothing but market panic left to make his members reconsider. Either would be a bruising choice for the embattled Speaker.

If becoming Speaker made Boehner cry, what's he doing to do if he gets dumped? I don't think many of us will be shedding any tears for him.

Also, just learned that Obama will be making remarks about the debt debacle at 10:20 AM ET. We'll post a livestream. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch paper hacking victim forced to tell all to judge

Murdoch's hefty hush money payout may be exposed sometime soon. There is seemingly no end to this fiasco and it's clear that the practice was widespread. If the Murdoch's lied to the British Parliament, they will be in serious trouble. For starters, they may lose their partial TV ownership in the UK. But that would only be the starting point. The Independent:

Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, must break his silence over phone-hacking and explain why he was paid £725,000 in damages for being targeted by the News of the World, MPs said last night.

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has done much to uncover the scandal, said Mr Taylor must appear before the judge-led inquiry into phone hacking and demanded that the News of the World publisher News International (NI) releases the football chief from a confidentiality agreement which has prevented him from discussing the matter. The circumstances of the payment have been the source of intense dispute following claims before MPs by James Murdoch last week that the settlement was in based on advice from "outside counsel" on the scale of damages likely to be awarded against the company if it took the case to court.

Two former senior NI executives – Colin Myler, the former editor of the News of the World, and Tom Crone, the paper's legal manager – have challenged Mr Murdoch's evidence and said he was "mistaken" in what he told the committee, arguing that he had been shown an email containing a transcript of a hacked message. It has since been claimed that Mr Taylor was originally offered a fraction of the final settlement –about £60,000 – but the figure rose as the company was made aware of evidence obtained by his lawyers.

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Ousted Tunisian dictator sentenced in absentia

Pity he is no longer in Tunisia for this moment. Al Jazeera:

A Tunisian court has sentenced ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his daughter and son-in-law in absentia, to serve prison terms and to pay a collective $100m in damages.

The court, on Thursday, found the trio guilty of corruption in property deals. A nephew of Ben Ali was also convicted of drug charges in the proceedings.

Ben Ali has already been convicted in absentia twice in Tunisian courts in recent weeks, for embezzlement and gun and drug smuggling.

He fled to Saudi Arabia in January after a popular uprising against his autocratic, 23-year rule that sparked revolts around the Arab world.

Corruption in Ben Ali's inner circle was one of the drivers of anger at his regime that fueled the protests earlier this year.

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Close adviser to British PM promoted ditching consumer rights and maternity leave

It was all fine and good until his nutty ideas became public. Now they're running away from him. Regardless of what the party sources say now, it's clear that his way of thinking was perfectly acceptable behind closed doors.

Ministers yesterday disowned controversial ideas floated by David Cameron's strategy guru, including the scrapping of maternity leave and consumer rights and the closure of jobcentres.

Steve Hilton came under fire after it emerged that he had put forward numerous proposals to boost Britain's fragile recovery. His friends blamed the disclosure on obstructive civil servants who do not admire his free-thinking approach to policy.

The 42-year-old former advertising man, who cycles to work and walks around Downing Street in a T-shirt and socks, is seen as one of Mr Cameron's closest two advisers – the other being the Chancellor, George Osborne. The Prime Minister admires Mr Hilton's original thinking although he often backs Mr Osborne when the two men clash. Insiders say Mr Hilton has a "scattergun" approach to policy ideas, many of which do not get off the ground. The suggestions leaked yesterday look certain to join the list.

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The latest Goldman scandal - stockpiling raw materials

There used to be laws that blocked excessive profits from raw materials trading dating back to the Great Depression. Like a lot of common sense policies that were created back during that crisis, they were dismantled in recent years. Goldman was the first trading company to receive an exemption but they pretty much all do it today. What they are doing may be legal (now that they destroyed the law) but it should be reviewed and changed. How is it in the best interest of the country to allow stockpiling of any critical raw material and then trading it?

Are we a capitalist country or aren't we? It sure doesn't look like it when you see scams like this. This is not how the so-called free market is supposed to work.

A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.

Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.

There's just one problem: only a trickle of the aluminum is leaving the depots, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.

The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.

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