Breaking: Supreme Court rejects stay of execution for Troy Davis in GA

UPDATE: AP story is out, 11:24pm

UPDATE: He's dead.  11:14pm eastern

UPDATE: I just read that the execution is taking place now, 10:58pm eastern

Just breaking from Reuters on Twitter. Our own Gaius Publius has all the background on the case here. Read the rest of this post...

House fails to pass CR, another govt shutdown looms this week

From HuffPost Hill:

HOUSE CAN'T PASS CONTINUING RESOLUTION, ANOTHER %$#&ING; SHUTDOWN LOOMS - The lower chamber has failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded past September 30th. The measure failed 195-230, largely due to strong Democratic opposition and 48 really conservative Republicans who wanted even more cuts. Calls by Democrats to restore $1.5 billion in spending that had been offset to balance additional FEMA funding had been ignored by Republicans, so Steny Hoyer urged his caucus to vote against the measure. Heads up to staffers: this might not be the best weekend for that apple picking trip.

The background on this is in an earlier post of ours:

The Tea-Party-led US House Republicans don't want to pass disaster aid at all. To hell with the tornadoes and earthquakes and wildfires and hurricanes. Real Americans simply die, apparently. And if they are going to put up any money at all for the recent spate of natural disasters, the House Republicans are again - surprise - demanding massive cuts to the budget. They don't care that the American people, in recent polls, overwhelmingly support the government providing the disaster funds without further cuts to the budget. They have a far-right Tea Party to appease, and the Tea Party doesn't care about Americans who have lost their homes and their loved ones. The Tea Party only cares about dismantling the US government at all costs. Oh, and how is the Tea Party House paying for the disaster funds? In part by dismantling programs that create jobs. Again, big surprise there.

Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney, who’s worth around $200m, says he’s "middle class"

You've heard of "lying for the Lord," well this is lying for the presidency. Read the rest of this post...

Banks must "more than double profits" to meet capital requirements

We knew that the banks were under-capitalized — on purpose, it seems; why let good chips sit idle when the dice are coming out. The problem is, how much are they under-capitalized, relative to the coming capital requrements?

UK Telegraph has the answer (h/t Anne Leslie-Bini; my emphasis):

Banks across Europe and North America must more than double their profits by 2015 if they are to meet the capital requirements likely to be imposed on them over the next few years, experts have warned.

Institutions need to increase profits by about $350bn (£221bn), according to management consultancy McKinsey, which said banks were facing "considerably deeper" challenges than the sovereign debt crisis currently engulfing the sector.

McKinsey said increased profitability would ensure banks produced returns that met their current cost of equity, while covering additional capital requirements under Basell III of up to $1.5 trillion. However, it warned additional surcharges for Systemically Important Financial Institutions, could make the gap even greater.

"This return gap is enormous", said Stefano Visalli, director at McKinsey. "It is bigger than the total profits of the global pharmaceutical and automotives industries put together. To achieve this will require a radical break with past trends for an industry that has never before decreased costs in absolute terms; in the next years it may need to reduce them by 15pc-25pc as well as increasing revenues."

The straits seem dire, and the problem is both in Europe and the U.S. Did you catch the "decrease costs" part? What are costs in banking? My guess is salaries, bonuses, and fees (esp. legal fees).

After all, banks don't make anything, and they certainly don't have inventory, in the auto-parts sense. Bank inventory is stuff like computer lists of mortgage bundles they've bought, to be repackaged, tranched and sold. Certainly no freight and storage costs, unless Wall Street's electrons are as expensive as their lunches. So, salaries and bonuses — the invisible hand may taketh after all.

According to the article, "structural weaknesses exist across the industry." This is not good, since in the U.S. at least, the taxpayer is on the hook for bank losses (both legally in some cases, and de facto in others). In Europe it's roughly the same, though Iceland let its weak banks fail to avoid putting taxpayers on the hook. (How'd that work out? Very nicely, thank you very much.)

To bail them out, or not to bail them out? That is the question, should it come to that. It's definitely "double toil and trouble" time by the looks of it. It would be nice if some consumer demand showed up to boost economic activity. Perhaps Obama's jobs bill will pass — that would make a nice start (so long as he keeps his mitts off the safety net).

GP Read the rest of this post...

Execution of Georgia prisoner Troy Davis would be "a grievous wrong"

The execution is scheduled for today (Wednesday) at 7:00 pm Georgia time, by lethal injection. Pending stay (see below), it will occur.

NY Times:

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for the 1989 killing of a police officer in Savannah, Ga. The Georgia pardon and parole board’s refusal to grant him clemency is appalling in light of developments after his conviction: reports about police misconduct, the recantation of testimony by a string of eyewitnesses and reports from other witnesses that another person had confessed to the crime.

This case has attracted worldwide attention, but it is, in essence, no different from other capital cases. Across the country, the legal process for the death penalty has shown itself to be discriminatory, unjust and incapable of being fixed. Just last week, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for Duane Buck, an African-American, hours before he was to die in Texas because a psychologist testified during his sentencing that Mr. Buck’s race increased the chances of future dangerousness. Case after case adds to the many reasons why the death penalty must be abolished.

The grievous errors in the Davis case were numerous, and many arose out of eyewitness identification. The Savannah police contaminated the memories of four witnesses by re-enacting the crime with them present so that their individual perceptions were turned into a group one. The police showed some of the witnesses Mr. Davis’s photograph even before the lineup. His lineup picture was set apart by a different background. The lineup was also administered by a police officer involved in the investigation, increasing the potential for influencing the witnesses. ... Studies of the hundreds of felony cases overturned because of DNA evidence have found that misidentifications accounted for between 75 percent and 85 percent of the wrongful convictions. The Davis case offers egregious examples of this kind of error.

Click the links to see the news articles. The family of the slain police officer consider themselves the real "victims", not Mr. Davis.

The Times obviously disagrees. Please read the entire article for all of the reasons why. They are legion.

About a stay, over at emptywheel.net, the practicing lawyer bmaz offers a ray of hope — Antonin Scalia and the Supreme Court. Scalia and the Court have put their fingerprints on two stays of execution recently, with another case upcoming that turns on much the same material as the Troy Davis case. The trick appears to be (as my non-lawyerly mind reads it) crafting the appeal:

The common wisdom, and repeated meme in the press, is that there is no remaining available judicial path for Troy Davis. But this may not necessarily be true. There are paths left to be pursued, even if narrow and dimly lit. And in an imminent execution situation, anything and everything must, and will, be pursued. The dedication, intensity, selflessness and never say die, literally, attitude of death penalty lawyers is legendary. If you have not seen them in action, you don’t know, but it is a thing of beauty.

Here is but one possible path, among many, which could possibly be attempted in one form or another by the Davis defense team. There has just, quite recently, been a fairly landmark study released on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Granted, the AJS study pertains to eyewitness testimony as related though police lineups, but it is further concrete evidence of a changing landscape in how the unreliability of eyewitness identification in general is treated, and the picture is quite disturbing as to lack of reliability and veracity.

Now the issue of eyewitness identification infirmity has been reviewed before in the case of Troy Davis, but not in the bright new light emerging recently. And there is one other important difference now. The Supreme Court has scheduled for oral argument on November 2, 2011 the seminal eyewitness ID case of Perry v. New Hampshire.

bmaz discusses the relevance of Perry to the Troy Davis case. His analysis is a good (and timely) read.

Mr. Davis has again refused his "last meal" on the grounds that it won't be his last. Here's hoping — both for his sake and the sake of the nation, as it climbs up from barbary and its Southern roots.



Those roots nourish strange fruit indeed.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Video: How your brain tricks you into hearing a totally different sound than what someone said

You need to watch this video and take its test. What you see when someone is speaking can change what sound you hear coming out of their mouth. Totally bizarre. Though I'd like to know if it can also change the "word" you hear coming out of their mouth, or only the sound? Meaning, in every day practice has this ever caused real confusion?

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Rick Perry wants to serve Israel... for dinner

From William Saletan at Slate:

Then [GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry] was asked: "To what extent do you view America's continued protection of Israel as a theological priority?" He answered:

Well, obviously, Israel is our oldest and most stable democratic ally in that region. That is what this is about. I also as a Christian have a clear directive to support Israel. So from my perspective, it's pretty easy. Both as an American and as a Christian, I am going to stand with Israel.

Whoa. That's something George W. Bush never did. Bush never said he had a Christian duty to stand with Israel, because to say such a thing would have been stupid and dangerous. By framing U.S. foreign policy in terms of a religious alliance between Christians and Jews, Perry is validating the propaganda of Islamic extremists. He's jeopardizing peace, Israel, and the United States.

And of course, what Perry doesn't tell his Jewish audience is that his "Christian duty" is to keep Israel in existence long enough for Jesus to come back and kill 2/3 of the world's Jews.

So, Perry's desire to save Israel is a lot like that Twilight Zone episode about the alien book titled "To Serve Man." Humans thought the book was an alien blueprint for all the neat ways the extra-terrestrials were going to bow down and aid humanity.  It ended up being a cookbook. Read the rest of this post...

1m more 18-25 yr olds insured due to Obamacare

From Gallup we learn that the President's health care reform law seems to have massively helped kids 18-25 get insured (HHS says it's a million young adults).  I used the term Obamacare intentionally in the headline.  Why not turn it around on them.  Obamacare just helped a HUGE number of kids nationwide.  This is what the Republicans are promising to repeal if they win the White House and the Senate:

Fewer young adults in the U.S. reported lacking health insurance coverage in each of the three quarters since the new healthcare law in September 2010 began allowing young adults to stay on their parents' plans up to age 26. About one in four (24.2%) 18- to 25-year-olds reported being uninsured in the second quarter of this year, down from 28% in the third quarter of 2010, and nearly the lowest Gallup has measured at any point since it began tracking health insurance coverage rates in 2008.

Read the rest of this post...

Senate panel to de-fund high speed rail program

Sounds like some people don't believe that we need jobs or a modern travel system. This helps us the economic recovery how? Chop the defense budget and shift it back home where it's desperately needed because this is ridiculous. Why are Democrats supporting this de-funding?

President Barack Obama’s high-speed passenger rail initiative may be unfunded next year after a panel controlled by fellow Democrats approved legislation that contains no money for the program.

The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that sets the Transportation Department’s budget approved the spending plan yesterday, said John Bray, a spokesman for the panel. The full committee is scheduled to consider the bill today.

The high-speed rail program is “a casualty of the cuts mandated in the debt-limit deal” Obama and congressional Republican leaders struck in August, Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and a supporter of the president’s program, said in an e-mailed statement. Lautenberg is a member of the transportation subcommittee.

NOTE FROM JOHN: From my time working on appropriations in the Senate, I'd say one of a few things is happening here:

1. Lautenberg is sticking it to the President by saying, "you wanted budget cuts, here's your budget cut - kiss your own initiative goodbye."
2. The White House, suddenly realizing that the President's budget cutting frenzy has consequences, gave Lautenberg the okay to cut it.

Either way, this looks awfully dumb.  First, America's transportation infrastructure is antiquated beyond belief.  I took the TGV in France last month (it's their super fast bullet-style train going a max speed of 200 mph), and it wasn't the first time I took one.  I believe the first time was a good 20 or maybe 30 years ago.  We are so, so behind.  But that's not the only problem here.  Transportation projects stimulate the economy, directly (by hiring people to do the work) and indirectly (by improving the nation's commercial infrastructure).

So brilliant idea.  Setting America further back, yet again. Read the rest of this post...

GOP House leaders urge Fed to further depress economy, apparently to ensure Obama loses in 2012

It would appear that the GOP is referring to quantitative easing. And although Chris is our economics expert here, he and I did ask Joe Stiglitz about the wisdom of more QE when we met him in Paris. And Stiglitz and Chris both agreed that more QE was not the answer (I quote a large excerpt from that interview at the end of this post).  Chris' concern has been all along that QE just pushes more money to Wall Street and nowhere else.  But if this is true, why would the GOP be opposed to helping the rich?  Unless the GOP thinks that QE works, and they don't want to risk anything that might help the economy before next year's elections.

Adam Serwer at Mother Jones:

The Republican leadership is warning Federal Reserve officials meeting this week not to do anything to stimulate the economy, despite persistent high unemployment and grim forecasts for economic growth. A letter sent by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and Senate Majority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) states, "Respectfully, we submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people."

Republicans have successfully pursued contractionary fiscal policies that will harm the economy in the short term, successfully leveraging the threat of a government shutdown and economic armageddon over the debt ceiling to push the Obama administration to acquiesce to some pretty unfavorable terms. Since the GOP has control of the House, they can block just about any legislative solutions the president might propose. The only thing they can't really control is what the Fed does—which is why they're trying so hard to intimidate them out of doing anything at all.

More from conservative David Frum:

I’m not shocked by much any more, but I am shocked by this: the leaders of one of the great parties in Congress calling on the Federal Reserve to tighten money in the throes of the most prolonged downturn since the Great Depression.

The markets see deflation and depression, not inflation. Yet ironically this non-existent and much dreaded inflation is exactly the remedy we need to lighten the load of consumer debt.

As is, we’re looking at a continued economic slump, more unemployment, and more deleveraging via continuing catastrophic consumer default on mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and student aid. And now the GOP leadership is urging that the Federal Reserve make the catastrophe worse? To what end?

I know what the detractors will say: to the end of defeating President Obama and replacing him with a Republican president. And if you’ve convinced yourself that Obama is the Second Coming of Malcolm X, Trotsky, and the all-conquering Caliph Omar all in one, then perhaps capsizing the US economy and plunging your fellow-citizens deeper into misery will seem a price worth paying to rid the country of him.

This is the hour for united action against the economic crisis, not partisan maneuvering.

Here's an extended excerpt from our post about Stiglitz and QE:

Stiglitz: "Monetary policy will not get us out of the mess, and all this discussion about monetary policy is a distraction.... The Fed is very good at creating problems, not so good at resolving them. QE3 won't help."

Stiglitz goes on to explain why quantitative easing didn't work (and I paraphrase what you'll see in the video below):

1. QE didn't lead to more lending, partly because we haven't fixed the banking system.

2. Lower interest rates typically do not have much effect on investment in an environment like the one we're in right now.

3. Slightly lower interest rates on bonds might have encouraged speculation in the stock market, driven up stock prices, which might induce people to consume more. But since it was pre-announced that the intervention would just be temporary, why would people go out and consume based on a knowingly volatile stock market? Only the foolish would have gone out and consumed based on a temporary boost in stock prices.

4. Competitive devaluation might have had some effect, namely lower interest rates leads to a lower US exchange rate, helping US competitiveness. Fed would never admit that this was the goal, but that was probably the only effect that was significant. But other countries responded in ways that limited the size of the positive impact.  And benefits over medium term are probably negative.

5. All of this might pose the risk of higher prices back in the US - and what does the Fed do if growth remains low but inflation rises?

Read the rest of this post...

Tea-Party-run US House again risks shutting down government over disaster funds

The Tea-Party-led US House Republicans don't want to pass disaster aid at all.  To hell with the tornadoes and earthquakes and wildfires and hurricanes.  Real Americans simply die, apparently.  And if they are going to put up any money at all for the recent spate of natural disasters, the House Republicans are again - surprise - demanding massive cuts to the budget.  They don't care that the American people, in recent polls, overwhelmingly support the government providing the disaster funds without further cuts to the budget.  They have a far-right Tea Party to appease, and the Tea Party doesn't care about Americans who have lost their homes and their loved ones.  The Tea Party only cares about dismantling the US government at all costs.  Oh, and how is the Tea Party House paying for the disaster funds?  In part by dismantling programs that create jobs.  Again, big surprise there. Read the rest of this post...

Feingold says Obama shouldn’t be primaried

Sam Stein in HuffPost:

Last week a group of liberal activists and academics, led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader and scholar Cornel West, announced that they were looking for six "recognizable, articulate" candidates to launch a primary bid -- not to rip the nomination from Obama's grasp but to keep him honest on issues like civil rights, consumer protections, labor and foreign policy.

Soon thereafter, one of the politicians most likely to fill that niche explained once again that he wasn't interested, both in challenging the president and in backing the idea Obama needed that type of challenge.

"I strongly disagree with Ralph Nader. As I've said many times before, I believe that re-electing President Obama is an absolute imperative for our economy, our judicial system, for progressives and for our country," said former Sen. Russ Feingold, who announced recently that he was not running for Wisconsin's open Senate seat.

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Video: Monkey wrestles dog (adorable)

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