WikiLeaks: US irritated with EU human rights laws

This is not a Democratic or Republican problem, but a modern US political system problem and it's only getting worse. The Guardian:

US officials regard European human rights standards as an "irritant", secret cables show, and have strongly objected to the safeguards which could protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from extradition.

In a confidential cable from the US embassy in Strasbourg, US consul general Vincent Carver criticised the Council of Europe, the most authoritative human-rights body for European countries, for its stance against extraditions to America, as well as secret renditions and prisons used to hold terrorist suspects.

He blamed the council for creating anti-US sentiment and hampering the US war on terror. "The Council of Europe (COE) likes to portray itself as a bastion of democracy, a promoter of human rights, and the last best hope for defending the rule of law in Europe – and beyond," Carver said. "[But] it is an organisation with an inferiority complex and, simultaneously, an overambitious agenda.

Read the rest of this post...

Moody's analyst cuts Ireland's credit rating to 'three grades above junk'

Huffington Post:

Moody's slashed Ireland's credit rating five notches on Friday and warned of further downgrades if the country cannot regain command of its debts and tame its deficit.

Dietmar Hornung, the senior Ireland analyst for Moody's, said it remained an open question whether Ireland could sharply reduce its deficit from its eurozone-record levels while taking tens of billions from a new EU-IMF bailout fund.

Hornung lauded Ireland's deficit-fighting plan to impose euro10 billion ($13 billion) in cuts and euro5 billion in tax increases by 2014 – but nonetheless cautioned that pulling so much money out of an already fragile economy "represents a further considerable drag on the country's recovery prospects."

Frankfurt-based Dietmar Hornung is this guy (pdf).

The problem, as we've noted before, is that Ireland was almost blackmailed by the rest of the European elites into using the public treasury to guarantee the private speculative debt of its banks. Iceland, by contrast, cut many of its banks loose to fend for themselves, and as Paul Krugman has frequently noted, is not facing Ireland's mounting problems.

Here's what economist Barry Eichengreen has to say about the German push for Irish austerity (my emphasis):

The Irish “rescue package” finalized over the weekend is a disaster. You can say one thing for the European Commission, the ECB and the German government: they never miss an opportunity to make things worse. ...

This is not politically sustainable, as anyone who remembers Germany’s own experience with World War I reparations should know. A populist backlash is inevitable. The Commission, the ECB and the German Government have set the stage for a situation where Ireland’s new government, once formed early next year, rejects the budget negotiated by its predecessor. Do Mr. Trichet and Mrs. Merkel have a contingency plan for this? ...

[T]he Irish program would have had a hope of working. As it is, the program will have to be revisited, perhaps as soon as next year. Investors know this, which is why Irish spreads have barely budged.

In fact, this is exactly what the IMF, which at least knows how to add, has been pushing for over the last week. But the Fund was unable to overcome the objections of the Commission, the ECB and the German government.

One can interpret the intransigence of the German government and its EU allies in two ways. First, they understand neither economics nor politics. As Tallyrand said of the Bourbons, “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.”

Alternatively, policy makers in Germany – and in France and Britain – are scared to death over what Ireland restructuring its bank debt would do to their own banking systems.

If it looks like I'm implying that Moody's and its Euro-analyst are acting in part as agents of German governmental and Euro-elite policy, yes — this needs to be considered. After all, it won't be the first time this week that Moody's has appeared to craft an opinion to support a political goal. (Do click; it will explain Moody's flip-flop on the effect of the deficit on U.S. bond ratings from before the tax cut cave vote to after it.)

Let's see how this plays out. At some point, the Irish will be pushed too far, and then there will be Trouble.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Sanofi-Aventis fires 1,700 people via conference call

This ranks up there with the time my sister found out her division at Fleet Bank was terminated while watching the TV news about the Bank of America purchase. Somehow I don't think Sanofi-Aventis would get away with this on their home turf in Paris. Disgusting.

On Nov. 30, employees at Sanofi-Aventis pharmaceuticals, the world's fourth-biggest drugmaker, received an email from the company wishing them a happy Thanksgiving and telling them to check their email again at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

A.R., a Sanofi-Aventis sales representative in California who wished to remain anonymous, as her contract forbids publicly disparaging the company, said she and her coworkers each received one of the two mass emails the company sent out that Tuesday morning. Both emails contained a code, an 800-number and a call time, either 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. The employees who were instructed to call in at the earlier time were told they could keep their jobs, but the 1,700 employees who called in at 8:30 a.m. weren't so lucky: They were laid off by a voice on the other line that told them to stop working immediately, and had no opportunity for question or comment.

Read the rest of this post...

Bank of America bans all payments to WikiLeaks, who respond accordingly

The new year promises to be an exciting one for the banking industry. It's not surprising that Bank of America - rumored to be the target of new WikiLeaks reports - is targeting WikiLeaks though the grounds do sound suspicious and maybe even illegal since WikiLeaks has yet to be found guilty of any crime. If only the banking industry was as vigilant when it came to illegal drug related money.

In classic form, WikiLeaks has sent out a message on Twitter related to Bank of America.

Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advise is to place your funds somewhere safer.

What's also interesting here is that the Bank of America hasn't realized that we're living in a different age. Smearing and attacking WikiLeaks a decade ago would have been easier but with the tools and technology available today (at least before Comcast scraps Net Neutrality with the help of Washington) the fight is less one-sided. It's not as easy to dominate the message today. Read the rest of this post...

Careful who you invite to your holiday party

(NSFW, language.) If only hate mongers like this didn't really exist in the real world. Today we have the Teabaggers who are doing their best to step in and take the mantle of bigotry but at least they provide material for comedians. Read the rest of this post...

DADT passes Senate, bill on way to President for signature. Historic civil rights victory.

UPDATE: 3:30PM 65-31 DADT bill passes the Senate. Next stop, Obama for signature. Then the hard work begins... read below. GOPers Burr (R-NC) and Ensign (R-NV) voted with us as well, after first voting to kill the bill by filibuster.

Please join us in thanking all the troops and vets who got us here.

UPDATE: The final Senate vote on DADT is expected at 3pm Eastern. We should easily win that. Then the bill goes straight to the White House for the President's signature, from what I understand.

And here's the vote count. We got all the Ds, exception Manchin, who chickened out and didn't vote at all (history repeats itself and West Virginia takes a proud stand against the major civil rights bill of the day, again). And we got the following Rs: Snowe; Collins; Murkowski; Voinovich; Brown; Kirk.

There's a lot of thanks to go around for today's incredible and somewhat surprising, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" victory. Please join us in thanking the troops, from Leonard Matlovich to Dan Choi, who made today possible. You can add your name to our open letter of thanks to all of them, and we'll deliver it to our friends at SLDN and Servicemembers United.

Now, it's true that this isn't over. The Senate still has two more votes on DADT before this bill passes the Senate (but those are simple majority votes, so we expect no problem). Then the bill goes to the President for his signature. But even then it's not over. The President will need to work with the Pentagon to come up with the new regulations lifting the ban, and even then Republicans in Congress may try to stop implementation of the repeal. We'll need to watch this like a hawk every step of the way, and we will, but today we celebrate.

Join us in thanking the troops, but really in thanking everyone who had a hand in this. Here a few who really led the way:

Everyone at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Servicemembers United. Especially their leaders, Aubrey Sarvis and Alex Nicholson, both proud vets. Then there are the vets. Leonard Matlovich, Perry Watkins, Tracy Thorne, Zoe Dunning, Justin Elzie, Michelle Beneke (and Dixon Osborn, who isn't a vet, but set up SLDN 17 years ago with Michelle), Grethe Cammermeyer, Joe Steffan, Keith Meinhold, Eric Alva, Victor Fehrenbach, and Dan Choi... and so many more.

And let's not forget the activists who weren't willing to take no for an answer. Robin McGehee at GetEqual and the entire gay Netroots. Our friends in the White House who have been pushing this for two years, in the face of some serious internal challenges. Our friends on the Hill, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid - who both got this done. Senator Udall of Colorado. Senator Gillibrand. Senator Lieberman (yes, he actually busted his butt for us). Senators Snowe and Collins, and every other Republican and Democrat who finally came our way. And Congressman Patrick Murphy, who went the extra mile for us. And even the President, who finally got into gear (albeit a tad late) and made the calls necessary to make this happen.

I'm sure I'm forgetting far too many people, all the way back to my friends at the Campaign for Military Service back in 1993, and Michael in Senator Kennedy's office who spent far too much time with me figuring out how to responds to the evil Sam Nunn.

So thank you all. It's not over. But it's a hell of a start, and a hell of a Christmas gift.

Please sign our thank you letter to the troops, and consider it a thank you to everyone, including all of you.

Not a bad day.

PS Okay, more folks coming to mind who helped out immensely. Kerry Eleveld at the Advocate who held Robert Gibbs' feet to the fire, Richard Socarides who singlehandedly became one of our community's top spokesmen on CNN and MSNBC. Trevor at SLDN and Brad Luna, the best PR folks you can find. And then there's Paul Yandura and Jonathan Lewis, who went the extra mile, and then some, to make sure we all got equal. And the blogswarmers, from Pam Spaulding to Mike Signorile, Dan "It gets better" Savage, Andy Towle, Bill Browning, Joe Jervis, Adam Bink,and Jeremy Hooper. And I don't want to leave out the good work of the Courage Campaign, and the Palm Center.

It's beginning to feel like the Oscars :-)

Then there are the straight blogs, as we affectionately call them. Markos, a vet who earned his "honorary gay" medal years ago, Jane Hamsher who is about as dangerous a weapon on TV as any soldier in the field, and really everyone - Joe and I have remarked to ourselves numerous times how supportive the straight blogs have been to us and our issues over the years, so thank you, all of you. And not a blogger, but still a member of the Netroots, Jon Soltz at VoteVets, another vet who earned his honorary gay medal years ago, tirelessly fighting for us on TV far better than most of our groups.

And even OFA, while not yet quite earning their honorary gay medal, came through in the end and did some real work phone-banking and visiting Senate offices, so thank you. Read the rest of this post...

History in the US Senate: A win on DADT 63 -33

We won on the big vote.

More to come.

I'll be updating the post at AMERICAblog Gay with statements and updates.

Please take a moment and join us in signing a public letter of thanks to the vets for made this day possible. Read the rest of this post...

Live chat of Senate vote on DADT

Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big day.

The Senate convenes at 9:00 AM ET. There will be floor speeches until approximately 10:30 AM ET when the Senate will move to the cloture vote on the DREAM Act. Just to give a sense of how important this vote is to the Latino community (the fastest growing voting demographic), Markos reports that Telemundo and Univision will provide live coverage of the vote. The GOPers - and Jon Tester - are on the verge of severing all ties to the Latino community for decades. Opposition to DREAM is particularly heinous. These kids didn't do anything "wrong." They've grown up in the U.S. They are Americans.

Last July, at Netroots Nation, Dan Choi talked to Yahaira Carrillo and several other DREAM Activists. He said, "We might not have our documents, but we have our dreams." This was just a day after Dan had been discharged. It was so powerful then -- and it's even more powerful on the day when both DREAM and DADT get votes in the Senate.

After the DREAM vote, the Senate will take up the standalone DADT bill. That vote should start around 11ish -- give or take. All of these times are estimates, btw.

Senators to watch today, on the GOP side are: Collins, Snowe, Brown and Murkowski. All four have said they support repeal. If any of them starts to waver or makes a peep about process, it's a bad sign. If all four of them are okay, we could get Lugar, too -- and there could be one or two surprises. Mark Kirk is apparently undecided. But, Lindsey Graham is still opposed to repeal.

On the Democratic side, watch Manchin (WV), Webb (VA) and Conrad (ND). Just yesterday, Conrad's name started popping up as a potential problem. Over the next couple hours, before the vote, we could get indications if Mitch McConnell was able to strong arm the repeal supporters in his caucus.

Ending DADT isn't controversial. At this point, the only reason to oppose ending the ban is pure homophobia. So, today, expect to see blatant homophobia on display in the U.S. Capitol again. Let's hope there are 60 Senators willing to stand up to the hate. If we get 60 on cloture, the Senate will proceed to 30 hours of debate, which can be given back, before voting on final passage. The final vote only requires a simple majority.

We'll be holding a livechat on both sites to watch the debate and the vote beginning at 10 AM ET. Senate proceedings are covered live on CSPAN2 and online here at cspan.org. Read the rest of this post...

Captain Beefheart

The legend who inspired countless musicians passed away at the young age of 69.

Paris continues to see snow and more is on its way. I can't recall any year quite like it since I started coming to town in the mid 1990s. This may be the year when I buy a trainer for my bike because riding on these roads is getting a bit dicey with the ice. I'm having flashbacks to my childhood when I delivered the newspaper on my bike through the snow and ice of Philadelphia winters in the 1970s.

We're still debating what to do for Christmas dinner but at the moment I'm thinking of preparing a goose. I've never cooked one before and read that steaming it first helps remove some of the excess fat before roasting it in the oven. There's nothing like potatoes cooked in duck or goose fat though it's also something that you can't really eat more than once or twice a year. (Good, but heavy.) The trick is going to be locating a goose that doesn't require a mortgage. Read the rest of this post...

Assange: WikiLeaks being 'attacked' by banks in US, UK, Switzerland and Dubai

Surely the upstanding members of the international banking community would never do anything illegal, would they? Don't they know that they can be indicted by Interpol? Sounds like one industry is getting nervous about the reports due out in 2011. CNBC:

“We have been attacked, primarily, not by government, primarily, in fact, not by the US government, but by banks—banks from Dubai, banks from Switzerland, banks from the United States, banks from the UK, so, yes, of course, we are continuing to release material about banks,” said Assange, who is out on bail from a Swedish court in relation to sexual assault charges.

In October of 2009, when Assange announced that WikiLeaks had copious documents about the Bank of America, the stock took a hit.

Read the rest of this post...

The tax cut deal is done, passes House 277–148

Per the Huffington Post (my emphasis):

A coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats combined to push the Obama-GOP tax-cut deal through the House by a vote of 277-148 in Friday's early morning hours. The bill slashes the estate tax, extends all the Bush tax cuts and reauthorizes unemployment insurance for 13 months. The bill will now go to the president for his signature.

The crucial vote was not on final passage of the tax cuts, but on the vote before, to reduce the generosity of the estate tax cut. Had it been included in the final measure, the bill would have gone back to the Senate. An identical version of that amendment passed in December 2009 with 225 votes, but it failed this time 233-194, with 60 Democrats voting against tightening the estate tax.

President Obama whipped support for the tax-cut deal in the final days leading up to the vote. One member told HuffPost that Obama, a Hawaii native, personally called Hawaii Democrat Mazie Hirono to urge her to support the deal. (She voted against the tax-cut deal and for increasing estate taxes on wealthy heirs, despite the pressure.)

Looks like it's over. There are two time bombs in the bill, plus several taxes that will never go back to reasonable. And I see by the clock on the wall it's time to cut spending.

GP

UPDATE: Here's the roll call on that earlier vote to "reduce the generosity of the estate tax cut." The No's won. A Yes on that vote was the last chance to kill this package before sending it to the president for signature. The italicized names are Republicans; the rest are Dems. Read the rest of this post...