GOP Rep. Joe Walsh on Cain sexual harassment allegations: "Everybody’s got stuff"

Wash Post:

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said of the [multiple sexual harassment] charges against Cain. “Everybody’s got stuff. Your profession’s got to grow up. We as politicians need to grow up. The American people need to grow up.”

Everybody's got stuff.  Really, congressman?  Is there something you'd like to share?

Not to mention, great think to tell a woman who may have been sexually harassed: Grow up.

Of course, what Walsh really means is that he was just admonished by a judge for being $100,000 behind on his child support.  Seriously.  $100,000.

A Chicago judge issued a preliminary ruling Wednesday against U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) in his child-support dispute with his ex-wife, ordering the Tea Party favorite to explain why he appears to be $100,000 behind in child-support payments.

So what the good Teabagger leader in Congress means is that sexual harassment is no big deal, just like letting your kids fend for themselves is no big deal. Read the rest of this post...

Fracking linked to earthquakes in England

Many people suspected that fracking was linked to the earthquake in Virginia earlier this year, so this shouldn't come as a complete surprise. What is somewhat of a surprise is that the issue has been ignored by the political class who are drunk on fracking lobby donations. Reuters:

Shale gas exploration triggered small earthquakes near Blackpool in northwest England earlier this year, UK firm Cuadrilla Resources said, adding to concerns about the safety of a technology that is transforming U.S. energy markets.

A spokesman said on Wednesday tremors were triggered by pumping vast quantities of water at high pressure 3 kilometres underground through drill holes in a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is designed to prop open shale rocks and release trapped gas.

"It is highly probable that the hydraulic fracturing of Cuadrilla's Preese Hall-1 well did trigger a number of minor seismic events," a report commissioned by the company said.

Read the rest of this post...

Two boats with passengers from five countries have set sail "to lift the siege of Gaza"

Get ready — this will be taken as a direct challenge to Israeli control of "Greater Israel." Israel's deadly response to the last Gaza flotilla almost turned into a disaster for them (and still could, depending on Turkey).

From Just Foreign Policy (my emphasis):

TWO BOATS WITH PASSENGERS FROM 5 COUNTRIES (INCLUDING THE U.S.) HAVE SET SAIL TO GAZA

Organizers say: “It is time to lift the siege of Gaza which deprives 1.6 million civilians of their rights to travel, work, study, develop their economy and be free.”

The Canadian ship Tahrir and the Irish ship Saoirse have successfully reached international waters, initiating the “Freedom Wave to Gaza.” The boats have embarked from Turkey and are on the Mediterranean Sea. In all, the 2 boats carry 27 passengers from Canada, Ireland, U.S., Palestine, and Australia.

Kit Kittredge on board the Tahrir was previously a passenger on the American ship, The Audacity of Hope, which attempted passage to Gaza last July. Kittredge says, “ The only obstacles in our way are Israel’s military and the complicity of the Obama administration but in our sails is the wind of worldwide public opinion which has turned against the illegal blockade.”

There's more at the link. Note that this flotilla also leaves from Turkey. This means the Turkey–Israel issue is still in play.

Just like with the Occupy Movement and Tahrir Square before it, action counts. (It's also the antidote for depression, in case you were wondering.)

As always, stay tuned. This could "go big" as they like to say, and quickly.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Obama blasts Boehner for wasting time on legislation reaffirming "In God We Trust" as national motto

This is what Republicans do.  They focus on stuff that feels good and doesn't matter.  Whether it's something that feels good to the rich who own them (cutting taxes for the rich) - or something for their other overlords, the religious right (taking a swat at gays and abortion).  The GOP simply doesn't have it in itself to focus on the country's real problems, namely, the economy and jobs.  That's why they focus on the silly stuff. Because they're sure not voting for any jobs legislation - you see, if the President supports it, even if it's good, even if it's originally a GOP idea, the Republicans will say "no" because they think that's how they can win next year's election.  It doesn't really matter to them if they hurt the economy, if they hurt you, in the process.

That's the only reason they're voting on things like this, because they think they can use it against Democrats next year.  And the corollary to that is that they don't think they have anything to use on the economy, so they have to come up with this crazy stuff in order to win.  That should scare everyone who's out of job, or not doing nearly as well as they were before the economy collapsed.

And let me add, kudos to the President for again standing up to the Republicans.  The old Obama would have cosponsored the "In God We Trust" legislation if he could.  The new Obama, rightly, calls the Republicans out by name. Read the rest of this post...

Video: This pug gets awfully upset when people leave

I understand this is the noise Herman Cain made when he read the Politico the other day. Read the rest of this post...

Romney tie to former National Restaurant Association head? Though Cain says leaker was Perry adviser.

A Northern Virginia lawyer claims on his blog that he's found a connection between Mitt Romney and the man who took over the National Restaurant Association (NRA) right after Herman Cain left. Namely, he claims that the man donated to the Romney for President campaign. (A man of the same name did run the NRA after Cain and did donate to Romney's presidential run, but I can't confirm that it's the same man (oddly, the image copy of the donation to the Romney campaign is missing from the FEC database online) - this lawyer says it is the same man.)  Considering that Herman Cain is in the middle of a scandal involving privileged information from the National Restaurant Association, the tie, if true, is at least interesting.

UPDATE: Herman Cain says he thinks it was someone else, via Politico:

Herman Cain accused a former consultant to his unsuccessful 2004 Senate campaign, Curt Anderson, of leaking damaging information about past sexual harassment allegations against Cain.

Curt, who is now an adviser to Rick Perry, denied the charge in an email to POLITICO's Jonathan Martin: "I’ve known Herman Cain for about 7 years. I was one of several consultants on his Senate race in 2004 and was proud to help him. I'd never heard any of these allegations until I read them in Politico, nor does anything I read in the press change my opinion that Herman is an upstanding man and a gentleman. I have great respect for Herman and his character and I would never speak ill of him, on the record or off the record. That's true today and it's not going to change."

Cain's inflammatory charge came in an interview with Forbes.

Read the rest of this post...

Third former employee says she considered filing complaint against Cain

AP via Slate:

The Associated Press has the latest scoop: A third former employee says that she considered filing a workplace complaint against Herman Cain over what she considered aggressive and unwanted behavior.

Like the other two women who did file complaints of sexual harassment during the mid-1990s, the third woman also worked for the National Restaurant Association when Cain was its president and CEO, according to the report. She told the AP that Cain’s sexually suggestive actions occurred about the same time that the other two women settled their own complaints against Cain.

From the AP: “The employee described situations in which she said Cain told her he had confided to colleagues how attractive she was and invited her to his corporate apartment outside work. She spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she feared retaliation.”

UPDATE: Ron Paul wonders if another GOP candidate planted this story.

Another update: This may or may not be the same accuser. Read the rest of this post...

Greek drachma to return?

Never say never when it comes to anything related to the euro. It always struck me as a bit odd that the local national banks (such as the Bank of France) remained while the European Central Bank was around but it's all starting to make sense now.

So now it is time to ponder the once unthinkable: that Greece might end its 10-year use of the euro and return to its former currency, the drachma.

Such a move is still officially anathema in Athens. But a growing body of economists argues that it would be the best course, whatever the near-term financial and economic implications. And now, with a referendum on the European-led bailout facing Greek voters, a vocal minority that has long called for a return to the drachma might find itself with a growing group of listeners.

A return to the drachma is unlikely to offer a quick cure for Greece’s ills. Default on the nation’s $500 billion in public debt would become a certainty, depositors would take their money out of local banks and, with a sharp devaluation of as much as 50 percent, inflation would loom. A return to the international credit markets would take years.

Digby posts a great walk-through of the Greek crisis, written by Kevin Drum.

Well, them's the breaks.

But it puts Greece into a death spiral. They can't pay their debts, so they cut back, which hurts their economy, which makes them even broker, so they cut back some more, rinse and repeat. There's virtually no hope that they'll recover anytime in the near future. It's just endless pain. What they need is total debt forgiveness and lots of aid going forward.

That doesn't sound like a very attractive option for the rest of Europe.

No, it's not.So maybe they should just let Greece default and wash their hands of them.

Here's the thing, though: Greek debt is largely held by German banks that made the loans. [See update below.] If Greece has been irresponsible, so were the German banks that happily loaned out the money. So if Greece defaults, the banks go kablooey. But they're too big to fail, which means the German government would be forced to bail them out. And guess where the bailout money comes from? Tax dollars.

This means that German taxpayers have a bleak choice. They can shovel lots of money to Greece to keep them from defaulting, or they can refuse, and then shovel lots of money into German banks to keep them from collapsing. Either way, German taxpayers are going to foot the bill. They just haven't quite accepted this in their gut yet, and it's hard to blame them. They're pretty badly screwed no matter what.

Hmmm. Given that choice, they might decide they'd rather give their money to German banks than to Greek civil servants. What happens then?

Greece defaults. And that almost certainly means that Greece exits the euro.

Why?

It's the growth thing again. If Greece defaults, nobody will loan them any money. That means huge cutbacks, which means the economy will tank, which means even more cutbacks, etc. The traditional way out of this spiral is a massive devaluation of your currency. But Greece doesn't have a currency. It has the euro.

So if they want their economy to grow again, they have to (a) default, (b) exit the euro and re-adopt the drachma, and (c) devalue the drachma. This will cause massive amounts of pain, but it will also make Greek exports super cheap, which will eventually revive their economy.

So why not just let that happen?

It's just too catastrophic to consider. German banks, of course, would collapse and have to be bailed out. Ditto for banks in other countries that have lots of exposure to Greek debt. But that's not the worst of it. If Greece exits the euro, it will become terrifyingly obvious that other weak countries might exit too. Portugal, Spain, and Italy are the obvious candidates. Investors, spooked at the thought of their money being stuck in a country that might exit the euro and devalue all its bank deposits, would start huge runs on banks in those countries. The ECB would have to intervene and provide liquidity without limit. It would be a disaster.

So exiting the euro can't be allowed?

Right.

But if there's no exit, there's no devaluation, and Greece is pretty much screwed forever.

Right.

So who wins?

It depends on who blinks. Exiting the euro would be no picnic for Greece. But they could decide it's better than endless indenture, and threaten exit in order to get a better deal from the Germans. Then the Germans have to decide whether to call their bluff.

Wow.

Exactly. Wow. Everyone knows that somebody's going to lose a huge pile of money over this. What's really happening right now is a very high-stakes negotiation to figure out just how the losses are going to be parceled out. Stay tuned.

Read the rest of this post...

Video analysis—The moment Scott Olsen fell, caught on film

Update: There's a nice overhead video with analysis in the comments. It appears to show Scott Olsen running a few feet before he fell.
________

Recently, several videos have been posted that show: the moments before Scott Olsen was hit; a group of explosions and confused crowd motion; and when the crowd clears, Olsen laying on the ground.

One is this, posted at Vimeo (h/t Daily Kos diarist Richard Lopez for the find). The second and third were posted here, as well as at other places. (These videos were incorrectly identified as "a woman downed" because of the confused audio in the second vid — "What's your name?" and "What's her name?" sound identical when spoken quickly.)

We've since done some frame-by-frame analysis of the videos at the highest resolution available, and discovered in several captures the moment Scott Olsen went down (h/t John Aravosis for first making the discovery; excellent work).

Let's work with the Vimeo footage. If you can, download it and watch it in a video player; otherwise, watch at the site at highest resolution you can.

■ Watch the initial seconds to get in your mind what Scott Olsen looks like (camouflage jacket, floppy hat, black shirt with white lettering. Note the Navy man with the flag standing near him.)

■ Play to 1:15 and pause. This will be just past the text "Is this the shot that felled Scott Olsen?" (which I can't make great sense of). You're looking for an image that looks like this.

(NOTE: These are deliberately lo-res images; the video itself, especially at hi-res, is much clearer.)


Hidden behind the woman with the bike are a small group of people. Behind them are two people easily identified — a man in a dark coat and pants, and a woman in a red knit hat and orange shirt. Directly behind those two are Scott Olsen, still standing.

■ At 1:16 a gas canister arcs over the crowd and the bicycle woman turns to look at it. Over her right shoulder is someone wearing dark blue. Behind that person are the two people mentioned above, plus Scott Olsen.


■ At 1:17 something cinderous falls in the background, flashes brightly, and everyone runs away from it.


■ This next shot shows the cinderous object just before it flashes brightly. Note that the bicycle woman has cleared the frame, and the person in blue has started to duck.


You can now see the man in the dark coat and the woman in the orange coat just over the back of the bent man in blue. These two are obscuring Scott Olsen, who is still standing.

■ The flash near the center of the frame goes off brightly, then another goes off at the left of the frame almost immediately afterwards (frame-advance clearly shows the two near-simultaneous flashes as separate events).

■ As soon as the second flash goes off, the two people in the middle start to separate, revealing a figure between them (Scott Olsen) starting to crumple to the ground.


In the above shot, just after the second flash (and still at 1:18), you can see Olsen's face — brightly lit by the last of the flash — as a large white circle just beyond the upper arm of the man in the dark coat.

■ Now play or step through the next three seconds. The man in the dark coat moves away, and Olsen falls to the ground behind the woman in the orange shirt. You can see his motion as he falls. It's not obvious from the screen capture, but watch the video, ignore the flashes, and keep your eyes on the woman in the orange shirt, you'll see Scott fall right behind her.

■ When everyone clears in front of the camera (still at 1:19), Olsen is on the ground.


So far, nothing has emerged that shows Olsen actually being hit, but that could still turn up.

The rest of this video shows the cop who throws the flash-grenade. We'll deal with that in a later post. That analysis provides credible evidence that Olsen was shot at, not "lobbed" at — evidence that's at least worth considering.

GP Read the rest of this post...

110,000 jobs added last month, UE rate remains constant

It's growth, but still well below the break even point.  (Krugman said back in 2009 that we needed to add at least 300,000 jobs per month just to break even.)

The private sector added 110,000 jobs in October, a bit better than expected but still indicative that the labor market is showing little improvement.

Coupled with a report showing that planned layoffs at U.S. firms dropped in October after hitting a more than two-year high the month before, unemployment is showing only grudging signs of improvement.

"This sort of number is consistent at best with I'd say holding the unemployment rate constant," Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors, said in a CNBC interview.

Read the rest of this post...

Bachmann, Perry, Romney, Cain all supported Democrats in previous elections

Interesting find from Ryan Lizza:

Bachmann voted 4 Carter in 76, Perry supported (& voted 4?) Gore in 88, Romney voted 4 Tsongas in 92 & Cain voted 4 Clinton in 92.

That is interesting, particularly since Bachmann criticized Perry at a recent GOP debate for having supported Gore in 88, and she voted for Carter. I can't believe Perry wasn't prepared for that. And that Bachmann was dumb enough to criticize Perry for something she herself had done. Read the rest of this post...

Wikileaks founder must face rape charges

Julian Assange's appeal against an order extraditing him to Sweden to face Rape and Sexual Assault charges has failed. Assange has been the public face of Wikileaks. His oft-repeated concern is that the prosecution is motivated by political considerations and that it may be a step towards extraditing him to the US. He has spoken of his concern that he might end up in Guantanamo or, worse, being executed by the US administration.

The full text of the judgment is available here. There is a one tier of appeal left to him: The UK Supreme Court. His legal team has announced that they intend to appeal. You can follow his solicitor (or attorney) on twitter (@markslarks). Read the rest of this post...

The Republicans are subtly bring back Jim Crow to stop minorities and students from voting

As much as the President and the Dems in Congress have depressed Democratic voters, it really is amazing how Republicans just always find a way to tick us off even more. LA Times:

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law estimated that new laws across the nation "could make it significantly harder for more than 5 million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012." The new restrictions will "fall most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters," the group said.

Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at UC Irvine, said that such estimates were probably exaggerated, but that in states like Florida the changes could make a big difference.

"These laws will have an effect on the margin on who votes. And in a state like Florida, a small difference matters. It could easily decide the outcome," he said. The national focus on such issues started in Florida with the Bush-Gore recount in 2000.

All they needed was Florida to take the presidency in 2000.  The GOP really does all it can to tear apart this country.  It's sad. And some day when the history books look back on what went wrong, they'll find it was the most self-professed "patriots" among us who made this country no longer number 1. Read the rest of this post...

Up to 100 US air passengers a year could get cancer from new x-ray that FDA never evaluated

A troubling report from ProPublica/PBS Newshour:

Today, the United States has begun marching millions of airline passengers through the X-ray body scanners, parting ways with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have concluded that such widespread use of even low-level radiation poses an unacceptable health risk. The government is rolling out the X-ray scanners despite having a safer alternative that the Transportation Security Administration says is also highly effective.

A ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation of how this decision was made shows that in post-9/11 America, security issues can trump even long-established medical conventions. The final call to deploy the X-ray machines was made not by the FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, but by the TSA, an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks.

Research suggests that anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines. Still, the TSA has repeatedly defined the scanners as “safe,” glossing over the accepted scientific view that even low doses of ionizing radiation — the kind beamed directly at the body by the X-ray scanners — increase the risk of cancer.

“Even though it’s a very small risk, when you expose that number of people, there’s a potential for some of them to get cancer,” said Kathleen Kaufman, the former radiation management director in Los Angeles County, who brought the prison X-rays to the FDA panel’s attention.

These don't appear to be the new naked body scanners, these are something else - they're quite literally beaming the same x-rays you get during an x-ray. You know, the thing you're not supposed to get unless you really need it. Well, you're going to be getting it every time you fly. Or more accurately, you'll either get the naked scan or an x-ray scan, and it's not entirely clear which one you're getting. Oh my God, listen to this:

Because of a regulatory Catch-22, the airport X-ray scanners have escaped the oversight required for X-ray machines used in doctors’ offices and hospitals. The reason is that the scanners do not have a medical purpose, so the FDA cannot subject them to the rigorous evaluation it applies to medical devices.

Excuse me? The FDA had no role. We let a bunch of national security types decide if the scanners were dangerous when their number one priority was catching terrorists, not stopping mom and little Jimmy from getting cancer as reasonable collateral damage.

Do take a look at the entire article. It's painfully long. Which is useful to prove their point, but not very useful for actually getting people to read the entire thing (mock me now, you try to read it). Still, it's an important piece. Read the rest of this post...

British Archbishop comes out in support of Occupy London

The leadership of St. Paul's cathedral may be siding with the 1% but it's good to see that others within the church aren't going along with the madness. Yes, St. Paul's has finally backed down but it's clear who they support in this debate. Archbishop Rowan Williams has some liberal leanings, but he also can be fairly conservative on other issues. The Guardian:

The archbishop of Canterbury has outlined a package of political and financial measures needed to take forward the "moral agenda" of Occupy London campaigners encamped outside St Paul's Cathedral.

Backing a new tax on banking, Rowan Williams said the protest against financial inequality and banking excesses had been seen "by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign of diminishing".

Endorsing the idea of a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions, he said: "There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of impatience with a return to 'business as usual' – represented by still-soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices."

Read the rest of this post...

US quits UNESCO. Will the ITU, WIPO be next?

As required by a 1990s law, the US has cut off funds to UNESCO after the latter voted to accept Palestine as a full member.

Although the US provides 22% of the UNESCO budget, most of that money goes to UNESCO programs rather than the organization itself. UNESCO provides support services for humanitarian programs funded by the member governments. Setting up an education program in a country like Afghanistan takes a lot of specialized knowledge and infrastructure. Having a ready-made bureaucracy that can be tasked with such programs helps the donors meet their objectives.

Attempting to hold such programs hostage does nothing to improve the image of the US abroad. The US spends $700 billion a year on the military and only $11 billion in foreign aid, 0.19% of GDP compared to a donor nation average of 0.30%. The largest slice, $3 billion goes to Israel and $1.5 billion to Egypt for signing the Camp David accord. $4 billion of the remainder goes to Afghanistan and Pakistan. This leaves less than $2.5 billion for the rest of the developing world put together and only a portion of that is humanitarian aid. The sad fact is that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation spends more on humanitarian aid each year (over $1.5 billion) than the US Federal government.

The threat to withdraw from UNESCO did nothing to discourage countries voting for full Palestinian membership. In the end the US and Israel lost the vote by 107 votes to 14 with 52 abstentions.

Withdrawing from UNESCO will certainly not help the US but the damage to US interests will be relatively slight. It will mean that the State department has fewer carrots when it needs to rally international support for future US diplomatic initiatives. Withdrawal from some of the other US agencies is likely to have a much bigger effect and cause real damage to US interests.

And of course neither the Israeli government nor the US Israel lobby will offer a word of thanks for the sacrifice the US makes on Israel's behalf.

In effect a stick that was intended to control the Palestinians has become leverage that the Palestinians can use against the US. Abbas can force the US to leave any UN agency he chooses just by applying for Palestinian statehood. These include the ITU, the organization that establishes standards for the international telephone system and WIPO the organization behind international trademark, copyright and patent law.

First the positive news: US withdrawal from WIPO would probably be a good thing. Over the years the US has been the driving force behind a series of moves to appropriate Intellectual Property from the public domain and make it into private property. Republican and Democratic administrations have both been in the pockets of narrow vested interests against the public interest.

But US withdrawal from the ITU would be very damaging for US interests and could end up threatening the core of the Internet infrastructure. The ITU did not create the Internet but there are many governments that would much prefer that the ITU took over running it. The type of government that uses the term 'information terrorism' for freedom of speech.

The possibility that the Internet might power something like the Arab Spring was understood by Russia and China for at least a decade. The US currently holds a uniquely privileged role in Internet governance. Russia, China, Iran and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been maneuvering to replace bodies such as ICANN, IANA and the IETF with ITU committees where it would be easier to enact proposals to make the Internet more censorship friendly. Participation in the ITU is critical to US efforts to thwart such moves.

It gets worse. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) is at the center of US efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. Anyone feel safer if the US seat is empty there? As MJ Rosenberg points out, the US is putting real US national interests on the line in a futile attempt to block a purely symbolic move against Israel.

Participation in the UN agencies is the principal mechanism that allows the US to protect US interests. Giving that up for the sake of some trite point-scoring is ridiculous. There are many governments that would rather like to see less US influence at the UN for a while. For them, threatening to withdraw if Palestine is recognized is not so much a threat as a promise. Read the rest of this post...