Are student debit cards tied to loans such a good idea?

Leave it to the finance business to burden students with even more student debt. This really doesn't sound like a good idea. The worst idea in this story is Portland State that requires students to use their debit card as an official student ID. It's as if schools and the finance industry completely ignored the recent credit crisis.

"Meet your new best friend on campus," the letter reads. A school's emblem is featured in the letterhead - and even on the card - and students are urged to activate their accounts quickly.

This is not a credit card offer. Instead, it is a new type of plastic that allows students to easily access money from their college loans everywhere from the bookstore to the bar with the swipe of a card. These cards, however, are not subject to the sweeping reforms that took effect this year and sought to curtail similar relationships between colleges and credit card issuers. Meanwhile, students complain that the loan cards are riddled with high fees, and they have organized protests at several campuses.

"That's really just not the best thing to be doing with our financial aid," said Shane Gerbert, who helped lead the campaign against Higher One at the University of North Dakota. "They're siphoning it away little by little."

Read the rest of this post...

Congress bans loud TV commercials

Mock it all you want. I sing hallelujah. Read the rest of this post...

Does WI GOPer Ron Johnson know the names of the Green Bay area priests who raped kids?

I don't understand why the traditional media types in Wisconsin don't understand the gravity of this situation involving GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson's involvement with the Catholic Church child rape scandal. But, apparently, it's not a big issue for them. Maybe, they should talk to some real reporters in Boston, Dublin or Belgium about how deep this scandal goes. The New York Times has written more than a few articles on this particular subject, too, much to the chagrin of the Vatican.

Everyone involved in this far-reaching horrific scandal and its cover-up is tainted. We know that includes the Pope. It looks like it includes Ron Johnson, too. Uppity Wisconsin, a most kick-ass blog, has been covering this growing scandal:

Here in Wisconsin, SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) has for years been trying to get the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council to release the names of pedophile priests that the church has acknowledged, via civil lawsuit settlements, are guilty of sexually assaulting children.

Johnson has said that the Diocese Finance Council should release the names, but the obvious question is why doesn't Johnson just release the names himself? Answer: He can't, because he took a double-pinky promise oath to the Green Bay Diocese that whatever happens in the Finance Council, stays in the Finance Council.

OK, double-pinky-promise isn't the official terminology. According to the religious scholar Sebastian Karambai, in his book Ministers and Ministries, members of the Finance Council are required to take an oath before they assume their office:

When s/he takes charge of his/her office, s/he is required by law to take an oath that s/he will uphold confidentiality and will be efficient in his/her performance. (c 1283.1)

So, give Johnson credit: When he makes a double-pinky-promise he keeps it! Even if it means that keeping such a promise puts thousands of Wisconsin children at risk. (Tragically, the vast majority of these pedophiles that Johnson and the rest of the Finance Council should have dealt-with, are still on the street.)

Most reporters are dismissing this story as bombastic sensationalism the month before an election, but the reality is that Ron Johnson served on a Green Bay Finance Council that hides and protects the the identies of pedophiles, and Ron Johnson is the one that decided to enter public life months before an election. If this isn't a relevent issue, I don't know what is-- and if Feingold has to answer for his record-- why shouldn't Johnson?

Why shouldn't Johnson, especially on his involvement with a scandal that has caused great harm to young children and shaken the Catholic Church to it core? Read the rest of this post...

White House still has no strategy or plan to end DADT

I posted this a short time ago at AMERICAblog Gay.

Every time Kerry Eleveld asks Robert Gibbs a question, we hear an answer that is disappointing and disillusioning. Today's exchange in the White House press briefing room was no exception. Here's Kerry's report. I posted the full exchange below:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated on Monday President Barack Obama’s “deeply held view” that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy should be overturned, but he stopped short of saying what the White House would do if the legislative effort failed.

Gibbs always stops short of saying what the White House would do, because the White House won't do anything. It's not like this issue hasn't garnered enormous amounts of news coverage over the past couple weeks and months. The White House has no plan or strategy -- still.

Here's the full interaction between Kerry and Gibbs:

The Advocate:It looks like the defense authorization bill and with it “don’t ask don’t tell” repeal is sort of barreling toward a dead end — 69 House members and now 16 Senators have signed on to a letter urging the president to instruct his Justice Department not to appeal a recent decision that ruled “don’t ask, don’t tell” unconstitutional. Is that something that's even being discussed within the walls of the White House right now — not appealing that decision?

Robert Gibbs: I think the Department of Justice, last I heard, was reviewing the case. Obviously, the president has a deeply held view that this is a law that can and should be changed. We worked to make sure that that happened in the House and we regrettably were unsuccessful in the Senate, but it’s not going to stop the president from trying.

Not being aware of all the discussions around here, I know that the Justice Department is weighing a series of arguments as they make those decisions.

Right, but ultimately that power resides with the president. I mean, he can instruct his Justice Department not to appeal.

I’ll be honest with you, Kerry, I don’t have an update on whether that’s something that’s (inaudible)…

Any contingency plans at all? I mean, I’ve listened to you talk about the priorities for lame-duck — you rattled through them on Thursday, Friday, and today and not once has defense authorization been mentioned…

I will say, and I think I’ve said on a couple of occasions that, off the top of my head, I wouldn’t say that this list is completely exhaustive. Let me see if I can get better guidance on that, but understanding again, the president’s deeply held belief that we have to make the change.

What do our advocacy groups, the ones who flaunt their White House access, actually do? Because the White House talks a lot, but doesn't act on LGBT equality. Read the rest of this post...

Harry Reid's GOP opponent: GOP has 'never really gone along with lower taxes and less government'

She's a bit of a nut, but on this one she's right. Read the rest of this post...

Report: UK banks may need another bailout next year

Much like in the US, good luck with that. There's very little appetite for helping the bankers after their behavior of continuing to reward themselves without real results. It's unfortunate that in all likelihood the only way to reform the financial industry is another collapse in that industry. The industry who caused the recession has proven itself to be incapable of reform or gratitude.

Many British banks may need another state bailout next year and their borrowing requirements could hit 25 billion pounds ($39.4 billion) a month, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) think tank said on Monday.

The NEF said it had examined Bank of England data and concluded that many UK banks appeared to face a funding cliff, as the NEF published a report on the British banking system.

Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds had to be part-nationalized as they ran up huge losses during the credit crisis, and others such as Barclays and HSBC have benefited from cheap credit provided by the central bank.

Quite a few US banks have also benefited greatly from cheap credit. They too have conveniently overlooked and ignored just how valuable that was for their livelihood. Read the rest of this post...

DNC rakes in big bucks in September

Hotline On Call:

The DNC is pointing to an extremely strong fundraising performance in September to make the argument that the base is now energized this year.

First, the numbers. The DNC raised $16M in September, according to party sources, the most it has raised in any month this cycle. Further, more than 80% of that money came in from low-dollar donors online and in the mail.

The haul is the biggest one-month haul for the DNC in a midterm since the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation was passed in '02.

Democrats are making the case that this means their voters are, finally, enthusiastic about the midterms this year.

It remains to be seen whether this will transfer to the polls, but there is no doubt that money will help boost Democratic chances in November...

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Krugman: What happens when Fox buys politicians

It's a theme park around the media circle these days — you just can't get away from the billionaires and their doings. (It still looks like hubris will be our best hope of victory.)

On the heals of Frank Rich's "billionaires' coup" (previously noted) comes this from Paul Krugman. Here he writes about the practice of "putting politicians on [the] payroll":

As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.

Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.

But the thrust of his article is about Fox and its role in, not just bankrolling, but controlling the modern Republican agenda, with these results:

Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.

The piece is better than any set of excerpts can imply, with much telling detail. For example, following the paragraph above, Krugman discusses the hacking of phones by News of the World reporters (which Chris in Paris discussed here), and how the hobbled reaction benefits both Murdoch's political interests and his business interests (say good-bye BBC). Do read.

I meant what I said about hubris being our best hope (their hubris, of course). I've written earlier how disappearing the Puppet Master is critical to Big Money pulling off this coup. But there's something in their barely socialized Galtian brain that keeps them crowing.

Good. Now we've got some mainstream help with the message. Time to advance the narrative, and move the ball down the field toward their goal line.

GP Read the rest of this post...

AK GOP Senate candidate and Teabagger, Joe Miller, calls for minimum wage to be abolished

Brought to you by your Republican party. Read the rest of this post...

Robert Gibbs as DNC chair?

Team Obama has always thought pretty highly of themselves. With the upcoming (possible) disaster of the mid-term elections, a disaster caused in significant part by the President's failure to adequately address the economy (by knowingly pushing an insufficient stimulus), and by the White House enabling the rise of the Teabaggers (remember when the White House threw Nancy Pelosi under the bus a year ago when she tried to take the Teabaggers on in a USA Today op ed?), it's not entirely clear that the President needs more control over the Democratic party rather than less.

Yet the the talk continues of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs taking over the DNC.

Robert Gibbs is the White House spokesman.  He's the face of their message.  And their message has been pretty crappy the last 18 months.  How well did the White House sell health care reform to the Congress and the country (how well did they even try)?  How well did they sell the stimulus?  How well has the White House taken on the GOP over the past year and a half?  What exactly has been so great about Robert Gibbs' tenure at the White House that we're now talking about handing over the entire party to him and his friends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Then there's Gibbs' outright hostility towards the Democratic base.  How does it help Democrats to put someone in charge of the party who has a record of demeaning core constituencies of the Democratic party?  That should bring us all together in 2012.

Joe and I have criticized the DNC when it's been merited, especially on gay issues.  But I talked to Joe this morning, and we both agreed that one thing the DNC has been good at it is going after Republicans.  Their messaging (and their messaging team) is smart, tough, and they know how to work with all of us to get their message out there.  That's not the way it works with the White House.  No one would accuse Team Obama of being tough on Republicans.  And the senior management at the White House doesn't work with the left wing noise machine, they have open contempt for us.

I get that this White House wants to control everything - it's that "political autarky" I've talked about before - and be in charge of everything.  They'd like nothing better than to have one of the President's small inner circle in charge of the party.  But outside the White House, no one is terribly impressed with that inner circle, and they're not terribly impressed with the White House's messaging machine either.

We need someone at the DNC who knows how to unite the party and take on the Republicans.  It's not clear that anyone in the White House, and certainly not someone in Obama's inner circle, has shown any prowess at doing either. Read the rest of this post...

Guatemalan President calls US tests 'crimes against humanity'

The recent US apology for the "medical tests" in Guatemala were surprising. Tests like that is what we like to think of in creepy places such as Nazi Germany. It's hard to argue against the charge. BBC:

US testing that infected hundreds of Guatemalans with gonorrhoea and syphilis more than 60 years ago was a "crime against humanity", Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has said.

President Barack Obama has apologised for the medical tests, in which mentally ill patients and prisoners were infected without their consent.

Mr Obama told Mr Colom the 1940s-era experiments ran contrary to American values, Guatemala said.

Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich: We're watching 'a billionaires’ coup'

Frank Rich has an interesting column that draws a nice line between the idiocy of Christine O'Donnell (our friend the Handmaiden) to the mega-billionaires who fund it, to what he calls a "coup" ... in print.

The column is excellent, a nice walk through the garden of logic that gets him from A to B to C. Do check it out. I'll leave you with just two quotes. The first:

Everyone knows that tax cuts for the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons must come out of Social Security and Medicare payments for everybody else.

And by the logic of post-election flim-flam, it all goes down in the lame duck session (or Lame Duck Session, since this will be a Lame Duck for the ages). Here we can watch both betrayals at the same time — the water will start to drain from the Social Security glass, straight to the Big Boy tax cuts glass. Voilà.

I plan to develop my list of good Dems–bad Dems after that session. The second quote, from Rich's final paragraph:

Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party everywoman ... just may be the final ingredient needed to camouflage a billionaires’ coup as a populist surge.

The whole close is strong, but I didn't want to hide the bomb. "A billionaires' coup." Score one for the good guys.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

This is the first full week in DC without Congress. Members of the House and many Senators are all back home campaigning. We’re into the final stretch of the 2010 campaign. Although, it does seem like the campaigning never stopped from '08.

The Vice President is on the trail today in Ohio, campaigning for Governor Ted Strickland. After being behind in the polls for the past few months, Stickland has momentum against former Lehman Brothers Exec./Ex-GOP congressman John Kasich. The last couple (non-Rasmussen) polls show Strickland has closed the gap. That Ohioans would even entertain the idea of electing a Wall Street guy as Governor is disconcerting.

The President is spending his day in DC. The big meeting on the agenda is with his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. (Last week, people were raving about his speech to Gen44. Um, haven’t we gotten past the point where a speech assuages us?)

I spent the weekend in Maine. Yesterday, I ran the Maine Marathon with my friend/running partner, Courtney. It was our seventh marathon together. And, we did our best time in years: 4:17:09. That’s 23 minutes faster than last year’s Marine Corps Marathon. I have to give a shout out to the organizers for doing such a terrific job organizing the race. Nice work. The route was well-staffed and the course was just spectacular.

I got caught up on Maine politics while I was home. Democrat Libby Mitchell has moved into a slight lead against Teabagger/GOPer Paul LePage in the Governor’s race. LePage is a real piece of work – and defines the term “loose cannon.” It seems like every week, he lobs some, new bizarre attack. Plus, he’s a tax cheat. The guy must send shivers down the spines of Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. He’s the face of their Republican Party in Maine. Read the rest of this post...

US and UK issue travel security alert for Europe

In Paris, there have been warnings and increased security for weeks. There are always military patrols inside the rail stations though you will see the vigipirate teams around the city much more often than in the past. (Adding large decals to the trucks probably helped make them even more noticeable as well.) The Guardian:

Fears of a terrorist attack in Europe were heightened today after travel alerts were issued by both Washington and London, with the US state department warning that public transport systems and tourist attractions could be targeted, and Britain increasing the threat level for travel to Germany and France.

The US alert made no mention of a specific European country, but pointed the finger at al-Qaida and its affiliates and suggested both official and private targets could be in terrorists' sights.

The move follows speculation that al-Qaida was planning a "commando-style" attack similar to the 2008 Mumbai massacre, in which 166 people were killed.

Read the rest of this post...

Brazil election goes to runoff

The leading candidate failed to collect 50% of the vote due to a strong showing from another group on the left, the Green Party. It's also interesting to note that two of the three leading candidates are women. BBC:

Brazil's presidential election will go to a second round after Dilma Rousseff failed to gain the 50% of votes needed for an outright victory.

With 98% of votes counted, President Lula's former cabinet chief has 47% with Jose Serra trailing on 33%.

The two will contest a run-off vote in four weeks' time.

A strong showing by the Green Party candidate, Marina Silva, who polled 19%, may have cost Ms Rousseff a first-round win.

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