Rachel Maddow on why Rand Paul matters

(Hat tip, Crooks and Liars.) Read the rest of this post...

A crappy story with a good ending

Sometimes people need to use a bit of common sense. As little patience as I have for poop-and-run pet owners, this person was trying to do the right thing. BBC:

Mrs Robson, or Thurlow Way, Houghton-le-Spring, said she had been talking to her daughter on her mobile phone when her dog ran off and relieved itself.

After she cleared up she was approached by two men, one wearing a city council jerkin.

She said: "He said it was the wrong mess and that he was going to issue me with a fine for £50.

"I picked up the other mess too and put it in the bag but he said I'd still be fined."

Later she received a £50 fixed penalty notice threatening court action and a criminal record if she did not pay.

She let the case go to court and the local authorities backed down. But not after one of the strangest letters they probably ever wrote.

Sunderland City Council then wrote to Mrs Robson, saying: "Officers at the time were satisfied that an offence had been committed.

"However it appears you may have collected faeces belonging to another dog."

Read the rest of this post...

Report confirms North Korean torpedo sank navy ship

The North Korean response has been a threat of war if they are punished for the attack. BBC News:

A North Korean submarine's torpedo sank a South Korean navy ship on 26 March causing the deaths of 46 sailors, an international report has found.

The investigation was led by experts from the US, Australia, Britain and Sweden.

It said: "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine.

"There is no other plausible explanation."

The report said the torpedo parts found "perfectly match" a torpedo type that the North manufactures.

Lettering found on one section matched that on a North Korean torpedo found by the South seven years ago.

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EPA tells BP to use less toxic chemicals in Gulf leak

It's about time the administration is taking charge of this mess. It's been embarrassing and disappointing to see Obama give away so much power to the slimy company who caused this problem in the first place. Outside of BP, nobody really cares what is good for BP. They do care about what is good for the US and the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency informed BP officials late Wednesday that the company has 24 hours to choose a less-toxic form of chemical dispersants to break up its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to government sources familiar with the decision, and must apply the new form of dispersants within 72 hours of submitting the list of alternatives.

The move is significant, because it suggests federal officials are now concerned that the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants could pose a significant threat to the Gulf of Mexico's marine life. BP has been using two forms of dispersants, Corexit 9500A and Corexit 9527A, and so far has applied 600,000 gallons on the surface and 55,000 underwater.

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How to kill Social Security: Be ignorant about it

I'm writing this in response to a few of the comments my recent Social Security article attracted. It seems that despite years of public discussion — from the Bush push of 2005, to Obama's suspected embrace of a Peterson cat food future — many of us still don't know what Social Security is and how it's been used.

And that's how they'll kill Social Security — by turning our ignorance against us. So in the interest of actual information, a few basics:

1. You don't contribute to your own retirement. You never did. No one did. Your parents' money went to your grandparents. Your money goes to your parents. Your kid's money goes to you. It's an inter-generational contract. It always was.

This is not a program that's designed to manage your money for you. It's a program that's designed to do "good works" — every generation keeps its parents off of cat food. Period. That's the whole goal.

Why is it important to understand this?

• If you repeat the lie around the water cooler that you're contributing to yourself, you're advancing the frame that that will kill the program — the frame that says, "Let's find out how to manage your money better." That frame hides the huge gift you've given to others, and that you expect to receive back.
  

• That frame also stimulates the Rand–Gekko gene in you and everyone else, the gene that wakes up each day screaming Gimme mine. That gene is deadly — it confuses good people and ennobles the petty. It will kill this nation if we let it.

• And if you repeat the frame that the problem is money management, I'll bet you four cans of Snuggles Delight that the big stash will be given to the best bankers in the world to manage for us. Oh look, there they are now — drooling.

2. You already "fixed" Social Security, in 1983. In that fix, Ronald Reagan and the Greenspan Commission (yep, Alan Greenspan) recommended increasing Social Security taxes on the middle class, but not on the Big Boys, the wealthy. The declared goal was to put tons of cash into the Social Security Trust Fund — create a huge rainy day stash — for when Boomers started retiring. (If you click the Trust Fund link, watch what happens to the last column, the total amount, starting in 1984.)

Why is it important to understand this?

• Everyone making less than $100k per year has been paying for that fix — every working day since 1983. They robbed you once, so they wouldn't have to do it twice. Want them to do it twice?

3. Reagan used that earlier "fix" to hide much of his massive deficit, to make it look smaller. That was the real goal (or if you're feeling kind, the other real goal) of beefing up the Trust Fund.

But do you think either of them cared two twits about fixing the future, a future in which they themselves would be dead? The facts show just the opposite. What they really cared about was destroying the future — "starving the beast" in politer terms — while making it look like the beast was partially fed. They were also seriously into looting. Good little Randians are.

So it worked like this: The Reagan tax cuts steadily lowered the rate on the top dollars earned (keep that "top dollar" point in mind; mere mortals never saw those rates) from 70% to 50%, then to 28%. Those tax cuts, plus his massive spending, made the deficit rocket skyward. Mission accomplished; beast starving.

But how to make that deficit look smaller to the easily fooled? Simple. Grab a huge pile of cash from the middle class, invest that cash in Treasuries, and declare those Treasuries off-budget. Voilà — beast looks partially fed. Since the Trust Fund keeps growing (the 2008 number is $2.4 trillion), both the debt and the deficit have looked smaller ever since.

Why is it important to understand this?

• Since the first fix, you've been shoveling your money to the Big Boys for most of your life. You pay for their tax cuts with payroll tax increases. But it's never enough. So the next fix will cut the benefits you were supposedly "buying" with the earlier fixes. You're already paying extra for those benefits. You're not supposed to connect the dots. Reagan taketh, and Obama taketh as well. (Reagan? Reagan who? The John Edwards girl, right?)

4. The real goal of this fix is to hide the looting of the last fix. Just like the last time, the goal isn't Social Security itself. The last fix hid the mounting deficit in off-budget Treasuries. But soon those Trust Fund Treasuries might actually get cashed. Since the government would have to borrow to replace them, that transfers the off-budget numbers back on-budget. Oops.

Folks, the deficit hawks aren't worried about spending the last dollar of the Trust Fund. They're worried about spending the first dollar. They're searching for what they can take from you, the impotent many, so that no dollar of the Trust Fund gets spent.

So watch — that becomes the mark, the tell. Show me a guy who doesn't want any of the Trust Fund spent, I'll show you a guy who got rich stealing from it. (Mr. Peterson, come on down. Bring your friends.)

Why is it important to understand this?

• Every time you repeat the lie that Social Security is running out of money, you help the Big Boys hide the Reagan era crime. And you get the bill for the cover-up. Is that what you want to do?

BONUS POINT: Reagan personally created the era we're in, the Gordon Gekko era, by removing the great disincentive that kept CEOs from looting their own companies.

That disincentive was already discussed — it's the Eisenhower and Nixon era tax rates on the top dollars earned. Suddenly, CEOs and hedge fund managers weren't taxed at 92% (1953), or 70% (1971–1980), on their upper tranches (heh). Reagan's shiny new tax caps of 50% (1982) and 28% (1988; his parting gift) made earning the monstrous millions actually attractive.

As soon as CEOs discovered they could benefit more by raking company profits into their own sweet hands — instead of plowing them back in the company — the modern era was born. We haven't looked back since.

• Want to end this horrid modern era with one stroke? Reverse the Reagan tax cuts. The era will die in a flash.

Hope this helps,

GP Read the rest of this post...

GOP teabagger candidate Rand Paul also believes 'a free society' will allow 'hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin'

He's not a racist. He just believes people should be free to discriminate against black people. And the difference in practice is?

In a May 30, 2002, letter to the Bowling Green Daily News, Paul's hometown newspaper, he criticized the paper for endorsing the Fair Housing Act, and explained that "a free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin."

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Froomkin: Obama is deporting more immigrants than ever

From Dan Froomkin at the Huffington Post:

Obama's Department of Homeland Security has been deporting more undocumented immigrants than President Bush's ever did.

The number of deportations each year more than tripled during the Bush era -- and has kept going up since then. During fiscal year 2009, the first full fiscal year of Obama's presidency, 387,790 immigrants were deported -- almost 100,000 more during the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency.

"It's remarkable that Barack Obama as a candidate spoke so movingly about how our enforcement priorities were wrong -- and now he's exceeded the Bush administration level," Sharry said.

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Rand Paul backtracks on opposition to Civil Rights Act - but what about the ADA?

GOP teabagger candidate, Rand Paul (the son of Rep. Ron Paul), is now backing off of his earlier statement that he opposes the Civil Rights Act.

“As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed. Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years.”

Actually, the creep refused to respond to a direct question about whether he thinks the government had the right to force the integration of lunch counters:

Hours after the NPR interview, [Rachel] Maddow pressed Paul about whether lunch counters should have been desegregated, as activists campaigned for in the 1960s in the South. Paul declined to give a yes or no answer. Instead, he said he doesn't believe in discrimination, suggested the issue was abstract and raised the idea of who decides whether customers can bring weapons into restaurants.

Abstract? It's the documented history of the American civil rights movement. It's not abstract at all.

And note that in a separate interview Paul again refuses to answer the question:

INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

Read the rest of this post...

Ben Nelson, other Senators, have never used an ATM - that's why they don't support capping ATM fees

While I'm sure many of them haven't, I suspect their opposition to capping the fees you pay at the ATM is based on the banking lobby having bought them off.

As for the fees, they're about as absurd as paying 10 cents for a text message. In today's day and age, it costs next to nothing to send information electronically. Thus the reason phone calls, non-cell calls, cost virtually nothing. Does it really cost a bank $3.00 to have me withdraw some money from their ATM? You'd think the federal government would have a compelling interest to NOT have every single bank in the country be required to put their own ATMs on every street corner, like the way print newspaper stands are lined up on the corners of big cities. I just can't get over the feeling that the banks are charing usury fees, and using us. Read the rest of this post...

'Pope condoms' greet Benedict to Holland

Serious discussion doesn't register so why not humor?

De Condoomfabriek (The Condom Factory) said it wanted to make a point about sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and the Vatican's opposition to contraceptives.

The condom wrapper carries the image of a papal figure with an unmistakable general likeness to Pope Benedict, though the figure's face is removed. It bears the words "I SAID NO! We say YES!" framing the papal image.

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Just send the Salahis to Gitmo and be done with it

I'm over this trash. They tricked their way into the White House once, and could have attacked the President and a foreign head of state, and now it appears they may have tried the same trick again. They think national security is a game, fine - send them away to Gitmo for a while and see how funny they find repeated attempts to violate the White House perimeter, for Lord knows what reason. There has to be something seriously wrong with people who think it's funny to sneak into the White House, repeatedly. That's not normal behavior.

From Tapper at ABC:

The Salahis were stopped by the U.S. Secret Service last night at around 8 p.m. ET during the State Dinner for Mexican President Felipe Calderon as their stretch limousine ran a red light and seemed to be trying to turn into a restricted area near the White House, ABC News has learned.

A Secret Service Uniformed Division officer “observed a stretch limousine pass through a red light at 15th and Constitution,” Edwin M. Donovan, the Special Agent in Charge for the U.S. Secret Service told ABC News. “The vehicle then signaled that it was turning into the Ellipse parking area at 16th and Constitution, a restricted area.”

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Scientists increasingly critical of Obama's response to oil leak

For those who were sitting on the fence, the incident yesterday when the US Coast Guard threatened CBS News with arrest due to "BP rules" have to be wondering. I have hardly been dazzled by the response which continues to be all about what BP wants. Obama could definitely do much better than we've seen so far. NYT:

The scientists assert that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies have been slow to investigate the magnitude of the spill and the damage it is causing in the deep ocean. They are especially concerned about getting a better handle on problems that may be occurring from large plumes of oil droplets that appear to be spreading beneath the ocean surface.

The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well.

“It seems baffling that we don’t know how much oil is being spilled,” Sylvia Earle, a famed oceanographer, said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “It seems baffling that we don’t know where the oil is in the water column.”

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Rand Paul opposes Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act

Rand Paul, the superstar of the teabaggers, was on NPR yesterday talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disability Act. He's not supportive of those federal laws, thinking discrimination should be a "local" issue.

Then, Rand went on Rachel. This is a long piece, but worth watching. Remember, this guy is the great hope for the Tea Party.

Paul's opponent in the Kentucky Senate race is Jack Conway. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Today, the President of Mexico will address a joint session of Congress. I wonder if House GOP Minority Leader John Boehner lectured his caucus (again) about behaving during the speech. You know at least one of them wants to be the next Joe Wilson. And, they'd probably score some points with the GOP base by being rude and obnoxious to the Mexican leader.

The Senate will vote again on cloture for the Wall Street reform bill. That legislation has gotten really complicated over the last couple days. Good amendments from Democrats have been pushed aside, not even getting votes. And, the GOPers are doing their best to protect their Wall Street benefactors. David Dayen's tweets have kept me informed.

GetEQUAL is holding an Emergency Capitol Hill Protest to Save the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) today at noon. People are meeting at the corner of Independence Ave SE & 1st ST SE (by the Library of Congress). We're running out of time to pass ENDA this year. There should be House and Senate action on DADT repeal next week. I posted a rundown of the probable schedule earlier this week at AMERICAblog Gay, based on a very helpful and informative conference call with SLDN's Aubrey Sarvis.

So a lot of action on Capitol Hill today...what else? Read the rest of this post...

UK Conservatives begin union bashing, prepare to privatize Royal Mail

Indeed, because privatization always works out so well. For those who have used the UK trains or the subway system and still have money left in your pocket or managed to arrive on time, you have to thrilled. It's hard to express how excited I was to buy a round trip, second class ticket two weeks ago for a train out of Paddington that was not quite a one hour (express) journey for around $75. What a bargain! If that doesn't encourage passengers to scrap the train and drive, I don't know what does. Driving would have taken around the same time.

Conservatives in the UK, like the US, always are convinced of the need to privatize, as if it will save so much money. It doesn't. It shifts costs and provides immediate help to the budget woes but long term these programs are horrible failures. What value will people receive by privatizing the post? The Guardian:

The government is preparing for another potentially explosive confrontation with the postal unions by attempting to privatise Royal Mail, the Guardian has learned.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, is determined to press ahead with a restructuring of the group, which could embroil the government in a dispute with the Communication Workers Union.

Cable has asked Ed Davey, his fellow Liberal Democrat and junior minister at the business department, to prepare the plan in detail. It is understood that the plan will be unveiled by David Cameron and Nick Clegg today as part of the full coalition agreement.

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Goldman customers lose on 7 of 9 'top trades'

As if anyone needed yet another reason not to trust Goldman. Firms like Goldman make good money on trading so of course they will recommend pretty much anything to they can make their trading commission. Nice customer service, Blankfein.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. racked up trading profits for itself every day last quarter. Clients who followed the firm’s investment advice fared far worse.

Seven of the investment bank’s nine “recommended top trades for 2010” have been money losers for investors who adopted the New York-based firm’s advice, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from a Goldman Sachs research note sent yesterday. Clients who used the tips lost 14 percent buying the Polish zloty versus the Japanese yen, 9.4 percent buying Chinese stocks in Hong Kong and 9.8 percent trading the British pound against the New Zealand dollar.

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Putting the bore in Bordeaux

Last night I wrote about a fun story in Wales where a die-hard producer is making award winning wine. Today, the NY Times has an interesting story about how out of fashion Bordeaux wines are in the US among the younger crowd. Food and wine is always a critical subject here in France and I'll have to side with the younger American crowd in this story. It's not that I don't like Bordeaux, but it always makes me feel stodgy when I drink it. Rarely do I ever buy it because like others, I prefer smaller producers who have a different relationship to their products as opposed to the factory feel of Bordeaux. It's what older, bourgeois businessmen who wear Hermes ties drink at the golf club. Talk about boring! Give me a burgundy or Rhone any day.

So for the readers who are wine drinkers who don't live in the center of the universe (that's France, bien sûr) is Bordeaux too stuffy or overpriced? What's typical for a typical dinner and what's considered a nice for a special meal? Now that we're in BBQ season Bordeaux seems even less interesting.

Not so long ago, young wine-loving Americans were practically weaned on Bordeaux, just as would-be connoisseurs had been for generations. It was the gateway to all that is wonderful about wine. Now that excitement has gone elsewhere, to Burgundy and the Loire, to Italy and Spain. Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass.

“The perception of Bordeaux for my generation, it’s very Rolex, very Rolls-Royce,” said Cory Cartwright, 30, who is a partner in Selection Massale, a new company in San Jose, Calif., that imports natural and traditional wines made by small producers, and who writes the Saignée wine blog. “I don’t know many people who like or drink Bordeaux.”

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