Euro May Be Poised for `Explosive Breakout' versus the dollar

The European Central Bank is getting ready to raise its benchmark lending rate tomorrow. Analysts are saying that the dollar could plummet (even further) against the Euro as a result. We're number 2! We're number 2! Read the rest of this post...

America prepares to celebrate its birthday, so John McCain leaves the country

McCain got a wee bit defensive today when questioned as to why he left the country for three days when we have our own pressing problems. From ABC's Political Punch:

Before Robin Roberts could ask a question, McCain said this:

“May I just say, I’m here for one day, I’m in Mexico the next day, then I’m back home -- also drugs is a big, big problem in America, the continued flow of drugs from Colombia through Mexico into the United States is still one of our major challenges to all America.”

“I’ve been here many times, I’ve been here several times in the past, as well as with Mexico, and I think that it deserves our attention,” McCain added.

When Roberts asked why he was in Colombia when the economy is foremost in voters' minds, this was McCain’s response:

“Well, I’d be glad to repeat myself,” he said. “There is clearly a continued threat of drugs pouring into the United States of America, which can harm us and our young people very badly. I’m happy to say that there has been some success. The cost of cocaine on the street is up.”

Not to belittle the nation’s drug plague -- but in between the bird chirps, I think 1984 just called, asking for its candidate back.

Maybe this is huge with conservative voters and I’m missing something, but I had Nancy Reagan flashbacks. With the economy teetering, $80 SUV fill-ups, and two real wars, this is what McCain has chosen to spotlight in a foreign trip, four months before Election Day?

Just judging from the polls -- shouldn’t he be a little more concerned with the price of gas than the price of cocaine?

Read the rest of this post...

Lifestyles of the rich and McCain, Part II

Cindy McCain is filthy rich, and the scrutiny of her finances, and how her husband's campaign uses them, is causing her John McCain heartburn. Not that there's anything wrong with being worth over $100 million. But it does make you a bit of an elite. More from Politico. (And as a gay man, let me say, she really needs a new photographer, because the one in the link above clearly isn't giving her much love.) Read the rest of this post...

More about oil's new high, over $144

Brace yourself because Thursday may be worse. There are plenty of rumors that the European Central Bank will increase interest rates to punch back at inflation. If that happens, the dollar is likely to decline again which means oil will increase again. The Republicans really did a job on the US economy and more analysts are saying things will get worse in 2008 before they show signs of life in 2009, maybe. Read the rest of this post...

McCain goes to Colombia the day they rescue American hostages. Imagine that.

McCain goes to Colombia.

Colombians launch operation to rescue Americans held hostage for 5 years.

Coincidence?

You decide. Read the rest of this post...

Stocks drop, oil hits new high

We are now very close to a bear market. But fret not. John McCain is in Colombia making sure that the drug lords are on the run, or something. I'm sure that will help us afford gas and health insurance.

Wall Street resumed its sell-off Wednesday after oil hit a new record and a bearish analyst report renewed concerns that General Motors Corp. could run out of cash.

The stock market's pullback, which accelerated in the final hours of the week's last full trading day, left the Dow Jones industrial average officially in bear market territory, with the blue chips having fallen more than 20 percent from their October highs.

Oil surged to new records above $144 a barrel as the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. supplies and as investors worried about tensions in the Middle East....

The S&P; is just shy of the 20 percent pullback that signals a bear market. While the Nasdaq is also in bear market territory, it hit that mark in March, moved higher and has now returned to a bear level

Read the rest of this post...

Well known liberal blogger shot in DC

Welcome to our town.

Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C.

One bullet damaged Beutler's spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at the Washington Hospital Center. He's expected to make a "pre-trauma" recovery, which is to say, a completely full recovery.

The neighborhood he was shot in, like a 5 minute walk from me, has an ongoing gang war on the very corner he was shot. It's been going on for years. And years. And years. But DC is such an inept city, that all we hear about is how fighting crime is hard work. Sound familiar? I've looked at condos right next to where he was shot. $400,000 for a one bedroom. I laugh when I see places like that, because I know there's a gang war going on about 100 feet away. And now this would be our second mugging-shooting we've had in the last month or so. Though I guess this is a step up from when I was mugged and strangled by two kids in front of my apartment building at 8 o'clock at night on a busy street. At least they only used their hands to try to kill me. Now they're using guns. And this is our nation's capital. It's really pathetic. Read the rest of this post...

McCain denies saying he wasn't an expert on the economy again. He did say it and he already got busted for lying about it.

John McCain wasn't quite being a straight talker today:

The bizarre and somewhat disturbing thing about the interview today is that McCain was already called out for denying he'd said he wasn't an expert on the economy. He denied it before and Tim Russert busted him for it. Yet, he tried the denial again today anyway. That's just a bit weird to say the least. Read the rest of this post...

Republican Senator accuses McCain of assault on diplomatic mission

Someone please get this guy some anger management classes, now. McCain is unable to control his temper and this is hardly the temperament voters are looking for these days. I can almost see the oil prices jumping at the thought of him blowing his top every week.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said in an interview with The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever ...

"I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, 'Good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission.' I don't know what had happened to provoke John, but he obviously got mad at the guy ... and he just reached over there and snatched ... him."

Cochran, who has complained about McCain's temper before, said only a handful of senators took part in the trip, including former Sen. Steve Symms of Idaho. He said he didn't know who the man McCain grabbed was except that he was an associate of Ortega.

Read the rest of this post...

ADP report shows 79,000 jobs lost in June

The highest loss since November 2002. Read the rest of this post...

Dow 10,000?

Ouch. Not the most encouraging news at the midway point of the year.

"Longer term we’re looking at a market that is a bear market," Carter told "Squawk Box Europe."

While we can expect a rally over the next three to five weeks, this is a downward spiral that is not going away any time soon, he said.

"A trend is a trend until it ends, and we’re actually looking for the Dow to take out 10,000 by the end of the year," he added.

There are too few sectors holding the markets up, and too many dragging it down, to consider getting back into non-recession-proof sectors, according to Carter.

"A large percentage [of sectors], like financials, are getting hammered. A lot of the darlings of the past are going to get taken out back and get shot," he said.

Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi to attend, do unscripted Q&A;, at Netroots Nation conference

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to be attending, and taking raw questions from the audience, at the upcoming annual liberal blog conference, Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos). I'm glad to see that she's not only attending, but she's willing to have her appearance NOT be a speech, but rather be a Q&A.; A lot of folks aren't very happy with the job Congress has been doing of late - read: FISA - so it's rather gutsy of Pelosi to make her entire talk be questions, so to speak. The conference is in Austin, TX this year, from July 17 to 20. I'll be there. Will you? Read the rest of this post...

McCain fundraiser "oversaw payment of roughly $1.7 million" to terror group in Colombia

John wrote this in March of 2007:

If you or I knowingly funneled $1.7 million to one of the worst, and best known, terrorist organizations in the world, we'd be sent to Guantanamo permanently. But when it's the senior management of Chiquita Banana, the Bush administration gives them a fine.

It probably also helps that one of those senior managers is a major fundraiser for the GOP -- and John McCain.

So, while John McCain is in Colombia today (with Joe Lieberman) to burnish his foreign policy cred, maybe he can take a minute to explain why one of his top supporters was funding a terror group in that country. Now, we all know that the traditional media types would never ask John McCain hard questions about a subject like this. They might not get the cool seats on the new plane. But, Huffington Post's Nico Pitney will:

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

According to the Justice Department, the payments "were reviewed and approved by senior executives" of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 "that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization."

Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.

Read the rest of this post...

The GOP may have found a convention keynoter: Lois Bloomer

Lois Bloomer, is the chair of the Republican Party in Penobscot County, Maine. She is an ardent defender of George Bush -- and spews the party line even if it makes her appear callous and completely out of touch. In other words, she personifies the GOP. Here's a sampling of her recent screed to the Bangor Daily News:

"I don’t really believe that at this point people are having to choose between food and medicine and housing, and if they are it’s because they made poor choices with their mortgages. You can’t blame that on the president," she said.

Bush is faultless. And, then there's this tidbit to show Bloom doesn't let facts get in the way of her defense of Bush and the GOP:

According to the Web site of the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, in January 2001, when Bush took office, Maine’s unemployment rate was 3 percent. Seven years later, in January 2008, Maine’s unemployment rate had risen to 4.9 percent. The nation’s unemployment rate dropped from 4.7 percent in 2001 to 4.6 percent in 2007.

"I don’t see what’s wrong with the unemployment rate," Bloomer said. "It’s not that bad. I think the unemployment rate is mostly for people who don’t want to [or can’t] work anyways."

Anyways, that Ms. Bloom, GOP spokesperson extraordinaire. Read the rest of this post...

Being George Bush is a problem for John McCain, still

The first line from this Wall Street Journal article is a classic:

President Bush's record unpopularity is playing an unprecedented role in the 2008 campaign, complicating John McCain's task among key constituencies.

That's a lot packed into one sentence. But, it does explain why Grandpa McCain gets extra cranky about running for the third Bush term. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The coffee economy is the news today. Interesting timing that John McCain is in Colombia (with Joe Lieberman), one of the world's biggest producers of coffee, at the same time Starbucks announced it was closing 600 stores. McCain wants you to know he's in command. He just doesn't know anything about the economy -- and closing 600 Starbucks stores seems to be a sign that the economy isn't working, which most Americans already know all too well.

Have at it... Read the rest of this post...

African Union gives Mugabe a free pass

Although the AU as a group was unwilling to criticize Robert Mugabe, a few countries including Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Senegal did stand up and were not afraid to speak openly. Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki is still holding out hope for his "quiet diplomacy" that has yet to show any success despite the lack of success, ever.

Botswana's vice-president, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe, declared that the outcome of last Friday's elections, in which Mugabe was the sole candidate, "does not confer legitimacy on the government of President Mugabe.

"In our considered view, it therefore follows that the representatives of the current "government" in Zimbabwe should be excluded from attending SADC and African Union meetings.

Taking the floor in a closed session, Mugabe spoke at length and delivered a blistering counter-attack on his accusers, according to diplomats at the summit. The tone was summed up by his spokesman, who said his critics could "go and hang. They can go to hang a million times. They have no claim on Zimbabwean politics".

Read the rest of this post...

French Army chief of staff resigns after shooting incident

France makes plenty of mistakes (as do all countries) but wow, what a contrast to what we see in the US. For all of the US right-wing bashing, France did what we used to expect from our leaders in America. Someone in charge actually accepted responsibility for a mistake. In business, we hand out hundreds of millions to failed leaders and after 9/11, we hand out medals to the people who were supposed to be protecting the country. How many senior people resigned or were sacked after 9/11? Let's not even get into the 9/11 Commission and their sorry excuse for an investigation when the President, THE PRESIDENT for gosh sakes, gets to take his VP in the room for his testimony as if he was incapable of answering on his own. How pathetic was that?

Even today, where are all of the Republicans who strutted around, proud as peacocks that they the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act would usher in a great new era. It did, just not for the better. We can even find an apology from Mr Gramm, Mr Leach or Mr Bliley let alone those who voted for it as we watch $1 trillion disappear from our economy. Have we really lost all sense of accountability? If it exists, I sure don't see it. Read the rest of this post...

Failed AIG CEO receives $47 million for his troubles

Poor fellow. I hope that he will be OK though he does have the advantage of having an office and secretary until the end of the year. This is a new era, where record losses are ignored and multi-million dollar golden hand shakes are given along with a nice peck on the cheek. Let's be honest, corporate America would do this for any employee, especially after years of being treated so well with no luxury too much. Just because he was paid massive amounts based on bad business and now is being paid yet again despite the company writing down billions doesn't mean he didn't deserve it. Hey, he had a contract! Legal wasn't able to find any of those famous loopholes despite AIG losing billions upon billions.

What's that? Your company won't even pay for all of your family health insurance after working there for 10 years? Well, you people are always so greedy and just ask for too much. Shouldn't you be working now anyway? Read the rest of this post...