Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase is at it again

This guy really needs to shut up and focus on running his bank. The real stifling of economic growth came from the banks playing like Vegas gamblers. If they could have controlled themselves with self-regulation as they promised, we wouldn't have millions more unemployed and an economy in tatters. Regulations are not the problem. Selfish and irresponsible people like Dimon are the problem. Funny how he and the rest of that industry didn't mind accepting government handouts when it kept them afloat but now they're against government intervention. Any time the bankers want the Fed to stop feeding them free money, just say the word.

New international bank capital standards are excessive and may impede economic growth, JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon warned on Tuesday.

"It will stifle economic growth and I already believe it is," said Dimon, who was speaking at the annual spring meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors.

The new Basel III rules being phased in over several years from 2013 will roughly triple to 7 percent the minimum core capital a bank must hold to withstand shocks and spare taxpayers from footing the bill in the next financial crisis.

Read the rest of this post...

Americans are so fat... How fat are we?!

This is pretty pathetic.   They're having to lower the maximum number of people allowed on ships, as they did for buses, because we're such an obese country.

We're number one. Read the rest of this post...

Bristol Palin paid $262,000 by teen pregnancy prevention org

I sure hope that payment isn't based on the fact that her mother keeps talking about running for President. Then again, it's hard to understand exactly what qualifications Bristol Palin brings to the job, other than an influential mother.

Here is my favorite quote:

Palin, who still works for the foundation, told The Associated Press last year that girls would think twice about having sex if they knew how tough it is to be a mother. She said she "wasn't prepared at all" for the dramatic changes in her life since becoming a mom.

"I don't think anyone realizes how difficult it really is until you actually have a screaming baby in your arms and you're up all night," Palin said.

Think twice? What kid wouldn't get knocked up for $262,000 a year? Are you kidding me? For $262,000 a year, the kid can scream at me.  I got a puppy that kept me up all night, for weeks, when I first got her and no one paid me a quarter mill.

Palin should be fired immediately if this organization actually cares about teaching young kids about the perils of single parenthood. Because so far, it looks like a pretty sweet deal. And mind you, this is the family values crowd sending this message to America's kids. Get pregnant as a get rich quick scheme. Lovely.

Imagine what Rush Limbaugh and the hate groups (FRC and AFA) would say if Barack Obama's daughter got pregnant and pocketed a quarter of a million as a result. Read the rest of this post...

Lessons in how NOT to negotiate, courtesy of your President. Lesson 1: Don't accept the other guy's opening offer.

For a couple of weeks, I've been hearing that White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley called Speaker John Boehner and offered to give the GOPers the cuts they wanted on the 2011 budget. Sam Stein heard something similar:

A party operative, plugged into the discussions, made it clear that there were disagreements over the chief of staff's negotiating tactics.

"He is choosing to appease Republicans over fighting for Democratic principles," the operative said, pointing to a post put together by the Obama-allied Center for American Progress, arguing that $32 billion in cuts is "not much of a compromise if we end up with what the House Republican leadership wanted in the first place."

I wish this was wrong. But, it's not.

Today, I listened to Obama's remarks during the press briefing. He basically confirmed it:

In fact, what we’ve been able to do is to present to the House Republicans a budget framework that would cut the same amount of spending as Speaker Boehner and Chairman Rogers originally proposed -- their original proposal for how much would be cut.

And several weeks ago, there were discussions between the White House and Speaker Boehner’s office in which we said, let’s start negotiating off of that number, $73 billion.

So, the White House strategy of negotiating with Republicans really is to give them what they want. In case we missed the point, Obama repeated it:

And I just want to set the context for this now. Again, I’m going to repeat. Speaker Boehner, Chairman Rogers, the Republican appropriations chairman -- their original budget proposed $73 billion in cuts. We have now agreed to $73 billion worth of cuts.

Got that?

What law school did Obama attend? Was he absent when they studied negotiations? That has to be the worst negotiating tactic around.

No wonder the Hill GOPers have no fear of the White House. When you start negotiating by agreeing to the Republicans' opening offer, you aren't negotiating, you're caving.

And once you cave and accept their opening offer, as we found out today, it's still not enough.

President Barack Obama warned Tuesday that he would not sign another stopgap spending bill without an agreement first on the 2011 budget, even as Republicans upped the ante, signaling that a $40 billion package of cuts might have the makings of a deal to avert a shutdown Friday.

The Republicans just keep moving the goal posts -- and, the President is letting them get away with it. Read the rest of this post...

The GOP's 'brazen assault on the EPA'

Who really needs clean air, clean water and an environment that doesn't make anyone sick? Oh right, everyone needs that. Well, everyone except the GOP and a few dimwitted Democrats. CNNMoney:

"Never in four decades has there ever been this brazen assault on the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect our health," said Krupp. "In the House they've already passed an amendment that would mean the EPA couldn't enforce its effort to clean mercury from the air."

The EPA has been ordered by the courts to regulate greenhouse gases after the agency ruled that they are a danger to public health.

Some lawmakers, from both sides of the aisle, are scrambling to strip the EPA of this power, and even roll back some of its other regulatory responsibilities. They are concerned that regulating greenhouse gases will be too costly.

Read the rest of this post...

Wisconsin Gov. Walker hires inexperienced drunk-driving son of lobbyist to an $81,500 per year job

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (my emphasis):

Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.

Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.

How enterprising. Wonder what young Mr. Deschane did to earn his good fortune? Did being the son of the elder Mr. Deschane help at all?

His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year's governor's race.

"Bet big on Walker" means $29,000 from the PAC to Walker last year and $121,000 over two years. As the article says, "that's big-time backing from the homebuilders."

Pretty good ROI for the family, though. My calculator calls that a 67% return. I wonder if dad gets a cut.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich-funded hate group says promiscuous blacks breed like rabbits

I'm thinking Newt may finally have to respond to this one.

"Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits." - American Family Association spokesbigot Bryan Fischer, earning his hate group stripes every day. And all of the GOP presidential candidates continue to appear on his radio show.

Rut is the mating season of certain animals.

ThinkProgress reports that Gingrich continues to defend the organization:

Last month, the Associated Press revealed that one of the cogs in Newt Gingrich’s vast network of business enterprises and front groups, ReAL Action, provided $125,000 to the American Family Association Action, an anti-gay activist organization that has been officially labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group’s outspoken policy directory Bryan Fischer has “proposed criminalizing homosexual behavior” and has even advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy.

This morning, ThinkProgress reminded Gingrich of his donation and asked him if he would condemn Fischer’s remarks. The former speaker of the House initially attempted to dodge the question by explaining his support for recalling judges who supported same-sex marriage in Iowa and only recanted Fisher’s extreme rhetoric after being pressed on the issue. Gingrich insisted, however, that AFA is not a hate group, but a “Christian” organization.

How ironic: "Newt Gingrich" and "screwing like bunnies" in the same sentence (ironic because Newt cheated on at least one, some say several, of his former wives (he's had 3 wives, so far)).

Still defend AFA now, Newt?

Of course, Newt's friends at the AFA aren't new to bigotry. They're not just virulently anti-gay and apparently now racist, they have a bit of a problem with Jews and Muslims too.

First the Jews:

In the March issue of American Family Association Journal, a publication of Donald E. Wildmon's right-wing evangelical activist group, the American Family Association (AFA), author Randall Murphree suggested that a Jewish upbringing leads to hatred of Christians, and by extension, a criminal lifestyle.

Yes, what American city isn't plagued by the Jewish mafia.  Oh but that's not all - the Jews apparently control Hollywood.

The AFA Journal has long served as a platform for anti-Semitic theories and innuendo. For instance, Wildmon warned of Jewish control over popular culture, an old anti-Semitic canard, in a January 1989 article, "What Hollywood Believes and Wants." "The television elite are highly secular," Wildmon wrote. "The majority (59 percent) in the Jewish faith." In a separate article in the same issue, titled "Anti-Semitism Called a Serious Problem," Wildmon, a longtime opponent of gay rights, pointedly remarked that "Jews favor homosexual rights more than other Americans.

Then there are the Muslims, who also have a breeding problem, per the AFA:

"The problem we have with Europe is that [it] is infested with the Muslim population. The reason why is because they multiply at a much faster rate than we do," she says. "When we Christians get married, we have two, three, maybe four children -- after they're born, we start thinking about what college we're going to send them to, what education we're going to give them. The Muslims, on the other hand, are allowed to marry up to four wives at a time," she says, noting that terrorist Osama bin Laden had 27 children.

I ask the question again: Are you still defending these people, Newt Gingrich, and are you still going to go on their radio show? Read the rest of this post...

Krugman on the Medicare crisis: It will come down to Obama

The "Medicare crisis" — of course — isn't a crisis in the usual sense. It's a crisis created by the GOP's desire to kill it. And make no mistake; the Republicans plan to kill it.

Paul Krugman makes the essential point: This is like 2005, when Bush II tried to kill Social Security by privatizing it. Progressives won in 2005. So why is he so pessimistic about Medicare this year? One word.

Obama. He's that specific. The Professor:

In many ways, this fight resembles the 2005 fight over Social Security. Once again, we have a bait and switch, an attempt to destroy a pillar of American society in the name of saving it. And then, too, you had Democrats who were obviously itching to run up the white flag.

The difference now is that Democrats hold the White House. And that may prove to be their undoing.

In 2005, the de facto Democratic leader was Nancy Pelosi. ... Pelosi is still there. But Barack Obama is now the party’s leader. And let’s be frank: Obama still, after all that has happened, seems devoted to the dream of transcending partisanship, a dream he tries to serve by being nice to Republican ideas no matter how terrible those ideas are. ... The great danger now is that Obama — with the help of a fair number of Senate Democrats — will kill Medicare in the name of civility and outreach.

His conclusion is stark:

Republicans have, in fact, offered Democrats a huge political opportunity — much as Bush did in 2005. But I’m sorry, I have no confidence in the current leadership’s willingness to do the right thing, even when it’s also politically smart.

E.J. Dionne asks the right question:

This is all extreme and irresponsible stuff. The president knows it. The coming week will test who he is. When Ryan releases his budget, will the president finally engage?

The Professor is not optimistic about the answer. The title of his post: "The Enemy Within".

(For an excellent analysis of why the Republican Medicare "fix" will end very badly, start here.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

Truly horrific (and amazing) video of Japan's tsunami

Chris just found this video from Sky News, broadcast several weeks ago. I'd not seen it. It's breathtaking - views of the tsunami from helicopters.  Watching cars and people try to outrun it.  It's horrifying, and mesmerizing.

Read the rest of this post...

Are you feeling fired up?

Since President Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign this week, niggling thoughts have filled my mind: How do I feel about this? Excited? Ready for the fight? Eager to help? Determined to donate? Convinced of the cause?

Last time around, I felt no doubt. For me, Mr. Obama's first campaign was energized by the sense that his victory was a moral imperative. I gave time and money, talked it up, helped turn out the vote. For the first time in my life, I was voting FOR a presidential candidate, not just AGAINST his opponent. Candidate Obama talked about "change you can believe in," and I believed.

And now? This time, I find myself having to make intellectual contortions to make the case. I think: What could the slogan be this time?

"Change you can believe in: As long as you don't expect ME to get out front and make a forceful argument for it."

"Change you can believe in: As long as the GOP and the Chamber of Commerce approve."

"Change you can believe in: As long as it doesn't really challenge the power of Wall Street or inconvenience the wealthy."

Yeah, I know just writing this is going to earn me the flames of all you Democratic pragmatists out there. You'll argue that Mr. Obama did what he could given the difficult circumstances. Silly me for thinking there is real value and power in idealism, or that failing to consistently and forcefully challenge the ideological framing set by one's opponents is what making real change requires.

This time around, I'm falling back to my old way: "Can't let Orange Johnny Boehner and Pickled Mitch McConnell have a partner in the White House. Guess I'll vote for Obama." It's a valid way of assessing the situation and it provides some motivation, certainly, but it hardly fuels a fire in my belly.

How the Obama reelection campaign energizes its base is a question already on the table. The President said yesterday in a conference call with supporters, "I'm fired up. I don't know about everyone else."

This post is my answer. But it's also an invitation to you: How are you feeling? Fired up? Read the rest of this post...

House Republicans cheer mention of govt shutdown

Joe mentioned this at the bottom of his previous post, but it bears repeating. Republican congressmen gave a standing ovation to John Boehner when he mentioned possibly shutting down the federal government.

House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process includes alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.

The danger is that a lot of these guys aren't playing chicken. They truly want to shut the government down, and keep it shut down. They don't care about the negative impact on the economic recovery. They don't care that the unemployed, and veterans, and others won't get their checks. The government doesn't exist to them, other than their means for getting a fat paycheck while bashing the hand that feeds them.

It's a dangerous situation for the President, who doesn't like to hold firm during negotiations. He's dealing with hostage takers who are all too willing to kill the hostage. And if he doesn't want them to keep taking more hostages, and slowly killing them, in the future, the President needs to expose these thugs once and for all. Read the rest of this post...

President, Hill leaders meet this morning to talk 2011 budget, shutdown, more spending cuts

The White House and Congressional leaders are holding one last meeting to determine whether they can prevent a government shutdown starting Friday. They'll be gathering at 10:15 AM. Here's how the White House "Daily Guidance" previews the meeting:

Later in the morning, the President and the Vice President will meet with Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Chairman Dan Inouye, and Chairman Hal Rogers to discuss ongoing negotiations on a funding bill to bring us through the end of the fiscal year. The President has made clear that we all understand the need to cut spending, and significant progress has been made in agreeing to all work off the same number - $73 billion in spending cuts in this year alone. With the process running short on time, the President will urge leaders to reach final agreement and avoid a government shutdown that would be harmful to our economic recovery.

Yes, we know "has made clear that we all understand the need to cut spending." He bought into the GOP talking point last year. And, they're working off the GOP's proposed numbers. As John wrote last night, the Republicans are offering another one-week extension, which includes another $12 billion in cuts (but the Pentagon is exempt.) From John:

Why are we constantly debating on the Republicans' own terms? Perhaps because the President caved on this issue a year ago and we've never fully recovered since. Those of us who warned that it was a seriously bad move by the President to "admit" to the GOP talking point that the deficit had grown too big and needed to be addressed immediately (thus pulling the legs out on any remaining public support for the stimulus) - we warned that this would come back to bite him in the ass, and we were sadly, again, right. Just as we predicted that the Republicans would get the message when the President said in December, famously, that he'd rather cave than let hostage-takers kill the hostages. So prepare for another hostage crisis. And another, and another, and another...

And, next up, the Paul Ryan/GOP 2012 budget disaster. Let's hope the White House has a much better strategy for that.

Oh, and all the spin that GOPers don't really want a shutdown? Not true. They outed themselves last night:

House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process includes alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.

An ovation. Yeah, they're honest brokers. Read the rest of this post...

Transocean admits 'best safety record' bonuses may have been insensitive after their oil rig blew up and polluted the Gulf

Gee, ya think? The big oil profits certainly aren't buying the smartest PR people on the block if they could not realize what a PR failure it would be to hand out bonuses based on their "best year on safety performance." These people are lucky there are so many pro-oil politicians in Washington, because someone ought to be in jail for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

In a filing with U.S. financial regulators on Friday, Transocean had said it achieved an "exemplary" safety record last year as measured by its total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate.

But Ihab Toma, the company's executive vice president of global business, said some wording in that statement "may have been insensitive" given the Deepwater Horizon accident caused by a blown-out BP [BP.L 472.00 2.75 (+0.59%)] well in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

"Nothing in the proxy was intended to minimize this tragedy or diminish the impact it has had on those who lost loved ones. Everyone at Transocean continues to mourn the loss of these friends and colleagues." Toma said in a statement on Monday.

Read the rest of this post...

New protests and more death in Yemen

The current regime is bad but what comes next in Yemen may not be an improvement and it may even be worse. Either way, killing protesters is immoral and completely wrong. Al Jazeera:

Yemeni security forces have shot dead at least 16 anti-government demonstrators and wounded 30 in the city of Taiz, south of the capital Sanaa, medics said.

The violence began when thousands of protesters marched through Taiz toward Freedom Square, where demonstrators have been camped out.

As the march passed the governor's headquarters, troops stationed there blocked the procession, and clashes broke out, with some protesters throwing stones, witnesses said.

Troops on nearby rooftops opened fire with live ammunition on the crowd and the marchers then turned to besiege the governor's headquarters, said Bushra al-Maqtara, an opposition activist in Taiz, and other witnesses.

Read the rest of this post...

UN fires missiles in Ivory Coast to prevent civilian attacks

After so many civilian deaths, something has to be done to prevent a complete slaughter. The Guardian:

UN helicopters have attacked President Laurent Gbagbo's forces in Ivory Coast, destroying their weapons at four places where they had been shelling civilians, a UN spokesman said.

The helicopters fired four missiles at a Gbagbo military camp in the main city of Abidjan, witnesses told Reuters. "We saw two UN MI-24 helicopters fire missiles on the Akouedo military camp. There was a massive explosion and we can still see the smoke," one said. The camp is home to three battalions of the Ivorian army.

Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, said in an email: "We launched an operation to neutralise heavy weapons Gbagbo's special forces have been using against the civilian population for the last three months. We destroyed them in four locations."

Read the rest of this post...

Japan to dump 'less'-radioactive water into Pacific

Yes, "less" radioactive water. Read the rest of this post...