Zimbabwe PM injured, wife killed in car crash

Driving in Africa can be dodgy in the best of times so anything is possible. The fact that Morgan Tsvangirai has only started as PM in a shared government with Robert Mugabe does raise some suspicions.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife, Susan, was killed in a car wreck, senior officials with his party told CNN Friday.

Tsvangirai was injured along with an aide and the car's driver in the head-on collision with a large truck, according to Tsvangirai's spokesman, James Maridadi.

The extent of their injuries is not clear.

"Yes I can confirm that he was involved in a car accident along Harare-Masvingo road," Maridadi said.

"He has been brought to Harare and doctors are looking at him at a hospital."

Maridadi would not say how serious Tsvangirai's injuries are as a result of the head-on collision. Tsvangirai was in the car with his wife, an aide, and the driver, he said.

They were en route to Tsvangirai's hometown of Buhera, south of the capital, Harare, when the accident occurred, Maridadi said.

Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, took office last month under a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe.

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More possible perjury for 'Senator' Burris

From the Chicago Sun-Times, via Ben Smith:

On the same December day then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich named Roland Burris to fill President Obama's U.S. Senate vacancy, Burris' right-hand political man, Fred Lebed, phoned an associate and told him, "We'll have to do some things for the governor."

That's the recollection of the associate, a health-care and political consultant named John Ruff, who went on to become one of Burris' co-plaintiffs on a January lawsuit that sought to help Burris claim his Senate seat.

Besides raising new questions about a possible quid pro quo between Blagojevich and Burris, Ruff also recalled Lebed telling him he'd had discussions about Burris' interest in the seat with Blagojevich representatives as far back as October. That claim by Ruff contradicts what Burris said in a Jan. 5 sworn statement that is now part of a state perjury investigation.

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Bloomberg: Obama to blame for collapse of sun in 5 billion years

Bloomberg's Eric Martin today declared that Obama is to blame for the stock market collapsing. Read this, from an article entitled "‘Obama Bear Market’ Punishes Investors as Dow Slumps":

President Barack Obama now has the distinction of presiding over his own bear market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 20 percent since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a newly elected president in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Well, here's a question: What other unprecedented economic crises have we faced in the first six weeks of a new presidency in the past 90 years? Um, none? Yes, there was the Great Depression - but that doesn't count, per Bloomberg's own analysis, because Bloomberg is looking only at how the market did the first six weeks of a new presidency. The Great Depression's market crashes happened at the end of October, and throughout November, of 1929, so Bloomberg doesn't count that crash. How convenient.

It's pretty clear that the media is gunning for Obama. Like a veil lifted from their eyes, the election of a Democratic president suddenly gives Bloomberg and all the rest the opportunity to be openly critical of a president again. So they're going to do it, with gusto, regardless of whether the facts merit it. But blaming Obama for the economy he inherited, only six weeks into his presidency, when George Bush and his Republican economics spent eight years leading us into this terrible state of affairs, is really a new low in journalism, even by Washington standards. Read the rest of this post...

GOP's leader predicts the death of Senator Ted Kennedy

This morning, I predicted that given Rush's out-of-control ego, pretty soon he'd be trying to move into the White House. But, I was low-balling. Now, he's thinks he's God -- foretelling the death of Senator Kennedy.

Just when you think he can't sink any lower, he does. The latest from the leader of the GOP:


So, as expected, Rush is leading the GOP charge against health care reform. One wonders how Rush even gets health insurance considering his drug addiction past and ongoing obesity. (Those conditions are facts, not judgments or opinions, btw.) Read the rest of this post...

A group of us had breakfast with the French Ambassador this morning...

The French ambassador, Pierre Vimont, hosted a breakfast for political bloggers from the left, middle, and right at his palacial residence this morning in Washington, DC.

(Anyone who lives in DC is familiar with the French ambassador's residence, at least from the outside (photo, top left - credit NCinDC). It's a gorgeous, huge structure, on a huge piece of land, right around the corner from Joe and me, and just across the street from Donald Rumsfeld. It was my first time inside, and it was quite beautiful in that over-the-top gilded way that only the French can pull off.)

Starting a few months ago, the embassy decided they wanted to reach out more to political bloggers. The reason, I'm gleaning - and I don't want to speak for them - is that they recognize blogs as another political power in Washington, and just as the embassy reaches out to journalists and other important individuals and institutions in Washington, they now wish to include influential blogs in that outreach. The breakfast was off-the-record - sorry folks - but it was quite interesting. The floor was ours to discuss what we liked, and much of the conversation centered around the economic crises and the Middle East. At times it was "lively," as they say in diplomatic circles.

What intrigued me about the meeting, rather than the substance - in reality, I don't expect seasoned ambassadors to drop any bombshells around foreign journalists - was the fact that it was happening at all. Now, this isn't the first time we, as bloggers, have dealt with foreign affairs, or foreign governments. The city of Amsterdam invited a number of us on a trip there several years ago, but that was to promote tourism, not discuss politics. And several of us were invited to Israel last year by a Jewish group here in Washington (I couldn't make it at the time), and while that was certainly a political trip, it was organized by Americans, not the Israeli government. And I was invited by Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni to meet with her last summer when I was in Athens (though my uncle held her job back in the 80s, so that might have played a role in her interest).

In any case, the fact that an ambassador wanted to meet US political bloggers is interesting to me, in and of itself.

Oh, and the croissants were to die for. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Obama to overturn ban on stem cell research Monday

From Jake Tapper:

ABC News has learned that on Monday morning President Obama will hold an event at the White House in which he signs an executive order overturning the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

The announcement will be about "restoring scientific integrity to health care policy," an administration official tells ABC News.

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the religious right right about now :-) Read the rest of this post...

Nothing says 'classy' like a beautiful necktie

You'd never guess he was an addict.

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Yesterday's Prop 8 oral arguments in California

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case to determine whether Prop 8 should be invalidated. There are two good assessments online - both think we're in trouble.

Law Dork 2.0

After listening to the arguments in the cases challenging Proposition 8 as an invalid enactment of the people — for one reason or another — it appears that there will not be a majority of the Court willing to strike down Proposition 8. Both Chief Justice George and Justice Kennard — in the majority holding last year that there was a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry — expressed great concerns about invalidating the will of the people on this matter.

Rex Wockner

Disaster. They constantly interrupted the gay side with aggressive questions, but let Ken Starr go on and on and on. They were obsessed with the fact that the domestic-partnership law gives the same rights as marriage, and they completely ignored the fact that they so eloquently argued that separate isn't equal in their previous ruling. They seemed enamored of the notion that the people can do almost whatever they want via the ballot-box amendment process -- including repealing freedom of speech, banning gay adoption, pretty much any damned thing they choose. We're not winning this one. It could even be unanimous. That leaves the gay side with two options: Return to the California ballot with a pro-active initiative to attempt to undo Prop 8. Or take it to the U.S. Supreme Court, using the U.S. Supreme Court's pro-gay ruling in the Colorado Amendment 2 case as a spot-on precedent. Both options are...fraught.

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GOP infighting continues. This week's target: Michael Steele

Joe has written extensively about the GOP meltdown since the election - they just can't seem to hate each other enough. And now their target is RNC chair Michael Steele. Seems a number of top GOP strategists are publicly fretting that Steele might not be up to the job. And he might not be. But what's shocking is that their expressing these concerns publicly. Usually the GOP is the party of discipline. Now it's the party of open civil warfare. Read the rest of this post...

RNC chair Michael Steele's blog is no more

The emasculation has begun. When will Steele learn that there's only one leader of the Republican party? And it's never going to be him. For people who scream and yell that Limbaugh isn't the story, that Limbaugh is irrelevant, Mr. Irrelevant sure took his pound of flesh out of Michael Steele, and continues to take it.

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Unemployment up to 8.1%, losses close to forecast

The jobs report was not great news though at least it was pretty close to the forecasts. The unemployment increase was a bad surprise. Before any recovery starts, everyone needs to be in line with forecasts and the surprises need to end. Unemployment will likely go higher in the coming months but again, we need the economy to at least be predictable.

U.S. employers axed 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest in 25 years, as companies buckled under the strain of a recession that is showing no signs of ending, according to a government report.

While that figure was near economists' expectations for a 648,000 drop in non-farm payrolls, January and December job losses were revised sharply higher.

The Labor Department on Friday said the unemployment rate surged to 8.1 percent in February, the highest level since December 1983. That was above market forecasts for a rise to 7.9 from January's 7.6 percent.

January's job cuts were revised to show a steep decline of 655,000, while December's payrolls losses were adjusted to 681,000, the deepest since October 1949. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has purged 4.4 million jobs, with more than half occurring in the last 4 months.

Job losses in February were broad based, with only government, education and health services adding jobs.

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Gov. Paterson backtracks on multi-state pact aimed at lowering emissions from power plants

This is not a good development. We already know New York Governor David Paterson is a bad politician, but, at least, we thought, he was good on policy. Not so true. He's undermining a very important envirnomental agreement among the 10 Northeastern states. The "10-state compact" was, and is, a very big deal. Now, Paterson is undermining it:

At the urging of the energy industry, Gov. David A. Paterson has agreed to reconsider a key rule New York adopted as part of a 10-state pact aimed at reducing the threat of global warming by cutting power plant emissions.

Mr. Paterson appeared to overrule the State Department of Environmental Conservation in making the move, which would reopen state regulations to provide power plants leeway to release greater amounts of emissions at no additional cost. Administration officials said the governor was concerned the rule might unfairly burden the energy industry.

The industry always feels like it's unfairly burdened. Always. If the energy industry put as much of its time and money into lowering emissions as the energy industry puts into lobbying and lawsuits, we might actually make some progress.

New York entered this compact under the leadership of Republican Governor George Pataki:

Environmentalists are perplexed that Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, would weaken a landmark agreement among Northeastern states that was championed by a Republican predecessor, George E. Pataki.

They are also criticizing what they see as a secret process with an industry that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Governor Paterson’s campaign coffers.

You think? Access clearly pays. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Well, I think it's pretty well established by now that Rush runs the GOP. And, he seems to think he runs the country. His ego knows no bounds. I'm half expecting him to pull up to the White House with a moving van.

It's going to be in the 70s this weekend. I prefer that to the 14 degrees we had on Tuesday.

Thread, please. Read the rest of this post...

AIG's collapse, Europe and Wall Street

If it's true that AIG's collapse would "bring down Europe" - not to mention Merrill and Goldman - why is the US not involving Europe more in this bailout? Let Europe pitch in to prop up their banks who made stupid decisions and let Goldman and Merrill pay for the bailout as well. Failure to link these companies to the bailout is more bad policy. After the pay changes were proposed by Obama, Goldman was out there talking about repaying their TARP money which is great, but don't let them off the hook for AIG.

Whether Goldman is there tomorrow or not impacts Goldman much more than it does for the rest of the country. Yes it would be another horrible blow to the economy but at this point, who is counting? Henry Paulson's old firm has received an easy ride in this crisis and it's time that changes. AIG's collapse is not only about Europe, so let's quit acting as though it is.

The U.S. government rescued giant insurer American International Group in part because its collapse would dramatically hurt European banks, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday.

The U.S. government has bailed out AIG three times since Sept. 16 and committed about $180 billion to keep the insurer alive and doing business.

"One of the reasons we had to rescue AIG was the fact that it was going to bring down Europe," Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski told reporters after his subcommittee held a hearing on systemic risk.

Later, in an interview with Reuters, Kanjorski said he was told that a large number of AIG's counterparties were European.

"That's why we could not allow AIG to fail as we allowed Lehman (Brothers) to fail, because that would have precipitated the failure of the European banking system," he said.

Some lawmakers are pushing the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to reveal AIG's counterparties and have expressed frustration over the secretive nature of the government bailouts.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier in the day, chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, criticized what he called a "stunning" lack of transparency and accountability about exactly where the billions in rescue money have gone.

Follow the money and quit the charade of pretending as though it's not possible to get answers. Read the rest of this post...

One buck Chuck - Citi now worth a dollar

Sure Chuck Prince is gone - along with his platinum parachute worth tens of millions - but his hands are all over this failure. Current Citi CEO Vikram Pandit is not much better but the ground work for this collapse sits squarely in the hands of Charles Prince. When is someone going to ask for the money to be returned from him? Stanley O'Neal, Angelo Mozilo ought to be on the list as well. This is a fast moving market, but how are they getting away with creating so many problems? Barney Frank is right when he says people ought to be prosecuted. It sickened me to discover that somehow, no one was responsible for the failures of 9/11 and the same applies with this disaster. Sweeping it aside is not an option.

Shares of Citigroup, once the nation's most powerful bank, dipped below $1 a share for the first time Thursday.

The stock ultimately pared its losses and closed down 9.7 percent at $1.02 on the New York Stock Exchange.

New York-based Citi has lost more than 85 percent of its value so far this year, and is down more than 95 percent from a year ago as the bank was pummeled by the financial market crisis.

Citigroup's shares will remain on the New York Stock Exchange. Last week, the NYSE relaxed its listing rules to allow stocks that fall under $1 to still be listed and traded on the exchange.

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Is 8% growth enough for China? Is 8% even real?

Even last year's "slow" growth numbers produced by the Beijing government has been widely dismissed as optimistic. The cutoff of 8% has everything to do with the belief that the government needs to generate 8% or else face substantial unemployment and social unrest. With exports crashing due to the crisis hitting Europe and the US, it's unlikely China can fill the holes in the economy quickly enough to stop the bleeding. The decoupling economists who proudly boasted of a new world order with China and India saving the global economy are now quiet.

With China facing its worst financial crisis in a century, Premier Wen Jiabao assured comrades that the economy would still grow by 8 per cent this year, the level that the Communist Party believes is necessary to hold down the jobless rate and stave off wider social unrest.

"We are facing unprecedented difficulties and challenges," Mr Wen told nearly 3,000 delegates assembled in the Great Hall of the People. "In projecting the economic growth target of about 8 per cent, we have taken into consideration both our need and ability to sustain growth."

Until growth slowed to 9 per cent last year, China had enjoyed double-digit expansion for the previous five years. The government's prediction for this year was more optimistic than that of the International Monetary Fund, which has forecast growth of just 6.7 per cent for China. But Communist Party officials said 8 per cent growth was the make-or-break threshold for keeping the population satisfied and making sure that China does not fall victim to widespread rural unrest.

"Maintaining a certain growth rate for the economy is essential for expanding employment for both urban and rural residents, increasing people's incomes and ensuring social stability," Mr Wen said in a two-hour address.

China's economy is the third-largest after Japan and the US and will play a pivotal role in helping drag the global economy out of its downturn. But, to the chagrin of the markets which had been hoping for another shot in the arm, Mr Wen failed to announce any extension to the four trillion yuan (£414bn) stimulus package unveiled in November.

China got ahead of others last year and pushed through a stimulus package. Everyone was expecting another yesterday but they held back or some reason, which is really making people wonder what is happening. Read the rest of this post...