Utrecht has a very cool train station

Here's more on the "transfer accelerator" that can make your visit to the station fun. Read the rest of this post...

No House vote tonight

The House won't vote on the GOP debt bill tonight.

Boehner doesn't have the votes in his caucus.

Oh well. Read the rest of this post...

71 percent of nat’l debt happened during GOP presidents; 28 percent under Dems

GOP Presidents     Dem Presidents
$9.5 trillion            $3.8 trillion

Total debt is $14.3 trillion.
$1 trillion of debt comes from before Reagan (NYT doesn't make clear who created that debt).
$13.3 trillion accumulated from Reagan to Obama.

71% of the $13.3 trillion was under GOP presidents.
28% of the $13.3 trillion was under Dem presidents.

(Source: NYT pieced together data from Treasury, OMB, Federal Reserve Bank of NY, and more)

PS And before anyone says "you have to look at who controlled Congress," I don't recall the Republicans worrying about that fact when they blamed Obama for the deficit and the national debt.

What's more, I also don't recall any Republican presidents vetoing the debt ceiling increase during their tenure.  In fact, many of the biggest causes of the national debt were GOP presidential initiatives, such as:

* Reagan defense budgets and tax cuts
* George HW Bush gulf war
* George W Bush tax cuts, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As for Democratic Presidents, you have Bill Clinton who actually put us in a surplus - which George Bush immediately blew on a... wait for it... tax cut - and Barack Obama who inherited the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression (thus you can't blame him for that, just as I don't include the three Bush recessions or the Reagan recession in the early 80s). Read the rest of this post...

Honey I shrunk the Speaker

Regardless of what happens in tonight's (possible) House vote on Boehner's deficit package, the GOP Speaker has already lost far more than he counted on. In six short months on the job, John Boehner has turned the congressional GOP lockstep-voting-juggernaut into a bunch of, well, Democrats.

One of the most frustrating things for Democrats is watching how Republicans always corral their caucus for important votes. Look at the stimulus - only 3 Republicans in the entire congress voted for it. Now that's order. But when the shoe's on the other foot, and you need the Democrats to vote for something, you end up having to cater to two-hundred-and-then-some little generals, each competing with the other to whittle down the bill to nothing before it can secure the necessary votes.

Whether Boehner's deficit plan passes the House or not, we've all learned an important lesson. Boehner is barely in control of his own caucus. Republican is the new Democrat.

And the joke of it is, Boehner wants to do this all over again in six months!

You're at the age where you don't get thrown by curve balls.
This is the age of knowing how to get things done.
So why would you let something like Speaker Dysfunction get in your way?
Isn't it time you talked to your doctor about Viagra?
Side effects may include ticked off Teabaggers, default on the national debt, and another worldwide recession.

Read the rest of this post...

Exxon Q2 profit up 41% to $10.7 billion

Making money hand over fist. Every drop in your collective tank, folks, is another house in the Hamptons for some lucky job creator. WSJ (my emphasis):

Exxon Mobil Corp.'s (XOM) second-quarter profits jumped a lower-than-expected 41% as the company became the latest oil giant to benefit from high oil prices and improved refining and marketing results.

Exxon on Thursday reported a profit of $10.68 billion, or $2.18 a share, up from $7.56 billion, or $1.61 a share, a year earlier. ... Revenue climbed 33.5% to $125.5 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $121.39 billion.

Exxon Mobil's shares were recently trading 1.8% down at $81.78. The stock is up 34% in the past year.

Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company by market value, joined rivals ConocoPhillips (COP), BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA, RDSB, RDSA.LN, RDSB.LN) on reporting skyrocketing profits that echoed the record earnings oil companies posted before the financial collapse in 2008, when oil traded above $147 per barrel.

Exxon's Q2 profit computes out to $1,300 per second, according to Shannyn Moore. Whew.

My Q2 profit is lower than expected as well, but I have only myself to blame — I haven't created one job in Asia in the last three months.

GP Read the rest of this post...

New disturbing Murdoch hacking story emerges

The Murdoch people are downright sick. If it turns out that Rebekah Brooks did befriend the family, provide them with a mobile phone and then hacked that phone, this may be a new low even for News Corp.

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail.

Police had earlier told her correctly that her name was not among those recorded in Mulcaire's notes, but on Tuesday officers from Operation Weeting told her they had found her personal details among the investigator's notes. These had previously been thought to refer to a different target.

Friends of Payne have told the Guardian that she is "absolutely devastated and deeply disappointed" at the disclosure. Her cause had been championed by the News of the World, and in particular by its former editor, Rebekah Brooks. Believing that she had not been a target for hacking, Payne wrote a farewell column for the paper's final edition on 10 July, referring to its staff as "my good and trusted friends".

Read the rest of this post...

UPDATE -- Vote Postponed: It’s crunch time for Boehner. Still unclear if he has votes to pass his debt plan.

UPDATE @ 5:33 PM: The vote has been postponed. Boehner clearly doesn't have 216. Via Ryan Grim:

Boehner is pulling his bill from the floor. Oh lord. This sucker could go down.

The vote could still be later tonight. Depends how many arms get twisted -- and broken.
________________________
Via National Journal, Boehner needs 216 to pass his debt plan -- and the vote is expected around 6 PM ET:

Rep. Maurice Hinchey's, D-N.Y., office has told National Journal that he will not be voting today, as he has not all week. That, combined with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., still being away, means that with two vacancies there will be, at most, 431 Members voting tonight. Therefore, House Speaker John Boehner needs 216 votes to pass his bill. Without any Democratic help, he can still now lose 24 Republican votes if all the rest of the total 240 Republicans show up and vote his way.

It looks like all the Democrats will oppose Boehner's plan, so this is an intra-GOP battle.

National Journal counts 23 GOPers voting no with three leaning no and six undecided.

Think Progress has been diligently tracking the GOP no votes in this post and on Twitter. They're count is at 26.

The Hill's Whip Count is 24 No votes from Republicans.

And, this from Bob Cusack at The Hill:

House Republican leaders are still looking for the votes to pass Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) debt-limit bill.

Boehner and his lieutenants are publicly expressing confidence, but their actions clearly show that they are still rounding up support. Boehner on Thursday afternoon was seen lobbying members, seeking “yes” votes in what is the biggest vote of his Speakership.

Note from John: Another thing probably causing problems for Boehner is the fact that this bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Members of Congress often don't like voting on controversial legislation that isn't going anywhere. The vote puts them on the record, permitting their opponents to use it against them in the next campaign. In this case, the Teabaggers could use the vote against House Rs (to claim they're not conservative enough), and Democrats could use the vote as well, to show how House Republicans want to gut Medicare and Social Security, etc.

It's hard to explain to your own caucus why they have to fall on their sword for a vote to nowhere. Read the rest of this post...

GOP gov. Christie swears in Muslim judge, calls out GOP extremists

In this instance, good for Christie for swearing in the new judge and calling out the loons of his party.

Mr. Christie defended Mr. Mohammed, who is Muslim, calling him an extraordinary American and an outstanding lawyer who helped strengthen ties between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muslim community after the 2001 attacks.

Mr. Christie said the people Mr. Mohammed represented were inappropriately detained by the FBI after what he called a very difficult time for law enforcement.

"It's just crazy, and I'm tired of dealing with the crazies," he said. "It's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background." Mr. Christie added: "I'm happy that he's willing to serve after all this baloney."

Read the rest of this post...

Poll: Voters care way more about jobs than deficit

Who would have guessed besides everyone outside of the beltway? Even 50% of the Teabaggers want jobs over reducing the deficit. Bloomberg:

Sixty-seven percent of those questioned said they would prefer that politicians focus on employment, according to a report by Washington’s Mellman Group and Ayres McHenry and Associates Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia. The study, released today, was sponsored by the Washington-based Alliance for American Manufacturing.

“Most support a national manufacturing strategy and strong support has grown in the past year,” the consultants said in the report.

The two consulting groups advised manufacturers to pursue their political goals with messages focused on American pride in making things rather than on statements about tax policy or human-rights abuses in China, the world’s fastest-growing economy. The alliance includes Pittsburgh’s U.S. Steel Corp. and Luxembourg’s ArcelorMittal (MT), as well as the United Steelworkers union, based in Pittsburgh, and advocates stricter enforcement of U.S. trade laws and measures that protect American producers.

The full poll is here. Some key findings, via press release: Some key findings from the poll, include:

· When given an “either/or” choice, just 29% want Washington to focus on deficit reduction while 67% favor job creation.

· “Creating manufacturing jobs in the U.S.” and “strengthening manufacturing in this country” are the top voter priorities for the President.

· Only 50% of voters believe that the President is working to create manufacturing jobs – an 11% drop from 2010. Congress fares even worse – 41% say Democrats in Congress are working to create jobs, and 32% see the GOP working to create jobs.

· 90% have a favorable view of American manufacturing companies – up 22 points from 2010.

· 97% have a favorable view of U.S.-made goods – up 5 points from 2010.

· 94% of voters say creating manufacturing jobs is either “one of the most important” things government can do or “very important.”

· 90% support Buy American policies “to ensure that taxpayer funded government projects use only U.S.-made goods and supplies wherever possible.”

· 95% favor keeping “America’s trade laws strong and strictly enforced to provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses.”

But Washington just keeps talking about the deficit. Read the rest of this post...

TPM: "House Republicans unprepared for Senate rejection Of Boehner debt limit plan"

As of this moment (which is snowflake-different from any other moment in this "crisis"), it's dueling congressional bills. On the title card we have the Boehner House bill vs. the Reid Senate bill for the right to move to the quarter-finals.

From Brian Beutler at TPMDC:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told his Republican caucus Thursday morning that he doesn't yet have enough committed support to pass his debt limit bill -- a high stakes vote that will take place just hours from the time of this writing.

Most of his members believe he'll get there quickly -- even among the opponents of his bill, it's hard to find anybody who believes with any confidence that Boehner's plan will go down. ...

But if it passes, Republicans will have to grapple with a key question -- one they haven't really considered, and which Boehner hasn't prepared them to answer: What happens when the Senate sends them back a different plan? ... Rep. Allen West (R-FL) -- a conservative supporter of Boehner plan -- says Republicans are looking no farther than Thursday's vote.

The usual reconciliation procedure is in conference committee, which (gasp) involves compromise — either good or bad, depending on your point of view and the issue under consideration. Unless you're a Tea Type with integrity ("one-with-self-ness") of course, in which case, "compromise bad."

I want to say "get the popcorn" but what we're likely to need more is hoses to rinse down the blood. This has ugly written all over it.

Did someone say the new deadline is August 10? Great — overtime. I'm still for a sudden-death ending: no time for anything but a voice vote on a clean bill.

For more on these competing bills, Jed Lewison at Daily Kos has a great rundown of the differences between Boehner's bill and Reid's, including a handy chart.

Pay special attention to the "Super Congress" provisions in each bill — what Lewison calls the "deficit reduction committee." Reid's bill has No deficit target, no minimum entitlement cuts, no required congressional passage. Still lots of danger in that one, but no mandated danger. Kicks the bomb further down the road, so to speak.

And I'll say till I die — none of this could happen without Obama's Bush Tax Cut extensions in December. Eleven-dimensional mistake, or Set-up for this great opportunity? You decide.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Republican Congressman wants to eliminate EPA if GOP wins in 2012

The only good thing about this slug is that he's honest about it. We know that's what many of the Republicans already think. More from ThinkProgress:

ROGERS: You know the fact is, if in fact I think the American people do next November what they started last November, that is, cleaning house, and we do get a Republican-controlled Senate and a Republican president, I think you going to see some dramatic structural changes in this country because we can’t continue to suppor this infrastructure we have. And I’m not talking about just changes to the trust funds and the entitlement programs. You know, we gotta look at what we really need to be doing, and what we don’t need to be doing. For example, we didn’t have an EPA under Jimmy Carter. Who says the federal government has to have an EPA. Every state has their own environmental protection agency. Why does the federal government need to be doing that? Department of Education: I’m a big believer that education is a state and local matter, why do we need a federal department of education? I think we’ll have to look at a lot of things that we’re doing at the federal level and ask ourselves, ‘is this really what the federal role?’ And if not, discontinue it.

Read the rest of this post...

How Timothy McVeigh provided inspiration to Norway's Behring

Andrew Gumbel, author of an upcoming book about the Oklahoma City bombing, has an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times noting the comparisons between the Norway shooter and Timothy McVeigh:

America's violent far right would have no difficulty recognizing the tell-tale signatures of Friday's killing spree in Norway — and not just because they would see the confessed perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, as an ideological soul mate who, like their own heroes, thought he could trigger a white-supremacist revolution with bombs and bullets.

Breivik appears to have been more than simply inspired by American predecessors such as Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber: The materials he used, the way he planned and carried out his attacks, and his own writings all suggest he was deeply familiar with the actions of some notorious political killers on this side of the Atlantic.

And, hopefully, Breivik's shooting will have the same impact:

The Oklahoma City bombing was ultimately viewed as an operational disaster by the radical far right in this country because the death toll of innocents — including 19 children under age 5 — caused only revulsion and effectively squashed the American militia movement. Breivik's grand murderous folly is likely to generate that same kind of disgust.

Today's New York Times reports there's already been a noticeable change in rhetoric:

Less than a week after the mass killings in Norway, evidence of a shift in the debate over Islam and the radical right in Europe already appeared to be taking hold on a traumatized Continent.

As the police in Norway and abroad continued to search for potential accomplices, expressions of outrage over the deaths crossed the political spectrum. Members of far-right parties in Sweden and Italy were condemned from within their own ranks for blaming multiculturalism for the attack. A member of France’s far-right National Front was suspended for praising the attacker.

Read the rest of this post...

Boehner’s big day: Can he get GOP votes to pass debt deal?

John Boehner needs 217 votes to pass his debt plan. There are 240 House Republicans. It's unclear if any Democrats will vote with Boehner, so he can only lose 23 members of his caucus.

Against that backdrop, this week, according to numerous reports, John Boehner tried to become a hard ass. NY Times:

Speaker John A. Boehner is a laid-back leader who likes to say that his role is to let the House work its will. But with the nation’s economic standing and his own political future at risk, Mr. Boehner jettisoned his usual laissez-faire approach on Wednesday.

“I didn’t put my neck on the line and go toe to toe with Obama to not have an army behind me,” Mr. Boehner declared at a private party meeting, according to some House members. He demanded the fealty of conservatives who were threatening to sink his budget proposal and deny him the chance to confront the Senate with a take-it-or-leave offer on a debt ceiling increase.

Washington Post:

With his power — and his party — in danger of a humiliating collapse, John A. Boehner had to become the politician he had promised he was not.

Boehner, a genial Ohioan famous for crying in public, had pledged that he would not be an arm-twister like some House speakers of the past. When he took the gavel in January, Boehner (R) promised to allow the House to “work its will.”

By Wednesday, that strategy had led him to a bad place. His party was in revolt. Many Republican lawmakers were publicly critical of his new plan to raise the national debt ceiling, and the bill’s prospects were seriously in doubt.

Still unclear if Boehner has the votes. His future is in the hands of the hard-core teabagger types. From The Hill:

House Republicans who signed a "cut, cap and balance" pledge are expected to decide the fate of Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) new debt and deficit reduction bill.

Thirty-nine House Republicans embraced the pledge, which vows to oppose any bill that raises the debt ceiling unless it calls for major cuts, spending caps and a balanced budget amendment.

Nineteen of those 39 have said they will oppose, or will likely oppose, Boehner's bill. Only six of them have publicly committed to backing the bill, or are leaning toward supporting it.

Then there are 14 others who have not said how they will vote. Republican leaders must convince most of these members to vote yes, or the bill will die on the House floor Thursday, according to an analysis by The Hill.

The Hill has posted its whip count. The vote will be later today. There's plenty of time for Boehner to twist arms.

UPDATE: Looks like the House vote will occur in the early evening, after the markets close:

Indeed, House Republicans are planning an evening vote on Boehner’s package to lift the debt ceiling — after the financial markets close in New York.

Read the rest of this post...

Teabagger congressman being sued for $100,000 of child support

It's the family values that always impresses me the most. Doesn't his ex wife and kids know that he was too busy being patriotic during the past nine years to bother paying child support? Why do his kids hate America?

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December.

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” Walsh says directly into the camera in his viral video lecturing Obama on the need to get the nation’s finances in order.

Walsh starts the video by saying, “President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country.”

In court documents, after his ex-wife, Laura Walsh, asked a judge to suspend his driver’s license until he paid his child support, Joe Walsh asks his ex-wife’s lawyer: “Have you no decency?”

Read the rest of this post...

9/11 families to meet with US Attorney General over News Corp hacking

This story is not going away for the Murdoch family. We need to know a lot more about how Murdoch's media empire acted in the US. The Guardian:

Relatives of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York are to meet with America's top law enforcement official to discuss allegations that journalists working for News Corporation tried to gain access to the phone records of the dead.

The US attorney general Eric Holder has agreed to see a group of family members and their legal representative on 24 August to discuss the progress of an FBI investigation. The agreement to hold the meeting is a sign of how seriously the inquiry is being taken.

Norman Siegel, a New York-based lawyer who represents 20 families who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001, confirmed the meeting and said he intended to take as many of the relatives as possible to see Holder in Washington. "We are hoping the allegations of hacking prove to be untrue but we want a thorough investigation to determine what happened," he said.

In the UK the government is asking questions about the millions of deleted emails and what Rupert Murdoch's News Corp knew about it. Stay tuned. Read the rest of this post...

British NHS health care rationing begins

Despite what the GOP says, the US has already had rationing with health care. It was called private health insurance. The NHS has had it's share of waiting (especially compared to France, which is public/private but is fast) but the Conservatives almost seem to be trying their darnedest to make the NHS unworkable. As we see with the Republicans in the US, they cut funding and then stand back and say "see, it doesn't work so it needs to be scrapped." The fact is, the NHS - warts and all - still ranks much higher than the US system. At least it did until the Tories decided to "modernize" it. The Independent:

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money.

Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for "non-urgent" conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years. One in three primary-care trusts (PCTs) has expanded the list of procedures it will restrict funding to in the past 12 months.

Read the rest of this post...

Deadly algae hits French coast of Brittany again

One of these days governments are going to wake up to the problem of industrial farm fertilizers. It's one of the reasons the Chesapeake Bay also has a lot of problems, but the problem is very common thanks to these chemicals.

Close to the estuary a beach at Saint-Maurice is now closed because of stinking piles of sludge from decomposing green algae. The local mayor said the beach had been cordoned off because the slime could harbour pockets of toxic gas fatal to humans if they slipped on it.

Local environmentalists have long campaigned against the dangers of what has become known as Brittany's "killer" green algae. It has been affecting the rugged north Breton coastline for decades but has increased in recent years, causing the death of a worker who was clearing it in 2009, as well as killing dogs and a horse walking on the beach.

Ecologists blame the spread of the algae on nitrates in fertilisers used in intensive pig, sheep and dairy farming in Brittany, saying the nitrates flow into the river system and enter the sea.

Read the rest of this post...

What if you threw a deficit party and nobody came?

From the Washington Post article Joe linked to earlier. The quote below talks about how much it benefits the President if a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction is reached:

“It benefits him politically a great deal if there’s a big deal,” said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy and a co-founder of Third Way, a left-leaning group that has been supporting an ambitious plan. “The deficit favors Republicans. But if it seems like it’s been solved, then you take away one of the biggest Republican issues and at worst you neutralize it and at best you win it.”

Just because it's the GOP's top priority doesn't make it the public's. Come next election, in November of 2012, families across America aren't going to vote based on how well we've reined in the deficit. They're going to vote based on how well the economy is doing - how well their own families are doing - the same thing they voted on last time. Read the rest of this post...