State and local budget cuts dragged down US economy last quarter

Just as it did in the UK. Wait until the full impact of the budget chopping at the local, state and national level kicks in. The GOP is poised to crush any hope of recovery. The Social Security tax cut may have some impact but to expect anything like that to make up for stimulus money is unrealistic.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that economic growth increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the final quarter of last year. That was down from the initial estimate of 3.2 percent.

State and local governments, wrestling with budget shortfalls, cut spending at a 2.4 percent pace. That was much deeper than the 0.9 percent annualized cut first estimated and was the most since the start of 2010.

Consumers spent a little less than first thought. Their spending rose at a rate of 4.1 percent, slightly smaller than the initial estimate of 4.4 percent. Still, it was the best showing since 2006. And it suggests Americans will play a larger role this year in helping the economy grow, especially with more money from a Social Security tax cut.

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Rolling Stone: US military violated law and used pys-ops against US Congress

The US military brass has been living in Banana Republic land for years now. Can anyone name another first world country where the military leadership is so present, so powerful and so casual with the law? It doesn't happen to the degree that it does in the US yet everyone thinks this is normal. As long as there are no repercussions for such un-American and probably illegal behavior, it's not realistic to think it will stop any time soon. The war machine is so similar to Wall Street, who can get away with bad behavior thanks to deep pockets and expensive political campaigns. Rolling Stone:

The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.

The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war. According to the Defense Department’s own definition, psy-ops – the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors – are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one."

What is also interesting and of note here is that the old guard media is so lacking on issues like this as well as the banking crisis. The NY Times is still better than the Washington Post, but that's not saying much. The old guard media has been much more concerned with maintaining their access rather than delivering quality journalism. When they wonder why their readers are disappearing and they are losing money, they might give that some thought. Read the rest of this post...

Two DC trans women says (former) GOP congressman was looking for a hook up

It's a grand old party. Read the rest of this post...

Anti-gay Maryland Delegate distributing homophobic material from known hate group

Yesterday, the Maryland State Senate passed the same-sex marriage bill. Today, the House of Delegates held its first hearing. A vote in the full house could happen within weeks. It's starting to get really ugly in Annapolis.

Delegate Don Dwyer, Jr. wants to be the face of homophobia in the General Assembly. Seriously, he's literally said he wants to be "the face of the opposition" to marriage equality. And, he's making great strides in that direction by sending out links and materials from Mass Resistance, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I've posted the email sent by Dwyer to his colleagues in the House of Delegates at AMERICAblog Gay. The other side gets really nasty when they're losing. Now, they're resorting to lies and distortions from a hate group. It's all they've got. Read the rest of this post...

TSA gropes mother and kids *after* train ride

Little Billy sure looks dangerous. He's not wearing a shirt with the American flag so he's probably a terrorist waiting to strike. Thankfully the TSA is there to bring security after the family gets off of the train in Savannah. What fool thinks this makes anyone safer? Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: Wisconsin budget bill is 'a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering'

Sometimes Paul Krugman is right on the money — with no "But Professor, you didn't go far enough" waiting in the wings. This time he goes far enough. He starts rhetorically, by saying maybe Wisconsin isn't just Cairo, but Baghdad under the heavy privatizing hand of L. Paul Bremer and the baby neocons.

It would be tempting to blurb the start of his article and say go read. But I'd like to feature some of the remarkable detail near the end. The Professor channels, and credits, Naomi Klein (my emphasis throughout):

What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.

Krugman fails to add "Walker created the crisis with tax cuts," but you can't say everything in 700 words. And its those "extraordinary things hidden deep inside" that get his attention, and mine.

For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.

And then there’s this: "Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state." ... The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”

Krugman calls this, correctly, "a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering". But wait, there's more. Koch Industries (remember them?) "invested" in the governor because they're already heavily invested in the state:

Koch Industries has numerous businesses in Wisconsin, from Georgia-Pacific paper mills to coal and shipping companies. Approximately 3,000 people are directly employed by the company in the state, and 8,000 more indirectly.

The Professor wonders if maybe, just maybe, Koch Industries may want to buy those state-owned power plants, without having to bid, for that magic amount the Walker regime, in its sole discretion, "determines to be in the best interest of the state". (How's zero? Is zero good for you?)

So watch these power plants, and watch the Koch Brothers. The privatization of Wisconsin power is the other big story here. It should not be buried.

This is the Billionaire's Coup in action, by the way, and this time the billionaires have names — Charles & David Koch. Invest in the state, buy the governor and everyone else that counts, then use captive government to pick the state clean. There's no crime scene tape if you already own the cops.

Just so you know, the other name for the Billionaire's Coup is Rubinite Neoliberalism. Seems it's a two-party thing.

GP Read the rest of this post...

UK economy, model for GOP budget cuts, shrunk even more than previously thought in last quarter

If the GOP has their way in the US, expect the same result here. Bloomberg:

Britain’s economy shrank more than initially estimated in the fourth quarter, complicating the task of the Bank of England as a split deepens among policy makers on whether to withdraw stimulus.

Gross domestic product fell 0.6 percent from the previous three months, compared with an initial estimate for a 0.5 percent drop, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The statistics office said its “best estimate” for the impact of cold weather on the data remains 0.5 percent. The slump was led by construction and investment.

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Greenwald on Colbert talks Anonymous (Colbert secretly slips on Anonymous mask)

Glenn Greenwald talked Anonymous on Stephen Colbert's show. You'll note around 3 minutes and 23 seconds in, right after Glenn says "we're all Anonymous," Colbert's face flashes a Guy Fawkes mask, the symbol of Anonymous.

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A shop in London is (supposedly) making Breast Milk Ice Cream - sorry, I'm grossed out

I held off on this story for a day, fearing it was a fake. Now everyone is covering it, so I'm supposing it's for real. Curious what you all think - I'm a bit grossed out.

Chris just told me that it is from the Daily Mail, so one never knows if this is a joke or not.

[O]ne restaurant in London is selling breast milk ice cream which is being served to customers in a cocktail glass.

Icecreamists, based in Covent Garden, have named the £14 dish Baby Gaga.

Victoria Hiley, 35, from Leeds provided the first 30 fluid ounces of milk which was enough to make the first 50 servings.

But the company are looking for more women to provide breast milk - and are providing £15 for every ten ounces extracted using breast pumps.

The recipe blends breast milk with Madagascan vanilla pods and lemon zest, which is then freshly churned into ice cream.

A costumed Baby Gaga waitress serves the ice cream in a martini glass filled with the breast milk ice cream mix. Liquid nitrogen is then poured into the glass through a syringe and it is served with a rusk.
It can be served with whisky or another cocktail on request.

Joke or not, is this gross or not? Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Gay marriage not the wedge issue it once was

A fascinating piece in the NYT about how gay marriage just isn't the spicy wedge issue it once was. The Times picked up on the fact, that I hadn't noticed, that many of the GOP presidential contenders for 2012 didn't say squat about Obama's decision not to defend DOMA any longer.

In the hours that followed, Sarah Palin’s Facebook site was silent. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was close-mouthed. Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, released a Web video — on the labor union protests in Wisconsin — and waited a day before issuing a marriage statement saying he was “disappointed.”

Others, like Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, took their time weighing in, and then did so only in the most tepid terms. “The Justice Department is supposed to defend our laws,” Mr. Barbour said.

Asked if Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana and a possible presidential candidate, had commented on the marriage decision, a spokeswoman said that he “hasn’t, and with other things we have going on here right now, he has no plans.”

When the GOP refuses to grandstand on an issue, especially a social issue, that's news. I'd noted previously that GOP House Speaker John Boehner was also quite tepid in his criticism, focusing on jobs rather than the "gay."

Joe has a lot more about this story in the Times and its meaning over at AMERICAblog Gay. Read the rest of this post...

Pope being sued for crimes against humanity

The case is going to have plenty of challenges, but the basis of the accusations is not wrong. The behavior of the church has been immoral and irresponsible with its response to the global AIDS crisis as well as the child rape problems inside the church.

Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”.

They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”.

Note from Joe: Sounds like all those Catholic leaders in America who've been obsessing about same-sex marriage should start worrying about the crimes committed by their boss. And, instead of spending money to fight marriage in states like California, Maine and Maryland, they better start collecting for the Pope's Legal Defense Fund. Read the rest of this post...

Syria shuts down peaceful marches

It would be interesting if Al Jazeera could provide coverage there as well. Their reporting has been amazing during the uprisings. The Guardian:

Tensions are mounting in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after the third peaceful demonstration in three weeks was violently dispersed on Wednesday. There are increasing reports of intimidation and blocking of communications by secret services in the wake of violent unrest in neighbouring Arab countries.

Fourteen people were arrested and several people beaten by uniformed and plainclothes police on Tuesday after about 200 staged a peaceful sit-in outside the Libyan embassy to show support for Libya's protesters.

Witnesses said at least two women were among those beaten.

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Iraqis march in 'day of rage'

Don't they know that they were already liberated? Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld told us so and we know that they've never been wrong about anything.

Hundreds of Iraqis have converged on Baghdad's Liberation Square, as part of an anti-government rally named the "Day of Rage" organised mainly through social networking site Facebook.

About 600 protesters are said to have already gathered on Friday, which comes after weeks of scattered protests around the country calling for an end to corruption, shortages of jobs, food, power and water.

More people are expected to join the demonstrations after Friday prayers.

But turnout may be affected by a speech by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday, warning warning of possible violence by al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party.

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China's internet filter blocks name of US ambassador

Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Searches for Ambassador Jon Huntsman's name in Chinese on popular microblogging site Sina Weibo were met with a message saying results were not available due to unspecified "laws, regulations and policies."

A video circulating online shows Huntsman, who has been mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate, scanning the crowd at the protest site in Beijing last weekend. An unidentified Chinese man asked Huntsman what he was doing there and whether he wanted to see chaos in China. Huntsman walked away from the scene after that comment.

The U.S. Embassy was aware that Huntsman's name was being "restricted on some searches" on China's domestic Internet, spokesman Richard Buangan said, but declined further comment on the issue.

He said the ambassador and some family members were passing through the bustling Wangfujing shopping street on Sunday and it was a coincidence that they were there at the same time as the planned protest.

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