Oil prices down over 20%

Since the Republicans were criticizing Obama for high oil prices when they were climbing, shouldn't they now congratulate Obama on the lower prices? No?

U.S. July crude fell to $87.95 at 2:30 p.m. Singapore time (6.30 a.m. GMT), 20.6 percent lower than the year’s high of $110.85 hit on February 24. Front-month crude prices are headed for a loss of about 17 percent for May, the biggest monthly drop since December 2008.

Analysts say there could more declines for oil amid uncertainty over the global economy and on selling by speculators who had hoped that prices would go higher because of a supply disruption in the Middle East.

Andrew Su, CEO of Compass Global Markets, who has been ‘short’ oil since it was at $102.50 per barrel, said he expected it to fall to $78 at the end of September.

Obama may not have had much to do with the price declines but he had very little to do with the prices increases as well. Even with lower prices, it's still critical for the US to move forward with alternative energies. The challenge of increasing oil prices is not going to ever go away permanently so to whether it's solar, wind, sea or whatever, we still need investments for the long run.

While Solyndra was nothing short of a failure, it doesn't mean the entire program should be scrapped. The GOP ignores the billions in handouts that taxpayers give to Big Oil (who then screw consumers) each year. Shouldn't we be putting at least the same amount of subsidies into new energy development as we do for Big Oil? Read the rest of this post...

Chicago police: "Your First Amendment rights can be terminated"

Just another fine day with the Chicago police force. When they're not inflicting damage on your ears, they're urinating on the US Constitution and making up the law as they see fit.

See the video of Chicago's finest here and read more about the arrests of NBC journalists at MSNBC.com.

"Your First Amendment rights can be terminated," yells the Chicago police officer, caught on video right before arresting two journalists outside a Chicago hospital. One, an NBC News photographer, was led away in handcuffs essentially for taking pictures in a public place. He was released only minutes later, but the damage was done. Chicago cops suffered an embarrassing "caught on tape" moment, and civil rights experts who say cops are unfairly cracking down on citizens with cameras had their iconic moment.

Tales of reporters, protestors and citizen journalists being threatened or arrested for filming law enforcement officials during disputes are on the rise, critics say, with Occupy Wall Street protests a lightning rod for these incidents. The National Press Photographers Association claims it has documented 70 such arrests since September and, in May, called on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to focus attention on the issue.

Maybe it's time for the Justice Department to pick up the phone and restore some order out there. Read the rest of this post...

Paralyzed rats successfully run again in new study

Humans aren't there yet, but one of these days scientists are going to have a solution for paralyzed humans. This is a very encouraging study out of Switzerland. LA Times:

Paralyzed rats learned to walk, run and spring deftly over obstacles after they were put on a physical training regimen that included electrical and chemical stimulation of their broken spinal columns and a “robotic postural interface,” a new study reveals.

The study, published Thursday in Science, suggests that for humans with spinal cord injury, the trick to regaining lost movement may lie not in regeneration of the severed spinal cord, but in inducing the brain and spinal cord to forge wholly new paths toward each other. The Swiss authors liken that process to the way that infants, their nervous systems incomplete and learning by experience, sync up their brains and limbs so they can progressively crawl, stand, walk and play.

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Court revokes bail of George Zimmerman, Travyon Martin shooter

Breaking from ABC News (my emphasis):

A judge revoked bond today for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of a Florida teenager in his gated community, and ordered him to surrender himself in 48 hours.

Prosecutors had filed a motion today to revoke his bond, accusing Zimmerman of "deceiving" the court about his finances and his possession of a second passport, which he apparently acquired two weeks after the shooting.

More explanation in the story. It appears that someone considered Zimmerman a flight risk after all.

UPDATE: Very nice catch on the passport problem by commenter BeccaM. Thanks.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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On Facebook, "likes" become ads

On Facebook, you are the product. What you post is sold to advertisers. Facebook collects the cash and hands it to their billionaires. You don't get a cut.

It doesn't get clearer than this (my emphasis and reparagraphing):

On Valentine’s Day, Nick Bergus came across a link to an odd product on Amazon.com: a 55-gallon barrel of ... personal lubricant. He found it irresistibly funny and, as one does in this age of instant sharing, he posted the link on Facebook, adding a comment: “For Valentine’s Day. And every day. For the rest of your life.”

Within days, friends of Mr. Bergus started seeing his post among the ads on Facebook pages, with his name and smiling mug shot. Facebook — or rather, one of its algorithms — had seen his post as an endorsement and transformed it into an advertisement, paid for by Amazon.

In Facebook parlance, it was a sponsored story, a potentially lucrative tool that turns a Facebook user’s affinity for something into an ad delivered to his friends.

"Facebook parlance" indeed. Note how the euphemism "sponsored story" preserves the ego-stroke aspect of repurposing a writer's work (see? your name in lights!) while collecting back-door cash off of it.

There's a real benefit to people who use Facebook — spread-wide families keep in touch with each other, East Coast nieces are finally in contact with long-forgotten West Coast cousins, and school chums reconnect.

That fratboy college gang you "hung" with before your wage-slave days can recreate their fratboy camaraderie in virtual space, while sitting in boxes (cubicles) and working off the massive college loans that made their lovable hijinx possible. (See? Just like the old days, minus the upchuck and personal freedom.)

But the overriding benefit of Facebook is to its billionaires. Like the executive class of all corporations, they feed on the profits of their company. The Facebook difference? While they pay for manufacturing (those algorithms), the raw material (your postings, messages, likes and leavings) is free, as is the cost of shipping. The product comes to them to be sold and it pays its own freight.

On the plus side, I think people are figuring all this out. That's why (a) Facebook ap usage appears to be down, not growing; (b) Facebook is marketing itself more and more aggressively through "Like us on Facebook" shared-marketing deals; and (c) that IPO benefited only the corrupt insiders, with not much spillover into the actual market non-cognoscenti. (See here on post-IPO pressures to increase Facebook profits.)

Me, I'm concerned about what this article calls Facebook's ability to "amass more information about more people than anyone else in history."

What happens when all that data ends up in the giant NSA "security" depository we wrote about so many news cycles ago? Guess we'll find out, won't we?

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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GOP spokesman: "Let’s hurl some acid" at female Democratic senators

The GOP war on women continues. What kind of a sicko proposes this kind of violence against women? Why does Jay Townsend, a campaign spokesman for Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth (NY-19), still have a job this morning?

Townsend's comments (which have since been removed) were posted Thursday on a local Facebook discussion forum for New York's 19th congressional district. Townsend was responding to comments made by a commenter named "Tom" during an online debate over gas prices. Townsend wrote:

"Listen to Tom. What a little bee he has in his bonnet. Buzz Buzz. My question today … when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women? Let's hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won't abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector."

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US employment numbers far below pessimistic forecasts

There's no way around the fact that the May numbers are weak. Unemployment bumped up and the new jobs were only 69,000, well under the consensus 158,000. Yes, private employment is up and government jobs are shrinking and yes, the number is still above the painful 20,000 per month average from the Bush years. That said, we need a lot more jobs.

The challenge now will be avoiding the trap that Republicans will set, promoting the urgent need for austerity. If there's one thing we can't afford now, it's austerity. That program is taking Europe down the drain quickly and it would be a death blow for the US economy if implemented now.

Tax cuts for the so-called "job creators" is another terrible idea that will get new coverage via the Romney campaign but after this many years of Bush tax cuts, how much more obvious can it be that those tax cuts only add more to the deficit without providing the always promised jobs?

More on the miserable May jobs report via Bloomberg:

American employers in May added the smallest number of workers in a year and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased as job-seekers re-entered the workforce, further evidence that the labor-market recovery is stalling.

Payrolls climbed by 69,000 last month, less than the most- pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, after a revised 77,000 gain in April that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate called for a 150,000 May advance. The jobless rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent, while hours worked declined.

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Pelosi triples down, stands firm for Bush tax cuts for those at $1 million in earnings or less

Straight news, literally she-said (Pelosi) versus he-said (Obama). You decide. My most recent thoughts are here. I'm shifting slightly after doing some digging, but not a ton.

Bottom line — Pelosi doubles down on doubling down. (Is that a triple or a quad?) Either way, this is now the third round of her affirming this position. She wants tax breaks for those between $250,000 and $1,000,000.

Huffington Post on the she-said (my emphasis and paragraphing):

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday defended her push to permanently extend "middle class" tax cuts to people making up to $1 million, saying that drawing the line at $250,000 hasn't worked.

Pelosi has come under fire since she pressed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last week to hold a vote to extend "middle class" Bush tax cuts. ...

During her weekly briefing, Pelosi took aim at her critics and said that her proposal is the best way forward if people want to see any kind of permanent middle class tax cut extension in Congress.

Now the he-said:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodged questions Thursday on what Obama thinks about Pelosi's proposal. He reiterated that the president is committed to tax cuts for those making less than $250,000.

Pelosi thinks this is "about getting something done."

So far, the White House and Pelosi appear to be in disagreement, and are taking that appearance of disagreement to the next level.

I'll offer my take on the Bush–Obama Tax Cut deal in a later post. Is this really the "best way forward" as Pelosi asserts? We'll examine that.

Whether you believe or disbelieve the sincerety of either of these positions, the post-election Lame Duck session will tell the tale. If it quacks like an extension of the whole Bush (and Obama) tax cut package, it is an extension of the whole package.

What kind of quackery is this? We'll know for sure in December.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Romney falsely claims Obama said he'd lower unemployment to 6 percent by 2012

From the Obama campaign, via email:

In his CBS interview tonight, Mitt Romney repeated the debunked and misleading claim that the President said he would drive unemployment down to 6% by this time in his term. As numerous independent fact-checkers and news outlets have highlighted, the President never said that - the figure comes from a report prepared weeks before the President took office and before even economists knew the depth of the economic recession. Under President Obama’s leadership, we’ve gone from the brink of another depression and losing 750,000 jobs a month to adding over 4.2 million private sector jobs over the last 26 months. Mitt Romney would undo this progress by giving more budget-busting tax cuts to the wealthy on the middle class’ dime and letting Wall Street write its own rules—the same formula that benefited a few, but crashed our economy and punished the middle class. Loading the country up with debt while giving tax breaks to the wealthy—America can’t afford Romney Economics.

ROMNEY: “And of course domestically, it's hard to call what, now, 39, 40 months of unemployment above 8% a success when even he said by now, it would be in the 6% range. And by now it is not. It's over eight.”

INDEPENDENT FACT CHECKERS HAVE REPEATEDLY DEBUNKED THE CLAIM THAT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PROMISED THE RECOVERY ACT WOULD KEEP UNEMPLOYMENT BELOW 8 PERCENT

PolitiFact “Could Find No Evidence Of Anyone In The Administration Making A Public Pledge That The Stimulus Would Keep The Unemployment Rate Below 8 Percent.” “Obama warned upon taking office that if "dramatic action" were not taken, "the unemployment rate could reach double digits," with the recession lasting for years. But PolitiFact could find no evidence of anyone in the administration making a public pledge that the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.” [PolitiFact, 10/13/2011]

PolitiFact Has Reviewed This Claim Multiple Times And Has Called It “Mostly False” In Each Case. “PolitiFact National and its state affiliates have debunked similar claims several times before,starting with U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) in July 2009. More recently, Romney faced the Truth-O-Meter for repeating that statement earlier this month after winning the Nevada caucuses. Each time, the claim has received a Mostly False.” [PolitiFact, 2/27/2012]

Associated Press: “Obama Never Said That He Would Hold Unemployment Below 8 Percent If Congress Adopted His Stimulus Package.” “ROMNEY: "The administration pledged that their stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent. It has been above 8 percent every month since." THE FACTS: Obama never said that he would hold unemployment below 8 percent if Congress adopted his stimulus package.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2012]

Washington Post Fact Checker: “The Information To Disprove This Claim Exists On The Romney Campaign Web Site.” “Interestingly, the information to disprove this claim exists on the Romney campaign Web site. Far from being anything that Obama said, the Romney campaign acknowledges that this 8 percent figure comes from a staff-written projection issued Jan. 9, 2009 — before Obama had taken the oath of office. Of course, the campaign still spins it as a negative.” [Washington Post, 2/21/2012]

Ø Romney’s Claim That President Obama “Said The Stimulus Would Keep Unemployment Below 8 Percent” Earned Three Pinocchios From The Washington Post Fact Checker, Who Said “It Is Distressing That Romney Would Continue [To] Hype It Up Into Such A Misleading Assertion.” [Washington Post, 2/21/2012]

THE 8 PERCENT FIGURE CITED BY ROMNEY AND REPUBLICANS COMES FROM A REPORT THE PRESIDENT’S TRANSITION TEAM PREPARED AND RELEASED WEEKS BEFORE THE PRESIDENT TOOK OFFICE

The 8 Percent Figure Cited By Romney And Republicans Comes From A Report The President’s Transition Team Prepared And Released Weeks Before The President Took Office.“The 8 percent figure cited by Romney, and many other Republicans, comes from a transition staff-written projection written by economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein that was issued weeks before Obama was sworn in and long before there even was a stimulus plan before Congress.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2012]

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London police accused of racism 51 times in last two months

But to be fair to the Metropolitan police, they haven't had any innocent bystanders killed by police in a few years. Bring on the Olympics visitors! Or at least the white people visitors. The Guardian:

Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has admitted there is "more to do" to tackle racism in the Metropolitan police after it emerged that 51 complaints related to allegations of racism have been made to the police watchdog in the past two months.

The welter of complaints lodged since 1 April was revealed by the Labour chair of London's police and crime committee, Joanne McCartney, as she challenged Johnson over the true scale of racism within Scotland Yard.

Making his first personal appearance in front of the committee since it replaced the Metropolitan Police Authority, disbanded in January, Johnson said: "I think any incident of racism is too much."

Racism has a long tradition in the British police. Failing to address the problems has been going on for almost as long and the excuses were worn out decades ago. Read the rest of this post...