China kicks debt can down the road

Hmmmm, now where have we seen this before? China is in the unfortunate situation of having an economy that is showing signs of strain after years of incredible growth. Even worse is that it was the central government who turbo-charged the economy, which worked well on the upside, but will be painful on the downside. They can push the problem down the road - the same way the West has done it - but eventually the bill will still be waiting. Financial Times:

China has instructed its banks to embark on a mammoth roll-over of loans to local governments, delaying the country’s reckoning with debts that have clouded its economic prospects.

China’s stimulus response to the global financial crisis saddled its provinces and cities with 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) in debts — about a quarter of the country’s output — and more than half those loans are scheduled to come due over the next three years.

Since the principal on many of the loans is not repayable, banks have started extending maturities for local governments to avoid a wave of defaults, bankers and analysts familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. One person briefed on the plan said in some cases the maturities would be extended by as much as four years.

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Promising research study on Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's is one of the biggest areas of focus for Big Pharma, as the numbers of sick are due to increase rapidly in the coming years. Any breakthrough will enormous, so this is encouraging news. BBC News:

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice. The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at "unprecedented" speed. Tests also showed an improvement in some brain function.

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Supreme Court Justice Breyer robbed by man holding machete

He was in the West Indies.  He's fine.

And to celebrate the news that Justice Breyer is okay, here's a video of things running in reverse (it's a cute):

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Our good friend Trevor Thomas is running for Congress in Michigan

Some exciting news this morning. Our very good friend, Trevor Thomas, just tweeted:

I don't believe @JustinAmash represents the Jerry Ford values of west MI; I'm running for Congress to put party aside and fight for our jobs

Yep, Trevor is running for Congress in Western Michigan. Trevor was the most amazing communications director for SLDN during the push to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. John and I watched him in action every day during that battle. He's smart, savvy and committed -- and he wants to make a difference for his home town and home state.

Trevor's campaign website is here. From the announcement:

"It’s time for us to return to the values of Jerry Ford, who put politics aside to do what was best for our country,” Thomas said of his decision to run. “My parents’ generation helped put the world on wheels and furniture in our living rooms. Now it is our time to stand up and fight for Michigan families to ensure they get a fair shake."

Thomas has spent his career fighting for fairness, equality and opportunity. In Congress, he will stand up for working and middle class families – like the one he grew up in – and work to ensure all young people have a secure future in Michigan.

"It used to be that if people worked hard and played by the rules, they wouldn’t have to worry about things like job security, health care, or putting their kids through school,” Thomas said. “That’s no longer the case—and lawmakers in Washington have been too busy playing politics to do what’s best for the American people."

Justin Amash, the 31 year old incumbent Republican, is beloved by the Tea Party. His goal is to be the next Ron Paul. Seriously. That's his goal. It's all about Justin Amash, not his constituents.

I met Trevor on one of his first days in DC. He's made a significant contribution to public policy in this town. But, he's always wanted to go back to Michigan. (He never changed his cell phone from the 616 area code.)

Check out Trevor's video:

And, consider a contribution to Trevor's campaign. Donate here. Read the rest of this post...

Civil war continues in Syria, Arab Spring continues into Arab Winter

Via Slate:

Mortar and tank fire resumed in two neighborhoods of the Syrian city of Homs Monday after the Arab League vowed this weekend to step up support of the country's opposition groups.

Reuters reports that activists say 23 people were killed in Homs on Sunday. More than 300 have died since Feb. 3, when the bombardment of the city, an opposition stronghold, began.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who visited Syria last week, has responded to the Arab League's plan for Syria, calling for a cease-fire agreement from both sides before a U.N. peacekeeping mission is deployed, the New York Times reports.

It really is amazing how governments that we never thought we'd see fall - Qaddafi comes to mind, but Mubarak is a close second - are now gone. The Assad dynasty in Syria is another one. It's very much like when the Soviets and their Eastern European satellites blew up and went away. Not something I'd expected to see in my lifetime. Add this to it.

If Syria is now exploding, the only big remaining "it can never happen here" regimes would seem to Saudia Arabia and Iran (if we stretch the "Arab Spring" metaphor to include Persians). Talk about the geopolitical mess of those two countries blowing up. Read the rest of this post...

Companies raise price of Whitney Houston’s music following her death

Thanks for reminding everyone why the recording industry is despised by so many people. Remind me again why the Obama administration was so keen to help that industry? Isn't it an amazing coincidence that the album prices somehow go up to the same price? Wouldn't we normally call that collusion? MSNBC:

It's easy to get so emotional about a singer after they've passed prematurely, as Whitney Houston did Saturday at the age of 48. But fans seeking to buy her albums in remembrance weren't too happy at sudden price hikes so soon after her death.

The Brits picked up on it quickly, with London-based Next Web writer Matt Brian and The Guardian's Josh Halliday both finding the price increases, which raised Houston's "The Ultimate Collection" 2007 album from £5 (about $7.89) to £8 (about $12.63). In the United States, the cost is even steeper: $15 for the "Greatest Hits" collection at both Amazon and iTunes.

Halliday found out that Sony Music increased the price of "The Ultimate Collection" at about 4 a.m. Sunday, not even 12 hours after news broke of Houston's death. Fans were quick to point fingers at Apple for the anti-sale, but it turned out that when Sony bumped up the wholesale price of "The Ultimate Collection," iTunes and other retailers automatically upped their pricing.

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Collins, Snowe break with GOP over Obama contraceptive insurance rule

Tim-ber.  That sounds you hear is the GOP cleaving in two along the gender gap (and the Catholic gap, as a majority of Catholics also support President Obama over the bishops on this one).

From ThinkProgress:

While GOP senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to fight the Obama’s administration’s modified regulation requiring health insurers and busnisses to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, the revised rule “appears to have won over” two of the five Republican women senators.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in all health plans — are in favor of the new compromise, which would allow religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals to avoid providing birth control. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

Things seem to be slowly shifting against the bishops, and the GOP, on this one. Read the rest of this post...

PPP: Santorum surges 15 points ahead of Romney among Republicans nationally

One thing PPP doesn't mention is where Santorum was at, nationally, in the poll before this one - i.e., how much of a surge?  I've scoured their Web site and can't find it. Not nearly as user-friendly as the old Pollster.com.  If anyone can find it, I'll link.  PPP:

Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP's newest national poll. He's at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

Part of the reason for Santorum's surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney's favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That's a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28).

Santorum is now completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate, especially the most right leaning parts of the party. With those describing themselves as 'very conservative,' he's now winning a majority of voters at 53% to 20% for Gingrich and 15% for Romney. Santorum gets a majority with Tea Party voters as well at 51% to 24% for Gingrich and 12% for Romney. And with Evangelicals he falls just short of a majority with 45% to 21% for Gingrich and 18% for Romney.

It used to be that Gingrich was leading with all these groups and Romney was staying competitive enough with them to hold the overall lead. No more- a consensus conservative candidate finally seems to be emerging and it's Santorum.
The best thing Romney might have going for him right now is Gingrich's continued presence in the race. If Gingrich dropped out 58% of his supporters say they would move to Santorum, while 22% would go to Romney and 17% to Paul. Santorum gets to 50% in the Newt free field to 28% for Romney and 15% for Paul.

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How the Mormons and Scalia prove that Obama is right and the Catholic bishops are wrong

Excellent reading from Jay Bookman at the AJC regarding the Catholic bishops claiming that President Obama can't require insurance companies to cover contraceptives.

In fact, a century of American jurisprudence - including Antonin Scalia himself - prove that you can, and should.Scalia, himself a devout and very conservative Catholic, wrote in the majority decision:

“We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition."

Scalia traces Supreme Court rulings on the issue back to an 1879 decision that upheld federal laws against polygamy. A member of the Mormon Church had argued that because his faith required men to marry multiple wives, polygamy was protected under the First Amendment and that Mormons could claim a religious exemption from such a law.

Might be a good time to ask Mr. Romney if he thinks the United States' no-polygamy rule was an attack on the freedom of religion of Mormons.

I love this part too:

The most relevent to the current controversy is a a 1982 case that closely parallels the current discussion over contraception. In United States v. Lee, the Supreme Court found that there was nothing unconstitutional in requiring an Amish employer to withhold and pay Social Security taxes for his workers even though “the Amish faith prohibited participation in governmental support programs.”

Here’s how they put it:

“When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes that are binding on others in that activity. Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.”

Not that this should surprise anyone, but the Catholic bishops are actually trying to impose their religious beliefs on their own employees, including their employees who aren't even Catholic (of course, even their Catholics employees don't agree with the bishops). How does Mitt Romney feel about the employees' freedom of religion? Or was he just grandstanding, as usual, on an issue that he held a 180 degree different view just six years ago? Read the rest of this post...

Legal action against Murdoch in US increasingly likely

Now we're talking. The US authorities remain too timid, if not afraid, of Rupert Murdoch but that may not even matter. (Surely US authorities are already much too busy prosecuting Wall Street for the collapse to be bothered.) Since News Corp is a US registered company, the overseas fight may be coming to the US because of the location of its headquarters. The Guardian:

It was reported on Sunday night that the solicitor representing the family of Milly Dowler and other alleged victims of phone hacking is to take his battle against Murdoch to America.

Mark Lewis, one of several lawyers representing clients pursuing claims against the News of the World for phone hacking, is expected to travel to the US within the next few weeks to meet American lawyers to discuss legal action there. Lewis was reported to be in the "advanced stages" of bringing at least one case against Murdoch's company in the US. He said he was "not prepared to deny" the reports.

The threat of prosecution under the US foreign corrupt practices act, which criminalises the payment of bribes to public officials by American companies overseas, exposes the company to tens of millions of dollars in fines and the risk of imprisonment of its executive officers – and brings the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal to the US.

Mike Koehler, an expert in FCPA law at Butler University, said the arrests on Saturday marked an escalation in the risk of an FCPA prosecution for the New York-based News Corp. "This spreads the alleged bribery to a completely different newspaper, to a different segment of the company and to other public officials," he said.

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Frank Rich: Who is Mitt Romney? Not an empty suit. "A wall. A mask.”

Mitt Romney, according to Frank Rich, is not an empty suit, fillable by whatever content suits the moment. He's worse — an impenetrable human being, a mask of personal secrecy. There's a big difference.

Here's Rich in a recent New York magazine piece (my emphasis and paragraphing):

If Nixon could learn how to sell himself in 1968 under the tutelage of Roger Ailes, and Bush 41 could receive coaching from the legendary acting teacher Stella Adler in 1980, there might still be hope for Romney under the instruction of, say, Kelsey Grammer. But Romney is too odd, too much a mystery man. We don’t know his history the way we did Nixon’s and Bush’s. His otherness seems not a matter of style and pedigree but existential.

We don’t know who Romney is for the simple reason that he never reveals who he is. Even when he is not lying about his history—whether purporting to have been “a hunter pretty much all my life” (in 2007) or to being a denizen of “the real streets of America” (in 2012)—he is incredibly secretive about almost everything that makes him tick. He has been in hiding throughout his stints in both the private and public sectors. While his career-long refusal to release his tax returns was damaging in itself, it resonated even more so as a proxy for all the other secrets he has kept and still keeps.

Just as Republican caucus votes were being (re-)counted in Iowa, the first serious and thorough Romney biography was published, to deservedly favorable reviews. The authors, Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, are Boston Globe investigative reporters who have tracked him for years. Their book, The Real Romney, is manifestly fair and nonpartisan[.] ... But it’s a measure of how much voters view Romney as a nonentity that they have shown so little interest in reading it. Not even a rave in the Times the week before the South Carolina primary could catapult The Real Romney into the top 500 of the Amazon list, despite the serious possibility that its protagonist could be the next president of the United States.

The book has no bombshells, and the very lack of them is revealing. For all the encyclopedic detail its authors amassed, and all the sources they mined, their subject remains impenetrable. “A wall. A shell. A mask,” they write at the outset, listing the terms used by many who “have known or worked with Romney” and view him as “a man who sometimes seems to be looking not into your eyes but past them.”

Former business and political colleagues are in agreement that he has scant interest in mingling with people in even casual social interactions (in a hallway, for instance) and displays “little desire to know who people are.” He so “rarely went out with the guys in any social venue” that one business associate dubbed him the Tin Man for “his inability to bond.”

During his one term as governor of Massachusetts, Romney was inaccessible to legislators, with ropes and elevator settings often restricting access to his suite of offices. He was notorious, one lawmaker explained, for having “no idea what our names were—none.”

The one penetrable in the impenetrable Romney that Rich identifies is his Mormonism. Not that we understand his relationship to his religion; just that we know that there is one:

That faith is key to the Romney mystery. Had the 2002 Winter Olympics not been held in Salt Lake City, and not been a major civic project of Mormon leaders there, it’s unlikely Romney would have gotten involved. ...

But Romney is even less forthcoming about his religion than he is about his tax returns. ... In Romneyland, Mormonism is the religion that dare not speak its name. Which leaves him unable to talk about the very subject he seems to care about most[.]

The whole piece is interesting; there's more to it than what I excerpted here. But for me, the major question it raises remains this — If Romney's not an empty suit, but an invisibly-filled one, what would we find if that suit came to rule us?

GP Read the rest of this post...

Can the Washington Post, and journalism, survive?

I know it's fashionable on the left to bash the media. Not the same way the right bashes the media, however. I think it was Atrios (aka Duncan Black of Eschaton) who once described the difference between the left and right critique of the media. The right wants the media to lie, and the left wants the media to report the truth.

Our criticisms, when they pop up, are the false equivalencies that the media might create (e.g., the need to suggest that Democrats and Republicans are lying equally at any given moment, even if they're not). The right's criticism is that the media has exposed the truth about any particular right-wing cause of the day (global warming comes to mind). In a very basic way, the left wants to ensure that the media stays unbiased. The right wants the media dead.

Why dead? Because the media are the gate-keepers of the truth. Or at least they're supposed to be. And, as has been said before, facts tend to have a left-wing bias. Or perhaps more accurately, the right likes to lie a lot (e.g., death panels, the economy has gotten worse under Obama, the stimulus didn't work, Reagan cut taxes (he also raised them around a dozen times), tax cuts don't add to the deficit). And whose a lie's worst enemy? On a good day, it's the media.

So I don't like it when folks on the left disparage the media qua media. Hating them for who they are (which is what the right wing does), rather than being disappointed for who they might be if they did their job correctly.

That's a long way to lead in to a story in the NYT about how things aren't going so well at the Washington Post.

The Post faces the same problems as other daily newspapers, whose revenues have sunk as the Web and the tough economy have sapped advertising. But in some ways, its situation is even more daunting. Unlike most other papers with national aspirations, The Post serves a purely local print market, one that for decades had limited competition, and it has depended on local advertisers and subscribers who have since fled to the Web.

Though company managers say privately that The Post is modestly profitable, its newspaper division, which also includes a group of community papers and The Herald of Everett, Wash., reported an operating loss of nearly $26 million through the first three quarters of last year.

That has left the newspaper and the company’s other businesses exposed. The newsroom, once with more than 1,000 employees, now stands at less than 640 people, depleted by buyouts and staff defections. The newspaper’s Style section, once one of the most coveted assignments in American journalism, has shrunk from nearly 100 people to a quarter of that size. Bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are gone. There were so many Friday afternoon cake-cutting send-offs for departing employees last summer that editors had to coordinate them so they didn’t overlap.

“The survival of the institution is not guaranteed,” Mr. Kaiser said in an interview before the December lunch.

And it's not just the Post. Things are hard everywhere. Media, including the blogs, were hit hard by the recession, and the money just isn't come back. A lot of folks are hanging on tight, but at some point, we're going to lose even more newspapers, and blogs, than we have already. And I just have a hard time thinking that's a good thing.

I don't know if I'm just being nostalgic and trying to hold on to what was in the face of what is. Or maybe my fears are reasonable. I worry about the Republicans. They lie. A lot. And even though the media doesn't always do as good a job as it should holding the GOP responsible, things would be far worse without any media at all. Read the rest of this post...