Household wealth crashed 23% in two years

It's fair to start by saying much of the "wealth" in the past was smoke and mirrors. Credit is not wealth. Even so, this is a shocking decline that anti-abortion laws or union bashing can't hide. There's a problem is while the GOP is completely ignoring it, the Democrats aren't doing themselves any favors either. Had the Democrats not rolled over to Wall Street and corporate America, they might be able to speak on this subject with some authority. Being GOP-Lite (Republicans, but without the religious extremism) is not much comfort since we now know that the Republican economic policies fail badly. We've seen it since Reagan and it never gets better. More credit sure, but again, that's not wealth.

Why are those who caused this recession doing so well?

The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009.

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10 animals that look like Yoda

More from Buzzfeed. Read the rest of this post...

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Prosser: The women on the court have 'ganged up' on me

David Prosser, as you may know, is the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice who is also a candidate for re-election to his own seat on April 5.

Prosser is quite the contentious fellow. He has called Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a "total bitch" and threatened to "destroy her."

He also promised to be a "complement" to hard-right Governor Scott Walker and the Republican union-busting legislature. He's that David Prosser.

So the race is heating up and coming to a head (yes, seriously mixed metaphor, but fun). Prosser recently appeared at a March 22 candidate forum, where he was questioned about his contentious remarks. His reply:

It’s a little disconcerting to me that today they [Abrahamson and Bradley] have ganged up and tried to recruit candidates to run against me and create a foul atmosphere inside the Court.

As David Nir at Daily Kos succinctly notes, "So the 'bitches' have 'ganged up' on poor David Prosser." Jeez.

Prosser is no closet Republican. As Wisconsin blogger Jim Rosenberg notes, a pro-Prosser campaign slogan — "Prosser equals Walker" — is now being turned against him, thanks to ... well, Walker:

What’s coming out as the bumper sticker message is that “Prosser Equals Walker” – something that might have been okay early last November, but could well be a losing strategy for April 2011, if his detractors can keep that message front and center. (See www.prosserequalswalker.com .)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is heavily financed by right-wing money:

Conservative interests like Club for Growth and the Wisconsin Association of Manufacturers & Commerce all but sponsored two of the last three winners in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court races. While WMC-backed justices Annette Ziegler and Mike Gableman both had issues raised relating to their ethics, they remain on a court that tilts a bit to the right. Prosser made no bones about his right-wing credentials early on.

See here for more about Ziegler and Gableman. Prosser, Ziegler, Gableman and Roggensack are the Republican caucus on the seven-member court, and they make no bones about the pro-business views their business-financed campaigns have enabled. A vote for Prosser really is a vote for Walker. And Walker's laws will end up before the court.

There are no polls I can find about this race. If anyone does locate one, please post it in the comments. Rosenberg notes, however:

An experienced assistant attorney general, Kloppenburg actually raised more money than Prosser leading up to the primary by a few thousand dollars. But with the well-worn playbook for the conservatives relying on third-party groups to buy up millions in media advertising for their picks and Kloppenburg not being theirs, it didn’t seem like it would matter. While Prosser may still get some help from the usual quarters, it may not be as helpful as it might have been in the past with a tuned-in and enthusiastic opposition group just waiting for evidence that the usual suspects are involved.

With the vote a little more than two weeks away, Kloppenburg is crossing the state and finding herself very welcome. Her name is regularly showing up on the signs of supporters demonstrating in Madison and elsewhere – something that is not lost on her. Kloppenburg’s stump speech is upbeat and she stresses her independence, unlike Prosser’s early stance that relied on his association with the Republicans. The April vote could be substantially heavier than the February primary, with the office of Milwaukee County Executive and Madison mayor on the ballot.

If you're a Wisconsin voter — organize your friends and vote. And if you like, volunteer to support Kloppenberg. What more can I say?

(For fun, click here to see Prosser in action, to get a sense of the man. It's a pro-Prosser speech segment in which Prosser criticizes Kloppenberg, once a prosecutor for the Dept. of Natural Resources, for (ready?) prosecuting environmental violations. Yep, an out and proud Republican to be sure.)

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A friend just opened a new women's shop in Adams Morgan (DC)

(Credit: Washingtonian, Kyle Gustafson)

Nope, this post isn't about politics, it's about a friend's new shop in Adams Morgan (my neighborhood) in DC. It's a women's clothing and jewelry store with stuff that I'm told is very cool (LA style) and not expensive at all (I've been there, just don't know women's clothing). The shop is called Violet, and is run by my friend Julie Egermayer, who is married to my other friend Ari Rabin-Havt. The address is 2439 18th Street NW, Washington DC, and you can check out other pictures of the shop in this spread from the Washingtonian. Be there or be square. Read the rest of this post...

Going to church can make you fat

I knew there was a good reason why I should avoid church. Well, this news plus the whole atheist thing. It's terrible for your health. The CDC map does seem to reflect a serious problem in the Bible Belt. CNN:

Young, religiously active people are more likely than their non-religious counterparts to become obese in middle age, according to new research. In fact, frequent religious involvement appears to almost double the risk of obesity compared with little or no involvement.

What is unclear from the new research is why religion might be associated with overeating.

"Churches pay more attention to obvious vices like smoking or drinking," said Matthew Feinstein, lead author of the research and fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Our best guess about why is that...more frequent participation in church is associated with good works and people may be rewarding themselves with large meals that are more caloric in nature than we would like."

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Seymour Hersh: Why were the U.S. 'Kill Team' soldiers smiling?

Chris in Paris wrote earlier about the opening of the "Kill Team" trials, the court marshalls of the soldiers who shot up a bunch of Afghan civilians and then took pictures of them, Abu Ghraib–style. (Calling this "Abu Ghraib 2" would not be an overstatement, though "My Lai 2" would also fit.)

As Chris noted, the soldiers knew they were killing innocents:

Asked by the judge what his intent was, [Corporal Jeremy] Morlock replied, "The plan was to kill people."

"Did everybody know, `We're killing people who are completely innocent'?" the judge asked.

"Generally, yes, sir, everyone knew," Morlock replied.

Painful. But I want to spotlight these comments by Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker about this incident.

First, our soldiers — and our whole society — are victims of our wars. We desensitize both them and ourselves, to the point where we make monsters of us all (my emphasis and minor paragraphing):

Why photograph atrocities? And why pass them around to buddies back home or fellow soldiers in other units? How could the soldiers’ sense of what is unacceptable be so lost? No outsider can have a complete answer to such a question. As someone who has been writing about war crimes since My Lai, though, I have come to have a personal belief: these soldiers had come to accept the killing of civilians—recklessly, as payback, or just at random—as a facet of modern unconventional warfare.

In other words, killing itself, whether in a firefight with the Taliban or in sport with innocent bystanders in a strange land with a strange language and strange customs, has become ordinary. In long, unsuccessful wars, in which the enemy—the people trying to kill you—do not wear uniforms and are seldom seen, soldiers can lose their bearings, moral and otherwise. The consequences of that lost bearing can be hideous. This is part of the toll wars take on the young people we send to fight them for us. The G.I.s in Afghanistan were responsible for their actions, of course. But it must be said that, in some cases, surely, as in Vietnam, the soldiers can also be victims.

Not innocent victims, but victims nonetheless.

Same with ourselves: not innocent, but victims. To choose one example from many: it has become ordinary in the U.S. to accept war by decree, by presidential fiat, instead of by democratic deliberation of our elected Congress. The U.S. hasn't declared war since Pearl Harbor. And most of us go on with our lives, thinking ourselves relieved of responsibility.

That's the song of the guilty, thinking that Afghan brutality is somehow just the president's fault. Yet we huddle under his umbrella.

Second, this will come home. That cannot be stopped, not by dreams of exceptionalism, nor by any number of Cheney-esque power fantasies. Hersh comments here (and not for the first time):

The Der Spiegel photographs also help to explain why the American war in Afghanistan can probably never be “won,” in my view, just as we did not win in Vietnam. Terrible things happen in war, and terrible things are happening every day in Afghanistan, as Americans continue to conduct nightly assassination raids and have escalated the number of bombing sorties. There are also reports of suspected Taliban sympathizers we turn over to Afghan police and soldiers being tortured or worse.

This will be a long haul; revenge in Afghan society does not have to come immediately. We could end up not knowing who hit us, or why, a decade or two from now.

Revenge in Afghan society. Even if we turned the whole country — shopping malls and golf courses, crystal cathedrals and condo-complexes — into a mass of barbed-wire gate-checked communities — ask yourself, what could a determined vengeance-seeker do to us? The answer is obvious; anything he wants.

The dirty little secret of security checks? Every popular place you put a security check, you put a large bottleneck of bodies, packed tight and waiting to get through.

You'd have to put a security check outside of every security check, to make sure the Bads didn't get into the security lines, and blow it up. Think about it; that's an M.C. Escher impossibility.

We could be hosed for a generation thanks to this stuff. All of us.

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WI GOP demanding email records of prof who criticized governor

First off, a bit thin skinned are we, Governor Walker? Secondly, could the WI GOP be more McCarthyite? Now university professors aren't permitted to write op eds in the NYT? It really is an incredibly offensive move by the Republicans. But not a surprising move. Republicans don't believe in free speech. They don't believe in free anything, other than a corporate free lunch. Sure, they talk about the flag a lot, and God too, but when push comes to shove they couldn't care less about either. Which is why the WI GOP is happy terrorizing a university professor for daring to disagree with the Republican governor, and Newt Gingrich is happy to run as a family values conservative after having three wives and multiple affairs. The truth is irrelevant when you've got Koch on your side. Read the rest of this post...

GOP governor's appointee in AK wants to make it a crime to cheat on your girl/boy friend or spouse

Newt better hope it's not a "three strikes" law, or he's in for life. Read the rest of this post...

Is Delta bumping paying passengers to fly union-busters to DC?

Judging by Delta's circuitously confusing answer it sure sounds like it. From Brian Beutler:

[Delta employees] are encouraged to participate in a fly-in to Washington, D.C., to lobby their congressmen, for which "positive space travel" -- free travel for airline employees -- is permitted.

A Delta spokesperson said No Way AFA operates separately from the company itself, but that the company "allow[s] employees to travel positive space to D.C. when supporting legislative efforts that the company supports."

By contrast, Delta policy requires employees to fly standby for leisure and personal travel, suggesting that the "positive space" standard for the fly-in could squeeze out seating space for regular travelers.

The spokesperson says Delta avoids such displacement. "[W]e manage employee travel to avoid displacing revenue customers. We block such travel where limited seats are available and displace ourselves for revenue customers whenever necessary."

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GOP's Texas budget cuts may cost 600,000 jobs

If only Texas could promote extreme right Christian ideas to distract voters from their failure to deliver jobs. Sorry guys but you've already played that hand for years. Now that the stimulus money is gone, there's nobody left to blame except the GOP clowns who own the economic problems. CNNMoney:

Texas could see more than 600,000 jobs disappear if lawmakers adopt the $83.8 billion budget that will go before the state House late next week, according to a state agency.

Harsh spending cuts in the budget could cost more than 263,500 private sector jobs and 343,000 government positions over the next two years, according to estimates released Wednesday by the Legislative Budget Board, a bipartisan committee.

This projection, which is based on mathematical calculations, runs counter to the pro-job push underway by Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers.

You think? Read the rest of this post...

More protests in Syria as claims of over 100 dead surface

The Syrian government is doing what the other dictatorships in the region have done, which is to review reforms. At this point, everyone knows that is much too late. Will Assad go the route of Mubarak or Gaddafi? The Guardian:

Rights activists described Wednesday's shootings in the southern city of Daraa as a massacre, claiming that more than 100 people may have been killed when troops fired on a mosque in the early hours and throughout the day.

With protests called for after Friday prayers, Buthaina Shaaban, adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, announced that the government would consider ending Syria's emergency law and revise legislation for political parties and the media. Similar reform pledges have been announced in the past, and are unlikely to satisfy protesters.

In Deraa, funeral-goers chanted "God, Syria, Freedom" and "The blood of martyrs is not spilt in vain!", Reuters news agency reported. Some reports said that up to 20,000 people attended, but this could not be verified. The city has been cordoned off.

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HuffPost pushes Breitbart off the front page

This was definitely the right thing to do. Giving him an even larger megaphone was a mistake, but it happens. The good news is that they've corrected the problem and are moving on. Greg Sargant at the Plum Line received an email from the Huffington Post on the situation:

The Huffington Post is committed to fostering a lively and often provocative debate about the issues of the day and encourages a wide range of voices from all perspectives to participate. Andrew Brietbart’s false ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page.

He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did -- guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.

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China sentences pro-democracy activist to 10 years in jail

There's the so-called communist China that the world has come to know and love. Corrupt and paranoid.

A Chinese court sentenced a longtime activist to 10 years in prison for inciting subversion Friday over his online articles urging democratic change, a heavy penalty that rights groups say shows China's growing intolerance of criticizing one-party rule.

Liu Xianbin, who has previously spent a decade in prison, was found guilty of inciting subversion of state power by the Suining Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province after a trial that lasted a few hours Friday, his wife Chen Mingxian told The Associated Press.

The trial comes amid a vast crackdown on activism in China. Dozens of well-known lawyers and activists across China have vanished, or have been interrogated, held under house arrest or criminally detained for subversion. The restrictions may reflect government anxiety about possible protests inspired by recent events in the Middle East.

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At least 50 dead following Myanmar earthquake

It's highly likely that the death toll will increase because accessing many of the villages in Myanmar will take time due to basic conditions. Fortunately it was far inland so it did not trigger yet another tsunami. On land, the damage to buildings has been limited with the exception of a few temples in northern Thailand.

At least 50 people have been killed and 40 injured after a strong earthquake struck northeastern Myanmar near its border with Thailand, officials said.

"Total death toll has now reached nearly 50 and the number of the injured is about 40 while over 100 buildings were destroyed," a government official, based in the town of Tachilek, told the Reuters news agency on Friday.

The 6.8-magnitude quake shook buildings as far away as the Thai capital Bangkok, almost 800km from the epicentre, on Thursday night.

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