Winnie Mandela slams Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu

I guess she forgot to also include Mother Theresa during her rant. Nobody ever said Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu were perfect but to attack two of the most respected people in African and world politics like this is nutty. It's especially annoying considering Winnie Mandela's own shady past. Unifying a country after decades of hate was really terrible, wasn't it? Barking mad:

Nelson Mandela's ex-wife has bitterly criticized the 92-year-old anti-apartheid icon as having "let us down," prompting outrage Wednesday in South Africa.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said she could not forgive him for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 alongside F.W. De Klerk, according to Tuesday's Evening Standard, a British newspaper. The white president released Mandela and went on to participate in negotiations that ended apartheid.

"He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white.' It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded," Madikizela-Mandela was quoted as saying.

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Food company sold contaminated food and knew about it

This is a classic example of why the government and not business should be in the lead for food recalls. The FDA could have pushed this a bit faster but compared to the previous FDA, they are doing an incredible job.

The company responsible for a ballooning recall of processed foods continued to manufacture and distribute a flavor-enhancing ingredient for a month after tests confirmed it was made with contaminated equipment, according to a Food and Drug Administration report.

FDA inspectors said the company, Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors Inc., knew of salmonella contamination on its equipment after it received the results of a private inspection on Jan. 21. They said the company continued to distribute the ingredient, called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, until Feb. 15.

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Joe asks Harry Reid if DADT repeal will be in the Defense Authorization bill. Reid's answer wasn't great.

NOTE FROM JOE: Today, John and I were at the 4th annual Senate Democratic Progressive Media Summit. I got the chance to ask Majority Leader Harry Reid a question about the process for repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. Reid said repeal supporters were going to try to add the repeal language to the Defense Authorization bill in Committee. If not, he said there would be an amendment on the floor. Frankly, that's not good enough.

NOTE FROM JOHN: We need our friends to use the process to our advantage. We need them to ensure that the repeal is added in the bill from the git-go, in the chairman's mark, so that we force repeal foes to remove it - so that we force Democrats on the committee to choose whether to cast an anti-gay vote against their chairman, against the president. If an amendment is offered on the Senate floor it will be filibustered - adding it into the chairman's bill early on helps to make it harder for the GOP to filibuster, it forces them to filibuster the entire Defense bill, an unlikely prospect.

Unfortunately, the President isn't helping. The White House is even refusing to say that they'd like to see DADT repealed this year. So much for the State of the Union. The President's word is so far just words.

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A little boy works through 'husbands and husbands'

OMG how adorable. Here's the description from the guys who shot the video:

This moment was captured the day after thanksgiving. We bought our flip cam two days before and were testing it out. We were on our way to the kitchen when Calen stopped us to ask for help washing his hands.

Evan at TruthWinsOut posted a transcript, so you can understand the little-boy talk :-)

Text onscreen: Thanksgiving.

[Calen, a little boy, is standing in a bathroom next to a sink, looking up into the camera.]

Calen: A husband’s a boy.

Adult male voice from behind camera: Right.

Calen: A wife is a girl and a husband’s a boy. Then you two are husbands! [He hold up two fingers on both hands.] Wifes are girls; husbands are boys.

Voice from behind camera: Right.

Second adult male voice, from next to camera: That’s right. So, if you’re a boy—

Calen: You’ll be a husband.

Second Voice: Right.

First Voice: Yeah, we’re both husbands.

Calen: [puts his head in his hand] You’re both husbands?

Second Voice: Is that confusing—

Calen: You married each other?! That’s funny! [slaps hand to head]

Second Voice: That’s funny, right?

Calen: Yeah. [looks thoughtful] I usually see husbands and wives, but this is the VERY FIRST TIME I saw husbands and husbands! [grins excitedly]

[The two men laugh; Second Voice peers around and grins into camera.]

Calen: So funny. [edit] So that means you LOVE EACH OTHER!

First Voice: Yeah.

Calen: Yeah. Yeah, they’re much alike. You’re much alike. Hey, I’m going to play ping-pong now.

First Voice: Okay.

[Camera follows Calen out into the hallway; he turns back and looks at the two men.]

Calen: You can play if you want to.

Text onscreen: You’re much alike.

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Insurance companies not paying on bad mortgage insurance

What a business model. Sign contracts to deliver a service and then balk when asked to follow through. Sure the rescission rates are at record highs but that sounds like a personal problem for the insurers who signed the deals with the banks. These two industries deserve each other. Well, as long as everyone else isn't funding their fiasco, that is.

Mortgage insurers are rescinding (denying) claims, claiming themselves that the loans were fraudulent and misrepresented to them.

"The broker dealers, Bear Stearns, Countrywide even ResCap that was part of GM at the time, they used underwriting standards that were a little bit looser than what we see with the normal conforming market," says Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. "In those cases, the default rates are in double digits and there's a lot more claims for what we call rescission or really putting back the loan to the originator by the insurer and saying, 'Hey, this loan wasn't kosher, and I shouldn't have insured it in the first place.'"

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House Dems. end earmarks for private, for-profit companies

In the wake of the recent earmark-related ethics investigation, House Democratic leaders changed the rules on corporate earmarks today. They ended the practice:

House Democratic leaders announced Wednesday that they will ban the much-criticized practice of using annual spending bills to direct pet projects to for-profit companies that often return the favor with campaign contributions.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters that he hopes the step will mean 1,000 fewer earmarks and break the linkage between campaign contributions and earmarks that has sparked intense criticism and resulted in ethics probes of several lawmakers.

The election-year step comes after the ethics committee investigated seven members of a Pentagon spending panel for rewarding earmarks to companies whose executives and hired lobbyists showered them with campaign cash. The panel found no linkage and absolved the lawmakers.

CREW approves, which tells us something:

“CREW applauds House Democrats for finally recognizing that the American public is tired of watching members of Congress trade earmarks for campaign contributions. This is a terrific first step in breaking the link between campaign dollars and legislation.” Sloan continued, “It is ironic, of course, that this action follows so close on the heels of the House Ethics Committee’s PMA report, which found no link between contributions and earmarks, but then again no one really believed that anyway.”

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Endangered whale meat being served in LA?

Will the movie or the court trial be more exciting? NY Times:

Yet with video cameras and tiny microphones, the team behind Sunday’s Oscar-winning documentary film “The Cove” orchestrated a Hollywood-meets-Greenpeace-style covert operation to ferret out what the authorities say is illegal whale meat at one of this town’s most highly regarded sushi destinations.

Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.

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Bailed out automakers and banks on K Street shopping spree

From Mother Jones:

Bailed-out automakers like General Motors and Chrysler and their banking brethren who the government rescued in 2008 and 2009 are on a K Street shopping spree. As The Hill reports today, those companies that pleaded for billions in government funding to stay afloat are now hiring the top lobbying firepower that Washington has to offer, making sure their voices are heard as Congress tackles a spate of new bills like comprehensive financial-reform and health-care legislation.

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World War III flashback

Now with the Republicans threatening World War III, Armageddon, or something equally disastrous if the House passes the Senate health care reform bill, and threatening disaster if the Congress passes tweaks to HCR using reconciliation, I thought it might be fun to look back on another World War III threat from the GOP - they do it a lot. Here's this hissy fit from March 30, 2009:

Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts.

Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take “years” to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance — even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.

In fact, if the shoe were on the other foot, the GOP would have declared World War III had Democrats held up one of their new Senators for months. Remember how just this past January the Republicans demanded that Scott Brown be seated immediately, and that the Senate should suspend all business until Brown was seated? And now, as Joe just reported, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is threatening "colossal" consequences if the House simply passes the Senate HCR bill, which is their right. McConnell isn't just objecting to the bill on substance, he's arguing that it's somehow not permissible, not legal, for the House to pass legislation.

This is what the GOP does. They throw a hissy fit and hope the media covers it. And they do. Democrats need to learn to hit back hard, every time, and nip this in the bud. Read the rest of this post...

Thin-skinned Chief Justice didn't like criticism of campaign finance decision

John Roberts has a very thin skin. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is peeved that the President criticized the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision during the State of the Union:

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."

Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question about the Senate's method of confirming justices, Roberts said senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees can't answer because of judicial ethics rules.

"I think the process is broken down," he said.

I think the campaign finance system is broken down after the Citizens United decision. Robert Gibbs explained what is really "very troubling":

"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections — drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent take on Roberts' outburst, which concludes:

Supreme Court Justices, in particular, have awesome, unrestrained power. They are guaranteed life tenure, have no authorities who can sanction them except under the most extreme circumstances, and, with the mere sweep of a pen, can radically alter the lives of huge numbers of people or even transform our political system (as five of them, including Roberts, just did, to some degree, in Citizens United). The very idea that it's terrriby wrong, uncouth, and "very troubling" for the President to criticize one of their most significant judicial decisions in a speech while in their majestic presence -- not threaten them, or have them arrested, or incite violence against them, but disagree with their conclusions and call for Congressional remedies (as Art. II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution requires) -- approaches pathological levels of vanity and entitlement. The particular Obama/Roberts/Alito drama is an unimportant distraction, but what this reflects about the mindset of many judges, including (perhaps especially) ones on the Supreme Court and obviously the Chief Justice of that court, is definitely worth considering.

We are often led to believe that judges are imbued with some mystical powers of fairness and justice. They're not. They're political appointees. For years, John Roberts was groomed for his job by the GOP. Make no mistake, Roberts is on the Court to push an ideological agenda. And, that's what he is doing.

Obama had every right to criticize the Citizens United decision. He would have been wrong not to. Read the rest of this post...

'If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president'

Bloomberg:

One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it’s up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized.

“We’ve had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. “If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president.”

[M]onthly job losses have abated, from 779,000 during the month Obama took office to 36,000 last month. Corporate profits have grown; among 491 companies in the S&P; 500 that reported fourth-quarter earnings, profits rose 180 percent from a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. Durable goods orders in January were up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. Inflation is tame, and long-term interest rates remain low.

The U.S. may add as many as 300,000 jobs in March, the most in four years, David Greenlaw, chief fixed-income economist at Morgan Stanley in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview.

Zandi said the economic rebound is largely a result of the policies of the White House and Federal Reserve. He cited the bank bailout, the Fed’s low-interest-rate policy and support for credit markets, and the Obama administration’s stimulus plan, bank stress tests and backing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“When you take it all together, the response was massive and unprecedented and ultimately successful,” Zandi said.

This is rather compelling evidence that the administration brought us back from the brink. No, people won't entirely believe it until they see their own bottom line improving - but, if Democrats did a better job reminding people of how dire things were a year ago, how we were on the verge of another Great Depression, and how Republicans were claiming that there was no economic crisis at all, I think voters would be more appreciative of the gains we've made to date. Read the rest of this post...

Mitch McConnell, of all people, offers advice to House Dems

This is almost funny. The GOP Senate Leader, who has done more to destroy the reputation of the Senate and its comity, is dispensing advice to House Democrats. Yes, McConnell is now trying to inflict his obstructionist techniques on House Democrats:

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned House Democrats that they would be taking a colossal risk if they approved the Senate's version of health-care legislation before the Senate had acted to remove some of the bill's most contentious provisions. Now that Democrats have lost their supermajority in the Senate, some variation of this delicate two-step process is the only way a health-care reform bill can become law.

"House Democrats will have to decide whether they want to trust the Senate to fix their political problems," McConnell said. He listed perks that Senate Democrats won for Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida and labor unions; House members insist that all must be removed through a separate "fixes" bill under special budget reconciliation rules.

I find it hard to believe that any Democrat will take political advice from Mitch McConnell. But, you never know.

And, any House Democrat who is worried should check out this post by Chris Bowers at OpenLeft:

there are now 53 Senators on record publicly open to using reconciliation on health care. That should help increase confidence in the viability of the "sidecar bill" reconciliation fix strategy.

Also, via WhipCongress, 40 of those Democratic Senators support passing a public option through reconciliation. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is heading to Missouri today. He's doing another town hall meeting to talk health care in St. Charles, a suburb of St. Louis. Then, he's doing a fundraiser for the Senate candidate who is running in 2012, Claire McCaskill. (I suspect that the White House political operation is aware that there is a very, very competitive Senate race in Missouri this year, too.)

Obama is also meeting with Haiti's President Préval this morning.

There's still a question as to whether the House will pass the health care bill by the March 18 deadline proposed by the White House. That's next Thursday. As of now, it's unclear that the votes are there to pass the bill in the House. David Dayen at FDL has a whip count as does Hotline on Call.

Okay, let's get it started... Read the rest of this post...

Myanmar bans Suu Kyi from elections

Doesn't sound like they're trying to bother with "free and fair" this time either. This is a case where a local power such as China could help have a positive influence. But of course, they're too busy rigging their own political system and shutting down respected critics themselves. Why bother having elections?

Myanmar's military rulers have barred pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running in upcoming elections and may force her own political party to expel her under a new election law unveiled Wednesday.

The Political Parties Registration Law, published in official newspapers, prohibits anyone convicted by a court of law from joining a political party, making them ineligible to become a candidate.

It also instructs parties to expel members who are "not in conformity with the qualification to be members of a party," a clause that could force Suu Kyi's expulsion. Parties that don't register automatically cease to exist, the law says.

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European Union to ban CDS, US to follow

The so-advanced-nobody-has-any-idea-what-they-are Credit Default Swaps are on their last leg. They won't be missed by anyone other than the snake oil salesmen on Wall Street who cashed in on chaos. Then again, Chuck Prince and Stanley O'Neal are living the good life in retirement so they don't care. What's interesting here is how active Greek PM Papandreou has been going around the EU and now the US pushing for both reform in the financial sector as well as assistance with Greece's own financial issues. He inherited a serious problem and has been doing a decent job of responding. Taking advantage of the moment to push for much needed reform in the financial industry deserves a lot of credit. The Guardian:

The commission announcement came in response to pressure from Merkel, Sarkozy, Juncker and Papandreou, who threatened to take national action against the markets if Brussels balked.

The European crackdown on CDS trading appeared to be the central result of Papandreou's tour of key capitals, a strong political signal aimed at winning time for the Greeks. The apparent determination to regulate the traders as well as the concerted political signals sent today were aimed at relieving the pressure on Greece whose debt and deficit crisis could spiral out of control and undermine the euro.

For the first time Barroso said the eurozone countries were preparing some form of bailout for the Greeks which, nonetheless, would not breach the no-bailout clause in the single currency rulebook.

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