Amazing rock formations

A neat collection of photos showing simply amazing rock formations from around the world. A nice way to end the day. Read the rest of this post...

Paul Ryan trying to rig Politifact’s lie of the year

It's pretty atrocious that Politifact is even letting people vote on this.  Online votes aren't real votes.  And for an organization that supposedly puts facts above whim, how can they honestly choose the "lie of the year" based on whether Dems or Republicans are able to get in more votes?  Politifact needs to can the vote and do their own analysis ranking the top lies of the year.  They're big boys and girls over there, and I'm sure they can figure out the ranking on their own.  Here's GOP Congressman Paul Ryan's attempt to rig the vote, with an email to his PAC supporters:

From: Paul Ryan contact@prosperitypac.com
Date: December 7, 2011
To: xxx
Subject: Vote now - "Lie of the Year"
Reply-To: Paul Ryan contact@prosperitypac.com

Dear xxxxx -

I need your vote.

Politifact, a non-partisan, fact-checking website, is now taking votes for the 2011 “Lie of the Year,” and one of the nominees is the Democrats’ “Pants on Fire” lie about Republicans voting to “end Medicare.”

Click here to vote now and ensure the Democrats’ lies about the Path to Prosperity are exposed.

Remember, our budget is the only plan that actually saves Medicare. We know the stakes are high in 2012 – it’s a chance to take our country back and get us back on a path to prosperity. We can’t let lies by Democrats about our conservative solutions go unchecked.

Help me fight the lies, falsehoods, and attacks of the Left by casting a vote to show the Democrat’s lie that Republicans voted to “end Medicare” is the worst political lie of 2011. Click here to cast your vote now at Politifact.
Thanks,

Congressman Paul Ryan

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Jamie Dimon: CEO of JPMorgan Chase, victim

It's people like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon who make bankers the least sympathetic people on the planet. He's complained about regulation - as in regulation that would not only save his bank, but save taxpayers billions if not trillions of dollars - and he's complained about the damage that might happen if mean Obama keeps saying bad things about bankers. All that while he raked in $17 million last year.

Well, he's back to his typical form, complaining again about how the bankers are just a bunch of hard workin' fellas that try to do the right thing. Got it?

What part of "you screwed the economy for at least a decade and cost taxpayers trillions" does Dimon not get? The unwritten deal, when they were bailed out, was that the banks would keep money flowing by lending. They didn't. They threw that free money into gambling on commodities, helping to drive up those markets and failing to hold up their end of the deal. Dimon is a prime example of why Americans hate Wall Street and support the 99% over his type.

"Acting like everyone who's been successful is bad and that everyone who is rich is bad — I just don't get it," said Dimon at the conference, which was organized by Goldman Sachs.

Dimon said he's worked on Wall Street for much of his life and contributed his fair share.

"Most of us wage earners are paying 39.6 percent in taxes and add in another 12 percent in New York state and city taxes and we're paying 50 percent of our income in taxes," Dimon said in defense of his fellow Wall Street bankers.

Somehow I have a hard time believing Dimon isn't a tax loophole queen, but whatever. The tax laws are written for the 1%. And no, Americans don't hate the rich. They hate the rich who got there screwing everyone else. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Dog takes a bike ride

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It’s accountability time for banks and Wall Street

The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel writing in the Washington Post:

This is as clear a picture of 2011 America as it is an ugly one — a system that works for the wealthy, the powerful and the connected but no one else. And while some of these events took place several years ago, not nearly enough has changed since.

And so we need a serious effort. We need not just to set tougher rules for Wall Street (something the Dodd-Frank bill only went part way in doing) but to make sure those who patrol that particular street take their jobs seriously. Those responsible for the economic mess will never be held accountable if we continue to define accountability as agreeing to pathetically small fines or paying back low-interest loans on time. Accountability should mean harsher penalties, including jail time, and a greater obligation to make the injured whole again.

Occupy Wall Street and the 99 percent movement erupted because Americans had the gut sense that financial institutions got off easy; now we know that gut sense was right. Justice has not been done, but it must be, before the next crisis — not just to prevent more turmoil but to prove to ordinary people that the government still works for them.

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Obama Admin overrules FDA approval of over-the-counter birth control; pro-choice women feel "betrayed"

A great many pro-choice women consider this latest Obama move a "betrayal" (see below).

From a NARAL New York press release (my emphasis throughout):

Today the FDA announced the Secretary of Health and Human Services – for the first time ever – has invoked her authority to overrule the agency’s decision to approve the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B One-Step for full over-the-counter sale, which would have removed what was widely recognized to be a politically motivated age restriction on its access. This is the first time in history the Health Secretary has ever used this power to overrule an FDA decision. Had the FDA decision gone into effect, women of all ages would have been able to purchase this back-up birth control method without a prescription and without delays at the pharmacy counter.

“This is a deeply disappointing betrayal from an Administration that had pledged to promote the health and well-being of women and families and be guided by science and medicine,” said Andrea Miller, President of NARAL Pro-Choice New York.

Scott Lemieux at Prospect.org:

[I]n a decision that RH Reality Check's Jodi Jacobson calls "astounding," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has overruled her own medical experts and denied American women over-the-counter access to Plan B. This action is, quite simply, a disgrace. It's awful on the merits, and politically involves attacking a core constituency of the Democratic Party for no obvious benefit. Overriding professional FDA scientists in order to advance an agenda hostile to reproductive freedom and the equality of women is not what most Democrats believed they were voting for.

Lemieux adds:

And let's not forget that the cossacks work for the czar; the responsibility for this decision rests with President Obama.

I'd dispute the "no obvious benefit" part. There's quite a lot of speculation that he's sucking up to Catholic bishops.

This isn't over. Many more moves like this and the Republicans can run Krusty the Clown and expect to win.

Update: An emailer pointed this out, Obama in 2009:

Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.

I'm speechless.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Survey: Americans to spend 22% more on Christmas, but have negative outlook for 2012

This one cuts both ways. It's good that people spend this season for the sake of the economy, but household debt still is high, so should they really be spending so much? With more people seeing a rough 2012 economy ahead, spending freely may not make a lot of sense for many. CNBC:

The survey of 800 Americans across the country shows that the average American plans to spend $751 on gifts this year, up 22 percent from last year’s spending plans. The number would represent a healthy 4.6 percent gain over actual holiday spending in 2010 as measured by the National Retail Federation.

While the wealthy are responsible for driving the number higher, the survey finds that every single income group, including those with salaries $30,000 or lower, intend to dig deeper into their wallets this year to spread Yuletide cheer.

Far from suggesting that the nation has turned the economic corner, the survey shows the national mood remains as downbeat as it has since the financial crisis began in 2008.

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Rick Perry attacks gays, AGAIN. Is this just an effort to deflect attention from the ongoing rumors?

One of the least butch GOP presidential candidates seems to be trying awfully hard to establish his "traditional values" bona fides. Read the rest of this post...

Prosecuting Wall Street not possible, but prosecuting food stamp fraud is

Priorities, priorities. It's much easier to chase problems with the food stamp problem because that surely winds up the right wing crowd, who we know already loves Democrats and Obama. Everyone knows that there will always be fraud in any program but should this really take priority over the much more costly and significant problems on Wall Street? Even on Wall Street, the Attorney General prefers chasing after small crimes that had nothing to do with the market failures that led to the crash. Outside of Wall Street, the Attorney General somehow also has managed to ask Americans to be vigilant and report IP crimes.

The list of excuses and diversions really gets old. At a minimum, Washington needs to shut down the revolving door between the federal government/Congress/White House and industry lobbying. If they can't find time to start with something as simple and necessary as that, then just throw in the towel and admit failure. At least be honest about it instead of playing the same old spin games. Salon:

At the local level, the same governments that plead poverty when they’re asked to enforce their laws on financial fraud have somehow found plenty of resources to deploy their militarized police forces against Occupy protesters. At the federal level, it’s even more blatant. As we learned in a little-noticed Washington Post piece on Tuesday, the same Obama administration that has refused to spend political capital and federal monies to go after Wall Street is expending new resources to crack down on the supposedly rampant problem of food stamp “fraud.”

Tracking an individual example of this phenomenon, Matt Taibbi makes clear that it’s really difficult to overstate just how revealing this kind of thing is. Wall Street crooks who stole trillions of dollars are rewarded by the administration with additional trillions in bailouts. Meanwhile, those crooks’ now-impoverished victims — so poor they are on food stamps, mind you — are being targeted by the same administration for criminal investigation for allegedly making a few extra bucks on recycling empty bottles.

Taken together, these microcosmic examples (and there are plenty of others) all illustrate an inconvenient truth: namely, that law enforcement decisions today are not being guided by resource questions or dispassionate analyses of priorities, they are being guided by political will.

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Is talking about income inequality enough at this point?

President Obama gave a speech yesterday that discussed income inequality, looking back 100 years ago to the time of the robber barons and Teddy Roosevelt. It's all interesting and quite a few people in America get it. The problem is, is this enough? The ugly collapse of the middle class didn't start yesterday, it started decades ago. The rise of the ultra rich didn't start yesterday, it's been a trend for decades. We know all of this and we're disgusted by it. That's why the Occupy movement has been so popular.

Now that Obama is looking very soft in key states such as Pennsylvania, now we're seeing interest in this problem? Unfortunately it's been Obama who continued the Bush/Paulson (and Geithner) banking policies, not to mention irresponsible and expensive wars. For the Obama supporters, go ahead and point to the so-called banking reform (Dodd-Frank) which was not what anyone serious would ever consider substantial reform. It was more about having a PR spin about doing something instead of actually doing something about Wall Street.

There's a track record here that includes hiring one of the key architects of the Wall Street bailout (Geithner), giving up on prosecuting Wall Street (ignore the new chatter and look at the history) as well as continued big money campaign donation events on Wall Street. Even during the worst environmental disaster in US history, we had a president that was providing cover for BP. We don't need just another corporatist in Washington. Team Obama ran hard on "hope" in 2008 and then did a great job of crushing that idea since coming to office. Sorry if I'm not buying into the populist talk at this point.

Show me some action but until that time, don't expect any support based on promises and shiny new speeches. That bridge was burned by the White House long ago. If you're going to run on "hope" and "change", you need to deliver and not be just another run-of-the-mill politician as we've witnessed since 2008. If you're not going to run on those ideas, you better have some results to show and so far, results are seriously lacking. Read the rest of this post...

How to never get a credit card solicitation in the mail ever again (you can opt out)

Because I love you all.  You can opt out, forever.  Who knew?  (This is the actual opt out site, but I wanted you to see that the FTC site was sending you there, so you knew it was legit.)

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you ("Firm Offers"). The FCRA also provides you the right to "Opt-Out", which prevents Consumer Credit Reporting Companies from providing your credit file information for Firm Offers.

Through this website, you may request to:

Opt-Out from receiving Firm Offers for Five Years - (electronically through this website).

Opt-Out from receiving Firm Offers permanently - (mail Permanent Opt-Out Election form available through this website).

Opt-In and be eligible to receive Firm Offers. This option is for consumers who have previously completed an Opt-Out request - (electronically through this website).

If you choose to Opt-Out, you will no longer be included in firm offer lists provided by these four consumer credit reporting companies. If you are not receiving firm offers because you have previously completed a request to Opt-Out, you can request to Opt-In. In doing so, you will soon be among the many consumers who can significantly benefit from having ready access to product information on credit and insurance products that may not be available to the general public.

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Why is the NYT protecting the SEC’s unwillingness to take on Citibank?

We've written before about the seemingly corrupt deal the SEC cooked up to "punish" Citibank for unspecified wrong-doing, which in turn would never have to admit doing anything wrong — all cozily out of public view.

(For background, see here for the Citibank scam, and here for Judge Rakoff's decision overturning the SEC "deal.")

If you followed this story (or read the first link above), you know that a Federal judge finally put the kibosh on the string of sweetheart deals engineered by the SEC — in this case by nixing a deal between SEC’s head of enforcement Robert Khuzami and Citibank that came before him for approval. He didn't approve.

Well, neither the SEC nor Citibank (whose interests are perfectly aligned) are taking that sitting down. So they got a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, James B. Stewart, to make their disingenuous case in the pages of the New York Times.

Why "disingenuous"? Here's Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism (my emphasis and reparagraphing, because our columns are narrow):

There is nothing more useful to people in authority than when a writer with an established brand name does their propagandizing for them.

Harvard Law graduate and Pulitzer Prize winning author James B. Stewart penned a remarkable little piece in the New York Times over the weekend. Titled “Few Avenues for Justice in the Case Against Citi,” it contends that Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling against a proposed $285 million SEC settlement with Citigroup over a $1 billion CDO (Class V Funding III) that delivered $700 million in losses to investors and $160 million in profits to Citi is misguided.

Stewart argues, based on “some reporting,” that the SEC is unlikely to do better in the trial that Rakoff has forced on the agency by nixing the settlement.

We will look at the caliber of Stewart’s “reporting” in due course, since his article reads like dictation from the SEC’s head of enforcement Robert Khuzami (the SEC’s interests are aligned with Citi’s in wanting the settlement to go through). Stewart either did not read or chose to ignore critical information in the underlying complaints, which the Rakoff ruling cites, and he also overlooked relevant cases.

Smith then details those cases, and along the way exposes Robert Khuzami's serious conflicts of interest:

But let’s first examine the dead body in the room that Stewart and other commentators have conveniently managed to overlook.

Why hasn’t the SEC been tough on CDOs, even though they were at the heart of the crisis?

As we discussed at length in ECONNED, it was the collapse in the value of AAA tranches of so-called asset backed CDOs (ones based heavily on subprime-related exposures) that blew holes in bank balance sheets around the world. ...

Look no further for an answer than the SEC chief of enforcement, Robert Khuzami, Stewart’s primary and probably sole source for this article. He was General Counsel for the Americas for Deutsche Bank from 2004 to 2009. That means he had oversight responsibility for the arguable patient zero of the CDO business, one Greg Lippmann, a senior trader at Deutsche, who played a major role in the growth of the CDOs, and in particular, synthetic or hybrid CDOs ... (Readers of Michael Lewis’ The Big Short will remember Lippmann featured prominently. That is not an accident of Lewis’ device of selecting particular actors on which to hang his narrative, but reflects Lippmann’s considerable role in developing that product).

Any serious investigation of CDO bad practices would implicate Deutsche Bank, and presumably, Khuzmami. Khuzami simply can’t afford to dig too deeply in this toxic terrain[.]

I don't want to quote any more of this startling piece; you should read it for yourself.

Bottom line — Khuzami is damaged goods. He moved from Wall Street manager of "patient zero" in the world-wide CDO collapse, to chief of enforcement of the SEC. And his SEC has the goods, including evidence of fraud, on Citibank, and won't go after them. Nice. Presumably his next job is on Thank You Street?

On the media side, Khuzami has Pulitzer Prize journalist James B. Stewart carrying his water (and only his), as Smith amply shows. (Start reading at "Now let’s turn to Stewart’s brazen and remarkably fact free assertions" for a list of his sins.)

Again, please do read. It will take a few minutes, but it's nicely done. All you need to know to understand why we don't have nice things — like Rule of Law.

GP Read the rest of this post...

NYT: US to use foreign aid to promote gay human rights

The NYT headline said "gay rights" rather than "gay human rights." There's a difference. Gay rights is "gays in the military." Gay human rights is being jailed, tortured and killed by your government simply because you're gay.  Though if you're Rick Perry, the difference is negligible (more on that in a sec).

As part of its big gay foreign policy day yesterday, this new policy of using US foreign aid to promote the human rights of gay and trans people abroad was announced, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a 30+ minute address at the UN in Geneva about international human rights of gay and trans people.

Of course, that didn't stop GOP presidential hopeful (who isn't doing too well in the polls) Rick Perry from blasting the administration:

The report said that in Saudi Arabia, under Sharia law as interpreted in the country, “sexual activity between two persons of the same gender is punishable by death or flogging.

Saying he had seen news reports that the Obama administration “wants to make foreign aid decisions based on gay rights,” Mr. Perry said in a statement, “This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop.”

He added: “President Obama has again mistaken America’s tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles. I will not make that mistake.”

So Rick Perry thinks gay people should be executed?  Has someone followed up with Perry and asked him why he thinks the torture, imprisonment and murder of gay people are "traditional American values"?

It's actually worse than that. Perry said that the administration was promoting "special rights" for gays. Which is an interesting thing to say say, that it's special rights when gays ask to not be beaten, tortured, and murdered.

Then again, this may all simply be another Rick Perry policy beard; his way of convincing evangelicals to ignore all the rumors about his private life that have dogged him for over two decades.  And after the religious right fell for Ken Mehlman's repeated denials of the rumors dogging him, you'd have to imagine they'd be a tad more leery of being twice burned. Read the rest of this post...

Report: Japan used earthquake recovery funds for whaling

This is really disappointing news out of Japan. The fisheries department is trying to justify the funding but they have to know that's not going to fly. The world generously donated to support Japan in its time of need and nobody would have imaged the funds could be used for such a globally unpopular practice. There are a lot of people suffering from the earthquake, but funding for a money-losing venture such as whaling should not be anywhere near the list for receiving money.

Say it ain't so, Japan.

Three ships, led by the 720-tonne Yushin Maru and accompanied by a fisheries agency guard vessel, left Shimonoseki port in south-western Japan amid accusations that the fleet was taking cash intended for fishing communities hit by the March earthquake and tsunami.

According to campaigners the government used 2.28 billion yen (£19m/US$30m) from the earthquake recovery fund, on top of its existing $6m annual subsidy, to pay for this year's hunt.

"It is absolutely disgraceful for the Japanese government to pump yet more taxpayer money on an unneeded, unwanted and economically unviable whaling programme, when funds are desperately needed for recovery efforts," said Junichi Sato, the executive director of Greenpeace Japan.

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David Cameron: EU treaty must support London bankers, or else

Here we go again. It's no wonder the financial industry gets to live another day and have new opportunities to screw the world when you have prime ministers defending them so forcefully. The bankers always toss out the line "if you try to hold us back we will leave" but nobody calls them on it. If only someone would look at their record of losing trillions of dollars. It's not what anyone would consider a good record.

The brokerage model is dying on the vine and the only way they can make serious money these days is if they play games and gamble. We all know how the gambling works out, don't we? Without it, they become just another industry with profits, but nothing that warrants ridiculously high compensation. Let them go and make a mess of someone else's economy. The Guardian:

David Cameron has threatened to wield Britain's veto to block a revision of the Lisbon treaty if fellow European leaders refuse to protect the position of the City of London at the EU summit in Brussels .

In a marked hardening of his rhetoric, as Eurosceptic Tories called for a recasting of Britain's relationship with the EU, the prime minister said he would not sign any treaty that failed to provide safeguards for Britain's financial services.

Forgotten in all of this is just how critical the EU is to the British economy. It currently makes up 47% of UK exports, which is obviously a substantial amount. Is Cameron really ready to throw everyone under the bus just to protect the most poorly behaved industry in the world? Read the rest of this post...

Romney spent nearly $100,000 of MA money to wipe out electronic history

This doesn't sound like something anyone other than Richard Nixon or George Bush would do. Why spend so much money to destroy information unless there's something to hide? Failure to show transparency is so pre-crisis. What may be the worst part of this is that Romney used state funds to remove his history. Now more than ever we need to know what's going on with what should be public information.

Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret, Reuters has learned.

The move during the final weeks of Romney's administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, Massachusetts officials say.

The effort to purge the records was made a few months before Romney launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He is again competing for the party's nomination, this time to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012.

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