Scott Walker planning financial martial law in Wisconsin

Enough is never enough with these extremists. Now Walker is reportedly planning to extend his overreach even more in Wisconsin. If nothing else, it should continue to help motivate Democrats to organize recall votes against the Republican agenda. Forbes:

Following the lead of Michigan GOP Governor Rick Snyder, Walker is said to be preparing a plan that would allow him to force local governments to submit to a financial stress test with an eye towards permitting the governor to take over municipalities that fail to meet with Walker’s approval.

According to the reports, should a locality’s financial position come up short, the Walker legislation would empower the governor to insert a financial manager of his choosing into local government with the ability to cancel union contracts, push aside duly elected local government officials and school board members and take control of Wisconsin cities and towns whenever he sees fit to do so.

Such a law would additionally give Walker unchallenged power to end municipal services of which he disapproves, including safety net assistance to those in need.

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Mortgage problems continue for US banks

It was never realistic to expect the problem to go away in 3-5 years. It took years to create the problem (and the excess) and will take many more years to sort it out. Jamie Dimon is blaming everyone else for the problem but we all know that his complaints are more about his own wallet and typical corporate CYA. Between the radical austerity plans by the GOP and the public's disgust with the banking industry, there should not be much interest in helping the banks during this rocky period. The QE2 program is about helping the banks but that won't last forever. Hopefully, at least.

The banks created this problem so let them find a way out of it, on their own.

Certainly the market’s not thrilled about the deteriorating mortgage picture. JPMorgan’s shares closed at $44.89 Friday, down 3.5 percent from when earnings were announced.

The story’s no better at Bank of America — actually a bit worse. The country’s biggest bank took $3.8 billion in charges related to mortgages.

BofA took a $1.4 billion dollar hit to revenue, about $1 billion of which came from underestimating the number of bad mortgages it would have to buy back from various parties. About half of that came from bigger-than-expected demands from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy back mortgages. The other half covered part of BofA’s buyback settlement with monoline insurer Assured Guaranty.

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Wisconsin: Prosser ahead by 7316 votes in final canvass

According to the Journal Sentinel, David Prosser leads JoAnne Kloppenburg in the state Supreme Court race by 7316 in the final vote canvass (h/t Chris Bowers, my emphasis throughout):

State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser emerged as the winner Friday over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg in a heated election that drew national attention because of the fight over collective bargaining and a ballot reporting error in Waukesha County.

A canvass of vote totals from the state's 72 counties finalized Friday afternoon shows Prosser beating Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general, by 7,316 votes. Initial results in the election had showed Kloppenburg leading the race. The final canvass of the April 5 vote was completed 10 days after the election, the maximum allowed by state law.

The margin - 0.488% - is within the 0.5% limit that would allow Kloppenburg to request a statewide recount at taxpayers' expense.

Yet, stunningly, Kloppenburg is not sure she wants to pursue a recount:

Wisconsin Supreme Court hopeful JoAnne Kloppenburg says her campaign is weighing whether to seek a recount. ... She has until Wednesday to seek a recount. ... Kloppenburg issued a statement saying her campaign will carefully weigh its options[.]

That's the news, and now for the sports: Really, Team Kloppenburg? Really?

The recount is free, and yet you really don't know whether to find out whether the election was stolen from you by Kathy Nickolaus, David Prosser's ex-employee and the person who "found" those 7500 votes in her spreadsheets?

How about making Kathy Nickolaus produce those votes in the actual ballots. Because if you don't make her show her work, no one will know how she got her result.

Play to win, Ms. Kloppenburg. You're not just doing this for you. You owe it to everyone who supported you. And you owe it to everyone in Wisconsin who will be slammed hard by this Court for the next 10 years.

If you need yet another reason to call Kathy Nickolaus to account, try this. She has a history of this stuff:

[In 2006] Waukesha county, Kathy Nickolaus' playground, reports 17,243 more votes cast for the Attorney General race in Waukesha county than there were total number of ballots cast.

How many more of those "extra" 17,243 votes were for [Republican] Van Hollen than were for [Democrat] Kathleen Falk?

Take a guess; Van Hollen won by 8859 votes. Let's see — more votes cast for the AG race than total votes cast. Could that be fraud? Not if you're a Republican. But wait, there's more:

Waukesha 2004, Bush v. Kerry.

Apparently in 2004 the polls in Waukesha were teeming with voters as the Waukesha County Clerk's office showed a 97.63% turn out. No, that's not a typo. 97.63%. ... Of the 236,642 registered voters in Waukesha on Nov 2, 2004 apparently 231,031 of them came out in a hint of rain and drizzle and did their civic duty.

Just to put this in perspective, Australia has compulsory (mandatory) voting and their turnout is 95%.

There's a whole lot more here.

Come on, Team Kloppenburg. Step up to the plate. You're in the big leagues now, and this game is not over. We don't need another half-hearted champion.

Audit the Nickolaus-Brookfield vote. If you don't, and if this is fraud, the Republicans will get away with it and all of Wisconsin will suffer.

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Feds charge online gambling sites with fraud, bankers still untouched

Apparently you can be involved in fraud when it comes to millions or billions, but when you've cost and lost trillions, that's OK. How is it that federal prosecutors can be so aggressive with the online gambling industry yet the bankers have barely been scratched? Most Americans don't care that much about gambling but they are upset with the lack of progress on prosecuting the bankers who caused the recession.

Who owns you, Washington?

In the most aggressive action yet to try to prevent Americans from gambling online, federal prosecutors on Friday charged three of the largest Internet poker companies with tricking banks into processing billions of dollars of illegal betting proceeds.

Eleven people, including the owners of Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars, were charged with violating U.S. anti-Internet gambling laws, under an indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Prosecutors also filed civil money laundering charges seeking to recover at least $3 billion from the companies, are of which all based overseas, court documents said.

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BP tried to control oil spill damage science, White House helped too

Why anyone in Washington thought this company could be trusted to be a fair partner in any way, shape or form remains a mystery. There's nothing in their history that suggests they should be trusted. There was a lot of damage caused by BP and by manipulating the process, a substantial amount of money could be lost, leaving the costs to local and state governments who do not have the money. It's disappointing that even the White House was involved in propping up BP and dismissing real science. Didn't we have enough of that during the Bush years? The Guardian:

BP officials tried to take control of a $500m fund pledged by the oil company for independent research into the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, it has emerged.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show BP officials openly discussing how to influence the work of scientists supported by the fund, which was created by the oil company in May last year.

Russell Putt, a BP environmental expert, wrote in an email to colleagues on 24 June 2010: "Can we 'direct' GRI [Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative] funding to a specific study (as we now see the governor's offices trying to do)? What influence do we have over the vessels/equipment driving the studies vs the questions?".

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Anti-Gaddafi forces want NATO forces on the ground

Once again, it's hard to sit back and watch civilians being killed like this but it's not possible to fund wars around the world. It's especially difficult in these times of austerity when everyone back home is asking for the middle class to take it on the chin once again. The Guardian:

Evidence that Gaddafi's forces are now targeting cluster bombs on civilian neighbourhoods of Misrata is likely to fuel calls for accelerated action from Nato, whose military actions and international sanctions against the regime have succeeded in weakening Gaddafi but have failed so far to secure a decisive breakthrough in the conflict.

Human Rights Watch released photographs and testimony from its arms expert which it said confirmed witness reports that the munitions, banned by more than 100 countries, were being fired on the city. Cluster bombs explode in midair, indiscriminately throwing out dozens of high-explosive bomblets which cause widespread damage and injuries over a large area. The sub-munitions often fail to explode on impact but detonate when stepped on or picked up.

"They pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks, because of their indiscriminate nature, and afterwards because of the still dangerous unexploded duds scattered about," said Steve Goose, HRW's arms division director.

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Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

Yesterday we took Sushi to see the vet because he's been losing weight recently. He is 13 years old so it's never really a great sign. The poor little guy was nervous and his paws were sweating and his heart beat was too high to even count. He wasn't thrilled with the temperature check and then he was really upset when he had blood taken from his front leg. He actually wanted to get back into the cat carrier that he couldn't wait to run out of minutes before.

Now it's the waiting game as the tests are run. He either has a thyroid problem that is easy enough to treat or it's something much more serious related to his liver. A liver problem is likely to be very bad news. We really hope that it's the thyroid but we won't know for a few more days. Meanwhile, we're crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. Read the rest of this post...

Will Greece default on bailout and restructure?

It sounds like it may happen, as we see yet another sign that this economic crisis is far from over. The Guardian:

A growing chorus of voices is urging the Greek government to restructure its debt as fears grow that a €110bn bailout has failed to rescue the country from the financial abyss and is forcing ordinary people into an era of futile austerity.

"It's better to have a restructuring now … since the situation is going nowhere," said Vasso Papandreou, whose views might be easier to discount were she not head of the Greek parliament's economic affairs committee.

Other members of prime minister George Papandreou's party have said that Greece is locked in a "vicious cycle", unable to dig itself out of crisis with policies that can only deepen recession.

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