Well, according to the WaPo, the House is likely to vote on contempt against Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers in the “next few weeks” for their refusing to testify on the US Attorney scandal.
I’ll believe it when I see it, but I don’t see Pelosi having the guts.
We know what she said about impeachment:
NOT ON THE TABLE! NOT ON THE TABLE!
Why it’s good to have Democrats in control of Congress, when the EPA political apparatchiks decide to ignore the recommendations of professional staff, and veto California’s clean air standards, you have someone looking into what happened, and why, in this case, Henry Waxman.
Dear Administrator Johnson:
On December 20, 2007, I wrote to request that you provide the Committee with documents relating to your decision to reject California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I requested that the documents be produced on a rolling schedule, starting on January 10 with responsive documents from your immediate office. On January 4 and January 11, 2008, your staff responded to my letter, but did not provide any documents.
I appreciate the efforts EPA is taking to collect responsive documents, but I am concerned about the failure of the agency to meet the Committee’s January 10 deadline. I am also concerned that no schedules for document production are proposed in your letters.
In an effort to accommodate the agency without unduly delaying the Committee’s investigation, I ask that your staff work with Committee staff to establish by the close of business on January 16 mutually agreeable deadlines for producing documents to the Committee.
The Committee will also be conducting transcribed interviews or depositions of agency staff who may have knowledge of the agency’s deliberations. As a first step in this process, I request that a schedule be established by the close of business on January 16 for the interview or deposition of the following officials:
* Robert Meyers, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation
* Jason Burnett, Associate Deputy Administrator, Office of the Administrator
* Margo Oge, Director, Office of Transportation and Air Quality
* Karl Simon, Director, Compliance and Innovative Strategies Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality
* Brian McLean, Director, Office of Atmospheric Programs
* Dina Kruger, Director, Climate Change Division, Office of Atmospheric Programs
* Rob Brenner, Director, Office of Program Analysis and ReviewIn prior investigations, the Committee has allowed counsel representing the agency to be present during transcribed interviews. In this case, since your own conduct is being examined, this accommodation would not be appropriate, although counsel employed by the agency may participate if they certify that their presence is as counsel for the witness. Attachments to this letter provide additional information about Committee interview and deposition procedures.
If you have any questions concerning this request, please have your staff contact Greg Dotson of the Committee staff at (202) 225-4407.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
Mr. Johnson, it won’t be pretty.
John Solomon has been appointed executive editor of the Moonie Washington Times.
As to why this is coming home, Talking Points Memo has the definitive word, “Here’s what one former colleague of Solomon’s said last week: ‘I worked [X] years in the same office as Solomon, sometimes with him. The consensus: he’s lazy, and takes hit jobs handed him on a platter by opps research teams (and anyone will do.) And doesn’t do much to clean it up. I also know one of his fave and frequent sources is Barbara Comstock, former DOJ spxwoman and GOP attack dog.'”
In the Washington Post announcement of this move, he currently works for the Post, Mr. Solomon, ever the complete tool, says, “It’s going to be about being fair and balanced“. Straight out of Fox News.
BTW, if you want a rundown on a few of his misdeeds, Think Progress has the scoop.
Yes, Bush has has disavowed the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that said that Iran has terminated it’s nuclear weapons program, and that they respond to international pressure.
The ability to accept reality, and then change one’s plans to accomodate it, is what separates the sane from the insane.
The dynamic of the back and forth between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is interesting, and I think that Hillary had the better of the exchange, which, according to sources in both campaigns is now officially over.
Obama’s campaign is designed around a goal, to prevent the voting public from thinking of him as an angry black man who cries “wolf” about racism.
As Ezra Klein and John Aravosis have said, this exchange undercuts Obama’s primary message, that he is a new kind of politician who can bring people together, because people are hearing what they see as the same old tired litany (it’s not really tired, because we are a bigoted society) of accusations of racism.
It also gives Charlie Rangel, whose civil rights cred is unassailable, an opportunity to call Obama’s comments stupid.
BTW, if these little digs are causing a hiccup in Obama’s campaign, just wait and see what would happen if he gets the nomination.
Republicans will take those accusations of racism as a badge of honor, and they will, as they have in the past, run a campaign of racist code words.
I fear that Obama would be dead meat in the general.
Banks are petitioning theFinancial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to relax rules on non performing home loans. They say that the rules are too complex and difficult.
The rule in question, Financial Accounting Standard 114, “Accounting by Creditors for Impairment of a Loan”, is also fifteen years old.
Before FAS 114, banks could count non-performing loans on their books as if they were to be paid back in full, which meant that defaults would almost never show up on the balance sheet until too late.
It should be noted that these banks that are crying that this is too difficult have been applying it without difficulty to commercial mortgages and corporate loans for the past 15 years.
You can do this in Excel®, BTW.
This is not about complexity. It’s about concealing losses from the public.
It appears that the bill is, “ So riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries“.
So my previous report on the issue is wrong, and al-Malaki is acting true to form and doing his level best to ethnically cleanse Iraq’s Sunnis.
It’s a phony success to create a phony victory in a real war.
I think that this is another indication of how Russia is rearming, and I think that it is driven by a fear of NATO in general, and the US in particular.
Of course, this suits the Republicans just fine, because they want a scary opponent who justifies high tech white elephants like the F-22.
FWIW, “New Build” appears to be kind of a technicality. It appears that the aircraft was manufactured from a partially completed airframe dated from the 1990s.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that Guantanamo is, “More than anything else it’s been the image _ how Gitmo has become around the world, in terms of representing the United States“.
He realizes that it does more harm than good, even if Bush and His Evil Minions&trade don’t.
First off, the Baltic Dry Shipping Index is falling off a cliff:
It’s the shipping rates on the 24 busiest routes. On January 10, it dropped 4.6%, and it’s dropped 28% from its November 13 peak. It’s basically an index of shipping rates of bulk items, which in turn is a pretty good indicator of where the world economy is going.
It’s going down, and it also indicates that the world economy has not “decoupled” from the US economy.
Then we have Citibank announcing a $24 billion write-down, (doubtless with more to come) , and announcing around 20,000 job cuts. What’s more, the it appears that the government of China has suggested that it will prevent a multi billion dollar investment in Citi by the state-owned China Development Bank.
This indicates that China is getting twitchy about making US investments, which does not bode well for the dollar, which is currently at $1.4877:€1.0000, within about a penny of its all time low.
And then there is the fact that banks are unable to sell Chrysler financing, amounting to about $7 billion. It had originally been $10 billion, but they could not “syndicate” (sell) that debt toward the end of last year.
Wolfgang Münchau has an interesting analysis of the Credit Default Swap (CDS) markets, which go much farther and deeper than subprime, and appear to be in at least as much trouble. (A primer on CDS, which are the most prevalent form of derivative, here).
Münchau makes a point, and I’m not even sure he notices, when he says, “A truly awful scenario would be a long recession. The US did experience some longish recessions in the past, for example from November 1973 until March 1975, but there was no CDS market around at the time.”
That’s the point. This brave new world of complex financial instruments has created a tsunami which is now looming over modern financial markets.
We also have Robert Shiller, co-creater of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index saying that falling house prices have gutted the value of Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America just purchased.
When he says, “I might have a lower valuation of Countrywide than Bank of America does,” he means, “Those idiots just threw money after bad.”
I said the same thing 3 days ago, but obviously, I’m an engineer, I’m not an economist, dammit*!
*I love it when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!.
Six Seven people have been killed in a Taliban attack on a the only five star hotel in Afghanistan.
There were 4 suicide attackers, armed with AK-47s and explosive belts.
We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, where there are people who hit us on 911, to go after someone who didn’t, and here we are.
Yes, he says that he he is open to the possibility of slowing or stopping plans to bring home more U.S. troops from Iraq, which means that he’s not going to bring them home.
He’ll make some announcements, but when the tire hits the road, they won’t be redeployed.
Why, because George W. Bush thinks that all that matters is “victory”, which he defines as staying in Iraq, no matter how many terrorists are created, or how many troops are lost, or how many unstable nations move toward nuclear weapons.
It’s all about him, and he needs to show that he’s “brave and resolute” with other people’s lives and other people’s money.
Really, we are, because for this ill-conceived venture, we are giving BofA can deduct $270 million a year for the next 5 years.
That’s $1.35 billion in the first 5 years, and if Countrywide’s losses are bigger (and they are), they can deduct the rest year 6.
Courtesy of Boing Boing
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-El Guatamala*) has decided not to run for re-election†, and both the Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to try to get the seat.
It’s been Republican for years, but appears increasingly competitive, With the vote being 46%D 43%R, and 11%Green in the last gubernatorial election.
*His wife is the daughter of Efrain Rios Mott, wanted by the ICC for genocide against Mayan Indians in Guatamala.
†He’s financially tied into Mott, and has a history of shady Central American land deals.
Once again, we find a case where all the NRA Republicans think that the 2nd amendment as they define it stops where they live and work. In their brief to SCOTUS, the Justice Deptartment has said that the appellate court ruling was over broad.
It’s because these guys live and work in DC, and they are worried what will happen to them if black people are allowed to carry guns.
Gun control for me, but not for thee, I guess.
Some HD-DVD drives are now less than $100, and the newer ones are less than $200.
I don’t think that it’s going to make a whole bunch of difference, and that, to the degree that spinning optical media will be the future of movie distribution, it looks like Sony’s Blu-Ray has won (I got that one wrong).
On the other hand, if you want a deal, and HD-DVD handles existing DVDs quite well, you might want to go shopping.
Well, knock me over with a sledge hammer, it appears that Attorney General Mukasey is actually doing his job, at least in what has become the minority voting suppression division of the Justice Department under Bush and His Evil Minions™.
I’m pleasantly surprised, though Abu Gonzalez actually made me nostalgic for John Freaking Ashcroft, so it is a low bar.
First, John “Minorities will be Dead Soon” Tanner has resigned as head of the voting rights section, and is moving to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in December, and last friday, his replacement, Christopher Coates, who was promoted from within the section, demoted Tanner’s former deputy chiefs, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere (who drew a salary while living at her Cape Cod vacation home) and Yvette Rivera (who has been accused of discriminating against blacks on staff).
Of note is that Rivera is being replaced by Tim Mellett, who was one of the professional staff who issued a report, subsequently overruled by the political appointees , that Tom Delay’s Texas redistricting was illegal.
This report does not make it clear as to why the Federal Court of Appeal struck down such a tax.
There are provision in the Canadian copyright laws that allow for audio recording media, on the theory that they are means of distribution, but an MP3 player is not a means of distribution of music, but rather a means of consumption of music.
Simply put, people don’t swap MP3 players, though obviously some people swap music files.