Month: April 2011

John Ensign Resigning Senate Seat

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John Ensign has announced that he will be resigning from the US Senate in May:

Embattled Sen. John Ensign announced this afternoon he will resign from office, effective May 3. The move opens the door for Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval to appoint Rep. Dean Heller to finish out the term.

“It is with tremendous sadness that I officially hand over the Senate seat that I have held for eleven years,” Ensign said in a statement. “The turbulence of these last few years is greatly surpassed by the incredible privilege that I feel to have been entrusted to serve the people of Nevada. I can honestly say that being a United States Senator has been the honor of my life.”

Sun columnist Jon Ralston first reported earlier in the afternoon that Ensign would step down.

Ralston was on Maddow just now and said that the Ethics Committee had just held a secret vote to open a public investigation of his activities, basically f%$#ing his best friend’s wife (both staffers) and paying them off, and this is what precipitated his exit.

I’m going to call my Senators, and ask them to continue the investigation even though he is leaving, he shouldn’t skate, and given that the DoJ under Eric “Place” Holder has dropped their investigation of him.

Buck Foeing

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The National Labor Relations Board has Boeing locating the 2nd assembly line for the 787 in South Carolina was part of illegal union busting activity:

Boeing illegally put its second 787 Dreamliner assembly line in South Carolina in retaliation for strikes in Washington and should be required to build the line in Washington, according to a potentially groundbreaking National Labor Relations Board complaint (pdf) filed Wednesday.

NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon filed the complaint after investigating a charge that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union District 751, bargaining unit, backed by the national union, filed on March 29, 2010. A board administrative law judge is scheduled to hear the case on June 14.

Seriously, since Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, and the failed McDonnell Douglas management team ended up running the company, they have consistently failed in ways that stun me.

First, they were big enough assholes that they got engineers to go out on strike and stay on strike, then they f%$#ed up the bidding on the next gen tanker twice (the first time was when they bribed an official to cut them an unconscionable lease deal), and now they have been so arrogant to get the normally hapless NLRB to unload a can of whup ass on then.

If I were a Boeing shareholder, I would be agitating to make sure that no one who ever worked at M-D from holding a senior management position at the Everett Chicago based airframe manufacturer.

Wisconsin Election(s) Update

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In the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, JoAnne Kloppenburg filed a petition with the Government Accountability Board for a recount, which is automatic, and at state expense, because the margin was less than the ½% margin.

She also called for an investigation of the actions of Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who has been using odd methods, and generating odd results, for years.

I don’t know how this will turn out, but given that Wisconsin uses paper ballots, my guess is that Ms. Nickolaus will not look good at the end of this, because even if she isn’t shown to have engaged in ballot fraud, her history of incompetence is well documented.

Additionally, it looks like Wisconsin will be more than doubling its recall elections in its history, there have been 4 total in history, but now 5 recall petitions have already been filed against state senators, which means that there should be at least 5 recall elections.

I would expect a lot of money from the Koch brothers to flow in for both the recount and the elections.

And the Escalation into an Attempt at Regime Change Continues

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Both the French and the British intend to send troops in to, “Protect aid deliveries,” despite the fact that Valerie Amos, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, has said that this is not necessary, and may risk conflating the aid program with military action.

The problem here is that there have been explicit calls for regime change since the UN resolution had passed, and because the Qaddafi regime has refused to collapse like a bunch of wet broccoli, the French and the British have felt the need to escalate in order to save face.

Not like Vietnam at all.

Sarkosy is trying to save his ass in the next elections, and Cameron is trying to distract the British public from the failure of his full throated embrace of Hoovernomics, and they thought that a “Private Little War” would be good for politics, and it allowed them to get their colonialist rocks off as a bonus.

Unfortunately, wars are never a certainty.

Bradley Manning Has Been Transfered from Quantico to Leavenworth

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And it appears that the conditions of his confinement will improve significantly:

The family of Bradley Manning has welcomed news that he has been moved from a top security military prison in Quantico, Virginia, to a “more open” military facility in Kansas.

Manning, the US soldier accused of downloading and leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, early on Wednesday, his aunt, Sharon Staples, confirmed.

His transfer follows sustained protests from human rights campaigners and others over his conditions at Quantico, where he was held in solitary confinement and on suicide watch, which has required him to be stripped naked at night apart from a smock and checked on repeatedly.

The commander of the Kansas facility said Manning would now receive three hours of recreation a day, and would “have the capability to interact with other pre-trial inmates on a routine basis”. Psychiatrists would assess his mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health on arrival, Lt Col Dawn Hilton said.

This did not happen because either the Pentagon or the Obama administration wanted this.

Between members of the British Parliament demanding an accounting of his treatment, Manning holds dual UK-US citizenship, and the UN Special Investigator demanding access, I think that the attempt by the Obama administration to extort a false accusation from Bradley Manning against Julian Assange has finally become politically untenable.

Props to those people who made this politically untenable.

Deep Thought

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Not my deep thought, actually.

The family was in a restaurant on Sunday, why eat in when you are removing food from the house for Passover, and besides, the storm had knocked out our power.

In any case, the restaurant had Fox News up on a monitor.

It was “pimp Atlas Shrugged day”, so they were interviewing the actors, the director, etc., along with examples of how capitalist “supermen” are essential.

Thankfully, the sound was off, and I had my back to it, but my son Charlie was watching the scroll beneath.

Suddenly, he looked at me confused, “Dad, Fox News says that venture capitalists invented video game systems. Can you explain that to me dad? I don’t speak lunatic.”

I guess that I am raising my kids right.

Biblical Plagues, We Haz Them!

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So, Passover starts tonight, and so there is a lot of preparation.

Our house is supposed to be Chometz* free, so think of Spring cleaning run by a Jewish woman on the edge of madness.

Well, we get back from an SCA event on Saturday night, ready to start cleaning, and the power was out, and remained out for the next 18 hours.

But, as the saying goes, wait, there’s more.

Marilyn, my mother-in-law, was coming to visit us, and took the bus down the New York City area, only the ticketing agent pointed her to the bus that was headed to Boston.†

So, instead of arriving at 5pm on Sunday, she arrived at 6am today.

You know, I’m not a superstitious person,‡ but I am expecting problems with blood, frogs, and cattle disease at our Seder tonight.

Light posting the next few days, because of the holidays.

*Leavened bread, and related products, which include things like beans if you are a Jew of Eastern European extraction.
†Major props to my brother Daniel, who lives about 40 minutes outside of Boston, who picked up Marilyn and took her to dinner before taking her back to the bus station.
‡Which I guess is a mealy mouthed way of saying that I am a superstitious person under these circumstances.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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Remember when I said last week that things seemed to be slowing down?

Well, not so much:

  1. Bartow County Bank, Cartersville, GA
  2. New Horizons Bank, East Ellijay, GA
  3. Nexity Bank, Birmingham, AL
  4. Superior Bank, Birmingham, AL
  5. Rosemount National Bank, Rosemont, MN
  6. Heritage Banking Group, Carthage, MS

Full FDIC list

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

It’s still better than last year at this time, but this was a very busy week.

I Still Don’t Buy the Idea that Obama is Playng “Eleventy Dimensional Chess,” but …

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That rumble here is stark raving terror!

But John Boehner has gotten himself completely pwn36 (OWNED) this week.

First, the CBO scored the budget cuts, and it turns out that that the $38 billion in budget cuts are actually only $352 million in budget cuts, and then Boehner loses ¼ of his caucus on the budget deal and has to rely on Democrats to put it over the top, and finally, the Democrats abstain on an amendment proposed by the even-more-right-wing-than-Paul-Ryan Republican Study Committee, which had the amendment passing until Boehner whipped Republicans to change their votes at the last minute:

Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn’t hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes — from “no” to “present.”

Panic ensued. In the House, legislation passes by a simple majority of members voting. The Dems took themselves out of the equation, leaving Republicans to decide whether the House should adopt the more-conservative RSC budget instead of the one authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. As Dems flipped to present, Republicans realized that a majority of their members had indeed gone on the record in support of the RSC plan — and if the vote closed, it would pass. That would be a slap in the face to Ryan, and a politically toxic outcome for the Republican party.

I do believe that Boehner is a rum and nicotine soaked incompetent, but I see this as more of a residue of luck than any sudden outbreak of competence by the Obama administration.

Nature is Beautiful

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I give you Cymothoa exigua:

Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae. It tends to be 3 to 4 centimetres (1.2 to 1.6 in) long. This parasite enters through the gills, and then attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper’s (Lutjanus guttatus) tongue. It extracts blood through the claws on its front, causing the tongue to atrophy from lack of blood. The parasite then replaces the fish’s tongue by attaching its own body to the muscles of the tongue stub. The fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue. It appears that the parasite does not cause any other damage to the host fish. Once C. exigua replaces the tongue, some feed on the host’s blood and many others feed on fish mucus. This is the only known case of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ.  It is currently believed that C. exigua are not harmful to humans unless picked up alive, in which case they can bite

H/t Atrios.

Surprise, The Vampire Squid* is F%$#ing Its Customers Too

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The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has issued its report on the financial meltdown, and among other things, they say that Goldman Sachs deliberately misinformed its customers so that it could bet against them and lied to Congress.

Of course, there won’t be any prosecutions, even though the behavior is so egregious that the New York Times has has started to wonder why there have been no prosecutions. (This is a serious article, about 4000 words long, not a throw away comment in an OP/Ed)

Of course, Matt Taibbi, and the rest of us have been asking this question for months.

The answer is that it’s because they own us, or at the very least, they own Barack “The Worst Constitutional Law Professor Ever” Obama, Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner, and Eric “Place” Holder, which comes to the same damn thing.

When this sort of fraud goes investigated and unpunished, it becomes the social norm, and metastasizes.

*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

What a Pathetic Excuse for an Advocacy Group

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I was watching Maddow, and she had Terry O’Neill, the President of NOW on to discuss the spate of anti-abortion laws coming out of the wingnut legislatures, and O’Neill basically said that she would not challenge these laws, despite their being illegal under existing precedent, because they are afraid that the currents supreme court will simply overrule Roe V. Wade.

So, because victory is not certain, she, and her organization, will win a court challenge, they have decided not to fight for abortion rights at all.

Conceding defeat is not an alternative to losing.  If you never contest the issue, you lose.

In conceding the battle in this way, not only do you allow states to criminalize abortions, but you prevent any meaningful political dialogue from anyone but the women hating nut jobs.

They are conceding defeat in the face of a possible defeat, and anyone who sends them money is an idiot.

This is the Basic Model of Brokerages and Retail Investing

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The LA Times has a story on retail currency trading, and how it’s basically an excuse for financial firms to fleece retail investors:

An estimated 615,000 Americans are dabbling in foreign currency trading, encouraged by advertising from the two biggest U.S. brokers, FXCM Inc. and Gain Capital Holdings Inc., both based in New York.

Combined, FXCM and Gain have about 260,000 accounts, a third of them in the U.S.

These customers are losing money in spectacular fashion.

At FXCM, 75% to 77% of customers lost money each quarter last year, according to newly required disclosures to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. At Gain, which operates through http://www.forex.com, the number of unprofitable customers hovered between 72% and 79% every quarter last year, according to its filing.

…………

More commonly, however, it’s the customers who lose out on these transactions, despite required disclosure statements that warn investors: “Your dealer is your trading partner, which is a direct conflict of interest.”

Gain ended up making an average of $2,913 from every active trader it had last year, even though the average customer account contained only $3,000, according to the company’s financial data.

FXCM made $2,641 for every active trader, while the average customer had $3,658.

(emphasis mine)

So, not only is your broker not acting in your best interest, he is actually actively attempting to f%$# you.

So the game is rigged against the small retail investor, right?


Wrong.

It’s rigged against everyone, big or small.

The recent suit against JP Morgan Chase makes that clear:

New documents unsealed recently in a class-action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase — some of which name Mr. Dimon, the chief executive — paint yet another picture of a bank profiting while its clients suffer. At issue is a precrash investment vehicle, named Sigma, in which the bank had invested $500 million in assets from pension funds and other clients, nearly all of which the clients say was lost when the investment tanked in 2008.

The clients were blindsided because they believed that Sigma was a safe way to invest. JPMorgan was not taken by surprise. As Louise Story reported in The Times on Monday, court documents show that warnings by top bank officials about Sigma and similar investments went all the way up to Mr. Dimon’s office.

The gist of the warnings was not how to protect clients, but how the ailing Sigma presented the bank with what one e-mail described as “very big moneymaking opportunities as the market deteriorates.”

When Sigma did indeed collapse, JPMorgan collected nearly $1.9 billion, according to the suit, a figure the bank disputes, without providing any alternative figure.

Let’s be clear here: Even if this behavior was legal, and in the regulatory environment pre (and possibly post) Dodd-Frank, there is a non-zero chance that it was, this is clearly something that rates a criminal investigation, and if any violations are found, even if they are only tangential to the transaction, they should be pursued aggressively.

Fundamentally, when fraud goes unpunished, it creates an environment where fraud becomes the norm, and Wall Street is crooked to its core.

It Ain’t Just Krugman Who Gets It at the Times

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Dave Leonhardt, one of their more prominent economics reporters, as well as being one of the more prominent contributors to their Economix blog, notices that most of the deficit gets fixed if you just do nothing and let the Bush tax cuts expire:

A trick question: If Congress takes no action in coming years, what will happen to the budget deficit?

It will shrink — and shrink a lot. This simple fact may offer the best hope for deficit reduction.

As federal law currently stands, some significant tax increases are set to take effect in coming years. The most important is the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012.

Of course, both parties favor the permanent extension of most of those tax cuts — the ones applying to income below $250,000. Both parties also oppose big cuts to the military, Social Security and Medicare, at least in the short term. Unfortunately, the deficit is likely to remain frighteningly large over the next decade without either cuts to those programs or tax increases.

Say what you will about Krugman, and he is a brilliant man who has won the Nobel Prize in Economics, but he does not reflect the conventional thinking at the “Paper of Record.”  He is an outsider.

Mr. Leonhardt, on the other hand, does. He’s been working as a journalist at the Times for about a dozen years, and the fact that he is mentioning this means, at the very least, that the idea that doing nothing will fix the problem is something that is discussed amongst their staff.