Month: May 2012

You Have It Backwards

No Comments

Howie Klein wonders, “Do ALL The Members Of The House Financial Services Committee Take Bribes From The Banksters?“

He has it backwards. The HFCS is a bloated and overstaffed committee, with two or three times the members that it actually needs, and it does this, because it’s known as a “money” committee.

Basically, people are put on it so that they can fund raise from the banksters.

It’s less of a bribe than it is a shakedown.

The purpose of the committee at its current size is to facilitate taking legalized bribes from the financial services industry.

Why Democrats Lose Elections

No Comments

Because our so-called leaders are cowardly incompetents:

The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said Friday that if Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) doesn’t prevail over Gov. Scott Walker (R) in next month’s Wisconsin recall election, there won’t be any ramifications for Democrats nationally.

“I think, honestly, there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a broad-ranging interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”

“It’s an election that’s based in Wisconsin. It’s an election that I think is important nationally because Scott Walker is an example of how extreme the tea party has been when it comes to the policies that they have pushed the Republicans to adopt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But I think it’ll be, at the end of the day, a Wisconsin-based election, and like I said, across the rest of the country and including in Wisconsin, President Obama is ahead.”

Timidity to the point of paralysis.

You have a major election, near on a make or break issue, for organized labor, and the DNC is afraid to expend any resources, because it’s not a slam dunk.

It is no wonder that George “If you not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time” McClellan was a Democratic presidential nominee.

Yes, the folks that they are disappointing won’t vote for Mitt, but I think that they won’t canvass or stuff envelopes for you either.

Pass the Popcorn…

No Comments

Pass the Popcorn

It looks like former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky is writing a tell-all memoir about his experiences with the Bush and Obama administration:

From December 2008 until March 2011, Barofsky was the Special Inspector General charged with oversight of TARP, working to ensure against fraud and abuse in the spending of the $700 billion allocated for the bailouts. From the start he was in constant conflict with the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts who were in thrall to the interests of the big banks and steadfastly failed to hold them accountable, even as they disregarded major job losses caused by the auto bailouts and failed to help struggling homeowners. Barofsky recounts how his reports of a wave of criminal mortgage fraud and other abuses being perpetrated against homeowners in connection with programs that the Treasury itself set up were ignored time and again.

Barofsky offers detailed accounts of the behind-the-scenes conflicts and his struggles with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the Bush appointed “TARP Czar” Neel Kashkari and his successor, the Obama appointed Herb Allison, and others. His revelations show in stark detail just how captured by Wall Street our political system is; why the banks have not been held accountable; and how the failure to enact effective regulation has put the country in danger of an even bigger crisis in the future.

I can’t imagine that either Obama or Geithner are happy about this.

DINOs, F%$# ‘Em

No Comments

Gee, a bunch of the Democrats In Name Only are objecting to the Obama campaign’s ads criticizing Romney’s tenure as head of Bain Capital.

You know, if you took their dicks out of your mouth, and realized that campaign donations from rich looters are not the be all and end all, you would realize that this is a political winner:

Some influential Democrats on and off Capitol Hill are refusing to give President Obama political cover for his attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

Despite pushback from more than a half-dozen Democrats, the Obama campaign on Tuesday defended how it has scrutinized Romney’s business background.

The business model of private equity firms is to make money by either flipping, or leveraging firms, to extract value.

They are the financial equivalent of automotive chop shops.

Google Did Not Infringe Java Patents

No Comments

The jury has ruled that Oracle’s patents were not infringed by Android:

Google on Wednesday was cleared of charges that it had infringed Oracle’s Java patents, ending the second major phase of the trial.

“Today’s jury verdict that Android does not infringe Oracle’s patents was a victory not just for Google but the entire Android ecosystem,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Oracle, however, did not concede defeat. “Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java,” an Oracle spokesperson said via email. “We plan to continue to defend and uphold Java’s core write once run anywhere principle and ensure it is protected for the nine million Java developers and the community that depend on Java compatibility.”

Oracle filed its lawsuit against Google last August and the trial began in mid-April. Oracle initially talked about $6 billion in damages. At the moment, it appears Oracle is unlikely to win enough to cover its legal costs.

All that’s left is the whether or not Java’s API, basically the standards for interoperability, are copyrightable.

The jury didn’t rule on this, they could not come to a conclusion on fair use, and they were instructed by the judge to assume that the API is copyrightable. The judge will decide these matters of law, the jury was to rule on matters of fact.)

It appears from the Slashdot discussions that the judge actually made an effort to understand the technical issues, so his ruling should be interesting.

Leadership Matters

No Comments

Here’s a shocker. Now that Barack Obama has endorsed same-sex marriage, the polls are moving abruptly in that direction:

Public opinion continues to shift in favor of same-sex marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, which also finds initial signs that President Obama’s support for the idea may have changed a few minds.

Overall, 53 percent of Americans say gay marriage should be legal, hitting a high mark in support while showing a dramatic turnaround from just six years ago, when just 36 percent thought it should be legal. Thirty-nine percent, a new low, say gay marriage should be illegal.

The poll also finds that 59 percent of African Americans say they support same-sex marriage, up from an average of 41 percent in polls leading up to Obama’s announcement of his new position on the matter. Though statistically significant, it is a tentative result because of the relatively small sample of black voters in the poll.

Leadership generates its own support for policy.

Hopefully, this lesson will stick, but I doubt it.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

No Comments

The Heartland Institute, the phony “think tank” bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, is imploding as a result of revelations proving this:

The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave – minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change contrarians, with a few academics among them, descended into the banquet rooms of a lavish Times Square hotel for what was purported to be a reasoned debate about climate change.

But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank’s claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.

Heartland’s claims to “stay above the fray” of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.

Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland’s financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.

In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation’s president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland’s defectors were “abandoning us in this moment of need”.

They flipped out, and this was inevitable once they were outed as bought and paid for:

The pressure point occurred last February when the scientist on the conference mugs, Peter Gleick, used deception to obtain confidential documents from Heartland, including a donors list and plans to indoctrinate school children against belief in climate change.

Once the Charade was outed, they had no choice but to go full wingnut.

A Saint’s Bones, Ronald Reagan’s Blood, It’s All the Same

No Comments

It appears that someone has found an old vial of Reagan’s blood, and is selling it:

Ronald Reagan’s foundation expressed outrage on Monday at a British company’s auction of what it says is a vial of the late U.S. president’s blood taken at the hospital where he was treated after a 1981 assassination attempt.

PFC Auctions, a company based in Guernsey in the United Kingdom, announced on Sunday that it would sell the vial of blood in an online auction set to end on Thursday.

The vial was taken at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, after Reagan was wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., PFC Auctions said on its website. It is said to have come from a person whose late mother had worked at a medical lab.

“If indeed this story is true, it’s a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase,” John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, said in a statement.

The website for PFC Auctions said the latest online bid for the vial stood at 6,270 British pounds ($9,910). A PFC Auctions representative could not be reached for comment.

I guess that this is the Republican equivalent of a piece of the true cross, or Jesus’ foreskin.  (Yes, Virginia, one of the medieval scams was his foreskin.)

BTW, here is the kicker:

The seller said he or she had contacted the California-based Ronald Reagan Library and Museum, which is run by the late president’s foundation, months ago and had been told that Reagan’s family would like to have the vial given to them.

“I told him that I didn’t think that was something that I was going to consider … and that I was a real fan of Reaganomics and felt that President Reagan himself would rather see me sell it rather than donating it,” the statement said.

H/t Ed Kilgore. BTW, read the comments on the his post, they are hysterical.

Two …… Three … Seven Billion

No Comments

It looks like their losses for JP Morgan’s bad day at the casino might increasing.

In any case, it’s bad enough that they are dropping a stock buyback,:

The crisis at JP Morgan escalated yesterday as it emerged its trading losses in London could rise to as much as $7bn (£4.5bn) and the US bank cancelled a share buyback. Fears were growing that the losses could spiral from an initial $2bn, which was declared on 10 May, as JP Morgan struggles to unwind the massive bets made by the so-called “London Whale” trader Bruno Iksil.

In a further blow, chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon has suspended plans to use the US bank’s own funds to buy back $15bn worth of shares. Buybacks are a popular way for firms to use up cash sitting on the balance sheet and prop up the share price.

I’m inclined to believe that the losses are going to get a lot worse.

Stock buybacks are all about management making sure that shareholders won’t feel inclined to try to fire them.

They are bailing out the boat, and they decided that they needed to toss out the life-jackets to lighten the load.

Not good.

Just When You Thought that Grover Norquist Could Not Get Any More Absurd

No Comments

He is now comparing the Schumer-Casey bill to penalize people like Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for renouncing US citizenship is like Nazi Germany:

The anti-tax activist Grover Norquist on Friday compared a new Democratic proposal to penalize Americans who renounce their citizenship to evade taxes to policies employed by the Nazis and communists.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced legislation this week — in response to a Facebook co-founder ditching his citizenship — that would force wealthy people who give up their U.S. citizenship to prove that they did not do so for tax reasons.

Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the targeting people that turn in their passports reminded him of regimes that had driven people out of the country, only to confiscate their wealth at the door.

“I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the ’70s and in South Africa as well,” said Norquist. “He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German.”

This guy has as his goal for the federal government is that he wants to, “shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

And people think he’s a “very serious person” in DC. He isn’t.

He’s a radical whose ultimate goals are closer to that of Timothy McVey than they are to David Brooks.

Yes, We Are at War With Pakistan

No Comments

At the NATO summit in Chicago, Obama refused to talk with Pakistani President Zardary:

The rift between the US and Pakistan deepened on Monday as the Nato summit in Chicago broke up without a deal on Afghanistan supply routes.

Barack Obama, at a press conference to wind up the summit, made no attempt to conceal his exasperation, issuing a pointed warning to Pakistan it was in its wider interest to work with the US to avoid being “consumed” by extremists.

Seldom in recent years have the tensions between Washington and Islamabad been on public show to the extent as at the Chicago, overshadowing the two-day Nato summit.

The main point of friction is Pakistan’s closure of Nato supply routes to Afghanistan in protest over drone attacks and a US air strike in November that killed two dozen Pakistani troops.

Obama refused to make time during the two-day summit to see the Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari for a face-to-face bilateral meeting. In a press conference, Obama made a point of stressing that the only exchange he had with his Pakistani counterpart was short. “Very brief, as we were walking into the summit,” Obama said.

The US president said he “did not want to paper over the cracks” and that there has been tension between the US-led international force in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last few months.

I’m not sure if this is a ramping up of tension, or a recognition by Obama that the military is running the show.

But the fact is that we are effectively at war with a significant portion of the Pakistani state security apparatus, which is actively destabilizing Afghanistan because they see Karzai as being to favorably disposed toward India.