October 2010 archive

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Punting the Punditsis an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Christiane Amanpour is “on the trail” reporting from Delaware on “This Week” featuring exclusive interviews with Republican Christine O’Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons.



“This Week” kicks off an extraordinary ABC network wide series, “Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s.” Amanpour has an exclusive interview with Maria Shriver, who will be releasing a groundbreaking report Sunday morning examining Alzheimer’s impact on women, who are at the center of this crisis.

Meghan McCain joins ABC’s George Will, Terry Moran and Matthew Dowd on our roundtable. With a little more than two weeks before Election Day they’ll analyze the midterm political landscape, where races are opening up and where they are tightening.


Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: The question for discussion is: How Divided Are We? Mr Schieffer’s guests will be Howard Dean, Former Chairman, Democratic National Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Liz Cheney, Republican Strategist and Chairwoman, Keep America Safe and William Galston, Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy, Clinton administration and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution.

The Chris Matthews Show: Mr. Matthews will be joined by Andrea Mitchell, NBC News

Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Associate Editor, David Brookes, The New York Times Columnist and Helene Cooper, The New York Times  White House Correspondent. They will be discussing these questions:

Is Obama’s National Security Team at War?

What’s the Evidence Hillary Clinton Might Bump Joe Biden?

Are Voters Set to Elect Some Extremists to the Senate?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: An exclusive with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for an inside look at the Obama administration’s game plan to keep Democrats in power on the Hill. Plus, a look at the president’s agenda when it comes to all the big issues post-election: the economy, taxes, foreign policy and more.

Also the Senate Debate 2010 series continues with the showdown in Colorado. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet squares off with Republican Ken Buck on all the issues that matter most to the nation and to Colorado: the economy, taxes, health care, immigration and more.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Just two weeks until the midterm elections and the political ad wars are flooding the airwaves at historic levels. The White House accuses the US Chamber of Commerce and other special interest groups of spending millions of dollars from “unknown donors” and foreign entities. Joining us to discuss this and more is Senior Adviser to the President David Axelrod.

We get the GOP response from former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, chair of the Campaign for Working Families. That PAC is launching a $1 million ad blitz in 10 midterm election races.

Then, a closer look at the November midterms and the impact all this money will have on Election Day; that with Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group and Michael Duffy, Assistant Managing Editor of Time.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS:  An exclusive interview with the newest Nobel laureate. MIT professor Peter Diamond was part of a trio that won the award in economics for their work on unemployment — certainly a hot topic these days. And just recently, Diamond was nominated by President Obama to the Federal Reserve. But the nomination was blocked. Diamond on HIS job problem…and the nation’s.

Also, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” is at it again. Kim Jong Il has just announced his succession plan and while it sounds like a farce, the implications could be deadly serious. What is in store for the Korean Peninsula’s future? And could a North Korean collapse lead to a confrontation between the U.S. and China?

While the world was watching the Chilean mine, much else was going on in the world. We’ll span the globe with a terrific GPS foreign policy panel.

And Iraq is going on nine months without a government and violence continues to wreck havoc there. Fareed sits down with Ayad Allawi, the former Prime Minister of Iraq, to get his thoughts on the stalemate and on Thursday’s deadly roadside bombing that killed members of Allawi’s party.

Also, a look at Al Qaeda’s new magazine. Is it the jihadist’s Cosmo?

And finally, was the rescue of the Chilean miners the solution to breaking a century-old dispute between two neighboring nations?

Morning Shinbun Sunday October 17




Sunday’s Headlines:

USA

US shaken by sudden surge of violence against gays

Republican funding surge provides crucial advantage

Europe

Battle for Trafalgar as developers eye Spain’s last unspoilt shores

German, French rail companies on collision course over Chunnel rights

Middle East

Cracks widen in Netanyahu’s coalition

Seven years of war and still no power to the people

Asia

Japan, Once Dynamic, Is Disheartened by Decline

A foreigner’s battle to preserve South Korea’s hanok houses

Africa

Africa’s children get the ‘Slumdog’ treatment

MDC demands Mugabe reverse appointments

Latin America

‘This was the most compellingly upbeat story since the lunar landings. It was a rare privilege to be there to watch it unfold’

Key U.S. allies in Iraq said to be rejoining rebels

Many have quit Sunni Awakening or are covertly helping al-Qaida group

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and DURAID ADNAN

BAQUBA, Iraq  – Members of United States-allied Awakening Councils have quit or been dismissed from their positions in significant numbers in recent months, prey to an intensive recruitment campaign by the Sunni insurgency, according to government officials, current and former members of the Awakening and insurgents.

Although there are no firm figures, security and political officials say hundreds of the well-disciplined fighters – many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military – appear to have rejoined Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

June Cleaver (Beaver’s Mom) Has Died – w/Fav TV Sitcom Poll

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Barbara Billingsley, whose portrayal of June Cleaver on the sitcom “Leave It to Beaver” helped define the suburban TV mother of the 1950s and who lampooned her wholesome image in the movie “Airplane!” as a prim older lady who is fluent in “jive,” died Oct. 16 at her home in Santa Monica, Calif.  She was 94.

Mrs. Billingsley was a fashion model and supporting player on film and television before she won her best-known role, gowned in her signature skirts, high heels and pearls as the Cleaver family matriarch on “Leave It to Beaver.”

June Cleaver was presented as the flawless housewife, lovingly going through the motions of running a home: stuffing celery with peanut butter, vacuuming in high heels, greeting her husband when he came home at night and tucking in her two adorable sons.

link

Prime Time

So today Rangers fans and Yankee haters are getting their revenge (though 5 runs is not enough) but the point is that you only have to split away and that’s already done.  Tonight on Faux we have a pitchers’ duel which means a boring game barring a breakdown.  I’ve already picked the Phillies, I say they do it in 6.  Does this hurt the eventual Yankees matchup?  Did you see CC last night?  Vincible.

There is also Turn Left Racing.

Later-

SNL Repeat from 9/25.  GitS: SAC Re-View, Eraser (episodes 20 and 21).

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Rescuers work to reach four trapped in Ecuador mine

AFP

1 hr 52 mins ago

PORTOVELO, Ecuador (AFP) – Ecuadoran rescuers on Saturday succeeded in creating openings large enough to pump fresh air to four men trapped in a caved-in gold mine, the government said.

But despite the progress, emergency workers had not yet made contact with the men and relatives faced continued uncertainty about whether their loved ones were still alive.

The Ecuadoran miners became trapped in the early hours of Friday morning, after the collapse blocked their exit from the mine, leaving the four men stuck some 150 meters (492 feet) below ground in the Casa Negra mine.

Random Japan

THE NAKED AND THE CRISP

Participants in Chiba’s Ohara Hadaka Matsuri (“Ohara naked man festival”) got a jolt when lightning struck, injuring 34 people carrying shrines, two of them seriously.

In a bid to crash Apple’s iPad party, Sharp is rolling out its new portable e-reader called Galapagos. The company says the tablet will be “adopting a unique evolutionary path of using Japanese technology and design to match the needs of the Japanese user.” (Does that mean we will now be spared grown men reading pornographic manga on the train?)

After paying ¥17 million a year for the naming rights to Miyashita Park in Shibuya-ku, Nike came up with the catchy “Miyashita Nike Park” moniker.

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, IMany Health Care Workers Won’t Get Flu Shots

Poll Shows 28% of Health Care Workers Aren’t Planning to Get Vaccinated This Year cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

Beyond Pesto: New Ideas for Basil

Basil contains flavonoids that are believed to have some antioxidant properties; it’s an excellent source of vitamin K, and a very good source of iron, calcium and vitamin A.

Pots of Basil will also keep away flies although it is unclear why, possibly the fragrant oils. The oils have also shown to inhibit the growth of some pathogenic bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics.

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Cherry Tomatoes Stuffed With Pesto

Ellen’s Lemon Basil Salad Dressing

Spaghetti Squash Gratin With Basil

Risotto With Green Beans

Provençal Tomato and Basil Soup

Punting the Pundits

Punting the Punditsis an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Eugene Robinson: Looney, and That’s No Debate

OK, I want to make sure I understand. Two years ago, with the nation facing a host of complex and difficult problems, voters put a bunch of thoughtful, well-educated people in charge of the government. Now many of those same voters, unhappy and impatient, have decided that things will get better if some crazy, ignorant people are running the show? Seriously?

I thought I had come to terms with the whole tea party thing, I really did. I convinced myself that it could be analyzed as a political phenomenon, an expression of disaffection, a reaction to economic, social and demographic change that leaves some Americans anxious and unsettled, blah blah blah. But then came Wednesday’s debate in Delaware-featuring Christine O’Donnell, uncut and uncensored-and all my rationalizations crumbled. This isn’t politics, it’s insanity.

I know that O’Donnell is likely to lose to Democrat Chris Coons. But until Election Day-at least-we’re supposed to take her seriously as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate. Sorry, but I just can’t do it anymore.

Nor can I pretend that Carl Paladino, the raging bull from Buffalo, is qualified by experience or temperament to be governor of New York. Or that Sharron Angle, whose small-government philosophy is so extreme as to be incoherent, could possibly make a worthwhile contribution as a senator. Or that Rich Iott, whose idea of weekend fun is putting on a Nazi SS uniform and gamboling through the woods, is remotely acceptable as a candidate for the House.

Steven G. Bradbury and John P. Elwood: Call the Senate’s bluff on recess appointments

. . . the Senate cannot constitutionally thwart the president’s recess appointment power through pro forma sessions.

The Senate, of course, does not meet as a body during a pro forma session. By the terms of the recess order, no business can be conducted, and the Senate is not capable of acting on the president’s nominations. That means the Senate remains in “recess” for purposes of the recess appointment power, despite the empty formalities of the individual senators who wield the gavel in pro forma sessions.

The president should consider calling the Senate’s bluff by exercising his recess appointment power to challenge the use of pro forma sessions. If the Senate persists, then the federal courts may need to resolve the validity of the Senate’s gambit.

The alternative will likely be greater gridlock in Washington. This practice will inevitably become the standard operating procedure, and the recess appointment power could become a virtual dead letter — undermining what the Founders viewed as an essential tool for the effective functioning of our government.

Come on, President Obama, call them on this Game of Chicken.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Working Families Party: Still Fighting for Working People

Since its founding in 1998, the Working Families Party (WFP) has emerged as New York State’s liveliest progressive political force. It has helped Democrats take back both the US Congress and the State Senate by bringing disaffected Democrats, union members and independents into a coalition with insurgent Democratic candidates.

In 2009, a WFP-backed slate of unusually good progressive candidates for New York City Council, Comptroller and Public Advocate (Nation contributor Bill De Blasio) all won in a landslide. And this September, the party helped defeat notorious state senator Pedro Espada, who had held Albany hostage by threatening to become a Republican and almost single-handedly blocked tenants’ rights legislation from coming to the floor.

That means New Yorkers voting the WFP line on November 2. If you vote for Cuomo, for example, do so on the WFP line rather than the Democratic line. If you select both bubbles only the majority party will receive your vote, and the WFP needs to reach that 50,000-vote threshold to continue receiving its own line on the state ballot.

The WFP is also on the ballot in five other states-Connecticut, Vermont, Oregon, Delaware and South Carolina. In Connecticut, votes on the WFP line could be the margin in some high-profile races like Attorney General Richard Blumenthal versus Linda McMahon for US Senate, and Democrat Dan Malloy versus Tom Foley for Governor.

So if you can vote for the WFP this election, do it. And all of us can tell our friends and colleagues about this once-ragtag group of unions, community groups and progressives that has grown into a force, electing progressive candidates and advancing progressive causes.

US Chamber of Commerce to Unemployed: “Stop Whining”

The US Chamber of Commerce has told unemployed Americans to “stop whining” about job out sourcing to foreign countries. It is here to stay.

Tom Donahue, President and CEO of the US Cahmaber of Commerce:

There are legitimate values to outsourcing, not only jobs, but work.

Yes, there are “jobs and work”, just not for Americans living in the US. Perhaps we should all immigrate to India or Nigeria.

The Chamber of commerce is now putting out ads attacking Democrats who want to stop the bleeding of jobs oversees and close the tax loop holes that make it profitable for companies that out source. The Chamber is also claiming that they are not using foreign funds to pay for theses ads but refusing to open their books to the FEC thus avoiding campaign finance laws which finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.

Exclusive: Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads

More Validation

What You Don’t Know about "Mortgagegate" Could Crush the U.S. Banking System

By Shah Gilani, Contributing Editor, Money Morning

October 15, 2010

(T)he odds that a financial tsunami will result from Mortgagegate are building each day. If this storm strikes with its full fury , it could be the kind of credit-crisis aftershock that undermines the tentative handhold that the U.S. recovery is so desperately clinging to.



Here’s the problem. In creating MERS, these institutions actually changed the land-title system that this country – for much of its history – has relied upon to determine legal ownership status of land titleholders.



MERS is facing class-action lawsuits and civil racketeering suits around the country and their members are being individually named in all these suits. One suit alleges that MERS owes California a potential $60 billion to $120 billion in unpaid land-recording fees.

How Wall Street Hid Its Mortgage Mess

By WILLIAM D. COHAN, The New York Times

October 14, 2010, 7:30 pm

This is where things got interesting. Clayton provided the inquiry commission with documents that summarized its findings for the six quarters between January 2006 and June 2007, when mortgage-underwriting standards were arguably at their worst and the housing bubble was inflating rapidly. Of the 911,039 mortgages Clayton examined for its Wall Street clients – a sample of about 10 percent of the total mortgages that the banks intended to package into securities – only 54 percent were found to meet the underwriting guidelines. Standards deteriorated over time, with only 47 percent of the mortgages Clayton examined meeting the guidelines by the second quarter of 2007.

So, did Wall Street throw all those mortgages back into the pond as being too risky for securities they were going to sell to clients? Of course not – many were packaged right into their product. There were degrees of nefariousness: Some Wall Street firms were better about including higher-quality mortgages in their mortgage-backed securities than others. For instance, at Goldman Sachs, 77 percent of the nearly 112,000 mortgages reviewed met the guidelines, while at Citigroup only 58 percent did. At Lehman Brothers, which later filed for bankruptcy, 74 percent of the mortgages sampled and then packaged up as securities met underwriting guidelines.

In fact, the banks probably weren’t disappointed at all by the shaky status of many of these loans: in part because they could use the information that some of the mortgages were rotten to get a discount from the mortgage originators on the price paid for the entire portfolio. The people who should have been concerned were the investors who bought the securities from the Wall Street firms. But the amazing revelation of the Sacramento hearing was that the investment banks did not pass this very valuable information on to their customers.

The Mortgage Morass

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: October 14, 2010

Now an awful truth is becoming apparent: In many cases, the documentation doesn’t exist. In the frenzy of the bubble, much home lending was undertaken by fly-by-night companies trying to generate as much volume as possible. These loans were sold off to mortgage “trusts,” which, in turn, sliced and diced them into mortgage-backed securities. The trusts were legally required to obtain and hold the mortgage notes that specified the borrowers’ obligations. But it’s now apparent that such niceties were frequently neglected. And this means that many of the foreclosures now taking place are, in fact, illegal.

This is very, very bad. For one thing, it’s a near certainty that significant numbers of borrowers are being defrauded – charged fees they don’t actually owe, declared in default when, by the terms of their loan agreements, they aren’t.

Beyond that, if trusts can’t produce proof that they actually own the mortgages against which they have been selling claims, the sponsors of these trusts will face lawsuits from investors who bought these claims – claims that are now, in many cases, worth only a small fraction of their face value.

And who are these sponsors? Major financial institutions – the same institutions supposedly rescued by government programs last year. So the mortgage mess threatens to produce another financial crisis.

But always remember that as large as the problem is for the banksters your proximate problem is that you may not have clear title to your property if it’s registered with MERS and not the town, city, county, or state.

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