December 2011 archive

The year 1970 was a roller coaster for The Who.  The success of Tommy, both in record sales and in touring revenue, were making them rich.  Not just doing OK, but rich.  However, the year started with a real tragedy, and probably marked the beginning of the end of the band, but no one knew it at the time.

Actually, there were two events that presaged the decline, but the one on 19700104 was the actual tragedy.  What I find interesting is that this event, which really happened, is not nearly as well know as the one about Moon driving the car into the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn the previous year, which as we discussed last week, never happened.

I long ago stopped with the Holiday shopping and spending madness that now starts in September. I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a store the day after Thanksgiving. There isn’t anything that my family needs that badly that I would subject myself to obsessed drivers vying for the parking spot closest to the doors if over crowded shopping centers. Or to the rudeness of shoppers, young and old, who will do just about anything from pepper spraying you to walking over your dead body to get to one of the 24 pairs of Nike Air Jordan’s on the shelf, or some other heavily discounted item, that they have waited countless hours for with a thousand other shoppers.

This isn’t just shoppers behaving badly, this is pure insanity driven by greed.

Despite the all this spending frenzy, the economic outlook for retailers isn’t all the booming:

Half off at the entire store at Ann Taylor. Sixty percent at Gap. Forty percent off almost everything at Abercrombie & Fitch.

Aggressive last-minute deals in the days before Christmas are good for procrastinators, but they could be an alarm bell for the retail industry.

While scattered markdowns are standard every year, discounts across entire stores – which analysts say are more widespread than last year – suggest merchants are stuck with too much merchandise.

“It’s really a game of chicken,” said David Bassuk, managing director and head of the retail practice at the consultant firm AlixPartners.

Many retailers entered the season “with pretty optimistic plans” that shoppers would rush into stores and pay full price, Mr. Bassuk said. But that did not pan out, and the final days before Christmas have retailers being “much more aggressive in terms of promotions being offered,” he said.

Shoppers are filling their holiday lists against the backdrop of an uncertain year, with stubbornly high unemployment, increased food prices, volatile gas prices and unpredictability for stocks and Europe’s debt crisis. The government on Thursday said that third-quarter economic growth had not been as brisk as it previously estimated, because of a drop in consumer spending on services like health care.

The American worker is taking home less, if he’s even lucky enough to still have a job, with the real unemployment rate is 11%. The big deal in the news today is the House Republicans caved to demands for a two month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits that will have to hashed out again when Congress comes back from their extended Winter vacation then end of January.  

(h/t Calculated Risk)

Details of Mortgage Servicing Settlement Between Banks and AGs Begin to Emerge

By Massimo Calabresi, Time Magazine

December 23, 2011

In return for the $5 billion in cash and the $20 billion in credits, the banks would be released from claims against them for servicing and foreclosure abuses that might be brought against them by the states and the federal government. The states also release the banks from origination claims, that is, claims they might face for all the fraud and duplicity they engaged in when they made bad loans at the height of the housing craze. The banks do not get immunity or a release of for individual claims by homeowners-just a release from past practices State- and Federal-initiated claims. They also don’t get released for securitization abuses of the kind Citibank and Goldman Sachs have been investigated for.

The Iowa AG’s office, which led the negotiations, is bracing for criticism of the deal. The limited payments are likely to be criticized, as is the release for origination abuses. The state negotiators say all the originators are already out of business and that in most cases the claims would be too old to prosecute. Arguments over what the banks would and wouldn’t get off the hook for are what led several liberal State AGs to bolt from the deal. The $25 billion version of the price tag drops to $19 billion if California stays out of the deal, which looks likely. Other states that have dropped out have been in talks with Housing and Urban Development chief Shaun Donovan about coming back into the fold: in particular, Donovan has been in talks with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in recent weeks in the hope of getting him back into the deal, but that also seems unlikely.

When it comes up again, as it inevitably will, you’ll want this link to remind people that it’s all about lining the pockets of Oil Companies.

Not Jobs.

Not Angry Brown Heathens squatting on our Jesus Gas.

Money for corporatists.

Provision May Halt Pipeline, but Oil Is Still Likely to Flow

By JOHN M. BRODER and DAN FROSCH, The New York Times

Published: December 23, 2011

Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, said in a television interview this week that if the United States blocked the Keystone pipeline, Canada would look to China as a market for its oil.

“I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to China,” Mr. Harper said.

…

(E)xperts in oil economics say that the oil is coming out of the ground in any event because of steadily growing global demand and the heavy investment in infrastructure already made in Alberta.

…

“In an era of limited accessibility to overseas oil resources and in contrast to conventional oil fields that produce at their peak production level for only three to six years before going into decline,” Mr. Budzik said, “long-lived productive assets such as oil sands provide a company some insurance as to its long-term financial viability.”

“Punting the Pundits” is 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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Japan Times Editorial: Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Far from Resolved

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Dec. 16 declared that the stricken reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have entered the state of “cold shutdown” and that it has been confirmed that the nuclear crisis has “been resolved”(Shusoku ni itatta.) As far as Tepco and the goverment are concerned, “Step 2” of their “road map” to bring the nuclear crisis under control has been accomplished one month earlier than originally scheduled. After the completion of Step 2, work that will eventually lead to removal of molten nuclear fuel and decommissioning of the stricken reactors is supposed to start. But the prime minister’s declaration that the crisis has been resolved will not be accepted by many people, especially those in Fukushima Prefecture. [..]

Tepco’s middle- and long-range scenario includes such risks as spontaneous restart of a fission process, new hydrogen explosions, corrosion of the pools containing spent nuclear fuel, leakage of contaminated water or mud, and another strong earthquake and tsunami. Clearly, the nuclear crisis remains far from resolved and Tepco and the government must continue to make their utmost efforts to bring the situation at the Fukushima plant truly under control as quickly as possible and ensure that enough workers remain at the site to cope with any dangerous developments.

Alexander Cockburn: Loom of the Jackboot: Obama Gives Military Extreme Powers

Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the news that President Obama had signed into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in contempt of constitutional protections for its citizens or constitutional restraints upon criminal behavior sanctioned by the state.

At least the DPRK doesn’t trumpet its status as the least-best sanctuary of liberty. American politicians, starting with the president, do little else.

A couple of months ago, came a mile-marker in America’s steady slide downhill towards the status of a Banana Republic with Obama’s assertion that he has the right as president to secretly order the assassination, without trial, of a U.S. citizen he deems to be working with terrorists. This followed his 2009 betrayal of his pledge to end the indefinite imprisonment without charges or trial of prisoners in Guantanamo.

After months of declaring that he would veto such legislation, Obama has now crumbled and will soon sign a monstrosity called the Levin/McCain detention bill, named for its two senatorial sponsors, Carl Levin and John McCain. It’s snuggled into the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 23 is the 357th day of the year (358th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are eight days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1893, The opera Hansel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck is first performed.

The libretto was written by Adelheid Wette (Humperdinck’s sister), based on the Grimm brothers’ Hansel and Gretel. It is much admired for its folk music-inspired themes, one of the most famous being the Abendsegen (“Evening Benediction”) from Act 2.

The idea for the opera was proposed to Humperdinck by his sister, who approached him about writing music for songs that she had written for her children for Christmas based on “Hänsel und Gretel.” After several revisions, the musical sketches and the songs were turned into a full-scale opera.

Humperdinck composed Hansel and Gretel in Frankfurt am Main in 1891 and 1892. The opera was first performed in Weimar on 23 December 1893, conducted by Richard Strauss. It has been associated with Christmas since its earliest performances and today it is still most often performed at Christmas time.

No Joke.

Last night I had TDS/TCR duty and while I found this story incredibly funny, it’s also very serious and topical.

(h/t qm1pooh)

The question on everyone’s mind, indeed the only question of any political significance whatever this election cycle is whether Stephen Colbert’s Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Super PAC™ will be allowed to sponsor this year’s South Carolina Republican Primary.

I’m sure you all remember this segment from 12/7-

where Stephen reveals his negotiation to place a simple non-binding referendum question on the 2011 South Carolina Republican Primary ballot.

In order to address the issue of Corporate Personhood, the enfranchised People of the Sovereign State of South Carolina declare that:

   ( ) Corporations are people.

   ( ) Only people are people.

As Stephen reveals today in his explosive guest editorial in The State, South Carolina’s leading newspaper for publishing explosive guest editorials by Stephen Colbert, South Carolina has 2 (count ’em) TWO State Mottos-

   Animis opibusque parati – “Prepared in mind and resources.”

   AND

   Dum spiro spero – “While I breathe, I hope.”

Oh, and that his Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Super PAC™ has made a firm cash offer of $500,000 to become the official sponsor of the South Carolina Republican Primary.

This is no joke.  Stephen has in fact written “No Joke” on the memo line of each check.

ek you say, how can someone “sponsor” a Primary?

Civium Coniunctionem

Please remember to say that like Hermione and not Ronald.

For years the South Carolina Republican Party has paid for the expenses of each county.

Colbert Sought Naming Rights For South Carolina Primary

By Reid Wilson, National Journal

December 22, 2011 11:20 AM

Until 2008, the state Republican Party had paid for the entire primary process, renting the polling places and voting machines, printing the ballots and providing the volunteers. In 2008, the state paid for both parties’ competitive primaries.

No joke: Stephen Colbert wants naming rights to S.C. GOP primary

Richard Fausset, L.A. Times

December 22, 2011 9:28 am

This month the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported that Colbert offered to help cover the costs of the Jan. 21 presidential primary, the first in the South, if the state GOP would change its name to “The Colbert Nation Super PAC Presidential Primary,” just as Frito-Lay has paid to affix “Tostitos” to “Fiesta Bowl.”

He also asked the party to support placing a referendum question on the January ballot asking voters whether they believe “corporations are people,” an issue at the heart of the Citizens United case, or “only people are people,” an assertion echoing a 1984 Depeche Mode hit.

The State’s Gina Smith reported that the GOP passed on the naming rights, but agreed to put the question on the primary ballot in exchange for a pledge of a “significant contribution” from Colbert’s PAC.

Then, however, the South Carolina Supreme Court struck all referendum questions from the ballot.

That wasn’t the end of things. South Carolina’s GOP is also caught up in a complicated drama over how much of the primary it should pay for, and how much of the tab should be picked up by the government. Matt Moore, the executive director of the state GOP, has said he believes that a recent court ruling makes the state and counties “solely responsible for the primary.”

South Carolina GOP rebuts Stephen Colbert on primary naming rights

By MICHAEL A. MEMOLI, Sacremento Bee

Published: Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 – 12:00 am

Ultimately, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that the state’s counties had to foot the bill for the cost of the election. And Colbert is offering again to step to the plate, under the same conditions he offered before.

“The counties need the money, and Colbert Super PAC wants to give it to you; call it a Christmas Miracle,” he says.

op. cite–

The South Carolina Republican Party confirmed they had been engaged in talks with Colbert, talks sources said have continued for months. And party chairman Chad Connolley did visit Colbert in New York, a spokesman confirmed.

Colbert’s not giving up on S.C. primary

Reuters

Dec 22, 2011 21:10 IST

Colbert said talks continued with the state party over plans including still selling them the naming rights or whether the GOP would petition to get his referendum back on the ballot. When that failed, he said he reached out to the state Democrats, who agreed to seek to reinstate the referendum. At that point, the state Republicans declined Colbert’s money because they “were concerned about the sanctity of the primary election.”

“If nothing else good comes from this, we have at least narrowed down the exact value of sanctity – somewhere between $200,000 and $400,000,” Colbert wrote.

Colbert wrote that he thought the issue was dead, until learning that South Carolina’s Republican party had reneged on almost all funding for the primary, which prompted him to offer to cover the counties’ $500,000 shortfall.

Colbert guest editorial: Naming rights, state mottoes and the GOP primary + video

By Stephen Colbert – Guest Columnist, The State

Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011

I assumed that was the end of the story, but last week I saw that the South Carolina GOP has reneged on funding any part of the primary, save for the legal minimum percentage of candidate filing fees, leaving the financially strapped counties on the hook for $500,000. That’s money that counties need for emergency services, infrastructure repair, and to complete the wall to keep out North Carolinians. Once again, our first-in-the-South primary is in jeopardy.

…

Colbert Super PAC will cover the counties’ $500,000 shortfall. In return, I ask for only two things: that you support the Democrats’ petition to get my referendum back on the ballot, and that you grant me the pre-negotiated naming rights, which, I think we can all agree, you now own. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “You paid for that microphone!”

Do not despair

Oh, and you may resume breathing.  Stephen has left us this message of eksmas cheer (op. cite)-

Dear Colbert Super PAC Members And Incorporated MemberCo’s,

Colbert Super PAC got you a Christmas present, but it didn’t arrive in time. You want to know what it was anyway?

I was going to give you the South Carolina primary. I was so sure you’d like it, I didn’t even ask for a receipt.

I’ve explained it all in an opinion piece that’s just been published in “The State” newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. You can take a look here.

Sorry it didn’t get here in time. Remember, it’s the thought that counts. So next year I’m going to give you thoughts.

Whatever holiday you celebrate this season:

Merry Christmas from Colbert Super PAC!

   Stephen Colbert

   President And Fourth Wise Man

   Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

^{Contributions to Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow (“ABTT”) are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. ABTT may accept unlimited corporate contributions, unlimited individual contributions, unlimited labor-union contributions, and unlimited PAC contributions. Contributions from foreign nationals and federal-government contractors will not be accepted. *Federal law requires ABTT’s best efforts to obtain and report the name, address, occupation, and employer of any individual who contributes more than $200 in a calendar year.}

Another slap on the wrist by the government for the banks that caused the housing bubble and the crash that sank the economy world wide with unregulated derivatives and credit default swaps:

The Department of Justice has announced a $335 million settlement with Countrywide, the former subprime mortgage giant now subsumed into Bank of America, on claims of housing discrimination.

   The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the largest residential fair-lending settlement in history, saying that Bank of America had agreed to pay $335 million to settle allegations that its Countrywide Financial unit discriminated against black and Hispanic borrowers during the housing boom.

   A department investigation concluded that Countrywide had charged higher fees and rates to more than 200,000 minority borrowers across the country than to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk. It also steered more than 10,000 minority borrowers into costly subprime mortgages when white borrowers with similar credit profiles received prime loans, the department said.

   The pattern and practice covered the years 2004 to 2008, before Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America.

   “The department’s actions against Countrywide makes clear that we will not hesitate to hold financial institutions accountable, including one of the nation’s largest, for discrimination,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said. “These institutions should make judgments based on applicants’ creditworthiness, not on the color of their skin.”

I’m waiting for someone to hold financial institutions accountable for discrimination against every one of its customers, by defrauding them and destroying the residential home mortgage market. That’s obviously not going to happen here.[..]

Here’s the settlement agreement, and once again you see that Countrywide doesn’t have to admit wrongdoing for their crimes.

But the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission will enthusiastically pursue the one agency that didn’t cause the crash but just inherited it, at tax payers expense:

The walls have closed in over the past couple weeks on mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The SEC charged former CEOs and executives at the companies with fraud. California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued them for imformation (sic)in a wide-ranging fraud investigation. And now we learn that the FBI is investigating them[..]

If Fannie and Freddie are guilty of misleading investors, they deserve to pay the penalty. And yet, I do sense more enthusiasm to go after these government sponsored enterprises than to go after the private banking firms which were far more responsible for subprime. This feeds a false narrative that government somehow caused the financial crisis by forcing lending to poor people. Fannie and Freddie followed the market in subprime and did not originate it.

“Punting the Pundits” is 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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Gail Collins: Housebound for the Holidays

Right now, you are probably asking yourself: What exactly is going on with Congress? What’s all this yelling about a tax increase? Also, are they shutting down the government again? Because I was really planning to spend my Christmas camping out in a national park.

Good news! Congress did not shut down the government this month. It was sort of dancing around the idea, but the country has grown so inured to this kind of behavior that nobody paid any attention.

Then our lawmakers moved on to a crisis over the payroll tax, unemployment compensation and Medicare. On which they totally dropped the ball.

Robert Reich: The Defining Issue: Not Government’s Size, but Who It’s For

The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be who government is for.

Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.

But the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s size. The cynicism comes from a growing perception that government isn’t working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead.

In a recent Pew Foundation poll, 77 percent of respondents said too much power is in the hands of a few rich people and corporations.

Twist as the president’s supporters might with the “look over here” tactic, the National Defense Authorization Bill (NDAA) does not change any existing law that Barack Obama has interpreted to mean he has the power to throw your sorry butt in prison anywhere in the world for as long as he chooses. Or he can just declare you a terrorist without providing evidence and have you executed without due process. Ignoring the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that was recently renewed giving the president the authority to send in the military to fight that ubiquitous enemy “terror”, the Obama loyalists, keep pointing to section 1022 of the NDAA, the section that makes military detention presumptive for non-citizens but doesn’t foreclose military detention of US citizens, while completely ignoring section 1021, the section that affirms the President’s authority to indefinitely detain people generally. As Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel points out while the NDAA does not authorize indefinite detention for American citizens, it does not foreclose the possibility either:

The NDAA doesn’t do anything to exempt Americans from indefinite detention. And the reason it doesn’t-at least according to the unrebutted claims of Carl Levin that I reported on over a month ago-is because the Administration asked the Senate Armed Services Committee to take out language that would have specifically exempted Americans from indefinite detention.

   The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding “the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.”  The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill. [my emphasis]

So the effect is that (as Lawfare describes in detail) the bill remains unclear about whether Americans can be detained indefinitely and so we’re left arguing about what the law is until such time as a plaintiff gets beyond the Executive Branch’s state secrets invocations to actually decide the issue in court.

Nor did the amendment from Sen. Diane Feinstein clarify that point either, in fact, she may have codified it. So the only recourse is for some poor fool to have his civil liberties abrogated and try to fight in court without being allowed access to lawyers or courts. Those are some hurdles. Scott Horton, contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and New York attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, discussed this with Keith Olbermann:

Constitutional expert and George Washington University law professor, Jonathan Turley, appeared on C-Span with his take on this discussion. He made it very clear that Obama says that he can assassinate American citizens living on U.S. soil:

(starting at 15:50):

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.

Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion [..]

I don’t think the the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax …

h/t Washington’s Blog

How quickly the president’s defenders forget Anwar al-Awlaki. Marcy points to the contortions of the law that Obama used to justify his assassination and then issued a “secret memorandum” which was conveniently “leaked” to New York Times reporter Charles Savage:

And, as Charlie Savage has reported, the legal justification the Administration invented for killing an American citizen in a premeditated drone strike consists of largely the same legal justification at issue in the NDAA detainee provisions.

           

The 2001 AUMF, which purportedly defined who our enemies are (though the NDAA more logically includes AQAP in its scope than the 2001 AUMF)

           

Hamdi, which held the President could hold an American citizen in military detention under the 2001 AUMF

           

Ex Parte Quirin, which held that an American citizen who had joined the enemy’s forces could be tried in a military commission

           

Scott v. Harris (and Tennesee v. Garner), which held that authorities could use deadly force in the course of attempting to detain American citizens if that person posed an imminent threat of injury or death to others

   In other words, Obama relied on substantially the same legal argument supporters of the NDAA detainee provisions made to argue that indefinite detention of American citizens was legal, with the addition of Scott v. Harris to turn the use of deadly force into an unfortunate side-effect of attempted detention.

There is no question that the Obama administration, by signing the NDAA, believes that it has the broad power to indefinitely detain and assassinate American citizens and guarantees that the next president will too.

The late George Carlin said it several years ago, “this country is circling the drain“.