December 2014 archive

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

President Bill Clinton impeached; General George Washington opens camp at Valley Forge; Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” is first published; Apollo 17 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean; ‘The Music Man’ opens on Broadway.

Breakfast Tunes

Farewell, Stephen. We’ll meet again.

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 19 is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine publishes The American Crisis.

These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops. Between September and December, 11,000 American volunteers gave up the fight and returned to their families. General Washington could foresee the destiny of a rebellion without an army if the rest of his men returned home when their service contracts expired on December 31. He knew that without an upswing in morale and a significant victory, the American Revolution would come to a swift and humiliating end.

Thomas Paine was similarly astute. His Common Sense was the clarion call that began the revolution. As Washington’s troops retreated from New York through New Jersey, Paine again rose to the challenge of literary warfare. With American Crisis, he delivered the words that would salvage the revolution.

The American Crisis was a series of pamphlets published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution by eighteenth century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine. Thirteen numbered pamphlets were published between 1776-1777 with three additional pamphlets released between 1777-1783. The writings were contemporaneous with the early parts of the American Revolution, during the times that colonists needed inspiring.

They were written in a language the common man could manage and are indicative of Paine’s liberal philosophies. Paine signed them with one of his many pseudonyms “Common Sense”. The writings bolstered the morale of the American colonists, appealed to the English people’s consideration of the war with America, clarified the issues at stake in the war and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace.

In this chapter of the Obama administration’s war on freedom of the press, the cast of character are:

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, an former employee of the CIA, was indicted, arrested, and charged with violating the Espionage Act in 2010.

James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for The New York Time, is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, which was discussed CIA operations, specifically Operation Merlin.

Mr. Risen was subpoenaed to testify at Mr. Sterling’s trial and would have been asked if Mr. Sterling was the source for the Operation Merlin. He refused and fought the subpoena through the courts. In July 2013, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Risen would have to testify. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Mr. Risen said that he would not comply and was willing to go to jail. That was not the end of Mr. Risen’s fight to protect a confidential source.

Then in October 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder stated “no reporter’s going to jail as long as I’m attorney general.” On December 10, a federal court judge told prosecutors that they had a week to decide whether they enforce the subpoena.  On this Tuesday, it was announced that Mr. Risen would be subpoenaed to answer questions before the trial but there is some confusion about what those questions are:

Prosecutors say they will not ask James Risen if ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was his anonymous source for part of the 2006 book “State Of War” that detailed a botched CIA effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. However, they do want to know if the two had a prior, on-the-record source relationship.

Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, said at Tuesday’s hearing that he is not sure whether his client is willing to answer the questions that prosecutors want to pose.

Furthermore, defense attorneys indicated they may also have their own questions, which puts Risen at risk of being found in contempt of court if he refuses to answer. {..}

On Tuesday, though, as prosecutors detailed what they would seek from Risen, it was unclear whether Risen would agree to the limitations. And it became equally clear that Risen may have as much to fear, if not more, from defense lawyers, who would be free to cross-examine Risen and could even seek to subpoena him themselves.

Edward MacMahon, one of Sterling’s lawyers, told Brinkema that “the notion we can sanitize this by limiting (his testimony) to two or three questions is hard for us to fathom.”

He declined comment after the hearing on whether he may seek to subpoena Risen.

Prosecutor James Trump said there is much more uncertainty about the questions Risen might face from the defense than there is about what prosecutors will seek.

Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman and Juan González spoke to Marcy Wheeler, investigative blogger who runs EmptyWheel.net and writes for ExposeFacts.org.

In Plan for Risen Subpoena, Government Raises Sixth Amendment Interests of Jeffrey Sterling

Marcy Wheeler, Expose the Facts

December 16, 2014

The government has now submitted its explanation for the limited information it will seek from James Risen in the Jeffrey Sterling trial and pre-trial hearings.

It will ask him to confirm that:

•    He has  confidentiality agreement with his source or sources on the Merlin story (though they will not ask who those sources are)
•    He authored the Merlin chapter of his book State of War, but also one article in which he explicitly and another the government claims he relied on Sterling as a source
•    He worked with Sterling for one of those earlier stories in a non-confidential relationship

[..]

The last line of the filing, however, suggests ExposeFacts may have correctly predicted their plan. The government raises the possibility Risen will refuse to answer Sterling’s questions.

It’s obvious that the DOJ is behind the eight ball and is praying that the they will not be the reason Mr. Risen ends up behind bars.

If you’ve been watching Comedy Central at all today it’s been pretty hard to ignore that tonight is Stephen’s last Colbert Report and like many of you I suppose I’m a little sad to see him go.

The Colbert Report has been airing since about the time I started writing on the Internet (well, as ek hornbeck at least, my character is as much an artificial construct as Stephen’s and like him I never break it) and I won’t pretend that I noticed either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report before that time.  Instead I watched Cable News (lots of it) and considered myself reasonably well informed (I also read 3 or 4 daily newspapers so I didn’t get all my news from TV).

Being on the ‘Tubes was an eye opening and radicalizing experience for me.  I have always wanted to be a writer, and have always written.  I was an editor at my High School Alternative Newspaper and won a couple of Awards from the Columbia School of Journalism, one for the paper and an individual Columnist Award.  I took a term or so at the Boston University School of Journalism and worked a couple of years for my local Weekly.

Journalism is a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world of misfits and drunkards and failures.

And did I mention that it pays poorly?  So I did some other things with my life, some of which had nothing at all to do with writing (working with the severely learning disabled, Supervisor of Shipping and Receiving) and then cheap micro-computers came out.

I had sworn that computers were the work of the Devil (and they are) and that I would never, ever use one.  You can see how the latter turned out.

So for I while I wrote poetry for machines, stacks and stacks of it, and there’s something satisfying about composing originals following a very strict syntax and grammar in a foreign language for an absolutely literal minded and unforgivimg audience.

For amusement my friend and I formed a small multimedia enterprise to advance our political position in our Club.  In addition to countless newsletters, pamphlets, training manuals, flyers, posters, and reports and meeting materials, we did some DJing and wrote, produced, and directed videos, ran training seminars, and did the public speaking thing.  He was the candidate, but after he was defeated he lost interest.  I never gave up and became Capo di Tutti.

And I ran things with an iron fist (velvet gloves are for sissies) for about 5 years before I got bored and quit for good.

I golfed for a while, but it’s a tedious game.  I wouldn’t garden, I’ve seen The Godfather.

In April of ’05 I was tired of Cable and ventured out on the ‘Net (another thing I swore I’d never do because of totally reasonable caution) as ek.  I thought I had found a home, a place where I didn’t need to be afraid to let it slip I was a Democrat and I suppose it was a home for a while.  While there I discovered this little corner of it called The Daily Show/The Colbert Report Spoiler Thread which we affectionately know today as TDS/TCR, the Sausage Grinder of Snark (my idea, at least the tag is).  At the time it was under the stewardship of a lovely lady that it’s my great pleasure to know, TiaRachel.

Occasionally she needed a replacement for a break and, having by that time built my own reputation to the point that I no longer cared about writing blockbusters, I was happy to fill in.  In a moment of weakness during a particularly long hiatus for the programs, I succumbed to the entreaties of PerfectStormer to cover the off periods.

And thus things were until my first banishment (over the very same pictures of U.S. prisoner abuse that Barack Obama refuses to release today ironically) and after my reinstatement, which I never sought nor have I ever apologized for my words and actions, I returned to the same routine.  TDS/TCR was the only damn thing I missed about that place anyway.

After a while TiaRachel retired and I took over the franchise which I ran for about a year and a half before my second banishment (for defending a friend against bullying which I don’t regret either).  Because of the presentation limitations of that place I had already established the series here and while others have continued the tradition elsewhere (and good for them) I contend that we also maintain Apostolic Succession.

Now I don’t know what they are planning on doing, this is my plan.  During the holiday break I’ll be running some specials related to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  When Jon resumes live broadcasts we will live blog those.  When The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore starts we will cover that too.

When Stephen Colbert takes over The Late Show (sometime after May) we will promote the guests, but will not live blog (hey, I gotta sleep sometime).

Will I miss The Colbert Report?  Of course.  And however dead he kills the character, in the incestuous zombie culture of reunion re-boot happy media I expect it to re-emerge at some point or another.

In a way it marks the end of an era for me, but I’m not going anywhere and you can count on my continuing to plumb new depths of obnoxiousness for some time to come.

Lucky you.

Pobrecitos

90 Scratchers

The real news below.

Inside Wall Street’s new heist: How big banks exploited a broken Democratic caucus

David Dayen, Salon

Tuesday, Dec 16, 2014 02:45 PM EST

The so-called swaps push-out provision of Dodd-Frank, Section 716, forced commercial banks that trade certain risky types of derivatives to split them off into a separately capitalized subsidiary, uncovered by FDIC deposit insurance. Those attempting to downplay Section 716’s importance, like Paul Krugman, highlight the fact that uninsured institutions like Lehman Brothers played a critical role in the last crisis, and that risk can cascade through an interconnected financial system no matter where those risks are initially housed. This theory actually made it easier to get the rider through Congress, giving lawmakers a plausible story that the provision wasn’t central to reform.

But this overlooks how 716 didn’t just limit taxpayer bailouts, but removed a lucrative subsidy for the four major banks – Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs – that control almost all of the derivatives market. By holding derivatives inside their depository units, these banks benefit from an implicit FDIC guarantee for its counter-parties should those units fail. Keeping them in separately capitalized entities costs the banks more in short-term borrowing. As the Wall Street Journal’s John Carney points out, the banks’ parent companies have lower credit ratings than the depository units, which affects the price banks can ask for derivatives.

So in the end, removing 716 just gives four banks a giant subsidy they would lose by splitting out the derivatives books, no different than the other CRomnibus riders that aid the bottom lines of wealthy benefactors. That has implications for safety as well – if risky derivatives are cheaper to fund and more profitable to trade, banks will increase their production. Furthermore, banks’ concerns about possible energy swap losses related to the crash in oil prices added a sense of urgency.

…

The origins of eliminating Section 716 go back to the writing of Dodd-Frank itself. Blanche Lincoln, author of the derivatives regulations in the bill, initially included practically all swaps. A combination of lobbyists, Wall Street-friendly “New Democrats” and the Treasury Department significantly rolled that back, limiting it to the riskiest bits, like credit default swaps that don’t go through a clearinghouse.

After wounding the provision, the banks employed their allies in Congress to disappear it entirely. A bipartisan coalition, including Jim Himes, D-Conn., a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, introduced a host of bills to weaken derivatives rules as far back as 2011. HR 992, the “Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act,” sailed through the House Financial Services Committee 53-6 in spring 2013. The language of this bill, written by Citigroup lobbyists, is virtually identical to what passed in the CRomnibus. Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking member on the Democratic side, waged a fairly lonely battle to limit Democratic support. On the House floor, 70 Democrats voted for the final bill, far fewer than was initially expected. This enabled Senate Democrats to ignore the bill as a stand-alone entity.

House Republicans, egged on by Wall Street lobbyists, tried another tactic. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., a two-term member of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing financial services, stuck HR 992 into the financial services appropriations bill without a formal vote, pitching it as an aid to “the farmer in your district who wants to get a loan,” rather than Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein. Nobody ever tried to strip it out, and the rider easily advanced through the process.

Stuffing the rollback into a must-pass bill turned out to be a genius move. Lawmakers on the Appropriations committees have less understanding of complex bank maneuvers like derivatives than those on the banking committees. Furthermore, because all parties expected a year-end omnibus bill anyway, it didn’t make as much sense to fight every little provision, when a negotiated process would cover that down the road.

…

Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the outgoing chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, negotiated the CRomnibus with her House counterpart Hal Rogers, R-Ky. She ultimately signed off on the rider, in exchange for modest additional funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, two Wall Street regulators.

Bank reform groups and sympathetic lawmakers didn’t consider it a good trade to give a couple of regulators a bit more money in exchange for limiting what they can regulate.

…

Senate leaders had to know that this swaps provision, for example, would cause plenty of consternation among colleagues like Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. But they gave Mikulski all the space she needed to negotiate, and then pronounced themselves satisfied with the results. This stands in sharp contrast to Ron Wyden on the Senate Finance Committee, who watched Harry Reid go completely over his head in trying to negotiate a year-end tax deal.

Why did Mikulski get the hands-off treatment? For one, she’s earned respect as a longtime senator. Also, the leadership probably welcomed keeping their fingerprints off the final product, which was bound to be ugly. Establishment Democrats, including the White House, never really liked Section 716 to begin with, so they weren’t too displeased with watching it go, regardless of the blueprint it provided for repealing regulatory actions inside budget bills.

…

(T)his shows real dysfunction in how Democrats work. Giving Mikulski carte blanche led to an embarrassing deal that revealed real fissures within the party caucus. The leadership should have seen this coming, but either let it happen or actively participated in the rollback (a claim from the Wall Street Journal editorial board that Chuck Schumer “engineered” the swaps provision had to be retracted within hours).

More important, the leadership failed to listen to the liberal wing, who were loudly and publicly opposed to the swaps rider. This is a familiar refrain from liberal congressional aides; their side of the argument never gets represented at the negotiating table.

The hardening conventional wisdom is that Wall Street lost more than it won with its power play on the CRomnibus, because it revealed itself as a giant liberal target. Mainstream Democrats definitely underestimated the strength liberal reformers brought to the fight, so maybe future actions will be undertaken with that in mind.

But it’s just as likely that the establishment didn’t mind the outcome, letting them look like the sensible centrists “getting something done.” That was probably the motivation behind President Obama ultimately endorsing and even whipping for the bill.

Whatever the outcome, we know that Wall Street exploited a fractured Democratic caucus to restore a big subsidy to its profits. And if Democrats don’t contend with that – or worse, if they don’t want to – you can expect many more congressional victories for the financial sector.

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Gov. Cuomo Makes Sense on Fracking

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced a statewide ban on the extraction of natural gas using a controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. This was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. Many geologists and industry leaders believe that the deep shale formations underneath the state’s southern tier, known as the Marcellus Shale, contain bountiful supplies of natural gas. But extracting the gas, the governor concluded, carried – at least for now – unacceptable risks to the environment and human health.

In making what amounted to his first major decision since his re-election last month, Mr. Cuomo embraced the conclusion of state health officials that important health issues remain unresolved and that it was impossible to declare that hydraulic fracturing is safe for the environment or human health.

Robert Kennedy, Jr.: Coal, an Outlaw Enterprise

Last month, the coal industry in Appalachia suffered two legal blows.

On Nov. 13, federal prosecutors in West Virginia announced that Donald L. Blankenship, the notorious former chief executive of the Massey Energy Company, once Appalachia’s biggest coal producer, was charged with widespread safety violations and deceiving federal inspectors. [..]

Then, on Nov. 24, a Kentucky judge issued a scathing judgment against a Frasure Creek Mining settlement involving over a thousand Clean Water Act violations and years of false data on pollution-disclosure reports.

Coal is an outlaw enterprise. In nearly every stage of its production, many companies that profit from it routinely defy safety and environmental laws and standards designed to protect America’s public health, property and prosperity. In fact, Mr. Blankenship once conceded to me in a debate that mountaintop removal mining could probably not be conducted without committing violations. With a business model like that, one that essentially relies on defiance of the law, it is no wonder that some in the industry use their inordinate political and economic power to influence government officials and capture the regulating agencies.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Breakfast Tune: Carolina Chocolate Drops – Ruby Are you Mad at Your Man?

Today in History

Breakfast News, Blogs, and Cuban Two Step Rag below

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 13 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1918, the House of Representatives passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, along with the Volstead Act, which defined “intoxicating liquors” excluding those used for religious purposes and sales throughout the U.S., established Prohibition in the United States. Its ratification was certified on January 16, 1919. It was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, the only instance of an amendment’s repeal. The Eighteenth Amendment was also unique in setting a time delay before it would take effect following ratification and in setting a time limit for its ratification by the states.

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The amendment and its enabling legislation did not ban the consumption of alcohol, but made it difficult to obtain it legally.

Following significant pressure on lawmakers from the temperance movement, the House of Representatives passed the amendment on December 18, 1917. It was certified as ratified on January 16, 1919, having been approved by 36 states. It went into effect one year after ratification, on January 17, 1920. Many state legislatures had already enacted statewide prohibition prior to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment.

When Congress submitted this amendment to the states for ratification, it was the first time a proposed amendment contained a provision setting a deadline for its ratification. The validity of that clause of the amendment was challenged and reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the constitutionality of such a deadline in Dillon v. Gloss (1921).

Because many Americans attempted to evade the restrictions of Prohibition, there was a considerable growth in violent and organized crime in the United States in response to public demand for illegal alcohol. The amendment was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment on December 5, 1933. It remains the only constitutional amendment to be repealed in its entirety.

Admiral Zhao

Jason Bordoff

The real news and this week’s guests below.

While we were sleeping there was a murder up the block. You probably all saw it, it made national news. Another used up marine with PTSD went from place to place killing folks. One of those places was a block from me. One of those people was a fourteen year old girl who went to my son’s school, her mom and dad too. Her brother was shot, stabbed and lost three fingers, but he survived. I can remember asking during the long day of the neighborhood being shut down, “What if he’s not in there? What if there’s somebody alive in there, hurt?” Turns out that was the situation. That marine was long gone from both places they thought he had barricaded himself in, went into the woods and fell on his sword, or maybe not, the details are unclear at this time, but he’s dead.

I could try to paint you a picture of a small town losing it’s innocence, and I guess more people will lock their doors now, but this is a town that forgets. This is far from our first murder. I can think of several right off the top of my head. Just within the past few years there was a little girl taken, messed with and killed, and an old man who killed his equally old wife because he thought she was cheating. A few years further back there was the kid from the next town over who killed his parents and drove all the way to Florida and was found with their blood still under his fingernails. We never had a mass murder before this, but we’ve never had so many Vets with PTSD roaming around before either.

After every one of these incidents I heard the same kind of talk. Here? Did that really happen here? What is happening to our town? You’re not safe anywhere! And this time– I’ll bet it wasn’t even PTSD! Hmm, what was it then? The truth is nothing is happening to our town. The hardware store will ring up a few more sales today, back lights will burn, but most people still know their neighbors here. People still come out on the porch when an ambulance goes up their street to see who’s in trouble, who may need help. And funds have been started for the survivors, it’s what we do. What else can we do?

So, we go on about our business. We keep sending men to war to come home broken, with no way to repair them. There’s no way to know how many other small towns will go through what mine did or what they will chalk it up to. I know what I think. I know it kills me to think of the hours that boy spent, trapped in that house surrounded by SWAT, severely wounded by a man who had snapped, and killed that boy’s entire family. I know that man claimed PTSD, I’m disinclined to doubt that, and I’m at a loss as to why anyone who goes to war for his country and makes that claim fails to find help.