Under the Radar: Besides an Imminent Nuclear Disaster

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

With the evolving nuclear disaster in Japan taking much of the front page attention, there are still some other news events that are noteworthy.

The Human-Hydrid Turtle is holding the government hostage

From TPM:

• Republicans Escalate Debt Ceiling Fight
  

  Senate Republican leaders in recent days have escalated a showdown that has been lurking in the background of the more immediate fight over funding the federal government through September. While the funding issue remains unresolved, Congress will soon have to turn its attention to the need to raise the national debt limit, or the country will default in just a few weeks.

  “There are 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. My prediction is not a single one of the 47 Republicans will vote to raise the debt ceiling unless it includes with it some credible effort to do something about our debt,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Fox News Sunday. “I think to get any of the 47 Republicans, you’ve got to do something credible, that the markets believe is credible, that the American people believe is credible, that foreign countries believe is credible . . .  in addition to raising the debt ceiling.”

• GOP Senators Blocking New Commerce Secretary Until Trade Deals Go Through
  

  Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took a break from budget negotiations this week to get back to one of the Senate GOP’s most popular pastimes: blocking presidential nominees. McConnell, along with Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), pledged in a letter on Monday to hold up any White House nominee to replace departing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as well as nominees for any other trade-related posts until trade agreements with Colombia and Panama clear the Senate.

  “My fear is in trying to appease their union allies the administration is willing to let these two agreements wither on the vine,” Hatch said at a press conference Monday announcing the move. “We are here today to make clear that we will not allow that to happen.”

Robbing the poor to give to the rich

From Think Progress:

• Michigan’s GOP Gov. Slashes Corporate Tax Rate by 86 Percent, Hikes Taxes for Working Poor
  

  As we’ve been documenting, several conservative governors have proposed placing the brunt of deficit reduction onto the backs of their state’s public employees, students, and middle-class taxpayers, while simultaneously trying to enact corporate tax cuts and giveaways. Govs. Rick Scott (R-FL), Tom Corbett (R-PA), and Jan Brewer (R-AZ) have all gone down this road.

  Following suit, Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) has proposed ending his state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, cutting a $600 per child tax credit, and reducing credits for seniors, while also cutting funding for school districts by eight to ten percent. At the same time, as the Michigan League for Human Services found, the state’s business taxes would be reduced by nearly $2 billion, or 86 percent, under Snyder’s plan.

Anonymous starts its release of BoA info

From Yves Smith at naked capitalism

• “Anonymous” Whistleblower Charges BofA With Large Scale Force Placed Insurance Scheme With Cooperation of Servicers
  

  
  Ooh, this is ugly.

  The charge made in this Anonymous release (via BankofAmericaSuck) is that Bank of America, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Balboa Insurance and the help of cooperating servicers, engaged in a mortgage borrower abuse called “force placed insurance”. This is absolutely 100% not kosher. Famed subprime servicer miscreant Fairbanks in 2003 signed a consent decree with the FTC and HUD over abuses that included forced placed insurance. The industry is well aware that this sort of thing is not permissible. (Note Balboa is due to be sold to QBE of Australia; I see that the definitive agreement was entered into on February 3 but do not see a press release saying that the sale has closed)

  While the focus of ire may be Bank of America, let me stress that this sort of insurance really amounts to a scheme to fatten servicer margins. If this leak is accurate, the servicers at a minimum cooperated with this scheme. If they got kickbacks, um, commissions, they are culpable and thus liable.

You cannot make this up, ever. ROTFLMAO

From Raw Story with a h/t to Dependable Renegade:

• WI Repub lives outside district with mistress, says wife
  

  Protesters who marched at the home of Wisconsin state senator Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) were met with something of a surprise on Saturday. Mrs. Hopper appeared at the door and informed them that Sen. Hopper was no longer in residence at this address, but now lives in Madison, WI with his 25-year-old mistress.

  snip

  Blogging Blue also reports that Mrs. Hopper intends to sign the recall petition against her husband. The petition has already been signed by the family’s maid.

Health care reform ala our corporatist President

From Jon Walker at FDL Action:

• One Year Later, Evaluation of Health Care Reform Virtually Impossible
  

  As we approach the one-year anniversary of Obama’s health care reform scheme becoming law, it is important to note that the number of uninsured people in America has remained roughly the same, or actually increased slightly, in the last year-and the cost of health insurance has continued to rise.

  This isn’t because the new law has failed to work as designed, but due to the fact that the law was actually written to help almost no one for a full four years after passage. This incredibly long delay was done solely to get a better, lower CBO score, which, incidentally, the vast bulk of Americans either don’t know about or refuse to believe.

Holding the unborn hostage. This is what Obama called “health care reform”?

• Monopoly with No Price Controls Leads to 15,000% Markup on Drug for High-Risk Mothers
  

  I’ve found the absolute best way to make incredible profits is to first convince the government to grant you a monopoly (in this case through the patent system) for an essential service, and then fight to make sure the government never puts in place any form of price control over your product. The story of progesterone is a perfect example of this winning corporate welfare strategy. From ABC News:

     Preventing preterm births just got 150 times more expensive, now that KV Pharmaceuticals has gained exclusive rights to produce a progesterone shot used to prevent premature births in high-risk mothers.

     Although the shot has been available in unregulated form from specialty compounding pharmacies for years for $10 a pop, the Food and Drug Administration recently granted KV Pharmaceuticals sole rights to produce the drug, which will be marketed as Makena and cost $1,500 per dose – an estimated $30,000 in total per pregnancy.

  snip

     Many doctors are particularly frustrated with the price hike because to date, KV Pharmaceuticals has not had to bear the cost of the clinical trials used to get the drug approved, but they have announced plans to conduct further trials in the future.

  A special government-protected monopoly without any government price controls means a company can charge what ever it wants, which is about apparently 15,0oo percent markup. Nice work if you can get it.

No need to worry about nuclear reactors here in the US, just fly

From Teddy Partridge at myFDL:

• TSA Slips Scanner Re-Testing into Busy Friday News Day
  

  Friday was a busy news day: a presidential press conference in the wake of Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, as well as Wisconsin reverberations after passage of the GOP’s union-busting bill. And the ongoing Charlie Sheen background buzz we’ve all had to get used to recently.

  So you’d be forgiven for missing this gem in The USAToday, from America’s Transportation Security Administration, the folks who previously waxed positively rhapsodic about the safety of their scanners:

     The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation – 247 machines at 38 airports – after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

Just how constitutional is this?

From TPM:

• Wis. GOPer Scott Fitzgerald: Dems In Contempt, Not Allowed To Vote In Committees
  

  The saga of the “Wisconsin 14” — the state Senate Democrats who fled the state in an attempt to block the three-fifths budget quorum on Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union proposals — isn’t over just because Republicans used a parliamentary end run to pass the bill with a simple majority quorum last week, and the Dems have since come home.

  As WisPolitics reports, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) sent a letter to his fellow Republicans, reminding them that they had previously found the Democrats to be in contempt of the chamber — and as such, they are not to be allowed to vote on committees.