“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”.

E. J. Dionne: Who Is Sanctimonious?

Washington – What does President Obama think of those who fought and bled to pass his bills in Congress (in some cases losing in this year’s election for their pains) while also defending him against wild charges from the right wing? Are they among the liberals he described as “sanctimonious” who long for the “satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people”?

Obama’s comments make you wonder: Who does he think he can count on when conservatives try to repeal the health care law, force cuts in programs he supports, investigate his administration down to the last pencil, and continue to denounce him as an un-American socialist?

A senior Obama lieutenant insisted that the president wasn’t attacking liberals. He was responding only to those condemning him as a “sellout” for a tax deal that achieves many progressive goals, at the cost of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and egregiously conceding billions to very rich people who inherit large estates.

Yet simultaneously, the White House was also sending out signals that it was consciously casting the president as a centrist problem-solver in a new iteration of Bill Clinton’s old “triangulation” strategy.

John Nichols: It’s the Estate Tax Exemption, Stupid

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been given a charge from the chamber’s Democratic caucus to negotiate a better tax deal than President Obama got from Senate Republicans.

And Pelosi says she will do just that.

But what’s her “ask”? What’s her credible — and doable — demand?

Pelosi should pull no punches. But, If we assume she cannot get the Republicans or Obama to abandon the absurdly uneven trade-off that defines the deal — a two-year extension of tax cuts for billionaires in return for a one-year extension of basic benefits for the unemployed — then she has to look elsewhere.

For plenty of practical and political reasons, Pelosi can and should start the pushback by focusing on the side deal to renew the estate tax with broad exemptions for millionaires — up to $5 milion for individuals, up to $10 million for couples — and a top rate of 35 percent for the coming two years.

Pelosi has already pointed to the estate-tax agreement as a bone of contention for House Democrats.

“We believe the estate tax in the bill is a bridge too far,” the Speaker has said.

Beverly Bell and Tory Field: “Miami Rice”: The Business of Disaster in Haiti

“We were already in a black misery after the earthquake of January 12. But the rice they’re dumping on us, it’s competing with ours and soon we’re going to fall in a deep hole,” said Jonas Deronzil, who has farmed rice and corn in Haiti’s fertile Artibonite Valley since 1974. “When they don’t give it to us anymore, are we all going to die?”

Deronzil explained this in April inside a cinder-block warehouse, where small farmers’ entire spring rice harvest had sat in burlap sacks since March, unsold, because of USAID’s dumping of U.S. agribusiness-produced, taxpayer-subsidized rice. The U.S. government and agricultural corporations, which have been undermining Haitian peasant agriculture for three decades, today threaten higher levels of unemployment for farmers and an aggravated food crisis among the hemisphere’s hungriest population.

Willaim D. Cohan: A Bankrupt Bargain on Taxes

While Wall Street’s moguls and whiz kids might not want to admit it, the best way to figure out what’s really happening in the economy is to read the daily newspapers. You’ll learn all you need to know there. And the zeitgeist is fairly bubbling these days with an array of stories that seem to be pointing to serious economic trouble ahead. We can no longer ignore the message that is being broadcast loud and clear: We must get our fiscal house in order and take meaningful – exceedingly painful, yes – steps to close the $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit. You can be the most zealous Keynesian economist on the planet and still know that at some point we cannot continue to have both guns and butter without serious repercussions. And we have clearly reached that point.

That’s why the news of the proposed tax-cut deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans is so distressing. Adding $900 billion to the budget deficit – paid for with more borrowing – is the last thing we need if we want to show the world we are serious about fiscal responsibility. Do we genuinely think that the Chinese, the Japanese and the Persian Gulf oil barons will continue to finance our deficit, except at increasing cost to us?

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Treasury Blocks Legal Aid for Homeowners Facing Foreclosure

With the media’s laser-like focus on the Obama-Republican tax deal, here’s a story that’s underreported: the Obama Administration’s coddling of the Big Banks and simultaneous neglect of homeowners facing foreclosure.

Consider this: the recent Fed audit revealed over $3.3 trillion in emergency assistance to the banks and other corporate behemoths during the financial crisis–no strings attached. Two trillion dollars to Morgan Stanley here, $600 billion to Goldman there, throw in a little chump change for McDonald’s, GE, others–no demands to increase lending to small businesses, or modify mortgages for unemployed homeowners, for example.

Then consider the 19 states which are recipients of the Hardest Hit Fund (HHF)–a portion of TARP money set aside to help homeowners in states struggling with the highest unemployment rates and steepest declines in the housing market.

Some of those states, including Ohio, let Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner know as far back as this past spring that they wanted to use some of those funds to assist legal aid groups that help individual homeowners. Seems like a reasonable request–unlike the absurdity of handing over trillions of dollars to robo-signing, foreclosure-mad banks, no questions asked.Treasury solicited the opinion of an outside law firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. Never mind that the firm’s clients include BB&T Corporation and payday lender CNG Financial Corp. The firm said, in essence–sorry, no can do on the legal aid. Not permitted under the TARP.

Huh? Hold on a sec–is this the same TARP that granted the Treasury Secretary all those “extraordinary powers” to protect people’s home values, preserve home ownership, promote economic growth, etc.?

Brian Palmer: Bill Keller, You’re Under Arrest

If publishing the WikiLeaks cables were against the law, could the New York Times go to jail?

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman says the Justice Department should investigate the New York Times to see if the newspaper can be criminally charged for publishing leaked State Department cables. If federal prosecutors can make charges against the Times stick, whom would they put in jail? . . . .

It might be a mistake for the government even to attempt to prosecute the Times, since the inevitable acquittal would encourage future leakers. California learned this lesson when it tried to prosecute a pornography producer under anti-prostitution laws. After the state lost the case, local police could no longer rely on the plausible threat of a prosecution to cow local pornographers. (Most ordinary people are terrified by the threat of prosecution, even if it’s empty.) While California smut-mongers now roll tape confidently, the other 49 states can still make this threat. That’s why, every time a newspaper publishes classified information, the government rattles its saber but rarely takes any action.

Chuck Collins: Obama Tax Deal Further Concentrates Wealth and Power: Stop the Death Spiral to Plutocracy

In 2010, an essential moral test of a public policy choice is: Does it further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few?

Or does it disperse concentrated wealth and power ­and strengthen possibilities for a democratic society with greater equality, improved health and well-being, shared prosperity and ecological sustainability?

Does it move us toward Plutocracy or Peace and Plenty?

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “We can have democracy or concentrated wealth. But we cannot have both.”

By the Brandeis Test, President Obama’s “Tax Compromise” fails. By extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and instituting a significantly weakened estate tax, more wealth will flow into the hands of the richest one percent ­and within that to richest one-tenth of one percent.

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Assange may be released

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent

The Australian,  December 09, 2010 12:00AM

JULIAN Assange has received a glimmer of hope in his battle against sexual abuse allegations.

A British judge says the WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.

Senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.

Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to Wandsworth prison when he appeared before Judge Riddle to answer a Swedish extradition application.

The internet activist’s lawyers say if he stays in jail, it will be much harder for them to organise his defence against the Swedish sex charges and to stave off what they believe is a US government plan to charge him with espionage-related crimes over the publication of thousands of secret American cables.

Mary Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. (wikipedia)

“We were told as diplomats, ‘Don’t ever put anything in a cable you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper.’ It shows that they’re a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn’t checking itself,” says Wright of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks.  

Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.

Ann Wright joined Laura Flanders of GritTV to discuss the latest releases from WikiLeaks, what they tell us about the U.S. Government and Defense and State departments, and what should happen, but probably won’t, to the people implicated therein.

I’ve also made a bumpersticker on Cafe Press, and I’ll be donating any proceeds from it to WikiLeaks.

Buy it here

Full disclosure:

Cafe Press gets US$3.49 on single bumperstickers and adds $3.00 markup to me = US$6.49 retail price

They get US$26.99 on 10 packs and add $10.00 markup to me = US$36.99 retail price

They get US$96.99 on 50 packs and add $20.00 markup to me = US$116.99 retail price

Any money I make from these I’ll be donating 100% to WikiLeaks.

You can buy them if you want to, but I’d much rather that you give your money directly to Wikileaks so more money ends up in Assange’s defense fund.

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

December 10 is the 344th day of the year (345th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 21 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1901, the first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The ceremony came on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives. In his will, Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune be placed in a fund in which the interest would be “annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Although Nobel offered no public reason for his creation of the prizes, it is widely believed that he did so out of moral regret over the increasingly lethal uses of his inventions in war.

History

Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, into a family of engineers. He was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1895 Nobel purchased the Bofors iron and steel mill, which he converted into a major armaments manufacturer. Nobel also invented ballistite, a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially cordite, the main British smokeless powder. Nobel was even involved in a patent infringement lawsuit over cordite. Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, most of it from his 355 inventions, of which dynamite is the most famous. In 1888, Alfred had the unpleasant surprise of reading his own obituary, titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’, in a French newspaper. As it was Alfred’s brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. Alfred was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his will. On 10 December 1896 Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, at the age of 63 from a cerebral haemorrhage.

To the wide-spread surprise, Nobel’s last will requested that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the “greatest benefit on mankind” in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature. Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. The last was written over a year before he died, signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Because of the level of scepticism surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that it was approved by the Storting in Norway. The executors of Nobel’s will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobel’s fortune and organise the prizes.

Nobel’s instructions named a Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize, the members of whom were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were established: the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded, and in 1900, the Nobel Foundation’s newly-created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II. In 1905, the Union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved. Thereafter Norway’s Nobel Committee remained responsible for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and the Swedish institutions retained responsibility for the other prizes.

 1041 – Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adopted son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V.

1508 – The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.

1520 – Martin Luther burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg’s Elster Gate.

1541 – Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham are executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

1665 – The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is founded by Michiel de Ruyter

1684 – Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmund Halley.

1817 – Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.

1861 – American Civil War: the Confederate States of America accept a rival state government’s pronouncement that declares Kentucky to be the 13th state of the Confederacy.

1864 – American Civil War: Sherman’s March to the Sea – Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Army troops reach Savannah, Georgia.

1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1898 – Spanish-American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict.

1901 – The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.

1902 – Women are given the right to vote in Tasmania.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize.

1907 – The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clash with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals who have been vivisected.

1927 – The Grand Ole Opry premieres on radio.

1932 – Thailand adopts a Constitution and becomes a constitutional monarchy.

1935 – The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, is awarded to halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.

1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication.

1941 – World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near Malaya.

1941 – World War II: Battle of the Philippines – Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on the Philippine mainland.

1948 – The UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1949 – Chinese Civil War: The People’s Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.

1955 – The Mighty Mouse Playhouse premieres on television.

1968 – Japan’s biggest heist, the still-unsolved “300 million yen robbery”, is carried out in Tokyo.

1978 – Arab-Israeli conflict: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1979 – Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested.

1981 – The United Nations General Assembly approves Pakistan’s proposal for establishing nuclear free-zone in South Asia.

1983 – Democracy is restored in Argentina with the assumption of President Raúul Alfonsin.

1989 – Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of Mongolia’s democratic movement that changes the second oldest communist country into a democracy.

1993 – The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.

1994 – Rwandan Genocide: Military advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations Maurice Baril recommends that the UN multi-national forces in Zaire stand down.

Holidays and observances

   * Alfred Nobel Day or Nobeldagen, presentation ceremony of the Nobel Prize. (Sweden))

   * Christian Feast Day

         o Eulalia of Merida

         o Miltiades

         o Translation of the Holy House of Loreto

   * Constitution Day (Thailand)

   * Human Rights Day (International)

   * International Animal Rights Day

Goldman has an unexpected ally in court: federal prosecutors

The banking giant, which has been under relentless scrutiny for its role in the financial crisis, relies on the U.S. government to protect its trade secrets in a trial of a former worker accused of stealing valuable computer code.

By Nathaniel Popper, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from New York – Goldman Sachs, the most powerful firm on Wall Street, makes an unlikely victim.

That, however, is the role that the bank has played over the last two weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, where prosecutors have argued that Sergei Aleynikov, a skinny, bespectacled former computer programmer at Goldman, stole valuable computer code from the bank before moving to a start-up firm that was trying to build its own trading operations.

Although the code in question was a mere 32 megabytes – less than a 10th of what fits on a data CD – Goldman executives have said it was a central cog in their high-frequency trading operations, a lucrative division at one of the most profitable companies in the world.

An empty chair, but Nobel jury makes its point

Paul Vallely explains why Beijing should be rattled by today’s award ceremony

Friday, 10 December 2010

China’s heavy-handed reaction to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to pro-democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo may have reaped some short-term rewards. But although 19 nations have now capitulated to pressure from Beijing to boycott tomorrow’s ceremony – where the recipient’s place will be taken by an empty chair – human rights advocates yesterday predicted that the government’s behaviour would ultimately help the Nobel committee to energise China’s human rights movement.

USA

Obama Weighs Tax Overhaul in Bid to Address Debt

 

By JACKIE CALMES Published: December 9, 2010

WASHINGTON – President Obama is considering whether to push early next year for an overhaul of the income tax code to lower rates and raise revenues in what would be his first major effort to begin addressing the long-term growth of the national debt.

While administration officials cautioned on Thursday that no decisions have been made and that any debate in Congress could take years, Mr. Obama has directed his economic team and Treasury Department analysts to review options for closing loopholes and simplifying income taxes for corporations and individuals, though the study of the corporate tax system is farther along, officials said.

Looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right

Coalescing behind a single 2012 presidential candidate is going to be tricky for the ever-fractured conservative Christians of the GOP.  

Newsweek

Surveying the cropof would-be Republican presidential contenders in 2012, some Christian leaders can’t muster much enthusiasm.

“The supposed frontrunners have all got problems,” says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and a prominent leader of the religious right. Mitt Romney? “He put ‘Obamacare Light’ in place in Massachusetts,” says Land. “It’s going to be awfully difficult for him to surmount that.” Sarah Palin? “Her problem is her very high negatives. Evangelicals want somebody they like, but they also want somebody who can beat Barack Obama.” Mike Huckabee? “The problem Mike’s got is that he and Sarah Palin are appealing to the same base, and Sarah has stronger appeal to that base.” And Newt Gingrich? “Two ex-wives is one ex-wife too many for most evangelicals.”

Europe

Commission dismisses petition on GM foods ban

The Irish Times – Friday, December 10, 2010

ARTHUR BEESLEY, European Correspondent  

The EU Commission has dismissed on procedural grounds the first attempt to activate rules in the Lisbon Treaty which compel it to consider making a law if asked to by one million people.

Campaign groups Avaaz and Greenpeace delivered 1.03 million signatures to health commissioner John Dalli yesterday in which people called on the EU executive to ban genetically modified (GM) crops until an “independent ethical, scientific body” was established to assess their impact. The submission includes 8,434 Irish signatures.

Anger at ‘slave trader’ Assange: WikiLeaks loyalists decide to break away  



Asher Moses December 10, 2010  

A number of WikiLeaks defectors, including founder Julian Assange’s former right-hand man, plan to launch a rival site on Monday after accusing Mr Assange of behaving like “some kind of emperor or slave trader”.

With WikiLeaks itself vowing to press on with its leaking regardless of the fate of Mr Assange, it seems that any attempts by US politicians to stop the leaks will be futile.

The new site, Openleaks, will launch on Monday, respected Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported. Like WikiLeaks, it will allow whistleblowers to leak information to the public anonymously.

Middle East

Iranian woman threatened with being stoned to death ‘is freed’

Reports suggest death sentence threat has been lifted after international outcry

By Kim Sengupta, Diplomatic Correspondent

Friday, 10 December 2010

An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after she was convicted of adultery has been released from jail, a human rights group claimed last night.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose plight became an international cause célèbre, was said to have been released along with her son, Sajad, her lawyer and two German journalists who were arrested over the case.

Turkey and Israel continuing talks on Gaza boat deal  

The Irish Times – Friday, December 10, 2010

MARK WEISS in Jerusalem  

CONTACTS ARE continuing between Israel and Turkey over a compensation deal for the nine Turkish activists killed in clashes when Israeli commandos intercepted the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla in May.

Israel is also likely to express “regret” and “sorrow” over the incident, even though Ankara is insisting on a formal apology to the Turkish people.

Turkey, once Israel’s closest ally in the region, withdrew its ambassador following the deadly maritime raid, and has since taken steps to improve ties with Syria and Iran, Israel’s regional rivals.

Asia

Broadside fired at al-Qaeda leaders  



By Syed Saleem Shahzad  

ISLAMABAD – A number of senior al-Qaeda members who had earlier opposed the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and some of whom were recently released from detention in Iran, have produced an electronic book critical of al-Qaeda’s leadership vision and strategy.

The book, the first of its kind to publicly show collective dissent within al-Qaeda, was released last month. It urges the self-acclaimed global Muslim resistance against Western hegemony to open itself to the Muslim intelligentsia for advice and to harmonize its strategy with mainstream Islamic movements.

Shanghai test scores have everyone asking: How did students do it?  

Shanghai, China, trounced the competition in an international test of 15-year-olds. The Programme for International Student Assessment measures skills in math, science, and reading.

By Ariel Zirulnick, Correspondent  

When the resultsof an international education assessment put Shanghai and several other Asian participants ahead of the US and much of Western Europe, many Americans were shocked. “Top test scores from Shanghai stun educators” read the headline in The New York Times.

Meanwhile, many education and Asia experts felt vindicated. After years of saying that China was rapidly catching up or surpassing the US and the rest of the West in education, here was hard proof.

Africa

Kenya old guard ‘continues to resist fundamental change’



LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM  

Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador to Kenya, reported in a dispatch in January that the “old guard” at the highest levels of the political elite was hindering progress.

“While some positive reform steps have been taken, the old guard associated with the culture of impunity continues to resist fundamental change,” he wrote in the cable, revealed in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“Most key reforms are yet to be carried out, and the future of the constitutional review process is uncertain.”

Mugabe elite ‘enriched by illicit diamond trade’



Dec 10, 2010 12:19 AM | By Reuters, Sapa-AFP



“In a country filled with corrupt schemes, the diamond business in Zimbabwe is one of the dirtiest,” according to a classified document dated in November 2008 from the US embassy in the country, released this week on WikiLeaks.

Mugabe was forced into a unity government with long-time rivals nearly two years ago and the state has been trying to boost the economy by winning approval for diamond sales through the Kimberley Process, a world monitor of the diamond trade.

Latin America

Haiti to ‘review’ election results  

Election officials order recount of disputed presidential election ahead of runoff, hoping to defuse furore over poll.

Last Modified: 10 Dec 2010  

Election officials in Haiti have said they will review the disputed results of last month’s presidential election to try to defuse violence and nationwide protests over the polls.

There will be an immediate vote recount in the presence of the top three candidates – Mirlande Manigat, Jude Celestin and Michel Martelly and international observers.

Thursday’s announcement follows violent demonstrations by supporters of Martelly, the third-placed candidate, who charge that the initial results were rigged in favour of Celestin, the ruling party’s candidate.

Martelly alleges the count was rigged to deny him a second-round runoff place.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

From Firedog Lake of course since they’re the ones giving the best coverage.

• No New NAFTA: Tell Congress to Stop NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade
  
  By: Michael Whitney Tuesday December 7, 2010 11:30 am

• Baucus Balks at Korea Trade Deal; Claim of Job Growth Questioned
  
  By: David Dayen Wednesday December 8, 2010 12:45 pm

• BREAKING: AFL-CIO Head Richard Trumka Releases Statement Opposing Obama’s NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade Deal
  
  By: Jane Hamsher Thursday December 9, 2010 9:41 am

• United Steelworkers Oppose Passage of Obama’s NAFTA-Style Free Trade Agreement
  
  By: Jane Hamsher Thursday December 9, 2010 10:11 am

• Statement of Communication Workers Opposing Obama’s NAFTA-Style Free Trade Agreement
  
  By: Jane Hamsher Thursday December 9, 2010 10:15 am

• UAW Backed NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade to "Reward the Administration for Good Behavior"
  
  By: Michael Whitney Thursday December 9, 2010 12:51 pm

• Unions Out in Force Against NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade
  
  By: Michael Whitney Thursday December 9, 2010 1:36 pm

You could look it up.

I spotted this when I was feeling much more charitable than I am at the moment so calibrate your ourage meter.

Krugman: White House Blowing the Stimulus, Again

By: Scarecrow, Thursday December 9, 2010 8:08 am

The White House is moving heaven and earth, and enlisting everyone from Vice President Biden to the Mayor of Gullible (remember this next time the White House says they can’t get something the public actually supports, because they can’t get the votes) to convince Congressional Democrats the nation’s economic survival depends on passing the Obama-McConnell Tax Gifts for the Rich Act of 2010.

(And if you don’t think this is a massive gift to the rich, check out this graphic from David Dayen. Those big black dots will be Obama’s record.)

But instead of focusing on what the bill actually is, a massive give away to the wealthiest people in America combined with an openly admitted threat to Social Security funding, the White House has pulled out its biggest economic guns to convince skeptics that it’s the economic stimulus from the various measures that are absolutely essential. If so, then the question becomes, will the stimulus measures do what the White House claims?

…

Yesterday, Obama’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers reversed a year of White House assurances to tell us the economy was at risk of a double-dip recession which would become more likely if Congress failed to pass this package. This is the first time the White House has said this, and since the Republicans are likely to increase the risks with their promised punitive spending cuts, we need to take this seriously.

It behooves the White House to do more than hand Congress a take-it-or-leave it package that’s poorly designed and misguided, based again on a flawed analysis of where we are and what’s needed. For once, this White House should be talking to people who got it right instead of continually listening to those who failed. And until they do, no Democrat has any business voting for this mess.

Just for reference, US Median Household Income is $44,389.  Median means 50% make more than that, and 50% make less.

Who Loses Under Obama’s GOP Tax Compromise? The Working Poor

By CHARLES WALLACE, AOL Daily Finance

Posted 6:30 AM 12/09/10

“Single working people with earnings below $20,000 and married couples with earnings below $40,000 are worse off under the payroll tax cut proposals in the compromise between the president and the Republicans,” explains Bob Williams, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Policy Center.

Here’s why: The Obama proposal substitutes a Social Security payroll tax cut for the Making Work Pay credit, which was targeted to do the most good for low-income families. Under current rules, the working poor receive $400 when they earn at least $6,452 a year through the Making Work Pay credit. Married couples with earnings above $12,900 get $800 under the program.

The compromise cuts the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%, so a couple wold have to earn $40,000 to get the same $800 tax benefit. Every working-class couple earning less than that will get less than $800, meaning they lose money under the Obama proposal.

…

The rich, however, do really well. A worker earning $106,800, the maximum amount of income subject to Social Security tax, stands to save $2,136 in payroll taxes. A married couple with both spouses making over $100,000 will actually save $4,272.

Obama had been saying for months that he wanted to increase the tax burden on the wealthy while keeping it the same for the middle class. But the new plan actually increases the tax burden on the lowest-income working families. “If you are worried about who needs the money and are trying to help people, targeting the cuts to the wealthy who don’t need it seems the wrong way to go,” Williams says.

So Barack Hussein Obama’s “Tax Compromise” is actually a TAX HIKE for almost 50% of Americans.

Way to sell-out a campaign promise Mr. “I’ll never raise taxes on those earning less that $250,000”.

And just to benefit the richest 2%.

What a disgusting liar.

But I certainly did not miss this

I’ll cut right to the chase.  What this means is that if you have financed or re-financed a home since 1999, you no longer have clear title to your property and nobody else does either.

If you own a Mortgage Backed Security it’s a worthless scrap of paper.

Municipal, County, and State Governments have been defrauded of $10s of Billions of legally obligated filing fees by the banksters.

Anatomy of Mortgage Fraud: MERS’s Smoking Gun, Part I

L. Randall Wray, The Huffingtom Post

December 9, 2010 06:04 PM

I think we have finally found the smoking gun. An interested reader alerted me to MERS’s instruction manual, “MERS Recommended Foreclosure Procedures — State by State”, originally written in 1999, updated in 2002 and available on MERS’s website (accessed by clicking on: Recommended Foreclosure Procedures).

The first thing to note is the date. Folks, this strategy was formulated in 1999. The second thing to note is these documents demonstrate that failure to properly endorse the notes and transfer them to the REMIC trustee was not an occasional mistake, but rather was MERS’s business model. As we will see, MERS planned from the get-go to defraud the counties, and the IRS, and the homeowners, and the buyers of the mortgage-backed securities.
…
The foreclosure manual establishes three key points that we have long suspected:

1. Mortgage notes were not typically transferred to the trusts, as required by law. Further, there is no clear “chain of title” for these notes–which are actually presented for endorsement only on foreclosure (if then).
2. MERS recommended that mortgage servicers retain the notes.
3. MERS “deputized” employees of the servicers, pretending that these became MERS employees. This allowed the fiction that MERS had the notes so that it could foreclose.

…
In the document, MERS claims that its recommended procedures are “customary”. In fact, there are several hundred years of “custom” that requires endorsement of notes at the time of transfer, with a clear chain of title to ensure that anyone who claims to be a creditor, and who tries to seize someone’s home, has clear documentary proof of entitlement. What MERS proposes in this document is to break the chain of title, to eliminate the protection that debtors need to prevent mortgage servicers and MERS from illegally stealing their property through the use of robo-signers and the manufacture of fake documents. In other words, both law and custom were formulated to prevent the sort of foreclosure fraud that has become normal business practice — what the MERS document calls “customary”.

(I)f the servicers hold the notes, why on earth can’t they find them–why do they need to file “lost note affidavits”? In a word, fraud. If they now produce the notes, it will be clear that they were not properly endorsed each time the mortgages were transferred. And they were never held by the REMIC trusts. As I will explain, that means mortgage backed securities are fraudulent and the banks are on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars. And that the banks holding the mortgages cannot legally foreclose. That is why they are destroying the documents, and hiring robo-signers to forge new ones.

Smoking Gun?  More like a Smoking Cannon.  Every one of the Too Big To Fail Banks is insolvent.

Shrek the Halls and Disney Prep & Landing.  Barbara Walters.  Mostly premiers except for Great Performances’ Peter and the Wolf which is the only thing on broadcast I’d waste my eyeballs on.

If you haven’t stopped watching Lawrence O’Donnell you should stop watching him now.  Oh and I might mention the myth Obama wanted the Mythbusters to revisit was Archimedes’ Ship Burning Mirror Shields.

It failed.  Again.

Busted.

We gotta run. We’ve got a schedule to keep.

Yeah. See, we plan ahead, that way we don’t do anything right now. Earl explained it to me.

• ABC Family– Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, A Miser Brothers’ Christmas
• AMC– Scrooged x 2 (how many times are we going to see it between now and Monday?  Rapidly becoming the new Christmas Story)
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Discovery– Brew Masters (premier), Sr. v. Jr.
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Georgetown @ Temple
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Kent State @ Florida, Butler @ Xavier
• Food– Ace of Cakes (premier)
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League x 2 (all premiers)
• History– Aliens! and Conspiracies! (premiers)
• Lifetime– Unanswered Prayers
• Sci Fi– The Bourne Ultimatum
• TBS– Meet the Parents
• Toon– Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Karloff!)
• Turner Classic– Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Babes in Arms (Rooney, Garland night “Let’s put on a show!”)
• TNT– Hoopies, Celtics @ ‘6ers
• USA– Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (actually, I haven’t seen this yet), Burn Notice (premier)
• Vs.– Panthers @ Caps
• VH1– SNL marathon

Later-

• AMC– Tremors (best Kevin Bacon movie ever.  Also has Michael Gross.)
• Turner Classic– Strike Up the Band, Babes on Broadway (more Rooney and Garland)
• TNT– Hoopies, Magic @ Trail Blazers
• Toon– Tim and Eric’s Crimbus Special (in case you weren’t appalled enough the first time.  Why is this funny?)
• USA– Psych (this week’s), Burn Notice (Instapeat)

Dave hosts O’lielly and Phosphorescent.  Jon has James Franco, Stephen Julie Taymor.  Conan hosts Sarah Silverman, Michio Kaku, and She & Him.

Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn’t ya you bastard!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings