Tag: TMC Politics

Jun 24 2012

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“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

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: No guest list announced at this time. Still worth watching.

The Melissa Harris-Perry Show: No guest list announced at this time.

This Week with George Stephanopolis Jake Tapper is sitting this week. His guests are Rep. Darell Issa (R-CA); and the guests on the roundtable are Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA); Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen; Major Garrett of the National Journal; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; and ABC’s George Will.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Former presidential candidate and border-state Governor, Rick Perry (R-TX), and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a key Obama Campaign surrogate will discuss immigration with Mr. Schieffer. Also, Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will talk about being on the road with the Romney campaign; and Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager and Eric Fehrnstrom, a Senior Advisor to the Romney Campaign. The roundtable  will at all things political with guests TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein, The Washington Post‘s Dan Balz and CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and John Dickerson.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Liz Marlantes, The Christian Science Monitor; David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist; Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor; and Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: MTP will have an exclusive interview with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) will join roundtable guests Former Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM); POLITICO’s Senior Political Reporter Jonathan Martin; and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: This Sunday’s guests are Romney campaign senior adviser, Ed Gillespie; former Bush Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL); Susan Page of USA Today, and Peter Baker of The New York Times.

Jun 23 2012

Moyers, Taibbi and Smith on Banks

Contributing editor for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith, creator of the finance and economics blog Naked Capitalism appeared with Bill Moyers on his PBS program, Moyers and Company to discuss How Big Banks Victimize Our Democracy.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s appearances in the last two weeks before Congressional committees – many members of which received campaign contributions from the megabank – beg the question: For how long and how many ways are average Americans going to pay the price for big bank hubris, with our own government acting as accomplice? [..]

Taibbi’s latest piece is “The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia.” Smith is the author of ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism.

Full transcript

Jun 23 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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: The Anti-Union Roberts Court

The Supreme Court’s ruling this week in Knox v. Service Employees International Union

(pdf) is one of the most brazen of the Roberts court. It shows how defiantly the five justices act in advancing the aggressive conservatism of their majority on the court. [..]

The court said the union infringed on the free speech rights of the nonmembers by not giving them the chance to prevent the use of their dues to support expressions of political views unrelated to collective bargaining. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with this narrow judgment only.

This produced a 7-to-2 ruling on that specific question. But Justice Samuel Alito Jr., writing an opinion representing the conservative five only, went far beyond this principle, which has been settled law since 1986.

David Cay Johnston: America’s Long Slope Down

A broad swath of official economic data shows that America and its people are in much worse shape than when we paid higher taxes, higher interest rates and made more of the manufactured goods we use.

The numbers since the turn of the millennium point to even worse times ahead if we stay the course. Let’s look at the official numbers in today’s dollars and then what can be done to change course. [..]

We need to recognize that the tax cutters were snake oil salesmen, the Federal Reserve an enabler of damaging debts and that bilateral trade deals are written of, by and for global financiers, not workers.

To paraphrase the Huey Lewis song, we need a new policy.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: How to Fight Wall Street — and Transform a Nation

Eric Schneiderman was right.

New York State’s Attorney General told an audience at the Take Back the American Dream Conference that we need a “transformational politics” that will change the way we look at ourselves, our society, and our economy. [..]

Schneiderman’s distinction between “transformational” and “transactional” politics was also valid: Voters don’t just want to see a legislative accomplishment — any accomplishment — regardless of its impact. They want to see accomplishments that reflect who we are as a people, and which advance us as a society.

But transformation will need some involvement from the world of “transactional” activity, too. As I told the group, I can’t think of any single act that would be more “transformative” that the arrest of a senior Wall Street executive.

Daniel Denvir: Austerity-Crazed Republicans, Big Banks Are Killing Public Transportation

Americans have since the second world war built an entire way of life around the automobile. It turns out, however, that our faith was an unsteady one and, in the face of high gas prices and young people’s increasing preference for urban living, we are heading back to subways, trains, buses and trolleys in droves. In the first quarter of this year, we took an additional 125.7m trips on mass transit compared with the same time period last year – an increase of 5%.

Yet, Republican-led austerity is pushing public transit, like most everything public, into severe fiscal and physical crisis. All at the very moment when we want and need it the most. Nationwide, 80% of mass transit systems either did move to boost fares and cut services or considered doing so in 2010, according to the most recent report from the American Public Transportation Association.

Charles M Blow:  Bullies on the Bus

“Making the Bus Monitor Cry.”

That’s the name of the video. It’s more than 10 minutes long, but if you make it through more than three of them with your eyes not getting misty and your blood not boiling then you are a rock, or at least your heart is. [..]

But what, if anything, does this say about society at large? Many things one could argue, but, for me, it is a remarkably apt metaphor for this moment in the American discourse in which hostility has been drawn out into the sunlight.

Those boys are us, or at least too many of us: America at it’s ugliest. It is that part of society that sees the weak and vulnerable as worthy of derision and animus.

Davis Sirota: Don’t Fall for Corporate Blackmail

With states looking to raise taxes on oil and gas production and better regulate the most controversial drilling practices, we can expect industry to soon trot out its tried and true argument against such moves. As they did here in Colorado a few years back when our governor proposed a hike in severance levies, oil and gas companies will promise to leave any place where taxes or regulation increase.

Such blackmail deftly plays to our reflexive fears of job outsourcing-and those fears are understandable. Indeed, in a “free-trade” era that has seen corporate decision-makers dream of putting “every plant you own on a barge” and shifting production to the lowest-wage nations on earth (a direct quote from GE’s then-CEO Jack Welch), offshoring is very real in too many industries.

Jun 22 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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

Paul Krugman: Prisons, Privatization, Patronage

Over the past few days, The New York Times has published several terrifying reports about New Jersey’s system of halfway houses – privately run adjuncts to the regular system of prisons. The series is a model of investigative reporting, which everyone should read. But it should also be seen in context. The horrors described are part of a broader pattern in which essential functions of government are being both privatized and degraded. [..]

It’s a terrible story. But, as I said, you really need to see it in the broader context of a nationwide drive on the part of America’s right to privatize government functions, very much including the operation of prisons. What’s behind this drive?

New York Times Editorial: Void for Vagueness

It is not so common these days to see a near-unanimous Supreme Court ruling on an issue like regulation of the airwaves, but the justices issued such an opinion on Thursday that sensibly said federal authorities were wrong to conclude that Fox Television and ABC had violated indecency standards for a couple of fleeting expletives and seven seconds of partial nudity.

Writing the majority opinion (pdf), Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Federal Communications Commission’s standards were too vague and thus violated the broadcasters’ Fifth Amendment due process rights.

The narrow ruling did not address a broader issue: the government’s continued authority to regulate “indecent but not obscene” material on television. That was established in a 1978 Supreme Court case allowing the government to prohibit “indecent” speech (which the First Amendment protects) during hours when children are likely to be watching or hearing the broadcast.

Robert Sheer: Health Care: Give the People What They Want

The nutty thing about the health care debate that will play a prominent role in the next election is that most Americans want pretty much the same outcome: to control costs without sacrificing quality. And that’s not what either major-party candidate is offering. Few think that Obamacare, a Romneycare descendant that contains the same kind of individual mandate the then-governor of Massachusetts signed into law, will get us to that desired goal. Nor would Mitt Romney, who has been reborn as a celebrant of the old, pre-Obama system with a few nips and tucks.

As the nation awaits a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Obama health care approach, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to come up with a better plan. They know that the current system is unsustainable. Only a third of those polled favored the law President Barack Obama signed, but according to the AP, “… Whatever people think of the law, they don’t want a Supreme Court ruling against it to be the last word on health care reform.” The article continued, “More than three-fourths of Americans want their political leaders to undertake a new effort, rather than leave the health care system alone if the court rules against the law, according to the poll.”

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: We’re Not Greece

If the United States were still governed under the Articles of Confederation, might California be in the position of Greece, Spain or Italy?

After all, California has a major budget crisis and all sorts of difficulties governing itself. Its initiative system allows voters to mandate specific forms of spending and to limit tax increases and also make them harder to enact. Absent a strong federal government with the power to offset the impact of the recession and the banking crisis, how would California fare in a global financial system? [..]

But the metaphor is instructive because it turns on its head the usual nonsense from anti-government politicians that the United States is on the road to becoming Greece. No, we’re not. Our issues are entirely different. To the extent that the crisis in Europe has lessons for the United States, they go the other way.

Michael T. Klare: Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney?

As details of his administration’s global war against terrorists,  insurgents, and hostile warlords have become more widely known-a war that involves a mélange of drone attacks, covert operations, and presidentially selected assassinations-President Obama has been compared to President George W. Bush in his appetite for military action.  “As shown through his stepped-up drone campaign,” Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six secretaries of state, wrote at Foreign Policy, “Barack Obama has become George W. Bush on steroids.”

When it comes to international energy politics, however, it is not Bush but his vice president, Dick Cheney, who has been providing the role model for the president.  As recent events have demonstrated,  Obama’s energy policies globally bear an eerie likeness to Cheney’s,  especially in the way he has engaged in the geopolitics of oil as part of an American global struggle for future dominance among the major powers.

Ellen Brown: Why the Senate Won’t Touch Jamie Dimon

When Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13, he was wearing cufflinks bearing the presidential seal. “Was Dimon trying to send any particular message by wearing the presidential cufflinks?” asked CNBC editor John Carney. “Was he . . . subtly hinting that he’s really the guy in charge?”

The groveling of the Senators was so obvious that Jon Stewart did a spoof news clip on it, featured in a Huffington Post piece titled “Jon Stewart Blasts Senate’s Coddling Of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon,” and Matt Taibbi wrote an op-ed called “Senators Grovel, Embarrass Themselves at Dimon Hearing.” He said the whole thing was painful to watch.

“What is going on with this panel of senators?” asked Stewart. “They’re sucking up to Jamie Dimon like they’re on JPMorgan’s payroll.” The explanation in a news clip that followed was that JPMorgan Chase is the biggest campaign donor to many of the members of the Banking Committee.

Nathan Lean: American Enterprise Institute Embraces Islamophobia

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is one of the nation’s oldest and most influential conservative think tanks. It is a bastion of Republican values and has, since its founding in 1943, had its finger on the pulse of mainstream issues that have united the GOP. A number of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates have relied on the work of its scholars, and its board reads like a Who’s Who of red-state leaders.

But recently the AEI took a broad step to the right and firmly planted its feet on the other side of the line that divides the sensible Republican Party from fringe extremists. It announced that its resident scholar Michael Rubin would join blogger Robert Spencer, who is a vitriolic critic of Islam, and writer Claire Berlinski to lead a 10-day tour of Turkey. The excursion (whose participants must cough up more than $4,500 each) is being organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a right-wing activist group named for its founder, who in addition to being Spencer’s sugar daddy (Horowitz funds Spencer’s blog Jihad Watch and publishes his articles on FrontPage Magazine) has led campaigns against the Muslim Student Association and said such things as Islam is a religion of hate and Palestinians are “morally sick.”

Jun 21 2012

Do Not Annoy Ladies With Sharp Objects

You knitting folks will be interested in this. My daughter, who is an avid knitter and belongs to the group in question, brought it to my attention

Knitters Outraged After U.S. Olympic Committee Squashes Knitting Olympics-and Disses Knitters

Knitters Outraged After U.S. Olympic Committee Squashes Knitting Olympics-and Disses Knitters

by Adrian Chen    

If you mess with the Olympics trademark, a cloud of legal hurt will descend on you faster than Tyson Gay in the Men’s 100 meters. Case in point: The U.S. Olympic Committee has sent a cease and desist letter to a knitting-based social network for hosting a knitting “olympics.” Now, knitters are in revolt.

2012 was to be the third year that the knitting social network Ravelry-yes, this exists and is surprisingly popular-hosted a “Ravelympics,” a knitting competition for users that includes events like an “afghan marathon,” and “scarf hockey.” Knitters were supposed to compete in their events while watching the actual Games on TV.

But that was before the U.S. Olympics Committee got wind of it and sent Ravelry a cease & desist, for making a mockery of the Games with their needlework. Here’s a passage from the letter, sent by the USOC’s general counsel and posted by Ravelry founder Casey Forbes to his blog (Ravelry account required):

   The athletes of Team USA have usually spent the better part of their entire lives training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.  For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career.  Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

   […]

  We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

She also sent this snark tinged response from “jen” at Magpie Knitter

How many Olympic athletes have you insulted?

Today, I learned that I have insulted the entire US Olympic team. In fact, not only have I done this once, I have done it twice – first in 2008 and again in 2010. I feel it is only right that I publicly admit to my shameful actions and share them here with you. The pictures below are graphic and may be upsetting to some, so please only look if you have a strong stomach. May not be safe for work.

Let me steel myself first…ok. Here it is: the evidence of my shameful lack of respect for the Olympic games and athletes everywhere.

Photobucket

Ravelympics Wristers

[..]

So again – my deepest and most humble and sincere apology. It is terribly unfortunate, of course, that the US Olympic Committee has managed to suck away a lot of the anticipation I had for the 2012 Olympics, but I accept that the error was mine in the first place. Yes, the Ravelympics had me watching the Olympics for the first time since I was a young child, but two wrongs – knitting and the Ravelympics – don’t make a right. The poor US athletes could probably sense that I was knitting while I watched and cheered, and who knows how many medals that knowledge may have cost them? Or dollars, since any time I spent knitting was time I wasn’t spending with one of the many corporate sponsors (whom we all know should have priority)? Now that I have been set straight, I am relieved to see that as many references to knitting and other fiber crafts as possible are being squashed to protect the purity of the Games.

It’s a shame about that red, white and blue cabled sweater I planned to design and knit during the Ravelympics in honor of our athletes, but at least now I won’t be disrespecting anyone with it.

If you think that’s bad, try the Londinium 2012 ( I use that term because it’s not copyrighted, yet, and I wouldn’t want to get in trouble here)

2012 Olympics – be careful what you say

Under the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 it will be virtually impossible to associate your firm or its activities with that of the Olympics unless you are one of the very few official partner/sponsors. Even mention of the word ‘Olympics’ could see practitioners in breach of the Act.

[..]

The use of specific ‘Listed Expressions’ which are quantified as follows: any two of the words in list A below; or, any word in list A with one or more words in list B:

List A

Games

Two Thousand and Twelve

2012

Twenty-Twelve

List B

London

Medals

Sponsors

Summer

Gold

Silver

Bronze

I think these Olympic Committees are getting carried away with this and alienating supporters.

Jun 21 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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

Bil Boyarsky: Eisenhower’s Warning Ignored, Presidential Power Has Risen to Sinister Level

By following a warlike path-and getting a free pass from too many progressives-President Barack Obama is making sure that foreign policy will remain in the hands of the military-industrial complex.

Hardly discussed in the presidential campaign is how Obama personally picks targets on a kill list, hugely has increased drone attacks, and wages cyberwarfare against Iran. If these actions had occurred under Bush-Cheney, liberals would have taken to the streets. Instead, the practices are accepted as facts of life, barely worth comment.

The truth is that in the last half century, this kind of presidential power, backed by the military and the arms industry, has been enshrined as permanent policy. And it will continue no matter who wins in November or in future elections. Whoever is in charge, the military, the intelligence spooks and the war industries always seem to co-opt the president.

John Nichols: Darrell Issa Shows Contemptible Disregard for the Constitution

The system of checks and balances works best when the separate branches of government are inherently and proudly adversarial toward one another. But that can’t happen when partisanship defines when and how accountability moments play out.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa — the headline-hungry California Republican who on Wednesday engineered a committee vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt — forgot that essential rule. [..]

Issa’s actions undermined not just his own credibility but any sense that he and his allies might be acting in defense of — or with any regard for — the Constitution.

Robert Reich: Dimon in the Rough: How Wall Street Aims to Keep U.S. Regulators Out of Its Global Betting Parlor

Horror of horrors, say the banks.

“If JPMorgan overseas operates under different rules than our foreign competitors,” warned Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JP Morgan, Wall Street would lose financial business to the banks of nations with fewer regulations, allowing “Deutsche Bank to make the better deal.”

This is the same Jamie Dimon who chose London as the place to make highly-risky derivatives trades that have lost the firm upwards of $2 billion so far – and could leave American taxpayers holding the bag if JPMorgan’s exposure to tottering European banks gets much worse.

Jim Hightower: Super PACs and Secret Money Destroying America’s Democracy

Leave it to Bill Moyers, one of America’s most useful citizens, to sum up our country’s present political plight in a succinct metaphor: “Our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. These kings are multibillionaire corporate moguls who by divine right – not of God, but (of the Supreme Court’s) Citizens United decision – are now buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh.”

Pricey, indeed. In its disgraceful, democracy-crushing judicial edict of January 2010, the Court took the big advantage that America’s corporate elite already had in politics – and super-sized it. This is the first presidential election to be run under the rigged rules invented by the Court’s five-man corporatist majority, and we can see the effects of this ruling.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Label Genetically Engineered Food

In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don’t. That is why I have introduced, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, an amendment to the agriculture bill which will give states the right to require labels on food products which are genetically engineered.

All over this country people are becoming more conscious about the foods they eat and serve their kids. When a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her family.

Jun 21 2012

Egyptian Democracy Postponed

Why is the New York Times surprised? I’m not.

Egypt Delays Declaring Winner of Presidential Election

by David Kirkpatrick

CAIRO – Egyptian election officials said Wednesday that they were postponing the announcement of a winner in last week’s presidential runoff, saying they needed more time to evaluate charges of electoral abuse that could affect who becomes the country’s next leader.

The commission had been expected to confirm a winner on Thursday and, based on a public vote count confirmed in official news media, to have named Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The surprise delay intensified a power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s military rulers. It came just days after the generals who took over upon the ouster of Hosni Mubarak reimposed martial law, shut down the Brotherhood-led Parliament, issued an interim charter slashing the new president’s power and took significant control over the writing of a new constitution.

Amid allegations of fraud from both sides, both candidates have declared themselves winners, although, the unofficial count show that Morsi is the clear victor by a million vote margin. The presidential commission, which has the final say, is investigating the allegations while rumors abound that they will invalidate enough of Morsi’s votes to make Safiq the winner. On of the allegations being investigated is that the Muslim Brotherhood gained access to a government printing office and pre-marked at least one million ballots for Morsi.

This is the view of the situation from the Muslim Brotherhood on the political and economic impacts for Egypt as reported by Evan Hill via Al Jazeera:

Jihad el-Haddad, an aide to Khairat el-Shater – the movement’s first choice for president and a man seen as its de facto leader – said the Brotherhood is “done negotiating”. [..]

The Brotherhood is now ready to push the military to the brink, he said.

Its leaders are well aware that the bungled transition has cost the country several billion dollars in lost investment and aid, much of it tied to having a democratically elected government, and even more in foreign reserves spent to keep the Egyptian pound afloat.

Further unrest would likely cause a currency devaluation, pushing up the prices of food and household goods and raising the spectre of a “hunger revolution,” Haddad said.

Meanwhile, alternative premises have been found where the parliament can meet on Tuesday for its regular session, he claimed, in defiance of the military council, which has ordered the armed guards surrounding the parliament building to deny entry to MPs. [..]

Both sides know the economic and human cost of a return to the mass protests and street clashes that have marked the past 16 months, and their ongoing negotiations indicate both are probably more malleable than they make themselves appear.

Washington has responded to this crisis with some concern:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the US expects the military to “support the democratic transition, to recede by turning over authority”.

“The military has to assume an appropriate role, which is not to try to interfere with, dominate or subvert the constitutional authority,” she said.

Privately, US officials expressed concern that a Shafik victory could have dangerous fallout, with protests and ensuing instability that could lead the military to take even stronger measures.

The big problem is that the allies of the military, Mubarak-era officials and secular opponents of Islamists also hold sway in the judiciary, the prosecutor’s office and the election commission.

Even if the military turns over control to a civilian government by the end of June, it will still retain unprecedented powers and that is a huge problem.

Jun 20 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Kaura Flanders: ‘Jamie Dimon, You’re No Good. The People Need a Robin Hood’

Tuesday June 19th, saw the formal launch of an NNU-led national campaign for the Robin Hood Tax. Not just in DC, but all over the country, nurses and their allies showed up at branches and offices of JP Morgan Chase summoning the spirit of the 13th century British bandit.

As National Nurses United President Rose Ann deMoro explains:  “It’s time to pay up for the damage you have done to our communities and our nation.”

It’s an idea whose time has long since come, they say, and there’s no better time to be talking about it than this moment. The Robin Hood tax, or financial transaction tax (also known as the Tobin tax after the US economist who first proposed a version of it,) would impose a levy on financial transactions, like sales of stocks, bonds and derivatives. It would take from the rich and generate revenues for poor public services, and stymie reckless speculation — like the gamble that lost JP Morgan that missing $2 billion —  in the process.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Progressive action can move the candidates

After a rough few weeks, filled with disappointing economic news and distracting political gaffes, President Obama finally had a rare throw-down-the-mike moment. In a highly anticipated campaign speech in Ohio last Thursday, he clearly and unequivocally framed the November election as a choice, not simply “between two candidates or two political parties, but between two paths for our country.”

The choice is indeed a stark one: a return to the failed Bush policies of unregulated markets and antitax fundamentalism that served the 1 percent as they failed the country; or concerted government action to rebuild the middle class as the foundation for sustained economic growth. As Obama said, “this is not another trivial Washington argument.”

Allison Kilkenny: Activists Protest G20 While US Media Talk Trivialities

Protests continue in Los Cabos, Mexico, during the G20 summit of world leaders, though learning of these demonstrations-especially if one lives within the United States-is quite a difficult task for consumers of the establishment media.

On Monday, activists unfurled a giant “one trillion dollar” bill to represent the money given in fossil fuel subsidies every year, and the group Avaaz.org says it collected more than 750,000 signatures for a petition calling for a shift to renewable energy.

But rather than discussing environmental policies or austerity measures, NBC’s Chuck Todd obsessed endlessly over the body language between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama.

Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto: Obama Boxes in Republicans on Immigration

What do the Republican Party of Texas and the president have in common? Not much of anything, except their support of an immigrant guest worker program. Just over a week before President Obama issued his executive order establishing a work authorization program for undocumented youth, the Texas GOP approved a platform calling on the federal government to implement a guest worker program. While the president did what the Lone Star Republicans asked, I doubt they’ll be sending a “thank you” card anytime soon (they also advocate for the repeal of birthright citizenship for people whose parents are not American citizens).

Republicans now find themselves in a tricky position. Up until last week they could say that they opposed the president on immigration because his reforms came with pathways to citizenship. Amnesty, or a pathway to citizenship, has been the greatest point of contention between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans believe that to give citizenship to those who came to this country illegally as children would reward those who broke the law, even if it was through no fault of their own. And what the president did last week was concede this non-negotiable.

Katha Politt: What’s the Matter With Creationism?

Do you know what the worst thing about the recent Gallup poll on evolution is? It isn’t that 46 percent of respondents are creationists (“God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last ten thousand years or so”). Or that 32 percent believe in “theistic evolution” (“Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”). Or that only 15 percent said humans evolved and “God had no part in this process.” It isn’t even that the percentage of Americans with creationist views has barely budged since 1982, when it was 44 percent, with a small rise in the no-God vote (up from 9 percent) coming at the expense of the divine-help position (down from 38 percent). Or that 58 percent of Republicans are creationists, although that does explain a lot.

It’s that the proportion of college graduates who are creationists is exactly the same as for the general public. That’s right: 46 percent of Americans with sixteen long years of education under their belt believe the story of Adam and Eve is literally true. Even 25 percent of Americans with graduate degrees believe dinosaurs and humans romped together before Noah’s flood. Needless to say, this remarkable demonstration of educational failure attracts little attention from those who call for improving our schools.

Alice Slater: The Folly of Mindless Science

In 2000, I traveled to India, invited to speak at the organizing meeting of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear and Disarmament and Peace. About 600 organizations, including some 80 from Pakistan gathered in New Delhi to strategize for nuclear disarmament. India had quietly acquired the bomb and performed one nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974 but it was in 1998 that all hell broke out, with India exploding five underground tests, swiftly followed by six in Pakistan.

The trigger for this outbreak of nuclear testing in Asia was the refusal of the US Clinton Administration, under the pressure of the US nuclear weapons scientists, to negotiate a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that precluded laboratory testing and “sub-critical” tests, where plutonium could be blown up underground with chemicals without causing a chain reaction-hence defined as a non-nuclear test by the US and the nuclear club. India warned the nuclear powers at the Commission on Disarmament (CD) where the CTBT was being negotiated, that it opposed the CTBT because it contained discriminatory “loopholes … exploited by some countries to continue their testing activity, using more sophisticated and advanced techniques”, and it would never agree to consensus on the treaty unless the ability to continue high-tech laboratory testing and computer-driven nuclear experiments was foreclosed.

Jun 19 2012

More Pain In Spain

The Greeks choice of staying with the pain of austerity measures may have helped divert a crisis for the Euro Zone, but not for long. There is still Spain.

Spain bailout fears mount

Fears of a full-scale bailout for Spain have mounted as its borrowing costs spiked to danger levels on concern over the nation’s stricken banks and fast-rising debt. [..]

Tapping the markets for the first time since the Greek vote on Sunday, Spain raised 3.04 billion euros, beating its 2.0-3.0 billion euro target in an auction of 12- and 18-month notes.

But it had to pay exorbitant rates to lure investors – 5.074 per cent for 12-month debt and 5.107 per cent for 18-month debt.

The yield on Spanish benchmark 10-year government bonds shattered the 7.0 per cent barrier on Monday for the first time since the creation of the euro in 1999, pushing above 7.2 per cent.

On Tuesday, the yield on 10-year bonds was at 7.003 per cent. [..]

Spanish borrowing costs at ominous levels

Spain, on the edge of losing debt-market access, paid around 200 basis points more in interest rates Tuesday than a month ago to lure investors to its Treasury bill sale, an ominous sign ahead of a critical government bond auction Thursday.

The latest surge in the country’s borrowing costs comes a day after fresh central-bank data showed Spanish lenders were sitting on the highest level of bad loans in 18 years, raising fresh worries over the battered sector’s capital needs.

The Fat Lady isn’t singing yet.

Just an interesting aside about interest rates, David Dayen points out this exchange from today’s House hearings with none other than the Obama administration’s favorite banker, Jaime Dimon:

But the two stars of the show thus far were Democratic Reps. Gary Ackerman and Brad Sherman. Ackerman asked point-blank if there’s any difference between gambling and investing. Dimon replied that with gambling, the house usually won, to which Ackerman quipped “That has been my experience in investing.” But he got at the central point, that hedging, which entails making a bet that would counteract any other actions in the markets, really bears reveals no difference from gambling. He emphasized that “with hedging, if you’re right, only you win, and if you’re wrong, we all lose.” Precisely. There’s no productive business being done with hedging.

Dimon replied to this by saying that they do a lot of other productive business with the rest of their $2 trillion in assets, so the gentleman from New York should kindly shut his mouth (that’s a paraphrase). And Brad Sherman followed up on that very well. He first said that hundreds if not thousands of small businesses need loans, and instead of accommodating them, “you took $350 billion to London.” Sherman added that JPMorgan holds a $14 billion subsidy through their implicit Too Big to Fail guarantee. This elicited an amusing moment, as Dimon said “We borrow in the marketplace, with the smartest people in the world, with 200 basis points over Treasury.” Sherman replied that “after you lost so much money in London, I would be surprised if people lent you money for less than that.”

Well.

Jun 19 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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: Egypt’s Democracy Interrupted

he once-promising democratic transition in Egypt is in peril after a power grab by the generals and the courts – holdovers from Hosni Mubarak’s repressive regime. This is not what Egyptians rallied and died for in Tahrir Square. It guarantees more turmoil. Given Egypt’s importance in the Arab world, it sets a terrible example for other societies trying to get beyond autocratic rule. [..]

American officials were right to warn the generals on Monday that they risk losing billions of dollars if they don’t swiftly transfer power to the president, ensure elections for a new Parliament and begin writing a new constitution with help from a broad range of Egyptians. The United States needs to work with Egypt to maintain the peace treaty and a stable border with Israel. But an undemocratic Egypt in perpetual turmoil is no help to its own people or Israel or the rest of the region.

Ari Melber: Do Liberals Support Obama’s Kill List?

President Obama is wielding several security powers that have been historically controversial among Democrats, from indefinitely detaining Guantánamo prisoners to shutting down torture lawsuits as “state secrets” that cannot be addressed in court. There has not been a major Democratic backlash, but all the recent attention on Obama’s “kill list”-a set of targets that has included American citizens as young as 16 years old-seemed like an opening for a new chapter in challenging the administration’s security policies.

For starters, the kill list is just different. Many divisive security measures linked to the Bush administration have been inherently convoluted-Obama’s team had to clean up a mess while developing new policies on the fly. For example, take the Bush-era detainees. Some are difficult to convict in civilian courts because the evidence against them was gathered through torture. Obama supporters understand that the administration’s options are more limited on this score, a predicament Daniel Klaidman stresses in his new chronicle of Obama’s terror policies, Kill or Capture.

The drone program, however, goes far beyond what Bush ever did. It was not required by the past. And it sets a stunning precedent for the future.

Dean Baker: Republicans Love Big Government (So Long as It Serves Big Business)

Last week Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent picked up on a blogpost from Democracy editor Michael Tomasky about how liberals should be touting the merits of “government.” That is a great idea, if the point is to advance the conservatives’ agenda.

It is astounding how happy liberals are to work for the right by implying that conservatives somehow just want to leave markets to themselves whereas the liberals want to bring in the pointy-headed bureaucrats to tell people what they should do. This view is, of course, nonsense. Pick an issue, any issue, and you will almost invariably find the right actively pushing for a big role for government.

However, for conservatives the goal is not ensuring a decent standard of living for the bulk of the population. Rather the goal is ensuring that money is redistributed upward. And, of course, the conservatives are smart enough not to own up to their use of the government. [..]

It is totally understandable that the right would try to conceal the massive extent to which it relies on government to redistribute income upward. It is very hard to figure out why the country’s leading progressive thinkers want to help them.

Simon Johnson: The risk Jamie Dimon poses to the Federal Reserve System’s legitimacy

If Tim Geithner says it’s a problem that the CEO of America’s biggest bank chairs the New York Fed board, be assured it is

The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913, a late arrival to the world of central banks. The American public and banking community had long distrusted the notion that there should be one authority in charge of managing the financial system. At least since the presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, there had been aversion to giving too much power to one bank. Much of this suspicion of can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson and his belief that that a “financial aristocracy” could take over the newly independent United States. [..]The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913, a late arrival to the world of central banks. The American public and banking community had long distrusted the notion that there should be one authority in charge of managing the financial system. At least since the presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, there had been aversion to giving too much power to one bank. Much of this suspicion of can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson and his belief that that a “financial aristocracy” could take over the newly independent United States. [..]

Arguably, this system has always been tilted towards over-representing bankers, particularly those based on Wall Street. This issue has become particularly sensitive of late because Jamie Dimon – CEO of JP Morgan Chase, now the largest bank in the country – is a class A director of the New York Fed.

Chris Hedges: Occupy Will Be Back

In every conflict, insurgency, uprising and revolution I have covered as a foreign correspondent, the power elite used periods of dormancy, lulls and setbacks to write off the opposition. This is why obituaries for the Occupy movement are in vogue. And this is why the next groundswell of popular protest-and there will be one-will be labeled as “unexpected,” a “shock” and a “surprise.” The television pundits and talking heads, the columnists and academics who declare the movement dead are as out of touch with reality now as they were on Sept. 17 when New York City’s Zuccotti Park was occupied. Nothing this movement does will ever be seen by them as a success. Nothing it does will ever be good enough. Nothing, short of its dissolution and the funneling of its energy back into the political system, will be considered beneficial.

Those who have the largest megaphones in our corporate state serve the very systems of power we are seeking to topple. They encourage us, whether on Fox or MSNBC, to debate inanities, trivia, gossip or the personal narratives of candidates. They seek to channel legitimate outrage and direct it into the black hole of corporate politics. They spin these silly, useless stories from the “left” or the “right” while ignoring the egregious assault by corporate power on the citizenry, an assault enabled by the Democrats and the Republicans. Don’t waste time watching or listening. They exist to confuse and demoralize you.

Joe Nocera: When ALEC Takes Over Your Town

The Rhode Island State Legislature finally adjourned its 2012 session around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It had been a brutal last few days.

In May, the State Senate had approved a supplemental property tax increase of 13.8 percent, to be imposed on the residents of Woonsocket, a struggling city with a $10 million deficit. But when the bill moved to the House of Representatives, two conservative Woonsocket representatives refused to go along, and no amount of late-night negotiating could change their minds. Everyone finally gave up and went home.

The state has named a budget commission to grapple with Woonsocket’s money woes. Ultimately, though, a receiver may have to be appointed – which is to say, a person not beholden to the voters, who would nonetheless have the power to abrogate union contracts and do whatever else he or she deems necessary to erase the deficit. Incredibly, the two Woonsocket legislators have pushed for a receiver, despite the pain that it would likely bring their city.

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