The legislation that President Obama signed on Tuesday represents the biggest revamp of the country’s food regulation system in decades—that is, if it gets past those Congressional Republicans spoiling for a fight as they pledge to crack down on government spending this year.
Continue reading …Nope, despite what Iowa AG Tom Miller promised in this video, we’re not seeing any criminal prosecutions of these thieves. But at least these state AGs are more likely to force some real reforms into the foreclosure process: The 50 state attorneys general probing U.S. foreclosure practices will first settle with the five largest loan servicers, including Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said. No settlements have been reached yet, Miller said in a telephone interview today. The other three are Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Ally Financial Inc., said Miller, the leader of the 50-state investigation. The five have 59 percent of the market, Miller said. “What we’re looking at is five separate agreements with the five largest servicers,” Miller said. “We’re still a ways away” from reaching agreements, he said. “We’re working very hard to figure out what should be in the settlement.” All 50 U.S. states are investigating whether banks and loan servicers used false documents and signatures to justify hundreds of thousands of foreclosures. The probe, announced Oct. 13, came after JPMorgan and Ally Financial’s GMAC mortgage unit said they would stop repossessions in 23 states where courts supervise home seizures, and Bank of America, the largest U.S. lender, froze foreclosures nationwide. The group isn’t pursuing a criminal investigation, Miller said. “Our focus is to reform the servicing process and that’s inherently civil, not criminal,” he said. In an interview last week, Miller said the group might consider matters including whether servicers are charging borrowers appropriate fees. “We hear stories far too often of it taking months before servicers get back to people, or they lose documents and that they don’t modify a loan when it makes sense,” Miller said last week. The 50-state group “offers one of the most promising avenues to increasing loan modification and servicer accountability that we have seen so far,” said Paul Leonard, California director for the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, North Carolina. He said the group would act more independently than Congress or federal regulators because of the influence of industry lobbyists in Washington.
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Bhutan, that tiny, idyllic country nestled between China and India, has a thing for male genitals. However, an influx of tourists and their prudish ways threatens the ancient art of penis worship, the Global Post reports. Global Post: Since tourism is a major source of income for Bhutan, Prime Minister Jigme Thinley announced earlier this year that Bhutan aims to triple the number of tourists by 2012. That’s potentially bad news for penis worship. That’s because some here worry the influx of tourists to this isolated Buddhist oasis is already weakening the essence of Bhutan — namely its relationship with the omnipresent phallus. The decline of the phallus is especially evident in “urban Bhutan,” a term locals insist is not an oxymoron. Read more Photo: Flickr / GrahamKing (CC-BY-NC-SA) Photo: Flickr / Deana Zabaldo (CC-BY-NC-SA) Related Entries January 3, 2011 Sexed-Up Videos Stir Up Trouble for U.S. Navy December 3, 2010 The Pope’s Progress
Continue reading …Tucker Carlson eats crow over wishing that Michael Vick had been executed
January 4, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media It’s always fun to a smug little prick like Tucker Carlson with his mouth full of crow feathers. Which was what he was munching on last night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Hannity clearly invited Carlson back on, after guest-hosting Hannity last week, so that he could walk back that off-the-wall remark wishing that Michael Vick had been executed for torturing dogs to death. And so he did. Carlson made clear he meant for it all just to be a big joke — he was just exaggerating for comic purposes. Which no doubt is why all the guests were just rolling in the aisles after he said it. HANNITY: All right. Tucker, take one big vacation, a year, just one. CARLSON: I don’t take a lot of vacation like other people. HANNITY: Some take a ton of it. So, I take one, two weeks off, my big vacation. And what do I have to read on the blogs, is that you are destroying the show. You are absolutely, you’re creating controversy. Wanting Michael Vick to get the death penalty. Let’s roll the tape. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARLSON: I’m a Christian, I’ve made mistakes myself, I believe fervently in second chances. But Michael Vick killed dogs and he did in a heartless and cruel way. And I think personally, he should have been executed for that. He wasn’t. But the idea that the president of the United States would be getting behind someone who murdered dogs, kind of beyond the pale. HANNITY: All right. Do you really want him — do you really think he should — I’m asking. CARLSON: This is what happens when you get too emotional. And look, the bottom line is I’m a dog lover. I’ve had dogs my whole life, we have three of them now, I love them. And I know a lot about what Michael Vick did, what he admitted doing, and I’m not going to get into it Sean, because it’s too upsetting frankly. But if you take some time, anybody who takes some time and looks into how he mistreated these dogs and personally tortured them to death, gets upset. And I, you know, I over spoke. I’m uncomfortable with the death penalty under any circumstances. Of course, I don’t think he should be executed. But I do think what he did is truly appalling. HANNITY: Look, I too — I mean, I am a dog lover’s dog lover. You know, a very few things that made me cry, I lost my dog of 16 years snowball, and it broke my heart, literally. CARLSON: I know the feeling, yes. HANNITY: And, you know, if you read Mark Levin’s book, “Rescuing Sprite,” it really details all the pains and suffering that love and joy that you get from a dog. CARLSON: Exactly. HANNITY: Here’s — I’m a Christian too as you said in your opening comments here. He spent a couple years in jail. He lost a huge contract. He’s been working, I think he’s made 60 appearances with Animal Rights Groups. So, he’s working with Tony Dungy. Shouldn’t we believe in redemption in the sense that he’s showing a level of continued commitment to righting his life? CARLSON: Yes. Maybe, but as a friend of mine pointed out, I mean, a convicted child molester doesn’t get to adopt — look, I’m just saying. (CROSSTALK) Look, I’m not comparing him to a child molester. I’m merely saying that because Michael Vick says, you know, I’m rehabilitated now and hires a bunch of pr guys to make that case on his behalf. That he makes donations to a bunch of humane society type organizations doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t be disgusted by what he did. That’s my only point. HANNITY: I’m disgusted too. I’m torn inasmuch as, only time will tell if he’s really the word repentance from the Latin is to change your heart. If he really is sincere and he stays with these groups and he continues down the path that he’s on. At some point, I think we got to take our foot off his neck and say, OK, you’ve proven that you really are rehabilitated. CARLSON: There’s no question. But there is a line of several million rehabilitated people who I would like to see the president congratulate before he congratulates Michael Vick. Bet Hannity thinks twice before inviting this incompetent boob back to run his show, though.
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Click here to view this media The year has just begun, and already Fox News’ Sean Hannity is telling the story of how Christians are being persecuted in the Arab world. Hannity observed that a holy war may be “brewing” in the Middle East, as he reported on the New Year’s Eve bombing of a Christian church in Egypt. Cliff May, a notorious neoconservative and creator of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies , was a little more excited about the prediction than Hannity. “In your intro you said a holy war is brewing,” May began. “It is not brewing, it is taking place.” “Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities are being not just discriminated, but persecuted in Egypt and throughout the broader Middle East,” he added. “Do you think we are headed for a modern day religious war in the Middle East?” Hannity asked. “The war that is being fought now, the great global conflict in the world, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Gaza, this is one war and it is a religious war,” May explained. “Not because we want it to be, but because al Qaeda and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and various other radical Islamists and jihadists, they say it’s a religious war. That’s what a jihad means.” “People forget jihad equals holy war,” Hannity concluded. It was President George W. Bush who first invoked images of a holy war in the Middle East, when he suggested soon after Sept. 11, 2001 that the US was on a “crusade” in the region. Years later, GQ magazine uncovered top-secret military briefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for President George W. Bush that included Bible passages . “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand,” was the quote from Ephesians that appeared on a March 2003 briefing cover sheet along with a picture of a US tank in Iraq. In 2009, a US church provided Bibles printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, for American soldiers to give to Afghan citizens. Al Jazeera obtained video of a military pastor urging service members to “hunt people for Jesus.” Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was discovered last Janurary to have been placing scriptural references on military gun sights used in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. The company was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits to remove the Bible codes.
Continue reading …Kevin Drum is a friend, so my concerns are not in dealing with some Third Way type of Democrat who is enabling conservatives as they undermine the American people and the left, but I think he’s just not recognizing what we’re truly dealing with when we discuss Social Security and what conservatives want to do with it. Digby wrote a post called “Good Liberal”, about Gene Sperling, who is one of the leading voices out there demanding we fix Social Security. I’ll take Brad Delong’s word for it that Gene Sperling really is a liberal and concur that in Woodward’s book “The Agenda” he is portrayed as being the most liberal of the economic advisors. But this worries me: Both Summers and Sperling said there would not be consensus in today’s session about how to fix the program. They also said the public was more receptive to the government making hard decisions necessary to keep SS from running out of money in the long run, because Americans are anxious about their private retirement savings and the value of their houses. Sperling said: “I think there may be a lot more openness than we thought in the past for people to have an honest discussion about the shared sacrifice necessary to have Social Security solvency. That this would be a sure thing they could count on, and they could count on for the next 50 to 75 years.” At the end, Sperling also tried to cut through disagreement over whether the program was in a state of crisis. “I really hate the whole argument about, is this a crisis or is this not a crisis? Why do we not want to preempt a crisis. Why do we not want to do something early? It is a shame on our political system that there has never been entitlement reform without a gun to our head. . .Wouldn’t it be a tremendous confidence-building thing to act early and smart?” I know I’ve posted that too often and regular readers are sick of it. But it’s terribly important, I think, to understand that the rationale for liberals in this thing is that they are doing a good thing for the program, taking it “off the table” for the next 50 years and “making it sound.” Now, I don’t know if they really believe it, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that in the current environment whatever changes they come up with will come at the expense of the elderly because there will be no deal that requires tax hikes.. .read on Kevin Drum responded by saying that it couldn’t hurt to try and fix Social Security now even if conservatives are operating in bad faith. First quoting Digby, he notes that Duncan is of the same view — but he’s not: Atrios agrees: I don’t know why some liberals think that there is some deal, good or bad, which can somehow take the Social Security issue off the table until the end of time. As Ben Bernanke said, that’s where the money is and they’ll be trying to steal it in perpetuity. Cutting granny’s benefits a bit won’t change that. I just don’t think this is true. It’s possible that Republicans will never agree to a Social Security deal that increases taxes, but keep in mind that Republicans are mainly obsessed with taxes on the wealthy. A small increase in payroll taxes and/or an increase in the payroll tax cap wouldn’t affect the millionaire class much and might get a fair amount of GOP support. In any case, the only way to find out is to try. If they won’t do the deal, then they won’t do the deal. What Kevin seems to miss is that with the media power shifted so strongly in their favor, conservatives have made reflexive anti-taxation an even more pronounced plank in their platform than ever. There is no common sense attached to the conservative movement, only party building. They will never agree to any kind of tax hike, at least for the foreseeable future, so there’s just a certain naivete in thinking that they would ever consider the types of small fixes that would indeed help Social Security that Kevin discusses. It’s all about cutting spending, cutting regulations and cutting taxes, period. It’s why we don’t trust the push by the media for President Obama to become more bipartisan than he already has. Remember, no one liked the tax deal more than the Beltway Villagers who are calling for Obama, not Republicans, to be the big compromisers. And it’s up to us to protect Social Security from any cut in services, since the Beltway media believe that working-class Americans should “eat their spinach” and share the pain of the national debt and willingly accept cuts to their benefits if they are “serious people”. Wall Street should meanwhile continue on their path, gaming the system for unlimited profits at our expense. President Obama told us that he was for raising the payroll tax cap, which would be a prudent way to collect more funds to Social Security without cutting benefits to a program that is not in any serious danger now or in the next decade, but when he included a payroll tax holiday it raised all of our eyes. Republican leaders are saying that they don’t plan on trying to extend that tax holiday , but I don’t really believe them. Either way, they will call the end of the holiday a tax increase and will run on that. Lindsay Graham has already exposed himself as a lunatic by telling David Gregory that we should cut Social Security benefits if Obama wants the debt ceiling raised. GRAHAM: Well to not raise the debt ceiling could be a default of the United States on bond and treasury obligations. That would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large but this is an opportunity to make sure that government is changing its spending ways. I will not vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long term debt obligations starting with Social Security, a real bipartisan effort to make sure that Social Security stays solvent, adjusting the age, looking at means tests for benefits. On the spending side I’m not going to vote for a debt ceiling increase unless we go back to 2008 spending levels, cutting discretionary spending… GREGORY: Let me stop you right there Senator. That’s a big condition just on Social Security alone. Do you think Republicans are prepared to follow you in two things you said; raise the retirement age and means test benefits for older Americans? GRAHAM: I would suggest that if we’re serious about taking America in a new direction and you’re not putting entitlement reform on the table, you’ve missed a great opportunity to change the course of America’s future. And the last election was about change, change that really will make us something other than Greece. I think Pat Toomey, Rand Paul and the other candidates that are new to the Congress that said during the campaign, everything’s on the table when it comes to making America fiscally sound. Let’s see if we can find bipartisan reforms in Social Security before we raise the debt limit. Hint, hint, Kevin. The debt ceiling was always pretty much an automated function of our government. Now Republicans are using it as a weapon. President Obama needs to stand firm against this type of hostage taking and let the GOP do what they threaten or else Social Security will be jeopardized as well as every other program that benefits the working class families across America.
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“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is about to get a major makeover in the form of a significant edit to be made in NewSouth Books’ edition of Mark Twain’s iconic novel. Specifically, the notorious “n” word will be swapped out for “slave,” along with one other race-related alteration. Related Entries December 27, 2010 White Christmas December 26, 2010 Let’s Not Spin the Civil War
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Although the tawdry videos that cost U.S. Navy Captain Owen Honors his position on the USS Enterprise as of Tuesday weren’t exactly top secret before, they clearly had enough of a shelf life to generate a fresh scandal—and to spur the Pentagon to tuck Capt. Honors away in an administrative post.
Continue reading …Yesterday marked a historic day in California as Jerry Brown took the reins as California’s governor, 30 years after his first time at the helm. Although his plans for the state haven’t been unveiled yet, he gave hints in his inaugural speech . It looks like he will take an approach of cutting where possible and extending sales, income and vehicle tax increases in effect already. It won’t be pretty, but it’s a start toward keeping California above water. Brown is known for setting an example of thrift. His entire inaugural cost $100,000. Contrast that with Rick Scott’s inaugural in Florida — a two-day extravaganza expected to cost $2.5 million. But fear not, Florida, because Scott has many high-powered donors kicking in $25,000 apiece. Everyone from insurance companies to lawyers to growers and nursing homes has ponied up for the big party, which began Monday and finishes up on Tuesday. But for Scott, the real party begins when he starts slashing everything from Medicaid to property taxes. From a recent interview with the Herald-Tribune, some classic Scott-isms : Q: “What, in a general sense, do you plan to tell Floridians at your swearing-in?” A: “I’m going to talk about that I’m going to be the jobs governor. I’m going to focus on what I talked about in the campaign, 700,000 jobs, turning the economy around. I’m going to talk about education, making sure we have the best educated work force, talk about regulation reform, getting rid of the regulations that don’t make sense and streamlining government. And really the focus there … is probably we will do what we said during the campaign, do accountability budgeting, go through all the agencies, really have measurement, whether we are accomplishing something or not and make sure everybody knows what we are doing. The taxpayers ought to know what we are doing.” Lest we ever forget, Rick Scott is the guy who somehow didn’t know anything about Columbia/HCA’s fraudulent Medicare activity. Accountability, my ass. Q: “I did want to ask you about your plans regarding the Florida Retirement System and the pension plan. You called it a ticking fiscal time bomb.” A: “Here’s the way I look at it. I represent the taxpayers of the state of Florida and I want to make sure those who are relying on the pension plan have something that they can rely on. … What I’m looking at is, one, you should understand exactly what our commitment is now. Two, what’s realistic as far as the monies that we have and the returns we can get. And then one thing I have talked about is that I believe the employees who participate in the pension plan should contribute. They do in every other state except this one. But that what’s I’m thinking about. I will have a specific proposal on the pension plan by Feb. 4. The people who are relying on it I want to them to know that there’s a pension plan there that will able to pay them. As recently as 2000, the Florida pension system had a surplus. Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist’s management combined with the overall downturn due to the recession has caused it to run a shortfall climbing into the billions. But no worries, Gollum is on the job. The next thing he’s gonna do? Cut property taxes by 19% and eliminate all state corporate taxes over a seven year period. Worse yet, Florida public schools will find themselves forced out of existence if Scott has his way on school vouchers. Scott, who during his campaign also laid out an ambitious plan to expand the use of private school vouchers, has not decided whether he will push to pass a constitutional amendment before going ahead with that expansion. Scott’s own transition team has recommended giving public school parents so-called “education savings accounts” that would give them money to send their children to private schools. But the state Supreme Court has previously ruled one voucher program set up by Bush unconstitutional. Bush tried to get an amendment through the Florida Legislature but his effort foundered in the state Senate. To all of this, Rick Scott grins and says: “It’s not daunting. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be exciting,” Scott said. Yeah, fun and exciting. Sort of like that feeling in the pit of your stomach when the monster in the horror movie won’t die. Meanwhile, Jerry Brown will be quietly moving proposals forward for taxpayers to approve tax increases in California and budget cuts in the legislature. California will move ahead with establishing insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, and the state’s problems will be tackled, one at a time, methodically. It won’t be “fun”, but I’m betting it’ll be effective. My advice to Florida taxpayers? Keep your eyes on Scott’s hands at all times, because while he’s entertaining you with flamboyant bullsh*t, he’s going to be stealing you blind. Bet on it. Update : Joy-Ann Reid has the story on Scott’s first five executive orders, suspending regulations in Florida. Gollum is governor ; be afraid.
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