Title: Campo Verde Artist: Los Incas Modernos I’m off to Peru tomorrow for some r&r on the Inca Trail, thus the LNMC will be left in good hands for the next 10 days. Nos Vemos!
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• Bailout fund may be used to buy back Greek debt • Markets in turmoil amid escalating anxiety European leaders bowed to the inevitable and conceded that Greece is likely to default on its massive debt burden, which would be a first among the 17 countries using the euro. They also abruptly shifted tack in the eurozone debt crisis by raising the possibility of using the eurozone’s bailout fund to buy back Greek debt on the markets, meaning sizeable losses for Greece’s private investors and reduced debt levels for Athens. Following 12 hours of fraught negotiations in Brussels haunted by the risks of contagion in the eurozone spreading to Italy, now being targeted by the financial markets for the first time in the 18-month crisis, the 17 governments of the eurozone pointedly failed to rule out a sovereign debt default by Greece. A statement that at the meeting the European Central Bank “confirmed its position that a credit event or selective default should be avoided”. There was no declaration of governments’ support for the ECB position. Both Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, president of the Eurogroup, and Olli Rehn, EU commissioner for monetary affairs, declined to offer one. “That does not mean that the Eurogroup as such would do everything to provoke a credit event,” quipped Juncker. As recently as last week, eurozone ministers stressed the need to avoid default in Greece, indicating the rapid shifts under way in an escalating crisis. Deep-seated divisions remained between the wealthy northern creditor governments and southern Europe, with market pressures pushing up Italian and Spanish borrowing costs and appearing to vindicate ECB warnings of the risks of contagion from Greece. Italian borrowing costs hit 5.7%, their highest levels in more than a decade, while the yields, or borrowing rates, on Spanish government bonds reached 6% – the highest level since the creation of the euro. Dealers reported a race to “safe havens” and gold priced in euros and sterling reached record levels of €1,110.48 and £979.89 an ounce in early trading before falling back, while the euro hit a record low against the Swiss franc – a safe-haven currency. Wall Street was also caught up in the anxiety, with US stocks falling 1% in early trading, while the FTSE 100 was also 1% lower. Analysts said there was little hope of calm returning to the markets while eurozone governments remained gridlocked over how to respond despite weeks of negotiations aimed at encouraging Greece’s private creditors to take part in a new bailout. France has proposed rolling over Greece’s privately held debt, mostly for 30 years, while Germany revived calls for a Greek debt swap, entailing “haircuts” for investors. The meeting remained split on the scale and modality of private creditor involvement in the new Greek bailout, the second in more than a year, EU officials said. European diplomats said the meeting needed to be “cathartic”, paving the way for a breakthrough to stave off a wider catastrophe in the months ahead. The major new developments were that eurozone governments accepted for the first time that a Greek default may be inevitable and that the eurozone’s €440bn euro bailout fund should be reconfigured to buy back Greek debt. “We stress our intention to make Greek debt more sustainable,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who chairs the 17-country Eurogroup. The interest Greece is paying on the bailout loans would be lowered, their maturities lengthened, and the “flexibility and scope” of the eurozone bailout fund would be “enhanced”. Sources said the proposal was to use the fund to reduce Greece’s debt burden by buying back Greek debt from bond-holders at a discount. This is likely to be contested by Germany, the central player among the creditor countries, and could run into problems in Germany’s parliament. The rules for the bailout fund would need to be rewritten, meaning the deal would need to go before MPs in Berlin, EU officials said. But the scheme would also require the participation of Greece’s private creditors who would suffer losses, long a German demand. There was no final agreement this morning amid murmurings of an emergency EU or eurozone summit being called before the end of the month. The outlines of the new rescue emerging this morning pitted Germany against the European Central Bank, with elements of the deal designed to accommodate both camps. Bailout fund buybacks are supported by the ECB, while private creditor losses are a German condition. Accepting that a Greek default was now impossible to avoid, EU governments are hoping it will be brief and “selective”, not triggering a “credit event” on the financial markets that could wreak havoc on the credit default swap markets, also in the US, and unleash contagion. Last week two of the three big ratings agencies predicted a Greek-style scenario for Portugal, downgrading its debt to junk, while predicting any private-sector involvement in the second Greek bailout being negotiated would be viewed as a default. Those verdicts provoked rage from the EU. Viviane Reding, the EU justice commissioner, said: “Europe can’t allow three private US enterprises to destroy the euro.” Either their “cartel” was smashed or “independent” European and Asian ratings agencies would be set up. “We can’t have a situation where a cartel of three US enterprises decides the fates of entire national economies and their citizens,” she said. European debt crisis European banks Financial crisis Banking Global recession Global economy Greece Europe European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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enlarge U.S. delegation to Ceasefire/Armistice talks. The long road to Square One. Click here to view this media Sixty years ago this day we were knee-deep in war, this time Korea. Ceasefire/Armistice talks had just begun with hopeful optimism amidst a flurry of obstacles to tackle on the way to Square One . Even so, it was a start which was good news as during the previous week The Pentagon released casualty reports listing over 164 killed upping the total since June of the previous year to over 78,000. Meanwhile there were grumblings from Iron Curtain Satellites (namely Bulgaria and Romania) that Soviet style purges were underway. A wave of anti-Semitic activity was going on in Romania over the exodus of Jews leaving for destinations Middle-East. Seems the propaganda was attempting to place the Jewish population in Eastern Europe as being on the side of Hitler during the war (?). Domestically, Congress was twisted in knots over the Price Controls debate with Beef prices taking center stage. It prompted at least one D.C. restaurant to offer Horsemeat Filets as a not-so-gentle nudge to the warring factions that The Old Grey Mare was starting to look rather tasty. Flooding in Kansas was threatening to be the worst since 1903 with mass evacuations from suburbs in Topeka to higher ground. And the 250,000th refugee from World War 2 landed in the U.S. on their way to a farm in Wisconsin. And so it went this July 11, 1951 as reported on the Edward R. Murrow News with Don Hollenbeck substituting from CBS Radio. And now you know.
Continue reading …On Monday's Early Show, CBS's Susan Koeppen profiled a doctor who hyped that “people are dying because they don't have simple access” to health care and spotlighted two of his patients who chronicled their difficulties with the Medicaid and Medicare programs. Koeppen also failed to mention the liberal leanings of an organization she labeled as merely ” an advocacy group for health care consumers .” Anchor Erica Hill introduced the consumer correspondent's report by noting that “a new proposal would cut reimbursement rates for doctors who accept Medicare by 30% in 2012…the potential cuts are raising concerns for the more than 100 million Americans who rely on the program, as well as the doctors who treat them.” Koeppen then led her segment with Dr. David Ansell's “people are dying” clip and described how the Rush University Medical Center physician “has been treating patients who can't get help anywhere else.” The CBS journalist continued with Dr. Ansell's claim that “he's seeing a growing number of patients with Medicaid or Medicare who just can't find physicians willing to treat them….He says the main problem is the government's low reimbursement rates.”After lending support to this claim by citing a study from Colorado which found that “a doctor earning $100 through private insurance would be paid about $71 through Medicare, and only about $50 through Medicaid,” Koeppen then played her sound bites from the Chicago-based doctor's patients: KOEPPEN: His patient, 64-year-old Wallace Harris, came to him when he had nowhere else to turn. WALLACE HARRIS, MEDICAID PATIENT: Some specialists- they just refuse to accept my Medicaid card. KOEPPEN: Some would consider Harris a hero. He was shot while trying to help a woman who was being attacked. ANSELL: Take a deep breath. HARRIS: I've worked over 50 years in this country and I paid taxes. So, why shouldn't I have some kind of benefit when I need it? KOEPPEN: And it's not just Medicaid. Seventy-three-year-old retired school teacher Jean Callahan thought being on Medicare meant she would be protected. JEAN CALLAHAN, MEDICARE PATIENT: Medicare is our insurance. For people to reject it, I felt stymied. I just felt helpless. Later in her report, the correspondent played two clips from Ron Pollack of Families USA, the supposed “advocacy group for health care consumers.” However, just as two of her colleagues on public radio did earlier this year in March , Koeppen failed to mention the organization's support for ObamaCare. She also failed to include clips from conservatives during the segment. The full transcript of Susan Koeppen's report, which aired 15 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour of Monday's Early Show: ERICA HILL: In this morning's 'HealthWatch,' possible changes in the government's health insurance programs. A new proposal would cut reimbursement rates for doctors who accept Medicare by 30% in 2012. Consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen reports the potential cuts are raising concerns for the more than 100 million Americans who rely on the program, as well as the doctors who treat them. DR. DAVID ANSELL, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: People are dying because they don't have simple access. SUSAN KOEPPEN (voice-over): For more than 30 years, Dr. David Ansell has been treating patients who can't get help anywhere else. ANSELL: I've always taken patients, regardless of their ability to pay. KOEPPEN: He says he's seeing a growing number of patients with Medicaid or Medicare who just can't find physicians willing to treat them. ANSELL: Come on in. KOEPPEN: He says the main problem is the government's low reimbursement rates. ANSELL: I don't fault the doctors. I fault the system. KOEPPEN: One study in Colorado found that a doctor earning $100 through private insurance would be paid about $71 through Medicare, and only about $50 through Medicaid. ANSELL: Doctors just want to see patients, but they also want to be paid fairly. KOEPPEN: His patient, 64-year-old Wallace Harris, came to him when he had nowhere else to turn. WALLACE HARRIS, MEDICAID PATIENT: Some specialists- they just refuse to accept my Medicaid card. KOEPPEN: Some would consider Harris a hero. He was shot while trying to help a woman who was being attacked. ANSELL: Take a deep breath. HARRIS: I've worked over 50 years in this country and I paid taxes. So, why shouldn't I have some kind of benefit when I need it? KOEPPEN: And it's not just Medicaid. Seventy-three-year-old retired school teacher Jean Callahan thought being on Medicare meant she would be protected. JEAN CALLAHAN, MEDICARE PATIENT: Medicare is our insurance. For people to reject it, I felt stymied. I just felt helpless. KOEPPEN: We wanted to find out how widespread the problem is. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Hi, I'm interested in making an appointment- KOEPPEN: So, we called 40 primary care physicians at random across the country. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: Would you accept United Health Care? KOEPPEN: Ninety-five percent told us they accept new patients with private insurance. UNIDENTIFIED MAN 1: Do you accept Medicare patients? KOEPPEN: And most, 78%, still accept Medicare patients. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: You don't accept Medicaid? KOEPPEN: But only 13% said they would see patients on Medicaid. RON POLLACK, FAMILIES USA: These results don't surprise me at all. KOEPPEN: Ron Pollack is the executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group for health care consumers. POLLACK: Clearly, we have a real crisis right now with respect to Medicaid. KOEPPEN: But health care providers on the front lines, like Dr. Ansell, are concerned that with more cuts on the horizon, the crisis could spread. ANSELL: The first Baby Boomer hit 65 this year. There's going to be 78 million Baby Boomers, and they are going to come flooding into this health care system, and we ain't seen nothing yet. KOEPPEN: Susan Koeppen, CBS News, New York. HILL (on-camera): A first-of-its-kind study released just last week found Medicaid benefits the people who receive it not only physically, but also emotionally, as well as financially.
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Click here to view this media This is news that Liberals will enjoy. He’s coming back, the good man, Alan Grayson via WFTV: WFTV learned on Monday that former U.S. Congressman Alan Grayson is running for office again.On Monday, Grayson said he doesn’t plan to do anything different. He said he’s running again because of all the people who have reached out and asked him to. Grayson already raised nearly $100,000 in donations before filing his paperwork on Monday.”We need somebody who’s gonna stick up for what’s right. Somebody with guts,” Grayson said. We knew about it for a few hours, but had to keep it quiet until he released the news. He’ll be coming on for a live chat with us soon… Orlando Sentinel has more: Alan Grayson – a hero to many on the left and a walking gag reflex to many on the right — wants to go back to Washington. Yes, less than a year after the freshman Democratic congressman suffered a crushing defeat to Dan Webster , Grayson says he’s ready to try again. Whether he’d run again against Webster — or perhaps in a newly created, heavily Democratic district, which would probably be more desirable for Grayson – remains to be seen. But either way, Grayson’s eager to run. (He was even wearing his signature stars-and-stripes necktie – one of his campaign staples – when he swung by the Sentinel Monday afternoon.) Grayson claims the Middle Class needs an advocate; that Social Security and Medicare need protecting and that he’s the guy to do it. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering if Grayson has mellowed since his loss … um, no. In fact, when I asked if he had any plans to tone down any of his rhetoric, he found the question insulting. “I was a fighter. I’m still a fighter,” he said. “I hope I never change.” Finally some good news.
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As much as liberal media members pushing for tax hikes don't understand the fiscal and economic reasons for not doing so, they've been deceitfully ignoring the political ramifications for Republicans caving on this issue. On Monday's “Hardball,” National Journal's Major Garrett explained to Chris Matthews that if the President didn't raise taxes high enough for his liking when the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress for two years, it's absurd to expect the GOP to do it for him now (video follows with transcript and commentary): MAJOR GARRETT, NATIONAL JOURNAL: Boehner and McConnell don't want to default, okay. They’ve said so publicly. They're in negotiations to avoid a default… CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Right. GARRETT: … and they’re going to try to drive the hardest bargain. What they're telling the President is, “Look at the political realities: you didn't raise taxes in a lame duck session when you had 59 Democrats in the Senate and almost 260 in the House. Don't expect Republicans to raise taxes we own the House of Representatives and have six more it Senate seats. MATTHEWS: Yeah. GARRETT: Operationally, as a matter of politics, that doesn't work. Exactly. Obama had two years of complete legislative control of this country – including months of a filibuster-proof Senate – to get whatever tax increases he wanted on the books. Now that the Republicans control the House, and have a stronger position in the Senate, it's politically untenable for them to go along with any tax hikes no matter how small, especially coming so soon after their victory in the midterms and with another major election less than seventeen months away. Doing so would be political suicide, and could result in a repeat of the shellacking Republicans took after President George H.W. Bush went back on his “Read My Lips – No New Taxes” pledge. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on Monday said this is likely Obama's strategy: John Boehner is Obama's lifeline to reelection. That's all Boehner is to Obama, nothing else. He not a golf buddy. He's nothing other than that. If he can get Boehner to ultimately cave, Obama's reelected. That's what he knows…He sees, “If I can force this guy to cave, I don't care what the House vote is. I don't care if I lose the vote. If I can get this guy to cave and put my tax increase for a vote, even if it loses, I win. And I get reelected.” That's what Obama thinks, because if Boehner caves, it's bye-bye GOP. That's the thing that everybody must understand. If Boehner caves, it's bye-bye GOP and nothing to do with the policy changes that might happen. If Boehner caves and takes a tax increase, folks, to the House and it loses, Obama still wins because the Republican base is so ticked off at that. Exactly. What Obama and his media minions are trying to do is create a repeat of 1990 when the Democrats and their press surrogates hammered Bush 41 until he finally agreed to raise taxes against his campaign pledge. Despite the media supporting this move at the time, they were all over him once the 1992 presidential campaign began, and assisted in fomenting conservative as well as moderate anger that led so many to vote for Ross Perot it gave Bill Clinton the victory with far less than 50 percent of the votes. Those that have been paying attention know that the press have been ridiculing Bush for this disastrous flip-flop ever since. Now, almost 20 years later, the Democrats and the press are trying to do the exact same thing claiming that the world is going to end if taxes aren't raised hoping to force Boehner and Company to cave. Once that happens, after initially congratulating the GOP for being willing to compromise for the sake of the nation, they'll attack every Republican during next year's campaign season – including Boehner – for their flip-flop hoping that they will not only get their beloved Obama re-elected but also give the House back to the Democrats. With this in mind, Garrett and Limbaugh are 100 percent right: if the Republicans want to be successful at the polls next November, they can't cave on this tax issue no matter what pressure they get from media members to do so. Intelligent people are supposed to learn from history not repeat it.
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Government watchdog approves proposals to widen access meaning 47 out of 123 institutions will charge maximum amount More than a third of English universities will charge £9,000 as their standard fee next year after their proposals for widening access to poorer students were approved by a government watchdog. A total of 47 out of 123 universities will charge the maximum fee across all courses. Final details of how much universities will charge undergraduates next year were released on Tuesday by the Office for Fair Access (Offa), which has vetted proposals to widen participation in higher education. The watchdog said that “fewer than half” of students will be charged a net fee of £9,000 once fee waivers – discounts for poorer students – and other financial support is taken into account. According to the figures, the estimated average fee is £8,393, far higher than the government predicted, but this drops to £8,161 when fee waivers for less well-off students are included. Every institution seeking to charge above £6,000 a year was forced to adopt an “access agreement” approved by the watchdog. In one example, Cambridge University’s access agreement sets the goal of increasing the proportion of state-educated students to 61%-63% within five years. In last year’s Cambridge undergraduate intake, 59.3% went to state schools. The university says 62% of pupils nationally who achieve the A-level results that it requires are from state schools. Oxford’s main goal on access is to increase the proportion of undergraduates from schools with “limited progression” to the university. This will target 2,300 schools where only a handful of pupils achieve three As, aiming to increase the proportion of such students at Oxford from 21.5% to 25% by 2016. Oxford will also aim to increase the proportion of undergraduates from poorer postcodes, from 6.1% currently to 9%, as well as the percentage from neighbourhoods where few teenagers go on to any form of higher education. Oxford will spend just under £11m on access in 2012 while Cambridge will spend just over £7m. Both plan to expand their summer school programmes. Offa revealed that negotiations took place with 52 institutions whose initial proposals did not meet the watchdog’s expectations. Of these, 25 were asked to be more ambitious on targets and spending. Sir Graeme Davies, director of fair access, said: “We asked institutions not to be cautious, but to be adventurous, to set stretching targets. In some cases we felt their goals were just a bit soft and needed to be hardened up.” The access agreements will be reviewed each year, with institutions that fail to meet their agreed targets on recruitment and retention facing fines or losing the right to charge more than £6,000. Separately, 10 universities and three further education colleges in Wales had their fee plans approved on Monday. The fees, approved by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, range from £5,850 to £9,000. The average fee in Wales is £8,800. Ten English institutions will have an average fee of £9,000 after fee waivers are taken into account. This is because they are offering poorer students financial support such as bursaries rather than waiving fees. These institutions are Bradford; Durham; University of East London; University College Falmouth; Lincoln; University of the Arts London; University College London; University of the West of England, Bristol and Plymouth College of Art. The business secretary, Vince Cable, said: “We will be monitoring performance on fair access closely every year to ensure we see tangible progress in opening the doors of our universities to the most disadvantaged.” Gareth Thomas MP, Labour’s shadow universities minister drew attention to the fact that no institution had lowered its fees because of pressure from Offa. “With independent experts warning that the number of state school students going to university could drop from October 2012, this is just one more reason why students and their families will feel let down by the government’s cavalier treatment of their hopes and dreams for access to England’s universities.” Liam Burns, president of the National Union of Students, said: “Fee waivers are being used in a cynical attempt to cover up the mess made when the government trebled the tuition fee cap, instead of properly supporting less-wealthy students. “Vince Cable had stated that fees over £6,000 would only be levied in exceptional circumstances but his solemn promise has quite clearly now been left in tatters.” Last week, a study of university admissions by individual schools found that private school pupils were twice as likely as comprehensive school pupils to get into the most selective universities and seven times as likely to get into Oxbridge. Even at the 30 highest-achieving comprehensive schools, entry into competitive universities lags behind private and grammar schools, the Sutton Trust study found. Such differences cannot be explained by ability, the study says, but may be influenced by parental backgrounds, choice of A-levels and poor advice to pupils. Students at private schools are twice as likely as their peers in comprehensives to take maths, physics and chemistry A-level and three times as likely to take foreign languages, according to data obtained in parliamentary questions by the Conservative MP Elizabeth Truss. Tuition fees Higher education Students University funding Student finance Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Serving in the latest round of wars in America has not helped our returning troops when it comes to keeping their own homes . And now the news on the job front makes their lives even harder than before: Unemployment among recently returned veterans, already in double digits, is poised to get worse as more soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan . T he jobless rate for veterans who served at any time since September 2001 — called Gulf War-era II veterans — was 13.3% in June, up from 12.1% the month before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In June 2010 it was 11.5% . — “It just so happens that there are a lot of people out there and there aren’t enough jobs,” said Pavel Ksendz, a 25-year-old Culver City resident who joined the Army in 2003, right after graduating from high school. After serving for four years, including 14 months in Iraq, Ksendz recently applied for a job as a janitor in Santa Monica, only to be told there were 59 other applicants. Veterans face a unique set of obstacles when they start to look for work, said Lance Holbrook, a veterans representative at the One-Stop Career Center in Lancaster. Many went into service straight out of high school, and although they may have experience fixing airplanes or leading people, they don’t have the college degrees that employers are seeking, Holbrook said. “Most employers won’t even consider them without a degree,” said Holbrook, who said he’s seen a surge in newly returned veterans looking for jobs in the last two months. Unemployment among veterans could rise even more in upcoming months as more troops return from overseas. President Obama announced plans last month to pull 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by year’s end and a total of 33,000 by September 2012. And the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is about 46,000 now, down from the peak of 166,000 in 2007. Most of the remaining troops will leave Iraq by year’s end. The GOP has disappeared when it comes to creating jobs for all Americans since they took back the House, so I wonder how our veterans feel about the party that says they are pro-military? JP Morgan Chase Supports The Troops By Overcharging Them On Mortgages, And By Foreclosure Fraud Do troops without jobs believe reducing the debt is the most important thing in America? Or is having a job?
Continue reading …Fox’s ‘News Watch’ program discusses everything BUT the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal
July 11, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I don’t know how many of you have been watching the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal as it grows and digging up the tidbits, but if you have, you already know that the only place not to bother looking is at any of the Murdoch-owned properties in the USA, including the Wall Street Journal and even more particularly Fox News. This reached hilarious depths this weekend when Fox’s own media-analysis show, wherein they discussed everything even vaguely media-related EXCEPT the Murdoch scandal. The big focus was on the Casey Anthony trial and the coverage around it — and even on that, the discussion was disingenuous and dishonest. Media Matters has more : This weekend, Fox News Watch, Fox News Channel’s media criticism show, covered the following issues: The media’s coverage of the Casey Anthony trial verdict; MSNBC’s suspension of Mark Halperin for making vulgar comments about the president; the media’s role in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case; the cancellation of In the Arena, Eliot Spitzer’s CNN television show; and Vice President Joe Biden’s new Twitter account. The glaring omission from this list is any mention of the shuttering of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World, billed as the largest English-language newspaper in the world, which published its last edition today. The paper is folding following allegations that it hacked the voicemails of a slain teen girl in the United Kingdom, an action which potentially impeded the police investigation and gave the girl’s family false hope that she was still alive. There are also allegations that family members of soldiers who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and families of victims of the 2005 subway bombings have been phone hacked. Apparently, there were some brief allusions to it onstage during the commercial breaks : CAL THOMAS: Anybody want to bring up the subject we’re not talking about today for the — for the [online] streamers? JAMES PINKERTON: Sure. Go ahead, Cal! THOMAS: No, go ahead, Jim. [LAUGHTER] THOMAS: I’m not going to touch it. JUDY MILLER (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): With a ten foot [inaudible]. And the scandal news got even bigger today, with the possibility of prosecution for News Corp officials in the United States looming as well: But Murdoch may soon have bigger problems on his hands. Legal experts told the AP today that his company could face criminal prosecution in the U.S. for his U.K. papers’ alleged bribery of British police officers, which would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). According to the the Department of Justice, “The FCPA prohibits payments made in order to assist the firm in obtaining or retaining business.” Thus the papers’ use of bribery to obtain information which helped sell newspapers could fall under the act’s purview. And even though the bribery occurred entirely in Britian, NewsCorp is an American company, incorporated in Delaware, and held accountable for its foreign subsidiary’s actions. Even if the corporation wasn’t directly involved in bribery, it could be found in violation of the law for turning a “blind eye.” The legal experts told the AP they would be surprised if the Securities and Exchange Commission and the DoJ have not already opened investigations into the matter and said the decision to shutter News of the World was potentially an attempt to limit Murdoch and NewsCorp’s legal exposure. As Will Bunch explains , Murdoch’s depredations in the USA have actually been more serious and damaging than what’s been uncovered by the scandal. Ellen at Newshounds has six good reasons to demand an investigation into the company’s activities here. And you can go to Media Matters for a petition demanding such action. Meanwhile, as something of an absurd endnote, did anyone notice that the Fox News crew tut-tutted those generic “media” figures who decided ahead of time that Casey Anthony was guilty and had convicted her in the media, most notably Nancy Grace. But the same was true — in spades — at Fox News, where the running assumption all along was that Anthony would be convicted, deservedly so. Indeed, check out the fifteen minutes of coverage on Fox just prior to the announcement of the verdict on Monday. Click here to view this media Funny that the Fox media-analysis crew didn’t bother to mention that these people were wrong, wrong, wrong. Because at Fox, being wrong isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.
Continue reading …Rep. Jim Jordan Thinks Default Would be Acceptable, But Doesn’t Want to Call it Default
July 11, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media From C-SPAN’s Newsmakers, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) thinks it would be perfectly acceptable to go past the hard deadline Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner gave the Congress for the absolute last date that the debt ceiling can be raised and if that means that we don’t pay part of our obligations, oh well, so be it. Grandma and grandpa have their Social Security checks stopped, that would be too bad, but it’s more important that we gut the government and take care of this manufactured crisis that we never worried about before a Democrat got elected president. This is unbelievably irresponsible and dangerous talk coming from yet another member of our United States Congress. Apparently we’ve got House members contemplating just how long they can drag this thing out since he admits that they were looking at what the date would be that Social Security checks don’t go out any more. After being reminded that even John Boehner “thought it could have disastrous economic consequences if this went past August 2nd”, Jordan shrugs it off and pretends that not getting the deficit reductions they’re demanding would somehow be worse than running either into or past the hard deadline Geithner gave for default. He also dismisses like a lot of them have whether August 2nd is the drop dead date or not, but admits that it would be some time in August even if it’s not exactly the 2nd. I’ll honestly be surprised if we don’t start seeing the bond markets reacting if they don’t get an agreement made within the next day or two and this clown thinks we could keep this game of chicken going for another few weeks. LERER: Do you think the country would default, that we would go into default if we pass this August 2nd? JORDAN: Remember, there’s a difference between default and not having enough money to meet all obligations that we’ve appropriated for, or passed in law to spend dollars on. On August 2nd there’s still going to be revenue coming into the Treasury. So, you know, would it possibly require Tim Geithner to make decisions about who gets paid first? Yeah. And, you know, I’d like to think the administration would say, well, obviously a default means you don’t pay the bond holders, so you’ve got to pay the bond holders first. And the bond holders are, I assume all of you have some kind of 401K invested in… all Americans have some kind of investment. LERER: And the Chinese… JORDAN: A host of folks own bonds. BRAWNER: So they would get paid first? JORDAN: Local governments have all kinds of, you know, municipal governments, county governments have all kinds, so meet bond obligations first, then you start going down, Social Security, our troops and you start making sure they get paid first, but, at some point, it may mean, folks who work in the federal government here in Washington, bureaucrats in Washington who work here, government employees, may have to wait a while to get paid. BRAWNER: Congressman, as you probably know, Social Security payments are made on the third of every month. JORDAN: Umm hmm. BRAWNER: The bipartisan policy center did an analysis of August 3rd, what happens if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. We have an income of $12 billion revenue coming in. We have $32 billion in committed spending on August 3rd. $23 billion of that is Social Security payments. JORDAN: Right. BRAWNER: And that assumes you pay, as you said, the bond holders first. How are you going to explain to a constituent that a bond holder got paid first, but they didn’t get their Social Security payment? JORDAN: Look, there’s… I understand we’ve got Social Security payments, and there’s another date, some of this played out I think on the fifteenth of the month, I forget what day it is exactly, where there’s another big obligation and the day they actually roll over the bonds and sell them each month. And I maybe have the wrong date. We have to see exactly when that is, but remember revenue is coming in. Decisions have to be made. And also, never forget the big problem. The big problem is the $14 trillion debt and the crisis that’s coming. So would that be tough? Sure. But I would rather have that difficult situation in there vs. the really big problem, which everybody knows is coming. So we have to try to get the plan in place that’s going to fix it long term. And again I keep coming back to it, but it’s, we think our plan, cut cap and balance is going to be the right approach STANTON: Do you think your leadership has the will to sort of face down that sort of a reality? JORDAN: I think it’s that important to the country and I do. I really do. Remember this too. While I understand August 2nd and what happens with Social Security payments remember Tim, remember the history here. Tim Geithner originally told us, he sent a letter to Congress back in I think January saying, of we’ve got to have this done by the first quarter. Then he said, no, we’ve got to have it done by May 16th. And now he’s saying August 2nd. So you’ve got to keep it in context too, of what the Treasury has told us for the last year. Now they’re saying, oh August 2nd is the hard date. There is obviously a hard date out there, but there is some flexibility in how this can work. And the idea that we’re going to default, is not an accurate use of the word. Um, there are more obligations than we’re going to have revenue for at some point in August eventually. LERER: Speaker Boehner on Friday said that he thought it could have disastrous economic consequences if this went past August 2nd. If he wrong too? JORDAN: Look, I said earlier, the ideal situation is to avoid any concerns in early or late August and avoid the big problems coming. But the big problem that’s coming is the most important. And that’s what the American people understand. So, um, we want to try to avoid both. And the way to do that is to put in place a plan that’s going to address both situations. Something… if we can get a good plan before August 2nd, I’m all for that. But if we have to past it to get the kind of plan that fixes the big problem, that’s what we need to do.
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